Ethics in Anime

Note 1: This write-up contains minor to major spoilers on Fire Force, Psycho-Pass, FMA: Brotherhood, and Code Geass, so if you plan to watch or haven't finished some or all of these titles, please stop reading hehe unless you wanna get spoiled!

Note 2: I haven't rewatched a lot of these titles, so apologies if some facts may be a bit off what it really is, but I'll try to make it as accurate as possible!

Note 3: I'm not by all means a philosopher. I just wanna give my own thoughts going into these titles. Take it with a grain of salt hehehe

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Growing up watching anime, first on Free TV (thank you TV5 u da real MVP) then on streaming sites (rip), and on Netflix (sad), I really got to learn a lot of stuff. To date, I feel that I've watched somewhere between 60 anime titles, and there are new insights on each one. There are titles, though, that I consider the best.

My basis for an anime to be "the best" is when it goes and shows something beyond what it really is. Examples for me include Paranoia Agent, Psycho-Pass, and Code Geass. These shows were thought-provoking, and it probed me to think deeper on what transpired in the course of the series.

What I'd like to do now is to try and revisit anime titles that I found thought-provoking, dealing especially on the Ethics part (based on what I learned over the past month lol), to be able to understand how deep and how impactful anime could be, more than what is perceived of it.

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Fire Force

Fire Force isn't really at the top of my list, but it's worth noting. The premise is not new to us, in fact the premise of Spontaneous Human Combustion is a different take on a zombie or demon infection that a lot of anime titles have adopted. What's interesting to note here though is that even if people are aware of this event, the general population does not have any idea how the firefighters "extinguish" them. People do not know that the firefighters actually kill these "combusted" people.

There was one episode that struck me, it was early on where there was this one person who combusted but did not run violent, he was just sitting in their dining table, looking at a photo. The company 8 had reservations whether to kill him or not, but Arthur stepped in and said that this person was in pain, and should be killed to end it. And he did.

While a combusted person ceases to be a human once it is combusted, in the event that that combusted person does traits that are human in nature, will it still be permissible to kill him? The person does no harm, just sits there quietly. If it offered resistance, then there may be some justification to exterminate him. But the question would still stand, kung yung hindi na tao ginagawa pa rin yung bagay na tao pa rin, may karapatan ba silang patayin siya? There are a lot of perspectives to go about answering this question, but since I'm not well-versed with them, I'll just leave it as a question.

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Code Geass

The classic anime that captured the hearts of many and have given us hours of sulking because of the ending has the most classic dilemma: Does the end justify the means?

Lelouch Vi Brittania wanted to emancipate Japan from the British invasion. He was given the Geass, the power to control people's decisions. That alone is an ethical red flag. But we will not focus on that, let's focus at the ending.

Lelouch managed to control, suppress, manipulate, and kill people to be able to seize Japan for himself. So we thought this was the "either die a hero or stay long enough to be a villain" type of situation. But it turns out, in the last moments, Lelouch actually wanted the whole world to direct their anger at him, and staged an event for him to be assassinated, so the hatred dies with him.

I won't question whether or not he was alive (he is btw zz) but doing all those atrocities (especially that part where he ordered euphie to kill everyone), is his death justified? Even if you do the morally wrong things, as long as in the end, you do it for the right conclusion, is it alright to say that what he did was alright? There's a lot to talk about here, but let's just leave it at that.

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Psycho-Pass

What makes a perfect villain? For me, it's one who doesn't have supernatural powers, but someone you cannot kill by some means. Makishima Shogo is one of the best villains I have ever encountered in anime, and his strength comes from something amazing.

Psycho-pass is set in a world where a grand system (called Sibyl) tracks people's cognitive functions, and tries to preempt them from doing something wrong. If one's cognitive function becomes "cloudy", the police will investigate that person and respond accordingly. Their weapons are also adjusted depending on the cloudiness of a person's cognition. So, if a person does not have a cloudy cognition, their weapons wouldn't work on them because "they do not think of anything wrong"

Enter Makishima Shogo. He is a smart person who can get away with killing anyone. Why is that? It is because when he kills, his cognition isn't clouded, therefore the system deems that he does not do something wrong. The best part of the series is when the main protagonist points her weapon at him, and Shogo holding a razor to the neck of the protagonist's friend. She can't shoot, as Shogo's cognition was low to be deemed a threat. He said something like "I want to show you how flawed your system is." If I remember, he gives out a regular gun to the protagonist and says, "If you want to save your friend, shoot me with that one." But she can't, as her cognition will be clouded, and she will be the one apprehended. Shogo killed her friend, and she cannot do anything.

It is a very interesting topic to talk about, given that we live in a technological world that can very well dictate our actions. As society changes, our old practices and ethical claims also changes in favor of new standards. But what if the case of Shogo pops up in our society, one who is free of the rules and decided to do atrocities that we can't deal with because of our new society? What will we do? Are we willing to become an outcast and cast aside this new world just to do the right thing, or will we conform with what we have because it is the new practice?

Ethical dilemmas do not have the straight solution like this one. In any case, you will have consequences you need to deal with. It's such a good animeeeeeeeeee

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FMA: Brotherhood (Personal Top 1 all time)

Our professor in Ethics gave us a question: Does mortality relate to morality? Will an immortal and invulnerable person, incapable of feeling pain and the fear of death, would be able to discern what is right and wrong, and the consequences with it?

FMA Brotherhood is one of the best anime titles to debate on in terms of Ethics and Philosophy. From human transmutation, philosopher's stone, gate of truth, Ishvalan Civil War, even Shou Tucker's gruesome act, it's a very rich area to talk about. But in this case, I'd like to relate the question above to two characters: Van Hoenheim and Homunculus, the dwarf in the flask. Hoenheim was a slave-person who turned immortal because of the Philosopher Stone. Homunculus, on the other hand, was a person inside the gate who somewhat got out (unknown reason), who was perceived also as an immortal throughout.

Through the course of the story, Hoenheim, although immortal, decided to use his immortality to be able to prepare for Homunculus' nationwide plan of acquiring stones. But if you are an immortal, you cannot die, therefore you're incapable of experiencing hurt and fear of death. Why would you still do the right thing?

Homunculus was stopped at the end. His final dialogue was particularly striking: "I just wanted to know everything in this vast world without being bound by anyone!" Being an immortal, there was something lacking within him. What was it? Remember that he let out the seven deadly sins because as Hoenheim put it, he wanted to have a family. He wanted to feel human.

What then is the difference of these two immortal beings? The answer is the aspect of being human. The reason why Hoenheim continued to do the right thing even if he was immortal because there was still an aspect of him that is human, that is able to perceive the moral thing to do. Homuculus, on the other hand, lacked that vital piece, and so while being immortal, he doesn't understand what is right and wrong, which made him do all those atrocities.

The answer, then, is that Ethics and Morality are closely linked to the human experience. Maybe because of getting hurt or the fear of death, we are pushed to do things for the right (or the wrong) reasons. The case of Hoenheim vs. Homunculus proved that humanity is the motivation to do moral deeds. Such an amazing anime.

Anime has given me a lot of amazing insights I applied in life. Now that it's becoming a bit more mainstream that before, I won't gatekeep it, but I urge everyone who would like to watch anime (especially these titles) to focus also on the intricate value it gives you, and take time to absorb every moment of it, because even if it is not real, it will create impact on how we discern things in life.

Latom.