Princess Arete Episode 1 Discussion

lihle808 said:
I am glad the village people got water, but I wished Boax got punished somehow( although he lost he lost his crystal ball its still not enough). Arête taught him that magic is not only for personal use but for the people. Although its an old animation I still enjoyed it because it wasn't your typical wait for your prince princess kind of fairy tale, Arête isn't your typical princess. She is a princess who wants to be free and explore what's out there, in other grind in the dirt and touch the wind.

Yah that Boax should've turned Grovel to human again, I kinda liked him even though he talked too much.

6/10.

Doomroar said:


Dude Boax is a child that got fucked into dying in the body of an old man while he waits for a rescue team from a civilization that may never come, and on this new body he has at best 5 years left of life before weirdly enough dying of old age, and no hope of anything good ever happening to him again, with the only good thing ever happening to him before the shit hit the fan being that he got to live in a pretty swell place while it lasted, his future is shit, his present is shit, and his past is mostly shit, and his only hope is a wild delusion.

However you think he wasn't punished enough?

lihle808 said:
I think he deserved it after putting those people under such strain. But thanx for the clarification because I got to know more about Boax.

Last question though, what did he do to be in such state in the 1st place.

Doomroar said:


He did nothing, is just a case of horrendous bad luck, he was a kid and his society collapsed, then stranded in foreign land he "disguised" himself as an old man and passed himself for a wizard while he waited for help to come, and help never came, in reality he is still a kid, and never matured neither mentally nor physically (because he is not really an old man he just transforms into one to hide his identity, but the transformation is literal, while he stops aging, his biology becomes that of an old man, is really damn stupid, but kids don't know better), the other witch that we saw is also in that situation, she is a young girl passing herself for an old magical woman, which we know is not magic but the remains of the technology from their society, the difference is that the "witch" gave up on getting rescued and decided to live and die as an old hag, this however is not something she wanted to do, if i remember her crystal broke or was lost, and for her conversation with Arete who may very well be older than her, the witch is really unhappy, as in dead inside unhappy.

While Boax, the kid, still for some reason thinks they will come for him, he refuses to accept that this is his life now and that things will never return to what they were, the reason why they only transform into old people near dead to disguise themselves is because as little children they never learnt how to fully operate the technology of their society so there's just a handful things they can do with it, they are hardly middle schoolers (Edit: it is actually worse Boax never even learnt how to read something that Arete can do, he is that young, and he has wasted years trying to read a book he can't read, a book that may not even tell him what he needs! Sunao Katabuchi is one sick sadistic bastard for coming with this story), if their things break they can't repair them, and in a world unknown anyone may take advantage of them and their tools, so the kids were fucked the moment they lost the function of their crystals.

So that's getting majorly screwed twice, in Boax case however, it is kind of lucky for him to be such a huge brat, his situation is way, way, way worse that even he himself realizes, as he searches for the crystal he is worried that once rescue comes, they wont recognize him, while the truth is that not only will no one ever come to save him, chances are he will die waiting, but the good thing is, that as an old fart he wont be waiting for long, tat's about the only good thing that has come his way, that now he can be put out of his misery.

lihle808 said:
WOW! astonishing, Much appreciation for the head up.

I never knew how much back story the guy had, now i really want to read the novel.

Thanx again.

Doomroar said:


There's no novel, i wish there was, it is all from the movie, the same movie you just watched, all the exposition giving us the background on the villain happens in just 2 (4) moments, that is one of the biggest flaws of this movie, both character exposition, and world building are extremely poor, maybe it was on purposse to capture the feeling of being imprisoned in a tower and isolated from the world and its inhabitants, but as a result we ended with this poorly shown thing, anyway these are the moments:

When the witch talks to Arete the first time we learn that magic doesn't exist, they are just tools from a more advanced society, we also get this confirmed 2 more times when Grovel finds one of the fallen satellites and we see that they are clearly artificial, we also see that they are ancient by now, for the piece of satellite becomes dust shortly after Boax holds it, the third time is when Boax and Arete face each other.

Anyway, when the witch first talks to Arete we find out that she was (actually is) a dumbass that got her crystal stolen when she was pranking people passing herself as an old hag, we also know at that very moment that she made herself "immortal" by transforming back and fort, but now she has given out we learnt that the second time they talk, actually it is hinted the first time, but the second time she made it clear that she has decided to resign herself to live and die like a normal old hag, throwing away her memories, an extreme and unnecessary measure, she is also dumber than expected, because now that i think about it she could have used the magic ring to turn herself back, just like Arete herself does later on in the movie, why didn't she do it? we never find out, the ring is not all powerful but we literally see that it can do at least that much, maybe she was too much of a coward to commit suicide, and just letting herself go as an old hag would be quicker.

As for Boax we can see him struggling trying to read the book that Arete had, he constantly falls into frustrations because the book has a bunch of words that he doesn't understand/knows, which is why it takes him like a week to come with that dumb plan of sending Arete into a mission, plan which among other things failed extremely fast, the other moment is on the final confrontation between Boax and Arete, when he reveals that he is a kid, that never learnt to use magic, all he can do is use the things others made, and even then, all he knows is how to transform useless things into other useless things, soon after that his incompetent ass trips and falls, losing the gem, dooming himself to an early death, just like the witch, BTW talking about the witch, why didn't she approached Boax and told him to lend her his crystal to turn her back? no idea, maybe same reason why she didn't use the ring, maybe she is an idiot, or she just gave up entirely.

The final piece of background is at the very end of the movie, when Arete tells Boax to use the power of imagination, the magic that all humans have, in order to escape his predicament and find hope. This is actually quite infuriating, because Boax doesn't uses the power of imagination, he uses his memory, he thinks back to how things used to be, of the time he went to the beach, of his kind mother, and his dreams of one day becoming an astronaut, of his wonderful society, he thinks of his actual past, of course for Arete and the rest (Ample the woman that gave Boax food) his past sounds like total fiction, so Arete, which is also a dumbass, as a matter of fact, not even one single character in that entire movie is smart, they are all idiots, some more than others, but anyway Arete assumes that Boax is also thinking of a fairytale, just like she herself did while imprisoned in the tower reading the book, or when she was imprisoned in the wizard's tower sewing, and tells him to cherish that magic of imagination, problem of course being that Boax never used that magic, he was just remembering.

Then the movie ends, we see Arete went out to travel the world, and Boax is still there in that field looking for the gem, the literal final frame of the movie is of Borax looking at his hands and then looking at the sky, what does that mean? i have no idea, Arete herself looks at her hands a bunch of times through the movie, but when she does that, she is thinking about the things that human hands can create, the things that her hands could create, she is thinking about the power of imagination and creativity, in the case of Boax however the power of imagination is something he has never used, and that his useless ass can't really use, because in the end he is a brat that can't even read, so maybe that final frame what shows us is that Boax finally gives up, that like the witch he has come to accept that this is his reality now, that no one will come to save him, and that he has to live and die an old man with not too long left to live, but that's a depressing way to end a movie.

Btw neither Arete nor the villagers that were there tell Ample about Boax real form, the only thing this movie had going for him was introspection, and yet Arete never question why the wizard would kidnap her just to release her shortly after, and why he would actively try to avoid her, and once the truth is out no one shares it, Ample literally ask Boax what he will do once he finds the crystal, she thinks he will use it to transform people into frogs, she still thinks that Boax is an old evil wizard and has no idea that he is really a lost and dumb spoiled kid, i can't blame her tho, she wasn't there the moment Boax confesses, and no one will ever tell her, days probably months have gone by, the place is all green, at this point there's no reason to come and tell her, "Oh Ample did you know? that Boax is not an actual wizard, he can't really use magic, he is just a kid that screwed himself over", i don't know why Arete is keeping that info to herself, she could be helping him to look for the crystal, but it isn't, so funny thing is that the prophecy came true at the end and Boax ends losing his immortality, just like in any other fairytale ever written, the only reason this is important to mention is because this movie is known to subvert fairytale tropes.

lihle808 said:
You got that from the movie alone? wow you're incredible! It kinda made my watching shallow.
I am you also gave me an insight on the witch too, because I was meaning to ask about her too.

you were a huge help and THANKS A BUNCH AGAIN