“What It Means to be an Adult”
Part 1: Chunibyo
Before we even get to the details of the anime itself, I feel it necessary to point out that the phrase “Chunibyo” roughly translates to “middle-school syndrome” or “eighth-grader syndrome” and while it’s a phrase steeped in Japanese culture, it’s an idea that if you think about it, can be considered universal. I’d like to think of it as a lesser version of a “Hikikomori” as we’ve understood it within the context of things like “Welcome to the NHK!” (I know I’ve referenced it more than once, but stay with me) or even the really popular videos like “Me! Me! Me!” and “Girl.” Maybe not to those extremes, but the delusions of being a magical entity and the lack of social tact that makes it a “delusion” rather than a fascination or a hobby is something that can be understood across cultural boundaries.
Speaking of boundaries, a large part of the first season of “Chunibyo” is what Rikka calls Invisible Boundary Lines. After Rikka sort of jumps into Yuta’s life spouting about Wicked Lord Shingan, a comedic reminder of the embarrassment that Yuta now has knowing that he used to act that way, we learn that Rikka’s older sister Toka has been trying to force Rikka out of these habits and trying to get her to “grow up” and accept what has happened. With Yuta’s perspective being the focus, it’s hard to understand what actually happened until the arc where Yuta visits Rikka’s old home. Later we learn that Rikka has been stuck in the “Chunibyo” phase ever since her father passed and her family moved on. While everyone was impacted by the untimely death of her father, Rikka likely had it the hardest (next to her mother of course) because she was still relatively young. The few-and-far-between magical battle sequences are really just delusions that take place in Rikka’s head and they are used to detail the emotional toil that Rikka is trying to cover up. For the one that takes place in Rikka’s hometown, there is a dramatic exchange of words between Toka and Rikka, and to Yuta it appears as just an argument between family members, but to Rikka it seems like a scene out of a magical action anime. It’s a great visual parallelism that shows how deep the Chunibyo part of Rikka is.
The reveal of this part of Rikka’s past makes the whole “Chunibyo” persona that she carries into a stronger and more relatable point. Without getting too personal, I can sort of empathize with the notion of being stuck in the past after the death of a family member. If I could even take it a step further, I could return to a previous FOF, specifically my character analysis of Sameijima Mamimi from FLCL, I made a comment about how people can possibly return to childlike states of mind in order to escape something, maybe painful memories or some other form of stress that they are having a hard time coping with. Maybe it’s just me, but the way this arc was presented, especially in how when Yuta engaged in her delusions, pretending as if the Invisible Boundary Lines exist, it made a very dramatic spectacle of the whole ordeal, and it complements the romantic comedy genre very well and it complements the anime itself very well. The Invisible Boundary Lines are supposed to represent the boundary between life and death, and instead of trying to forcefully snap Rikka out of her delusions like Toka does, Yuta meets Rikka on that level, appearing as the Dark Flame Master persona of his own Chunibyo past, allowing her to cope with her father’s death by finally saying “good bye.” It may sound very silly considering it’s still a romantic comedy, but there is a large dramatic sting through this moment that makes the story more solid than a silly story about teens acting silly.
The rest of the series is more of a romantic comedy that seeks to confirm the awkward relationship between Yuta and Rikka through a series of comedic adventures that expound more on the cast. When others look down on Rikka despite her Chunibyo tendencies that still remain despite the revelation, Yuta still stands beside her and seems to be the only person that can deal with or even change Rikka. The Chunibyo movie “Take on Me” (I know that there is another one, but I don’t know what the name is) resolves this story with a conclusion that leads towards Yuta and Rikka having a functional reasonable relationship. The entire crux of the movie is about Yuta proposing to marry Rikka after they graduate, but instead Toka wants to take Rikka away to Italy with her in order for Toka to watch over her because she still has Chunibyo tendencies. Instead of going peacefully, they run away and spend the entirety of the movie dodging Toka and the cast before Toka secedes and allows them to elope. At the end Toka asks the reason Yuta is willing to marry Rikka despite her still being Chunibyo, but Yuta responds that he loves her because of it.
For a romantic comedy anime I’d venture to say it was done very well, but for What It Means to be an Adult, there are thematic and artistic things that I think it contributes.
First off, this anime is gorgeous. Like other anime I’ve watched I really loved the art style and sound design of the first season. The characters all have these bright yellow-orange lines that create the outline for their figures and even help refine the details of features like their hair and the outlines of their clothes, etc. And I could go all day talking about how beautiful the colors were and the design of their textbook anime eyes. There are many effervescent shades of pink, white, green, and yellow for the moments that take place outside or where there is a lot of lighting and there are deep blues, blue-greens, and greys for the scenes that take place at night and even the few-and-far-between action sequences also have neon-color splashes in the magic circles, barriers, and lasers. I put a lot of emphasis on the art because as I said earlier I believe this anime captures the essence of youth; even though the characters are in their teens going into adulthood, the fleeting imaginative touch of youth is really what the anime is about. The art style is to thank for that, even when the emphasis is on something dramatic and a bit grimmer, the art paints an ambiguous picture that shelters the viewer from those moments, the same way Rikka shelters herself from the truth through her Chunibyo delusions.
All in all, there is a combination of adult themes present in “Chunibyo” such as coping with death and the complexities of love and eventual marriage, but the framing of the themes are through the delusions and imaginations that match a child’s imagination. It took me too long to say that, but I wanted to paint that picture. I’ll try to use images/videos to help prove my point. I think it’s important to appreciate or at the very least acknowledge things like this. Often times I get caught up in the tragedies and sad stories of the world that I forget what it’s like to have a childlike imagination. Not necessarily in the sense that it’s a cover-up for something, but for the sake of whimsy and calmness and creativity that is lost among adults. That could be another conversation that could go on forever, but I feel like my experience with this anime in context of other things I’ve viewed has made that contribution to my opinion on the subject. Now onto the next.
[BREAK]
“What It Means to be an Adult”
Part 2: FLCL
If nobody knows how deep my fandom for FLCL goes, then first of all you must be blind, but second off as I’ve said before FLCL is my favorite anime of all time. This section might be the most intense considering how abstract the anime is, and the amount of content that can be analyzed since it was recently given 2 additional seasons. Despite the series having 18 episodes in total, 12 of which sucked, the abstract nature of the cult classic is so full of different themes and artistic representation of certain ideas that have made this anime so popular, and has given me so many different ways to make different projects about it. I haven’t gotten into how terrible seasons 2 and 3 were because last year I was so ecstatic about its return that I was on edge to see what would happen, but looking back on it FLCL: Progressive and FLCL: Alternative appeared to be at best pale attempts to do FLCL all over again and at worse a shoddy cash-grab that used the name recognition of the first FLCL to draw the attention of long-time fans. I feel as if the best way to exemplify my point would be to talk about the first season, but I’ll try to incorporate seasons 2 and 3 in some aspect because I’d be remise to not look for something interesting at the very least.
FLCL is an anime that appeals to teenagers, which for many is a critical point of psychological and social development rife with confusion and ambiguity. For FLCL (season 1) we got an incredible entertaining romp with Naota and Haruko jam-packed with all of the hardcore rock & roll, gun-battles, government conspiracy, and almost off-putting sexual innuendos you could ever look for in such a medium. But what made it so good is how much of a love-letter to childhood it was. When looking into the development of FLCL, a lot of the things that anime that we thought had some deep philosophical or psychological meaning were really just innocuous symbols thrown in the anime for the sake of the creator’s whim. For example, the hand that had a hole blown in the center of it at the tail end of episode 5 that was perched in such a way that it was going to grab the iron-shaped Medical Mechanica plant was really just Kazuya Tsurumaki’s hand. No more, no less. As a matter of fact, the importance of the iron-shaped buildings, as stated by Commander Amarao to be to “iron the wrinkles” in humanity’s brains is because one of the belief that smarter people had more wrinkles in the brain. The “Never Knows Best” written on Mamimi’s cigarette was from a poster that one of the creators had seen. The theme of spicy foods versus sweet foods being a euphemism for the dichotomy between adults and children literally having different tastes was just something that one of the creators (I also think it was Tsurumaki himself) remembered from his childhood. When I saw it for the first time I thought it was some grand metaphor that was so hard to debunk, but to realize that it was really an expression of admiration for things that only the creator would understand, it didn’t dishearten me but it was like seeing the Dragon Scroll in “Kung Fu Panda” when it was blank. There was no secret ingredient. There was no special skill; it was just the genuine passion that was conveyed by a relatively new technology for the medium of anime. I think it’s important to understand that FLCL was just as much an amalgamation of inside jokes and childhood memories for bunch of people who had so much money and technology to test it out with as it was an excellently crafted Stuido GAINAX and Production I.G OVA to really appreciate it.
For season 1 the teenage appeal is evident in almost every episode and culminates into the new person that Naota becomes at the end of his 6-episode stint. To go from an angst-ridden child, angered by the foolishness of the adults around him to realizing that it’s okay to still be a kid was an important message despite how unintentional that message was. You can argue that Naota’s shadowy persona of “maturity” was a front. His stoic outlook and attempts to not care about anyone or anything is eventually shattered by Haruko, as he cries over her leaving him in what I believe is episode 4 or 5. His attempt at being completely distant from Ninamori and refusal to play cat in the play because he saw it as childish, or more specifically “embarrassing,” is dashed by Ninamori herself. He sternly rejects the idea shouting “school plays are for little kids” and that he’s embarrassed playing a cat. But she reminds him that he is still a kid. When he tries to respond to Sameji’s beyond-inappropriate advances, he gets shot down, metaphorically and literally.
And even when he tried to do the same for Haruko, he had finally realized that staying in his own lane and still being a kid was okay. It was okay for him to drink the sweet or sour drinks. It was okay to let go, and it was okay to feel sad about his condition. The most mature thing he had done was in episode 6, when he released the power of Atomsk and let Haruko go because he knew he was in way over his head. Even though he was tempted to follow her own her journey, Haruko told him that he was still just a kid, and he had no other option but to come to terms with it.
I’ve had this idea before that maturity is conflated with introduction to sex, drugs, and violence. In fact, I was going to do another FOF with that being the focus. This is not necessarily exclusive to anime, as it occurs in life as well. Underage drinking, smoking, gambling, etc are serious problems affecting people in the age group that Naota was going into. Part of the temptation and appeal to the teenage demographic is the conflation with such things to adulthood, and that’s kinda what Naota was seeking. Since he was trying to avoid being silly or childlike in the way that his parents and Ninamori were, he sought affirmation in being “mature” or being an “adult” from people like Haruko and Sameji, but his lesson learned was accepting the differences, accepting his place in the world, and accepting himself. In the case of the anime and when talking about this theme, What It Means to be an Adult, I could interpret Naota’s power to channel NO as a euphemism for something special within him. He didn’t want to play baseball because it was too connected to his brother who seemingly abandoned him, and he didn’t want to be in a play because he thought it was childish, but the NO is what made him special. The NO within him is what garnered the attention of Haruko and Sameji, and it gave him affirmation that he couldn’t find anywhere else. His brother Tasuku got affirmation for his baseball skills, and it got him an athletic scholarship. Haruko got affirmation for being the tantalizing enigma that she is by seducing Naota’s father and even Commander Amarao at one point. Ninamori got affirmation from adults and peers for being smart, talented, considered “mature” for her age, and even for being the daughter of the Mayor (even if there was a scandal). Naota really didn’t have that affirmation until Haruko uses his NO for her own purposes.
For season 2, FLCL: Progressive, I could say that the appeal to the teenage audience is definitely violence. Specifically emotional or psychological violence and how it creates a stoic or cold listlessness indicative of anime and teenagers. Despite how terrible season 2 was, the common highlights of season 2 were the crazy trippy dream-sequences that Hidomi would have in the beginning of each episode. I could not tell you how excited I was when I clicked on the first episode and the first thing I heard was the intro to “Thank You, My Twilight” and seeing the horrible condition of the city as well as the potential for a mecha battle to take place. Hidomi’s character is very flat, a far cry from the dynamic nature of Naota being the main character. It’s one of the biggest criticisms I have with the second season because I think they did a terrible job of having a stoic or reclusive main character because they overdid it with Hidomi while they struck the perfect balance with Naota. Now this isn’t an indictment of season 2 and season 3 (I’ll get to that later), but it’s important to point out.
I think I got what they were going for with the dream-sequences, they were supposed to be brief peeks into the mind of a character we didn’t get to know very much, and in some ways they serve their purpose well, even if they can be disturbing. The beginning of episode 2 had a dream-sequence where Hidomi would happily narrate her existence in a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested world, expressing some type of vore fetish, a desire to be eaten and mauled to get some sort of satisfaction from it. Frankly, it was more disturbing than the sexual innuendo of season 1. The beginning of the dream-sequence in episode 3 was less graphic, but it was definitely a shock to see Hidomi who earlier would never crack a fraction of a smile or barely even speak a full sentence suddenly burst with glee at the prospect of being “devoured” as she put it. There was also a subplot where Hidomi’s missing father was brought up, I’m assuming to suggest she sort of developed these tendencies as a means to fill a void caused by her father’s absence, similar to how Rikka’s Chunibyo tendencies were made to hide from the emotional pain of her father’s death (A lot of absent fathers in anime stereotype here). Episodes 4 took a drastic shift and 5 replaced it with something completely different.
EDIT- FROM THIS POINT FORWARD I AM CONTINUING FROM MY 6-MONTH HIATUS OF WRITING. ALSO I RESOLVED TO CONTINUE WRITING OFF OF MEMORY RATHER THAN TRYING TO REFERENCE SPECIFIC EPISODES TO CONVINCE PEOPLE TO WATCH THE ANIME AT THEIR LEISURE AND NOT SPOIL AS WELL AS TO SAVE MY OWN ENERGY. PLEASE EXCUSE THE POTENTIAL DECLINE IN WRITING QUALITY.
But even before I get to that part of the series, I would also have to mention the violence combined with a less-than-successful romance subplot. We were introduced to a character named Ide and from jump it was pretty obvious that part of the series would revolve around him and Hidomi having feelings for one another, but also being too odd to say something to one another. In my opinion, it was poorly done, and season 3 does a slightly better job of making their characters relatable through a theme like romance, but instead it was through other means. As far as season 2 goes, this was one of the weaker plot points that tried to drive the overall narrative of the conflict between Haruko and Jinyu. Where Haruko tries to take advantage of Hidomi’s emotional instability in order to find a means of reaching Atomsk again (somehow, even though the methods were poorly explained or I can’t fully remember), Jinyu acting as Haruko’s conscience in a near-literal fashion would try to interrupt her. At one point, Haruko actually wins against Jinyu, seemingly killing her—but the ending is about as inconsequential as everything else since once again, Atomsk evades Haruko’s reach, Jinyu is spat back up only to never utter another word for the remainder of the finale, and there essentially is no lesson learned between Ide and Hidomi. In fact, the ending sequence talks about how inconsequential everything was. In some way I could twist this whole thing around in my head like a Rubik’s cube and attempt to argue that maybe along with violence and angst, the main appeal for this season was maybe indifference as it applies to adolescents. With indifference I mean absence of emotion…You could also say that absence is the main appeal. Hidomi’s father was absent—which was likely the reason why Hidomi displays an absence of emotion. If not, she’ll overflow and along with a freaking robot being drawn from hear head, she will be hurt physically and emotionally by the wellspring of emotion she’s been holding back for so long.
Haruko was lacking something—she was lacking the power and abilities granted with possessing Atomsk, which is why she was running rampant and refusing to care about anyone else she had to use to get to Atomsk. Ide was lacking a companion, which is why he did silly stuff which resulted in him being wrapped up in Haruko’s schemes. Maybe that was a chord that was trying to be struck, but it made a pretty shoddy attempt at striking that chord because the anime was otherwise poor. But for the sake of now, we could suggest that maybe the teenage appeal was for the indifference…the desire for teenagers to suppress their emotions to either appear like they are adults in control of everything or to maybe hide themselves away from dealing with feelings that may bring about pain. In Chunibyo, Rikka suppressed her emotions by escaping to a fantasy world of her own imagination. Solely for the sake of this analysis, I would like to make such a connection and say that for Hidomi; she pretended to wear a “tsundere” persona (that term was inappropriately used in that context), she chose to wear those headphones and pretend as if the outside word did not exist because if she opens herself up to the world, she would be crushed by her fear and repressed emotions that would then manifest themselves into those horrific dreams.
In season 3, FLCL: Alternative, the appeal was a bit broader. Instead of one person being the focus of Haruko’s schemes, the main cast was comprised of a group of 4 girls that each had their own problems. For 2 of the 4 girls, Kana and Pets, the conflicts were a bit deeper. For Kana, she was sort of stockpiling everyone’s problems while also struggling with desiring a romance of her own, trying to figure out what she wants in life, and also dealing with Haruko’s (albeit few) antics. I won’t get into every single character’s struggle, but I feel as if it is done slightly better than Hidomi’s struggle in season 2. Getting to know each character through their struggle was employed in an interesting way, but with only 6-episodes to complete the story the sacrifice is that there isn’t the amount of time needed to add depth to each character the same way there was with Naota.
The “overarching conflict” was that apparently there were people that were going to take the opportunity to live on a foreign planet (I think it was Mars, but I don’t want to misspeak) in the wake of a rise in weird Medical Mechanica activity that of course, Haruko was trying to intercept. Speaking of Haruko, her appearance was very limited and she was nowhere near as active as she was in season 1 and 2. Even with Haruko taking a back-seat, the colonization of a foreign planet became a part of the conflict between 2 of the 4 girls and culminated into an emotional exchange in the final act, but I felt it was undeserved. What is the appeal to the demographic, you ask? I honestly would have a hard time giving an answer. At the very least I’d give the explanation that the appeal came from the variety of issues presented. Each character is rising into adulthood, at the edge of their adolescence, and dealing with issues like romance, family drama, job opportunities, etc. While it may not be as deep as necessarily season 1—it was palatable and while it may be surface-level, it can make it easier to see the point. Ironically enough, I would say that for the main character, Kana, her emotional arc at the end was actually the perfect transition into adulthood, and into the next section. To put it quite briefly, I analyzed the character of Kana as someone who was struggling with holding onto the joys of her last days of childhood in spending the summer with her friends. But in the wake of everyone else’s individual issues, Kana seems to lose her friends, or rather one of her friends reveals that their friendship is false. That seems to not only shatter Kana’s idea of her childhood, but also forces her to come to terms with her feelings and move on, and this emotional turmoil resulted in a lot of power from NO being expelled from her in the process.
As weak as the finale was, the fact that Kana was able to have that inner battle is a testament to her “maturity.” So far she was arguably the only character in the series that was able to confront her feelings regardless of the pain it would do unto her. So this leads us to the final segment of this analysis. After watching Chunibyo and seeing how it represents childhood, after watching all of FLCL and seeing the different takes on adolescence into the young adult stage, the anime Cowboy Bebop has been understood to represent adulthood.
