Hi, Guys. It's been a while since I've posted here (my computer died so I'm writting this on a school computer) but I hope to be back on a more permanant basis soon. Anyway, I was just reading a manga/anime called Bleach, and I couldn't help but notice that it had some rather overt anti-authoritarian (if not libertarian) undertones. First off, the entire series starts out with the female lead (Rukia), a foot-soldier in the mystical Shinigami military explicitly violates her orders by giving part of her powers to the protagonist ("Ordinary-Highschool-Student" Ichigo), who states that although he intends to use them to protect others, he only does so because he feels like it, not becuase "altruism" or "morality" demand it. The anti-authoritarian message really starts to kick in with the begining of the Soul Society Arc, in which Rukia is arrested and sentanced to death for defying orders. Throughout the arc, the soul society is portrayed as fascistic and authoritarian, with its leadership either manipulitive and hypocritical (Aizen, Tousen), incompetant (Yamamoto), or down right genocidal (Mayuri). In fact, all of the sympatheticly portrayed Shinigami (Renji, Shunsui, Ukitake, Kenpachi) all end up rebeling agains Soul Societies Authoritarian dictator (Yamamoto) and would likely have overthrown him had they not been interupted by his second-in-command ascending to godhood. And just to add icing to the cake, the main character's mentor, who is portrayed as one of the most compotent characters in the series) is a scientist-turned-businessmen who has been known to advertise his products even in the middle of battle.
So, anyway, thats my thoughts on the series. Feel free to recomend any other good, anti-authoritarian shows you can think of.
You can't take the sky from me.
Final Fantasy XII is libertarian if you want to look at things that way.
-Jon
To darkness I condemn you...
Heh, I never thought of it that way, kids shows usually are not aimed at deep thoughts. The one I would say is quite libertarian is Trigun, more precisely kind of pacifist. But definetly pro gun. Bebop had a quite free spirited feeling, but that is it. Anyway you should not be surprised, libertarianism is Good and most shows only reluctantly promote Evil.
Also only the first 52 eps are dubbed so avoid spoilers. For me Aizen is still dead. :P
Sorry about that. I've always been a manga reader, so when I do watch anime, I usually watch subbed; sometimes it's hard for me to remember that the dubbs even exist. Although I must admitt, Viz didn't do too bad a job on the dub of Bleach: the voice actor they gave Gin was just perfect.
Another anime that has some libertarian undertones (though not as much as Bleach) is Death Note: the unsympathetically portrayed villian-protagonist is attempting to establish a 'utopian' (read fascist/socialist) society with himself as god, and the sympathetic antagonist is a private detective. However, not alot is made of the political aspects, as the series is more about philosophy and psychology. And the dub (which can be viewed saturday nights on Adult Swim) is pretty well-done.
And, of course, what discussion of Libertarian oriented shows would be complete without a shoutout to Firefly/Serenity?
I agree with the sentiment on Death Note. Unfortunately, I think I was the only person of my friends that cheered L on. Similarly, whenever I watch Geass, I find myself cheering on the revolutionaries.
On a related anime-esque libertarian-note, what do you guys think of Desert Punk?
"Keynesianomics is a Ponzi scheme."
"You are correct in that Capitalism does not help with poverty, because it eliminates poverty altogether..."
"That wonderful strawman: greed."
Inequality bad.
Desert Punk is my favorite anime. I just picked up the entire series (only $48!). I still have 4 episodes left, so please don't post any spoilers. At episode 12 you start to see the government abuses. Finally the protagonist joins with an anti-government group when they tear up his contract (what he is most distrubed about). I'm not sure how anti-authoritarian it is, as the group criticizes the government for not being "compassionate" and helping out the weak, so I'll have to get back to you.
One episode of interest though is when a new charachter is introduced who immidiatley becomes indentured to the protagonist in return for water to help two orphans. The protagonist thinks this is foolish, and is going to sell him, but before this can happen they're arrested and it turns out that the orphans were actually thieves who trick people! Plus, the sidekick made a huge anti-welfare speech where she basically said almost verbatim "But if you keep helping them they'll never learn to survive! If they work ya their life will be tough but at least they have a chance."
Like I said, my favorite.
bigwig: Desert Punk is my favorite anime. I just picked up the entire series (only $48!). I still have 4 episodes left, so please don't post any spoilers. At episode 12 you start to see the government abuses. Finally the protagonist joins with an anti-government group when they tear up his contract (what he is most distrubed about). I'm not sure how anti-authoritarian it is, as the group criticizes the government for not being "compassionate" and helping out the weak, so I'll have to get back to you. One episode of interest though is when a new charachter is introduced who immidiatley becomes indentured to the protagonist in return for water to help two orphans. The protagonist thinks this is foolish, and is going to sell him, but before this can happen they're arrested and it turns out that the orphans were actually thieves who trick people! Plus, the sidekick made a huge anti-welfare speech where she basically said almost verbatim "But if you keep helping them they'll never learn to survive! If they work ya their life will be tough but at least they have a chance." Like I said, my favorite.
Only $48 (where)?! I shouldn't have rented it!
It has to be one of my favs too, and it's got to be the closest to an AnCap program I've ever seen. The large prevalence of guns and bounty hunters in a 'lawless' soceity is awesome. Also, the Socialist guy regularly gets screwed.
The best episode had to be the 'crappiest' one. Those who have watched the show will know which one I mean ;D. That episode weened every possible pun out of that.
Taelor:Another anime that has some libertarian undertones (though not as much as Bleach) is Death Note: the unsympathetically portrayed villian-protagonist is attempting to establish a 'utopian' (read fascist/socialist) society with himself as god, and the sympathetic antagonist is a private detective.
Then it failed. Light has an incredible fanbase, the younger they were the more they liked him getting rid of human trash. It was just the execution that went wrong, like communism. Suspects only, victimless criminals, innocents too, no one cared as long as the bad guys died. For you see everybody deserves death whatever alleged crime they commit. They approved anything. It was frightening, to read the forums. AND THEY WILL BE VOTERS!! damn democracy
http://www.amazon.com/Desert-Punk-Box-Viridian-Collection/dp/B0018RCN5O
This is the no-nonsense-just-dvd set. I picked it up at my local store for 3$ more. It was a shock to me too, considering that I had bougt the first one for 25 and the second one for 20 (for some reason the different volumes have different prices everywhere). This must have come out relatively recently, because the tin case they were offering before was really not worth it. It was just a tin + art book + dvds for about $40 more than this.
Another reason desert punk is so awesome is because the dubs are indisputably better than the subs. If you've read any reviews, you know this anecdotally. I watched the same episode twice (inamewa rock) just to make sure, and trust me, the dubs make the show. If they had just done a straight translation, it would just be merely OK.
Apparently this is based on a manga still serialized in Japan, but it has yet to be released in volumes anywhere, though I would love for it to come to the states.
Does anyone know of other similarly themed animes? There have to have been some that came out in the 80s.
scineram: Taelor:Another anime that has some libertarian undertones (though not as much as Bleach) is Death Note: the unsympathetically portrayed villian-protagonist is attempting to establish a 'utopian' (read fascist/socialist) society with himself as god, and the sympathetic antagonist is a private detective. Then it failed. Light has an incredible fanbase, the younger they were the more they liked him getting rid of human trash. It was just the execution that went wrong, like communism. Suspects only, victimless criminals, innocents too, no one cared as long as the bad guys died. For you see everybody deserves death whatever alleged crime they commit. They approved anything. It was frightening, to read the forums. AND THEY WILL BE VOTERS!! damn democracy
I'm not sure why Light is so popular. He may have started out somewhat sympathetic, but the writers spend the better part of the series attempting to show people what a TOTAL @$$HOLE he is. Let's see: Emotionally abusive to his girlfriend? Check. Willing to murder his own familly? Check. Grins maniaclly after murdering someone whom he had just spent massive amounts of time and enegy convincing that they're friends? Check. But no, Light just looks so damn kawaii. I seem to recall reading about an interview with the writers about how they're just as confused as we are.
My friends (some of whom are libertarians) and I didn't buy it, of course. Most of us almost stoped watching/reading the series after the infamouse episode 25/chapter 106 (you've completed the series, you should know which one I'm refering to, without having to look it up).
An another thing I just remembered about Death Note: the series ends with one of the survivng cops (I think it was Aizawa, but I'm not sure) giving a monolouge which sounded vaguely Nietszcheian/Objectivist in nature. It was more philosophical than political though.
Also, Full Metal Panic is about a group of international mercenaries who take justice into their own hands because the U.N. is either unwilling or incompetant to defend people. Anti-UN sentimet aside, it's pretty apolitical, though. But that doesn't stop it from being awesome.
Edit: I hadn't heard of Desert Punk. I'll check it out when I have the time.
I noticed that Japanese Anime has a lot of interesting plots that American cartoons lack.
For example, most American cartoons are open ended. Batman never fully defeats the Joker. Superman never fully defeats Lex Luthor. For Japenese Anime, the series usually is finite, and main characters sometimes die.
I have my own blog at FSK's Guide to Reality. Let me know if you like it.
That's one of the reasons that I like Death Note; it lasted 35 episodes, and then the creators ended it, because they had told the story they were trying to tell. They didn't drag it out. And it's explicitly stated in the very first episode that the main character will not survive to the end.
Taelor:Also, Full Metal Panic is about a group of international mercenaries who take justice into their own hands because the U.N. is either unwilling or incompetant to defend people. Anti-UN sentimet aside, it's pretty apolitical, though. But that doesn't stop it from being awesome.
If I want to be picky they are funding themselves by fighting drug cartels and other smugglers at the request of western governments I guess, so there you go. Still, awesomeness yes.
My sister watches anime all the time, so screw me. In fact, I started her by watching too much Bleach.
Code Geas shows a person with the power to command others, who is part of the satist government, trying to rebel against it.
And as for Bleach... a great ending would be the satist soul reaper government crumbling, arachno-capitalism starting in soul society, and the soul reapers becoming PDAs for the royoka and the souls on Earth.
Also, get rid of the Japan themed soul society and soul reapers, and give them varied nationalities.
Schools are labour camps.
I eventually stopped watching Bleach (as well as Naruto), for some reason. I think it was a combination of being too busy, switching my attention to reading & work, & getting fairly tired of the Japanese dialouge & mannerisms present in both animes. Naruto was especially guilty of this, and I'm considering just waiting until the series ends to finally catch up on it. Bleach, however, never really lulled in pointless filler episodes (what passed for filler was supposedly a legit new subplot endorsed by the creator of the manga, if I remember correctly, concerning the Bounto)However, I did manage to watch anything Ghost in the Shell related over again (in addition to the recent Solid State Society), as well as Ergo Proxy. In hindsight, it isn't surprising that those two would be the only anime I've watched recently, as they both deal with considerably more complex subject matter than the more fantasy oriented shows previously mentioned. I suppose unless I have absolute free-time, unless a show is complex, I won't bother watching it.
WARNING: This signature violates Rule 5. Stay classy!
Death Note can get pretty complex.
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