@Passerby (3,000 rambling words on DTB meta)

3,000 words was way too long for a comment response so I had to make a post. My words are mostly comprised of the philosophical dilemmas in DTB and the contractor society in the 3rd OVA, but it certainly isn’t restricted to just that. Most people who visit this blog probably won’t find this boring, but for the people who just watch anime as something to do I probably wouldn’t recommend reading further. This is a big picture post and as such has next to no grounding. Read at your own risk: Unless you’re Passerby (You’re required to suffer through it ;) ).

(Pre Script: It’s also a great chance to post pictures of some of my favorite characters :3)

Because this definitely starts off as a response to Passerby’s comments on my OVA 3 and 4 post I’ll repost his comment here:

I have been summoned, so here I am!

You’re right about DtB: it’s not fun to watch at all. It’s not the kind of entertainment I’d be going for if I want to wind down after a long day or want to share moments with a bunch of mates. It’s heavy, depressing stuff without much light at the end of the tunnel. The world, as a whole conspires against our protagonists. Actually, perhaps ‘conspires’ is the wrong word because that would imply there were forces being deliberately bent against them. No, the world doesn’t really care much for Yin and Hei, as people. The world is just inherently structured in such a way that it’s pretty much impossible for Hei and Yin to get the peace they want. Conflict and violence is the norm (as DtB is so keen to remind us with its episodic killing sprees); they are fighting against not just flesh and blood enemies, but entire social paradigms.

As I said, I won’t be relaxing with DtB over a cup of tea, I assure you.

You kinda baited me with that rationality stuff, so I guess I’m obliged to respond to it. The translations, as far as I can tell, makes no distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘rational’, which is a minor gripe of mine. They are not the same, and using them interchangeably just confuses things. I think they are usually talking about rationality, at least in OVA 4 (judging by context) but I’d prefer if I knew concretely which one they meant.

As you’ve noted (subbing ‘rational’ for ‘logical’) rational acting is, very generally, simply taking the most viable choices to achieve some outcome. The will to survive is simply one of the most common goals we attribute and tend to assume in pretty much everyone.

Casually Homicidal Mind-Control Loon (that’s now his name, since I don’t remember it either) makes a good point, which you’ve already noted. At the same time though his Chinese boss does too. One could argue that Casually Homicidal Mind-Control Loon was just spouting ideals (and chucks the cash, I assume, on the basis of his ideals). Nice juxtaposition with Hei here; what was Hei fighting for? Was he trying to deny reality and go for an ideal? The Possessor really does hit home; just what kind of dream did Hei have? Contractors do not dream (nor do they get hay fever), but Hei seems to be clinging onto an impossible fantasy. DtB leaves these points for us to ruminate on, which I care more about than the technobabble, but it’s just as inconclusive.

Speaking of Casually Homicidal Mind-Control Loon and his contractor utopia, there is a delicious irony here. He wonders, out loud, why humans continue to use contractors even when contractors have all these awesome physics-defying powers. No matter how deep, profound and rhetorical acomplia cheap he was trying to make that sound, I found it a pretty easy question to answer. Contractors are still under the heel of human society because frankly contractors are incapable of society themselves. Consider their prediliction to antisocial behaviour: no sense of guilt, unable to form lasting interpersonal bonds, they’re model whatever-paths. I question the ability of contractor-kind to form the kind of social contract (ha, contract!) needed to construct civilisation, let alone becoming the dominant one.

That’s not the irony of Casually Homicidal Mind-Control Loon, however. The irony is that there -was- a shot at contractor-society. But Mind-Control Loon killed them all.

I am referring, of course, to Amigiri’s little colony of Evening Primrose. And you’re right; it’s honestly a horrible attempt. Quite the boring utopia, really. Just eating, sleeping, generally surviving without much cause. Perhaps it’s merely for lack of practice; Amber did say, way back in Season 1, that it took some time for contractors to start recognising each other as comrades, sticking to each other, etc. I didn’t have much hope for them, to be honest, and not merely because I was almost certain they were slated for death DtB-style. It really hit me how listless they all were until the order came (from Mind-Control Loon, but still) to kill Hei. Then they were all action-mode. They just revert so naturally back into killing machines that it’s uncanny. Is murder something that’s been too long a part of their everyday? Is it the innate nature of contractors? DtB is never going to answer that one.

Oh, I forgot. Good to have you back.

@Passerby

Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond. Honestly, it’s because you always raise fun and interesting points. I would hate to look like an idiot by answering without thinking a little which leads to my normal dilemma of thinking too much about other things.

First off though, thank you very much for the welcome back. It’s going to seem like I’m holing up this week as I have finals for summer quarter, but I do not plan to bail on this blog again.

Thanks for pointing out the irony of Mind-Control Loon. It really makes you wonder at his final statement of an ideal. It also makes me applaud how appropriate his contractor power was. He was an illusion in every sense of the word. Even at the end when we think we’re getting his real goals and ideals it turns out that he had already contradicted it earlier in the episode. He knew he was going to die when he entered that room and he never made a move to escape even though it would have been easy for him. So why did Casually Homicidal Mind-Control Loon pick that place for his death? I can only assume he did want Izanami to awaken, but the prophecy points at her awakening as the death of contractors which seems to directly contradict the idea of contractors being rulers. Also, what’s the point of contractors being the rulers of the world if you’re to dead to see it.

Given this context I can’t help but believe that he didn’t want contractors to rule at all, but their deaths. Maybe it was a boring world but he killed off the only chance for contractors to change as you pointed out. I guess for me that means there was something about contractors he just couldn’t stand and this lead to his pompous speech about contractors being in control. In other words I’m pretty sure he wants to poison the world against contractors for whatever reason. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure but Casually Homicidal Mind-Control Loon certainly was a complex character.

Speaking of contracts I like that Hei’s power changes people on a fundamental level since he also does that emotionally to all people. It’s a very appropriate power for him (even though it was his sister’s really).

Ugh, my friend went on a rant about how bad fansubs can be just the other day. I guess this is a case of that and it’s a really important distinction too. It’s like people who don’t know the difference between precision and accuracy. I’m glad they fansub, I really am, but it would be great if we could get a metaphysical expert on the DTB fan subbing team to shed some light on the conversation. Oh well, who am I kidding.

Part of me is glad the world of DTB is never resolved. I’m really tired of the “final boss” moment. In DTB you get that feeling of being overwhelmed by the evilness and size of the enemy. It mirrors our own lives in some ways. We can’t go out and change the way our country is run, we’re too small and the problems are too big. DTB is one of the only “super power” series I know that does this at all. At the end of the day the contractors are just part of the system and they die grizzly meaningless deaths on small assignments that don’t factor into the big picture that much. Hei does a little more, but we’re also bashed in the face with the anime norm “What good is a hero if he can’t even protect one girl”? Sure Hei kept the contractors and humans from killing each other, but he couldn’t save Yin. He was run ragged just from these four OVAs. He wins fight after fight, but it’s never enough. There will always be more contractors, more organizations interested in Izanami, and Hei is just one pathetic guy who can’t seem to hold onto friends (they just get knocked off one after another). Honestly that’s the real tragedy behind DTB: Hei always ends up alone. I can’t help but feel his last lines to Yin even more powerfully “I don’t want to lose what’s important to me anymore.”

Yin was the last thing holding him to the world really, it’s no wonder he had completely given up after her disappearance (and why he was so easily taken advantage of by the Madam). We all know Suou saves him, but it sure wasn’t easy.

I just read Rousseau’s “The Social Contract” last quarter. It’s pretty darn interesting really how the contractors seem to be living in Rousseau’s idealization of the human state of nature while humans are able to form the contract he dictated. I think it’s weird that some contractors think they’re superior beings when thinking about themselves as individuals above ordinary humans while completely failing to grasp that humans were only able to overcome the wilderness by banding together. Ultimately this doesn’t mean that contractors couldn’t overcome nature by themselves, but it does mean that humans have banded together once again to exert their control over the state of nature (the contractors).

As for murder being an innate part of contractors… I always felt cheap ampicilllin that contractors just had anti-social personality disorder. Basically they don’t have their own moral compass and do everything for their own benefit. Basically they can kill without thinking it’s wrong. Still, some contractors are certainly born with the taste like that serial killer from season 2. Havoc’s remuneration also comes under suspicion of being too bloody.

Gosh, I’m going all over the place here, but let me throw in one more reference since we’re talking about killing and that’s “Ordinary Men” by Christopher Browning which basically dictates in detail how a group of German Police Officers became mass murderers. As the title suggests these people weren’t special. There, of course, existed the strange man who was absolutely ok with brutalizing and humiliating the Jews but most of the officers were disgusted with the task. I’d recommend the book, but Browning makes some interesting points about how easy it is for people to become killers via authority (such as the Milligram experiments) or just left in a position of power (Stanford Prison Experiments). In all honesty humans were treating each other inhumanely less than a couple hundred years ago (slavery and the Congo). Maybe the casual viewer of DTB would find the contractors actions out of place or haunting, but contractors aren’t particularly special in this regard: They simply have no empathy and no restraints placed on them: A James Bond “License to Kill” if you will. I personally believe once we cut past the “Sanctity of Life” social ideal and get down to the actual killing of another human being we’re faced with one fundamental problem: With a human it’s too easy to empathize. When all is said and done most humans see pieces of themselves when they look at other people, or they see people they’re deeply connected to. For instance when you see someone else’s mother you see your own. Honestly I sometimes have a hard time squashing spiders for precisely that reason. I empathize with them in death. I think of the lights getting knocked out on myself and it’s hard. Contractors are comfortable with death because most of them have no dreams as I said earlier. They live for nothing and therefore have no problem with dying themselves. Thus, when they look at a human whose light is just about to be blown out they don’t empathize. They can’t empathize with something that has a strong desire to live, because lots of contractors don’t seem to have that desire… Oh wait a sec, that’s not true at all. Now I’m thinking about season one and all of those contractors that only wanted to survive… Bummer, well I guess we can throw out that theory. Still, at the root of it all there are many people who already exist like the contractors we see in DTB and many Contractors act more humanely than some of the sociopaths that exist among humanity. I can’t remember if this point was ever raised in DTB, but it’s raised so often I can hardly keep track: Are Monster’s born or are they created? I have to believe that in DTB the monsters we know as contractors are created. They’re rooted out and thrown into situations like South America where they’re forced to kill to stay alive (Oh now I remember, I was reading Battle Royale, though that certainly isn’t the only place this question is brought up). People with anti-social personality disorder observe the world and try to find the best way to survive. If survival means killing they’ll develop that as their rule. The contractor society in OVA three actually might have been the only hope for the future. They were redeveloping the rules that would best allow them to survive. Once they realized that humanity had cast them out its only natural to band together. Now you’re going to love this (I think). What really gets me is that it wasn’t the anti-social personality disorder that made them go after Hei, it was actually the lingering remnants of humanity and emotion. When they attacked Hei it wasn’t saying “This is the best way for us to survive” they were saying “You killed Amber”…: Their desire for revenge, not their desire to survive. So I ask you this Passerby: Was it Contractors falling back into their killing ways OR was it fully adjusted contractors discovering the remnants of their humanity? With the baby in play they were proceeding towards a future that could have been sustained (very rational in terms of purchase cheap pharm survival).

I guess what I’m trying to say with all this is something we’ve both been spouting since our first dissections of Contractors: Contractors haven’t lost their emotions, they’re just very bad at showing it. They’re a little like dolls that way. It’s not that they don’t feel motivations like revenge and love, they just can’t express it and because they can’t express it we tend to think they don’t have it. It’s like watching any robot girl in an anime only we know she’s going to break down in a tsundere fit once the hero shows her just a little bit of kindness.

(OMG, completely off topic but I still love Hitagi’s line from Bakemonogatari “Unluckily, you were fallen for by a crazy virgin so starved for love that she’d fall for anyone who showed a little kindness.” Why is Nisio Issin cheap zithromax so great at saying these things?)

The dolls are just a more extreme case of this. Every single doll we’ve seen has had strong emotions boiling just under the surface but it’s so hard to recognize because they have none of the usual indicators. The gate is evil in many ways: It didn’t steal the doll’s humanity; it just stole their ability to be connected with (easily). Then again I’ll contradict that statement by saying maybe the gate is merciful: After all Yin did say in her Arc (season 1) that “I’m sad that I’m not sad” or “I felt my heart move” (not direct quotes I’m not going back to look for the exact words) so she did lose something.

For Suou it was somewhat of a relief to become a fake contractor as well (because we all know she was faking). She wanted to be released from the guilt and the pain of living. Her connections and empathy to other people simply made her miserable (as she watched her family die) so why not lose them. In a sick way that doesn’t work out at all. The losing of one’s soul to the gate is pretty much the only chance at happiness any of those who are dolls or form a contract have. I’m reminded of “A love song from the garbage dump” the first season episode where that Yakuza boy falls in love with the doll.

Oh man; I’m loving this so much that I might just be attributing it falsely to DTB at this point, but imagine for a second (it won’t be hard) that every single contractor and doll had a past so heavy that it would be impossible for them to move forward as humans without help. Unfortunately I can think of counter examples somewhat easily—Mai and Bai to name two—but let’s say that at some point in our life we hit a speed bump that prevents us from progressing any further. I’ll be copping out by pointing to Kyon from the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, but he comes first to mind. He had no plans on going anywhere or doing anything until Haruhi interjected. The same could almost be said for contractors and dolls. Yin, at least, would have a very hard time moving forward after her mother died like that. Nicholas (from the gate episode) couldn’t really move on past his sister. What I find particularly fascinating is how most of the contractors (in the first season at least) appear happy to some extent or the other: Like they’re finally free to pursue what they’ve always wanted too. This brings me back to the contractor society in OVA 3 where they’re listless. What’s different? I’ll tell you what: It’s the society. Contractors in many ways are those who have become untethered from the social contract, they’re free. It’s all of us who live within the system that are unhappy. The EPR reforming a society simply reimposed the chains the gate had allowed them to throw off. Maybe I sympathize with the contractors (oops suddenly jumped to self-analyzation), honestly I get really tired of living in a world that’s been imposed on me since birth. “Thou needest money, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt go to school, thou shall respect thy elders, and thou shall cave to order cheap pharmacy popular opinion.”

Most contractors still live at the will of civilization, but I admire those like November 11 who was able to do something about what he thought was right in those final moments. Honestly, that’s probably some long lost desire that’s switched on when watching anything Shounen. I wish I was Monkey D. Luffy who could topple the world government with guts, guts, and more guts. Contractors are so close to being unfettered, but humanity (like always) comes to force them into the roles humanity needs them for. Dolls are turned into slaves and we’re forced to watch. The most poignant message of DTB then becomes “Even if an entire group of people were suddenly born with a different mindset from society they would still be cowed in by the majority”: In other words “The Tyranny of the Majority”. Oh no I’m going to start cascading into pessimistic loony talk in a second: Humanity is hopeless really. The bigger a society gets the closer we get to returning to a state of nature as Rousseau would picture it. Cooperation really only happens between individuals while society as a giant conglomeration just repeats the age old mistake of the powerful beating up on the less powerful. In this world Contractors are less powerful and their ideas are not listened too. They’re forced into the role of killer and then discounted by humanity because they are killers. I guess DTB will force me to come to the same conclusion for the millionth time. Contractors aren’t monsters, society only painted them that way.

So who is Amber (Because I want to answer this question! This doesn’t flow from the conversation at all)? Amber is a freaking goddess!!! Amber is the only girl with the means and determination to topple the whole things! AND WHY? (Yes I’m really yelling at the page at this point) Because she’s in love and that’s pretty much cooperation 101. She wants to create a better world because she cares about others more than herself, the very pinnacle of supposed irrationality (lack of self-interest). Amber saw the flaw in the system and I’m not surprised that it’s her you quoted from when talking about contractor’s inability to see each other as comrades. She reimagined what contractors could be and in the end sacrificed her own vision for Hei. I love what her actions say about the way we should be governed: We should not impose our view of the world on others without understanding them individually. She couldn’t agree with the status quo but she couldn’t force her decision on Hei either. Honestly the series hasn’t been quite the same since she left it. Urgh, I do see some parallels between her and Slightly Homicidal Crazy Illusion Guy. Sacrificing themselves for some ideal and then leaving the whole thing in others hands. In the end Amber and Crazy Illusion guy just set things in motion (although Amber at least laid a lot of ground work).

Alright, I’ve rambled for far too long as it is. I hope this made sense. I feel like it just tangented in random directions, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I guess this is further proof that DTB hints at a lot of things we could think about. It confronts us with darkness and tragedy while giving us no good guy to agree with (except for Yin, because she’s Yin). I kind of hope they make another season now as I’ll feel unsatisfied with the ending of Season Two. I would have been satisfied if they had ended it with season one but that’s obviously not what happened.

Thanks for the comment Passerby,

I’m sure this was way more than you wanted, but for some reason my responses to your comments just keep going and going and going…. You get the picture.

Everyone, please feel free to join the conversation. This is the internet so this is posted for everyones thoughts. I’m interested what you guys think about the DTB world even if it’s just “Dustin, you are reading way too much into this! Give it a rest already and go watch some Strike Witches. Sometimes a whale is just a whale.” To which I’ll respond “But sometimes the whale is Moby Dick!”