Forum - View topicAjin (TV).
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11368 |
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I am disappoint. You must've been really wrapped up in the torture scene to have missed it. Her butt was hogging the camera from when she leaned over to get the drugs out of the case. I can't explain how you didn't notice when she turned her ass to Shinomura and went stomping off, unless you were busy celebrating her shooting the bastard.
This is the real reason she hates Shinomura. She gets to wear clothes that fit. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23786 |
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@ Harleyquin: you seem to be a bit contradictory. If Tanaka has never been anything but a passive participant then why would he have questioned Satou at all in this episode? You may be on firmer ground suggesting that Tanaka isn't quick-witted enough to come up with a proposal on his own. My memory of the first season isn't great (not the fault of the show, the fault of my aging brain, no doubt) but I don't recall Tanaka being portrayed as particularly dim, but perhaps he was and I just don't remember. I don't think we've seen too much of him so far this season.
@ Gina Szanboti - hey, can we keep this embarrassing lapse in my VPL sighting ability on the downlow? I don't want the lads at the Hot Bod Appreciation Society busting my chops about this... |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2851 |
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He's been having doubts about Satou's scheme since the first season. Plenty of occasions when he's asked Satou if it's really okay when he decides on a particular course of action. I think I'm justified in concluding he's passive when Tanaka has never shown any hint of defiance or disapproval to any of Satou's schemes; it's only become more pronounced now that Satou has deliberately discarded the PM rather than leaving some pretence as to his potential utility as a bargaining chip. Another way of seeing Tanaka is of the reluctant back-seat passenger who's whisked along by the whims of the dominant driver on the wheel with no inclination of removing the seat belt to interfere with the direction and speed of the vehicle driven. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23786 |
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I think your characterization of Tanaka has basically passive is correct, but do you stand by your inference that he also isn't terribly bright? I'm not challenging you on this, because as I say, it's entirely possible we've seen evidence of this and I'm just not remembering it.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2851 |
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Thinking back to his reaction when he discovered he was an Ajin in the first season, I think it's safe to say he's not the brightest spark in the party. Note that the crippled Ajin teases Tanaka in his inability to do "simple" tasks which most people can pick up and excel at with a bit of practice. That one's intelligent, so it would seem very odd he would treat Tanaka like that if he was at an equivalent intellectual plane (which he isn't). To be fair to Tanaka, he's definitely brighter than his two compatriots in overalls. Those two are typically average and are more suited to shoot first, ask questions later. Tanaka's longer experience in combat allows him to lord over them in the group pecking order. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2851 |
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#21
This episode sets everything up for next week, the only surprise we see is what Satou planned for his "secret weapon". As expected from an ex-soldier, he knew the best way to render all of the counter-measures ineffective was to go for the jugular in knocking out the one thing which kept everything running smoothly. Since the franchise is composed of 3 movies and this season is a lengthened version of the second, safe to say Nagai and co. fail to capture Satou and his squad of 7 Ajin. You'd think it to be a logical conclusion since they're outnumbered 7 to 2 on the shadow front (worst case scenario, at best they are even) and Satou has combat abilities equivalent to a special forces soldier. The rest of his crew aren't as skilled, but there's too many of them to disable and conventional weapons aren't at all useful on Satou alone, let alone the whole squad. To be fair to Satou, he did give Nekozawa the chance to leave rather than silencing him permanently after his logistical role for the assassination list concluded. Although it's possible he still needs him alive since he can't run the country on his own without more weapons and equipment to enforce his authority. He'll need Nekozawa too, since he's pushed the terrorism to the point of no return and his underlings know they have no choice but to fight with him or lose and spend eternity as lab rats. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23786 |
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This show really knows how to create effective tension. One problem I continue to have is that because the goverment/human side are shown to be such a-holes, Satou and his methods actually make perfect sense, yet the show seems to want to cast him in the role of a villain. It seems clear that the human side was going to continue its Ajin experiments no matter what. It's not like Satou could have used any other strategy to get the other side to compromise. Therefore, to me, his methods are perfectly justified, especially since he seems to be deliberately not creating innocent causalties.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2851 |
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He has no qualms with collateral damage if the building collapse from last season was anything to go by. It so happens there are fewer "innocent casualties" this week because the office was evacuated of all employees bar the (terrified) board of directors and combat personnel out to stop Satou and company. Satou sees this all as a very difficult game which he can play and win precisely because he's an immortal with special powers. Plenty of misgivings what he would do if he succeeded since normal humans are just playthings to him. Setting up a new administrative council with Ajin as the inner circle and turning all of the anti-Ajin discrimination on humans would not be beyond him (something like other fantasy tropes where a supernatural race lords it over the oppressed humans). |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23786 |
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Sure, all that may be true - and, frankly, it's justified. The human side has clearly indicated: we have no intention on stopping our experiments on Ajin. There is nothing you can say or do that will prevent this except if you somehow manage to take over power. Faced with that kind of implacable evil and unwillingness to compromise, what choice does Satou have but to take over? He gave the humans an opportunity to negotiate and they spurned it. Faced with that kind of implacable evil and unwillingness to compromise, is it any wonder he hates humans? Ajin has done a poor job of representing the human side, therefore it has (perhaps unwittingly) made a character who is being treated as a villain as actually kind of being "right." I'm supposed to cheer Kei and the others to stop Satou? Okay, what happens then? The only effective Ajin resistence is now gone. What does that mean? Back to inhumane experiments on Ajin, of course. Kei has not indicated he has any plan for saving himself or other Ajin after Satou and his gang are gone. It's bizarre.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2851 |
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In many ways it's a self-fulfilling prophecy as repression starts the cycle of retaliation and revolution that gets Satou into the position he currently occupies. When you contrast the stances with regards to Ajin taken by Japan and the USA in this series compared to India, you realise that either way the minority Ajin with their irreversible immortality can and will dominate human beings if enough of them organise themselves. Since it's base human nature to care about survival first and foremost over coexistence, it's not surprising many of the experiments undertaken were targeted towards understanding to what extent governments could maintain the status quo.
Satou has never shown any genuine intent to negotiate with the government, his reaction to the PM's desperate offer isn't any different to what he portrayed in the first season. The big show he put up with Tanaka in the first season was first and foremost a ploy to gather the undetected Ajin in Japan to join his cause. Turkeys don't vote for the dates and times of their execution and cooking, so no government would have acceded to Saitou's demands in the first place. As for Nagai, the plan was always to defeat Satou to kill the spotlight on Ajin in Japan. Since the former knew cooperation was a marriage of convenience from the start, he would either plan to negotiate with Tosaki and the others on a quiet life for himself and Nakano in some remote corner of Japan for the credit in taking in Satou or done a bunk before the government authorities could bring him in for further testing. As far as he's concerned, his personal survival comes first and getting the state to call off its active Ajin witch-hunts serves his purpose even if he doesn't give a damn about what happens to fellow Ajin in the aftermath. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23786 |
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I honestly can't remember Satou's demands in the first season, but what I can remember seemed fairly reasonable. I know they included an admission that the secret experiments on Ajin had been undertaken (and obviously an end to them) but I can't remember what else.
And if Kei actually believes that he can win some sort of reprieve from the government in exchange for helping them with Satou, he's a moron. It's hard to say what he believes or what his ultimate plan is, because I don't think the show has let us in on that. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2851 |
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Ajin to get the same rights as regular Japanese citizens, end of persecution, no more experiments etc. Standard fare for revolutionary leaders fighting for an oppressed minority. It's only when you see what Satou is really like after the special forces massacre that one realises that the demands were pure PR for getting Ajin support for his grand assassination plan. If you want more proof, look at the news articles on this website discussing the special OVA which talks about Satou's past during his stint in the special forces. He isn't an idiot, but rewatch the second half of the first season and the first three episodes of this one to get a general idea of what he wants. Negotiation with Tosaki and the others isn't a complete impossibility even if the chances of success are very low, what is definitive is he won't accept any deal that gives him a position similar to what Shimomura and the professor currently enjoy. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23786 |
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I am willing to grant that Satou may just be a power-hungry turd who never had any intention of really negotiating with the humans. However, that doesn't alleviate my problem of not really having anybody to cheer for. Standard Operating Procedure in a narrative like this would be to have at least one character sincerely believe that, somehow, Ajin and humans can peacefully co-exist. The closest we have to that is Kai and he's been on ice, with one exception, since close to the beginning of the first season.
You'd think there'd be a least one person on the government side who might have some qualms about the way Ajin are treated. Just one. But nope, not Tosaki, not even Shimomura, who has a very vested interest in Ajin treatment. Satou may be a power-hungry turd, but right now he's the only thing stopping innocent Ajin from being subjected to absolutely horrific experimentation. Pretty hard to root against him, frankly. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2851 |
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Why should there be someone to cheer for? What's with all the assumptions of "standard operating procedure" on narrative? The series deals with discrimination and prejudice at its source, the only difference being the supernatural abilities and immortality of the minority in question. Real life is grim, grey and doesn't have clear winners and losers which this series seems to have taken on board. If Satou takes over, the tables will simply turn with the humans on the receiving end of abuse by the new hierarchy in charge. In exchange for a complete halt on Ajin experimentation, Japan goes for a full-on military dictatorship with the Ajin at its head, foreign policy then becomes a real headache since every other country is still run by humans. It all boils down to what the lesser evil is for the viewer. Some would cheer for Satou's crusade to run the country at the head of an Ajin dictatorship, I'm more interested in finding out more about the origins of the demi-humans and if the immortality they enjoy is really as permanent as they claim it is. Body counts be damned, this series is about entertainment first and foremost and trivial things like "good" and "evil" detract from the reality of haves abusing the have-nots to maintain their positions and dominance. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11368 |
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Trite as it sounds, I think that's the point. Nothing's as neatly black and white as we'd like. The only thing you can do is compromise and hope you end up with the best parts of each side's agenda. I'm pretty much rooting for Satou. Kei seems like a major jerk, but remember, after everything, he still doesn't want to disappoint Kai, so he's not a lost cause either. Even Tosaki has a heart in there somewhere. He did share his mints with Shimomura. 
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