Sharkboy and Lavagirl details only I care about! Part 1/?
I’ve been wanting to do a sort of review or analysis of this movie after I rewatched it. There’s just a lot of details I haven’t seen any one mention! So I’ll try to go character by character for this.
Max:
From the very beginning we see Max’s reluctance to have moved from his old home, though we don’t get any information on it or if he had any long lasting friendships. But what I find so interesting is how Max’s daydreams started.
We see the origins of Sharkboy and Lavagirl over the summer, so from here we can easily say “Max just moved, so he’s making his own friends” simple right?
Not exactly, Sharkboy and Lavagirl were created when Max was experiencing an unstable household, overhearing his parents fighting late at night.
Shiki is a Japanese psychological horror novel written by Fuyumi Ono, which was serialized into a manga series by Ryu Fujisaki and published in a monthly magazine from 2007-2011. Shiki was later adapted into an anime which aired in 2010.
I. Historical Context and Synopsis
Shiki is set in a rural Japanese area called Sotoba, which is isolated from the rest of society and is surrounded by mountains and momi fir trees on three sides. The momi fir trees are used to make grave markers and coffins, and in the prologue of the Shiki novels, junior monk Muroi Seishin writes: “the firs themselves destroyed for the dead, is unmistakably a land of death. Closed in on three sides by firs, the village is isolated within death.” (Ono, pg. 3, 1998) This metaphor about Sotoba being surrounded by death is mentioned a lot in the show itself, and it provides a foreshadowing about the death that is about to come upon the villagers.
In the hot summer of 1994, the few residents that lived in Yamiri, an area of Sotoba, mysteriously died due to unknown causes. A series of unknown deaths begin to spread in the village of Sotoba, right as a strange family named the Kirishikis move into their new home: a western-style mansion on top of a hill. The cause of these deaths is first believed to be an epidemic, but the doctor of the village, Ozaki, begins to question supernatural causes as a plausible explanation for these deaths when Yuuki Natsuno asks him if his dead classmate, Shimizu Megumi, is really dead. Shortly after, the existence of the shiki are discovered: vampire-like corpses that have come back to life and feed on human blood for their own survival—killing the human in the process. As soon as Ozaki reveals to the villagers that the true cause of the mysterious deaths in Sotoba are the Kirishikis and the shiki, the villagers revolt and hunt the shiki down.
II. Human Nature
One interpretation of Shiki is that it is meant to represent the selfishness and self-interest of humans. Ironically, the shiki’s selfishness for their own self-interest is prevalent as well, as they could attempt to find a way to coexist with humankind, but they claim that the hunger they experience prevents them from doing so. Sunako—the leader of the shiki—describes it as an empty hunger, one so deep that they come to the point where they think nothing of killing people. When Natsuno’s friend Tohru became a shiki, Natsuno tried to convince him to try to coexist with humans. Tohru replied, “If we could solve things like that, we wouldn’t need to attack people in the first place!… People don’t eat a live pig by slicing off its flesh little by little.” Most of the shiki display narrow self-interest, as they act only to keep themselves alive. Contrarily, when one of Ozaki’s nurses became a shiki, she refused to eat humans, no matter how hungry she was. Tohru yelled at her and said that no one would praise her for doing so, but the nurse replied that she didn’t want to hate herself like Tohru did.
Kirishiki Seishirou, a human allied with the shiki, says: “Shiki would probably be viewed as evil, according to conventional thought, since they kill people in order to live… But why is it wrong for shiki to hunt humans? Humans also hunt humans.” In saying this, Seishirou is implying that humans are only acting out of self-interest for their own survival against the shiki; they don’t actually care that they are becoming murderers. Most of the humans display examples of enlightened self-interest as well. The humans work together to hunt down the shiki and eradicate them, and in doing so, it may appear that they are working in the self-interest of humanity and the survival of the village. However, during the shiki hunts, when a human was barely bitten by a shiki, they were killed by the other humans without remorse. Some of the humans seemed to gain pleasure in killing the shiki, and although it may have seemed like what the humans were doing was for the greater good, they were only killing the shiki for their own selfish fulfillment.
In Shiki, God is both a higher and terrifying love. Sunako believes that the shiki are “forsaken by God”, and she laments: “It’s not like I became a creature like this because I wanted to. But if I have life, I don’t want to lose it. Is it my sin? This is what they mean by being ‘forsaken by God’.” When Tohru expressed deep regret and guilt for killing people as a shiki, Seishin comforts him by saying: “People may call what you did a sin, but who could blame you for wanting to live?” Oddly enough, the shiki believe in the existence of God more than the humans themselves, even if the shiki are terrified of religious items and the shrine has the most influence in the village. A bartender in the village, Hasegawa, said that the villagers have “received the baptism of modern rationalism. You could call it brainwashing.” In Shiki, both the humans and the shiki lean towards a more realistic worldview while Seishin is an idealist. Sunako thinks that Seishin is a romanticist, and considering that Seishin believes that God is inherently good and temptations are of the devil, it’s natural that he leans towards idealist views.
III. The Good
What exactly separates the shiki from humankind? Shiki are “different from ghosts… They didn’t come back to life. They have a corpse for a body, but they’re not just corpses like zombies. They have souls and are equal to humans, right? But they’re different from humans… An existence of a completely different nature.” When Natsuno met the risen Tohru, he began reminiscing memories he had with him, and felt despair and grief when he remembered the ice-cold touch of Tohru’s hand. Memories live on even after a person has died and their corpse has gone cold, and although Tohru and his memories returned, he isn’t the person he once was. Both Ozaki and Seishin—the two people who have the most authority over Sotoba—believe that there is no law to judge the shiki. While Ozaki believes that because the shiki aren’t bound by human law they deserve to die, Seishin believes that shiki have every right to live the way they can because they aren’t bound by human law. If the shiki aren’t human, then there is no law to judge them. For the humans, however, “since ancient times, there have been ‘rules’ which were decided by no one.”
Shiki doesn’t exactly encourage the viewer to prefer one side or the other; instead, its purpose is to leave an area of gray morality for definition. The shiki can be considered evil while the humans are good, but the actions of the humans determine otherwise. Ozaki had no qualms whatsoever when he killed his wife after she turned into a shiki. He tortured her, and she exhibited clear distress and pain at his actions. She actively struggled and protested against being killed, yet Ozaki did it anyway. Seishin entered shortly after Ozaki killed his wife, and stated, “Killing others is never justice, no matter what kind of noble cause one upholds. I don’t want to kill, be it humans or something else.”
Most every action the humans take is an example of utilitarianism, as they believe that by eradicating the shiki, humankind will be saved. There is one very clear example of relativism, and that is the bartender Hasegawa. Hasegawa himself claims to be a relativist and during the shiki hunts, he refused to kill anyone but continued to help other humans kill the shiki. However, when the humans ran out of stakes and tied up the shiki to burn in the sunlight, Hasegawa took action and killed the shiki that were suffering because he wanted to put them out of their misery. His actions demonstrate relativism as he only acted based on what he believed to be “right” in the situation.
When a corpse rose and became a shiki, they were told that they'd "gained the privilege to kill”. Megumi used to be a timid girl who was afraid to stand up for herself, but as soon as she became a shiki and had the power to kill, she became an entirely different person. She was able to express her wants more readily, and she was motivated more by her own self-interest. When people gain power to do things that are forbidden, they change into entirely different people. However, the tyrannical rule of the Kirishiki's and the fear of being killed again is what kept the shiki in check from destroying themselves.
IV . History vs. Hollywood
Seishin’s book in progress—Shiki—is about a man who used to live as a heretic on a hill under God’s control. One day, out of despair, the man killed his younger brother, not because he hated him, but because “His younger brother was a point of contact between him and the world, and at the same time, a point of contact between him and his despair.” The older brother was exiled from the village and began to wander the wilderness, but his dead younger brother followed him as a shiki. The younger brother had played a good man to gain the favor of God, and in doing so, he suppressed himself and hated the hill. He had wanted his older brother to kill him to set him free from God’s control. When the younger brother disappeared, the older brother called out his name, and realized it was his own name. “He did not have a younger brother! He was the one who killed. He was also the one who was killed. The younger brother was born from his despair, and, due to that despair, he killed and shed the blood of his younger brother—himself.”
Sunako compares Seishin’s story to that of Cain and Abel in the Bible, and Seishin asks Sunako if she is Abel. The shiki are born out of humankind’s despair, yet they are one and the same. The shiki represent the darkness and selfishness of humankind, and the desire to be free from reasoning, logic, and the higher power. In the end, “Life and death are two sides of the same coin, good or bad”. Sunako says: “Death is terrible for anyone. Young or old, good or evil, it’s all the same. Death is impartial. There is no especially terrible death. That’s why death is so fearsome. Your habits, your age, your personality, your wealth, your beauty… They are all meaningless in the face of death. Since it destroys all of these, death is terrible.”
A fire ended up burning everything, erasing everything that had happened at Sotoba. The Kirishiki family was mostly eradicated along with the rest of the shiki, but Sunako managed to escape with Seishin. No matter how much effort humans put in to eradicate the darkness of the world, the realist views of human nature prevail. If everyone was born inherently good then wickedness wouldn’t exist in the first place—unless you choose to believe in a devil created by God himself. In that case, even God has his Abel.
Abe A., Inoue T., Ozaki N., & Isono H. (Executive Producers). (2010). Shiki [TV Series]. Daume; Siren Visual.
Ono, F. (2013). Shiki (Sinnesspiel, Trans.). Shinchōsha. (Original work published 1998).
There’s smth I think people forget when discussing the “age gap” in AoaB and that’s that - much like in real life, while age gap marriages are accepted, *it’s not exactly normal or well seen*.
Most marriages are within an age group, and off chances were they stray quite far (Damuel and Philine; Brunhilde and Sylvester), people DO call out that it’s weird. With the caveat being that, sure it’s weird, but due to political and utilitarian reasons *there is no other choice*.
FerMyne are different in that: their age gap is rarely (if at all) acknowledged by ANYONE. Even though, by the society standards, it is still weird.
The reason? Oh yeah they’re both crazy and weird.
Like, Rozemyne is already considered a monster for just keeping up with Ferdinand. And Ferdinand is the only one who can keep Rozemyne in a leash. The age gap and the inherent weirdness in their relationship is BY FAR the least weird thing abt them.
Make no mistake, had they been literally anything else than the Saintess/Avatar of Mestionora/Youngest Aub and literally Lord of Evil I-Picked-A-Fight-With-God-And-Won, people would absolutely be criticizing and wondering about the age gap
So…did the incubators always look like that? Like cute beings? Surely they slowly figured out young girls would respond more to a fluffy creatures words as truth then potentially any other original form they had.
It’s also funny to imagine they used to be hulking beings. They also totally went over test trails to find out what was the most “cute” according to all the young girls they contracted.
I got into the party by fronting that I had more money than god.
The security was no joke. They had anti-duplicity wards on the doors (and windows) and had even sprung for the summoning of avarice demons to vet the guests.
The wards were the easy bit to bypass. You just have to find a version of what you're saying that’s true, then fix that iteration of reality firmly in your mind. You've got to really live in the world where it's true.
So when I said “I have more money than god”, what I meant was: I may be flat broke, but I have *even less* god.
The avarice demons are harder to fool. I had to invent a whole new cryptocurrency on the fly to spoof their plutolocation. Thankfully ‘manacoin’ relies on your personal magic reserves, not data centres, so I didn't have to feel bad about climate change.
There was a lot of wealth in the party. The average magician was loaded with high-end enchanted gems and rare esoterica.
If I'd been content to pick a few pockets, I could have fixed my ‘broke as hell’ problem in short order.
(It's quite funny we say ‘more money than god' and ‘broke as hell’, right? You'd expect it to be the other way round, as gods aren't often concerned with wealth and demons will insist on being paid.)
Sadly, I wasn't here to solve the ‘no money’ side of my problems.
I scribbled together this image to get my bearings on this dichotomy between what has been perceived as Dark Magic all this time, and what actually is Darkness Magic.
I'll transcribe it on the next page.
Light is obvious. The purest form of Light Magic, unabated by trying to fall into a naturally occurring element. It is, quite possibly, the original form of Light Magic when the universe started, before elementals coalesced with it and created the subtypes of Light Magic listed below.
Dark is... confusing, at first. Everyone believes it to be the opposite of Light, and therefore an evil element. It's a preconceived notion, based on the appearance it takes when it manifests. I believe, from study of "Dark" Magic equipped Magical Girls, it is the manipulation of gravity and the bending of space-time. Like a black hole. Light at the edge of the singularity. But not Darkness.
Fire is obviously the nuclear force of heat, amplified. Harnessing the power of the stars themselves. Fire can be on the knife edge of bringing great destruction or sustaining life.
Nature is the power of growth, change, and simple celled lifeforms.
Aqua is the flow of water. The use of water to, like Fire, sustain life, and with enough force, damage.
What is classified as Void, I believe to be Kinetic Energy. Motion based energy that does not fall into any previously established elemental presets, but is still necessary for the continued survival of life. Charging an object with Kinetic Energy provided by Light Magic would allow it to move at damaging speeds, while the user would be unable to move that fast (or move an item that fast) on their own.
That leaves Darkness Magic, faculties of the mind, manifesting in the real world by sheer force of will and determination. Memory is the element I am able to use, though if I chose it subconsciously, or it chose me, I cannot say. Memory is fluid, like Aqua. As a power, it can be used to remember, or make someone else remember, an experience or feeling as if it was happening to them all over again. As an element, it flows out from the mind, then crystallizes like ice into a predetermined shape.
The rest... well, I'm still unsure what they are, or even if they somehow line up with Light-based Magic in the same way. But I do know this, in Darkness Magic, there is symmetry, and every power has a paradoxically equal/opposite power. The obvious response to that would be to think there is a Darkness ability of Forgetting, anthesisis to Memory, but I don't believe it works quite that way...
During my time away kinda recently I was working on a quick "shotgun" transformation animation. I figure it's like what a person would see in real-time as a Magical Girl was transforming... or when a quick transformation is needed with no frills.
This isn't it. This is actually my second attempt, which I don't entirely think is much better, but I feel more comfortable showing it off.
Noriko's transformation, quick style!
Sound design is also important, and because of her Darkness based origins, I wanted her transformation (even the quick one) to sound very ominous and foreboding. Almost like the Reaper horn from Mass Effect.
In Noriko's experience... which may be completely different from literally every other Magical Girl in existence...
She's only been a Magical Girl for around eight months. During that time, she's died a couple of times. Whether she succumbs to injury, or dies outright from complete obliteration/destruction of her Soul Gem, she always ends up in the same place.
A mindscape, an expanse of nothingness as far as the eye can see. Time moves differently there. She's not stuck there for long, but in the physical world, it can take as long as two weeks for her body and Soul Gem to reform, completely unscathed.
Does her body reform older? Or in the same cellular state it was in before she expired? What happens to the... leftovers, of her old body, if any?
Her wish granted her an immortality, more than she bargained for, sure. Her intent was only to survive to see her mission fulfilled. It could backfire if that becomes impossible. Then what? Will she age? Will she stay 14 until the natural death of the universe?
It's... best not to think of those scenarios. Keep moving forward, and complete the mission.
She's only ever so slightly miffed that she cannot compete in the 100 floors thing. Not for the money, she has no use for cash of that scale. But the experience. The weapons and techniques she could learn...
There are TWO count em TWO headcanons about Noriko that I will neither confirm nor deny as being true but I'm totally gonna let exist out there.
In a previous timeline before Rebellion, she was in fact contracted by Kyubey as a Light Magical Girl, but Witched out and became Elsa Marie. I mean, have you SEEN her Witch's Kiss?
2. Her best friend became a Magical Girl and then subsequently disappeared. Noriko, upon becoming a Magical Girl herself, was unaware that she had started to forget details about her lost Best Friend, including her name, appearance, voice. Why? Because her Best Friend is Namae/Name from Magia Exedra.
Again, do I CONFIRM these? Noooo. Do I DENY them? Noooo.
She sprung up from bed in the coldest of cold sweats.
What was that? What the hell was that?
A world gone cold. Not in peace, but in disaster. A world gone mad. And in the sky... That laugh...
She rushed to her bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. She felt sick. It took more than fortitude to keep her food down. Splash. Splash. Splash.
But the water couldn't undo what she saw.
She wiped her face and looked up from the sink to the mirror, only to see it... shattered. And somehow, in front of the cracks, was a creature of shadow with round white eyes staring back. By now, she knew what it was.
"Was... was that you? What the hell did I just see?"
Her head filled with whispers, until the whispers became a unanimous voice.
~~"A future. One more common than the rest. We extracted it from an irregular Magical Girl."~~
"But what was that, Incubator?"
~~"Despair. The final form of those Magical Girls. Another tragedy we will prevent."~~
In a blink of an eye, the creature, and the cracks on her mirror, had vanished. It was in pristine condition again, or maybe it always was.
As if she needed more motivation to complete her mission. Stopping the slow, painful death of the universe was one thing. Ending the vicious cycle perpetuated by the other Incubators was another. But that...
Whatever "Witches' Night" was, she would not let it fall again.
I'm trying to get a better feel for your AU :0 Would the entelechy ever consider giving darkness magic to other girls, or is Noriko meant to be a "one and done" type of situation?
Certainly one and done from The Entelechy's point of view.
Noriko was chosen for a few reasons.
It's rare to find a girl with potential as a Magical Girl that hasn't been contracted by Kyubey, especially one that has MET Kyubey and NOT been contracted, and one that already has built up resentment towards it.
Darkness Magic itself isn't emotionally driven the same way Light Magic is. It's the power that propelled the Incubators to be the highly advanced enigmatic race that they are. They do not want to give that away freely.
Noriko can't be killed traditionally, but if she's stopped in a way that prevents her from ever working towards The Entelechy's goals... then maybe it would look to a new girl.
There are other facets of Darkness Magic, like elements, but not. Noriko only controls one of them. The Incubators have access to all of them. There's certain things we've seen them do that were done using Darkness. Inflicting the memory of pain on Sayaka to make a point, linking girls together through telepathic communication, possibly the creation of the Lighthouse (ironic name) from memories of past girls.
One day, I'd like to explore them and give them unique names and traits.
So as a TL;DR to answer your question, The Entelechy doesn't see any other girl as a viable candidate, to regular Incubators it doesn't serve their ends of staving off heat death because Darkness doesn't "Witch out", but this is all under the current events of the AU and could always change in the future.
