Tag: Death Note

Exploring Suicide in Anime: An Analysis of the Medium

**As the title implies, this post speaks towards suicide—how we consume it in media, how it functions culturally, how it affects personal experience. If this is a sensitive topic for you, be mindful of continuing.**

High school was the first time suicide directly impacted my life. A minor friend of a few years had convinced himself he was unworthy of living and killed himself in his middling teenage years—dead before he started. I was not overly familiar with his life, and only tangential in the scope of his social circles, but he was the widely beloved class comic. Witty without effort, smart in how he spun situations to create entertainment for others. Common class-clown things that highly depressed people are often good at. It was one of those things that is obvious in hindsight.

Despite him not being one of my closest relationships, that loss still pried open the gates to a world that, up to then, my naivety had kept in a fantastical land. Intellectually, I understood suicide was a thing that could happen. I had simply never imagined it happening to him.

Suddenly, no one was safe.

Suicide would not have any intimate brushes with my life again until much later, in the tail-end of my college years. This time, it would be a little more personal. This time it was family.

Almost family, anyways. Thank God that darkness was made to retreat, though not without years of heavy battle against some inner demons and leagues of external intervention. It was a wildly complicated ordeal, and I will not unpack it here, because ultimately it’s not what I want to talk about. I only bring up these two circumstances because they served to re-appropriate the emotional energy in my heart and made the topic of suicide one I hold up in both personal and professional interest. I spent years studying the psychology of killing oneself and interacting with people who had tried or wanted to or planned on executing that final act.

Suicide, for all its macabre implications, is important to me. And that’s why I appreciate when I see an honest, realistic portrayal of it in the media I consume. Suicide has a history of being a gimmick, a basic inciting incident or historical cornerstone in a character’s background, but is rarely made the focus of a narrative—probably out of the risk of it tonally disrupting an otherwise happy story.

But that’s what I want to talk about with this article. I write about anime for Geeks Under Grace. I’ve been reviewing anime here since before we had an “anime team,” and I’ve been aching to write an article of this nature for over a year. What eventually made me decide now was the time came after my exposure to the film A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi), which blew up in 2017, following the international commercial success of Your Name (Kimi no Na Wa). This article is not strictly about A Silent Voice, neither the anime, nor manga versions (both of which have my meteoric recommendation), but I will be drawing on pieces of it, as well as several other anime, to reach my conclusion.

Before we go any further though, I wanted to touch upon suicide as it relates to Japan, the land where anime is traditionally forged. Japan has a long history of suicide, even if the kind we see now is different from the days of old. It’s no secret ancient Japan helped “popularize” the concept of seppuku, or the “honorable death.” You are a samurai who failed to protect his benefactor? Rend open your belly. You had inappropriate sexual relations with somebody outside your family’s favor? It is your duty to atone for the dishonor you have brought upon them, and this means willingly (often publicly) bringing about the end.

And you see, that honor… it never really went away. You can see the echoes of it in contemporary Japanese society. The nuances may be different, but the underlying spirit of the problem remains the same: if you cannot be the steadfast rock your family needs, or find success in a cutthroat professional climate, or contribute to the greater whole of Japan as a nation…well, you can always just kill yourself. Under a magnifying glass, if you break down the various economic and social factors that permeate every angle of Japanese culture, you’ll notice it’s a country almost designed to encourage self-destruction. The tides of difficulty that press against every youth and adult are so staggeringly insane that they’d almost be hilarious if they weren’t real, and the result is that Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the entire world.

As such it’s encouraging when I see an anime that takes a no-nonsense approach to the subject, because suicide and the mental elements that surround it are something Japan obviously needs to address with more frequency and greater efforts (something their government is finally taking strides to accomplish). Historically, it’s not as if anime development studios (and any prerequisite creators) have been completely adverse to showcasing suicide in their creations; it just seems to be coming into greater prominence now than years past. Suicide has shown up in many series: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Welcome to the NHK, Orange, and even Naruto, to name a few.

But more often, if a character is killing themselves, it’s not out of an innate desire to end their own lives. I want to make this distinction. Dying as a mode of martyrdom, sacrificial protection, or ignorant abuse of one’s own health are not the same things, and should not be confused with what we are talking about. This is intentional self-obliteration, because you’ve found yourself in a situation where you simply don’t want to live anymore.

I recently watched an anime called Made in Abyss, which had one of the most realistic conflicts orbiting suicide I’ve seen inside or outside of the medium. It was a short, gripping scene—one I cannot talk about without spoilers, so if MiA is on your radar, skip down to the bold sentence below and continue reading from there.

I’ll keep this pretty complex scenario as simple as possible. Nanachi is a young girl who has been through a lot. She was enslaved for use in human experimentation by a sadistic madman alongside her best friend, Mitty. Mitty got the far worse brunt of aforementioned experimentation, and now cannot die, despite being in a constant state of suffering. She cannot even die when Nanachi tries to kill her. In so doing, Nanachi only torments her friend more, even after escaping the clutches of the monster who made them this way. Then come the protagonists of the series, who are in a bind. Our lead girl, Riko, is on the cusp of venomous death, but Nanachi can save her, and does. Recovery takes a long time, during which Nanachi becomes friend with our other protag, Reg. Nanachi learns Reg possesses a means of killing Mitty. If Mitty dies, Nanachi can finally be free of the overwhelming emotional burden placed upon needing to take care of her, and all the suffering she has inadvertently caused.

But if Mitty was gone, Nanachi would also have no more reason to live. Reg picks up on this and, when approached about whether or not he’d be willing to kill Mitty, says, “Okay. But you’re not allowed to die after she’s gone.”

Nanachi pauses. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to take care of Riko and make sure she’s all better, too.”

“Even after that!” Reg bites down on the moisture in his eyes. “Even after that. You need to promise.”

“Oh,” Nanachi contemplates the pool of water at her feet, a sad ache reflecting in her eyes. She resigns. “That’s so cruel… fine. I promise.”

And Reg destroys Mitty in one of the saddest death scenes in recent memory, fulfilling his part of the deal. Nanachi then joins their party afterwards because, well, she has nothing else.

I loved this interaction. My writing of it now cannot convey the heartbreaking rawness of the scene, but the subtle context of Nanachi wanting to die was never explicitly mentioned or given heavy foreshadowing. It was implied through small phrases and gestures leading to this moment, which Reg, being emotionally alert, was able to notice and act against. The audience is trusted to be intelligent enough to understand that Nanachi was planning to kill herself before this confrontation. And Reg—sweet, broken Reg—called her bluff in a gambit to save her life. Being as young as he is, Reg doesn’t have a good solution, so he basically resorts to blackmail. It is an honest, if brutal means of protecting one of his only friends.

Let’s take a moment to talk about Misa from Death Note. Spoilers for this, as well.  There’s a bold line for you, too. 

Misa Amane is an immensely tragic character. She is gifted in all the wrong types of intelligence, and none of the ones that save her from abuse and harm at the hands of our favorite sociopathic pile-o-trash, Light Yagami. Misa is practically designed to be emotionally manipulated into supporting whatever vague, justice-centric whim passes through the miasma of sludge that is Light’s ego, falling intensely in love with the mass-murderer because, as she perceives it, he dealt justice against the man who killed her family. Misa’s entire existence rotates around supporting Light.

So, when Light is eventually caught out by the investigation agents and brought to an untimely demise (or not soon enough, depending who you ask), Misa’s world goes with him. While we never see her commit suicide, the last image we have of Misa is one of her standing alone on the edge of a tall building. With all we know of Misa, it’s not hard to pick up on the implication that she jumped, forfeiting her life, as Light was no longer in it.

Misa was bright, popular, enthusiastic, and showed kindness to others. The number one complaint fans have against her character is how easily she was manhandled by Light’s nefarious charm. Like, we know she’s smart, so why is she so oblivious to the awful personality of the man she loves? That’s not realistic at all…

I’m obviously being sarcastic. The most tragic part of Misa’s narrative is that she is a loose manifestation of thousands of people who, at any given moment, are betrayed by their better judgment into trusting people who are not worthy of trust. Misa, for all of her dimensions, was ultimately a simple character. She wanted to love, and be loved in return. She wanted to be useful to somebody, even at the cost of herself, because self-sacrifice is further evidence of how much you love someone. She would forego her happiness in favor of Light’s happiness. And, because of the precarious situation she was in, once Light was no more, she had nothing to fall back on. There was nobody else who would be prepared to save her.

Misa is tragic, because she could have been saved if people had known the whole story. She is a superb example of why we should reserve judgment against others. It’s difficult to ever truly know somebody or the struggles they endure, so it’s imperative we be kind to one another. It’s easy to hate Light, because in this example we were allowed inside his mind. We had first-hand evidence he was rotten. If we were on the outside, among his peers—among Misa—it’s likely he would have duped us, too.

There are honestly so many examples I want to explore, but instead, let’s circle back to the beginning.  A Silent Voice.

A Silent Voice tackles many heavy subjects. In the roster along suicide, there’s depression, social anxiety, bullying, and living with disabilities, to name the big ones. It’s not really spoilers to say that both of the protagonists, Shoya and Shoko, face suicidal ideation at some point in their respective lives, and for entirely different reasons. Unlike the last two examples, I’m not going to dive into this one, because the idiosyncrasies and emotional buildup are what make the movie memorable, and I cannot adequately communicate those things with words. But A Silent Voicedoes something remarkable, which is not often seen in this industry. It takes realistic characters, in a real setting, with real hopes, goals, and motivations, places them against real problems, and doesn’t water it down for the sake of the audience. But more than any of that, it doesn’t cast these struggles in a blunt light. They are not hideously dramatic or tragic. They are commonplace issues, dealt with by commonplace people, and we see the power of unity as friends and family support each other through the little ways the world falls apart every day.

I don’t want to deviate too hard from the subject, or feel like I’m bashing you over the head with what I think you should watch, but I cannot stress enough the merits of seeing this film. And, if you liked that, I recommend you read the manga, too. The latter further fleshes out the characters and narrative that the movie, while great, did not have the screen-time to capture.

I guess what I really wanted to do with this article was say thanks. It’s a wide, open letter to every creator who had the skill, courage, and insight to brave the trenches of suicide in narrative. It’s not an easy thing to do, even from a technical vantage. It’s a story that can be easily cheesed without setting the proper tones and expectations for the audience. Yet, it’s one of the heaviest and most needed stories of our modern day.

I’m not expecting any isolated anime, book, video game, or movie to be enough to “save” somebody who struggles with suicidal ideation. But if it can reach them and help them realize they aren’t alone in their struggle, that’s a worthy thing to ask of “entertainment.” Maybe if they see a story in which depression is toppled and anxiety is overcome, they could even find it in themselves to seek help.

If this is you, please understand you are stronger and more important than you believe. Please, if you have an authority figure or religious leader you can trust, reach out to them. If not, the 24-hour suicide hotline is 1-800-273-8255, and talkspace.com has an affordable, online therapy match-making program, which I have on good knowledge to be worth its weight.

You have my prayers. I believe in you.

Thanks for reading, and God bless.

(This article first ran in geeksundergrace.com, in April of 2018.)

http://www.geeksundergrace.com/anime-cosplay/exploring-suicide-anime/

Top 50 Instrumental Songs (Part 4/5)

This is the fourth in a five-part series to be released daily, in which I unpack my favorite instrumental songs in the history of, well, ever. Narrowing this list down was obviously difficult. There were four “waves” needed to thin out the contestants from my library of thousands, and once we got below one-hundred it was like pulling teeth.

Yet, I stayed true to my original goal of fifty, for my own sake, and not compromise that number. I wanted to know for myself what I believed were my favorites among the gallery of songs I so dearly love.  This following list is the conclusion of those struggles.  They are not in order.  Simply getting a pool of them was hard enough.  I do wish to leave with my sanity.

Many are favored because of their execution and style, while others, because of a particular attachment or association they have with my personal life.  With each entry will be a short blurb, explaining why it belongs. And for a disclaimer: if I couldn’t understand what language they were singing in, I considered the vocals as their own independent instruments, and thus things like Gregorian chants do not disqualify songs from being “instrumentals.”

Enjoy.

#31 – “The Huge Tree in the Tsukamori Forest” by Joe Hisaishi

This song could straight-up break me out of a coma.  This is the song which holds the most history of any on this list.  My Neighbor Totoro was my first exposure to anime, played by my babysitter Patty when I was four years old.  She said I asked for it constantly.  Thus my love of anime was born.

When I hear The Huge Tree, I am brought to imagine the beautiful antiquity of rural Japan, in which My Neighbor Totoro is set.  Specifically, I feel the essence of late afternoon, bottled up and hung next to wind chimes.  Sunlight calms down as the late afternoon sets in.  The world, in spite all its troubles, is for a moment at peace.

And when those chimes or whatever they are start up…there is nothing more nostalgic.  That sound has the compounded interest of twenty-two years of memories behind it.  Nothing can compare.

#32 – “Otherworld” by Nobuo Uematsu and the Black Mages

Almost objectively the worst song on this list, my appreciation for “Otherworld,” the heavy-metal anthem of Final Fantasy X, relies on a story, and the evidence that it invokes one of the strongest biological reactions of any song I know.  Nearly all of my love for this track comes from the first twenty seconds, and that requires some context.  I’d first heard it long before it became one of my favorites, when the game first released in my elementary school years and I watched my friend Joey play it.  From that young moment, I’d come to associate that song with “Sin,” the immense and unstoppable monster which plagues the world of FFX.  When this song is first introduced, it is to the visage of Sin as it obliterates an entire city.  Your city.

For years I believed this song only played at the beginning of the game, as I’d never owned the game myself or completed it.  But in college I had the opportunity to play FFX to conclusion.  Once I reached the end, to the climax against the heart of Sin—my in-game father—I prepared for the worst.  I knew from word of mouth by multiple friends who’d gone before me that Sin’s core was an incredibly intimidating boss.  I got ready for the typical fare we see in Final Fantasy last boss soundtracks…

But when Sin (aka “Braska’s Final Aeon,” technically) reached its hand over the lip of the arena which was to be the place of the final battle, and slammed it down, that guitar from “Otherworld” kicked in, and I found myself instinctively leaning away from the screen as a massive, flaming demonoid creature heaved itself slowly into the frame, almost too large to be contained by the arena itself.  As it glared down at my party, now seeming woefully unprepared, I remembered the words of my friends who warned me of its might.  I did not know this song played again for the final boss.  I thought it only played at the beginning.  Years and years of listening to this song rushed at me all at once as I looked upon the true face of whom it belonged, the core of Sin, a creature of terrible menace.

I’ve never had such an animal response to a video game before.  To physically put space between myself and an enemy which could not technically hurt me.  I felt intimidation rolling off this moment as if I’d suddenly been caught out by a bear.  It was amazing.

If anybody were to tell me that, of the songs in my top 50, this was their least favorite, I would not blame them.  It’s special for me independent of its own quality.

#33 – “Drowning in this Fog of Yours” by Cicada

If you haven’t noticed, I am a never-ending sucker for the contrite piano.  When it’s part of an ensemble cast, alongside a guitar and strings which share its vision, then we have a classic case of a sum being greater than its parts.  “Drowning in this Fog of Yours” has a little something for both sides of the emotional soul.  Some melancholy, some tranquility, some encouragement, some love.  Such a perfect morning song.  A perfect reading song.  A perfect living song.  There’s nothing special about it musically, nor personally.  I just can’t seem to shake its hold on me.  It makes my heart smile.  I want more of it, as soon as it ends.

Songs like these are my favorite because they are so good at doing what traditional, vocal-driven songs cannot: they speak to you.  I am not ignorant to the irony of that statement, nor do I believe lyrics can’t convey amazing things. But there’s an undeniable transparency and individuality with these sorts of tracks.  There’s no words to misinterpret, no specific story behind the narrative.  It’s just feelings, made semi-material, a gateway into another person.  The music is much more honest than we could ever be with our faulted tongues.

#34 – “Death Image” by Yoshihisa Hirano

This song is morbidly simple.  It is the swaying footsteps of the man on his last dredges of vitality, ready to surrender to his own weight. The way the strings make drawn, flat notes provide a perfect foundation for the eventual raindrop sound of the piano, as well as the organ and slight percussion which give a sort of ticking clock sound.  If I must capture this word in a scene, it is that of somebody taking their final steps as the world melts away around them.  It’s a good deathbed song, extracted from the anime “Death Note,” something which says “yes, it’s over.”

I once listened to this song on repeat for an entire 8-hour overnight shift.

#35 – “Creator of Worlds” by Epic Score (I think?)

Three things: drums, ominous choir, and the angriest violins on this side of existence.  That’s 90% of this song, and it’s one of the most intense things ever.  Objectively.   I’m allowed to say that, I’m the writer.

It really does give an impression while you inhale the music of a divine act of terraforming taking place somewhere in the universe.  Can’t you feel it?  Tectonic plates, freshly birthed from the magma of a fledgling planet, sliding together, mashing into mountains and earthquakes and underwater ravines.  The oceans stir into place, a devastation contained only by gravity, drowning tens of thousands of miles in unstoppable nature.  Storms of lightning war with themselves as layers of atmosphere begin to form around the soft meat of the globe, tender from its chaos.  And then, somewhere in this miasma of ancient power, life rapidly expands beyond its natural elements.  I can imagine a body coming together just as easily.  Muscle sinews stretching and reaching for each other, forming elastic bridges between the still solidifying frame of bone and cartilage which will eventually have the power to raise itself up.  Eyes, for a moment mush, round out into something which is firm, and then complex, swallowing the world in the birth of perception.

This is the song, as the name implies, of a great god-hand sewing together the many fabrics of the universe.

#36 – “Fantasia alla Marcia” by Yoko Shimomura

There is something intrinsically important about this song.  It’s hard to quite land a finger on.  I mean, it’s obviously beautiful and dramatic, but that’s typical fare for Kingdom Hearts.  What I think sets this song apart, aside from it having like seven different melodies, is the nebulous sense of inheritance it provides.  As if I’m being entrusted with the responsibility to refine and pass along virtues of worth, in the hopes of breeding new caretakers of this strange truth: that humanity, in spite of ourselves, can imagine, and wonder, and create.  We make art, and music, and those things are worth maintaining.  You inherit a sense of protection towards that, such an insane and honest and worthwhile campaign.

#37 – “Goodbye” by Jared Emerson-Johnson

This is the saddest song from the saddest game I’ve ever played, and if I’m not careful, it can ruin my entire day.  I make this one of my favorite songs almost ironically, as it encapsulates an experience which plunged me into a thick, four day depression after exposure.  What I said is dramatic, yes, but not without cause.  To unpack all the reasoning behind that now would take too long, but in short, I associate this song intrinsically with a sense of unforgivable failure.  And as crudely categorized as that is, I love this song because, despite its simplicity and sorrowful grade, anything which makes me feel so deeply deserves to be considered a favorite.

That game broke me a little.

Sorry, Clementine.

#38 – “Into the Wild Chapter II” by Axl Rosenberg

A slow, but glorious burn. You need to stick with this one for a bit, because the first couple minutes are preemptive—steadily building in strength and tone.  The true character of ItWC2 resurrects around the 1:45 second mark.  Then opens the anthem to the long journey, an adventure to find an unknown something, a place not yet seen.  Being lost, and finding.  When I hear this track, I imagine a grand voyage or pilgrimage, either alone or with companions.  It is the quintessential self-discovery arc every person and character must endure to find themselves.

#39 – “Little Fugue in G Minor” by Johann Sebastian Bach

For full-disclosure, I care less about the more traditional renditions of Bach’s famous “Little Fugue in G Minor,” and prefer it in several recent incarnations.  For example, this excellent metal take on the classic.  Or this one from a game called Catherine which I’ve never played but has a great soundtrack.

But I obviously have one which stands out, as it’s the one posted above.  The version which plays to the final adversary of Mega Man Legends, one of my favorite games.

Bach’s masterpiece has such a delicious, aristocratic horror, as if dancing at a masquerade on a night filled with secrets, lies, and betrayal.  There’s a scope of history about the song, nestled deep into the public psyche.  The almost universal familiarity of it somehow emphasizes the dread it creates.  A shadow hiding in our minds, wearing a mask, polite until your guard has fallen.

#40 – “Unfinished Battle” by Yoko Shimomura

Shimomura has now shown up just as many times as Sawano.

For some reason this song was only played once through the entire 80-hour game of Xenoblade Chronicles, which is practically a sin., because it’s one of the most raw soundtracks in recent memory.  It’s hard to point at any one part of the song and tell you “that, that is what makes it amazing.”  It is simply a perfectly rounded battle fanfare, with chasing strings running the course of its length, and a mounting synth-piano which explodes into prominence at the end.  As the name implies, it encourages a tremendous sense of pushing through adversity towards a final resolution.  An excellent workout song, “Unfinished Battle” has a home in many, many of my playlists.