Kaiba (Masaaki Yuasa, 2008)

[Mr Sausage]

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, June 5th


What we're watching::

-All 12 episodes of the anime series Kaiba, broadcast from April 10, 2008 – July 24, 2008.


How it works:

-Members new to the series can watch the episodes and record their thoughts and impressions as they go and comment on each other's posts to create a sense of a shared viewing experience. Old hands can comment on those posts or post their overall thoughts on the series.

-This discussion is spoiler-free. All spoilers should be spoiler tagged with a brief indication of what episodes are being discussed, eg.:

episodes 1 and 2Show

nani nani nani

The code for this is:

Code: Select all

[spoiler="episodes 1 and 2"]text[/spoiler]

[Mr Sausage]

Knives selected this anime series for the next round of the anime watchalong, starting next week. If you're wondering about availability, PM knives or Michael Kerpan.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 1Show

This was a weird experience. A young man, the audience surrogate I'm guessing, wakes up in a strange synthetic world, with a hole in his chest and a locket holding a picture of a mysterious girl. Soon, he's being chased around by strange beings that seem to steal people's brains in the form of conical 'chips'. These chips can be inserted back into your body, or even into a totally different body (one woman seems to've returned in the body of a blonde bombshell, which her boyfriend claims has done her attitude no good). The young man also seems to have a trusty steed that resembles an ostrich, who bails him out of trouble tho' he doesn't recognize the animal. The young man is obviously important, as the authorities (I guess) want him, while a resistance(?) group ferries him away. There's a lot of momentum in the episode, with a number of chases, tho' it does grind to a halt for a long passage of comedic exposition.

The story is a sci-fi one of class divide, with a planet where the rich live in the inaccessible stratosphere, and the rest live on the ground in this weird land of tunnels and caves. The rich have developed a way to preserve the memories of the dead, and use that to live forever, moving from body to body. Buying and selling either bodies or memories is evidently forbidden in the underworld. I'm guessing the show will be about the nature of identity and the need for connection, wrapped up in a traditional sci-fi plot within a bizarre world.

The art style is a cross between childlike and creepy, with with a world of weird, abstract designs that reminded me of The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T with its random bulbs, flat colours, and spacious architecture.

[knives]

I’m very excited for this one and the rewatch so far has turned a cryptic series into something more tangible. Sausage nails many of the main themes of the series well in his breakdown of the first episode, but what makes this not really an anime for absolute beginners is how it fuses those themes of identity onto the form itself. This is a meta series primarily in conversation with Osamu Tezuka who made a large variety of works from kid friendly Astroboy, whom the series borrows the look from to a biography of such figures as Hitler and the Buddha, and even pornography. Yuasa seems intent on fusing all of these sometimes contradictory aspects into one series. Sometimes even within the same shot.

The first episode is classic table setting, but from there it develops a pleasant episodic approach as Warp goes from place to place encountering different figures explicating the themes sometimes in a radically different style from the primary one.

Also, it has one of the best theme songs I’ve ever heard.

[Mr Sausage]

So what does the title mean?

[knives]

It is the name of the main character. It’s a traditional Japanese name. I’m not sure what exactly it means, but he also goes by Warp in the show.

[vsski]

Looking at the Japanese writing of the title and what I read about the show, Kaiba also refers to the hippocampus, the brain’s memory related organ.

[knives]

episode 2Show

On my first watch through this was the most confusing episode for me and left me with a hard time. Now, assuming Vanilla’s word is true, it’s a bit more clear. It also sets up better than the first episode the expectations of an episode in the series as while Alaina is a major actor in the big picture of the show in the episode other characters like Butter are more prominent. It’s also a pretty great revelation of how comedy and drama can be fused in the series. Butter’s plot reflects and is even tied to the smugglers as sexual freedom comes to be revealed as a desire connected to other feelings. Arguably Butter’s hedonism is part and parcel with his his mortality while the smuggler masturbates to death in an effort to be fulfilled. This all connects to identity and memory as the nostalgia of the smuggler seems to be her downfall.

[Murdoch]

Very excited for this. The art style is one of the most unique I've seen in the medium, especially after watching so many contemporary anime that follow a rather by-the-numbers approach to character design and animation. I watched a few episodes of this last year when it was streaming on Prime, but unfortunately didn't get to finish it before it was taken off the platform.

I loved its concept of body-swapping and transferred consciousness, it felt like a sci fi fairy tale fever dream with the diverse colorful humanoids populating each scene.

I'm also a big fan of the title song/opening (anime openings are an art form in and of themselves, that could be its own mini list project)

[Michael Kerpan]

So what does the title mean?

As far as I can determine, the word "kaiba" can mean either "hippocampus" or "walrus". My guess is that is more likely invoking associations with role of the hippocampus -- which is involved in forming, storing and processing memory. (So agreeing with vsski above).

[knives]

Very excited for this. The art style is one of the most unique I've seen in the medium, especially after watching so many contemporary anime that follow a rather by-the-numbers approach to character design and animation. I watched a few episodes of this last year when it was streaming on Prime, but unfortunately didn't get to finish it before it was taken off the platform.

I loved its concept of body-swapping and transferred consciousness, it felt like a sci fi fairy tale fever dream with the diverse colorful humanoids populating each scene.

I'm also a big fan of the title song/opening (anime openings are an art form in and of themselves, that could be its own mini list project)

It’s still on Amazon actually. I’m rewatching it through them.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 2Show

The episode is oddly sexual, with the girl changing brazenly in front of the hero; the hero accidentally entering the room while that one woman is in the throws of ecstasy (and, technically, fucking and being fucked by herself, which is quite a kink); Butter being sex mad and dating, among other people, a woman with impossibly large mammaries; and the guard making for himself some kind of sex doll, which he then jumps all over.

Knives, I like your comments about sex and death being intertwined, because everyone who engages in it either dies or is, in the case of the guard with the sex doll, a merchant of death. There's a lot of control connected with sex, too, either in the form of convention and tradition (Butter's human girlfriend has visions of settling down), or with masturbation being policed in a draconian fashion. Sex is a locus for themes of freedom and repression in a way that seemed quite 60s. But knives, I like how you suggest that the sex here makes no human connection. The one woman is essentially masturbating, and masturbating with such abandon that concern for anyone, even herself, is lost; and Butter is plainly uninterested in deeper connection, preferring the looseness and freedom of casual polyamory.

This brings me to the jarring switch in tones, where the comedy of the episode crashes into drama with a sudden public execution, indeed one where a flesh-and-blood human, ie. someone without a memory chip, is summarily executed, her soul floating away as a series of glowing eggs. I won't lie, the unannounced turn to brutality put me off, and I'm not sure the episode earned or ought to've chosen such a moment.

In terms of storytelling, I did love how little hand holding the show does. It explains everything eventually, but makes you put the pieces together yourself. So for long stretches the show seems impenetrable, and then suddenly you find your footing. It's brazen, to have such a complex intertwining plot, and then also choose a complicated mode of telling that makes the events strange and mysterious, forcing you to pay attention doubly. I like a show that risks alienation like this, especially if it plays fair like Kaiba.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 3Show

A melancholy episode of exploitation and class struggle. There are affecting stories of people whose economic circumstances force them to sell what's most precious to them, be it their body or, in the case of the step-mother, what is effectively their soul, ie. their knowledge of music and literature. Most affecting is when Warp peers into the returning memories of the step mother, and we see her regaining all her unhappy memories along with the good. It's laid on a bit thick, but is no less moving for it, especially since to that point she seemed a stereotypical evil step mother when she is anything but. The episode doesn't follow up on it, but does suggest the way the exploited can turn exploiters, with the excuses, compartmentalization, and cognitive distortions they use to accomplish it. Tho' there is also the implication that hardening yourself to help your family survive can make you turn back on yourself. The step-mother's purging of her memories in order to keep the family afloat seems to've alienated her from the very reasons she was even devoting herself.

If the previous episode was about disconnection from others in the pursuit of purely self-centred sexual pleasure, this one is more about the disconnection from ourselves, the way exploitative economic and social systems force the underclass to divide themselves from their bodies and their spirits, often when they are trying to be selfless or other-directed.

[knives]

SpoilerShow

Beautifully said and it gets at what I like about this episode. In a lot of ways it’s a typical Cinderella story, but really gets at the complex motivations behind that. Something you only alluded to that I found especially fascinating is the reflection of the mother’s physical sacrifice becoming a cyborg with that of our Cinderella and her ultimate decision.

I’m especially excited to hear what people (hopefully not just Sausage) have to say about episode four as it’s my favorite of the series.

[Michael Kerpan]

I've re-watched the first 2 episodes -- and am finding this as amazing and distinctive as I remembered it to be. I wonder to what extent this was not (partly) inspired by Tezuka's Dororo, which also featured an even more "incomplete" hero. However, whereas the hero in Dororo had to face monsters on his quest, Warp has to face monstrous social circumstances (even if they are personified to some extent). The extremely retro art style also seems to evoke Tezuka.

[Mr Sausage]

I'll be extending this for another week. It'll end on June 5th.

Episode 4Show

Another melancholy episode, this one about loss, regret, denial, and the beauty of memory. The grandma refuses to believe, that is remember, that her beloved has died, to the point of retreating into herself whenever it's mentioned. The memory of her younger selves force her to remember her beloved's death, and it's in that memory that she declares her beloved to be immortal. She conjures his memory then joins with it as she dies.

Running in parallel is the story of her grandsons, whose lives involve several kinds of connection. They were abandoned by their parents, a severed connection that they hope to symbolically undue by running away themselves. But in always looking outwards, they miss their connection to the world around them, the way that communities and relationships are created and shaped by their presence. They can't appreciate that their treasure lay in their family connections. In a complex gut punch, the two die in each other's arms, having achieved the escape they longed for in ways they did and did not expect. Joined in loss, they die together.

These stories of love and loss compel a flash of memory from Warp, of someone and the girl from the locket kissing. Warp's own memory shelves are empty, with his internal avatar fleeing with his memories from whoever enters. Like the grandma, Warp seems to've cut himself off from his own memories, tho' more radically.

[Michael Kerpan]

Eps. 3 and 4 are certainly packed with a lot of sadness. But, curiously, unlike the more recent Made in Abyss it doesn't feel exploitative (not quite the right word, but it will have to do). Things are not done to cause a certain degree of titillation from blatantly extreme cruelty. Interesting that the sadness of ep. 3 was more at a socioplotical level -- whereas that in 4 was very personalized.

[Mr Sausage]

For sure it's not reveling in other people's misery. Some stories pile on the suffering as a means to generate sentimental reactions, but Kaiba uses emotions like sadness to get at something else, either the nature of grief and memory or the workings of economic exploitation. You feel you're getting inside the characters and their situations rather than being made to feel this or that heightened emotion over them. There are cruel reversals, but they never feel like a twist of the knife. The end of ep. 4 is sad and pathetic, but also poignant and appropriate. I can imagine it being done poorly, a crass reveal to shock the audience, but Kaiba carries it off perfectly.

[Michael Kerpan]

I have to say that, on rewatching, this show is having an even stronger and more positive impact than on my first viewing. I think that is partly because I already have (more or less) digested its visual style -- and so am more focused on the story. (sometime anime reviewings have the opposite course).

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 5Show

The episode has a shift in animation style to something less polished and more, I don't know, jagged? Garish? It has more primary colour and semi-abstract character designs. The opening is an impressive bit of music and colour.

The socio-economic critiques return, with Patch, a talent under capitalism whose work was exploited and stolen, now seeking revenge by turning the system against itself by overfeeding it its own worst aspects. He seeks to alienate people from the world through a relentless creation of useless products to buy. As a consequence, the proliferation reduces the actual value of a given product, leading them to be endlessly discarded so they can be gathered by an enterprising capitalist and offered back to the populace as food or products. This is where the capitalist allegory breaks down, as the enterprising capitalist doesn't profit off this, he does it for free. So I'm not sure what to make of him or his role in the critique. He's lecherous, but ultimately helpful, someone with a sense of duty to others, and a lover of art. He's an odd figure in the episode, and I think that's for the best, as he keeps the episode from becoming a rigid, doctrinaire anti-capitalist allegory. As for the critique itself, it does seem reminiscent of Walter Benjamin's ideas in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, with the endless proliferation of new mass produced artworks reducing the value of any given creation.

Patch and Quilt's backstory is odd, with, again, a sadness as the undercurrent. A scientist seems to've found or made a robot of sorts who loves to make things, and then spends the years watching him perfect a companion until, on death's door, she chooses to preserve herself inside his creation, where they (literally) share the same vision. This is touching. I don't know what it means; I don't know how it fits into the critique (was the scientist the actual exploited and discarded one?), but maybe it's better that it doesn't. It exists as its own moving story in the narrative, a woman choosing to share her existence with her patchwork companion, a strange terrorist/artist living in a perpetual present.

Also, looks like Warp is the king of the universe, the controller of memories and ruler of the overworld, Lala. Unexpected. I like how Warp's story isn't the focus, just the structuring principle, with the show more interested in the people and worlds Warp encounters.

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 6Show

A wonderful mix of tones, from gentle comedy, to touching warmth, to frightening weirdness.

This show (or at least this episode) doesn't seem to be spiritualist or transcendental. It's actually rooted in the body and in materiality. The woman trapped in the large cyborg body speaks of her identity shifting and becoming lost in her new body, of its needs and instincts replacing or crowding out her natural wants and desires to the point where she has trouble knowing the difference. Gender identity is affected, too. One isn't simply a boy in a girl's body, one slowly becomes a girl while inhabiting a feminine body. Identity is not so set. This culminates with the old man declaring that, tho' his wife's memories, ie. her spirit, is gone, what matters is that she's still alive, that her body persists.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but it's weird that in Warp's locket picture, the girl looks angry and aggressive, even in mid-punch. But I was reminded because the girl in it appears to be a terrorist opposed to Warp.

Oh, and the memory eating plant is named Kaiba, which I don't understand. Weird scene where it makes a grotesque travesty of the memories it has just eaten.

[Michael Kerpan]

Ep/ 5 was a lovely, sad stand-alone episode (95% or so). I agree I don't know what its "significance" is -- in terms of external "theory" or internal story dynamics. Maybe just view it as a quasi-poetic (visual) interlude? I would note that this episode seemed to move amazingly quickly -- not that it was "busy" just that it was sufficiently engrossing to slow external time (perhaps).

P.S. Sometimes this series evokes Stanislaw Lem's stories (in MY mind, at least).

[Mr Sausage]

Episode 7Show

This is a striking episode. Not just the water planet, but the fall through/absorption into Gell's memories is wonderful in its semi-abstraction and beautiful music. And the party scene is joyous and psychedelic. A visual treat, this episode. There is some conceptual material, with the revelation that this is a city of the dead whose memories persist, and whose goal is just to keep up appearances, evidently not to get in the way of tourism (which they eventually abandon for revolution). But mostly the episode abandoned its larger conceptual apparatus and just let itself be a visually fascinating story with heart.

And just as I was beginning to tire of Vanilla's comic antics, the show goes and makes me feel for him. Not just the sadness behind his motivation, but his authentic bravery and selflessness at the end. He'd been a Pepe-le-Peu-esque asshole for much of the show, so I was surprised when Warp-as-Chronico began to consider, not so much loving him, but whether he would be someone the original Chronico would love, and even encouraged Vanilla to be more confident romantically. Warp-as-Chronico began to consider Vanilla as a person, and to wonder at bit at his/her own sense of sexuality. I also liked the symmetry in Vanilla being shot in exactly the place he shot Warp while Warp was in that big marshmallow body.

I think some of the overall plot is a bit lost on me, because I've been watching slowly and have trouble with faces (especially animated ones) and names. Is the girl trapped in the Gell body the one from the locket? Was she Warp/Kaiba's companion, but also fought and was killed by him? But a remnant or representation of her remains in Gell? If so, why would Warp be in love with her? This isn't a Total Recall plot, is it, with Warp/Kaiba being put undercover without his memories to ferret out the resistance, only to switch allegiances from his new experiences?

[Michael Kerpan]

Ep. 6 is another sad little story of love and lost memories -- focused on an elderly couple -- a singer and her husband (who is also her long-time street musician/accompanist). This episode has sad parallels to real-life -- in my case -- one of my best friends and his wife who suffers from sever Huntington's disease (and may or may not even really recognize him anymore, yet he visits her daily and she gets angry if he can't show up). It also seems this this little story echoes an important element of the main plot here (involving the protagonist and the person he seeks across the galaxy). And one Yuasa meta-aspect. The giant yellow goblin-esque investigator we see at the end is sort of a precursor of a highly important human (???) character we will encounter in Tatami Galaxy.

[Michael Kerpan]

Wow, ep. 7 was both a visual feast and really sad. Even though I have seen this before, I must say I am bewildered as to where this is going. But in a very good way. It seems i remember the impact (visual and emotional) more than the story (such as it is).

I think one can legitimately characterize this series as "surrealist". Story connections are definitely akin to those in dreams -- rather than conventional narrative fiction.

episode 7Show

Vanilla really did start out as quite a jerk, and stayed that way for a good while. But one did see that he began to be more genuinely fond and protective of Chroniko, at an increasing pace. Never expected to be sad to see him go. Not really sure just how he managed to save Chroniko -- but clearly he did so somehow.

Locket Girl clearly wasn't killed by Warp -- as she appears to have successfully completed her mission in the form of Gel. Chroniko/Warp seems to now know that Gel was her, right. But Locket Girl never quite figured out who Chroniko was "underneath" -- despite realizing that she probably knew that person.

Too bad so few people are re-watching.... (or otherwise commenting based on prior viewing.