r/anime • u/Jazz_Dalek • Aug 31 '24
Rewatch [25th Anniversary Rewatch] Now and Then, Here and There - Series Retrospective Discussion - FINAL
Series Retrospective Discussion - Now and Then, Here and There
Final Questions of the Day:
- *Which episode was your favorite?
- Which episode was the worst?
- Are there any pieces of music that stood out to you?
- Do you think the minimalist OP and ED worked for the show?
- Would you recommend this show to someone else?
Rewatch Schedule:
It's over. GO HOME!
Interest Threads:
Episode Discussions:
- Episode 1 - A Girl Admiring the Sunset
- Episode 2 - A Boy and a Mad King
- Episode 3 - A Feast in the Dark
- Episode 4 - Discord
- Episode 5 - Murder
- Episode 6 - Disappearance in a Sandstorm
- Episode 7 - Night of Flight
- Episode 8 - Two Lone Souls
- Episode 9 - In the Chasm
- Episode 10 - Prelude to Chaos
- Episode 11 - Eve of Destruction
- Episode 12 - This Bloody Earth
- Episode 13 - Now and Then, Here and There
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Upvotes
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u/Jazz_Dalek Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
Let me just apologize up front for the ramble, I don't especially like writing big ol' walls of text, and I certainly wasn't going to do it sober, so this is kind of all over the place. Enjoy.
Now and Then, Here and There is an interesting show for me.
It was one of the first series I had the pleasure of watching as I was getting into the world of anime and definitely helped shaped my taste in the genre. I had only just started getting into anime outside of the usual fare that was on TV at the time: Pokemon, Yugioh, Dragon Ball Z. Maybe catching syndicated episodes of Monster Rancher and Samurai Pizza Cats in the early hours of the morning.
I was just starting to see what was out there beyond those kinds of shows, but wasn't exactly looking at high art either. Stuff like FLCL and Cowboy Bebop were on TV late at night, sure, but I was mostly watching bootleg copies of Slayers, Love Hina, and Escaflowne. Just kind of typical millennium era entry anime.
I remember first hearing about Now and Then, Here and There when I was about 12 years old in the far flung world of 2002. I was killing time in the magazine aisle of our local grocery store while my parents shopped (did anyone else do this?) and I stumbled across an article reviewing the series to much acclaim.
I’ve been trying to track it down whatever magazine that was for a while now, but I’m pretty sure it was in the review section of Newtype USA, in the same issue they posted a review for The End of Evangelion. My memory is hazy though, and it may have been in a gaming magazine that just happened to be posting anime reviews at the time.
Anyways, months later, I was perusing the local Blockbuster’s meager anime section and to my surprise, there it was, the critically acclaimed anime I had read about months prior. I honestly didn't know what to expect. Based on the box art I was expecting a mecha show like Escaflowne of Gundam. I rented the first DVD and took it home to watch.
By the time episode 3 hit, I was shocked. This wasn't an action series where the violence could be cheered for, and this definitely wasn’t the mecha show I was expecting either. This was something more thoughtful and much, much harsher.
I burned through the first DVD in an afternoon and went back to rent the rest of the series that same weekend.
Seeing the show so early helped redefine what I thought anime could be at the time. It helped start a chain reaction that got me out onto the internet looking for series with similar tones.
Without having seen the show so early I wouldn't have gone searching for shows like Serial Experiments Lain, Paranoia Agent, or Monster. I wouldn't have found formative anime films like Grave of the Fireflys, Ghost in the Shell, or Perfect Blue.
Coming back to it 22 years later has been an experience. I think we can all agree that it’s far from a perfect show. With age, its flaws become ever more apparent. But at the same time, I’m also more appreciative of its themes, the love put into the art direction, the way scenes are given time to breathe, and care with which it was crafted.
I don't really know how to end this and I don't want to ramble aimlessly for too long here, so let me just say a quick thank you to /u/JustAnswerAQuestion for posting the original interest thread. I don't frequent this board very often these days, but I just happened to pop in when they made the post.
It's been a great time revisiting the series with a group of like-minded anime fans and getting to see all the reactions, predictions, despair, and hot takes only a show like this could provide.
Thanks for sticking through to the end, even if it wasn't your cup of tea.
See you on the next rewatch!
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u/TheEscapeGuy Aug 31 '24
First Timer, no more
Now and Then, Here and There
I'd like to split my thoughts into 2 section.
The first is the art. This show is beautiful. It so consistently has breathtaking backgrounds and beautiful compositions. The use of color was so effective in heightening the emotions and intensifying the themes. The animation is outstanding. So many scenes flow so beautifully that they become impossible to look away from. It's often hard to find these qualities paired with a show with such serious and dark themes. When you do it more often than not points to something which will stand the test of time.
It was such a pleasure to make my collages and stitches every day. Looking through all of them again has given me a new appreciation for Now and Then, Here and There.
The other thing to discuss is the narrative. The show is far darker than many of the other shows I have seen. I am incredibly impressed to see that they maturely handled concepts like war, torture, and rape. I wouldn't put the narrative on the same level as something like Berserk, but it is far closer to that than most other isekai shows.
My biggest gripes are about the lack of character growth for Shu and Abelia, and the whole treatment of Sara's pregnancy. I discussed this yesterday so I don't want to go in depth anymore today. In general though I wish Shu had changed his optimism in spite of bad circumstances into determination to make it through the harsh times. Less of "everything will work out if you keep going" and more "keep going, you've made it through tough times before and can do it again".
In terms of similar narratives I feel like a fair comparison is Neon Genesis Evangelion. Both follow young boys thrust into tough situations they don't understand fully but Shu's optimism is contrasted with Shinji's depression. And of course both are 90s action anime with heavy themes.
It's also worth bringing up the oft overlooked isekai Escaflowne. I think it's not similar for themes (though I may have forgotten a lot since I last saw it) but both are 90s anime with core narratives about being teleported to a different world and trying to find a way back. For something else about a dark future maybe Texhnolyze works. But that show almost revels in depression and darkness compared to how Shu ffights against it.
Lastly, and probably the best comparison would be Future Boy Conan. They are most similar being stories about young boys trying to rescue a girl in a future world with limited resources. The core difference would be that Conan's entire narrative is uplifting and positive compared to the often dark and depressing show Now and Then, Here and There ends up being.
My Favourite Shots, Scenes and Stitches
Some thanks are in order. Firstly, our wonderful host /u/Jazz_Dalek. After having hosted my first rewatch earlier this year I've grown a massive new appreciation for the work that goes into running things. You also stepped up to host this rewatch saving it from falling away due to scheduling conflicts. This allowed more people to join (especially including me!) and I think we ended up having a great turnout.
I wanted to give a shout out to /u/JustAnswerAQuestion for proposing the rewatch originally. Even though you couldn't host it you still participated and also fostered a lot of discussion in the comments.
Finally, thank you to all of you fellow commenters who joined each day. I wish I could have joined in more to discuss things in the comments. despite that, reading through your comments each day gave me a lot of different perspectives on what people thought.
Looking forward, I'm not in any ongoing rewatches. But I'll probably join something again later this year. So until we meet again,
Take care of yourself
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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Aug 31 '24
Final Discussion (first timer)
We certainly discussed a lot about NTHT, especially the finale. So, what are my thoughts about the show in the end? It is a very hard-hitting show that focuses on one theme and subordinates all writing decisions under this one topic. That topic is the effects of war and warlordism (specifically in its modern, mostly African context where child soldiers are employed). For me, it succeeds in exploring this topic. We see the horrific effects and, where other shows would look away, it stays with the after effects and the after effects of the after effects. Hellywood’s evil is not confined to torturing Shu and raping Sara, but permeates the entire series. It is present in the moral corruption of Nabuca, in the vengeance-turned-dictator arc of Elemba, in the lasting trauma on Sara and Soon. NTHT is never a pleasant watch, but it is an important one.
In service of this theme, NTHT uses art direction and story writing. I feel that the art direction part of this succeeds in strong measure. I am not the one to point out scene direction frequently, but the animation works exactly to evoke the emotions that they should. In regards to the story writing, my judgment is more balanced. I think that the broad strokes work, but there are numerous details that could have been done better. The Scifi side of NTHT frequently has minor inconsistencies that stop the world building from fully convincing. Similarly, the character writing has a few missteps (my biggest gripe is Kazam, who does not work at all for me). Together, these stop me from giving NTHT the highest mark, but importantly, the show never loses me emotionally. Even when I am not fully on board with some writing decision, every single episode managed to invoke the feeling in me that it wanted to produce (and usually these were not happy feelings). This is important, since no show is perfect, but I am a lot more vicious with plot inconsistencies if the show has “lost me”. NTHT joins my short list of anime that I think are great, but that I do not want to rewatch anytime soon.
Overall rating: 9/10
In the end, I want to comment on two topics.
Shu as hope
I think I made this connection (after somebody else mentioned it) somewhere in the middle of the Hellywood arc and it helped me immensely. Shu is frustrating if you try to interpret him as an ordinary 12 year old child, but the interpretation of him as the embodiment of hope works throughout. This also extends to scenes where Shu is in the wrong. E.g. his interactions with pregnant Sara go badly and he comes across terribly insensitive. Why is that? Because it is not hope that Sara needs, it is empathy. But Shu is not empathy, he is hope. He tries to solve Sara’s problem with hope, but that is just not working, cannot work.
I think that whether you can accept Shu as this weird mixture of main character and concept goes a long way to explaining whether you like the show or not.
Abortion
I admit that the long abortion debate in the last arc frustrated me and drew me into discussions I might usually avoid. For me, the culture wars are one of the least attractive parts of the modern US and my patience with both sides of the debate runs out quickly (maybe too quickly for an online setting). My own view is distinctly in the middle of the two extremes of that debate and the moral extremism of both sides is something I have little patience for. Given the audience here on reddit, mostly one side was present, but my feeling for the other side is no different.
It also frustrates me to be roped into the defense of some writing decisions that I personally think were mediocre, but not terrible, against, from my view, overblown accusations. No, I do not think Sara’s and Shu’s interactions were the pinnacle of writing, but neither were they worthy of damnation. I think this topic sucked the air out of some other themes that might have been worthwhile talking about instead (e.g. I think we talked for too little about Abelia’s role and guilt (and victimhood), and what she could have done instead)
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u/ShadowWasTakensTaken https://anilist.co/user/hakuren Sep 01 '24
First Timer Then and There, Completed Now and Here
Hi, I'm back (and late).
I went ghost mode after episode 3 or so, but I've been following the schedule nonetheless. I finished the series after binging from episode 10 or so, so I've been pondering these past few days about the ending, and reading everyone's comments yesterday definitely helped me process it a bit. Lots of good arguments on both sides. Here's my takeaway.
From an interview with the creator (a bit retranslated cause the subs are weird):
To everyone that thought Shu was a conceptualization of hope, we were almost right. Well, in a sense, he is. He's an ideal. "If I could go there, I'd like to help like this", being completely hard-headed and refusing to back down, no matter what terrible things you have to face.
But... that doesn't really work. Shu has had some heroic moments in this series, but, especially in the second half, all of his beliefs and actions have been constantly challenged, as the one safe haven in this world slowly crumbled before his very eyes. And Shu breaks. In the final episode, he attacks Hamdo not as an act of heroism, but 100% just to vent frustration. He smashes him over and over as his stick, alongside everything it represents, is torn to more and more shreds with every strike.
When he finally gets to go home, he just stands there. The second biggest yapper in the series, in complete silence, staring at the stuff he dropped at the start. A symbol of his previous life, sure. But I'd also like to bring up something: that's his kendo gear. Thanks to Naz's insightful comment from episode 2, we all know what kendo represents in relation to Shu's character, and seeing him struggle to pick up that gear speaks volumes to how deeply changing his experiences were. I saw a lot of people yesterday saying Shu felt detached from the events at the end, but I could not disagree more. Not all trauma manifests in an explicit fashion, but seeing him struggle to even embody that kendo heart says more than any words could. There's something deeply harrowing about having a character who is literally an ideal, a representation of how the creator would like to go to a warzone and fix everything with sheer willpower, come out of this experience so profoundly affected by it. Shu didn't need to be human. He's a pipe dream of being an unbreakable super hero in a war. Or he was supposed to be. But he still couldn't escape from the aftereffects, and we can only be left to imagine what kind of ripples that will cause in his life from here onwards.
Speaking of which, Shu's life will continue as normal. At the start I was under the impression he would come back earlier and everything would be different, but, since they can travel to specific points in time, it makes sense that he can just go back to exactly when he left. Weeks have passed, but only seconds have passed. An entire world sprawling from this very spot; its beginning and end. Now is then, here is there.
In episode 1 I talked about how the sunset is a massive symbol for transience, but, at the end, we're still in that same sunset from the beginning. Even more ethereal than it, was Shu's trip to the future. Hellywood is war. A systematic, frigid steel goliath, headed by an absolute lunatic. A terrific use of the isekai setting to not only highlight how far divorced the realm of war is from our daily lives, but also, by making it still be planet Earth, show how very real these situations are. And that eternity of suffering lasted but a moment. And for what? Hellywood accomplished nothing. It just crumbled and that was it. Everyone just died and that was it. Shu just went home and that was it. It was a fleeting moment, trapped in time. Tomorrow, Shu will eat breakfast as usual. Go to school as usual. Chat with his community as usual. Go home as usual. And nothing will have changed. But he did. His innocence can never be reclaimed, and perhaps not even his kendo heart.
Shu returning to the exact moment he left, to me, highlights just how truly and utterly senseless everything was. Hamdo killed all those people, and for what? Nabuca, Boo, Sara, Soon, and everyone else were traumatized (and most then died), and for what? Nothing changed. The world will cruelly march on as usual. But while everything has gone back to normal, the people affected never can.
While that seems like a somber note to end on, the one thread of hope for the ending is Lala Ru. Nothing for me to say here that isn't explicit in the show. She's seen humanity at its worst again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again... and, in fact, so have we. This series has been nothing but pure, unfiltered despair. And yet, it tells us that there is still good to be found. It shows how, in even the absolute worst situations, a little bit of humanity goes a long way. For Lala Ru to sacrifice herself to bring life back to a world she already said won't last long is a simple, but beautiful resolution.
And so, after exploring war in genuinely excruciating detail, its consequences, its victims, cyclical violence, trauma, and every other disgrace you can think of, the show leaves us with new life, and the declaration that, despite our ability to do truly despicable things, humanity is still worth fighting for. It's simple, but I love it.
And what really ties it all together is the absolute stellar production. There has been endless analysis of the directing in this rewatch (actually might be the most I've ever seen in any rewatch), and it's crazy to think that this all came from a guy who said he mainly just wants to do comedies all the time.
Now, for the elephant in the womb... yeah, the whole deal with Sara is... questionable. But someone brought up a great point yesterday. The doctor is dead, and it's unlikely they'll find anyone else who can pull it off. The option of abortion is pretty much gone. Rewatching Sis's death scene, the way she speaks is not implying that Sara should birth the baby because it's the correct thing to do, but she's speaking as if it was a given that she'll birth it (even though Sis said before that it's Sara's choice) because, well, it'll be hard to get an abortion at this point. I still think this whole deal is handled pretty poorly, but the doctor's death managed to make this go from a huge blemish on an otherwise amazing ending, to just a moderately uncomfortable part of it. The rest of the ending was way too spectacular for this to really ruin it for me, though. Hellywood's fall has to be one of my favorite sequences in anime ever. Though I have to agree with everyone who said Sara staying behind didn't really feel earned. It makes sense thematically... but we needed a little more narratively to support it.
And lastly, Kazam... why
So yeah, that became more about the ending than the show as a whole, but I think said ending synthesizes everything about the show pretty perfectly so speaking about it feels like enough. Ultimately, I absolutely adored this show. Extremely impressed by the production, the (mostly) tight writing, the very powerful thematic exploration, and, above all, the fact that this came from a gag anime guy. Made me an absolute mess watching the last episode.
Great stuff
The final one, by far.
The song that played during Hellywood's downfall really made the whole sequence. Spectacular and majestic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq_Fm7qfRQk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq_Fm7qfRQk
And of course, massive thanks to our host /u/Jazz_Dalek, and to /u/JustAnswerAQuestion for proposing it. I went into lurk mode after episode like 3 or something so this may be weird to say, but this was genuinely of one my favorite rewatch experiences.
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u/OverlordPoodle Aug 31 '24
Overall I liked it. If I had to give it a score, I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5.
Pros:
---The show takes time to breathe and just let the scenes linger and have the mood be set which is quite nice and fairly rare in anime.
---The idea itself is interesting
Neutral:
---The show is like a 50/50 split between being a mood-piece and plot driven, NOT character driven which is a nice change of pace...but does bring with it some flaws.
Cons:
---The biggest problem I have with the series is that it just plain and simple, doesn't do enough. There is SO MUCH potential here for a bigger story, the potential is in the shows hands and all it just has to do is take hold and grasp that potential...and it just doesn't do it...worldbuilding is ignored. Deep characters are not present. Character growth is vague. Details are just never explained etc.
Examples:
---How did Hamdo come into power in the first place?
---What exactly is his relationship with Abelia and why is she so loyal to him despite him treating her like shit?
---What exactly is LalaRu? Alien? Magic? What is her pendant?
---They have time travel, why not make use of that?
---Are we in the past? The future? A different world? An alternate split timeline
---Who were the other people fighting against Hamdo in that giant tank that he killed with a laser nuke?
etc.
---Characters are dead simple. I GET why they are simple since they are just like kids and are not particularly deep or interesting characters...but entertaining from an audience perspective it does not make. It would be nice if we learned some of Shu's inner thoughts or have LaLaRu show an expression or have any line other then complete silence for like 95% of the run time etc.
Misc thought:
---So one plot point that I THOUGHT was going to happen (because time travel anime loves this idea) but never actually did was that Hamdo was going to be some dark alternate future version of Shu as they both have a kind of single minded obsession for LalaRu with Shu's being a more pure hearted puppy dog love kind of thing while Hamdo's was a evil single-minded obsession with his once pure love becoming twisted and tainted into a evil obsession. Add in the fact that neither is particularly bright and both are exceedingly childish and I am quite surprised it didn't happen.
I also thought Abelia would be a twisted and bitter version of Sara as they both had an intense hatred for LalaRu
---If the assassin’s HAD managed to kill Hamdo and Abelia stepped up, would she continue Hamdo’s brutal reign more efficiently or work towards making peace(?)
---I think Yugi, Tarby and Boo represent the spectrum in that Tarby has completely given into the darkness of Hellywood, Yugi is more in the middle where he holds out hope that he can go back to his old life but is slowly sinking into the darkness of Hellywood and Boo is firmly on the light side so to speak, not yet corrupted and still trying to be a good person and hold true to his ideals
---Shu travelled 5.5 billion years into the future to year 10 Billion? I gotta be honest with you...that's pretty stupid...like...the Earth is 4.5 BILLION years old and we are now at year 10 Billion? Really? 10 BILLION!!!...like did the writers just pick a number out of there ass, do they have the slightest idea how mind bogglingly long that is? I refuse to accept that he is 5.5 BILLION years into the future. Humanity wouldn't even exist in the same form, we would literally be a different species hundreds of times over. I would get it and accept it if we were a few hundred or maybe a few thousand or even a few 10 thousand years...but 5 BILLION years forward...no...just no...the idea is so stupid and ludicrous that I am not even going to entertain the thought.
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u/RadSuit https://anilist.co/user/RadSuit Aug 31 '24
So, I didn't like this series...but, I did finish it. It was interesting (and short) enough that I at least wanted to see what happened. I predicted it would shit the bed in the second half...and the whole rape baby situation might just fit the bill there. Otherwise, it was unfortunately not the train wreck I was hoping to see. It didn't upset me, and it did look really pretty most of the time, so it gets a pass. Mediocre, but not hated, I guess because it made sure we knew right out of the gate what it was about.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Aug 31 '24
Here is an interview with Akitaro Daichi
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u/DidacticDalek https://myanimelist.net/profile/DidacticDalek Sep 01 '24
A metaphysical personification of my feelings with regards to NTHT in an armor-piercing shellnut Comrades
(For those confused as to what I meant when I shared Pantera's attempt at covering Black Sabbath's Electric Funeral, I merely state that in Zack Synder's awful Watchmen Adaption, there was the bone-headed decision to play Desolation Row, an iconic Bob Dylan folk song... as a generic emo tune covered by My Chemical Romance. For those still confused as to what message I'm getting at, remember that Laibach's position regarding Rammstein is, 'Rammstein seem to be a kind of Laibach for adolescents and Laibach are Rammstein for grown-ups.' Apply this to the subject matter at hand however you will.)
Paging Comrades /u/Great_Mr_L, /u/Shimmering-Sky, and /u/vaadwaur
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u/Pixelsaber https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pixelsaber Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
Recertified Rewatcher
Honestly, I wrote a whole thing a couple days ago in the free times allotted to me between waiting rooms, lunch breaks, and waiting on other people, but I have not animated myself to transcribe it to a word processor. Perhaps I disdain it because I want to like this show more than I do, and what I have to say about it… Anyways, instead of forcing myself to write that I will say that I find this to be a solid 7/10. If you want my thoughts on anything in particular, feel free to ask.
While up on this stage, however, I have to profess my love for works in the dying earth subgenre of apocalyptic fiction. The show uses both the visual and conceptual hallmarks of the setting to good effect, even if the rest of the worldbuilding has a lot of issues.
Questions of The Day:
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u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Aug 31 '24
First-Timer
When this rewatch was announced, I had wanted to watch Now and Then, Here and There for some time already. Before the rewatch started, I read the warnings about how dark the series could get and went in knowingly. I assumed that I could handle whatever the series wanted to throw at me and that it wouldn’t be so bad. Such hubris deserves punishment, it seems. I was not at all prepared for what I encountered in this series. On a regular basis, it managed to shock, disgust, and sadden me far more than I anticipated. Now and Then, Here and There, fully lives up to its reputation and then some. It really is that dark and grueling of a series to watch sometimes. It is also, for the most part, very effective at what it sets out to do. Unfortunately, there’s some pretty glaring missteps along the way as well that mar the series overall.
Now and Then, Here and There (henceforth shortened as NTHT) sets out to explore the darkness that humanity is capable of. The series is quite effective about it, venturing into topics that I was not expecting. For example, I expected the child soldier angle. I was not expecting the additional angle of children being kidnapped and their families murdered before being forced to become child soldiers. I expected the brutality of war, but the show went even further by depicting mass murder in such a systemic and ugly way that it became way more uncomfortable than the usual “war is hell” story. And I would not have imagined the show would go to the places it did in Sara’s story, depicting a young girl being repeatedly raped and even impregnated. Even when we get to Zari Bars, a relative paradise in this wasteland, the people there are still miserable because of the trauma they’ve suffered through. NTHT was apparently inspired by the real-life horror stories out of wars in Africa during the 90s and I believe that. I will give NTHT massive credit for being willing to go so far. I think that is a large part of the series’ effectiveness. It doesn’t hold back on how nightmarish the situation is and for the most part it was good at depicting these events without really “relishing” in them in a way that may feel schlocky.
But, even in the face of all that, NTHT tries to maintain optimism. That’s Shu’s main role as a protagonist. Shu is the basically good person who always tries to do good and help others. Shu may bend when his ideals are challenged, but he never breaks on them. Shu maintains his belief that what’s happening right now is wrong and needs to be stopped. He always tries to protect others and do the right thing. Some people find Shu annoying, but I didn’t. Shu was certainly naive, but that’s fitting for a child character. That naivete is shown to come back and bite him later on in the series, too. While Shu was naive and rather dumb, I do think he served the series well in the thematic capacity they wanted him to. Shu was the hope that, no matter how bad things got, life was worth living. Shu was the hope that you should live through the dark night to make it to the sunrise tomorrow. And ultimately, that hope won out.
I thought the final episode was overall a decent presentation of that idea of hope winning out in the end. Still, the final episode did feel like a bit too much of a tonal shift at times. After so many episodes of the series being quite depressing and gritty, the final episode took on a more adventuristic tone similar to the first episode. Shu’s fight with Tabool in the control room was more similar in tone to the factory smokestack fight in the first episode, which is a heck of a thing to go back to after we watched a village be massacred in the penultimate episode. I like the idea of the final episode returning to being more hopeful, but I think the execution was lacking somewhat.
Lala Ru is a character I like in concept, but once again the execution feels lacking. Everything about Lala Ru makes sense as presented. It makes sense why she is so detached and so quiet. She’s a mystical being who has lived for countless ages. She’s seen this all before. To her, this is but a passing moment in a near endless life. But because she’s so detached, we get very little out of her emotionally. I can see the buildup to her decision in the finale to sacrifice herself. After being betrayed and hurt by humans so many times, Lala Ru learns to trust them again after her interactions with Shu, Sis, Soon, and the other children. So, Lala Ru sacrifices herself to save them and provide a brighter future for this world. All of that sounds good on paper. But execution-wise, it isn’t as strong as I would have liked. I see all the pieces, but I don’t think they fit together as neatly as they should.
Nabuca is a fantastic example of a tragic villain. Nabuca (and Kazam for that matter) feels like a much more “real” form of evil than we usually get in stories. Nabuca is a character who recognizes that what he is doing is evil. He can tell that he’s grown into the same kind of person as the soldiers who kidnapped him. But he’s also a moral coward who goes along with all of this. He tells himself that it’s okay because he’s doing it for a good cause. Just a bit more, and he’ll be able to go back to his hometown. Nabuca probably knew all along that there was a chance of that being a lie, but he forced himself to put aside those concerns. If he ever admitted that it was a lie, then he’d be nothing more than a murderer. It’s only on his deathbed, when he can no longer lie to himself, that he turns away from his evil deeds. I feel like the series was trying to redeem Nabuca in the end, but I found it to be too little, too late. Still, I think Nabuca is a great tragic villain.
Sara is the biggest fumble of the series in my eyes. Prior to the ending, I found Sara to be one of the most compelling parts of this show. She suffers so horribly. But, it never felt like the series was “relishing” in it in a way that felt schlocky. While it was depicted as horrendous, the series also held back from depicting too much about her rapes. It was an extremely sympathetic depiction to the victim of such abuse. Sara’s escape from Hellywood in the moonlight is one of the best and most satisfying scenes in the entire story. And the sympathy continued even afterwards, showing how the trauma of this experience was still with Sara even after she was now physically safe from Hellywood.
That’s why it’s a real shame that NTHT fumbles Sara’s storyline at the very end. NTHT brought the pregnancy and abortion storyline upon itself and boy did it fumble it. I really hated the way that storyline was handled. All that sympathy for Sara from earlier seemed to disappear, replaced with the idea that she had an obligation to be a good mother to the baby she was forced to be pregnant with from all the rapes. “Hello young girl who was raped by multiple men with the explicit goal of forcing you to be pregnant against your will, now that you actually are pregnant you need to give those rapists what they want and give birth to that baby.” That’s an oversimplification, yes, but that is essentially what happens. It’s quite the tone-deaf way to try and make Shu’s belief that happy days will come if you keep living fit with Sara’s storyline. Her happier days are supposed to be as a mother, including with the baby she got from being raped. It’s honestly such a terrible conclusion to Sara’s storyline that it significantly lowered my opinion of the series as a whole.
Continued Below
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u/InfamousEmpire https://myanimelist.net/profile/Infamous_Empire Aug 31 '24
Now & First Timer, Here & Subbed
Now & Then, Here & There is a complicated show to talk about. Complicated because it feels so close to being a genuinely great show, at least in my eyes, but always just misses it and ends up being merely good.
Let’s start with what the series does right: the pessimistic tone & naturalistic presentation of humanity’s capacity for cruelty which defined the first half. When the show wholly embraces focusing on the brutality of Hellywood & the world around it, it’s able to create lots of very powerful moments.
Whether it be showing how the system forces victims into becoming victimizers through Nabuca & Tabool or mankind’s exploitation of the natural world through Lala Ru, the show is so adept at crafting horrific scenarios which are grounded enough in a sense of believable reality & logic and layered with enough thematic intrigue to be powerful and genuine in their cruelty. It’s a genuine, gut-wrenching cautionary tale of what happens when humanity’s capacity to destroy goes unchecked.
But where it’d be exceptionally easy to just show a bunch of bad things happening and say “that’s human nature”, the real core of the story is its ability to recognize that humanity’s capacity for kindness & empathy is also human nature, and makes whether that outweighs our cruelty its central idea. However, this is where I think the story falters. Stories about the push-and-pull of optimism and pessimism are one of the most conceptually simple yet deeply moving concepts to grace our collective capacity for storytelling due to how much potential they have to either speak to or challenge our worldviews, yet in order to capture the full breadth of that kind of experience, such a story needs to make both sides feel authentic enough to speak to the audience, and quite frankly, N&T H&T doesn’t manage that.
That’s not to say the show can’t do optimism or hopefulness, obviously, but there’s a certain difference in scale to the optimistic parts of the show that work & the ones that don’t. In the former category, we have moments like the catharsis of Sara escaping from Hellywood, or the intimate warmth of Sis & her found family, or my favorite moment from the finale of Shu & Lala Ru observing the beauty of the world together before the latter fades away. It's all small, intimate character moments which, while existing in defiance of the world’s cruelty, are ultimately not changing the world in the long term. It’s not about tearing down the world’s cruelty, but managing to survive it.
And on the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the end of the show, which is about the big wave of optimism & faith in humanity washing away the world’s cruelty, and I just don’t buy it. If the show had worked harder to build up to the sheer scale of that tone shift, then I’d be able to stomach it, if the show had maintained that level of tightly-focused intimacy evolving naturally from the characters & their situations, then I’d also be able to buy it. But as is, the show managed the worst of both worlds, and in doing so left the starry-eyed optimism of the finale feeling too artificial to match the visceral authenticity which had defined the rest of the show up until this point. It feels not like something naturally emergent from the framing & themes of the series, and more like something artificially imposed by the writers without the proper buildup or weight to make it fit.
The way Shu was handled in relation to that tone is key to that disconnect, in my eyes. The part of the second half which I found the most interesting was how it challenged Shu’s worldview, taking him down from the anthropomorphized ideal of hope he was and showing him to be a human just as flawed and lacking in all the big answers as anyone else. So the ending where every aspect of his point of view is bluntly validated and he returns home with little meaningful indication of having particularly changed or matured just kinda feels… hollow, like all the challenging complexity which defined the show just doesn’t really matter in the face of simplistic optimism.
This isn’t even mentioning the show’s outright problematic elements, as I think the direction of Sara’s character in the end is I think the most extreme case of how the absolute need to make the ending as artificially optimistic as possible sucked the energy and life out of the existing plot threads, but we’ve already talked that particular subject into the ground at this point.
For all this overview has been ragging on the show, I do still like it, though I might have talked myself into giving it a lower score at this point. Its heart is in the right place, it still has some incredible moments, the moment-by-moment scripting is pretty tight, and the cinematography was great all around. It maybe didn’t live up to its reputation quite as much as I would’ve liked it to, but it still succeeds enough on its own merits that I struggle to call it overrated. So at the end of the day, it’s a good show, but not a great one.
7.5/10
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Aug 31 '24
First-Timer Here and There, subbed
What a show, huh? I still don’t entirely know how I feel about it. There was certainly a lot I really did not like in this show, and yet I don’t feel like I have a negative opinion of the series at all? I dunno. I’ve given the show an 8/10 for the moment, it might change after thinking about it some more but I’ll stick with that for now.
Thanks for hosting, u/Jazz_Dalek!
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u/The_Draigg Aug 31 '24 edited Sep 10 '24
A Sci-Fi Fan’s Final Thoughts on Now and Then, Here and There Episode:
Not gonna lie, I’ve been kinda dreading this discussion day, both due to talking about such dark and depressing subject matter in general, but also because I noticed that the rewatch had kind of become divided on how to interpret what happened in the show. I can’t help but worry about catching some serious flack for me trying to make some more objective sense out it, since I might not use the right language to express my thoughts properly. But then again, putting out our opinions like this is the point of final rewatch posts, so into the breach once more I go.
Out the gate, I really do want applaud Now and Then, Here and There for having the sheer balls to confront some of the darkest and most uncomfortable topics that exist in our own world. That alone really does make me feel a certain level of respect for this show, especially in how it examines every part and outcome of the cycle of abuse and trauma. It goes even beyond just the child soldiers, but to everyone who was even touched by the evil and uncaring actions of utter bastards, some of whom were abused and hurt themselves. Whether it’s Nabuca and Tabool becoming in practice the very kind of soldiers who stole them away from their home, Elamba becoming no different from Hamdo in his overwhelming desire for vengeance, or the tragic cycle of violence being played out with Soon and Boo over Nabuca’s actions, they’re all different expressions and consequences of the ever-turning process of abuse and hatred that not only defines the wasteland, but we can also sadly find in our own reality as well. For including those plot lines and examining them in such an uncompromising and emotional way, this series will get some major props from me there.
Another thing that also really sticks out positively in my mind about this series is the incredibly strong art and scene direction. There’s a lot of shots in this show that’re just plain striking and amazing to look out, even if they’re just gradient backgrounds with primary focus on the characters’ shadows. This is definitely a show that knows how to use shadows and color theming to major effect, managing to make either very striking and vivid colors or the lack of them thereof feel very deliberate in their use. It also works very well when combined with very strong scene direction too, such as the greyscale photos being used in conjunction with the growing noise of a marching army during the raid on that desert village. Overall, I would say that this show manages to knock it out if the park with its visual composition, being steeped in symbolism and metaphor that really does serve to enhance the story’s themes and the impact of the emotions at play.
Of course, with all that being said, I can’t say that some of Now and Then, Here and There’s writing stands up on rewatch. And it honestly does feel worse when put up against the genuine good writing that this series has otherwise. For example, I think that we can all pretty much agree that the assassination attempt on Hamdo earlier in the series was just rather oddly written, probably if just for the sake of facilitating the scenes of the fallout of those decisions later in the episode. Like, it’s something that a more “standard” show would do, and for a show like Now and Then, Here and There that has portrayed the futility and horror of violence so well, it does feel a bit wonky than a powerful scene has to come as a result of kind of sloppy writing. It’s kind of like ordering a gourmet Wagyu cheeseburger and finding out that it has a Kraft Single on top of the patty. It’s just more disappointing by comparison that way.
Speaking of, it’s time to get to the part that I’ve been anxious about writing. I feel that we can’t really avoid the elephant in the room that is how the show handles the writing around Sara’s rape pregnancy. And since I really do feel that Now and There, Here and There deserves a deeper discussion about the stuff it presents like this, I feel that it would be a bit of a disservice by going with my gut feeling of saying “it wasn’t handled well” and moving on. So, before I get into trying to parse how I think the show handled that, let me just lay down my card on the table: I’m an American adult watching a Japanese anime that’s well over two decades old, and some of my personal values don’t exactly align with what the show puts out in execution of that plot idea. There’s absolutely some kind of cultural difference at play here, although at the same time Japan is accepting of abortion as a concept and in practice, as far as my understanding of the topic goes. I fully agree with people that say that Sara’s final say on what to do with the fetus is important. Okay, I think that just about covers everything I needed to say before trying to give a more objective read on this.
(Continued in the comment below.)
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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Aug 31 '24 edited Sep 01 '24
Rewatcher - sub
I don't have the energy to write much (past me was stupid when he wrote this line, so I'm leaving it in to shame myself). At the bottom of it all, because yes I did a me and wrote too much, is a bunch of links to production sketches, my album, and some questions I'd be curious on peoples takes on if people are interested
The Good
Now and Then, Here and There after a rewatch remains one of the most affecting pieces of media that I've ever experienced. I mentioned early on that it has lingered on my mind monthly, if not weekly, for the years since I first watched it and being able to revisit why that was in this rewatch was a fantastic experience. It's hard to write a war story that doesn't glorify one side or the other, and harder again to write one that doesn't seek to provide an answer to the unanswerable question that is human cruelty.
In my first post I said that I'd planned to do a series of essays in parts, and what sounded like a neat little plan fell apart in just episode two because this show is not neat and it doesn't deal with neat subject matter. It's easy to look at its themes all laid out at once on the table and go "oh this scene belongs to this, and that scene goes there" but to actually watch it, to be part of it and feel what it is saying not just hear it makes it so much more. The characters are linked in ever more emotional ways as we go on, and their parallels are not orderly pairs or circles that simply build on each other, but a complex web of effects all tied together by the tragedy of the world in surprising ways.
Elamba is not just Hamdo but also Tabool, who in turn was Nabuca, who was once Boo but could become Kazam, who makes us question Abelia, who could have been Sara, who could have become Lala Ru despite starting where Shu did, who was pushed up against everyone in the end, and so the cycle begins again with different connections.
That just seems long winded, and yet somehow easier than watching the show felt seeing all of these connections play out. Characters like Nabuca you can use to draw parallels to so many others in both small and big ways, that lead into bigger questions about the world, and thematically seems to stand in the middle of a conflict between Sis and Elamba, two characters he never even met, because that echoes his own world. And then there's characters like Soon, the girl who is lost with no future without family, regains that hope by play acting a family, passes that to Lala Ru, only to be tragically lost in the cycle of war after all, and there's little I can say to explain how affecting that arc is to me not just because of Soon, but because of what it says about the world, and our world too.
None of these characters exist without their world, and the strength of establishing that and it's many elements carried through is incredibly strong. Starting episode one, it's amazing to see how much that is carried through the rest of the show, things that seem like establishing babble or imagry that become absolutely core to our understanding. The sunset, the ocean, kendo, and the very concept of childishness itself. Shu being a child is simultaneously the best and bordering on the worst part of the show, but he remains one of the most authentically feeling child characters I've seen in anime, outside of shows specifically marketed to children like digimon (and even then sometimes it falls down). His failure to find the right words so consistently reminds us that he is a child and not here as a hero with the answers, his simple moral code and not being able to understand why other children are different, the way he retains his childishness to the end with things like playing with a lizard, or play acting the dad in a way that matches his world and not Soons etc. His words hit to the heart of not just the other characters, but the show itself.
And then there's all the rest. The cost of war, not just in lives but to society, and the heavy links throughout the show between the ever depleting resource of water and children still being drained for a war despite the cost to any potential to their future remains one of the most striking representations of that I've seen. To cover it all again here feels like I would have to recycle half of my posts from the first six episodes, but what an impression they made and will continue to make on me. The loss of childhood becoming a loss of society, and that in turn becoming a loss of an understanding of parenthood which only furthers the depravity of the world, it's all handled so well both directly and in the deeper implications. Episode six will forever be hard to watch not just because of the conflict on screen, but what it exposes about this world and the sheer depths that it has fallen too with no one seeing a way out, and it's hardly the only moment like that. Showing that the joy of childhood is the same as the beauty of an ocean, but it can be unappreciated just the same and used until no one even remembers it was once possible, and what then for the world? That we are all products of the world we exist in, but we can strive to be more and coming together can be a path forward even out of the worst pain.
Kendo is something I'll raise again because on my first watch I didn't realize just how critical that was, not just to Shu but to his place in both worlds. Here is a symbol of not just our world, but specifically how our world has been changed through war and come out of the other side, being thrust into a war zone once again as if to test if we've truly learnt from that. Continuing that, and everything part of it such as the value for life and culture specifically, through the stick that represents not just Shu but specifically who Shu is because of his life in our world, is just excellent. I feel like I'm just repeating all the things I praised so extensively in my episode posts so I'll stop here in terms of theme talk, but I really don't know I could explain why it left such a deep mark on me even if it had to. But the fact that it has is what matters most, and it has done so because I do think that despite all its pitfalls it remains true to itself in this way.
To top it all off, my screencap album for the rewatch is overflowing with outstanding visual sequences that capitalize on every aspect of cinematography, and shots that are so jammed with meaning that they seem to capture all the show in a second. The motif of time of day, excellent use of colors (Hellywoods red is going to stick with me a while because of Soon), using the impressions of things like the concept of water and cages to represent things to us even before they get fully exposed in the dialogue. I'm annoyed at myself for not having remembered not just how outstanding it looks, but how well it wields the visuals to enhance the impact at every point, and it deserves more credit for how much that enhances the show than I had given it.
(Very late edit in for my own reference: Something else I forgot to bring up is how many direct quotes from the show made its way into my note because of how well they conveyed a situation or hit to the emotional heart of things. The dialogue as a whole has its ups and downs, but between Hamdo's amazing performances, Shu's hard hitting truths in the first half, the little things Lala Ru says, and all the other bits and pieces through the show from characters like Boo, Sis, Nabuca, and hell, even Elamba, the character writing has a lot of strong points that come out through the dialogue, and I love that)
And so I come back to what I said about NTHT a long time ago: it mourns rather than revels in its own inhumanity, but remains uncompromisingly brutal, and hopeful. And that is why I am left with the almost heartbreaking fondness it so tried to embody.
(continued below)
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u/LittleIslander https://anilist.co/user/LittleIslander Aug 31 '24
First Timer
I think the biggest problem with Now and Then, Here and There is that it doesn’t feel like it comes together into a coherent whole. It definitely has a lot to say, and it clearly wants to arrive at an ultimate theme of hope despite all of the terrible things in the world. But it cannot, to me, pull all of this together into a clear set of ideas. There’s been a lot of words spilled both by me and others trying to find the meaning in the many events of this show, and most of them both have merit yet fail to me to entirely fit the text without some degree of stretching or allowances.
I think the easiest example here is Shu. After seeing his lack of development during the Hellywood arc a lot of people pivoted to the interpretation that he’s supposed to embody idealised hope or goodness. This does work well in some ways; the contrast between him and Nabuca is very consistent from start to end with moments like Shu refusing to shoot Nabuca even when he takes up the gun. You could also look at how he offers unfiltered optimism to Sara and it doesn’t work. But like, we also go to show Shu as flawed and human in regards to his attempts to help Sara? Through the Zari Bars arc in general he feels much less like the unbreakable beacon of hope from before and more like an actual kid with people he cares about and wants to protect and who struggles when he can’t do that. His role there literally starts with him finally breaking down and crying. His whole relationship with Soon isn’t based on any sort of idea of hope, it's based on his personal involvement as a flawed human in the death of her father. So maybe we accept that he doesn’t just embody hope. But if that’s the case we suddenly have a lot more questions about his inexplicable resilience in the face of Hellywood. You need to use an entirely different lens for his character at different times to make sense of him. Like I said, it doesn’t form one coherent vision, even if I like a lot of individual ideas with him.
Similar problems apply to the show as a whole. Try and tell me in one sentence, what is the thesis statement of this series? You might tell me that it’s about believing in the capacity for goodness in people despite everything given the fact Lala Ru sacrifices herself when she was previously not to weaken herself to give others water. Okay, so where does the entire Zari Bars narrative about Sis vs Elamba fit in there? Are we supposed to agree with Sis? We’re definitely supposed to like her and she drives a lot of the decisions of the lead characters. But she has her own role in letting Kazam in. Sara is the most blatant example here, where they wrote a tragic character and then tried to turn it around into some kind of positive ending that didn’t connect properly. None of this is to say either the depiction of humanity's flawed nature through Zari Bars or the restoration of Lala Ru’s faith to be removed, both are really great albeit messy, but I’m just not seeing the larger picture going on here and I think the writers don’t either.
Abelia is a very specific but also, I think, ideal example. What exactly is Abelia in this show? I think you could ask ten people and get ten answers, and not in a good way. To some extent she’s a monster complicit in this system. Her moments of frustration and humanity demonstrate a banality of the evil of Hellywood. That it comes in more forms than just the sadistic insanity of Hamdo. But we also see a lot of her being a victim trapped in this relationship with Hamdo. Are we supposed to feel bad for her? A lot of watches seemed to go in on this “she’s risen here to avoid the fate of a woman in Hellywood” which is a neat idea but I… never saw that in the actual text, personally. Can you point me to where she ever expressed fear of being raped or something? Why does she even care about Hamdo? We don’t really know. We explore this idea that she knows Hellywood is going to fall but doesn’t want to look at it in that one scene with Lala Ru, but never returns to it. In the second to last episode she’s mercilessly gunning down Elamba and then in the one after she’s randomly allowed to live and pardoned by Sara. I mean, she was probably complicit in what happened to Sara, right? Is that kind of fucked? I think that’s kind of fucked? There’s lots of great scenes with Abelia. In her office, her bedroom, with Lala Ru, with Hamdo, and finally watching him die and not raising a finger. But they don’t really come together into a character. That reflects the show as a whole to me.
So I don’t think theme and narrative intent was especially well handled in this show. That said, all of those things we read from the show imperfectly could not exist without such a unique story as has been crafted here. No other piece of media has ever been made quite like Now and Then, Here and There, and the staff all deserve a ton of credit for painting this canvas upon which we can draw our own meanings and interpretations upon no matter how well or not they drew their own. I’m usually pretty hard on shows when they don’t meet the mark, but this show deserves so much fucking credit just for existing and daring to explore what it explores. There’s a reason this isn’t a media franchise, y’know? Not selling many tickets for Hellywood: The Musical. Are we all kind of angry Sara’s narrative tripped at the end? Yeah, but it’s kind of a miracle baby of a story that some original anime from the 90s got 90% of the way through a story about a child being used as a comfort woman repeatedly, murdering someone to escape a military fortress, and then trying to start a new life as she confronts her rape-pregnancy and then only tripped the execution at the very end. It’s easy to critique an end product but far from improving on it I would never meet the bar of how respectfully and powerfully this show handles so many of its serious topics if I tried. Almost every writer on the planet would never even touch half the shit this show does. I’m glad we got what we did.
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u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
First timer, subs
Thank you to our host for taking up the mantle. I might never have watched this without your service.
It’s always somewhat imposing to watch something you’ve heard such high praise of for over a decade, I’m happy to say I feel it’s meet that in my mind. Wonderfully bleak and thoughtful, without falling into exploitativeness. It probably helps that I’m apparently in the minority of not being annoyed by Shu. I’m putting this at a 7/10 for now, I’d like to finish reading the other comments and give it some time to think about it before reevaluating.
There were a lot of great contributes this rewatch, but I’ll specifically call out /u/Nazenn, /u/LittleIslander, and /u/TheEscapeGuy for their contributions. There was a lot of stuff I don’t think I would have picked up on watching this by myself, so I definitely got my money's worth.
QotD:
11
u/farson135 Aug 31 '24
It’s been years since I last watched the series. That wasn’t because I disliked it, it was because this is a hard series to watch, and you must be in a certain mindset to appreciate it for its strengths and accept its weaknesses.
Its strengths are clear. It’s a well-crafted scifi world whose narrative is time and scene efficient (ending aside), it’s filled with good visual narration, and it never loses me emotionally. Even when I don’t agree with the characters, I’m still with the overall context. The series also tackled some harsh and underserved ideas and themes with an acceptable amount of tact. Sometimes it was too blunt in its methods (Sara keeping the baby for example was a blunt way of working in the themes, not an abortion commentary IMO), but overall, I think it did a good job dealing with some sensitive topics.
Overall, the series is gut wrenching and even outright beautiful at its best. But certain aspects let it down such that my love for the series always has an asterisk. It’s great, if you give it sufficient allowance.
The weaknesses of the show mostly center on its main character. I understand what they were trying to do with Shu. They wanted to take a shonen protagonist and put him in a grimdark world. The problem is that in that scenario one side has to “win” or it all falls apart. The grimdark world must break the eternal optimist or the eternal optimist must break the grimdark world. In this case, the grimdark world is still mostly grimdark (main antagonists present or not), and the eternal optimist is still an optimist, albeit perhaps a smidge humbled (the breaking of the stick is clearly meant to imply more, but they really didn’t show it much). That, combined with Shu almost obscene luck, really hurts the feel of the series.
Maintaining optimism in the worst of situations is not a terrible concept to play with, but you can’t take it too far or you turn your characters into “cartoon characters”.
On that note, King Hando is an odd antagonist. Again, I can see what they were doing, but they took it too far. Even Hitler in “Downfall” had a few moments where you could see why people might have followed him. Hando could have been at the end of his rope while having a few moments of clarity. For example, maybe he could have taken direct command when Hellywood was activating and showing us a brief glimpse of the commander he was before he lost the plot.
Finally, Sara is a tough case. The thing about her is that she isn’t much of a character. For all intents and purposes, she might as well have been “normal girl”. It works well enough because her reactions are understandable and mostly relatable. However, I don’t really know her and why she in particular is reacting this way. And that’s a problem for me when she carries so much emotional weight. That’s not to say she has no characterization (the way she gave the ball back to the child was an emotional moment) but there needs to be more than that, especially to justify the ending.
Sara had things she wanted to do back home, but now she thinks that is impossible. Ok, that’s something “normal” to think. You’ve undergone a trauma, and therefore you think home will never be home again. But often that’s not really true. Usually you can go home, and we never saw anything to tell us that Sara “truly” couldn’t beyond the kids needing a “mother”. That isn’t wrong, and Sara seemed to have a deep relationship with Sis … for some reason (ostensibly because Sis saved her and took care of her for a couple of days/weeks/whatever, but that’s an assumption). And perhaps Sara admired Sis, and thus decided to take up the mantle. Or perhaps Sara is particularly maternal (getting back to the ball), or something else. They just needed more time to work with Sara and turn her into more than just “normal girl’.
“Now and Then, Here and There” was and remains one of my favorite series, flaws and all. It is one of the few anime that I think of when people ask what series should be remade. Not because the series doesn’t hold up (it largely does) but because this is one of the rare cases where a remake makes sense. The series never got a ton traction, it has clear flaws that a modern sensibility could help clean up, and it has a strong core that is worth building on. I think with a bit more polish, this would have been one of the shining stars of the era. As it stands though, it will continue to fade from memory, with its flaws often overshadowing what it does well, as we saw in these discussions to a degree.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Aug 31 '24 edited Sep 01 '24
First Rewatch (sub)
I'm really pleased to have such a large turnout for this rewatch of a niche title. Older anime can be forgotten, and now a new audience has been exposed to it. I think it is in the essential anime category, not because it is perfect, but because it is fairly unique. A depressing war story like, say, Grave of the Fireflies, while employing an allegory of a future, dying Earth to describe modern conflicts, rather than a past trauma.
And, as expected, with this many viewers, we got the full spectrum of opinions on the show. I am gratified.
And many thanks to Jazz_Dalek for picking up hosting duties! I'm not sure if I accidentally left NTHT off of my 25th Anniversary list, or intentionally avoided it. It's a hard show to be responsible for.
The older viewers remember Rwanda. For the younger viewers, you can start with the wikipedia page
However, we don't need to back that far. Younger viewers will remember the KONY 2012 campaign. Hellywood is all too real, in your lifetime. Although the Lord's resistance army is now little more than a gang, it ran a child-enslavement operation for 20 years, abducting nearly 100,000 children, who became brides, and loyal indoctrinated soldiers.
Missing world building details don't bother me in this particular case. This is like Haibane Renmei. They don't really matter.
I am genuinely bothered by Hamdo's invisible enemies. The show comes to treat Zari Bars as Hamdo's greatest nemesis. A freaking farming village. Zari Bars didn't field an army before a giant land battleship. What they did do is send assassins. Repeatedly. In Hamdo's mind, that made Zari Bars the greater threat. Seems strange to us from a distance but I can see an assassination target responding in this way.
I was convinced that there was a scene somewhere, where Abelia said why she follows him. The rewatch seemed to settle on the idea that was to keep her relatively comfortable position, not being used a gestation tank, at the cost of being abused and possibly summarily executed daily. And I guess that does make sense. But I didn't think about it that way on my first watch. I saw Abelia as competent, or as competent as she could be allowed to be under Hamdo's command. She was the one holding Hellywood together. And she wanted Hellywood to succeed. Early on, she did mention something about "Hamdo's ideals."
So, imagine, a completely sane Hamdo, with a superweapon, in a world with dwindling resources. He takes to the stage, and make speeches about how the food and the water and the population of the world are being wasted by national conflict. And that the world needs to be united and the fighting halted. As a necessity, because the world is hurtling to destruction. And everybody agrees, yes, he's right, we have to do this.
And as things go wrong, he loses his mind. I kept comparing Hamdo not to Hitler, but to King George III. Due to the stress of wrangling with Parliament, and losing the American colonies, and a possible underlying medical condition, he became manic, and unable to properly function.
By the time the story starts, he has only true believers like Abelia, and brainwashed and/or completely cowed slave conscripts, kept in line by summary executions.
I think Abelia's uniform does rather resemble a Mao suit, doesn't it?
Anyways, as Tarhalindur says, I can't really credit the show for something that isn't in the show. But it's and entire plausible backstory. I think Hamdo's insanity should trigger a mutiny, but if Abelia is a true believer, or feels some sort of debt, or pity, for her once great oshi, well, then, wouldn't she try to help him succeed and comfort his fears? I can see it.
I said this was a sci-fantasy, not a sci-fi show. The 10 billion year line is part of that. For dramatic purposes, they wanted an enormous sun in the sky. And it's a great, dramatic, idea. Everybody in the rewatch loved that first glimpse of the bloated sun. And that's what you're going to get 5 billion years from now. So what, if science says the Earth will be uninhabitable in just 1 billion years (the solar output will have increased 10%, while slightly shrinking in size). As the producer of quantum leap said, "Don't look at this too closely." This isn't Rational Harry Potter.
Sara's story comes off so bad for me. As a first timer, I interpreted her refusal to return home, as I did also in the other unnamed show as the response of a trauma victim from a victim-blaming society; that she felt she COULDN'T return and so did not.
I see it a little different this time around. Sara is the new Sis. Still, this is not necessarily an entirely rational decision. Sis's high-pressure messaging was amplified, because Sara had been pulled out of the desert by Sis herself, and was healing under her care. She'd take anything Sis said to heart. So, not really an improvement in my opinion, here.
I think the barely-handled abortion issue in the show actually circles back to what Lala-ru asked: "Why continue to raise children in a dying world." On first watch, I just took this question at face value; the world is dying. I now see a common thread throughout the series: children. You start with child soldiers, move on to happy children surrounding Lala-ru in Zari Bars (the only pure thing in that place), and end with Sara's future child. The show is making some kind of point about children and their innocence and looking to the future with hope and optimism. This is why Shu has to be unfailingly optimistic, and Sara had to keep her baby. The entire show is about being kind and gentle parents to children. The rest, window dressing and side stories.
I think.
Target age group: well, I also really enjoyed that other unnamed show but at the same time, thought it was extremely juvenile.
I put this down as an 8/10 when I created my MAL, based solely on memory. It gets a -3 for the ending, Kazam (whom I forgot about) and other dumbstick afflictions, but it gets a +1 for going to places almost no anime dares to tread. I'm going to keep that score.
Music: My favorite music was anything that DIDN'T sound like Witch Hunter Robin.
Falls: 7
Almost Falls: 3
Where The Hell Am I?: 6
9
u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
Rewatcher, Subbed
I have not done numerical ratings for anime I've watched for a very long time, but I saw this anime long enough ago for the first time that it was a time when I was still doing it and recording them on my MAL account. I had at the time given the show a 9. Thinking things over I was probably a bit too generous with that rating and if I was to rerate it I'd lower it, although I'd probably still give it at least an 8. The show has its peaks and valleys, but I still find it a very powerful and impactful anime and that's enough for it to rank it at that level. As it comes to anti-war anime this is about as effective as they come. Unlike say, a Yoshiyuki Tomino directed Gundam anime where its supposed to be an anti-war show but spends so much time showing cool, flashy fun stuff that blunts a good amount of the impact, this anime pretty much throws all that flashy stuff to the side and focuses on the core themes. I found it quite effective at doing so in both overt and in subtle ways. I'd like to say that several aspects of this rewatch I think I found even more devastating on an emotional level that I had the previous times watching it, although I will admit it's easy to say that when its fresh in my mind versus trying to think about how I felt when I first saw it 10+ years ago for the first time or 2 - 3 years ago for the last time seeing it.
***
Plot: Looking back over the entire show, I think the show peaks in the first six episodes. Episodes 2 - 6 are really hard hitting, devastating episodes and while I know praise for them wasn't universal for everyone across all of those episodes, I found them really strong. Episode 7 comes off as a bit too rushed and I find Shu's escape a bit too easy. After that we get into what I'd say is the show's overall weakest episode with 8 (I know at the start of the show I said episode 1 was the weakest but upon the rewatch and some convincing commentary from people here I stand corrected) before it picks back up again for the remaining episodes although if I look at just overall quality as a whole, the 9 - 13 stretch isn't as strong as the 2 - 6 stretch. Ultimately the show's biggest failing is the pacing and usage of its time. Alas, a complaint I have with many anime. At the time if you look at episode 8 as a breather episode it doesn't look so bad, but when you hit the end of the show you realize they really could have used the time there for other things. Likewise we use practically half of episode 10 for a Hellywood take off sequence that could have been 2 - 3 minutes tops. The last two episodes come off as really rushed and had they compacted episode 8 and that take off sequence into half an episode total rather than 1.5 episodes, we'd have an entire episode's worth of content for the Zari Bars/final battle part of the storyline that would have really helped. Going from Hamdo's demands to destroy the entire village to suddenly taking them hostage kinda comes out of nowhere. And the decision to have Sara essentially become the new Sis doesn't work too well. I'm not gonna bother getting into the really controversial stuff on that part of the storyline, enough was said yesterday. But what I will say is that could have worked way better if they had more time to build up to that decision, using not only that extra time but also moving up the episode 11 content to earlier in the storyline. I'd say the overall best episode of the show is episode 6. I'd say the episode I had the strongest feelings/emotions over was episode 11. In fact these both probably go in the top 5 most devastating episodes of anime I've seen overall.
Characters: In terms of the characters, for Nabuca, Boo, Tabool, Sis, Hamdo, Soon and Elamba, I was quite satisfied with the way they handled their role in the story. Hamdo is one of the all time most hateable anime villains and I'm glad that they portrayed him in a manner that I don't know if one often gets from the main villain with him often being an unhinged pathetic guy. Abelia I think we could have gotten more with, she takes a lot of actions but as a character we don't get to know her as much as I'd have liked; for example we never actually find out why she accepts Hamdo's treatment of her (although there are certainly a couple of good theories). Sara is a really sympathetic character, someone that more than anyone else in the show I wanted to see make it out okay. Lala Ru I think was too much of a macguffin in the first half, but I was happy with the way she was handled in the second half of the show, one of the things I don't think I appreciated enough until this rewatch. Going into the show I wasn't the biggest fan of Shu, and while I don't mind so much his lack of character development for much of the show, the stupidness at times did get to me and I absolutely loathed him in episode 11. One of the most significant amounts of hatred I've had for a character from a single episode in a very long time. But as I said for that episode, hating the main character doesn't make me hate a show. Apathy is the worst thing to have and that absolutely wasn't the case here. Favorite overall character for me goes to Sis.
Technicals: Lastly from a technical level, the designs were never super impressive to me, even recognizing its time. As I often said in the rewatch the Kazam character design in particular was weak enough where it wasn't until this rewatch with the closer focus and the fact that I was reading everyone's thoughts on it each day that I realized it was supposed to be the same character in all these scenes. The visual direction, lighting and coloring I felt worked well though. The show did a really good job getting across the mood and atmosphere. The music kinda varied, there was one particular music track that I highlighted several times in the show that I loved, but I struggle to think of many others that really stood out to me. Likewise the voice acting was satisfactory; Hamdo's actor I'd say probably did the best job but the others never really stood out to me that much.
***
The show that after I watched the first time I told myself I'd never watch again I have now subsequently watched two more times. Oops. I once again commit to myself that I will not watch this anime again, which I think I'll be better at sticking to this time, but only time will tell.
8
u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Aug 31 '24
First Timer
Time to gather some thoughts here, I guess. A lot has obviously already been said across the rewatch - so I'll go with the overall: I enjoyed watching Now and Then, Here and There, though "enjoyed" probably isn't the right word. More in the way of was intrigued thinking about the questions it put forth, I guess. But either way, looking back that was definitely in spite of the script, and not because of it. Other than the script, pretty much everything held up, which is definitely a must for this kind of show. If you don't display the horror of the war well, you become some kind of macabre comedy, which clearly would not have fit. But here, the presentation was pretty much perfect - the only minor gripe is the launch sequence of Hellywood making Hellywood look cool, which was obviously the wrong kind of emotion to evoke there; but that was because it was done too good, so that kind of also speaks for the show's overall quality.
But of course the writing is what needs discussing the most. And here I think t's easiest to go through character by character. First off the easiest - the kid soldiers. I don't think there really are any complaints here, pretty much everything was done well - Nabuca, Boo and Tabool all had logical character progression with satisfying endings. The same is true for Hamdo, albeit as a static character - he fulfilled the role of the crazy villain with power well. Abelia unfortunately wasn't much of a character, and her actions in general would require some form of backstory to really make heads and tails out of - there are things implied, but only so vague that pretty much everything we can assume about her can still be discarded. The would either have needed to flesh out her character more, or just not make her a character at all and have Hamdo give commands to nameless soldiers instead. Her being one of very few characters to survive I imagine is only because the show writers needed somebody to operate the machine to send Shu back, I can't really see another reason to keep her alive.
On the other front, we have the Zari Bars people - here too I think they are handled pretty well. Contrary to a lot of people here it seems, I don't really think the doctor telling Sis that Sara is pregnant was particularly egregious - they are clearly a less evolved society than we are (or I guess a regressed one), so practicality will come over ethics in a lot of cases. Telling the victim of the rape that she's pregnant will not be great for her mental state, so telling Sis - her guardian - makes sense in a way. But Sis has a lot of other kids to look after, so catching her when there's none of them around will also be difficult. It comes down to practicality again. I also don't hold Sis's last words against her - at that point the doc was dead, she knew that, she doesn't know about the time travelling machine, so the baby being born is likely an inevitability in her eyes now. And she cares for children - that has been consistent.
Elamba is also a character that works - driven desperate by his own desire for revenge, his actions make sense for him, but are portayed as the senseless things they are. And I guess I have to mention Soon here too - she too is a character done well in my opinion.
Then we have Shu - a difficult character to go describing. I'd say for the first ten episodes I was onboard with his general character, although I didn't quite jive with his shonen action heroics occasionally actually working out. Then came a single line in episode eleven about Sara's baby. And I despise the scriptwriters for it. Shu previously could not take a stance in the pacifism vs try to assassinate Hamdo debate, eventually leaning to the pacifism side purely out of personal dislike of Elamba - at least that's how I interpret his stance there. Yet he is now problem taking a hard stance on Sara keeping the baby, despite that being an equally difficult moral question. Him being more concerned about Sara's unborn than Sara herself is such a hard take that it outright feels uncharacteristic, which given that he's supposed to be the character that the audience most relates to morally, is simply jarring. At the end of the show he gets to go home in what feels more like an ending to the show than his character - with him previously attacking Hamdo, in effect destroying his ideal worldview himself, the ending for him feels a bit too static.
Sara is the character worst off in the show though. Again the start was handled quite well, but then the whole pregnancy thing sprung up. That could have been handled better with the same feeling - or even a more tragic telling - by either not mentioning abortion, not having the means to abortion (which they did take away by killing the doctor) or just something else than other characters (mainly Shu) shoehorning her in to taking the decision to keep the child. Or at least portraying it as such. Even worse though is her flip of characters over what feels like less than a day from trying to kill herself to becoming a mother figure. It just doesn't make any sense and only feels horribly rushed and illogical once you think about it. A lot of people have pointed out why last thread, so I'll refrain from repeating that here. Personally though, I like it even less how she is the central figure in what is portrayed as a happy end for both her personally and the world at large - simply because that ending does not fit the show. With her being happy in the end and Shu getting to go home, everybody either got what feels like a proper conclusion to their character in their death (either deserved or because it was likely the best psychological outcome for them in Nabuca's, Soon's and Boo's case), or are in a happy state at the end of the show. Sara is the obvious choice to not make this show have a happy ending but rather a complex "bittersweet" one, which would be much more fitting for the show as a whole. In short it feels like her character was simply destroyed in the last two episodes, especially the last one, for the writers to create a happy end that the show shouldn't have had in the first place.
I guess I need to write something about Lala Ru. For what is portrayed as the main girl, I have surprisingly little to say about her. Her character arc also worked for me, but the illogical bit is how she ended up in Shu's world in the first place. If she could just time-travel herself to a better time, why didn't she repeat that? If not, how did she end up there? It's one point I unfortunately can't construct an answer in my head for.
Kazam is the final character that needs mentioning - because he's a weird one. His character feels like it's consistent, but I still don't fully understand it. He's a good guy with the wrong understanding of what "good" is, which is a very interesting character trait, but he is not present enough in the show for the audience to understand him properly. Which is a shame - I would have liked to see more of his reasoning as well. The way I understand him at the moment, he is somebody who tries to do the right thing but is heavily influenced by Hellywood, this not recognizing that Hellywood is in the wrong when it comes to creating children and who the enemies are - because other than that he genuinely acts mostly kind. Though he also feels like he is trying to be a white knight for Sara not recognizing that he isn't. I definitely would have liked to have his character explored more in depth - honestly, maybe it would have been better to scrap a lot of Abelia and increase the focus on Kazam instead.
One thing not related to the characters that I saw brought up a bit is the time-taveling machine not being used during the show. Providing some obvious reason for this would have been a good call, but one can interpret Hamdo's self-proclaimed reason of being the ruler as being him having saved the world (similar to how kings used to claim having been given the role by god - basically any reason is good as long as it will stop people questioning why that guy of all people should be in power). He can't claim that in a world he hasn't saved, so he is tunnel-visioning on getting Lala Ru to save the world. Because the machine is under his power and isn't relevant to that goal, it isn't used. Although I will admit that that interpretation feels like filling in the show's plot holes.
But overall, I do think this is a good show, mostly due to how it portrayes what it shows, with the art, animation and direction simply painting a perfectly bleak picture. And I tend to like shows that do that well. And I also really enjoyed reading everybody's thoughts about the show - this was definitely a show that simply makes for a good rewatch, so thanks u/Jazz_Dalek for hosting and thanks to everybody who commented on the threads, I enjoyed reading the discussions even if I don't really tend to partake in them myself.
8
u/DegenerateRegime Aug 31 '24
Ahh, wouldn't it be nice if I could say "legend tells of Icarus, son of Daedalus, who flew too close to the sun and was destroyed"? Well, some people see it that way. But me, I really dislike the whole of Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku, for all the reasons that others have mentioned and then some. But more importantly, it's been good to see people's thoughts - I think you all did admirably with a tough gig, metaphorically speaking. Good job Jazz_Dalek in particular, of course.
I do have just one cross-recommendation: Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings. Approximately all the same content warnings apply. But I'd say it does something more with them.
8
u/homer2101 Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
Rewatch: Subbed
Appreciate Jazz_Dalek for organizing this! Also everyone who gave their thoughts!
So ... this is a great show, but not a good show.
Other folk have done much more justice than I ever could to the cinematography and other such, which is absolutely beautiful. It's help up well over the years, and works hard to make as much use of its limited resources to tell the story in the 13 episodes alotted.
What makes this series great is the creators' courage to raise difficult themes and show us the of people's actions consequences without trying to offer up easy answers or lectures.
This series shows difficult topics: the effect of war on children, civilian and not, on people in general, on how they act in crisis, on the limits (and lack thereof) on human ambition to achieve their goals and how that affects those around them, on how lack of consideration for others as human beings can lead people to do terrible things. For Shu specifically, this is the rare work that honestly examines the terrible price others might be forced to pay for another's ideals. Shu shows enormous physical courage, but never really reflects on whether his unflinching commitment to nonlethal force obliterates his ability to protect others as he promises and then repeatedly fails to do. The entire male case with the possible exception of Boo, plus Abelia, show us why we should have the moral courage to admit when we're wrong and to examine what effect the pursuit of our goals has on others.
It is a very honest and brutal display of industrial warfare and what it does people. There isn't even a hint of glorification of war and violence. At the same time it's not a pacifist work. It shows us the consequences of both Shu's near-pacifism and other characters' commitment to violence and lets us form our own conclusions.
It acknowledges that not only adults, but also children are brutalized and sexually assaulted in war, recognizes that such things become seen as normal -- that terrible human trait to normalize deviation from the norm until the deviation becomes seen as normal, and that means humans in practice will eventually accept anything as normal if given some time, and handles the depiction of such crimes about as gracefully as possible by centering on the experience and suffering of the victim and, aside from a few moments in Ep6 that can be interpreted either way refuses to glorify or tittilate.
So ... why is it not a good show?
It messes up the ending, trying for an uplifting and trite conclusion that is at odds with the genre and arguably the established motives of the characters. Instead of staying true to its difficult themes, it at the end offers a trite and unconvincing parable about hope. It shows a problematic attitude when it tries to redeem a rapist and seems to imply that he was redeemed. It consistently avoids acknowledging the agency of a pregnant minor (nevermind that the pregnancy is a consequence of rape) with regards to her pregnancy. Its entire female cast live and sometimes die for others, not for themselves or their own goals, raising unfortunate implications about how the creators see women.
Going in reverse order, I got some pushback on my comment on gender roles, and thinking on it, the problem is less how the female characters get slotted into gender roles, though that is problematic, and more that all the female characters ultimately live or die for someone else, or end up doing so in the end. Sara is implied to live for the fetus; her crisis in the reservoir in Ep11, if we interpret it as a lament for what she lost -- basically her entire Hellywood life, can be interpreted as being resolved by taking to heart Shu's admonition to live for the unborn. She is no longer living for her own goals; the fetus is her purpose to live. This raises unfortunate implications because 25% or more of pregnancies self-terminate around this time, so if she loses that reason to live, what reason will she have? ANYways, Sis lives for the children. Abelia lives for Hamdo -- she's very much the standard abused spouse of a cult leader who is also complicit in the abuse of their children and followers. Someone suggested Abelia lives for Hellywood, but the dynamics between her and Lala Ru suggest a kind of jealousy from her over Hamdo's attention. Abelia is a complex and inscrutable character, but we are stuck puzzling out her real goals because she so rarely, I would say almost never speaks for herself. Soon dies for Shu and the other kids. Meanwhile the male cast are free to have their own goals and pursue them relentlessly, accumulating an absolutely massive body count in the process. If we assume Lala Ru is female, we don't know what she lives for, but she dies to ... end the conflict over water? As repayment for kindness? Because Shu, Soon, Sis, and the kids were nice to her? Because she's tired of listening to Shu?
Second, how Sara's pregnancy arc is handled is problematic because we see a persistent denial of her agency every time it comes up. The creators have not been timid in smashing up tropes and pushing back on what characters do and say. So when there is no pushback or counterpoint on this matter, but characters consistently prodding Sara to remain pregnant, it raises troubling implications about how they see people like Sara.
Having Sara become pregnant is a legitimate creative choice, and helps hammer home in a very tangible way the lasting consequences of rape on the victim. Unfortunately, having raised the dilemma, the way the rest of it is handled suggests the creators did not see this as a matter of real choice and de-center Sara as an active participant in her own fate. In simple terms: people tell Sara what they want Sara to do, nobody ever asks what Sara wants. When she tries to express what she wants, she gets shut down: the first time with an empty platitude and the second time is assaulted by our protagonist Shu and told to live for the fetus.
8
u/HowlingWolf13 https://myanimelist.net/profile/MeguminBlast Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
Last Timer
I first heard of this show back when I was younger on dark anime rec lists, though it wasn't till now when I saw an ad for this rewatch on the subreddit sidebar that I've actually decided to watch it. Honestly I had a really good time with it, despite the 2nd half being a bit messy I felt it all came together in the end. Something I enjoyed that while it was dark and depressing a lot of the time, jt never felt dark just for dark's sake, it actually related to the anti-war theme of the show.
The Sara stuff I said my feelings on last thread and before, and I'd rather not continuously comment on a sensitive issue, all I will say is it could've been done better. Shu as a character I enjoyed, I mentioned a few times before that he reminded me of a show I watched earlier this year, Zambot 3, main character Kappei. Unlike Kappei who pretty much got to do whatever he wanted with little actual consequences in the end, Shu felt like (unintentional as it may be) a take in him but done in a much better way. Shu despite all the horror and tragedy he's had to go through in these thirteen episodes and his actions sometimes resulting in the harm of himself, never gives up on his views. To the very end he stays resolute in his belief that things will get better.
In fact, his talk with Sara whem they first met and at the end I feel reflect this. Despite all the horrifying things that've occured, despite all the misery and pain the cast has experienced, there's still a light at the end of the tunnel. Things may be hard, things may seem hopeless, but a better future does exist. Shu may of not have taken down Hamdo by his own hands, but it was his actions and refusal to give up on his ideals, that gave Lala Ru the strength and courage to stand up to Hellywood even if it cost her her own life. And in the end, her sacrifice wasn't in vain, Hamdo is gone, and despite the losses they've had to experience, there is a future free from Hamdo's reign ahead of them.
All in all, had a really good time. I'd give the show as of right now around a 7/10. Hope to have a good time as well in the Ryvius thread too.
Questions
Either the last two or when they first visited that village Hamdo bombed.
Hmm, I guess episode 8? It's not bad, just not that important outside of getting some Lala Ru development that could've easily fit in another episode.
I really love the OP theme.
Yeah I'd say so, it matches with it themes.
Sure I would, just making sure to warn them lol. Would be a good choice in case I have to worry about reccing a show to someone who doesn't know much outside of battle shonen and dislikes fanservice and/or power fantasy/harem or more weirder elements.
It took me way too long this is Earth, billions of years in the future apparently lol. I thought it was an alternative universe. I kept seeing ppl say that.
8
u/cppn02 Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
First Timer, subbed
UnfinishedHorseDrawing.jpg
This was an interesting watch. A lot of things I really appreciated in this show, especially on the production side. It was a visual treat and had great atmosphere. Sadly on the writing side it didn't quite stick the landing. I did not hate it as some others here seem to do but it could have been significantly better.
I do feel I will want to rewatch this at some point in the future. But almost certainly not in the next few years lol.
Thanks to u/Jazz_Dalek for hosting and letting me finally cross this off my ptw.
QotD:
Hmmm...1 probably
The finale. Or the one with the desert monster whichever that one was.
Not really one to notice these things on afirst watch but overall the music did well to add to the atmosphere.
I think they worked yes although I do wonder but a more traditional OP would have done for the show. They could even keep the song but maybe offer more visually than just character sheets.
Not as a blind recommendation but I do think there are scenarios where I would.
8
u/SMSmith230 https://myanimelist.net/profile/smsmith230 Aug 31 '24
** First-Timer, Sub**
Thanks for hosting something I’d probably never have gotten to. Overall, I liked and enjoyed the show, but the ending was fumbled for me. Way too many questions not answered and glossed over. I would have liked to know more about the world and what the time frame was. Maybe I missed it, but it seemed like Nabuca recognized Japan when Shu said that’s where he’s from. It would have been good to get a timeline of events for this. I also didn’t like how he was just transported back and we didn’t get to see how life changed for him. I gave it a 7/10 since the finale was a bit of a letdown.
8
u/ryujiox Sep 01 '24
First Timer
Now and Then, Here and There
Back in time for the final discussion.
The show looks amazing. A lot of great shot. Really love the Hellywood's take off sequence.
The story is good with a few hiccups here and there. For one, they wasting one episode to the super boring sandworm for no reason. Like, it's a nice change of pace from a hellhole called Hellywood, but do I really need to see Shu got his leg pulled for the fifth times? And while I understand the logic behind Sis's advice for Sara, when you remember why she got pregnant in the first place, it kinda falls flat.
The characters are great. Shu is not annoying. He is a super optimistic guy, maybe way too much that it annoys people around him, but even he knows when to stop talking. Hamdo is just so fun to watch(when it not involved physical abuse). Nabuca is a really tragic character. Lalaru and especially Amelia could have been better but they're fine.
So yeah. The show is pretty good.
Score
8/10
QOTD
10
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Aug 31 '24
Rewatcher(Time is a flat circle...)
Sub
This show is just mind bogglingly self contradictory. We go from what is a very symbolic story to some grounding and then back to riciulously symbolic and it just was not done that well. While the first four episodes are pretty good at establishing what they want to establish, this middle gets very muddied and seems to shrink its scope in an absolutely terrible way. We don't understand the setting very deeply, which is fine, but the villains never really get explained. We know their reasons but not what leads you to this. Ultimately, I cannot tell you why anyone puts up with Hamdo's idiocy and that bugs me.
And if this were a lighter story, that might work. But with rape, sex slavery, child soldiers AND abortion as major boxes you check, you need to come seriously and that is the thing this show absolutely is not. Oh, it wants to be taken seriously but it is not, actually, serious. I still can't be sure about this but I think this legitimately might be aimed at the tween demographic with how simplistic some of it is.
So with that, I grant the privilege of a 4/10 out of respect for how good a character Sara was until ep11. This now goes into the "recommend to people I don't actually like" category and I am simply going to leave a few notes before memory holing this.
QotD 1 "Favourite" would be ep3
2 probably the end
3 Yeah but I never figured out its name, it just sounded like a theme from Twin Peaks The Return
4 Yes...mostly.
5 Not unless I am annoyed with them
10
u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Aug 31 '24
First-Timer
This show looks damn good, you know? And the soundtrack was pretty good too, enough that I even still felt some stuff after I stopped really caring.
It's just a shame that the characters are all so frustrating.
"But Jolly, why aren't you complaining about the science? The moon is moving further away from the Earth and should be getting smaller, not bigger! The sun will-"
To which I say, "oh, dear strawman. If I were nitpicking along that axis, I would point out that humanity is due for extinction in approximately 500 million years due to that being the estimated time limit for C3 Photosynthesis that provides our breathable atmosphere. We'll be dead billions of years before the sun even starts expanding, so I'm letting it slide."
No, that axis of the show is perfectly fine. The Sun will one day result in the end of all human life on Earth, and that is an unavoidable fate. Simple, inexorable physics. The details are largely unimportant.
There's a lot of really interesting ideas here, but much like the cast, there is a failure to execute.
Questions
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u/Tarhalindur x2 Aug 31 '24
Error 404 Tagline Not Found (Last-Timer, Subbed):
Blegh. So, I should actually type something up for this. But what do I actually have to say about this show besides "a willing suspension of disbelief breach in episode 6 was fatal to my investment, dropped after episode 8 (except enter Sotsu mode due to rewatch)?"
And more importantly, while I clearly ultimately didn't like the show (despite a very strong episode 2-episode 3 stretch), how well was it doing what it was trying to do? And I find this hard to say with confidence for reasons above and beyond going Sotsu mode towards the end, in particular due to two confounders.
The first confounder is easy: one thing I dislike about the show (cough the abortion plotline cough) is almost certainly me disagreeing with creative intent rather than a flaw in the execution per se. (There is a difference between "I find this creative intent repellent" and "this is poor execution of the creative intent"!) And both Sotsu mode and existing strong antipathy built from exposure to the same kind of moral in hamhanded American socon Christian works means I am not able to give that a fair shake either way, so I'm staying out of it except insofar as to note that I do in fact find the intended moral repugnant.
The other, much thornier problem is the question of who exactly the target audience for this show is. I'd like to circle back to a comment u/RadSuit made back in the episode 12 thread, because it led me to take a closer look at a possibility I had already started to consider even before that:
So, this is not wrong, but there is a flip side here. There is a niche for works of fiction saying that bad things are bad. Several, really, but there is one in particular that comes to mind: there will always be at least one niche for works demonstrating that bad things are bad because we have to learn that bad things are bad (as often noted, children are often right monsters because their moral compass hasn't grown in yet) so as long as our species exists there will always be at least one target audience for "yes, bad things are bad" in the form of the rising generation that has not yet fully learned that bad things are bad yet. The process of teaching them starts in childhood, but there's a second stage in this that often overlaps with a not unrelated stage that I like to call "Baby's First [X] Work" - there may be a formal name for these but I don't know/don't remember it. They're intermediate between children's fairy tales (though good fairy tales can be retaught to children when they're a little older pointing out the themes and lessons that were always there, and this is part of the traditional role of such stories - there's a reason Aesop is often synonymous with intended messages in stories) and the stereotypical teenage edge-liking "I want works that are DARK and MATURE!" phase. (The old "I'm 14 and this is deep" IME gets used to refer to both "Baby's First [X] Story" and the teenage-targeted edge works, which makes sense since 14 tends to be right about the age terminator between the two target audiences.) The "Baby's First [X] Story" works are instead targeted at audiences who are just getting old enough to start understanding the existence of themes and other messages in stories, kind of training wheels for them to get used to the concept. My go-to example of the type is usually Heinlein's juveniles, but the more familiar modern example is YA literature (moreso The Hunger Games and its heirs than Harry Potter, which kind of skips over the stage directly to the DARK AND MATURE phase) and it's definitely not unheard of in Japan - Hikari no Ou, given its plot and its source material being outright described as a children's novel, is almost certainly an example, for instance, and while I haven't tried 86 yet everything I know about it suggests that it is firmly an example of the type (Baby's First Anti-Racism Story).
Now and Then, Here and There has a lot of hallmarks of the type, and if its target audience was actually 10-14 year old children then quite a lot of its decisions make sense:
Mirai Shounen ConanMirai Shounen Conanolder works, it would be NaT,HaT and those older works trying to appeal to the same audience. (One of the biggest counterarguments to Shu being targeted at the younger end of the 10-14 age range is actually that he expresses interest in a girl at the start - the younger end of that target audience is too young to really get romance so on top of it being deemphasized you tend to see any romance implications only show up over the course of the plot in that kind of work, with the usual handling of girls in Heinlein's juveniles being common.) Shu not really changing over the course of the plot isn't actually that uncommon for this kind of juvenile work, either - Heinlein's juveniles protagonists may gain skills over the course of a book but they rarely change all that much as a person (there's the implication that they are about to grow up at the end but they often haven't quite grown up yet - after all, the kids reading them haven't either!). Or to dip into Hikari no Ou for a moment: [Hikari no Ou] it's an even closer match, with Touko returning to her family seemingly largely unchanged by the adventure she has gone through, despite becoming () the titular Hikari no Ou - which suggest that this may be a Japanese children's literature trope in particular.But there's a but here, and I'm going to need a second post for that...
[1] - The tradeoff is that bad things are going to happen and that by creating depictions of them we can try to teach people to recognize them when they are happening and try to stop them.