I don’t know how I do it, but I keep choosing to watch and listen to the most disturbing things while I’m working on my comics. Most people would simply listen to music, but for whatever reason, I have never found that to be an effective mental stimulant. Last month, it was This American Life, and this go-round, it’s been disturbing animation.
It’s a common refrain, I know, but if anyone thinks that animation is still just kids’ stuff, you’re out of your mind. My most recent viewing sprees were Gundam-00 and Now and Then, Here and There, both from Japan (where else?). They are both brilliantly animated, and, in spite of the fact that, as is common in Japanese-to-English transfers, the translation is not always quite a clean one, they are both terriffically disturbing, primarily because they both tackle the subject of war, violence, and their consequences. This is a subject very close to my current project, 6-Commando, and to me personally, as I have some very close friends who are at war right now.
What distinguishes these two series from others of their type is that they are so deceptive and insidious – they drag you in, kicking and screaming, and completely involve you in the story and characters in a way that I’m convinced that live-action could never do. Gundam-00 seems on the surface to be cheeseburger Giant Robot anime, with the main characters engaged in a futile attempt to end war on Earth by suppressing conflict with super-advanced weaponry. But the oxymoron is not lost on the characters themselves, and it is this, rather than the animated super-combat-action, that I found to be the most engaging aspect of the series. Yes, there were some tacked-on romantic subplots, and yes there was a lot of violent action for its own sake, but there was also the engagement of very real and very sphisticated issues surrounding war and violence in the modern age – religious and resource-oriented conflict, the use of child soldiers, internationalism, and, ultimately, the question of whether or not waging war to end war is at all an acceptable paradox.
Now and Then, Here and There, in like fashion, has an ultimately pacifistic message, but is unflinching in its presentation of the effects war and violence have, in particular on children. It’s about ten years old, so I know I’m kind of behind the curve in talking about it, but I still think it a brilliant piece of animation. The graphic violence is actually sparing, in the final analysis – it’s mostly suggested, and occurs off-camera except for a few very important scenes. But this adds to the impact, I think, as it leaves the specifics to the viewer’s imagination, which I think is far more frightening than showing the gory details. The thing that’s most disturbing is that the story swings violently out of control so quickly. It seems like a typical “triumph against adversity” formula, but it isn’t – the systematic use and abuse of humanity is presented in all its brutal, earthy reality, but, most uncommonly, it is done in a way that is not at all voyeuristic or manipulative. In most recent American and European hero-dramas, there is a good guy and a bad guy, but the two are effectively equivalent characters except for the admixture of ideology which makes you root for the “good” and st at the edge of your seat waiting for the “baddies” to get their comeuppance. This is a typically manipulative box office trick that made me hate the film V for Vendetta, among others, as it perpetuates the greatest falsehood of our times: that power and violence are amoral concepts, and that brutalizing and killing and your foe is acceptable so long as you are righteous.
In Now and Then, Here and There, the sympathetic characters suffer along with their enemies. The the brutalization of the three main characters is profoundly horrible in a way that was shocking to me, but was made worse by the fact that the “bad guys” are really trapped by their own evils as well, as much victims of the seduction of violence and power as those they subjugate. In a way similar to such films as Blade Runner or The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the story is an intellectually and emotionally damaging one, and even though the ending could be considered “happy,” after a fashion, it is not a story that leaves you feeling good about the state of the human condition. But at its core, the message about the essential value of the human person, both vicitm and abuser alike, is something you almost never see in the West. It is also the only time where I have seen an unabashed defense of human life, in a particularly moving scene where the main character, Shu, implores the character Sara not to kill her unborn child – a conception that was the result of her abuse at the hands of enemy soldiers. This alone makes it an exceptional series – the intense beauty of the animation, from the looks of it made without computer assisted graphics, only adds to it.
Both of these series can be seen online in various places, and though I can’t “reccommend” them in the sense of “run out and see them right away!” I have to say that they represent, to me, some of the best graphic storytelling currently available, albeit in a different form from my own. Neither of these make for peaceful sleep the night after, however, so be warned – if you’re in for fluff or pure entertainment, look elsewhere.
This is going to leave a sour taste in my mouth. CNN has posted a 
If it weren’t for scandal, what a cold, heartless world this would be. Might even counteract some of that Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever they call it. And right now, there are some people feeling the heat on this one.
Wellsir. Yesterday was Election Day in the United States, and let me tell you, participatory democracy really hits me right in the creamy middle. It seems to have been something of a major win, on the local level, for the Republican Party, currently the minority party in the Federal Government, which managed to capture two governorships and a large number of municipal posts at the state, county and local levels.
