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The Editorial. (This post is not yet commented)

Unfortunately that’s about as funny as the post is going to get, as we return back to our regularly scheduled Shiori worshipping search for a better memorable meme analysis, commentary, and yes, topic title, which, as you may have noticed, has a lot to do with that great voice from the sky.

Uh, the narrator.

Ironically enough most anime, and probably TV work in general, have as many varying beliefs in the existence of the narrator as the world does in the existence of the higher powers vaguely alluded to in the last paragraph. The majority of the shows take a largely individualistic approach, believing that The Narrator is inside each and every character, with the male lead interjecting useful mental comments into the conversation such as “Heloooooooo, <s>officer</s> meido.” (This is anime after all.) Very rarely, a show will be a nonbeliever, not implementing the narrator at all, giving a very third-person view to the scheme of things. And also quite uncommon is the canon implementation of the narrator, the enthusiastic and energetic voice that helps to explain the action, shouting statements like “The hero makes his move!” (Followed, of course, by the girl turning him down - don’tcha love context?)

A mix of the first and third variations are the ones I’ll be covering today in a case study, as I’ve recently been doing some musing about the storytelling of Kaiji during the ample downtime (action-wise, perhaps, although the mental conniving goes non-stop) of a show that is probably taking a few episodes to explain less than an hours’ worth of play.

The situation I pose is simple: the anime utilizes both lengthy inner monologues by titular character Kaiji and external explanations by the third-person narrator. Together, they probably compromise the bulk of the show, as Kaiji is very much a thinking man’s show, in-between all the falling off beams (among other physical punishment) .

But, what if we were to remove these segments?

I suggest something like this because of the pretty straightforward issues that a narrator adds to a show. I’m of the type that doesn’t like having their hand held story-wise, and would rather figure things out for themselves; so, having them shout “Kaiji notices something different!” borders on annoying. It’s not as bad as it sounds, if only because they save the real big explanations for after the event, but still one can get a sense of “something is up” when the narrator starts talking and foreshadowing things.

Kaiji’s self-narration does a lot of foretell parts of the plot as well; maybe this is just because of the ill-fated nature of his character, doomed to mess up time after time, but it always seems that, in E-Card at least, every time he goes “hey I have this thing figured out” it’s pretty much certain that he’s going to lose. It’s interesting seeing his train of thought, but the cliff at the end of the tracks, maybe not so much. I do still try to root for this guy, after all.

Although, maybe it’s just part of the arc that it’s made to seem that Tonegawa is some incredible god, able to rock Kaiji’s soul and terrorize him to the point where Kaiji’s character art becomes incredibly awkward-looking. Maybe this just sets off thoughts of the mildly-less appealing “one tiny man against the big mean world” adventures of Akagi (or what I’ve seen of it), instead of the largely PvP, equal-grounds status of the earlier Kaiji arcs.

But still, sometimes it seems that it would be more interesting if the narrator would shut it for a bit. I’ve said it before that silence is sometimes more powerful than words, and I think it would be a novel way of presenting things to the viewer, letting them wrack their minds just as much as Kaiji does as to what is going on. What if we couldn’t see inside Kaiji’s head as well as Tonegawa’s? What if all we saw was two men staring each other down, the shift of the fingers between the cards of Emperor and Citizen, the beads of sweat rolling down the trembling face, a silent realization instead of a vocal one?

It would allow for much more interpretation, more theory, more of the confused attempt to piece things together and figure out the key to the game, that so fits with the mood of this show. That is, until the end of the gamble, or match, or whenever Kaiji and Tonegawa finally decide to shoot off their traps about whatever they think about the game, their opponent, or, of course, society.

I think the last part is key, if only because without a comic background audio track a la Haruhi’s Someday in the Rain, you risk putting too many people to sleep with so much silence. Not to mention, the red flags of pretension, or whatever word I should use, for making the viewers try to figure things out, something that will lead to many a “What, you don’t get it? Noob.” condescension.

And after all, a large part of Kaiji is the eerily accurate views it puts forth on the world and the nature of man. Without the narration we’ll probably miss a large part of this, or else only recieve it in large, straight chunks in between the more raw ‘action’ moments. I’d rather not have to resort to a ‘commentary gallery’ where instead of a narrator, a bunch of random irrelevant characters talk to explain things for the viewer; another thing that worries me about the E-Card arc.

Still, if there were some way to do this, I’d like to see more of this in anime, with less explained and more inferred. As you may surmise (you’re reading a blog after all) discussion and theory are what drive the fandom of anime, or any form of fiction, the most, and if a show comes out and slaps you over the head with the meaning and motivation of a show and its characters, that’s a large chunk of debate topics gone. Having some more quiet moments, showing emotion, expression, and thought, visually (and, to a lesser extent, aurally) rather than explicitly, will let the viewer get into the head of the character and explore and interpret the show their own way.

-CCY

(http://danbooru.donmai.us/data/33c056d0444b995cd8d42d3df25cd65e.jpgSome things better left uninterpreted…?)

(I have this feeling I could try this by watching the raws of the show, but then I would be ignoring a lot of things other than the narrator. Standard kawaii sugoi baka baka daisuki anime vocabulary does not apply to Kaiji.)

This post is tagged Analysis, Kaiji