[C]: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 07

You frequent  readers (Do I have any? LOL.) should know that I’ve professed my love for this show before. It’s also the only anime whose website I visit quite often because they’ve put up some character monologues that won’t be found in the episodes themselves and they actually have some commentary regarding the episodes that go way beyond the surface of the show. Because of this, I have admiration for the people behind [C]. It makes me feel like it goes beyond than simply telling a story, developing characters or achieving plot progression. Some shows that hope to be relevant do this and then toss in a vague moral message.

The good people behind [C]’s wikia have translated Oosaka Naoki’s (a staff member of [C]) commentary on each episode which you can read here. People have continuously questioned the nature of [C]’s ‘commentary’, and what better explanation is there than the words from someone who works on [C]? It appears he works in a field related to economics so his words may be invaluable.

We are shown Mikuni’s past and his family. In his younger years, he was an aspiring musician playing in a band. Due unknown reasons, the band disbanded before they received a record deal. So Mikuni had no choice but to continue working under his father and take over his father’s company in due time. In Mikuni’s words, he had to continue living in this crappy reality. He was obviously somewhat a musically talented individual, with his band good enough to get a record deal. But things didn’t go his way. He had to abandon whatever dreams he had and work. I consider people who are capable of doing what they love for a living, a rarity. A select special few. Some people will tell you that if you really wanted to do it then just go ahead and move forward. This is the illusion of dreams and ambition, just because you want something doesn’t mean you’ll get it.

The saddest part of all is that he had to share a bottle of hair dye with Anaru. That’s just tragic man. Orange hair? Really? I’m glad you got over that phase.

Things continued to become worse for Mikuni, who finds out that the only way he could save his sickly sister is by taking her to America for treatment. His father couldn’t allow this because their company was collapsing and prioritized that over his daughter. Mikuni is shocked and attempts to look for money on his own. But to save the face of the company he is locked in his room for days. That is, until his sister falls into such a critical condition that he is allowed to leave the house and see her.

I love non-creepy oniichans. I wasn’t being ironic okay.

I may be giving too much credit to Mikuni’s father, but when Takako explains that she doesn’t want to leave Japan anymore, it dawns on me that their father may not be as cold-hearted as he first appears to be. He may have had an inkling that this was what Takako wished and let her stay in Japan instead.

Takako falls into a coma and has no awoken ever since and Mikuni drowns himself in work. During this time, Masakaki appears and invites him to the Financial District. Masakaki functions like Kyubey but for adults, because we don’t give a fuck about ‘wishes’  we like money! AWW YEAH! But unlike Kyubey, Masakaki’s job is easier. The scene where Mikuni protects Q piqued my interest. Q mentions in the first episode that Kimimaro reminded her of Mikuni when they first met and we can see Mikuni protecting her in this episode. All these small moments make the show all the better.

Mikuni intends to revolt against the Financial District and use it to the advantage of reality. This is why he criticizes Sennoza Kou, who is devoid of such intentions.

I guess we’re fucked.

The second half is about Mysu and Kimimaro, whose relationship have taken a more romantic turn and the creators aren’t being that subtle about it. My opinions about these two are gathered from what we’ve seen so far from [C] and Kimimaro’s monologue . If you look at Q, she and Mikuni’s have so many physical similarities, it’s quite obvious that she represents Mikuni’s future with his younger sister. I speculated that Mysu may be an embodiment of Kimimaro’s future with Hanabi but rather than Hanabi, it might be someone else. A person Kimimaro’s never met before. Anyway, this segment was told through Mysu’s perspective, which I thought was very clever. Kimimaro is a character who doesn’t understand himself, to have him narrate his own segment would be like sitting through a bad self-introduction. It was also great to see Kimimaro’s first opponent again, he’s a pretty okay guy.

My favorite scene in which I teared up a bit was when some asshole Entre make fun of Kimimaro for treating Mysu like a ‘person’.  It’s not until Kimimaro talks to Mysu realizes that he should go back there and punch that asshole. I thought this was quite poignant. Kimimaro is mocked for treating his asset, essentially his future–differently.

A beautiful shot.

We still don’t know the true nature of the assets though, if Mysu is the future and a lost future then it only seems right to return that future. But with the two of them developing feelings for each other, this can’t have a good end if Kimimaro decides to ‘return’ her. Perhaps we misunderstand what these people lose when they go bankrupt or are defeated is their ‘future’, I look back on it and realize that perhaps what they’re losing are things grounded in the present, even the professor’s baby is in fact, something that exists in the present. The lose these things in compensation for paying back what they truly owe the Financial District, the assets they’ve been given. You can correct me if I’m wrong though!

The monologue also answers why Kimimaro went against Sennoza. He had to find his own answers, he couldn’t just back down and accept one of the three ideals presented to him. He decided to challenge himself and discover what he truly needs to do, not what the people around him tell him to.

There’s a lot to take in here and to reflect about. The problem is that many people have been mislead by the trailers. [C] appeared to be a shounen series with money as a theme and the financial district as a battleground, but this is merely a facade. When people realize this, they easily dismiss it as a pretentious piece and find no value in it. But in my case, I was much more intrigued.

[C] isn’t without it’s flaws though, mainly the bad use of CG is what irks me the most. But due to the studio being affected by the earthquake I can look past that. Which makes me wonder what this would look like without that drawback. I’ll probably have to look forward for the BluRays for that though. It’s a pity this show isn’t as popular as I hoped it to be.  By the way, the music is amazing. I just remembered that the man behind the music is Taku Iwasaki and he is goddamn ace.