Anime
THE WORLD SHOULD JUST BREAK: How’s it Like Being a Mirai with No ‘mirai’
The Melancholy of Onozawa Mirai
For someone named “Mirai”, she sure doesn’t have much hope in the “future”, or more like, she doesn’t even know what that future is supposed to be. She’s discontented with her life at present, but she doesn’t really know what she wants. Confusing huh?
“How do you see yourself 10 years from now”
Mirai found herself mulling over this for the better part of episode 1, and all that she can think of is what she doesn’t want to be, what she hates in this world. She hasn’t found her NARITAI JIBUN yet so the image of her ‘future self’ is still fuzzy, and I can imagine her racking her brains trying to figure out what the heck she’s going to write in her summer assignment if the Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 never happened.
Personally speaking, this is one of those essay-writing activities that I really loathed back in elementary, high school even, second to its “What I Did Last Summer” counterpart. I usually end up spouting a lot of cheesy crap when writing these essays, quoting stuff here and there despite not knowing what the heck I’m saying. But hey, we were just teens then, and teen writing sucks (thanks to coburn and Cuchlann for bringing this post to my attention via GRSI). So it’s totally understandable. *nods*
Many of us can relate with Mirai, I know I can, by a WHOLE LOT. We’ve most likely been through that stage (or still going through it) — the disenchantment stage, trapped in the limbo of childhood and adulthood, the time when you started “hating” anything and everything; you keep on thinking that things aren’t working out the way you want, when in fact you don’t even know what you want or who you really are — you lacked understanding, there’s so much that you don’t know, but you were too prideful to admit it, or too lost to come into terms with that simple fact.
There’s a lot that Mirai should be thankful for at present, a loving brother, being able to study in a prestigious school, friends, or even the lack of hostile classmates. Her mom and dad might not be there constantly for her and Yuuki because of their work, but the openness in their family is something to be envious about. I couldn’t even talk to my dad the way she does, let alone complain upfront to my mom and dad whenever they have their stupid petty fights.
But as the ones before me have said, Mirai’s behavior is but understandable, nothing surprising with a 13-year old kid being selfish and narrow-minded, right? Though of course, that doesn’t mean her bitchy behavior can be excused. But otou-san has already explained much about the Mirai’s true face (or her HONTOU no JIBUN), and she has very well redeemed herself in episode 5 so no need to expound on that 
The Mirai In Me (or you can also say Me-rai *ba dum psh*)
*** Real Life dorama flashback sequence alert *** ~cue cheesy dramatic flashback BGM~
Back in the day I would always envy my classmates’ parents because they didn’t set High-Bar Expectations for their kids, far unlike mine (my father in particular). Just being in the Top Ten was enough of a reason for them to Celebrate!!, while I was required to be on TOP. And of course, there’s nothing to celebrate about that — when I get to the top, I’m just doing as per required, if not — SHAME ON ME. My mom would give me presents in celebration for my triumph, but I always felt it wasn’t enough, not without the recognition from my father, who, despite not really being there as I was growing up, still affected me that much. I grew up from being a friendly assertive and outspoken Murasaki to an apathetic Shinkurou, and I conveniently pinned the blame on my dad.
Up until college I still had that kind of mindset, albeit on a lesser scale, because I found another scapegoat: our thesis leader who “crushed my pride and made me realize how incompetent I am”, after my Blooming Frosh Year. It all started with one Rat In A Maze project where I decided to take the easy way out by joining the group where my geeky superhuman classmate was part of, so I could take it easy and still get High Grades. Boy did I regret that decision, though it’s now a life lesson I shall never forget. I ended up doing almost nothing for the said project because I felt really lost, like THE rat in a maze. I ended up with a spunky 4.0 but close to 0.0 sense of accomplishment.
But things didn’t stop there. Like a willing puppet I continued to team up with our Great Leader and even became part of his thesis group, excelling in other subjects while feeling miserable as I work on our thesis without much sense of achievement. I graduated with flying colors, but it was overshadowed by the incompetence I felt as I went through college under the wing of our “leader”. I couldn’t even feel proud of the graduation distinction I earned because it’s like I “cheated” my way through college, despite how I worked hard for the rest of the subjects.
Looking back, I realize just how much time I wasted brooding over my life all those years, when in fact, I WASN’T DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT. When I felt “lost” in our thesis that I can’t even explain the whole philosophy behind our project, I didn’t even go the extra mile to acquaint myself with the system we were making. While our “leader” was at fault for developing about 80% of our thesis project, consulting our thesis advisers without even telling his other groupmates [aka us], I shouldn’t have given up so easily; I should’ve done something to recover from the “sense of incompetence” I felt as I simply stood speechless during our thesis defenses because I felt as if I didn’t have anything worthy to say. All the while I was resigning to my “fate”, conveniently blaming people when things go wrong, when things get f*cked up [from the way I saw it].
In short, I DIDN’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO BITCH ABOUT MY LIFE.
Mirai’s life would’ve turned into a total angst fest, even worse than mine, had the Great Earthquake not happened and opened her eyes to reality — swallowing her little worries as she realizes how insignificant they are compared to what people are facing in this time of crisis, and the little joys people cling to despite this tumultuous time.
Beneath the Aftershocks and Beyond~!
Aside from opening our eyes to the reality of an earthquake crisis (and I’d like to think there are even far worse calamities than this), behind the shambles, tremors and aftershocks, I believe, is this message: Don’t bitch about your life when you’re not really doing anything to make it better; You can’t expect things to happen on its own, you can’t expect people to be mind readers and know exactly what you want without you telling them either. If you think your life/fate is f*cked up, then ROW ROW FIGHT YOUR OWN FATE.
More importantly, don’t ever forget to live each day in gratefulness. It’d be sad if we grow up to become apathetic / ungrateful pessimistic bastards. Even Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 producer Noriko Ozaki mentioned as she explains the motivation behind Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 that “…people live each day without even being aware (or being grateful) of the blessings that each new day brings” [despite the announcements made by the Government Earthquake Research Institude of the 70% chance that an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 7.0 could hit Tokyo in 30 years time, people aren't the least bit alarmed about it, she says]
There’s this one quote from Grey’s Anatomy which I saw once on TV and has been stuck in my mind ever since: “It’s good to be scared. It means you still have something to lose.” Even something so negative as fear can be something to be grateful for
There are things in life that are far beyond our control, things/people/events we can only do so much to change — the parents we’ve had since birth, the people we interact with on a daily basis, disasters like this earthquake, among others. And what really matters in the end is how we steer our lives despite these ‘external forces’, how we’re going to drive through the bumpy road of life so it can still be a ’smooth driving’ experience. How we remain intact despite the crumbling world around us, hopeful despite everything.
Oh boy did I get carried away or what… so much for rambling .__.; * hands a cookie to whoever reads this till the end *
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filed under: Anime, Editorial tags: hopefully inspirational, personal dorama, ramblings, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 Discussion
13 comments for “THE WORLD SHOULD JUST BREAK: How’s it Like Being a Mirai with No ‘mirai’”
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I skipped the anecdotal part. I am sure a bitch.
But yeah I agree with the lesson at the end – if you are not doing anything to improve your own life, stop bitching about it.
Also, the “what do you see yourself doing in 10 years’ time” and similar essays are part of a (failed) school curriculum’s attempt to make a student creative. The problem is not in the intention but in the application – teachers just fail to get students motivated and also fail to make them comprehend why it is so important to be able to visualize this. None of us who were always spoonfed in education (and not being taught how to learn) would realize this.
Hehehe. I was pretty sharp back in grade school, but I tanked big time when I reached Mirai’s age. The Me-rai (lulz) rebelled in a major way, always shaming my parents who had to be called to school to sign ‘Very Strict Probation’ agreements with the school because I was such a troublemaker (BAAAWWWW nobody appreciated me, RAAAEG nobody understood me, FIGHT FIGHT/cut class/try smoking, drinking, etc).
Mirai’s brattiness is nothing compared to how most kids are, and I wasn’t even the most emo of the teens I knew.
The difference between the Mirai as portrayed in the first few eps and the Me-rai, is I had a lot of fun along the way somehow. Discovering music was a big deal, learning to play the guitar, etc.
When are you back in Manila? You buy me a cookie from biankita ok?
It was in High School I realized that I wasn’t so smart as the one I went to supposedly produced the overachievers. Eventually diligence could not make up for a lack of passion in subjects. Come Sophomore year I already knew what I was going to do given my limited set of competencies, and it helped rebel against my mother who wanted me to be a Doctor or a Lawyer…Certainly becoming a sailor was about as far away from med school as one could get with a mere stroke of a pen on a 6 year contract. Before that I did everything that was asked of me, now things are quite different.
I complained plenty in high school, though mostly about how much money was being wasted on a generation of soft cowardly self serving children. The future hippies with no concept of prowess, honor, duty, or sacrifice. Such was my contempt I became their personal monster the lunatic that takes their taxes and gleefully expends it on ammunition and toys (though they call them weapons…). The best part is they always have to pay up as nothing gets Uncle Sam angry drunk like fuckers not paying their taxes. Every bastard I went to High School with is paying for my weapons and for me to travel more than most of them could even dream of doing.
Oh and I get to use their money to pay for college, and perhaps even grad school. I really do like making hippies and emo kids cry taxes are the ultimate troll for even Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. … Is there no other way the world may live?”
Apparently there is no other way the world may live because humanity sucks that hard. If that is not the ultimate troll then I don’t know what is.
Oh and obligatory 10 years after theme…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB88zz9IaK4&feature=related
@Panther: right-o. How could they expect to get students motivated when they don’t really understand the significance of doing it? It’s quite an adjustment if you’re being spoonfed for yearsss then suddenly you’re made to “think of yourself and what you want to be”. The student will certainly be lost at first, unless he/she has been given the freedom to decide for himself/herself since childhood. Quite a paradox =/
@ghostlightning: Glad to know that Me-rai > Mirai hah!
and I’m back in Manila, though not yet for good. Leaving tomorrow night T__T
@Crusader: lol. yeah I heard you mention that before, feels good to do something you wanted and troll your mom in the process, huh?
GIVE ME BACK MY TAX!! I honestly don’t know what would make me RAEG more, having known that the taxes we pay gets to be spent on stoopid weapons or for the luxury of our government officials.
10 years after!! Man I love that song, despite not watching 08th MS team.
@usagijen
Don’t forget your taxes also go towards ghostlightning’s overall income…
You must watch 8th MS Team this instant! Quite how you haven’t seen it is beyond me, but certainly a local mechatard in your area is failing to spread the mecha gospel.
It was kind of annoying whenever parents would always ask their kids what they want to be when they grow up, yet they are still young and we know, of course that the kid won’t necessarily stick to it til he grows up and start to weigh things on his own.
Even so, I don’t think it was gone to waste because even though I said I wanted to be a computer programmer back then, I’m satisfied I chose to be an Economist (pretty far huh?), I even wanted to be a chemist when I was in elementary.
The good thing is, every talent you put your time and effort with, it won’t really go to waste because each of them is actually your hidden advantage, and time will come that it will be put to good use.
I hope Mirai starts to realize what she wants to do for herself, after all, she could always start off with small things— which I know she is already doing.
1. Many of the products that we use everyday were originally designed and invented by the much reviled “military-industrial complex.” Examples include: internet, radar, computers, advanced electronics, satellites, GPS, communications security (such as, you know, the software that keeps thieves from stealing your credit card number), American highways, jet planes, nuclear power, jeeps, rockets, lasers, and many other examples that I’ve forgotten.
In America, taxes for the military = technological development that can later be converted to commercial use. I agree that there is a lot of waste, but it’s not all bad. The difficulty with Research and Development is that at the time of development no one knows whether a particular idea will lead to anything of use. And most ideas do not.
2. Intelligence = perception = success. Idiotic emotions = blindness = failure. Mirai, Shinji (Evangelion), and Shinkorou are stupid because they have stupid emotions. The same rule applies to most teenagers in real life.
3. Brattiness and angst in kids is due to a lack of discipline at home. One of the things I’ve noticed is that many parents yell at their kids, but very few actually punish them. They use their yelling as a substitute for real discipline.
Parents shouldn’t yell at their kids. Instead they should punish their kids (when they misbehave) with ideas like “extra toilet cleaning duty” and “you are going to be a vegetarian for a week because I control your food supply.” Mirai, Shinkorou, and Shinji would have turned out better had they had parents that properly disciplined them.
4. We have the right to bitch about our lives. But it’s a silly thing to do, which is why we shouldn’t do it. Usagijen, I’m against your tactic of using strong emotions to fight other emotions. It’s too strenuous. It’s better just to be smart.
@Crusader: more like I’m not yet giving in to the mecha fandom?
@foomafoo: there’s nothing wrong with parents asking you what you want to be early on, hey it’s still what you want! hehe. What’s frustrating is if they start sticking what they want instead of allowing you to find what you want to do in life.
Glad you found what you want to do in life! Let’s all hope Mirai finds what she wants to do for her ‘mirai’
@Marigold Ran: “Brattiness and angst in kids is due to a lack of discipline at home. ” – isn’t that where most problematic teenagers are rooted from? Lack of proper upbringing at home. Discipline is good for training up a child as he grows up, but there ought to be something more… discipline + empowerment, perhaps? making them see what they can’t/shouldn’t do, and also what they can/should.
Not sure if I got what you meant by ’strong emotions to fight other emotions’, but well, to each his own
1. Spend time with your kid. And I don’t mean sitting on a couch and watching TV with him. Actually spend time with him and do something like going over math problems or (more fun) going to the museum or the park. The happiest and most successful kids are the ones whose parents are smart enough to give up a little bit of overtime pay to spend time with their children.
Chinese parents focus so much on providing material things to their children that they forget or never realize that that’s not what children really need. This stupidity/lack of perception hurts the kid and the parents in the long run. Kids will naturally “be empowered” and figure out what they’re good at, AS LONG AS OTHER PEOPLE SPEND TIME WITH THEM.
2. “Don’t use emotions to fight other emotions.”
Don’t get angry at a kid for misbehaving. Don’t be contemptuous towards someone else because he acts stupid. Don’t yell at the person in the subway train because he is being a jerk. Don’t become cynical because others lie. Don’t give up because you were defeated. Don’t be afraid when others are scared. Don’t become arrogant because you’re smarter than almost everyone else. Don’t blind yourself with emotions, because blindness = failure.
For example, many parents yell at their kids to do better at school or to play less computer games. But how does that help? Nine times out of ten the kids ignore their parents. If the parents actually wanted to help, the parents should take away the computers and send their kids to summer school. The solution to the problem is that simple. But many parents don’t do it because they are afraid of the whines and complaints of their children. They have become blind because of their fears. They have forgotten that they have a lot of power over their children.
Bob acts like a jerk on the subway train, so Tom is angry and sarcastic to Bob. But how would sarcasm help? How would anger help? Even if Bob remembers the incident later on, the only thing he’ll remember is that Tom is a sarcastic and angry person. A much better idea would be to tap Bob on the shoulder to get his attention and to tell him clearly, WITHOUT EMOTION OR ANGER, that he should stop whatever he is doing. And 99% of the time Bob will stop doing it. The trick is to get their attention and to speak calmly without sarcasm or anger. Duh!
There’s no point getting emotional over things except for purposes of entertainment. Figure out what has to be done, and do it. [And win]. That’s the meaning of intelligence.
Spending quality time with your kids to be precise, which will also make them feel loved, secure and confident as they grow up. Kids will naturally get empowered as long as other people spend time with them you say? I haven’t exactly thought about this until now, but it does make a lot of sense. Being part of a community is already empowering in itself, more so if you have your family supporting you in your endeavors (even more so if they actually are with you in the said endeavors).
Not getting emotional over things… something I definitely have to work on
thank you for the timely reminder
Emotions are not bad. Get emotional. They exist because they have a practical, biological application. If something makes you feel angry, use your brain to find a way to change it. If something makes you feel scared, use your brain again to change it if possible, if not, use your brain to find a way to get away. If something makes you feel happy, keep doing it, so long as your brain tells you that it is not going to bring yourself harm. Emotions tell us what is happening to us, our brains should supply us with an appropriate response. The problem is that people generally fail to do this and living in such a complex society doesn’t help matters.
Crusader, you sound unhappy. I applaud and respect you for doing what you’re doing, and glad that you seem to enjoy it, but you really just sound resigned to the status quo and grasping at anything (hating “hippies”) to make yourself feel better.
Scientific advancement has never been contingent on the military. (Eisenhower had amazing foresight. That whole farewell address is chilling.) It’s mainly money, and the military industrial complex has never lacked for that. Science goes where the cash is, because research is expensive. These things would still be developed, because there would still be enterprising and curious people. And just think of what more amazing things could be realized quicker if everyone decided to not spend that billion on buying more missiles.
I never rebelled when I was Mirai’s age, and neither did my friends for the most part, which is mostly why I couldn’t understand everyone’s exultations that she was such an authentic character. usagijen and Panther are totally correct in saying that if you are not going to take action to fix things that you see are wrong, don’t complain. But also don’t let yourself think that you can’t change the things you can change.
@Uzumaki
Happiness is whatever you make of it, and certainly while you are convinced I am grasping it may very well be I take particular glee in convincing said hippies that I am their personal monster. Sure I could feel bad about sucking up plenty of the national budget, but why should I pretend to be miserable when I am not? To me happiness is having enough to eat, a place to live, and ammo to expend. I find your “emotions are good” to be entirely disagreeable people do stupid things all the time for the sake of emotional satisfaction. I think it cuts both ways gratifying one’s hatred isn’t always a good idea even if no bodily harm will come the person. Emotions cloud judgment and it is the lack of judgment that gets people in trouble not recognition of emotions.
The status quo has existed long before you were ever born ever since people roamed the earth we have competed and we have competed violently. It’s not that every one wants a piece, it’s that every one wants the biggest piece, whether it’s between adults or children. At the end of the day you are talking theory when the hard fact of the day is that the military industrial complex bank rolls much of our technology those scientists and technicians who work in it are driven the hardest. Money does make the world go round and while advancement would occur occasionally, it is the industry built around killing each other that produces large advances in technology. Every country budgets for their own defense and often it can take up a fair bit of the pie chart, whether or not that should be is a moral judgment though it says plenty on how we don’t trust other groups.
You complain of missiles but that missile led to the space age that has given us better materials, GPS, communication satellites, Google Earth, Hubble, and a whole generation of scientific instruments that have given us a better understanding of our universe. Prior to this rocketry was a bunch of guys playing with fireworks in a public park, it was the desire to blow up England that led to the V-2 which let to Sputnik which led to a Space Race that gave us advances in computers that made the model you are using possible other wise we might still be using vacuum tubes. Even the Internet was originally envisioned as a military network that could survive a nuclear war now it used to pirate stuff. It may not be morally pleasant to you but the military industrial complex has advanced technology like nothing else we have ever seen and unless you or someone else can provide a better impetus for the application of new technologies the science of death remains undisputed in terms of speed.
Remember it was a world war that mandated the mass production of penicillin, Sulfa-drugs, and anti-malarial drugs, they had been discovered just not produced on a massive industrial scale, after the means of production were in place medical care was improved for lots of people. In 1939 a canvas biplane was a common aircraft, by 1945 you had all metal jets, that is quite a leap in so short a time that I cannot see how it could have been done in a time of peace in a similar span of time.