The reality contained in the notation “world” is “Break the egg and change the world.” “Under the same sky, we live in different worlds.” “I love you. I love the world.”
In order, the slogan for the TV anime “Wonder Egg Priority” (2021), the slogan for the live-action movie “That is a nobleman” (2021), the advertisement for “Alicia Clinic” that provides medical hair removal (from 2021), and the smartphone game. “Project Sekai Colorful Stage! Feat.
Hatsune Miku” (2020-) Wording on the official website From smartphone games that are extremely popular, especially among teenagers, to advertisements for medical hair removal. Recently, I feel there are more opportunities to see the notation “world.” In the past, if I had used that notation, I feel like I would have been laughed at for being poetic.
The recent “world” is very light, and it proudly asserts the existence of a reality that that notation can only capture.
There is a word called Sekai-Kei. Look at the web articles displayed at the top of the search. You can see the anime “Neon Genesis Evangelion “(1995) as a model, and it was born in the early 2000s as a term that jokingly expresses that “the problem of the protagonist’s self-consciousness and the catastrophic development of are connected in a short-circuit. You will find a description that Later came to be applied to works (mainly anime, games, and manga) centered on love. It was said that “the small events of do not intervene in intermediate areas such as social and organizations.
It is also said that the word has become established as a word that refers to a story with a structure directly connected to a significant event such as . Perhaps the person in charge of the first few cases used the notation “Sekai” without being aware of this context. However, I feel there is a common ground behind selecting that notation. Sekai-Kei was born in the early 2000s when the Internet began to spread. Although it was said that it would be possible to connect to the world, the data capacity and transmission speed were incomparably poorer than today.
This frustration fostered a unique feeling that “it should be delivered, but it is not.” I remember being a junior high school student then, and the messages exchanged there certainly had a texture that I wanted to call “world.”
The trivial exchanges (small events) reflected on the display at hand coexist with the expectation that they will be delivered “somewhere” over a long distance (big events). Come to think of it, Makoto Shinkai, who is often cited as a representative example of the world system, The short animation “Voices of a Distant Star” (2002) begins with a monologue: “There is a word called the world. Until I was in junior high school, I had a vague idea that the world was a place where cellphone signals could reach.” was.
In today’s world, where social media has become all-encompassing and retorts immediately follow even the slightest ambiguity in wording, it has become very difficult to share the subtle nuances that the word “world” once had. Ing. The arrival of the “global crisis” of the corona crisis may also spur this.
The meanings of ‘reality,’ ‘social,’ and ‘world’ overlap so closely that, in contrast to the term ‘social distancing,’ it has lost its appropriate sense of distance. In the simultaneous appearance of the notation “world,” I feel even a fleeting resistance to regain the reason that was once shared by the notation “world” in the present age.
In this short series of articles, we will consider the state of a new “Sekai-Kei” against the background of this situation. It does not necessarily depend on the old triangle of . I am particular about the unique reality of the notation “world,” and I would like to regard the “Kei (series)” woven by a group of works with that as the “Sekai Kei of the 2020s”.
Beyond the horizon, Shinji Ikari stares at A perfect first step would be Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is said to be the originator of the world system.” the ending of “Shin Evangelion Theatrical Version” was released last year as the final version.
The former reveals in the final episode of the TV series that “the world we have seen so far is nothing more than a line drawn,” and in the movie version, the appearance of the audience is projected on the screen. It encouraged us to return to the “reality” where our bodies are from the world of fictional animation.
On the other hand, in the latter, near the end, the world on the screen seems to be reduced to a monochrome line drawing, just like in the previous work, but after a long wait, the colors return to the screen. After that, as symbolized by the fact that the video of the epilogue part was a mixture of animation and live-action, the axis of “reality vs. fiction” was flattened.
Many people took this as the same message as the original work, “Return to reality.” Still, the important thing is that immediately before that, a space with only that blue sky and the sea, neither reality nor fiction, is drawn.
That is the original landscape of “World” that I would like to remember again when starting this series. In addition, we should not forget the main character, Shinji Ikari, who stares at the horizon without speaking.
The flat world depicted in the epilogue overlaps with the modern landscape, where everyone has an equal account and is a parallel sender. In the current information environment of 2022, the self-conscious worries synonymous with “Shinji-Kun” will probably fall prey to cynicism and tsukkomi first and foremost. No one should be able to hear your tweets about “the world.” Yes, we must begin with silence.
Is it possible to create new words beyond the horizon that Shinji stared at? Inevitably, trying to talk about the 2020s world-Kei is an attempt to explore the whereabouts of “difficult to understand” and “ambiguous” words in this era where only “easy-to-understand” and “flat” language is required. But also. This fair trial is held by borrowing the space of “QJWeb.”