Because sometimes you're the shark... and sometimes not. BEHOLD THE GLORIOUS CHUM.
26 Jul 2010
arakawa's reversal of the usual
26 Jul 2010 11:47 pmnote: uncharacteristically, I wasn't inclined to or wasn't up to or whatever other lack o' motivation, thus in writing this I found myself without the energy to spell everything out as I might normally do -- so if there are any blanks for you (history-wise, mostly), please refer to the comments, where others have taken the time to carefully delineate what I let pass with vague implication. I know, unlike me! But still. I can't always be writing 10-page posts at the drop of a hat.
If you've watched your share of mecha (and related) anime, you've probably seen this trope several times, maybe even enough to know it by heart: madman acting out of self-proclaimed altruistic means, which usually amounts to, "if I destroy the world by (a) dropping a big honking meteor/planet/space-colony (b) launching a massive mushroom-bomb of horrendous power (c) whipping up the entire world against me so it stops fighting each other and instead fights only me whereupon I crush everyone (d) ending the world as we know it by some other means (e) pretty much killing everyone and blaming it all on the two-step maneuver of war and peace because anyone with a clue knows "rebellion" is just a self-justified synonym for war, you morons who can't count..."
...and that by doing so, WE GET PEACE.
Because, apparently, if you're a self-proclaimed lover-of-humanity with psychotic but ultimately altruistic intentions, of course it's perfectly logical to you that if you burn everyone's retinas with the ultimate war, that they'll all immediately come to their senses and want peace at any cost. And that of course, humanity has always become immediately pacifist upon surviving a horrendous war of attrition. I mean, look at World War I -- boy, Europe and the Americas were just swept by a craze of pacifism as a result!
Not.
This is not logic that resembles my earth logic, but then, a lot of anime doesn't resemble myculture earth, either.
Anyway. That's the basic logic: you've got your Gundams drop-the-colony versions, you've got your "I'm so depressed the whole world should suffer along with me" variation a la Eureka Seven, hell, even Naruto's gotten into the act with a combination of both of the above. In the end, it's all different harmonies to the same melody, that if one achieves peace through war, ergo a really BIG war should bring about a really BIG peace.
( That was in my head, with some amusement at the lack of parallel, when reading the FMA manga... and the eventual realization that Arakawa really doesn't play nice with some of the biggest animanga tropes. ) Wah. It just makes me wish all the more I had at least a smattering of Japanese, to be able to write Arakawa and tell her about how I've got a little shrine to her brain, right here beside me in my office, because what a brain it is. Man, I've not thought this much about a series after it's ended since, uhm...never Gundam. Okay, since Gundam, but I defend that on the grounds that Gundam was my first introduction to the madman-says-BIG-war-makes-BIG-peace trope, so I guess an evolution to the next level naturally gets me going all over again.
If you've watched your share of mecha (and related) anime, you've probably seen this trope several times, maybe even enough to know it by heart: madman acting out of self-proclaimed altruistic means, which usually amounts to, "if I destroy the world by (a) dropping a big honking meteor/planet/space-colony (b) launching a massive mushroom-bomb of horrendous power (c) whipping up the entire world against me so it stops fighting each other and instead fights only me whereupon I crush everyone (d) ending the world as we know it by some other means (e) pretty much killing everyone and blaming it all on the two-step maneuver of war and peace because anyone with a clue knows "rebellion" is just a self-justified synonym for war, you morons who can't count..."
...and that by doing so, WE GET PEACE.
Because, apparently, if you're a self-proclaimed lover-of-humanity with psychotic but ultimately altruistic intentions, of course it's perfectly logical to you that if you burn everyone's retinas with the ultimate war, that they'll all immediately come to their senses and want peace at any cost. And that of course, humanity has always become immediately pacifist upon surviving a horrendous war of attrition. I mean, look at World War I -- boy, Europe and the Americas were just swept by a craze of pacifism as a result!
Not.
This is not logic that resembles my earth logic, but then, a lot of anime doesn't resemble my
Anyway. That's the basic logic: you've got your Gundams drop-the-colony versions, you've got your "I'm so depressed the whole world should suffer along with me" variation a la Eureka Seven, hell, even Naruto's gotten into the act with a combination of both of the above. In the end, it's all different harmonies to the same melody, that if one achieves peace through war, ergo a really BIG war should bring about a really BIG peace.
( That was in my head, with some amusement at the lack of parallel, when reading the FMA manga... and the eventual realization that Arakawa really doesn't play nice with some of the biggest animanga tropes. ) Wah. It just makes me wish all the more I had at least a smattering of Japanese, to be able to write Arakawa and tell her about how I've got a little shrine to her brain, right here beside me in my office, because what a brain it is. Man, I've not thought this much about a series after it's ended since, uhm...