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llewellynn


The Yuasa, nothing to do with Yugioh lmao

A friend and I have been doing media watches together recently (started after I convinced him to watch Andor with me, then Iron-Blooded ((which I'll probably make another post about sometime, was a rewatch for me. I FINALLY got a friend to watch anything Gundam lol)) and now Kaiba.) He's a big Yuasa fan but hadn't seen, I've barely seen much of his work myself, soooo we jumped in pretty blind.

He came away a little unsure about the ending, or even the latter half of the show more so but I really dug the way it went. In fact, as an interesting structural setup, I was kinda blown away. Now, the shows from a min ago so not like this is anything revelatory or I might not even be dead on but WOW.

I highly recommend the show, but it's very heavy, pretty abstract, and kinda just GOES. I found myself emotional in many directions and left most episodes somewhere between stunned and nodding my head as an equal number of puzzle pieces were added as fit into place.

(No specific major spoilers below, I think, but this is talking about the entire show. Long post, kinda all over too, and not super edited, etc.)


So the show's first half is largely episodic, each ep feels like it deals in some new topic (forgetting, remembering, repressed memories, real vs fake memories, selfishness vs selfishness, etc) while also slowly filling in both the world and the character's missing memories. Speaking of, the main character has a hole in his chest, which comes very into play in a lot of ways imo.

But the second half is pretty much all connected and flows from the beat off of ep. 6 all the way to the end. It suddenly broadens in scope, taking more points of view, and also starts moving veryvery quickly. It starts to feel like there are gaps in its content. Not that it's missing plot points, but motivations, mindsets, and reasoning start to become murkier. Things just HAPPEN, and it moves forward. It could feel off or like the show has changed, but I don't think that's the case.

Following much of the show's own ideas, your LIVED experiences and memories matter. Much of the show involves buying, selling, transferring, manipulating, and losing memories but it seems to put a point on experienced memories over everything. Experienced memories pull forward the most, they come back, they trump fleeting bought ones, and they always resurface. Those things, shown in the world and people around you, need to be remembered and accounted for. You need to let those things fill the hole in your chest.

Just as much as you could allow the terribly bleak world to whittle you away, the worst versions of yourself to tear you apart, and your beliefs to be turned sour, you can also allow those things that have happened, the things OTHERS have done for you to fill that hole in your chest.

The show becomes different in nature, but not two separate parts. It requires those two parts to be pulled together and something made whole with it. One would feel hollow without the other, and it might make A sense but not be complete. It would feel lacking, missing, or incomplete. But that's not the case, but it requires an effort. It requires looking at those ideals and being WILLING to integrate them forward.

Understanding each other is hard, let alone yourself sometimes. Especially when they're manipulated by the coarse, or downright disgusting, world and people around them. Even when unintentional, even when they're simply looking out for their own interests and only looking forward. But you have to look back, look at the things others have done for you and you for others. The world will tear you apart, bit by bit, sell off your memories for money, and have no qualms about stepping on your broken body. But should you? Should you instead understand when you can, help when you can, reach out take their hand, and pull each other forward? Not just step on them to get ahead, because where will you end up? Alone at the top, broken, bitter, and with a massive hole in your chest.

Ok, that's a whole lot to say the format of the show, which surely isn't totally unique in style, is simply executed perfectly. It hits really hard. It looks outward more than inward, it's a terribly black mirror of everything around us, and it requires YOU to look outward just as much as inward. It was wonderful in so many ways. The ending was moving, if open. But that's as it should be imo, leaving space forward to instead move together, and not alone.



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