Friday, February 6, 2009

The keys to reality are in popular fiction
Ok so we all know that Cowboy Bebop is my all time favourite anime one of my broken record statements and one of the things that I love best about it is the way episodes have these clever statements against society. I’ve compared all my other series to this and I always come back to the fact that it seems to only be anime directors that will confront their audience with a sense of reality.

But what happens when the director doesn’t sugar coat anything? They give you the raw contents of today’s issues that plague our news every night? I was reading an article in a magazine about the evolution of horror films. The author of the article was talking about how when he was a teenager he would sit up watching ‘B-grade’ horror films laughing hysterically at the absurdity of each scenario but now he finds himself walking out of a modern horror film feeling disgusted in himself how could he possibly have just sat through that. The way that he seen it was that society is becoming more desensitised towards violence and therefore the directors think its necessary to create horror films that are more realistic that will actually scare the audience.
I get that purpose of a horror film is to scare the person but why is that these modern horror films seem to be less about the initial impact, giving the audience a quick scare and more about inflicting psychological damage on its audience.
I think that anime is starting to take a similar direction, but rather then the over use of vomit worthy violence they are hitting us with every day social issues that although we see them every night on the news we don’t fully comprehend the severity. Think about it this way ‘Cowboy Bebop’ used ‘Perrie Le Fou’, GITS SAC had ‘Jungle Cruise’, the ‘Laughing Man’ and ‘The Individual Eleven’, then there is ‘Death Note’ as time has gone on anime’s have focused more on their statements against society, and each one has intensified its level of violence in an effort to make their point. They have left their fans debating the ethics behind each series applying it to their own lives but what happens when you end up like the old fashioned horror fans and finish an episode disgusted in yourself for having just sat through that?

Recently I started watching ‘Black Lagoon’ a series which level of popularity is relatively minor compared to the other series I’ve mentioned. Most episodes I find myself glued to the screen with my mouth open I mean it’s been years since I’ve seen such intense action, but at the same time I find myself absolutely hating the series Revy annoys me to no end she is suppose to be the indestructible women that is practically the ultimate killing machine the way her eyes glaze over with a pure killing intent that can’t be stopped. But then she is constantly preaching to ‘Rock’ about how he knows nothing about hardships, about compared to her childhood he has the perfect life living like royalty, and that without her around he would die (I think those episodes were she was unconscious were a godsend). Although when ‘Rock’ confronts her and actually encourages (lets face he was just saying what we were all thinking) her to shot him pulling the barrel to his temple she can’t handle it, being confronted buy a form of purity is so unnerving for her she repeatedly tries to get him removed from the team because he scares her. She reminds me of what I said in a post last year about how people always think they’re so strong and have this annoying urge to make everyone like themselves when in reality they themselves are weak. ‘Rock’ knows his different he knows that he can never begin to understand what Revy has been through but he holds no desire to change her, I love that about his character. Another thing that I like about Rock’s character is that as far as I’ve seen he has not lost that level of purity he still tries to sympathise with people, he doesn’t look down on anyone no matter what the situation, he attempts to understand them and admits opening that sometimes he can’t but he never tries to change them and never tries to preach to them he is accepting no matter what.

But to the real point of this post, sorry I got carried away and lost my train of thought again. The episode ‘Bloodsport Fairy Tale’ was aired last week it had these two children that were killing members of the different mafia groups in the town mostly targeting the Russian Mafia. The children were dressed in these perfect gothic Lolita clothes, one wielded an axe and the other a machine gun, again they were perfect killing machines having no mercy. But while they were undertaking these gruesome missions they would have this cute and innocent laugh like children playing. Honestly nothing disturbs me more then watching a show were a child will kill someone and laugh about it, I normally change the channel but against my better judgement I decided to watch this. Well their killing spree continued and during the next episode you actually found out what corrupted their innocence leading them to follow the belief ‘kill or be killed’ it was horrific all because it had such a real feeling to it. This wasn’t some kind of fiction that you’d never hear of happening, this was a story taken directly from the news headlines and twisted into a supposedly fictional piece.
This could be called the ultimate statement against society, exactly what I’ve been looking for in all the anime’s I’ve previously watched but ironically its not, its just like those horror films there’s nothing fictional about it there’s no sugar coating its all real it’s the raw version of what you see on your news every night its confronting you with a fact of the absolutely disgusting society that we live in. It made me realise how not only am I ignorant but I’m probably no different from the society I can’t stand. I know that this sort of thing is happening hell how could I not its on the news every night but I change the channel, forget about it and move on, just like everyone else. So has it come to a point where they actually need to put this kind of thing in forms of popular entertainment in order for people to face it? Is the only way for people to actually face reality?
We hear about it comment on it and then move on because ultimately it doesn’t directly affect us but take it and put it in a fictional show and that’s a totally different story. Why? Because we use fiction to escape reality, but that’s no longer an available option. Is this because our society degraded to a point were we have to try to return it to its original candy colour or is it that social acceptability isn’t the ruling agent? No longer are things being swept under the carpet because its not proper to talk about them, we have to do something at all cost.



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