Dantalian no Shoka 09 — Story within a Story

Dantalian no Shoka,

Er, wait. Dantalian doesn’t really have a story to put another story inside. I guess it’s just the usual episodic story.

Why Should I Care?

One risk for a show with an episodic structure such as Dantalian’s is that the viewer will probably not be interested in all of the stories. This is compounded by the fact that Dantalian has no consistently strong characters: Huey and Dalian are impotent for most of the show. So much of Dantalian’s ability to maintain viewer interest depends on the characters in each of the short stories.

This week’s characters were decidedly lacking. We have the girl who will grow up to be a sage, the wise woman, some random soldiers, and the boyfriend. They do little to distinguish themselves beyond their basic descriptions. But it doesn’t matter, anyway: none of them have any influence on the plot. Does this mean we get an episode where Huey and Dalian do something? Of course not! (unless you count getting lost in a forest and reading a book as doing something)

Things just happen in Dantalian without rhyme or reason. Dalian and Huey wander around just because, and Ira gets dragged around by events and other people. The only “characters” we can claim are in control of the narrative are the book bugs. The story is not character driven, and the characters come across as mostly an afterthought. Is it plot driven? I don’t think so. We do get good characters and stories from time to time, but it almost seems like a coincidence. I would say that Dantalian simply isn’t driven at all.

The creators love anti-climaxes, and these have resulted in some interesting endings. But if the viewers don’t particularly care about the story in the first place (and if every other story has an anticlimactic ending too), an anti-climax will only make the story fail even harder than a traditional climax would have.

Allusions

  • Dalian mentions at the beginning of the episode that they are approaching the Michaux fortress. This is probably referring to Henri Michaux, a Belgian / French writer and artist. In case you thought Dantalian’s artwork became a masterpiece in this episode, it didn’t: all the pictures in this post are pieces by Michaux. I didn’t want to deface this site with screenshots from the episode: I can see what they were going for, but it sure was ugly. Also, note the bug-like objects in Michaux’s art.
  • The book Huey read mentions Abdul Alhazad, who is probably Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab, author of the Necronomicon in the Cthulhu Mythos.
  • Continuing the Arabic theme, we have Suleiman, the Arabic name of King Solomon, who hosts a court of…
  • Djinn. In particular we have three types: Marid, associated with the sea, Ifrit, particularly strong Djinn, and the Shaitan, unbelieving and hideous Djinn similar to the devil. It also mentions the Cabicaj, but I couldn’t find anything about them.

I figured I should include a poem by Michaux as well, since we seem to be on a theme. This one reminded me of Dalian.

Waiting

A mad being,
a beacon being,
a being erased a thousand times,
a being exiled from the far end of the horizon
a being sulking at the far end of the horizon
a being crying from the far end of the horizon
a thin being
an honest being
a proud being
a being who wanted to be
a being in the churning of two epochs which collide
a being in the deleterious gas of consciousness which succumbs,
a being like the first day
a being…

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Mawaru Penguindrum 09 — Mystical Library of Penguins

Mawaru Penguindrum,

They’re just trolling us with Shouma’s car accident now. But seriously, this episode was great. They’ve opened things up into an entirely new dimension.

End of the World Fate

If the Utena vibes weren’t obvious enough before, they’re screaming in our faces now with the library scene. The long elevator ride, the endless rows of books, the cages and ladders, and then that librarian…

We even have the Utena kiss pose.

IMAAAAAGINE!

Himari’s aspirations to become an idol began long before her first survival strategy. Which raises the question: how much of the penguin hat personality (if any) is a being from another world, and how much is Himari herself? When Himari put her hands on her lips and said no, that seemed more like the penguin hat personality than Himari.

And I never imagined that those two girls on the train would actually be characters in the story. The extent to which this show manages to tie everything together is amazing.

Nothing is a Coincidence

This episode forces us to reconsider the original narrative of Himari’s death. Himari picked out the penguin hat at random from the store shelf, and then died outside from independent causes. The penguin hat just happened to be able to revive her from the dead. But nothing is a coincidence in Mawaru Penguindrum. It is the hand of fate. And indeed, it seems that both the purchase of the penguin hat and Himari’s death have the same root cause.

Musings on Symbolism

It’s going to take a while for me to collect all my thoughts on this. But I’ll share a few immediate ones. Many others have already drawn the connection between the apple and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I’m a bit hesitant to make the connection though, except in the superficial sense of simply being associated with knowledge.

In this episode, it’s revealed that the apple is the “fruit of fate”, and Himari receives it as a parting gift from the library. After which she proceeds to die. So perhaps the connection isn’t quite so tenuous after all… Library ==> Knowledge, Fruit of the Tree ==> Death. Himari also shares the fruit with her “soulmate”, as Eve did in the garden.

Then we have Ringo ==> Apple ==> Knowledge of Good and Evil and Momoko ==> Peach ==> Longevity ==> Tree of Life. Momoko is dead, and Ringo seems to utterly lack any knowledge of good and evil. So perhaps the sisters are named after what they lack.

Another major revelation is that the penguin hat is the “wedding veil of the bride of fate.” What does a wedding veil do? It obscures the bride’s face. Which brings us back to the idea that the penguin form / idol act serve as a veil between Himari and her brothers.

Himari is the bride of the destination of fate. What is the destination of fate? To interpret this in a literal fashion, death. And Himari does appear to be the bride of death.

There’s much more to say, but I’ll stop rambling for now. Expect a longer post once more has been revealed and I’ve had time to collect my thoughts. I’d be delighted to hear any of your thoughts on this!

Further Ramblings

  • The flashbacks were all good, but it is a bit much. The mirror falling in particular was  over the top. At least Himari’s friends had a reasonable reaction.

  • But then they ditched her. Did she just transfer schools, or…?
  • Himari’s searching for Super Frog Saves Tokyo. We’ve already seen one frog…
  • We have Himari about to bludgeon a Koi to death with a baseball bat to give some fresh blood to her mother. They aren’t stopping with the frog scene. The seventh social sin is worship without sacrifice. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

  • How many animals have we seen so far? Penguins, frogs, snakes, koi, birds, cats, skunks… Something to think about as well.
  • The penguin in the library packed a book into the box with him. I wonder what he took…?

My apologies for being less coherent than usual, I’m about to pass out and this episode did not help with maintaining my mental faculties. Again, I’m very interested in hearing everyone’s speculations on the symbolism!

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No. 6 10 — Don’t Change, Shion!

No. 6,

“Ok, I’ll get on it after I kill these small fry.”

They aren’t People!

I really liked the opening scene. Dogkeeper, standing amidst the rubble of the destroyed town, scoffs at Shion’s idea that the people from No. 6 are human too.

Then one of her dogs comes up to her, who found something. The dog found a piece of gold. Dogkeeper tells it to go look for more.

So here Dogkeeper is in a ruined town, surrounded by the dead and the dying, searching for gold in the rubble. Who isn’t human again?

No. 6 is the BIG BAD

After last episode, the creators still hadn’t established the fact that No. 6 was EVIL. So they started the episode by having Shion and Nezumi climb a pile of corpses. How subtle.

When the villains level towns, kill babies, execute old ladies, and pile up mountains of corpses in the basement for no apparent reason, it’s kind of hard to take them seriously.

Bipolar Disorder

What is going on with Shion in this episode? He’s been a pansy for the entire show. This episode, he starts out cowering in the back of the truck, and gets grossed out by corpses.

Then he hears Safu’s voice. Courage reignites in his heart, and a smile lights up his face! He knows the positions of the security cameras and how to avoid them in a building he’s never entered. He even knows the secret passages! He fools doctors with his smooth talk, and outfights soldiers with his cloak. He shoots a soldier from across the room, and then comes in close for the kill, finishing him off from point blank range while the man cries and begs for mercy.

Finally his eyes glaze over, and Shion joins Nezumi in crying. What has he done?!

I appreciate the idea that people can change, but this is just silly. To go from a wuss to a special agent with skills exceeding Nezumi’s in the span of five minutes, and then back again? When the most “reasonable” explanation I can think of is that Elyurias is influencing his mental state, something’s off.

Random Thoughts

  • The baby decides that Dogkeeper is her mother, and then starts suckling from a dog teat? What strong familial bonds.
  • What has this whole pseudo-mystical angle with Elyurias added to the show? I will go ahead and propose nothing at all, except to give me more fodder to laugh at.
  • I thought it was impossible to get inside the correctional facility? And then they go ahead and do it… because spoiled rich people become paralyzed by stinkiness.
  • The fight scenes had a quite noticeable drop in animation quality. I suppose it is the first time anybody’s moved since the second episode.
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Usagi Drop 10 — Rin at the Gates of Hades

Usagi Drop,

Rin caught a cold, and it’s the end of the world. Daikichi needs to stay by Rin’s bedside every second for two days straight, and doesn’t even have time to go and shave. Kouki and his mom come over to join the nursing squad. Daikichi monitors every minute change in her temperature. Rin’s face is flushed. (Is it just me, or is the art a bit off in this shot? Rin looks like an adult bishoujo, not a little girl.)

Health Paranoia

When I was a little kid, my favorite play spots were mud puddles and forests. I spent most of my time digging rocks out of the ground, collecting bugs, building traps and secret bases, and riding around on my bike. I ate food off the ground and bushes (I don’t do that anymore… of course…) and bathed and washed my hands as little as I could get away with. My idea of hygiene was covering my droppings with leaves and wiping with Indian toilet paper (if you’ve never had the opportunity to try it, it’s actually more comfortable than some of the most expensive brands). Raw eggs? Yum yum! I don’t think I’m that atypical, at least among boys. Even Daikichi seems to have had a similar experience.

So I will never understand this level of paranoia over a cold. When I was a kid a cold was just an excuse to skip school. It didn’t mean I would stay in bed all day! (Although my parents certainly tried.) Daikichi’s acting like Rin is going to die. I guess we could chalk up some of the blame to the fact that Daikichi is a new parent, and this is the first time Rin’s ever been sick. But still, hasn’t he ever had a cold before? Or, more to the point, haven’t the creators of Usagi Drop?

Daikichi goes so far as to take the martyr’s path: if only I had died in her place! Curse you, God!

I should mention that this portrayal of a cold isn’t specific to Usagi Drop at all. Every cold I can think of in anime goes the same way. The sick person can’t even get out of bed. But the next day they’re perfectly fine. The reaction to colds is partially a cultural thing: people from Asia do wear these surgical masks, even at school. But I find it hard to believe they take it this far.

Yukari provides some good advice to Daikichi: calm down. But her rationale is slightly odd: it isn’t that he shouldn’t worry, it’s that he shouldn’t let Rin worry by acting worried. Yukari is clearly worried as well, considering how often she comes over during the course of Rin’s illness. Of course, she could be more worried about Daikichi than Rin.

The most reasonable reaction to Rin’s cold comes from Kouki, after Daikichi forbids him from entering her room:

Kouki gets it.

Fathers of the World Unite!

It wasn’t really connected to the rest of the episode, but I did like the part where Daikichi befriended some of the other fathers. Parenting in Usagi Drop seems to be a world dominated by single mothers, so it’s nice to see he isn’t the only father out there.

Conclusion

Usagi Drop appears to have no conclusion in sight, but for once, I’m fine with that. Life goes on, kids grow up. A story like this shouldn’t end.

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Onii-chan no Koto… 13 — *Yawn*

Onii-chan no Koto, ,

The biggest question surrounding this show is why I decided to blog it in the first place. Looking on the bright side, it makes my more recent choices *cough cough* Dog Days *cough cough* seem downright inspired by comparison. But, I’m a completionist, and I’ve got to finish what I’ve started. So let’s talk about the extra episode.

This special episode continued in the tradition of the TV series, and showed a bunch of skits showing how perverted Shuusuke is. I’d say it was a bit better than most of the original episodes, since at least there was more variety and they didn’t linger on anything for long.

But the problem continues to be that they keep replaying different variations on the same jokes over and over again, which stopped being funny after the first episode. We get that Shuusuke is perverted and pathetic. We get that Nao likes it that way. Can’t we get something new?

The only part that even made me chuckle was Shuusuke getting on his knees and begging his mother for a third time, but this time for a more detailed atlas instead of porno books (to look up perverted sounding places, of course). The fanservice in this episode was more explicit than the original series, and equally uninspired. We have Shuusuke looking up Nao’s skirt and looking at Kondo’s stockings for the zillionth time.

Well, now I can knock this show off my checklist once and for all. This and Dog Days have proven once and for all that I cannot blog comedies. There’s nothing more boring than talking about what’s funny.

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