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It's interesting how two people can have diametrically opposite readings of the same piece of art. I read the Wired as not less real than the real world, as th
by rhn_mk1 6y ago
It's interesting how two people can have diametrically opposite readings of the same piece of art.
I read the Wired as not less real than the real world, as the influence could flow in both directions, with events in one place causing effects in the other. The ultimate confirmation of that is the final scene, which was actually depicting Lain meeting her grown up school friend some 10 years later, while Lain stayed - timelessly - a child.
I once read a story which dealt with the lack of purpose in a world dominated by technology, where humans had nothing left to do, nowhere obvious to progress. The story presented an escape into tradition and slavery along with the progression into virtual reality, where new worlds could be built, shaped by the will of the participants as opposed to the hard rules of physics, therefore granting a whole set of new universes in which to search for meaning.
While we don't have fully fledged universes yet, we have gotten to various lengths along that road thanks to the Internet. Why should we say that experiences of the people who value their Internet goals more than the real world are invalid?
- ergot_vacation 6y agoNever trust a "journalist," or anyone who uses the phrase "very online" to review anime in a meaningful way. I stayed away from Mob Psycho for ages because of nutty articles like this reading meaning and intention into it to a degree that would have made Freud blush. It's all just projection. To some people, everything has to be about preaching ideology, spreading their collection of neat, tidy just-so stories about how the world works. They can't just let the work speak for itself. Glad to see this though, because it reminds me I should get around to finally trying Lain. Oh, and I highly recommend Mob Psycho as well.
- uncletaco 6y agoYou stayed away from Mob Psycho because “journalists” liked it and drew meaning from it? What a sad life that must be. What I find interesting about anime reviews, as opposed to video game ones IMO, is more often than not the review is about what the writer got out of it as opposed to trying to set expectations for the audience on what they will get out of it. I guess in a lot of ways that’s because anime reviews often happen after the fact or are spurred on by genuine excitement. It seems very rare that someone publishing the review is doing so because the media was dropped in their lap and they were told to review the first three episodes for the release. I like that, and it works pretty well for video essays.
- vharuck 6y agoMob Psycho was, IMO, pretty blatant in its moral lesson. Are you saying it didn't have one, or the reviewers blazed their own trails in defiance of the show's message?
- ad404b8a372f2b9 6y agoAre we talking about the anime or the manga? It's been a long while but I don't remember the anime being preachy or blatant, what was the lesson?
- vharuck 6y agoI've only seen the anime, but the lesson I got from it was: "Society requires many people who are good at different things to work together, and your value should come from how much you improve the world." The villains decided fighting with psychic power was the best thing, therefore they were the best humans. Mob thought helping people and living your life was best, so he idolized his master and the bodybuilding club.
- licebmi__at__ 6y agoWell, literally portrayed a villain as a baby when he was on his speech about how normal people should bow to the talented ones.
- analyte123 6y ago"A young girl can't stop posting" as a description for SEL is like describing Pan's Labyrinth as "a young girl struggles with mental illness in wartime".
- mullingitover 6y agoReminds me of the classic summary of Wizard of Oz: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
- bsanr2 6y agoThis will make my contention that The Hunger Games is a sort of twisted, modern reapplication of the same (very American) perspective and values that underpin WoO much easier to defend.
- astrange 6y ago> It's interesting how two people can have diametrically opposite readings of the same piece of art. Mostly because Chiaki Konaka is incapable of writing endings. I don't think Lain is that abstract (there's some early parts that look like it but I think are meant to be representative of schizophrenia), but it is hard to follow what the last episode is saying even though they're talking nonstop. With such a heavy script you can't always trust the translation to present it well either.
- rhn_mk1 6y ago> it is hard to follow what the last episode is saying I found it hard to follow what most episodes were saying, and I changed my interpretation several times, always feeling that I'm on the verge of understanding, but not quite getting it. And I actually liked it that way.
- astrange 6y agoYou know how you live in the real world and post on forums? Lain lives on forums and posts in real life. #whoa
- anthk 6y ago> Where new worlds could be built, shaped by the will of the participants as opposed to the hard rules of physics, therefore granting a whole set of new universes in which to search for meaning. There was a social oriented MUD in the 90's exploring that.
- munk-a 6y agoIt really saddens me that I no longer have the time to sink tens of hours a week into MUDs - the extremely low barrier to start one up meant that there were a lot of extremely interesting ideas out there - and the interactivity meant the art was a lot more engaging than more dead-tree related mediums.