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1st Episode Anime Impressions: Inuyashiki Last Hero

by manga.tokyo

1 year ago

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13 October
Run: 11 Episodes
Studio: MAPPA
Simulcast: Anime Strike
Anime Info Page

Summary

Ichiro Inuyashiki is a boring old businessman alienated from both his family and company. One day, he is diagnosed with cancer. This sudden cancer diagnosis puts him on the path to self-destruction. However, he ends up gaining the power to become a super hero thanks to an unexpected accident. Meanwhile, a high-schooler named Hiro Shishigami gets involved in the same accident and decides to wield the power at his disposal.

The true nature of humans. It is good…or is it evil? These two will use the massive power in their hands for different purposes.

Impressions

Thanasis

Stripped down to its bare essentials, all stories are about what it means to be human. Even if we use aliens and cyborgs and animals, all stories are about us, about what it means to be alive, about what it means to be moral, to be good. Some stories do that better than others, and Inuyashiki is one of those that do it so well that there is no doubt that we are talking about a modern anime classic. MAPPA is slowly becoming one of my favorite studios and I have come to relate their name to quality.

Ichiro Inuyashiki is the unlikely hero of the story, a 58-year-old man who looks like 70 after being beaten down by life. His wife is indifferent to him, his kids hate him, and the rest of the youth around him seem to scorn and ignore the aging population. In a society where all our needs are catered by products, we have no need of elders any more. A slave to his work, he dreams of standing up to the rowdy teenagers during his commute, but it’s just a fantasy and nothing more. On top of all that, he finds out that he has terminal cancer (3 months tops) and mourns with the only member of this family that cares, his dog. Gloomy? Of course. Pessimistic and dark? It should be. This is the world we live in and stories must remind us of the darkness, not bathe us in semi-constructed light through self-help and zen guru nonsense.

The alien spaceship crash-land gives Inuyashiki (and one of the jerk teenagers) the power to make his dreams come true. After accidentally killing him, they turn him into a cyborg (probably due to some weird Prime Directive that forbids them to kill sentient beings) but I doubt that we will learn more about that. The aliens have left in a hurry and it is evident that the sci-fi element is only there to reinforce the good vs evil theme (or help vs destroy) scenario.

In the end, Inuyashiki is a story about how we can all be heroes if only we had the guts to stand against injustice. Well, a cyborg body might have helped us a bit.

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