'Le portrait de petit Cossette コゼットの肖像' by Shinbo Akiyuki (新房昭之)

[Massive spoilers ahead.]

1) There are, of course multiple ways to read this allegoric story, which is just what a good story should be like - it is a word to the wise and a tale to the simple. As a tale to the simple, it is the story of an introverted young college student, Kurahashi, falling in love with the dead spirit of Cossette, who was killed by Kurahashi in his past life and now resides in a Venetian glass that has come into Kurahashi's possession. Nobody sees her except him - and for all we know she may well be a product of his imagination. To add a twist to the story, Kurahashi in his past life murdered Cossette, who was the model of many of his paintings as well as his fiancee (though she could not have been more than twelve or thirteen at the time). You see - she was a young beauty, and he could not bear the thought of her ever growing up into a woman. My preferred approach to such a plot would be the Jungian approach, for the psychology of Kurahashi is a fascinating case of paedophilia and a man whose personal growth is, so to speak, arrested by his anima. My points are set out as follows:

a) Cossette is Kurahashi's anima. An anima, according to Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz's definition, is "a personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man's psyche, such as vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feeling for nature, and -- last but not least -- his relation to the unconscious. It is no mere chance that in olden times priestesses (like the Greek Sibyl) were used to fathom the divine will and to make connection with the gods." Well, Cossette is all that.

b) Kurahashi's coma is closely related to the traditional Shamanic descent, which every apprentice of Shamanism must undergo in order to become a shaman. Cossette is his guide in the Unconscious, in which he creates art by having Cossette as his model. It is in that 'other world' (ie. his coma) that he undergoes a breakthrough as an artist.

c) That 'other world' collapses the moment he realizes that the Cossette he sees is some eternal embodiment of Beauty in art - and not Cossette the actual girl who had lived many centuries ago. The 'false' Cossette, of couse, retorts by saying that she is more real than the real Cossette - a formidable statement indeed. It is not rare among those who are sensitive to beauty at all that artifice could have a 'more real' presence in the mind than reality itself.

d) As his anima, Cossette is the personification of Eros and Pathos - she facilitates his capacity for love and suffering. Indeed she goes out of her way to make him suffer, for having killed her in his past life for growing up. The ugly monsters she conjures up to expressly inflict harm on him are not just ugly monsters out of nowhere, but the Dark Anima - in other words, the other half of her whose existence is denied by him because he has his eyes fixed on some unattainable vision of beauty. And what one denies in one's psyche inevitably takes its revenge on one by turning into a demon in one's mind - the more one suppresses it, the more powerful it becomes.

e) So why Cossette's tender young age? Methinks this setup is more than just a marketing trick to lure the 'Lolita fashion' crowd. Kurahashi has all the characteristics of an immature young man. She cannot grow up because he does not want to grow up.

f) But here is the Catch-22, when he does grow up (ie. come to terms with the fact that she is not real), she is no longer to be found. In a way, artists, regardless of their actual age, must remain 'young', or at least retain 'the eyes of a child,' to create art. This may account for their immature outlook or conduct in life, which tends to invite troubles that any sensible adult would be able to avoid. In old age, they may compensate for their lack of fiery spirit with their mastery of the techniques of their craft, but it is that fiery spirit of youth that is the forge from which art is created. Hence the Catch-22.

2) I must say, whoever responsible for the soundtrack of this outstanding anime must have been an Orpehus who has gone down into the Underworld and come back to the human world.

3) The voice actress of Cossette, Inoue Marina 井上麻里奈, has officially become my favourite voice actress. The theme song she sings is also a jewel among anime theme songs. And that scream of hers at the end of the third episode is purely classic in the history of Japanese anime voice acting.

Comments

[Wabisabi]

[These are imported comments.]

3 Comments:

Raoule said...

Another young friend of mine keeps trying to prod me into watching this... (She lent me the soundtrack recently and apparently it is by a Yuki Kajiura.) With this little review you have helped her greatly in persuading me. Point 1.f/ in particuilar is very interesting as the artists amongst my friends are indeed for the most part children regardless of their actual ages. For example, the young friend whom I mentioned earlier is a perfect specimen. A highly intelligent young woman, about your age, and acomplished artist whose art in the last two-three years have been getting better by the month and at the same time a child whose look on the world clashes greatly with "sensible" adult society.
The prevalence of mental illness' such as bipolar disorder in artists is also a point to consider when discussing the youth of artists' spirits.
Ah well, I am babbling. Psychylogy and psychiatry was never my forte.

3/18/2006 8:27 PM

Raoule said...

Oh dear! I just realised my spelling today is quite disgraceful. I do apologise.

3/18/2006 8:31 PM

Wabisabi said...

Point 1f is just an idea pinched from the great Doktor Jung. I should like to know what your young artist friend has to say about this story. Perhaps she should develop what they call a 'persona' in Jungian pscyhology. The men of letters whom I happen to admire most, demented creatures they may be underneath, are men who are also actively engaged in the affairs of he world. Robertson Davis, for one, besides being the Great Man of Canadian Literature, was also the Master of Massey College, with a myriad of administrative duties. Even the great Goethe practised law and held political offices once.

3/19/2006 12:19 PM

[Neohybrid_kai]

wow, I'm speechless.. this is so far the most interesting analysis about one of my fave anime for all time.

I like your view on point 1.c now that I think about it, falling in love with a "concept" can actually exist too.

And I very much agree with point 1.f, to create an art or inventing something, you have to possess a great deal of curiosity or imagination. This is what getting decreased as people gets older.

Cossette is what a gothic lolita anime should be, I don't think there will be an anime like this in a decade.
*sigh* but now gothloli becomes another trend (after tsundere)

oh, and speaking about Akiyuki Shinbo, I find Sayonara Zetsubou sensei anime is getting more and more dissappointing (it's more like pani poni dash ^^) oh well, its just my rants, hehe

[Wabisabi]

Thanks for your comments. ^-^

I think 1.c is quite obvious from the plot. I don't get a cookie for articulating that.

BTW, I gave w, one of my regular commentators here, a short story I wrote with a twist ending that is likewise about falling in love with a 'concept'. Now I just desperately hope that I will see the story adapted into her glorious (manga?) art.

I lost touch with trendy female character types, but it would be interesting to study the fads that have come and gone.

[Neohybrid_kai]

Petit Cossette is already adapted into two volumes of manga, but maybe you've already know. The ending, surprisingly, is different. And what's more surprising is that the manga is finally lisenced in my country few months ago (I was screaming like a fangirls back then ^^)

just in case if you're curious about the manga art, there's some scans in my blog about that (pay no attention to the text as it's in Indonesian language ^^)

vol 1 cover
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/Neohybrid_kai/Cossette_scans.jpg

vol 2
http://tabikarasu.blogspot.com/2007/06/cossette-vol-02-yes-people-that-is.html

[Wabisabi]

A fairytale ending. -__-

Thanks for the scans anyway. ^-^

[Neohybrid_kai]

Actually, that's not from the ending part ^^
but if you're interested for the ending

*spoiler for ending (manga version)*

Eiri finally "married" Cossette but as he venture deeper to her world (a pure white world) and leaving reality behind, his fear overcomes him and he let go her hand (this scene kind of remind me of Orpheus when he look behind btw).
Eiri finally back to real world, but not for long, a few steps after leaving hospital, he get hits by a car and died instantly.
The manga ended with Cossette sighing how she must look another, I forget, 250 years, to find Eiri/Marcello/whatever he'll become ^^

*spoiler end*

that's it ^^

[Wabisabi]

Sorry for misunderstanding that it is the ending... ^-^

But still... I know I was going heavy with Jungian interpretation in my review but... my, the manga sure has a 'Jungian' ending if there was any.

It reminds me of Jung's record of a patient with a neuroses dying a strange accidental death as though a part of his subconscious was craving for such a death.

To go back to the real world for Eiri would be... an anticlimax. Maybe his subconscious opted for such a death because if he dies, he would not have to make a decision between the real world and his inner world. That's probably the best solution as far as Eiri is concerned.

[minus-one]

Shinbo?! (i can't believe it...) anyway, i didn't really like this anime; visually it's nice, but overall it's pseudo-intellectual and shallow (typical art-house).

first season of zetsubou sensei was really good (real Shinbo); second season feels slightly worn out.

(also, dr. Jung isn't so much of an authority in real-life psychology, you know (he couldn't fully understand Freud, so he distorted him; he was just bad apprentice, not more than that...) he's much more popular among people interested in psychology, than among those who practise it).

[Wabi Sabi]

I didn't like Zetsubou-sensei at all - it just feels like a come-down to me after 'Cossette'.

I have read Freud and I have read Jung, and I have to say Jung's theories make more sense to me. The two disagree and that is that, though I would say that perhaps no one understands Freud better than Jung, even though Jung sees things differently in the end.

I can't say for other people - but for myself, I actually went out of my way to dig up Jung's lecture notes that are thick as dictionaries (certainly not 'popular reading' by any stretch of the imagination) and read through them all. There is a lot to be said about his theories, even if you don't completely agree with everything. And his influence on Thomas Mann, Robertson Davis, ML von Franz is something to reckon with.