Hmm, this episode violently pushed the motives of Yukina’s brother into a different direction. A cliched one, I’m afraid. “I need peace so for that to happen I will blow things up.” (By the way though, this episode did blow out any hint of nationalism out of the water. For those who were still doubting the intentions of this series at this point: it features a Japanese guy who plans to send an atom bomb into the middle of Shanghai).
So let me get this straight: the blasts that the Englishmen saw were an illusion. That seems to be the power of Yukina’s brother. We already knew that he’s desperately trying to prevent the atom bomb to drop on Japan. So, what does he do? He sends an atom bomb into Shanghai! If I understood correctly, he understood that it was the atom bombs and the fear of them that gradually lead to peace: in the way that countries would begin to think twice to attack a country that could devastate entire cities with just one bomb.
As a stuck-up nationalist Japanese however, he figures that the way to prevent it is to show the world what an incredible force they are playing with, as long as it doesn’t affect Japan. There are… so many things wrong with that. Yet at the same time, was this what Japanese nationalism must have felt like back then? This is an incredibly radical decisions that was made not just by him, but also several lead characters: even Sakurai let’s him just do his business here.
I must say, this series has surpassed Sora no Oto with the way that it has been so thought provoking. The motives of the villains here are just wrong, and yet they remain interesting. When watching this series, I learned a ton of new stuff that I didn’t know about the Chinese history at that time, and it’s a bit of a shame that Anime no Chikara is going back to high schools and teenagers again in the upcoming season. There really need to be more series like this.
But yeah, it does remain noticeably unrefined at times. I mean, dude. You have a gun. USE THE BLOODY THING!
Rating: ** (Excellent)
-still stuck at epi 6- D:
It’s really interesting how they reverted the idea of the atom bomb as a genesis of peace in this series.
Generally it WAS a horrible event, nuking 2 Japanese cities, but it led to a terror of the atom bomb that hindered humanity to at least use THAT anymore.
Well I hope they won’t pull a too peacefull ending out of the hat, but instead try to end on a more sombre note.
We in the 21st century know that the atom bomb might have created a bigger fear of war, but it didn’t keep us from leading them.
But well…I bet the haters will still continue propagating that this series is Anti-China, because one character assumes that nuking it would create peace.
I hope they will see (and I hope the series will reflect that) that Isao’s dillemma lies exactly with what I described above. He’s an idealist and is blinded by his own social and national sorrounding.
I’m going to bet that the final episode will have a bittersweet ending. Isao will probably meet his end and others characters are either going to die or live and watch as history unfolds. If the staff will pull a peaceful ending, it will not make sense since the next years will be the Sino-Japanese war and then, WWII.
OMG, why is no one subbing this show?
@ brianwuzhere: One of fansubbers from one subbing group said that they just finished the translation of epi 6.5 and 7 and they will released it “very soon”.
1) A better way to learn about history is to read about it. A show can initiate the interest, but it’s definitely not good to “learn” history from television.
2) The mutually assured destruction theory is pretty well known. See the wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction), notably criticisms of this theory (also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov for a near miss during the Cold War). See this link as well: http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm The basic idea is, over infinite time, a situation like the Cold War is bound to explode, due to (amongst other things) human error.
3) The idea of sacrificing thousands of foreign lives to save a few of your own is not new, nor unique to Japan. The United States does this all the time in warfare. Notably, we always mourn the thousands of soldiers that died in Vietnam, but no one seems to give two sh*ts about the millions of Vietnamese that died.
4) Nationalism is everywhere. Fascism (i.e. the Nazis) were extreme nationalists. You can walk down the street in America and probably find someone who believes America is better than every country on Earth (note: not saying America is fascist, the two ideas are disconnected). I don’t think Japanese nationalism was unique in any fundamental regard. What’s important to know is that it was ubiquitous; that’s when you have a problem.
also, whats the next anime no chikara project?
Johnson: Occult Gakuin.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=11390
I’m really digging the anime no chikara concept. It brings a new wave of originality into this medium. A shame that they all seem to be only 12 episodes long though.
Considering Sora no Oto was subbed the same day, I’m going to be kind of mad if Occult Gakuin is picked up just because its in high school.
With the 6 episode (:\) I’ve seen, it seems like the main thing Anime no Chikara has over other shows is setting. Oto was post-war distant future, Night Raid is post-war period piece. Gakuin’s premise looks pretty typical, especially given the other shows coming out next season, but I’m sure they’ll put in some kind of twist where it’s not what it seems.
The other thing is the quality of the audio and visuals. While the character design and actual animation have been pretty average, the background art is not only the most detailed of any series I’m watching, but you can see that the producers did a lot of research into actual art and architecture to make it. The music is also fully composed for orchestra as opposed to ensemble or electronic BGM.
Having been six months, do you consider Chikara a success? I’m still not really sure what I think.
Auroraflame: well, there’s one thing I can say for certain: it’s not as good as Noise: that was a timeslot active a year ago with nothing but imaginative premises and really well refined executions, and a bloody shame it was cancelled.
I think the major problem with Anime no Chikara is that it uses teenagers for the sake of teenagers. As an example, Noise’s Aoi Hana was a show about adolescence, so it made sense to set it in a high school. With Sora no Oto, however, there was no reason to make the lead character a teenager. Occult Gakuin too: if you’re going to make a horror mystery show: why a high school?
Night Raid of course is a delightful exception to this.
I fully appreaciate what the Chikara project is doing, because they experiment and I’d rather have an anime with some flaws who at least dared something, than the same concept over and over again.
Yes Sora no Oto was…below average when it came to storytelling, because they stopped when it got interesting, but I liked what they thought of and you could feel that they put some real thinking into the world.
Senkô no Nightraid is taken a setting that hasn’t been used in such a context so far and it actually has some things to say, even though at times it could use some suspense inducing element.
Sadly the project is vanishing among the more mainstream stuff, as usual for any field of entertainment that has grown beyond it’s own influence.
I still hope that Occult Gakuen will follow this road and work on an interesting setting. The urban legends could really be something to work with.
i hate it from ep 6 but thanx for the post