Hair and Hana | Hanamonogatari, A Review

Management: This is a comprehensive review of own devising, where I go over a pro and con analysis of the material in an attempt to convince people to watch the show-in-review. Hopefully, in encouraging people in general to watch things I think are interesting, they’ll at least somewhat know what to expect while watching. For clarity’s sake, I’ll emphasize this: the review isn’t meant to be so much holistic as it is coverage of what I believe is of core importance to the show.

When it came to the Monogatari Series, Shaft seemed to have this unspoken rule designating atmospheric shifts in mood with color coding. The show also seems to have a similar preoccupation with hair styles, most notably hair length. Someone from the creative staff may or may not have a hair fetish, but there’s a point to it. It’s a marker of character development having taking place, and Hanamonogatari makes that explicit, with flowery words as well as flowers.

Humanity Has Declined: Monuments to Hubris

Management: While my opinion of the show is positive overall (broken records all around), this essay, by no means, is meant to serve as a comprehensive review, but rather, as an articulation and analysis of some of what I feel is this series’ most integral and interesting themes. This essay, in particular, is a breakdown of Episode 9 of Humanity Has Declined, “The Fairy’s Survival Skills.”

Monuments to Humanity

On the surface, Humanity Has Declined is a rather wacky, individual two-parter arc to singular episode based series employing a plethora of absurd scenarios and characters to carry attention and interest. The absurd’s certainly entertaining in its own right if executed with enough consistent finesse, but that’s definitely not the show’s end all, be all. Those moments are referencing something, satirizing something. Satire uses the oft ridiculous, but always the comic and sometimes even the surreal to make a critical statement about something or someone. Individuals who are otherwise dismissive of critical statements would find more palatable and receptive under a comedic framework. The creative angles afforded by a comedic framework may likewise encourage individuals consider issues in different lights.

What Humanity Has Declined is satirizing is humanity, and one of the human things Episode 9 of Humanity Has Declined, “The Fairy’s Survival Skills,” is satirizing is exceptionalism.

Of Political Dimensions: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha and the Factors of Liberalism

Management: While my overall opinion of Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, is fairly positive, this essay is, by no means, meant to be a comprehensive review. It is rather an articulation and analysis of what I feel are its most integral and interesting themes. It touches on the actions and ideas of some key modern and postmodern political revolutionaries, but their beliefs, by no means, are meant to be completely representative of mine.

Here are several ideas that Maoyuu Maou Yuusha brought up that interested me enough to jot them down in a somewhat organized essay form.

Freedom

“I… as one who has a soul like your own, I have something I must tell you. I was… I was born as a serf. I was the third of seven siblings.”

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha began its airing by utilizing a not too uncommon fantasy trope: a human hero and a demon king facing each other in a pitched battle that would decide the fate of the world. The Human Hero would win, and the Demon King’s forces would crawl back into their hole, disappear into thin air, surrender unconditionally, or all drop dead. The Demon King’s war would be over, peace and prosperity would return, and happily ever after.

Shortly after its introduction, the trope was then subverted though inquires challenging its premise. Why demons weren’t simply evil, why war wouldn’t simply end, and soon enough, the show became an overarching study on the whys of conflict. Truth be told, beneath its fantastical exterior, the show is a narrative chronicle of history. History? Why, the history of revolution. A revolution of liberation from what was effectively feudal, a feudalism of landed noble lords and landless serf peasants, to what’s effectively more egalitarian. More… liberal.