Short Synopsis: The second episode of Taiyou no Mokushiroku focuses on Japanese who fled from the Japanese camps in Taiwan. Obviously, when a select number of Japanese starts killing others, the entire number of 80000 refugees who have nowhere left to go will be kicked out of the country.
Good: An amazing amount of morals and values as expected.
Bad: While it was a great episode, the first episode was better.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
It’s been quite a wait, but finally the second part of Taiyou no Mokushiroku has been released. This one really brought Gen forward as a guru, following people like Ghandi. During the previous episode, we got to know his ideals. In this episode, he has to make them true. In order to stop the Japanese-turned-to-terrorists, he starts a silent march, of no less than 80000 people.
The terrorists would have been convinced to stop in the end, if it weren’t for the Taiwanese government which was sent out to kill the terrorists, against the president’s orders. Apparently, these orders were issued by the ones who were behind the terrorist attack in the first place. During an announcement by the president in order to take responsibility of the things that happened and which has about 200000 Taiwanese gathered, Gen finally manages get the guys behind it arrested.
Gen being a messiah-like person and all may have been nice, it isn’t really what makes this anime great. In my opinion, his purpose is just to be the main character of the story, centred around what’s really important: the relations between the Japanese refugees and the native Taiwanese. This anime depicts civilians of a nation, who have never really had the need to seek major refuge elsewhere, to turn to other countries, in request for help. They stood above the poor Asian countries for a huge amount of years, though with the earthquakes, the tables have suddenly turned. Because of this, the Japanese and Taiwanese have turned so nationalistic that they just can’t seem to understand that nothing’s wrong with living together. Only the people as individuals can realize this. This part of the anime has been done magnificently. Definitely something to remember.
So why was this episode worse than the first one? Probably because of its impact, and that it didn’t deliver as much to the before mentioned themes as the first episode, and focused a bit too much on Gen, instead of what’s really important. It’s not that Gen isn’t a good character or anything, but he pales in comparison to the struggle between the Japanese and Taiwanese.
I’m also not too sure what to thing of the ending. The atmosphere was perfect. It’s great as a conclusive, yet open ending. But at the same time, it was so horribly cheesy. Especially when the threesome stands side-by-side, smiling on top of their boat. I’m also not even sure why the third guy ended up going. He could have used a bit more development for this.
Despite these flaws, I really recommend this episode, because it’s first episode just was pure win.]]>
Taiyou no Mokushiroku/A Spirit of the Sun – 02
