Forum - View topicGrimgar of Fantasy and Ash and the Consequences of Death
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2862 |
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one of my favorites on "easy revival" is spoiler[gantz], where meeting the condition to revive a person would require an effort worth the life of 5 or more, unlike dragon ball's easy AF to gatehr balls that can revive unlimited groups of people.
going to the original topic, anime form the 70s/80s also had permanent, mournful deaths like roy focker from spoiler[robotech. ] and now I realize how spoiler heavy this thread can get , it will be hard to read. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Bokurano covered the topic of permanent death pretty well and spent a few good episodes on it.
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CorneredAngel
 Posts: 854 Location: New York, NY |
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Great article! As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm really liking these more editorial/feature-style pieces, especially since there's almost nobody else left to do this kind of writing!
I know a Wikipedia-style list of "anime with major character deaths" is pointless - but still, I think it's hard to write this kind of article without mentioning Gurrenn Lagann. And, Legend of Galactic Heroes - the way how so much of Yang's character (and so many events in that series) are affected by Jean Robert Lapp's death - in the first episode. |
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thekingsdinner
 Posts: 1069 Location: Geertruidenberg, Netherlands |
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Sorry but I need to bring this up. Isn't the headline for this article (with the picture) a big spoiler for those who haven't seen Grimgar episode 4 yet?
I remember accidently reading the headline for episode 5's episode review but I only watched 3 episodes at the time, so the actual 'death' scene really wasn't so impactful anymore to me, I was just kinda waiting for it to happen :/ |
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wolf10
 Posts: 905 |
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Bokurano has a much more nihilistic take on character death, mostly in how the premise means that character death is absolutely guaranteed. In the manga, at least, every single pilot dies, absolutely irrecoverably. The entire format is as such that the character getting focus in any given arc is the one who will die at the end, and after the first few, everyone knows that. That's not a spoiler, it's the entire premise. If anything, trying too hard to depict its characters confronting the "inevitability" of death ended up making it circle right back around to the same hackneyed devaluing of life that Kitoh was trying to criticize, so how well it really did its job is kind of debatable. And looking at other series people have brought up, I have to say that Gurren Lagann has some of the worst overly-romanticized deaths I have ever seen in anything. I get that it was trying to be MANLY, but looking back on that series with the values I have now versus when I watched it, I have to say I can't really agree with it on how death was portrayed. |
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SnowyLightning44
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Interesting, I've never really thought of the of the 'Ghostly Visitor' method like that but it is true that it really doesn't give the characters time for mourning so it like feels the death isn't 'serious'.
'Speedy Reincarnation' in a series like Sailor Moon really does make it the show feel dull after a while when there's not much risk at all although I do agree it works well in series' like Log Horizon where there's the risk of spoiler[losing your memories] after death. The 'Instant Replacement' definitely feels like the laziest though with the characters not acting like actually people would with them mourning the death of their close 'friends/comrades' one episode and on the next someone comes in with similar character designs, fill the role they left and then the story continues as if it never happened...  .
I'm really impressed with Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash so far and how it's handled the death of Manato with the characters mourning for a realistic amount of time and even though there is a sort of replacement for him, Mary, it's not like she's exactly the same as him, yes, she is a healer but she also has her own individual personality, character design and even backstory. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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Really it's a small moment but Ga-Rei Zero had a different kind of atypical depiction of death; the villain captures one of the monster-fighters and dangles him in front of the heroine before killing him and he's terrified. Stoicism or gallows-humor are more common.
A booby prize has to go to one of the Space Battleship Yamato works (the third TV series? Can't remember) for replacing a dead character with his twin brother. |
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bassgs435
 Posts: 273 |
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Not only Yamato, but also Gundam 00 |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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From the article, you'd think that Akame ga Kill shied away from real character deaths and pretended they didn't happen, but I think what really characterized it's approach to character death is shock value, especially towards the end but still apparent in at least one of the character deaths mentioned. The death you see that most in is that of spoiler[Chelsea, Sheele's replacement, who is killed, beheaded, and her head placed on a spike (I think it was a flagpole but you get the picture). ]
More generally you'd think that anime shies away from real death, where some, especially those of Kill 'em all Tomino or the Urobutcher, kill characters almost too casually. Of course, the author probably knows this and there is only so much space to write, but depictions or death in anime can be not as thoughtful as Grimgar in the opposite way too. |
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scrwbll19
Posts: 87 |
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Personally, I think that "Full Moon wo Sagashite" deserves some mention here. Arguably, the series is all about death and mourning.
spoiler[ While there is certainly a degree of sugar-coating, the series is seen through the eyes of a little girl, who has terminal throat cancer, no one who really loves her, and no future where she can live out her dream to become a pop artist. Given this hopeless situation, we can only surmise that the appearance of shinigami Takuto and Meroko are her way of coping with this situation. Although there is plenty of proof to say that they are real, there is some to say that they are in her mind. Regardless, we come to find out that both her love interest and parents are dead. Her grandmother treats her with disdain to protect herself from further pain in an arguably abusive manner. Depending on whether you read the manga or watch the anime, Mitsuki, the protagonist, knows our doess not know about the death of Eichi, her love interest. Regardless, the series spends considerable time on Mitsuki mourning her situation as well as the death of her parents and Eichi.] |
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GlassesMan
Posts: 217 |
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I appreciate this about Grimgar as well. I was going to pass this up as another cliche fantasy, but the author (Jyumonji I think his name is) does a great job at being brave enough to kill characters and not skip over the consequences of that. And while people have complained that Manato was made to be killed off as he was a Mary Stu, later volumes of Grimgar show that it is very much an "Anyone Can Die" setting.
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Jupiter77
 Posts: 22 |
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When I think death of characters in anime or manga I think Claymore. There where a lot of characters who went down bad and when they went down it was for the count. I think the worst was Alicia and Beth, they where really cool and a lot was made about them and how strong they where and they went down quickly and without much point. It was like nothing more than a plot device to show how strong the main villain was.
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lavmintrose
Posts: 90 |
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This is the only serious anime.
All other anime treats death like X-Men does. Do you realize how bad that makes the whole medium sound to someone who doesn't watch a lot of it, who might come to ANN to find out? It's also sort of silly how you mention From the New World, the manga, as an example of doing things badly, while the anime is just the opposite (as, presumably, is the novel, which I've never read). Everything positive about Grimgar that you say in here could easily be said about From the New World. Also, there are plenty of other series that are "serious" and don't "cheat" with death. It's probably enough that it's not a unique quality at all. But besides that, a series can be good without being brutal and honest about everything. There are other major flaws with things like Fushigi Yugi and the FTNW manga that was mentioned. But things like Pretear (where the knights regenerate) and Sailor Moon aren't flawed by those elements. They're just a different type of story. They're meant to be fun, escapist things, and there's nothing wrong with that. To say there's a conflict here between those and more "serious" or "honest" anime fighting for their place? That does a disservice to the medium. Also, things that pretend to be some serious, realistic story, but then have some fantasy element fix things (like Anohana, Orange, etc., which another article was pointing out as a trend) are sort of worse in this way. Sailor Moon seeing her dead friend again is par for the course when she already has a talking cat and can jump five meters in the air. For an actual Ordinary High School Student? ... not so much. |
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GVman
 Posts: 729 |
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lavmintrose, I don't think this article makes anime seem trite because all mediums/genres suffer from this. While they all might not have issues with characters coming back to life, they do have issues with the portrayal of death. Anyone who thinks otherwise probably needs to watch/read more than just anime/manga.
In regards to the whole debate as to whether or not Gurren Lagann did good with its portrayal of death, spoiler[Kamina's] didn't go over with me too well. Why? Because they decided to ruin the moment by making the scene a visual reference to Ashita no Joe. That sucked whatever emotional impact his death had right out of the show then and there. |
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Via_01
 Posts: 551 |
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I don't believe the article ever said this. The writer said that a lot of anime shows tend to rely on the tricks mentioned, or simply don't treat the subject of death with much gravity. That DOESN'T mean that those shows aren't serious or that they don't deal well with their respective themes, but it's very rare when a show spends 3 episodes mourning a character's death, and that's the whole point, really. Heck, most of us probably never thought Grimgar would have the balls to go that far with it; I thought we'd have, what, half an episode of mourning? And then they'd continue their adventures? |
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