Aria Culture Mashup, Cookie Monster Style
I remember taking some kind of Japanese culture class as an undergrad (unsure why, probably out of obligation of graduation requirements) and the persistent narrative of that course comes in the form of an illustration. Undoubtedly, I know some of you have heard of the onion analogy in respect to the layers of Japanese culture as a foreign perspective. Long story short, Japan has this tendency to mimic and regurgitate foreign cultural elements to suit their internal needs and purposes. Some well-known examples include the Japanese modern tradition of Christmas and Valentine’s Day/White Day.
Aria becomes interesting in this regard because it is a story about a repackaged Venice. A good portion of the episodes are almost like a tourism promotional video in the sense that various “charm points” of Venice are preserved and translated to its Martian counterpart. Somehow, the science fictional excuse (well, Venice is sinking is no fiction I guess) made the translation from the old & real to the new & imaginary totally cool, sort of like Spike and smoking inside a spaceship.
Thankfully, Aria is not truly about Neo Venezia (or the real Venezia), because the space-time transplant seems a little bit hollow to me. Instead, it focuses on the cast of Undines, who are the space-time transplants of guild-certified gondola guides working the water ways of Venice. In Aria and Neo Venezia, Undines are female only, which is a drastic contrast with their 21st century counterparts in Venice, who are almost all male.
That cute irony aside (and of course we would not have Aria in any way without its present and “iyashi” cast of Undines), there are a lot of little things like this in Aria, some less cute than others. Unfortunately, I am no Venetian, and I am probably equally ill-equipped to talk about Japanese culture in light of Venice’s characterization (as a city and people), or what seems comfortable to the average Aria viewer, rather than what a Japanese tourist might read from a travel brochure or see with their own eyes. I do know, however, that Aria is ultimately a prime example of iyashikei anime, and it intends to bring forth that pleasantry as both a selling point but also as a substance of its story.
If we consider Aria’s story as an onion about coming of age, as a story that instills hope for humankind in general and one that paints a reasonably rosy picture about people coming to terms about their future fears and aspirations, of successes and failures, then Neo Venezia is just an outer layer of that onion. It is, in a literal sense, a gateway to a fantasy world. The construction of that setting is both key to unlock what comes after it, and something more.
And as you can guess, I think the whole Venice/Neo Venezia thing is also a disguise. If we keep peeling back the Aria onion, past its characters and stories, I think we might find just what makes Neo Venezia different than Venice. Sort of like what keeps that cigarette on Spike’s lips in an oxygen-poor place to live.
For one, Venice, like much of the notable and historic cities in Europe, is covered in artifacts and churches. It goes without saying that one of the most prosperous cities in historic Europe (ie., it used to be) is like a gold mine for lore, made up or for real. However, we didn’t really get a lot of that from Aria and Neo Venezia. Instead, we got the “feeling” that there’s something new to discover everywhere you look, if you love the place enough and take the time to walk on shadows, or something. For the most part, we were treated about 40% sci-fi stuff (eg., moles) and 60% Venice notables (eg. the Bridge of Sighs).
Really? Is this why people flock to Venice as a tourist spot? Instead of, say, the beautiful wilderness of the Gobi Desert? Or some dimly-lit stretches of Tokyo’s urban crawl? I doubt it. At any rate, it leaves out one of those key things that can undermine its “everything is beautiful” premise, which is that if you live in a historic place like Venice, well, duh, you’re in rowing distance from some world-famous landmarks and architecture. But can you say the same thing about living in the middle of Antarctica, to use an extreme example? Woo you are actually near the physical South Pole! There are penguins! You are snowed in half of the year! Of course, if we are to see Neo Venezia through Akari’s eyes, it wouldn’t be the same as if we were to see Antarctica from the eyes of a penguin, but you can’t deny that there’s just a lot more to see in Venice or Neo Venezia than a lot of other places your Aria watchers people live. It is an exotic European getaway!
Another way to put it is that, say, if I live and work in Paris, and I spend a lot of time working, I might not have the time to treasure all that cultural richness as designated as landmarks or what have you. It is a good point that Parisians should stop and enjoy themselves and re-discover the cultural richness that surrounds them. But if I was working as a personal tour guide, maybe I should think twice about the everyday sights that passes by me. You know, part of the job and all. If I am neither a professional tour guide nor I live near any notable place on Earth, then it’s not so pretty out there.
Here is the TL;DR–if Venice (let alone Neo Venezia, which is a SF version of the same) is already the sort of touristy destination that your average Japanese-TV-viewing person would find otherworldly, why not use that as the getaway element? Why reconstruct this outer layer (as far as reasons in respect to the story)? And more importantly, what does this comfortably distant future serve for a story that could be told in today’s world?
In trying to find answers to those questions, the only revelation I’ve stumbled upon is that it’s a way to tune into its audience’s mind. It suspends beliefs and speak in a language that disarms the audience from the mental baggage that one might have if it was a real Italian location. Or a South Korean one. Instead of hard-hitting cynicism or political parody, we get some wishy-washy feel-good story about people rowing boats with gloves on. Or off. It’s as if we are tsunderes, or just too childish to take the bitter medicine so it’s coated with caramelized onion skin. OM NOM NOM NOM.
Good post. I think the key word here is “disarms.” The goal is clearly iyashikei… and to take something so real (Venice is real) and to make it fictional (New Venice is fictional) gives us the best of two worlds: something tangible to admire, and something far away not to fear.
… and what we’ve taken for granted.
Cool. You know one of the first things I felt when reading Aria was, “omg this is all so pretty.” Venice is likely a pretty place as well, but having a Neo version, the artist is able to heighten the allure and fantasy and make it “legit” even though it is quite fictional.
The other option would be to say it was Venice, but the new version is built on-top of the original, or something else like that. IMO, that kind of setup doesn’t emit the same level of attraction.
At the same time, this new version is on Mars! Which kind of detaches us (or me) at the core (kocoro). There is somewhat a sad (sad-happy duality) feeling of distance in Aria; we recognize it is so beautiful, but still so far away from “home.”
Where that sits with Japanese individuals, I’m just not sure. I think the “feeling” could be universal to almost anyone that is distanced from the real Venice. Saa~
Interesting point about the happy-sad duality, although I’m not sure if I can couch it using the setting. The manhome/aqua difference IRT Akari is just like a Japanese person living in Italy. I guess that is KIND OF the idea underlying Aria, but at the same time, Neo Venezia is a Japanese-neutered version of Italy for sure.
I’d say THE FUTURE can conveniently explain away any lingering doubts in the mind regarding crime/poverty/disease/bad things. It all disappeared in thanks to technology, magic, communism or whatever the reader assumed happened in Amano’s vaguely defined post-scarcity utopia. Positive thinking cures all because external causes of suffering literally don’t exist. We can almost certainly be assured Neo Venezia as an ocean paradise can be taken completely at face value, that 100% of the local residents are all happy grandmas, and that the merchant selling you trinkets does indeed believe Product Z looks good on you for reals.
I had this long debate on GRSI about the utopic nature of Neo Venezia. I don’t think it’s an utopia. But at any rate, Aria isn’t about the “bad stuff” so it’s non-existent in the narrative, at least not in any tangible form. Therefore, I’m hesitant to agree that the non-existence of a thing not relevant to the story as support for a point.
I was going to say, however, if you want to see my point more clearly, the first episode of Soranowoto is a good example. It is already a way more authentic appeal to foreign culture than any episode of Aria. It made me feel much more like “hey I’m a stranger in a strange land” than Akari ever was. Nothing to do with the SF stuff.
Well the whole “Neo-Venice” thing (any tourist location would have sufficed…how about Iceland?) is just a way to put a Japanese person in a different setting, like you said.
Not sure if “fear” has a lot to do with this. I think LK is right in that Neo-Venice is simultaneously tangible yet fictive, but these two aspects complement on another; it’s not to cover up for something implicit. Neo-Venice is removed from Japan by space and time, so you get a double ‘ooooh’.
I kinda think the setting is ultimately irrelevant, and the whole ‘iyakishei’ thing is derived from how the characters operate in the setting. The music is a good example because it complements the content of the narrative more than the setting, eg Rainbow. How is that song anything but healing?
The same probably applied to Ristorante Paradiso. Old white dudes with glasses in Italy, but Choro Club points to where the real substance is, which is to say in the universal themes accentuated by, again, universally appealing music. The appeal is in the general harmonic structures (it’s basic tertian western harmony), but Choro Club gives it the “foreign” feeling through uncommon instrumentation. Anyone exposed to western music could appreciate Choro Club at a basic level, it’s just the national flair (setting) they add which is the icing. Icing is, after all, not an essential ingredient.
True and all, but you’ve basically said “yeah iyashikei anime can have different settings but they have slow, comfy music” and in which I say “duh.” Not what I’m after in this post.
The question I’m asking in the post is “when the setting is not so important to the central purpose of Aria, why is there this additional layer of elaboration in Aria’s setting”?
The same applies to Old Dudes In Ristorante. Bartender wasn’t nearly as catchy and it probably does the same job.
I still think this setting adds allure and aesthetic which might not be central or necessary, but it surely adds to the experience of it all. The feeling is somewhat central to the experience in Aria, and if anything, the setting accentuates the characters slice circumstances very well.
The argument that any location would suffice is two-way, yes because a setting is a setting is a setting, but no because not every tourist destination has undines D:
Well, there are two ways to look at it.
1. Different people look for different elements in a show to entertain them. I am somewhat of a Settings guy, so I care about that. Weak Settings are just less interesting than Strong Settings and it shows in the choices of my favorite shows. Obviously part of Aria’s allure IS the setting, and it’s likely that a good portion of Aria fans are Strong Settings people, regardless of their perspective on iyashikei. Let’s be obvious–I watched Aria, i did not watch Bartender or Ristorante Paradiso. Why? Well moe is one reason, but also the setting.
2. Feeling is a good way to put it. In a nutshell iyashikei is a subcategory of “feel good” stories. So it’s about packaging an experience that makes the viewer feel good about something. The stereotypical feel-good story is “hard work and guts overcome adversity, picture-perfect end.” In Aria, we got mostly just the perfect end portion and not so much the first half. And the setting, IMO, is an integral portion of how to evoke the picture-perfect end, and to skirt around the “hard work and guts overcome adversity” part. Paranda mentioned it being utopic, which is one way to explain it.
Lastly Negativezero’s post shed some light on the practical nature of the space-time transplant. Which is nice, because I didn’t think about that.
http://dontsaylazy.com/2010/01/thoughts-on-arias-setting/
I suspect it’s really much simpler than that.
When asked why he called the operating system used in Cryptonomicon “Finux”, Neal Stephenson explained that it let him get the details of Linux wrong, if the plot or his own inattention to detail demanded it.
Thus, we don’t have “Venice”, we have “Neo-Venezia”. Kiki’s delivery service takes place, not in Stockholm nor Prague nor Danzig, but in a mythical middle-European country in a Europe where WWI never happened. And Sora no oto happens in “Helvetia”, not Switzerland.
For one thing, as you note, Neo-Venezia lets Kozue Amano draw her beautiful undines instead of beard-stubbled gondoliers. It also lets her put a Japanese shrine on a nearby island, and bring in a bit of Japanese folk-lore about the foxes’ wedding.
That’s what NegativeZero said basically. I don’t think it is the entirety of effects as generated, as others has mentioned above. Instead of “why” perhaps I should ask “what are the effects.”
Perhaps it’s better asked why Stephenson had to take that kind liberty, beyond merely inability to get all the details right within his book. I think that deviation from reality serves a purpose beyond just giving yourself a margin for error.
Or maybe it’s even better to ask: why Mars in the future? Why not just some non-descript European tourist trap? Just because a handful of episodes actually rely on the history of Venice?
It’s also possible to treat Neo-Venezia as a character within the story. A leading character, even. I think that’s the ultimate point to all of the Cait Sith stuff; he’s the embodiment of Neo-Venenzia in (sort of) tangible form. Consequently, Akari’s unyielding affection for Neo-Venezia is reciprocated in Cait Sith’s apparent affection for Akari. Or something like that. It sounds good, at least.
It’s all very idealized, of course. Supposedly, the real Venice is an expensive and crowded tourist trap. Perhaps Neo-Venezia is more a reflection of what Venice was before the advent of inexpensive air travel. I’d like to think a trip to Neo-Venezia requires some sort of hardship given the distances involved, but I guess the story never really spends much time on the subject. There is one instance in which Ai suddenly appears out of the blue, having tagged along with her brother-in-law on his business trip, so perhaps it’s a simple trip, à la Shipon chomping on konpeito while floating through space.
I don’t think Neo-Venezia is utopia, but it’s perfectly capable of filling the role when necessary. What little drama that exists in Aria is internalized; it mostly boils down to the various insecurities of the various Undines and their ongoing internal struggles with the whole Single/Pair/Prima promotion system. Neo-Venenzia provides a playground in which the Undines can overcome those personal struggles, absent any sort of unfortunate outside events. For the most part, Fate smiles upon them. I remember being initially shocked with the whole “Aika sets her head on fire,” arc, since it’s one of the only instances in the story in which character and/or plot development is triggered via some notable, external event. It almost seemed out of character.
As a parting note, it’s funny that Sora no Woto comes up in this discussion, as there were several instances in its opening episodes at which I thought to myself, “this feels rather Ariaesque”. Most notably, the sequences in which Kanata is strolling about town, all wide-eyed with wonder, and later when the townsfolk are having a chuckle at how crappy a bugler she is. If she were an Undine, I wonder if she’d start off sculling backwards?
I’d think Venice before the popularization of air travel is a town of merchants, as it was in the days of old. Tourism is not a ready income for a city like Venice until the people came in droves, thanks to easy access by trains and planes.
Humorously, someone (LOL GRSI) made a parallel of Aria with Avatar (the Cameron film), and it would actually reconcile with the Cait Sith theory that Neo Venezia is almost like a character in the Aria story. In a way it’s quite nice that they didn’t make this point any more explicit than what Jeff pointed out above.
Are you saying that setting ARIA in Mars makes it more escapist/fantastical than it needs to be, considering how Neo Venezia is already shown as a New Venice?
Well, I’m not sure the space-time transplanting makes it more whatever, lack of a better word. I’m talking about what effects does making it a space-time transplant have. And all the other purposefully deviation from Venice within Neo Venezia. Or even how the narrative approach and characterization are distinctly Japanese and NOT European.
“Perhaps it’s better asked why Stephenson had to take that kind liberty, beyond merely inability to get all the details right within his book.”
He said he took that liberty so his audience wouldn’t be distracted by (nor distract him with) questions like “well, it doesn’t really work that way”, or “why isn’t he using Gnome instead of KDE?”
It really is that prosaic, I think.
I like Jeff’s notion of Neo-Venezia as a character in its own right.
Also, Venice has been a tourist destination since at least the early nineteenth century (characters in The Count of Monte Cristo visit Venice during their Wanderjahr).
I read “suspension of belief” from your answer FYI. But that’s a lot less than what Amano has done with Neo Venezia. Again, Stephenson invented some knockoff OS as plot grease where as Amano invented a world and actually developed it.
Maybe Amano had grander plans than just showing ARIA to Japan, so making Neo-Venezia set on Mars makes it more fantastical for anyone who reads it, regardless of where they’re from. :P
I was thinking that maybe Mars leant the place a more “romantic” air, but if that was the case, Amano could set things on the Moon, and I think that would better. I’ve also been a believer of the “Neo Venezia” is a character itself, and maybe having the city set on Mars is a defining characteristic.
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