Kaiba – I Am a Pretentious Wank; Sorry About That [Ep. 3]
Kaiba’s third episode is testament to the strength of the show’s core themes and ideas. Chroniko’s story of naive devotion to her aunt-cum-adoptive-mother and the subsequent betrayal of this devotion is startlingly affective considering its brevity. It drives home the disposability of physical bodies in the universe of Kaiba and subsequently how this disposability has royally fucked its value system – all within a very short but intensely moving story arc.
Chroniko’s purity in body and mind is fundamental to the episode’s success. We spend such a short time with her but her candid musings, made all the more plausible by a still-mute Kaiba, shrewdly flesh her out. Enough, at least, for us to care. She explains her history, of her adoptive aunt and the many toils she suffered to sustain her family, and how Chroniko intents to reciprocate by literally selling her body to a rich man who likes the look of it. The paedophilic intention of this rich man, later implied, felt notable in demonstrating the underlying cynicism of Kaiba. You could argue that Yuasa and Madhouse wanted to sucker-punch viewers by presenting such adult themes with kiddy visuals, but like much of work of its inspiration, Osamu Tezuka, something that appears childish doesn’t necessarily have to behave that way.
Chroniko’s story, then, initially seems quite conventional if you set it apart from Kaiba’s idiosyncrasies. Unaware of the resentment her aunt has developed over the course of her adoption Chroniko naively believes her to be selfless in her motherly devotion and wants to give back to relieve the supposed financial strain on the family. The reality of this, we find, is Chroniko’s aunt is resentful of the imposition Chroniko has put on her family and greedily wants the money for what she perceives to be a comfortable life. These themes aren’t completely uncommon – the resentful aunt hating her beautiful adopted niece; the perception of what appears to be material normality (better know as ‘keeping up appearances’) etc. – but Kaiba’s bizarre world allows for a much more skewed interpretation and it works fantastically.
The focus on Chroniko’s pink boots specifically proved interesting for a number of reasons. Seemingly they symbolise a genuine emotional worth – the sacrifice Chroniko’s aunt makes for her newly adopted daughter thus the love she has for her – but equally something bleaker – the way the inanimate and the animate have converged in terms of worth and value in Kaiba. The equal worth of the pink boots and Chroniko’s own body is masterful in what it represents. Somehow, throughout the course of Kaiba’s history, what is considered inanimate, possessions like a pair of pink boots, and animate, our bodies, has converged so much so they have become indistinguishable. Chroniko sells her body as she would anything else she owns. The difference is that she is motivated by genuine love, where her aunt simply wants a greater material gain. You could say that Chroniko demonstrates how the physical can be a token of the emotional, whereas her aunt has lost that footing in reality, and is wholly consumed by monetary value and outward appearances. Commence Marxist fapping at your soonest possible convenience.
Still, Chroniko aunt isn’t just the faceless villain of the story. After Kaiba transfers into Chroniko’s body and investigates we learn that there is some sort of rationale for her behaviour; or at least a basis for the gross amorality that leads to Chroniko’s tragic death. Her current material existence is born out of a mother wanting to provide for her young, which is hard to criticise even if the original philanthropy is completely lost. Further still, the loss of both arms in the pursuit of this security lends itself well to justifying her bitterness and blame-seeking. And who better to blame than the little girl your dying sister dumped on you? The interlacing of the scenes where the aunt loses her arms and Chroniko’s receiving of the pink boots was deeply suggestive. It half-ties back to the idea of physical sacrifice for the sake of emotional well-being while being loaded with appendance-related symbolism. It also marks a point where Chroniko’s aunt started to lose her altruism, which again is easy to sympathise with. I’d be somewhat miffed if I loss both my arms in an explosion. Completely confused by its specificity, but miffed nonetheless.
I admit it was hard to ‘forgive’ the aunt when we see her children eating themselves unconscious on the spoils of Chroniko’s needless sacrifice, but her warped perceptions of normality come from something much less selfish. Time and circumstance wore her down to the person she is in the present, and her constant struggle led her to misguidedly associate material wealth with happiness. When you genuinely consider her character she’s loaded to the gills with pathos. Her tortured montage of memories at the piano only further compliments this sympathy and it’s rather telling, in a broader series-sense, that she couldn’t forget these memories no matter how many times they are ‘extracted’.
I loved this episode. The moment Chroniko is told that her memories won’t be transferred into a chip, an act surmountable to murder, will probably stand out as one of the most acute of Kaiba’s short twelve episode run. That something as moving and evocative as this could be mined out of twenty-five minutes is proof Kaiba is under the helm of a brilliant storyteller. Its wild imagination and beauty really just seal the deal.
May 12th, 200811:43 am at
Agreed, this episode was the episode that cemented Kaiba as a must watch for me. All the small little nuances really do add up to deliver a great story, and as you said, despite its cute exterior.
12 episodes is too short for such a show, but I’m definitely waiting for the next episodes!
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May 12th, 200810:35 pm at
@Ez: I think a lot of folk were won over by this episode, which bodes well for its general reception. I agree that it could well sustain more episodes. It’s very episodic, which lends itself to a longer run. Still, I’d rather have twelve episodes of brilliance than twenty-six of okay/good. So far so good, I’d say!
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May 13th, 200812:36 am at
Hige, you keep winning <3 points in my book for every time you blog about kaiba. Srsly. We should start the bloggerhood of kaiba or something and get bateszi to join so sat can stop making fun of him for ruining it for himself.
I like the point that you brought up about the kiddie [pron] visuals. It was this element of design that initially ostracized it from mainstream limelight. But I somehow get the feeling that Kaiba is intended to be [elitist] esoteric because even despite how it looks, the themes and motifs that it deals with are not for the casual viewer looking for light entertainment. Kaiba is like a kick in the balls for the contemporary anime with its intricate mechas and supernova explosions and shiny-sleek characters.
As for the disposability of human bodies: I think this aspect of human existence, the fact that the human body has been systematically commodified and incorporated into the universal market, points to something a little more hopeful [fucked up value system withstanding and all]. At least for the short time that Chroniko could hold onto the belief that she’s doing the right thing, she was able to make the sacrifice because she believes that she will not die. That something essential to her will live on, will be reborn into a better place and time where her suffering will be less. This overarching theme of transcending physical death in Kaiba is so enthralling and so painful because it reaches out to the existential anxiety of the masses. Can’t wait to see how they will cultivate this theme as the show progresses.
Kaiba has completely rocked my world with its minimalist character designs and gooey bangs and has brought about the personal revelation that for me, anime is so much more than just the pretty visuals or the trap characters. It is LIFE.
/fangirl
Sorry for the incredibly long comment. btw, nice avatar =D glad you like the artbook
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May 13th, 20088:47 am at
@itsubun: Hells nah, long comments are the best! And I’m glad you noticed the icon – that artbook gives me a bit of a semi. :x
Your point about the commodification of people whipped a lot of ideas in my head with its astuteness. What you describe in Chroniko strongly mirrors the rationale of people who fight in wars. They want to sacrifice themselves to protect their country, they half-believe they won’t die for it, and most importantly they feel their actions will improve their homeland. I agree that it was hopeful that Chroniko acted out of genuine compassion, but the show was brutal in showing her how misguided she was. I guess you could draw the same cynical conclusion about those who fight in wars and how their countries don’t value their individual sacrifices. I wonder if Kaiba will deal with war in its run, actually . . .
Anyhow, thanks for the comment. It was like a mini-blog in and of itself :D
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May 14th, 20083:30 am at
all these wonderful Kaiba posts leave me completely speechless and in utter awe, so much that I don’t deem myself worthy to even comment! But here goes a random mind-fart anyways ^^;;
this episode is what got me into thinking about the mind and body duality issue and how ‘identity’ is perceived in this world — where the existence of both the external (body) and internal (mind) aspects of people are discounted as mere commodities. If your entire mind/consciousness were to be placed inside a chip, which can be so easily transferred to other people’s bodies, would you consider that to be representative of your identity (set apart from your physical self)? Are bodies mere containers of our consciousness then? It blurs this sense of individualism we ought to have as humans, the supposedly unity of the mind and the body and all that…
With the dualism present in Kaiba, it’s to no surprise that they believe in the concept of reincarnation (Chroniko firmly holds on to this belief too, as shown in this episode), where people’s memory chips are like these immortal souls which can continue to exist even after the death of its supposedly body. Now if only the rich can afford to have their memories uploaded into chips, switch bodies and all that, it also means they’re also the few privileged fucked-up ones who can continue to exist in this world for as long as they want. Until time finally comes that all that’s left in the world would be these corrupted individuals with their skewed sense of morality and humanity.
…and I can’t believe my comment became this long =.=;;; this is what revisiting philosophy does, it seems…
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May 14th, 200810:39 am at
@usagijen: None of this apologising for long comments; it just goes to show girls have bigger brains than boys.
Your point about reincarnation is very interesting. You could even say that the people of Kaiba are partaking in a form of ‘active’ reincarnation; one that they (sort of) have control over and know the consequences immediately (and, importantly, remember). The karmic implications aren’t there but class and social mobility seem to replace it in terms of ascent/descent. I’d be interested to see if Kaiba deals with characters who have sentimental attachments to certain bodies, like mementos and such.
Another interesting point that relates to this (and has been alluded to in the show) is how the change in body can effect the mind. The haughty girl from the first episode who leaves her village once she gets a hot bod is a good example of this. The spurned boyfriend shouts out something akin to ‘you’ll always be a fat girl inside’ which encouraged all sorts of theorising on how the physical ‘encodes’ the cognitive/mental/whatever we call it. You could draw comparisons to people who get plastic surgery in reality – in some cases it causes people to do complete personality u-turns, and in others it does nothing to solve entrenched emotional problems.
Immortality is another major major issue in Kaiba, I think. There hasn’t been much said about it so far, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaiba (the character) is apart of some family or organisation that live forever. This is just wild speculation, but that triangle tattoo on his original body’s stomach seemed to be a respected insignia and suggestive of a very high social standing. But who knows. Kaiba whips up so much thought it’s easy to get in a muddle.
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May 17th, 20089:30 pm at
[...] with their physical appearance and undergo plastic surgery for an “image change”, as Hige also pointed [...]