DENNO COIL (2007): FOOD FOR THOUGHT

During the recent heat wave in Melbourne, we sat down and continued watching the series Denno Coil (Cyber Coil) which we started watching last year. Japanese anime has been exploring the world of technology since Tezuka Osamu's Tetsuwan Atomu in the 1960s based on the manga series (1952 - 1968). Whilst that series looked at how technology could be used for peaceful means by the 1980s this utopian fantasy had turned and darker dystopic fantasies such as Akira (1988), Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Appleseed (2004) have proliferated. Denno Coil was broadcast on the NHK education channel in 2007 and has a slightly different purpose. It is, after all, educational and therefore has a strong moral message which can be seen at the end of the series when the parents put their collective foot down and confiscate the kids' cyber glasses. But that's at the end of a very long and complicated story. All you need to know is that there are some black shadows (illegals) looking for something in the town of Daikoku where there have been a number of accidents involving children from which the technology company Megamass is keen to disassociate itself and its products...

 

In Daikoku all the children wear glasses which allow them to enter cyber space, they also have cyber pets. These can only be seen if you are wearing the glasses. Part of the discussion that is generated in the series is whether things that exist in cyber space are real in the way that they are in the 'real' world. Thus when Yasako's pet dog Densuke dies, her mother questions whether the dog ever existed and therefore whether it can be mourned.

 

Some of the children collect meta bugs and later kira bugs which allow them to become more powerful in cyber space. In the town there are still a number of old cyber spaces. These are being cleaned up by Megamass which has employed Tamako for this purpose. Under her command she has a number of robots known as Sacthi who chase down illegal cyber activity and clean up old cyber spaces. They cannot, however, enter shrines or schools. A new girl nicknamed Isako arrives at the school and takes control of the hackers club. Apart from the fact that she can write codes and is collecting kira bugs she has a secret and this secret connects her to Yasako who has had a dream in which all she can remember is the number 4423. Over the series, the search for the meaning of this number draws various characters together and against each other. The number 4423 turns out to be the number of the hospital room in which Isako's brother Nobuhiko is being kept. His cyber body and his real body have been split after he went over to the other side, controlled by Michiko and the illegals. He is unable to come back so Isako is trying to use her codes and amass enough kira bugs so that she can open up a pathway to the other world so that she can be reunited with her brother.

 

Suffice it so say, Tamako is monitoring Isako as she herself is being monitored by Nekome, also employed by Megamass. If people have concerns about CCTV cameras and the digital footprints that they leave all over cyber space, this series will be food for thought. Whilst some have given up on privacy this series opens this issue up with siblings spying on each other with cyber pets that have illegal recording capacities not to mention a company (Megamass) that can shut the whole system down that people have become dependent upon.

 

At the end of the series, it is revealed that Isako is being manipulated by Nekome who has his own reason for opening up the pathway in contrast with Tamako who wants it shut down. It is also revealed that that the cyber dog Densuke holds the key and that Yasako's grandfather who designed the cyber glasses for Megamass implanted a node in the dog which is necessary allows a pathway to be opened up to the cyber world. This is where Michiko and the illegals lurk eager to draw children over to their world. To protect themselves and their cyber products, Isako is blamed for the accidents in the town (including the death of Kanna which haunts Hanaken, the nephew of Tamako) and she is further said to be in league with Michiko. Her death is a tragedy but more to the point, the adults in the town have little knowledge of any of these events. They sense that their is something wrong so they blame the cyber glasses and confiscate them. The message for children watching the program is that technology is fun but dangerous. Whilst adults have power and can confiscate the glasses the real danger of the technology is only understood by children because they are the one who live these experiences. For the rest of us it is more reason to distrust the self serving natures of big corporations.  

BANANA YOSHIMOTO'S: 'SWEET HEREAFTER'

Like her mentor Stephen King, 2013 was a big year for Yoshimoto Banana. Whilst King returned to form with Doctor Sleep which revisits the character of Dan Torrence from The Shining, Yoshimoto published three new novels and at least one collection of essays. Sweet Hereafter is also significant because Yoshimoto also renews her collaboration with artist Hara Masumi who designed the front cover. Sweet Herafter is typical Yoshimoto Banana. The protagonist Sayoko is involved in a car accident and, whilst she survives, her boyfriend Yoichi is killed. It is the type of story that takes the reader back to Yoshimoto's debut in 1988... Yoichi is a sculptor who works with metal and wood and is more famous overseas than he is in Japan. During Sayako's near death experience she is reunited with her dog but not Yoichi. She is persuaded to come back to this world by her late grandfather who drives her on his Harley Davidson. After a slow recovery and rehab during which she looks like Frankenstein, she takes on the job of looking after the legacy of Yoichi's work. This means she spends her time between this work in Kyoto and her doctor's appointments in Tokyo.

Sayako has been changed by her experience, she notices that after Yoichi’s death she has started taking on some of his personality… She becomes less feminine and looks like some kind of lesbian so no-one tries to pick her up. Because she is busy working or else in hospital there is no chance really to meet anyone. She has vivid memories of the rainbow coloured world she returned from… She sees the rainbow as the bridge on which her grandfather brought her back. But her body returned before her soul so her body has been mostly on auto-pilot. At the local bar, the owner Shingami san won’t allow her to drink too much. He jokes that he needs to keep his customers alive. When she was younger and drinking heavily she didn’t really like his bar. Now she appreciates its atmosphere much more. She realises since her return from the other world that the price of living in a world of such beauty is the energy you bring with you (69). This world however is shared by the dead as well as the living. 

The first ghost she ever saw was a young woman sitting at a window. She didn't move or make eye contact, she just smiled and flicked her hair. At the bank she Sayako saw a young man coming out the wrong door with a bicycle. He saw her staring at the window and started talking to her. She realizes she is living in a world shared by both the dead and the living (59). It turns out the young woman was his mother. She wishes that Yoichi was watching over her in the same way… The woman died of a weak heart. The young woman she sees in the window is how she looked when she was young. He asks her inside the house. She wonders if she can stay and he says yes… She realizes that he can read her mind. She also realizes that she herself is living the life of a ghost, half alive and half dead looking after the unfinished business of her dead boyfriend. 

With references to Frankenstein and zombies, Sweet Hereafter is a response to tragedy and the painful process of recovery that follows. In her afterword to the book she thanks those readers who send her letters saying how  much her books have helped them. In the aftermath of the tsunami and the accident at Fukushima, she initially wanted to go and help out as a volunteer. Instead, she chose to write this book. Whilst there is criticism of her books as being light and filled with New Age fantasies there is a real sense that these books can 'speak' to those who have been damaged and are looking for ways to rebuild their sense of self.