OK, this episode.
Here’s the point where Oshii’s view of the series departs completely from the vision of the original manga. We’ve seen hints of it in earlier episodes, particularly the first half of episode 53, but here we get it full strength. Again, like episode 53, there’s visual motifs here that would get used again in Beautiful Dreamer – this time it’s the briefly glimpsed girl chasing a ball. But if anything, this is stronger stuff than Beautiful Dreamer, at least that gave you an explanation of what was happening. Here that is left up to the viewer. I kind of wish I’d seen The Red Spectacles to see if there’s a link to that film too.
So what actually happens in this episode.
Well, we get a monologue from Mrs Moroboshi about the struggles of a Japanese housewife. It’s fine, but it’s one thing I find a weakness from Oshii, as I’m not sure that sort of writing works in animation. I’ve been watching some of his Gosenzosama OAV, and as great as some of the animation is, it does feel awfully theatrical in its staging at times. Thankfully, the animation team use it as an opportunity for some funny silent vignettes running behind the dialogue.
Then at a clothing sale, she gets kicked in the head by another woman. She wakes up in a doctor’s room (the doctor looking like a shadowy Sakura), and returns home. On the way home she glimpses a young girl, who she continues to run into throughout the episdoe. A boy she thinks is Ataru is waiting for her, but it turns out to be her grandson. Her husband is dead and she’s an old lady…
Then she wakes up again, in a different doctor’s room (this doctor a shadowy Onsen-Mark). So she heads home again. Once more Ataru is waiting, but this time it is Ataru. However she’s already at home…
For a third time, she wakes up in a doctor’s room. This doctor (who is clearly Megane) claims he is a psychiatrist who had arranged the previous three scenarios (the bump on the noggin in the sale, the grandson, the double) to get to the bottom of her psyche. He declares that she is trying to control Ataru. However she declares that his simplistic analysis of her is nonsense and as this too is a dream she can do what she likes!
All is well in this dream world, until the girl appears and warns her that if you fall in a dream you wake up. This makes her fall, and once again she finds herself in a doctor’s office (this one a shadowy Mendou). This doctor warns her that this might be a dream, but it might not. And if it is a dream, it might not even be her’s. She steps outside and sees a tank heading into town. It almost runs down the young girl who is chasing a ball into the street, but Mrs Moroboshi saves her. When she gets home, she sees her husband killed by an invading Martian warmachine.
She wakes up once more, this time in bunker with various cast members. They are at war with the invading alien army (who all look like Cherry!), Lum and Ataru having long since fled Earth for space. They make one final attack on the aliens (accompanied by a cod-Jeff Wayne tune), only to consumed in an explosion.
When it clears everyone is playing Kagome-Kagome with the little girl. When the song ends and the little girl turns to look at the person behind her, she turns to face Mrs Moroboshi. And the pair then swap places. Everyone carries on playing as Lum and Ataru arrive on a cruise ship take on the Yamato. And there it ends.
Phew.
I’m hardly giving it justice, and I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like if Oshii had storyboarded and directed as well as writing the script. It’s not the masterpiece that Beautiful Dreamer is, but it’s a very early indicator of the more experimental direction Oshii’s career would go in. The show had taken flights of fancy visually before, but here’s where it really starts to delve into PKD territory in the writing as well.
I’m extremely curious as to what the reaction at the time was to this episode. Particularly if it was a fractious as those last two episodes of Evangelion, which was what the episode reminded me of when I first saw it in 1999.
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Screenplay: Mamoru Oshii
Storyboard: Junji Nishimura
Director: Junji Nishimura
Animation Director: Kazuo Yamazaki
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Yes, there’s more stuff to write about this episode yet!
For this episode, we get a new opening song “Dancing Star” by Izumi Kobayashi:
And a new ending theme, “Yume wa Love Me More” by Izumi Kobayashi: