Survivalist Pro
Survivalist Pro
Photo: Davis Arenas
First, a bit of background. Uno Tsunehiro argues in his 2008 book Imaginations in the 2000s that the forerunner for the genre of the “death game” – or Sabaibukei fiction, as he calls it, is the 1999 novel Battle Royale by Takami Kōshun.
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Read More »First, a bit of background. Uno Tsunehiro argues in his 2008 book Imaginations in the 2000s that the forerunner for the genre of the “death game” – or Sabaibukei fiction, as he calls it, is the 1999 novel Battle Royale by Takami Kōshun. In it, 42 youths are taken to a deserted island by their totalitarian government and forced to kill each other until only a few remain. Battle Royale sets the standard for survival themed fiction – the events of these stories revolve around a seemingly trivial and amorally conceived game set up by a higher authority, in which young men and women must fight to the death. In Battle Royale, this premise is set up by the government to deter its citizens from rebelling. But usually, the reason why the game takes place is inconsequential to the plot; what matters is only that the reason is unsettlingly unethical. Tanaka Motoko and Uno both consider the 2003 manga Death Note, by Ōba Megumi and Obata Kento, be the most eminent example of Sabaibukei fiction. Death Note, on the surface, is not a death game in the same direct way as Battle Royale, but it still follows the same basic narrative structure – the first authority is Ryuk dropping the notebook just for fun, and soon after this role transitions to Light, who inadvertently forces himself to play games of death with L and Near. In discussing the context of when these types of stories were at their peak in popularity – the early to mid 2000s – Uno posits that because of events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the changes in Japanese socio-economics by Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, as well as the shrinking middle class, young Japanese were drawn to stories where the protagonists actively fight for their ideals against others who do not share the same views. From the perception that higher authority was losing its ability to provide concrete morality and order came the popularity of the Sabaibukei fiction, in which authority is not something that can be trusted, and peers who should be like-minded are instead forced to conflict with each other. Without the trustworthy hand of authority to provide order in a moral way, solidarity between people is shattered as their ideals split off from one another and unifying grand narratives are lost. Now, on to Kiznaiver. After I came across Tanaka Motoko’s insightful article on recent trends in Japanese fiction, I wanted to talk about how I think Kiznaiver fits into locality of survival type fiction. Kiznaiver does not depict a death game, or even a survival game, at least not in the most literal sense of those words. Kiznaiver and classic Sabaibukei fiction – if I can even use the word classic for a genre so contemporary – share two heavily apparent narrative connections. First is the use of an in-universe construction of events as the central plotline of the story. In both Kiznaiver and Battle Royale the events of the story are authored not simply by the writer in reality, but also in-universe, by an authority such as the government as they force young people to act in a contrived scenario. Second is the characters, all of whom have different ideals and feelings and circumstances that make them, in many ways, alien from each other. However, the differences in how Kiznaiver manipulates these premises points to a more hopeful message than those explored in Survival type fiction such as Battle Royale and Death Note.
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Read More »It’s safe to say that the authority figures – government or otherwise – in Kiznaiver are more whimsical than those in Battle Royale and Death Note. The mayor of Sugimori City is shown as an affable old man, with only subtle hints made towards his more sinister involvement in the Kizna program. The Gomorin that police the city are comical and friendly – most of the time. In Battle Royale and Death Note there is a current of harsh isolation present – physically in Battle Royale by the students’ confinement to the island, and mentally in Death Note through Light’s need to keep his “Kira” identity a secret from everyone he interacts with. In both, the protagonists must disconnect from others, or risk death. On the other hand, Kiznaiver dismisses the idea of isolation – the protagonists continue going to school, and they aren’t quarantined from outside society. The first task the Kiznaivers carry out is to tell their companions their deepest secret. And over the course of the series, the seven subjects becomes closer and closer.
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