If everybody is an outsider then who is inside?
The word outsider is being used to an extreme degree at this point. More and more works seem to invoke this specific word. Most of, if not all of these works are about, you guessed it, people feeling like outsiders in one way or another. However, I have reached my limit in how much I […]
The word outsider is being used to an extreme degree at this point. More and more works seem to invoke this specific word. Most of, if not all of these works are about, you guessed it, people feeling like outsiders in one way or another. However, I have reached my limit in how much I can stomach this word. The word is being overused by both great and terrible works.
The word outsider is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “a person who is not accepted as a member of a society, group, etc.” Oxford has two more definitions, but neither of them is satisfactory.
The true meaning of the word in this context is more of “feeling” like someone who doesn’t belong.
The oldest and most influential work is “the outsider” written by H.P. Lovecraft back in 1926. (I am sure there are older stories called the outsider, but this is where I start.The book is also very influential so it makes sense to start here). Lovecraft was himself always an outsider never really feeling comfortable with himself or others. He used his own fear as fuel to create some truly spectacular stories.
The book itself is about a man trapped in a castle with no knowledge of the outside world, the only knowledge he has is from books. He breaks free from the castle and goes to a nearby village. He sees a horrific Lovecraftian monster and in his horror he decides to flee only to realize he looked at a mirror.
In the book, the main character is an outsider since he is not part of society. He is locked up in a castle away from everybody.
He is also an outsider since, you know, he is a monster. His appearance is so different from the other people in the village, who look at him with horror. He can never be a part of the community, society, or anything else for that matter as a monster.
Now, the story is about being a monster, but to me, it is about feeling like a monster. The book taps into the feeling of loneliness and it gives a feeling like you don’t fit in anywhere, like no matter where you go everyone is looking at you funny, like you don’t fit in, like an outsider.
A person who has been greatly influenced by Mr. Lovecraft is Stephen King.. King has also written a book called The Outsider.
The story is about a little league baseball coach accused of brutally molesting and killing a child. The man’s name is Terry and all evidence points to the fact that he did it. His DNA was found on the child, there are a lot of eyewitnesses who saw him right before it happened. However, Terry was also not home when the murder happened, and a lot of evidence points to him being in two places at once.
Does the question then become
Who killed the child?
Well, the outsider, of course, someone who looks like you, but is alien and foreign in every other aspect.
The novel is pretty much an investigation novel where they try to find out what happened and how they try to find the outsider.
What the novel does exceptionally well is exploring the fear of a community and the uncertainty that brings. Imagine sending your child to play sports, and later finding out the coach who you are friendly with and who has the responsibility for the kids, turned out to be a monster, killer, and child molester.
The idea of the monster wearing the face of someone you trust is truly terrifying.
If you want to see a story about a community turning on a person, I highly recommend the Danish film “The Hunt”.
The two stories mentioned above both have some great uses of the word outsider. The concept adds to the theme and the dynamics of the story itself.
Now, let’s look at a lazy use of the word, the film “the outsider” from 2018 starring Jared Leto.
In the film, Jared Leto plays someone who joins the Japanese mafia (the Yakuza). Well, it turns out Jared is not actually Japanese. I know it’s shocking, but if you look closely at him you can see it. So, he is an outsider. See how lazy this concept suddenly becomes. The story is more about not looking like everyone else and feeling out of place.
The film itself is horrible, by far the worst original Netflix film I have seen (and that is saying something). It is overly muddy, slow, and boring. The colors are muted to this shitty-looking grey thing. The romance is terrible, and Jared’s character sucks.
The last work I am going to talk about is “the stranger” by Albert Camus. The novella was published “the outsider” in English.
The novella is philosophical work about a man who loses his mother and doesn’t really conform to the emotional state others want him to be in.
The novella also has the greatest first line in literature history:
“Mother died today or maybe it was yesterday I can’t remember”
This opening line perfectly introduces the character. The main character named Meursault is so detached from the world emotionally that he doesn’t even remember when his own mother died. He is not sad about his mothers passing at all, this comes back to bite him in the ass at the end. The whole point of the story is to show how Meursault is not feeling what everyone else wants him to feel and thus he becomes……… AN OUTSIDER!
At this point, the word outsider has been used up. It started out as something profound with a deeper meaning. Now it is used lazily and with no real point. I do not think any piece of work from this day forward should be named “ The Outsider”. At this point, it is an instant turn-off.
Where to start with Stephen King
Stephen King is among my favorite authors ever. His insanely in-depth character work, wacky stories, and simple but super effective use of pros have made him a storytelling master the likes of which are rarely seen before. BUT! He is also very prolific and publishes multiple books a year. This brings the problem of “Where
Stephen King is among my favorite authors ever. His insanely in-depth character work, wacky stories, and simple but super effective use of pros have made him a storytelling master the likes of which are rarely seen before.
BUT! He is also very prolific and publishes multiple books a year. This brings the problem of “Where do I even start with the works of King?”.
Start with the movie
No, I am not saying you should watch the films instead of reading his books. However, if you like a film based on his work like The Shining, The green mile, or IT, well, then I would advise you to start with those.
It takes some of the pressure off since you already know the story.
Just don’t start with The Shawshank Redemption since the book is not that great.
Recommended starting places
Here is where you should start depending on what you are looking for.
Crime
If you like crime the Bill Hodges trilogy is where it’s at. Especially the first book, Mr. Mercedes is excellent.
Classical fantasy
Eyes of the dragon is a straight-up fantasy
Untraditional fantasy
Fairy tale – it reconstructs old fairy tales while still keeping to the core of what they are all about.
No time – I want something that starts fast
Misery establishes the premise and action right at the beginning.
Death – I want to contemplate death and the bleakness of life
Pet Sematary
The Horror fan
The Shining (it’s different enough to the film)
The tearjerker
The Green Mile
I want vampires
Salmons Lot
Big apocalyptic epic
The Stand
The dog lover
Cujo
History buff
11.22.63
Nostalgia
The body
Battle Royal
Fairy tale, running man, and the long walk
Underrated – I want a book not many people have read so I can feel all hipster like
Duma Key
For the deranged – I just want a book about a crazy guy killing people…..What’s wrong with you?
Rage
Supernatural – I want to read about people with supernatural abilities
Carrie, Firestarter, and The Institute make for a nice little trilogy of superhumans.
Baseball – Something with baseball?
The girl who loved Tom Gorden
Where to NOT start
Tommyknockers are by far one of the worst places to start. The book is overly long, not particularly interesting, and a little too out there, but in a boring and less interesting way.
I would also advise against starting with his short story collections since they lack the long in-depth character-building that King excels at.
The outsider spoils stuff from The Bill Hodges trilogy, so don’t start there.
The Talisman is also a bad place to start since it is very bad.
Insomnia is a bit too bloated and has a little too many connections to the dark tower. It’s not a good place to start.
The Dark Tower
But what about the Dark Tower? Can I start with that? I hear you ask.
Well, I don’t know. I haven’t read it.
I do know the third book spoils the ending of Salem’s lot.
I also know the first book is one big prologue, and the series gets better after that one.
Do with that information what you will.
I think it is better to get a sense of his writing before starting Dark Tower, but I also know people who have only read Dark Tower and liked it.
The Face of Evil
Horror movies tend to depict different scary creatures such as ghosts, ghouls, and demons. The approach to making horrific elements vary greatly, some do it well, others not so much. In this post, I will try to outline what the best kind of horror looks like. First a couple of disclaimers 1 I am not a
Horror movies tend to depict different scary creatures such as ghosts, ghouls, and demons. The approach to making horrific elements vary greatly, some do it well, others not so much. In this post, I will try to outline what the best kind of horror looks like. First a couple of disclaimers
1 I am not a horror aficionado, I am a cinephile and I have seen a lot of movies including horror movies, but I have by no means exhausted the genre.
2 I don’t really get scared when I watch horror movies, so this is more of a theoretical approach as opposed to what scared me the most.
The Slasher (The killer)
The first and in my opinion, the most famous example is the killer or rather the slasher.
Slasher films deploy the killer trope to perfection. It is not enough to merely have a person killing people, you need a visual hook. Characters like Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Freddy Kruger are the unholy trinity of slashers.
All three of the characters are instantly recognizable which goes a long way in creating a “face” of evil. If you see Michael or Jason’s masks you instantly know who they belong to. Freddy’s sweater, hat, and claws are likewise recognizable.
Especially Jason and Freddy are both forces of nature. Unstoppable and unkillable, their mere presence has already sealed your doom.
Another mask-wearing killer is the ghost face of scream. These masks work because they are available to most people. Thus it creates more of an everyday kind of killer where anyone could be the killer.
Masked killers work because they hide their faces. Humans read other people’s faces for emotional and context clues, when those disappear you are left with an uncanny feeling. When you can’t get a read on a person you instantly feel uneasy. It’s the same reason people find clowns to be scary, they are simply hard to read.
Freddy Kruger is a bit different since he shows his face. However, the severe burns make for a bodily mask, his face and features distorted and inhuman.
Body Horror
Body horror is a subgenre of horror that shows the body changing into a grotesque thing.
The familiarity of your own skin betraying you, and your appearance changing is truly horrifying since you become the monster.
The Fly and The Thing are both good examples of body horror.
The Exorcist is also a great example, where the child is being possessed by a demon. Her appearance and personality changes. Seeing the little girl talk differently with a deep voice while her freaky head spins around is something horrifying to watch.
The reason it works so well is that the girl is being taken hostile. She is not in control of herself anymore, she is being kept prisoner in her own body. She also has a very distinctive look and like the Slashers is very recognizable, like a face of evil.
The horror comes from the idea of you being a mere passenger in your own body. Left without control as something evil uses you to do bad things.
The Beast
The beasts are werewolves, zombies, and the Xenomorph from Aliens. These creatures represent the true forces of evil where it is impossible to reason with them. When you see them you have to hide, for they do not care about you. They will simply kill you for that is what they do.
The werewolf is also a good example of someone losing themselves to a bestial form. Like the exorcist, the person disappears and the wolf comes out.
Pennywise has also become a horror icon due to the incredible look (s)he has in the film. I do not know if Pennywise started the whole evil clown-looking thing, but it sure feels like it. Pennywise is also a supernatural force that is impossible to reason with.
The Horror of ambiguity
This is in my humble opinion the thing that works the best in horror. Yet it is so hard to describe or even show. The problem is not so much a thing more than a lack of a thing.
Think about it this way, you feel something is wrong, and your body is telling you to be scared, yet you see nothing, you hear nothing. There is nothing inherent to be scared about, yet you feel it all the same.
One of the greatest scenes in horror history comes from the film The Conjuring (and the inspiration for this post). A little girl wakes up scared out of her mind, she clearly sees something in the dark. Her sister and the audience don’t see anything, but her reaction makes it scary.
The Shining is also a perfect example where the scary part is the lack of anything scary. Is Jack going nuts or is there something else at play here?
The ambiguity is the scary part, it’s not knowing what’s wrong while you feel something is wrong. That is pretty much the scariest part, Evil has no face.
The Elephant Man: A kind soul in a shallow world
We live in a shallow world, full of preconceived notions, prejudice, bias, and ugly thoughts about other people based on very little (if any) information. Values like kindness and happiness are not valued at all. The things that matters are success and money. How many expensive things can you collect in your life before the
The Elephant Man: A kind soul in a shallow world Read More »
We live in a shallow world, full of preconceived notions, prejudice, bias, and ugly thoughts about other people based on very little (if any) information. Values like kindness and happiness are not valued at all.
The things that matters are success and money. How many expensive things can you collect in your life before the grave? Things like how many people did you get to feel good? or how many people did you help in your life are relatively unimportant in society.
It is no secret that good-looking people get paid more than average and have an easy time finding a job and an easier time in life in general.
Why?
Simply by winning the genetic lottery. They might work hard on their appearance, to that I have no doubt. But it strikes me as funny that kindness and a warm personality don’t have the same advantages. Is it simply because you can’t see such aspects? Perhaps.
The old saying goes “don’t judge a book by its cover”.
What matters is (or should be) the content of people’s character. The kind of person you are is important.
The Elephant Man is a movie precisely about this truth. Directed by the legend David Lynch back in 1980 the movie tells the story of John Merrick (John Heard) and his friend Doctor Veres (Anthony Hopkins).
John is known as the Elephant Man, a freak who frightens most people who look at him. John is part of a freakshow in the circus. He is treated as an animal, as a subhuman. At one point he is even locked in a cage with monkeys. The other “freaks” in the freakshow help him escape, showing that compassion and kindness have nothing to do with what you look like.
Mr. Veres takes care of him doing the movie. Originally he showed him off as a part of his lecture, but the more he spends time with him the more he starts to realize he is just like any other human. He can speak, he can think, and he is incredibly kind and loyal.
The movie has the same message as Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
People judge John on his appearance, but most people who get to know him think of him as a very kind soul. Most people feel a great deal of pity for him, thinking to themselves
“how can fate be so cruel?”.
The movie is sad, but not in a forced way where the piano music amps up and you feel your emotions being manipulated to the point of tears.
The sadness is subtle.
It sits in your bones and you walk around afterward feeling melancholic.
There are people in this world who look good and act charming, but inside are the vilest and ugliest people. If you could see their true self you would scream in horror like the people in the movie do when they see John.
It is not important how people look, but how they treat other people. What matters is what is in the heart of the person. If there were more people like John the world would be an infinitely better place.
Art is dead and we killed it
It feels like everything being made today is bad, or at least worse in terms of quality compared to just a couple of years ago. My average score for movies I consume has dropped off these past couple of years. I struggled to even go to the movies these days. I think there are a
It feels like everything being made today is bad, or at least worse in terms of quality compared to just a couple of years ago. My average score for movies I consume has dropped off these past couple of years. I struggled to even go to the movies these days.
I think there are a couple of reasons for the decline in quality, not just in movies but in art as a whole.
Some people might be inclined to say “it’s because of a lack of originality”, that everything is either based on something else or a remake.
I object to the assertion that lack of originality is the problem. The first reason is that Hollywood has always been full of remakes and works based on source materials. So-called “original” movies like Die Hard, Fight Club, American Psycho, Forrest Gumb, Jaws, Psycho, and The Godfather are all based on books. A lot of classic movies are based on books.
The western the magnificent seven is a remake of seven samurai. The problem seems to be that they make movies inspired by other movies now. Thus most movies feel like something we have seen before and the more movies you watch the more apparent this problem becomes.
The market is also oversaturated with crap. The reason for this is a large number of streaming services. Before you had to go to the movies and pay for the experience. You had to do a bit of research on what movie you would like to go and see. Now everyone has streaming and everyone can watch everything whenever they want. If something doesn’t grib you from the get go then just turn it off or find a new thing.
This is also the reason why quality is low. It doesn’t make sense to take your time crafting a good movie. Companies need their streaming sites filled up with content; the quality doesn’t really matter as long as people stay on their platform. A service might have something like a Game of Thrones that a lot of people like, but they also need stuff to watch afterward.
It becomes a battle for attention rather than the quality of the art.
Oddly enough this also means more original movies are being made today, due to original movies being produced by streaming sites. This is also because more stuff gets made today than ever before.
I heard an interview with Mat Damon talking about how DVD sales were taken into consideration beforehand. In this day and age DVDs are simply not a thing and thus the movie has to make all of its money on release. This puts an enormous amount of pressure on the filmmakers since they simply have to make a movie that makes all the money within the span of a theatrical release.
The internet did not help us
Today everyone has a voice. Evey random smug can write a review or make a video critiquing something. Hell, one can just go on Twitter and yell into the void about how mad they are about a given movie or series.
There is such a thing as too many chefs in the kitchen. Every single opinion can not be taken into account nor should it. For what kind of credentials do people have when critiquing something? What does the average person know about storytelling?
Instead of focusing on creating a good piece of art movies today seem to be made by committee.
Without dating myself too much I can say that I am a part of gen y and I did not have an abundance of technology growing up. That meant I was bored a lot and thus to not be bored I had to do something and entertain myself, in turn, my creativity skyrocketed.
Every generation below me, Gen Z, and below are all having major problems when it comes to technology and information overload. A lot has already been said about too much dopamine and a shorter and shorter attention span. These things happen to all of us, but I
fear for the younger generation since they will grow up with all this.
Feel bored? Play a game on your various devices
Feel bored? Watch a movie or series on all the various streaming sites.
Feel Bored for a minute while you wait for something? Take out your phone and start scrolling through social media like a zombie.
We have heard of all the dangers before regarding the technological world we live in. But I think we are going to have a problem with creative people in the future. I think art is going to be in danger. AI may be going to make art in the future due to humans not being able to anymore. Every single piece of entertainment you can think of is going to be laid out in front of you. You never have to engage that part of the brain to “fight” boredom, you might make shitty art that is not going to be original, but instead a pale imitation of actual good art.
When people have no idea how to make art what do they do?
They look for feedback and unfortunately for us, everyone is giving feedback on the internet despite not knowing much about art, movies, or storytelling. This is going to create a wired feedback loop and art is going to be worse and worse.
The problem with genre
I have once again lost my mind in a futile pursuit of something everybody else would deem as “not important”. See, I have this love/hate relationship with the concept of genre or should I say hate/hate, for the concept of genre is totally removed from common logic. A genre is defined as “a style or
I have once again lost my mind in a futile pursuit of something everybody else would deem as “not important”. See, I have this love/hate relationship with the concept of genre or should I say hate/hate, for the concept of genre is totally removed from common logic.
A genre is defined as
“a style or category of art, music, or literature”
Wow, what a narrow definition!
There are many problems with the concept of genre, more so than I think people realize. Basically, the definition is easy enough to understand. Genre is all about categorization, this means we as a society have grouped things together so that we can better navigate art. By doing so we create rules for what a piece of art should contain. The problem arises when we start to dig into different categories for when we do we find that (almost) nothing is clear-cut.
It is simply impossible to find a definition that encompasses everything within a genre
while at the same time not excluding elements of the same genre for being different.
Genre is hard if not impossible to navigate, which is exactly why I have decided to try to get to the bottom of the concept. I will be looking at different genres with different mediums of art like Literature, Cinema, anime, and video games.
Will it be worth it?
Probably not
Is it important?
Nope
Then let’s go!
The ground rules
First of all, let’s get some ground rules down.
Genre is about the subject matter. An example could be romance. A romance book contains romance (I know it’s shocking). A horror film contains scary scenes in some capacity.
Anime is not a genre, it’s a medium. Anime can contain genres like romance and horror.
German expressionism is more of a movement than a genre. Same goes for other movement in cinema.
Playing the definition game
Defining a genre is difficult, at least most of the time. As an example let’s take the genre of Science Fiction. It’s easy to identify Sci-fi at first glance, if you have a show about space exploration, well then you clearly have a Sci-fi story.
At its core Sci-fi is about fictional stories where science plays a part. The Science involved can be fantastical like interstellar space travel, highly advanced androids, and so on. However, it can also be a movie like gravity where there are no fantastical scientific elements. Gravity is a fictional story where science plays a role, thus it can be called Science Fiction.
Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige is also a Sci-fi movie. It contains a fantastical machine that clones people. Just because the movie takes place in the past doesn’t mean it’s not sci-fi.
It can sometimes be hard to pinpoint a particular piece of work. Arthouse films are at this point their own genre, yet it’s so hard to define them in any meaningful way. Arthouse is more about tone and atmosphere rather than traditional storytelling. While you could have a romantic or a funny arthouse film the experience would be so alien compared to traditional movies with those genres.
You can also combine genres, in fact, most things don’t fall under one genre. Sci-fi is a genre that can easily be combined with different genres. Alien is a horror Sci-fi film, starship troopers are Sci-fi action, and so on. Sci-fi is more of an aesthetic genre, meaning it’s more about the world. You could easily have a romance story with a cyberpunk setting. In fact, it’s hard to come up with an example of a Sci-fi story without other genres. The best example is probably the foundation series by Isaac Asimov.
The funny thing about Sci-fi is that it can be dated. Unlike all the other genres Sci-fi is predicated on fantastical science. If you had a story about a flying car salesman and that was the only element of the story that was sci-fi then what happens if we invent flying cars in the real world, would it then cease to be Sci-fi?
The answer is: If I wrote a story about a flying car salesman and everybody got a flying car the day after it was published, then it would still count as Sci-fi since flying cars was not a thing when it was written, thus the time of writing and publication is important.
Couldn’t you just use the gravity logic and say that if everybody gets a flying car the story is still Sci-fi because it is still a fictional story where science plays a part?
Well, it does not play a very big part, in fact, the flying car is a very small part of it and the story doesn’t revolve around how it works, thus the science part of the story is not the focus.
Genres are bits and pieces like the example above. When you start overthinking and defining things you inevitably run into problems.
Can you have a piece of art that incompetence all genres?
It’s a funny thought experiment to ponder, what would such a work even look like?
On a strictly theoretical level, I think you could incompetence a lot of genres. I do not know if I would go as far as saying you could incorporate all of them.
Another problem with genre is the amount needed for it to count as a given genre, example: Could you have a romance story where the romance is only present in the first five minutes of the story, where afterward the story changes to a horror? It is not enough to have a love interest and a romantic subplot to be considered a romance. For something to “count” as a romance story romance has to play a big part.
One of the underlying things here is “tone” every genre follows a tone in some sense. A romance has a tone or “feel” about it. That’s why playing with tones can be interesting. The movie “Come and see” is a war movie with the tone of a horror film. These two go hand in hand and the movie does a brilliant job of depicting the horrors of war.
On the other hand, you cannot have a romance story (plot) with a tone of horror. Because you would find it weird and out of place. You would think when is he going to kill her? Imagen the notebook with creep music and jumpscares, it simply doesn’t fit. A genre that does fit is a comedy, hence the famous Rom-com.
What is comedy?
A movie that seeks to make you laugh.
What if you do not laugh does it then cease to be a comedy?
A comedy is about tone, it seeks to make you laugh and it adopts a silly tone
Some comedies are deadpan in their delivery for comedic effect without being silly.
It’s easy to identify what a comedy movie looks like, one can easily point at a movie like a catty shack and say that’s a comedy, but what components are needed for it to be a comedy?
What is the difference between a comedy and a movie with comedic moments?
See, the thing is, I have no answers to all these questions. Genre is a hard thing to define and explore. Genre is like an onion, you can keep peeling layers off.
Literary fiction vs Genre Fiction
Genre fiction is your horror, fantasy, sci-fi, you name it, whereas Literary fiction doesn’t fit into those categories. Literary fiction can be your classics like your Dickens, but it can also be more contemporary works.
Literary fiction is often held in higher esteem than genre fiction. It is also more connected to high culture and high art, basically your classic pretentious discourse.
The problem is that both these genres are not mutually excluded, for example, literary fiction is said to be about social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition. These aspects can be explored by genre fiction as well. I would argue that no genre is better at exploring the human condition than Sci-fi.
Genre fiction is accused of being shallow, but one has only to look at fantasy writers like Robin Hobb, Tolkien, or Steven Eriksson to see that this is not the case. The genre is only as good as its authors, the aforementioned authors all write fantasy, but if they wrote anything else then that genre would be filled with good books. It is more about talent than it is about arbitrary genre definitions.
Literary fiction is also said to be more character-driven, which is false. Genre fiction can be character driven.
When talking about Literary fiction vs genre fiction it sure feels like one of them is trying to be better than the other. I personally kind of hate the way the differences are outlined between the two parts.
I also think that most people know the value of genre fiction, it is only oldheads who insist that what they read is better than anything else. However, those old heads still hold a lot of power when it comes to the prescription of genre fiction, especially in academia. Nothing shows that more than the distinction between Fantasy and magical realism
Fantasy vs Magical realism
This section is why I started to write this overly long post on genres to begin with. Because Magical realism is made so that literary snobs can enjoy fantasy. At least that is my opinion. When I first read “one hundred years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez I thought it was a good fantasy book. Little did I know that magic/supernatural/magical elements are not necessary for something to be a fantasy. But what’s the difference?
Well, both of these genres use magic, so that doesn’t help us at all. The most common definition of magical realism is the idea that the magical elements are common within the story, and characters act to the fantastical as if it were an everyday occurrence. However, I would argue that in most Fantasy stories at least those with swords and sorcery the characters know of magic. When Gandalf goes to the shire everyone’s all like “yeah that’s the wizard guy he does magic and stuff” no one is reacting to magic as if it was foreign.
Another definition is that magical realism takes place in our world. The setting is real, the characters feel real, yet sometimes magical stuff will just occur. Fantasy on the other hand takes place in a magical world unlike our own like middle earth. This is called high fantasy. The opposite of this is a low fantasy where you have our world where the magical elements slip into a real life story and the setting. An example of low fantasy could be The Percy Jackson series.
The comic series fable takes place in New York where fairy tale creatures live their lives after their story is over.
The fantasy series The Dresden Files takes place in Chicago.
American Gods is set in present-day America with mythical elements and characters and that is considered a fantasy book.
Stephen King’s The Green Mile is considered as “Dark Fantasy, Southern Gothic, Magic Realism ” Wait can it be both Fantasy and magical realism????
Magical realism is when a story takes place in our world with magical elements.
The characters react to the magical as if it were a mundane thing.
However, as I have demonstrated these things are also part of some fantasy books. The more you think about the genre the less it makes sense, but let’s continue on!
The divide between Magical realism and fantasy are made so that literary Snopes can enjoy magic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez had an informed quote on the subject:
“Fantasy has nothing to do with the reality of the world we live in; it is purely fantastic invention, an inspiration, and certainly a diversion ill-advised in the arts.”
I am not here to lay down the literary merit of fantasy, but this quote strikes me as incredible assenain.
If you look at the literary canon you will find some magical realism, but no fantasy. Fantasy is often looked down upon and I don’t really know why.
What the fuck is drama?
Here is an interesting question What the fuck is drama? I mean Drama as a genre here. The term Drama can be traced back to accenting Greece. There were three types of dramas back then.
Comedy: Normally satirical mockery of people in power
Tragedy: A sad-ass story about love and lost
Satyr Plays: Short acts performed between acts in a Tragedy
We still see the first two types of genres today, but the meaning has changed a bit. Comedy is now a lot broader, containing sub-genres like deadpan, slapstick, and satire. Comedy thus contains more elements and possibilities.
A tragedy is what has the most in common with today’s definition of Drama. A lot of Oscar Baity movies are Dramas. We all know these movies where a lot of people are very sad and yell at each other a lot. This is what most people would consider a drama. It can be hard to define the Drama genre, but if we look at cinema, the most popular definition is something akin to a story with many characters and a lot of conflicts.
Man, we are already lost in the woods.
First of all, I am sure you can identify a drama film with few characters. In fact how many characters are needed for there to be “a lot” and thus for it to be a drama? No one knows it’s just arbitrary definitions.
Second of all “There needs to be a lot of conflicts”, Well sure. Again, how many conflicts are sufficient for it to qualify as a drama?
It is also normal for films to have one or more conflicts. You can have a hysterical comedy, but there will always be some kind of conflict within the film. Some movies are half comedy half drama making them a “dramedy”.
You can have the funniest movie ever, but the movie can contain a really heavy and sad scene and if that happens you can say “that was a dramatic moment or scene”. But that doesn’t change the genre from a comedy to a drama, but what if there were more of these scenes? Is it the amount of “serious” scenes that make something a drama?
Again I do not have the answers here.
Age is not a genre
The evolution of genre has come to the present day where a new bread of genre has risen. I call it the “Age genre”. It’s where you categorize something into a genre based on how old the reader is. This is a problem since it removes focus from the actual work and shifts it to the consumers.
A perfect example of the “Age Genre” is “Young adult fiction” aka YA books. These books are sold to people within the age range of 12-18. Originally it was made to soften the transition from children’s books to adult fiction. However, Approximately half of all YA is read by adults.
YA books are easier to read than “adult books” with a protagonist in the age range of 12-18.
You see it right? The problem? Okay let me explain
You can have a story where the protagonist is in that age range and it being not a YA book. The age of the protagonist is a stupid way to define the genre. What if a book starts with the main character being a child, but by the end an adult? You wouldn’t say the book starts as YA and then becomes “adult”.
The “age genre” is super prevalent in anime/manga where you have
Shōnen aimed at young boys between 9 to 18
Seinen aimed at young adult men between the ages of 18 and 40
Shoujo aimed at young girls between 9 to 18
Josei aimed at young adult girls between the ages of 18 and 40
Again, the problem arises due to a lack of consistency.
A lot of different series belong under the Shōnen umbrella. One Piece and Death note are both considered Shōnen. However, Death Note is a highly psychological thriller where the themes are ill-suited to a young audience.
These genres are actually not genres at all, but more of a demographic range. However, people still use these terms like they were genres. Today most people consider Shōnen battle series like Dragon ball, Boku No hero academia, and FullMetal Alchemist to be within their own genre. So technically not a genre, but people use it that way so it’s fair game.
The one-time genre works
Genre works best when it comes to Video games. You know when you buy an FPS (First Person shooter) what kind of game it’s going to be. You know when you buy a fighting game what kind of game it’s going to be. There might be differences in graphics, gameplay, story, and so on, but you know what you get.
I would say that genre is important to know when it comes to games. Now, most people will already know the genre of a game they are interested in. I have personally never bought a game without knowing what genre it was.
Why do we still use genre?
After all this, why is genre still a thing? I think there are two reasons for it
The first is because of marketing, it’s all about the dollar BABY!
Think about it, why are fantasy and sci-fi grouped together? So they both are easy to identify in the store. Because both genres share an audience. It’s not about the work, genre, or merits, it’s about the people buying. This further weakens the overall idea of a genre and why they are important or useful. No one cares about the actual differences or similarities between Sci-fi and fantasy. All they care about are consumers.
The same goes for the “Age Genre”.
The second (less cynical) reason we have genres is that people love to categorize things. It makes us feel safe. Humans fear the unknown and will always meet what they know with what they don’t know. So if you present something new to them you can say it’s just like the other stories they like.
A personal problem I have with genre is that it leads to expectations. If you go into something expecting it to be one way and it turns out different, well then chances are you are not going to enjoy it.
Genre can lead to a subversion of expectations. This might be a good thing or it can be a bad thing, but creativity is in danger if art has to fit within parameters others set.
creativity is in danger if art has to fit within parameters others set. – quote Me
There is also the problem of shame. Say you like to read romance novels or watch “bad” television shows, if the genre is looked down upon then you would be looked down upon for liking it and I think that is wrong. People should be able to like something without the scorn of society.
Conclusion
Genre is a strange concept back in the day; it might have made more sense since there were fewer art forms. Nowadays genre just feels like something marketing people control in order to make the most money.
Things are not divided into genres because of artistic merits but because cataloging is what humans do.
The idea of genre also limits the artist since they constrain their vision so they can be marketed in a category others have decided.
The more you talk about genre the more insane you become. It feels impossible to reach a definition of a genre without having exceptions within that genre that did something different.
G.O.A.T director
I made a post about the term GOAT and why I feel everybody is using the term wrong. In this post, I am going to explore who I think is the greatest film director of all time. I will be going through who is in the conversation and exploring why they are not the GOAT
I made a post about the term GOAT and why I feel everybody is using the term wrong. In this post, I am going to explore who I think is the greatest film director of all time. I will be going through who is in the conversation and exploring why they are not the GOAT before ending on who I think is the GOAT.
In my former post, I stated that the criteria one decides on is the most important part of the GOAT discostion.
Here are my criteria for the greatest film director of all time.
1 They should make movies over several decades.
The all-time aspect is important and that is why you have to go through multiple decades
2 They have to have a variety, they can’t just be good at making one kind of movie. They need to master different kinds of genres
3 they need to have made a classic film
They need to have edge their name into the history of cinema.
4 they need to have made good movies
This is self-explanatory, but their body of work has to be of high quality. It’s okay to release a bad movie from time to time, but the majority of their work should be good.
5 Mainstream doesn’t matter
The average movie-going audience doesn’t know movies on a deep level, thus commercial success and mainstream apeal are not important.
In summary, they have to master different genres over a long period of time and they have to have made good classic movies.
Stephen Spielberg
Pros
Spielberg is definitely in the GOAT conversation; he has made multiple high-quality films throughout the decades.
He has great variety having made fun action adventures like the Indiana Jones and Jurassic park films. He has made one of the best war movies in saving private Ryan. He made an emotional masterpiece in Schindler’s List. He invented the blockbuster with Jaws.
Cons
The overall quality of his films is dwindling fast. It seems like the more he works on something the worse it gets. The Indiana Jones trilogy is fantastic, but the fourth one is utter shit. The Jurassic Park movies also got progressively worse.
His newer movies are also of lesser quality. Movies like Bridge of spies and the post are generic and unremarkable, whereas the BFG and ready player one were just straight-up bad.
Martin Scorsese
Pros
Martin has made some classic films, including Goodfellas, Taxi driver, and raging bull to name a few.
He has demonstrated variety by making a fun and cheeky movie like “the wolf of wall street” and a fun and magical family film like HUGO.
His newer movies are still of high quality, unlike Spielberg’s.
Cons
A large number of his films are gangster films, this means the quality is lower if you are not a fan of that subject matter.
He has also worked a little too much with the same actors namely De Niro and Decaprio. This might seem like weird criticism, but I think it has hindered some of the films. It has also become distracting to a point.
Alfred Hitchcock
Pros
Incredible in all aspects of directing, from blocking the characters to cinematography and camera movement, Hitchcock is simply the best.
He is the master of atmosphere and can make you hold your breath in suspense for a long period of time.
He has made classics like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear windows, and many more
He was the first to use a toilet flush in a film, if that doesn’t GOAT him I don’t know what will.
Cons
Lacks variety. While he excels at horror/thriller the one time he made a comedy it turned out painfully bad.
Overuse of blonds
Orson Welles
Pros
He made Citizen Kane probably the most influential movie ever, there is a clear before and after Citizen Kane in movie history.
He directed several great films like Touch of Evil, Citizen Kane, and the stranger
He also made an all-time great documentary in F is for Fake, showing a form of variety.
Cons
Lacks variety when it comes to genres
Not the biggest body of work
The Coen Brothers
Pros
Great variety in genre and tone. While most of their films are cheeky comedies the Coens have shown they can do almost anything. From the dark and brooding No country for old men to the slow introspective inside Llewen Davis.
Their pool of quality is also great. I would not consider any of their films bad.
Big Lebowski and Fargo are both what I would consider modern classics.
Cons
They are two and thus it becomes hard to judge who directed what in their films.
Unlike others on this list, the Coens have not been at it for as many decades.
They still need a bit more time
Akira Kurosawa
Pros
Has basically inspired every single filmmaker that came after him.
His cuts and camera movements are second to none.
The overall pool of quality is great and he has made classics like Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and the throne of blood.
He shows some form of variety with his masterpiece Ikiru. Ikiru is a nice change of pace from all the samurai films
Cons
He has made a lot of samurai films. Which hurt him on the variety aspect.
Billy Wilder
Pros
Incredible variety, from the funny Some like it hot, to the thrilling Witness for the Prosecution to the icon and tragic Sunset Boulevard. Billy could do it all.
His movies are of high quality even the lesser known ones
He has definitely made classics.
Cons
I got nothing
He might be considered more of a screenwriter than a director, but he still directed his films…..
Stanley Kubrick (The GOAT)
Yes, Kubrick is who I consider to be the greatest director of all time.
He made his first film “fear and desire” back in 1952 and his last film was in 1999. His career spans multiple decades.
If you were to make some kind of list of the best films in each genre odds are you are going to run into a Kubrick film.
The shining is a classic horror movie if not the best horror movie ever
Dr. Strangelove is a classic comedy if not the best
2001 is one of the most influential movies ever along with Citizen Kane.
Barry Lyndon and Spartacus are both masterful period pieces.
Path of glory is one of if not the greatest war movie ever made. (Fullmetal Jacket is also a top 10 war movie).
A Clockwork Orange is an instantly recognizable dystopian sci-fi movie and a classic.
No other director has made classics in so many different genres.
He also had a very distinct style, A slow, cold, and methodical way of directing films. Yet that style would not suit films like Dr. Strangelove, so he did not go full Kubrick on that film.
He also made the greatest cut in film history with the cut in 2001. From ape to interstellar space travel in one cut.
Remember in Pulp Fiction where Tarantino shows events out of chronological order? Wasn’t that cool?
Yeah, and it was cool when Kubrick did it back in the 50tis in “The killing”
Cons
His two first movies are not good. They are straight-up bad, I will note that he did not write those.
Lolita was also a bit generic.
He has a distinct style that might not be for everybody, however, I feel that’s not really on Kubrick. In fact, I would argue the GOAT has to have a recognizable style.
What is a “G.O.A.T”?
People use the term GOAT wrong and it is slowly starting to piss me off. GOAT means “Greatest of all time”, it refers to the best person within a particular field. An example could be “who is the best Hockey player right now?” After some time you might come up with a name that sounds
People use the term GOAT wrong and it is slowly starting to piss me off. GOAT means “Greatest of all time”, it refers to the best person within a particular field. An example could be “who is the best Hockey player right now?” After some time you might come up with a name that sounds right. But the discussion doesn’t end there, for who is truly the best ever? Who is the GOAT?
The acronym GOAT has a long history in sports and in Hip hop. LL Cool J is often credited as its originator, however, the term has been used in sports for a long time, with the Boxer Muhammed Ali calling himself the greatest. (1)
I hear the term being used in rap a lot. “The Company Man” Justin Hunt has made countless videos on who is the GOAT of Hip-Hop where he outlines different arguments for and against an artist being the GOAT. I highly recommend his work if you are interested in Hip-Hop.
There are some problems with GOAT discussions that I feel are worth mentioning.
The first thing to keep in mind when discussing GOATs is that it all depends on the criteria. Some people value different things and while I will be putting up some parameters that I feel are important when discussing who the different GOATS are, there will always be people who disagree with what constitutes the GOAT and what metrics are important.
The GOAT discussion is about arguments: how do you defend your position while taking down the opposition? This is what GOAT discussions are all about. It’s about opinion and how one presents a view. In most, if not all cases the answer is going to be subjective. As I said in my post on scores, the criteria and how you score something is also a subjective exercise.
If you have two footballers one scores 100 goals in friendlies and the other scores 50 in the champions league. You could say the first is better because he has simply scored more goals than the other. Alternatively, you could say the other is better for he has scored against stronger opponents. It depends on if you value the quality of opposition or total output. Always keep in mind that people have different criteria for who they think is the GOAT
Another problem with the GOAT discussion is that people are overly nostalgic for a particular time period. These people can be hard to convince. They are the people who think Kendrik can’t be the GOAT because he didn’t start in the 90s. They are also the people who typically thinks Maradonna is better than Messi.
I will say in their defense that you do need time when it comes to who the greatest of all TIME is. The best right now is different from who the greatest is. People can be biased in many ways. If you grow up watching a footballer you really admire, you might think he is the GOAT, but the footballer you like is different from the GOAT (unless you can argue your point).
Another infuriating part of the GOAT discussion is if people don’t know enough about a subject. Eminem is by far the most popular rapper, but he is also the rapper for people who don’t really listen to rap (in my opinion and experience). This means he will be mentioned in a GOAT discussion by people who simply do not know Hip-Hop or its history. The GOAT discussion is only fun if the people in the discussion know what they are talking about.
It can be difficult to compare people from different time periods. How do you compare a player like Messi to Di Stefano? One of them is playing right now, and the other played in the sixties when the picture was black and white, and the ball was made of hard heavy leather.
It is important to keep in mind the best right now would be a lot better than the people from back then. Of course, a boxer like Anthony Joshua would beat Joe Lewis if you were to bring Lewis into the present, but this is not the most important factor. The term is not BOAT, but GOAT, you have to think of it in terms of context elements like how strong the operation was. How much did he change the sport? In other words how big was his influence?
It can still be hard to grasp why the GOAT as a concept is always up for debate. The idea behind the term is not to find out who the definitive greatest is, but it’s about the discussion and arguments.
I think it was Ronaldinho who once said something like,
there is no real GOAT, there are different people being the best at different times.
This is the correct take, BUT! That is also kind of boring and no fun. It is much more fun to argue about who the greatest is, and that is what we are going to do.
People use the term wrong!
People have ruined the term at this point. Everyone is throwing GOAT around with no idea of what it really means. Let’s take a look at how people use it wrong.
First of all, there can only be one GOAT. It is called The greatest of all times, there can’t be multiple GOATs. In football, people refer to Messi and Ronaldo as the GOATs. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the term means. The term GOAT is supposed to incompetence who the best of the best compared to anyone from any decade. By having more than one GOAT the term loses all meaning.
To me, it seems like people are using the term GOATs as someone worthy of being in the discussion of who is the GOAT. I still think this is the wrong way of doing it, people need to have faith in their opinion and commit. It doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy both Messi and Ronaldo and it doesn’t mean that both of them weren’t fantastic in their prime. But one is better. One has to be the GOAT.
I also saw a comment saying something like Ronaldo was the GOAT five years ago, but he is washed up now and no good. This comment triggers the fuck out of me. Whether Ronaldo is the GOAT or not is not important. The reason it annoys me is that. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what the term means. GOAT is of ALL TIME, focus on time. If you are the GOAT you will always be the GOAT until someone else comes and takes the title. If you are the GOAT and then end your career you will still be the GOAT.
The status of GOAT is not something you lose, its something someone else takes from you. – quote ME!
Guidelines for GOAT Discussions
Have criteria
The GOAT is a concept that is all about providing an argument for something or someone. To do so, one must have some criteria. As stated before, different people value different things, but it is vital for the discussion to have criteria otherwise it becomes people arguing about who they “feel” is the best.
Focus on people, not things
The GOAT discussion works best when talking about singular people. While you could have discussions about the greatest band of all time, the discussion of the greatest company would be an odd one to have.
Don’t go too broad
Some things are just too hard to narrow down, the greatest musician is way too broad a category. The same is true for sports. It would be too difficult to find the greatest sportsman of all time. How do you even compare a knockout in boxing, with a champions league goal or a touchdown in an NFL final?
The END
References
- (Where Did The G.O.A.T. Title Come From? (2019, May 20). Genius. Retrieved March 5, 2022, from https://genius.com/a/where-did-the-g-o-a-t-title-come-from)
Eddie the eagle (2015): Winning is overrated
Summary The movie Eddie the eagle from 2015 is a funny and charming feel-good movie starring Taron Egerton as the title character Eddie the Eagle. The movie is based on the true story of Eddie as he tries to qualify for the Olympics. The movie opens with Eddie as a child. Eddie is so in
Summary
The movie Eddie the eagle from 2015 is a funny and charming feel-good movie starring Taron Egerton as the title character Eddie the Eagle. The movie is based on the true story of Eddie as he tries to qualify for the Olympics.
The movie opens with Eddie as a child. Eddie is so in love with the idea of going to the Olympics that he spends all his time training, so he can finally achieve his dream. The problem is that Eddie is bad and I mean bad, he sucks at every single thing he tries, every sport he tries he sucks at, that doesn’t stop him from trying though.
The beginning is very funny. The little Eddie is very charming with his big ass glasses and a bulletproof can-do-attitude whenever he gets knocked down he gets right back up and tries again.
He decides to refocus all his attention on going to the winter Olympics because apparently skiing is cool. It turns out that he is also bad at skiing, who would have thought? He is rejected by the British sports…. Something. Eddie then decides that ski jumping is the sport he wants to pursue. He goes alone and with no training to training camp in Germany where he meets a former ski jump star turned cynical old man played by Hugh Jackman.
Hugh Jackman becomes his coach and he starts teaching him. After yet more diversity Eddie manages to qualify for the Winter Olympics and the rest is, as they say, history.
The film is directed by Dexter Fletcher who would later go on and direct the movie Rocketman starring Egerton as well. Dexter seems to get the best out of Egerton.
The movie is not a “director film” its much more about the story of Eddie than wacky camera tricks. The direction is fine, the focus is on Eddie and that is as it should be.
The Message
This movie might look like a standard Biopic, but I believe the movie contains some wisdom and some life advice. I will be going to condensate the movie’s themes down to 3 life-improving tips.
Tip 1 It’s never too late
Jackman plays Bronson Peary, a former legend within the sport of ski jump. He fell out with his former coach and the sport in general. When we meet him he drinks a lot saying he doesn’t need a jacket because the alcohol keeps him warm. He gets beat up in fights he instigates.
Bronson starts gradually changing through his friendship with Eddie. He becomes less cynical and more invested in Eddie.
In a scene toward the end, he shows up out of nowhere to talk to Eddie. They are both outside, but this time he wears a jacket, indicating that he has changed his ways and his drinking habits.
This is a clever usage of show don’t tell.
This scene also shows that it is never too late.
It is never too late to try
It is never too late to improve
It is never too late to care
No matter the whole one might be in, it is never too late to get out of it, it only takes one man in the form of Eddie to hold out a hand, but when you have the hand, you better grab it.
Tip 2 Attitude is everything
It cannot be understated how bad Eddie is at everything he tries. He is terrible, he is also really bad at ski jumping, but one thing he has is a positive attitude and can-do-attitude. Every time he fails he gets back up and tries again.
Every time people try to stop him from achieving his goals, he rises to the occasion. He never gives up, and he persists through the most difficult challenges.
His attitude is infectious and the core reason why Bronson changes his outlook on life. His attitude and overall demeanor are also why the public and the media like him so much. He is relatable, charming, and impossible not to like.
Tip 3 Winning is overrated
People love Eddie not because he is good, for he is certainly not. They love him because he tries, to him the goal is not to win or even to get medals, it’s not fame, money, or glory, all Eddie wants is to go to the Olympics, and through hard work and dedication, he manages to achieve that dream.
I knew exactly one ski jumper before watching this movie and that was Eddie. All the winners through time were surely better and deserve reconstitution, but winning is not necessarily what people remember, they remember the man who tried his hardest despite being the worst of all.
The goal for Eddie was not to win but to survive. He was by far the worst, he had the worst scores out of all. Yet, he celebrated as if he had won gold. The goal for Eddie was to simply land without breaking any bones.
Eddie was by far the worst of all, but despite that, he still managed to stand as tall as the winners. History will surely remember him, not because he was good for he was surley not that, but because he never gave up and neither should you.
Conclusion
Overall the movie Eddie the Eagle is a nice, sweet, and funny feel-good film that contains some real wisdom upon reflection. It shows how it’s not important if you win or not, it’s more important to try and never give up, and never stop smiling despite the hardships.
People tend to glorify winners, yet, the greatest ski jumper is not the winner. He is simply Eddie.
Eddie the Eagle.
Aku No Hana is a masterpiece
Aku no Hana (The Flower of Evil) is an anime that garnered a lot of controversies when it first aired in 2013. It would seem most people have forgotten about it over the years and that is a shame. Aku No Hana is one of the most unique, interesting, and best Anime I have ever
Aku no Hana (The Flower of Evil) is an anime that garnered a lot of controversies when it first aired in 2013. It would seem most people have forgotten about it over the years and that is a shame. Aku No Hana is one of the most unique, interesting, and best Anime I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot in my time.
Aku No Hana is about a boy named Takao Kasuga. He is a real edge lord, he reads this dark book called Aku No Hana. His internal monologue is about how much he hates life and his classmates, he constantly thinks of himself as better than his peers.
Kasuga has a crush on a girl in his class named Saeki, who he views as an angelic figure. He refers to her as her muse and every time he talks to her he starts to blush.
One day when is alone in the classroom after everyone else has gone home he spots Saeki’s gym clothes. In a fit of insanity, he decides to steal them.
This little somewhat innocent act has major consequences for Kasuga. His classmate Sawa Nakamura sees him, and she starts to blackmail him. She gets him to do a lot of fucked up things under the threat of telling everybody that he was the one who stole the gym cloth.
Kasuga didn’t do anything that bad, he is not using the cloth for anything he has too much guilt over taking it. The rest of the class is convinced that some weird creepy deviant stole Saeki’s gym cloth and suddenly the weight of his actions has gotten so heavy that it starts to slowly mentally crush him.
What makes Aku No Hana such a great show is the relationship between Kasuga and the two girls. One is the angel and the other the devil. Let’s start with the angel.
Saeki and Kasuga start dating despite Nakamura’s constant attempts to prevent it. What’s interesting is that Kasuga sees Saeki as this angelic figure, so when she starts dating her and sees the real her, he loses interest.
Saeki is nothing but supportive, even after she finds out he was the one who stole her clothes. She doesn’t dump him, she doesn’t judge him, and she is, by all means, a nice and loving person.
Nakamura is the MVP of this series. She serves as the antagonist, she is the source of endless torment toward Kasuga. It is not clear why exactly she is tormenting him at the beginning. She keeps saying she wants to break down the walls around his heart and show how much of a devient he is.
Nakamura is introduced when everyone in the class is getting graded. She has the lowest score due to her having not answered a single question. She tells the teacher to shut the fuck up. The teacher is furious and tries to strike her. Nakamura gives him this cold look that makes him scared and he drops his hand.
Nakamura has no filter at all; she says exactly what she thinks at any given time. She has only contentment for the little town they all live in, she sees all the people as these fake people who don’t live their life; they merely exist in it, with no passion or authentic thought. This is why she speaks her mind in such a blunt way, she sees all the rules of society and human nature and she recognizes them as totally arbitrary.
Nakamura believes Kasuga is just like her, this is why she keeps pushing him mentally and physically over the edge. She wants to break down these societal conventions and norms. She wants a companion in life, for she is probably lowly.
Nakamura is such an interesting character she is hands down the MVP of the series. She acts in a very intriguing way. One moment she can be cold and manipulated speaking in a monotone voice to an angry girl who yells and screams with rage. She can change from one to another in seconds. She makes it hard to predict, she brings a chaotic element to the series.
At some point in the series, Kasuga and Nakamura run away from home. They try to go beyond the hills to see the rest of the world. It all culminates with Kasuga, Nakamura, and Saeki on top of a hill in the rain where Kasuga is forced to pick between the 2 girls.
The scene on the hill is my favorite part of the series, it ties together a lot of thematic strings along with resolving some character tensions.
One would think the choice would be easy. You have one girl who cherries him and supports him no matter how much he fucks up, she is loving and kind and as a bonus, she is the prettiest girl at school. The other girl is cold, manipulative, and straight-up abusive. The choice seems clear-cut, yet Kasuga cant make up his mind and says he is not worthy of being with any of them.
Kasuga is starting to develop a crush on Nakamura, he sees her wet cloth and starts to blush, he linkers at her. He is drawn to her. I thought it was a kind of Stockholm syndrome at first, but I think that’s the wrong interpretation. I think he likes the idea of Saeki in his head, but not the real her. Whereas I think he likes Nakamura in real life because she is authentic and intriguing to him.
This dynamic was super interesting to watch, complexity between characters and character relations like this is rare to see these days. Kasuga is forced to choose either the angel or the devil and he ends up choosing neither, disappointing them both.
Ako no Hana has a fantastic atmosphere and tone. The show is made by the same people who did Mushihi and boy does it feel like it. Every scene is slow and methodical; the whole show is drenched in this ominous atmosphere and the tension is through the roof.
The show is very slow, but it is slow throughout. Sometimes you see a character walk for like 10 minutes straight without dialog.
Okay, it’s finally time to talk about what makes Aku No Hana so controversial, it’s time to talk about the visuals, specifically the rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is a technique where you act out a scene with real actors and then you animate over it. It’s not very common in anime. The other example I can think of is the movie Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken.
Aku No Hana´s Rotoscoping can be a bit off-putting if you are not used to it, it looks very different from other shows. HOWEVER, I think it adds an element of realism to the show. The characters talk, act and move like real people, further enhancing the experience. The story feels more visceral and uncomfortable which is the point. I don’t think the show would be as good if it had a more normal anime style.
The cinematography is amazing as well, every shot looks interesting. There are beautiful shots sprinkled throughout the show, these shots are often in scenes where nobody talks giving the viewer time to absorb everything.
Wow, is there nothing bad about this show? Well, there is something
The ending of Aku No Hana is terrible. The ending of the show is recognized as a “read the manga ending”, where you have to read the manga to see where it ends. These endings are always terrible and frustrating. The reason this occurs is that the show doesn’t get picked up for a second season and thus it ends in this limbo state, it’s something anime fans are used to at this point.
There are ways to mitigate this kind of ending. In HunterxHunter 2011 the ending is perfectly placed. It ends in a way where you feel satisfied and if you wish to continue the story you can in manga form.
The problem with Aku No Hana´s ending is that it ends mid-scene, right in the middle of an action. It feels like the creators gambled everything and were convinced they would get a season two. A cliffhanger ending is not worth it if you have to switch mediums to find the answer.
The ending is what took this show down a notch which is sad, for Aku No Hana is easily one of the best shows I have seen. The character dynamic, interesting visuals, tension-filled atmosphere, and amazing cinematography all make for an overall fantastic show, it’s just a shame so many people (including me) did not give it a show when it came out. Well, it’s never too late to experience something good and Aku No Hana is definitely a Diamond in the rough.