The Peace Pagoda

Date: 04 June 2011

Location of accommodation: Galle, Fort

Activities: bicycling up to the Peace Pagoda above Galle Harbor

Money spent:  1000.00 Rs room

                           120.00 Rs. Breakfast

                            250.00 Rs. Bike hire

                             350.00 Rs.  Fruit

                             550.00 Rs. lunch

Special experiences: seeing huge iguanas climbing trees

Insights: don’t buy cheap batteries, they won’t run a camera long enough to even get one shot.

Thought of the day: the light inside is strengthened by the light of others.  Don’t be afraid of that light, embrace it.

Photo of the day:

Essay of the day: Rather than writing a poem or other creative work today, I have decided to write an essay on the Rurounin Kenshi anime series that was produced in Japan in the late 90s.  The first season of the TV program, as opposed to it’s OVA “Trust and Betrayal”, is, in its storylines and art, an adolescents program.  However, with the opening of the second season, the writers and artist matured the series full force to an adult-level program.  The first story of the second season tells the story of Kenshin’s dual with an old adversary from the Meiji period, a leader of one of the troops of the Shensingumi.  To fully appreciate what the depth and maturity of this storyline, it is necessary to remember that the Shensingumi fought on the side of the Shogun, while Kenshin, during his days as an assassin, fought for the side of the Emperor. 

            The whole point of this series is to tell the story of Kenshin’s life after he turned from being an assassin.  He swore to never again take a life, but to use his sword as a tool for helping and aiding people in their time of need.  For this purpose he takes up a reverse blade sword, one whose blade is actually dulled so that it can not be used to kill with.  In the first series, Kenshin fights numerous opponents with the reverse blade, but in the story opener of the second season, he is actually for the first time driven back to a state of mind where he is ready to kill in order to win. 

            The final fight scene is one of the most brilliant fight scenes I have seen in anime.  The opponents employ numerous tricks in order to outmaneuver one another, all the while growing more determined to kill.  Meanwhile, on the sideline, Kenshin’s love watches as the Kenshin that she knows gives way to the Kenshin that was—the protector gives way to the killer.  One of the most striking moments is when Kenshin’s friend tells her that only a person who lived through the Bakumatsu era could possibly stop Kenshin from becoming the killer again in this situation.  “They aren’t fighting here anymore,” he says.  “They are back in Kyoto, back then.  That’s how it was.”  This poignant statement stuns the viewer into realizing that far from being a children’s parable about why it is important to value human life, this is a historically and psychologically detailed statement about Japanese history and society, and about how humanity can become so determined in their beliefs that they slip into a darkness of death and killing.  The most poignant bit of all of that for me is to realize how intense the struggle for mondernization was for Japan, and for many other countries like Germany and Italy after WWI.  When death and killing is all around you, you do not, you cannot, afford the luxury of valuing life. 

            Far from being a story for adolescents, the first story of the second season the Ruruoni Kensin comes closest to becoming a true sequel for (what was actually made after the series) the “Trust and Betrayal” OVA.  For anybody approaching the OVA after becoming first familiar with the series, the initial reaction is shock at the graphic and adult nature of the OVA.  But this shock quickly turns to complete absorption as “Trust and Betrayal” lures us into its brilliant vision of love and brutality, masterfully utilizing art and music to evoke a distant, romantic sublimity that very much reflects the nature of the subtitle of the film “Tales of Romantic Japan”.  The OVA’s patient attention to detail and inventive artistry are perfectly harmonized to its script, and if at any point the original series comes close to connecting with the vision of the Trust and Betrayal it is, appropriately, in this first story of the second season, where the two sides, Imperial and Shogunate, once again come face to face 10 years into the Meiji era.  But perhaps the most significant emotional trick of all being pulled here is the way in which the second season takes the viewer completely by surprise, shedding the adolescents of the first season and coming full force into its own as an anime for adults. 

            I highly recommend the series Rurioni Kenshin, and very much also the OVA “Trust and Betrayal”.  But I particularly recommend watching “Trust and Betrayal” and the first story of season two of RK: they are perfectly matched and present an almost seemless historical account of the Bokumatsu era and its philosophical underpinnings.