On wartime anime and re-watchability

Being the dutiful fan I am I prefer retail copies of DVDs over downloading as long as they’re available in English but when I’m paying for something I want to be confident it’ll be worthwhile. Keeping the receipt is the easy answer but when shelf space and money are at a premium I want series and movies to be ‘rewatchable’. I’m kinda elaborating on this comment, at any rate.

I can watch some stuff, such as The Place Promised…, Laputa and Paprika over and over; I’ve watched others once but they’ve sat gathering dust ever since. There are one or two purchases that I actually regretted, despite the titles themselves being very good. Actually, they were…too good for their own good.

I saw The Sixth Sense on TV years ago and Shutter Island recently at the cinema so, since the appeal of mystery-style stories relies so much on the twist endings, I can’t see the point of watching them again. For most other things it’s about the journey not the destination, so there’s usually enough enjoyment to be had even when I know what happens.

There are some titles that I consider to be brilliant but ironically I’ve only watched once. It requires a bit of hurried explanation when recommending them to other people with “you have to see this! What? Hell no, I’d never sit through that again.” The wartime ones are the worst for this: I borrowed a copy of Apocalypse Now off a friend but would never get my own copy.

It really is a fantastic film though: it’s well acted, has stunning cinematography and right from the throb of helicopters blending in with that haunting song by The Doors it’s one of those memorable must-watch classics (yes, go see it if you haven’t already). Similarly, no self-respecting movie fan should go without watching Grave of the Fireflies. Again, it gets pretty much everything right: the artwork is fantastic, the direction fluid and the story deeply moving.

The fact that the story is deeply moving is its greatest strength, but it’s also a problem. Simply put, Grave of the Fireflies is too devastating to watch again and again. It’s an emotional tactical strike that unflinchingly hits you with the true horrors of twentieth-century warfare and its messages, quite rightly, will stay with you forever. I watched to the end in awe at a story well told, then asked myself “why would I want to put myself through this again?”

Saikano is another masterpiece of character drama and commentary on the nature of modern warfare (the artwork is a bit off at times, but that’s Gonzo for you). The characters are flawed yet engaging, the drama convincing and assuming you take the mecha musume-style element allegorically rather than literally, it’s one of the most affecting pieces of animated television of recent years. Again I was floored by it but only once, because I felt that one viewing told me all it wanted to say.

The strange thing is, I usually appreciate dark stories. Cyberpunk is often dystopian, Satoshi Kon’s humour is black as pitch and Kinoko Nasu puts his characters through bouts of pitiless suffering that make me wince. How are Apocalypse Now, Grave of the Fireflies and Saikano different from, say, Nausicaä and its post-apocalyptic setting or Nasu’s gothic-tinged supernatural thriller Kara no Kyoukai?

To quote the ever-eloquent Ursula le Guin, light is the left hand of darkness: the most rewarding stories for me are often dark ones that, at some point, offer hope. It’s probably not a spoiler to say the protagonists of Grave of the Fireflies do not survive since it’s pointed out in the first few minutes and Saikano has the whole of humanity self-destruct. As parables for the loss and utter waste of war I can’t fault them, but do I need to be told twice when it’s stated so clearly and effectively?

I can rewatch Kara no Kyoukai despite the death and suffering of people who quite often don’t deserve what comes their way mainly because the central character goes through self-discovery and redemption during the course of the series. Even though some characters meet their ends in undeserving fashion this journey feels satisfying because of the resolution; it’s about the sacrifices made and lessons learned. The villains are either punished or released from their inner turmoil, which gives their downfalls significance.

Similarly Nausicaä is possibly Miyazaki’s most downbeat movie thematically apart from Mononoke Hime but again, there’s a promise of new life growing out of the ashes of the old in both cases. This is where the divergence happens for me: all I take away from the Saikanos is a clear message of waste and innocence lost. I’m not denying that their messages deserve to be heard but I don’t need to be made to feel miserable to get the point.

It’s obvious that War Sucks: innocent people suffer and die for nothing when the same objectives could be achieved through peaceful means. Being told just this on its own doesn’t offer much else to the table, no matter how pretty the artwork or how convincing the characters are.

Futatsu no Kurumi, a.k.a. Two Walnuts, is another historical wartime drama; this time a twelve-year old goes back in time and experiences the horrors of the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo first-hand.

It’s not a great movie. The artwork’s simplistic, the animation looks cheap and the direction is clumsy in that the CRY HERE moments feel manipulative on the part of the writers. In fairness it’s probably intended to be an educational film for today’s kids who won’t know a thing about what wartime Japan was like for youngsters of their age but that’s the point: it’s intended to be educational (I learned a thing or two about the Japanese WW2 home front from this too). Crucially the protagonist takes something away from her harrowing experiences: she learns from the events and is changed by them.

I like dark and angsty stories; not because of the darkness alone but because bigger lows have more relevance when next to some highs – it’s about contrast. A piece of music that uses dynamic changes, i.e. alternating very loud and very quiet passages, moves me more than pieces that are either loud or quiet all the way through. Narratives, either in a film or in written word for that matter, work the same way.

The issue is complicated by many other factors of course, such as whether the visuals and music are easy on the eyes and ears or how how well you relate to the characters. When I see them lost, uncertain or in pain I can sit through it if I feel confident that, even if things don’t turn out well in the end, their experiences will at least mean something. There’s more to storytelling than merely making you laugh, cry or perch yourself on the edge of your seat: I prefer the characters and the viewers to walk away with something they didn’t have at the beginning, even if much was lost along the way.