Forum

DuskyPredator wrote:

Not to just go off into discussing Snyder movies, but there were elements I saw about how much an adaption can depend on specific images of creators. Such as that Snyder's adaption of Watchmen puts a bit more positive focus onto characters like Rorschach and The Comedian compared to the source material that apparently was more critical of their characters. The discussions I have seen point to possibly fascist tendencies in Snyder's work that is also found in 300.

That's ironic, because Rorschach is a total fascist in the graphic novel, and they tried to retcon his legacy as such in the mini-series on HBO, where everybody who worshiped him basically did terrible things in his name and even wore his mask while doing them. They were basically that world's version of the KKK. But the same sort of thing (role inversion) happened when V for Vendetta got adapted into a movie, turning V from an anarchist into a freedom fighter.

Both, Watchmen and V, ironically are also Alan Moore stories, so go figure that the two main characters from each got re-adapted into heroes, when they originally weren't. Although, had they not, I think those movies would've been way more of a downer. In which case, David Fincher or Darren Aronofsky would've been great for those. Anyway (!)...

DuskyPredator wrote:

To make this relevant to this show, I do think that a lot of people like the director can be put into these kinds of creative works, and I do imagine that some deeper analysis will probably be in order to understand the often dream like aspects. And many elements that are rather violent, if not just in an abuse performed on another but things that are rather striking. It does remind me of elements of Madoka Magica, where you might be expected to read into the trippy worlds of the Witch Labyrinths to understand certain subtext.

I actually did end up watching Madoka, last week (for the first time, and it was awesome!), for the Forum Badass Tournament, and can see a lot of, I guess we'll refer to it as, "trippy world subtext." You don't see a lot of anime that do that (or at least, I haven't), so it's pretty cool, if they can execute it well. Like I mentioned, I can really only remember Satoshi Kon as being an expert at that kind of symbolism, and to a somewhat similar extent, Mushishi. Thinking about it, now, I might even go and re-watch Paranoia Agent for discussion ammo, as I've only seen it once, a long time ago (maybe, 15 years), and with a lesser developed sensibility for interpretation.

WEP seems to be an original work, though. And I don't know either of the two main people involved. Looks like this is the directorial and writing debuts for Shin Wakabayashi (director) and Shinji Nojima (writer). It's pretty amazing for a first-time effort, so far.

ACｘS wrote:

Maybe that would bolster my take that the egg symbolizes rebirth or some kind.

That's actually a really good theory! After I made my other post about the girls possibly representing parts of Ai, I got to wondering what the eggs might symbolize. And the fact that the title is "Wonder Egg" could mean that Ai is trying to find parts of herself within these eggs to re-discover what she lost (or maybe didn't have to begin with), and that it's obviously a "Priority" compared to other things.

I think this is becoming one of my favorite anime of the season. Seriously, of the two non-returning anime this season CloverWorks have made, Wonderegg and Horimiya are simply some of the season's best.

So far, Wonderegg has handled its themes of dealing with loss and suicide with a much more mature hand than I would expect. I think when compared to shows like Redo of Healer, which just reeks of try-hard for the sake of edge.

Wonder Egg is nuanced, complex, and there is a lot more to unpack with the main character and the other leads' goals of bringing back their friends or someone that was close to them.

The action is also wonderfully animated, and that's saying something in a season where, not counting the returning series, has had some great action beats. It also handles the cross between 2D and CGI really well. I even love how the third episode almost had some bits that looked like either something from Trigger or Yuasa's Science Saru.

3:

So it's confirmed: the people Ai (and Nieru and now Rika) are helping are all dead, probably by suicide or maybe other causes. That's grim.

Idolatry is actually the one thing I personally don't understand, only because I don't idolize anyone. I've never understood the idea of revering someone like a deity even if he/she's a celebrity, idol, or a dignitary. Admiring someone's work is one thing, but idolatry's a whole new different game. Especially rabid fans who ironically antagonize each other instead of loving the same idol together; they're kinda scary.

But I can imagine how idolatry is a huge thing in Japan, what with all the idol groups and all, so much that it drives people to death. Rika looked down on one of her biggest fans, and when she rejected her, the fan basically took her own life. Hence, she feels guilty over it, more than Ai so everyone is absorbed into her world instead. Rika and Ai's problems are alike.

Speaking of Ai, we get another glimpse about what transpired between Ai and Koito. The teacher is apparently involved, and it looks like a teacher-student relationship. If word gets out about something like this, it would cause an uproar. Chances are, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Episode 3 did seem to confirm that there might have been something a bit funny between Koito and their teacher. Ai's running theory seems to be that Koito killed herself because she was rejected by the teacher. Ai has revealed a bit of messed elements still linger, in her saying that she would maybe have gone down with Koito, egged on by the two girls in this episode who apparently committed double suicide to chase after their idol.

Ai thinks that she is upset by the fact her friend could not trust her. At this point I am feeling more sure that Ai is probably a lesbian, she was in love with Koito, and she does not even realise it yet. Evidence to her being a lesbian has continued to be sprinkled in, such as how she describes Koito and Neiru.

Rika is a whole bunch of a confusing mess of a teenager, she plays herself off like a manipulative jerk out to scam people out of money and doesn't care. Her actions through the entire first half of episode is filled with red flags of a selfish person that will use people like Ai and she should cut off for being toxic. Even Ai had a limit to what sort of attitude she could take. And then we see that she has cut herself, and under that façade is someone who probably hates herself a whole lot, and maybe acts worse feel vindicated in that self hate. But that story she tells of just wanting her "wallet" back, underneath that is a person who probably wants to do right but thinks she will only hurt others.

What to say about the idol themes of this episode? Apart from the two girls that apparently killed themselves to go after their idol that also committed suicide, Rika was the idol. Rika was seemingly feeling guilty over her one fan spending all her money and even shoplifting to get more, that Rika was irresponsible in how she tried to chase Chiemi away, insulting her weight to try and make her give up. The hint seems to be that Chiemi developed an eating disorder, which killed her, being skin and bones in the casket. It is hard here that against all of Rika's fatphobic remarks, that there is a rebuttal against thing like crazy body expectations that come out of things like the Japanese idol industry, and a plus sized person should not be shamed for their body. There could be more about idols in general, where people are left with such low self esteem that they have to look to an external manufactured person to feel some worth, while attacking other people so that they can feel some more sense of self worth.

Interestingly the monster that comes after the two girls who committed suicide together is a representation of an older fan of that idol, who also used her status as an adult to belittle the younger fans, probably to make herself feel bigger. Perhaps the hint that what actually effectively led them to taking their lives was trying to prove their self worth as true fans against another irresponsible adult.

Episode 3
The story beats continue to drop in the way I expect them... "Rika has the stronger desire" Hey Ai, is there something you're not telling us? Or do they mean Rika has stronger feelings of regret; Ai, really, what are you not telling us? ....... and the main concept... so far... of "Save random dead girls, kill the oppressors, win promised prizes and by the way, there are rules you won't be informed of until after the fact..." is starting to crack with Rika.

Her weapons are the blades she uses to cut herself with.
Huh.
"It what makes her feel stronger."
One person's source of strength is another person's suicide weapon? Those retarctable blades have such a unique place in anime. This show has to walk a fine line between being meaningful and being callous; "Idol commits suicide, fans also commit suicide. Never mind the Idol, let's focus on the fans who are perfectly nonplussed about their actions?"

Dangerously close to crossing the line for me. Did the older woman kill herself too, in order to show her love for the Idol?

Last edited by Showsni on Thu Jan 28, 2021 4:27 pm; edited 1 time in total

So, in episode one the "boss" of the dream world was a faceless schoolgirl wearing the same uniform as Kurumi - presumably a representation of the bullies she faced in life. In episode two, it's the coach who abused the gymnast, only grown gigantic and monstrous. Those both make sense; they seem to be the direct cause of the girls' suicides in each case. In episode three, though, the boss is if anything the same as the two suicide victims - another person who threw her life away because of her obsessive love of the idol Yu-Yu. I was expecting Yu-Yu herself to be the boss, as the more direct cause of the two girls' deaths, but it seems that isn't the case - this boss isn't directly related to them at all. Is that significant in some way? Or is this boss meant to be a representation of the emotions that drove them to suicide, as someone who shares the same emotions (a cultish obsession with the idol)?

Also interesting how in the two eggs Ai pulled solo, we've seen girls who were bullied at school, directly tying to Ai's situation. In the egg Rika pulled, we get girls who died because of an idol, directly tying to Rika's situation.

Showsni wrote:

So, in episode one the "boss" of the dream world was a faceless schoolgirl wearing the same uniform as Kurumi - presumably a representation of the bullies she faced in life. In episode two, it's the coach who abused the gymnast, only grown gigantic and monstrous. Those both make sense; they seem to be the direct cause of the girls' suicides in each case. In episode three, though, the boss is if anything the same as the two suicide victims - another person who through her life away because of her obsessive love of the idol Yu-Yu. I was expecting Yu-Yu herself to be the boss, as the more direct cause of the two girls' deaths, but it seems that isn't the case - this boss isn't directly related to them at all. Is that significant in some way? Or is this boss meant to be a representation of the emotions that drove them to suicide, as someone who shares the same emotions (a cultish obsession with the idol)?

I think that I put my theory that it was an elitist fan belittled them as not true fans that led them to their extreme actions. That they were looking for a place to belong in the fandom to the idol, and the older fan represented by the monster gatekept them at a vulnerable part of their lives, which pushed them into something stupid.

Episode 03: A Bare Knife

Since this one feels like a two-parter, I'm gonna' refrain from giving a full interpretation till I see how the next ep. possibly concludes things.

I was hoping to stick with my theory of how all the girls are inner representations of Ai, but the fact that her mom saw "a friend" when she got home, I don't really know what's metaphorical or not, anymore. And with so many dead girls, it just seems really morbid that many girls are killing themselves.

I don't wanna' believe all the girls are real people who just happen to be commiting suicide, but that they're simply parts of Ai as a whole. With all that idol talk from Rika, though, I'm a bit perplexed at how any of that could be a personality trait of Ai.

Then again, I've spent so much energy trying to speed-watch other titles for the Forum Badass Tournament and with a not-so-great sleep schedule, maybe I'm just worn out and need a good sleep to try and re-analyze this with fresh brain power.

On a side note, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a post from RightStuf saying Ai looked a little like the main character from Coraline. That's another title with tons of subtext and imagination, so I thought that was an interesting comparison. Maybe I should re-watch that one for discussion ammo, as well.

Episode 4, lines are crossed. Many lines are crossed. I suspected it would happen I suspected it the previous episode but they didn't have to turn up the callous just like that.

Did this show, this culture, really just equate two stupid girls killing themselves because their idol killed... himself?... with a girl who committed suicide because she was molested by her father's boss and her mother told her she should have just let it happen? The girl confronting "a representation" of her molester was put alongside comparing the love fans have for a manufactured failed symbol of idolatry. I know how I feel about that.

"When men kill themselves, it's goal orientated but when women kill themselves, it's emotional." This. Show. Just. Judged. The. Reasons. Of. Suicide. I now officially hate this show with a passion not felt since Flower of Evil.

I suppose that's impressive in its own right?

And then there's Momo; Oh Good, more problems and Good freaking hell, who wrote this crap? She comforts girls who were molested by adult males by letting them think of her as a guy. Well, that's... What, just What. And the fact that Momo keeps getting associated with Trains, Subways and that whole molestation mess gets further... "erged", imagine the sound of me gagging please... when its contrasted with Momo's first Lesbian expression which was caressing a breast. Of a girl who later killed herself for as yet undisclosed reasons.

Wow, that's a whole lot of "Nope" for about 24 minutes in an episode called "Colorful Girls".

4:

Truth be told, when the episode opened up, I thought I was looking at Eru from Hyouka.

From the onset, I had a feeling that the fourth girl Momoe was probably a lesbian. In the context of the show, I thought it would make sense: homosexuals are heavily discriminated in Japan (and many other places), so to have such a character in a show that explores trauma and discrimination would be perfect. Turns out she's an androgynous girl who just wants to be recognized as a girl. I'm not disappointed by it, but it wasn't what I expected. There are people struggling with gender identity, so it makes sense.

And for the longest of time, I've been wondering: what is Neiru's story? We learn she's not ethnically Japanese (I think?), she's a president at her own company (lolwhat?) that seems to be inclusive(?). But I still don't know her as a person, which is unsurprising—she seems like the reticent kind—but I still want to know her more. In her interactions with Ai, I can only tell that she's standoffish and distrusting but has a good heart. What's her trauma? Discrimination by Japanese people for her ethnicity? Because that would be a good theme.

In overall, I have to commend the show for socially shunned topics, such as victim blaming. A girl gets molested by her father's boss, and her own family blames her for destroying the family? Call it messed up, but it's a thing. This is the kind of thing I want to see more in anime; it's heavy stuff, but in the grand scheme of things, I want to see more shows that tackles topics on different forms of bullying.

Episode 4 does leave me with some conflicted feelings, like a lot of things to unpack.

The main one I feel connected to talk about is the gender essentialism that popped up around Momo, I want to like her character, but I don't know what to think about how she is used. First the BS about a difference between males and females by supposedly a difference of suicide, that girls are more emotional than boys. Without some sort of narrative refute just feels icky, especially since it seems to be using it to say that Momo is really a girl, not even sure what the part about being hung up on gender was about.

The narrative seems to point that Momo may look 'hansom', but actually wants to be seen as as a girl, and that her journey with all the girls she saved should be against how these girls are forcing feelings onto her and she should be allowed to be cute, because she is really a girl or something. I just don't know that much how much of a thing it is that girls are pressured into being masculine because they look boyish or something, that kind of feels like it gets dangerously close to some kind of biology essentialism, which I don't want to support. Kind of feels like in addition to removing the gender requirements, Momo's character would be better served by being a transboy wanting to be masculine for themselves, a transgirl who wants to be allowed to be seen as cute, or something like genderfluid where maybe they want to change it up sometimes.

Momo clearly has a masculine gender expression, their clothes and hair, it feels confusing that they would not be happy being seen as a guy, unless they were maybe some sort of gender nonconforming, but that does not seem to fit right by the maybe hints that they actually like cute things. For that matter I am totally confused with the dialogue where the four girls talking about finding Adam apples attractive, when I have been pretty certain one of these girls has to only be interested in other girls, a maybe Ai and Neiru. The episode though did more explicitly introduce some lesbians, some girls interested in Momo. At this point my suspicion is that Momo turned down the girl who confessed to her, which was what caused her to kill herself, so I am not entirely sure if Momo is actually into girls, and their journey will probably be against these ideas of girls forcing these feelings onto her.

At this point I have almost entirely talked about Momo/Momoe/Momotaro, it is just that it feels like this could be the most detrimental for me enjoying it in the future if done wrong. It would probably also be worth considering the decision to compare the friends that killed themselves to chase after their idol (considering whatever rationality for them actually doing so) with the bit about a girl who killed herself after standing up to her molester that got her father fired. There is probably value to question a few things in how tastefully it was done.

The way it seemed to me:
Momoe's friend came out as a lesbian, confessed to her, and kind of flung herself at Momoe ("Touch me."). Now, it seems like Momoe isn't a lesbian (she finds Adam's apples sexy), so we can presume she rebuffed her advances. And then her friend killed herself. Perhaps there was more going on too - maybe she was bullied for being a lesbian, maybe she felt ashamed, or maybe she was just heartbroken by the rejection; but it seems clear she threw herself off a railway platform. So Momoe naturally feels guilty, and starts dressing as a boy, and using masculine pronouns. Maybe her idea is that if she'd been a boy all along, her friend wouldn't have died. It feels like a reaction to the friend's death, in any case.

Interesting how Rika was "I guess it makes sense boys would be here, we don't really know how all this works, after all" whereas Neiru is "No, there's no way a boy should be here." Is the implication that Neiru does know how all this works? It could just be because she's been coming here for longer, but perhaps she knows more about the mechanisms behind what's going on.

It also rubs me the wrong way that the show states women and me commit suicide because of different reasons, with women being emotion-oriented and men goal-oriented. Making broad generalisations like that is almost never accurate, and I'm sure there are many, many counter examples.

Showsni wrote:

The way it seemed to me:
It also rubs me the wrong way that the show states women and me commit suicide because of different reasons, with women being emotion-oriented and men goal-oriented. Making broad generalisations like that is almost never accurate, and I'm sure there are many, many counter examples.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this statement rubs me the wrong way too. I don't know if that's true, but this reeks of over-generalization/stereotyping.

Count me in the "rubbed the wrong way" by the "differences between boys and girls" suicide comment. The only thing I can say is that it's not clear to me that the show believes that versus whether it was an example of a character saying something that is character-based but not meant to be seen as an editorial endorsement.

@Showsni - I like your take on the Momoe sitch and will adopt it, as well.

Animegomaniac wrote:

"When men kill themselves, it's goal orientated but when women kill themselves, it's emotional." This. Show. Just. Judged. The. Reasons. Of. Suicide. I now officially hate this show with a passion not felt since Flower of Evil.

Let me just say up front I am NOT saying this is always right, and I would never say it myself, however I think I have read a study before that may have supported this, at least in well developed countries. Of course, it IS NOT every and all suicide, but it has trended more that way as men have societal pressures that differ from women.

Again, I am not defending this here, it's ridiculous to me that this statement supports why it's only women here as statistics will bear out that while women attempt suicide at far greater numbers, (I have before personally, clearly not successfully, OD) men are FAR more successful when they do it as they generally choose to use more more lethal methods (guns, hanging) and due to societal pressures and structure in general men are more unwilling to talk to others about the causes of their depression.

That all said, this reasoning is stupid, if you want to show only girls in the show, just do it without the controversial statement. Unless they are specifically trying to hammer home that these are emotional issues these girls need to work through, in case we somehow missed that. Or is there something else for males to go through elsewhere? Or was this statement about it being emotional for women meaning that women form deeper bonds than men, which is also hoohockey. Men are much more likely to die of a broken heart if their spouse dies after years of marriage whereas women are better able to deal or cope with the loss generally. (I am quite certain my husband is one who would die of a broken heart of something happened to me)

I loved Momoe's story. It did leave questions like, if the girl she rejected is who she is trying to bring back to life, would she then want a relationship with her? If she isn't into women, wouldn't it be it's own kind of cruel to go through all this to bring her back to reject her again. Crying or Very sad

Or live unhappily herself to make her friend happy. Either way, this show has a lot going on with these girls.

I can't hate this show even with it's statement against men having emotions like women.

Forum - View topic
Wonder Egg Priority (TV).

My Hero Academia Enters 'Epilogue;' Author States Manga Will Continue for 'A While' as it 'Returns to its Title'

A Returner's Magic Should Be Special Season 1 Anime Review

Ghibli Park's Newest Area Brings Howl's Moving Castle and Kiki's Delivery Service to Life

Lupin III's 1st Fujiko Voice Actress Eiko Masuyama Dies at 89

T・P BON Season 1 Anime Series Review

Mizuho Kusanagi: Yona of the Dawn Manga is in its Final Arc

Turns Out Shōhei Ohtani Can Pitch, Hit, AND Draw Manga Art Shockingly Well

Kengan Ashura Season 1 Part 1 Anime Series Review

This Week in Games - Sony And Marvelous Woke Up And Chose The Same Day To Showcase, And I'm Paying For It

My Picture Diary Manga Review

My Oni Girl Director Asks Viewers To Be True to Themselves

	Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Series Discussion	All times are GMT - 5 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next
Page 2 of 6

Forum - View topicWonder Egg Priority (TV).

Forum

Forum - View topic
Wonder Egg Priority (TV).