Yeah, I pretty much concur with this. I had trouble figuring out the actual message, and the only conclusions I could come to didn't sit well with me. I enjoyed the show, but now I sort of feel bleh about it.
You bring up a lot of good points! I kind of got that the family sharing thing is supposed to be unsustainable, because in essence only Kanba was supposed to be alive post-flashbacks. I didn't read this as transferred sins of the parents as much as it was just the circumstance of Kanba's and Sho's and Himari's birth/situation, like they just got shitty lots in life and made a family to share the burden. Kanba decided to give part of his apple to Sho, and Sho gave part of his part to Himari. That's why Himari is the "weakest," because the sum of apple portion working against fate with her is least. In this sense at the end there is a net gain actually, I think the math is like
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Haha I think it helped that I wasn't in it for the pairings, I was in it to see how everyone would get out of an impossible situation, and it pleased me that the ending actually solved a carefully set up puzzle instead of copping out.
the family sharing thing is supposed to be unsustainable
I get that's it's supposed to be that, according to the show, but I don't like that premise. Why can't it be sustainable? The show sez it's unsustainable because of the "curse," which I do read as the sins of the parents transmuted into society's disregard for the kids. I mean, the reason they're struggling orphans is that their (adoptive) parents were terrorists, and that's not just a shitty lot in life, that's a really specific family history tied to a specific incident that garners specific hatred. I guess my issue is, I'm not convinced of the unsustainability of consciously formed families, and I was looking for a more hopeful/optimistic outcome i.e. a way that the kids could save each other that didn't involve death by self-sacrifice because self-sacrifice (however noble and uplifting, yadda yadda) is the only way out of the loop.
the whole fatechange thing being a cycle that
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Idt it's a load of crap, I can defs argue for the K side of things as well :Dv It's just that independently I didn't get the same thing out of the series.
RE: sustainability, nyonyo actually brings up something that I think the anime (non deliberately) handled so subtly that I didn't consciously pick up on it, which is the observable backlash of these people paradoxically being a "real" family while uh not being a real family. They love each other and need each other and share happiness, but even in the midst of that each of them is afraid that if they were to open up about the extents/costs of that love the whole circle would collapse. Like Kanba's situation with Himari is pretty fucked up, Sho only becomes himself with Ringo, Himari turns off her front so rarely that until like halfway through the series we don't even know her (tho I think she ended up being my favolite :D), etc. I think if the show had been more up front about this, the full arc of it would have been way cleaner. But my brain picked up on it anyway because idk I watched
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What I'd thought/hoped the show would say is: no, you don't have to suffer forever for the sins of your parents and/or because society says you're worthless. If society doesn't value you, find individuals who will care about you regardless, form relationships with them, and value each other.
This.
I agree also with your feelings re: sacrificial reboots. I think regarding The System, it's left purposefully ambiguous (see: Momoka's smug, "Oh, will it?" in response to Sanetoshi claiming the train will come around again), but that sort of, I guess, lack of emotional/thematic buy-in doesn't really jive for me when the rest of the ending is pushing really hard for the 'you aren't meaningless/you are loved' emotional/thematic buy-in? IDK.
I guess I'm getting hung up where the "in favor of formed families" theme intersects with the "in favor of self-sacrifice" theme. It's not that Shouma and Kanba's death(s) negate the former, but I have trouble with the progression. Especially w/r/t Shouma's psychology and character arc. "You're not worthless! You're worthy of love, even! Now quick, go die for somebody else."
RE: sacrificial reboots, I get that change is harrrrd and everything has a cost etc. but srsly what kind of message is "Change the system--and DISAPPEAR FROM THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE FOREVER :D"
What I'd thought/hoped the show would say is: no, you don't have to suffer forever for the sins of your parents and/or because society says you're worthless. If society doesn't value you, find individuals who will care about you regardless, form relationships with them, and value each other. Like, I see what you're saying and I think that would have been an awesome message, and if I had thought the show was ever going there I guess I would be disappointed...but the show outright announced in the first episode that it was going to be "blah blah Galactic Railroad BS." It was said from the start that people were going to die for love and their sacrifice would be glorified by the show. I thought it had been foreshadowed for a while now that both Ringo and Kanba were gonna make the sacrifices (I'd thought Ringo would die saving Shouma) so...overall I felt like the show did exactly what it said on the tin? XD; Whether the execution was good or not is another matter, but
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tl;dr continuednyonyoDecember 25 2011, 06:54:44 UTC
So the twins' and Ringo's storylines were all the same in the end: they were all people who wanted family on their own terms, not caring for anyone else's feelings except their own. But they all learned to finally get over themselves, pay attention to the other person's feelings, and learn to love them anyway. The Takakuras couldn't do for each other what Ringo had done for them until the very end, and the sacrificial deaths were required storywise not "so Himari/Ringo could live and we can reboot" but to prove the twins were finally capable of loving someone else. Just like it was needed for Ringo's character arc for us to see she was ready to sacrifice her life for someone else, and wasn't the most black-hearted girl in the world anymore
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I thought it had been foreshadowed for a while now that both Ringo and Kanba were gonna make the sacrifices (I'd thought Ringo would die saving Shouma)
Of course, it totally was! The Galactic Railroad homage was clearly advertised! (I also thought Ringo was going to bite it.) But I guess, like I said to zoesque above, I feel like Ikuhara is talking out of both sides of his mouth, because the conjunction between the Galactic Railroad homage / "sacrifice YAY" business and what I see the show saying about family, about living together, about the value of sharing your life with someone--which in my book is not the same as dying for someone!--that's where I feel like there's a disconnect. I guess sharing a life can mean sacrifice, but it's aggravating to me that 2 out of the 3 kids don't get to take what they've learned and do anything with that knowledge in life. They just move on to the afterlife or w/e.
The reboot was needed primarily to stop terrorist attack part deux (which was all Kanba's fault in the first place)....Yanno, I
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I guess where I see the link is "unconditional love of a family." Which the show chose to use the Galactic Railroad self-sacrifice as its way of illustrating it
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I glad other people commented on this post about apples and trying to control each other etc because I totally missed all that stuff. ^^ I agree with your post, though, I thought it was a really unsatisfying ending that undermined a lot of the what the series was trying to show. It *was* like Madoka, in a end, a series that tries to find a way to make a martyr's death into the happy ending, without leaving behind grieving family members and/or perpetuating the cycle of suffering. That's why the brothers are erased from the timeline after they die (or I guess fate changes so it's like they never existed at all
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Finally I think the other unsatisfying thing about the series is that in the end, no one has to change their (problematized) desires. Ringo gets to be Momoka, Shouma gets to die for the sins of his parents, Kanba gets to protect Himari no matter how she feels about it, and Himari gets to disappear from the timeline (briefly, before she's brought back - this is assuming that on some level, she's still the abandoned girl in the furnace convinced no one will love her). It's like they don't grow. Or I guess you could see it the way Nyonyo did, that they all get to be who they are, in a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy ending, but I don't think the show did enough to set this up as the happy ending. Ikebana's focus was always on the Takakuras as a family, and the one crazy desire that DOESN'T get validated in Shouma's desire that they really be a real family, because after the timeline is reset, they aren't a family anymore. Himari and Ringo can be a family I guess - and lesbians, because being family doesn't preclude incest lol - but
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Lol a nice way of saying "what a load of crap"
the family sharing thing is supposed to be unsustainable
I get that's it's supposed to be that, according to the show, but I don't like that premise. Why can't it be sustainable? The show sez it's unsustainable because of the "curse," which I do read as the sins of the parents transmuted into society's disregard for the kids. I mean, the reason they're struggling orphans is that their (adoptive) parents were terrorists, and that's not just a shitty lot in life, that's a really specific family history tied to a specific incident that garners specific hatred. I guess my issue is, I'm not convinced of the unsustainability of consciously formed families, and I was looking for a more hopeful/optimistic outcome i.e. a way that the kids could save each other that didn't involve death by self-sacrifice because self-sacrifice (however noble and uplifting, yadda yadda) is the only way out of the loop.
the whole fatechange thing being a cycle that ( ... )
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RE: sustainability, nyonyo actually brings up something that I think the anime (non deliberately) handled so subtly that I didn't consciously pick up on it, which is the observable backlash of these people paradoxically being a "real" family while uh not being a real family. They love each other and need each other and share happiness, but even in the midst of that each of them is afraid that if they were to open up about the extents/costs of that love the whole circle would collapse. Like Kanba's situation with Himari is pretty fucked up, Sho only becomes himself with Ringo, Himari turns off her front so rarely that until like halfway through the series we don't even know her (tho I think she ended up being my favolite :D), etc. I think if the show had been more up front about this, the full arc of it would have been way cleaner. But my brain picked up on it anyway because idk I watched ( ... )
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This.
I agree also with your feelings re: sacrificial reboots. I think regarding The System, it's left purposefully ambiguous (see: Momoka's smug, "Oh, will it?" in response to Sanetoshi claiming the train will come around again), but that sort of, I guess, lack of emotional/thematic buy-in doesn't really jive for me when the rest of the ending is pushing really hard for the 'you aren't meaningless/you are loved' emotional/thematic buy-in? IDK.
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RE: sacrificial reboots, I get that change is harrrrd and everything has a cost etc. but srsly what kind of message is "Change the system--and DISAPPEAR FROM THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE FOREVER :D"
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Of course, it totally was! The Galactic Railroad homage was clearly advertised! (I also thought Ringo was going to bite it.) But I guess, like I said to zoesque above, I feel like Ikuhara is talking out of both sides of his mouth, because the conjunction between the Galactic Railroad homage / "sacrifice YAY" business and what I see the show saying about family, about living together, about the value of sharing your life with someone--which in my book is not the same as dying for someone!--that's where I feel like there's a disconnect. I guess sharing a life can mean sacrifice, but it's aggravating to me that 2 out of the 3 kids don't get to take what they've learned and do anything with that knowledge in life. They just move on to the afterlife or w/e.
The reboot was needed primarily to stop terrorist attack part deux (which was all Kanba's fault in the first place)....Yanno, I ( ... )
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