I Get More Sentimental Every Year

There is nothing better than a happy ending. I love tragedy of course, in film no less than literature. But I find the older I get, the more a closing of hope, peace, and even joy fulfills and uplifts the soul. In such case is the anime Requiem For a Phantom. It appears to be completely nihilistic and an absolute fulfillment of the first half of Psalm 73, for the wicked prosper, the just suffer, and the violent bear it away. In the midst of nihilist whirlpool are two innocents struggling to live. Their master, a German-born and educated psychologist/neuroscientist (his nationality cannot be an accident) is so convinced by the "murderous and violent world" that his sole purpose is to erect a stage and watch his creations exemplify the aimless, purposeless world in their battles among each other. A touch of insanity there, surely.

It seems much of anime these days, particularly the darker, more serious material, is overwhelmingly existential or nihilist in outlook. Characters fight and die finding purpose in the various worlds and usually create their own reason for existence in the face of brutal reality. If the anime writers have not read Ecclesiastes, they certainly know similar material - Schopenhauer, perhaps.

Requiem was terrific. Chases and fight scenes are so prevalent in anime that it is rare for me to be actually concerned, but the tension went through the roof more than once and I was on the edge of my seat during some of the fights Reiji and Elen endured. I am a sucker for catharsis and reconciliation and episode 25 had one of the best scenes of that sort I have seen in a while. Naturally the animation was great and the characters extremely well-developed. The drawbacks are mostly the suggested nudity, which added almost nothing to the plot and seemed little more than fan service. That is how it is, I suppose. It is definitely one of the darkest series I have yet seen, for the constant infighting between mafias, crime lords, and the underworld, meaningless and vain though it is, seemed to me to be an image or suggestion of the struggle for a meaningful life simply. That we can have such meaning is at very best uncertain, Requiem seems to suggest.

In any event, it was a terrific series and I hope there are more of that serious caliber.