Under the Shiny, Green Skin

[talktooloose]

Occassionally, totally bizarre things leave a deep impression on me. One of these was a terrible live-action Japanese sci-fi TV movie called Kamen Rider Agito: Project G4 that I watched on a Japan airlines flight a few years ago. Apparently this tale is part of a 30-year old complex universe of Kamen Rider TV shows. The heroes are cyborgs in preposterous bug suits who ride on special magic motorcycles and do action moves against other cyborgs in ugly suits. But then there were these weird, dark plotlines. There was a video game distributed to the population on their cell phones with a puzzle that could only be solved by a small number of kids who had special psychic abilities. The game was released as part of an effort to track these people down for good or evil (it wasn't clear) and some were already in a special school. But here's the kicker: every time these special abilities were manifested, a door was opened into another dimension from which unstoppable and terrifying demons would emerge to slaughter whomever they met. There was a sense of the inevitability of tragedy to the whole show that shook me. A sense that being special necessarily lead to doom and, though our heroes were valiantly fighting the evil, they could not prevail. Death and loss were very close to the surface for a kids show. This sense of doom is one of the interesting features of Japanese entertainment. From Godzilla to 'X' (a terrific anime series I'm watching now), the endless striving -- kids taking their oh-so-serious exams to qualify for the salaryman's life -- is all happening in a quiet car of a runaway train heading down the tracks towards apocolypse. Is this the world that North Americans are starting to relate to? Is the underlying sense of doom replacing the traditional American triumph as the core myth for many youth?

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I should probably introduce myself before I start posting comments all over your LJ... I am a friend of Paul, who is friend of all.

This sense of doom is one of the interesting features of Japanese entertainment.

I think of sense of doom principally as a feature of post-Atomic Japanese entertainment. IOW, a relatively recent phenomenon.

Also, I don't if I've seen this Kamen Rider series or not--it looks vaguely familiar, but they kind of all look alike. But I'm wondering if the sense of doom you saw is your own construct? You talk about the sense that being special led to doom, but I'm wondering if this is merely the old "the nail that stands up gets beat down" mentality that you are reinterpreting?

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

But I'm wondering if the sense of doom you saw is your own construct? You talk about the sense that being special led to doom, but I'm wondering if this is merely the old "the nail that stands up gets beat down" mentality that you are reinterpreting?

No. I know doom when I see it. If you're trying to find a hook for psychoanalyzing me, you might ask why I'm blogging on this now. Not that I feel like thinking about that now...

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all interested in psychoanalyzing you, sorry. I'm not sure why you would think I would be, but whatever.

And I don't mean to second guess your interpretation of doom, especially about something I haven't even seen. I was just wondering if another interpretation was possible.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I'm a bit touchy. I'm getting accused of a lot shit these days, it seems. I also trust my well-honed critical senses while, at the same time, recognizing their subjective frailty. Trust me, for bug-fu, this shit was angsty.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

You know, I actually first heard "the nail that stands up gets beat down" in the context of Japanese society specifically.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, especially since right below you get the Japanese for the phrase...

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I didn't scroll all the way down before commenting, but I'm just saying that it seems a little odd to say that your recognition of a recognized feature of Japanese culture is projecting.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's kind of why I called her on psychoanalyzing me which seemed not only presumptuous for a stranger but also an unfair challenge to my finely honed analytical skills!

But then I just acted presumptuous myself. I called someone a homophobe for a rating they gave their fanfic story without taking the time to understand her context. God I hate being all blustery and then having to say "never mind."

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Since when is 'a sense of doom' a recognized feature of Japanese culture?

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

It's not. (Or it is, but even the prewar lit I've read has been pretty far from cheery.) The thing about the nail sticking up is, though.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. That was my point--I was wondering if the nail sticking up was being mistaken for a sense of doom. But since I haven't seen the show, I can't legitimately comment. I made an idle speculation that completely backfired. The fact that two people who HAVE seen it feel the sense of doom makes me believe it was real and my comment was out of line.

When you talk about Japanese literature being 'far from cheery', I think it depends on what you read. But there is a strong sense that cheerful = trivial, so Literature tends to be high drama.

Deri Kui wa utareru

[codystrum.livejournal.com]

There was a sense of the inevitability of tragedy to the whole show that shook me. A sense that being special necessarily lead to doom and, though our heroes were valiantly fighting the evil, they could not prevail. Death and loss were very close to the surface for a kids show.

Sorry if this sounds pedantic Loose, as you've been in Japan, but for those of your friends who may not know:

There are a couple of important Japanese cultural mesages at play in this and many other children/teen and adult works:

1) Deri kui (or kugi) wa utareru - the spike (or nail) that sticks up gets hammered down
- if you show too much originality in conformist Japan you are risking complete social ostracization and lablled as an eccentric at best; that is seen by many in anime as cool but there is a risk of complete societal sanction thus making one vulnerable to demons

2) Death and loss are strong themes in many of the "former Empire" countires I have been too. Never have I seen the sense of morte stronger than in Spain when I was there just after Franco passed away in 82; talk about a history of blood, I wrote a song about it called Conquistador (not the 1960s one). I can see how death and loss permeates the only country that has been nuked.

3) In Japan death is traditionally seen as a heroic honour as most people probably know from works about samari. This sense has not totally disappeared since the US occupation; Japan has the highest suicide rate of the Western world apparently. I know that the Chuo line through Tokyo is a favourite jumping spot because my coworkers who too the train were late once a week. If things get too ahrd for you in life - of course suicide is still a legit option in Japan and it has only recently become illegal to counsel or assist a suicide in Japan - and that law isn't enforced too rigorously.

4) Japanese do not separate the realms of good and evil - it's like TaiChi darkness and light are tied up in each other and you can't have one without the other - they simply don't relate to this western idea that pure good can even fight pure evil and triumph because there is no such thing as pure good - at least beyond age five.

5) one of the earliest ideas taught to Japanese children, traditionally, is that 'hey life is tough". Of course there is a modern outcry that mom's spoil their kids now. However, in January I still saw kindergarden boys running around in shorts - that was their school uniform - that is to traditionally toughen them up; from the sheer joy on the boy's faces, the -5C damp Sumida river cold didn't seem to faze them.

I will never forget in Godzilla 2000 when the big green guy wlaks past a hospital and just misses stomping on a terrified woman strapped into a leg sling in a hospital bed. As she is starting to calm down a big tail comes smashing through her window and the building collapses on top of her: this was the feature movie after an hour of the too cute Pikachu. I especially like a 2000 Gamera flick where this perdactyl monster grabs a commuter train, peels off the top, grabs a few teenagers in alternative dress and coloured hair in its beak, flips up and swallows them, you can hear the crunching sounds! SO much for those deri kui

I highly recommend the movie called

Nobody Knows (http://www.lhp.com.sg/nobodyknows/) by Kore-eda Hirokazu if you havent already seen it. this film is a great analysis of modern Japanese culture through a child's/teens eyes (he goes through puberty in the course of the filming.) This film plays on the very theme you discuss in the anime.

Of course, I highly recommend anyone to read, if they can stomach it, the English translation of the novel Battle Royale by Koushun Takami; this highly violent kids-at-war novel just about sums up all of the social issues around war/death in modern Japan. There's a movie as well but it lacks the brillian social commentary of the novel.

As for North America; have you seen that bizzare gum commercial where an anime King Kong swallows officeworkers. There are quite a few comments in that one.

Hugs,
Cody

Re: Deri Kui wa utareru

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Japan has the highest suicide rate of the Western world apparently.

According to http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/IASR/suicide-figure1.htm, which admittedly is a little outdated, Lithuania is highest. Japan is 21st.

It's deru kugi, btw. Deru is rentaikei, the attributive form.

Re: Deri Kui wa utareru

[codystrum.livejournal.com]

Hate to be picky (back at ya) but it can be both kui and kugi - one is a spike and the other is a nail; I forget which is which.

You are right about the Deru. Thanks for that, I often mix up my ri and ru. This website lists the following bibliography

"Deru Kugi Wa Utareru or The Nail That Sticks Up Gets Hit: The Architecture of Japanese American Identity, 1885-1942. The Rural Environment." Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 19:4 (Winter 2002): 319-333.
http://depts.washington.edu/history/faculty/dubrow.html

I don't like the English translation however, I think a hammer has to be in there in English.

Many Japanese proverbs can be found at.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/.cs.cmu.edu/Web/People/fgandon/miscellaneous/japan/

As for the Japanese suicide rate; I was speaking of the "developed word" -sorry if I didn't specify, I thought I had- and your site lists developing countries this is a quote that I have:

"The death rate among soldiers outstripped the national average in Japan, where suicide is the highest in the developed world. In 2003 the rate of suicide in the defence forces was 32 deaths per 100,000 soldiers. In the general population the rate of suicide was 25.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2002, the latest year for which figures are available."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Suicides-hit-new-high-as-Japanese-troops-feel-strain/2005/02/27/1109439456321.html

However this 2004 BBC site states that "Japan already has one of the highest suicide rates in the world"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4071805.stm

It discusses the recent trend of Suicide Clubs which by the way recently spawned a very interesting Japanese cult movie called Suicide Circle aka
Jisatsu Sakuru Which features a great tune by a J-Goth Band called Dead.

Because dead, because dead
Dead is the shine of your life

The web site is here:
http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/suicidecircle.htm

Death imagery is also prevelant in other recent J-film s Moonlight Whipsers and Chior Boys.



Ja Mata
Stephen