Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku - To Live

SPOILER WARNING

Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku or Now and then, Here and there is an anime from 1999 always seen as one of the acclaimed 90s isekai's who heightened in popularity out of its cult status. A story about a boy who gets transported 10 billion years into the future. Often with isekai we walk into a wall due to the overabundance of it. Predictable, tiresome, and mass-produced copy-paste isekai's fly off the charts season by season and year by year.

Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku might be up there as one of the most visually beautiful anime as well as one of the most immersive. As the masterful sound direction by Tanaka Kazuya (mushishi sound director) pulled me into its barren yet unforgiving world with a technical edge. We also have Taku Iwasaki on the team for music whom you might know for the Muv Luv soundtrack. Rurouni Kenshin trust and betrayel soundtrack, Gurren Lagann soundtrack or the Katanagatari soundtrack I'd say this is probably one of his best soundtracks I'v heard from him. A real sense of instrumental depth and he's able to express the emotions one would connect with dystopia quickly. Some of the bleeps and bloops even are reminding of Klaus Schulze to me on his Cyborg album. This anime was also stacked with incredible storyboarders and a great art director. The compositions and the shadow play in this show are absolutely incredible and are able to represent a great deal of visual clarity and immsersion. Quite the beautifull anim,

What does it want to tell us? What is the thing that Ima, Soko ni Iru Boku wants to tell us? It shows the cursed humanity throughout its other world construct. Through this viewing and this barren world basked in the red sun it wants to show us some of the tremors of the terrible things humans are capable of, not only those it use its circumstances and setting to its advantage to portray this story but it also uses its cast of children to do this. The show's main protagonist Shuuzou is a happy-go-lucky fellow who has his heart out towards the world, from the first scenes of his introduction this becomes very clear. The fond way he talks about the things around him and the area he lives in shows how much love and appreciation he has for the world he lives in. These first scenes with him establish him quite perfectly. These scenes would characterize and be the holding bar for his actions to come throughout the series, his emotionality and his ideals already show themselves quite early. This would craft his reasoning to go after Lalah Ru as well. His golden heart and honest self couldn't let something like this go. He couldn't let the living go. And this was something that held itself strong throughout the series. That individual nature in the dreadful world is the driving force to saving Lalah Ru but also the people he meets in this new world.

That doesn't mean Shuu is clear from critique in his journeys throughout this wasteland. Nabuca would be the first to critique him for his heroism their ideas and feelings often clash due to their different upbringings and circumstances. His meetings and clashings with Shuu do change Nabuca throughout the show very visibly. You can see this through the interactions he has with Tabool and how they shift throughout the runtime of the show itself. A big turning point in Nabuca's life would be where he lets Shuu escape from the base with Lalah ru as well as when Boo gets shot. and also where he shoots the zari bar invaders, but my favourite moment from Nabuca is when they have to invade a small town for new recruits and he realizes how evil his actions are, especially when he remembers he himself to was kidnapped one day and taken away from the village. I love his big character moments. They're great. (Beautiful moments). These big clashes and moments in Nabuca's life would change him. And the climax to his character is probably one of my favorite moments in the whole series. "Go back from where you came from, this is not where you belong.. " is a line that stuck to me and still makes me stare at a wall with a empty feeling in my heart. Perhaps this moment and line is not just a send off from Nabuca but a reflection of his circumstances and a full realization of the world around him. He realizes the world and sees how somebody as individualistic and different as shuu should not stay here. Nabuca understands the world, himself, Shuu, before he finally passes off in a dream that could last 10 billion years. The lingering shine in his eyes disappears.

Perhaps when talking about bitter yet hopeful a character like Sara comes to mind. Sara is quite a tragic character. From the things we get shows about her we come to understand that Sara is a mistreated human girl who is used for the creation of even more children. She is probably one of many mistreated woman on the military base who gets used for such things due to the ending world. Her emotional state is expressed exceptionally well. Not by dialogue dropping and monologging all of the emotions she has onto the viewer but rather through strikingly well portrayed body language and facial expressions. A scene of hers I really enjoy is the base escape. Where she kills the officer trying to have intercourse with her escapes the base. (escape wasn't hard due to the low amount of soldiers this makes sense.) and then when she finally gets outside she pulls off the army clothes cuts her long hair off and cries and runs. This scene was also one of my favourites.I'v always had a thing with the hair cutting symbolism and how it here symbolizes leaving her old past behind and bringing an end to that Sara. As the old part of herself dies off she may freely live as a newborn. The haircutting action has a lot of weight and even more so in the moment she finds out she is pregnant from one of the men who used her. and breaks out in tears and it makes her want to murder the child. This makes sense given that this is still a part of her old life. A life she had tried to cut away from and tried to disconnect from. Rather then just killing the child now "soiled" by its existance she would rather kill herself this action is intercepted by shuu who's words stop her from comitting the action. The dialogue she has with Sis is also incredible.

"I ask you not to hold it against the baby. No child comes into this world wanting to be rejected by its mother."

I thought the escalations of the Zari-Bars was also very well handled. The way the pressure built up in the citizens and were out to use somebody to lash their anger at would be Sis. The leader of this group who would take up the torch to fight against hamdo would do anything to get his will and way and in the same time mirror hamdo. He got more violent and obsessed for his goals and could not see what he was reaping. Through this foolish behavior, everything escalates to the point where Lalah ru has to give herself in and is taken away. "Because of one outsider, the whole village is in danger" the group mistrust tumbles this village all the way down.

Lalah Ruh is a very tragic character. Lalah has the powers to control water flow as well as holds a necklace with a huge source of water. Due to the nature this she is often seen as a product for the means of others rather then a human being. I thought this was incredibly saddening yet o so reflective of the state of humans in that world. Rather then care about the girl itself they can only care about the thing they can get out of her. Its very materialistic. Lalah ru due to the way she is treated loses all hope in humanity for a big duration of her life. I assume she sees no hope for humanity to go on. I feel though that her interactions with shuu and sis are slowly but surely restoring her faith in this. Her end and the end of the show are very bittersweet. While Lalah Ru regains hope for humanity and a sense of kinship for shuu she will never be able to finalize or see to the end. As the last of her water is now gone which we learn is also interconnected to her life force. As she returns the water to the earth she never sees the world through realization which is incredibly depressing. Perhaps that is why the line "Can we watch another sunset together someday" hits very hard as such a day will never come again. and sadly enough her efforts won't be resourceful at the end of it all given the state of the sun. A bittersweet end to the series. Sarah accepts her child into her life, Abelia is freed from the shackles of warcrime, Hamdo's death was probably all that was left for him and Shuu returns home.

As shuu returns the red unbloated sun looks back at him. and the 3 broken pillars are a bitter sight.

With its expressive character designs, beautiful background art, and stunning OST and sound design and immersive storyboarding Now and then here and there is able to pull an incredibly short, compact and hard-hitting journey with very tight writing about the lives in this dystopian world and its commentary about humanity as well as war. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts.