2013-09-20, 15:54 | Link #401 | |
We're Back
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Redgrave City
Age: 35
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It's how he choose to live his life- this is his 'thing' now. All of this is in the epilogue.
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2013-09-20, 18:53 | Link #402 | ||
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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He can't. No one can. Ask anyone involved in killing animals for any production-related purpose, or hunters--anyone with a modicum of sincere compassion towards them either leaves the job or starts drinking. A lot.
The ones left aren't necessarily evil or cruel, but they basically treat animals like things. Quote:
Of course it's a human emotion. It's a human name for the process that involves caring for someone personally and then ending their life for your own profit or entertainment. I don't imply that any farm animal feels that way. Quote:
I don't see the point of this arc unless the author wanted to troll vegans or something. |
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2013-09-20, 19:01 | Link #404 | |
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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He chooses to support it, that's his choice. But the way his choice is dressed up makes it look as if it's some kind of heroic gesture, true and right and important. Instead of him basically deciding bacon is way too tasty to give up. |
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2013-09-20, 19:03 | Link #405 | |||
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Age: 38
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And seriously, you make no sense. You say it's okay when a farmer does it, but not when Hachiken does it? Because he's "betraying" the animal, but the farmer isn't? Why? "Because"? Quote:
Second, it's meaningless if it doesn't bring any real change? Seriously, get a grip on reality here. This is a slice of life series grounded in the real world. He isn't going to change the world and stop the farming of animals. And how would him becoming vegan change anything either? That'd just be running away, which was a big theme of this arc too. Quote:
Bingo. |
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2013-09-20, 19:05 | Link #406 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
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I guess I'm just extremely disappointed in the whole show, not just in its main character. It's going to be one of my bad analogies again, but it feels like I've been watching a story of a reluctant somewhat timid hero getting ready to save the princess against the great odds and then at the end he raped her, enjoyed the hell out of it and keeps saying he is in love with her.
Sounds harsh, I know. |
2013-09-20, 19:27 | Link #407 | ||||
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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And yes, it's meaningless if you keep actively supporting it while crying about it. You know what it reminded me of? How some girl will cry when she sees a movie about furry animals being slaughtered for their fur, yet in an hour she will still ask her boyfriend to give her a fur coat. This logic makes no sense. So if you don't like something and it makes you sad, helping people do more of it, increase its importance and support its prosperity is the logical thing to do? |
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2013-09-20, 19:30 | Link #408 |
Seishu's Ace
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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IMO the question of whether it's right to raise animals for slaughter - as important as it is - isn't the main point of the series. Rather, it's used as a vehicle to show Hachiken's struggles in trying to figure out who he is. It's obviously something Arakawa has spent a good deal of time thinking about herself, and as Fuji-sensei says, I suspect she's never come up with a satisfactory answer. I respect the fact that she's honest enough to admit that rather than pretending she has.
That said, while I wouldn't phrase it so harshly as it's been phrased here, I do think there's something to the idea that trying to be loving and respectful to animals while they're alive and then sending them to the abattoir right on schedule is hypocritical. Some people never think about this issue, some do. And among those, some decide that eating meat is OK and some decide it isn't. But let's not kid ourselves that Hachiken's answer is about the pigs - it's not. The naming and the petting and the cuddling is for him, not them - it's because he feels guilty for loving pork too much to stop eating it and wants to do something to assuage that guilt. And feeding them whey wouldn't be because they like it so much - it would be because it would make them taste better after they're dead. Again, to Arakawa's credit I think she basically acknowledges this pretty openly - I don't think she's found an answer herself, and there probably isn't one apart from making a decision and being at peace with it. But I think she's also saying that at the very least, it's better to be aware of the sacrifices that are being made than to be oblivious to them.
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2013-09-20, 21:38 | Link #409 | ||||||||
We're Back
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Redgrave City
Age: 35
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If anything the fact that he's seriously putting in the effort to try to do so is something to be admired. Quote:
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As for the 'point' of this arc, I've been repeating it. You're just ignoring it in favour of your own 'version'. Quote:
The reason why the others respect him for it is because it's a difficult path to walk and that they admire him for even attempting it. Quote:
Seriously, stop projecting yourself and just watch it proper. Quote:
Or maybe you have missed that part about accepting that people need to eat meat? Or that this is the livelihood of many people. Quote:
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In some ways, him fattening it up was an attempt to make his life worth more, and I don't mean it in terms of just the money. If the value of a pig's life is how much they weight, then he wants Butadon to be a 'good pig' in the eyes of people.
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Last edited by Chaos2Frozen; 2013-09-20 at 22:21. |
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2013-09-20, 22:54 | Link #410 | ||
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Join Date: Aug 2013
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The viewpoint of the story is from a human perspective, that deals with animals. It is no way meant to be seen from an animal perspective, that deals with humans. While your point stands, that it is hypocritical to love and accept Pork Bowls death, the hypocrisy only fits from an animal perspective. If you were to make this a debate about animal rights, there would be hypocrisy in any direction you turn, as the subject is so clouded in grey. But it is very unreasonable to judge the show based on a criteria that is important to you, but not to the show. Even if this were a minor detail that you could not look past, you're forgetting this is a particular brand of hypocrisy that is innate in all of us. It is not specific. For example, if your analogies were to be extended further, you said yourself that you eat meat, does that mean you are incapable of caring for animals? Of course not. But it does make you a hypocrite. One of the true aspects of the show that make it shine is growth. Growth implies mistakes are allowed (character flaws). I'm not sure how you can crucify a show on something it's designed to handle. |
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2013-09-21, 03:23 | Link #411 | ||||||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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The show, rather than Hachiken, granted, seems to present Hachiken as especially thoughtful and compassionate for what he did and does for the pigs. Indeed, it looks like some of you here bought it. But it makes no practical difference to the pigs. They still end up slaughtered, right on schedule. (And to muddy the waters further, he is especially thoughtful and compassionate. But it only makes a practical difference when he applies it to humans.) Quote:
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2013-09-21, 03:43 | Link #412 | |||
We're Back
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Location: Redgrave City
Age: 35
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It's not about saving the animals from the evil humans; It's about people involved in the agriculture line of work, and so this is their reality. Saving one pig because you're attached to it, or suddenly declaring that animals should not be eaten is quite frankly something city folks have the luxury of saying when their livelihood doesn't depend on it. If you want to talk about honesty, I don't seem to recall anyone "leading the pigs on" by promising that they would live happy ever after. Quote:
It also doesn't mean that he thinks pets can be eaten, just in case you were going to say that. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P.S - I realized that you're probably just playing the devil's advocate here, but all this is really only an issue if you ignore the premise and context of the story.
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2013-09-21, 04:11 | Link #414 | |||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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My POV is that there is something hypocritical about not making a distinction between pets and food. But a bit of hypocrisy isn't so bad. Who does it hurt? But at the same time, I'm not going to be swooning at how attached to the pigs Hachiken is. Because that attachment changes nothing. |
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2013-09-21, 04:13 | Link #415 |
Maddo Scientisto
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: UK
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I think I can see where the "hypocrisy" of Hachiken's position should lie: he weights two issues in a complete different way, and ends up preferring just the fact that he likes meat (something that is almost exclusively a leisure) to actually saving the lives of animals, or at least refusing to take part in their slaughter. If the "food" involved here were people, this would be nothing short of monstrous: I refuse to oppose the infliction of death and suffering on the simple base that I like it too much how it is. It wouldn't be different from, say, supporting gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome because, no matter how I think it's unfair that people is sent to die, I enjoy too much the show.
However, I think there's something else in play when we're talking about animals, that is: most of what happens happens only in our heads. It's not like animals don't suffer or don't experience fear - they all do, pain and fear are natural mechanisms of protection from external danger - but surely they don't even come close to the kind of awareness of life that we experience. While our technical and intellectual superiority allows us to breed them for our own sustenance, it's our mind as well that allows us to feel empathy towards them, or get attached to single creatures and humanize them in our point of view. While it's not right to consider animals only "things", it's not right to consider them human beings either. These two extremes represent our easiest ways to see them, but they are both wrong to an extent. I think Hachiken's struggle is to find that middle point: remind constantly to himself, even by experiencing attachment and suffering, that animals are NOT things, but still, do not give away his position as a human being, or devalue it in favour of animals. It's a sounder and more balanced position than that of those specific self-righteous vegans who call "assassins" people who eats meat, for example.
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2013-09-21, 05:33 | Link #417 | |
Human
Join Date: Aug 2004
Age: 37
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Anyway, I think making a spectrum with "human" on one end and "object" on the other is missing the point just as much, and perhaps more dangerously. Once you start sorting sentience on an algorithm like that, it's only a short leap to say that mentally retarded people, or some whole ethnic group, or... babies... aren't fully "human" and therefore don't deserve human rights. Heck, maybe the people who score below me on an IQ test are edible? I don't think it's rationally justifiable to assign value to human intelligence alone. Unless you want to eat babies. For the record, adult pigs are smarter than human babies. You could go the other way and say "humans are humans, and pigs are pigs" but then you've already left your pretense of moral justification. If humans are humans and pig are pigs, then surely there's nothing wrong with pigs slaughtering humans, right? I mean, the human perspective is by hypothesis nothing like a pig, so there's no reason for a pig to feel guilty. Which, well, maybe you'll accept as true. But in that case we're not "justified" in killing pigs because they're lesser than us, we're just overpowering them because we're stronger. And maybe there's nothing wrong with that, except wars and slavery and whatnot. But didn't we just say humans are humans? Well, sure, but unless you extend your sense of kinship to an unreasonable level there's nothing that makes humanity fundamentally adverse to killing each other. Ultimately it comes down to either two theories: social contract ("I'm afraid of being killed so I'll agree to mutually avoid killing") or basic empathy. And clearly people are also capable of empathizing with animals. So yeah. Moral of the story: don't eat other humans because you'll get Kuru. This is a prion disorder that spreads by eating nerve tissue of the same species. Humanity, in our infinite cruelty, decided to recycle inedible cattle parts by grinding them up and feeding them to other cattle, which is a huge contributor in the spread of Mad Cow Disease, which is basically the same thing as Kuru, but for cows. Eating your own kind is just plain unhealthy. So eat pigs instead. But love them. |
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2013-09-21, 09:53 | Link #418 | |||||||||
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
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So this is just a profit-oriented industry like any other, not some kind of life-saving endeavor. Quote:
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He's dead meat anyway, even if his meat is worth his weight in gold. That's exactly like Guardian Enzo said, some kind of self-delusion that allows Hachiken to feel okay about the whole thing. Quote:
And no, I wouldn't be able to eat my pet, or an animal I had a personal connection with. This is a natural human reaction, and it doesn't just apply to animals. You wouldn't get as sad about some stranger's death as you would have been if a person you know and like died. It's all about being personally related. And so, to me, fattening up an animal while calling it cute names and at the same time imagining just how good its meat will taste is worse than simply killing some random animal for food. |
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2013-09-21, 11:06 | Link #419 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
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I happened to come across Guardian Enzo's thoughtful review over at Random Curiosity and realized I had something else to add about not seeing the point.
If the purpose of the story is to say "it's perfectly okay to raise animals for slaughter, stop being a silly bleeding heart about it", then the story does not work as it is. Because the viewers who already share that opinion won't find anything new for themselves, they simply wasted some time watching this city kid not agreeing with the obvious and then shrugging his doubts off and eating bacon just as happily as his friends. Basically, the kind of viewer who agrees will shrug and say: so what, this is obvious. The kind of viewers who don't agree with the message will come away annoyed or even offended, because the author played on their sentiments for so long just to end it in that ahh-tasty-meat way. There is no argument presented that can bring such a viewer over, just a gleeful disregard for his or her feelings. So... what's the point? Those who agree don't need the whole arc, those who don't agree will be alienated even more. |
2013-09-21, 12:00 | Link #420 |
Behold! We are the Nine!
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Sendai, Japan
Age: 38
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Err ... every coming-of-age story is about how a kid becomes to realize the obvious, am I wrong?
This anime is about Hachiken's growth (whether you like how he grows is another matter), not to teach the viewers some moral lessons. |
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agriculture, comedy |
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