A spoiler free description of some of the animes Nanga Fakir's been watching over the past two months or so follows.
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Planetes : Planetes is about humanity in the year 2075. Efforts to colonize space are in its infancy and barring a station at Moon, much of the other heavenly bodies have not yet been molested. (Mankind plans to correct this mistake soon though.)
Planetes is also about space janitors. Waste management in space has become a big problem and previous missions' debris orbit the earth at various distances and are potential hazards for spaceships/stations/satellites orbiting/entering/leaving the earth. A collision will cause not only loss of property/human life but will also create more debris which if not cleared will obstruct even more space creating even more problems for future missions.
Enter the Debris Section - Technora Corporation's department responsible for clearing space junk and making the near-earth orbit a safe place for astronauts and space missions, the creation of which section was deemed necessary after an encounter with flying trash destroyed a passenger spaceship. The 26 episode anime concerns itself with the greenhorn Ai Tanabe who joins the ranks of debris-cleaners; her encounters with various members of the crew and the fate of her eventual love interest Hachimaki. (The second-in-command officer is an Indian called 'Arvind Ravi' - a very goofy, incompetent officer with hordes of children (seven actually) back home in India.)
The reason NF opines that this anime qualifies as a genuine masterpiece is the astonishingly high degree of realism, an attention to scientific detail generally not heard of, the socio-political ramifications of humans trying to colonize space (with the inevitable clash over the spoils of the aforementioned endeavors - the developed countries grabbing the lion's share and feeding the space-colonization machine while the developing/underdeveloped ones still mired in poverty and civil wars and therefore opposed to such ambitious ventures and demanding a more fair and equitable distribution of this new source of wealth - sometimes violently/resorting to terror tactics/sabotage); the effect such an endeavor in space must have on humans' psychology and their relationships and the long, arduous, lonely, claustrophobic space missions' fallouts on the human psyche and the questions it raises about what human communication/connection/love etc. is all about.
Basically an excellent, excellent watch. The only gripe NF had about the entire series was the sophomoric, mostly contrived humor that actually wasn't necessary and an ending that the feminists will not be really crazy about. But this very, very minor glitch shouldn't dissuade you from watching an absolutely awesome, wonderful series.
Neon Genesis Evangelion : To say that you're into anime and haven't heard of Neon... is saying that you're into Indian arthouse cinema and don't know what Ardhsatya is; or that you're into music and don't know what Pink Floyd is; or that you're into literature and don't know what Infinite Jest is. Basically we're talking of path breaking, forever-changing-the-course-of-their-field-after-they-come-along kind of works that in turn, have a major, polarizing effect on the audience.
Ever since its 1995 debut, the multiple prize winning series has been dissected, criticized, glorified, vilified, overrated, undervalued, and talked about in circles. On one level, it’s a standard mecha anime - the kind that the Gundam series had helped define many years before Neon... Basically your exact idea of giant robots with human pilots combating and killing the alien enemies of humanity after an apocalypse has drastically changed the nature of human existence on planet earth. But, as the director
Hidaeki Anno would have it, the series nosedives into the heads of its fourteen year old protagonists, almost blithely giving up the affectations of having to deal with a story of giant robos trying to save humanity. The end result is a bleak, bleak series no fourteen year old can see without getting seriously mindfucked. Extraordinarily artsy, slow, brooding, (with long pauses and interminable silences at times) and grandly ambitious, the enigmatic anime invites comparisons to the works of David Lynch (talk of polarizing!) and can best be summed up as a science fictional Mulholland Drive. (Yes you have been warned!)
The beginning of the series itself lets us know that the pilots of the EVAs (who have to be fourteen year olds, we're told) are not in total control of the machines and that there's much more than meets the eye. Couple it with the most reluctant hero (in Shinji Ikari) ever conceived of, comparison with whom makes Humphrey Bogart's film-noirs'-reluctant-hero-character look like a self righteous white missionary in Africa; a memorable character in the tortured, enigmatic Rei Ayanami; the brash, insufferable (and German) Asuka and the cold, calculating, Machiavellian scientist Gendo Ikari (who also, almost incidentally, doubles up as the father of the hero Shinji) and you get the absolute best character sketch ever done in anime history.
The series starts off slow and ponderous. It picks up in the middle with some juvenile comedy and some attempts at utilizing some standard tropes of anime conventions - all this done somehow in a half hearted, lazy way, as if merely trying to keep up appearances. Complexity sets in the middle and the Angel-busting-mecha-action takes a backseat to give way to a plot that gets thicker. The final seven or so episodes however, send the protagonist kids through sheer hell, torturing their minds, crushing their souls and battering hard their already fragile egos with the touching delicacy of a blacksmith presiding over a neurosurgery.
Nanga Fakir remembers a quote from some writer who was once asked the formula for writing a good story. The writer's supposed to have replied something to the effect that one should spend the first half in trying to let the reader fall in love with the character and the second half in making horrible, horrible things happen to those lovable protagonists. Was this what Hideaki Anno had in mind? We can only guess, for the last two episodes happen inside the head of the hero, with the total abandonment of any kind of pretense of connection with what had happened in the past and we see the hero introspect and torture himself for over two episodes trying to come to grips with what his existence might mean. The series ends with the iconic scene in which all characters gather around Shinji and congratulate him on his victory over his inner demons. (<*NF in a very scholarly tone*>: See attached figure.)
You've been amply forewarned. You'll either love the series or totally tear it to shreds.
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End of Part three; Part four to follow.
