We loved to make fun of anime characters having crazy hair,
but between this and ATTACK ON TITAN, I’ve come to see the very pragmatic
purpose of shocked-up feathering, and neon pink dye-jobs. If this were live-action, there’d be any
number of little details - - a mole, a
scar, a chipped tooth, or whatever - - which would make it easier to differentiate
cast members. However, when all of your illustrated
characters are wearing the same outfits, it becomes a little tougher to tell this petite brunette with a pony
tail apart from that petite brunette
with a pony tail.
I suppose we could project a sub-textual explanation for
this. Dying your hair might be counter-cultural in Sybyll’s view, so that’d wreck
your coefficient. Likewise, if you had anything but a trim physique, that might
be a symptom of negative thinking, and it’d cloud your hue, too. Thus, uniformity.
The episode plays around with that idea a little in the
scenes where Akane’s co-worker is smoking at the gym. Again, if the surgeon
general doesn’t want you smoking, does the act constitute negative behavior? How
far would we take that line of thinking? Could we quantify how much less
acceptable it is to smoke a cigarette than it is to drink a beer? Would it
matter if it were two cigarettes, instead of one?
At first, I wasn’t sure what the point of the scene of Akane
lighting a cigarette like incense was. After thinking about it a little, though, I
think they’re subtly showing how she’s trying to manage her vices. Like, in her
view, it’s OK to light a cigarette, but her career might be effected if she
actually smoked one, so this is her happy medium. Makes me wonder if this whole season’s going to be her
incremental ‘corruption.’
The show’s already been more
explicitly showing some of her co-workers to be killers who were simply smart enough to realize they could get away with murder as
long as it was officially sanctioned. Look how eager they were to obliterate
this suspect at the very second their Dominators said it was OK? I really do think they'll be delving deeper into this, and that's exciting.
Now, if only some more characters could scars, or cybernetic limbs, or something distinctive...
Watch "the Creeping Unknown" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode. (And much thanks to Takashichea for the screengrab above).
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