“The spaces between the lines on a page epitomize the bulk of your life… but oh does that not make for a banal narrative?” — Krunchyman

Has Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata taught us nothing about the art of slice-of-life? Over the years, I have entertained a myriad of the aforementioned genre in hopes of finding a relative facsimile of the famed Studio Ghibili. Shows like Mushishi, Haibane Renmei, A Whisker Away and A Silent Voice have been nothing short of utter disappointments and have soured my tastes for the genre. Even the preordained replacement of Miyazaki, Mamoru Hosoda, feels like an extremely watered down version of the anime master. Before the audience gets the wrong idea, Hosoda’s Wolf Children is probably the best slice-of-life I’ve seen outside of a Studio Ghibli project; that being said, the rest of his works are rather jejune and uninspired. The problem, however, does not rest at the doorstep of the genre itself, but the manner in which most directors approach the genre. And if we consider the creative process, it’s really an issue of apprehension. Directors and mangaka’s are fully aware of the infinitesimal attention span of younger audiences, hence they throw in sexualized scenes, prosaic jokes, and character quirks that do not feel natural in the least; which makes the whole notion of labeling numerous works slice-of-‘LIFE’ rather nonsensical; Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (YKK) does little-to-nothing to change my opinion on this matter.

YKK features a disaster-stricken world where most people live in sparse towns and spend their days lazing about whilst drinking coffee. While YKK is not a tale about mental health or nihilism, I couldn’t help but wonder if the manga panel featuring a gun sitting on the table while Alpha is sipping on her coffee was a reference to an Albert Camus quote, “should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” Philosophical pondering aside, YKK is about the life of Alpha (an A7-M2 model robot) as she lives her cheerful life in her quaint town. As the reader quickly learns, most chapters are placid affairs and many of them contain little-to-no exposition whatsoever. This minimalist approach is quite rare these days and is generally encouraged to permit the viewer to enter a meditative experience about the conundrums of life; however, the conundrums of life are nowhere to be seen in YKK, making the experience in congruent to the human experience. In other words, the characters of YKK feel like idyllic, unrealistic versions of what humans truly are, giving the reader no base in which they can identify with the characters in a meaningful fashion. Life, after all, is about struggling with one’s inner desires and instincts, but when a work of art discounts the essence of life — it is already dead!

One cannot help to draw a parallel with Alpha’s existence and the surface world of Texhnolyze. Both of which are nihilistic ‘paradises’ in which comfort and security of prioritized over the grind of creating a better version of oneself. As a point of contrast, Isao Takahata’s, Only Yesterday, takes the ‘banality’ of human existence and brings to LIFE all of its good and bad aspects. The highs and lows of numerous Studio Ghibli films give the viewer a sense of purpose and fulfillment, even when purpose itself doesn’t exactly exist; whereas YKK is a symbolic representation of heaven, in which you must be comatose to ‘enjoy.’ This is why random scenes in which Alpha takes a bath with Takahiro or the transfer of information between robots through kissing (female kissing, by the way) are used to liven things up, if you will. But all this did was remind the reader that most ‘artists’ in the manga industry are rather indolent, and prefer to give the reader superficial experiences as opposed to literary depth.

It still boggles the mind, though, that YKK, Mushishi, Haibane Renmei, and the like have fooled numerous people into believing that this typifies life — let alone art.