Movie analysis: Asura – life and Buddhism in extreme scarcity

This analysis was an exercise in the course of Southeast Asian Religions. We had to analyze some anime/manga and interpret the religious themes presented in these forms of popular media. So, I chose Asura. (Warning: contains minor spoilers!)

The movie Asura tells a story about a little boy surviving through difficult times in medieval Japan. The boy becomes alienated from people in early infancy after tried to be eaten by his mother. Since then the boy has survived by killing and eating dying people during the desperate periods of floods and famine. As the plot setting might seem a bit exaggerated, it likely holds a glimpse of historical relevance. Japan has always been a challenging place to live considering its geographical circumstances (scarce resources, earthquakes, floods, high mountains, avalanches and so on). Thus, one might expect that in the most extreme situations people have tendencies to turn against each other. Whether common or not, cannibalism is at least a clear metaphor to signify this moral conflict brought by the story. In this sense Asura’s [the main character’s] driving philosophy is ”eat or get eaten” (which is basically moral and life understood profoundly as a zero sum game).

In the beginning Asura (being still nameless up to this scene of the story) confronts a Buddhist monk that manages to suppress his violent attacks. The monk is presented as a meditative person in dominantly gray clothes. The way he walks and repeats sutras, reminds most likely a walking Zazen method of meditation. So, the monk is probably a Zen-Buddhist; that is also likely considering which religious schools are usually presented in Japanese popular culture. Eventually the monk takes care of the boy, teaches him some sense of compassion and names him Asura. While still maintaining the beastly nature Asura starts to grow more humane step by step throughout the story.

As Asura is developing more human contacts, this does not come without difficulties and drama as expected. In a later scene he meets the monk again, suffering because of the conflicting needs and regretting being born. The monk tries to calm him down by teaching about difficulties being human. Everyone has a beast inside but only human rationing can overcome its needs. At this point there comes a surprising intertextual reference about the story of Bodhidharma in early times of Chán Buddhism. In order to prove Asura about his human side, the monk cuts his left hand with Asura’s axe and offers his cut hand for Asura to eat. Asura gets scared and runs away without taking the hand. After this the monk seems relatively satisfied (at least considering he has just lost an arm).

Overall the story comes with a great cognitive dissonance and moral dilemma about the main lesson of the story. At first glance the basic setting seems a bit weird or even provocative. How come the spiritually aware monk see himself as a disciple of the beast-like Asura and claims to have learnt something about Asura? Does that mean, in deep down he sees something special or essentially good about beasts? He teaches about compassion and expects people to rise above the beast nature, though. Yet, he is not admitting any signs of moral superiority nor does he say Asura is right, when regretting being born as a beast. Demands for denying the beast inside or to repent sins would be probably typical for a Christian monk to expect. Maybe that is one reason for this movie to have mixed reactions around audience. As religions have different views across the world, the moral world view in general might also have some stark and inconsistent cultural differences when glanced deeply enough. Without glorifying culturally relativistic exotic orientalism further, what are the real reasons behind these differences? What there is to learn?

One explanation for the monk’s counter-intuitive methods of teaching might be found in Taoist thinking (or other Chinese philosophies, including Chinese Buddhism). As Taoism has always had only few forms of institutionalization even in China, there are not many reasons to expect institutionalized forms of Taoism in Japan either. Status of Chán and Zen Buddhism have also followed this kind of socially isolated path. The monk in the movie is also presented this way: wandering around, living in a cave and having no contacts to outer social world (excluding Asura). However, the basic idea of Taoism is to teach about life via complementary contrasts. These ideas have influenced Asian Buddhist schools (Mahāyāna) as well. That is why I think there are valid reasons to discuss this Kōan method centrally as a Taoist idea, at least what comes to its origins.

After the end of the movie Asura also becomes a monk, but in this point there is no more dialogue to give any reference about his thoughts. Despite of the old monk’s teachings in the end, it is impossible to know for sure what does Asura think after all. Only interpretations are possible.

One interpretation might hold that while the old monk did not explicitly judge Asura’s behavior, he tried to implicitly ingrain guilt into Asura and push him to realize it himself for the sake of common good. While this might be more understandable practice at least in a Christian context, reaching a feel of repent does not however generally include in a Zen-Buddhist path into enlightenment or such, as far as I know. Nevertheless, this might still be a part of the teaching but maybe not the core of it. In order to look deeper, it is probably wise to take the Taoist interpretation further.

In the case of Asura, the beast is and is not a nature of Asura (or basically anyone). The monk does not explicitly state it literally like this, but in my point of view the whole movie creates its ambivalent tension based on this Kōan structured teaching below the lines. A Taoist would probably also add that the beast and the rational human cannot even live without each other. To realize this, the movie presents a challenging concept to understand consequences all the way to barbaric extremes. Envoking sympathy towards cannibalistic protagonist serves probably one certain purpose characteristic for Mahāyāna-Buddhism: establishing compassion towards every living being – in this case making it by telling a tale of a strikingly evil cannibal that is still relatable as a victim of circumstances. When one is able to relate with Asura, the compassion might be then potentially expandable to almost any living being. As the Zen-Buddhism (or Mahāyāna in general) teaches to ensure the enlightenment to all life before individual enlightenment, Asura’s story can be seen as a preparing prologue into this challenging mission.

The main notion that the old monk finally makes in the end, is briefly put that the life always finds a way; even through the most difficult times and the worst crimes life continues to go on. It is possibly a shocking move to advocate compassion towards all living at any cost, but the story is bold enough to take it anyway. However, there is still a one disturbing detail that requires a moment of thinking. How Zen-Buddhists cope with the beast nature after all? The old monk seemed to accept Asura’s beast nature (maybe even as a part of the Buddha nature). Despite of this the monk himself never seemed keen with the idea of turning into cannibalism. The basic tension of the story is still unanswered. What keeps the Buddhist from eating other people, especially in extreme circumstances where good people die first?

This might be left unanswered but I think it can be partly explained with the Buddhist lifestyle. Especially Chán-/Zen-Buddhists tend to detach themselves from the society by wandering as lone wolves. By doing so, they have likely less temptation to relapse into dominative behavior that risks the cohesion and moral of the society. They try to protect the faith in humanity by protecting the human kind from itself. These monks are not less beast-like than any other human, but their discipline has led into greater awareness about their inner beast nature. Maybe the monk protected Asura especially for the reason that he reflected his own image and inner fears within Asura. That would at least been a psychologically sensible motive for the monk to protect and teach Asura. This way he was nurturing his own kind – a fairly common instinct for life forms.

Economical Challenges of Regional Cooperation between China and Japan

This essay was done in the course of Regional Cooperation in Asia held by University of Turku. I thought there was a bit too much work to analyze all the recent news, as required in the exercise, considering the few study points that one gets from the course. That’s why I didn’t focus on the news analysis that much. Despite of this, in the feedback teacher said my text stood out and my marxian analysis of China and Japan was interesting, which resulted 4/5 grade.

In these course texts of Asian studies (organized by Asianet) Finnish has been also a possible alternative language so far but I’ve decided to write in English anyway, since 1) it’s more coherent and useful with wider range of scientific terminology and 2) it probably helps with my future studies of Asian societies. (The course of Asian religions just started and if I’m lucky, next summer I will also study about Chinese society and politics in a course held in Shanghai.)

EDIT 6.4.2017 (brief summary about contents of the essay): At first I make a notion about how many big continental countries, like Russia and China, have preferred a socialistic economy. Whereas imperial island countries, including the Great Britain and Japan, have favoured free market economies. Phenomenon is explained by the flow of capitals which tend not return to the primary sectors of production and causes inequal exploitation. That’s why for example Africa, despite its rich natural resources, has experienced wide poverty (resource curse). This has led China to defend its inner markets by favouring national protectionism against hostile global markets. However, as United States under Trump administration seems to have took a protectionist route in global economics, China and Japan are facing completely new global environment. China’s progression has led it expand its economical activity in global trade and Japan might need China’s economical assistance if relations with USA and other pacific countries become unstable enough. There are still much distrust between China and Japan which comes with its own risks.

A Brief History of Contemporary China & Japan

The following text is my exam answer about the book “Lohikäärme, tiikeri ja krysanteemi – Johdatus Itä-Aasian yhteiskuntiin” and lectures of Contemporary East Asia held by university of Turku. No other sources nor referencing was required.

Chinese politics has its roots in dynasties that have ruled China for many centuries or rather milleniums. As the hanzi-characters were developed, mandarin authorities used them in the formal administration and governing of rules etc. Thus the first political sources can be found from the literary legacy of these writings. Confucianism became influential Chinese philosophy and principle of governing somewhere 500 BCE. To some extent it still plays an important role in East Asian traditions. Some dynasties have also favored Buddhism as a leading philosophy of politics. Unlike western religious communities, that have somewhat lost their ground from domination through secularization, economical individualism and scientific evaluation aimed to dogmatic principles, eastern ”religions” have not encountered as radical change, probably since they share less transcendental dogms compared to western religions. This might also explain, why collective traditions of East Asian cultures have still remained relatively strong, despite of the global changes e.g. industrialization that have modernized East Asian cultures as well.

However, traditional Chinese society that was being led by emperors of dynasties came to an end in the beginning of the 20th century. This did affect to traditional philosophies as well, leading to their decline at least in revolutional periods. At first China was being led by a republic governernment after the fall of Qing-dynasty. This was about to change, since the red army of people’s republic won the civil war and their communist party took the power in mainland China before 1950s. Meanwhile the leaders of Kuomintang escaped to an island known as Taiwan. To this day there are still these two Chinas, or at least politically speaking. This split slightly reminds of Korea which later also got divided into republic and people’s republic states. However, the development of Chinese society was soon to follow a different path compared to its Korean equivalents.

After the Maoist era of socialistic governing, Deng’s market oriented reforms took place. It was being said that ”whatever is good for growth, is good for socialism”, even though that took distance from the idea of socialism as it is being understood in the west. China was one of the first socialist countries in the world to make these reforms before the fall of socialist hegemony in larger political scale. (To contrast, North Korea is one of the few countries that still has not made these changes.) Nowadays China is a mixed system combining elements from different political ideas. Although China is namely controlled by China’s Communist Party, in reality the power structure is anything but monolithic. There might be competing factions inside the party and there are actually other parties as well, although their legislative power is small. In some parts of China they might still have some practical power. For example some autonomous areas and cities can make decisions by themselves. This can be seen as an equivalence of the economical ”let little ones go” privatization doctrine applied in politics. Briefly, sometimes China is being labelled as fragmented authoritarianism: a large bureaucracy with many different districts with their exceptions.

Anyway despite of some recessions and crises during the decades, China became a growing economy, and before the 21st century it had already became one of the biggest players in the world economy. Even though China’s socialist background is still being seen as a threat to its political and economical stability, it has given China relatively unique way of dealing political decisions in a global modern world. One could speculate that without a strong state China’s one child policy and recent investments to renewal energy sector for example might have not been as widely possible.

In early history Japan pretty much adopted the Chinese structures of governing, for example philosophy/religions and the writing system. Practically Japan hasn’t had dynasties though and its emperor institution is still being in use. However, emperor’s power became nominal a long time ago. Mostly Japan has lived relatively excluded from outer world under the power of different warlords (shōgun). During the era of colonialization Japan was being forced to trade with western countries. Especially United States was primarily executing these demands. Since that Japan has had closer ties with United States, in some conditions even compared to its former cultural role model China. Japan’s colonialistic actions in second world war also created more distance to other Asian countries. However, despite of Japan’s increased western characteristics it is still considered rather unique culture compared to western cultures. Japan’s relation to western countries has not always been easy either: Japan is the only country in history that has witnessed the destructive power of nuclear bombs (which were bombed by US in the second world war).

For these historical reasons Japan is relatively demilitarized country. This has been a one reason for Japanese success in its growth to the world’s most economically efficient country since Japan’s defence costs are so small. As other Asian countries, Japan also had practically one party system controlling the country in the post-war era. Democratization process has been going on all the time under western influences though. Liberal Democratic Party has mostly ruled Japan’s government. After Japan entered its long period of recession (which still has showed no signs of a change) LDP lost its hegemonic popularity. However, conditions were not going well with Democratic Party either which was in power for some years recently. Japan has faced problems of unemployment and aging that has challenged Japan’s growth even though Japan has still remained as a top player of world economics. Many industrialized countries, and nowadays including China, have also followed this progression.

China and Japan have shared a common heritage in earlier history but after the first signs of globalization (in the form of colonialization), they have followed quite different paths. For the sake of clear definitions, traditions of the east and the west might not be very useful here. The left and right wing politics might offer some ground for analysis of the practises but that is also a bit rigid simplification. Even though the modern economics based on trading have deepened the dependency between China, Japan and other countries nearby (which make China-Japan relation analysis a bit too artificial to get limited in), still especially the traumatic memories from war times create friction in these bilateral relations of China and Japan. Sometimes these past crimes are being used as weapons when present interests are being negotiated about.

Nevertheless, there has always been some conditions that have forced China and Japan to work together. At first glance one of the obvious reasons is geographical difference between the countries. Japan doesn’t have many resources of its own which makes trading an essential option. From the other side of the coin Japan has a lot of skilled labour and experience in high technology that might come in the advance when China has to find solutions to improve its conditions. The leap towards renewal energy solutions is a one notable example in this sense. The cultural trade of trends and ideas is a one point to consider as well.

However, every form of interaction between countries have seldom been (and possibly shouldn’t be) exclusively always about business and trading. Competitive structures of world economy might threaten the social fabric and tear communities apart as the profit-driven colonialization has also somewhat shown already in the past history. Thus Asian cultures might still have a valid reason to some extent stick on their strong collectivist practises (or update them). The globally witnessed reaction of the rising nationalism, which take part in China and Japan as well, might not be a promising progression to begin with though. It can be inclusive but usually only as a reaction to outer threats, meaning it wouldn’t have a positive power of inclusion in itself and usually sets nationalities against each other, even if they’re depended from each other. In addition, polarized nationalism might create widely hurtful conflicts in East Asian area where are still many divided nations and nationalities that haven’t fully recovered even from the cold war settings.

Musasoftatyökaluja | Music software tools

Julkaisin sivun, jonne uppaan joitain työkaluja musiikkisoftille. Aloitan rumpseteistä avoimen lähdekoodin Hydrogen softalle. Se on saatavilla kaikille yleisille käyttöjärjestelmille ilman maksua. (Kuten settini myös.)

Ensimmäiset setit, jotka julkaisin on tehty sampleista äänitettynä kahdesta halvasta kosketinsoittimestani, Hammond 123J3:sta ja Jt-2018:sta. Näissä versioissa en ole tehnyt panorointia sampleille, mutta voit tehdä oman stereokuvan helposti Hydrogenin omalla mikserillä. Jossain vaiheessa julkaisen myös ihan tosissaan samplatun akustisenkin rumpusetin. Tämän äänittämisen valmisteluun on tosin lukeutunut vähemmänkin totisia kokemuksia…

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I published here a page where I upload some tools for music softwares. I start with some drumkits for an open source software called Hydrogen. It’s available for all common operating systems without any costs. (My kits as well.)

The first kits I published are made from samples recorded from two of my cheap electronic keyboards, Hammond 123J3 and Jt-2018. In these versions I haven’t done any panning for samples. But you can do your own stereo image easily with Hydrogen’s own mixer. At some point I’ll also publish an acoustic drumkit that is sampled thoroughly.

Ajopelimoottori | Racing game engine

Suomenkieliset infot GMS-foorumilla

I started in 2006 to make a racing engine that won’t need any pro/standard codes. I ended up using animation-technique with facing_direction variables etc.

However, this engine contains simple example of basics of driving/racing game. It has both Drag&Drop and GML versions of the vehicle and engine works with GameMaker 8 Lite version.

ENGINE CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE!!

Following video demonstrates how a lonely plane drives a circle of infinity in existential isolation:

Fakerooms

Suomenkieliset infot Game Maker Suomen foorumilla

Years ago I found a Zelda_Metroid_example. This is more advanced version of it. It makes able to do different sizes of fakerooms (inside one room). Therefore they don’t have to fit in view and view can follow the player. Engine has support for two types of games: traditional 2d and 2.5d (typical for beat ’em up games).

Engine download.

“Boomerang-version”

Shoot ’em up platformer

Suomenkieliset infot ja päivitykset löytyvät Game Maker Suomen foorumilta.

As the name says, Shoot ’em up platformer is a game engine that includes basic codes of side scrolled shooting games. Platform codes are really basic, because this concentrates more on shooting. Engine works with Game Maker 8.1 Lite.

Features:

• Charging ammo (known from game-series as Metroid and Mega Man)
• Rapid-fire
• Simple laserbeam
• Some enemies with basic A.I.

Healths, upper aim and weapon change aren’t (yet?) coded. Now player shoots from ctrl, shift and left mouse buttons. I recommend to do some weapon changing because rapid-fire has some bugs with charged ammo when shot at the same time with regular shooting. Plus, it’s useless feature in any game to allow shoot normally and rapidly at the same time.

ENGINE CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE! (Link updated, it’s now available for everyone.)