Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「旅詩」 (Tabiji) by 徭沙羅花 starring M・A・O (Tsukai Saraka starring Ichimichi Mao)
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「ノヴォ」 (Novo)
“Novo”
As expected, episode 02 of Seikai Suru Kado takes us back in time (28 hours, as words on the screen helpfully remind us) to show us exactly what happened between the a giant alien cube swallowing an aeroplane and that cube spitting out only two chumps. What horrible fate befell the 251 poor souls on that flight? Now we know! In practice, though, the only person we seem to need to know anything about is Shindou Koujirou, alleged master negotiator, ubermensch, and heroic pioneer. At this moment he’s basically the only guy who’s doing anything worth paying attention to; sure, he has a counterpart, but I don’t even remember her name, and neither do you. Next episode I guess she’ll actually do something and earn status as a 3D model instead of a 2D background character.
To be fair, Shindou-san doesn’t really do all that much outside of teaching aliens that humans wear pants. The main object of fascination is certainly Yaha-kui zaShunina (Za to his friends), who manages to assimilate basic human functions quite easily (what does Shindou keep on his phone?), he still makes a point of definitely being an alien. He(?) may wear our guise and speak our tongue, but does he think like us? He was birthed from nothing. He has access to mind-boggling technology that could solve any number of earthly problems. What does he want?
Za, as far as aliens go, is unto a god. And as far as gods go, science-fiction (and perhaps fiction in general) has two approaches. They are either supreme, magnificent beings, like Tolkien elves in space, far above filthy earth apes like you and I, and will shame us with their moral superiority and enlightened philosophy. Or, they are are Lovecraftian horrors from beyond time and space, beyond the ability of mortal minds to comprehend, and even the briefest contact with these unworldly terrors drive men gibbering and mad. Of which school Za belongs to remains to be seen (I don’t feel insane, at least), but it’s hard to make a character of an aloof god. He still needs to have something that drives him, that motivates his actions. Something that he wants, especially something he wants of Japan in particular, since he chose to land there, of all places. At least I think he chose to land there. The alien cube works in mysterious ways.
Of course, it could be that Za is completely benevolent, here only to bestow his graces upon humanity out of the goodness of his own heart. But with all the talk about negotiation philosophy and negotiation techniques and negotiator protagonists, one would be inclined to think that there would actually be some kind of negotiation taking place. Probably. That is, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect Za to be seeking some sort of quid pro quo, and indeed he actively warns the humans to be continuously skeptical of his intentions.
Even if his intentions were some kind of alien uplift, perhaps we should be wary of that too? Has Za not watched Star Trek? Does he not know of the Prime Directive? These things never end well.
Preview
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https://randomc.net/image/Seikai%20Suru%20Kado/Seikai%20Suru%20Kado%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2027.jpg
“Let there be bread”
The issue in this series is answering two questions. First, what does Za want? Second, what does Za need? Za’s technology appears to be advanced enough to be what we would call “post scarcity”. Meaning, as far as material goods are concerned then he has no “need” for anything. As far as “want” is concerned, that is up to the writers of this show to answer. I am going to my best to avoid spoiling anything here by being vague but in films of the past with a god like alien their “needs” as far as humans are concerned are partially selfish. They need us to survive/advance because eventually it will help them. The other scenario is that they “want” to help us because of some sort of philosophical belief.
Being that this is an anime I will personally wager that it will be a little of both. Numerous anime’s have had the villain and occasional hero do their great deeds because of some sort of odd philosophy. It makes sense to them basically. Also I suspect that there is some sort of untapped value humans have that Za will seek to exploit. Whether or bit humans will consent remains to be seen.
That is, if they choose to go into that territory at all. The series has only 12 episodes, the potential exploration of the purpose which drove the alien to come to Earth will be either very brief and unsatisfactory or there simply won’t be any.
The thing is… What mankind has that these aliens could even need? We’re a talking about a species not only capable of interstellar and galactic travel but also capable of traveling between universes/dimensions. The first alone is so far beyond our current technology level that I can’t even fathom how far Za’s technology even is.
Besides that, we are totally powerless to whatever he demands if Za were to decide that there’s not need to negotiate anymore. The goodness of his heart as a reason for he wanting to help us is the only way this could end in a positive way without any asspulls if we somehow enter in a conflict with him.
It’s basically just the same like human itself.
We might be different species from different world, but both of us still just mere living, sentient entities (I think).
And we don’t need to look so far for any reason other thank from our own history.
Yes, Industrial Renaissance European have advanced technology.
Yes, they can fulfill their needs without depending on the others.
Yes, they can even create flying bricks that can transport human from continent to continent with ease.
But same era Australian? (SORRY PASSERBY TAICHO-DONO 8D ) or other Eastern Asia/African/etc countries?
They were still living in stone age back then.
And yet the European still insist on coming to their lands (they need the natural resources and yummy spices), preaching their religion (they need to bestow the graces of Holy Christ upon humanity out of the goodness of their own heart), or simply just want to teach these “backwards tribes” some proper civilization or something-something democracies (just out of “goodwill”, ***see Syria or other Mid-Eastern countries in general).
So yeah…
I think it’s either “Arrival” Show Spoiler ▼
or the ones above 8’D
In my opinion, the reason for why the aliens came to Earth on the first place felt like the weakest part of Arrival.
Sci-fi seems to struggle when it wants to give a reason to these type of aliens beyond we just feel like helping you out because it always feels a bit too much as humans are special when, in-universe, the justifications are flimsy at best.
I, for one, are perfectly able to envision hyper-advanced civilization does uplifting and accelerating other civilization
for the lulz
Perhaps the answer of Za’s questions here lies in the old Lucasarts game “the Dig” with the aliens there… I do not give you the direct answer. go and search for yourself
Why’s he here? He said it himself. He’s here to advance humanity. It’s really the only answer.
Anyway, there are some interesting things to take note, such as
1)The requirement to process subject to get in or out, and its depending on the mass. This strongly implies a transition from matter to information and vice versa. This also shed some light related to 2) KADO’s designation, a “boundary unit”, and its seemingly invincible fregonics. Simply put, I suspect KADO is informing the universe that it is exist via visible light spectrum, while its “actually does not exist”, merely transiting into this universe, thus practically emitting absolutely nothing. Kinetic energy is repulsed with equal strength, matter is blocked, and sound waves are countered (thus Doppler radar did not work) by its ‘boundary’.
Coincidentally, it also explain the “post scarcity level” illusion, since it could simply just a copy paste process of the information (in quantum level) of what consisting a bread. This, in turn also explain zaShunia’s strangely slightly unfamiliar impression of ‘metabolic fuel’. He simply did not need it before gaining his ‘interface body’, although its unclear if he need it even with a body.
The way he tried to explain the time required to process the plane and passengers in binary, while hilarious for me, also serve as another cue. Combined with the way he set the deadline to prepare communication method with government (which also hilarious), it point to something rather (not) surprising. 3) He does not (at least originally) process time the way human is.
All in all, Seikaisuru KADO is “The Arrival” with more advanced alien, with some smart snarky (and occasionally dry) humor thrown in. At this point, I can safely conclude that anyone who didn’t understand the refreshingly impressive show which is KADO is simply because they are not smart enough to understand it.
By the way: Tolkien elves are NOT god.