Western Media versus Eastern: Spectacle versus Implication.

I'd had this idea for a rant in the back of my mind for months now, and every time I decided it wasn't worth mentioning, something new that I watched or read would remind me that it's still relevant.  It's bloody everywhere, as pervasive as media itself.

It's the fact that mass-marketed American entertainment wouldn't know what subtlety is if it was a frying pan that'd just hit them in the face with that delightful metallic ring-ing-ing sound.

This has been going on for some time.  The triumph of reality tv, where its cast blatantly turn to the dang camera and TELL YOU WHAT THEY'RE FEELING, where narrators analyze every action for you.  The corresponding demise of the soap opera, which, if not a genre to my taste, at least held intricate plot lines and complex character development within its grasp.  There's no room for inward-focused character development in American games, tv shows, books.  It's all about the Spectacle.

This is what Fox built its success on.  Quick, easy, obvious laughs, thrills, flirts, grossouts.  You like sexy women, right?  Have some cleavage.  You like action, right?  Cue guns with infinite ammo and explosions.  Don't like either of those things?  Maybe you'd prefer some other kind of entertainment - and we'll offer any topic you like, as long as you don't mind it being jammed down your throat.

Everything that happens is viscerally, viciously external.  Everything must be explained, described, clear cause and effect with immediate payoff in terms of desired audience reaction.  And in that specialty, the area I think of as Spectacle, America really does quite well.  We throw countless dollars into amazing special effects, love high-emotion overacting, embrace the sheer lack of subtlety in torture subgenre horror and the equivalent in lowbrow comedy with equal adoration.  We want it in our face and we want it now, just like fast food.

It's not all bad, of course.  Spectacle has led to the creation of some truly amazing things purely for the sake of seeing if they could be done.  It has painted vistas in front of our eyes that our imaginations could barely bear to encompass.  I, too, get a thrill out of practically feeling the kinetic force involves in hilariously murdering monsters in Duke Nukem Forever or Diablo 3.  I fell in love with the madness of space damaging the very level architecture of Dead Space and the zombies - excuse me, necromorphs - that simply annihilated every trace of human life without mercy.  I adore how South Park and Futurama take every possible premise to their obvious and blatantly ridiculous conclusions without fear of going too far.  Our capacity to express the absurd has never been greater.

And yet, through it all, there's something I miss.  Spectacle is the meat of almost any story, but do we want to eat hamburgers every day for the rest of our lives?  And it's something so simple and yet so meaningful that whenever I see it - almost inevitably in something from Korea or Japan - there's something in me that twinges with longing.  That something is what I call Implication.

Simply put, Implication is the ability for a story to write about nothing happening.  Not just nothing without purpose, but a nothing that is very deliberately put there so the audience would be rewarded later.  Not now.  Later.  Who knows how much later?  You'll know when you get there.

It's buried in the idea of things being more than they seem, of not carefully explaining every little motive and rationale, of leaving dark areas in the world that the light of the audience's eyes don't touch.  It's implicit in games like Thief, and was lost in the transition from Diablo 1 and 2 to Diablo 3.  The unseen.  The unstated.  That moment that is not explained, that doesn't seem to have a purpose, but leaves you wondering.

And mass American entertainment just cannot freaking do it.  To use Implication means that you can't reward the audience right NOW, and instant gratification is one of the cornerstones of our society.  There's a moment, for example, in Casshern Sins (viewable on Cartoon Network) that is simply full of a lull.  No background music, no obvious action, just... a pause between two characters in which the world holds its breath.  And you can't help but wonder what they're thinking, because the show isn't going to tell you.  That kind of scene simply cannot happen in an American tv show, especially not an American cartoon.  Even our blatant attempts at mimicking anime miss the subtlety of presentation, that crucial willingness to Imply instead of State.

I think Implication means so much to me because I'm a very reserved and 'inner world' person.  I don't like to have to SAY things, let alone DO them.  I would much prefer people to pick up on minute cues and leave it at that.  But that's not very American, is it?

It's not that Asian cinema, comics or cartoons lack room for Spectacle.  They can be as blatantly in your face and exploitative as anything you could hope for from the West.  It's just that they also have room for Implication, too.

I rather wonder if America ever had it to begin with.  We're not exactly a subtle country.  In many ways, I think we're still like cowboys, desperately latching onto externalities to help us forget that there's an internal aspect to everything and everyone.  Passivity, contemplation, uncertainty... are these not signs of weakness to most Americans?  Are we not still looking for Indians to fight so we don't have to look straight at the sorrows that lie within our own souls?  Anything is better than being still.

Except some of us LIKE being still, for whatever weird reason that may be.

In which moving mp3 conjures up introspection.

I recently upgraded to a new computer, and in the process of doing so sorted through my mp3 library.  It'd been quite some time since I'd listened to most of the common mp3s, since Youtube and other online sources sufficed just as well and were only a tab click away.  So I'd actually forgotten quite a lot about the mp3s I'd had available - many, like the Clouds's '4 PM,' I only kept out of association with friends, because it felt disrespectful to delete something that someone I cared about identified with.  Others, like my modest collection of Staind songs, reminded me of singular events in my life, times when I felt very strongly about something.  Others still held connections to stories, cartoons, movies and soundtracks that I loved dearly.  Yet I had forgotten so many of these things, or at least, placed them in a part of my mind where I was content to let them gather dust indefinitely.  The simple act of organizing these mp3s reminded me about things... things that I didn't wish to be reminded of but probably should have been reminded of, horrible things that should be left to rot, precious things that really shouldn't have ever left my conscious thought process at all.

I realized that I had let those memories fade into the past because they had nothing to do with my present, and received a fresh reminder to never underestimate the adaptability of humanity.  Human beings can adjust to almost anything, given time.  It's a wonderful thing in that it allows us to survive in so many circumstances, but it can also be a terrible thing.  Because in adapting to new circumstances, we leave behind bits and pieces of ourselves that no longer seem immediately applicable or relevant.

Since then, I've been filled with a desperate need to DO things.  To grab the past and yank it into the present, if only in small ways that others likely would never notice.  I want to remember these things.  I want them held before me as shining stars that help me navigate my way through life.  They're part of who I AM, you see.

I themed a Ben 10 fanfic in part around this a while back, and ended it with a quote from Aristotle: 'We are what we repeatedly do.'  I have a friend who extends that so far as to her very conceptualized identity, her internal image of who she is - if she's doing something, she is that, for the duration of the task, and afterwards is that thing no longer.  She is an artist while she draws and stops being one when she stops drawing.

This stands greatly in contrast to my own thought processes, where I have always defined myself internally as something regardless of whether I'm doing that thing or not, and that doesn't change even if I'm doing something completely different, which I implicitly recognize as being Not Me, Just Something I'm Doing Right Now.  And yet, it DOES help to have reminders, and it does help to keep your outer self in touch with your inner self on a daily basis.  Even small changes to your schedule can have a vast impact on your overall emotional landscape and outlook on life.  Suddenly I feel like I 'get' why people have photographs and small mementos that I would usually disparage as pointless clutter: to keep us in touch with ourselves, to reinforce what we hold valuable against the daily humdrum of just making it from one day to the next.

I come out of this thinking that everyone really should take more pictures.  And being glad that, in this modern era, we have so many different ways to preserve our memories!

On macro versus micro in discussion.

I was browsing through a standard gender politics debate over at Tvtropes.org, as I'm so wont to do, when I had a recent revelation.  A former acquaintance of mine once told me that Scrabble wasn't about intelligence, but about seeing patterns.  And I suddenly saw a Pattern in that Tvtropes forum discussion that made it look hilariously familiar.

Gender-related discussions online, at least, tend to center around large and vague concepts.  One side presents an idea - women (or men, to some minority povs) are overwhelming oppressed by the inherent structure of society.  And then naturally someone else, often but not always playing for the other team, tells them they're full of it.  Then both sides start bringing out individual examples and counterexamples of oppression or its lack.  We could apply the same thing to racial politics as well, or to any discussion where a large group of people is theoretically but not necessarily literally functionally equivalent to any other large group of people in terms of advantages and disadvantages.

While both sides may get something to think about from the individual examples provided, at the end of the day it's all anecdotal.  Except for the statistics, which can be pointed out as being misinterpreted or countered by other statistics.  People don't change their positions on a fundamental level because their position are hinged on an overarching ideology that is inherently difficult to prove or disprove.

'Truth' is a surprisingly malleable substance even when all involved parties are doing their darnedest to sincerely find it.

Do you know what that sounds EXACTLY like?

Competitive gaming debates.  No, seriously.  That gamer you look down on for screaming that something he fights against is overpowered, or that something he uses is underpowered, sounds EXACTLY like you when you talk about how bad you have it or how much better the other side has it and they don't even realize it.  And anyone who's watched a gaming forum debate on these ephemeral power levels go on for more than two seconds can immediately realize that it's self-defeating and self-obfuscating.

Take Starcraft 2 as an example.  Is Zerg overpowered or underpowered?  Who cares, when whether something is 'over' or 'under' can completely flip-flop based on a single unit change in a single patch, or a map change, or the dominant strategies at a tournament that shift the metagame, or any of a million other factors?

What you should be focusing on in a game is whether X, Y or Z is FUN or not, and you can only do that by zooming in to look at the micro.  Does a given unit perform its role adequately?  Are win ratios for all races roughly equal for a given map?  Is a particularly ability underused or overused?  Small things, things you can take apart and dissect.  Things that, no matter which race you play or how you feel about it, you can mostly agree on being right or wrong.

Those are the things people should be focusing on in gender debates, too.  If you speak in terms of 'Women are consistently paid worse wages at Walmart,' then you have a specific problem to solve and a specific entity to punish for causing it.  But when you go to overarching ideological things like the very foundation of how society functions and how it all fits together as a whole, you're only going to get a lot of people disagreeing with your premise, which hinders your ability to get anything done.

So drop the premise.  Drop the framing.  Be practical.  Focus on the little things where you know you can make a difference, the things you know you can get other people to agree with you on.  The big things are just collections of lots of small things, and if you keep on working on those dominoes, eventually the big things will tend to themselves, too.

That's not to say that there isn't a place for macro or ideology, but it has to be at a point where the concept involved is just so revolutionary that it challenges fundamental assumptions and biases.  Back when the US had slaves, there was no question that a black man was worth less than a white man.  Saying, ideologically, that a human was a human regardless of skin color was a very powerful statement.  But if equality is close enough that people can pretend that everything's equal, then there's no point in trying to run a premise on an assumption of inequality.  Once you're close enough to squint and not tell the difference, you have to stop looking at the broad ideas and start looking at the specifics, the little details that are easy to miss.

So if you have something that you want to convince people about, stick with circumstances that are immediately applicable and easy to relate to, rather than using large-scale ideas that only widen the gap between your point of view and another person's.  You want them to know how it is to walk a mile in your shoes?  Tell them how your shoes make your toes feel in Dickensian detail.

It's easy to underestimate South Park. Re: Human CentiPad..

Let's be fair - South Park didn't catapult to fame because of wit or insightful political commentary. It's famous because it's vulgar. It's successful because it's vulgar. Yet the more I look at things like this, the more I find that the traits that enable profit and success aren't always the same traits that make that product important in terms of artistic evolution or creative design. When you think about South Park, you think about little children making potty jokes. And there are so many conservative people who cast judgment right there and refuse to see what else the show has to offer. That's a real shame, because the show, very ironically, has a lot to offer specifically to the kind of audience that's most likely to judge swiftly and turn away in revulsion.

The newest episode, Human Centipad, is an excellent example of what the show has evolved into. The actual quality of the episode, I leave for you to figure out yourself - the internet is full of plenty of people saying it was both the worst and the best episode ever. This is not a show prone to creating audience consensus. But the essential structure of dichotomy is there, clear as ever. We have the almost incomprehensibly vulgar on the one hand, and on the other hand, we have the underlying messages that vulgarity is being used for.

The basic plot is a Human Centipede spoof. That was an amusing movie by my extremely morbid standards, but it was a movie with just one (really creative) gimmick and not much else to drive it. But in so much less running time, South Park manages to take this spoof and make it do so much more than it ever did in the original movie.

The movie had no morals, no lessons beyond 'Sometimes bad things happen to annoying people.' It had horror without depth. South Park transforms that horror into comedy and uses it to propel very real and applicable messages into the viewer's brain. Commentary on the legality and morality of those endlessly long online agreements we all click through blindly. Commentary on the Apple brand, its marketing, the culture around it. Commentary on the nature of the human mind's detritus, of our desperate desire to share our mentally digested hobbies with others, as though they'd want our crap.

South Park and Serial Experiments Lain are nothing alike, but the two meet in agreement in this episode, both saying 'We will all be connected.' The difference is in presentation, but nos so much in message - South Park is a lot more cynical about it, understanding that closer contact to human beings also means inevitable degradation, loss of privacy, loss of control over things we take for granted. And the benefits? We get meaningless information we could often do without. Information that can poison us and typically disgusts us while providing no real nutrition to the mind.

Yet the Human CentiPad monstrosity isn't condemned in episode. Quite the contrary, it's taken as inevitable. At the end, all they can say, nervously, is 'Can't we go a little slower?' None of the issues brought up have any real resolution. They're here, we have to live with them. That's all.

Once you look beyond the vulgarity, there's a lot South Park has to offer, even for conservatives. Maybe even especially for conservatives. Yet the vulgarity itself is also crucial to the show, because it's the fist that pummels these messages into you. So, the next time you start dismissing a piece of art because it has a bit more swearing than you like, or nudity, or something else that's beyond the pale... stop and consider if it might not be using those things for more than just shock value.

Ponies are magical. Real life, sadly, is not.

So far, Hasbro has been nice enough to not nuke the Youtube videos of My Little Pony floating around. Apparently this is because most of the profit is made off of the toys, so they don't really care if the cartoon is widely distributed for free, so long as people buy those little plastic ponies. Can't say I'm not tempted to grab a few myself (and mod them into gothic versions or something, but still).

The MLP series is built off of a very firm episodic structure. The ponies experience a plot revolving around learning one or two distinct morals, and then the moral is stated outright at the end of each episode for those who need subtext )or text-text) spelled out to them. Most of the morals are generic, simple, and unobjectionable basic niceness. Recently I came across one that actually bothered me a little, though.

The Show Stoppers episode centers on the three younger cast members, the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders' whose major continuing motivation and plot is to find their own individual talents that cause those little symbols on their flanks to appear. So, if you're a pony in the MLPverse, you have a major talent - you can be good at many things, but you are defined by one particular specialty that is literally branded to your skin for everyone to see. The initial 'blank flank' state of the Crusader ponies is a basic metaphor for one's struggle to find a purpose in life in youth. So far, we haven't seen any ponies grow up to be 'blank flanks;' every pony gets his or her Cutie Mark by the time they could be considered a teenager.

Now, I know there's only so much you can expect from even the best children's show. There's no way that politics, economics, or anything resembling a realistic climate for industry or jobs can be shoehorned in. It would go over the heads of the intended audience and restrict viewers according to culturally specific conditions. By keeping it broad and simple, the writers are able to appeal to as large a group as possible, in theory.

But I can't help but feel there comes a point when you dumb it down to a level of poisoning people with optimism. Oh, of course Scootaloo is great with a scooter, and she'll figure it out one day, in time! It's not like there's anyone else who copies her exact talent, she just needs time to work it out. And Sweetie Belle is a GREAT singer, everyone looks forward to hearing her sing! She doesn't hate singing, she's just shy about it, and in time she will learn to be confident and enjoy her talent in front of a crowd as well as when she's by herself!

Redundancy in talents is limited - there may be some overlap in broad strengths like athleticism or fashion sense, but no one will ever have YOUR Cutie Mark. The generation of talent is obvious and predestined - everyone knows what you're good at, and you'll always get good at something before the age where you'd need to figure out how to be an independent, responsible adult. No one ever hates their defining talents because those talents mesh with their personalities perfectly - ponies aren't saddled with talents they wish they didn't have, and any desire to be good at something that isn't their Cutie Mark is only a superficial interest that doesn't trouble them very much in the long run.

Why would you want to give your children such horrible messages in stories? Adults know that's not how life works. In fact, that's pretty much the opposite of how life works! Why would you set your children up for disappointment and allow them to be completely unprepared for the harshness of reality?

I think it's because, ultimately, adults want to believe that's how life works. And they feel ike maybe, if they tell their children that's how it is, and are very very careful to avoid mentioning the depressing parts of life, maybe the kidlets will have better lives. We pass our hopes and dreams down to our children, and tell them that they can be anything they want to be, even though that wasn't true for us. Because we want it to be true for them, so badly. We want them to have their own unique talents that make their lives rich and fulfilling and successful. And if you don't mention failure by name, maybe it won't come a'knocking, right?

Everywhere in children's stories there are messages about the power of friendship and love and making a difference. To a large extent, we need those messages. We need them as badly as we need religion, because it gives us something to hope for. But if you deliver those themes so consistently that real life doesn't poke its ugly head in at all, you just make children confident and ignorant of their own flaws. And then, like their parents before them, they too suffer the bitterness of disappointment. Of finding out that their parents lied to them, of finding out that life is hard.

Some people have no talent. Some people have talents that they hate. Some people have talents that aren't worth very much. Some people are unable to develop any talent at the things they want to do the most, no matter how hard they try.

Every time, mass market media takes the easy way out. Even a great product like MLP takes the easy way out. It tells people that life is awesome when we all know it's not always that way. And it's okay to have stories like that sometimes, but all the time? Might that not be doing more harm than good?

I think adults would be less bitter if they'd had more depressing children's stories when they were young. The drop from childhood to adulthood is a very cold and very sudden shock.

Regarding All the Wisconsin Hubbabaloo.

I would like to preface all this by noting that I identify as a left-leaning moderate, so if you want a label to put on my pov, that thar is it.

I'm not that well read up on the regulations regarding unions in Wisconsin, and I don't believe it's moral to take a particular stance on an issue just because an overall party or faction does. I'm not informed enough to make any judgment calls on whether attacking collective bargaining is wise or unwise, justified or unjustified. However, I retain a high interest in current events over there from a 'marketing' perspective. I like to watch politics and contemplate, not just whether an action was the right or wrong one, but whether it was likely to produce popular support or not.

So, judging Governor Walker's actions on that basis, I don't think he's made a very smart move here. In fact, so far I think that he's as good as guaranteeing that a Democrat will be his successor, and here's why I think that.

First of all, let's get the phone conversation out of the way. There was very little that was incriminating in that conversation; Walker handled himself quite well. The only truly damning portion of that conversation was the fact that he admitted to considering planting 'troublemakers' to make his opponents look bad, but the fact that he didn't actually do it likely makes the issue insufficient grounds for serious attack. So, setting that aside....

The Democrats lost midterms badly. They lost midterms in part because Obama heavily pushed unpopular legislation in the healthcare overhaul. Whether the bill was unpopular on its own merits or due to mishandling of its presentation and promotion really isn't relevant anymore. It wasn't popular, and it cost the Democrats a lot of votes to push it through. And they knew the consequences and did it anyway, because they believed it the right thing to do.

So here we are seeing Gov. Walker trying to push through highly unpopular legislation. And he knows the consequences, and he's doing it anyway, because he believes it's the right thing to do. Does this look familiar to anyone else? The Democrats were apathetic in the midterms. They weren't fired up. The Tea Party was fired up. Yet here Walker is now, giving the opposition fire because, just like Obama, he wants so badly to make a historical change in a particular way regardless of the environment surrounding that issue.

Hilariously, Walker is doing the exact same thing Obama was, from the exact opposite affiliation, over the exact opposite issues. And I truly think he will suffer the exact same consequences for it.

The tragedy of the thing is that it would have been a brilliant strategy had he just been willing to play it a little differently. Walker could have started out just the same, overextended his reach to the frantic objections of the left. At this point, if he was willing to compromise, he could get pretty much anything he wanted, simply because the Democrats feel that anything is better than losing collective bargaining rights wholesale. They're willing to give in on all budget matters so long as collective bargaining isn't nuked. Walker might even be able to get away with less extensive attacks on collective bargaining if he was willing to aim a tad lower. But no, Walker wants the whole basket. And in trying for the whole basket, it's probable that he'll get nothing at all.

I don't think success or its lack will alter later election outcomes at this point. Walker went after targets lacking popular support to attack - teachers and prison guards. These aren't exactly Wall Street fatcats you're milking there. And he's using threats of layoffs in an incredibly harsh economy to force the Democrats into surrendering. If the Democrats surrender, they look compassionate. If the Democrats don't surrender, they look steadfast. If Walker gets what he wants, he looks like a bully. If he doesn't get what he wants, he looks like an unsuccessful bully. Unless he's actually willing to change his mind and show some bipartisanship, he's going to lose out in terms of popular image no matter what happens from here on out.

Personally I don't approve of obstructionism in general. I have a great deal of difficulty respecting politicians who abuse obscure clauses in the rulebooks to grind the legislative system to a halt. Broadly speaking, I feel that it's better for laws to go through according to the rules, regardless of the consequences, and then to see the consequences and reform the rules if necessary later on. If people are free to totally block laws they disagree with, then you never see the realistic consequences of those laws. As a result, bad laws don't get a chance to be debunked, and good laws don't get a chance to garner support. Everything controversial just hits a great big government pause button.

So I didn't like obstructionism when the GOP did it with filibustering, and I can't say it leaves a better taste in my mouth with the Democrats from Wisconsin doing it now. But in terms of garnering popular support, they really can't lose, so they can afford to be obstructionists. From a 'marketing' standpoint, it was the smart thing to do.

Christianity and anime. More specifically, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.

The attitude of conservative Christians towards media is a pretty mixed one.  In large part it seems like my people (and like it or not, they are my people, insofar as whitey is allowed to have a coherent subculture and corresponding loyalties in the first place) haven't bothered to develop a coherent philosophy to various media depictions and styles of art.  Growing up in the Bible Belt I got a bit of that good old 80s 'Isn't D&D Satanic?' ribbing, but it was mostly in jest.  There was never enough consistency in rejection of any given kind of subject matter to allow me to take such remarks very seriously.  Nonetheless I've always felt a gap between myself and the media habits of the common man and especially the common Christian.  Some believers may feel that watching anything that isn't as overtly Christian as VeggieTales can be spiritually degrading, while others will be more lax and draw a line at more graphic content such as R-rated movies.  Of course, drowning out all diverse points of view are the people who like to witch hunt and blame any random violent or overtly sexual media for the sins of their children, when improper childrearing techniques are more likely to be at fault!  It's been my experience that once someone is far gone enough to blame Grand Theft Auto for the ills of the world, there's really no point in attempting debate.  So this is a post directed more to the people on the fence between total acceptance of 'heathen' media and awkward rejection of it.  For those of you still wondering how much virtue there can be in the materialistic world and where you should draw the line.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, literally translated as When the Cicadas Cry, and translated officially in America as just When They Cry, is the last anime I've truly fallen in love with.  And by that I really mean the phrase 'fallen in love.'  I adore this little two-season cartoon show like I would a beautiful and intelligent woman.  In part this is due to its initial premise, which is an almost exactly even blend of sentimental schoolchildren romantic-drama-comedy, and no-holds-barred terrifying and brutal psychological horror.  The coupling of two so diverse genres is exactly my cup of anime tea.  Higurashi is more than happy to dip into the most saccharine cutesy scenes at one moment, and then immediately pull a 180 into graphic horror the likes of which would make Eli Roth wince.

Going by superficial descriptions, the average Christian, however, would find Higurashi pretty inappropriate fare.  The mild but obvious and definitely suggestive sexual content, so typical of anime, is centered on kids, in some cases quite young ones, which can check the 'ephebophilia/pedophilia' box.  The slasher side of the show checks the 'glorification of violence' box.  The inclusion of a minor deity in the second season checks the 'polytheism' box.  The reference to demons in the backstory checks off 'Satanism/paganism.'  If you only look skin deep, there's a lot to object to.  And now you're probably wondering how I justify watching something like that to begin with!  Let's scratch a little deeper and see what we get, shall we?

A little willingness to give the show a chance to justify its existence can go a long way.  Sexual content is constantly subverted, as the object of lust is almost always presented as damaged in some way by this attention, or pre-damaged and incapable of forming emotionally healthy relationships.  This continues to such a degree that you almost wish the characters would stop caring about each other, because you know they're just going to hurt each other more for it later on!  The initial 'fanservice' is typically used to lure not just the characters into an initial state of relaxation, but the audience as well, so we feel the same shock as the cast when things go south.

Gore, demonic influence, torture scenes and the like are not used in the sense of an action game like Dead Space.  You don't enjoy seeing these things happen.  While there are killing sprees and graphic mutilation aplenty, these events are addressed with a strong air of tragedy.  The resultant suffering is so unnecessary, and the victims so sympathetic, that you beg for it to stop even when you know it's going to go on until they learn their lesson.  Many Christians may also appreciate the more subtle point made through one of the antagonists - that an excess of interest in such things can be harmful, since it can damage one's ability to truly understand the emotional impact on the victims as well as hindering one's ability to relate to humanity in general.  At the same time, acknowledging the existence of this unpleasant underside of humanity with all due respect is crucial, and in fact a primary aspect of the priestess Rika's duties.  If you've read the Old Testament, you ought to be able to empathize.

Then there's our final possible objection, the little goddess Hanyū.  As with most anime, there's not a great deal of thought given to the inclusion of the divine as an actual cast member.  That doesn't mean there's no spiritual content to enjoy, but it does mean that you shouldn't look at Hanyū and expect some deep statement about the nature of interaction between humanity and God.  Hanyū, as a very cute, very timid, very ordinary little girl, just happens to be immortal and have certain duties towards the villagers of the setting.  She neither demands nor requires worship, and refrains from offering a consistent belief system for followers to adhere to.  Notably, the nature of faith, miracles, the afterlife or its lack, and the metaphysical gears that churn the universe are all left unaddressed.  They're simply not the point of the show.  Since Hanyū ultimately is no more a God in the Christian sense than the witches in Bewitched are witches, there's little for an open-minded Christian to find conflict with once getting used to the terminology.

But all this is on the defensive.  On the aggressive, Higurashi presents a number of strong themes that should strike a strong note with any person of faith.  The universal nature of sin is explored through the psychological horror aspect as it applies to each character in turn.  In fact, the line between protagonist and antagonist blurs significantly, while still retaining the audience's sympathy.  In short, everyone has their mental baggage, and given suitably trying circumstances, anyone can become a horrible person.  This is the bulk of the subject matter in the first season, as we find seemingly minor sins snowballing into outright psychosis, and small shards driven between two people turn into major conflicts.

But the second season flips this around to make the opposite point as well.  One's ability to relate to humanity and find a place in the world, one's ability to love and trust and sacrifice of the self, all these things are incredibly fragile.  At the same time, they are also accessible to all people.  Friendships can be mended, arguments resolved, and hurt feelings soothed if you're just willing to take the risk and allow yourself to be hurt for the sake of the other.  No matter how far the descent into horror is, there's always a way to climb back out.  It's very telling that the primary antagonist of the series, despite all murderous deeds done, is driven, not by selfishness, but by love.  By way of contrast, 'torture porn' style media like Hostel present suffering as a thing without meaning, arbitrary and shallow.  We have no reason to care about the villains in such a movie.  Higurashi differs in that it has the courage to offer not just universal sin, but also universal salvation.

And to me, that is what Christianity is all about.