"[H]e placed his hands on the desk and took one long, slow breath–'what I would like to do for a lovely young fairy such as you is to grant a wish you might have, to make your wish come true. Anything. Anything at all that you wish for–assuming that you do have such a wish.' "
Do you have a wish?
Most people do. Even if you are not willing to admit it easily, you secretly wish to alter something about this world. The world is filled to its brim with imperfections, misfortune, disagreement and tragedy that there must be something which, in anyone's eyes, would need improvement. It is the nature of humans to seek betterment, and wish-granting offers a shortcut from objective to results without resorting to the often overly complicated, arduous or simply impossible methods and steps to achievement. Thus, wish-granting is often considered a miracle, perhaps wished upon by many to be true in itself.
The beginning of this post features a quote from Birthday Girl, a short story by Haruki Murakami (numerous other quotes in previous posts here are from his short stories). The story revolves around a waitress girl, working part-time, and definitely not out of ordinary. She does not even have a name, as with many of the characters in Murakami's short stories. She probably represents any average person we know, or any stranger on the street. One day, the manager who takes care of the boss, residing in an office on top of the restaurant, was sick, and the waitress was called to deliver food to the boss. Perhaps surprised by the extra-ordinary arrangement, the boss invited the waitress into the office. Upon hearing that the waitress had her twentieth birthday on that day, he granted the waitress a present, a wish.
Perhaps, in an ordinary story, the focus would be put on whatever the waitress wished. After all, a wish is an instant method to gratification, as mentioned above, and an opportunity to make an arbitrary wish can possibly be the highlight of one's life, forever altering the course of one's fate and fortune. It could, to stretch it a bit, be a prime opportunity for humans to, for once, outsmart fate herself. So, what did the waitress wish for?
It seems that we would never know, because Murakami never tells us. It is simply revealed that it is not something a normal girl of her age would wish for. When her friend and she reminisced about this later in the story, it was also told that the wish takes time to come true. Other than these pieces of information, nothing concrete about the wish itself was described. And, though the waitress herself confessed that she was not taking the wish totally seriously, and that wish-granting is quite out of the premise of the realistic setting of the story, it is plausible that the wish was actually granted, since it is characteristic for Murakami's story to, in quite cliched words, "bring out the supernatural out of the natural".
So, was this a bad story? I had an inclination to this judgment, with the story being quite unfocused and blurry in its main message, until I read the last line:
"That's because you've already made your wish." said the waitress.
This was the response to her friend, who, when asked about how she would have made her decision in the waitress' place back in the boss' office, said she "can't think of anything". Thus, the "wish", under Murakami's pen, suddenly disappeared under everyone's close scrutiny to find out its true identity. Softly and thinly, it blended into the air, like the fading fragrance of perfume as the lady leaves. What is Murakami trying to say here, then?
Wish-granting, being the stuff of fantasy, is no stranger to anime, a rather fantastical genre. In Bakemonogatari by Nisio Isin, the Suruga Monkey arc features Kanbaru Suruga, a rather normal schoolgirl to start with. Being ridiculed by her inability to run fast in sports classes, she wished upon the monkey hand that her mother gave to her to be the fastest runner, and thus win a race against her classmates. In the end, she did win the race, but not the way she intended: She ended up being possessed by a "rainy devil", that assaulted other competitors during the night before the race. The new competitors were not as competent, but she was so guilty of the incident that she actually put effort into improving her speed. The rainy devil manifested itself again when Kanbaru was (subconsciously, or not) infatuated with Senjougahara, and saw Araragi as her rival.
One could dismiss this as the devil twisting the aspirations and dreams of people, being a Dionysian character after all by definition. Yet, Isin pointed us towards another viewpoint: that wishes themselves are inherently evil. After all, to fulfill a wish means a satisfaction of a certain condition that benefits a certain individual, from the said individual's viewpoint. What might be considered optimal for one person may vastly differ from others. More importantly, since humans are most connected with themselves, barring extreme cases, there is no other way to make a wish without a degree of greed and selfishness. To wish for a jackpot means to deprive it from the original "rightful" winner; to wish for a place in a prestigious university means to snatch it away from someone more capable and more deserving than you are. Running along the same thread, to wish for a victory in a race means to remove the possibility of others winning the race. What many might think is, idealistically, that the wisher would suddenly gain immense ability and win the race with such ability. Yet, this is not the wish: Kanbaru did not really wish for her to be fast; she wished for her be the fastest. In other words, if others were slowed down by some unfortunate incident, her wish would be granted. And how would you guarantee that she indeed wished for the former?
Perhaps this is why when a lot of people make a wish, say a birthday wish, they would wish for general, and rather all-encompassing wishes: World peace, healthy life (even with no apparent risk of sickness). I used to think that these wishes are quite meaningless, and is a huge waste of an opportunity to express for want of something: In any case, world peace might differ from person to person, and I do not foresee myself having any major illness any time soon. They might as well be branded as mannerisms, along with the countless other meaningless expressions that constitute the deadweight of language. However, after some thought, the only wish that one can possibly make without falling into the paradox above is to wish for nothing, for the world to stay the same as it is, to continue its path along the cosmos as it is intended to. After all, all wishes are either not a good idea, or malicious to others. Daily misfortunes are but another dot in the never ending timeline that the universe treads through, slowly but surely. Altering such path would just be foolish, leading to equally as many unfortunate outcomes, if not more. Rather fatalistic, but quite true.
OP Discussion 7: Bakemonogatari "Mayoi Snail" OP, Kaerimichi
"Let's join our hands and return.
Together, let's return home.
I'm sure our destination is always there,
And with you, I'll discover it."
There is something about this show that is so enchanting, even though its plot is not very apparent at times and the animation is, should I say, alternative and unconventional. On one hand, it fits in some messages about the nature of humanity that leaves a lasting mark, while on the other hand it also unabashedly displays fan service of all characters. It is a digitally produced medium, specifically an anime, a medium which harnesses the power of novelty and fantasy, yet it stylizes itself as something like a staged performance, a play, with deliberate references to conventions of the genre (title cards, scripts, overabundance of dialogues and still shots etc.) and even employs real life shots occasionally. The feast of contradictions, however, did not cause cacophony, but rather amplifies the refreshing nature of this show, making it ever more attractive.
Anyway, there is also an abundance of OPs in this series. I picked this one up because of how much it initially resonated within me, and also how it, upon closer examination, brings up even more to think about. Hachikuji Mayoi (in Bakemonogatari at least) has only one simple wish: To return to her home. And indeed, the title of her theme reflects this clearly (Kaerimichi (帰り道) = path to home). However, the matter complicates as Araragi tries to help her, assuming she is just a lost child: Firstly, the destination is deliberately obscured from the viewers. Second, no matter how they dwell through the town, they could not find the address and the corresponding house that Hachikuji describes. What seems like a simple task of going home turns out to be another mystery that Araragi has to solve.
The feeling of returning home is something to behold. Upon returning home, I know that I have reached my destination, that I am free from the gazes of the public, that I can relax and gather my thoughts of what happened during the day. It is a relief from uncertainty, a sentiment that could be described as the diametric opposite of fear. Perhaps I have the mentality of a grade school student in this aspect, but going home is an important part of my day, which is probably why I do not like traveling. Being an international student simply boosts this feeling of homesickness to the extreme and, upon hearing this song, a strange feeling of acceptance and identification swept over me. At the end of the day, through the stresses of expectations and judgments, I only have a simple wish: My tummy is growling, let's go home.
The closer examination comes in the department of visuals for this OP. Maybe I am not very astute in my analysis initially, but the only character present in this OP is Hachikuji. Her schoolmates are herself, the teacher is herself, even the crying lost child that she "saves" is herself. Despite the cheerful and innocent tone of the song, the realization of this fact gave an overwhelming sense of loneliness. This could all as well be her own imagination: The fun times she had in school, the shenanigans with her friends, and having someone appear from the skies to save her from her plight. Indeed, being lost is the loneliest feeling: even the inanimate town, the buildings, the roads are conspiring against you. Nonetheless, the contrast between the audio, the surface of the visual (the fun times of her day) and the deeper layer of the visuals (her helplessness) brings up a spring of optimism, that even if the odds are against you, that even if everything seems to be going wrong, at the end of the day, it would be possible to return, that all roundabouts and detours will resolve themselves and yield a path to home.
Maybe I am just homesick.
Credits to /r/AnimeThemes
