Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Wednesday has arrived again, and though my ostensible “Week in Review” posts are continuing their steady transformation into a shapeless, abyssal mass of unprompted media opinions, they’re still keeping me busy with plenty to write about. This week I watched through the first half of Steven Universe’s final season, caught up on the fascinating and beautifully executed Deca-Dence, and also tossed in a fresh film for seasoning. Deca-Dence has been so damn interesting that I’m almost certainly going to write some sort of long-form essay on it, but in the meantime, I can’t exactly let Tachikawa’s statement that “we were mostly inspired by Wreck-It Ralph” go unanswered. Without further ado, let’s explore some fresh new stories!
First off, yes, Wreck-It Ralph. You heard that correctly. Hearing Tachikawa reference that of all films regarding Deca-Dence’s formulation was a bit of a shock, but when I thought about it, both the parallels and points of divergence felt pretty obvious. Natsume’s nature as a “bug” matches the course of Wreck-It Ralph’s narrative precisely, and the two works also share some version of a “meta-media landscape,” where characters from gamified franchises intermingle in a shared space.
Where the two works differ is that Wreck-It Ralph presents its universe as mostly a carnival, with some specific quirks to sort out regarding free travel between worlds, as well as the rights of individuals within that space. In contrast, Deca-Dence looks at a world like that and responds, “wait, isn’t this horrible brand slavery basically the future we’re already heading towards, in terms of both our consolidating media landscape, and also our economic conditions and true freedom of mobility?” Rather than seeking simple coexistence and free travel between games, Deca-Dence points out that the games are a prison, the meta-game space is a prison, and the people playing the arcade games themselves are also living in a prison.
Kaburagi being forced into a literal shit-farm served as a fine, characteristically pointed expansion of Deca-Dence’s overall commentary on capitalism, bringing to mind the struggles of a show like Kaiji. Seeing the cyborgs’ childlike designs shoveling shit and wasting away really underlined the contradiction of their nature – like in our own world, the horrors of capitalism are often packaged in a friendly, user-customizable package, which effectively deadens our understanding of the suffering implied by our daily conveniences. Those on the surface enjoy a sparkly-clean commercialized interpretation of the world they inhabit, while the conditions necessary to create that surface are only clear to those toiling to make it (in this case, the second-class humans and cyborgs trapped in a literal prison-industrial complex). The destruction of the planet continues apace; meanwhile, wouldn’t you enjoy a visit from your favorite Brands?
Deca-Dence’s thematic commentary is so consistent and so angry that it’s a miracle the show never feels overburdened by ideas. The action-adventure narrative is never dragged down by the show’s themes, even as it’s clearly articulating things like how our dreams of economic mobility and arbitrary class distinctions make it harder to establish true solidarity across the working classes (“how dare you sympathize with a human, you dog of the system!”). I’m happy enough that a show exists which is so savagely critical of our current economic moment, and our self-erasure through media escapism in response to that moment; that Deca-Dence is also one of the exciting and beautifully executed shows of the year feels absurd.
I also continued my journey through Steven Universe, watching all the way through the massive reveal in the middle of the show’s final season. I’m frankly a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t see that reveal coming, since in retrospect, it’s clearly the most graceful way you could pull the show’s narrative threads together, while also going a long, long, long way to explain the specific traumas and personalities of the characters involved. Pearl was my favorite Steven Universe character from the start, and though the show has frequently wandered away from its original cast in order to build up other members of the team, I’m very happy this season has given the original Saddest Gem plenty of strong material.
The show’s tone has matched Steven’s personal growth; there is a sense of consequence and responsibility now, and though its cast attempt to be strong for each other, it’s easy to see the weight of their past experiences in their every move. Smartly, that sense of fatigue and emotional consequence is balanced by a wide variety of character payoffs, as the show’s approaching endgame allows characters like Lars and Sadie to finally embrace the wilder elements of their personalities. On the whole, the dropping of the show’s worldbuilding veil has been an excellent metaphor for the process of growing up, and learning your own power and responsibility. Kindness has always come naturally to Steven, but he is finally learning how rare and valuable that gift is, and how unkind the wider world can be.
As for movies, this week I watched Katheryn Bigelow’s Point Break, a film that, I swear to you, is about surfer bros who rob banks. Keanu Reeves plays the hotshot young FBI agent looking to take down this mysterious surfer gang, Gary Busey is his curmudgeonly partner, and Patrick effin’ Swayze is the lead surfer-bank robber, an almost religious figure who’s perpetually in pursuit of the next adrenaline rush.
Point Break’s premise is so silly that the film has an inherent air of frivolity, which is greatly amplified by Keanu’s completely nonexistent acting abilities (this came out in 1991). But a punchy script, strong performance by Swayze, and Bigelow’s ambitious, beautiful cinematography combine to genuinely sell its narrative and the film as a whole. The sequences of Swayze and his companions seeking their thrills are executed with joy, beauty, and frequently even solemnity, making it easy to buy into Swayze’s Philosophy of the Waves. And then you step back a moment, and realizing you’re watching a movie that’s basically about Patrick Swayze seducing Keanu Reeves into the Church of Ultimate Raditude. An extremely good time on the whole, and a delightful introduction to Bigelow’s filmography – if she can sell this concept, I imagine she can sell just about anything.
