Thanks to my recent enlightenment on Kaiba and some inspiration from the great coverage it’s getting from the blogosphere, I finally decided to hop on the Kaiba-ndwagon~ :3 Lengthy introduction ahead!

Kaiba easily stood out among the Spring animes for the simplicity and uniqueness of its visuals, and utter complexity of its storyline. This served as an open invitation for the audience to swim through its depths, with some people ending up with moments of epiphany, and some other disgruntled ones who drowned in despair, unable to grasp the seemingly incoherent ideas in the show as well as the hype behind it.　There’s also a bunch of pretentious ones who convinced themselves to have understood the show even if they didn’t, the category which I belonged to weeks before I wrote this post. It’s not that only a privileged few can understand Kaiba; everyone can actually, so long as they’re willing enough to plunge into this world and explore it to its very depths, and become one of the enlightened ones.

I was almost at the brink of despair (and dropping Kaiba) when I watched two episodes without figuring out what the heck was up with the show. And as I learned, watching Kaiba raw/Chinese subbed and half-asleep is so not the way to enjoy it. Coincidentally, I revisited philosophy weeks after putting Kaiba on-hold, though it was for the sake of another post, which I don’t think will materialize anymore. Anyhow, ever since I sought this philosophical knowledge, I gained a higher understanding of things, and I was suddenly filled with this sense of wonder and inquisitiveness, which ultimately lead me to quit slacking off from watching Kaiba. I rewatched episode 2, then continued on to episode 3. Now I’m itching to watch episode 4, but I had to stop for a little while and write my thoughts for the past 3 episodes first or my mind will explode from too much intellectual orgasm. So yeah, if you don’t get Kaiba, I suggest getting into philosophy first.

Perhaps it’s because of this refreshing mix of a clear mind, a wide-awake state, and a renewed philosophical mindset, that I found myself actually understanding (or at least, thought-provoked by) the show in my 2nd rewatch. As I concentrate on one little aspect, a whole slew of ideas came, and I found myself in a slippery slope, immersed, and completely at a lost at its depth. Moments of enlightenment, as one might call it — the first time I’ve had this kind of experience with an anime too (my Kure-nai enlightenment is a different level, slightly lower than this).

Just for the record, Kaiba would have to be the very first philosophical anime I watched (and understood) to date. Mushishi has long been in my watch list, but I took it for granted. Kino no Tabi is one of those animes I cast aside way back, because the moment I saw it in Wowow I immediately labeled it as “boring”. I also haven’t watched GITS: SAC because I got “bored” with the movie (aka I didn’t understand a thing). I’m glad to say that my taste in anime matured from that time, so to speak, as I’m now loving Kaiba more than ever <3

In the course of this journey, I also decided to dig-up this Philosophy book I had way back college -- Sophie’s World. And for once, I actually read it out of sheer interest and not because it was a required reading. Thanks to that, I have gained more insights, though sadly, in expense of the Toshokan Sensou novels which I cast aside for later reading orz.

By now I think most people are familiar with the premise of Kaiba, so I won’t have to explain the theme of dualism present in the show, the separation of the mind and body, entities which can live independent of each other, etc. Same with Mike, I also thought the unique visual-style of Kaiba lends itself well to this dualism concept, inviting people to look beyond the ‘kiddie’ animation (the physical attributes), in lieu of its symbolisms, which are very much open to the interpretation of people.

The society in Kaiba is really f*cked up, for the lack of a better word. Most people, especially the corrupted wealthy ones, treat bodies like ordinary commodities at their disposal. In episode 1, we see people who have become so dehumanized that they could even delete people without remorse, as though they’re simply dealing with inanimate objects.

But then comes episodes 2 and 3, which showed us that a subset of people still had that sense of humanity left, albeit clouded with doubts, skewed morals, and all that. Many of them are just confused individuals in pursuit of happiness, something which is impossible for them to attain unless they actually know what real happiness (and joy) is to begin with.

Starting off with the haughty girl in episode 1, who itsubun aptly describes as the epitome of perpetual discontent, we can see how happiness for her lies in the way she looks — that ephemeral aspect of our being which many people allow to rule their lives, and make it dictate their identity. Sadly, this kind of discontentment is reflective of our human society, hence we see people who are so obsessed/discontented with their physical appearance and undergo plastic surgery for an “image change”, as Hige also pointed out.

Episode 2 shows us more of these people with their skewed view on happiness. Enter Kochu, a delusional girl who holds on to her love fantasies, projecting her “image” of the perfect boyfriend on Butter, and blindly ignoring the truth about her N-timing stupid boyfriend~ In the real world, she’d represent the “nice” stupid lovesick girls who could easily fall into the trap of making her whole life revolve around the guy she “loves”, the kind of person who will even defend her boyfriend (or worse, husband) despite his promiscuity, pinning the blame on the girl for seducing the guy! Sadly, many of these girls exist in real life (one of which is a friend of mine), the kind of girls to whom the book Why Men Love Bitches is especially dedicated for.

Random question: Did anyone notice that the perverted guys of this show are named after ingredients we usually see in baked goodies? Vanilla and Butter. And it’s probably because of their inherent “property” to mingle with the “sweet” (and perverse stuff?), aka the gurls/whores~ Then in the end, they’re nothing else but “plain” ingredients which don’t stand out on its own. They don’t have exemplary qualities, so to speak. Feel free to expound on this please.

And then we also have Palm, who was having the ultimate sexual experience of her life, that is, until the last moment of her breath where we also catch a glimpse of her painful past — abandoned by her father when she was young, inflicting her a deep-seated emotional scar that she must have tried so hard to conceal with pleasures of the flesh. So here we have another case of a person who’s looking for physical means to solve emotional issues which supposedly transcends the physical.

Episode 3 further explores this theme as it introduces Chroniko and her aunt, two vastly different people who were both forced to do something against their will (albeit self-suggested), due to the circumstances they were in. From Chroniko’s point-of-view, the image we get of her aunt is that of an altruistic figure who showers her with unconditional love. This act of sacrifice, later on revealed, was driven by a sense of responsibility, more than anything. In a way, we can also say that Chroniko’s patriotism was driven by this sense of responsibility, though her intentions were pure and selfless. Given the choice, Chroniko’s aunt would not have shouldered the responsibility of taking care of her, and neither will Chroniko choose to sacrifice her life for the sake of her family. She wants to live, but she has also managed to convince (or deceive) herself into thinking that doing this is the best way to make the most out of her life.

Different facets of happiness (among other things) come into play as we look at both Chroniko and her aunt. With the way Chroniko’s aunt rids herself of the bad memories of her past, she equates happiness with the absence of grief and unhappy memories in general.

This ability to delete memories actually poses serious implications, considering our position as mere humans. Sasa provided much insights regarding this, posing the question as to how people can possibly enjoy their happy memories, in the absence of the unhappy memory to juxtapose it with (the ones which will make you realize that they were happy memories in the first place). *insert censorship-related issue here*

It should also be noted that people with a misconstrued sense of values won’t be able to distinguish which memories are actually good and bad. If these people were in the right state of mind, they won’t even resort to deleting memories (or switching bodies) in the first place, knowing well that all these constitute their humanity and individuality. And, wouldn’t deleting memories tantamount to self-deception, since you are, in the process, convincing yourself that all you have are happy memories, even if it wasn’t so.

Another analogy to this memory deletion would be a person who’s simply running away from his problems. He shuts off that part of his memory, regarding it as a non-existent part of his past, then much to his surprise that it will just come back to haunt him later on. And to quote what Murasaki said in the Kure-nai novel, “Running away from your problems won’t make them disappear, that’s why you have to stand up and confront them.”

In the end, who are we to label memories as pleasant and unpleasant anyways? Aren’t we the cause of whatever ‘unpleasant’ memories we have in the first place? Accidents happen, yes, but how we view the circumstances we’re in, what happens to our daily lives, and how we react to these external stimuli, is still up to us. If you have problems, then OWN it. I know it’s harder that it sounds, but hey, that’s still the general principle to it.

At one point, these memories will even converge, further blurring what we once thought as “good” and “bad” memories the moment we see them in a positive light, in the same way Chroniko’s aunt recalled the pleasant (and unpleasant which turned out to be pleasant) memories she had — a realization, all too late.

With Chroniko’s death, could we say that happiness lies in altruism, by sacrificing yourself for the sake of other people? Could we even say that a sacrificial act is commensurate to altruism, if you do it against your will?

…And this has turned into one LENGTHY and somewhat incoherent post. Thank you Kaiba for making me exercise my brain muscles and stretch it to its limits, well done <3