C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control / First Impressions

Episode 09

「Collapse（破綻）」 (Hatan)

Impressions below

 

Episode 10

「Collision（衝突）」 (Shoutotsu)

The causes of phenomenon “C” are murky, but more and more it seems like some sort of natural disaster that hits Financial Districts every once in a while and spreads outward like the shockwaves of an earthquake. But at the same time, the Midas Bank and its underlings are also growing more and more suspicious, and they may play some part in instigating such events, though I can’t see what they would have to gain from the collapse of a District. Masakaki and the “higher ups” are certainly playing an elusive game here. The whole system is hazy and the mechanisms are pretty confusing as well though, and it’s definitely bad when you have to pause the episode to fill in the holes mentally and process all that’s going on. We know that the money used by the Entres is basically on loan, with their futures and the futures of those affected by their futures on the line as collateral. When they lose that money then, those “futures” disappear from existence, though the changes will remain in the memories of select persons. With collapse however some unknown force drains the money out of the district, destroying the assets along with the nations involved. Supposedly upon bankruptcy then the Midas Bank will collect all the futures, but then why would the present completely disappear as well? This present vs. the future issue seems to have a pretty fine line and I can’t pinpoint exactly where it is.

The philosophical arguments continue of course since “C” destroys the present, but Midas money banks on the future. Mikuni attempts to stop the shockwave by applying his usual ideals, in essence by bailing out the economy. He gets the massive amounts of required funds by selling the future, and seems to be successful in saving most of Japan. However the act of printing all that money also seems to be a sale, rather than a loan, and as a result destroys much of the present as people disappear and the weekly birth rate drops to an apocalyptic total of three babies. I’m also not sure why Mikuni has control over everyone’s futures; the “darkness card” supposedly allows the bearer to run the “money press”, but it doesn’t exactly mean that they own the futures of the entire nation. It’s possible that he simply has so much money that his influence extends to millions of other lives, but then when Kimimaro suddenly shows up with darkness card of his own, things start to look rather arbitrary. Masakaki and his superiors are definitely messing things around.

So far, Mikuni’s methods seem to be rather disastrous though as large amounts of people that were supposedly the target of the protective measures disappear from existence, and the people remaining lose their futures and their hopes. The question is whether there will even be anything left after he’s done. Because of this, Kimimaro and Jennifer are extremely dissatisfied with Mikuni’s ideas, but the alternate solution seems to be no better and probably even worse. Then again, they technically don’t even have a solution at the moment aside from just stopping Mikuni. Their plan basically involves destroying the value of the yen which naturally would also bring the Japanese economy to a crashing halt. Step one is taking a ton of money from Mikuni and literally dropping it from the sky, and step two is getting everyone to exchange their yen to foreign currency. Obviously these measures cause hyper inflation as the yen hits rock bottom, exacerbating the problem and doing absolutely nothing to stop “C”. In short, they are destroying the country and its future in the attempt to preserve their own futures, and I’m left wondering if they even thought it through properly before springing into action. Mikuni is attempting to save the nation and sacrificing his own future along the way, but Kimimaro seems mostly concerned with himself and what he’s losing (e.g. his potential future daughter Msyu), and their method involves an awful lot of sacrificing others. His attitude seems to be that it’s okay to let entire nations disappear, as long as the people remaining still have something to look forward to. The underlying dilemma is whether its worth living a hopeless life, and as with all questions involving the meaning of life, I think it is impossible to answer.

There are a bunch of other smaller, underlying issues as well. The link between Kimimaro and his father is tightened as he finds out that his fathers asset looked eerily like Msyu, and Kimimaro comes to the conclusion that she’s probably his future daughter (and in turn his father’s granddaughter). Unfortunately if that was so, then that future should have been lost when his father went bankrupt, so I’m really not sure what to think. Msyu of course doesn’t really care for all the complex ideological issues, and too bad for her she had to settle her crush for a kiss on the forehead. I feel kind of bad for her too as she gets pulled along with Kimimaro’s whims, and now has to fight against the insanely strong Mikuni. I really do believe Kimimaro is chasing a red herring though, and the real problem is the whole Midas system and the overarching conspiracy. The extremely complex nature of the problems makes it even harder to see though. Even I’m not sure I’m following all the developments precisely, and there are so many things left unexplained; and with only one episode left to go, they probably won’t be.

I apologize for the extended delays of my posts; hopefully I’ll be back on schedule soon.

62 Comments

    1. I think this is definitely worth marathoning since its as different from the mainstream animes as you can get…I really like the complex plot 😀
      But I have this sinking feeling the show will be hastily wrapped up with no clear answer as to whats going on. Its all still very hazy and there’s only 2 more episodes to go.

      Jojothemonkey
      Reply

    3. The story is interesting but the direction is horrible. I’m just watching it because I don’t like to drop series nearly the end. A pity, because they seem to have budget for animating but they don’t know how to tell the story really well.

      haitechan
      Reply

      1. They don’t really have a budget for animating either man.

        Honestly the best way that I would recommend to watch this show is as if you are watching a really incompetently done cult classic like Tommy Wiseau’s [i]The Room[/i]. Just accept that it’s going to be like a textbook on how not to produce a show….any kind of show really….and enjoy it on that sort of ironic level.

        Kaioshin Sama
        Reply

    1. You can’t make any real sense of this show because they keep arbitrarily adding new things that don’t make sense like the darkness cards. The fights are really cool but they don’t make alot of sense either. Its still fun to watch. But confusing as hell.

      Karmafan
      Reply

      1. They aim for popularity with the budget they have. It easier to cover the plot holes with random things which don’t make sense and hope that the audience will make some “explanation”.
        Building a consistent plot would take more time and would require external consulting, which would require some consulting and a separate budget item. If the department which works on the plot does not have some extra budget for that, there are going to be the unpatchable plot holes you see here. As a contrast to such shows, one can consider “Madoka Magica”, the plot of which was designed in a very careful way.
        In relation to the episodes reviewed here, they are absurd from the point of economic theories. For example, devaluating the current currency would not necessary entirely crash the economy, as it can use something else as a substitute for “normal” money, from foreign currency to some property rights papers and mutual obligations. There are also many other solutions – you may use an “indexed” currency value and use it freely for exchange (example – 2 people exchanging apples and plums at a course of 2 plums for 1 apple – at 1st moment 1 apple may cost 2x of currency item, 1 plum – 1x of currency item, at 2nd – 200x and 100x, the people may bind the value to some index, which is 1x in the 1st time and 100x in the second, they just divide they currency worth by the current index value at some period of time and sell it (value2 = value1*index1/index2)). The prices and obligations which are not bound to indexes, would suffer, of course.

        SpoilerMaker
        Reply

  5. im losing my hope for this series.
    I honestly dont care about kimimaro and I hope that he fails. the only good part I saw him useful for was to pair up msyu but now that thats gone down the drain….

    plus I dont like how kimimaro just got the darkness card. it would be better if jennifer gave all her cash and asset to kimimaro resulting in him getting the card instead. feels like an asspull to me.

    depending on how it will end, its either on yumekui merry level or decent at best.

    amado
    Reply

      1. if they said that in the beginning I wouldnt be that angry with it.
        masakaki just said it was cause of the “higher-ups” decision, meaning that having more than one asset doesnt really decide being a darkness card wielder.

        amado
        Reply

  6. If i recall Kimimaro’s dad was never mentioned as going bankrupt or rather it was stated more as he disappeared in which case might have killed himself before going bankrupt. Also, the asset of his dad could have been supposedly Kimimaro’s future sister “Myu” and Msyu could be Kimimaro’s daughter.

    And about the sudden appearance of darkness card for Kimimaro i think the Midas bank saw more profit in Kimimaro’s ideology than Mikuni. As Mikuni would destroy the future to save present in other words, if all investment for future disappears then the Midas bank disappears which is a big disadvantage for them. Where as with Kimimaro the bank will live on.

    Walker
    Reply

  8. Well actually Kimimaro getting a Black Card isn’t all that surprising considering that hes taken all the assets from the other Guild member and received the girls future so that might be some logical constitution as to why he can own a Black card. The bullshit comes from the fight with the guild member and how he is able to win without dying before hand and also his lack of reasoning in not using Mysu for the fight then completely renig on his thoughts and bring her out to fight. Could be argued that this worked to his advantage in that the hit to the dude during the fight garnered him enough assets to bring him down with a macro but it doesn’t explain why the guy couldn’t kill him instantly and why he was explicitly more injured than Kimimaro in that fight.

    Koroshiya
    Reply

  9. Basically, the dark card does not mean you own the future. It is just that printing money and putting it into the economy destroys the future as the nation is in debt. It is a real life example. Financial district represents the government. How the government can pump money [print money in this case being the black card] into the economy to keep it afloat but in return cause a weakening of currency and the national reservers going into negative.
    When an economy is hit badly [c] occurs. [c] is the collapse of an economy which cause the related parties to suffer. Most countries are related due to trade and globalisation. As the country fell the previous episode, its fall caused a “shockwave” effect.
    Entres can be taken as companies, if a big company suffers, so would its employees and third parties (customers, suppliers, shareholders), this is represented by when an entre gets defeat or is bankrupt, their related parties disappear or suffer. e.g. missing children and failing grades.
    When entres fight is like company fighting for share of the market. the only way to stop the fight is through acquistion i.e. making the other company your subsidiary. Which is why the charity guy offered to buy half of Kimimaro shares (Owning 50% makes the company your subsidiary).
    Currently, because of [c] the countries around the world are bailing their own companies out of the economic crisis by printing cash i.e. midas money and rotary wheel.
    As America is a big country, pumping money into their companies destroys not only the future of America but related countries like Japan due to import/export/tourism. Mikuni is trying to play a buy in and buy out war. Which country can pump more money would win but would result in more and more futures being lost.

    deafvader
    Reply

    1. even more dangerous game plays in RL China with undervalued yuan basically making exports cheaper and imports costlier – on a scale dwarfing US activities… this might end with trade war reminding me of the 30s – and we all know what followed then…

      ewok40k
      Reply

      1. The US is just as guilty of currency manipulation as the Chinese. This is gonna sound non pc but my best example is a Mexican in NYC with an iPhone. I have nothing against immigrants as I am one myself. But, if you can figure out all the elements that place a Mexican in the City with an iPhone then you would have a fairly good grasp of the US economy and its relations with the rest of the world.

        Gambler
        Reply

  10. I’ve find this show to be really interesting. It somehow shows that while the “causes” of people appear to be “selfless,” they really are doing it for “selfish” reasons (i.e. self-fulfillment). And then it can go on to a debate on the absolute/relative nature of morality, etc.. I wouldn’t want to go there now…
    It appears like money/assets is the neutral thing. It exists as is, somehow freely available. And it is what humans do with the money – whether it be buying or selling – that inflicts harm on others. The system of how money is used is in itself causing all the troubles in the world. And I think it’s something we cannot avoid, until we choose to let go of all our assets in the world.

    I wonder what bias this show will go for, or if it chooses to remain neutral. Last ep!

    JD
    Reply

  11. Dropping money from a helicopter. Loved that part.

    I’m curious if non-US media uses the term “FRB” as opposed to “The Fed.” Although the news clip is in english you don’t really hear FRB in CNBC, BBerg, etc.

    Sato had the best female figure out of the anime I’ve seen this season. Too bad they killed her off.

    Gambler
    Reply

  12. Kimimaro’s card turning into a Darness card may not be as much of an asspull as people say that it is. There may be certain requirements in order for someone’s card to become a Darkness card. Having more than one asset might defintively be it, because so far, we’ve only seen Mikuni having more than one Asset – and now Kimimaro! And now I guess we know why it’s unusal for someone to have more than one asset too – it requires for someone else to give you their entire future, which very few would do indeed!

    Will be interestign to see where this heads, because, as has been noted, there seems to exist no dieal solution to the problem here, and neither Mikuni nor Kimimaro’s actually attacking what might be the problem itself – the Midas Bank… Then, again, that may not be important if from a story perspective the Midas Bank is only meant to be a metaphor…

    Specie
    Reply

    1. highly doubt it.
      masakaki said that it was because of the “higher ups” decision. if it was cause of having more than 1 asset, then mikuni shouldnt have been surprised since he saw george was with kimimaro. and masakaki wouldve said something like “kimimaro has another asset so he gets a darkness card”.

      amado
      Reply

      1. You’re implying that Masakaki would tell it straight and not try to deliberately obfuscate the issue. Think about that for a minute.

        As for the series, another interesting premise marred by its execution; a typical Noitamina series! I do hope they don’t wimp out a-la Madoka. The rather obvious parallels to real-life finance should lead to the conclusion that there is no happy ending – only a choice between lots of pain now, or putting it off for absolute devastation later.

        However, I doubt the “higher ups” would allow such an ending (for obvious reasons), so I hope you look forward to seeing Kimimaro magically solve everything. Or maybe, maaaaaaaybe, they will concentrate on Yoga’s future as it will be relatively bright compared to the ruins [of Japan] he has created by defeating Mikuni. I am assuming that Yoga wins, because I’d be shocked (and pleasantly surprised I must admit) if he didn’t.

        J Jay
        Reply

  14. I enjoyed watching this anime, despite all of the discrepancies and vague ideas. The problem of present vs future is just circular, and I agree that the real problem is the Midas Bank.
    Aside from this confusing plot, my main interest in this show stems from the characters. Masakaki and his friends started to creep me out a few episodes ago, when at first I didn’t think much of them. It was sad to see Sato cut in half by the scary Q with fangs and Georges handed to Kimimaro.
    If only this anime was given 24 episodes…

    Kevin
    Reply

  15. With the way things are going if Kimimaro managed to defeat Mikuni, he’ll be the new “Mikuni” and the cycle might repeat itself…either that or he’ll do something (that I have no idea of) and managed to recover everyone’s future and Happy END. I would prefer the earlier one though.

    cybersteel
    Reply

  18. Does anyone else see certain parallels between this and Madoka?

    For example:
    • Kyubey and Masakaki
    Both offer people temporary power — both literal and monetary — with their futures as collateral.

    • Walpurgis Night and the fall of a Financial District
    Brings nations to ruin and dissolves the existence of millions of people.

    • Midas Money and Puella Magi
    Both bring temporary relief into the world and fight the offset of possibly disastrous consequences. Their true forms, however, are something that cannot be discussed.

    • Abstract art style
    Viewable as of C’s ninth episode, the true form of the Financial District is a very enigmatic and weird existence that is reminiscent of a Witch’s personal dimension.

    • The countdown on the Financial District and the life of a Puella Magi
    Both are similar in this sense as they are both headed for
    Show Spoiler ▼

    • Entres and their Assets and Puella Magis and their abilities
    Both kinds of people fight using their weapons which embody an aspect of themselves and battle for their wishes, hopes and future.

    Dan
    Reply

    1. I already brought that up a few eps ago.

      the diff is that while madoka was also rushed due to limited eps, it was able to connect and deliver the story perfectly. it managed to make me care for all of the characters(except for kyousuke for obvious reasons) while this only had me care for mikuni and Q.

      amado
      Reply

    2. The problem with this comparison…?

      Madoka’s execution was stunning, it was simply scripted and planned so much better that, frankly, the two franchises are incomparable.

      In all honesty, Madoka’s distortion of the mahou-shoujo stereotype actually made some sense – even that entropy crap had a half-decent explanation. [C], on the other hand, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, in terms of economics. In fact, if major economic institutes (Fed? IMF? World Bank? etc…) adhered to this kind of insane, nonsensical economic theory, then our world is going to spiral into hyperinflation and economic hell (For the greater good, of course). I’ll stick with my Keynesian economics, thank you very much.

      Gerk
      Reply

  19. But.Is.That.A.Direct.Result.Of.That? Ah… my spoken English working.

    I hated Jennifer’s munching sounds but now I want to hear her munching again in my ears *snif*. Though, going bankrupt does not exactly mean that you are going to die (Sennoza is alive and so was the teacher), but we are to assume that it was Jennifer’s fate. I wonder, if Georges survives Q, what kind of effect he will have in Yoga’s future? owning a dog? haha!

    Never watched Madoka but here is my Majora’s Mask comparison.

    Fianncial District: Moon
    Masakaki: Skull Kid
    Msyu: Tatl
    Yoga: Link

    Lectro Volpi
    Reply

  20. Oh, god. I wanna quote your whole post, but especially this part:
    So far, Mikuni’s methods seem to be rather disastrous though as large amounts of people that were supposedly the target of the protective measures disappear from existence, and the people remaining lose their futures and their hopes. The question is whether there will even be anything left after he’s done. Because of this, Kimimaro and Jennifer are extremely dissatisfied with Mikuni’s ideas, but the alternate solution seems to be no better and probably even worse. Then again, they technically don’t even have a solution at the moment aside from just stopping Mikuni. Their plan basically involves destroying the value of the yen which naturally would also bring the Japanese economy to a crashing halt. Step one is taking a ton of money from Mikuni and literally dropping it from the sky, and step two is getting everyone to exchange their yen to foreign currency. Obviously these measures cause hyper inflation as the yen hits rock bottom, exacerbating the problem and doing absolutely nothing to stop “C”. In short, they are destroying the country and its future in the attempt to preserve their own futures, and I’m left wondering if they even thought it through properly before springing into action. Mikuni is attempting to save the nation and sacrificing his own future along the way, but Kimimaro seems mostly concerned with himself and what he’s losing (e.g. his potential future daughter Msyu), and their method involves an awful lot of sacrificing others. His attitude seems to be that it’s okay to let entire nations disappear, as long as the people remaining still have something to look forward to. The underlying dilemma is whether its worth living a hopeless life, and as with all questions involving the meaning of life, I think it is impossible to answer.

    That’s everything I had problems with after ep10 and struggled to put into words, and you worded it so eloquently, thank you.

    Kimimaro is so stupid that he doesn’t even realize that him *suddenly* getting the Darkness card means what he’s about to do will be more profitable to the Midas Bank, then even what Mikuni is doing. He’s playing into the real enemy’s (the bank’s) hands and doesn’t even see it in his selfishness.

    The saddest part is that very likely Kimimaro wins and will contentedly live out his much desired ‘normal’ life (he will have managed to protect his ideals and future from the big bad Mikuni, of course he will be content), and the trashy ‘happy end’ happens entirely at Mikuni’s expense, when Mikuni was the only sensible person out there. I absolutely abhor this scenario, but at the rate it’s going this is what we’re gonna see in the next ep. I wanna be wrong about it, because after what the Rebels will have done (assuming Mikuni goes under) there should be hell to pay for them all, for the whole country, lifelong suffering for its whole populace – what will be left of it anyway if any, and Kimimaro must live with knowing for a fact it was all his own fault, but I have very little hope they have the courage to make the ending as dark and gloomy as it logically should be…

    Ann
    Reply

  21. I mentioned this a while back but I’m guessing that the main bad guy that runs things is Lucifer or a demon and they are trying to bring worldwide collapse to bring on armagedon.

    Karmafan
    Reply

  22. surely all proposed paths are unsustainable…?

    the midas bank seems to be propping up the present by collateralising and spending the future…? but it seems unrealistic that the value of the future could only amount to barely enough to keep the present going?.

    they seem to be storing most of the futures up or something. i don’t really get what masakaki’s end game is? – he doesn;t even seem to be the boss… just the creppy high chancellor of satan bank.

    brain hurts..

    defunkt_bots
    Reply

    1. I wonder if this anime is supposed to be a metaphor for the real world? In other words WE are using up resources and poluting out world so that future generations of humanity will have to pay for what we have done in the last 100 years (consuming everything on the planet to make a buck or increase the profit margin). In essence we are using up our children’s futures.

      Karmafan
      Reply

  23. i’m not with this plot idea… Firstly, from an economical point of view, printing money and pumping it into the torn economy as they are doing is next to the worst thing that you could do… effectively printing money leads to hyper inflation and then the country will be even more screwed over, not that their currency was worth anything by the end of these episodes lol it still stands to reason however, that even if they didnt trade the future of the country for midas money, it would still have ended up like that just due to a worthless currency and no way to trade with the rest of the world. also and i agree with whats written is that what kimimaro is extremely selfish and not really logical… i personally cant see this wrapping up nicely in the next episode :\
    i think this was far too complex an idea in order to make it a) realistic (in anime terms) and b) manageable. itd need a lot of episodes.
    i think itd be better if they focused on the economics of it a little more but the whole collapse of a financial district spreading to other economies makes sense sort of…

    Ebbicake
    Reply

    1. But isn’t that what the US govt is doing right now? Either printing money or borrowing vast amounts of money that will have to be repaid by future generations of Americans.

      Karmafan
      Reply

      1. You don’t have to look far. It’s right in the anime with a helicopter dumping cash (Ben Bernanke). In economic terms its QE and ZIRP (something a Japanese banker should be very familiar with). The Japanese have managed to get by it for 2 decades and the US is 3 years in. However, both economies have vastly different characteristics so it’s anyone’s guess as to what the outcome will be.

        Hyperinflation is something that the scaremongers and fin bloggers like to throw around but it’s far from achievable in a developed economy…. yet. In numbers the US is at around 3.6% annual inflation and hyperinflation is 5%-10% daily or some obscenely high exponent. Zimbabwe was able to pull it off as its GDP was tiny to begin with.

        I think the anime has covered a fair amount of material in it’s depiction of recent market events. There are a lot of books that just cover the Lehman shock era and way more if you go back to Japan’s bubble period. C managed to get a glimpse while keeping it interesting.

        Gambler
        Reply

    2. In the (very) short term, i would say printing money while not having anyone be aware of it is a workable idea. It doesn’t solve anything but staves off collapse until the increased money supply starts its effects which would lead first to uncontrolled inflation rather than immediate hyper inflation. Companies/merchants need to be aware of whats going on before they start increasing prices and kick off inflation.

      As of now, it does seem like a unsolvable situation. In the early stages, biting the bullet might have worked as well as trying to move the base back to manufacturing and exports where a weak currency is favored. Now it just seems like a waste of time.

      Another possible solution, Mikuni could have gone for earlier (before this stage) would be to export the population through emigration in a “save as many as you can before annihilation” plan. I see no solution Kimimaro can provide other than a even worse “bite the bullet” solution

      Zaku Fan
      Reply

  24. Did anyone else notice there was another “Masakaki” in the US Financial District? It was random and he was speaking English too. Soo… Each Financial District has their own personalized demon banker? But I guess it’s a little late to really think about that considering it’s the end now. There really aren’t enough episodes to effectively get this plot out properly. These last couple episodes seemed rushed and alot was thrown at us too. No idea how any of this is supposed to be resolved either. Maybe that’s the point? Like in our real world troubles, it’s chaotic, confusing, complex, and still so corrupt because people with the power to effect change are still bickering over the method of bringing change. Now we finally have Mikuni and Kimimaro matched up against each other. No idea how it’s going to solve anything if either one is defeated. Ahhh the concept of the show was brilliant, truly, but the execution of the end is going to be what makes or breaks this anime. God I wish there were more episodes. I think there’s alot more that could’ve been explored and explained.

    Axel
    Reply

      2. It definitely would’ve turned out better if they had split it into 2 seasons. Though I think I would’ve died waiting for the 2nd season lol. But still, well worth it if it meant the plot was done properly. Maybe they are going to make a manga of this or a light novel? It would be wise if they did.

        Axel
        Reply

  25. [OPEN DEAL] [DIRECT] [INSIDER ON] [CHARGE OUT] [DIRECT]
    [MICRO MEZZO MACRO-FLATION] [OVERHEATED ECONOMY] [CLOSING] [YOU HAVE GAIN]
    [OPEN DEAL] [OPEN DEAL] [MICRO MEZZO MACRO-FLATION] [MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS]
    [MICRO] [DIRECT] [DIRECT] [MICRO MEZZO MACRO-FLATION] [E.B.O] [DIRECT] [CANNIBALISATION]
    [WATCH WATCH WATCH] [GEORGES IS YOURS] [WATCH WATCH WATCH] [MINE] [YOU ARE BANKRUPT][WANI PIRO]

    gecd
    Reply

      1. The best part of the show is definitely hearing the attacks. If only the battle system was properly explained and they showed more of them with intelligence. I would rather care less about the plot and more of the action like Star Driver.

        cybersteel
        Reply

  28. The big question now is how Japan will end up if Kimimaro/Mashyu will be able to blow up the money press death star style – will this achieve anything or just blow up in their faces?

    ewok40k
    Reply

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