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Shigofumi
10/31/2008 10:31:00 PM
Anime portraying dark sides of life isn't really my cup of tea. That being the case, were I to choose an anime amongst many, I would probably not choose Shigofumi. But since my brother had got the anime, it'd be a waste not to watch it and I thought, what the hell, I'll give it a shot.
In the beginning, everything seems pretty sweet, with the typical bright colors and cutesy scenes, one of which is of a boy who wants to confess his love to a girl. Despite the appearance of a mysterious girl (and an equally mysterious talking stick) named Fumika who came to deliver a letter from the girl's dead father to the girl's "boyfriend", nothing looks sinister. It all changes at the end of episode one, when the girl stabbed the boy to death because she suspected that he had found out about her secret.
Shigofumi's first episodes are pretty much independent of each other. Each of them tells a different story and presents different characters with different problems. The only thing(s) they have in common are Fumika and the Shigofumi. Shigofumi are letters from the dead, addressed to the living. Consider them as media on which the dead said their last words to a particular person. In character with the dead's person, the letter could be kind or plain or hateful or apologetic.
Considering that Fumika is the one who connects all stories together ever since the beginning, naturally her story--who she is, what her background is, and how she ended up being a Shigofumi mailgirl--is revealed towards the end of the twelve-episodes anime.
As I've mentioned, Shigofumi portrays the not-so-lovely aspects of life like loneliness, desperation, suicide, bullying, child pornography, and child abuse. It's extremely obvious that this is not a show for the children. But if you are an adult and open-minded enough, I'd say that it's really a good thing to watch. Not "good" in a screwed up way, but rather it makes you re-examine some things in life.
My favorite episode is "Tomodachi" (Friends), in which a high school boy's suicide led his father to take hostage of his former class in search of an answer to why his son committed suicide. Nobody can provide an answer, though, since his closest friends were at loss too. The guy who committed suicide, Sen-chan, had had a pretty good life; he's well-liked amongst his peers, he hadn't been bullied or anything, and his family wasn't a broken one. Fumika then made a grand entrance, delivering Sen-chan's letter to Kotake, his closest friend. In it, Sen-chan put it simply that just because one didn't want to die, it didn't necessarily mean that he wanted to live. He didn't really want to die; he was just in the mood to jump, period. This might sound odd to you people, since you can expect yourself to die when you jump off an apartment building, but I understand it perfectly and I think that's why I love this particular episode very much.
Through the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Bali has become synonymous with paradise on earth. Nice sandy beaches, lush paddy fields, a place where artistry and piousness become one. Needless to say, to most people Bali seems to be a place out of this world. It is true even for a person like myself, who happen to be a citizen of a country called the Unitary Republic of Indonesia, a country Bali is actually a part of (although, ironically, not many people realize this fact).
Therefore, when I finally did have the chance to visit the island, I was looking forward to something different. Something that, as I've put it, is out of this world. And I was rather disappointed upon witnessing that Bali is pretty much like other parts of Indonesia that I've gone to so far.
There are the good aspects, like the laid-back attitude and sheer hospitality, which presented itself quite clearly as everyone said, "Hello, mister," to every white person passing by. And there are some not-so-good aspects, like clogged ditches and people defecating at the riverbank. But the place, despite its Hindu population dominating the scene in contrast to the country's Muslim majority, was as close as home to me, because the Balinese are just like the people I've seen and met everyday in my hometown. I can relate to them and I like them for it.
The weird thing was, I felt more connected to the islanders than to fellow tourists/visitors. These visitors, be it Indonesians or foreigners, lived a lifestyle so different from mine that I was often at loss to how to respond to this. These were the people who hung out at cafes and pubs regularly, who had drinks every now and then, who felt the need to dance when the band was playing (even when they didn't fancy that band). I've never been in that sort of circle all my life that it's overwhelming, if stifling (the smoke, man, the smoke!).
The moral of the story is that wherever you go you'd find people similar to you as well as the ones different from you and you'd better deal with it. But never lose your ground. So there, my no-so-Bali experience. The end.
What We Are
10/24/2008 04:14:00 PM
We are not our cars
We are not our jobs
We are not our money
We are not our families
We are not our spouses
We are not our standings in society
We are not animals
We are not flesh and blood
We are not accidents waiting to happen
But then
What are we?
So, I've just come home from volunteering for an event in Bali, and these are the things I've learned from that experience:
1) I'm still a long way from becoming an "adult"
As I see it, an adult is one who can keep his/her composure all the times, capable of maintaining his/her ground without worrying about what people might say about it, and has the ability to communicate smoothly with virtually anyone. And unfortunately, I'm still lacking in those three. Maybe I'll have more of them as I get older, who knows? Only time will tell....
2) Working intensely with the same set of people for a lengthy period of time is emotionally tiring
I only had one purpose for coming to Bali: volunteering. Thus, in addition to working eight to six for nearly a week, "volunteering" constantly dominated my thought, even when I was off duty. Therefore, the tension lingered and I often found myself wondering about some people's inadequacy at doing their job, outside working hours. (And I think some people might feel the same way about me.)
3) Do the things you do whole-heartedly because otherwise it sucks
It's annoying, seeing people who were clearly more into taking a vacation rather than volunteering, because such people tended to not taking their job seriously. And what's more exasperating than watching people dilly-dallying around while you're working your ass off? (Pardon my choice of words.) The point is, if you're not set for doing something, you'd better not do it in the first place because it's pointless.
4) Jerks are jerks, no matter what their nationalities are
Degrading as it is, it is widely believed that Indonesians are lazy and just can't do their job well, and the opposite is applied to Westerners. Tell you what, anyone who believes it is a moron, because laziness and irresponsibility has nothing to do with where you're from.
