How Can We See Things Differently?
I believe anime has made me more liberal than any material I’ve ever consumed or experienced. My go-to recommendation for a skeptic revolves around a dystopian future (one that uncannily resembles our current reality) where the idea of justice is radically different from how we know it. It is a world where every nook and cranny is observed with surveillance that has the ability to determine the threat level of each citizen. The enforcement of justice anticipates mental state for signs of criminal intent. Anyone harbouring even the slightest ill-will is subjugated with lethal force with the utilitarian goal to rid of all evil. What if the system is corrupt to begin with? What if justice is different from how we know it? Psycho-Pass taught me how to question. It taught me how to doubt.
It may very well be the case that we’re all brainwashed into docility and conformism, and we simply accept our place in a stagnant, ovine society governed by the ungoverned.
As I take another step into the world of anime, I realised it was more than just cartoons and special effects. Given its nature, you may think it has less of a human touch. But nothing could be further from the truth. I cried so hard for a story of a girl who ironically taught a gifted boy to play the piano again. It had no jaw dropping adventure filled with dangerous dragons or warrior-like wizards. It was a simple story of how music is more than playing each note perfectly, and that ideal is parallel towards rationalizing every single life decision. It was so simple, so pure — it broke my heart. It was so hauntingly beautiful that every April ever since I completed the anime, I would listen to the entire official sound track. Again and again. You may have guessed it, it is titled Your Lie In April. The show is a classic example of how anime is a literature of ideas, of hypotheticals and speculative leaps.
The reason why anime has cultivated such a culture on its own is due to the ability to represent the same arbitrariness, unfairness and cruelty differently as compared to our normal lives.
Anime raises our consciousness, whether it is advocative or cautionary, that status quo is not necessarily natural or right. It could be entirely different depending on how we’re born as a different gender, at a different time, in a different place. The genre challenges us to be empathetic and imagine beyond the status quo. It pokes at the reflexive insight of that could be me. Tokyo Ghoul introduces the world of ghouls existing alongside humans. You’re either a human, a live stock, waiting to be devoured by bloodthirsty savages. Or, you’re a ghoul masquerading as humans in society while you satisfy your thirst for human flesh. Then comes a boy named Ken Kaneki. A shy, bookish college student who serendipitously got pushed into the dark depths of the ghouls’ inhuman world. In a twist of fate, he begins his new, secret life as half a ghoul, half a human.
He must find a way to integrate into both societies.
Kaneki is the metaphor that inculcates open-mindedness and humility in face of difference. He is the metaphor of a solution to a limited perception. Like you and me, he is fearful of the new, fearful of difference, fearful of who and what he is going to be, especially in the eyes of the society. As we peer through the eyes of Kaneki, we are able to catch a glimpse of ourselves from the outside. Our beliefs might be a delusion. Our customs might be arbitrary. Our values might be someone else’s.
By virtue of the anime, we experience an episode of defamiliarization where we see the invisibly familiar through a vividly strange lens.
It is ultimately about the possibility that things don’t have to be this way. Boku dake ga Inai Machi (Erased) emphasizes on the idea of ‘Revival’ where the protagonist finds himself sent back several minutes before any tragedy strikes. Time and again, he revisits the same occurrences only to discover that he needs to see things from a different perspective. If not he’ll just be stuck in the powerful yet mysterious loop. However, it is apparent to us, as observers, that there are many blindspots we often miss out on. More importantly, it is learning that sufficient intelligence or possession of sufficient information may not necessarily lead us all to the same conclusion.
The crux is about introducing multiple points of view so that we can understand where each perspective is originated from.
While anime remains outsider, irresponsible and young, there is some good to this phenomenon. Koe no Katachi (A Silent Voice) is a prime example. While the film’s worldwide sales totaled to approximately $33 million, it fares way much lesser than any other mainstream blockbuster. I believe the reason for its popularity (or the lackthereof) is due to the fact that not everyone is a fan of possibility, much less the possibility of the truth.
As beautifully crafted as it is powerfully written, the film looks at teen bullying from a soberingly hard-hitting perspective that is uncommon for the animated medium.
Shouya Ishida, sweepingly symbolized as the school rebel, was weirded out by his new classmate, a deaf transfer student named Shouko Nishimiya. Looking for ways to beat boredom, she ended up as his target of ostracizing and bullying. Unaware of the effects of his thoughtless actions, he picked on her — every single day. Finally, Shouko left school. Justice spoke, and now he became the target of bullying by his class. Fast forward five years later, by the ill fate of chance, Shouya, now a third year high school loner, met Shouko again. What would you do if the person you hated the most, the person who hurt you the most, asks for your forgiveness? Not everyone can accept it, which is what makes this film, and many other animes like this one, a true eye-opener.
