Today, as I strolled to the train station, I found myself impressed with how quickly Japan’s managed to rebuild itself. Less than twenty years ago, Japanese cities were places of lawlessness and corruption: Their streets were stained with mildew and spilled blood, and violent crime was so common in this time that it was no big deal to step over a dead body or two on your way home. The 1990s in Japan were an orgy of decadence and ultra-violence; it’s truly a miracle that the country managed to pull itself together.
Actually, those things never happened. Japan’s economy did crash– quite badly, too– but their whole world didn’t go with it. And yet you would totally believe it did, if you took the setting of Kara no Kyoukai/The Garden of Sinners at face value.
I can’t remember where I read this (if you know, please comment– I’d love to give credit where due), but there was a screening of the first Kara no Kyoukai film in America, and the booklet distributed to audience members described the mid-nineties setting as a crucial point. Japan was at its lowest point since the end of World War II, everything thought to be dependable was crumbling like dust, and old assumptions about how the world worked were turning out to be useless.
And, of course, in the world of the film, magic is 100% real. It seems like an unrelated addition, but I don’t think it is at all.
You could say it’s kind of like a Japanese take on magical realism, even though that isn’t strictly correct. Actually, it’s crucial to realize that the economic collapse of the 90s has been magnified in Kara no Kyoukai to an apocalypse, and that the resulting effect on the characters is collectively post-apocalyptic– that is, it’s post-traumatic.
There’s this fantastic essay by Julie Rauer about Japanese pop art as an expression of the massive trauma engendered by atomic warfare. It’s haunting food for thought (and features a cool anatomical diagram of Gamera, among other things), but I’ll just quote what I consider the most salient part:
“Twenty-two years after the mass obliteration of souls, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, monstrous deformities persisted in the Japanese psyche—tragically splintered by defeat, subjugation, humiliation, and inconceivable horrors—unable to command a return to a unified monolithic persona, the ordered cerebral imperative and societal dignity of pre-nuclear innocence.”
Whether or not it was intentional, I believe the world of Kara no Kyoukai– the dark decade that never was– reflects this same kind of anxiety and fragmentation, or rather it continues those feelings. Whether it’s lives or livelihoods being obliterated, the horror of modern life is in full swing.
And in such a desperate, mad world, the setting asks us, is it not impossible to believe that anything could happen now? Even magic?
August 8, 2009 at 5:46 pm
You know, I’ve never looked at Kara no Kyoukai in that particular light before- it’s really refreshing to see someone with a take like this every now and then.
You could say what Kara no Kyoukai does better than most is depicting the fantastic in such a way as to explain the mundane- or in this case, human.
Notable examples in Kara no Kyoukai include the pursuit of knowledge, vengeance, pride, lust and more.
I personally have no idea which point in the saga you’re at, but I can safely say this is some really delicious food for thought.
August 9, 2009 at 4:08 am
Reminds me of how art historians explained the Dada movement in Europe post-WWI.
On a related note, as I’ve been learning more about the circumstances surrounding the Bomb (my good friend did a long research paper on Truman’s deplorable decision), I’ve found myself disgusted more and more by the effects of the bomb in the world at large. In effect, the shockwave of that first explosion at Hiroshima continues to push world history.
Strangely, I was at a hermitage/monastery in Big Sur last Thursday for the Feast of the Transfiguration, and the priest celebrating Mass pointed out it was the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. Interesting how they coincide. They’re like warped reflections–in one, the luminous revelation of a man as God, in the other the luminous revelation of men as ungodly powerful monsters.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/hiroshima_64_years_ago.html is a good collection of photographs relating to the Hiroshima bombing.
Come to think of it, the bomb changed the Jesuits because if Pedro Arrupe never witnessed it first-hand and administered to the victims, he would have never brought the lessons of his experience to his fellow Jesuits as the Superior General. As Superior General he shifted the main mission of the Society towards “faith that does justice.” And it’s never looked back.
August 9, 2009 at 7:36 am
Art as a reflection of societal concerns isn’t something new, and I think justin above draws a good comparison to the Dada movement. It’s interesting how so much of the anime we watch is all disaster-based. Granted, disasters make for some compelling storytelling, but the sheer volume of disaster scenarios coming out of Japan is staggering that I wonder just how much of the dropping of the atomic bomb has ingrained itself upon Japan’s consciousness.
I guess this explains Japan’s political posturing in recent times in trying to assert themselves as the economic power in Asia. One can only wonder what sort of posturing would be possible if they had a fully-functioning military.
January 21, 2010 at 11:37 am
[...] already spilled some ink about anime’s various messages of disillusionment (“Revisiting the Post-Apocalypse: Kara no Kyoukai’s Magic Dystopia”) and non-conformity (“Toradora! and the Dilemma of Masculinity”), but I believe it bears [...]