…your latest gift to mankind, and we thank you. The episode’s moment came for me when Hei confronted Rui on the rooftop during the opening sequence — post-rock, in my anime soundtracks? You’ve come so far since your early days, and while Solid State Society was only last year, oh boy. Have we missed you.

I’ve always been a fanboy. Always, and almost all of it — The Vision of Escaflowne’s majestic classical compositions; Cowboy Bebop’s flightly jazz; GITS:SAC’s dystopian electronica; Wolf Rain’s melancholy acoustics. It was like the music drove the series to excellence, not merely supported it. Or maybe she’s been approached by more discerning studios who knows just what it is that their anime needs (definitely not Yuki “My-Compositions-All-Sound-Alike” Kajiura). I’d like to think she has a waiting list and that she can actually pick and choose, because I can’t picture her doing harem or slice of life.

When I heard of Yoko Kanno/Bones I thought of Wolf’s Rain. Turns out I wasn’t far off, but it’s also a strange mix of old stuff in new skin. The enigmatic Hell’s Gate — wasn’t that in Haibane Renmei? (but Yoshitoshi ABe took it from Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World anyway) Shadowy magic organizations, alleyway chases, dark brooding atmosphere — wasn’t that called Witch Hunter Robin? Then there’s the aforementioned comparison to Wolf’s Rain, a pre-apocalyptic foreboding that permeates Misaki’s narrative before the OP — because you know they’ll have to save the world by the last episode.

And there’s the main characters. I mentioned earlier that it was quite something for ethnic Chinese characters to have the lead roles in something that wasn’t a period anime — think about it for a moment. Those I can list off the top of my head in no particular order are:

• Mao (Code Geass), nutjob antagonist who likes his Walkman
• Chao Ling Shen (Negima), antagonist, time-traveller, esper, and… Martian?
• Ku Fei (Negima), martial arts instructor to protagonist, knows kung-fu
• Shampoo (Ranma �), pursues protagonist, knows kung-fu
• Li Mei Ling (Cardcaptor Sakura), pursues protagonist and also knows kung-fu
• Hong Mei Ling (Touhou), doormat, not related to Li but still knows kung-fu

So there hasn’t been a really good track record. When they’re not there for comic relief or guard villain duty, they’re showing off their kung-fu skills. This has always struck me as annoyingly stereotyped — my guess has always been that they could be there to fill in the ethnic gap like the token blacks. Wait, Japan is a homogeneous society, so there isn’t really a need for that, isn’t it?

Cue Code Geass. I haven’t watched it yet, but after getting to know what it’s about and finally getting the “dirty Elevens” meme, I’ve always thought of the Britannia invasion as a metaphor for Japan’s repressed nationalism; how a splinter minority within the country’s been at odds with the status quo about their identity as a country, indirectly as a result of Article 9 post-WWII. Now we have Darker than Black, which has not one, not two, but four presumably ethnic Chinese going about their thing. They’re technically not doing anything wrong since they’re the anti-hero figure, the anti-Contractor from what I can make of it so far, but it makes me wonder.

Like Code Geass, is this a form of passive-aggressive rhetoric — in this case, against China and the Yasukuni shrine debate? While that might be reading too far into it, it isn’t that shabby an idea either — the conflict between the National Police Agency and the Chinese Contractors can be directly correlated. This, however, can only be seen on an admittedly abstract level — either camp thinks the other is wrong for doing what they do, yet they seem right in their own eyes, and this would translate into more of the C.Cs killing others while the NPA lump them along with the bad Contractors and hunt them down.

in the Touhou doujins, among all the residents of Scarlet Mansion, the one most abusive towards Mei Ling has a Japanese name. coincidence? it’s more likely than you think!

There has been in recent times attempts to revise Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which basically is about Japan’s renouncing war as a sovereign right. The infamous history textbook that drew flak from China and Korea regarding Japan’s alleged cover-up about their role in WWII. And the visits by politicians and previous prime minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni shrine — given all that and the violent Chinese protests (like how Hei has no qualms about killing Rui in a fit of anger) in response to the second and third incidents, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to read between the lines about it.

How much of this analysis holds water is another matter though, because first episodes can be deceptive. I still foresee it degenerating into a “Us vs Them” situation later during the season, which is where the neo-nationalists finally see the connection and rise up in praise of Darker than Black as a decidedly rightist commentary. Or maybe I’ll be wrong about it all and the C.Cs team up with the NPA to battle the bad guys and save the world in the end.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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