“Y’know, people who don’t have any problems are the biggest problem for me.”

It’s been more than a week since Kuchu Buranko ended. And while each and everyone of us tried to make up for anything from the holidays, the show ended like that. Just like that. As if mocking us to be mental while being sentimental. Well, if that’s the case, I’ll take it as a reason to write a post about it.

While I can fully admit that Trapeze was a show that tickled my alter-egos, the insanity it tried to delve into and the mentality it applied to its episodes seemed a bit off the mark. Sure, there were things as prominent as time re-skips (episode 10), narcissism (episode 9), loss of control (episode 2), and the enigma of an enigma (Irabu Ichiro), but think: Was there really any connection between the symptom, the doctor, the patient, the vitamin shot, the cure, and more importantly, the viewer?

No.

So we move on to the probable reason I thought: It was a show about psychology and mentality aimed at the fan of modern visual culture, the otaku. Why? Because otaku are people who have the most screwed cases of psychology and mentality combined? Because otaku care only of figures and anime and manga and games? Because otaku are oblivious of their surroundings as long as they get their dose of moe? Because otaku make doujin material, blog, claim attention whoring and be mighty proud of it afterward? Because otaku generally play deaf, mute and blind thinking they won’t grow up by being in denial? See that, then watch, rewatch, and REWATCH episodes 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, and 11 of Trapeze. If you did not, or cannot, relate to ANYTHING on any of the episodes, you’re a healthy otaku/fan/”otaku”/blogger/weeaboo/whateverintheworldthisfandompersonis… and you’re pretty much screwed.

Now, now, don’t think the show is mocking you now. It isn’t. It’s just telling you to look at yourself. While I was watching the show, I did, and the starting sentence of this post struck me HARD. Am I really one of those people who don’t have a problem? And if so, am I the biggest problem, if not for Irabu Ichiro, if not for others, then maybe for myself? While true that people who don’t have any have the potential to have one, the sentence itself gave the mentality that not having problem IS a problem, because it’s actually being unaware that you can have one.

But oh, how about the happy-go-lucky doc? He’s got three personas, he’s got injection fetish, he’s got  hallucinogenic vitamin shots that manifests your problems as animal heads while serving as the gateway for him to invade and screw your mind, and he’s got badass nurse to dish out unwanted amounts of sex appeal. “Ignorance is bliss”? “Don’t sweat with the details”? “We’re not the ones who are the stars of the show, you are”? Relation? Plot? Symptom? Cure? Awww, you must be mistaken! There isn’t any of that, is there?!

ぐふふふふふふふふふ～

So yeah, Kuchu Buranko was successful in screwing with our minds, and it got away (almost) scot-free. Second season? Sure! Let’s see how far this paradoxical insanity can get.

Further Reading

One-Trick Simplicity:

I Finished Trapeze – Continuing World

Great, But Not Really That Great:

So I Guess Trapeze Is Over – Moe Sucks

And lastly, my good friend animekritik who watched it with me all the way:

Trapeze Ends – Kritik Der Animationskraft

]]> http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/3038/feed 2 http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/3026 http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/3026#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:16:54 +0000 Shance http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/?p=3026

Not a deity, not a god, but similar otherwise: The Machinations of Irabu Ichiro…?

When I was trying to write my first post for Suspended Animation Dreams, I was stumped, since most of the ideas for the posts are those that I want to post here in Rainbowsphere instead of in SAD. So I asked SAD co-writer Digitalboy for a good idea, which he answered with this. However, the notions for heavy self-evaluation and the general interest on the idea stuck onto me so bad, I told him I’d still post it in here rather than on SAD, hence this post.

Long ago, I have come into terms with myself on what to believe. Man has the inclination for curiosity, and that includes his curiosity on how he came to be, who created him, why he was created, and what will become of him. I found myself with this curiosity, and because of it, I don’t believe in a single point of view, nor do I believe in all of them. It’s not atheism. It never was. It’s just that, if I were to come to terms on who or what my God or Supreme Being is, I want the entity or entities in question say it to me clearly. It’s not being indecisive, it’s being open-minded, and being proven wrong by God himself WILL be a big disgrace, if not a graceful way to attain absolute enlightenment.

Goddess of Death, Goddess of the Moon. Goddess of Humanity, Goddess of Inhumanity. How they ironically share the insanity amidst their individual powers…

“Science and Religion Agree to Disagree”. That’s a similar case on the relationship between God and Everything Else, it seems to be an iron rule that passively implements itself. Like other material in general, trying to mix Anime and God is like the paradox of achieving the impossible, wherein the person who achieved the impossible cannot say he actually achieved the impossible because it is impossible. It’s like the debate on the division of zero, where people try to solve it, achieve something from it, and be mighty proud of it, even though everyone else dunks it in the waste bin and calls mathematical bullshit on it. This, and they’re still trying.

So what, then? Give it up on the idea of discovering who God really is? Of course not. We need not compare our MAL lists for that (simply because I don’t have one). We’ve seen various depictions of Norse gods and their envoys (Belldandy, Skuld, and Urd of Aa! Megami-sama!), Japanese deities and their governance over the world that spawned them (the entities Gaia and Alaya of Rakkyo, Nagi of Kannagi), gods of Science and Technology spawned using man’s tendency to play god (Gundams of the Gundam franchise, the Aluminum and Steel Cans of Akikan!), reverse-gods formed by the Universe using man’s own image (Suzumiya Haruhi of Haruhi), man playing as the Messiah (Kyon of Haruhi, Irabu Ichiro of Kuchu Buranko), otherworldly existences possessing unimaginable power (the Crimson Moon/BRUNESTUD of Tsukihime), anti-gods spawned from the unending void of man’s paradoxical insanity and folly (Alucard of Hellsing, Ryogi Shiki of Rakkyo), and all the other iterations of the classic relationships between the entities of good, evil, and everything in between. The characters have captured and lost my heart, then lost and recaptured it along the way with their stories, and continuing to believe the entire thing still seemed in order.

A Goddess by Personal Preference, aside from the fact that she can be a goddess by her own right.

And so I humbly state: God is not one, nor is God legion. God is not me, not you, not anybody else, but God can be you, me or anybody else. God is not everything, nor is God nothing.  Man is but a creation from God, therefore its relationship with God is not of utter importance, including man’s regards on how he sees God. Therefore, I will continue trying to believe, thinking I can achieve the impossible even though it is impossible, because it’s impossible.

God, where are you anyway?

“The Devil finds work for idle hands.”

People, we are now at the so-called “Information Age”, where information is considered as intangible wealth. Technology and Science helped make this happen, and we benefit from it so much that living without it would label such a person obsolete. But think: Isn’t it alarming to find out that this so-called “hunger for knowledge” is eventually leading us to dependence and eventual addiction?

Let’s take this week’s cellphone-addicted patient, Tsuda, as an example: He can’t socialize with friends normally, he’s contented with just his text buddies, and he doesn’t have a care in the world as long as he has his phone to text, mail, chat, and God knows what else can you do with a Japanese phone. On the other hand, let’s take a look at a good example of a blogger: He/She socializes normally using computers, he/she is in good terms with people who read his/her blogs or reply on his/her comments and updates on his/her social life, and some won’t even have a care in the world as long as they can observe it using the Internet. Analyze and compare. Is there any much of a difference?

So we now state our level of interest as something that is either a passion, or an addiction. Passion is the optimistic way to put it, while addiction is the negative way. Passion is something that is created out of motivation to get a point across, while addiction is something out of sheer helplessness and possible attention whoring in the disguise of getting a point across. Big difference, but you see the similar dependency that a person puts in order for the endeavor to be defined as such. Tsuda’s case was defined as an addiction, and bloggers have the tendency to be defined like this as well.

In the end, just like how Irabu dismissed the case as something that can cure itself, only the person can say whether if it’s a passion or an addiction. Doing something to change it or remove it is something either beneficial or detrimental, even if the action is something by fate. And only the person can judge if there is even any meaning on having it.

Just… y’know… don’t let it physically manifest… unless you find your withdrawal symptoms a fetish that you want to keep…

BTW, cute Mayumi-chan on the end of episode is CUET.

Further Reading

Isolation and Being Solitary: Another Mental Comparison Post

Trapeze 06: Woodpecker – Kritik Der Animationskraft

This statement for the image does not concern any James Bond movie, nor does this concern baseball or the episode, but “Diamonds are Forever”, you know…

Again, Kuchu Buranko/Trapeze. You’ve bought me yet again. Why do I have to fall in love with a show so confusing, demented, and even maniacal to the point where I can’t stop my fingers from writing my perception to each of its episodes?

The patient for the fourth episode is Shinichi Bando, third base holder of the Yakult Swallows baseball team. He suffers from yips, a sickness wherein one loses the ability to play the game without any apparent reason. His pitches lose direction, making the balls fly at random, and Bando himself doesn’t know why it’s happening. More like his body knows, while his mind does not. Or maybe his mind just wouldn’t accept the reason, or any reason whatsoever.

Irabu Ichiro stated the marvelous way our brains work in order to make our bodies do what we will them to do. However he did not elaborate any further about something: There is a hidden threshold that we reach with regards to mental pressure. To explain it scientifically, the brain sometimes affects the way the impulses are transmitted biochemically. In theory, some have speculated that the nerves are altered, and because of the nerves’ pathways, the impulse that should have done a certain action does a different action from what was intended instead. It’s like a train going through a fork, with the fork suddenly changing direction to which the train is going. However, the episode tackled this in a mental way by targetting what seems to be bothering the person in order to “redirect” the nerves back in place. Like what Irabu said while diagnosing Bando: To solve a problem, fix it at the source.

I have no idea if throwing with that stance really is something strange. Still, serious Gay Irabu is smexy and delicious, but that’s just me!

But Bando’s problems aren’t as easy as we think they are. He’s old enough to be called a legend, he’s proven himself long enough, and everyone thinks he’s past his peak. Worse, he’s got a rookie in his team that’s willing to replace him. Add on the fact that he doesn’t know what to do in case the worst case scenario happens, and his mind’s a smorgasbord for insanity to dig in. It is enough reason to panic, indeed, but is it really as hopeless as he sees it?

Surely, he has given the thought giving way while living his way on the downhill slope of his career. He knows it will end, it will end like how it’s being laid out, and it’s happening on a steady pace. Thus, the real problem, the source of all his problems, surfaced: is he willing to accept this option? The pride as a legend, the fame he bathes in, and the hopelessness of his would-be later life seemed to make him hesitate to the point of stubbornness. This is why he sports an old bronco’s head: Stubborn, not willing to be tamed, and sometimes stupid to the point where one would have to pound sense.

Old Bronco.

In the end, he gave up after knowing he’s not the only one who’s subjected to the pressure, which was shown when he tried to pry third baseman rookie Suzuki away from the Yakuza of the first episode. He made light of the world, seeing only himself after baseball, and not seeing others aside from himself after baseball. He suddenly realized that knew the cure for his own illness, he just wouldn’t want to accept it. And so, he purposefully gives up fighting the losing battle and accepted that it’s time to prepare for the end, if not accept it.

Still, the other two alter egos of Irabu Ichiro lingered after Mayumi gave the shot. Quite interesting to see that the four episodes have the basis of lingering hallucination and possible influence on their patients. Or maybe the hallucination is being presented to us in a way that we’re the ones “hallucinating” on seeing the other Irabus instead. Interesting, yes…

Full anticipation for the next episode! Psychiatrist healing another psychiatrist? WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN

Further Reading

Yips up close:

Yips – Wikipedia

]]> http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/2815/feed 2 http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/2805 http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/2805#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:15:23 +0000 Shance http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/?p=2805 After pulling off an all-nighter week for the sake of keeping my financial status up and running, I’ve begun to gobble down the backlog of shows that I watch this season. However, Kuchu Buranko/Trapeze still gets me to stop, think twice, and ultimately give in to the mindrape that will follow soon after. Irabu Ichiro is like a drug for the demented, and from a demented person’s point of view, I can say the dementia just passed from him to me and vice-versa. I’m not the only one who savors the show’s goodness, though.

If we could vomit blogs as much as Toriyama can vomit books, I wonder who among us have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

November. ‘Tis the month of writing. People, more specifically bloggers I know, are keeping their creative juices flowing to keep the ideas coming, which they immediately put into words. The very idea of writing transcends from the mind, to the pen or keyboard, and all that’s left is for the world to see. However, what I’ll point out in this post may not be a matter how of the work will be perceived, but how satisfied the writer will be afterward, regardless of the work.

Now, I may be repeating what others have said because of the third episode’s elements having similar counterparts in the blogosphere, but I think I’ll have to point it out again for the sake of the system and the sphere: Most of us writers may not know of this, but there is a hidden responsibility that we must uphold as members of the Fourth Estate. We who provide content to the world must abide by its rules. Grammatical errors must be eliminated, fresh content must be kept pumping to keep people satiated, and the ink on the pen must be kept flowing even at the expense of creative liberty. This is the world of words, and it seems very monotonous, black and white.

Do you know that the idea of whoever comes first between the egg and the chicken is also compared to whoever hatched the other between the book and the author?

Our patient is a romance novelist.  His neurosis is a psychologically induced nausea.  Basically, he’s at the top of his game and he’s got loads of fans.  But he’s starting, like all successful writers do after a certain point, to plagiarize himself.  He knows this, he doesn’t like this, and it makes him want to vomit.  He can’t even keep track of what he’s written about anymore, almost as if his body of work is swallowing him whole.

animekritik (2009/11/2)

For the one who writes, variety is often mistaken as something that must always be new, something that must always be fresh. Sometimes, it even goes to the point where the story is dictated not by the writer, but by the people who read the paperback. You can’t write your favorite pieces, you must always meet the people’s expectations as a writer, and if not, everything else will be as useless as a failed attempt for a bestseller, collecting dust on the shelves, with the author taking critical damage and questioning his integrity, liberty and ability.

It’s come to a point where I’m honestly somewhat scared of making posts that I don’t think people will read. The posts that I take the most pride in or that are on my favorite series are rarely the ones that get a justifiable number of hits/comments. I could do a million and one posts on Boogiepop and Others, but I promise you I wouldn’t get one single comment unless I linked my posts to Andrew Cunningham and begged him to comment on them

21stcenturydigitalboy (2009/11/5)

But must we always be as transparent to the story we weave just so we can reach out to people’s hearts? Must we always think that variety is something that must always be different from what was already seen, heard, or perceived by the masses? Must we keep away from our own masterpieces in a way that it does not connect to the one who wove the words, but the ones who will read them? Is that enough ground for a writer to be content mentally, physically and monetarily? Of course not. There is a choice to end the monotony, and all we have to do is simply write by our own accord. Screw perception, screw your editors, screw everything else. All there is to give importance is the pen, the keyboard, yourself, and the blank sheet of pure white in front of you. Now let yourself run wild with your fantasies and everything will be alright with the world, even if what you wrote didn’t sell, or you kept it to yourself. What’s important is you’re satisfied with it, and could die happy because of it. I don’t know about you guys, but I guess I could go kick the bucket with that.

The pen is indeed mightier than the sword, but its true strength lies to how the pen is used to write the words.

As for the rest of the episode, those with keen eyes would quickly see the tendency of the other two Irabus (Shota and Gay Irabu) to come out ONLY after the patient is given a shot by Mayumi. Another prominent thing to note is that Irabu seems to linger in the patients mind, reading aloud the patient’s thoughts in various instances of the episodes instead of directly intervening with them. Seems our little doc here is more than what meets the eye, but we’ll see about that.

Also, did anyone notice Kugimiya Rie’s voice as Reina?

Further Reading

We who are with the same intent of starting to read the novels like myself:

Kuuchuu Buranko 3 – The Eastern Standard

“Obstruction of Stardom”, another perfect interpretation of the episode:

Trapeze 3: Chicken – Kritik Der Animationskraft

He who writes WITH THE FIST OF AN ANGRY GOD!:

Kuuchuu Buranko 3: Psychosis of the Depressed and Oppresed – Fuzakenna!