HAPPY DAYS ARE GETTING LONGER TIME!!!!!!
Aw I can't cry at dese comment pages trying to imitate words press. Web 2.0 is so wild yeah! The effect is in gen really pathetic and disorienting but I like it.
Anyway I wanted to use this journal website to talk about the Penguindrum anime which if you are a person you will know just ended. So now that you pretttty much totally understand what was going on the whole time epxlain to me why you did not love it.
I mean if you did not love it. If you didn't not love it I think this is worth discussing also. For instance maybe you just liked it, or maybe you loved it at first but now it's morning and as you take clearer stock of the posters in its bedroom and just the overall impression of its bathroom you are starting to have second thoughts. Maybe you expected it to be something it isn't, like maybe you expected it to be the age it told you it was. Or maybe you're just a butt who cannot appreciate art. This is all fine I am not going to judge you
for long
Now I, who am not a butt, recognize that a lot of the internet is not the age you expect it to be, and as a result the complaint ratio of legitimate complaints to complaints that belie the intellectual nadir of modern youth culture is going to be skewed. Even with that in account, however, I am going to address the three most common counterarguments I have found using the internet and reading:
I. "I expected this to be a show for babies and what I saw frightened and upset me."
Wrong. Your mom was dumb for giving birth to you.
II. "I didn't get what was going on which is not my fault."
Wrong. It is your responsibility to try to get what is going on constantly, especially in anime.
III. "
"
Haha burn
My appreciation of the overall work is also not without caveats. I'd have to do a rewatch to separate the legit ones from the stuff I just missed, but some stuff did appear to be left out in a "deal with it" manner. Such as: Why did Momoka seem so sweet in her own flashbacks, but insisted on being such a bitch in the Survival Strategy segments? Why did Yuri remember Momoka's saving her, if supposedly no one should remember fateswitches happening? And why did Yuri give up so smoothly, though she didn't seem to have the same sort of revelatory moment Tabuki got in #18? I understand the point was, Yuri would have to give up sooner or later, and there was no room in such a wall-to-wall packed series to spend much time on this, but the sense I got again and again in the last third was that the presence of such a large key cast inevitably caused a bunch of awkward shortcuts. Like, "This person was heading to this emotional point all along, so let's just say some time passes and now they have arrived there." My brain accepts this but tonally I still feel the lurch.
Kanba and Sho are an even better example of this; it's odd to see them go from unity to a big breakup fight over maybe three scenes. While it's clear that even by nature Kanba is not the most ethically sound person (he is cool with picking locks, spying, destroying girls' lives, etc.) and that he is probably out murdering people this whole time, having him lose sight of means vs. ends entirely in ~4 scenes, because this trajectory has ostensibly been going on all along, comes off as too operatic too soon. Sho meanwhile kind of does background stuff until around #20 since his main arc is the one with Ringo, and like hers is now closed off.
The second part of the series is Kanba's, since he supplies the narration here, and as a result when Sho does have to take part in all the horribleness it's like. Dang man he was just chilling and being the not deranged one, that's not fair. Which I guess is exactly the point lol. It's only that the effect is like, So Sho was also there not doing much and now it's up to him suddenly. I am still trying to puzzle out this cool diagram which visually confirms the non-fairness and the pointness of the non-fairness:
Good work, diagrammer!
It's super important with Ikuhara works to internalize right away that the worlds they take place in are totally symbolic, ie not real. Only his characters are real. Like in order to truly get at what Utena is about you have to be aware that Ohtori is not a concrete place; that it is a metaphysical crucible-type landscape which serves as a visual translation of the protagonists' emotional conflicts. In this way Ikuhara works can map out the inside-pov of ultra complex issues like sexual abuse and coming-of-age (Utena), or family ties and childhood abandonment (MPD), without having to lose the depth and scope of these issues in translation to more traditional, reality-rooted storytelling.
MPD turned out to be a great show to be watching more of less in tandem with my rewatch of Princess Tutu, since Tutu employs/cribs from this conceit in order to get at the nuts and bolts of fairy tale romansu and of the way myth archetypes contribute to our collective unconscious. You can tell right away that each is taking place in its own sort of meta-landscape because the NPCs in both shows are faceless seas of bodies that from time to time supply material for plot progression. And as in Tutu, at the end of MPD all of the faceless people are human again, so show that through blood+sweat the symbolic entities of their protagonists have at last been reintegrated with society and reality. Needless to say, the strength of vision necc to pull this off successfully is not insignificant, which to me communicates clearer than any other factor that Ikuhara is a very intelligent person. For a show like MPD, which is trying to say a lotttt of things in 24eps, and which even at its actual density decides to leave the content of certain less-integral subplots to the imagination, wasting space on filler would be a disservice to the engaged type of viewer who looks for meaning in every detail. It's kind of like watching The Royal Tenenbaums and knowing that Wes Anderson's bro hand-painted the wallpaper that appears in maybe 6 or 7 shots total with little portrait scenes that in and of themselves flesh out the movie's characters. Like, nothing about MPD comes off lazy, you know? Its pacing and beats are almost perfect, 10/10. I am of the conviction that a rewatch or two will settle a bunch of stuff I didn't pick up on the first time around.
And yeah it is however a lazy argument to say, "Well it was deep and shit so I just don't think everyone got it," so I also kind of feel that on a less microscopic ocd scale of this anime series there wasn't much to get? Like of you just want to watch it popcornly you can mostly intuit what is going on anyway. It's a story about people and feelings, rather than about situations. The aux-protags, Tabuki and Juri2 and Yuri and Ringo and Akio2, all get enough context to sufficiently support their motivations; Momoka is deliberately a bit of a cypher; everyone else is explicitly more or less a function of plot progressings.
The siblings get fleshed out and are all pretty sympathetic; it's not a big leap to suss out what is going on with them on the simple scale of why they work as three people living together and why this makes their lives better. They share a life and it is the altruism of sharing themselves so profoundly that keeps them living; only when outside factors beyond their control begin to expose their vulnerable circle-of-protection to the elements do they start to buckle under the knowledge that there's no such thing as perpetual motion, that with time and even in the most miraculous kinds of self-fueling machines gears break, people die, etc. The moral seems to be that maybe it's fine to accept this as a fact of life, love as much and as honestly as possible, enjoy the good things while the enjoying's good rather than trying to cheat and bargain against their passing at increasingly greater costs. The most valuable things one can give come from within.
It's sort of a nonwestern concept, so I think I understand why it doesn't sit right with everybody; the way Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go story doesn't sit right with everybody. In keeping the lest few eps reference the Scorpion's Fire story from Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is all about how good things can come out of self sacrifice. And I don't necc see this as Confucian-type recidivist doctrine or whatever. There are two relevant ways to interpret the scorpion story; one being something like "in despair he gave in to his fate," but the other is more of a wabisabi-ish meditation on how things are precious exactly because they are fleeting, that one must not be afraid to share oneself when time comes for it, because sharing oneself creates so much more than just the sum of oneself, and that this is a heartbreakingly beautiful thing to do.
[PAUSE FOR LAFFS AT JOK]
I mean, it's just so obvious and sad and sweet and foreshadowy that the siblings are happiest when they are together. Apart, they are too exposed to the world to be as safe. Even without the above apple diagram the key to their circle is intuitive: Kanba gives part of himself to Sho, Sho gives part of himself to Himari, and Himari fuels Kanba. And when the circle starts to break down because of the curse, the only way for any of them to survive is for each to find a new source of life. And that's ok. The world doesn't end, because Ringo gives herself up to save it. Ringo doesn't die, because Sho loves her. Kanba doesn't disappear, because Sho gives him the same ultimate gift that Kanba once gave Sho. Himari is free of the curse. And yeah none of it is fair, but that's kind of the point. Yesterday I read a comment on psgels' review site that I thought was a nice interpretation, so I guess I'll just throw it in here as a cap:
I think that Shoma and Kanba meeting in their boxes symbolized what happened between them when the Tatakuras first took Kanba in.
Shoma was trapped in a box. He was being raised in a cult, and if he were left alone there, he would have become brainwashed and dead inside. But then Kanba arrived. He too was stuck in the cult. The boys could have suffered alone, but instead they decided to truly accept one another as brothers, and share fates.
Since Shoma’s fate was always to be tied to the crimes of the Takakuras, that became Kanba’s fate as well, and he was sucked into the organization. But that wasn’t a sad thing! He was always fated to die. Because of everything that happened, he at least has his brother with him in the afterlife.
Since Kanba’s fate was to sacrifice himself for the one he loved, that became Shoma’s fate as well, and he ended up dying for Ringo. But that wasn’t a sad thing! Better to burn for love than to freeze in a cage.
Anyway I wanted to use this journal website to talk about the Penguindrum anime which if you are a person you will know just ended. So now that you pretttty much totally understand what was going on the whole time epxlain to me why you did not love it.
I mean if you did not love it. If you didn't not love it I think this is worth discussing also. For instance maybe you just liked it, or maybe you loved it at first but now it's morning and as you take clearer stock of the posters in its bedroom and just the overall impression of its bathroom you are starting to have second thoughts. Maybe you expected it to be something it isn't, like maybe you expected it to be the age it told you it was. Or maybe you're just a butt who cannot appreciate art. This is all fine I am not going to judge you
for long
Now I, who am not a butt, recognize that a lot of the internet is not the age you expect it to be, and as a result the complaint ratio of legitimate complaints to complaints that belie the intellectual nadir of modern youth culture is going to be skewed. Even with that in account, however, I am going to address the three most common counterarguments I have found using the internet and reading:
I. "I expected this to be a show for babies and what I saw frightened and upset me."
Wrong. Your mom was dumb for giving birth to you.
II. "I didn't get what was going on which is not my fault."
Wrong. It is your responsibility to try to get what is going on constantly, especially in anime.
III. "
"
Haha burn
My appreciation of the overall work is also not without caveats. I'd have to do a rewatch to separate the legit ones from the stuff I just missed, but some stuff did appear to be left out in a "deal with it" manner. Such as: Why did Momoka seem so sweet in her own flashbacks, but insisted on being such a bitch in the Survival Strategy segments? Why did Yuri remember Momoka's saving her, if supposedly no one should remember fateswitches happening? And why did Yuri give up so smoothly, though she didn't seem to have the same sort of revelatory moment Tabuki got in #18? I understand the point was, Yuri would have to give up sooner or later, and there was no room in such a wall-to-wall packed series to spend much time on this, but the sense I got again and again in the last third was that the presence of such a large key cast inevitably caused a bunch of awkward shortcuts. Like, "This person was heading to this emotional point all along, so let's just say some time passes and now they have arrived there." My brain accepts this but tonally I still feel the lurch.
Kanba and Sho are an even better example of this; it's odd to see them go from unity to a big breakup fight over maybe three scenes. While it's clear that even by nature Kanba is not the most ethically sound person (he is cool with picking locks, spying, destroying girls' lives, etc.) and that he is probably out murdering people this whole time, having him lose sight of means vs. ends entirely in ~4 scenes, because this trajectory has ostensibly been going on all along, comes off as too operatic too soon. Sho meanwhile kind of does background stuff until around #20 since his main arc is the one with Ringo, and like hers is now closed off.
The second part of the series is Kanba's, since he supplies the narration here, and as a result when Sho does have to take part in all the horribleness it's like. Dang man he was just chilling and being the not deranged one, that's not fair. Which I guess is exactly the point lol. It's only that the effect is like, So Sho was also there not doing much and now it's up to him suddenly. I am still trying to puzzle out this cool diagram which visually confirms the non-fairness and the pointness of the non-fairness:
Good work, diagrammer!
It's super important with Ikuhara works to internalize right away that the worlds they take place in are totally symbolic, ie not real. Only his characters are real. Like in order to truly get at what Utena is about you have to be aware that Ohtori is not a concrete place; that it is a metaphysical crucible-type landscape which serves as a visual translation of the protagonists' emotional conflicts. In this way Ikuhara works can map out the inside-pov of ultra complex issues like sexual abuse and coming-of-age (Utena), or family ties and childhood abandonment (MPD), without having to lose the depth and scope of these issues in translation to more traditional, reality-rooted storytelling.
MPD turned out to be a great show to be watching more of less in tandem with my rewatch of Princess Tutu, since Tutu employs/cribs from this conceit in order to get at the nuts and bolts of fairy tale romansu and of the way myth archetypes contribute to our collective unconscious. You can tell right away that each is taking place in its own sort of meta-landscape because the NPCs in both shows are faceless seas of bodies that from time to time supply material for plot progression. And as in Tutu, at the end of MPD all of the faceless people are human again, so show that through blood+sweat the symbolic entities of their protagonists have at last been reintegrated with society and reality. Needless to say, the strength of vision necc to pull this off successfully is not insignificant, which to me communicates clearer than any other factor that Ikuhara is a very intelligent person. For a show like MPD, which is trying to say a lotttt of things in 24eps, and which even at its actual density decides to leave the content of certain less-integral subplots to the imagination, wasting space on filler would be a disservice to the engaged type of viewer who looks for meaning in every detail. It's kind of like watching The Royal Tenenbaums and knowing that Wes Anderson's bro hand-painted the wallpaper that appears in maybe 6 or 7 shots total with little portrait scenes that in and of themselves flesh out the movie's characters. Like, nothing about MPD comes off lazy, you know? Its pacing and beats are almost perfect, 10/10. I am of the conviction that a rewatch or two will settle a bunch of stuff I didn't pick up on the first time around.
And yeah it is however a lazy argument to say, "Well it was deep and shit so I just don't think everyone got it," so I also kind of feel that on a less microscopic ocd scale of this anime series there wasn't much to get? Like of you just want to watch it popcornly you can mostly intuit what is going on anyway. It's a story about people and feelings, rather than about situations. The aux-protags, Tabuki and Juri2 and Yuri and Ringo and Akio2, all get enough context to sufficiently support their motivations; Momoka is deliberately a bit of a cypher; everyone else is explicitly more or less a function of plot progressings.
The siblings get fleshed out and are all pretty sympathetic; it's not a big leap to suss out what is going on with them on the simple scale of why they work as three people living together and why this makes their lives better. They share a life and it is the altruism of sharing themselves so profoundly that keeps them living; only when outside factors beyond their control begin to expose their vulnerable circle-of-protection to the elements do they start to buckle under the knowledge that there's no such thing as perpetual motion, that with time and even in the most miraculous kinds of self-fueling machines gears break, people die, etc. The moral seems to be that maybe it's fine to accept this as a fact of life, love as much and as honestly as possible, enjoy the good things while the enjoying's good rather than trying to cheat and bargain against their passing at increasingly greater costs. The most valuable things one can give come from within.
It's sort of a nonwestern concept, so I think I understand why it doesn't sit right with everybody; the way Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go story doesn't sit right with everybody. In keeping the lest few eps reference the Scorpion's Fire story from Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is all about how good things can come out of self sacrifice. And I don't necc see this as Confucian-type recidivist doctrine or whatever. There are two relevant ways to interpret the scorpion story; one being something like "in despair he gave in to his fate," but the other is more of a wabisabi-ish meditation on how things are precious exactly because they are fleeting, that one must not be afraid to share oneself when time comes for it, because sharing oneself creates so much more than just the sum of oneself, and that this is a heartbreakingly beautiful thing to do.
[PAUSE FOR LAFFS AT JOK]
I mean, it's just so obvious and sad and sweet and foreshadowy that the siblings are happiest when they are together. Apart, they are too exposed to the world to be as safe. Even without the above apple diagram the key to their circle is intuitive: Kanba gives part of himself to Sho, Sho gives part of himself to Himari, and Himari fuels Kanba. And when the circle starts to break down because of the curse, the only way for any of them to survive is for each to find a new source of life. And that's ok. The world doesn't end, because Ringo gives herself up to save it. Ringo doesn't die, because Sho loves her. Kanba doesn't disappear, because Sho gives him the same ultimate gift that Kanba once gave Sho. Himari is free of the curse. And yeah none of it is fair, but that's kind of the point. Yesterday I read a comment on psgels' review site that I thought was a nice interpretation, so I guess I'll just throw it in here as a cap:
I think that Shoma and Kanba meeting in their boxes symbolized what happened between them when the Tatakuras first took Kanba in.
Shoma was trapped in a box. He was being raised in a cult, and if he were left alone there, he would have become brainwashed and dead inside. But then Kanba arrived. He too was stuck in the cult. The boys could have suffered alone, but instead they decided to truly accept one another as brothers, and share fates.
Since Shoma’s fate was always to be tied to the crimes of the Takakuras, that became Kanba’s fate as well, and he was sucked into the organization. But that wasn’t a sad thing! He was always fated to die. Because of everything that happened, he at least has his brother with him in the afterlife.
Since Kanba’s fate was to sacrifice himself for the one he loved, that became Shoma’s fate as well, and he ended up dying for Ringo. But that wasn’t a sad thing! Better to burn for love than to freeze in a cage.