92. What a Commercial Got Me Thinking About (Special)

Recognize this? It is that monster thing from Suzumiya Haruhi.

I'm going to start by defining what a "behemoth" is. The beast was first mentioned in the Bible, in the Book of Job (40: 15-24), which hinted that this beast was the biggest and most powerful monster of all. So with that in your head, we are starting this article that ends with all of us jumping off a 30 storey building. Piece of cake.

A commercial was responsible for getting me thinking about behemoths. It was a commercial for a newly opened (may 5th, 2008) roller coaster at Canada's Wonderland Amusement Park. The commercial featured many people running as if in Godzilla, and six young adults facing the crowd. They then run to the source: Behemoth, the new roller coaster boasting the fastest speed and tallest structure in Canada. They then have fun riding the seemingly-precarious coaster. My mother was watching the TV with me, and we both knew she's afraid of roller coasters. I said she wouldn't be able to handle this one either. She replied, some people's hearts can handle the stress (her's can't). I told her its not really stress, but a different mentality that people use while on the coaster. "Never fight the G-forces on a coaster." I told her. "Throw everything away, as if you are committing suicide off a tall, 30-storey building." She looked at me, "What?!" I asked her if she's had a dream where she was trapped on a tall building and had to jump off, or a cliff, or something of that sort. "Of course not!" She answered. That stroke me as very odd, as I have probably jumped off a dozen of those buildings in my dreams already.

So have I already died a dozen times? ...

The "Behemoth" at Canada's Wonderland. (May 2008)

Joking. This article is touching on philosophy, but it won't go in that direction. I wonder how many people reading this article have also had "suicide" dreams, where the only way out is certain death, but they do it anyway, such as jumping off a building, hanging yourself, injecting yourself with a syringe, shooting yourself with a gun, charging into a moving car, etc. By my estimate, 70% of people under the age of 30 have had at least one dream of that kind. And why is that? Why do we torture ourselves with those desperate moments of pre-death decision making? And why do we ultimately choose death? What has happened to our "hope of life"?

In the movies, the message that you should "never give up" pops up again and again. In The Lord of the Rings, the larger-than-life theme of a "last glimmer of hope" was what brought Frodo to Mordor and destroyed Sauron. In Raging Bull, the famous lines of "You've never got me down" still rings in many people's ears. In The Matrix, Neo had to believe in himself to beat the "FBI" (hehe). Those popular franchises are cases against our negative thinking patterns.

Neo in the Matrix PC game. Screencap by gamezone.com, no infridgement intended.

We cannot also think about some of the popular anime series in the past two years. Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu had a interesting "Destruction of the world" ending, where Kyon either had to choose death by the "Behemoth" or kiss Haruhi (also death in a way, for the show). When we look at Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, we see Kittan rushing towards his death destroying the Space-machine-thingy (I never figured out what that thing was) in order to save the rest of the group. We also see Itoshiki Nozomu in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei crying, "I'm in despair" all the time and hanging himself (but never dies). Those shows have conflicts: Life vs. Death. Even though in Tengen Toppa's case it is one person's life versus Many people's life, we sometimes may get a confused message telling us that maybe, just maybe, death is better than life in desperate situation...

raw image from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei season 1 episode 01, no infridgement intended.

no shit, really?

If you watch anime and/or Hollywood movies, and if you have time to watch anime and/or Hollywood movies, then you shouldn't be living in war or famine. You probably wouldn't be faced with decisions troubling Gundam pilots either. So why do we still imagine ourselves in desperate situations? Why do we have a "despair" mentality? Maybe it is all in the anime and movies we watch. The creators are definitely imaginative, creative, and bring us to live in dimensions they created to make desperate decisions with the show's protagonists. It is because the New Generation is capable of imagining ourselves in bad situations without actually have experienced them. If we answer honestly, I'd say we'd still avoid death as much as possible, and that death is a harsh reality. We shout "Jump bitch, jump already!" when a female character has to jump off an edge to escape death by dragon-breath, but would we do it so un-hesitantly ourselves?

In that case, maybe the media today is trying to target the New Generation, and trying to pull them back from their imaginative but desperate thinking. That's why we see "never give up" popping up everywhere. The occasional "Suicide Circle" gets everyone's attention, but as always, we must deal with it with critical thinking (and manga). Don't be so hasty to jump off that 30-storey building, next time.

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Article by silentMic (Q), with research from various anime websites, Google Images, WikiPedia, Usamaru Furuya, animeblogger.net, Canada's Wonderland, imDB. No directly copied text whatsoever. Copyright 2008.