Comments on: Twelve Thingies: A whimper, not a bang

By: otou-san

otou-san — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:48:48 +0000

Agreed. I’m not sure what makes it so riveting, even without a plot — perhaps it’s the unanswered questions that pick at your brain, but whatever it is I am in love with YKK.

By: otou-san

otou-san — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:47:48 +0000

I agree on both counts. It’s a very gothy-cliche thing to go to Eliot in general but as you say, it just works here.

By: 2DT

2DT — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:31:07 +0000

Crap. I really meant to comment on this right when I saw it.

I agonized over using Eliot, because that one line is just so terribly cliche today. But really, what else fits?

By: otou-san

otou-san — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:01:05 +0000

Just because TheBigN likes everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to him in this case

It certainly made me think right off the bat I’d be bored, although I suppose Aria primed me a little. It’s really more interesting than Aria though, because it’s a decidedly un-dystopian picture of a dystopian future. Your wheels will constantly turn trying to figure out all the things that are left unsaid in the story. Then again, I’m a sucker for hints and unsaid things; it’s a desire that’s rarely satisfied by anime and manga, but how wonderful when it is.

By: otou-san

otou-san — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:56:38 +0000

This is true. I had that thought as well, but I honestly haven’t done much in the way of thinking about the ramifications of that. It’s certainly one of the sadder aspects — the robots flying around in the plane that can’t stop, or trying to serve coffee to people who aren’t there. I suppose we all have to go on for a while after burying our parents, though.

By: otou-san

otou-san — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:54:30 +0000

Yeah I think 2DT made that point well — it would be strange indeed. And YKK is definitely about going as gently as possible into that good night.

By: TheBigN

TheBigN — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:24:59 +0000

IKnight should forgo his preconceived notions, and check YKK out, in my opinion. He should at least give himself the chance to be bored by it. It’s highly ranked as a manga for a reason.

And great to see that you enjoyed it, otou-san.

By: IKnight

IKnight — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:46:45 +0000

Funny, that quotation came up in my seminar today. Someone suggested that the whimper is actually the cry of the child, because Eliot plays elsewhere with paradoxical combinations of birth and death: ‘this Birth was / Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death’; ‘at this birth season of decease’.

As for YKK itself, I’ve filed it in that group of titles that, while undoubtedly good, would probably bore me to tears if I tried them. I’m glad other people are around to appreciate it properly.

By: ghostlightning

ghostlightning — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:28:32 +0000

Melancholy isn’t sadness, though there is some sadness in it.

But then again, humanity evolved — just not in the way we hoped we would. Our children are the robots, may they live forever.

By: zzeroparticle

zzeroparticle — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:50:58 +0000

It’d be strange to see something out of Japanese culture like Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night.” The eternal line, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” would be quite at odds with the atmosphere that YKK tries to execute.