Whether it is "Your Name" that caused a sensation in Japan three years ago, or the recent release of "The Child of the Weather", Makoto Shinkai's works are always inseparable from the story of the "world series", even though this type of subculture The works are not as popular as they were in the early 2000s. The concise definition of Dong Hiroki is still used: the feature of "World Series" works is that the "little love" between the male and female protagonists is directly linked to the big issue of "survival of the world", skipping the various social relations. intermediary. (But if you want to talk about the "world system", this is not the original Japanese subculture, there are also in the early days of the country...)
"Children of the Weather" is no exception: the protagonist Hougao is a 16-year-old boy who "goes to Beijing". Because he couldn't find a job, he finally got a job with Suga, who is engaged in urban legends and other strange stories. In the process of searching for the "Sunny Girl", Houga met the heroine Sunna who has the ability to temporarily change the weather, that is, the real "Haru Girl". The latter accidentally stepped into an incredible shrine when his mother was seriously ill, and became a "Miko". The price of being a "haruna" is that she needs to sacrifice herself to stop the heavy rain in Tokyo. When Yang Cai sacrificed herself, Fan Gao tried his best to find the other party, and finally entered the "world on the cloud" and rescued her. As a result, Tokyo suffered three years of heavy rain, and most of the city was flooded. At the end of the movie, Fangao saw Yangna, who had been disabled, praying on the side of the road, and the two met again and hugged each other.
Pure and innocent love, the either-or choice between the "other party" and the "world", the conceptualization of the social background of the characters, and male narcissism in a sense: it can be said that from the early "Voice of Stars" to " From "Your Name" to the current "Children of the Weather", Makoto Xin Hai persistently repeats the story of the "World Department" - or, through constant "repetition", exploring the possibility of the "World Department". Although there are "social" factors such as police, violent gangs, and traditional folklore in "Weather Children" (these can also be seen in "Your Name" and are quite confusing-just like the religious elements in EVA back then Confusing), "society" is still only adding some twists and turns in the relationship between the hero and heroine. However, because of Xin Haicheng's insistence on the "world department" type, if we still stay at the "science" level of the "world department", I am afraid that we will not be able to grasp the real interesting aspects of "Weather Children". (The second "but": However, if we abandon the prescriptive framework of the "world system" and understand the movie in a "usual" way—for example, by understanding the narrative logic of Hollywood blockbusters, Then it can only be said that this story itself does not have much to remember, and it is not even so "interesting".)
In a sense, "Children of the Weather" constitutes an answer to a certain criticism of "Your Name". In the eyes of some Japanese audiences, "Your Name", which is characterized by "turning the bad end of the story into a good end", constitutes a peculiar consolation to the disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011, that is, " Just forget it when it didn’t happen.” The "glistening Japan" displayed on this basis may not exactly reflect the hope of rebuilding daily life after the disaster, but the irresponsibility of the post-war "otaku" to whom Shinkai Makoto belongs.
If the dimension of "daily life after a disaster" is introduced into "Children of the Weather", then Xin Haicheng's answer to the above criticism will not be difficult to discover. In order to save the heroine in the movie, the actor said: "The weather is bad, it's bad!" If it is said that in "Your Name", disaster is treated as a dialectical negation link in the process of the hero and heroine finally getting married. , So as to be overcome—in other words, the two poles in the “world system” setting have changed from the structure of “difficulties” to the structure of “thesis-antithesis”—then in "Children of the Weather", the "world system" The polarities of "" and the resulting ethical problems were resolved from the very beginning: the male protagonist did not intend to sacrifice the "little love" between him and the heroine for the sake of the "world". Because of this, when the heroine finally decided to become a "human pillar", the decisive opportunity was to ask the hero: Do you want the sky to be clear? ——The asymmetry between "Hope Tianqing" and "Self-sacrifice" is not so much a flaw in the film's narrative, as it reflects Xin Haicheng's ethical attitude. Xin Haicheng’s answer to criticisms based on “big issues” such as social ethics and responsibility is: these don’t matter. Indeed, is there a more "irresponsible" attitude than this?
However, the problem may be a little more complicated. It can be said that, in contrast to the "strong ethics" based on social responsibility put forward by critics of "Your Name", Xin Haicheng gave a "weak ethics" in "The Child of the Weather". When Fangao rescued Yangna and Tokyo began to experience heavy rains for years, the original boss Suga said to Fangao: Don't think that you have changed the world. "The world is crazy anyway." Similarly, mother-in-law Fumi also comforted Fan Gao: The submerged Tokyo is just "returning to the way it was hundreds of years ago." However, when Fan Gao saw Yang Na praying on the side of the road, his inner monologue was: "No. The world was not crazy at first. We changed the world."
Here, there is a subtle deflection between the previous "adults" understanding of the "world" and Fan Gao's understanding: For the former, Fan Gao's actions are fundamentally ineffective in changing society. As a result, there is no need to worry about it-this almost constitutes a mockery of the basic setting of the "world line" type (your "little love" affects the survival of the world? cut the crap!-or in Suga's words: just Sacrificing a sunny girl can change the weather. Is there anything better than this?); But for the latter, the "world" in "We Changed the World" has been due to a series of events between the hero and the heroine It's different from "original" with decision. That is to say, the "world" is divided into "Haruna's world" and "Haruna's world" and "Haruna's world", and the actor's personal decision makes it impossible to reconcile the two worlds, despite the fact that " In the eyes of adults, there is no significant break between the two.
It is worth noting that Haruna not only refused to be Haruno and “saving the world”, but also rejected her own social meaning: when she was still Haruno, she said to the “part-time job” of “changing the climate”: “I I like this job. Haruno’s job. I finally understand my role.” Even self-sacrifice and becoming a "human pillar" also means that Haruna has fulfilled her mission of social identity as a "miko". Therefore, as far as the film itself is concerned, once this effect on "society" and "others" disappears, it means that Yang Nai has chosen another world under Fan Gao's decision, one that strips off and rejects "society". "World" in the sense of "World Department". "Children of the Weather" shows Xin Haicheng's affirmation of the "world" of the "world system" and his denial of the "society" in a dense and colorful way: Fan Gao even pointed his gun at the police...
In this sense, the rupture of the two "worlds" in Fangao is the internal and external rupture of the "world system" type, or the rift between "world" and "society". By allowing the hero and heroine to stay in the "world" of the "world system" and refusing to reach a reconciliation with the "society", Xin Haicheng rejected the ethical and social psychological meanings people read from "Your Name". Thus, "ethics" is enclosed in the narrow space ("world") involved in "personal decision". "God, please don't give us anything from now on, and don't take anything away from us." Fan Gao prayed in this short happy time. The "world system" ethics left by Makoto Shinkai to the audience ultimately leads to what Tokuhiro Uno calls "decisionism": as long as you are loyal to your own decisions, your actions will be responsible.
In the brochure of "Weather Children", Xin Haicheng wrote: "The world today is the result of our own choices.... But on the other hand, for young people... the world was like this when they were born. You can only choose to live here.” Here, the difference between “us” and “young people” is not so much the difference between generations, as it is the “weak ethics” of the works of the “World Department” and its exterior. The confrontation between the "strong ethics". Even this is not a question of what kind of ethics to "choose", but a state of "unable to choose" and having to close oneself in the "world". Otherwise... what about otherwise? Under such a confrontation, what is the meaning of praying after Yang Nai loses her power? It can only show a posture in a "strong ethical" society ("pretend" to have a relationship with the society and "play" the role of Haruna), and cannot assume any ethical responsibility. Xin Haicheng, who produced advertisements for large-scale industries and adhered to the story of the "world", finally chose the ethical position, paradoxically, and reached agreement with the self-satisfied semi-closed life of the "homeboys": the full meaning and value of my life , Comes from my daily life-even whether it changes or not depends entirely on my own decision.
Theorists may be able to sniff out the cultural logic of so-called "neoliberalism" from the above-mentioned "ethical" attitude, but this is too far away from Xin Haicheng's "world". (One more sentence: Although neoliberalism is global, it transitions from here to cultural criticism. Animation is also neoliberal, Hollywood blockbusters are also neoliberal, and everything you see is "neoliberal". This criticism is the same Very "neo-liberal".)
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