Retrospective for 3/19/2016
Blog Posts this week:
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The introductory week for Expository Conundrum daily has revealed a great depth in the fields of study we’re engaged in. We’ve listened to classic music and rock inspired by the sixties, looked at anime that captures japan in the early turn of the century, watched folk story inspired mid-nineties kung-fu, played rather culturally significant merger of sc-fi, samurai, catholic, French video games, and discussed in great detail the significance of media studies and moral outrage about one of the newest forms of art.
This may seem like a broad selection to connect in significant ways. The point of combining things is meant to be a practice in understanding how everything, everyone really, are connected.
David Bowie’s album stands out a little bit from this group. His is the most significantly influenced by the culture of his time period, and in many ways has refused to leave that spot. His songs featured attitudes and morality that was both common during the time periods (slippery slopes regarding birth control and abortion to transgender individuals being celebrated as heroes).
But then again, most everything we discuss is concerned with it’s own time period.
Death Note is unique as a form. There’s very little modern discussion of Anime in the context of anything other than anime. But the politics at the heart of Death Note are absolutely applicable to real life. Light Yagami is a character who takes it upon himself to kill criminals. He does this because he believes that criminals and wrong-doers are people who are causing great harm to his society.
It’s important to realize the Japanese context of Light Yagami’s character, while realizing the show doesn’t include them expressly because the feelings of the character are universal. The Japanese legal system is notoriously corrupt, with over ninety-nine percent of prosecutors winning court cases. A great deal of these cases would be more contested or easy defense wins in other countries. Perhaps this is the rotten case of the world, or perhaps Yagami is meant to represent the educated individual who believes behind self-justified world views that it’s actually the case.
Either way, Death Notes ties to reverse religious symbology, it’s use of apples and literal gods of death (entirely apathetic) touch on a great deal of larger cultural significance than just Japanese culture.
Yagami’s way is the opposite of legendary folk heroes. Jackie Chan’s depiction of Wong Fei-Hung in Legend of Drunken Master represents the old school heroes. He’s a dishonest, childish, hero who nevertheless fights for his people in the way only he can. The Drunken fighting style operates as most action hero character’s abilities do, as super powers. While not quite as realistic or considered as the Death Note power, Legend of Drunken Master nevertheless is representative of something entirely cultural.
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy is an incredibly mixing pot of ideologies. While much of the story was beyond… specificity due to translation issues, it nevertheless took an aesthetic that involved samurai, cyberpunk, and merged them. This integration of the past with the future, the ability to physically see those roots is combined with a unique architecture throughout the game, statues that are too large to see and buildings like LA in Blade Runner, cement a worldly smallness that isn’t quite grasped by the larger than life antics of Death Note and Legend of Drunken Master.
The element of EYE that I didn’t get enough exposure too is easily the aspect of amnesia. There was a message from yourself pre-amnesia, in case you get amnesia, explaining what you need to do. I don’t know if it was translation problems again that rendered it sounding almost exactly the same as everything else anyone told you in the game or not, but this element seemed to have some promise and even reminded me of Christopher Nolan’s Memento.
Finally we have the Video Game Debate. Let’s talk for a moment about violence.
The Video Game Debate talks for an entire chapter about the influence of violence on the medium of video games, something that is no small subject. I have written extensively on the use, misuse, manipulation, and purposeful carnivoric nature of some depictions of violence. But if we examine the things we’ve consumed this week we can see that at least for three of them violence is a major issue.
Death Note, Legend of Drunken Master, and EYE Divine Cybermancy represent three different approaches to violence. Death Note has it at the heart. Light Yagami commits unspeakable violence for the good of humanity, at least in his eyes. I have my own qualms about the series, but it’s depiction of Light Yagami’s telekinetic heart stopping powers is an amazingly final and striking way to depict death. Especially later in the series as it happens to more and more significant characters. Yagami believes he’s doing good, and we are somewhat reluctant to disagree, especially because the people we see him kill and who we presume he kills are mostly violent and dangerous criminals. The central question of the series will remain, is it okay to kill people who would otherwise or already have killed people?
Legend of Drunken Master involves lots of violence. Hell its practically cartoonish violence despite being very real martial arts. It’s perhaps this edge of cartoony that renders the disturbing abuse scenes later so off-putting. Jackie Chan’s kung-fu comedy exists in the context of otherwise straight faced and serious kung-fu films from before his time. In the final scene, it almost goes without saying that Jackie Chan cannot kill his opponents. And he doesn’t, he merely defends his people, his culture, and himself. What’s surprising is the lack of an underline in this regard, whereas the Marvel films of nowadays actually more readily murder every antagonist they have with abandon.
EYE Divine Cybermancy is more likely what people think of whenever they picture mindless murder simulators. The first mission of the game only features a few shooting sections, and promises more likely gameplay that represents dialogue options and stealth if one wishes. While this might be the case, the gameplay I experienced was along the lines of shooting an endless stream of humanoid enemies. But this violence in terms of video games is more boring than it is anything else. There’s little context for this violence besides faction wars, and the storyline consists of a “kill the bastards” commander and a “let’s seek peace” mentor of yours.
Which is to say that the casual street fighting of Legend of Drunken Master and the visceral enjoyment and argument for a better world from Death Note are more corrupting looking forms of violence.
And yet, Legend of Drunken Master ties that up with a don’t kill your enemies to protect your friends mentality. Death Note, in the long run, is going to show what impact that mentality of Light Yagami’s has on himself, his family, his world, and the good hearted people within it.
So that was week one of the blog. Tomorrow I will be dropping some hot and heavy opinion on everyone. And now I’ll end this with an announcement of what’s coming up on the blog.
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Also, consider donating to the blog! Your eyes are enough, but generosity and support can go a long way to making us both feel a lot better. Support your local artist (by local I mean Internet local.)
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