wip wednesday, or, as i like to call it, thursday
sharing some of the most recent project i've been tinkering with which is the omusubi/season 3 essay:
On May 1, 2019, a new emperor takes the Chrysanthemum Throne. The Heisei era died in April, with imperial year Reiwa 1 beginning the day after Akihito abdicated. No emperor has voluntarily relinquished himself of his role in over 200 years, apparently so unprecedented that the Imperial Household Law of 1947 - which dictates plans of succession - had no legislation covering this situation.
令和 (Reiwa) is unique in that it’s the only era name that comes from Japanese originated text as opposed to the tradition of using classical Chinese texts, something prime minister Shinzo Abe publicly emphasized. 令和 is officially read as "beautiful harmony." As you can imagine, people disagree over this interpretation. Taken from the Asahi Shimbun:
However, some experts said the first Chinese character, 令 (Rei), today is most widely thought to mean "order," ”command," and "dictate," with an authoritarian tone. Historians and experts on the monarchy noted that an 1864 era name proposal of "Reitoku" using the same first character was rejected by the Tokugawa Shogunate, which said it sounded like the emperor was commanding Tokugawa. "The name sounds as if we are ordered to achieve peace, rather than doing so proactively," Kazuto Hongo, a University of Tokyo historian, said on TV Asahi. Yoshinori Kobayashi, a conservative cartoonist who has written books on Japanese emperors, said the character "Rei" portrays "the people kneeling down under the crown. Its meaning, after all, is a command of a monarch or a ruler. ... It is inevitable that 'Reiwa' gives a somewhat cold impression." [x]
Circling back around, one of the morals in S3E1 is: if you're going to be an asshole in public, then there's going to be public consequences. When there's no consequences, the assholes won't ever go away. Sticking a pin in this idea for later, what if that's sometimes a good thing?
Why are the sextuplets assholes? While we could list off answers forever, they all ultimately boil down to why (in part) the sextuplets are also virgin NEETs. Unabashedly, they're terrible people. And remember, nothing is sacred. The fact they're Not in Education, Employment, or Training, is a huge part of promoting the characters in such a manner. I don’t think I need to explain why this is clearly a dig at how such a capitalistic society values your productivity - both as a consumer and as an employee - and the fact that the conceptual NEET who engages in playtime isn’t the worst person to be. So, if this is a gag comedy anime that relies on relatability - on an audience that’s to, on some level, sympathize with these guys, what about this NEETdom is relatable?