Forum - View topicCan someone explain the ending of Arjuna?
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Angel Of Death
 Posts: 176 Location: Harper Woods, MI |
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This was a very intriguing show to watch but the ending went over my head for a bit. Can someone explain what happened?
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DKL
 Posts: 1960 Location: California, USA |
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I'm not too sure, I didn't pay too much attention to the series, I just sat down and enjoyed it...
anyway, my idea of it was that... you remember the explanation of being one with the target? you know, when JUNA wants to hit the bull eye, she needs to become one with it but the thing in the ending is that... she already IS one with the target *everything in fact, even the... what-you-ma-call-those things... those snake things* so Chris was always like "Why do you kill?" and the answer came to Juna that she didn't need to destroy those thing-a-ma-bobs they were a part of the earth *or something* so they should beconme one *which is probably why Tokio and everyone else ate the snake thingy* er... the snake thingies were not "t3h evil" or anything... well, I didn't take my time to understand the series completly, but I hope this post sparks discussion for those people who went through it in more detail although, I'm puzzled why JAPAN would be the first to suffer from a catastrophe *sp?* like this I mean, these are the SAME people that turn garbage into fuel or something right? *... methane was it?* and have electric powered cars... |
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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"The garbage problem in Japan is one of the world’s most severe environmental problems. Japan’s 130 million people produce about 52 million tons of garbage each year, which equates to a very high per capita rate of nearly 2.5 pounds of garbage per person each day. The nation’s dump sites are fast filling up, and some gets shipped overseas, some of it illegally. Much is illegally dumped in Japan’s mountains, many of which are remote, but some of which are close to towns. Because of the shortage of suitable disposal sites, Japan burns as much rubbish as possible. Japan has 1,890 household-waste incinerators, the highest number, and also the highest concentration, in the world. In comparison, the United States, with more than double the population, has about 200. Dioxin, one of the deadliest poisons known, is produced when plastics are burned. It has been linked to cancer and is suspected of disrupting the hormones that regulate biological processes such as sexual development. Many of Japan’s incinerators are pouring dioxin into the air at levels far above what most of the world considers safe. According to a 1999 United Nations report, Japan’s incinerators churn out almost 40 percent of the world’s dioxin emissions. In the early 1980s, a Japanese scientist issued a public warning about dioxin that was ignored by Japan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare. Evidence of dioxin’s dangers accumulated, but Japan didn’t get around to setting emissions rules until 1997. Environmentalists say the rules are loose by international standards and aren’t seriously enforced. Takagi Yoshiyuki, of the nongovernmental organization Earth Village, says the rules for the allowable amount of dioxin in soil in Japan are 100 times the amount in Canada and Sweden. He says Japan does not even regulate the amount of dioxin in food. One newspaper reported that amounts of dioxin 26 times the advisable limit have been detected in human breast milk. Japan garbage collection and disposal, including building incinerators, is a $200 billion business, according to Takagi. The income that local governments derive from this, he says, is one reason why they are in no hurry to reduce the amount of rubbish." http://www.columban.org/magazine/05-05_mccartin.html |
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Nani?
 Posts: 632 |
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Enviromental awarness is intentionally suppressed the same way WW2 war atrocities are, through control of information, a lack of acountablity in the bueracracy (no effective opposition party to the LDP) and keeping people too busy to investigate or get involved with such things. There are I believe two pollution inspectors for all of Japan verus about 4000 in the US. Essentially no regulation.
However, those samr Zaibatsu can make money from Hybrid cars and find it important to do so because they have no oil of thier own and it makes them look good overseas. It in part explains why Shoji Kawamori is so radical by our standards. Things are that bad in Japan. The barriers to change, entrenched interests do have that type of power. The ending is simple and complex and I go with DKL's explaination mostly. The central idea is also that what we do to other life, we eventually do to ourselves. Those snake things--Raja-- are demons but they are man made demons, the shadow side of the industrial world we have created. They will come and bite us in the rear in small ways like spoiler[Juna's parents seperation and the alienation of the math teacher] but eventually in a cataclsmic way like the one portrayed where spoiler[ the Japanese population slowly starving to death and rest of the world is too scared and too busy playing playstation and watching TV to do anything about it.] The idea is that we have a choice, whether to go on acting like most of us do in Japanese or our society, as mindless consumers or change our mentality, as spoiler[ Tokio does symbolically by eating the Raja in a manner that is reverent and thankful, much like an American Indian thanking a buffalo for it's life.] Also, it is in a sense a cop out, because in real life in those circumstances the vast majority of the Japanese people would die slow horrible deathsthat would make the end of Wolf's Rain look positively chearful. On the other hand it is cautionary, the idea is that we must change the way we think and act torwards the world or we will eventually kill ourselves. Arjuna looks this in the face and we see just how challengeing looking at this can be. It is also in many senses the anti X. spoiler[In that, a chosen few prevents the end of the world and the rest of us being blissfully unaware.] Arjua is more challenging. The central idea is that we (you, me, everyone else) have to take personal responsiblity, altering how we look at the world and also how we behave torward each other and life in general. He looks at just how difficult that is. Otherwise, the world will end in a bloody, brutal, painful manner. More acurately, he's saying that our world will end because our excesses will kill us, it up to us to decide what will replace it. It also why Arjuna goes over in some quaters about as well as asking a plantation owner, circa 1855 what you want to do after we get rid of the excesses of slavery. It takes the same sort of bravery to bring this up. All the Best, Nani? |
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Angel Of Death
Posts: 176 Location: Harper Woods, MI |
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Okay now it makes sense. Pretty powerful message.
*rushes to get the DVDs* |
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DKL
Posts: 1960 Location: California, USA |
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wow, so it's like THAT in Japan?
I would always think that the 3rd world countries like the one I came from would be the first to go, so that would probably explain my logic... but when I think about it, those countries usually take on the garbage and crap of the more powerful 1st world countries since they need the money ... this was informative, good work |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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I think Nani? has more or less grasped the point of the series, at least to the extent that I can find little to add. I would like to emphasise, however, that the finale spoiler[isn't a cop-out - instead, it is the summation of what the entire series has been getting at.
The message, such as it is, of Arjuna isn't that "we're all doomed" or "nature is rejecting us". It's that "nature is trying to come to terms with our excesses". We can help the process by recognising these excesses for what they are, and pursuing different avenues. Or we can resist the process, and become alien organisms in our own native environment - ultimately to be isolated and destroyed by that environment's compensatory mechanisms. The world of Arjuna envisions all of life as embodied with consciousness, or at least with some form of active reflex action. Arjuna herself is a mediator - she's been chosen to act as a link between the derailed human process of slashing and burning, and the compensatory mechanisms of the living Earth.] It's a wonderful series, and much deeper than it appears. It's not just emotionally-charged environmentalist-extremist gobbledygook, because it does an excellent job of keeping the human perspective ("I don't want the responsibility of preserving nature! I want my TV and my cell phone and my car and my high-rise buildings and my plastic bags and...") in close-up. And that human perspective is never ridiculed or held up as an object of hatred. It is treated as what it is - an environmentally very expensive, almost pathological way of life. One that is ultimately too costly to maintain. But one that has its own value. - abunai |
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AffectedAnimeAddict
 Posts: 51 |
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I've just finished watching the series, and I am still confused about Chris...Did he die?
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Nani?
Posts: 632 |
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Been a while since watched it but I seem to recall spoiler[Chris and Cindy standing together near Juna and Tokio. Therefore the answer is no.] As for what Abunai said, I think he does very good job of clarification about what Arjuna is about (I can be gloomy as heck). My comment about a "cop out" is more from a writer's perspective. spoiler[Kawamori couldn't kill off large segments of the Japanese people and it would be counterproductive to do so considering the message of the show. However, logically, IRL if the lights went out permanently so to speak and Japan were completely cut off, most of the city bred Japanese would have a very hard time of it. ] Also, the article Kazuki-san cited, it should be noted that Nagano has a particularly enviromentally friendly Governor, Yasuo Tanaka. He is a bit of a renagade in Japanese politics. All the best, Nani? |
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Well, actually, spoiler[the exact effects of the technological shutdown of Japan are never shown - but it's safe to assume that there would have been a considerable loss of life. I did a few back-of-a-napkin guesstimate calculations, and I came up with a minimum death toll in the tens of thousands, and a probable figure of between 0.5 and 1.8 million. Depending on how long it took for people to realize that they had a different source of food, the death toll could be greater still - perhaps as much as in the tens of millions (out of a population of nearly 130 million). In the longer-term, too, there would be a gradual downward adjustment of the population towards a supportable figure. So, even though it isn't shown, it is strongly implied that a considerable die-off of the occupants of the "high-tech tool user" ecological niche has taken place, with the curtailment of that niche. In other words, no cop-out, at all. Just editorial style.] - abunai |
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Nani?
Posts: 632 |
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Abunai,
It sounds like were agreeing in principle (generally) that spoiler[a lot of people would die] but disagreeing a little over the of motives of Kawamori (If we could e-mail and ask him, that would be wonderful, but short of that I don't think we can get a real answer. Watashi no nihongo wa daiheta). I agree in princple that he chose to leave the worst of it "off camera". I just have some doubts as to whether it's acceptable to Japanese sensiblities or the tone of the show spoiler[to kill off most of the Japanese, and only the Japanese from thier mistakes?] All the Best, Nani? P.S. Enjoying your very thoughtful responses as always. |
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Well, this focus on Japan is, in my opinion, the most indictably "bad" part of Arjuna. Certainly, it could be argued that, spoiler[ as one of the world's most polluting nations, Japan makes an excellent "object example" for the living Earth's "divine retribution". But we both know that that isn't the reason for Japan being the focus of devastation. The real reason is Japanocentrism. Just as Gochira always inevitably finds his way (like iron filings to a magnet's pole) to the Tokyo Tower; just as monsters of American films always find a way to devastate New York or Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles - so too is the devastation of Japan in Arjuna simply an example of the parochialism of the storytellers, and/or of their target demographic. It's nothing exceptional, though - remember how all those alien horrors used to pick sleepy middle-American hamlets to start their invasion of Earth, back in the good old Cold War days? Same thing.]
こちらこそ。 - 危 |
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theLostProphet
 Posts: 54 Location: The Land of Horse and Buggy |
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spoiler[Actually Cindy is carrying Chris when she walks over to Juna. I personally think he didn't die. Remember Chris did get his voice back (he uttered Cindy's name), while Juna lost hers. I assume that the Raja that pained Chris has now been transferred to Juna, perhaps continuing a vicious cycle that she now must endure until another is chosen.] Kind of downer really, but the story is brought across really well. I felt more surprised than anything else that this anime was so good. p.s. deepdiscountdvd is selling this series for $30! I jumped on it. |
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