Eden of the East/ Sword Art Online
“The future we had hoped for would not come to past” This line from Saki’s opening narration immediately set up the central idea of the show that the other messages would grow from. Eden of the East deals with the disillusionment among the youth and the seeming futility of investing in a future which has disappeared. This show expertly captured the overwhelming malaise which has gripped the youth of today.
I appreciated the shows attention to U.S. hegemony and its focus on terrorism and militarization. This show is very much a product of the post 9/11 world we are living in and the focus on the mysterious missile attacks on Japan were clearly a part of that. I was honestly a bit confused by the motivation for the missiles as revenge against the system. It makes sense but with the Selecao’s being given the goal of saving the nation and the missiles being a part of that plan I figured the reasoning behind it would be using the crisis to implement stronger government control and hijack the nation into overdrive. Maybe using the missiles to attempt to replicate the conditions that left to Japan’s post war economic boom. The War on Terror has shown us how governments utilize catastrophe as a pretense to exert control over the nation and prepare us for the normalization of living in this crisis mode. I feel that this show started out very strong with its messaging but unfortunately fell apart in later episodes.
Takizawa living in a deserted mall seemed to represent how we are surrounded by the vestiges of the future that never came still surround us. It is hard not to feel like we are haunted by the idea of how life should be, according to how it was in the past. The shows focus on NEETS, a generation whose lives never really started was especially interesting. I have watched other anime which focused on NEETS and the anxieties surrounding them like welcome to the NHK but this show utilized them on a much grander scale.
I found the ending of the show where Takizawa makes himself the king of Japan very interesting. I understand it from the viewpoint of the narrative there was no time at the end and Takizawa had to quickly think of a way forward but I’m critical of this elevating a single individual as the way forward. Looking to the history of how movements create change it is collective action and community building are clearly the way forward. Angela Davis frequently criticizes this tendency to elevate individual heroes in the fight for change, highlighting how movements built on solidarity and interconnectedness are the way forward for a more just future. I appreciated Takizawa’s use of the NEETS in his plans to stop the bombs and evacuate people from the first careless Monday I just feel that the ending glosses over that a bit. I feel that the Selecao’s as a concept were underutilized. The idea of seeing twelve distinct individuals all given the power to fix what they see as wrong and save the nation is incredibly interesting. I was interested in seeing both what the individual Selecao’s viewed as the issues with society and how they went about changing it. I found the inclusion of Shiratori, “the Johnny hunter” an interesting inclusion. Her view of how to save Japan involved ridding society of abusive or lowlife men and replacing them with overseas models. Reminded me of the reading we did prior which spoke about how Japan would bring in foreigners to do jobs that the Japanese didn’t want to engage in and how foreigner populations in Japan gradually reshaped society and what it means to be Japanese. Through her “Johnny” removal of men I was reminded of a scene in Emile Zola’s novel Germinal where in the middle of a riot the women chase down an sexually exploitative shopkeeper and rip his Johnny off. The book uses this Johnny ripping as a parallel to the larger story of the miner’s revolution, creating this parallel between patriarchy and capitalism. Even though this connection is not explicitly made in Eden of the East I thought they may be alluding to the different power structures people identify and fight against in the larger fight to save the nation.
I've gone way over the word limit (sorry) so I'll wrap this up quickly and just say even though i think the show got messy towards the end I enjoyed a lot of the ideas it brought up and still had a great time watching it! I found Saki and Akira to be a very compelling duo and I wish I could write more about Saki.
I had tried to watch Sword Art Online in the past but was never able to get into it or perhaps I was not giving the anime a fair chance. I really enjoyed watching this show with Baudrillard's text in mind. The inciting act of the show instantly raised a million questions in my mind and I appreciated how the show took its time to answer them instead of addressing them all at once. At the same time the premise brings up a lot of questions that are purposefully never answered which gave me lots to think about. I found it interesting how despite the main goal being to clear the game and return to the real world the real world is not brought up a lot by the characters. There were 10,000 copies of the game sold not even counting the digital release of the game. All those people who logged on, instantly trapped. Rendered as useless bodies in real life. Because they have no contact with the real world of course there isn't too much room for discussion but still, thinking about the real world this is such a cataclysmic thing to happen to a population. The hospital space and resources that must be expended on just keeping the player base alive, the workers and students pulled from the force instantly. It definitely mirrors the real life anxieties surrounding NEETs and hikkikomori. I found it interesting how as the game went on most of the player seemed to lose their drive to leave the simulation as they accepted it as the new real. It was interesting seeing how Kirito eventually married Asuna and they even adopted a child together for an episode. It's like they are attempting to construct the real within the simulation. Even in a simulated world were anything was possible Kirito attempts to build a nuclear family, this framework for how to live life so deeply ingrained.
SAO was particularly interesting to me as a representation of trying to find connection in a world filtered by the digital. There are scenes where the characters contemplate what it is they really feel when they feel each other's warmth and what their relationships in the game really mean. Kirito is assured that the world of the game is just as real and important as the real world. Seeing how invested in the game the players get and how they lose their focus on clearing the game made me wonder if the reason for this is that the game gives them what they longed for all along in the real world. Even though they are trapped their against their will SAO gives its players agency to purchase homes and have relationships outside of the confines of the system outside. So many of the players are just normal people but when they enter the game they have power. In the beginning of the show one character criticizes the beta players for being selfish as they have more experience and resources. Thinking about the people who would be beta testers it would likely be well, nerds. This is a world where the nerds have the advantage over regular civilians who aren't typically as aware or immersed in the world of RPG's and MMO's.
When the game ends and Asuna is talking about how they're going to a world where they can be together forever, the real world, it made me think about how their experience in the artificial world has brought so much meaning to the real world. Seeing Kirito wake up in the hospital, his body having withered away and his muscles atrophied shows just how much the simulation has taken from them. I found Asuna's discussion about how their life support will end one day and either way they are living on borrowed time incredibly poignant. Her desire to go to the real world with Kirito and grow old together strongly presents the argument for the real world over the simulation when Kirito had been talking about how he viewed SAO as being just as important and real. I watched past episode 14 to see just how Kirito's reentrance to life would be and was a bit disappointed that it wasn't more fleshed out. I thought his reentrance to society would be more jarring as opposed to what we did get which was just a few remarks about his muscles needing to build up. I thought we'd get the opportunity to see his mother and sister's reactions to their son essentially waking up from a few years coma and being the first one to EVER wake up but we didn't see a lot of that. I also wondered if Kirito would feel a bit of disappointment with the real world on return, going from a world where he was at the top of his game back to the real world. Or a more in depth view of the trauma both he and his family suffered. That guy trying to marry Asuna while she was in a coma was incredibly disturbing too.
Overall, I was really surprised by this show! It raises a ton of interesting questions and I really got invested especially when Kirito cleared the game. I initially found some of the characters uninteresting I thought Asuna's "tsundereness" was a bit much at times but she grew on me and I liked her relationship with Kirito even if it wasn't very interesting.
