Kaiba (Masaaki Yuasa, 2008)

[Mr Sausage]

Based on the first episode, I was not expecting the show to have such a well of sadness in it.

I also wish more people were participating. This seems like something the forum would really love.

[knives]

Sorry I’ve been remiss in talking it up. Had a family gathering and just general business of fatherhood. Some stray thoughts, ep. 4 is easily my favorite as the way it plays with aesthetic is quite fun. The brothers’ design is weirdly reminiscent of a dream to me and the overall way it works with the theme is great.

What the later episodes especially with Gel do well to me is look at the flip side of the situation of what a displaced mind does to a body. I imagine ep. 6 is one that’s meaningful to many trans people for example.

To Sausage’s comments to ep. 5 I feel that the series knows the capitalist metaphor is attached to this story, but they’re only cursorily interested in that. Rather than leaving it as a useless appendage though they confront it with almost a Dadaist sense of humour making it uneasy in a way I find more exciting then if the show played things straight.

My rewatch is also only up to episode 7 as well, so I hope others can jump in and have fun with this series. If a whole series is too much for some people though fortunately Yuasa has made tons of great movies that are widely available. His latest, Inu Oh, might be of particular interest as it uses the development of Noh to examine the intersection of Japanese identity and modernity in way reminiscent of, but more successful than Samurai Champloo.

[Michael Kerpan]

Based on the first episode, I was not expecting the show to have such a well of sadness in it.

Honestly I managed to forget the extent which sadness was a central element of this.

[Michael Kerpan]

knives -- Inu Oh is indeed great -- but it seems even better when preceded by Yamada's (and Science Saru's) Heike monogatari.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 8Show

After so much picaresque, now we have a dense and over complicated plot line. I'm still digesting it, but it seems that the current Warp is a clone or copy of the one, true Warp (our hero), and that indeed there are thousands of Warp clones across the universe. Even the ideologically rigid One Mind Society that opposes Warp is led by three defective Warp clones. Popo has edited Neiro's memories (I think), and now is in a relationship with her. He also changed bodies once when young, contrary to the society's ideology; he has/had a mother who sold her body to support him, transferring her memories into robot; as a child Popo dreamt of being king. On top of all that, it seems the ultimate villain will be more existential, the memory-eating plant, Kaiba. That's a lot.

My favourite part was this beautiful ascent up into an ancient factory that collects memories. The music is strange and melancholy, and accompanied by colourful, abstract designs. It's short, but mesmerizing.

[knives]

The episode, and to a lesser extent the next, have a ton of plot, but I don’t find the particulars necessary to parse out. It’s a bit more like getting caught in the sweep of the individual moments and how with what preceded them they make me feel.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 9Show

The anti-capitalist allegory has broken down. Warp, tho' admittedly a tyrant, changed for the better after meeting Neyro, implying that it's not the stratified predatory system that's keeping everyone in thrall, it's just that the tyrant wasn't kind enough. At the same time, the revolutionary element has become totalitarian villains led by frauds (both the three Warps and now Popo, who freely violates the society's ideals for personal gain). Politically, this is a less interesting development. But that's fine. It works nicely into the themes of identity, with Warp having to embrace his better nature, and Neyro having to uncover her authentic self after years of ideological manipulation. There's an intense moment where Neyro collapses after shooting Warp and declares in a panicked voice that she can't stop her tears from flowing. She's been so removed from her own emotions that she doesn't even recognize them, thinks they're somehow a sign of brokenness.

The character organization is simplistic (flawed-hero, romantic interest, villain), but emotionally intense.

[Michael Kerpan]

It’s a bit more like getting caught in the sweep of the individual moments and how with what preceded them they make me feel.

Sort of like a series of thematically (somewhat) interconnected poems (or musical tone poems).

[knives]

SpoilerShow

Yes, I also think to Sausage’s most recent point the series has been deliberately and gradually moving away from the political metaphor to a more personal view of what memory means for being in particular what several memories do for being several beings. That’s perhaps why the Kaiba/Warp dichotomy eventually comes to be enclosed within one person. The act of remembering and forgetting are tied together absolute with being.

[Mr Sausage]

Yeah, it's like the earlier episodes were giving a much larger view of this world, including the socio-economic conditions that affected its characters lives, but now that it's entering the final stretch and focusing on the main characters, that larger context is taking a backseat to more pressing interpersonal issues. The show is in some ways moving inward. It'll be interesting on a rewatch to see how much the episodes of the first half, with their different characters and worlds, dramatize the various themes and issues the main characters have to face in the last few, and draw out the ideas and emotions they inhabit.

[knives]

You can also see that clearly in the opening which has dropped the explanatory text focused on socio-economic issues in favor of scenes pertaining to the episodes.

[Michael Kerpan]

episode 9Show

Odd how by the end of the episode the protagonist is being referred to almost interchangeably as "Warp" and "Kaiba". We also learn the Warp contains an impossibly huge number of memories -- is it just that he has lived so long and been so many places and done so many things, either "personally" or through his many avatars? Or does he have lots of borrowed/stolen memories as well. He seems to have had copies of some of Neiro's memories, after all. And Hyo Hyo may hold even more (all?)

Did Warp cause the death of Neiro's parents? If so, will we ever learn why (having my doubts).... And how and why did Neiro die in the past -- aand how and why did she get "resurrected"?

Is it my imagination, or are we adding new mysteries faster than we are clearing old ones? No problem.

My general sense is that show, on rewatching, this show seems far less visually and conceptually "weird" than on my first viewing. It can only be 2 or 3 years since then -- but it seems so long ago. Ah! memories....

[Murdoch]

Jumping into this where I last left off...

episode 6Show

One thing I wanted to comment on was the concept of identities being altered by the bodies they possess. Sausage already discussed this but I wanted to touch on it as well The "muscled woman" warns Warp of his feminine body changing the way he acts. It brings up a compelling premise: how much of who we are is influenced by the body we inhabit, and would our selves change if we lived in a world where our bodies were interchangeable? How much of who we are is tied to our physical form? Taken to the extreme, would each person's identity veer toward the same general baseline given enough bodily changes between genders, ethnicities, sizes, etc.?

There's also the horrifying plant that consumes memories. The attack on the elderly woman and the reveal of her affair is the darkest moment of the series so far. There's an underlying sadness to this world, but that moment was the first time I felt an horror pervading it as well.

Hoping to catch up on more episodes

[Michael Kerpan]

Murdoch -- I thought it was touching to find out that "secret" had never been a secret at all....

[Murdoch]

It did help mitigate what felt like quite a cruel moment

SpoilerShow

since she is suddenly assaulted and incapacitated while her husband watches, and he then has to relive her affair first hand.

[Murdoch]

Episode 7 and 8 I'm still ruminating on. The plot is difficult to decipher, especially in these later episodes. I wanted to comment on the series' visuals once again. The bold lines, colors and character design is unlike anything else in the medium of the same era. It reminds me of Tezuka's work, albeit more abstract. It's creative approaches to the medium like this or FLCL that push the boundaries of their art form and make me appreciate what anime has to offer.

[Michael Kerpan]

It reminds me of Tezuka's less commercial work -- like Tale of a Street Corner and Jumping.

PS -- I just found something I had never encountered before == Tezuka's collaboration with Isao Tomita on an adaptation of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o5SfQ_SeXc .

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 10Show

A flashback episode finally explaining how the series started where it did. Much is explained, from Warp/Kaiba's double name, to the hole in his chest, to his memory loss, to Neyro's odd state.

Warp is very much not a hero. Tho' he reconstitutes Neyro after she is killed, he alters her memories, ostensibly to rid her of her anxieties, but reeking of more selfish motives. This feels like an enormous violation, one in keeping with the puritanical, murderous ruler we see ruthlessly ordering the deaths of politicians who show some moral failing or other.

The show does perfectly represent something I don't often see shows tackle: that people who've lived under enormous trauma can often relate concerning, awful stories about their pasts in a matter-of-fact fashion, as tho' it were normal or understandable, or just with an affect that would strike anybody else as divorced from the actual weight of the events. So Warp relates a hideous and sad event from his past, how his mother and father separately tried to murder him. Neyro is horrified, but Warp can't imagine why, it's just the way things were. This rings so true that the sadness of the moment is doubly weighted.

Warp, tho' indestructible from the outside, can be consumed from the inside, hence the hole in his chest. He doesn't elaborate on this, but one can assume he can be consumed by loneliness, isolation, and a lack of love. Unless he meant it quite literally, and his mother poisoned him, driving the slow rot.

[knives]

I think the figurative is made literal here vis a vis your last point as will be proven in the finale.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 11Show

Quite a blood bath. The amount of main characters murdered in cold blood, one after another, is a lot to take. And the story-telling is both complicated and oblique. I can't say I understand exactly what the four Warps were doing, why they kept creating new Popos to rebel, what the meat puppet was ultimately after, and how exactly the 'Cape' guy survived. The episode was a bewildering series of narrative maneuvers given little context or set-up. And that's fine--as others have aptly said, the show feels more like a fantasia on the themes of memory, identity, and the sadness of life. The bustling narrative works as one more bit of atmosphere, an onrush of information as we hurtle to a climax.

The stakes are now enormous: the entire underplanet is about to have its memories wiped, pseudo-Warp is busy destroying the memories of the universe, and Kaiba is coming to devour everything. The last words are how only 'Kaiba' (I'm assuming Warp) can save everything.

Popo's memories of his mother and their poverty were touching, but his dropping her memory cone right at the moment of triumph, and then descending into madness over it, felt contrived.

Episode 12Show

The opening narration reframes the socio-political theme in psychological terms: the human need for domination and hierarchy; the false and paradoxical idea that personal happiness is only achieved at the expense of others.

The pseudo-Warp is himself a product of loneliness, exploitation, and domination. A disposable unit who coveted the role he was never destined to fulfill, just temporarily inhabit. And yet Neyro realizes the value of even his memories, trying to save his life in an attempt to give Warp a sense of the value of life. The ending then expands into an abstract representation of Warp fighting his dark double, brought forth by a grotesque (mother resembling?) monster. Exactly what happens, I can't say; but the impression of Warp fighting himself and clinging to his ugly memories until love and connection floods him, bringing about renewal, is impossible to miss. It's a great pageant of emotion, movement, and light.

This was a terrific show. Thanks, knives, for the recommendation. I'm getting spoiled with all these fine animes.

[Michael Kerpan]

I hope to get to these last episodes by Tuesday. This was a show I had been meaning to re-watch for a while -- glad to have been prompted to do this.. As with Lain, I was amazed/impressed on first viewing -- but (also as with Lain), it is even better on re-watching.

[Michael Kerpan]

After all the sadness, that last episode is really quite moving. Not sure it makes "logical sense" -- but almost certainly it was not intended to. It does, however, make lots of "emotional sense" (and artistic sense too). This series really does feel more like a series of chained-together dreams -- some unpleasant, some happy -- more than a conventional story.

Episode 12Show

Did people catch the last tiny fragment of the story, seconds before the end of the credits, when Hyo Hyo "resuscitates" one last loveable character?

I like the way colors were used in a novel way (for this series) to create a pastel rainbow (more or less) of happy memories to overwhelm the many bad ones. It was interesting the way the memory of the "evil queen mother" got totally overturned and reversed. I must confess I had totally forgotten that.

Well, I definitely plan to buy this the next time it happens to go on sale. Defionitely an even more "essential" (for me) work than I realized....