Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Japan Sinks: 2020
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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Watched 7 & 8 together, and they were *tame* compared to what came before. I was proud of Ayumu giving her spot on the boat to the little girl, but we didn’t get to see if it worked (or if the boat was safe—when they encountered the ship of dead people, I wondered if it was the one Ayumu was supposed to be on. It wasn’t clear).
I’m really relieved that the anti-racism message was clear, although it could’ve been more subtle than literally blowing up the racists. The cult was better company than those guys and deserved better! BTW, in episode 8, the fishing boat releases two lifeboats—the rowboat Mari & Haruo ended up on, and the inflatable raft. Episode 8 was almost understated. For the first time, we got quality relationship establishing character building for Ayumu and Go, and Mari’s death hit harder than any previous character death, because they took their time with it. This show is really uneven but it can be touching rather than ridiculously over the top when it tries! Are you going to review the last two episodes separately or together? |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11354 |
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It feels like a finishing paragraph got left off of that review (not sure what was left to say, just seemed kind of abrupt for a finale review), plus there's no reviewer rating.
Funny, I finally just finished DEVILMAN crybaby and kept noticing all the tropes that kept showing up in the two series - which couldn't be more different from each other - especially the track and field characters and passing the baton metaphors. Plus the mixed-race issues. Dc's Taro was like a precursor to Go in that they both seemed to be discontented brats, just about different things, and neither seemed to be on Japan's side of anything. |
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Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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I liked it way more than I thought I would based on other people’s reactions (and how wacky it got in it’s most outrageous moments). I attribute my more positive take on the show to the fact that I *didn’t* binge it, giving each episode (and outrageous moment or character death) time to process. Watch it too quickly, and it becomes self parody, because the character deaths are so sudden. So thank you again ANN for doing weekly reviews, which gave me the structure to watch an episode or 2 at a time instead of all at once!
I’m confused about the finale review, though—wasn’t the montage various characters’ *memories*, as depicted through a YouTube video of Japanese people’s home movies? We see the cult leader at the beach carrying her child before she started the cult, the murderous grandpa with the wife and granddaughter he ended up losing, Mari reading to little Go and Ayumu, and KITE transitioning from AFAB (Assigned Female at Birth) to male as a child. And I’m not sure where we see Japan granting full LGBT+ equality, but it was a long and messy montage, so I might have missed it. (I was also convinced that Go, Ayumu, and Onedera were saved by Russia, but it could have been Estonia...) One thing that really impressed me was the show’s strong anti-ableism stance. I was sure that Onedera would die, but not only did the characters make a concerted effort to save him (and not treat him as less valuable or too hard to save because he was disabled), he’s shown still working in the finale. This, combined with Ayumu representing Japan as an athlete with a prosthetic, and the cult based on the non-verbal boy being good, actually, makes me think the writers want to emphasize humanity and respect for disabled people. It’s a good message! My least favorite aspect of the finale was Haruo’s death. We had just gotten a heroic send off of Mari, we didn’t need Haruo to die basically the exact same way (showcasing old athletic skills to save a thing that would save the others). Especially after all his character development. His character development wasn’t great—apparently, if a depressed person experiences increasing dangers and traumas, they’ll break out of their shell because of the sheer amount of adrenaline to survive?—but his dialogue was more engaging, so I was glad he was changing. Until they killed him off. Japan Sinks 2020 was a flawed show, but it’s ultimate optimistic messages of unity and acceptance for mankind kept it from being misery porn and left me smiling at the end. |
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milkyy
 Posts: 88 |
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Eagerly awaiting the day Netflix just goes belly-up. Their original anime is just hot garbage.
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