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「運命の幻影」 (Unmei no Genei)
“Mirage of Destiny”
Dense episode this week, which I suppose should be expected whenever time travel is involved. Unlike my expectations last week, though, it seems the story is only tangentially about time police; more involved are Japanese ninja police. And Concrete Revolutio‘s time travel mechanics are not especially rigorous, and work much like Concrete Revolutio itself: mash it all together into a timey-wimey ball, paradoxes be damned. That is, as long as it’s narratively convenient, go for it.
Since Mirage of Destiny is not a story about the time police, and its time travel mechanics are incredibly permission, I wouldn’t say it’s actually about time travel. Time travel is just a device. Rather, I think it tries to talk about many other things, like regrets, ‘growing up’, idealism vs pragmatism vs cynicism, and whatever other subtext you’d like to read into it; this episode of Concrete Revolutio, perhaps more than even previous ones, is packed. Just take the character of Jaguar, who has been a bit of a foil for Jirou. Mirage of Destiny goes through basically all his character development basically in one episode. How does it do it? By making the three stages of Jaguar’s growth literally three different characters, using the handy dandy time travel conceit, and throwing them all together (it’s true, ‘mash’ is the only setting Concrete Revolutio has). We have Jaguar when he was still a time cop, still very fresh. We have the ‘oldest’ Jaguar, the one who had gone through a lot and founded the Superhuman Bureau. The most significant, and most radical, Jaguar is the ‘middle’ one, who heads IQ, using his advanced technology to purge the world (a very extreme version of Earth-chan, it is noted). I’ve been expecting more hard line vigilante groups to pop up, as opposed to the easygoing kids of the BL Club, but not as flagrant as the IQ.
The IQ and IQ!Jaguar stand for expediency, because apparently they don’t believe in things like due process and proportionality. ‘Justice’ is for children, is their argument, which is naturally why Jirou opposes the IQ. That’s not surprising; what is more interesting is that the IQ and the Superhuman Bureau oppose each other. It just goes to show the change of philosophy between IQ!Jaguar and Bureau!Jaguar. Neither of his organisations are all that pleasant, which one would you prefer? The violent extremists, or the government sanctioned conspiracy? It’s not much of a choice either way, sure, but the Superhuman Bureau is at least a reflection of Jaguar’s realisation that a gang of homicidal extremists like the IQ isn’t really the way to make the world a better place. Jaguar doesn’t seem to be really a bad sort, so I wonder if the shady government conspiracy that is the Superhuman Bureau is really his intention. Sure, Bureau!Jaguar would call idealism childish, but so would IQ!Jaguar, and it’s evident that the former doesn’t really approve of the latter, in the same way one looks back on their adolescent flings and tries desperately to disown themselves. Yet, Bureau!Jaguar shoots his past self without hesitation. Is it because, yes, expediency is the ‘adult’ thing? Or is the adult part that there is only redemption in death? Is that why we needed someone ‘childish’ like Kikko to save Jaguar? Even though giving Dr Hitoyoshi time travel technology is the worst idea ever conceived?
And here’s the part where Concrete Revolutio starts being meta. Concrete Revolutio is mashup of a lot of anime and other fantasy, arguably very childish things. IQ!Jaguar is right in that the Equus is quite a silly design. There’s no real practicality to make weapons humanoid. The most efficient military vehicles we have today are essentially nothing more than weapon platforms, because aesthetics is secondary to packing the biggest gun. But transforming centaur mecha are cool, and that goes for everything else that have been assimilated into Concrete Revolutio. Magic, ninja and, of course, superheros are things we’re supposed to grow out of. But my experience as a nerd has been this: everybody likes robots as children, you suffer a bit of a stigma for it a teenager, and once you’re an adult you can remind people we’re putting robots on comets so it doesn’t matter what your hobbies are. I think Jaguar’s three time divergent forms mirrors this. ‘The ones who act the most manly are usually the ones who still love toys‘. Damn straight. Toys just get more awesome as you get older.
There are apparently no superhumans in Concrete Revolutio‘s 25th century, which I take to mean that the future ain’t gonna be any fun. But at the same time, they’re making genetically spliced time travellers. Somebody is keeping the children’s dreams alive.
Preview
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I had to pause and replay a lot during this episode because I didn’t want to miss anything. Yet in the end I still can’t say I’m 100% sure of what’s going on with the paradoxes. So this post was really helpful in helping me remember what happened in the episode.
I actually enjoyed the episode very much. It’s full of time travelling stuff that gave me a slight headache, but it’s the only episode that didn’t leave me wondering what happened to the world (and Jirou) between x year and y year, so it was sort of satisfying.
It helps if you don’t worry about little things like causality (like whether Burea!Jaguar remembers being caught by Kikko as TimeCop!Jaguar). Concrete Revolutio sure doesn’t.
Yes, time travel was just an excuse to showcase different moralities and an exercise of “I’m an adult! You are childish!” “No, you are childish!” “No, you!”. In the end, it seems the series doesn’t condone or condemn any position, and it’s up to the viewer to judge. The scene where IQ arrives to destroy the Bureau showcased it very well. While IQ!Jaguar lists the crimes comitted by the Bureau, the resident ghost child points out: “He isn’t lying, to say the truth”.
About the “no superhumans in the future” part, I think that Jaguar was hinting that they are (or at least he is) animals altered to become like humans.
And about IQ, although I’m not surprised to see Punisher-like vigilants, my impression of them is that they are too modern for that setting, in looks and style. Very, very similar to the recent Triage (IQ!Jaguar looks like the male protagonist, the all-female assassin cast in motorbike fashion, etc.).
– Both IQ and the SB are kinda awful, just awful in different ways, which is the tragedy of Jaguar, whom I assume to have formed both organisations with high ideals. If we follow on from last episode and accept that humans will only control or destroy, then the SB leans towards control, while IQ leans towards destroy.
– Jaguar leaves in the air whether he’s a human spliced with animal or an animal spliced with human. I don’t know what’s up with that.
– IQ looks too modern because they’re using 25th century technology, courtesy of Jaguar. And if their point was that Triage X‘s conceit was actually awful, I’m all in agreement.
So basically if it gets too paradoxical, time just says “f— it, I’ll allow it”
This show is genius.
5/5 episode
I just came here to tell that this is a very busy episode and I love it. What I can only get is that there is no absolute evil in this series and it is not shy to show itself its ugly nature.
https://randomc.net/image/Concrete%20Revolutio%20Choujin%20Gensou/Concrete%20Revolutio%20Choujin%20Gensou%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2020.jpg
I understood that the one on the right is the one who founded IQ and later the Bureau. But is the one on the left the same one that Kikko captured? Jaguar mentioned that this one was him when he was still in the Time Patrol. The one captured was currently a member of the Time Patrol right? Would this mean there were 4 Jaguars overall? This is why I hate time travels and time paradoxes.
https://randomc.net/image/Concrete%20Revolutio%20Choujin%20Gensou/Concrete%20Revolutio%20Choujin%20Gensou%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2023.jpg
I would say that Jaguar is the latter that he mentioned: an animal altered to be a human. We may never know the real answer and it probably doesn’t matter in the long run.
https://randomc.net/image/Concrete%20Revolutio%20Choujin%20Gensou/Concrete%20Revolutio%20Choujin%20Gensou%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2030.jpg
To quote the badass Kihara dog in Index New Testament: “All men love (combining) robots.”
Equus figure when?