12 days of Animushmas, day two
Let’s all get along. With rapists.
Part two in a 12-day Festivus celebration that I think I started too early, curated by CCY
I started off perhaps unassumingly with Blassreiter’s “twist beginning,” but let’s move on to something that a lot more people saw, and that a lot of people masturbated over (figuratively, verbally, and probably even literally) this year.
Here’s the scenario, at least as I remember it, circa episode 12:
A wicked family imprisons their women in a room for their entire lives, because women serve a single purpose: DAT ASS. Actually, shooting out kids. Their brothers’ and uncles’ kids. From like age 12. After Murasaki Kuhoin spent the entirety of the Kurenai series learning about life, love, and other junk from Shinkurou Kurenai and his fucked-up neighbors, she was all set to reject this shitty life of brotherly love lovin’. But in the end, after 11 episodes of violence and melodrama, she just asked everyone to please, rape nicely.
Kurenai was well-loved for its creative directing, fun characters, and great animation (though I found the character designs to be a little suspect; maybe that’s just the incest starting to show up), but not as universally lauded for the story. Why is this a memorable moment? Because, ironically, it changed Kurenai from a truly memorable show to just another TV anime that you watched. So this non-denominational Generic Holiday, if you want to stay away from the proverbial fruitcake that your family and friends will hate, don’t gift-wrap Kurenai’s final episode.
Kurenai will always be remembered for the musical episode – and for parking in the inner sanctuary.
lol kurenai sucks
Heh, everyone else is on day one, but yet you’re on day two =P
Dop – I enjoyed the musical episode ok, haters be damned. But not enough to go back and watch again after finding out how craptastically they ended the show. LOL at parking in the inner sanctuary.
iCySTorM – Yeah I coulda sworn yesterday was the 14th
It’s ok, I only celebrate Festivus anyway.
Hmm, I forget whether Kure-nai sucked or not. That probably means it wasn’t too good; I’d mostly agree with the review you linked to, in that it’s definitely above average, but not outstanding.
I did think that, the way it ended was at least slightly better than the equally over-idealistic ending of Shinkurou stealing Murasaki away for good and becoming a siscon. Or something.
In any case, keep it up, you one-day-ahead-person, you. Technically the 12 Days of Christmas are after Christmas, so we all screwed up anyway.
[...] otou-san: Kurenai 12 [...]
I has a spoiler 4 u, I made it from duct tape and the thing that holds the wrapping paper
Kurenai was hot shit.
I really appreciated the way this ended, which is saying something when I usually feel dissatisfied with anime endings! In this case I ran the alternative scenarios through my mind, remembering what the show had done up to that point and what its themes and ideas were, and came to the conclusion that the ending was the most appropriate one for the situation (I believe the light novel was unfinished at the time of the anime’s airing). Sure, the incest subplot made me feel sick to the stomach but the resolution was refreshingly free of a cut-and-dried, neat conclusion that wouldn’t have done justice to such a complex and difficult-to-resolve problem.
But then I was one of those people who *figuratively* fapped off to this show. The dialogue in particular was superb.
Hm… I’m not sure how I would envision it ending. I too thought of alternatives, none of which sounded any better. Obviously things couldn’t go on as they were — that was a major point of the story. And like CCY said, the happily-ever-after ending would be dumb. Not to mention only somewhat less creepy than the actual one.
I’m not a fan of simplicity, or happy endings for their own sake. It just seemed to come out of the Left Field of Unlikelihood in my mind. I do agree about the mostly anime-cliché-free dialog, probably my favorite part.