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「泥クジラと共に砂に召されるのだよ」(Dorokujira to tomo ni suna ni mesareru no da yo)
“Let’s Suicide In The Sand With The Mud Whale”
Let me preface this post by saying, I’m so sorry. The delay comes from losing my laptop charger, then having no proper contingency plan in place. Any remaining time and energy had to be redirected towards similarly affected legal studies, which unfortunately took precedence over Random Curiosity. Kujira had to be further delayed, due to releasing on Monday, when my primary access to blogging came over the weekend. Not exactly the ideal scenario, but better than nothing. Now dear readers, if you could forgive me, that would be great. And for these misgivings, I owe everybody an apology, especially my fellow colleagues. Love y’all! Special thanks to Pancakes, a literal superstar who helped gather screencaps for Episode 4. Now, without further ado, let’s proceed onto the main body of this post!
Quick Recap: Though we may still be in the midst of grieving, another problem surfaces. Kujira looks to set up an irreconcilable conflict between Chakuro and some out of touch elders. But using mass suicide to drive such an agenda is nothing short of crazy. There’s honestly no rhyme or reason to such a decision, and the complete lack of subtlety really irks me. While it’s true that those aboard Falaina are incredibly sheltered from the outside world, it would not warrant contravening tenets of self-preservation which are fundamental to almost every human being – emotions or no emotions.
Another point I’d like to make: I don’t think Ginshu is a well-written character. It sort of rubs me the wrong way that she exhibits so little emotional reaction following the massive genocide committed against her people, and that she gets a creepy kick out of being called ‘onee-san’. However, I suppose her heart is in the right place, like when she took Chakki’s side without questioning his motives. Plus, she can be entertaining in her own respect.
Minor complaints aside, I really liked the ethereal vision that Neri showed to Chakuro. The mysterious and magical qualities were well conveyed, remaining a strong aspect of the series. Not only did we receive closure regarding Sami – all kinds of juicy hints were dropped about the inner turbulence of key characters, as well as this vague conception that there’s something more to Neri than we might think.
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「逃げるのはイヤだ」 (Nigeru no wa iyada)
“I Don’t Want to Run”
Mass Destruction (averted)
You would think that even the most brazen and outspoken of foolish leaders would not openly reveal their morally objectionable plans to systematically kill off an entire population. Least of all towards those unwittingly burdened into carrying out such a task. I’m just glad that people saw sense and denounced the sheer absurdity in the Elder’s extremely kneejerk plan. Forcing everyone to accept a terrible decision is no act of kindness, and from the looks of it, little deliberation went into considering any possible alternatives. A bah humbug to you, good sir.
Chakuro’s Emotions
As someone who invests high stock on characters, one of the things I find myself enjoying the most about Kujira is how Chakuro wears emotions on his sleeve. Admittedly, he was kind of annoying at the start, but he really began to grow on me as the series progressed. So many male characters adhere to this machismo notion where they deeply bury their feelings, particularly widespread in a fictional society where strong emotions are taboo. Yet when called for, Chakuro is not above letting loose one hell of a passionate speech, amidst a flurry of tears. In my opinion, there is a strength of will, in breaking away from the shackles of historic tradition. His humanity is further emphasised when he expressed a powerful gratitude towards being alive, through the simple appreciation of an open field. If I think about it, being overemotional should make Chakuro an objectively poor archivist, since they are merely meant to document passing events in a detached fashion. That said, the quality of written history poses no concern to us. I’d even venture to say it’s actually perfect for a main character, because we strive to understand occurrences within the context of their intensely personal experience.
Concessions on Ouni
I will take back what I previously said about Ouni being an edgelord extraordinaire. He helped put a stop to these silly machinations, and came across as awesome when throwing his full support to rally behind an emotional Suou. However, for all the build up we were teased with, his fight with the eyepatch man was one heck of a wet noodle. They waved around some sticks, while displaying minimal usage of Thymia, a situation redeemed only by the revelation of some cursed eye. Hopefully we get more tidbits on the backstory behind that one, but I’m sadly becoming wary of how often Kujira promises something more, only to let down our expectations.
Concluding Thoughts
The discussion on how to defeat the evil Empire gave me flashbacks to Star Wars. Specifically when Lykos (Princess Leia) was explaining to everybody how the seemingly impenetrable Nous (The Death Star) had a weakness that could be exploited. However, Lykos also presents another interesting possibility whereby Falaina seeks out different nations bearing towards the Empire, to cooperate as allies sharing a mutual interest. Whether this will work or not remains to be seen, but I’m not expecting it to be that straightforward. As Viscount Palmerston proclaimed in regards to his stance on Britain’s 19th Century Foreign Policy: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow”.
Preview
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P.S. – I want to specifically thank agirlhasn0name. Thank you very much for helping me take screencaps for Episode 5, and lending me your laptop over the weekends so that I could do some vital catching up!
Is it just me or does this show have too much mystery? Did Neri really just get absorbed by Falaina with no explanation? Who are all these mysterious people? It’s like the show is being mysterious just to be mysterious. Anyways my best guess is Neri and Falaina and whoever comes after are one and the same.
Also after being isolated for 100 years then thinking they might run into potential allies is a little far-fetched, but it would be a welcome development. They’re gonna need help.
Hey Sealouse! Have to agree with you. A million dollar idea can still fail, if the execution behind it is poor. I feel that is what happened here with Kujira, and its attempts at world-building through mystery. A shame too, considering how much promise it had towards the start. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t be good. More likely, it won’t be as good as it could have been.
As for Neri getting absorbed by Falaina, I don’t think she is Falaina. After all, she did refer to the thing as ‘mother’. Now, allow me to lay out my rather far-fetched hypothesis. I think the Nous were formerly humans, that were sacrificed to create such a construct. It seems that two personalities inhabit Neri’s body, given how she suddenly seems to change at times. I’m guessing one of those personalities is an original sinner, born from the human sacrificed to become Falaina.
My greatest gripe with this series is that I enjoyed it more in manga form. I don’t know why, even though I love the animation, the manga has better pacing
I’m also caught up with the manga, and while it’s not my greatest gripe, I can certainly see where you’re coming from. While the execution is still clunky, the problems with pacing are not so prominent. Not to mention the characters feel more relatable. Lykos in particular got the short end of the stick, when it came to this adaptation.
I’d personally coin Kujira as ‘shoujofied proto-Magi’. Otaka Shinobu did a much better job of handling her issues, but she also came up with an incredibly charming fantasy world that was so epic in scope, that it winded up being more than she could properly bite off.
-At the time of watching it, my reaction to the vision-thing Neri showed Chakuro was more along the lines of well-that-was-trippy. Seeing Sami again was nice though, mind you, and it was nice to see Chakuro get that sort of closure. But yeah, it was very weird and honestly everything about Neri confuses me now. Have you seen EP6 yet?? Things about her just get more confusing there.
-Also 100% agreement on about your opinions on Ginshu. That thing some commenters were saying here like the characters feeling like they weren’t from this fictional universe but from any generic anime (something like that, the precise wording I’m struggling to remember), I kinda feel like she’s sort of the embodiment of that. Though with that being said I never quite understood what that complaint meant in the first place in relation to the rest of the show, but it makes sense with Ginshu. She seems like she’ll be pretty minor though as far as I can tell so I can live with it.
-Chakuro and Ouni are both great 🙂
Except there are many documented cases of mass suicide in the real world and done by people far less sheltered than the people on Falaina, also the elders knew how powerful the empire is and that it’s out to kill them all (no prisoners taken), considering how technologically behind and unprepared for combat they are it’s not a stretch that the elders would believe that they are dead any way, so taking their own lives would feel like a much more dignified way to go (at least in their elder minds), some prisoners think like that as well specially if the endure torture/rape, and while those aren’t present here it’s still easy to imagine the desperation and depression the elders have felt knowing their end at the hands of the empire is almost inevitable.
Not saying it was a good decision but it has its own consistent train of logic, it didn’t come out of thin air.
Am I the only one who feels this show has “jumped the whale” and become much too cliched and, conversely, less engaging than it seemed in the beginning?
I feel the same way Kujira. I thought it would be like Shin Sekai Yori with engaging characters but this show has slowed down to a halt. Story pacing aside characters are always crying and its annoying as f**k. I’ll have to stop watching this show