They aren’t ghosts though, they are real people. We live in an age of science that has demystified the supernatural, but if Shokuzai is anything to go by, we were never terrified of those things anyway, we were terrified of each other. Akiko’s brother moved into an abandoned warehouse, the kind of dead building you’ll find in every city in every part of the world, and made his home there. Why? Why do people do such strange things? This is a story filled with such illogical people and that, precisely, is what’s so scary about it: chaos and the idea that, for all of our progress towards a modern world, someone or something can still be truly unknowable.
Indeed, it feels like Majestic Prince is preparing us for harsher times, but I’m really beginning to sense a tightness and strength in Team Rabbits, too. If there’s one thing that keeps me coming back to anime time and again, it’s in search of these long form stories of shifting eras and friendships, where heroes and dreams are made and lost through a sheer force of will and persistence. I’m not sure if Majestic Prince will ascend the pantheon of great anime those words may recall, but it’s an unpredictable and honest trier, and I’m behind it all the way.
- From “Aku no Hana,” directed by Hiroshi Nagahama (2013)
(Source: cash-alkhaldi, via dimensionbomb)
Cover for Bartkira-5
