Midnight Commentaries

From the final dialogue, one can see, when squinting, a connection between this and Kojima's meme theory as explored in MGS2. I bring up this link for a specific reason. While Kojima takes a linear approach to his themes (scene, meme, gene), in that he'll set up within the diegetic world, explicate formally, and then just sort of leave them hanging, presented by never pursued, Stand Alone Complex has a more complex take on the same issue. Meme can be read as an antecedent in thought the concept of a Stand Alone Complex, as the additional layer of proper systems theory is added into the concept of a Stand Alone Complex. A meme, as explicated in the final dialogue, moves through humanity and its this movement that is the concern of the previous twenty five episodes. The tachikomas make for the most important demonstration, where their completely machinic existence is able to generate, via transmission of memes throughout systems, a system of transmission with enough complex and l...

In the Masque of the Red Death by Poe, the chambers of the fortress make an erotic journey by which the antagonist-flow penetrates, slipping through like water pours through cracks in stone, following the channels and pathways set for it by what it invades. This anime does the same thing, using the social-cultural facts of food in order to be the linguistic-chambers of flow for the erotic flows of sexuality and romance which are shared by the two main characters. The food is obviously a metaphor for sex, pornographic shots of consumption and orgasmic expressions resulting. What's interesting isn't so much the fact of food being a metaphor for sex, but the fashion in which sex is related to the two characters. The characters share their experience culturally and socially, which provides the vehicles by which they share the erotic experiences. It's in this that we find the ultimate point of this series, the way in which *romance*, the cultural and social rituals, prepare the ...

In the analysis of Dr Schreber, Freud makes the claim that hallucinations are a positive sign in the treatment of schizophrenic patients, for the reason that the hallucinations evidence the mind processing & working through whatever its underlying pathology may be. In properly systemic thinking, Freud's lessons come into play in a show such as this, where a systemic entity, a city, goes through the same convulsions of a mind, the underlying pathologies, the systems of the city, working themselves out via the bloody spectacle that takes up the runtime. In proper Cybernetic analysis, Lukuss is given to as a system, inhuman machines commanding and controlling the bodily understructure, the base of labor, humanity. The plot is broadly, these systems disintegrating to a terminal end by their mechanics being forced to act and thus terminate the very things which make their functioning. This top-down root of destruction is evident in the main antagonist, who brings about the final dea...

One of the examples given in the opening of the 2nd Plateau of ATP is the nature of a multiplicity, done by describing the nature of speed. Speed is topological in nature, it changes only be degree, by quantity, never by quality, being indivisible. All these multiplicities described are this way, changing only in degree, differences in kind only emerging from that. What is changing in degree in all of these is motion, some level of motion. This is the nature of wind as well, with "wind" not being so much an entity encapsulated like the word claims to, but instead being a motion across the atmosphere caused by a variety of factors. Such is the nature of wind in this show, an extremely powerful contemplation on this very idea and its magical and practical applications. In the twelfth episode, Nao presents the first half through her own mind, showing us artistically distorted images of the sakura season. Taiki-sensei said earlier that the sakura season reflects the color of one...

Leave your city! Hotaru departs from Tokyo, entering into a true way of life once closed off from her. Tokyo is only shown once, and not in regards to Hotaru. This is important, as Hotaru is giving up her past, her urbanite origins and recognizing them for being anti-origins, the origins of having no place. This is the first step on the journey she leads the audience into, as the show explores the interlocking strands of life. Renge makes a cat's cradle called "outer space" which brings to mind the quote from the end of Pound's life "interlocking strands and tensions" w/r/t the foundation of Confucian philosophy. The series is preoccupied with these strands and tensions, flows of the seasons, time, histories, the living motion of the world of the countryside. The series ends with these lessons coming full force in emphasizing the important character, Renge. Amidst a field of Renge, she becomes crowned, one with the world around her. This theme is a repetit...

Below the Cavendish Manor lays forgotten chambers of healing, through Diana's study, ancient tensions are ceased with dragons, the leylines are reinvigorated via these types of archaeological actions. Like most media concerning questions of witchcraft, LWA is overtly traditional and revivalist, but at such a late stage of genre-writing that its most interesting themes are dealt with only as framing tropes for what is clearly the true text of the show, the character motions played out in subtle and obvious drama as the story movies forward. At the very least, an interesting door is opened in interpreting the role of media and theatrics in showing the path for the protagonists to unlock this magical tradition, with the revival of the past being done through the benefits of this theatrical figure restoring a sort of poetic magic to life. In doing this, fantasy is coping with its own role in enabling access to mystical encounters, ie, the Lovecraftian "grimoires" concocted b...