Madlax and nature versus nurture

So recently I finished watching Madlax again. Now, I was really tempted to try to apply some overarching “industrialized world versus less-industrialized world” theme on it. (Personally I’m not a big fan of the phrases “First world” and “Third world” and I think “Developed world” and “Developing world” are equally bad.)

But I found that I couldn’t. I mean no matter how I struggled with it, I kept coming around to the fact that the show was pretty plain about what it was talking about.

It was talking about a different duality all together. Whether or not ethics are a natural thing for humans or if they’re an artifice that should be stripped away.

Now, I will probably go on as far as that point, but it’s got me thinking a lot about duality and anime. I mean as far as story structure it makes a lot of sense. You have two competing ideals that the hero has to struggle with, so it provides an internal tension. So I get why it’s fairly common in anime.

But I think there’s something more to it. It’s not that dualities aren’t common in Western Literature and other thought. I mean we have The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, more recently, Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, Thomas Covenant in Stephen R. Donaldson’s books. In religion, we have Calvin and Arminius, Perseverance of the Saints and Good Acts. In psychology we have Freud and Skinner (granted there’s a whole lot that I left out there.) But in the end, there’s a whole lot of opposition going on.

But I’m going to start with Madlax because in a lot of ways, I think that gets at the roots of a lot of dualities.

(Please note: I am about to completely spoil Madlax, thus guaranteeing that no one will finish this blog post. If you ever had any intention of watching this show, then I’d suggest watching it first. If you don’t, then by all means keep reading.)

All right you have been warned.

So anyways, the two main characters of this show, Margaret Burton and Madlax, were once the same person. They split at the moment when Margaret’s father pointed a gun at her. As the main villain pointed out, they represent two competing desires in the girl at the time – the animalistic need to survive and the need to uphold social mores. Basically they’re a duality brought to life, and representative of the larger duality question of the piece: Are ethics an artifice or are they natural?

Trust me, that question is going to come up again.

Now in a lot of ways, this reminds me of the basic nature versus nurture debate that goes through social science circles. To be honest, it’s a tricky question at best. But for all of its other faults, Madlax does provide an interesting answer. A bit of both.

When Margaret initially answers this question, she states that these things may be artificial but people still need them. In and of itself, that’s a satisfactory answer. I agree that ethics are an artifice that humans have created so what we can survive in groups (in lieu of fangs and claws.)

But I don’t think that’s the true answer Madlax was going for. The big answer comes in the form of Madlax’s own duality: she’s a kind killer. Granted, the first time I watched the show I wasn’t really all that interested in that duality (or rather I didn’t really notice it.) The thing is that no matter that she started as a manifestation of Margaret’s will to live, she also took on part of her ethics too. So that even though she killed often, she still felt bad about it. Basically, the show is hinting at the fact that empathy is a natural human emotion.

So why have I prattled on for 700 words about this? Mostly because I’m trying to get at the root of the idea of being a monster in anime. And I think Madlax provides a good starting place for that discussion. In essence, a basic question, from which I hope I can form other questions.

Robber Barons and Mercenaries: A look at Itazura na Kiss and Macross Frontier

You know, I’m not even going to talk about Code Geass and Pizza Hut.

Well other than I think the slogan, “This Revolution is brought to you by Pizza Hut!” is really funny.

But anyways, itsabun and later Hige mentioned how Kaiba depicts a fairly Marxist ideal of what a capitalist society is. And I have to agree, but I’ve noticed a couple of other fairly subtle nods to the capitalist system in a few other shows this season. In particular two of them come to mind right off the bat.

The first one, Macross Frontier, really shouldn’t come as a shock to most people. Let’s face it, the main character becomes a mercenary. A mercenary for a company that has better weapons than the military, no less. A while back, I did a piece on the nature of democracy in mecha anime. And Macross Frontier seems to hit all of the points, so far. The central government is crippled by red-tape, bureaucratic infighting and popular opinion. The only thing that seems different here is that Alto is actually a citizen solider, something which I find interesting.

And add in a “rags to riches” sub-plot worthy of Horatio Alger, and there seems to be a message coming out of the first five episodes of the show – follow your dreams and don’t expect anyone else to help you out with it. Now I don’t know how much of that is an artifact of the story-telling and how much of it is intentional. But it’s an interesting message, especially when there are so many monolithic companies present in anime (Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 comes to mind right off the bat.) It’s a nice change to have a show that features capitalism in a good light, even if democracy does get the shaft.

Well at least so far.

The other critique that I’ve spotted comes from an interesting place – Itazura na Kiss. One of the first things I noticed when I started watching this show was the stratified school system. To be honest, it’s not a particularly uncommon idea in anime. But usually both of the characters are from the same social strata as it were. In Itazura you have one guy from the elite and one girl from the lower class. What makes this show interesting as far as that goes is that the usual theme is: “Oh my God, we can allow these two to date. That’d be unthinkable.” And then they fight against society to be together and everything ends happily.

Strange enough Itazura na Kiss does exactly the opposite. Instead it’s the parents who are trying to play matchmaker and Naoki who seems against it. In fact, it reminded me of the Industrial Revolution around the time of the muckrakers, with Naoki playing the part of the disinterested robber barons.

At least until, episode five. (I’m not sure if this is going to be a spoiler. If it is than avert your eyes, or go promptly to your nearest brainwashing center of your choice to remove the memory of this post.) Now at least a few people complained about how Naoki isn’t really interested in Kotoko To be honest, I was a little put off by it too. Well that and the fact that she isn’t capable of doing ANYTHING by herself. Now to be honest, it’s not any more flattering if you replace Kotoko with the working masses and Naoki with the robber barons. In fact, it becomes the polar opposite of a Horatio Alger story. No matter how hard the lower classes work they’re never going to achieve the status of the higher classes because of a sheer lack of talent.

Well unless the higher classes decide to practice a little bit of corporate citizenship. To explain, once Andrew Carnegie got tired of making his fortune off of the backs of the workers, he grew a conscience and said, “Wait, we should give something back.” What was funny is that is exactly what Naoki does in the fifth episode of Itazura na Kiss. Now the message isn’t necessarily any better. Now it’s, “The lower classes can’t achieve anything without help from the higher classes.” But it is a bit more interesting.

Related Links

CCY’s awesome Shoujo Showdown.