gozyuger: the story about humanity, even though hardships
if you're a follow me for my non-sentai stuff, hello caliburn, I hope this interests you to watch the show.
I've been loving Gozyuger, something I wasn’t expecting when going into the show, but I feel like episode 15 is the episode that truly made me love it. Gozyuger is a story of what makes us human, and, in turn, how that can’t be taken away. Let me explain;
To get why Gozyugers is an exploration of humanity, you first need to understand what Gozyugers is about. Gozyuger, in the simplest terms, is a god governed battle royal to activate your wish. Everyone who is chosen by Tegasword, the god himself, is to have a wish that you’re willing to risk everything to be active (for the most part, we get to that). But, a key part of this battle royal is that everybody who is part of it realizes they have a power that they can use to help and protect others, and will put that first. This element shows an important part of the universal warriors and our main characters down the line, even though they all have their own wants and dreams, they are still humans at the end of the day. The wishes are the core of what the Gozyugers are about; it is what drives all our characters and what defines them, but it is also what makes them different from the villains.
One of the new things we learned in this week's episode was that the No1s are AI, they generate, and the things they number 1 at, is false truths. We see time and time again that the No1s can’t truly understand their concepts and have to use tricks and deserve humans by preying on their wants, almost like a parasite. The No1s are meant to be a poor reflection of the universal warriors. when the universal warriors are humans with their own wants and dreams fighting for those dreams, the No1s are beings with an agender using others' wants to activate that, just like AI.
And that kinda the point isn’t it, the villains in Gozyuger are all trying to take away the humanity of others, they lack the true passion that makes us human. Let's talk about tagajune and Kuon, and theming.
Both June and Kuon use love to use others as a form of control, so it makes perfect sense that to them, marriage, a moment meant to show how much you truly love someone, is used as the ultimate form of abuse. Taking away consent.
Yeah, I was edging towards it this whole time, but let's talk about this. As I mentioned, to June and Kuon, love is a tool for abuse, and in episode 15, that element is on full display as put characters decided to twist some of the purist ways to show love as the ultimate for abuse.
Let's start with June because she is simply way more straightforward to break down here. In the scene I have screenshot above is June raping tegasword. This whole scene, this whole fight, is sword fighting desperately to get away from June, to not get married, because to get married is to end the world. But I feel like the deeper interpretation of this and how it relates back to the fact that June is an AI. This scene is AI wanting to take humanity's passion, the thing that makes us human, our wishes. In this scene, an AI and abuser finally get what they wanted: control and human passion. In that scene, humanity (sword) is weak and can no longer fight back, so they take it, no longer being able to fight back, and in the end, it creates a truly destructive force. This scene relates the two elements the villains represent (ai and abuse) and connects it in a way that, depending on which element you are focusing on, is seen as taking away what makes you human. And well, June part is way more AI heavy, Kuon is way more abuse heavy.
I feel like Ms. Sweet Cake and Mr. Shining Knife describe him well here:
So, to explain the proposal scene, Kuon doesn't want to marry Hoeru, he is saying he wants to control him, treat him like another toy, because that is the only way he can get power back into his own life, by controlling others. And I feel like this scene is the perfect embodiment of that:
To wear a ring on the right index finger symbolizes your drive and independence, so when Kuon takes Hoeru's ring, he is literally taking away Hoeru's independence and putting him under his control.
But to bring this all back to how Gozyuger is a story about humanity, Gozyuger is a show that shows humans are multifaceted, complex beings with their own wants. The story as a whole is two different conflicts: one to test our humanity in the form of our universal warriors, and the other to show that no matter what, you are still human in the form of Braidan.