Angel's Egg Episode 1 Discussion

fujifruit said:
Su

Edit: on the other hand it might not be symbolism and is just there to look cool and set the atmosphere.

flaxman85 said:
another nonsense ambiguous religious anime (Christianity in this case)

Veronin said:
My impression was that humanity destroyed itself through war

Veronin said:
the tree and dove represented the goodness of humanity

Stellio said:

In summary, Angel's Egg is a poor parody of the bible with less historical contexts

Stellio said:

Its story board and script should've been reviewed over and added onto before being directed; but the director must've been too anxious to put his directional skills into use that he forgot the rudiments of film making.

DataRune said:
The message went over my head.

NimbusC said:
I was reading "Mamoru Oshii: Stray Dog of Anime" and the book explains what Oshii was going for. The whole film was about faith.

Oshii was raised in a Christian background, but growing up he admitted to being irreligious.

The Girl represented religion in general. The Soldier represented atheism.

The egg was a symbol for both parties.

The Girl lived in delusion with her beliefs by not wanting to break the egg and reveal the horrible truth. The Soldier tried to talk the Girl out of her beliefs and wake her up to reality. If you remember in their dialogue as she cuddled the egg, believing that something was breathing and moving inside, the Solider kept telling her that it was her own breathing and that the movement was that of the wind.

The Soldier himself has bandages around both his palms and carries a weapon shaped like a crucifix.

Also, there's sexual themes involved. Not only is the egg breaking and the Girl's reaction to it a symbol of waking up to the truth at last, but her transformation into a woman through the weapon's penetration of the egg represents the loss of her virginity.

Wind_Falcon said:

Happy to finally see that a lot of what I had in mind during the years after seeing the film was actually really close to what Oshii was conveying.

buunny said:

They are carried into the sky away from the world that is flooded except for one tiny island.

BarabiSama said:
I really enjoyed this movie. 10/10 for pure enjoyment's sake, depth of meaning, and artwork. I guess I'll toss my own interpretation up here since everyone else is.

Disclaimer first off that I'm not religious personally; I just study it and think Christianity has a lot of significance in the story.

Before going into the meaning of the characters, I think I'll stick to pointing out the more religious symbols first off. Let's look at the fish shadows. Fish are a symbol in Christianity that directly refer to Jesus Christ. In the movie, we see the shadows of fish moving all along the buildings and roads at certain points in time, at which point men come to try and skewer them. The girl explains that the fish are long since dead, but they still chase after and attack them. This, I believe, is a reference to the crucification of Jesus, his rebirth, and the Second Coming. After he was said to have resurrected, he showed himself before various people for 40 days before rising to Heaven. There is a belief that he will rise again, called the Second Coming, which some branches of Christianity associate with an apocalypse where the sinners and believers are separated and given their final judgments. This story is clearly post-apocalyptic (even without the environment, the references to Noah's Ark should do it), so I believe it took place after the Second Coming and that the fish represent Jesus and God's other children visiting and judging those who are still alive.

All of the people on that world, I believe, have lost their memories like the main characters. Everyone forgot their past lives and were stripped down to their souls for evaluation following the Second Coming, and each of the lead characters has their role in this. The men attacking the fish would be the sinners. The main boy in this, despite being a soldier, would be less of a sinner and more of a virtuous atheist - a representation of those who aren't religious and cannot go to Heaven but, at the same time, are not terrible sinners. (Compare it to the people left in Limbo in Dante's Inferno.) He has accepted that he won't be going to Heaven but isn't so mindless that he'd go attacking anything in rage. He actually helps the girl out... but how? What about that girl and the egg and the people who go to Heaven?

Let's start with the bird (there's some assumption in this part). In many tales of the Second Coming, there is a belief that, prior to Jesus appearing, an impostor borne from the sins of men would attempt to take his role as a false prophet, some saying it may even be the Devil himself or even Satan. Seeing as there's a big monologue given about it, I believe the bird is Moses' dove which drowned and then was possessed. It became a symbol to the people, but it was not the true bird and couldn't deliver Moses' message properly, forcing Jesus to turn his hand. The arrival of the fish lead to the demise of the bird, and the egg was the manifestation of its sins - however, no other bird was within it. The girl is a symbol of the virtuous Christian populace as a whole. Her child form and Aryan design imply purity, and her love for the egg is a show of her devotion and faith. She didn't know that the bird was fake or that the egg was so poisonous. She held on to her belief that everything would be alright when it hatched.

The boy at first thought this display of faith was a sure sign that she would go to Heaven. Let's take a quick look at some other things here, though, such as the fact that they were clearly on a time constraint. This was shown through the frequent hours passing by on the clocks. Many of the still images inbetween the scenes had significance, but none moreso than when they showed the building with the clock up top and two streets diverging on either side of it. This was a literal crossroad of time and symbolized a decision to be made on a time limit. I believe the boy was aware of this. Although he couldn't go to Heaven himself, he was acting as a messenger to help the girl get there and was concerned since the girl was the only believer any of us saw alive in the story. When he saw the fake bird, he knew for sure the egg was bad news and broke it to free her from her misplaced faith.

She was so distraught by the loss of her egg that, despite her faith, she proceeded to try to kill herself... But instead, the water purified her (probably in adoration for that blind but misguided faith), showing her the wrongs she'd done and allowing her to mature into her faith in a new light. All of her sins rose to the surface in the form of new eggs, and the body of her child form turned to stone and was put aboard the airship we see at the end. The people who are turned to stone represent the believers' sinful states (hence why she's young and still has the egg on the ship) with their now purified souls on board safely within the statues, and the ship is the angel (implied by all the feathers around it) delivering them to Heaven to be judged the second time. Her adult body, I believe, was the true body that she would have been the whole time had she not childishly held onto her faith. I think Oshii was making a statement on that note about people in general who blindly believe what they dream up when they can't know if it's good or bad unless they "break" it - look at it from a new point of view that could ruin the faith and good they have going now.

Frankly, I believe the boy may have symbolized Oshii in general, or at least was a way of showing the place he'd be in if all these things did happen. I unfortunately do struggle a bit to back that up since I otherwise think racism had a big part in the boy's design (the pure blonde white girl going up to heaven and the angry black guy stuck on Earth for being atheistic, in a movie made decades ago by a Japanese man... right), which makes it seem like the boy should be seen more negatively than he is.

I also believe there are a ton of double meanings to everything (like the egg being broken being compared to a loss of virginity, for a popular example), and though the story is religious in nature, it seems to have a lot of jabs at faith and Christianity. Even with the people turning to stone, it gives the impression that going to Heaven isn't as pleasant as they may have made it out to be. Sure, you won't have to deal with the crazy demon sinners or the lack of food and clean water those who're left on the apocalyptic arc have to, and you may be surrounded by great people, beautiful places, good food, etc., but you have no free will to move your body as you want. You're now just statues for God to gaze upon unless he deems you worthy of living as just your soul. I suppose that could be taken a few different ways.

Definitely a good read. Lots of different ways to interpret it. If you watch it for anything, though, do it for the art and animation. Mmm.

Partyu said:
I've cracked the code. Haven't read anything on this movie yet, aside from back and forth banter of "It doesn't mean anything!" and "It does mean something!" so here's my (very short) interpretation.
All the people who think Angel's Egg doesn't mean anything should actually be the people who most relate to the girl.
By that, I mean that those viewer's probably went into this movie expecting to find some message of worth. They trusted the movie not to waste their time, to provide something meaningful - but found nothing. The pretty art and gripping atmosphere is just a shallow veil to cover up the hollow void that is this movie. (Not that I think this.) They are the girl, and Angel's Egg is their egg. The girl, similarly, blindly believes in the egg's worth, carrying it around - it gives her purpose, prevents her from turning into stone. Yet when her trust is disillusioned, when the egg - the thin shell - is broken, there is nothing inside. A waste of time. A waste of her life. What else, then, would she do, but despair? The egg was just a dream.
There's more I could say, but explaining Angel's Egg like this is the funniest way to do it lmao