The look at Gen Urobuchi tropes continues in this post. What is another thing that signifies what a Gen Urobuchi anime is about? The first one was covered last week. That perception of the Urobutcher just killing off his characters when he feels like it. While that is an over exaggeration, but there is some truth to it. The heaviest one, at least to me, is the system that everything that everyone one of his characters have to live under and break free from in what he writes. I mean, that is such a relatable thing to because we are all living under a government system of some kind. Urobuchi wanting to explore this on some level in every series creates such an easy relatable even in his most outstanding series.
I say this knowing that Urobuchi has written or worked on a small number of series for a couple episodes that have had some sense of a system in them. Gargantia is one of them and that will appear next week. The most infamous one is Aldnoah.Zero though. He is the original writer behind that anime series’ story and even worked on the first three episodes of the show as a selling point, because of his growing fame from other works, because of that fact. I could also mention Urobuchi’s very mediocre Godzilla trilogy which tried to have some discussion about a system and philosophy with Godzilla at the center and it ending up being one of the most mediocre things he has directly worked on. Clearly, to me, there is something stuck on Gen Urobuchi’s mind that he wants to say about it. Like how much it sucks.
The biggest thing that attracts me to his systems are how omnipresent and super natural they are. Besides perhaps Aldnoah.Zero where its people against people using technology from mars or Phantom where it’s the mafia, the system is always inhumanly strong and everywhere. We could dive into Madoka where the Kyubei units are alien creatures who control destiny itself or Psycho Pass where, because of the obvious image, the Sybil System is a bunch of human brains who judge people through the Dominator that the MWSPB carry and street scanners. We could talk about the omnipotent demons and swords which create the larger system of Thunderbolt Fantasy or we could talk about DEVA. The system, no matter what it is or how its defined, is impossible to destroy. At least it is like that in most conventional means.
With begs the question of how a season can be destroyed. I mean, that is the point of this post after all right? That is always a very complicated thing to answer. I mean, one can’t simply take a normal gun and start shooting at brains at the Sybil System, right? The system will kill you eventually in a quick manner. Same for killing Kyubei. Mainly because that is only a shell or a system of its oppression on people after all. Same with the demons. Anything that is human can eventually be taken care of and destroyed through conventional means. But a system that knows you and sees all can only be taken out through sacrifice and wits. A person who takes down a system in a smart way must know and dedicate themselves to the cause of taking it down. Something strains and strains on people because of how difficult the fight is. Eventually, there will be a point where that strain needs to be passed on because of how much of a duty it is.
The system in Madoka Magica was broken because of how Madoka played the game correctly in ways that were unexpected and because she was bold about sacrifice. The Sybil System in Psycho pass still remains because Akane can’t destroy it by herself as she continues to challenge it because challenging it is all she can do. Thunderbolt Fantasy’s demons and swords are merely kept at bay because of one brave man who continues to say no to any of this and even then, the system is still winning. The answer to destroying the system in Gen Urobuchi’s works of inhuman nature is that there isn’t one. One system is replaced by another. People are never free because there is always another one waiting around the corner. Human beings live and die in one as well. I feel like that is the point that Gen Urobuchi is getting at.
Mechanical Anime Reviews 