Metaphor and Mythology

Before I begin a series of long essays about the shows and ideas that have intrigued me recently, I will take the time to lay out the groundwork for my rationale for the upcoming blog entries. Most importantly, I don't intend these to be formal essays or critiques with hard ground rules that I will adhere to with rigid formalism. I'll be honest: I'm too damn lazy to do all that.

However, I think it will be helpful for any potential readers, if any exist at all at this point, to explain that I do have some preferences, or predilections if you will, for certain lines of thought and hyperbole. So please bear with me, if you can.

My next essay will be about an anime series called "Hyouka" which finished airing not too long ago. This show interested me with its depth and multiple layers of meaning, although it wasn't necessarily the most entertaining show of recent memory. On the surface, the show is about some students solving a series of extremely banal mysteries with a light hearted atmosphere of mild humor and a taste of romance. Underneath, lies what seems to be a dark maw of incredible cynicism that is seems to be in direct opposition to that surface of youthful slice-of-life optimism.

My essay will not be a regular review of the program itself. In fact, it will be helpful for the reader to have actually seen the show already and wishes to engage in further discussion about it. There will be substantial spoilers, for example.

In order to understand where I will be coming from, I will be discussing the show as in informal deconstruction based on my own personal assumptions, hence it will be heavily colored with my own biases. It's pretty much impossible otherwise, since I am not a native Japanese speaker and will rely on subtitled translations to discuss the spoken content of the show. I have been watching Japanese anime and cinema for many years, as well as some layman's familiarity with their culture, but I have no formal  or complete education in their history or linguistics. In other words, a native Japanese may have a wildly different interpretation of my analysis or notice important details that I am likely to have missed or misunderstood.

Another thing to understand is that I like to use a layman's form of metaphorical analysis that is based on Joseph Campbell's theories on mythology and Jungian dream symbology. His depiction of the monomyth was made famous by the popularization of his book, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", when George Lucas referenced it as a source for his Star Wars movie. However, my discussion will not actually focus on the monomyth, but on Campbell's other great work, "Transformations of Myth through Time." Specifically, I like to reference his lecture on the Grail mythos and the search for what he called "an authentic life" in order to escape the "wasteland"  or "inauthentic life"which is based on T.S. Eliot's famous poem.

My essay on "Hyouka" will therefore be in relation to the concept of the human desire for "authenticity" in one's personal life and how it conflicts with the velvet prison of society. I will show how the anime series evokes the imagery of imprisonment and suffocating loss of self in a cruel world while, on the surface, it appears to be a cheerful show about some kids.