Shu is a typical Japanese boy, but has an unbeatable, optimistic and determined attitude. However,
when he sees a mysterious girl with strange eyes named Lala-Ru up on a smokestack, he is soon pulled
into a strange desert world. Shu soon discovers the true terrors of war, which includes genocide,
brutal torture, hunger, thirst, and child exploitation. Now Shu is trying to save Lala-Ru, as well as
his hard earned, and often relunctant, new friends from the insane dictator, Hamdo. Whether Shu can
possibly accomplish saving those he cares about while still holding up to his values remains to be
seen.
(Source: Anime News Network)
If you're looking for a some what dark take on the isekai genre or perhaps a decent fantasy anime, Ima soko ni iru boku won't show you a bad time. It's about 13 episodes long. Short enough to blast through on a dull evening. Despite being so short, the series does a great job of establishing its setting. The series establishes a basic picture of the sociopolitical state of this strange world. On this desert planet, water is a scarce resources people fight over. The region is ruled by an incompetent despot. Women and girls are taken as sex slaves to bear the future generation of soldiers as waves after waves of young men and boys wade their way onto the battle field. Boys and men continue an endless cycle of warfare, raiding, pillaging, kidnapping and raping. All this in the hopes that the war will somehow come to an end. Perhaps they may return home if they live through this hell. Shu as the protagonist, is a pacifistic young boy from the isle of Japan. He is accidentally transported to this bizarre setting and as such acts as an alternative perspective to this violent world. He is good natured, whole heartedly believing in the good within humanity and standing against the cruelty he witnesses. This is not a bad idea in theory but I believe he could have been executed better. Shu does not develop at all throughout the series. He constantly remains optimistic and childish to the point of annoyance. Despite being a child, having witnessed many horrific atrocities and having been victimized at the hands of the king's men, he never changes. He does not suffer any long term psychological effects, nor is he ever traumatised. At best we will see a few minutes where he's shook from witnessing death but then he goes on as if nothing happened. It does not help that the message of the story (the message he preaches) is the rather generic empty platitude of "Somehow things will work out. Life is beautiful". The problem with these kinds of stories is the message is rather hollow and lacks nuance. Pacifism can only really work in a world where everyone is pacifistic. When you have an army bearing down on your village, pacifism is essentially welcoming death with open arms or running away until the military inevitably captures you. Pacisfism only really works out for Shu, as the main character, because of plot armour. He can disobey commands or interfere in military operations or impulsively lunge to save people, with little to no consequences. It likewise comes across as rather hollow when he tells people who have suffered far greater hardships, like Sara, than him to keep living because "life is beautiful". The character, Sis, later in the series, shares the same sentiments as him but is a bit more nuanced in her advice for Sara but when it comes to the series' conflict, she has no offers no alternative to the violent measures of the revolutionaries. In fact, her kindness eventually leads to the death of many many people. The characters are generally pretty decent. It is pretty interesting seeing the effects the conflict has on the child soldiers. How some of them are conflicted by their actions, eventually giving in to their conscience whilst others come to agree with the army. Unfortunately, most of the soldiers are cartoonishly evil pedophiles (much like the king) and drones simply following orders. The king is by far the worst character in this series. If you've ever read a light novel, you know this character. The 1 dimensional psychotic rapist. It's rather odd that someone so incompetent and unstable has managed to stay in power. Especially, with how poorly he treats his subjects and soldiers. It's honestly amazing there isn't outright rebellion all over the kingdom or that he hasn't been silently assassinated. Rulers have been killed for far lesser crimes. The story ends how you would expect any children's story to end. The war ends and everyone comes together in peace and harmony. Unfortunately, it wraps up far too neatly. Water is returned, the villagers accept all the soldiers without any punishment or hatred and the boy returns home. I suppose it makes sense given the theme of the story but it has to overwrite the personalities and histories of the characters in order to achieve this. Thus it is a very cheesy ending. I would say this story would be suited for teenagers. It's dark enough to make them feel mature whilst the message is obvious and simple enough for their somewhat childish minds. If you're looking for a mature story, I would suggest looking else where.
I was surfing through Myanimelist, when I found this anime. The poster art of this anime looked , very dynamic and adventurous, thus I was interested to watch it. If I were to summarize my opinion in regards to this anime, It'll be that, It's fairly thought-provoking and enjoyable, but don't expect a lot from this show. There will be SPOILERS from this point, so if you haven't, watch the show first, then come here. With that being said, let's get on with the review. CHARACTERS- The characters in this show range from well written nuanced characters to shallow one-dimensional tropey ones. Shu our primary protagonist, is an overly optimistic naïve shounen protagonist, who during the entire length of the narrative had a sizeable amount of plot armour and a highly unrealistic ability to take mental and physical trauma, spit it out of the damn window and be fearless, which simply doesn't suit the show. Throughout the entire series, shu is shot in multiple places, goes through torture and all kinds of adversities, yet due to his plot armour, he is able to walk and run properly, with no harm and is mentally stable and literally shows zero signs of a breakdown. Now I know his entire purpose is to serve a foil to all the other characters and be righteous and all that, and well he does that role quite well, but for the most part, his character simply isn't believable and disengaging. Kinda feels out of place. The same can be said about Hamdo. Hamdo the despotic dictator, who simply lacks any personality and all he is, is crazy. That's it. He is literally a lost cause and can be easily defeated, yet no one retaliates against him? The question here is why are people following him in the first place? When he has done nothing to have such following? He is just the 'I'm evil because I am' type of antagonist. It literally makes zero sense to me when such a weak, vulnerable and highly abusive dictator is not overthrown, when so many people resent him.. especially Abellia who showed some subtle moments of characterization, but her tolerating the abusive behaviour of Hamdo, when she could literally tear him apart was ridiculous. Lala-Ru too doesn't really seem to make any sense, cuz she is just a mere plot device. The moment the show ended I was wondering why didn't Lala-Ru destroy the ship earlier on? It could've all ended before it even started. Also, I can't seem to comprehend why Shu likes her so much when all they did was like talk for 20 fricking seconds. However, in this huge pile of a mess of characters, we have characters like Sara, Boo, Nabuca, who were really well written for a 13 episode show and were constantly conflicted with themselves and had great development with some sense of realism. PLOT- The plot in itself is pretty gripping. That's a reason why I don't dislike the anime despite it's flaws. The anime does everything for you to be invested in it, and just keep watching the show, to see its conclusion. However, as I said earlier, the show feels contrived at so many points and uses far too many plot devices in the second half of the show. The first half to me, was great, however, after episode 8, everything felt rushed and contrived and a lot of unrealistic things kept happening. It was as though everything was happening to send a morally educate the viewer. Like why is everyone dying except for shu, when shot? Why are characters betraying each other out of nowhere? Why isn't Lala-Ru using her powers to destroy everything? There are just so many questions and seemingly crazy things happening in the second half of the show. THEMES- Here's why the critics seem to love this show. The show in its first half is really good at creating an atmosphere, and simply building upon its themes. The show has a lot to say on morality, desperation, power, war, duty and a lot more. In its first half, the show is painted as a hopeless dystopian world . However, this show contradicted its own themes in the Zari Bars Arc. In that Arc, pacifism is preached by a character named sis, who doesn't want to attack hellywood. However, that is only one side of the coin. All we ever get is "killing and war is bad".... the show doesn't really portray the dual nature of war, and sticks to its one core principle and then contradicts it in the very end . Because according to the anime pacifism is the way to go, but in the end, this sense of pacifism and kindness preached by sis and Shu, brings nothing but death and hardship to the people in this world and Sis fails to provide an alternative to this. Which is a huge thematic dissonance and doesn't really support the case of pacifism this anime is trying to make. While these episodes do make you think, if you break them down, they aren't really that deep and all they are doing is slapping an overly simplified; black and white - message on the faces of viewers rather portraying a nuanced and realistic picture on the nature of war. Final VERDICT- The show isn't a complete waste of time, because even if it is very contrived at times, it's nonetheless entertaining (if you are willing to suspend your disbelief), and does provide some for thought as well. So I will say watch it. Thus my final score is 76/100
Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku - To Live SPOILER WARNING Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku or Now and then, Here and there is an anime from 1999 always seen as one of the acclaimed 90s isekai's who heightened in popularity out of its cult status. A story about a boy who gets transported 10 billion years into the future. Often with isekai we walk into a wall due to the overabundance of it. Predictable, tiresome, and mass-produced copy-paste isekai's fly off the charts season by season and year by year. Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku might be up there as one of the most visually beautiful anime as well as one of the most immersive. As the masterful sound direction by Tanaka Kazuya (mushishi sound director) pulled me into its barren yet unforgiving world with a technical edge. We also have Taku Iwasaki on the team for music whom you might know for the Muv Luv soundtrack. Rurouni Kenshin trust and betrayel soundtrack, Gurren Lagann soundtrack or the Katanagatari soundtrack I'd say this is probably one of his best soundtracks I'v heard from him. A real sense of instrumental depth and he's able to express the emotions one would connect with dystopia quickly. Some of the bleeps and bloops even are reminding of Klaus Schulze to me on his Cyborg album. This anime was also stacked with incredible storyboarders and a great art director. The compositions and the shadow play in this show are absolutely incredible and are able to represent a great deal of visual clarity and immsersion. Quite the beautifull anim, What does it want to tell us? What is the thing that Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku wants to tell us? It shows the cursed humanity throughout its other world construct. Through this viewing and this barren world basked in the red sun it wants to show us some of the tremors of the terrible things humans are capable of, not only those it use its circumstances and setting to its advantage to portray this story but it also uses its cast of children to do this. The show's main protagonist Shuuzou is a happy-go-lucky fellow who has his heart out towards the world, from the first scenes of his introduction this becomes very clear. The fond way he talks about the things around him and the area he lives in shows how much love and appreciation he has for the world he lives in. These first scenes with him establish him quite perfectly. These scenes would characterize and be the holding bar for his actions to come throughout the series, his emotionality and his ideals already show themselves quite early. This would craft his reasoning to go after Lalah Ru as well. His golden heart and honest self couldn't let something like this go. He couldn't let the living go. And this was something that held itself strong throughout the series. That individual nature in the dreadful world is the driving force to saving Lalah Ru but also the people he meets in this new world. That doesn't mean Shuu is clear from critique in his journeys throughout this wasteland. Nabuca would be the first to critique him for his heroism their ideas and feelings often clash due to their different upbringings and circumstances. His meetings and clashings with Shuu do change Nabuca throughout the show very visibly. You can see this through the interactions he has with Tabool and how they shift throughout the runtime of the show itself. A big turning point in Nabuca's life would be where he lets Shuu escape from the base with Lalah ru as well as when Boo gets shot. and also where he shoots the zari bar invaders, but my favourite moment from Nabuca is when they have to invade a small town for new recruits and he realizes how evil his actions are, especially when he remembers he himself to was kidnapped one day and taken away from the village. I love his big character moments. They're great. (Beautiful moments). These big clashes and moments in Nabuca's life would change him. And the climax to his character is probably one of my favorite moments in the whole series. "Go back from where you came from, this is not where you belong.. " is a line that stuck to me and still makes me stare at a wall with a empty feeling in my heart. Perhaps this moment and line is not just a send off from Nabuca but a reflection of his circumstances and a full realization of the world around him. He realizes the world and sees how somebody as individualistic and different as shuu should not stay here. Nabuca understands the world, himself, Shuu, before he finally passes off in a dream that could last 10 billion years. The lingering shine in his eyes disappears. Perhaps when talking about bitter yet hopeful a character like Sara comes to mind. Sara is quite a tragic character. From the things we get shows about her we come to understand that Sara is a mistreated human girl who is used for the creation of even more children. She is probably one of many mistreated woman on the military base who gets used for such things due to the ending world. Her emotional state is expressed exceptionally well. Not by dialogue dropping and monologging all of the emotions she has onto the viewer but rather through strikingly well portrayed body language and facial expressions. A scene of hers I really enjoy is the base escape. Where she kills the officer trying to have intercourse with her escapes the base. (escape wasn't hard due to the low amount of soldiers this makes sense.) and then when she finally gets outside she pulls off the army clothes cuts her long hair off and cries and runs. This scene was also one of my favourites.I'v always had a thing with the hair cutting symbolism and how it here symbolizes leaving her old past behind and bringing an end to that Sara. As the old part of herself dies off she may freely live as a newborn. The haircutting action has a lot of weight and even more so in the moment she finds out she is pregnant from one of the men who used her. and breaks out in tears and it makes her want to murder the child. This makes sense given that this is still a part of her old life. A life she had tried to cut away from and tried to disconnect from. Rather then just killing the child now "soiled" by its existance she would rather kill herself this action is intercepted by shuu who's words stop her from comitting the action. The dialogue she has with Sis is also incredible. "I ask you not to hold it against the baby. No child comes into this world wanting to be rejected by its mother." I thought the escalations of the Zari-Bars was also very well handled. The way the pressure built up in the citizens and were out to use somebody to lash their anger at would be Sis. The leader of this group who would take up the torch to fight against hamdo would do anything to get his will and way and in the same time mirror hamdo. He got more violent and obsessed for his goals and could not see what he was reaping. Through this foolish behavior, everything escalates to the point where Lalah ru has to give herself in and is taken away. "Because of one outsider, the whole village is in danger" the group mistrust tumbles this village all the way down. Lalah Ruh is a very tragic character. Lalah has the powers to control water flow as well as holds a necklace with a huge source of water. Due to the nature this she is often seen as a product for the means of others rather then a human being. I thought this was incredibly saddening yet o so reflective of the state of humans in that world. Rather then care about the girl itself they can only care about the thing they can get out of her. Its very materialistic. Lalah ru due to the way she is treated loses all hope in humanity for a big duration of her life. I assume she sees no hope for humanity to go on. I feel though that her interactions with shuu and sis are slowly but surely restoring her faith in this. Her end and the end of the show are very bittersweet. While Lalah Ru regains hope for humanity and a sense of kinship for shuu she will never be able to finalize or see to the end. As the last of her water is now gone which we learn is also interconnected to her life force. As she returns the water to the earth she never sees the world through realization which is incredibly depressing. Perhaps that is why the line "Can we watch another sunset together someday" hits very hard as such a day will never come again. and sadly enough her efforts won't be resourceful at the end of it all given the state of the sun. A bittersweet end to the series. Sarah accepts her child into her life, Abelia is freed from the shackles of warcrime, Hamdo's death was probably all that was left for him and Shuu returns home. As shuu returns the red unbloated sun looks back at him. and the 3 broken pillars are a bitter sight. With its expressive character designs, beautiful background art, and stunning OST and sound design and immersive storyboarding Now and then here and there is able to pull an incredibly short, compact and hard-hitting journey with very tight writing about the lives in this dystopian world and its commentary about humanity as well as war. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts.
~~~img(https://starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Poster.png)~~~ There are few anime that I’d describe as profoundly “uncomfortable”. I’m not talking about rampant pedophilia or the questionable relationship with the word “consent” in some series. I just ignore those. What I mean are works that, through their themes and stories, really make you understand what it means to live through these events. I’m talking about works like *Serial Experiments Lain* and its exploration of our relationship with technology. Or *Perfect Blue* and how it can feel to lose your own identity. And while this series doesn’t quite reach the same heights as those other two, it certainly makes a respectable try. Created and directed by [Akitarou Daichi](https://anilist.co/staff/100640/Akitarou-Daichi), animated at studio [AIC](https://anilist.co/studio/48/AIC) and with music by [Taku Iwasaki](https://anilist.co/staff/100172/Taku-Iwasaki), I give to you the subject of today’s review, the turn of the millennium dystopian tragedy: *Now and Then, Here and There*. Without further ado, let’s dive in! **Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for Now and Then, Here and There. It also contains major spoilers in some sections, but these will be heavily marked to avoid accidents. Additionally, this series contains depictions of rape and sexual abuse, which I will mention in this review. You have been warned.** ~~~img(https://starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Now-and-Then-Here-and-There-8.6.jpg)~~~ #~~~__Characters__~~~ Normally I start these reviews by talking about the art and animation of a series, it’s visual production. That is, after all, the most obvious and easy to see part of an anime. Even from just a PV you can get an idea of if you will like a series or not. However the fact of the matter is that it is the characters, more than anything else, that are the lynchpin of *Now and Then, Here and There*. To me, *Now and Then* is a story about war, children, and the myriad of effects war has on said children. Both in the immediate present and in the future, long after the war is over. Because of that I want start by first looking at 3 of our main characters: Shu, Nabuca and Sara. Don’t worry, major spoilers will be marked. The core of our story revolves around Shu, who, as we find out in the first episode, was transported to this world from our own. Allowing our modern morals and sensibilities to be compared against, and challenged by, those of this dystopia. Shu is very straight forward as a character. His ideals are naïve and lack any sort of nuance or shades of grey. In that sense, Shu acts a lot like your standard Shounen protagonist. He is someone who sticks blindly to his beliefs regardless of how the world challenges him. Because of this he sticks out like a sore thumb. Only in *Now and Then*, Shu is the one to suffer, and lose, for doing so. It is through Shu’s lens, through his growth and experiences in war, both he and the viewer learn that the world is much more than black and white. Spoilers regarding the progression of Shu’s character and his beliefs. Non-spoiler summary: I was slightly disappointed by the end. ~!Sadly however, and we will talk about this more when I get to the narrative portion, I don’t think *Now and Then* really does much to support him here. As a character, Shu is initially setup to be interesting and engaging. His beliefs are challenged regularly, each time in a new way. Is murder still wrong if its in self defense? What about revenge, hatred, against unprompted and unreasonable acts of aggression wrong? Is it ever right to kill? But by the end of the series, Shu’s beliefs remain the same. They were challenged yes, but his answer is unchanged. Shu is never forced to compromise on his beliefs. I found that, ultimately, *Now and Then* supports Shu and considers him better, stronger, for coming through the other side firmer than he was before. And I believe that to be a missed opportunity.!~ Compare that to Nabuca, a character we meet early on in episode 2. It’s clear from the beginning that Nabuca, like Shu, is a victim of this dystopian world. Like Shu, he was taken from his home and forced to fight here. And like Shu, he has only the best of intentions and doesn’t really like any of this. Nabuca wants nothing more than to protect and take care of the other kids. To get them all back home once this is over. But where Shu is ultimately reinforced in his beliefs, Nabuca was forced to bend to survive. To adapt to this land and to discard some of his humanity to protect those he cares about. It is because of this contrast between these two, and other, characters that I find Nabuca far more engaging and interesting than Shu. If only he got more screen time. This brings me to the last, and my favorite, of the three I wanted to talk about: Sara. Sadly, to talk about Sara in any depth, I need to spoiler this section as I have to mention major plot revelations and even her own stories ending. The short version is that I absolutely love Sara’s story and that, despite some questionable politics we will talk about later, it was one of the most engaging things I’ve watched in a while. Now on with the spoils! ~!Sara’s story is, without a doubt, the most difficult and uncomfortable to watch. Despite the fact that she is one of the few to survive to the end, her struggle with rape, identity, revenge and her refusal to be broken, are fantastic. There is no question in my mind that she is, emotionally, the strongest character in this story. Which is why what *Now and Then* does with the consequences of her rape, IE pregnancy, is so disappointing. *Now and Then* is very much a show about the future that our children will inherit and how they, the children themselves, are our future. So it should come as no surprise that *Now and Then* takes on a very pro-life message regarding Sara and whether or not she is morally allowed to get an abortion. *Now and Then* forces this pro-life messaging on to Sara. It begs her, pleads with her through Shu, to not hold her rape against the child. That the child did nothing to her and that it is only right she carry it to term. And for me that is… There’s a lot of reasons I moved out of Texas, despite still loving the state. It is here that we see the downside to investing so much of your politics into your work. Don’t get me wrong, all media is in some way political, whether the author intends it or not. However there is a difference between presenting an idea, of implying something and asking the viewer to think about it, and shoving a blowhorn in their face. In doing so you greatly increase the risk of alienating viewers who disagree. Which is exactly what *Now and Then* did here.!~ All of this is to say that while I really like the cast of *Now and Then, Here and There*, they each have their own shortcomings. This is by no means restricted to just these three! Hamdo, our villain, is basically the dictionary definition of a megalomaniacal madman, he isn’t terribly complicated. Yet through contrast with characters such as Elamba he starts to become more. The same kind of give and take exists with everyone, Tabool, Sis, Boo, etc. The only real disappointment I have is Abelia, who is so closely tied to Hamdo that she is dragged down and given the space to be fully explored in her own right. *Now and Then* has a rich, if flawed, cast of characters. And it is on the backs of these characters that the show succeeds as well as it does. ~~~img(https://starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Now-and-Then-Here-and-There-6.6.jpg)~~~ #~~~__Narrative/Setting__~~~ This brings me to the narrative, where I think *Now and Then* falls a little flat. It’s not that it’s bad, it would take a lot of work to undermine and ruin the characters I’ve already praised. The problem is more that the overarching narrative is simply… serviceable. There are a few missed opportunities here and there, but nothing egregious. It provides a world and an inciting incident with which it kickstarts all of these characters stories. *Now and Then* thus enables it’s characters to go off and do great things. But I don’t think it does anything to augment them, to make them greater than the sum of their parts. In its journey to tell a character driven morality play, *Now and Then* neglects the setting and events the characters are supposed to be interacting with. What do I mean? Let me give you an example. In the very first episode of the show Shu, our protagonist, is brought to this dystopian world by way of some kind of teleporter. Did we cross dimensions, worlds, time, we have no idea and it isn’t made clear until the end of the show. That’s fine. However a problem arises when we look at this devices place in the narrative after this opening. Because, simply put, it doesn’t have one. The device is never mentioned again, never explained, never relevant beyond Shu’s overarching goal of returning home. You would think that such an impressive piece of technology would be at least marginally important to the plot, right? Maybe Hamdo uses it to get supplies, or stage attacks, or whatever. But no. It’s purpose begins, and ends, as a plot device, nothing more. And I’m sad to say that it isn’t the only plot-relevant McGuffin to be used like this. Of course none of these things are particularly important to the emotional core of *Now and Then*. The children’s story will be just as effective with or without these McGuffins fitting into the narrative. My praise for the children above, already knowing all of this, is proof enough of that. Indeed, these details only matter if you are trying to piece together and follow the larger narrative of the world and the people within it, which isn’t the focus of *Now and Then*. But for people who watch these kinds of Sci-Fi dystopian shows for that world building? For the details and intricately crafted universes? I’m afraid that they will find themselves disappointed and that, if not warned ahead of time, it will ruin their experience. *Now and Then* is a thematic and emotional piece of science fiction. Not a technical, exhaustingly detailed universe piece. ~~~webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/cd3543a7321fd7fd81b39e2c7eb1e386.mp4)~~~ # __~~~Visuals~~~__ Next up I am finally allowed to talk about *Now and Then’s* production. The narrative may be serviceable, and the characters incredible, but none of that really matters if you can’t stand to look at what you’re watching. So the question is: How does the show look? Right off the bat I can say that *Now and Then* is not the most animated of shows, not even from it’s own era. Almost all of the worthwhile cuts you will find occur in either the first or last episode, with most of the stuff between being rather static. However where it lags behind in movement, it more than makes up for it with beautifully picturesque direction. Incredible vistas, well framed set pieces, and memorable stylistic decisions are peppered across *Now and Then’s* season. I’m talking individual strands of hair shining in the moonlight on a backdrop of deep, dark blue. That same blue giving way to the soft reds and oranges of a sunrise, or viewing an entire scene through the empty sockets of a dried and decrepit skull in the desert. When it wants to, *Now and Then* looks great. That’s just rarely when it’s actually moving. I will always find the old cel style of animation appealing. There’s a timeless quality to it that I just don’t think digital animation has. The small mistakes or inconsistencies you can find between cels, the ethereal feel that comes from layering them on top of each other, the lack of ridiculous amounts of post processing, even the old philosophies regarding color design. All of these give cel animation a certain "je ne sais quoi" that I will never tire of. But when I recommend *Now and Then, Here and There* to you I want to be clear about one thing: Do not watch this show for the visuals. They are fine, it has some great vistas and iconic shots, but it is not a hype set-piece battle sakuga show. It is about quiet moments, staggering loss and reflection with a few bits of action placed to keep our attention. ~~~img(https://starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Now-and-Then-Here-and-There-6.3.jpg)~~~ #~~~__OST/Sound Design__~~~ Finally I come to the music and sound design, the last “real” section of this review. What does that mean? Read on and find out. Considering the staff on *Now and Then*, I was expecting the music to be a lot more affecting and memorable than it is. Composed by [Taku Iwasaki](Finally I come to the music and sound design, the last “real” section of this review. What does that mean? Read on and find out. Considering the staff on Now and Then, I was expecting the music to be a lot more affecting and memorable than it is. Composed by Taku Iwasaki, the man behind the music of *[Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal](https://anilist.co/anime/44/Samurai-X-Trust-and-Betrayal/)* as well as *[Gurren Lagann](https://anilist.co/anime/2001/Gurren-Lagann/)* and *[Soul Eater](https://anilist.co/anime/3588/Soul-Eater/)*, I was hoping for something emotional and resonant. Something to compete with [“In Memories (Ko-To-Wa-Ri)“](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVCudROQGwE). But I just didn’t get that here. I can find hints of it, I can clearly discern his sound in the strings and flutes of [“Miss…”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=204Iajp9dMo&list=PLEa2MuwHe13i8L_lG_cyPFgrw2Pi77xjh&index=14) or the slowly building escalation of [“Rescuer“](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qz_8Kv0IGU&list=PLEa2MuwHe13i8L_lG_cyPFgrw2Pi77xjh&index=7). And it’s not like *Now and Then* doesn’t have impressive pieces of it’s own like the heroic and adventurous [“Run Up”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RfF-iO0Qi4) or the sheer 20 minute epic that is [“Standing in the Sunset Glow”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3vaGByEfBM) that tells the entire story in one song. It’s just that… None of them evoke scenes or memories to me. What does that mean, why would memories be important for music? Well for me, the point of an OST is to augment what it is playing over. An OST isn’t meant to stand alone like a new album, it irrevocably ties itself to the story and characters of the show. That’s why I can’t help but think of Kenshin’s walk through the snow covered mountains when I hear “In Memories (Ko-To-Wa-Ri)”. Or why [“Libera Me From Hell”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT6LFOIofRE) from *Gurren Lagann* makes me think of Kittan. I haven’t watch either of these series in years. Yet these scenes, these emotions, feel clear as the day I watched them just by listening to their music. And that’s nothing something I get from *Now and Then*. Instead what I get is a reasonable OST that’s half industrial chase music and half somber atmosphere. And while that’s fine… It’s also disappointing. Luckily the sound design on *Now and Then* is much better. Though with [Kazuya Tanaka](https://anilist.co/staff/101080/Kazuya-Tanaka) on as the Sound Director that shouldn’t come as much surprise. This guy was responsible for the entirety of the *Mushi-shi* series, which lived and died by it’s sound design. The same holds true here. Tanaka does a great job of realizing the mechanical and desolate nature of this world, changing the sounds as we change location and really immersing you in what’s happening. From rushing water to the stillness as a gun fires, he knows exactly how to use quiet where many others would fill every waking moment with anything to keep your attention. To be honest, I think he does more for some of these scenes than the music does. And that’s pretty damn incredible if you ask me. So yeah, all in all the music is just alright while everything else sounds great. So… what is there left to talk about? ~~~img(https://starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Now-and-Then-Here-and-There-5.1.jpg)~~~ #~~~__Politics? In MY Anime?__~~~ With that we come to the personal section of the review. This is where I drop any pretense of trying to rate a show, whether or not I should recommend it to you, or all those other things reviews are supposed to do. Here I’m just going to talk about a small part of my experience with *Now and Then* in the hopes that it will help you understand my experience with the show. If that doesn’t interest you? Then feel free to skip! I won’t mention staff or anything here, and there will 100% be huge spoilers within. If you are curious about my unfiltered feelings about the show though? Then read on. ~!So… Politics. Touchy subject right? A lot of people like to avoid it. Going so far as to get upset anytime they perceive politics as intruding upon their entertainment. You see it every time someone complains about “woke” culture in media, or vice versa. But the simple fact is this: The politics were always there, whether you realized it or not. An author will, inevitably, put some of themselves and their beliefs in the stories they write. Whether it be Tolkien’s criticism of technology and industrialism in *Lord of the Rings* or the rampant racism in H.P. Lovecraft’s entire bibliography. The only question is how overt and obvious the author makes it. Some do it accidentally, not meaning to be political but their opinions naturally appear in their work. Others however write with the express purpose of communicating with, or perhaps convincing, their audience. And this second one has… drawbacks. That drawback of course being that, with your politics so overtly presented, if your audience disagrees with or finds them distasteful, then you have already alienated a large portion of them right off the bat. Now ultimately I think that’s fine, not all media has to be for everyone. No amount of essays or long walks on the beach will make me like *Penguindrum* for instance. Nor am I here to tell you that you have to like *Now and Then*. It’s certainly going to be divisive. But what I can say is that these overt politics make it very awkward to recommend to people. Because unless I know how you feel about certain topics, I cannot say with certainty that you will enjoy *Now and Then*. Even if I know your taste in anime at large. Lets take myself as an example: For me, *Now and Then, Here and There* rides a line. I was profoundly uncomfortable multiple times while watching this show. Some of those were because of its straightforward and rightfully horrifying depictions of rape and child soldiers. And that’s good, those should be uncomfortable subjects when depicted with respect and it made me think about them! But many others were because I simply disagree with it’s politics and message. I am of course talking about Sara Ringwalt. My previously named favorite character in the show. About 2/3rds of the way through we, and Sara/Shu, learn that Sara is pregnant with the child of her rapists. Touchy subject! However what makes it so uncomfortable is that *Now and Then* takes the position that Sara should not hold the acts of her abusers against the child. The child… of her abusers. Basically, *Now and Then* takes a staunchly Pro-Life position that abortion is bad even under the worst of circumstances and that the child deserves to live, even in a dystopia. And while I can respect how this fits in with the rest of *Now and Then’s* themes, as someone who is staunchly Pro-Choice this really put me off.!~ I want to be clear, I’m not telling you how to think. I especially don’t want to have that argument with random people on the internet when talking about a damn anime review. All I want is to make it clear to you, the reader, that *Now and Then, Here and There* contains many touchy subjects and it is not afraid to make its opinion on them known. Whether it agrees with you or not, if you are neither prepared to, nor enjoy, engaging with media in that way, then this is not a series for you. Personally? As much as I enjoyed the story, I probably won’t watch it again. Not because it’s dense like *Serial Experiments Lain*, another show I enjoyed but won’t rewatch, but because I find it’s 2nd half uncomfortable and without enough payoff to make that worth it for me. ~~~img(https://starcrossedanime.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Now-and-Then-Here-and-There-13.3.jpg)~~~ #~~~__Conclusion__~~~ So yeah, all in all, would I recommend *Now and Then, Here and There* to you. I would say… tentatively yes. If you enjoy character driven sci-fi dystopia’s or politically charged think pieces and don’t mind being confronted, strongly, by other people’s politics then I think there is a lot to get out of it. However if you just want a fun sci-fi dystopia to romp around in and be entertained by for 13 episodes? Then I cannot steer you away any harder. You will not have a good experience with this show. Personally though? I’m down for an occasional work like this. Something to break up all my fun Shounen, hype Sports and more serious Iyashikei. I had a good experience with *Now and Then, Here and There*. Even if it wasn’t necessarily a pleasant one.
~~~___Warm colors and a cold hand, Misty morals in a desert land, Dreams escape until the ends of time, Till the child of the past's uphill climb___ ___I am reminded of the somber signs of sunsets, The brief hope of an ending day, Through the ranges of the years, And how its hues are mixed with red___~~~ img(https://i.imgur.com/8cZHiDg.png) #~~~__SPOILER REVIEW!!!__~~~
Hey guys, welcome to my first ever non-controversial review!! Yeah it’s crazy I know. This show was so good I don't really gaf if i bring anything new to the table or not with this one, I’ll just present to you guys my perspective and my thoughts and probably some of them will be unique or interesting. This one is going to be really in depth, so __obviously spoilers will be included.__ Even if you don’t care about spoilers before getting into a show, I highly recommend you still avoid them because there are some scenes on this motherfucker I was definitely glad I experienced without knowing beforehand what's going to happen. (For example, the entirety of Episode 6) Lastly, I wrote this thing in the span of a few days. There might be a tonal change in the way I write between the paragraphs not just because I cover some serious ass topics and character moments in this review. Sorry about that. __With that being said, let’s get into this thing.__ Akitarou Daichi is a director… I don’t give a shit about! And you can’t blame me, other than this anime the only notable thing this dude directed was the first Fruits Basket anime. And it seems that nothing in the sense of artistic direction can even compare to any of his other works. It feels like when he worked on this project, he was aware of his influences and knew he didn't want to make such an anime ever again. (Or he wasn’t given the artistic freedom to do so) The influences I’m talking about are pretty obvious if you have watched the show… _Neon Genesis Evangelion_… Is probably the work that inspired Daichi’s visuals on this one the most. The lighting, shot compositions and the way the shots are colored have a lot of Evangelion’s spirit I feel. ~~~ img600(https://i.imgur.com/1xEX9qv.png)~~~ And I’m not saying that in a bad way, not at all! The show looks fucking amazing and it does its own thing here. I could even say Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku’s worldbuilding is better thanks to all of these things i mentioned earlier. Also, Evangelion probably has more influence on the writing as well than meets the eye, but I’ll get to all of these later. I’ll start by saying that it’s really weird to me that they chose to present to us this quote at every start of an episode, while it’s pretty loosely connected to the philosophy of the anime, and the quote doesn’t really gain any new context after understanding what it’s trying to say after the second or third time their showing it to us. It’s a well written quote though. Note: After looking it up I saw someone bringing up that the quote just implies the world that Shu transported to is not a completely different world, but the far, far future. That could make sense, I guess, but the show doesn’t really explore how human nature is causing war, and how no matter how much time passes there will be people who thirst for power, try to expand and try to engage in violent conflicts, or something of the sort. It’s just not a theme / perspective the show is trying to explore, so it’s kinda weird putting that quote there at the start of every episode. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/aBAn0aV.png)~~~ The show starts with Shu’s morning routine, and him getting to school and playing Kendo really badly. It seems like nothing special until i asked myself towards the end of the show: “Wait, why the fuck is this an isekai? The relevancy of Shu’s past life is completely nonexistent”. He or the story never brings up his life on earth or anything related to that. He just as well could be born in Hellywood and raised there but being a rebel, or being born in a random village, or something similar. The fact that they chose to start the story like this and make it an isekai is still not a major thing in the show, but an understandable choice by the writers. Shu being bad at kendo and doing the same move with no concern to timing, strategy, and his opponent entirely is an allegory to Shu’s severe lack of understanding conflict / war (in this case a kendo battle) between two parties. You can say it’s a stretch, but it seems pretty intuitive to me, it has literally no other explanation. While modern day isekai mostly also has no connection between MC’s and their past lives, I figured it’s just Isekai writers got lazy as time went on, and watching modern day isekai pretty much fits that narrative. But I feel like in older Isekai, for example _Vision of Escaflowne_, there is a good reason for the story to start on earth, and transport the MC to another world, and the MC being from earth still has relevance / impact on how they act. One thing I really enjoyed in the first episode is how funny it was. Shu is a funny kid. The jokes were Versatile and fresh, I found myself laughing out loud a few times in that episode. A good way to make a viewer connect with a main character is through comedy, so that worked really well for me in this show. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/fckNdeG.png)~~~ Now it’s a good time to address how good the shot compositions are, and how the entire anime is good looking in general, right off the bat and until the very last second. Whenever they want to capture a sense of hostility, grand scale, depression, etc. they just fucking nail it, every time. And the use of lighting in different colors makes for a unique atmosphere and memorable scenes. Oh, and the animation also has its moments. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/eCY1g0i.png) ~~~ ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/8Kz5NRW.png)~~~ ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/FZTEWkh.png)~~~ ~~~webm(https://i.imgur.com/B8IvCd4.mp4)~~~ The next thing I wanna address is a big thing for the show that made me connect to it so much. This is probably one of the most melodramatic, emotional and insane anime I have ever watched. There are so many character moments that made me gasp, tear up, and made my jaw drop to the fucking floor. If you watched the show you know who I am gonna bring up. King Hamdo, who is the main villain, is basically hitler. He wants to rule the world and destroy everyone in his path who doesn’t accept his ideas and consider him a god. What I like about him so much is how cartoonishly insane he acts. First thing first a huge fucking shoutout to his voice actor, his weird screeches and moans are just fucking amazing, honestly it was such a pleasure to see Hamdo on the screen everytime mostly thanks to his voice actor, couldn’t imagine experiencing this story in a manga format. Now the trope of a deranged and loud villain is not a new or a fresh one. I usually don’t really appreciate when stories have villains like these. But in Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku, The depressing and alien atmosphere, the constant feeling of despair and hopelessness, makes Hamdo’s behavior incredibly disturbing and believable. They don’t give us any background to Hamdo because he embodies all the horrible traits a leader like him should have. It's irrelevant what his upbringing was like, why he is so mentally ill, what are his opinions & thoughts except his incredibly twisted ideology… It doesn’t matter, any additional information would get us close even a little bit to his character. He should be this degenerate beast who only craves destruction. And it’s so good. Talking about destruction, Hamdo’s mass murders in episodes 3, 6 and 12 are genuinely terrifying, and not just these episodes, every episode almost there is something terrible happening and you can tie all of these cases to Hamdo. The anime is not showing you these things in a way that is exaggerated or non-realistic, it also doesn’t show it for shock value either. It realistically portrays what war does to people. No bullshit, no cheap shit. The combination of this realistic portrayal and Hamdo’s deranged character makes the viewer itself feel hopeless for how it’s gonna turn out for the main characters. I myself didn’t believe until the very end this story would end on a hopeful / positive note. ~~~webm(https://i.imgur.com/MDdwCmN.mp4)~~~ The next character I wanna talk about that made a huge impression on me is Sara Ringwalt. It’s natural for me to bring her up after Hamdo’s segment because her voice actress also put on an amazing performance. When it got intense in episode 6 and 10 I couldn't hold back the tears and her character completely pierced through my heart. She is probably my favorite character in the series. The trauma she went through, and her role as a character in this story as a whole, is not for nothing. This show explores through Sara a kind of trauma that doesn’t firstly come to mind when thinking about war. Sure, it’s still one of the main ones, but in the same fashion it displays all of the tragedies and horrible events in this show, it shows Sara’s whole process of getting traumatized, how she copes with it, her getting pushed to the absolute limit because of the beggage the trauma had on her, and then in the end getting to a point where she sees a light in the end of the tunnel and even takes responsibility of multiple children. ~~~webm(https://i.imgur.com/3VFvmO2.mp4)~~~ ~~~ img600(https://i.imgur.com/MEJWluH.png)~~~ Now, a bit about the sound. One stretch I noticed the usage of music and sound design to be really intriguing is in the end of episode 5 and the beginning of episode 6. In episode 5 I really enjoyed the silence in the food court scene. Shu was forced to join the Hellywood army, he still doesn’t really understand what's going on and how did he get to the corps after they tried to kill him. He had a short conversation with Nabuca about how Shu fights and about Lala Ru, then after that all of the Hellywood soldiers prayed to Hamdo and then silently ate their meal. Shu’s alienation and shock from observing the situation and how everybody acts there was conveyed and amplified with silence. I found that scene pretty funny and actually really immersive. Now to a scene that wasn’t even a bit funny. The first shot of episode 6 is of Sara getting forced to get into a veteran soldier's room by two other Hellywood soldiers. The ambience is heavy and cold and horrifying… you are already in the mood for what’s going to happen next. What follows is probably the most emotionally intense anime episode I've ever seen. Even more than Penguindrum’s last episode probably. Those are just two little examples, the quality of the sound and its usage remains throughout the whole thing. The soundtrack is also really great and its placement within the episodes really enhances the experience and all. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/LlDIrHd.png)~~~ Next I wanna talk about Lala Ru shortly. Her facial expressions impressed me immensely, even before it was revealed, I could see in her eyes thousands of years worth of sorrow and pain. In other anime you have the trope of the character that never smiles, or shows any emotions most of the time because the character has a certain trauma or something of the sort. Lala Ru’s facial expressions are far from being conventional or bland. It's hard to put into words how heartbreaking her reactions are sometimes. ~~~ img600(https://i.imgur.com/KVIOKSo.png)~~~ ~~~(Not the best example in this pic, too lazy to look for a better one)~~~ I can’t write a review on this anime, or any anime at all without talking even a little bit about the main character, Shu. His role in the story is not the most complex one, but his role definitely ties with the bigger messages of the show. Shu is probably the most stubborn, optimistic and idiotic kid you’ll ever see, his intentions are always good, and his judgment is for him, absolute. His personality is hard as a rock, and the show ended on a positive note basically just because nothing that Shu saw until that point in his adventure could stop him, he powered through even in the bleakest of situations. The ending is not the most well paced, believable thing ever, but i’ll talk about that in a bit. That alone is something that no regular person, let alone kid could ever mentally be capable of. But that’s where the charm is. Such a pleasure seeing his decision making and dialogue in so many different situations the plot is putting him through. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/udXcvCy.png)~~~ One of the most unique things about this anime is how slow the story is paced and how it still maintains high emotional intensity throughout every single episode. In the first five episodes or so, there’s not a lot of plot points, but every single scene still hits so hard, it’s really impressive. I told myself I'd stop talking about the characters after mentioning Shu but almost everyone feels so important to the story I can't help myself… Nabuca’s ideology matches the tone of the anime in the most of it, not coincidentally. He was taken from his village, telling himself that once the war is over he will be able go back. But in his actions you see the baggage that being a Hellywood soldier takes on him, it always feels like he’s on his edge. He kills people, recruits children from other villages... The trauma is brilliantly conveyed in the show. He’s like the complete opposite of Shu, he basically gave up on paving his own way to freedom. Whereas Shu will try his best no matter what. That is, before the very ending. Nabuca's gave Shu his stick and told him he should get back to where he belongs (In a good way lol), while Shu was feeling hopeless after watching Sis die, in this moment the roles reversed. It was really cute to see Nabuca helping Shu for first and last time. ~~~ img600(https://i.imgur.com/iq6Rq73.png)~~~ In the second half of the series, Shu and Lala Ru escaped Hellywood and arrived at the Zari Bars village. There, they stayed with a single mother with alotta children called Sis. I thought that switch up in the environment is something that the show really needed. The village life has a relaxing and utopian atmosphere, it showed how beautiful life can be, after being shown only war and atrocities up to this point. But the main characters always know that this can’t be forever… As the story develops, cracks start to appear in the escape they found, and the Zari Bars village almost got entirely destroyed. Soon is a character much like Boo in the sense that they represent this fragile innocence you want to protect, but in the end both accidentally kill each other in a crossfire. It was truly a heartbreaking scene because Boo never intended to hurt anyone, and just wanted to protect his only friend. And Soon wanted to protect the group of kids she grew up with. These kids can't even comprehend the war. The unjust feeling the characters and viewers got in that scene, seeing Soon and Boo on the floor soaking with blood, is heart wrenching. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/3t2ZNG1.png)~~~ The ending of the show… Is a little bit rough, it should have another episode to breathe. Lala Ru apparently could flood the entire world using her pendant anytime she wanted. Aside from how biblical that shit is, my personal theory is the reason she hasn’t used it up to that point is because she didn't have a good reason to before. But she actually experienced human connection after Shu considered her a friend and Sis considering her one of her children. So she actually cared about saving Shu and everyone because Shu gave her hope and proved to her that there could be genuinely good willed people in this world. Before she disappears Lala Ru and Shu look at the sunset together, and Shu says that in their world there could be some beautiful sunsets too. LOVED that line, in the beginning of the show he said to Lala Ru he never stopped to appreciate the sunset (When they were on earth). Now after experiencing hell and finally having hope for the future, Shu appreciates a sunset for the first time, and even calls it beautiful… Now, I don't think that "Once experiencing true lows the true highs can be appreciated ", or something similar is a theme / message the show was trying to convey before, but that scene definitely added some spice it really needed. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/Occ7mCg.png)~~~ __ ~~~Overall~~~__ Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku is a beautiful and heart wrenching portrayal of war, it’s the most slow paced yet emotionally intense work of art i’ve ever experienced. That, paired with one of the most well-written cast of characters in anime, and immersive atmosphere that compliments the incredibly gorgeous visuals. For me, it was an unforgettable journey that won my heart and impressed me every single episode. I give Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku, a 9.5/10.
_This review contains some spoilers_ "Because ten billion years time is so fragile and so ephemeral it arouses a bittersweet, almost heartbreaking fondness." Being supposedly inspired by the 1994 Rwandan genocide, it's easy to guess what the overall tone and the themes of Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku are. This clear anti-war series depicts the absolutely cruel and bleak reality of armed conflicts, children soldiers and constant abuse to a great effect to support its message - without using violence as pure shock value by having most of it happening offscreen. Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku does almost everything right, but the way a certain character's development is handled gives it a stain that is, depending on your political views, very hard to ignore. I wish I could review this anime without giving it a score, because I really don't know how to rate it. The story follows a young boy named Shu who, after encountering a strange girl perched upon a smokestack, is catapulted into a seemingly alien world. Having all the characteristics of an isekai anime, it would be easy to imagine what ensues. However, it's important to keep in mind that Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku precedes the isekai wave by some 10 years. Unfortunately, instead of acquiring slave girls, hot milfs and 5000 years old dragons to add to his harem, Shu sets foot on a battlefield where survival is a daily struggle. The boy quickly realizes that he does not belong there. Through his somewhat scarce interactions with other characters, mostly children trained and used as disposable soldiers by Hellywood, he's confronted to the complete absurdity of war. To his optimistic, undyingly positive, naive and justice-driven mind, the actions of the people he meets are alien, he cannot even start to comprehend them. He knows war is wrong but, being an innocent young boy, he's unable to understand exactly why. After being captured and turned into a soldier by the Hellywood military, he still doesn't abandon his ideals and refuses to fight. Being driven by instinct, he can't accept the actions of his fellow soldiers, mindlessly following the orders of their megalomaniac king with the promise of peace being the carrot and stick that allows them to cope with the atrocities they're commiting. Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku chooses to present its narrative through concept-driven characters, from Shu representing naivety and unwavering optimism, to Lala Ru, the strange girl he encounters on the smokestack, symbolizing Earth and its precious resources, to Hellywood's king, Hamdo, an obvious caricature of a national superpower's greed and need of control on a holy crusade for "world peace". While this helps conceptualize the themes of the narrative, it also might be a barrier for some viewers as these characters, mostly Shu, are pretty static throughout the anime. Trying to understand their actions and relate to them can be a tough task, but apprehending them as ideas or concepts rather than actual human beings is the key to understanding the anime. The series does a good job at portraying the nefarious effects of war, the perpetual cycle of violence it produces, and the indiscriminate carnage and terror it generates. Children from bordering regions are kidnapped and turned into soldiers, women are raped to create more soldiers, Earth - here Lala Ru - is violated, its resources used to fuel more slaughter, until nobody is left. Kids all cope in their own way with the barbarity of war, some embrace the horror, some bear with it without ever accepting it, a few go against it. Violence gives rise to more violence, Hamdo aims to control the world but through the senseless war he's waging he's destined to rule over a graveyard. Lala Ru summarizes it in her own words: "If you put enough people together, they'll always fight". Indeed time is a flat circle, even there, during humanity's epilogue, all people know how to do is kill each other. I wish I had nothing other than praise for this anime, because I truly wanted to love it. However, the way one character, Sara, is handled, feels absolutely vile to me. Sara is a young American girl who, like Shu, finds herself in the middle of the conflict after being kidnapped by Hellywood's soldiers who mistook her for Lala Ru. She is then enslaved, her agency completely stripped from her, repeatedly raped until she finally manages to kill her agressor and escape from Hellywood. She later learns that she is pregnant with one of her rapists' baby. Despite wanting to get rid of the baby, her interactions with Shu and the dying wish of the woman who took her in after her escape from Hellywood, basically telling her that the baby did nothing wrong, convince her to keep the baby. I have no words to describe how much I hate this. Why would you force a teenager rape victim to keep an unwanted baby? Why does she need to accept this baby as part of herself as if she was coming to terms with her past? The war had nothing to do with her to begin with. The only way I could defend this is by seeing the unborn child as a general representation of the children affected by war: she decides to take care of him, to raise him with love instead of continuing the cycle of violence and hatred. But even if that was the case, I'm sure there would have been other ways to treat this issue, other than making an underage girl live her entire life with a constant reminder of the abuse she was subjected to. Putting that issue aside, Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku is a great representation of the stupidity of war, but it also highlights how one simple act of kindness can change the course of history. Just how violence is a cycle, so too is love. What does it take to break the cycle?The bittersweet ending of the show also underlines the absurdity of life. What's life in the face of ten billion years, and what's ten billion years in the face of eternity? But despite how ephemeral life is, maybe it's still worth living and fighting for, maybe love is the answer.
Shuzo Matsutani, or “Shu” for short, is a bright eyed, optimistic young boy with a heroic and earnest attitude, and the self-awareness of a pet rock. He has a passion for Kendo, but rather than actually putting in the effort to practice and improve his skills, he just enjoys the sensation of swinging a big stick around and putting on a show. One day, on his way home from school, he spots a lonely girl with bluish silver hair sitting alone atop a giant smoke-stack, so like a rational person he climbs up after her to chat her up. As it turns out, that girl, named Lala-Ru, is a fugitive from a dystopian isekai wasteland, and when her captors come to collect her, they also wind up taking Shu with them, despite their best efforts not to. Now, trapped in a parallel world with no apparent hope of returning home, Shu must brave a world of war, military conquest, slavery, rape and child soldiers to protect himself, and as many other people as his gigantic heart possibly can. Now and Then, Here and There actually has a pretty impressive pedigree behind it. It was produced by the main branch of AIC, which has proven itself multiple times to be perfectly capable of delivering premium results with less than stellar resources. For example, Battle Athletes Victory may not have always looked... Well, passable, let’s be honest, but AIC knew when to pour money into a sequence and when to hold back, and they went all in wherever it really counted, such as running animation, and a lot of that aptitude shows just as strongly here. There are small moments where the animation might look a little stiff or stilted, but more often than not, onscreen movement is fluid and graceful, especially during any kind of action scene, or just really intense scenes in general. There’s also a ton of extra attention to detail put into the smallest of movements, the kind of details that make perfect sense when you see them, but you totally wouldn’t miss them if they were omitted. What pushes this anime over the heads of other AIC shows, and yes, that even includes Battle Athletes Victory, is the strength of the director, Akitaro Daichi. To be clear, Daichi hasn’t been attached to a ton of well known anime, but in addition to the storyboarding work that most directors and production companies dabble in, he’s also dipped his fingers in cinematography, writing, and even a little bit of voice acting. During all of this, he has picked up directing work on countless smaller and lesser known projects... A few series that never made it overseas, some forgotten OVAs, that sort of thing. Not the most impressive resume in terms of popularity, but more than enough to suggest that he had ample opportunities to cut his teeth and home his craft before working on anything thatr was going to be remembered by the masses. The one exception to this, which is shocking at first but may make more sense when you think about it, is that he was the director of the original nineties version of Fruits Basket. The reason this is surprising is because in regard to tone, these two shows are on completely different ends of the spectrum, and it’s hard to imagine the same hand guiding the two. Then again, Spielberg directed both Schindler’s List and Tiny Toon Adventures, so I guess it’s not that shocking. The reason why it gets less surprising the more you think about it is because despite Fruits Basket having a bright and family-friendly exterior, it also featured a wealth of emotional maturity, and it’s far more memorable for its slower and more quiet moments than for jangling keys in your face. Well, as it turns out, this combination of studio and director was a match made in heaven, because their efforts... Combined and separately... Are borderline perfect. Aside from directing, Daichi was also the series creator, which means he basically came up with everything about it from scratch, and AIC were clearly more than happy to supply him with the resources to bring his vision to life. Rather than just being a thoroughly well animated series, just about every aspect of this anime’s production works in perfect synergy to establish a consistent tone. The lighting is on point, from the comfortable encroaching darkness of the evening in Japan, to the dark and claustrophobic interior of Hellywood, to the bright and clear skies of the open desert and the oasis settlements of beyond. The cinematography seems to strike somewhere inbetween the influences of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, especially when we’re seeing the interior of Hellywood. The designs are also extremely clever... For one example, the mad King Hando’s living quarters feel almost like a prison cell, sparsely furnished in a way that’s just lavish enough to put a thin veneer of comfort on top of what is otherwise an isolated glass dome, the perfect metaphor for his dangerous mental state. For another, the character designs are deliberately childlike and cartoony, calling back to a more classic anime aesthetic, giving the series a consistent aura of corrupted innocence. My only real complaint is the aspect ratio, because it doesn't do any favors to scenes taking place out in the desert, but it still works just fine within Hellywood itself. The music is really strong and striking, but oddly enough, I was more impressed by what this show was able to do with silence, moments where the unsettling atmosphere is truly able to sink in, with scenes like these often putting you into the headspace of a character while all we’re really doing is watching them think. The English dub was a Central Park Media effort, and yet despite that group’s laughable reputation, the dub is actually really strong. Some of the child character’s actors sound a bit too old, like Ted Lewis and Kayzie Rogers as Shu and Sara, but they still pull off phenomenal acting jobs, especially with the human emotional roller coaster known as Sara. Lisa Ortiz is enough of a legend that I shouldn’t have to tell you how good she is as Lala-Ru, all you need to know is that she does not seem at all like the right vocal register for that character, and yet she still fits her like a glove. Dan Olk is skin-crawlingly terrifying as the Mad King Hando, he was clearly having a blast in the recording booth, and God bless him for it. Pokemon’s own Rachel Lillis plays two characters who sound completely different, yet are intertwined by fate in a fairly unexpected way. The only real sour note is Crispin Freeman as Tabool, one of the meaner child soldiers, and while it’s never easy to criticize an actor as talented and well known as Freeman, he was badly miscast in this role. He sounds all right once in a while, but most of the time he delivers his lines in a register that’s less believable than Donald Trump’s wig. I guess it’s worth mentioning that a lot of the voices are similar enough to their actors’ more popular roles to be distracting... Especially with Tracey Sketchit and Lina Inverse as the main protagonists... But it’s still a stellar dub for the most part. So right off the bat, Now and Then, Here and There is already in pretty good company, as it fits pretty cleanly into a category that I like to call “Legacy Isekai.” This is a term I came up with to describe relatively older anime that show all the classic signs of being isekai, but came out a good amount of time before the isekai explosion of the 2010’s was able to kick off. They feature protagonists who have been transported to another world that exists outside of the reality they came from, but they also feature a lot of unique quirks and qualities that don’t quite fit into the modern isekai mold as we know it. A lot of the more tiresome tropes and repetitive cliches don’t really figure into them, which allowed them to take what I’ve always considered to be a super fun story concept that allows for boundless creative freedom, and actually turn in a final product that ironically feels a lot more fresh and unique than more modern fare. This lack of confinement to modern trends also elevates what is probably the show’s strongest aspect, which is, again, the overall tone. Now and Then, Here and There has a reputation for being a deadly serious anime, with a heavy tone and dark atmosphere. If it had come out in today’s market, I wouldn’t hesitate to call it a dark subversion of the Isekai genre, but again, I do not believe that kind of influence really figured into its conception. Being the kind of anime that you almost have to watch with the lights on and a furry friend in your lap for emotional support, it’s popularly considered to be the kind of tragic masterpiece that has the power to traumatize its audience as it explores the darkness of the human condition and the horrors of war. I will admit that this is the kind of anime that every anime fan should see at least once, provided of course that you’re not instantly turned off by the multitude of trigger warnings that come attached to it... But having said all that, it might surprise you to hear that I fucking hate this show and everything it stands for. Before I start to go off on why, I should clarify that yes, I do still recommend watching this series. When I was in highschool, one of my favorite classes was Cinematic Literacy, where we would both watch and discuss classic, historically important, and critically acclaimed movies. If I were to teach an anime equivalent of that class, I would definitely have Now and Then, Here and There on the curriculum, despite my personal hang-ups, because it is a highly provocative and divisive piece of media, which of course means that it’s prime pickings for thoughtful discussion and discourse. I actually find most of the things I don’t like about it to be far more intriguing than some of the stuff I like about a lot of other titles, and in spite of the above average production values and admirably consistent tone, for me, the biggest problems with this series boil down to its writing, and while I promise I’m going to give out some specific examples a little later, my main issues generally revolve around this show maybe being too dark for it’s own good? And no, I’m not saying that there’s a limit to the amount of darkness I’m willing to take, but the more serious and tragic a story gets, the more deft a hand you need to have in writing it, and the more effort you need to put into justifying it. One cannot simply write a story as bleak and balls to the wall traumatizing as this one without having a good reason for it. The perfect example of this is probably The Hunchback of Notre Dammes... Or, more specifically, the original novel, Le Notre Dammes de Paris. If you’re only familiar with the Disney movie, you may be shocked to find out just how dark and cruel the source material is. To make a long story short, everyone suffers, and if I remember correctly, the only well known characters that survive until the end are Phoebus and the goat. But there was a reason for all of this. Victor Hugo originally wrote his novel with the intention of drawing public interest to the titular cathedral, because it had been severely damaged through the years(mainly due to human idiocy and apathy), which bothered Hugo because he believed strongly in architecture as the language of time, and that before the invention of the novel, it was the edifice that was most ideal for shepherding the ideas of the past into the future. The reason all the human characters in his book(again, except Phoebus) are fated to toil, suffer and die is because they’re not important, neither to time nor the story... The main character is the cathedral itself, which stands impassively over their pitiful ephemeral lives, weathering every storm even as their blood stains its steps. Hugo’s message was that only architecture can possess true immortality, or it would, if you motherfuckers would stop tearing it down already. And you know what? It worked. His book made the cathedral so famous that it was soon restored and renovated, and the movement for preservation of historical landmarks really began to kick off. It is directly because of Hugo’s efforts that the cathedral survived into the 2020’s, where it would finally burn down in front of millions of tearful spectators, which is a far more beautiful fate than it would have suffered otherwise. And to prove my point a little farther, once the book achieved its goal, it started to receive adaptations that were a lot less harsh, and a lot more optimistic, as they moved to a new purpose; IE, justice for the oppressed. And amusingly enough, Hugo was directly involved in a lot of those adaptations, because he was more attached to his magnum opus than Hideaki Anno is to Evangelion. Look, I’m not expecting Now and Then, Here and There to revolutionize the world, but at the very least, I’d expect the kinds of atrocities it has to display to leave me feeling something a little more substantial than just emptiness. There are countless decisions made throughout the story that feel like Daichi’s priorities were entirely on shock value, at the expense of making things make sense. Like, one of the first things we see in Hellywood is King Hando murdering a cat. The intention of this scene is obviously to show us how evil and insane he is, but I think it would have been more effective if we had at least one glimpse into what his relationship with the cat was like BEFORE he killed it. Where did he find a cat in the middle of a desert wasteland? Was it his pet? Did he steal it from someone he enslaved? Was it a pest he couldn’t get rid of until that moment? Call me crazy, but not having these details kind of takes the sting out of it. But ultimately, these do tell us the reason for why this anime is so relentlessly cruel and bleak... Not because it has anything specific to say, but because Daichi’s main priority was to maximize his story’s emotional effect on the audience. That is the textbook definition of emotional manipulation. Yeah, there are individual themes thrown in here and there... The horrors of war, the corruption of the innocent, stuff we’ve seen before. There’s the cost of vengeance, which is a theme I like, because I do believe violence begets more violence, but it’s hard to take seriously from a show whose narrative punishes the vengeful and the merciful in equal measure. These individual themes don’t fit together into a cohesive thesis. It’s dark for the sake of dark. It’s cruelty for the sake of cruelty. It uses characters up and throws them away, and I know some people say the same thing about my favorite anime, Fullmetal Alchemist 2003... Which I will admit is the far more dark and harsh alternative to Brotherhood... But at least that show has a main character who grows and develops as he navigates the cruelty of reality, and who evolves as the world around him strips away every layer of his innocence. You really can’t say that for Shu. I’m a little sick of holding back on this, but Shu is a fucking idiot, and not in a fun or inspirational way like with Luffy. He has plenty of admirable qualities, such as his heroism, his strong convictions, and his willingness to risk harm to himself to help others. He also refreshingly doesn’t have a perverted bone in his body. These qualities would make for an outstanding protagonist, provided that he had the wisdom to know how to apply his beliefs, the skills to put them to effective use, and the empathy to understand why people do the things they do. This show needed a Vash, or hell, even just a Rushuna, and Shu falls far short of either of them. He is so fucking annoying, and while his traumatic experiences do force him to grow up a little, he’s still basically the same self-righteous boyscout at the end that he was in the beginning. Even the show itself seems to hate his guts. True, the world itself does change as a result of his actions, but for various spoiler reasons I won’t specify, it doesn’t feel like much of a net positive, and a lot of the changes feel like they would have happened eventually anyway. Hell, even the name Hellywood sounds like something a juvenile edgelord came up with, and I might even believe as such if it had been named by a native English speaker. Now I could stop here, say I have mixed feelings about this show, and I don’t think many people would challenge me on it. There is, however, one element of this series that takes me from a skeptic to a full on hater, and it’s going to involve some heavy spoilers, so if you’re still planning to go in blind(which you should), you might want to skip the next three paragraphs. There is a character in NatHat named Sara. She was abducted from America because she looks like a blonde Lala-Ru. It’s not clear how old she is... She looks as young as fourteen, but she was abducted while “picking up her father from work,” which could make her as old as sixteen. While Shu is forced to train as a soldier, Sara becomes a sex slave to create more soldiers. She’s raped at least twice, before she murders her third partner and escapes Hellywood in... Well, probably the show’s best individual sequence. When we meet up with her later, we find out she’s pregnant. Her grief and anger overwhelm her, pushing her to attempt suicide, which Shu interferes with, stating that the new life inside of her is a chance for a fresh start. I don’t think Shu realizes this... Hell, I don’t even think Daichi realized this... But telling a suicidal pregnant rape victim to live for the very thing that made them want to die isn’t just stupid, it’s abjectly cruel. Sara does not kill herself, which IS a good thing, even if Shu’s approach to stopping her made me want to cringe into a black hole. She is told by Sis, the village’s resident orphan caregiver, in her dying words, to not take out her anger towards her situation on her baby. Her rapist gets redeemed, after committing at least two atrocities that we know of... Okay, sure... And Sara stays behind when Shu returns home, to live out her new life with her own baby and all of Sis’s orphans. Or, you know, she COULD take them to Earth with her, so she could still be reunited with her family, and the orphans wouldn’t have to grow up in a fucking wasteland, but hey, what’s important is that a forcibly impregnated child made the noble choice to give up on her own life and never see her grieving family again so she could dedicate the rest of her life to motherhood, because this show can go fuck itself with a rusty fork. And you want to know what the worst thing about all of this is? From a purely plot-relevant perspective, Sara is a pointless character. You could remove her from the anime entirely, and all it would do is make the series maybe an episode or two shorter. And yeah, I know, there have been some genuinely good, beloved characters in media that didn’t technically need to be there, but when a character’s entire purpose is to suffer some of the worst indignities a person can possibly suffer only to be rewarded with a starring role in her own life’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, well, that’s just one of many moments where Now and Then, Here and There goes from disturbing content to disturbing intentions. This is not a deep show, it’s an edgelord show, it’s like Elfen Lied without the boobs. The best thing it does, by far, is remind you how fucking lucky we are that Trigun never took the time to establish Vash’s opinion on women’s reproductive freedom, because I don’t think I could live in a world where Trigun was as big a dumpster fire as this show is. Okay, spoilers over... I honestly wasn’t expecting that section to go as long as it did, and I also wasn’t really expecting to have anything to say afterwards, but while I was all wrapped up in talking about Sara, I realized that I actually feel really weird about how all of the suffering in her character arc hits with me. A lot of terrible things happen to her, and they’re all things that I don’t want to see happen to anyone, and I feel bad about them happening on a conceptual level, but because I still don’t know almost anything about her as a person, I don’t actually care about HER. The same sentiment extends to Shu, and a bunch of other characters I don’t feel like mentioning, and even King Hando’s poor ill-fated cat. Even Lala-Ru is basically this show’s Rei Ayanami, and I always found Rei to be kind of boring. I don't know, maybe Nabuca struck me as a real prson to some extent, but other than that, I’m not emotionally invested in any of these characters, they’re all just victims of atrocities. I’m against those atrocities, but I’m certainly not feeling broken or traumatized by them, as so many others claim to be. I don’t have that problem with Notre Dammes... I care about those characters, even if the cathedral and the passage of time don’t. But for NatHat, well, I guess there’s at least one more popular tearjerker anime out there that doesn’t really work for me. Now and Then, Here and There is currently out of print, but it can be streamed on Amazon Prime. Secondhand copies aren't terribly hard to find online, and they're not TOO pricey, either. In spite of my own negative feelings towards it, I still believe Now and Then, Here and There is a series everybody should watch at least once, because there are plenty of fascinating ways to look at it. This show deserves all the credit in the world for being as well produced and thought provoking as it is, as well as for walking a frighteningly thin line where it always manages to take itself exactly as seriously as it needs to without spoiling the overall tone. Still, personal opinions are always going to be an important part of media discourse, and you’re probably reading this review to hear mine, so here goes: I think this anime came about as Daichi’s attempt to recapture the psychological depth and emotional resonance of Fruits Basket except with an original project, and he wound up stumbling as a result of not having a pre-existing manga to lean on, and while he did a lot of things right, he still managed to come up short where it mattered most. I give Now and Then, Here and There a 4/10