Kaiba

In a world where memories exist in memory chips separate from the body, death of the body no longer means death of the soul. It is possible for memories to be viewed, altered, and transferred between bodies. These memory chips are used by the rich to obtain eternal lives in carefully selected bodies, while for the poor, selling their own bodies and conserving their souls in the chips often become the only way to earn a living. An electrolytic cloud in the sky serves as a barrier between the heavens of the fortunate and the underworld of the destitute, making this social division impregnable.

One day, a man named Kaiba wakes up in an empty room with no memories, a mysterious hole in his chest, and a locket holding the picture of an unknown woman. After escaping an attack and stumbling upon a decrepit village of underworld residents, he begins his adventure across the different planets of this strange universe to find out more about his own identity and the woman he once knew.

Through a journey of self-discovery and acceptance, Kaiba weaves together tales of souls and spirits and explores the importance of memories.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kaiba Main

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Neiro Main

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Popo Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Chroniko Supporting

Saitou, Chiwa Japanese

Vanilla Supporting

Egawa, Hisao Japanese

Hyo-hyo Supporting

Mizuta, Wasabi Japanese

Patch Supporting

Cho Japanese

Quilt Supporting

Kichi Supporting

Iwanaga, Tetsuya Japanese

Cheki Supporting

Fujimura, Ayumi Japanese

Tamura, Manabu Producer

Fujio, Tsutomu Producer

Yuasa, Masaaki Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Original Creator, Series Composition

Choi, Eun-Young Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Key Animation, Animation Director, 2nd Key Animation

Reviews

Sep 9, 2008

Ranivus

Recommended

::QUICK REVIEW::
Story: 9 (Great amnesia story, love the sci-fi elements)
Art: 10 ("I DO" yelled Sam, "I do like green eggs and ham!")
Sound: 7 (overly silent at times, but dialog helps lot)
Character: 9 (So simple yet very complex, a must see)
Enjoyment: 10 (Felt like a 3-hour summer blockbuster movie)
Overall: 45/50 = 9 (Everyone must experience this)


::FULL REVIEW::
People always try to be above others. It's because they can't be happy unless they have people below them. This show creates a whole universe around this concept and other unconventional ideals. From the anime description and genre choices for this show, and even the database picture the normal ... anime viewer might be a little turned off from this show. At first glance for me I quickly turned it away as I thought it was aimed toward children. Despite showing an R+ rating I also notice ratings are usually 20% correct in the MAL database.

But after pushing it aside for about two weeks, I finally decided to give it a shot and boy will you be surprised. Right off the start, you're heart will start racing as you follow the story of the main character. A after waking up from a daze, blade runner 'esque chase quickly follows. After the action, the main character appears to be very lost, which I'm sure most of you will feel the same way he does. This also starts a unique connection and experience between the viewer and the main character. This is where the show really starts.

One thing I'm sure most people will notice is the art style. You will either love it or hate it but don't let the artwork turn you away from this show. After an episode or two you will most likely appreciate the level of originality this art style brings to the plate. After i have seen over 100+ series in a three month span, this was a very welcome change to the orthodox anime styles. Dont let the simple look fool you as well, there are more than enough small details to pay attention to throughout. From the tiny memory pellets to an overcrowded storage room. Everything looks very thought out and amazing. Often you'll probably think to yourself, how the hell does Misaaki and Nobutaka make this ***t up?

Another false assumption was that the characters were mostly children since they have a simple child like look to them. But they are very much mature adults. The characters are are all so very likable and I owe a lot of that to the art style and the small details that they do or don't leave out. The even greater point is how Masaaki Yuasa goes to great depths to control the viewers emotions with the use of these characters. One minute, you'll hate a character, then the next you'll feel sorry for them, then you'll feel frustrated because this is almost an emotional roller coaster. Rest assured, this is a good kind of frustration (if there is such a thing).

Defintiely "don't judge this book by its cover." This point of view story was rather an interesting one and the science, technology, and hierarchy surrounding this universe was very captivating experience. There are quite a large number of allusions and ideals in every episode that got me reflecting on what I have just experienced (which I absolutely love). I can't really compare this to any other anime show. If i had to compare the story to something, it like a telling of a blade runner/ matrix story in the eyes of Dr. Seuss.

A great way to close this epic show would be a quote from Dr. Seuss' Yertle the Turtle:
"You hush your mouth!" Howled the Mighty King Yertle.
"You have no right to talk to the world's highest turtle.
"I rule from the clouds, over land, over sea!
There is no nothing, NOTHING, that's higher than me!"

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 27, 2019

literaturenerd

Mixed Feelings

Overview:

Hot take! Kaiba is overrated as fuck! In all seriousness, Kaiba is actually a pretty good anime. The animation is stunning and the character designs are wonderfully unique. However, I wasn't a huge fan of the series from a writing standpoint and I don't believe it's one Yuasa's best works. Honestly, I liked Lu Over the Wall more than I liked Kaiba. I liked Kick-Heart more than I liked Kaiba. Cat Soup? Yep, it's still better than Kaiba.

The story of Kaiba is told in an almost maddeningly confusing manner, but it's actually pretty simple. People are now able to store their memories in little ... flash drives and switch from body to body. People can also erase bad memories and download happy memories that belonged to other people. The wealthy use this technology to keep switching bodies and live forever, while the poor sell their bodies for money. The poor are told that they will be stored on a flash drive and their families will one day be able to get them a robot body, but typically their memories are just erased and they're killed off. The poor live on shitty planets and the wealthy live on super ritzy planets that are inaccessible to everyone else.

All of these are supposed to be mind blowing, incredible plot points, but everything in Kaiba is a well recycled Science Fiction trope. The story is basically just a shitty Metropolis, but doesn't say anything new about the evils of wealth inequality or social stratification. Hell, it says far less than Metropolis did 90 years ago! Evil rich guys switching bodies didn't start with Get Out. It was done in B-movies way back in the early 60s like "Frankenstein Must be Destroyed!" How about the part with downloading happy memories and deleting bad ones? That was done in Total Recall. Also known as Ah-nold und zee sree boobs! Back around 10 years ago there was a shitty action movie with Justin Timberlake called "In Time". In that movie, poor people have to sell years off their life to wealthy people, who accumulate time until they can live basically forever. It may have 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was just as deep and profound as anything I personally found in fucking Kaiba.

Maybe the problem is with me. Other people watched Kaiba and got something meaningful out of it. That's awesome! More power to those people. I've heard frequently that it's all about the importance of memories and how we should cherish all our memories including the bad ones. I mean...yeah. My grandmother has dementia. Of course I cherish my memories and fear losing them. I don't personally consider that a profound lesson, but that's just me.

I've also read this series is a love letter to Osamu Tezuka. Seriously?! Of course I can't speak for Yuasa. Maybe he really said that in an interview. Personally , I have my doubts. Mr. Yuasa loves animation as a concept, but has never displayed a real love for "anime" as non-Japanese know it. I don't think there's an otaku bone in that man's body. There's a quote falsely attributed to Alan Moore that says "I don't make comics. Those are garbage for children. I make graphic novels". While Moore never said anything like this, I could absolutely picture Yuasa saying "anime is trash. I make artsy cartoons!" I'm supposed to believe that anime's greatest outlier, who spent his entire career being as un-anime as humanly possible decided to make a Tezuka tribute? I'm calling bullshit.

The character designs are pretty awesome...mostly. Then there's this flying booger named Hyo-Hyo that never ceases to be obnoxious. Navi from Zelda would make up excuses not to hang out with Hyo-Hyo. Then we have this weird black caricature with fat, blue lips and a bulging tumor on his forehead. Oh and his name is Vanilla. God damn it Yuasa. What the fuck were you thinking?

We all love Yuasa. However, I feel the man is much more comfortable as an artist than as a writer. His best works are Ping Pong, Tatami, and Night is Short, which were all adaptations. When Yuasa does the writing, we end up with stuff like Cat Soup. I was disappointed by Kaiba, but I'm glad other people love it. Now go and spread that love by fixing the fan wikia! As of the time of this review, the wikia is barren and has had zero effort put into it, as if nobody actually gives a shit about this series. The Wikipedia page is also a near stub and lacks basic episode summaries! There are 30,000 people just here on MAL who would say "I LOVE Kaiba! I don't just include it in my favorites to look smart!". One you guys please go fix this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 17, 2021

YukkoIsDead

Not Recommended

Spoiler-free.

I’m going to discuss Kaiba in terms of the three modes of persuasion: ethos (persuasion through presentation), logos (logical persuasion), and pathos (emotional persuasion). I do this, because the fact that Kaiba is very uninteresting to me is ironically very interesting to me.

Regarding ethos:
I felt secondhand embarrassment watching Kaiba, because I’ve made art like Kaiba before: Art that is so serious and earnest yet so unimportant. Kaiba is an entirely serious show, but I could not take it seriously. The biggest problem, in my opinion, drives the anime so much further down than any of its “minor” shortcomings and cliches (information being withheld, inexhaustible flashbacks, ... spoon-feeding the plot to the audience, guns that fail to work only against important characters, songs that try hard to evoke melodrama, characters with simple motivations in service of the plot [this is not a character-driven story, which makes it a little less interesting imo]). The biggest problem is so much worse than any of those mediocre story-telling devices. It is the unshakable nature of the anime being completely serious, unironic, and unapologetic in its attempt to wow and move the audience using very insubstantial drama and minimally explored themes (of memory chips, replaceable bodies, human nature, capitalism, and globalization). Most of the characters being one-dimensional (had a few traits each) and acting like children (suitable and reminiscent of kids shows) did not help matters.

Regarding logos:
The “sci-fi” (science-fiction) tag is truly the most enigmatic scrawl I’ve had the prerogative to investigate. I used to think that only the highest of stories deemed scientifically plausible would be conferred this emblem of intellectual creativity; I was quickly proven wrong as I noticed that some sci-fi are almost completely implausible, or at least, grossly speculative and without a single line of justification. I decided then that there must be a spectrum, a scale, as with most things, on which some sci-fi are more science and some more fiction. Today, I disagree with both of those past stances. I now think that all sci-fi contain some speculative elements and some realistic elements, and, in effect, concede that every sci-fi is indeed unrealistic, which is why they are called “sci-fi” and not “hyper-realistic stories containing only currently available technologies.” To put it simply, all sci-fi contain unexplainable phenomena that may or may not come to exist in the future.

However, some sci-fi really stretch the boundaries of its genre. I’ve noticed that anime in particular often does this, where borderline fantasy is often either tagged as or mistaken for potential future technology/circumstances. Kaiba is one of those anime. How? As Charlie would say: You do the math.

I’m kidding. I’ll do the math. In Kaiba, rich people buy poor people’s bodies. That will not happen in our world. And I don’t mean human trafficking or smuggling organs. I mean rich people transplanting their memories into poor people; this will not happen. For countless logical, medical, ethical and legal reasons, rich people will instead artificially design or request the most efficient bodies from tightly controlled labs with scientists and AI smarter than we can imagine. Kaiba, in that sense, is completely irrelevant to reality if it seriously means to be sci-fi. Besides some symbolic value or being a mental exercise in futility, Kaiba is valueless in terms of being a sci-fi, void of any logical merits.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ve gathered absolutely nothing new or complex from this anime that I haven’t thought or known about already, despite my dire efforts to derive from the anime any food for thought.

Regarding pathos:
I’m the kind of person who becomes teary-eyed watching anything the slightest bit sad, and yet, I only teared up during this anime from the stress induced by the fact that the anime said near nothing despite being so stressfully fast-paced. It rather reminded me of The Tatami Galaxy.

About Chroniko’s story: I was sad and really almost cried. But I was also mighty bored. I am sorry (to the animators who tried hard), but each of the sob stories were so standard and cliched that my mind gnawed at itself in boredom. I understand that Chroniko’s story is a real world problem, however. I think that it is an IMPORTANT theme, but it wasn't any radical or deep one, just like every other theme in the show.

Ultimately, I award Kaiba with its extra score (2 instead of 1) for having allowed this self-analysis. I’ve wondered before why some stories don’t engage me. It was especially puzzling this time because I love sci-fi. I understand a bit better now.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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