5-Okunen Button

Probably the bravest venture straight into the "deep end" of existential philosophy, that I've seen from Sugahara Souta - yet.

The premise is relatively straightforward, but asserts an intriguing question at the same time. You got a button, by pressing it you will get lot of money, but in turn you spend 500 million years in an empty space, consciously. After that time your memory is wiped and you return to the moment when the button was pressed, as if nothing had happened.

The interesting part here arises from the question that is the "reward" in a modern and current "capitalist society" "worth" the conscious existence in ... empty solitude for 500 million years. This question is tackled in the series utilising multiple different perspectives and it is explored multiple times.

Another question presented is that if you forget the 500 million years after it is over is it the same than not experiencing it at all. Regarding this question we must first have an answer to another question that is whether the "current" experience is more important and defining of an "individual" than the "percieved" experience.

You can look at it in this way, let's say that you know that you went to store and bought bread last night, but you don't remember the "experience", does that render the "experience" related to that as same than the "experience" where you didn't go to the store at all. In short does simply "perceiving" the "experience" and not the the "experience" itself hold a value?

These questions and more relating to what is "self" and "current state" are explored in the series in depth.

Another factor to the series comes from the "characters" the experience is mainly explored through the "character" Tonio whose visual representation in the series provides an unique perspective to the "philosophy" of the character. The series, themes and questions are mainly explored from the perspective of "the character" however the visual representation of "the character" sets us apart from the party whose perspective is utilised to explore these questions.

As with the story the main factor of the "characters" are their reactions and "answers" to these same "questions" essentially you are getting three or four answers to each of these questions as they are explored through each of the characters. And their differing ideologies.

The presentation of the series is something you'd expect from Souta so i won't go into detail about that. Overall if you're looking for something that has some interesting philosophical commentary about existence, self and religion I'd say this series provides those elements in a mix that you don't see often.

This isn't a horror series, but it hit me with a greater sense of existential dread than anything I've seen before, anime or otherwise. It all comes down to the execution of the main premise. Three siblings are offered the chance to earn a million yen simply by pressing a button. The catch? The instant someone pushes it, that person will be transported to an empty, infinite space where they will be trapped for 500-million years, unable to sleep or die. Once the time is up, their memory of those years will be erased and they're returned to the instant they pressed the button, so ... subjectively it will be as if they never left. The series explores how each of the siblings perceives that deal and its implications, what happens when they push the button, and some variations on the deal that raise other interesting philosophical questions.

If that sounds rather dry, it isn't, since it's mixed in with some goofy comedy sketches. Most episodes hit you with deep questions in the first half and then decompress with the VAs playing weird improv comedy games in the latter half. The first half of each episode it usually the highlight, while the latter half ranges from hilarious to boring from one episode to the next.

It's also worth noting that this is the cheapest, jankiest-looking CG anime ever made. Ex-Arm looking like Avatar by comparison. A lot of it is clearly shot in real-time using VTuber software. It seems to be rendering on a potato, so there is frequent slowdown and models clipping through objects. It's literally the kind of thing that would be more at home on Youtube than Prime Video, and is obviously a one-person show aside from the VAs. The cheapness also doesn't really matter, since it's able to convey the situations clearly, and the surreal style of much of it means the jank just enhances the show's creepiness.

Overall, it's an experience completely unlike any other show.