Watching the final episode of "Darling in the Franxx" late on July 7, I was wondering if the evolution of anime featuring a giant robot since "Mazinger Z" (1972) had reached its ultimate goal with this work.
The story is set in the future when civilization has made a phenomenal evolution thanks to the discovery of a new energy, magma fuel. Giant creatures called Kyoryu attack humans, who fight back with a team of giant robots called Franxx. Only a boy-girl pair can operate each robot. Those children are raised austerely at a boarding facility called a birdcage.
Then a girl with two horns comes to the facility. Her name is Zero Two. She is a free soul, an arrogant and almost heinously strong fighter. She unilaterally chooses a boy called Hiro as her partner and kisses him.
The original image of Zero Two comes from director Atsushi Nishigori's favorite manga.
"If you build scaffolding with things you like, your work won't crumble down," he said.
The quality of images in this anime is outstanding. Even more impressive are representations of past robot anime works found here and there in the work. What it reminded me of first was "Neon Genesis Evangelion" from 1995, and it certainly did not stop there. Some people may even say, "It's full of pinched images and ideas."
"It would be the best if we can show only the new things," Nishigori said. "But we belong to a generation of people who saw anime as we grew up and got the desire to make anime. I'd rather make it into our strength and complement the missing parts with existing parts [from past anime works] in samplings, parodies, homages -- you name it -- and I thought it would be an honest gesture not to hide or disguise them."
After finishing high school, Nishigori began working at anime studio Gainax Co., which produced "Evangelion." There he became the character designer for robot anime "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann" (2007). Later, he left the company and was appointed the director of TV anime "THE IDOLM@STER" (The Idolmaster) in 2011 and its film version in 2014, blazing a trail in anime about pop idol groups.
"I like anime with a Gainax flavor. But when I thought about my potential, I wanted to do more down-to-earth stories about people. That's why I thought I should leave the studio once. With 'Darli-Fra' [Darling in the Franxx], I've come back to a robot anime after going away from it. I think everything about myself is in this work," he said.
I was curious about the anime's delicate, literature-like atmosphere and became convinced when he told me that Kazuo Ishiguro's novel "Never Let Me Go" was an important inspiration. "The starting point of the idea was my wish to somehow make children at the Hailsham facility survive and live their lives as humans," Nishigori said, referring to a facility that features strongly in the novel.
The anime also includes harsh criticism of modern society. Technology has made adults immortal and sterile, and they just indulge themselves in dreams of eternal pleasure. The children are devoid of role models in their parents' generation, so they have to rely on themselves in studying, farming and re-creating civilization.
"It may be a little bit preachy. But as someone who has received hopes from anime, I want to make something that children can eat and grow up on, even though it may be sweets filled with artificial colors," Nishigori said.
Nishigori has successfully taken on a challenge filled with contradictions and hardships to show something no one has ever seen but as if it were deja vu. Will there be a robot anime that will surpass this work?
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