[Categories: Anime Reviews]
2007 in 12 day 2: Bokurano
Day 2: Uninstall, uninstall…
The series that launched a thousand flames…mainly in the direction of the hapless director, it has to be said. The choice of Hiroyuki Morita as director for Bokurano was an unexpected one considering the feelgood family-friendly nature of The Cat Returns, and as it turned out it was also a healthy source of controversy with his decision to deviate from a manga whose plotline he wasn’t too keen on. Cue fans of Mohiro Kitoh’s manga being up in arms and cries of sacrilege when he said he was going to change the ending. Wait a minute, guys…wasn’t the manga actually unfinished at the time of broadcast?
First impressions are misleading…
“Hold out/My own reflection/I’ve found out/Less than perfection/I’m hoping and praying/There’s one life worth saving…”
After the dust had settled Bokurano proved to be, with a few faltering moments and minor details that didn’t quite fit into the bigger picture, one of the most thought-provoking and startling series of the year. I tried to distance myself from the nay-sayers who believed that Morita was blindly butchering the story, and those who assumed it would suck purely because Gonzo were animating it. It was a leap of faith really but I don’t regret it for a minute - you know why? Bokurano was actually quite brilliant. For sure, some parts were changed when they may have been better left as they were; on balance however the TV incarnation managed to be a worthy stand-alone entity all to itself. From the calm before the storm in the beach cave to the climatic battle that endeared a previously detestable character to even this cynical viewer, it was a powerful and sobering journey.
the terms ‘rock’ and ‘hard place’ spring to mind
The roll-call of teenagers chosen to defend the Earth in a giant mecha that would claim one of their lives with every consecutive conflict was a cross-section of walks of life, points of view and facets of the human condition. In a situation of absolute hopelessness and certain death, we saw some crack and some become heroes - I’ll remember them all as ordinary young people forced into a conflict beyond their control and understanding. As much as it was allegedly a toned-down take on the original story, Bokurano ventured into some pretty sensitive territory with a number of powerful moments that will stay with me for a long time afterwards; I believe it deserves this special recognition for taking on a number of issues concerning today’s society that is all too often taboo in film and TV.
Memorable moment
Possibly the final battle in which Jun, an annoying and selfish brat, understands the meaning of family and fights for the last time in a moment of redemption, the likes of which I’ve never seen since Asuka went out swinging in End of Eva. Most surprisingly, I didn’t hate him any more. Throughout the series I couldn’t understand how he could be such a little bastard…second only to Dung Beetle (who thoroughly got what he deserved…ha!) but by the end of the series I understood, if not agreed with the validity of, his mindset. It would have been nice to give all the kids as much attention as this but in terms of character development, Jun wins out in this show.
There wasn’t much of an emphasis on the mecha battles themselves, which is no surprise really when the show was fundamentally about the characters. Nevertheless, the combat action was occasionally exhilerating from a mecha nut standpoint as well as an emotional one. Jun’s long, drawn-out battle was a lonely and draining one that felt somehow different from all the others but suited his own individual struggle and inner conflict very well indeed. As much as I was expecting a bad ending, this was a very fitting way to go after seeing Jun effectively redeem himself. Who would have thought such a little arsehole, or for that matter, such a shitty situation, would have any sort of positive outcome?
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Posted on December 15th, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
That second screenshot makes this look like a comedy version of NGE but I’m prepared to believe there’s more to it than that.
Posted on December 15th, 2007 @ 10:34 pm
The director deserves every bit of scorn sent his way.
[While I expect that anyone reading this has already watched the anime, please note that there are SPOILERS if you have not.]
His deletions from the manga (largely making the horrific histories of the children slightly marginally less horrific) were mostly at least arguably justifiable, but his additions were detestable.
I did not read the manga until after I finished watching the anime, so I began the anime with an open mind (indeed, an eager one, since I found the premise so interesting).
I can handle evil megacorporations that have taken over the government. What I can’t handle is evil megacorporations that are too stupid to live.
If you’re a huge megacorporation/government who knows that there exist a group of children who will (a) be given unbelievable military power that will allow them to destroy anything they wish during a short period of time, and (b) then the child will be in a no-holds-barred fight for the life of the entire planet, how should you treat that child?
Well, in the manga, the answer was generally: with kid gloves, giving any aid you can in the fight, up to and including having soldiers sacrifice their lives.
In the anime, the answer was: in the last day before the child has to fight, you attempt to destroy their family’s life, send assassins after their family and even attempt to kill the prospective pilot. You interfere with the fight for your planet’s survival, up to and including attempting to destroy the very mecha which you are aware is the only hope for your planet’s survival.
Up to the very last episode, I had hopes that the director was going to give us a brilliant twist–we weren’t watching the same earth that the manga was based on, we were watching a parallel earth where the stupidity of the government/megacorporation ended up with the planet being destroyed.
But no, no such luck. Instead, we’re left with an incoherent mess.
Posted on December 15th, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Wow, Brian, thanks for the enlightening post. I’m a follower of the manga myself, so I wasn’t aware of the differences between the comic and the anime. And yes, your twist idea would have been a neat way to justify the director’s additions, and it would make a neat “alternate story.”
What was it with GONZO, anyway? Didn’t they more or less tell the manga fans to eff off if they weren’t happy with the changes in story?
Posted on December 16th, 2007 @ 5:21 am
For those of you who have read the manga (I haven’t) where did the deviations really start to affect the story? For my part I found the early eps devastating as the full horror of the situation was revealed, but midway through it began to meander and with a couple of exceptions, seemed to soften up. The final ep almost made up for it, but I finished it thinking it had not lived up to its potential. What about the manga?
Posted on December 16th, 2007 @ 6:07 pm
*sigh* I knew this would happen. Yes, I don’t think working on a story you hate is a good idea and yes there were a number of details that deserved exploring more fully. The trap everyone still falls into is that of how it’s an inferior adaptation - the differences between the two were intentional! I can’t say I agree with every change that was made (Brian’s idea would have worked very well I think) but as Crayola rightly pointed out, viewers were given fair warning that it wouldn’t be the same - the quality of the changes is a separate issue.
Not that this warning stopped people complaining regardless…we anime fans seem to enjoy a good old whinge!
Posted on December 17th, 2007 @ 1:09 am
Eh, I didn’t notice the so-called detestable additions that were in the anime, but that’s just me. You see what you want to see, I guess, and towards the end of Bokurano I thought that it didn’t go wrong anywhere, and was as good as could have been; the children’s history was presumably toned down for ease of adaptation (getting a young girl’s gang rape by paedophiles to air would be a tough feat, one would assume).
I had tears in my eyes as Jun left his sister for the final battle. The way in which it swung between “Hey, you might be saved after all!” and “You’re still going to die” kept me in suspense, and as an ending, it worked.
Posted on June 29th, 2008 @ 6:02 pm
[...] an interesting premise. My thoughts immediately turned to Bokurano; the way I dropped it, the way my fellow bloggers really loved it and most of all, the way it’s such a fascinating idea for an anime [...]