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- BirthdayDec 4, 1988
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- JoinedJul 26, 2016
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Jun 26, 2017
There's a very subversive sexual dynamic at play here. All boys are sexually corrupt, pervs to the core. Girls are the moral beings, those who have to protect themselves from this creepy sexuality -- but, in this subversion, actually have the power to punish those advances, to attack back at the male gaze. This is the opposite of the real world, where woman's sexuality is the one being judged and punished.
But is more complex than that, for the boys perviness is limitless and adaptable. As is sexuality, the girls' strictness and sadist pleasure-less practices gives birth to the boys' masochist tendencies, feeding the same sexuality
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they desire to punish. And, in this school of female anti-sexuality, the girls are oblivious to the natural sensuality of their existence, even to the most obvious degree: their bodies, and it's exposition, which actually feeds the same male gaze that they're trying to attack.
There's a clear message - most eloquently put by the opening and ending themes - that this effort to control the boys sexuality is useless, for sex (they call it 'love', but let's be serious...) is a part of the human nature & experience. And this is why the real prison... is love. (But actually is moralism.)
Mostly, Prison School is (weirdly) so much fun. The story is a very particular struggle to survive oppression -- there's a constant tension to escape the prison, the punishments, the attention of the girls-jailers. The boys succumb to intrigue, but there's also a greater arc about their friendship forming and giving them strength to persevere, turning the final stretch of the series in a great game of wits. The characters are both likeable and stupid enough to deeply root for them. And is just constantly funny.
Loose thoughts:
- Overall, the strongest way to maintain the boys locked up is the threat of public humiliation. There's a very constant fear to be socially judged in most of the characters.
- Outlaw legos.
- Kiyoshi butt is a black hole that attracts a lot of unwanted, violent penetration.
- Butt philosophy. VERY INTENSE butt philosophy.
- No one that likes sumo/crows/butts can be a bad person.
- Everything surrounding Hana is my favorite, and the development of her fetish and/or attraction is one of the best parts of the series.
- Which leads to a hilarious Isaac Newton's apple falling on the head epiphany, but instead of an apple is a mushroom, and instead of the head is a butt. And instead of discovering gravity she remembers a penis.
- Which leads to a great, rage-filled, scene about cutting mushrooms.
- A well-placed (and perfect metaphor) Medusa.
- The coloring of the series annoys me a lot, but I can't quite place it: the texture seems to be misplaced light, or something like this. A pity, as there's some really good cuts.
MVP: The director, Kurihara.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 17, 2017
There's a lot of interesting things on the surface of Psycho-Pass. As a sci-fi defined by its high-concept universe - one determined by a system that judges everyone, from which is the true path of someone life to one's immediate propensity to commit a crime -, there's a lot of (so-so) philosophizing. I call it "surface" because there's a very particular use of philosophy during the series, that doesn't actually involve engaging with concepts, or any more strict philosophical discourse. The most interesting one is philosophy-as-a-weapon, the most prominent example when Kogami and Makishima first find each other: a quote of Descartes is rebutted by
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a quote from Pascal, as if it was a rhetorical checkmate - and the characters acknowledge this, that this is only to prove each others' intelligence and erudition. This is mostly textual, something that happens through dialogue. The useful bibliographic philosophy for the series is mostly missed (there's a fitting Foucault by the end, and a name-dropped Bentham - but still only as a sign of book-smartness).
The deeper philosophy is another: there's a very strong question of bio-politics regarding the Sybil System (Foucault's Panopticon, as cited in the series, where people live in a state of constant vigilance). There's a really interesting existential consideration (somewhat-) proposed by the series that derives from a life determined by this system: there's no existential crisis when your life is chosen for you, no place for ennui, to question your purpose (as it is told to you); but, once the Sybil System is fatally questioned, this is the nature of the questions that come forth (as usual in japanese media, they are always bubbling under). And the most important one: the Sybil System is utilitarianism incarnated (there's even literal calculation as the justification for a particular death), and, as such, it decides on what is best for most, which - as the classic critique goes - is not really what's best for each particular member living in this estate. This is at the center of Kogami and Makishima rivalry.
It's a bold choice to make the Enforcer's the protagonists for this reason. They're the ones maintaining this controlling, ufanist (the series' Japan is closed to the rest of the world) state. Makishima has to be made an extremist, a psychopath, an ("the bad kind of") anarchist to register as a bad guy - because, once he makes his points, they're actually pretty valid (using this system for peace has achieved a civilizatory tranquility, a "personal serenity", but has sacrificed the human identity, autonomy, spirit -- there's existential humanism at the root of his philosophy, even if not in his ethics). The series balances this by making the Enforcer's pretty well defined characters, with enough of a dangerous edge to keep them on the fringe of the system and, therefore, in a gray-scale morality. And, even more, this ambiguity is not lost on the series but is by design. This is the most important, since the Crime Coefficient is what dictates the action of a character, and the series uses it to trace how they behave themselves - how it gets corrupted and turns them to a latent criminal, making, for instance, Kogami's morality now black and white and, as such, his actions now a personal vendetta rather than the sense of justice that once moved him. It shows how personal the relationships get.
Although the series greatest conflict is between Kogami and Makishima, the arc that sustains the series is Akane's. She's the main character, and we follow how she grows into a competent detective and as a person - but, most of all, how she learns about the truth of this world and actually survives. Her incapacity to do something about it is frustrating, but her decision to revolt against it also the biggest victory. She goes full on Camus, one of the more optimists brands of existentialism. She embraces the deeper shades of gray, which is a bittersweet triumph.
My favorite thing about Psycho-Pass, though, is that - underneath this serious, dark, "philosophical" tone - the series is a really great piece of genre fiction. More than a sci-fi (everything commented above), the anime is an economic, straight forward action/detective story with very little fat, that takes its concept seriously and derives its conflicts from an exploration of such concept. This is good writing. The episodes fly by, and they are FUN. I don't need much more.
Loose thoughts:
- Saiga lives in a replica of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water. Which I guess is in Japan now.
- (Spoiler) Sybil System is actually what the Matrix was going to be (using brains as computers). It's an interesting subversion making these brains be of the people who cannot be measured by the system: people outside the norm being used to imposed a standard of normality on the rest of the population.
- Is Kogami reading Swann's Way because his looking for his lost time? For fuck's sake.
- There's a lot in common with Cowboy Bebop, from aesthetical similarities to the genre structure. The fights, and even the design of Kogami and Makishima, make it seem like Cowboy Bebop (Spike and Vicious) was a clear point of reference. I mean this well.
- Makishima and Kogami's showdown at night, in the wheat fields, is just the best. Amazing animation, beautiful cuts. Greatest scene in the whole series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 7, 2017
'Kaiji' is a punk anime. Like punk, it has a particular preoccupation with style - but the choice for such a style is a content. The aesthetically boldness of the drawings and the pretty fun guitar-oriented soundtrack complement the overall spirit of the show.
The episode-to-episode narrative is a tense fight to survival against very bad odds of, ultimately, unfair games. Kaiji, the main character, is forced to these games as his only choice to clear a huge debt -- which the games actually make worse. This debt, as the series progresses, start to literally eat away at Kaiji's flesh.
Money is the source of infinite
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power, and a power that is intrinsically corrupt: it produce systems that feed on the pain, death, and despair of those who fight to survive inside it. This structural situation is inherently destructive to Kaiji's humanism, which only affirms the paradox of how the only way to be set free and live said humanism is by getting a lot of money. This revelation leads to Kaiji's revolt about how the only way to survive in a corrupt system is to corrupt the system from within.
Looser notes of things I like about it:
- The first game is the best. It has a stronger playfulness, and its fun to, like the characters, think of ways to survive and crack it - and the constant twists keep it from getting stale. As is necessary from the theme, the games (and series) get bleaker from there, and the stakes higher.
- When the metaphors are illustrated literally. Particularly everytime Death shows up.
- The 'zoro zoro zoro' ambient chant in moments of intense tension. Brings me so much joy.
- Everytime Kaiji's theme starts playing, the guitar bringing on hope. Also, the theme itself.
- So. Much. Tears. They don't even know why they are crying - the characters just keep getting overwelmed by the situation
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 13, 2017
'Yuri!!! on Ice' communicates its feelings through movement rather than text. Ice skating has a very specific language where the performance - the posture, the overall geometry of bodies, the gestures and their intensity - is an extension of the fervent interior of the dancers. Their dances are a communication, anchored on a central theme, and is through the wordless, moving expression of those private voices - the monologue in their heads while they dance; their feelings and anguishes - that they put those feelings, and themselves, out to the world. They are a way to be affirmative of themselves. It's why most of the
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episodes are pure action -- it's what moves the dramaturgy on.
The central relationship is also built on a particular language, where a series of gestures are often ambiguous: they mean something to them, but not the same thing to the rest of the world. This is why Yuri and Victor's relationship is at its strongest when is forming: they're a couple of people who can communicate in a hermetic language which other people can't understand. Victor understands in Yuri's dance something that we don't, and this is what unites them at first: their love of this particular art, an art necessary for their self-actualization. As it goes on, they keep building this language with new gestures: new jumps, more ambitious and difficult; or an unexpected hug -- which plays, at first, like a kiss, focusing on their approaching lips. Or the confusion regarding their rings: symbolizing their union, but, against the ring's usual meaning, not a marital reunion. And the anime feeds on this ambiguity.
That's why I find less interesting the interpretation of their relationship as an traditional romance. Yuri is walking towards something bigger than a love story - his pure expression, his particular voice - and it feels like a cop-out to simplify this connection with a more defined romantic relationship. Also, because, if it was, there is more meaty subjects than the anime engajes with, and this would make the anime more lukewarm than sweet (but at least this you can blame on the ice)... but I won't be bitter about people falling in love.
Very Instagram heavy (as practically a form of surveillance), and a welcome and unexpected amount of Gaudi landscapes. And Yurio is clearly the coolest.
MVP: The ice-skating-otaku triplets.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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