Chapter X
Bloated Maternal Enemy Tobon : Idle Machismo and Rumiko Takahashi's "Gravity"
Why the question of sexual awareness needs to be addressed
In the previous chapter, we discussed the "Twenty-Four-Year Group", especially the problem of decisionism through the inheritance of the consciousness of the Yamagishi Ryoko problem. On this basis, it is proposed that Yoshinaga Shi is a legitimate successor to the theme after Yamagishi (the mantra of Prince Mitabe), and also believes that he can eventually be called a writer who raised a quality objection to the situation of decisionism in the zero-zeros. Why?
That is to say, the problem of determination that "in the postmodern situation, it is necessary to choose a core value" becomes more and more obvious as the mature society of the modern style becomes closer to completion, and it is a fundamental character. As far as the zero-zero era in Japan is concerned, only "genius" writers like Yamagishi can gain insight into the key points of a mature society, such as "Death Note", which can become a national-level work on the basis of thorough market research. In other words, the zero-zero era can be said to be "the era when the essence of determination, a mature society, was revealed."
In the past, the literature of sensitive and nihilistic young people, the desire problem of "in order to endure this society with opaque values, only you (the particular community) fully acknowledge me (want me)", has only been widely covered in society through the problem consciousness of autistic squatting/world system (which inevitably leads to decisionism) = decisionism/survival system (the premise of the world system is necessary). The problem of "determinationism", which emerged in the contrast between the nineties and the zeros, is, in fact, by no means short-term as five years and ten years, but a more permanent curse on our society.
The point here is that the genealogy from Yamagishi to Yoshinaga portrays this decision-style question of "ownership" as a question of sexual consciousness.
These writers base their homosexual feelings between men as a basis for describing the problem of "all", and of course, the problem of hobbies held by their core readers, that is, women, on the level of sex also exists. But, at least reciprocally, there is a critical awareness of the fact that (especially domestic) social self-actualization is intertwined with a certain machismo and patriarchy. As a result, these writers had to become sensitive to the violence that occurred when "all of them can ensure the peculiarities under excess fluidity."
Self-reflection reinforces machismo
And this model, too, cannot be said to be limited to the adoption of girl comics, and most genres of post-war subculture have shown this tendency. Broadly speaking, from the pure love craze represented by the period drama (トレンディー・ドラマ), which lasted until the second half of the 1980s, to the repeatedly mentioned Kyoichi Katayama's "Call for Love in the Center of the World (世の Center で、愛をさけぶ)", and the great popularity of Junichi Watanabe in the later period was also among them. However, the most abundant in recent years has been the theory of the beautiful girl (Gongkou) game carried out by theorists such as Higashi Hiroki and Sasaki (Hara) In the first half of the 1900s.
In a series of discussions on the world system and the beautiful girl game, Higashi Hiroki took a very simple and supportive position on the "all" structure of the exchange challenged by Akio Yoshida, Yoshinaga, and others discussed in the previous chapter, which was consumed by the reader as a kind of exoneration and accepted uncritically.
Higashi's series of beautiful girl (Gongkou) game proponents advocate self-reflection on "all" to give the work a critical perspective, thus generating the intensity of the work. This focus itself is rather evidence that Higashi Hiroki has made a very correct grasp of the key points of Japan's post-war subculture.
But on the other hand, the support of this beautiful girl (pornography) game in the East contains some dangerous elements. In short, can the logic of self-reflection embodied in beautiful girl games such as "Kannon" and "AIR" proposed by Dong really play a role in criticizing machismo, as Dong himself pointed out? This is to draw a question mark. And the conclusion of this point, as far as I am concerned, is quite the opposite.
First of all, let's briefly introduce the content of "AIR". The game uses the genre of three interactive novels. The first part describes the communication between the traveler young Kunisaki and Kanin, a young girl he met in a seaside village. Weak and full of idiotic words and deeds, Guan Ling, who lives alone, is actually abandoned by her father and lives on her aunt as a substitute for her mother. At this time, the protagonist Xiangren, as a person who fills the lonely existence of Guan Ling, is fully recognized, and the two are connected. But then the people disappeared. Later, the second part describes the marriage of Xiangren and Kansuzu's previous life (Heian period). The third part of the final chapter depicts the death of a person who is reborn as a bird (sharing a sense of powerlessness with the player) watching Guan Ling.
Higashi Hiroki commented that the story was a work of cohabitation between patriarchal machismo desires and self-reflection with disgust, and this divisive attitude gave strength to the works, which gave "literary" young people a foothold.
In air's gameplay experience, we experienced two setbacks. The first setback is "wanting to be a father", that is, the simple and simple desire to save Kansuke and interact with her on the level of the character (part 1). The second setback is that "although I can't be a father, I want to move freely", that is, I want to see her as a forever girl and want to have her. This is precisely a desire to deny theological implications based on the player level (part III). The story of the first part reverses "declining machismo" (the imagination that complements the patriarchal nature), while the system of the third part dismantles the "unfinished" self-deception (the desire to hide in the imagination of the anti-patriarchal system and secretly smuggle the imagination of the super-patriarchal system).
——Ying-Ying,"The Birth of Game-like Realism", "Moe's Realism," "Moe's Inability (Before Moe, Staying incapacitative)"
The translator directly quoted the translation of Zhihu user @Wang Han.
But is that really the case?
How exactly did the machismo and self-reflective cohabitation that Dong pointed out establish? Why, at first glance, two opposing elements can live together in the same work? This is because the inherent self-reflection in these works does not actually play the function of "reflection", but rather a "safe self-reflection performance of pain" that reinforces and preserves machismo.
Again, through AIR. The first part of this work is faithfully designed based on the patriarchal desire to own weak and idiotic sick and weak girls and have sex. In contrast to the third part of the first part, the protagonist's disappearance (self-destruction) circuit is taken, depicting the powerlessness of the girl who can only watch the death of the girl.
But this circuit, in fact, like the aforementioned Akita Yoshio's arrangement of Asho's death at the end of BANANA FISH, is tantamount to a construct that exonerates "all" of violence. The cycle of self-destruction is rather preserved as a kind of eternity as a whole of intensification of tragedy. Because the phrase "destroyed while all is achieved" does not negate the desire of "all" itself, and (for the player) its violent nature is hidden.
However, if self-reflection is really included, then the story of the first part cannot be true. The main point of this "self-reflection" is that the basic part of the structure of "all" in which the beautiful girl regards the male protagonist as an absolute necessity cannot be the object of reflection. If "real pain" and functional self-reflection are to be included, the past must be rejected by The Bell. In order to fill the world-weary view of the second half of the nineties (forced to hold the missing ones that should be filled in advance), the attitude of possessing all lonely and sick girls must itself be "rejected".
However, the role of the third part is rather to deprive the story of the first part of the story of the opportunity for self-reflection of "real pain" forever. The system of the third part brings about a dislocation of the story of the first part as it is a reinforcement. What is there is only a circuit for the reinforcement and preservation of machismo.
Let's take a less appropriate example. After having sex with a female high school student during a social encounter, in order to eliminate this guilt, men who gently exhort young girls to say that "you shouldn't do this kind of thing" may be called "delicate and literary". The "you shouldn't do this kind of thing" preaching that they are carrying out is rather to eliminate inner resistance and to safely give the girl all in the sexual aspect. After all, they will never choose to give up all the circuits of aid communication (=meng). [1]
[1] Rikiko Matsuura's Inuyasha (2007) chooses the same core theme as AIR, and is a masterpiece that approaches the essential problems that AIR avoids.
The protagonist who becomes a "dog" in this work becomes the "house dog" of the woman he loves, watching his life. The protagonist has repeatedly witnessed the inbreeding of sexual intercourse between his owner and his brother.
After all, in the East schema, can consumers addicted to "AIR" bear to become crows and watch other men make love?
"The Body of a Dog" is a masterpiece born in such a bold imagination that reveals the violent nature of the principles that nurture love that we are born in the modern age, sometimes face and sometimes avoid.
Originally, apart from those who hold that kind of inflated machismo, they would not despair of "not being able to be a father." After all, there are many other self-actualization circuits in this world. Today, the imagination, which starts with the short-circuit of "life goal = fatherhood" and "if not = immediate despair", is actually the most unconsciously inflated and reinforced machismo in post-war subculture.
This self-reflective performance of "safe pain" was inherited from Welcome to HHK! （ＮＨＫにようこそ！ GUNS LINGER GIRL IS WIDELY SHARED BY CLUSTERS OF OTAKU CULTURAL WORKS OF THE OTAKU OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1990S. Through the interpretation of the egocentric (ご都合化) interpretation of the two-way evaluation of the East, the subcultural criticism of the first half of the 1900s was the most macho, ushering in an era when the unconsciously dull imagination was rated as "literary" and "introspective". But such a desolate era must also usher in an end. The performance of self-reflection with conclusions is rather to deprive literature of its possibilities and lead people into a more simplistic stop of thinking. [2]
[2] In works such as May this Moment Be Eternal (Junが望む Forever) (2001) and School Days (2005), the hurtfulness of the beautiful girl character caused by the amorous protagonist choosing one of several women is depicted in a positive way, where the protagonist is able to avoid the "self-reflection of real pain" caused by "rejection", and sure enough, there is no more reinforcing preservation of machismo than "safe self-reflection performance of pain". In School Days, Makoto Ito is stabbed by the girls, not because of their rejection, but because of their (egocentric) pursuits. This kind of self-reflection, including the current "Otome Man" craze, is basically unable to jump out of the range of diminutive performances.
Their critique of pornography in the broad sense is largely concentrated in this ideology that hides and reinforces machismo, so that this contradictory argument is not criticized, but remains in a closed market.
The violence of "motherhood" is prescribed by the world
However, it is not over. The beautiful girl (Gongkou) games and world games that Higashi Hiroki supported at that time was a compromise on rape fantasy, and in the final analysis, it cannot be said to be a delicate substitute. Obviously, as far as we have quoted before, it can be clearly seen that Dong himself has a certain degree of consciousness about this kind of duality, but there are still big loopholes here.
For example, Rumiko Takahashi's epoch-making work "Fukusho Kid", which can be called the "cute" culture that he was obsessed with as a teenager, and especially the film "Fuksei Kid 2: Kirito Dreamer" (うる星やつら2 ビューティフル·ドリーマー) (1984), which was quite elaborate and often talked about by Higashi Hiroki.
When Higashi Hiroki talks about the work, he tends to focus on Oshii's dual depiction of his ambition to return to reality and its impossibility. This insight of Higashi Hiroki is convincing as circumstantial evidence for a series of his claims (e.g., it is in subcultures that it is better to gain insight into the development of postmodern conditions in Japan).
But on the other hand, Dong did not pay attention to the unnaturalities involved. That is, there is a decisive opposition between the original author of this work, Rumiko Takahashi, and the animation supervisor Oshii Mori.
"Fukusei Kid" is a famous work by Rumiko Takahashi, who won a lot of popularity in the early 1980s. The protagonist, a high school student, begins to live with Ram, an alien beautiful girl who appears as his fiancée, and the model of fantasy romantic comedy that has been popular to this day is basically fixed here. Around the stars, there are also many beautiful girls who are described in different categories, and the story takes place in an infinite cycle in which no matter how many times the new moon and Christmas characters do not grow older, and they are bent on depicting a happy "paradise".
This form, in the romance comedies of later otaku works, was fixed as the so-called harem romance of single men as a model of consumption, but his TV anime and film version of the superintendent Oshii Mori, in the second theatrical version of "Kirito Dreamer", began to critically describe this worldview.
The stage for "Dreamer" is set on the day before the cultural festival of the high school where Ram and the stars are studying. Under the power of a youkai named Dream Evil Ghost, the characters are unconsciously reset in their sleep, forever repeating the "day before the Cultural Festival". Obviously, this "day before the cultural festival that is forever repeated" is a metaphor for the work itself. The protagonist, the stars, sense an anomaly and try to escape from the "day before the cultural festival"... The story is probably like this.
In this game, in order to fulfill the heroine Ram's "wish to spend the school life happily with the members forever", the dream demon constantly excludes her love enemies and characters who hope to return to reality. They were turned into stone statues, becoming pillars of people who supported the world created by the dream demons.
What Oshii reveals here is the violence of what we call "bloated motherhood." At first glance, Rumiko Takahashi's world is a flawless "paradise" where paternal repression does not exist, replaced by maternal violence that distinguishes between "inside" and "outside." The exclusion of the "enemy" from the human pillar and the inclusion of the "friend" in one's womb and the impermissible escape of such a common violence is rather the product of takahashi's "maternal" gravity.
What Oshii reveals is not the escapist attitude of young fans who indulge in Rumiko Takahashi's worldview. Naturally, there is a critical perspective on this point, but on top of this, the spearhead is the violence of motherhood called Rumiko Takahashi. [3]
[3] Oshii has since deified and fetish kusanagi's "females with male bodies, abilities, and thinking patterns" in GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995), a twisted boildown to a writer who has set out to oppose Takahashi's motherhood.
Higashi Hiroki repeatedly mentions the key work that determines his adolescence, "The Dreamer of Qili", but never mentions Oshii Mori's revelation of maternal violence. But there is no doubt that the theme of this film is the violence lurking in Takahashi-style paradise. The exclusivity nurtured by the maternal violence critically depicted in Oshii Mori is perfectly consistent with the exclusive commonalities that arise and differentiate when reading characters in the ocean of databases.
The world built by the Dream Demon using a large number of human pillars is to gain the recognition of the role of Ram, eliminating mismatches and noises, and dividing the world. Similarly, the space that is connected and generated by connecting and generating all the desires of a character (read from the sea of databases) is also for the recognition of that character, and the commonality of mismatch and noise is excluded.
For example, in the community formed by the consumers of a certain character "A" in the video sharing website, the role setting of "A" who is "tired of boring daily life, believing in the existence of aliens and super-powers", no matter how extreme the spoof is changed, it is better to say that the more excessive it is, the more strongly it feels strongly recognized. This is because the change work in the second creation reinforces the identification with the characters set by the original work.
However, there is no explanation of the "hot-eyed devil" that the consumer of "A" empathy will make, which is considered to be a nuisance to the identity of the role of "A" and completely excluded. Yes, it's like dreaming of evil spirits weeding out people who are bad for Ram!
Beyond Rumiko Takahashi's "Gravity"
Higashi Hiroki was too indifferent to this kind of "maternal violence".
For example, in the highly rated Evangelion (新紀エヴァンゲリオン), this "bloated motherhood that devours everything" is directly the theme of "human completion plan". Similarly, in AIR, we will not discuss whether the depiction of it is positive or negative, and it is clear that in the strange town where adult males are almost non-existent, the relationship between the heroine and her righteous mother is regarded as the supreme relationship. That is, although a strange maternal enemy Trojan (utopia) is depicted, this is not within the scope of East's concern. Furthermore, the works of Yuki Tomino, which are the prototypes for the theme of "maternal enemy Trojans" in the aforementioned EVA, were almost completely ignored by Higashi Hiroki. [4]
[4] Beginning with early works such as Mobile Suit Gundam (Megyo Mitsuki ガンダム) (1979), especially throughout the Gundam series, Tomino has used that bloated maternal enemy trotopia as a theme. In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Story of Shaya and Amro who can't get out of lara's "mother's" womb and dies; in Mobile Suit Gundam (Mobile Suit Gundam V Gundam) and dies, the protagonist, The Young Hoso, hates social self-actualization (what the adults around him expect) = Fights with a mobile warrior who can't get out of lara's "mother's" womb and dies; in Mobile Suit V Gundam (Mobile Suit Vガンダム), the protagonist, The Young Hoso, hates social self-actualization (what the adults around him expect) = fights with a mobile warrior, and appeases his ome bamboo maiden Saty as a "longing sister" by "not leaving his territory", The story unfolds with a contrast between her and the rival maiden, Katijana. Satie is a symbol of motherhood, while Katijana is a woman but not entangled with motherhood, "Why do I have to cooperate with the romantic love of boys?" This is the "ultimate other" who rejects lies.
Sensitive to the repression of paternality, higashi Hiroki, who criticized the machismo of the previous generation and won the support of the younger generation, somehow accepted the repression of motherhood without feeling. This is no longer a matter of the "good/bad" dimension. The decisive critics of this epoch, while speaking of the repression of paternality, are defenseless against the repression of motherhood, and it is better to say that from this fact a completely new analysis should be carried out.
The emergence of the Middle Eastern Hiroki and its deteriorated replicas in the critical community, the appearance of weak carnivorous dinosaurs (although there is no interest in meat eating) in the diminutive performance of "we are plant-eating dinosaurs", while devouring weaker girls (idiots, sick, reformed people, etc.), this rotten meat-like wonderful discourse space brewed in the critical circles.
To this day, the writer who is most closest to the theme of this maternal enemy of the trojan is Rumiko Takahashi herself. At the root of Takahashi's work flows the motherhood that is bloated to the point of ferocity. As if to say, "Don't step out of my womb," the heroine swallows—the male who magnifies her motherhood into the object of desire, and the community that brings the story of two people to the climax—and this structure is carried out in all works.
For example, even "A Moment together" (めぞん一 moment), which at first glance depicts the growth of youth, is no exception. The main line of this game is the pure love story between Yusaku Gosaku, who lives in a cheap apartment for a moment, and the heroine Otomuko, who is its administrator. The first five generations of young people to appear as fallen students worked hard to become men worthy of Naruko by entering the university and entering the workplace. It should be noted here that the growth of the five generations of young and middle-aged people in this work is always described as a process limited to the self-realization circuit of "making Xiangzi happy". At the end of the story, the married Five Generations and Naruko, even if they have children, did not move away from the Moment Museum. Hideshi Otsuka discussed this ending in conjunction with the mature avoidance tendencies of otaku culture, but that alone was not sufficient. [5]
[5] As a representative writer of the weekly Shonen Sunday (Weekly Shonen Sunday) in the 1980s, critic and editor Hideshi Otsuka cited Andatsu and Rumiko Takahashi. Comparing these two writers, who also depict the growth retardation period in consumer society in the form of a romantic comedy [モラトリアム], Anda Chong is placed in the position of a writer who aspires to mature according to "through ritual [through ceremony]", while Takahashi is placed in a space that always remains in the growth delay and avoids mature writers.
The apartment that first appeared as a symbol of not entering society (Ichikikan), after "maturing" and still living semi-permanently, means that the circuit of male self-realization is in the female realm (womb) without taking a step. It is a story of warm and pure love full of joy and human feelings, but also a story of bloated maternal egoism that devours everything and achieves complete victory.
This structure continued to be serialized for a long time, and was reproduced in "Chaos Horse 1/2 (らんま1/2)" (1987-1989). This work is often regarded as a parody of "Fuxing Kid", but at first glance at the beginning of the story, under the development of a well-known love comedy, the heroine of the lover who loves her sister, Tendo Qian, the characteristic feeling of "Takahashi-style heroine", leaks out of the horse's foot.
However, this triangular relationship is dissolved at the beginning of the story, Akane cuts off her long hair (in fact, the role changes), and the theme is completely dissipated, and the work becomes a long-term serial work beyond "Lucky Star Boy" as a "paradise" that perfectly hides maternal violence.
On the other hand, Takahashi of this period published a series of short stories, known as the "Mermaid Series (人魚シリーズ)", which unfolded a self-referential story.
The Mermaid Series tells the story of the journey of the young Yongta, who ate the flesh of a mermaid and obtained an immortal body, and continued for hundreds of years in order to retrieve the original "body that will die", and naturally, this "undead" itself is a metaphor for his other works. In other words, how do those who are attracted to the maternal enemy Troban, whose time is stopped, whose mature circuits are stripped away—both the characters who appear in Takahashi's work and the fans who indulge in Takahashi's work—liberate themselves from this gravity? From this point develops an extremely self-referential story.
While depicting a perfect paradise in "Horse 1/2" and the difficulty of getting rid of it in the Mermaid Series on the other, Takahashi of this period can be said to be a writer of this period: in the strong conviction that he continues to provide a theme park with his great motherhood, there is a moral that cannot continue to be unconscious about its powerful side effects.
In addition, InuYasha (1996-2008) is Takahashi's longest work, and it is also the decisive work of The Writer Rumiko Takahashi. This is because this work is probably the first work of Rumiko Takahashi herself to liberate herself from her bloated maternal gravity.
Here's an attempt to extract the main points from the huge content of this game. The foundation of this work is the triangular relationship between the heroine Ah Hedge, the protagonist InuYasha, and Inuyasha's former lover Kirito.
Kirito is in the same position as the "Heroine takahashi" of the past, and even if she dies, she can be resurrected through magic and has an immortal body (that is, "immortal"). In contrast, Akira [Hinata かごめ] is a girl who travels from the modern era (Heisei period) to the Sengoku period of the story stage. The former can be said to be the theme park of the past Takahashi = the inhabitants of the Rumic World, the immortal existence in the motherly enemy of the trust. The latter exists like consumers who go to the theme park to play in Takahashi. In fact, in the play, Ah Li returns to the Heisei era many times, in order not to be suspected by his parents and people at school, and to live a certain degree of daily life. It's like the unfinished fans who indulge in Takahashi's work, surviving everyday life and then "returning" to the fictional world. Yes, Inuyasha's self-referential structure is clearer than any previous Takahashi work.
In the second half of the story, Kirito dies again from the enemy, and the triangle relationship is coming to an end. In other words, at least today's Rumiko Takahashi can no longer choose to leave the teenager as a teenager forever enclosed in a theme park.
At the end of the story, Ah Li is forced to choose to return to modern times (leaving the theme park and returning to reality?). Or stay in the Sengoku period (do you want to stay in the theme park?). Can such a chosen venue still be a theme park? ）。
Its grand finale can be said to be intricate. Defeating his old enemy Nairobi, Ah Li is trapped in the source of his power, the Jade of Four Souls. The Jade of Four Souls is a collection of youkai's grievances, and Ah Li is asked by the consciousness of the Jade of Four Souls if he wants to return to the original world. However, this is the last trap set by Naraku before he dies, if Ah Li wants to "return to the original world", he will be imprisoned in the Jade of Four Souls and fight with the youkai forever.
Nairobi's ultimate trap is Takahashi's final resistance not to let go of his hand affirming the "reality that should go back." However, at least today Takahashi cannot be unconscious about the violent nature of obtaining a "body that does not grow (age) " = enclosing others in a motherly enemy ( a theme park ) . Neither the "reality that should go back" nor the "theme park" could be left to be sure—as a result, Ah Li made this wish to the Jade of The Four Souls: "Jade of the Four Souls, disappear." ”
Then the Jade of the Four Souls disappeared, and Ah Li returned to the modern era. Three years later, after graduating from high school, Ah Li chose to "marry" Inuyasha, the theme park, which he had been missing in the meantime, and chose to survive in the Warring States period. In the Warring States period described at the end, it is no longer the "Rumic World" produced by the demon power of the Jade of Four Souls = bloated motherhood as a utopia of infinite reincarnation [Loop]. Here it depicts the gesture of Ah Li and his former companions working hard to live and having children. The theme park that was chosen again was more depicted as a place where the old will die.
The ending chosen by Rumiko Takahashi here is indeed dangerous. Criticism as vague can be said to be twelve points appropriate, and I have no objection to this. However, living a real life in a theme park [present 実を生きる] is wonderful, in a sense simply grotesque, but it is indeed a new step.
Judging from the recent series of short films published intermittently in a youth magazine ("Rumiko Takahashi Theater"), takahashi has actively developed the theme of "aging" that he once half-sealed, and it is also possible to point out changes similar to some kind of turn. For example, in previous Takahashi works, the old man was always described as a mascot, and thoughtfully avoided the depiction of "aging". But today's Takahashi can no longer take his eyes off "aging" through the method of mascotification.
But Takahashi's unfolding of this self-referentiality has hardly been the object of criticism. Today, the worldview constructed by Rumiko Takahashi in the past has developed independently in the form of a "cute" culture. Nevertheless, the male theorists involved have been silenced, which I think is evidence that the gravity of Takahashi's motherhood has swallowed up the postwar subculture itself. While the adolescents of this country criticize machismo with disgust, they continue to "own" young girls – and it is probably not the father who binds them to it, but rather the mother, right? Doesn't the question of what really should be discussed exist where it has not been addressed in the past decade?
The necessity of the subcultural history of "motherhood"
In addition, in terms of imminent sexual consciousness and its repression, it is impossible to ignore Yuki Tomino and his successor Hideaki Anno. The problem of bloated maternal gravity pointed out by Oshii Mori was fully developed by Tomino in Mobile Suit Gundam Counterattack Shaya (1988) and Mobile Suit V Gundam (1993). From the second half of the 1980s to the 1990s, Tomino stubbornly depicted the regression of fatherly existence that forced teenagers to mature, while depicting the theme of the expansion of relatively powerful motherhood. In Evangelion, Hideaki Anno fully integrates Tomino's problem consciousness, "forcing the mature (robot-riding) father" and the soul of the mother attached to the robot, that is, the "mother who prevents maturity and intends to incorporate it into the mother's body", is arranged at the side of the protagonist, Makoto Tsurugi, depicting the process of the latter overpowering the former in the form of a "human completion plan".
Air, then, depicts a world in which humanity succeeds in completing its plans = a world in which paternity is completely defeated by motherhood. Because of this, almost no adult males appear in the story. And it is in such a world = cradle of motherhood that users can enjoy more reinforced and preserved machismo through the self-reflection performance of "safe pain". The preservation loop of machismo permeated in AIR works because its worldview is guarded by overwhelming motherhood. In any case, even self-proclaimed critics have not noticed this structure.
However, criticism is not used to posthumously recognize the device that satisfies the user's desires, and it is the charm of criticism that exposes the metastructure of the strong maternal gravity behind it.
As seen, paternal repression can create serious loopholes if it is not considered along with maternal gravity. In fact, most of the subcultural criticisms that developed during this period, especially those aimed at beautiful girl (Gongkou) games, male anime, and light novels, fell into this trap, with the exception of the sexual consciousness criticism made by Shuichiro More in recent years. We can make accusations that, in general, superficial criticism of the repression of paternality (in fact, reinforced by the performance of self-reflection, perhaps) is decisively dull to the gravity of accommodating this deceitful motherhood with overwhelming force. [6]
In modern times, it is not our father who has been castrated. This kind of thing has already exited the scene when the grand narrative fails. What binds us now is rather a mother who wants to keep everything in her womb. [7]
In this sense, in the world of subcultural criticism over the past decade, "machismo critique" has been used too easily. Even now, through the continuous inferior re-reading of Higashi Hiroki's theories, he has proclaimed himself a friend of the culture of "female to [女々しい]", a slender and literary character - this kind of two goods, a steady stream.
However, they are probably the richest macho people in the country. After all, they cannot enjoy the complexity of the world (which is rich because of its complexity), nor can they include anything other than the violent self-actualization of "becoming a father", but can only fully satisfy that greasy adult-like desire through an empty performance like "safe pain".
But it must be noted that behind the prevalence of such rhetoric, which can be called a celebration of rape fantasies, is the problem of the gravity of motherhood. [8]
[6] Critic Shuichiro More has called the gender confusion common in masculine otaku works "fragmented machismo". The discussions of Hideshi Otsuka, Sasaki (Hara), and Higashi Hiroki evaluate the same tendency positively as "an ethical attitude in order not to harm others." Shuichiro Kanko draws a line by pointing out the deception of this circuit: the latter obtains the exoneration charm by being unconscious of the hurtfulness of the beautiful girl characters, but at the same time obtains the fullness and satisfaction of all the desires of the patriarchy. As Gengko points out, this is not an aversion to machismo, but fragmented machismo–an intensification of moderate machismo.
[7] For example, the film director Makoto Aoyama is definitely not a keen writer. As symbolized by the obsession with Kenji Nakagami or the easy access to the Renishita shigehiko-style context, the use of images that can only be called anachronistic and leads to the alienation of young consumers is undeniable, but there is a tendency to over-evaluate in a factional manner.
However, although his pace is slow, it must be pointed out that he is also a writer who has finally gained the imagination of the times.
Aoyama's famous work EUREKA (2000), which won the Fabisi Prize (International Film Critics Award) at the Cannes Film Festival, can be positioned as a work that sums up the nineties. The driver and a pair of teenage siblings who were involved in the bus hijacking incident were far away from society due to the psychological trauma caused by the incident and stayed at home. Three people who form a family-like community as if shoulder to shoulder embark on a journey. In the process, the driver falls ill, suggesting that in the near future this family-like community will disappear, the brother falls in the process of recovery, committing murder, and the sister with aphasia recovers her language ability at the end of the journey.
The "autism/psychologicalism" of the nineties and the deterministic aggression that it alludes to, as well as the restoration of the "end" based on the quasi-familial commonality— published in 2000, is a belated nineties film because it explicitly contains this structure and achieves a transcendence of this structure.
However, Makoto Aoyama is really not a keen writer. Since then, Aoyama has continued this "belated nineties" and has been stagnant here for a long time. That is, the kind of nineties nostalgia that fell into the zero zeros = the "world system" as an unconscious decisionism.
A typical example is "God, God! Why have you forsaken me? (エリ・エリ・レマ・サバクタニ)"(2005)Bar. The girl in this game who suffers from the "suicide disease" that is a metaphor for world-weariness in the 1990s is saved by the protagonist's noise music, but the one who is really saved in this game is the musician protagonist played by Tadanobu Asano. Here, in order to satisfy male machismo = in order to provide meaning easily in this postmodern situation, the "traumatized girl" is consumed, adopting the same rape fantasy common in this world-system work.
However, Aoyama, the writer, is very powerful, although he walks very slowly, but in the end he can always grasp this theme very accurately and approach it extremely thoroughly.
The 2007(2007) is a "Man-Made Cathedral" (2007).
This work is a group portrait drama staged by a small transportation company that plays a role as a platform for accepting people out of society. Here, the "mother" who is the center of this family-like community is depicted, and the figure of the men who escape from this gravity.
In the story, although the mother allows everything, she will never allow it to go out of her body. The men are pulled by a huge gravity, some committed to it and fall into a stop of thinking, while others bite through the community from within in order to get rid of gravity. However, this internal destructive movement, also allowed by the mother, is tolerated - the story describes the strength of modern motherhood and its deformity on two levels, questioning consumers.
Yes, not able to get out of the nineties, and in "God Oh God! Why have you forsaken me? Makoto Aoyama, who is caught up in the world system, has very correctly grasped the fact that the foundation of these two is the gravity of motherhood, and depicts the impossibility of the soft landing of male sex as a motherly enemy.
[8] EUREKA, September 2007 issue of "Fantastic Conditions for Formation: Fantastic Conditions for Establishing A Sakugigi: Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (The Conditions of Formation of Rape And Fantasy)
Original author: Tsuneki Uno
Translation: hood
Proofreading: Confused by the infinity streamer text that is suddenly a world system, a decisive battle royale, and an idealism that creates a new world,,, and this chapter proofreads quite tired Haruka Saimiko
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