5-Okunen Button

Probably the bravest venture straight into the "deep end" of existential philosophy, that I've seen from Sugahara Souta - yet.

The premise is relatively straightforward, but asserts an intriguing question at the same time. You got a button, by pressing it you will get lot of money, but in turn you spend 500 million years in an empty space, consciously. After that time your memory is wiped and you return to the moment when the button was pressed, as if nothing had happened.

The interesting part here arises from the question that is the "reward" in a modern and current "capitalist society" "worth" the conscious existence in ... empty solitude for 500 million years. This question is tackled in the series utilising multiple different perspectives and it is explored multiple times.

Another question presented is that if you forget the 500 million years after it is over is it the same than not experiencing it at all. Regarding this question we must first have an answer to another question that is whether the "current" experience is more important and defining of an "individual" than the "percieved" experience.

You can look at it in this way, let's say that you know that you went to store and bought bread last night, but you don't remember the "experience", does that render the "experience" related to that as same than the "experience" where you didn't go to the store at all. In short does simply "perceiving" the "experience" and not the the "experience" itself hold a value?

These questions and more relating to what is "self" and "current state" are explored in the series in depth.

Another factor to the series comes from the "characters" the experience is mainly explored through the "character" Tonio whose visual representation in the series provides an unique perspective to the "philosophy" of the character. The series, themes and questions are mainly explored from the perspective of "the character" however the visual representation of "the character" sets us apart from the party whose perspective is utilised to explore these questions.

As with the story the main factor of the "characters" are their reactions and "answers" to these same "questions" essentially you are getting three or four answers to each of these questions as they are explored through each of the characters. And their differing ideologies.

The presentation of the series is something you'd expect from Souta so i won't go into detail about that. Overall if you're looking for something that has some interesting philosophical commentary about existence, self and religion I'd say this series provides those elements in a mix that you don't see often.