Friday, November 22, 2013

FrankJr no Uta


(In this post, I'll just refer to Frankenstein's creature as FrankJr)

Frankenstein, Saya no Uta (Song of Saya), FrankJr no Uta. If you are familiar with the story of Saya no Uta, then you can see the similarities here between the creatures called Saya and FrankJr.

Well who is Saya and what kind of creature is she? First of all, Saya no Uta is an extremely grotesque and messed-up visual novel (basically a choose your own adventure story), but with good reason - it is a crucial component of one of the most interesting stories that I have ever read. Second, the story doesn't show what she actually looks like, only the main character's twisted view of her. Fuminori (the main protagonist of the story) has a brain disorder that resulted from an new untested kind of neurosurgical operation that was performed on him to save his life after he was involved in an accident. As a result, he senses everything (and I mean everything - the sky, the road, people, chairs, tables, etc.) in a twisted way and a normal bed would look, feel, and smell to him like this:


http://archive.foolz.us/a/thread/85012683/

















Similarly, normal food tastes repulsive to him, and everybody's voice sounds like the sounds of some warped flesh monster. He finds it extremely hard to talk to or even be around other people because he basically sees, smells, and hears this thing:


http://saibateku.net/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=141

















As a result, Fuminori begins secluding himself and becoming extremely choleric, even suicidal, until one day in the hospital in the middle of the night, he meets Saya. She is the first thing that he sees, hears, feels, and smells as human since his operation, and he immediately befriends and talks with her.


http://inside.anime-expo.org/games/2011-03/jast-usa-tweets-about-possible-nitro-%E2%80%9Csaya-no-uta%E2%80%9D-license/




















Now if think about it, you should immediately be suspicious of Saya and suspect her of being something other than what she appears as. You would be correct.
The story never reveals her true form, but it strongly hints what she looks like by the fact that she looks so horrifying to normal people, they lose their sanity as soon as they set their eyes on her. It is implied that she is some sort of fleshy creature that can somewhat change the shape of her body, like a blob, and has multiple appendages protruding from it. She is shown to be more intelligent than humans and have much higher regeneration abilities as well as the ability to modify other living organisms. However, like FrankJr, she is alone. Being the only member of her species (whatever that may be) on Earth, she lived a secluded and depressed life until she met Fuminori. He could converse with her normally due to his abnormality and you quickly discover that although her true form is unpleasant, her personality and her mind is not too different from a child. She is not bad or evil in nature, and doesn't view eating humans as wrong (although she later becomes more reserved due to concern for Fuminori) because she views them how we view cows and chicken, as a lower form of life that she must consume in order to survive. It is hard to find fault with her for that, and the main character eventually eats human meat too, as his warped senses make it seem like the only appealing food to him (I did say that this visual novel was slightly messed-up.)
Saya and Fuminori saved each other from the dark recesses of loneliness, because basically, no matter how bad the rest of the world seems like to them, they will always have at least one other person to rely on, one person who understands and cares for them.


The Good Ending from the V.N. http://sayanouta.tumblr.com/page/12

For FrankJr however, this was sadly not the case. FrankJr was a creature who was not NEARLY as warped or grotesque as Saya, but he ended up in a much worse situation than her. The answer to "why?" is clear: It was because he had absolutely nobody else to rely on, nobody else who bothered to understand him. Even his maker, Frankenstein, hates and repulses him, so FrankJr was driven in a state similar to Saya's before she met Fuminori.
Due to reading/watching Saya no Uta, I feel sympathy for Frankenstein and I understand his situation. Victor Frankenstein was too irresponsible, and could not face the repercussions of his actions. As a result, FrankJr had to go through complete rejection and general disgust without understanding why he was so different from all the shorter humans.
Even though Saya understood that she was different, she was sad because she didn't have any interactions with other people, because they would all be repulsed by her and freeze with terror on sight. She could only have dreamed of such things as she lived alone reading human literature.

So remember kids, bullying is bad.

(The visual novel of Saya no Uta requires some online searching to find the English subbed version. You can just watch play-through videos here)

2 comments:

  1. Saya no Uta and Frankenstein have vastly different themes despite the aparent similarities between Saya and Frankenstein's monster. Saya's role is as a genetic mastermind, designed to subjugate entire dimensions, while Frankenstein's monster is a misguided superhuman. In the same respect however, Frakenstein's monster was merely grotesque. Saya, on the other hand, held a form incomprehensible to the readers. They both tread on morally unacceptable territory.

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  2. I also sypathize with FrankJr, for he had to go out and figure everything out on his own. To make it worse, Victor Frankenstein accpets almost no responsibilty and is always self pitying.

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