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The anime that is both a story and an allegory.
The story is what you see, the allegory is the parallel between Satan (of the story) and Japan (before and during WW2 versus afterward) where you see an acceptance of what is normally unspoken, that Japan did horrible things, things that are echoed by the things Satan does in the other world of Ente Isla.
The jump to our world is the break in behaviors after the end of the Second World War, when Japan had to start over, and changed its behavior, its attitudes, and seemed so disjointed it was difficult to draw the connecting lines between before and after versions of Japan.
The the killing of the hero's father and village and the rise of the Hero is a sly play on Japan's attack on what was the 17th largest military in the world on December 6th, smashing its fleet at Pearl Harbor, and the rise of the United States to become something that was overwhelming, an impossible hero born of the tragic.
The "good" Olba Meyer was drawn as the Soviet Union-- to be so powerful he could not be defeated, and Mitsuki Sarue being an unshaped force that represents good being bad, and a threat to bad becoming good. They spiral into the former enemies being united to preserve a new something, even though neither was really prepared for it.
It is amazingly well done for that purpose, the Chiho Sasaki character representing what Japan is becoming, and how it accepts how bad it was but is changing; but it really doesn't understand what it is doing, either.
Normally anime is just anime, but in this case, it is allegory in a manner and fashion that makes acceptance of the past a building block for the future.
It is history, fiction, parody, and allegory, all mixed and poured into the mold of light entertainment.
If you watch it twice you may see a different story the second time.
Or you can just watch it for the laughs.
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score /10
colcam 3 January 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3387266/ |
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23-11-2020 01:54:12