The Confessions of a Certain Scientific Aniblogger

appreciate my MS paint skills

Yesterday, I watched Confessions.  It’s Higurashi-meets-Onani Master Kurosawa, where instead of Onaning, Kurosawa kills somebody and doesn’t ever see redemption.  It’s sick, twisted, gory, and depressing.  Just my style.

I spent much of this past summer looking for the sickest, strangest anime of them all.   I browsed the internet, and people recommended shows like Narutaru:

I will say that episode 12 is easily THE MOST MESSED UP EPISODE I have *ever* seen, out of any series or movie, including real movies. There are actually two really horrible scenes in this episode. Prior to watching this, I remember when episode 12 was viewed by the general public, and everyone kept freaking out about how shocking it was. When I watched it, I saw the first of the two things (which is horrible as it is), and thought “oh wow, that’s what they were talking about”. Little did I know that there was a second and absolutely horrifying event that had yet to happen!

sothis

Needless to say, my old shock-site viewing self was getting all excited.  I wanted to see this amazing episode that caused sothis, Anime Grandmaster, to post such a crazy review.  It turned out to be a big disappointment.  Sticking large pointy things in inappropriate places is certainly strange, and Narutaru as a whole was pretty disturbing, but I was falling asleep way too much.  I needed more thrill, more pizzazz, more pizzas.

and your tung is out and your ugly

And I thought I’d found it in Shiki.  But I was wrong, so wrong.  While Shiki disturbed me enough to squeeze out a post, this non-animated (!!!) Japanese movie Confessions has convinced me to write this post in order to overrule my previous Shiki post.  It’s just that good.  And that disturbing.  In fact, it was so disturbing that somebody in the back threw up near the end of the movie.

Actually, that was some guy who had too much to drink.  He came in and threw up all over the carpet in the back of the room.  But the point is, something about the room we were in made him come in and hurl chunky bits of brownish meat next to a garbage can.  And that something could only be the disturbing movie we were watching.  It was so disturbing that once a single photon from the screen traveled out of the room and hit the staggering drunkard outside, the drunkform collapsed and the probability that he would enter any other room dropped to zero.

I named my character Yuuko Aioi

My roommate recommended Confessions, saying that our young, female Japanese teacher recommended it.  I have to stress the young and female because this isn’t exactly what your average young female would watch.  Or at least what I think a young female would watch.  They’re all into metrosexual fantasy guys and chick flicks, right?

I think Confessions really shows what Eastern media (including anime) is capable of.  One of my friends compared this film to Law Abiding Citizen, but the only thing the two films have in common is the revenge theme.  Hollywood films are all about feel-good script-reusing blockbusters, and Law Abiding Citizen is no exception.  Why do good and evil have to be so clear-cut?  Clyde gradually turns more and more evil as the movie progresses, until we all feel good that he and the entire multi-million dollar jail complex is blown to itsy bitsy bits.  I wonder who footed that bill?

Confessions is more subtle.  While the main character may turn eviler and eviler, not once is the audience forced to choose sides.  Imagine if Nick killed Clyde’s family and Clyde killed Nick’s family.  And then Nick tortures Clyde.  Who’s right, then?  Am I supposed to pity Clyde for getting tortured?  No, no, no.  This kind of THOUGHT-based film is never present in the West.  Instead, we’re given stupid junk like Transformers that rots our brains.  Have we degenerated into tall-Brit-loving apes?

This is one of the reasons why I watch anime.  While there will always be Transformers-tier anime, the entire system is built around a different psychology.  Depressing, hopeless films like Confessions are accepted here, and receive the praise of young females.  While it may not be better than Western media, it is a change of pace from all the bullshit I put up with when I watch a movie like In Time.  99 Seconds store?  Really?  That movie was just one big terrible pun after another.  I didn’t even have the time to groan.

P.S.: 12 Days of Anime: #10 to #1 are all Nichijou.  Now I don’t have to spam my own blog.


8 Comments on “The Confessions of a Certain Scientific Aniblogger”

  1. flomu says:

    Sorry for breaking my promise

    null

    Also sorry for the fallout pictures. I haven’t really been doing much besides playing Fallout: New Vegas. I was going to write a post about how terrible I thought the game was because of the stupid looking Pip-Boy always telling me I can’t carry 500 pounds of equipment. Why can’t I carry ten suits of plated armor? Realism sucks!

    • flomu says:

      I got a new smartphone today. It is 3G because all the 4G phones don’t have physical keyboards that you can actually touch and not make 10 typos per word. It is also my old phone to the third power.

      It’s bigger, thinner, and runs a lot slower than my old phone. The guy who conned me into buying it said it has dual cores. I think only one core is enough, as long as it’s hard.

  2. Mushyrulez says:

    wow guy-person-dude gosh anime isn’t deep whta are you talking about

    ar eyou on shrooms

    gbetter not be on shrooms

    only I’s on shrooms

    I son shrooms

    cause y’know

    shrooms need fathers too

  3. Valence says:

    Confessions was a great movie. I bought it on DVD too, although I guess this line gave me chills of awesomeness:

    “The sound of something you love disappearing isn’t a ‘pop’, but a loud ‘BOOM’!”

    Awesome movie overall. Law Abiding Citizen was one of the few thought-provoking hollywood movies since although we’d probably root for him to seek his revenge, throughout the movie he becomes more and more evil as his degenerate history is revealed : years spent in preparation, innocent people dying, scarring children, et cetera. Confessions was slightly different in the sense that while she does get more evil, she is kind of on the side of ‘justice’, saving those innocent students while punishing the antagonist, yet killing an innocent woman as well.

    • flomu says:

      Naaaan te ne.

      It gets crazily unrealistic (the bomb and whatnot), but at least that doesn’t detract from the experience.

      My main beef with Law Abiding Citizen is that the guy dies in a flashy way and the prosecutor ends up learning a lesson and becoming a better person. In a way, the engineer dying seals the deal for whatever ambiguity the movie set up. It convinces us that “oh, the bad guy receives his just desserts.” In fact, all of the bad guys in the movie face retribution and that serves only to persuade the audience of who’s bad and who’s good.

      Confessions, on the other hand, keeps the audience guessing. It’s not clear who’s evil and who’s good. Should I feel sorry for the mom who’s torturing this kid, or for this kid who’s torturing the mom? Western movies focus on the good guy killing the bad guy and the audience feeling all warm and fuzzy, knowing that the bad guys are ten feet below the ground. This has made me accustomed to needing a “good guy” in a film. But when I come across a movie like Confessions where everybody turns out evil, I get fooled. The plot twists seem more genuine when you’re actually getting tricked.

  4. glothelegend says:

    I just got a whooooooolle bunch of anime to watch from this! The blood lust has returned!


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