#001 Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Log)
by Hitoshi Ashinano
Howdy, folks! I thought it appropriate to write my first blog entry on YKK, the thing that inspired me to write this, and whose protag rides this blog's namesake.
What's there to be said about YKK that hasn't already? I've spent many nights staring with glazed, half-lidded eyes and taking in the OVA's scenery and music right before bed. It is there against the blue light haze of my phone screen that I take in every single one of the 240 lines that make up every frame of YKK's first two OVAs. To be clear I don't have anything against the second set of OVAs released in the early aughts, for some reason I'd always gravitated towards the first two OVAs released in '98 by Aija-Do Animation Works.
Enough about me, however. You guys *need* to see this shit if you haven't yet.
I adore the quiet countryside, specifically rural beachside towns. YKK is steeped in the glowing embers of the sunset, the sound of ocean waves and birdsong pour over the audio tracks like a generous helping of audial sandwash. And just as you start to get lost in the sights and sounds of the 240p straight-to-vcr haze, you see that-
yoooo those girls are kissing!! Hell yeah!
Forreal though (not that yuri isn't real), I'm a big appreciator of the media I consume having sauce. I hate to get metaphysical but it's a bit of an abstract bar to clear. I suppose I just like it when something I consume flexes its uncompromising artistic vision. Sorta like how Lobo the bounty hunter inexplicably (to your average comic book consumer) looks like he's wearing death metal corpse paint despite being from a faraway alien planet. In YKK, this sauce I love so much comes in the form of worldbuilding. Without getting too bogged down in the details, YKK takes place in the post-post-apocalypse. A time long after great floods had sunk entire cities, where what survivors remained had time to rebuild. I think the most compelling part of YKK's world is how normal everything is. Alpha, YKK's protag, has a friend in an old man who runs a gas station by himself. She zips across the countryside on a Honda Super Cub, with a modified 1999 Cubra trimming. Perhaps the most futuristic thing about this world is the subtle technology hidden beneath its surface. Alongside some other characters, Alpha is an android (hence the yuri-ful way info is transferred between them), she operates a camera given to her by her long-gone owner by sticking a cable into her mouth and seeing through the camera's pupil-like lens.
[Spoilers for the second 1998 OVA's ending henceforth]
In one of its most poignant scenes, Alpha and a colleague look out over a bay, the tops of long-abandoned buildings poking out of the water. Mountains which once cradled the city serve as the new shoreline, the buildings on top being spared the same watery fate as its downhill counterparts, no doubt smaller structures than the multi-story goliaths beneath.
As the sun sets, we're shown that the city's lighting infrastructure has somehow survived all these years, a near-impossibility. I think I'll let the OVA's dialogue during this scene carry the imagery. Lord knows I could do it justice with any words of my own.
"The street lights come to life where there are only trees and the ocean. The lights that used to shine brightly with a purpose now just shine for the sake of shining."
Look, y'all don't need me to guide you to the thesis here. What I will say is that YKK is a comfort watch for a reason. In America where I live, my immediate environs are dotted by abandoned warehouses and business properties chewed up and spit out by the endless combine of capital. When I go on walks or drives late at night, it can often feel like I'm living in the post-post-apocalypse. So when I find an abandoned lot whose lights stay on, or a typically bustling area now empty in the off-hours with its colored lights shining on a desolate parking lot, I think back to this scene in YKK, to the things that persist even when most folks aren't around to appreciate it.
I'll see you folks in the next entry. Thank you.
Holy crap I didn't even get to talk about the manga...
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