Nido to Mezamenu Komoriuta

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

It all starts with the very context of our reality. After the beginning of the disenchantment of the world, the tendency has always been the advance of secularization and rationalism, and consequently the questioning of traditions. From questioning, discontent is born (or the opposite, I can't say for sure), and from the latter is born what many would call the "overcoming" of dogmas and sociocultural conventions until then in force. From the spark to the fire, and from this to the fire, man fanned the flames of progress, and the culmination of this was the Industrial Revolution. The abundance and comfort ... coming from the new mills, aligned with the abandonment of safe and healthy traditions, religious or not, that meant the life of individuals, ended up generating precisely this exchange, of placing progress and change as inherently good and desirable, to the detriment of the static and unchanging, now considered outdated.
One could say, then, that out of this need for inconstancy arises the god Progress, an element of the positivist motto that incrusts our flag. And how does Nido see this divinity so well-liked by the world? As the oppressive shadow that hovers over a decadent city in the form of the great exponent of innovation: the airplane. And it passes by, and obscures the lives of the citizens, and deafens them in their daily lives. Progress is at the door, and needs to be seen and heard; and it is above your small town, for it is superior to this dated lifestyle. And what does this beast feed on? From the training of individuals, inserted into a standard educational system that neglects their origin, their morals, their individuality, their traumas, and their daily lives, an individual represented here by the "bucktoothed boy," a nickname that is confused with his name, for it has long since been suppressed along with his identity, as I mentioned above.
And so, Nido to links the macrocosm to the microcosm: the powerful toast, celebrate and laugh with the new bullet train, and photographers wait anxiously to register such a great event; the boy is bloodied on a filthy floor. The ruler, smiling, signs the paper; the child watches the city being torn down. It doesn't matter that he is starving, that he is despised or tortured, that he has lost his parents, that he spends, in the very visual metaphor of the work, the daytime that is childhood locked away in darkness: the authority ties him to the mechanism, makes him a tool, and erases what he is, all so that Progress will have something to eat.
But the will to be a singular being, to differentiate oneself from the whole, is not caged without consequences: The longer a beast spends in captivity, the more ferocious it will act when free, and this is what we see when the boy, in hallucinations that blend with reality, as in a psychological reaction to try to escape it all, awakens violent desires even towards a benefactor, who only cared for him when he had fallen to the ground, and this scenes before his desire takes control of him and he finds himself stabbing his three tormentors: the bigger boys.
It is also worth analyzing these three characters and their motivations. Also to ensure some sense of identity and distinction, they committed bullying against the protagonist, as this affirmed their superiority. They don't know who they are, but at least they are sure that they are not that notothy boy, because they don't feel the pain they inflict on him. Hurting someone is, therefore, a way of knowing that you are not that person, because, as Evangelion would say, we can perceive who we are through the barrier between us and the other. Let's go back to the line we followed earlier.
Nurtured and praised through all the sacrifices, we believe that Progress will give us freedom, happiness, and will be imperishable, and unchanging in its changing beauty, and perfect. It will fill the nihilism left after the death of traditions, that's what we thought, and so we wipe away what was left of the past to make room for it: after the aforementioned signing of the installation of the bullet train, an extensive and imposing viaduct falls from the sky, over which the locomotive must run. The train: Progress, the viaduct: its base. And this base, on impact, destroys the bakery, the family home, tradition, daily life, the history of that community, so that over its remains, God may dwell. And Progress condemns itself? Do you think that it would pity the weak? All he desires is more power over us, and this we gladly give him.
So man proclaimed and set up his god over the ashes of himself. And he bowed down to him, and asked him to pull him out of the abyss. And what Progress does is abandon him in the void that man himself created. In the last scene of the work, when everything had already been sacrificed and thrown to the earth, a single chimney, the symbol of industry and innovation, white to show its apparent purity and perfection, stands upright amidst the rubble. And then the boy faces it, and it falls to pieces.
Thus, Nido shows us the great nothingness to which our obsession with the modern leads us, the great madness to which we have subjected our peoples, individuals, and history. We praised and nurtured Progress, and it betrayed us. We have placed our hopes in something that has crumbled. We buried the creed, we secularized the world, we laughed at conventions, and these, in truth, were the ones that gave us meaning and security.
I conclude here my cheerful and pretentious exhortation. Some, far more learned than the ignorant me, may come and point out that I have misused this or that concept; I will thank them if they do. However, if you think that this writing has some value and may change your view of the work, which, I well confess, is my goal, consider having a re-experience with the short one, for there is no greater gratitude, for me, than the gratitude of others for something I have produced, material or otherwise. I say goodbye.

Wow. This is a really rough show to watch. I will say up front that it is not very good, but its importance definitely outweighs its quality.

It took one man (Hiroshi Harada) three years to create this 25-minute movie on his own. It's amateur. And crude. With lots of quick cuts and weird scenes, which only add to its experimental nature. After he finished this, he went on to adapt one of the most famous "guro" anime of all time: Mr. Arashi's Freak Show (also almost a one-man effort, and probably the most difficult anime ... I've ever watched).

"Guro" is a genre of anime you don't hear of much in America - basically it is the fetishization of gore, intentionally being as explicit, bloody and offensive as possible. This work definitely edges into that direction, even if there's not much actual gore itself. But the feeling and theme is definitely there, and you can think of this sort of a precursor to Mr. Arashi's Freak Show, as Harada is improving his craft.

There isn't really a story or plot to this. It's really two stories superimposed over each other - a small one and a large one. The more immediate smaller story is about a young, poor, lonely boy with an extremely pronounced "deppa" underbite tooth, who is relentlessly bullied for his difference, without any relief from anyone, anywhere. The larger story (that gets more pronounced towards the end) is the forced modernization/construction of the Narita Airport as it overtakes and destroys the old neighborhood. Although not explicitly said, the two are interlocked in this dark, thematic tale.

Going into this, do not expect a polished work. It is VERY raw. It has many problems. It is very difficult to watch. Some parts do not connect or make sense. Some of it is quite offensive. It's experimental, and art-school. But if you are looking for an anime that has a message and is totally different from almost everything else you've watched, this fits the bill.

so, I'm not quite sure at all what they were trying to do with this movie but to me it feels totally disjointed and without coherence for the most part. it also feels like a mind-control device at times,with all of the flashing and propaganda. storywise, (SPOILERS) it claims to be about a boy who get's bullied; a boy does get bullied but this isn't necessarily the focus, as this feels secondary to the anti-modernization of Japan statements and imagery. Artwise, this at times, looks striking and has very interesting animation style, but at other times, the art leaves something to be desired and the ... animation is done "treadmill-style" with the environment running through the character. sound was only ok, some odd choices for sfx noises, but no real complaints

there is no character development to be found. giving an enjoyment rating was difficult, because I very much did not like this, but I did not hate it, I just felt like my brain was melting the whole time, a la Mars of Destruction

this is the kind of thing that should only be watched with a group of friend.s