Now and Then, Here and There: Difference between revisions

[[You Have Been Warned|Not for the faint of heart]].

 

 

''Now and Then, Here and There'' takes the old anime plot of being transported to another world and turns it on its head. Shu, our hero, is on his way home from kendo practice one day when he sees a strange girl sitting atop a smokestack. Curious, he goes up to meet her. The girl's name is Lala Ru and as Shu is introducing himself and talking to her two strange machines warp in and attack them. Shu attempts to defend the girl but is easily brushed aside and Lala Ru is taken. Shu renews his attack as Lala Ru calls for help but everyone ends up getting transported back to where the machines came from.

Daichi was influenced to create this story based on reports coming out of Rwanda during the genocide taking place in that country, and boy does it show. The anime is considered by many fans to be a masterpiece, but be warned: it's intense enough that you will probably only be able to watch it once. This one belongs on the shelf right beside ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]''.

 

* [[Adorably Precocious Child]]: Boo, though the responsibility is of the emotionally scarring kind.

* [[Adult Fear]]: A child stuck alone in a foreign land.

* [[Decoy Protagonist]]: While almost the entire series is shown to us as seen through Shu's eyes so as to achieve the haunting effect of a child's perception of brutality, surprisingly little of the story has anything to ''do'' with him.

* [[Deconstruction]]: If this show is not THE quintessential Deconstruction of the whole [[Trapped in Another World]] plot, then what is?

* [[Defrosting Ice Queen]]: Lala Ru and Abelia.

* [[Determinator]]: Shu

* [[Harmful to Minors]]: ''Very''.

* [[Heel Face Turn]]: {{spoiler|Abelia}}; done beautifully in a gradual buildup rather than a last-minute decision.

* [[Heel Realization]]: {{spoiler|Boo}} and {{spoiler|Nabuca}} both start to realize the wrongness of their actions in Hamdo's army after Shu shows up.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Boo, Kazam, and Lala Ru.}}

** [[Rachael Lillis]] (aka Misty from ''[[Pokémon]]'') as Boo and Sis. The fact that the warm and motherly Sis sounds exactly like Jessie from Team Rocket is more than a little nightmare inducing.

** [[Lisa Ortiz]] ([[Slayers|Lina Inverse]]) as ''Lala Ru'', [[Playing Against Type|of all people]].

* [[Honor Before Reason]]

* [[Hypercompetent Sidekick]]: Abelia to Hamdo.

* [[Rule of Symbolism]]: Shu's kendo stick, arguably. {{spoiler|Kendo is taught to Japanese youth primarily as a means of instilling respect, integrity and honor, ideals that Shu attempts to spread all around him, yet he fails miserably given the circumstances of the new world. The significance of this is that regardless of how much abuse the stick takes or how many times it changes hands, it never seems subject to any degradation whatsoever, parallel to Shu's [[Wide-Eyed Idealist|wide-eyed idealism]] throughout the series -- until he finally snaps and uses it to trigger what he knows will turn into a violent jailbreak and ''smashes it to splinters'' over the back of a cowering Hamdo.}}

* [[Shoot the Dog]]: King Hamdo strangles a cat. You hear the last cry it makes.

* [[Spell My Name with an "S"]]: Sara's name becomes Sala in the French dub, which particularly does not make sense because [[Did Not Do the Research|she's supposed to have an everyday American name]]. Hellywood/Helliwood/Heliud, Tabool/Tabur, and Zari Bars/Zali Barth also suffer from this depending on whether you watch the original, fansubs, the English subs, the English dub, or the French dub.

* [[The Stoic]]: Nabuca, [[Not So Stoic|until the end]]. Also Lala Ru, and Abelia

** Interestingly, he fits the [[Kuudere]] pattern as well. While he seems cold and impersonal, he is shown holding hands with frightened children (episodes six and seven) and also shares his water (a scarce commodity) with a boy who refuses to do his share of the work. He is even shown covering up for kids in his corps who misbehave, making him something of [[A Father to His Men]] as well.

* [[Time Abyss]]: Lala-Ru claims to be thousands of years older than Sis. In addition, until Hamdo captured her she seems to have faded into myth in the setting, despite claiming that wars have been fought over her time and time again. She may well be tens of thousands of years old.

* [[Token Good Teammate]]: Kazam among the adult soldiers of Hellywood

* [[Trapped in Another World]]

* [[Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour]]: Even off the battlefield, the child soldiers tend to talk and act exactly like adults, though it is shown to be a facade/coping mechanism for at least two of the main characters.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:AIC]]

[[Category:Anime of the 1990s]]

[[Category:Anime]]