Casshern

Looks like my “not blogging for an indefinite period of time” was quite short-lived, and if you have already been missing my descriptive, detailed posts on my various unusual medical disorders, inane posts on silly trips, zillions of nonsensical (mostly camwhore-ish) photos, well -- fret no more, I’m back!

Take a guy like me and put him away on a deserted island infested with strange mechanical creatures and strangers without a computer in sight, and you’ll get one who does nothing but sleep, or watch TV.

Yesterday, for instance, on my first night without a PC, I already felt strangely uneasy. I’m missing out on silly convos with people on MSN (although there weren’t many people online lately -___-) and various online games I play.

I came home after Yeoh’s tuition at about 8.30pm after a short mamak session with the guys, went back home and ate again – was rather full, in fact, so couldn’t finish my food. Watched some Chinese drama on Wah Lai Toi (as Hengli correctly predicted >_>) with my parents, and read newspapers till Andy came at about 10pm and brought his Casshern VCD he bought during the trip to Pyramid on Esther’s birthday.

So I dragged the telly from my parents’ room to mine, and plugged in the PS2 ready to play it. Somehow I forgot the fact my PS2 can only play DVDs, so I thought I’d try watching the Advent Children DVD I bought last month.

“This disc cannot be played due to regional restrictions.”

...

Dragged the telly back to my parents’ room, both of whom were about to sleep. Packed up the PS2. Went downstairs but bro’s watching some recorded Chinese drama with my maid, suggested that I try Dreamcast so I did: dragged back the telly to my room, unpacked Dreamcast – all these a very tedious process by the way – and tried watching it.

The video that was screened was so blockish I gave up on watching it in the privacy and air-conditioner of my room. That was exactly when Jon phoned me twice in all – first time for the password to my XP account, the second informing me that my PC is running on the treadmill happily after vacuuming the excess dust-bugs and dust-mites making a campfire on the internal delicate organs in the body of my CPU. But I only collected the CPU today instead of yesterday night.

Funny how after I thought my hard disk was already nearing its deathbed, it turns out that the solution was mind-bogglingly simple.

So Jon’s dad let my PC off for free, and I treated Jon for mamak earlier.

Yesterday:
Today:

Thought it wasn’t exactly good-looking, it still serves its purpose :) Dear, dear PC. Slept about 2 wholesome hours in the afternoon as I have no PC to play with, until dad came back at about 5 something and collected my PC back before I left for tuition.

I spent yesterday’s night watching Casshern on my slightly visually-impaired telly downstairs, from about 11.30pm till 2am.

Some spoilers ahead, but since most of you will have no clue about that Japanese movie nor will watch it eventually anyway, I suspect you wouldn’t mind reading what I’m about to type.

I’d share the same sentiments with Andy that the movie was just so-so: the various intended effects (I doubt it’s the VCD’s problem, since it’s a freaking RM20 original) such as the extremely saturated colours on various scenes, quite failed (I slightly blame my telly as well), and the fighting scenes, probably inspired from Power Rangers, were a tad bit too childish. Sucks, since it’s a blockbuster hit movie in Japan, I had expected something captivating, especially after watching the trailer last year.

The futuristic storyline was alright, but the messages conveyed were really powerful. Gave me a tingling thinking about it.

Basic storyline:
Tetsuya, the main character of the show, went ahead to join the war against his father’s wishes, who was a top scientist of some sort. Professor Azuma, his father, was researching on “neo-cells”, that could eventually revolutionise the world’s medical technology as these special cells could grow into any human cell, tissue, or organ. Tetsuya inevitably died, and caused his girlfriend Luna (who was hot quite pretty, imo) to pine for him after his death.

This part doesn’t make sense, but lightning struck the neo-cells’ pool and brought to life tons of people labelled as ‘mutants’. Somehow or another, humans were afraid of these new breed of Neo-Sapiens and started killing them the moment they emerge from the gene pool.

Professor Azuma took the opportunity to place Tetsuya’s dead body into the pool, and he came alive.

As expected, the war between mutants and humans took place and there were many times when the characters stopped to ponder on the follies of war as well as the issue of terrorists (rightly so, seeing the way our world has become lately). For example, Tetsuya’s critically ill but peace-loving mother, Midori, said a beautiful piece of wisdom (of the entire show), “When we are hurt, we hurt in return. When we are killed, we kill in return. The cycle is endless.” You can pretty much apply this to the stupid wars of the world, and the religion extremists. Israel and the Palestines, for instance, or the Western countries with the Islamic bombers.

As for the ending, it was a bit shocking but understandable when Prof. Azuma fought with his son over Midori, whom the scientist wants to revive by putting her into the neo-cell pool. Tetsuya, knowing the suffering his existence has caused to the world, carried his dead mother away against his father’s words.

“Why are you trying to destroy our happiness?” Azuma asked.

He then shot Luna in the head, and she died instantly.

Eventually, shortly after that, everything was completely wiped out by the gods above by some super laser, presumably Casshern, the guardian/god of peace, which became the title for this show.

Iif you have watched Utada’s Dareka no negai ga kanau koro (When someone’s wish comes true) videoclip and have listened to the song before – the theme song for Casshern – you’ll know the significance of the connection between the song’s MV and the movie itself.

The ending with the elimination of all lifeforms, followed by the rolling credits with the song playing, was rather beautiful.

I rate Casshern: 3.5 out of 5.

To forgive someone, as the movie implies, is difficult to do but will end all of these idiotic wars we’re having, with all the needless deaths.