neko's thinkbox

Chaos.

It is always nice to be surprised by such a seemingly boring anime, which turns out to become one of the best shows of the summer season.

Not to repeat myself on what I’ve said in my previous impressions of this anime, I’ll just focus a little on this concept of realism.

Wall of text ahead; impatient people click on this link.

Random blabbering on news and the media

Did I say boring? It might have seemed so initially, yes. Even at the end, if I was to remain entirely objective, I could argue that this story has absolutely nothing to offer beyond the factual narrative from Mirai’s perspective, and that earlier today, I saw a report about young Muslims in Israel and Afghanistan and felt the same thing. Events happened. People died, people survived, anywhere. And nothing could be done at all. From the perspective of the media, events like these are all numbers. Injuries, casualties, area, time, cost. Cue the ads, sport after the break.

It is a little how Mari described it at some point, discovering the truth on the spot: “this is not what they said in the news!” – of course not. The desensitized mass of today takes news and reports for granted: be it a flooding in North America, South East Asia; the war on any remote country; an Earthquake of magnitude 6 on the Richter Scale somewhere in the world – we feed on numbers, and the higher they are, the higher we raise our eyebrows. But we barely don’t know anything behind those numbers and words. Do I know trauma, agony, death? I can imagine it, but what matters is experience, not imagination.

Scapegoatizing the media for their lack of detail? Or returning the blame to the gullible populace?

Scapegoatizing the media for their lack of detail? Or returning the blame to the gullible populace?

And even if sometimes, news reports seem to go in-depth, they still remain distant. They never manage to convey the horror and despair felt by the victims. The general misconception is that news in itself is absolute; shit happens, you don’t need to know more, have some more fast-food coverage. Why, time is money, you’re safe where you are, and you’d be better off knowing trivial info.
I wonder if the whole vague “news report”-style previews, and Mari’s comment were in itself a criticism of the influence of the media and/or pointing at the gullibility of the Elevens? Lack of personality, or impersonality^[1]? Conjecture. It’s too complicated of a concept for me, I’ll leave this part to the researching litterateurs out there.

 
The attention to detail

In any case, that’s the area where this anime excels: It takes the time to place that magnifying glass above an average Japanese middle class family with everyday problems, and accompanies them all along the way of the events, uncut. Instead of contemplating the damage from the side, you witness the force of nature as it shakes the earth and brings down buildings. And during this journey, the view on the whole world changes, for these people, and for yourself. it renders this impersonal, factual event interesting to the viewer. It becomes personal.

Hold. I do make it sound as if this was something new, but of course, it ain’t an epiphany at all. I can’t name any in particular^[2] but I am fairly sure that there are a myriad of similar works across any kind of media out there, that will focus on the fate of a single person or group of people bathing in despair. So TM 8.0 is nothing new, and I suck if this was the first time I came across a similarly-themed story, okay.

The invisible barrier between Mirai's mind and reality; the missing touch.

The invisible barrier between Mirai’s mind and reality; the missing touch.

However, while many would try to spice up their stories with exaggerations, futuristic science-fiction, or twenty layers of drama and/or sugarcoat to appeal to the mainstream, the main selling point of this story is the extremely accurate sense of realism (as far as animation and viewer discretion allow it) advertised at the beginning of each episode. That very message repeatedly insisted on making this an exceptional story, pointing out anew towards the likelihood of such an event happening near you.

So, fueled by this propaganda, I was offered a trip to hell as only the fewest know it; I took it up, and accompanied Mirai, Yuuki and Mari on their entire journey, living through the same hardships.

 
Live reality, or real life?

Throughout this whole series, I contemplated the “real” horror felt by our homesick trio, ever thinking of what I would do in such a situation. Of course, it was hard to tell. I am already 22 years old, so I can think and act autonomously – a little 12 year-old middle school girl with her small 8 year-old brother, can’t. I could have identified myself with Mari, but beyond gender and family status, the most important difference is that I am not Japanese, I barely don’t know anything about their ways of living, so I was misplaced from the start. There was always the “tough guy” act going “I would not have been so naive”, “I would have done this differently” and stuff, but it always vanished upon further deaths occurring as this story continued. Collapsing buildings and bridges, the heavens literally falling upon your head; and if it wasn’t mine, it was of the hundreds of people walking ahead of me. There is no such thing as an easy way during a catastrophe. Especially if you’re isolated from the rest of the world.

I cried a lot during these last three episodes. Let’s put this whole facetious “manly tears” meme carousel to rest for a bit, there is absolutely no shame for crying males. I genuinely felt sad for Mirai during these few episodes, where it was already crystal clear that she was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that she kept deluding herself, not to break her mind. Knowing that very fact, as a bystander, hurts a million times more, and I really felt for Mari who had to bear all of Mirai’s delusions.
However, despite my occasional wishes for Mari to end this heart-wrenching charade, I appreciated the fact that she didn’t insist on prying Mirai’s eyes open. Rather than forcing reality upon her, and risking to destroy her with the sudden disillusion and the endless embarrassment, she let it happen naturally. And so, Mirai was able to realize the harsh truth all by herself in the end, and even subconsciously managed to use this condition to go further.

The final confirmation, and the beginning of the acceptance.

The final confirmation, and the beginning of the acceptance.

In my human pity (others would call it the male instinct of protection), I would so much have wanted to console Mirai, whom I eventually liked the best of the characters. This endearing young girl has been through so many feelings, from rejection to longing, greed to regret, and at such an already complicated age, it is at all fabulous and admirable how she managed to survive all of the events and hardships.
Despite my impossibility of being able to think and feel exactly the same, I found her feelings understandable since the beginning. The intricacies of her prepubescent mind, her premature and rebellious demeanor, her rejection of pity and love, her regrets of never realizing the worth of lost things… etc. She realized that life still goes on, and that she still has a long life full of mysteries ahead of her; however, had she now considered hurting herself, or even committing suicide, I could absolutely not have been able to reproach her, had her will to live on been broken. There is no such “she should have” in a story-embellishing way – everything makes sense, according to realism.

 
Yes, but…

All in all, the message of “realism” seems to have worked perfectly here, and the whole play was well executed. However, from a different point of view, the same message might have served to bias the viewer. For my part, having my attention drawn to this particular feature already changed my expectations of this anime from the start. Instead of exploring the anime on my own, questions like “How far will they push this realism” or “how realistic was the way this or that person just acted” kept swirling in my mind. Instead of living through this pseudo-realistic scenery on my own, I immediately compared everything against the reality I am most acquainted with, and these thoughts occupied my mind almost all the time, potentially drawing away my attention from boredom, or other structural flaws of this anime.

The suspense at the end went from “what will happen in the end” to “how will Mirai react to the truth”. And in the end, instead of saying “this felt so real and it had a surprising effect on me”, I will now say “yup, this was pretty much real, and it was exactly how I would have expected it”. There is also this “she could even have crumbled under the load and killed herself”, but how “realistic” would that be?
Not that this is a bad thing, but it does change the angle this anime is looked at. Well, it will remain one of the few “what ifs” that I will never be able to answer myself.

Good night, Yuuki.

Good night, Yuuki.

One final note though, as much as I appreciated the emotionality of the last episode, it feels as if Bones tried a little too hard this time to make their viewers cry. Especially the instants the adults were crying, the background music played up with a stronger musical meaning, infusing the tender tone of violins in a melodramatic fashion, well, as we know from stereotypical tearjerker movies (and which is often parodized, too). It did magnify my crying to sobbing indeed, but it felt pretty forced in the end. I suppose that, had they wanted it to be of utmost realism, they would have left out the music. Wonder what kind of effect it would have created. But I suppose that was the little compromise they had to make to be able to sell this anime.

 
Bottom line
also called tl;dr

I greatly enjoyed Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. It felt so much more than just a macdonaldized recital of the fate of a small girl somewhere in the world, and managed to keep me tuned until the end. It is a rollercoaster of emotions, and while the story may not strike the existing anime pool as original, it is still pretty outstanding in my opinion.

Rewatch? Probably not. Not because I’m not interested, but because the memories of this anime are so vivid.

It is the first series I completed of this summer season 2009, and there are quite a few to come yet, but I am pretty much positive that it is one of the best this time. At least for now, it’s the best.

Sorry for the lack of formatting, I’m having quite a headache right now, and I wanted to clear this as soon as possible.

Oh and I want Mari’s cellphone. Even in the end, the batteries were fully charged. Even in 2009, making extensive use of video streaming empties your cell batteries within a couple of hours… Sorry to ruin the realistic mood, I just had to say this. :P

1. which translates to impartiality and independence [↩]
2. there are so many (biographies, reports, live coverages, etc.) – but call me illiterate [↩]