Friday 26 May 2006

Pic of the day: Living in the human world in order to discover the meaning of life. That's not just for gods, you know. At least I sincerely hope so. Also this feeling that the world is like a fog, and all the people in it like shadows in the fog – well, almost all the people... that's not exactly unfamiliar either. But that's not the main reason I watch this anime.

Kamisama Kazoku anime ep. 1-2

One of the new anime of the season in Japan, this is based on a series of novels. I don't read Japanese so I can't comment on the novels. But I was pleasantly surprised by the anime.

Of course, it would be hard to be unpleasantly surprised. The anime is about the God family ("Kamisama" is the Japanese word for God), and it is not reverent in any sense of the word. God is a hillbilly with superpowers, and his wife and their two daughters are of the same sort. His son, whose name is Samatarou, is going to high school as his training in understanding the human condition. His guardian angel, a girl with a temper, is his classmate, and also lives at their home.

As you may guess, this is not exactly the Christian God. Then again, it is not really any of the other gods either, and the school uniforms are discreetly adorned with a classic cross, implying that the school at least is run by Christians. The head of the household is referred to simply as Kamisama (God), with no given name, and Samatarou occasionally wears a shirt with the letters GOD (in European letters, not in Japanese). I guess it is more like people would imagine God if they had no idea that God was different from the rest of the world's gods, like Odin and Zeus and Ra.

The sad fact is that some Japanese probably have roughly that level of knowledge about Christianity. It is very much a minority religion in Japan, counting somewhere between 3% and less than 0.5% ... the lower number probably for those who are exclusively Christian. Japanese don't have a problem with combining religions, most of them are both Buddhist and Shinto at the same time. Some parts of Christian religion are well known in Japan, like the Adam and Eve story of Genesis, the concept of angels, and the holiday of Christmas (which ironically is not really Christian in origin itself). Christian churches are popular for weddings. But don't expect the average Japanese to have any in-depth knowledge of this foreign religion. And this anime doesn't exactly help.

***

Once you get over this, however, the premise is quite fascinating. The young boy Samatarou does not have any divine powers. This may be temporary during his study of the human world, it is certainly made clear that he is expected to become God himself eventually. The rest of the family enjoys undefined miracle power, and his father in particular has a disturbing tendency to read the son's mind and make his wishes come true without any effort. This does not really help with the greater purpose of understanding the human condition, and the angel girl Tenko is furious about it. She does her best to discipline the boy, but this is complicated by her own feelings for him. They are very close, seemingly in a brother-sister kind of way, but they are not actually related (she is an angel, after all, a created being, even though she grew up in parallel with him). Part of the challenge of the story is what kind of relationship the two of them are going to have.

I must confess that I love stories about children of superheroes. There are very few of them, but the Astro City – Family Album trade paperback has a wonderful one. I have written about it here before, about the girl Astra, and it was an inspiration for one of my own favorite writings. So I am kind of biased at the outset here, despite the nominally religious background of Kamisama.

There is some really stupid and somewhat indecent humor, which detracts from the anime. Not just because it is indecent, but it is not even really funny. This is generally at home in the God family. As I said, they are basically hillbillies with superpowers. A sad showing indeed.

The best part, and luckily this makes up much of the time, is the complex relationship between Samatarou and Tenko, the angel. Tenko is dominating, even bullying in the first episode, and Samatarou does not take kindly to it. He says that she has grown more and more annoying over the years. And yet it is clear even to him that she really cares about him, she just does not show it in a way he can appreciate.

At the end of episode 1, an exchange student is introduced, a girl named Kumiko. Samatarou falls in love instantly. In episode 2 we get to see how Tenko reacts to this. And let me say, it paints her in a much more positive light. As the readers have suspected the whole time, she is not entirely happy with him falling for another girl, even though she has certainly not had a romantic relationship with him herself. But she decides that his happiness is the most important thing, and so she should help him win the girl of his dreams. Or at least that is what she convinces herself... so far.

***

Despite the religious trappings, it is really an anime about the complex nature of love between two who know each other really well. Is it possible for such childhood love to mature into romantic love, or is it destined to just become friendship, or even something similar to the bond between family members? Regular readers will know that in the past, I took a personal interest in this question, of sorts, and will also know what my answer is. I view it with more detachment now, but the topic still fascinates me.

But of course this is anime, and real life is different from anime.

Cautiously recommended. Some of it is really bad (the indecent slapstick humor), and some of it is really good (the complex feelings of the main characters, especially the girl). But I am likely to keep watching it if I get the chance.