Anime Impact. Chris Stuckmann
Читать онлайн книгу.
was released in the States by now-defunct Central Park Media. It was that VHS that I rented from my local Hollywood Video. If you’re not familiar with them, Hollywood Video rose to fame during the heyday of video rental stores. The company was founded in 1988 but became known nationally in the ’90s as the direct competitor to Blockbuster Video.
As a young kid, I didn’t really care about any of that. What I did know was that my neighborhood Hollywood Video had the best selection of anime VHS I’d ever seen. And they were only 99 cents a rental!
I owe much of my development as an anime fan to that old store. At the time, my anime consumption was largely at the mercy of Toonami’s broadcast schedule. So when VHS tapes became available at Hollywood Video, I’d scour the shelves in search of titles like Sailor Moon R: The Movie, Venus Wars, or Voogie’s Angel. To be realistic, most of the titles they carried were terribly dubbed products of the “Japanimation Era.” The early ’90s were integral to the growth of anime in the States, but we still had to suffer through some awful dubs to get to where we are today.
Back to Hollywood Video. When I saw that dust-covered plastic case labeled They Were Eleven sitting on the shelf, I flipped it around to read the synopsis. It sounded promising. So, 99 cents and a car ride home later, I was ready to see for myself.
They Were Eleven is about ten space cadets in the middle of a grueling examination for acceptance into a prestigious and strict academy. They’ve passed all the requisite tests, yet one more remains. As part of this test, the ten cadets are transported to a ship in the middle of space and left to fend for themselves. Initially, they assume this is some sort of team project, perhaps to test their ability to problem-solve as a group. But before long, a troubling mystery surfaces in the form of an eleventh crew member and possible infiltrator. And because the cadets aren’t familiar with one another, the spy could be any one of them. The resulting doubt and recrimination leads to a thrilling intellectual mystery that’s highly uncommon for 1980s anime.
Atmosphere is something that’s always impressed me when I watch this film. The deep, cold isolation of space—used to great effectiveness in films like Alien—becomes the perfect setting for this chilling mystery. And the creepy, long-abandoned sections of the ship add to the ominous feeling of dread that begins to permeate the cadets. Dark corners are animated with a foreboding sense of depth, creating the perception that you could actually reach into the screen and live in this environment.
But as already stated, it’s the cerebral probing of these characters that makes the film stand out. Most anime set in space are about giant robots. Nothing against Gundam—I love me some big-ass robots—but They Were Eleven dares to be a psychological thriller, which is not typically a profitable genre in anime. Rather than rely on action scenes, nudity, or gore, the film subverts expectations by exploring questions surrounding gender identity. One character in the film reflects that they aren’t comfortable in their own body. The rules that society has imposed upon them make it impossible to live the life they wish to lead. These startlingly adult themes are interwoven within the mystery beautifully, shattering the assumption that anime is just cartoons with nothing worthwhile to say.
They Were Eleven never received much attention. In fact, I’m not sure I would know it if not for Hollywood Video’s rental selection. The DVD is out of print and essentially impossible to come by unless you resort to Amazon or eBay. It’s rarely discussed when great anime titles are referenced and, as of this writing, there’s been no attempt (to my knowledge) to obtain updated release rights.
I’m often asked about anime that I find under-appreciated and, while my mind tends to jump to better titles like Now and Then, Here and There, or Monster, They Were Eleven deserves its fair share of kudos. It was a film ahead of its time. An animation more interested in the darkest corner of its character’s damaged psyche is one to be admired, lauded, and shared. While much of the world’s cinema was still running to catch up, this mature Japanese animation was asking the questions that few films dared to discuss.
Ôritsu uchûgun: Oneamisu no tsubasa
— John Rodriguez —
Is technology driving you away from God?
Wow, yeah, my apologies. You weren’t expecting things to get so heavy so quickly, were you? That was probably uncalled for, but roll with me for a moment, if you will. I realize my question is predicated on the assumption that you even believe in God, and that’s probably an unwise assumption to make. Maybe you don’t believe. It sure isn’t my place to preach at you if so. But, if you do believe, then maybe think about it a moment. Does the technology ensconcing you daily leave you feeling closer or further from God?
I ask because that’s the question at the heart of Wings of Honnêamise. And while it might seem like pointless pondering, I’d argue it’s a question that’s more relevant today than ever.
Wings of Honnêamise chronicles the space race between two fictional nations on an alternate-reality Earth. Not that it’s shaping up as much of a sprint. The Republic, our antagonists, don’t even have a space program of their own. Meanwhile, the Honnêamise nation only funds their Space Force because the general whose passion project it is has ties to the royal family. Space Force is a joke, and its members are punchlines apt to reach abrupt ends when their test rockets explode under them.
Even the soldiers of Space Force scorn Space Force, and none more so than Shirotsugh Lhadatt, a ne’er-do-well who can’t even bother to show up on time or in uniform for his recently exploded mate’s funeral. Space Force is just a paycheck to Shirotsugh, but things change the night he hears Riquinni Nonderaiko preaching God’s word to uninterested passersby. Smitten, Shirotsugh visits Riquinni at her home, where he becomes inspired by Riquinni’s vision of a peaceful future for humanity among the stars. Thus inspired, he volunteers for Space Force’s ultimate test flight—one that will make him a Honnêamise hero and spark a war with the jealous Republic.
If there’s one singular theme running through Wings of Honnêamise, it’s this: Ain’t nothing wonderful God never made that mankind can’t ef up.
Riquinni is a particularly common delivery mechanism for this message. In one telling scene, a dispirited Shirotsugh turns off his TV and picks up the holy book given him by Riquinni. In it, he reads a story of the earliest days and a man who stole fire from God, thus causing the deaths of his seven sons. These seven become the first human deaths in the world. Death from there on became the curse of mankind—all because we couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Seriously, we are the worst.
Other examples of this abound. I review Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises elsewhere in this book, and I was struck by how Wings of Honnêamise can be viewed as that film’s logical continuation. Wind’s protagonist, Jiro Horikoshi, is also engaged in the development of an advanced flying craft. But where Mr. Miyazaki abruptly ends Jiro’s tale once he succeeded in building the famous Zero fighter, Wings carries things forward from there. Notably, it shows the ramifications of the pursuit of progress. You get to see the frustration of the unemployed watching funds that might have helped them get back on their feet get funneled into a likely pipe dream. You get to hear the concerns that, even if humanity does make it into space, it will only open the door to further militarization.
Because—repeat it now with me, friends—we are the worst.
There’s a sense in Wings of Honnêamise of the technological crowding out the theological. The devout Riquinni, for instance, gets her home bulldozed out from under her just as Space Force is beginning to flourish. You can almost see the accusation in the eyes of Riquinni’s Children of the Corn-like sister’s perpetual frown. It’s as if she’s saying: You did this, all of you. You and your violence. You and your progress.
Which raises the question: is Shirotsugh really a good guy? He’s the face of Space Force, after all, and for all its noble ambitions, Space Force has caused a lot of grief for a lot of souls. So, is he a good guy, or is he maybe a bad guy? It’s a question Shirotsugh himself