The central question of Kokoro Connect is a fascinating one. “If our bodies lose their significance, will we still be ourselves?”
Jesus said, “Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul; woe
to the soul that depends on the flesh.”
— The Gospel of Thomas v. 112
As Nagase says, the body is the foundation of identity. But as the attachment to one’s body degrades, what becomes of one’s identity?
Well, I think what we’re going to see from Kokoro Connect is that one’s identity becomes less constraining. The characters are able to, quite literally, walk in one another’s shoes once they are freed from the tyranny of the flesh. And then their hearts connect (kokoro = heart).
Further Thoughts
This show has had some great characterization. I especially love the teacher and Heartseed. Finally we have a teacher who isn’t such a stickler for the rules. He actually trusts his students and doesn’t worry about the tiniest things. This is what many of my teachers were like in high school.
And Heartseed is… interesting. He doesn’t seem evil, but he doesn’t seem good either. He’s just lazy. He kept talking about what wasn’t the students’ mission, but he never said what it was. I’m quite curious about this.
Finally, the body switching is hilarious. I was worried at first this would become the kind of show that focused on perverted hijinks, but it has thankfully largely avoided that. I’m looking forward to the battle for Iori’s heart next week!
Note: I decided to blog this but not Natsuyuki Rendezevous. This one I feel like I can relate to better and have more to say.
I’m starting to wonder if Heartseed is essentially an alien psychology student performing tests on random groups of people. If this series ends with him getting scolded by his alien teacher, I think it will all be worth it.
That is an excellent theory and I agree, that kind of ending would be incredible. It will be even better if he was procrastinating on his project all along and came up with this idea as a last minute kind of thing.
That would be awesome if that’s true. He doesn’t seem to have thought out his experiment all that well, but who knows.
I was positively surprised by this episode. Heartseed indeed seems not to be particularly evil or dangerous, but he and his martial arts abilities gave the scene a somewhat menacing mood which I didn’t expect from this show. I like that.
Unfortunately I have trouble keeping the students apart. No, not only with the body switching – I would have appreciated more than half of an episode to get accustomed to their names and personalities in normal mode. Now I’m constantly wondering like: “Who again was Iori and who’s talking about her heart?”
I’m glad you chose this to blog and not Natsuyuki. The dead husband’s constant goofing annoys me to no end. For all its qualities, most likely I will drop that show after the next ep.
Yeah, I wasn’t expecting martial arts in this show either! It definitely raises the tension some.
I think I’ve got everyone’s personalities down, but I have some trouble with the names as well. Usually this doesn’t matter since anime has nice color-coded hair colors, but with the body switching that strategy doesn’t work so well.
I like Natsuyuki too, but it somehow doesn’t grab me like this show does. Probably I am not mature enough. 🙂