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Now And Then, |
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huzo Matsutani is a headstrong young boy, energetic but undisciplined, and not obviously exceptional, except possibly in his passion for life. But his exceptional abilities come sharply to the fore after he meets a strange girl with blue hair and huge, blue-on-blue, pupil-less eyes. Initially curious after spotting her perched on a high smokestack that he used to climb to prove his bravery to his friends, he tries to engage her in conversation, but she does not speak. Reading her body language and the slight motion of her lips, he eventually determines that her name is LaLa Ru, and she is, for some reason, fascinated by the sunset. None of this helps explain what's going on when several robots appear from nowhere and grab her. Shu, immediately assuming the mantle of "protective friend," attempts to fight them off, with surprising success.
But suddenly everything around him changes, and he finds himself inside a giant, decaying metal city, pursued by soldiers who range from slightly older than him to significantly younger. LaLa Ru, still silent, is spirited away, and Shu briefly ends up with the pendant she was wearing, before he loses it during a fight. Captured and taken to the city's crackpot dictator, Shu is informed that the pendant is vital to the future of the city, which is actually a battleship named Hellywood. Its leader, King Hamdo, believes LaLa Ru has some magical power over water, which is necessary for his plans of conquest. He reveals that LaLa Ru escaped to Shu's world but was fetched back at Hamdo's command.
When Shu aggressively proclaims that he has no idea where the pendant is, Hamdo beats him half-conscious and orders his second in command, the obedient and efficient Adelia, to have Shu tortured until he reveals the pendant's location. Adelia complies, but Shu proves so pigheaded and unbowed that no one believes he doesn't have the pendant. Starved, whipped and tortured half to death, Shu nonetheless maintains his optimistic outlook on life as he starts to meet Hellywood's occupants, some of whom are even worse off than he is.
A cruel series with a kindhearted message
The "girl with a magical amulet, a mysterious past and implacable enemies meets resourceful, sturdy boy who becomes her defender" plot has been done before in anime, in at least two highly successful, prominent works: Hayao Miyazaki's touching Laputa: Castle in the Sky and the energetic adventure Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. It's astonishing, therefore, that Now and Then, Here and There generally doesn't seem derivative. The unusually serious subjects and slow, methodical pacing give this 13-episode series an unusually dense feel, while the horror of Shu's situation distances it from Laputa's sweet joie de vivre and Nadia's reckless fun.
In fact, only two things keep Now And Then from becoming paralytically depressing: the character design and Shu himself. While the show's backgrounds tend to be elaborate and full of depth, and director Akitaroh Daichi occasionally pulls out all the stops for an ambitious shot (the end of episode 1, in particular), the characters themselves are very simple, rounded figures, drawn with minimum detail. This gives them an iconic, old-fashioned, cartoony look, which provides some distance between the tortures (and, apparently, rapes) they endure and the viewers looking on. And Shu keeps the series from getting bogged down in its own misery, thanks to his preternatural ability to bounce back from any hurt and soldier on. By maintaining his high ethical standards, standing up for what he believes in and confidently predicting happier days to come, Shu becomes the strong, warm heart of an otherwise chilly and frightening series.
Now and Then has attracted some buzz due to its straightforward brutality, which mostly focuses on the children who have become soldier-slaves and commodities in Hamdo's hellish world. But the series should also draw praise for its strong moral messages, its sensitivity in dealing with the cruelty of war and its narrative daring in dealing with uncommon topics. Now and Then looks like a kid's show, and its simple storytelling sometimes makes it feel like one as well. But it operates with an adult aesthetic and an adult grasp of the anomie of a totalitarian society. Which gives it something else in common with Miyazaki's Laputa: it shapes characters that people can truly care about, in the service of a message that audiences can honestly feel.
Never before in anime have I seen a dead cat used as a motif and a metaphor. But like so many aspects of Now and Then, Here and There, this unusual artistic decision is a startling, effective and chilling one. — Tasha
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