Zettai Shounen - Pawprints March 30, 2006
Zettai Shounen overall is pretty light-hearted film, but I was impressed how it deals with the theme of death in 16th episode.
Okaka-baba (old lady Okaka) is an old stray cat — she came all the way to Ayumu (protagonist) in Tokyo only to leave him next morning. After a long journey she was very exhausted and they definitely gave us a hint, that she had died after that. But since it’s a Japanese story (and children-targeted one), they simply couldn’t tell us this explicitly and instead resorted to some metaphor. When Aymu woke up in the morning and didn’t find Okaka-baba, he then took a look outside and noticed there hers pawprints on the snow. So he walked out wanting to trace her. But on the road her pawprints had entangled with people’s footprints and so had became untraceable any further…
I think it was a metaphor for death. Pawprints on the snow symbolize individuality, because they lead us to their owner. When they merged with many footprints, their owner had became untraceable, so she (Okaka-baba) in a way had lost her individuality. And it means death. Till the end of the series we haven’t seen her anymore.
- Comment RSS ~
- Tags: Anime, Memento mori ~
- author: minus-one
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?