Forum - View topic

EP. REVIEW: SHIMONETA: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist

See ANN, I told you Shimoneta was worth delving into and not just a simple trashy series about dick jokes!

...It's a comedy, it doesn't have to make that much sense.

...this is meant to be a cautionary tale against a specific concern, not an accurate extrapolation of reality. This has been a recurring format in sci fi short stories over the past century, where it's the concepts (and in this case also the humor) that matter. Hence this story is, in a way, following a decades-old tradition.

I'm only arguing that as a satire and as a commentary on a real-world issue, it's such a clustercuss that it has nothing to add to the discussion of censorship in Japan.

This is certainly true! ...but only to a certain extent. Pure farce à la Monty Python or Excel Saga is a grand comedic tradition, and I'm more than willing to forgive anime its logical elisions where those elisions push a story forward or help serve a grander scheme. (For example, how did Escaflowne's magic light beam work? Who cares!? It got its characters where they needed to be!) But Shimoneta is not a pure farce; it's a satire, with a narrative structure. Neither half works here: if you have a narrative with consistent characters, that narrative needs to hold together internally, and Shimoneta's does not.

More importantly, satire serves to illuminate the absurdities of its target: the total insanity of Anna's behavior should be excellent satire on this front, but the message is undercut by the fact that the narrative can generate that behavior only by constructing a reality so far removed from ours that the satire ceases to have any real-world grounding whatsoever.

Neko-Sensei, you keep bringing up how censorship at this level is only possible in dictatorships, but what about theocracies? Religious governments censor anything and everything sexual, but a religion doesn't have to take over a whole government to do that; it just needs the hearts and minds of its followers. Do you know how many religious communities all over the world censor everything sex related, especially education? I grew up going to all girls religious schools, I knew of girls who didn't know what menstruation was until they started, and heard urban legends about people who supposedly didn't know about sex until someone explained it to them the night before their weddings. I just don't see this show's scenario as far fetched as you do. It happens on a very small scale everywhere in just about every fundamentalist community.

I've only seen the first two eps so far, too much to watch, too little time and all that, but I'm glad it's getting streaming reviews, easier to keep tabs on that way.

Neko-sensei wrote:

More importantly, satire serves to illuminate the absurdities of its target: the total insanity of Anna's behavior should be excellent satire on this front, but the message is undercut by the fact that the narrative can generate that behavior only by constructing a reality so far removed from ours that the satire ceases to have any real-world grounding whatsoever.

Since when is that a necessity for satire? Everything that's going on here is squarely within the realm of absurdity applied to a real-world setting. Besides, as another poster implied, it's not like there aren't real-world approximations of the Decency Squad.

What you've decribed is pretty interesting, having in consideration thatI am reading a book that addresses (among many other things) the harm of religious education in sexuality, and ultimetly in Women's Rights and LGBT Rights. Essentially, the book is by the late author Christopher Hitchens: god Is Not Great.

Key wrote:

Neko-sensei wrote: More importantly, satire serves to illuminate the absurdities of its target: the total insanity of Anna's behavior should be excellent satire on this front, but the message is undercut by the fact that the narrative can generate that behavior only by constructing a reality so far removed from ours that the satire ceases to have any real-world grounding whatsoever. Since when is that a necessity for satire? Everything that's going on here is squarely within the realm of absurdity applied to a real-world setting. Besides, as another poster implied, it's not like there aren't real-world approximations of the Decency Squad.

I think he is trying to say that the show is basically throwing out a hypothetical situation and then making fun of that which isn't really satire. That is just coming up with a gag.

I don't think that is really what Shimoneta did though because as has been pointed out, there are examples of real-world attempts at something similar. Shimoneta may be incredibly removed from anything going on in Japan, but picking something similar to one of the most extreme examples, showing how absurd that is by ridiculing it, and basically implying that such an absurdity is where you end up if you stay on the current path is satire.

Though I still stand by my earlier statement that the series has switched from satire to just sex comedy.

Hellsoldier wrote:

What you've decribed is pretty interesting, having in consideration thatI am reading a book that addresses (among many other things) the harm of religious education in sexuality, and ultimetly in Women's Rights and LGBT Rights. Essentially, the book is by the late author Christopher Hitchens: god Is Not Great.

I haven't read the book, but I did read the wikipedia article you linked. Either the article is a horrible misrepresentation of the book, or you are giving a horrible misrepresentation of his message. I realize you said "among many other things," and I'm sure that stuff is technically in there, but that is like saying 'game of thrones is about incest among many other things'. Not technically false, but thats basically lying by omission.

From what the wiki says, I think Hitchens makes a great point though.

There's no such thing as a free pass for entertainment. If a movie, book, or anime has a clear ideological message to convey—and Shimoneta definitely does—then it needs to be judged on the effectiveness and skill with which it communicates that message. An excellent example is Evangelion: the TV show makes very little narrative sense, and of course physically speaking almost every scene is totally impossible. But the nonsensical universe is only a device to illuminate the series' true concern, which is the paradoxical longing of the human heart for simultaneous solitude and companionship. Our suspension of disbelief generates an internal truth... but in Shimoneta, the lack of real-world contact on any plane undoes the whole project.