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There are crucial times in our lives when we made the wrong decision and we wish we had acted differently, then, not only us, but perhaps the whole universe would be brought to be different as well.

After finally getting to the end of the "perpetual murders", Rika is riding bicycle with her friends till she gets run over by a truck, which makes Hanyuu transport her to another reality in order to avoid the accident that could result in Rika's death. Yet, this time, in this other world, she cannot find Keiichi, Takano and other characters, while Satoko’s brother and Rika’s parents are still living ... in Hinamizawa.

Things start to get complicated when the two realities start to overwrite one another and Rika needs to decide which reality she wants to live in: a whitish world or a place stained by blood? The plot is developed in a mystery scenario where everything is bewildering and a vital decision seems inevitable. To some extent, we can say this revives the mood of a visual novel in which every resolution is a conclusive factor for the following narrative.

There isn't enough character development with the exception of Rika, since basically all the OVAs are filled with her internal monologue, or rather her conversation with her other persona, and all the other characters remain essentially the same, even in another reality. Apart from Rika's journey, there isn't much except that kind of special that allows fans to see their favorites characters in comical situations.

The paradigm for the whole story consists of a scenario and its deconstruction. If we examine particular scenes, we will see that there is a considerable variety of them and, moreover, that there are scenarios within scenarios, plots overlapping other plots, stories of small importance as well as large, stories with staying power and narratives that quickly pass, leaving their values and resources to be reevaluated by the following storyline.

First, we are in a humorous plot, then in a disturbing one; to close the cycle, we are presented with another comical plot in the last OVA. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei is not about a story of endless murders anymore, rather is about a everlasting cycle of happy and sad moments which we all know very well since it is what life is all about.

As the title suggests (rei=礼=gratitude), while respecting the past, as Rika learned to respect her mother, one must also “kill” his past in order to live the present. Likewise, there’s always an exciting promise that makes us look forward to the future, yet we must never forget to appreciate the here and now. Change is not the aftereffect of exclusively abstract forces, but of real people’s actions in response to their daily lives.

A release from the well-known Studio DEEN, it doesn't stray far from the company’s habitual animated presentation in the previous seasons. Bathed in violent touches, adorable infantile behavior, and a strict adherence to perturbing character development, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei is quite comfortable playing to Toshifumi Kawase’s strengths as a experienced director and screenwriter of fantasy and thriller plots.

The background music is virtually the same of the previous seasons ranging from extremely happy to downhearted. Tamura Yukari once again does a good job as Rika, varying from “Nipa!” to a rather scary voice. Nakahara Mai (Rena) just shows to us this time the “I want to take it home” voice (the “it is a lie!” that was so creepy is actually funny now).

The initial row of the opening "Super Scription of Data" is marked by a somewhat dark mood carried by a guitar riff and a continuous beat accompanied by lyrics inspired in a popular childish song “let's make a pinky promise: if you lie, swallow a thousand needles” - childish and creepy at the same time. The beginning of the song is marked by a brooding intensity and a lofty path till is struck by a new tone, a more extrovert type of music, when reaching the chorus. This duality represents what is this series pretty well. Highly dramatic is the grand pause in the vocal before the refrain.

AnNina has a unique vocal touch, permitting every lyric its full significance, whether she is belting it out or whispering it. The ending “Manazashi” is a good example of all of these factors working together wonderfully. The piano announces the row in a quietly lyrical mood. The music projects a mood of gentle contemplation. In violent contrast is its lyric, with its overtones of brutality: “I killed them gently, so that they couldn't feel any pain”.

Peace is the dream and the search, the longing for oblivion. Since happiness is not to be attained in that reality, love leads beyond its confines becoming the ultimate escape. Thus the impulse that generates life is transformed by a magnificently romantic gesture into the destroying passion whose fulfillment is death: as a dreamlike lyrical melody, the music is steeped in poetry. The piercing sweetness of the voice, a melancholic violin soaring high above the harmony, the dark resonance of the piano - the song has a high emotional content: “What have I lost?” while shards fall with the characters within.

The irreparable of our past – this is the real corpse. All the other cadavers may very well be a delusion. All the corpses may be alive somewhere else, all our own previous seconds of life may be existing elsewhere in the illusion of space and time, in the falsity of elapsing. But what we were not, what we did not do, what we did not even dream; what only now we see we ought to have done, what only now we clearly see we ought to have been – that is what is dead beyond all the Gods.

What we've missed definitely holds no sort of expectancy in any kind of metaphysical system. Maybe we could bring what we have dreamed to some other world, but could we bring to another world the things we forgot to dream? These, yes, the dreams going begging are the real corpse. We bury it in our hearts for ever, for all time, for all universes.

“I want to talk to someone. Who can I talk to?” - Lain, The Nightmare of Fabrication

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone”. - Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea


This is a short story which is part of Lain Omnipresence in Wire art book. Not only does this book present absolutely awe-inspiring lithographs of original artwork from Lain but also the archetypal work of the multi-talented Yoshitoshi Abe continues to show his talents as a mangaka, illustrator and script writer. It is not only a beautifully crafted manuscript, but its images capture the likeness of a soul. It ... is visually stunning and the artwork contained within it is rich, unlike so many other art books I've come across that present you with bland imagery. This is the best art book I have seen. From simple sketches to finished artwork – you can see in every piece an astounding discovery, a masterful book and a visual treat.

I believe good fantasy and imagined art can be based on solid foundation of realism and I really think ABe is throwing in plenty of his own style / imagination based on what he sees and what he feels in this manga. There is no place for a landscape here, since everything is a suffocating enclosure (like a stressed mind), then capped with melancholic shading, dark colors, and outstanding texture. The figures are graceful, but alternative, elegant, yet perturbing, balanced and each mark combined to give poetry to the overall. The most important aspect of the work is the life that is captured in the drawing. That which is presented is that which is important, and everything else fades into the background. There’s a considerable amount of red through the pages, from Lain’s iris to a red string.

The plot is like an alternative story of Lain. Even though it is like a thumbnail sketch of some questions that are presented by the anime and contains one of the important characters of the series, Deus, this story also presents a character who is unique to the game of Lain released for Playstation in 1998 – the therapist. Like in ABe’s White Rain, we abruptly see a girl who does not know her location or identity. Her only companion is a stuffed little dog. She opens up his belly in order to discover if he really carries an existence, and also to give him the features which she wishes him to have. Then she starts to recreate her empty reality, filling it with her own conception of truth. She wants to recreate her mother, her father, her sister, her friend, and essentially herself.

The only background of the story is this dark empty room and Lain is all alone – it’s like the space around her is still "loading". This oppressive scenario, however, starts to be freighted by her frustrations. The prospect ceases to be a physical one and starts to find itself inside Lain’s head. Other characters are just presented as simply recordation of Lain’s mind as their existence is submitted by her memories. Eventually, Lain starts to wonder if she herself, this individual who she considers to be Lain - this girl who has this name, a place of birth and age - isn’t as well merely an interpretation of some data – and the darkness starts to fill the room once again.

We can see some plot devices in this narrative: the stuffed little dog acts as a Chekov’s Gun, Jonbar Hinge, and Framing device. Moreover, we see a unique space and time, and deus ex machina, exactly like in the classical theater (besides the fact that the story discusses metalinguistically both Aristotle’s conceptions of mimesis and catharsis). The plot explores human psychology and existentialism’s theories and the characters are usually more symbolic of the ideas they represent. In summary, we are presented with an alternative quest for God.

This dark room where Lain starts to recreate herself through the computer is probably a sketch that some people may identify themselves with. Ugly people doing beautiful profiles and pictures, quiet individuals talking too much on forums, lonely ones making a lot of friends in the internet. Everybody is trying to improve somehow, even if in the end it is a lie of who he/she really is – although, by a different point of view, this may be his/her real self. Familial problems, relationship problems are things everybody can identify themselves with. So it’s like not only the other characters, but the reader himself is dragged to the thoughts of the protagonist.

Someone once defined good art as something that can stab you in the chest. This masterpiece stabs you in your head, in your heart, and invites you to stab yourself, this lie that maybe you have been carrying. Know thyself. Sometimes, even if you drown yourself in the internet and feel like you’re surrounded by people, you still may be utterly alone. Even if you have a computer which you think is everything you need, in reality you may have nothing. People cannot really connect, that’s why it is so cold. On the other hand, “if no one knows, it can be the same as if it never happened at all” – a fabricated nightmare.

Have you ever wished you could fly away and leave your mediocre life and sad past behind you?

A girl can flutter around embraced by nature, comprehending animal and plant languages, and blasting away her insecurities with a gush of wind. She has always been searching for a nest, but the emptiness of not having a place to come back to is filled with the feeling of liberty.

It is impressive how a one shot manhwa which got third place in an amateur contest is far keener than some highly regarded manga with thousands of pages. This statement would seem false if you let prejudice dominate the ... first impression of simplicity that the drawings and the infantile features appear to imply. However, it’s because of this same childlike development that this work manages to find profoundness.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice is considered by a lot of people a childish story – mainly because of Disney. But it is in fact a fountain of inspiration for many artists, from poets to CLAMP, once it carries on its outward appearance of nonsense to an extreme creativity and even a political vein. The same can be applied to some extent here.

It cannot be said that the art is great. It’s the plain art style of a beginner’s work but, since the story has an initially mild attribute, it fits the plot pretty well: complex artwork would not match the purpose of this narrative. You can feel like you are being transported to those times when you read or heard from your parents a story that you knew could not be truthful but you accepted it with enjoyment. And in the allegedly inconsequential nature of it all, you could find some things to think about it.

The main human character is a girl that searches for her place in a panoramic view. Although there are other characters that, if not human in form, hold a human heart: a bird that protects its children, its future, and a tree that lost its friend in the flux of time and now is completely alone in this cold winter are the company this girl keeps in her free world.

Yet given all these misleading simplicities, complexity is going to barge into this unpretentiousness like the wind that carries this girl away as the end approaches. This is not something that is going to take a lot of time for you to read, but it’s something that is going to take you a lot of time to reflect upon.

You are dead. Now, you have three options: accept your death and go to heaven, don’t accept it and stay as a ghost, and one more… haunt and kill someone in the world, but if you kill someone you will go straight to hell, and your suffering will never end. These options are presented by the long dark haired Izuko, the guardian of the gate for the murdered ones.

The art is creepy and far from what we consider a typical manga style - the brushes are blurred, the contrast between black and white is elevated to the maximum, ... connoting even a metaphorical level. Some illustrations at times seem to be just drafts but this rough style fits the subject of the manga pretty well. There are a lot of large frames and zoom in on the faces of the characters, since Takahashi likes to deform his lines when he’s picturing a deformed human heart.

Additionally, you can see some panoramic photos in the end of each chapter what always fits perfectly with the subject of it, and it’s a lot alike with the style that Takahashi used in ALIVE. There are also pictures of the city that make the reader reflect about his own life in a chaotic urban environment, with its sins and sadness; furthermore, Takahashi enjoys using ample black squares with only the assertion of the characters in big ideograms when the statements carry a lot of sentimental burdens.

The subjects are rape, murder, fake friends, suicide, voyeurism, bulling, vengeance, past, unemployment in times of crisis, unfulfilled dreams, child abuse. There’s no cliché here, only brutal reality. The morals aren’t what we are used to see like the power of friendship and idiotic things like that. The morals are surprisingly appalling. It’s a deep reflection about some Japan’s issues: people who isolate themselves, who fantasize with the filthiness.

I don’t think all the sex scenes were really necessary, at most of the time they were just fanservice, and that would be one of the few complaints that one can makes, but we are talking about a plot which involves some Freudian subjects so probably it’s inevitable. Besides, Takahashi links these scenes with some deep reflections about hypocrisy and the masks people wear. Actually, in some sense 90% of the manga talks about human hypocrisy. Hidden tears mixed with fake ones.

The ugliness of humanity presented with no fear, as well as the distant path to salvation which consists in the rebirth and trying once again, even with no promises that the same mistakes won’t be committed in this cycle of death and rebirth. The characters are almost like personifications of some dark sides of the heart, but we cannot call them takeoffs when the development is always far away from generalization.

The twisted art fits a narrative that distorts values: heroes become villains, victims become culprits. There’s no salvation, people just keep going down in the path of the hate. They could go to heaven, but they prefer to destroy themselves with dark feelings. The past is a chain that cannot be easily broken, and it consumes the prisoner. People have problems to move on when the unsettled things of the past come to meet them.

The chapters are episodic, always following a tragic ending of some poor human being. As the story always involves murders, there are some parts in which it seems like a detective manga, although the focus is more in the psychology of the characters than in the mystery.

Comparisons with Jigoku Shoujo are inevitable, seeing the plot, the episodic development, the vengeance subject, and the fact that Izuko looks like a grown Enma Ai, but as a matter of fact this manga came first. But Izumo still cannot use the internet Like Enma and that’s why Skyhigh doesn’t outstand here on MAL.

You’re tired of the same clichéd manga. Now, you have three choices: Move on and read something more intelligent, stay in the mainstream stuff… and one more: haunt and kill this reviewer, but if you kill someone you will go straight to hell and your suffering will never end - something to look forward to when you die.

If you love me, will you kill me? I’m tired of this endless cycle…

The Sky Crawlers is a movie about genetically altered humans beings called Kildren (kill+children) who can never grow and are bound to endless aerial battles in an alternate historic period. This is a standard synopsis, the real one is that this is a story about meaning of the existence, wars, love, suicide, destiny, and emptiness.

It’s not a movie for general public taste; actually, most of people will probably want to give up on the movie before the first hour, since even though it’s a movie with war as a central subject and ... has some battles, the development is somewhat slow. The silence of their empty lives almost dominates the entire movie and the great moments are like slices of their lives; nothing really outstanding by an action point of view, but really deep in a psychological one.

Having said that, the visual effects are really something else. The air battles are truly well done, and the 3D effects catch the eyes. It’s a partnership between Warner Brothers and I.G., so this is not so surprising. Besides, it’s from the same director of the Ghost in the Shell movies. The OST is just beautiful. There are a lot of variations of the main theme, from piano to harp, and most of the songs are depressing. There are the ones fitted for battle, and the ones fitted for sadness.

As an adaptation of a novel, the development of the plot sometimes seems to have some flaws. As a matter of fact, the series’ author said that this was the most difficult of his works to adapt. But these “flaws” are almost part of the charm of the movie; you’ll receive some answers, but you will still wonder about a lot of unsettled things.

They don’t know who they’re fighting against nor why – a reflection about war itself. The main characters are just children, but they have to act like adults, and this paradox is explored all the time. They go to places like a brothel, but at the same time they like engaging in childish activity, such as playing with toys. All of them try to fill their emptiness with something: Yuichi Kannami, the main character, doesn’t even remember his past, so all he does is trying to comprehend why he’s there, their purpose. Kusanagi, a female commander, has a morbid point of view, always caring a gun to commit suicide or murder.

They kill in the air, but on earth they’re just like normal human beings - the sky is like a cage to these birds. If you have some patience to watch something that’s nothing like simple-minded, this movie is definitely going be a favorite.

We all have times when we wish we were dead, although we don’t always mean it.

Well, I present you Itoshiki Nozomu. He’s the world’s most pessimistic person and always carries around a rope when things turn badly (by the way, when you write his name horizontally, you will get Zetsubou – despair). Right in the first episode we see Itoshiki hanging himself in some cherry trees and his imminent death is only stopped by Fuura Kafuka, his unequal: the world’s most optimistic person. This is what sets things off and from here on in we will make a journey through current Japan’s society, through ... the eccentric students of this eccentric teacher.

Usually when we talk about smart comedy what comes to mind is a Cambridge PhD that tells jokes that only Stephen Hawking and company can grasp. This series is really something because it is a smart comedy… that allows laughing. Zetsubou has a lot of serious subjects but you never see these treated like a soap opera. The problem is developed with a dark comedy that allows much more reflection about it.

Each character is a takeoff of modern Japan’s problematic citizens: a hikikomori, a perfectionist, a gaijin that suffers prejudice, an addict of cell phones, a stalker, a fan of yaoi and cat ears, an illegal immigrant, a girl that enjoys putting a stick in a dog’s ass (not sure if the last one is a general problem). The development of these characters may become compromised after the first half, conceding space to nonsense episodes, but this is natural coming from a comedy.

Usually when we see an anime we already know what to expect from the funny parts, they’re virtually the same every time. Again, that’s not the case here. Expect the unexpected. A really unique, cynical, nonsensical comedy. The color and the lighting is top quality. Also, get prepared to see a lot of cuts, abrupt changes of images, jokes been told on the blackboard or written on the screen. The dialogue is original and the animation is pretty creative and of high quality; moreover, there are a lot of alternative things.

For example, all the time you’ll see the picture of bald guy around, a Japanese Lex Luthor, that is funny exactly because there’s no purpose for that. There is an episode in which the characters are presented as paper dolls. The first opening doesn’t even have any image, except that damn bald guy. The second one can mix up Buddhism with bondage (don’t ask me how). The ending is like a surrealistic thriller. It’s a pretty cult comedy by this point of view, because uses a lot of art and animation techniques that you thought you would only find in a more serious anime or in a museum.

We can call it a harem series when we think that every girl somehow ends up falling in love with the teacher and that the only male characters that have the minimum relevance are a bald guy (another one) and a boy that only read books the entire time. There’s a lot of fanservice as well, but, one more time, the anime does that in a unique way. It’s almost like it is dissing the fanservice itself.

There are references to other anime like Lucky Star and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (and Zetsubou is incredibly similar to Watanuki from XXX Holic). Furthermore, the otaku world is shown in the traditional Comiket Market.

The first opening song, Hitotoshite Jiku ga Bureteiru, is performed by Kenji Ohtsuki, who some may remember from the ending of Welcome to NHK. Now, instead of the galactic crazy baby, there is a song that keeps repeating bure, bure, bure (warped, warped, warped)… whatever. What’s cool is that there is the participation of some of the voice actors like Nonaka Ai (here, Fuura Kafuka, but also known as Ibuki Fuko in Clannad After Story) and Inoue Marina (here she’s Kitsu Chiri; also made Eve Genoard in Baccano).

It may be a funny rock – you can’t hear Kenji sing without laughing - but is also a pretty good one, at least the song doesn’t get out of your head. Most of the OST is performed by Hasegawa Tomoki on the piano, and the majority of the songs are somewhat dramatic, melancholic, romantic, what fits with the dark comedy of the series pretty well.

When I finished the last episode I was so gloomy about it that I thought about doing bungee jumping from a two floors house with the rope around my neck cutting my wrists while falling after drinking caustic soda… but then I discovered that there was a second season and a third coming up this July… there’s still hope… ;)

From the same creators of Serial Experiments Lain, Haibane Renmei and Hellsing, this series stands out as a whole, having one of the most complex plots I’ve ever seen, a great and original art style (Abe!), dark color, good opening, ending, OST and a really alternative development. It’s the kind of series that if you don’t actually pay attention and put your brain to work, you’ll end up with a ? stamped on your face.

There are a lot of little references through the episodes, from books to folklore. One major thing we can mention is how you cannot avoid thinking on Dante’s Commedia when ... you see the disposition of the status: the upper word (heaven/Hades?) and Lux (the purgatory/hell?), mainly when is mentioned that the inhabitants had the “demon inside”, when Kohagura affirmed that it was probably the ninth circle and when is said: “If this is already hell, where are we going to?” What the hell? Well, you’ll understand when you see. Later on, you’ll think you’re reading Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation.

About Japanese folklore, references are vast and still not completely know, taking Ueda’s statement into account: “I’d also find it interesting if non-Japanese fans could get a feel for the sensibilities of the show, which are admittedly very Japanese”. The main thing we see is Ran’s fox mask. In Japanese society, the fox is considered to be the guardian deity of farming (rice fields) by some, because the animal eats field mice that often damage or destroy crops. This guardian deity signifies some special power in Gabe, which is an agrarian community as well. Makes sense considering that the white fox is brownish is summer (Ran’s hair) and white in the winter, when we think about hers double personality. Also seems truthful considering last episode Myth, and how the fox is an important part of that, from Aesop to Japan’s folklore. Throughout a millennium of Japanese folklore, the fox is depicted as the epitome of deception, able to transform into any shape or form it strategically desires. Due to its ancient mystique, the fox figures prominently, not only in popular folklore, but also in formal Shinto mythology. Thus, should you walk through the rural forests of contemporary Japan, you will no doubt encounter shrines wholly dedicated to this semi-divine animal. Kitsune (foxes) have become closely associated with Inari, a Shinto kami or spirit, and serve as his messengers (makes sense when we think Ran is a prophet).

It’s said that the statements in this anime are somewhat vague and virtually elusive, what’s in part true, but is what makes the show unique. The main characters, Ichise and Ran, are really the quiet kind. The first basically can only express himself through rage and the second, due to her powers, is much more a just-watching type. However, both of them, once attached to someone, are really caring – in their own way. Ichise is really loyal to Onishi and Organo, and Ran leaves Rafia flowers to guide the way of the lost ones and likes to hear Gurayama. Ichise had a harsh childhood, losing his parents in violent ways and having to fight with his own fists in order to don’t starve, so his personality is really not that surprising. Ran is a diviner who has problems accepting that what she foresees is real, for is always a dramatic ending, but, since her predictions are always precise, her quiet attitude is almost like an acceptance of her destiny. She reminds me Hinoto and Rika. Therefore, watching this show, don’t expect dialogues “yes or no” and learn to read in between the lines and the little actions – they speak much more than a thousand sentences. Never mind the words: sing! – is what said the gamin to Chaplin’s ingenious performance. Silence is an important factor of the development.

People the entire time struggle with their own destiny and the meaningless of their existence. Doc, realizing how her study was insignificant, Gabe’s elder, unable to protect the prophet, Shinji, the Freedom’s believer, climbing an inexistent better world… everybody is just trying to carry through, even while realizing the aimless of it all, and is exactly that will to survive that will end up destroying them. 痛い。生きたい。痛い。

There’s blood and violence for the sadist fans but even at that aspect the series is unique. When Ichise has his arm chop off, you don’t see a lot of gore, instead, you watch his image really distorted and enlarged, a painful expression reinforced by the shadows in his face and red covering the whole image accompanied by -not a loud and annoying scream but - a low and creepy one. A surrealist portrait of pain (and in sequence there’s an allegory with a reptile’s regenerative power).

(DON’T READ THESE PARAGRAPHS IF YOU HAVEN’T COMPLETED THE SERIES)

The entire time the human factor is put in comparison with the technology. Ichise all the time asks if “that” is his real hand – the same hard time Chaplin had with the feeding machine. Although his mechanics limbs are the most visible thing, his eyes are almost as important as. Doc took interest on him because of his optics, which were like the ones the original inhabitants had, the woman is the first episode goes crazy in sex because of these “demon’s eyes” and the weird images that appear on the view of the texhnolyzed. Doc is called Ichise’s second mother, referring to the fact that she gave his new body, which even had hers cells on it and welcomes him to this Brave New World (also adding a case of metaphoric incest to the literal one already showed). A bad ass techno by Juno Reactor on the opening, setting up the series’ environment, in contrast with the ending Tsuki no Uta from Gackt: a bland, peaceful and sad song that gives the human element. The flower is traditionally a symbol of hope, what is showed when Ran guides Ichise through the sewer like an Ariadne, and also appears on the ending theme - although the one that accompanies Ran is one that in Japan symbolizes death (death is hope?). We also see the contrast, and complement, between religion and science when a so called modern society has an augur in a so high appreciation. Having Ueda statement in mind, is almost like we’re talking about Japan itself, where one of the great industrialized countries has to deal with the opposites between the new and the traditional.

Not only about Japan, we can make a parallel between Texhnolyze’s world and the one we live today. For ages we’ve heard how science’s progress will lead us to a better world, a world of peace, how it will extinguish hunger, how death will be defeated and we will have some cool flying cars… what came was more destructive kind of weapons, extension of the line between poor and rich, and we still don’t have the damn flying cars… In texhnolyze’s world prosthesis have reached a point that we still can only dream about, and yet Lux’s dwellers live in extreme poverty and, therefore, that kind of prosthetic device is for few. On the other hand, Surface’s society is so developed that everything is already meaningless. Doc thought that kind of technology was the next step for evolution and, notwithstanding, she discovered it was all a lie, and fainted into emptiness like everybody there. Science development lost its meaning since nobody really gets its allegedly good fruits. Surface people only wait for death, without realizing they already are, their original purpose kept getting further and further until was not there anymore. Lasciate ogni speranza, voi che entrate.

We could make a parallel with economic issues, technologic issues, political issues and so forth. However, master pieces like this anime transcend exactly because are not attached to any particular theme. In Chaplin’s Modern Times, the first thing that appears is this: “'Modern Times'. A story of industry, of individual enterprise ~ humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness”. It doesn’t matter if is a modern metropolis, a futurist world or a rural society from the seventh century. People are people and is not the advent of a new robot that will change humanity – humans change humans. Lux, Raffia, Organo, Texhnolyze itself are just accessories. The main thing is about people searching for their path. In the end, Ichise says that was Ran that changed him, not his mechanic limbs, and wonders if he was able to change her too.

Two people that fight against their destiny trying to find their own path - the pursuit of happiness. When Ran body is gone, his mechanical part is able to reproduce the flower- hope- her image- death. And then we see the first, and only, time that this angered and lonely man is able to smile… as everything fades away.

Smile
tho' your heart is aching,
Smile
Even though it's breaking,
When there are clouds in the sky- You'll get by,
If you
Smile through your fear and sorrow,
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through- For you.
Light up your face with gladness,
Hide ev'ry trace of sadness,
Altho' a tear may be ever so near,
That's the time you must keep on trying,
Smile- What's the use of crying,
You'll find that life is still worthwhile,
If you just smile.