"Or else what, you'll shoot me? Get up off of the sidelines and lay claim to your own soul? That would be a rather precious ending in it's own ironic way." -Shougo Makishima
"I believe that beneath them, there is something even more precious than these, they are driven to persue it, and they persue it solely for their sake, no other. Men live and die by their dreams and even once abondoned, they still smolder in their hearts. All men have a dream at least once in their lives. They imagine themselves being martyrs to the God their dream has become. Others live on powerlessly, birthed into the world. I could not endure such a life." -Griffith
"In my mind, a true friend never relies on anothers dream. To call a man my friend, he must be able to find his own reason for living, beyond me. And he should put his heart and soul into protecting his dream, even if it means opposing me, a true friend is one who stands equal to me in all respects." -Griffith
“I understand now. The world is not cut from the same cloth. It is because it is overflowing with inexplicable, unidentifiable things that the world is so beautiful. Fight at my side so that we may protect that world, Ryuuko.” -Satsuki Kiryuin
"The fact that you're embarrassed by the values of the masses proves how small you are." -Satsuki Kiryuin
"A scyscraper built within your mind will never fall down." -Satsuki Kiryuin
"That's where you're wrong. Both of these are just things. As soon as you strip away their meanings, then that's all they really are. Just things and nothing more. And if you're gonna give these things any kind of meaning again, they won't get any other value because of someone's precious memory. Their value will be determined by the one thing everyone agrees on, and that's money. The rest of it is just a bunch of sentimental bullshit." -Revy
"Don't forget. Believe in yourself. Not in the you who believes in me. Not the me who believes in you. Believe in the you who believes in yourself." -Kanima RIP
In this case wedding dresses and nudity are the symbols. Wedding dresses are used through out the show to represent matrimony and traditional gender roles, conforming to society, all that. This is why Satsuki wants to wear Junketsu. She wants to be the epitome of what she considers a model human, or women, or whatever it is society wants her to be, and she does this because it affords her all of the benefits of fitting in with society, she can use it's power. Junketsu is a wedding dress btw.
Ryuuko is the opposite, she's a raging lesbian(not really relevant tbh) and a delinquent, she gets transferred to a super uptight school (Honnouji academy) where her sister, Satsuki, is the student council president. Satsuki spends most of the show trying to force Ryuuko to conform, and wears the mask of traditional femininity to set an example, even though deep down, she doesn't want to. THis is shown by Junketsu rejecting her. Satsuki controls Junketsu with willpower (life fiber override) while Ryuuko and Senketsu become one (life fiber synchronize). This is why Ryuuko becomes immensely more powerful than Satsuki as the show progresses, she's not wearing a mask, she's being who she is, and while Satsuki may be using her facade to gain dominace over people, it's no match for embracing who you are. Satsuki says "The fact that you are embarrassed by the values of the masses proves how small you are!" which is an important moment because it's when Ryuuko realizes that being naked (being yourself and all that shit) is far more important than societies approval, which is why she becomes so much more powerful once she accepts Senketsu.
Okay, now we've established what Senketsu/Ryuuko and Junketsu/Satsuki represent, let's move on. in episode 21, Ryuuko is forced to wear Junketsu, Ragyo (her mother) is forcing traditional gender roles on her and we see the life Ryuuko could have lived had she not been a delinquent lesbian. She's accepted, and gets married and does all the stuff 'normal' people do, but never really looks alive or happy. This is meant to emphasize the difference between Junketsu and Senketsu, bewteen societies acceptance, and true happiness. Notice how Mako slaps Ryuuko back to reality every time she flies off the handle, this happens in episode 12 and 21. Mako is pretty much immune to peer pressure and knows that living life wihout the mask is what really makes Ryuuko happy "Getting naked is Ryuuko's only joy in life!".
Anyway, it's possible that none of this is true, but what is undeniably true is that KLK is about fascism and if you replace feminism with fascism and gender roles with conformity then you get pretty much the same argument.
mild spoilers
blah blah blah blidungsroman. If you've spent any time reading up on FLCL then you've probably heard this term. It's the genre of coming of age stories common in literature and there's a list of criteria that tells you how much of a bildungsroman something is, such as older mentors that teach the MC the ways of the world and shit. FLCL fits a lot of those criteria.
Left handed: usually symbolized uniqueness in literature, there's no hint to this in the show, but knowing this makes the first conversation slightly more meaningful. Natoa's brother is left handed, Mamimi is trying to use the bat with a left handed grip. Naota becomes disgruntled because Mamimi is not unique and perfect like his brother, so why is she trying to imitate him?
Baseball: Baseball is pretty big in Japan, and Naota's brother went to America to play. Think about that, his brother is a fucking stud, and this all plays in to Naota idolizing his brother. His brother, Tasuku, represents the ideal adult, strong, responsible, left handed, plays baseball. We don't really know anything else because he's in another continent.
Honorifics are important too. Mamimi calls Naota Takkun. Kun is like 'little'. Calling me merrfistmas-kun would be like "little merryfistmas". So mamimi is calling him a shortened version of Tasuku-kun, or little Tasuku. Naota, who's obsessed with maturity and making every one else act like an adult (Tasuku) obviously would be annoyed by this. Takkun is also the name given to her cat and pet robot that we see later on. So I think it's fair to make the assumption that Takkun is her pet name, making Naota essentially her pet. This explains why she cuddles with him (or whatever you call that) but cleaarly isn't interested in his advances later on. I believe she gets the cat in episode 5, after Naota "swings the bat" in the previous episode, this probably signifies Naota moving out of pet territory since he's being a man (that's what swinging the bat means). Also keep in mind that Mamimi's life fucking sucks. She's basically homeless, she has no friends other than Naota, and she has to survive off stale bread. She's psychologically dependent on Naota because without him, she has nothing, Naota's brother is across the Pacific Ocean and hasn't contacted her since he got there.
Haruka is a manifestation of Naota's adolescent desires. I didn't make this up, Haruka actually tells us this. Knowing this, the series takes on a whole new meeting. Puberty hits Natoa like a 20 year old on a motorbike and now he has to hide his boner. If you pay attention to Naota and Mamimi's first and second conversations, Naota has no interest in Mamimi's advances and even chastises her for it. After Haruka/puberty hits him, he opens the conversation on the bridge with "So how much do you like him? My brother, I mean." There's only one reason you ask somebody a question like that, and it's because you want poon. Haruka doesn't literally need to represent puberty (although I believe she does), that's not the point, either way she facilitates his transformation from a very serious 12 year old to a very serious 12 year old who likes vagina.
Best Fight Scenes
Will update as I feel motivated
Not a fight, but still the best action scene
1. Smile vs Peco
2. Ryuuko vs Satsuki
3. Gon vs Hisoka
4. Motoko vs Raizo
5. ???
Texhnolyze has the best ending I've ever seen in an anime. I'm not sure how to describe this, but the ending retroactively "fixed" everything about Texhnolyze. It was grueling, but in the end I finally heard what Texhnolyze has to say and it is easily the most beautiful story I've ever heard. It's something that gets me on a very personal level. The total lack of meaning in life is something that really effects me. It may sound silly, but as a student of philosophy and a very introspective person, it is my view on life, I know what tex has to say is true and that's what's so hard to deal with. If I wanted to, I could just drink, smoke, watch anime, live a self indulgent life style, I could easily sustain it, and it wouldn't matter, because there is no inherent value in anything. There's no more value in life than there is in death, it doesn't matter, and if you accept that you die, not literally, but you stop "living". You need to create you own meaning and work for things bigger than yourself, don't stagnate. That's what I got out of tex anway. I've been explaining what the show was "about" to people, and it's kind of self defeating, it is a personal journey, and if it doesn't resonate with you then that's it, there's nothing I can explain that will make sense to you. I cried a lot, more than any other anime. "Live your life obviously isn't an explicit theme in the show, it's far more depressing than that. The Tatami Galaxy and Mind Game explored this in far greater depth. But what got me about tex is it didn't try to make any claims about what type of life is better. Texhnolyze is pure and lets the viewer make it's own judgements. I hope that makes sense.
Good to hear. I've also been working out more often lately. Well...I mean, before I got sick. As of now I've recovered, albeit with a bothersome cough left in me. Now I have more college work to look forward to.
Just now, my friend showed me Redline. And it was one hell of an experience.
Oh wow, ah well I live pretty away from the cities and stuff like that, but it's not terrible. It's pretty expensive though, being one person food will be more affordable for you, unless you want to eat out a lot, especially staying in the cities. But other than the cost of living, I don't really have much to complain about haha. Besides the heat, but not much I can do about that x3
Great Toradora review, man. It's as if I was directly reading my thoughts. It seems most people just disregard the reasoning behind Ryuji's acceptance of Taiga despite her abuse. What people don't realize though is that most of it isn't actually as bad as it looks. It's typical of the shonen theme to have exaggerated violence. I'm not saying Taiga wasn't abusive but there were scenarios where she got the same kind of beating from Ami (at the beachhouse). The overly melodramatic fights are a different story though. I've rewatched this anime quite a few times now and I've gotta say that despite all its shortcomings, such as pointlessly long SoL plotlines (which I tend to skip in my rewatches), shitty melodrama and having to deal with watching Kushieda, I just can't hate it at all. Also Kitamura is indeed the man.
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Just now, my friend showed me Redline. And it was one hell of an experience.
"I'm not feeling it, Mr. Krabs" xD