The End of the World

[Categories: Anime Reviews]

Shigofumi: the difference between thinking and feeling

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Shigofumi]

Shigofumi is a bitter pill. Mindful of the pitfalls that accompany basing your views on others’ opinions, I was still surprised at how it left me cold. It highlights the difference I didn’t realise existed until recently: namely that of appreciating a show and enjoying it.

This was never a problem when I merely watched anime purely as something to unwind to after a long day at work but now I watch it, think about it and discuss it at length I feel the need to prepare a justification as to why something is good/bad, an experience different from finding it fun to watch. I sometimes find certain titles to be difficult to write about, even though I enjoyed watching them. Shigofu is the opposite: while I can find plenty to say about it in a blog post, I’m hard-pressed to say it was entertaining in the conventional sense. My opinion on this particular show is best explained by a quote from Ray Kurzweil so please bear with me on this one.

Initially the delivery girl and the talking staff, delivering letters from the deceased, was almost jovial and at the very least bittersweet. I was actually looking forward to seeing how the dead send a profound and meaningful message to those they left behind, and if this was delivered with a bit of quirkiness and humour, so much the better. The concept is intriguing and, thanks to solid quality visuals and a great soundtrack, it’s presented well too. I’m guessing it’s the subject matter that’s at fault here, because I was left either saddened or short-changed from the episodes I’ve seen so far.

Take the first arc for instance: the story presents a marvellous twist, in which the romantic premise takes a sharp ‘nice boat’ turn, and the shocking truth of the girl’s situation revealed. As the anime blogger who over-analyses and picks things apart, it’s a great example of ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ storytelling and a series that transcends genres to show the beautiful and ugly sides of humanity in the same way as, say, Kino’s Journey. It has the makings of a blog post that I could feel proud about from an intellectual standpoint but in the same way that Grave of the Fireflies‘ brilliance makes it well nigh impossible to rewatch, the very things that makes Shigofumi good are those that make it testing to watch and actually hard to enjoy.

I’m not going to write Shigofumi as depressing. It does deal with a number of tragic demises, but my own view of death is pragmatic and a little unconventional. It’s hard to put into a concise phrase, but Ray Kurzweil sums it up neatly for me:

“Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.”

I mean this in the sense that, whether we like it or not, death is part of life and to dismiss it as “meh, depressing,” is brushing an interesting topic under the carpet; death can make life more meaningful if you put this into perspective and stop thinking of death as complete loss. I’m not trying to sound ‘gothic’ and ‘cool’ in an emo kid kind of way by saying that this show’s morbid premise is interesting: the dead do have valuable things to convey to the living. The first arc shows an innocent victim pushed to murder through circumstances beyond her control; with the fact that it was a little heavy-handed aside, it has plenty of potential to be profound and hard-hitting. The second addresses the issue of teen suicide, with plenty of hints dropped relating to the idea that, even with friends we converse with regularly, every human being is still fundamentally alone.

After watching both of these, I understood a meaningful message that was conveyed, but failed to find either engaging at an emotional level. The difference between thinking about what’s going on and feeling its significance is clear here: I saw what the writers were trying to do and for the most part ‘got’ the tragedy, pathos and whatnot, but felt somewhat disconnected. The second tale gives a number of possible explanations, even going as far as bringing the deceased’s desparate father into school in search of answers; unfortunately “I jumped because I felt like it,” doesn’t go far enough for me as a reason for leaving your friends and family behind. Sure, we all wonder what’s on the ‘other side’, and sometimes the reason behind an event is so simple it hardly seems like a reason at all. It gives plenty to speculate on and write about but as entertainment goes, I’m still not sure if it was effective.

What is Shigofumi trying to tell us, anyway? That was the problem I was up against: both stories were tragic enough but, aside from Miku being given the chance at a normal life through her sister’s sacrifice perhaps, all it says to me is the somewhat obvious idea that death is just the end of life. The letters are the thoughts of the deceased condensed into one eloquent document, but the meaningfulness what they actually have say is dependent on the motives of the writer. If the person is irrational and ‘broken’, the letter might not mean much to their loved ones at all. In a way, I’m even questioning the importance of the letters in the first place, since in these two arcs they either give an unsatisfying explanation or perpetuate the circle of misery that created them - why bother writing something like that and going to the trouble of having it delivered?

All that this series is telling me is the rather obvious idea that death, especially of a young person, is a waste and that human nature is irrational and cruel. Well, yeah. Kudos for stating that so eloquently and all, but all I took away from what I saw here was sadness, loss and regret - can I call that fun to watch? Even more importantly perhaps, what am I missing out on that makes the rest of the blogosphere enjoy this more than I have?

[Filed under Anime Reviews]  [Tags: Shigofumi]

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