Apr 30, 2019
"A BARRACK OF SWORDS AND SORCERY HOLDING JAPANESE SWAMP UNDER THE FLOOR"
On a story posting site, there submitted an amateurish simple draft like a rough dry trail. To tailor it into a suite of animation series, it was necessary to flesh out with ideas which were not given by the original plotter. What this production team chose was...
In the characteristics of Japanese ghost stories and Japanese horror movies, there is an element, which is always pointed out. To say, "dampness".
In the dictionary sense, it appears to be "water". Half of it is from the climate and a depressing mood (such as quiet eeriness) made by
...
that. The other half is body fluid of human. Cold sweat on the back, dry swallow in tense, striking nausea in the stomach, the sudden eruption of hot flashes, feeling slippy hands holding the shaft of a weapon, sticky blood pool, tears overflowing while holding back the cry, and so on. Actors and viewers share the same kind of body fluids as humanity. They are shaken by the emotions mediated by the body fluids. The emotions that cannot be spoken are again symbolized and emphasized as the body fluids.
A strong thought that every human being has, shaped into a certain direction by own emotions are called "pathos". In the type of stories like this work, "pathos" can be said more concisely -- "grudge".
The terse drafts, like the inscrutable iron-faced protagonist. In order to make a foothold of empathy and inflate the plot, highlighting more sympathetic characters to stir viewers' primal emotions is a proper way.
Not a disastrous mass destruction nor terror, but the concerns of this story are the lawless violence (sometimes organized and sometimes disorganized) also seen in this real world. What the creative team chose is simmering the grudges of the characters and the goblins, with tenacity. The dampness is its physical representation.
Some of the audience (some are chuunibyo) assume that this "low sugar" mood takes on the western-medieval style hard-core fantasy with harsh realism, which landed as a counteraction of those fluffy lots of Japan-born swords-and-sorcery contents which are bright, refreshing and stress-free for an empty head (but filled with eye candies).
The direct ancestor of anti-hero archetype like the protagonist of this work can be sought out on the tracks back to the Spaghetti Western movies. As you know very well, there was a period when many movies set in the West of America were produced in European countries. Contrary to the conventional stories of the high-spirited proud founders of America who have devoted their lives to the pioneering and faith, the Spaghetti Western movies portray who openly oppose the corrupted authorities, who resist racial discrimination, the Mexican heroes who lead American armies by the nose, nihilistic stylish outlaws and so on. The movies oriented to the action entertainment in the desolated frontiers.
Some of what the Spaghetti producers have been inspired were Akira Kurosawa's "Yojinbo" and those "jidai-geki" -- historical sword-action drama / samurai movies. On the contrary, the Spaghetti Western echoes to the Japanese drama makers. Pushing those repetitious "moral play" aside, stranger heroes appeared after another who live on their rules and sole own swordsmanship.
It seems that the original draft of this work also took nutrients from a pool of jidai-geki, like the game masters of paper-and-pencil role-playing games prepare scenarios conceived from plots of those established plays. And the animated version is borrowing a lot from Japanese traditional standard attributes: "damp" and "wet", as mentioned.
Even though this is not such another tale like brave adventures of teen boys and/or girls with a critter (which are commercially proven by the video game industry as so-called "JRPG"s), it is also and nevertheless a work, which is undoubtedly fed by the bloodline of accustomed Japanese storytelling doctrine.
Aside from the ethical controversy, such these stories like revenge, horror or bullying which are driven by gruesome "grudges" are promised certain approval and success, especially in East Asia. However, the way is to immerse its knees into the warm swamp from the prehistoric era where countless previous works and tales stagnant. I still can not tell whether it breaks to a new route without getting bogged down, whether it can continue to breathe even after mired in the mushy ooze, nor whether it will be pulled into fathoms deep and buried totally.
It sounds very RPG-like what the protagonist refers to himself as saying, "With new wits, it is getting pleasant to realize them to outsmart the goblins" or "The first adventurer who loses the ability to imagine dies first".
The protagonist allows even infant goblins no mercy. Is he an inhuman undertaker of massacres? In an interesting twist, we can see no piece of superiority complex nor consciousness of persecution within the psyche of the man. He applies himself "I may be like a goblin for them -- the goblins". We could sense a hint of antiseptic. This is a kind of the immaculate nature within this stained story. Doesn't he practice just as a professional pest control worker does?
In this play, the roles depicting the sense of bias are arranged to the protagonist's guild peers. They contempt the goblins too, again glance the man as a crackbrain who sneaks into the stinky lairs of such those brat-like goblins day by day.
"There's no hope to harmonize with the goblins", the protagonist says. Then, how is his mind for the fellow adventurers who suffer him with prejudice? This is a focus of the challenges to the audience for the ability of comprehension and insight. "Totally indifferent"? Alas, YOU DIED FIRST.
To break the endless linkage of grudges -- In short, this is the behavioral principle of the protagonist's unrelenting effort for goblin elimination.
Ironically, a crowd of viewers is thirsting for a dank story which leads to a chain of grudges. For the moment, they jump at the waving flag over the anime production committee, who seems to lure the crowd well as planned.
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* In the finale of the fourth episode: The monologue of the elven archer launches a fresh viewpoint toward the well-worn "adventure" concept. Let's celebrate a joyful fledgling of philosophy.
[Written and translated by aReviewer myself - from MAL blog entry: https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=824711 ]
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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