We’ve talked noir. Now let’s talk cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is a term that gets thrown around a lot because it’s cool and sexy to call things cyberpunk. As such, I think people often misuse the label. Having said this, however, I think this episode of Un-Go is very cyberpunk. I’ve tried to define the genre in the past and it’s worth doing a quick recap. Cyberpunk isn’t just any story featuring a dystopian future and gritty technology; the literary movement to which the genre belongs encapsulates certain kinds of existential concerns:

Cyberpunk texts ask questions about what makes us “human” in a heavily corporatized, media-saturated world. How do we differ from higher forms of artificial intelligence? How do we distinguish objects, places, and experiences from their mediated copies? Where do we draw the boundaries between nature and technology? …

…the ontological anxiety underlying these metaphysical questions is intertwined with and expressed through social anxieties that arise from destabilization of identity markers such as race, gender and class in an increasingly multicultural, multiracial, and multisexual society. — Park

First, let’s examine the first question in the quoted passage: “How do we differ from higher forms of artificial intelligence?” The philosophical tug-of-war underpinning this episode’s climax deals with this very question. Komamori, previously thought deceased, is the creator of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence; his program can apparently replicate human thought. If this is true, what is really the difference between a RAI and a human being? Just the sordid matter of flesh and bones, right? Even so, Komamori doesn’t treat his creations as sentient beings. To him, they’re nothing but objects for which others can derive human pleasure.

There is, however, another level of irony and this is what makes this episode particularly clever. Through his abuse of his own creations, Komamori has rendered himself less human; he is less capable of understanding right and wrong than the artificial intelligence he created himself. At the heart of this conflict is thus the blurred notion of humanity. The RAI are essentially lifelike in every way but the flesh. In fact, you might even say that the real “robots” are those who exploit the RAI. Here’s a question to help illuminate my point: who’s more “programmed?” The RAI who can make decisions about right and wrong or a person who constantly feels the need to satiate his or her base desires?

This episode doesn’t just touch on what makes us human. Kazamori’s very existence is a contradiction of some important binaries. Kazamori is both man and woman: the masculine heir to Komamori’s fortunes — a direct contrast to the wimpish Fumihiko — but, at any given moment, a seductive feminine presence (see: the awkward encounter between Shinjuro and the doll in the car). Kazamori is also a brother to Mitsuko, but — when we see the RAI shell by Komamori’s side* — a sister to her at the same time. As human beings, it’s a given that we each have a biological sex. Gender, however, is an entirely different matter.

*By the way, isn’t it rather disturbing that Komamori’s companion looks suspiciously like his own daughter but younger? I’m glad the anime didn’t spell this part out and scream at the top of its lungs, “Komamori is an incestuous pedophile!” It’s a nice subtle touch that captures just exactly how far off into the deep end this guy has gone.

Gender is indoctrinated in us by society from the day we are born. Usually this is a slow process that we undergo from childbirth to adulthood. RAIs, however, presumably don’t get the luxury of a childhood. From the very start of their existence, a wealth of information is at their fingertips: how to be manly, how to be girly, etc. How confusing it must be, then, for a RAI to grapple with concepts such as its own gender identity? You might think that a robot wouldn’t and shouldn’t have such concerns, but why not?

Society has certain expectations for how its members should act. A RAI, supposedly capable of replicating human thought, must naturally have the desire to blend in — to become a part of the community around it. After all, this is how most (though certainly not all) of us feel; humans naturally seek out companionship. Even if a RAI is robotic and inorganic on the outside, if it’s truly human-like, it must also want to be accepted by others. Thus, a RAI must obey society’s norms and behavior. But what gender should it emulate? Should it be a boy or a girl? This ontological anxiety is pure cyberpunk.

I thought this was a strong episode that kept my interest from start to finish. I still wish the previous episode could’ve been stronger, but it’s done and over with. There’s still plenty of things to discuss. For instance, you could draw parallels between the exploitation of the robots with the current real dolls subculture that’s kind of a “thing” in Japan at the moment. I also kind of laughed when we finally saw what Komamori looked like.

There have been lots of shows lately where the plot is nigh unpredictable. As you watch these anime, you just have no clue what’s going to happen next. This week, Yuki and Yuno find themselves amidst a group of crazed cultists. We then cut to Ninth’s mysterious assailant doing hip thrusts in the air while wearing some a ridiculous costume. I dare anyone to say that they saw this coming. On a more serious note, however, when crazy shit gets trotted out week after week, I think I develop a bit of a tolerance to it.

Take Mawaru Penguindrum, for instance; at first, it was a huge surprise to me when Shoma got run over by a car. He’s one of the show’s main characters so what will this mean for the rest of the series? Unfortunately, when plots usually swing wildly, they also tend to shrug these developments off all too easily. Shoma’s accident didn’t mean anything in the long run; he instantly recovered the following day. This sort of thing happens over and over in Mawaru Penguindrum too. Oh, Yuri might rape Ringo? Well, no, she won’t. Stories like this drive me crazy because I feel as though crazy shit happens for the sake of crazy shit.

The typo is nevertheless apropos.

Mawaru Penguindrum is a bit of a mystery though. The audience is just as long as the characters in the anime so even though I’ve developed a tolerance to the show’s cliffhangers, I still want to see how everything turns out. Mirai Nikki shares Mawaru Penguindrum’s narrative strength and weaknesses without any of that mystery factor. I can’t predict what will happen next in Mirai Nikki, but I’m not exactly at the edge of my seat? Why? Because it just doesn’t feel like there will be any real consequences for the main characters. This little incident at the Sacred Eye compound — I’m sure Yuno will get Yuki out safely. Sixth will probably die, but who cares about her? We just met her.

My point is that no matter what trouble Yuki and Yuno find themselves in, there’s no way a completely life-altering consequence will come about at this early stage of the series. Much like how Shoma’s accident amounted to nothing even though he could’ve been written as a cripple for the rest of Mawaru Penguindrum. This problem actually reminds me a bit of a comparison someone made between Dexter and Breaking Bad. The former is a show about a serial killer trying to seem like a normal dad on the outside, but he constantly runs the risk of being found out. Well, guess what? Dexter‘s on its sixth season by now? I like the show, and it’s not as though absolutely nothing of consequence ever occurs. After all, the second and fourth seasons had some serious “There’s no going back” endings. At the end of the day, however, the show’s titular character doesn’t get caught and then it all gets very tiresome.

Breaking Bad, on the other hand, does a better job at actualizing the consequences of the main characters’ actions. The lead character, a poor high school chemistry teacher dying of lung cancer, starts cooking meth so that when he dies, his family will be financially secure. But like I’ve said, he’s a goddamn high school chemistry teacher; he’s got no idea (at first) what it’s like to “break bad.” There are actually consequences to his actions; his wife leaves him when she finds out what he’s been doing.

Anyway, you probably didn’t click on this post to read about two American TV shows. For that, I’m sorry, but I thought this was the best way to get my point across. I’ve written before that no one in Mirai Nikki is likeable. I still stand by that sentiment. So when crazy stuff occurs, I don’t really care. I actually do want to see Yuki get his just desserts, but four weeks into the season? I just know nothing will happen to him. I just know Yuno will go into yandere mode and save Yuki’s whiny ass. All of the stuff about Twelth and Sixth… I don’t care. They’re throwaway characters, i.e. meatbags put into the show to be slaughtered for effect or exploited in other ways (see: Ninth’s near-naked status throughout this week’s episode).

So in a strange way, a plot that is unpredictable is simultaneously predictable. I can’t imagine what trouble Yuki and Yuno will get into next, but I know that nothing will really happen to them… at least not yet. Ultimately, I find this a little dissatisfying.

The problem with this week’s episode is that everything tangential to the actual mystery is actually more puzzling than the case itself. Once the episode revealed that the late Sasa Komamori was into advanced AI and robotics, it couldn’t have been more obvious that Kazamori was a robot himself. The case was just unremarkable and uninteresting; in the end, the apparently inconsequential clues are what I remember when I review the content of the episode.

For instance, why did Fumihiko seem so depressed and morose-looking? Did he also know that Kazamori was a robot? Was the mother too domineering? Also, was the live-in “doctor” also in on the ruse? Oh well, I guess the answers to these questions don’t really matter in the grander scheme of things.

In any case, I hope this weak episode is just an outlier and not a sign of things to come. I want to talk about it, but I’m just at a loss of words. The case-of-the-week was just so straightforward unless someone can convince me otherwise. Did I overlook something profound? Did I fail to see a larger point being made?

Of course, you could argue that it’s the overarching mystery — the one involving Inga — in Un-Go that’s really of interest. You could then say that the cases-of-the-week are just vehicles to deliver that story. Still, it would be nice if everything in the show — from top to bottom — was executed well. Of course, we want to know who or what Inga is, but it’s no fun when everything else is so predictable.

Anyway, it seems that with every new episode, we get a closer and closer look at Inga’s transformation process. Usually, anime will make a big deal out of a transformation sequence the first time and abbreviate each subsequent showings. Un-Go opts to go in the opposite direction, but for what reason? We also got to see child Inga display some inhuman traits. Obviously, transforming into a well-endowed woman is superhuman, but child Inga is apparently Stretch Armstrong as well.

Finally, how does the 9/11-esque setting tie into the bigger picture? We saw shots of a skyscraper collapsing, government in an uproar, Ground Zero-esque environments, etc. Some commenters call this show a dystopia, but I think that’s too broad and simple of a label. Sure, there are the familiar tropes of the ubiquitous police state and the burgeoning presence of Big Brother, but I get a very 21st century “War on Terrorism” vibe in Un-Go that wouldn’t have made sense twenty years ago.

To thus call the anime a dystopia just doesn’t quite do it justice, but the more important question is why? Why take stories from the Meiji era and add 21st century terrorism to it? Unfortunately, we are no closer to the answer and that’s a shame. Combined with an ineffectual case-of-the-week, this show sure felt like it was spinning its wheel in this third episode.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates. Hectic life and all.

P.S. What was with the animal brutality, i.e. Shinjuro throwing a rock at a dog?

The anime has the following dilemma: how to make Yuno appear even more deranged? As an audience, we already know that she’s nuts; she’s a stalker, after all. As a result, how do we lull the audience into a false sense of security so that when crazy Yuno shows up, she becomes even more effectively creepy? I can thus understand why the first half of the episode was an incredibly lame “romcom” sequence at an amusement park. Still, I don’t think the nerd-wankery nonsense (“Yuki~! My top fell off!”) were necessary.

This week’s episode took a while to get going. Only after the power went out at Yuno’s home did the anime begin to pique my interest. Seriously though — Yuno pressing her naked chest against Yuki at the park? I was ready to throw in the towel at that point. Like I’ve said above, I get that the anime was aiming to establish a contrast between the two disparate depictions of Yuno, but did this necessarily require indulging in generic anime fanservice?

You know exactly what I’m referring to: Yuki’s eye-rolling commentary on how “Oh, I guess Yuno’s just a little girl after all.” At the end of the day, I guess a nerd has to feel as though he’s still manlier than his yandere girlfriend despite the fact that Yuki needs Yuno’s constant protection. Still, it’s very likely that she was just hamming it up in the fake haunted house. After all, it was her idea to go inside. Acting like a frightened waif who needs a man’s protection is often what it takes to get a guy to warm up to you, and lo and behold, that was exactly what happened. ‘Cause honestly, do any of us really think Yuki could be braver than Yuno in any situation? Of course, making all of these assumptions about Yuno didn’t exactly make the romcom sequences any more interesting to watch.

I rather liked the ferris wheel scene in comparison; not only did it help to develop the kids’ fledgling relationship, but it also made us think that maybe Yuno isn’t so bad after all. This is the false sense of security that the anime needed in order to make yandere Yuno seem even crazier. Am I creeped out by Yuno at the end? Not really, but I can see how having her act like a nutjob for an entire episode would have been over-saturation. At some point, we’re going to grow numb of her antics and it shouldn’t happen at just the third episode.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m a Yuno convert. Compared to most anime with their blushing, doting maidens, it was certainly a billion times more interesting to watch a crazy girl stalk some dorky introvert. Having said that, however, I still don’t think Yuno’s an awesome character that I’d root for or anything. At this point, I’m just hoping for a School Days-esque finish for our couple. I don’t know what breaking the “causality continuum” means, but hey, maybe one of the dead bodies in Yuno’s strange room is Yuki! In any case, this would certainly be paradoxical. Here’s to hoping.

Everything else
• The Deus Ex Machina scenes are really lame and pointless. Who the hell was he talking to? Why was he just narrating to himself? Basically, his role was to inform the audience that important shit is important, but this is nothing that needed to spelled out. The screen was shaking, Yuno’s diary erased its happy outlook, the other diary-owners were freaking out — we get it, Yuki opening the door was bad juju. As a result, it was not remotely necessary for Mr. Plastic Face to give us a running commentary on the blatantly obvious.

• Yuki always ends up screwing himself, doesn’t he? Last week, he rushed himself headfirst into his captor’s arms. This week, he apparently spoiled his own happy ending by being such a curious cat. Still, I’d like to know how he and Yuno would’ve gotten a happy ending had Yuki not opened the door. Had things stayed the same, were the other diary-owners, i.e. everyone after Yuki’s skin, just going to give up? Are we going to get some alt-timeline OVA to show how this would’ve happened or is this something that will be explained later on in the series?

• I don’t really have much to say about any of the scenes regarding Ninth. So I guess she was orphaned by war and tragic backstory is really tragic. At the moment, however, there’s just not really that much subtext to discern from her story other than to say really obvious nonsense about how her difficult upbringing gave her the conviction to survive. Don’t get me wrong — her scenes were mildly interesting, but unless you want me to give you an episode summary, there’s just not much for me to say about them. Her moments in the spotlight were neither exemplary or terrible.

The turning point in the episode came when Fam decided to help Millia rescue her sister from the evil Ades Federation. Once this happened, the story got a billion times more interesting. But before we get to what I liked, let’s get the negatives out of the way. Up until that point, the episode was actually pretty dull as the two sides in the conflict maneuvered their way into position for battle. There’s some really perfunctory stuff like Liliana giving out orders for a suicidal all-out attack on the enemy’s flagship. We all knew it wouldn’t work, so as a result, I’m not sure why the anime bothered.

Likewise, Liliana convinced Millia to leave her side at the start of the episode only for Millia to jump right back into the thick of things by the end. Why did she even leave in the first place? In order for her to share a moment with her father? I’m not sure that scene was all that crucial. Hell, I think the show could’ve condensed the first two episodes into a single episode without losing much. Plus, the narrative would have been tighter, the pace would’ve improved, etc. Of course, this is never a popular suggestion when I bring it up. No one ever seems to agree with me that cutting out extraneous material is worthwhile.

As the title of the post suggests, Last Exile relies an incredible amount on CGI for its animation. We’ve got CGI ships, CGI guns, CGI bullets — the whole gamut. The result is a mixed bag. When Fam barreled her way through the Impetus’s interior, I’ll admit that was some nice Star Wars-inspired action. No, no, I’m not being sarcastic; that was fun to watch. More importantly, the scene is probably too difficult for Gonzo’s animators to do by hand without a huge drop in quality. I’ll agree that CGI can be useful in these instances.

The CGI in the rest of the episode, however, was lazily applied. Like the first episode, there wasn’t really any sense of meaningful space unless Fam and co. were involved. The movement of the larger ships didn’t really seem to matter. I know that Gonzo isn’t going to chart out and animate extensive battle plans for both sides, but it’s hard to discern what was really going other than ships shooting lasers randomly and hoping there isn’t any friendly fire. Speaking of the lasers, I thought it was actually quite funny how they were used. When the Turan Kingdom and the Ades Federation finally clashed, it was a mess of greyish-brown ships versus black, angular ships. Now take that image and bathe everything in pew-pew lasers. Okay, keep adding lasers. A little more. A little more. Just when you think there’s too much shit to look at, keep going. I’m not exaggerating; there were pretty much lasers everywhere:

A large problem with these scenes is that there is literally action everywhere. As a result, the scene composition really doesn’t even try to focus the audience’s attention on any particular subject onscreen. This is a problem that plagues many Hollywood films, especially the Michael Bay productions. Filmmakers think that littering the entire screen with special effects and mayhem makes for a thrilling experience, but the result is actually quite the opposite. Without any semblance of order in the manufactured chaos, the action becomes random noise, which just isn’t very interesting to look at. So yes, Last Exile does itself a disservice by trying to flex its CGI muscles.

Okay, so what about the good parts? I actually thought the episode’s events were quite reminiscent of A New Hope. Is Gonzo being inspired by a classic movie or I’m just making yet another trite comparison to Star Wars? Seriously, a ragtag team has to escort a very important person to Alderaan another kingdom when they get sidetracked. The princess is being held within the Death Star Impetus and we’ve got to save her!

I made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. I’m fast enough for you, princess.

I’m just being facetious; this is pretty much where the similarities end. I mean, yeah, the failed rescue mission was actually kind of exciting to watch if only because we finally see the show’s premise being utilized. If you’re making a show about sky pirates, I want to see some death-defying stunts in the air. Again, I have to bring up Fam’s flight through the Impetus — that was a good use of space and choreography.

As for the giant structure crash landing on Turan, seems like solid plot material to work with for future episodes. There’s just not much to say about it at this point other than “Well, that was interesting.” I just have a few minor quibbles regarding the plot.

That’s no moon! That’s a spaceship an Exile ship!

First, Millia’s request to Fam (“They’re going to kill my sister! Please save her!”) didn’t make much sense. If they wanted to kill her, they could have just done so. Why kidnap her back to the Impetus? Second, what did Millia expect a pair of sky pirates to do anyway? Case in point, the three of them crashed into the ship’s command center only to have the entire room full of soldiers aim guns at them. They, uh, weren’t going to leave that place alive unless something extraordinary happened which the trio couldn’t have possibly accounted for. Finally, the blood in the water at the end of the episode makes for an interesting visual, but I thought the king said most of the civilians had evacuated. Oh well.

In any case, the second episode is a vast improvement on the first. If the show can keep this up, we might avoid “cute girls in the sky” after all.