Disco Elysium

    At some point when I was a child, I stopped liking the ocean.

    One core memory loops in the back of my mind when I’m reminded of it; a cup given to the mercy of tides, dropped by a child that had just learned what it was like to be physically limited. He runs to catch the cup as the tides cower and cower, but he trips, falls, and stumbles. It goes and goes into a boundless, depthless ocean, until it sinks into the horizon. Over the pale yonder, he knows that the cup still exists; but it might as well not, as it no longer exists to him. And yet he is still saddened.

    We think we decide the direction that we swim; but from the get-go, the waves have pointed us in a direction, and will continue to point us in directions it thinks we should. We think we can change the waves if enough of us gather and swim; but from the get-go, the waves brought us together, and the ocean is too vast to truly change regardless; and said change will only last through until our lifetimes; who knows whether the lives of those thousands of years removed from us will be affected by our actions now? Who knows if our descendants won’t just change the ocean to how it used to be, or to something different entirely?

    My first-time playing Disco Elysium was soon after its release; however, at the time, I felt that the game was beyond me. It was a piece of my puzzle that did not have a place within me yet; I needed to be in a place where its lesson could be understood fully. I left the game unfinished, not soon after I started. I was, in few words, too young.

    I picked it up again soon after I bought my Steam Deck; the game seemed like a perfect fit for the console, so I thought about giving it another shot, many years later. Ironically enough, I was close to the same place physically that I was when I first tried it; my hometown and in my parents’ new house. I was also a different person, having completed two years of college in another country by that point.

    Mentally, I was weak; my mind found itself a conundrum which it could not solve, and in this case, could not come to terms with. It simply comes with age: I struggled with accepting my role in this world. There is no greater plight to humanity than how it can know its incompetence, how it can know its own uselessness in a fabricated “grand scheme”. The knowledge of a world outside of the one we know personally is both our greatest gift and curse. It tricks us into believing that it’s something we can change for the better, but most of all it makes us aware of how small we actually are.

    “Things down here are a mess. Someone really ought to do something about it.”

    The heart of Revachol seems echo this sentiment to all who play it. It seems strange that the only quest that puts that sentiment into words was not included in the original cut of the game, as this questline seems to be the only one that ditches the standard political veils and historical backgrounds and almost straightforwardly tells you what Disco Elysium is supposed to be about. Why the author spent all this time building this world and crafting this storyline with these characters. Why he allowed you to learn all of this as just an amnesiac alcohol-addicted middle-aged divorced detective.

    Coming to grips with reality is acceptance of the fact that we cannot exist beyond ourselves so long as we continue to exist in the here and now. We must accept the small or large roles that we were given in our respective worlds; we must swim among the waves to retain our individuality. While we may be aware of worlds beyond that we cannot see or experience, to us, our immediate existence should be the only one that matters. Becoming the waves means ceasing to be an existence; it means becoming part of the authority that drives the world, leaving your own world behind, for your existence to be forgotten by your loved ones; it means becoming a piece of water in a vast, vast ocean, only able to look at those who still swim in it.

    And, in the end, regardless of what we choose or who we are, what awaits us all is our breaths giving out; we will then close our eyes, and sink to the depthless, dark unknown.

    Recently, I visited the ocean again, the first time in many years.

    I never grew to fear it; I think the ocean, despite what it represents to me, is beautiful. It brings out our fear of the unknown, but similarly shows us that life exists in every corner, every depth, no matter how dark. Even after we sink to the deepest part of it, there will still be some semblance of life around us. We will never truly be alone, even when we seem to be so.

 

Leave the Rabbit-Hole: Escaping the Discontinuation of the Self

    Once, I got caught reading on my phone. I don’t even remember what I was reading at the time, but it didn’t seem particularly relevant or life-changing in the moment either. It was probably some timewaster, something to make the day end so I could go home and actually experience a life worth living. At some point, I think every high school student has had a thought like that. We constantly wonder why we go to school when we know full well the answer to the question. It’s a futile exercise because systems generally just aren’t tailored to individuals; the end-result, ironically, is that the education system isn’t tailored to anyone at all.

    I’m sorry if you think that you were “made for school”, but you were really just tricked by good grades. Arbitrary numbers derived from tests made by teachers that may or may not have taught you the subjects in the most efficient way or in a way that only a majority or minority understood. Regardless, somebody, somewhere, is going to fall through the cracks. And it’s probably not their fault.

    You’re probably expecting me to say that I fell through the cracks, and that was the moment I broke. In reality, I was coasting. The most coasting that a man has ever coasted. The most average grades ever. Simply passing. Existing in the most exist way possible. I could study for a test and pass. I could not study for a test and still pass. So at that moment, I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t need to pay attention, but mostly I just didn’t want to.

    That teacher never sat right with me, ever since our class met him at the start of our second year. The girls always loved him, he had charisma. I don’t say that to imply that I pegged him as a creep, because he wasn’t and still isn’t. I just didn’t like the way he taught a classroom. Every time he’d say something it always stunk in a certain way, like if I dug deep enough I’d find out it was bullshit.   

    And I say that because it was true. I did. On some day I don’t care to remember on something that really doesn’t matter anymore. In fact, the next day when he mentioned that thing again, still in my second year, I challenged him. We had a little spat. Long story short, way to confirm my pre-conceived notions on the type of person he was.

    This may sound a little weird, but I only paid attention to teachers who I liked. It was a pure and honest show of respect, a recognition of their authority. They were doing a good job. They deserved my attention. If that sounds haughty to you, it’s because it is. But for the teachers, the real teachers, having students that genuinely paid attention to their work and recognized their work as meaningful meant a lot to them. So I showed that, and so did a lot of the other students. We shot the shit with our teachers plenty of times, talking about things that we probably shouldn’t given our relationships. It was a good time.

    So as he pointed me out in the middle of his lecture, I’m not going to lie to you, it felt a bit personal.

    And it wasn’t just because he knew who I was, and he probably didn’t like me either.

    I wasn’t paying attention to his lecture, but I was still paying attention to the classroom. I knew what my fellow colleagues were doing, especially the ones in my direct vicinity. Always be aware of your surroundings. It’s important.

    God forbid I get a little mad when I know there’s two guys in deep sleep right behind me and two people on their phones right next to me.

    Actually, I was a lot mad. You ever get so angry that it feels like the devil himself is squeezing your heart, telling you he won’t let go until you do something about this? But it wasn’t the devil, it was the justiciar in your blood, the moral paladin in your faith. You’ve been wronged, you must fight, or else you’ll carry this for the rest of your life.

    So I fought.

    One sentence and any whispering chatter from the other students immediately halted. I didn’t say anything bad, I just responded. The room gave a collective, silent “oh, shit”. And then he also responded.

    The rest happened very fast.

    Not to toot my own horn, but God damn it I gave him the most lexical beating he had ever seen in his life. Metaphorically gave him the nastiest left uppercut to right-hook combo, Apollo-style. I’m telling you; the only reason he has any dignity left is because the bell saved him.

    Immediately after he left the classroom, I got pushback from half the class. That was fine, I expected it, and held my ground. Mentally, I was preparing for the inevitable; they all knew I’d get called to the director’s office, it was just a matter of when.

    I got that call minutes after.

    I won’t drag this on for much longer, but the point is that the director actually took my side. Thank God for her. So this blows over, it only comes up from time to time when I’m talking to my high school friends. And come to find out, the rest of the teachers were told this story in the teachers’ lounge, by him, but none of them really believed him once they heard I was on the other end.

    So what was the point of this?

    Many times when media, especially fictional, wants to tackle subjects like the micro relations between students and students or students and teachers, it tends to underestimate both sides.

    By blowing up the student, they underestimate the humanity, the rational thinking, the logic of the student. It portrays the relations between them as a “pouring forth” of their psychological problems, a constant reflection of their deep-rooted issues, and/or as pure vehicles of emotion, taken by whims without the slightest impulse control or thought. The student is a point the author is making, and that is the role they serve. In the same way children are seen as malleable, to an amateur author a student is seen as a puppet.

    And in the same manner, teachers are the ones who attempt to control the student puppet. The result is an oversimplification of authority; they are once puppets, now mouthpieces for the society they speak for; puppets that have been taken from the author and were molded to fight against that which he believes.

    The author believes that he is there to free the puppet from the strings that hold them; he gives them the freedom that they internally desire in a system that does not seem to want them to have it. In reality, he too is holding them by his own strings, fighting against other puppets that he wrote to be under someone else’s control, but are still under his as well. It is, and has always been, a one-man puppet show.

    I tell this story because one such author may be inclined to believe that it was a case of a student fighting back against the authorities that hold him, those same authorities that may have burned him in the past. He holds deep-seated contempt against these figures and this is pervasive in his life, through a backstory that we don’t know, and he let free of his emotions because he has no impulse control.

    The truth is much harsher; the student and the teacher have always been the same. The plight of the cynic in his view of education is to think that the teacher is an authority at all; the reality is that even the true authority in this scenario is held by a standard above them. But the true authority in this scenario does exist, and they do act. The cynic does not see authority past the teacher, does not believe in the authority past the teacher, nor does he oftentimes recognize there is authority past the teacher.

    But the author will never see himself or recognize himself as the cynic; he will constantly peddle himself as the believer in the child, in his delusion a saviour for those too young to understand the truths of the world. In our reality, his message will resonate only with those like himself; children as old as he is, bitter, who once felt themselves wronged by the world, but refused to seize their own, and now wander the real world, using that burden as a shield from maturity; and children who are being wronged by the world, and do not recognize that he speaks to them the same way their teachers speak to them.

Crossing the Spider-Verse, or why Miguel O'Hara is Wrong

    On occasion, time travel movies, time travel logic, or multiverse logic will make the rounds because of some popular piece of fiction. Many moons ago it was Back to the Future, and more recently Avengers: Endgame. A bit of a running theme in the popularity of these works is that to lack thinking of the specifics is to enjoy the movie. In both the cases mentioned, I'd say that's very accurate. It's almost a necessity of your expectation. Into the Spider-Verse can, in some realm, also be considered one of those movies. This is mostly due to a lack of focus on the spider-verse concept, and instead a mostly grounded story that centered around Miles Morales's origin story.

    Across the Spider-Verse immediately differs from these aspects, as in some ways the meta narrative is the concepts of the multiverse itself. There are many pieces divulged to us by the characters on how the multiverse works; in fact, much of the second half of the movie centers around the main character's emotional force challenging these ideas. By extension, the movie almost makes explicit that Miguel O'Hara and the Spider-People are working on some sense of logic as to how the Spider-Verse works; canon events are detectable, they must occur, and these canon events build webs between the different universes. If too many canon events are stopped, webs will be broken, and eventually the Spider-Verse web will collapse on itself.

    But I say some sense of logic precisely because the logic itself is inconsistent. To talk about why, it's important to dive into the concept of free will.

Forced Fatalism

    Firstly, it's important to establish that the narrative that Miguel O'Hara and the Spider-People purport is a forced fatalistic perspective. I say forced because Canon Events can be stopped, although, in their belief, stopping them will have drastic consequences. Thus, they must be forced to occur by the Spider-People.

    This perspective is evidenced by Miguel O'Hara's own personal origin story; he moved to a universe where his alternate self was dead, but his family was still living. By living in a universe that wasn't his own for too long, it caused the entire universe to get culled. It's important to note that the visuals demonstrated in this scene are of the universe experiencing many glitches.

    Miguel O'Hara then says that Miles is a "mistake". The spider that bit him was meant to bite someone else in another universe; in essence, he was never meant to be Spider-Man, and his universe is the origin of all these mistakes.

    I have a couple of proofs as to why this perspective is flawed:

    Proof 1: Within universe logic, this anecdote can already be broken down as insufficient evidence for his perspective; when characters visit other universes, they not only glitch themselves, but cause their surroundings and what they touch to glitch. These phenomena are relatively unrelated to Canon Events; the cause of Miguel O'Hara's alternate universe to cull was his prolonged existence there, not the halting of Canon Events.

    Proof 2: We also already know from the start of Across the Spider-Verse that, as long as people from alternate universes leave, then the universe will have no further consequence. More importantly, the actions from the Spider-People of other universes are incorporated into the canon of that universe, or at least, there are no "realigning" events where history is rewritten to where they never existed in that universe. Time just moves on like normal.

    Proof 3: Miles Morales's universe discovered and interacted with the multiverse without any outside interference. What this means is that even if the fatalistic perspective were true, then Alchemax discovering the multiverse and bringing the spider from another universe is a part of the canon of Miles's universe. Miles is not a Spider-Man by mistake; it was supposed to happen in his universe. Miguel O'Hara slips up in his assessment; by implying that Miles is a mistake, he is also implying that Alchemax discovering the multiverse on their own was a mistake, thereby championing that Alchemax had a choice. Fatalism doesn't allow for choice; events are predetermined and inevitable.

Compatibilism

    Now, it's important to mention that, in my belief, the Spider-Verse works under a compatibilist perspective; the other, imaginary choice is there; however, determinism is true, thus only one choice will actually happen. If none of the universes interacted with each other, then Canon Events as they are named would always happen as per determinism.

    The "mistake" would come from the fact that both Miguel O'Hara's universe and Miles Morales's universe had a deterministic chain of events that eventually led them to break causality itself; by literally interacting with other chains of causality (universes), they would be able to change Canon Events. As long as alternative universe elements are present or were present in a universe, then the imaginary choice can become the actual choice. 

    In other words, the chain of determinism for that universe has been altered.

    But the question then becomes this: so what? As far as the Spider-People know, there is no entity that enforces a chain of determinism to a universe. Miguel O'Hara's anecdote is likely to be the cause of an entirely different effect, as shown previously. Miles and Gwen's band will make the choices necessary to alter the chain of determinism in Miles's universe. But as long as they leave Miles's universe afterwards, then there is no known consequence. Time will move normally, as it had done in the time skip between the events of Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse.

Remaining Threads

     I purposefully left out some mentions in the movie as their flaws didn't pertain to the argument behind this, and they can be broken too easily. I'll answer them here:

    Black Hole in Spider-Man India After Halted Canon Event: The black hole was very likely to not be caused by the halting of a Canon Event, but by The Spot and his appearance in Spider-Man India. The events that led to the Canon Event were caused by The Spot in the first place, an entity that exists outside of Spider-Man India's universe. This is also further evidenced by the fact that the black hole looks and spreads the exact same way as The Spot's holes do. Miguel O'Hara mentions this as being "a consequence of stopping the Canon Event", but it is somewhat apparent to the viewers that the information is not entirely correct.

    The Spot: The Spot exists because the collider was stopped in Into the Spider-Verse. It could be said that The Spot was created because the chain of determinism for Miles's universe was altered; however, when tracing back the events as The Spot does, he mentions that the original collider experiment that brought the irradiated spider from another universe was the beginning. Alchemax's experiments were part of the original chain of determinism for Miles's universe, and they had no external interference from another universe. There were two possibilities here:

    1 (Imaginary). Miles and the band fail to stop Kingpin and the collider; The Spot is never created. Glitches become rampant as alternate universe entities exist in a universe that isn't theirs; Miles's universe gets culled ala Miguel O'Hara's anecdote.

    2 (Altered Chain of Determinism). Miles and the band stop Kingpin and the collider explodes; The Spot is created.

    In this case, the imaginary choice was always imaginary; the altered chain of determinism was always going to happen. In some ways, it could be said that using "altered chain" here is incorrect, as it may well be the original chain for Miles's universe, but I choose "altered" here as it involves multiverse interference through the irradiated spider and the other Spider-People.

Conclusion

    To be honest, I don't even believe the writers were thinking about this as deeply as I am; Miles's conviction is, as mentioned previously, emotional in nature. He is "just doing his own thing" and disregarding the consequences. The point of this post was more of a hypothetical as to how the writers may have subtly demonstrated that Miles is not only emotionally correct in his conviction, but also accidentally logically correct. A proper and true exercise in over-analyzation. Whether any of what I said is going to be further elaborated on in Beyond the Spider-Verse, or whether I'm going to be proven completely incorrect will be revealed in 9 months time. I can't fucking wait.

Snow Crash

          “Facebook can try and design the metaverse all they want, but the technology isn’t there yet and they can’t even draw legs.” Ok sure, that’s all true, but what the fuck is the metaverse supposed to be in the first place?

Snow Crash. I came upon it first by mere chance after a friend had mentioned it. I briefly glanced at the synopsis and only one thought took over my mind at that moment: “Holy shit, Nakazawa ripped off Snow Crash and wrote I/O.” Honestly, I don’t really blame myself for thinking that given that a lot of the worldbuilding elements seemed very similar, but this proved to be a crucial mistake. For nearly a year I set myself expectations that this novel would be the near the level of that beloved visual novel.

Once I finally picked up the book, a nearly 35 Canadian dollar hardcover with a 30% off holiday discount, using a gift card that I received after one of the most chance happenings and biggest acts of kindness that I will ever chance upon, the thirteenth anniversary edition was in my hands, a book I fated to be etched into my heart and forever stored in my bookshelf until I died. I opened it for the first time fifteen minutes ‘til six in the evening; the sun had long gone since fallen, though it was never visible anyway. Cold winter clouds had covered it ever since I awoke that morning; a direct scripture from God telling me to stay inside. Unfortunate for Him, however, nothing energizes me more. Sunny days are today a mere farce; they are only used for telling people to go outside rather than being the indicator of the availability of the outside. All the entertainment in a landlocked North American city such as this one is housed indoors, unless you’re brave enough to challenge the bourgeoisie sewage-infested waters of the river that runs through it. Two rundown malls, two overpriced trashy nightclubs, and one mall-cum-theater is all you have. And out of all movies I could’ve chosen, I chose what could only be described as a pretentious Oscar-bait waste of time. Thankfully it was over rather quickly, but unfortunately for me even the little time making the quick purchase of the book in question made me miss the bus.

This wouldn’t have normally been a problem, as the buses run every thirty minutes except for Saturdays. It was Saturday.

An hour sat on a windowsill with nothing but the low humming of the ATMs behind me and the inconsistent pitter-patter of the rain as it constantly chaotically shifted from light snow to light rain. I opened Snow Crash and fully immersed myself.

But frankly, I just couldn’t. The first chapter immediately started with some of the most edgy narration I had read in recent memory. It was corny, and took some getting used to, and while endearing to some, I couldn’t get into it without internally feeling distaste. For all that the book is worth in terms of influence, and for what genres it supposedly captures, Snow Crash is, by all means, a glorified young adult novel. For the sake of clarity, this is fully derogatory.

At this point, I had to close the novel. Whether it was because my internal clock had realized the bus was coming soon or because the novel had left me so speechless in its initial chapter, I do not know. The entire ride home, a whopping 20 minutes, was spent messaging a long-time friend who was also reading the novel but was further along than I was.

“It’s satire on the cyberpunk, it was a popular thing when the novel came out. Don’t take it too seriously.”

            I arrived home and undressed; the room much chillier than the hallway. I had left the door closed because of some nonexistent security issue, causing my own frigid demise. I slipped under my covers and took out Snow Crash again. Book in hand, I refused to open it again, staring at my broken expectations as if they were shards of glass, stabbing me under my comforter. Slowly, I took them out one by one, knowing that if I opened this book without removing them, they’d only continue to dig into me further the more I read.

            The rest of the book followed much more of the same. I was only able to keep reading because I had refocused my perspective; knowing that this was a more satirical take on cyberpunk, it felt worthless to focus on the technical details of the story. But at the same time, it was difficult to ascertain what parts of the narrative Neal Stephenson wanted me take seriously, and which parts he wrote as satire. The worldbuilding, for example, seemed so disconnected and sporadic. Getting a full picture of this post-hyperinflation America seemed almost impossible as he failed to describe specific locations, the distances of the territories, or even the exact specifics within them. Stephenson wanted to give the reader a vague idea/description of these territories so they can stereotype them however they please. Throw the reader a name like “Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong” and make them assume it’s just “Chinese stuff” without regarding the subculture within the community, the differences between actual Hong Kong, endless questions about how the future has affected this culture and space, etc. etc. etc. Obviously, this was “satire”. But when it becomes part of the main plot, does it stay satire? How am I supposed to take the plot seriously when Mr. Lee himself exists and is an actual person? Forget Mr. Lee, this happens to nearly everything. The Metaverse? Still barely any idea on what it’s supposed to be, and it was why I knew about the book in the first place. It was probably a very interesting idea at the time, but it’s not nearly developed enough to be worth a damn. Like everything else, it gets vague descriptions and is mostly used as a plot device. Any specifics are only specified to be used as plot device.

If Snow Crash is satire,

            then Snow Crash is a bad satire.

            If Snow Crash is serious,

            then it’s just not that good.

            And this juxtaposition continued until the book ended. I could go on about the problems of the narrative and writing itself (like how for the whole book a fifteen-year-old is constantly sexualized, leading up to a full-blown detailed sex scene between her and a grown man), but overall, when you have this massive of a tonal issue that it does not stop until the very last word of the book, and is stuck to every part of the plot, characters, and worldbuilding, then specific analysis is no longer necessary. It just becomes the problem and the only problem. At the very least, I can give Snow Crash credit for staving off my boredom in its clearly researched and well-thought out Sumerian connections.

            So, I closed the book for the last time, likely in the exact same position as I had restarted it days prior. My expectations had not just been blown into pieces, but thoroughly disintegrated into a fine, inoffensive dust. Knowing that this would stay in my bookshelf for years was no longer a source of endearment and love but a reminder of bad financial decisions that I would likely continue to make into the future. But it a love lost is a love strengthened. I/O has been one of my favourite visual novels ever since I read it, and the more I think about it the more I believe it may be the favourite. Discovering Snow Crash could’ve been the inception of it excited me, as this book could’ve been as good or even better, but knowing that I/O really was original makes me appreciate it as a piece even more. An I/O reread is in order for sure, but I’ll likely never touch Snow Crash again lest it be to sell it off to some other unfortunate sucker.

Revue Starlight

    I fully understand why someone may enjoy Revue Starlight. And I can't in all honesty call the show outright bad... but the score reflects my personal enjoyment, and so it is the way it is.  This revue (yeah I fucking did that) will be focused mainly on the writing aspect of the show, as I think the other aspects have already been talked about to death, and frankly I don't think I have anything to add. I don't hold that high value for the visuals or the direction, in fact I think both fall flat in many cases, but in order to properly dissect each of those I'd have to clip and display many parts of the show, which would incidentally make this no longer a spoiler-free review, while also making me do a ton of work that I'm not interested in doing. I'm a wannabe writer, not an artist or an encoding junkie. But anyway.

    It's very appealing to certain demographics, especially to moe or idol lovers, and while Revue Starlight does not directly fit those either category I'd say it shares enough elements to call it "adjacent" to them. The structure of the show, the comedy, the themes, the visual aesthetic, and everything under the sun. I'd be very hard-pressed to find fans of Revue who aren't already fans of either category, or fans of either category who also enjoy Revue Starlight.

    And that's where the problem starts to show. When I read about Revue Starlight many years ago, I had the impression that it would be much similar to Revolutionary Girl Utena, but in a more modern stance, putting its own twist on it, much like Penguindrum but more extreme as it was made by different creators. What I actually received was far off; it learns the wrong lesson from Utena and is filled with those modern anime tropes I so dearly hate.

The Meat

    The first three episodes are what I'd probably call the worst in the entire show. It took me months to recover my motivation to watch anime again.

    While they introduce the main narrative of the main characters, it also places a much larger focus on the slice of life aspects than the rest of the show. This is, of course, an attempt to familiarize the audience with the characters' normal outer selves before delving into their deeper desires and character flaws. I do have an inherent problem with this approach, however it's become so commonplace these days that I simply can't fault a modern show that has this modern trope. A critique of post-K-ON slice of life can come another day (or never, really).

    These first three episodes gave me the impression that the rest of the show would also be structured similarly to these first three: the main characters are always present, and the show would, through them, develop the side characters, eventually closing off with the last couple episodes being dedicated solely to the main characters, with a lot of slice of life in between. Still campy and safe, but at least mildly interesting depending on what they do with the characters.

    The show turned into exactly what I was afraid of: a day in the limelight episodes which you could even go so far as characterize as lower-deck episodes. While the connotations of both terms are rather negative, in the anime industry depending on the genre they can be quite common. Though just the inherent function of them still stands true; it's a "low-effort" way to develop your side characters without having to so much as use the main characters. And this makes total sense, it becomes much harder to portray a close story with a side character when you have to somehow write the main character into the mix.

    But the resulting narrative is disconnected and muddled. You have many backstories and side stories that all serve just to fit the bare minimum of what it means to "develop" a character, but the connection to the main story of the main characters is so thin that if it had not existed then not much would be lost. So, in order to combat this, Revue Starlight introduces a solution that causes even more problems. Every character must reach the limelight, have a glimmer, have the passion to be the best, want to be the best. Every character is connected to the main theme, every character has the same motivation. Repeated and repeated every episode ad infinitum for the rest of the show as if the show doesn't trust that you'll understand its theme unless it's repeated twelve times. In this way, it's all "connected" back to the same theme, the same goal. A literal goal, not a metaphorical one.

    Now excuse me if this becomes crass but what is the point of writing a show where every character has the same motivation by the end of their character arc if not to be completely safe with its own concept? Am I so wrong for being pissed off at the fact that characters start off the episode interesting and end up being fit into the exact same mold as everyone else, practically becoming identical statues which are only differentiated by the various comedic "quirks" they hold? What the fuck is the point of shoving the same theme through every character, a theme which is so empty that I can only describe it as "unbridled optimism," a theme which holds so little complexity it can be understood by a five year old through reading one picture book?

    What you risk when you make narrative changes to the characters is the stability of a show. If sit-coms, for example, had character narrative arcs end in ways that impact the structure of the show, or their appearance on the show, the writing would have to change around it. Perhaps the absence of the character produces different dynamics among the cast. Perhaps the narrative arc changed the character so drastically that their dialogue with the other characters has to be different from when it used to.

    And so where does Revolutionary Girl Utena fit into this at all?

    It simply did not solve the original problem, or you could say it diverted the problem. Instead of making the episodes entirely about the side characters, it uses the main character as the solution, or to be more concrete as the ending point for the episode narrative arc. This way, the connection can range from being extremely thin (as in Utena Tenjou is only the solution) to a close connection (Utena Tenjou is both the solution and directly related to the arc at hand). By the end of the episode, Utena must win. Utena is the only winner, regardless of the ambition of the other characters.

    But this still doesn't fully answer the question. All Utena characters are striving to "revolutionize the world." Such a system sounds very similar to Revue Starlight's stage. All of them must duel each other in order to reach this one same goal. That is, unless you devoid the goal from being literal in the first place. This is Revue Starlight's final nail in the coffin: the lack of allegory.

    Revolutionary Girl Utena's narrative works so well because to "revolutionize the world" does not mean to actually cause revolution within the real-world and change societal structures. Instead, it's a metaphor for self-actualization for the character, for growth of the character. It no longer becomes a battle for the top, but rather a battle for the self, and it's not competitive amongst the cast; rather, it is entirely individual. Again, Utena must win. She is the only winner. Thus, by extension, every character must lose. By losing, they lose both the flaw and the motivation to "revolutionize the world." They grow into a distinct character, who no longer holds the same obsession as everyone else.

    Revue Starlight voids this fact and takes it much too literally; while the stage itself is not grounded in practical reality, the goal is. It's tangible, and something genuinely obtainable that will have real-world effects, as demonstrated in one of the character narratives throughout the series. While it's possible to attempt to attach allegories to this goal and the Starlight stage itself, the simple fact that this is so grounded in reality stops those interpretations from holding much weight. 

    Unlike Revolutionary Girl Utena, this fight is not centered around the individual act of self-growth, but rather an actual fight for this "wish," and how only "one" can attain it. The moments of "growth" are not a loss of their past selves, but rather how they regain their "glimmer," or their motivation to attain this goal. This is not character development. I cannot, in all good sense, say that a character has gone through development when the basis of an episode is about removing a part of their character they've had since the start of the show, and the episode is about them regaining it, ending up in the same place they've started. This is literally just resetting characters so you can expose their backstories in a way that doesn't feel forced, except in doing so it just makes it feel even more forced.

    However, applying this to all characters would make this a disingenuous statement. Because there is one genuine exception. A character arc that spanned three episodes, and while many, and I mean many ironic statements are spouted about change during this arc, it does break its own mold in a way I didn't expect. It did not particularly blow me away with depth, as the subject matter/motivation at hand is for one overplayed in the medium, and secondly it doesn't play its cards in a way that you wouldn't expect upon the first episode of the arc. But I think its existence gives me at least some hope that Revue Starlight was aware of the issues it itself produced in the earlier episodes, and decided to give us at least ONE shining hope... even if the moment the arc ends, they go back to the exact same slice of life interactions and jokes they've had since the start of the show. Sigh. I fucking hate bananas.

   The best way I can describe Revue Starlight characters is by taking a couple cardboard boxes, painting them different colors and stamping different addresses on them. Making sure they're closed. One by one I open them to reveal what's inside. They're equally empty. The audience then goes and picks the box they think looks the prettiest or has the funniest address stamped on it. They open it, place their baggage inside it, and proceed to go up to every single person they meet and talk about how the box is "super relatable" and "literally me." Of course it fucking is. There wasn't anything in the goddamn box before they decided to put their own shit in there.

The Ending

    I've tried my best to keep it spoiler-free thus far, but this is where I'm going to dip my toes into a bit of spoilers. I never expected to even need this section, but I must thank Revue Starlight for giving me more content to write.

    A lot of the ending surrounds, as is par for the course with this show, a repetition of events that came before. Once again, Karen has to chase Hikari because of their promise, but this time... uh, this time... it's the same thing? I seriously cannot see the narrative difference between these two arcs in what they accomplish, except for the fact that the latter takes place at the end of the show and looks more grandiose. It also introduces elements clearly inspired by Madoka, swapping some of the roles around, but misunderstanding why it worked so well, and instead forcibly inserting it for window dressing's sake I guess?

    But I think, above all, what pisses me off more about the ending is the fact that Revue Starlight tries to have its cake and eat it too. As is usual for episodic/weekly formatted shows, the beginning introduces the plot so all the episodic stuff afterwards has something to piggyback off of. We've already gone over this, but what episodic shows also tend to do is have a plot at the end as well, usually spanning a couple of episodes. This plot will usually turn a comedic tone into a serious one, abandoning the format of "episodic" altogether as the episodes will be parts of a plot. This plot will likely have drastic consequences and changes to the actual show, in ways that, if the show were to continue past this point by means of a sequel or something else, it would be completely changed. Revue Starlight does not necessarily follow the weekly structure, as narrative arcs can span multiple episodes already, however the overarching unchanged structure of the show I mentioned before would make Revue Starlight more than qualify for being called as such.

    What I didn't expect was for slice of life scenes to be inserted into this plot, which are by and far episodic elements. I genuinely do not understand why the show breaks its own established tension and tone for this ending plot to show these scenes. And they happen at the worst possible times, like for example an episode will start with a slice of life scene despite the previous episode ending on a massive cliffhanger. It's not like these scenes contribute anything either, as the dialogue spoken is exactly as implied; just a slice of their life, nothing else. It fucking baffles me. Why are you trying so hard to pander to the part of the audience who enjoys this type of content, when you know it's going to break the genuine storytelling happening in the ending?

    At the very least I can give Revue Starlight credit for being so blatant in the fact that a movie or some kind of sequel was going to exist. The actual final scenes did not really resolve much. The show wanted the audience to feel like the ending was deserved, but not to the point of conclusive. It wants the audience to crave more of Revue Starlight. In my case, endings like these only make me feel unsatisfied and bitter toward the actual show. Instead of actually giving me a satisfying ending and then giving me more content through the movie ala End of Evangelion, the show leaves things out in what I can only call a marketing ploy.

    I've said enough. Do me a favor and watch Adolescence of Utena.

Air

    While Kanon and the previous Key entries were more focused on the romance aspect of things first, Air takes things in a bit of a different direction. Intrinsically, it's still a romance: there are various routes for various girls, there were sex scenes on release, etc. But Air has the unique feature of having "Summer" and "Air," which are both unrelated to romancing a specific girl, but instead focusing on the plot/characterization. It's here where I see Air at its most interesting, when it leaves the romance to the wayside. But even then, it trips up and falls many, many times.

Misuzu

     Common and Misuzu really set my expectations high for the game overall. Retrospectively, I should probably have toned them down a bit, but I was still on the Kanon high. It seemed that they had learned from Kanon greatly and introduced new elements, like humor. Okay, that's mean, but I cannot think of a single moment before this where I genuinely gave a hearty laugh. The comedy routine between the three characters and the gags are all hilarious in a way I don't think the company has tried before. Hisaya's games always opted for a more melancholic feel, where the humor was relatively light and amounted to chuckles at most. It fit the tone of the games it was for, but it almost felt like they were playing it safe. Air swaps between the two states without it ever feeling jarring, or without ruining the vibe of the game. This is in part due to the soundtrack, which from Kanon has far improved. While Kanon's soundtrack worked, it also felt too safe. Only a couple tracks were bombastic in terms of mood, most of them playing to the same school stuff we're used to. Air's leans itself into the setting more, providing a wide variety of mood tracks while still having some general ones.

    But when Misuzu's route steps into its plot, it's clearly not going to go anywhere. It's quick and it ends, but it feels more like setup toward a bigger mystery rather than anything grand. It's far from self-contained, which wouldn't be a problem if the latter developments didn't make me feel so bitter. It would be an understatement to say that Misuzu's route is undermined by the others, not necessarily by their quality, but by their length, and my own boredom.  6.5/10

Kano

    I have no words. Misuzu's route gave me a lot of good will moving forward, but Kano's squandered it. It has none of the comedic beats that the original trio have, instead opting for more safe approaches to comedy that don't really work and end up being too repetitive. Not only that, but the dynamics are also far from fresh, and end up getting stale quickly. The route itself, too, gets stale quickly. It does nothing new from any angle, going for an extremely traditional anime romance with no depth or flavor. It comes and goes only to waste your time. The only plus I can see to Kano's route is that it was so short I could easily forget it as I played more of the game. 3/10

Tohno

    Actual abyss fiction like you've never seen, I can't believe this fucking exists. Can we just talk about this real quick? How the fuck did someone sit down and write this? Most of the fucking route is spamming through Tohno's ellipses, and not only that it's just the same boring ass slice of life scenes repeated over and over and over again. And then when it feels like it's ending, it ends at least four different times not including the, you know, real two endings. Both of which are just kind of there, and make me question why they didn't end it at any of those earlier points, since it wouldn't have made a difference. Like, an AI could have written better than this.

    This route made me question my entire scoring system and all the scores I've given thus far. Hell, this makes Mizuka's route from One look good in comparison. A 1/10 for that is way too harsh. Lucid9 too is nowhere near this level of boring and offensive. The content itself isn't offensive, but I do feel the energy of a condescending writer behind the text laughing as I click away at his absolute dogshit mess. Actually, it isn't one writer, I'm pretty sure it's three of them. I'm giving this a 0. Fuck it, it deserves it, I don't know how it's not even quantifiable. There should be a public PSA on every download of this game to CTRL skip everything Tohno-related for the sake of entropy. You could burn many tonnes of carbon and it would not measure up to the damage Tohno has caused to the human race. I'm not even going to try to pretend I read all of it. Toward the end I was just clicking away like a mindless robot. 0/10

Summer

    Finally, something decent. It's genuinely impressive how this game can have two separate games within it and still work. That being said, the direct connections are still relatively slim. It's more narrative, and I think it works. But even then, while Summer could have just been used for the themes, they really tried to sell us on the characters. And it works. I mean, I prefer this cast over the original in some cases. The comedy is similarly entertaining, but the plot moves along with it. It doesn't have a clear bound of separation, making the experience seamless and flowing. I won't lie, the previous two routes were primers for this, but that shouldn't take away from the quality present here. They drew up brand new CGs and made pieces exclusively for this section. It's clear that they wanted to make Summer special, and they did. That isn't to say Summer does anything new. It blends the plot, slice of life, and romance well, but that's more so a blown expectation rather than anything revolutionary. In all, Summer is still a common romp, if not helped by the aesthetic, art, and setting.

    If there's one mistake I think Summer does make is not being longer. It's fine when considering that it's a part of a larger game, but that larger game doesn't really connect with Summer in a way that's satisfying. That's a mistake committed in the last route of the game more than anything, and regardless this seems to have been an issue fixed in the Vita and Switch releases of the game, where they added an extra route focusing exclusively on the Summer characters. I trust that you believe me when I say that I was going to play the Switch version, but that version mixes the two existing translations, the first of which is not very good. Thus, I stayed away from it and played the PC version everyone knows. I'll play it sometime in the future, maybe soon if I find the time. 7.5/10

Air

    Air is... divisive. I went into it with high expectations, especially from hearing the opinions of others and from the quality of Summer, but I was thoroughly and fully disappointed. I seriously don't understand the hype for this. Even when it starts to get going, it stops completely and repeats the same mistakes the side heroine routes made. It throws a bunch of repetitive slice of life at you that doesn't further any sort of point, serve any sort of purpose. The relationships are deepened, sure, but it reaches a plateau. At some point you aren't making strides toward better chemistry and development, but only filling time and wasting the readers’. And it's a shame, too. Air has an amazing foundation, and they tried to touch on topics that I would have never expected from early 2000s visual novels, let alone Key. But that's all it was, an attempt. The topics aren't covered and only given the most passing glance.

    Worse of all, though, is the ending. It just...ends. Much too unceremoniously, with just implications left. It's bittersweet, which is great, but far from satisfying. It might seem like I'm seetheposting here, but I felt like something was missing, some kind of key element. An ending like this may be beautiful to some, but it doesn't feel complete in the way most open endings do. It doesn't leave me wanting more. I mean, the implications are clear, and the game is sort of thematically, narratively finished. It's that the ending doesn't add to the experience. With open endings, the goal is to make the reader think about them in the context of the narrative long after they've finished. But with Air, the ending gives me nothing to think about, despite being as open as it is. Reflecting with the ending in mind, I find no deeper meaning, no grand solution. It's too expected even though I didn't expect it. 6/10

    Really, I think Air, as the name of the route and the game coincide, represent each other. They both have strong beginnings, middle sections that are absolutely awful, braindead boring abyss fiction and any other insult for time wasting you can think of, and endings that work but leave nothing to the mind. It's Key trying to keep itself alive after its main writer had left the company and left the side writer all on his lonesome. And while that side writer may have been able to write something competent on his own if they had given him just a bit more time, it had already been much too long. Maeda took years from Kanon to write Air, and it still felt rushed. He improved from his past ventures, but that wasn't enough. They weren't confident in their product, so they dumped writers onto the project, crunching them, hoping to live up to their first success. Most of them seemed like they were shooting an entirely different target than intended (while still missing that other target) but at least one was a dead-on hit. It was overall still decent by their own standards, but nowhere near the product it could have been, only living as a shell of its potential. Personally, this indecisive feeling from Air is what breaks it for me. It brings me back to the days of Moon. and One, where they didn't have a foot to stand on, instead of continuing where they left off from Kanon. But at least some things never change, like Maeda disappointing while another writer shines.