00:01
Preece says,
To obtain bread, one offers coin. To obtain rights, one offers taxes. To obtain wages,
one offers labor. So then, what must one offer up to obtain the truth of our world?
Got it. What was your answer to that question?
I don't have an answer for this.
Oh, really?
Do you?
Yes.
What is it?
最終話の導入
Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK! I am your host Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku,
and
I am Cisco, your co-host and American otaku.
In this podcast, we share our reviews of anime and manga through our distinct
perspectives with commentary on Japanese culture, history, and language.
Cisco, we are finally talking about the last episode of Orb on the Movements of the Earth.
Are you ready to talk about it?
Yep, I'm ready.
So today, we are going to dive into the last episode of Orb.
We will discuss some details in the last episode,
and also what we think about the meaning of the grown-up version of Raphael.
We are explaining all about the opening theme song, Kaiju,
and its brand new music video. And finally, today's word of the day.
Before we start, please subscribe and follow 2AM OTTACK on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
Amazon Music, YouTube, and YouTube Music.
Also send us some comments about today's episode on Spotify or YouTube.
Alright, let's talk about the last episode of Orb.
The title is question mark.
Yeah.
Oh, so Raphael has been back, and I thought it was nice to see him.
I mean, it's definitely confusing, like, why is he there?
And he looks grown up.
Did he not really die?
Yeah, it's nice to see that, like...
Familiar face?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or so you thought.
I know. And you guessed about the last episode wrong this time.
What did I say?
You said nobody would die.
Yeah.
Turns out that was an optimistic prediction for this show.
Wait till somebody dies.
Albert lived, though.
Albert lived, yeah, which is important.
Yep.
アルバートの回想
In this episode, Raphael invited Albert for the special gathering.
When Albert was a kid.
Right. This is about his flashback.
Right.
So during... Albert was fascinated by all the conversation around him,
but he noticed he had to go home and then...
Take his measurements of the planets, his observations.
So he went back, and what he found was shocking.
Yes.
And Raphael started calmly explaining,
you're here, let me explain.
Yeah, sorry I just murdered your dad.
Very, like, chill he was.
What did you think about the scene?
Yeah, I mean, I think it felt a little forced to me.
Like, I didn't really understand why Raphael had to murder him,
even from Raphael's explanation.
It was kind of like, like, I get it.
He was like, oh, he's hogging knowledge.
He won't share his information, you know.
And Raphael's position is sort of that knowledge is more important than human life.
And you see that really in the child Raphael's decision to poison himself
rather than give up his sort of pursuit and ideals of truth.
And particularly because he knows that if he doesn't kill himself,
he'll be tortured until he reveals the location of the stone box
with all of his knowledge in it.
And so he's like, I'd rather kill myself
than let that fall into the wrong hands, essentially.
And so here we're seeing the flip side of that coin,
that Raphael is okay with murdering people for knowledge too,
because the pursuit of knowledge is so much more important than human life.
So like, I get that.
I think that's what the show is trying to say, right?
Is that if you have these kind of ideals about
knowledge being more important than life,
then it can lead you to some like really twisted places.
But it still felt forced.
It was kind of like, I'm pretty sure you could have come to a resolution with this guy
that did not involve stabbing him like directly in the heart, you know.
アルバートの記憶と教訓
And so it felt kind of out of nowhere.
But the whole situation with it being Raphael also felt so out of nowhere
that I was inclined to just kind of go with it.
I mean, I did a decent amount of reading on Reddit.
So I'm like combining lots of different people's theories here.
But I think it makes sense to me that Albert as a child
is not necessarily the world's most reliable narrator.
Like he's remembering things from when he was a kid,
but that doesn't mean he remembers it perfectly the way it happened.
And so you can make some allowances for the weirdness of the situation by being like,
maybe this is what child Albert understood about what was going on.
And for what the author is trying to say about sort of extremism or blind devotion to ideology
or being so sure you're right that you're willing to kill other people over it.
You know, I think it as even though it feels a little bit, again, forced,
I think it makes sense as a thing the author is trying to say.
Okay.
神父たちの葛藤
And Albert talked all about his childhood about Raphael teacher
and his dad to the priest.
Right.
And the priest was like, okay, it's my turn to tell you some secret.
And he started opening his mouth saying, I left a friend for dead.
Right.
I was like, who's this guy?
Right.
Immediately it's like, wait, is this a character we've seen before?
Right.
And he started saying like he committed a really bad crime and didn't do anything about it.
And it's like, oh,
This sounds familiar.
This sounds familiar.
So I thought this gotta be the priest that worked for Novak.
Right.
The other inquisitor.
Yeah.
There are two young inquisitor.
Right.
Worked for Novak.
And one of them decided to let Yolanda go.
Right.
While, you know, they were questioning her.
Right.
And then Yolanda ran away.
But the one of the inquisitor got caught and then.
Well, beat up.
Beat up.
Yeah.
He got beat up.
And then he was trying to say like, you know, love your enemy or.
Right.
Yeah.
So the I mean, he refuses to participate in torturing Yolanda because he doesn't think
she's guilty.
And the other inquisitor, the blonde one is sort of like, hey, man, we like have our orders.
Like we have to do what they say.
And so he sort of seems down to do it.
Right.
But then the brown haired guy lets her get away.
And so after beating him up and finding out that he let her escape, Antony realizes he
needs a body to prove to Novak that Yolanda is really dead.
And so there's a very chilling moment where he says, you know, where the guy's like, well,
where are we going to get a body?
And he's like, there's one right in front of you.
Right.
And so I think the blonde it's not totally clear because I don't show all of the steps
that take place or like who's around when things happen.
But it's sort of implied that like the blonde priest could have spoken up or tried to help
the brown haired priest escape or at least like maybe not get burned alive.
And he didn't.
Partly because maybe he thought the other guy was in the wrong for having let Yolanda
go.
But it also really seems like he's just afraid of Antony and the other inquisitors and that
he goes along with the thing he knows is kind of wrong because he's not brave enough to
stand up to it.
Yeah, the brown haired priest as he's on the ground, you know, when they're sort of like,
why did you let her go?
He's like, love thy enemy, which is one of Jesus is like better known sayings.
And Antony is like, oh, yes, of course, you've been tricked by it.
Like, kind of classic.
Like, yeah, he was like saying, that's how like people, you know, mistakenly understand
the phrase.
That's not what it really means.
It's like, yeah, that's exactly what it means.
I think like that, that is kind of a nice moment of showing why the Protestant Reformation
was popular, right?
It's like, there's some parts of the Bible that actually aren't that hard to understand.
And when you hear like a priest who supposedly like has done a lot of research and understands
the Bible really well, flatly contradicting the most obvious parts, it becomes really
hard not to doubt the authority of the church.
And so I think that's, you know, yeah, that's I liked that scene quite a lot.
And during the conversation between Albert and the priest, towards the end of the conversation,
priest says, to obtain bread, one offers coin, to obtain rights, one offers taxes,
to obtain wages, one offers labor.
So then what must one offer up to obtain the truth of our world?
Do you remember this?
Yes.
So this is already said at the very, very first episode of beginning is the same phrase
by same voice actor.
Oh, interesting.
That's how the story starts.
Oh, by the priest guy.
Yeah.
Interesting.
The narrator.
Got it.
What was your answer to that question?
I don't have an answer for this.
Oh, really?
Do you?
Yes.
What is it?
Certainty.
Certainty?
Yeah, which is hilarious, right?
Because I'm like, certainty, it's definitely certainty.
But there are so many things in the show that I think point to this as the answer that in
order to get the truth, you have to give up your own sense of certainty about what it is in order
to be able to like explore possibilities.
And I think at a couple different like pivotal moments in the show, sort of like characters
who seem to have obtained some wisdom offer advice to younger characters.
And almost always the advice is like, stay hungry, keep questioning things.
Like, don't assume that you know everything.
We see that from Yolanta to Draca.
We see that same message from this priest to Albert.
I think we see that message basically from Hubert to Rafael in the very beginning.
But this idea that like certainty is bad, and questioning is good, is also like what's at the
core of Aporia and also is what's at the core of like getting towards knowledge and the scientific
method is that it's not about answers.
It's about questions.
So I'm not modeling that very well by being like, yeah, the answer of like,
how do you get to the truth is you have to give up certainty.
But I think that's especially the case with, you know, when we're thinking about
the heliocentric model versus the church's Earth-centric model that, you know,
if you took it on faith that the Earth must be at the center of the universe,
because God would have put it there, then you can never really understand what's going on with
the rest of the universe.
And once you decenter that way of thinking by saying maybe like what makes it make sense
mathematically, you can arrive at a better answer than you can from a place of a priori
certainty about what the answer is going to be.
But what do I know?
You should ask your own questions about what the show is about.
真実を得るための疑問
So after the conversation, Albert decided to go to university
and he signed up his name as Albert Brzozowski.
I'm not actually very good at Polish pronunciation either,
but I think it's probably Brzozowski.
And then at the end of the show, he explains who is this guy.
Right. He was a real person.
A person who was basically the teacher for Copernicus.
Oh, he was one of Copernicus's teachers anyway. Yeah. At the university.
So it's implied that he had doubts about the geocentric model,
although he wasn't very...
He didn't really contest it or develop his own model to replace it,
but he voiced doubts that it was accurate.
And the implication is that Copernicus as a student heard those doubts and started
thinking and came up with his own questions and eventually his own
heliocentric model, like again, from scratch.
ドゥラカのメッセージとピオトロフスキ
So yeah, we finally got some closure on Draca's message.
Draca's message is in fact a letter to Piotrowski.
They're reading it out loud in front of Piotrowski's house being like,
hey, are you Piotrowski? He's like, hell no.
And they're like, oh, this says like, you know,
if there's any money to be made from this book about how the earth isn't
the center of the universe or the sun is the center of the universe,
then it should go to you.
And they're like, oh, that's preposterous.
As Albert Brzozowski is walking by and he's shown with just a question mark, right?
Right. He was like, the title of the book was on the movement of the earth.
Oh, right, right, right, right, right.
He was like, what is that?
He's like, what's that about? And it makes him question.
When I watched the scene, I thought about the conversation between
Priest and Albert when Priest was saying like, when a miracle happens, it necessarily.
Oh, yeah. Like it's either all miracles happen out of necessity,
but they're by chance and then inverts that sentence.
So maybe that's why.
Yeah, maybe.
アルバートの登場と歴史的背景
So at the very first episode of Orb, it says early 15th century somewhere in the kingdom of Pea.
And then when Albert came in, it says it changed to 1468 Poland.
Right.
It became clear.
Yeah. I think my interpretation of this is that the first part of the story is fiction.
The author is making it up. It didn't really happen.
And so to establish the uncertainty around what is going on, he's not using specific dates,
and he also isn't using specific place names to add to the sense of unreality or the
possibility that something like this happened, but without like implying that it necessarily did.
And then once we get Albert Brzezinski introduces character, because he's a real historical person,
we get an actual historical date and an actual historical location.
And so I think that's the reasoning behind sort of like lifting the veil and getting
those more specific dates as opposed to the intentional, I think, unspecificity in the
beginning.
I googled about Albert, trying to see if he was a baker.
Oh, was he?
I couldn't find the answer. I kind of hoped he was a baker.
Yeah. I mean, he was young when he went to university. I think he was like 20 or something.
I don't know that we have any records of what he was doing before he went to university.
Maybe he was a baker.
最終回の意義と視聴者の混乱
Maybe. Okay. The last question about the episode of Orb. What does the last episode of Orb mean?
It was so confusing. I think you already kind of guessed. You kind of guessed it. And to me,
the guess made me understand better.
That the idea of Rafal's position being intentional to create a poria in the viewer.
Yeah. So again, I like went through some Reddit comments about this
and saw a bunch of different potential things, some of which we sort of talked about,
some of which I thought about was like rejected as like not good answers.
And I'm not the only person with that interpretation. Some of the other comments
I saw had the same idea of like, what if this is on purpose to make the viewer feel a poria
about it and like sort of do what the author seems to be suggesting is like the right way
to live your life by asking questions and trying to make sense of like phenomena that don't fit
our mold of what we understand about the world. And so if that is in fact the intention,
then I think it's a reasonable one. I saw a lot of people being on Reddit being like,
Rafalの再登場と視聴者の反応
they're in like an alternate dimension or reality where Rafal actually didn't die or something.
And I don't like that as an explanation. Like I understand where people with that
interpretation are coming from, but I think it's kind of lame as an explanation or it's
just like it's not satisfying to me as an explanation. And so I prefer the idea that
either Albert's not a reliable narrator, he doesn't remember exactly what's going on.
Rafal is something of a, not a figment of his imagination because I'm sure his father really
died, but is an ideal or a sort of memory rather than a actual person. And I definitely think
Rafal as a metaphor for extremists makes a lot of sense. And so I think that, you know, putting him,
sticking him back in there and making the viewer be like, wait, what? Like, how could this be?
How would this work? Induces a state of a poria where like you don't have a good answer to those
things. And then the viewer has to go and search for their own answers, which is a big part of what
the message of the show is about. So Thomas Zane, Thomas Zane, yeah. Experiencing Thomas Zane or
a poria and then being, I mean, Thomas Zane is like wonder or ought of like nature. Yeah.
I don't think we're fall being alive again, induces Thomas Zane specifically, but I do think
it induces a poria where you're like, wait, like this, this question doesn't seem to have an
answer. Like I need to like approach it in another way, or I need to like think more deeply about it
in order to arrive at one. I do think it creates that feeling. Thomas Zane is there in like the
real world, but it's, I don't think Rafal being alive again is yeah. I mean, maybe in the sense
of like confusion, but not, I think a poria is a better word for what is being induced by Rafal
being alive again. After I hear your thoughts about it, those phrases, those things like
Rafal said to Albert right after he killed Albert's dad felt like more real. What he said
was, well, I understand how you feel. You must be confused. Even so, I'd like you to stay calm.
If you deal with rationally, this too can be understood. I have faith in you. Right. It's
like as if like author is like telling us. He's trying to like challenge us to figure out what the
hell is going on here. Yeah. I mean, I think it's also a critique of people who are so sure of their
own actions that they can do things like murder others and be like, whatever, I'm right. You'll
get it later. It's not a positive expression of that set of beliefs. I think it's a critique of
that to be like, this is a bad way to live your life is so sure you're right that killing other
people can be rationalized. And I think we see a lot of that in the modern day world where people,
we had to kill these people because reasons, reasons, reasons. And so I think that's actually
like, I mean, I hear you on he's challenging the audience to be like, try and figure this out.
Don't just like panic and freak out and be like, bad show because we're false to live girl. But
also I think it's a critique of that type of position of like, like, you know, don't blame
me if you think about it rationally, killing people is like the right thing to do. All right.
音楽ビデオの紹介
So let's move on to the theme song Kaiju by Sakanaction. They made a music video in this like,
very short period of time, which came out right after the last episode of ORF aired on NHK, I
think. We saw the music video in live streaming, the main vocalist Ichiro Yamaguchi did an interview
to the music video director later. Let me explain what he said.
Should we explain what's in the music video first?
Oh, yeah, sure. Can you explain?
Sure. So the music video is really straightforward. The lead singer,
who's the only member of the band who appears in the video because the others couldn't make it to
the shoot. Yes. I mean, like, I get, you know, I get it. People have like busy lives and stuff
going on. But like, how do you not go to your own band's music video shoot?
Yeah. Okay, so that happened.
I think guitarless, I think one of the members was explaining his son passed like an entrance
exam for high school or something. And then they decided to go to DisneySea or something. And
they go, good for him. Yeah, taking family.
I mean, I guess it also feels like you could have rescheduled that trip and not like not done.
It's not easy to get like tickets. Maybe they were staying in the hotel or.
I guess so. I just I don't know. That's a choice, man. Anyway, so yeah, I mean,
I they were on a like a tight schedule. So I get it. It didn't work. Anyway,
the lead singer is the only guy appears in the video. He's holding a giant egg and he's in
the subway. And it looks actually like an American subway. It looks like it's just one corridor
that looks like it's maybe got like an eye shape. And he passes through the same corridor over and
over. It looks like he's looking for a way out of the subway and he just can't find one every time
he goes into a new corridor. It's the same as the last corridor. And as he passes through these
corridors with this egg, he encounters various different people, all of whom try to take the egg
from him in one way or almost all of whom try to take the egg from him in one way or the other.
He knocks into somebody. People threaten him. People try to bribe him. People try to seduce
him to give the egg away. And each time he gets, you know, like holds on to the egg or
recovers the egg and then runs into the next corridor. And eventually he meets a little girl
who hands him a pen. And you're kind of like, what's he going to do with this pen? Is he going
to write his name on the egg? Is he going to break the egg? It just sort of holds on to it.
And at the very end, he actually at the very beginning to he is being crushed in between
two of the walls of the subway, which have tightened in on him. And he's struggling to
get through. And in the ending, he is grabbed from behind by one of the characters who has
been trying to get the egg from him. He stabs the guy in the hand with the pen. The guy lets him go
and he keeps trying to get through the walls. And ultimately he's manages to stick the egg in his
hand out of the closing walls. It falls into the hands of someone else, like some other passerby.
And then he's like crushed between the two walls permanently at the end. So it's pretty repetitive.
There's not actually that many different types of scenery. And the story is extremely straightforward.
He's got the egg. Other people want to take it away. He's trying to protect it. And then he gets
crushed at the end. Yeah, it's sort of easy to understand an egg is it could be like Kaiju's egg,
but also could be like belief or faith could be something that's very important to him. Yeah. Yeah.
And the director said there are people who are trying to get rid of the egg was like money or
seduction or what do you call it? Hypnotism. Hypnotism. Hypnotism like person means a little
bit of like religion. Sure. Brainwashing. Violence. And especially the violence guy
kind of represents the image of dad of like parents trying to make you give you up your
dreams and belief with force. And then a little girl comes in who is not, you know, affected.
Who's still pure and wants to believe in stuff. Right. Also representing the vocalist himself.
Oh, I see. Yeah. But she was taken away from her mom. Director was trying to show. He wanted to
show the version of the lead singer. That's the hardest to show. Yeah. Or the hardest to look at.
Yeah. He was struggling. He was running away, trying to hold on to his belief. So that the
社会的圧力とアイデンティティ
whole thing is representing him and or of course, right. Especially towards the end. And there's a
like sign says norm. Like it was the point direction. So when he tried to go to the norm
part was open up. Oh, but when he tries to go to the other way, like what to try to push him
and to try to crush him. So the walls means like pressure from society, from society,
especially in Japan. Yeah. I think Japan has the idea. It's good to follow in the majority.
Right. Or that it's better to obey the norms or fit in. Yeah. So form. Yeah. I think that was
the explanation from the director. I have to say like when I watched it, I interpreted it a little
bit differently than this. The lead singer struggled for a long time with depression.
And I think one of the more interesting ways to read the music video, even if it wasn't the
intention behind it is as a metaphor for depression that, you know, he's got this egg,
this maybe some hope or some authentic self or whatever you want to call it. He's trying to take
care of it. But society keeps trying to squish it out of him. And no matter how he tries to escape,
like, everything looks the same. And it doesn't really feel possible to get out of the situation
he's stuck in. That to me feels like very descriptive of what it's like to battle depression
and to feel like, you know, no matter where you go, everything's always the same. There's no real
way out. You're trying to sort of take care of and protect yourself, but everything is against you.
And no matter what you do, it doesn't seem to work. I like the interpretation. I think this
is Sakanaction's first song to do anime theme song. Oh, nice. Wait, what about the didn't you say
they did one for Bakuman? Bakuman but for live action. Shin Takarajimasu for the live action.
Not the anime. Yeah. Because Uoto, the manga artist asked Sakanaction to make theme song
for Orb. Yeah. And then that was just perfect. Yeah, I nailed it. And like the reason why
Sakanaction has never done anime theme song is partially because their music company contributor,
what do you say? Producer? Producer? I don't know. Their label? Their label is Victor. And Victor
has no connection to anime. Got it. But like, Sony owns Aniplex or something. They're related.
Isn't it AVEX tracks? Or is that like, did they get bought out and don't exist anymore?
For a really long time, like so much anime music was released through AVEX tracks because like,
yeah, whoever was producing the anime also own that. And we're just trying to like rep their
own artists on it. Yeah. So Aniplex has like, you know, Demon Slayer. Sure. Or like more other,
like, you know, famous animes. So like often you hear kind of, you know, same singers or bands over
and over. Yeah, because they are hiring their own people. Yeah, that makes sense. All right.
Let's do word of the day. Okay. So today's word of the day is? Hatena Mark. Or Hatena. Okay.
That's the title of the last episode of Orb. Yeah. It's called? It's a question mark. It's a
question mark. So we were wondering why is it Hatena Mark? Like, why isn't it Shitsumon Mark?
Or some other word that corresponds to question in English. Okay. So seems that the reason that
it's Hatena Mark is there's an expression in Japanese, Hatte, which means, can be translated
as like, so now let's see, or well then, or something else. But it's a phrase that indicates
that you're thinking about something or like pondering it. And so I think the last time I
heard this was in Anno-chan's opening theme song for Danma nibun no ichi, which is like,
Hatte, in the middle. But it's used sometimes by people who are about to raise a question,
right? To be like, so, you know, like I imagine physics professors using this quite a lot to be
アニメ『Orb』の哲学的考察
like, oh, right. Like an airplane has dropped like, you know, a skier out of its cargo bay
and they're falling at a rate of whatever, whatever. And now they're going to land on the
snow. How fast will they be going 12 seconds after they hit the mountain? And then it'd be like,
Hatte, like, here we have gravity and here we have like the friction coefficient between the
ski and the snow, blah, blah, blah. Like that, but it sets up a question, right? I don't know that I
needed an example that long, but it sets up questions. And so in old Japanese, you would
have said Hatte na, right? As like a, I wonder, essentially. And so that's where the name of this
mark comes from. And I think that state of being like Hatte is sort of similar to Aporia, right?
Thinking about or trying to answer a question. And so that's why we chose that.
All right. Thank you. Before we end the orb episode, anything you'd like to say?
This was such a great anime. I'm so glad we got to do so many episodes about it. I think
it really made me think a lot. And that's something that I really enjoy doing.
You do.
I love like pondering possibilities and being in Aporia. And I don't think I get to experience
Talmazan as much as I would like to. Like I think going out into nature and having those moments
where you confront like, you know, glorious complexity of the universe and really it makes
you think about stuff are awesome. But I just loved how much this anime taught me, how much
it made me think. And I hope that a lot of people get to see it and enjoy the bomb opening theme
song and ending theme songs, as well as the sort of deep philosophical journey that it takes viewers
on.
Only thing I want to say before we end is if Japanese anime companies or I don't know,
production decided to make orb in live action, Hollywood should do it.
Yeah.
Specifically HBO.
Yes, strongly agree. Oh, I did remember what I wanted to say earlier. The last thing I wanted
to say about this is it feels like a very timely show, especially the last episodes
investigation of Rafal's willingness to kill people for his beliefs and the dangers of
certainty as opposed to doubt and questioning and the incredible importance of science to answer
questions about our world. Those all feel like really important topics right now when we're
living in an age where people develop enormous amounts of certainty about stuff they don't
actually have any expertise in, just based on their own sort of opinions without actually
asking questions or looking into things scientifically and in an age where an enormous
number of people are obeying and without questioning their own complicity in perpetuating
like harm to others, whether that's killing people or you know, whatever it may be, that
this anime has a lot to say about people's responsibilities, even when you feel like a
small cog in a wheel or the importance of standing up to stuff, you know, is wrong.
And so I'm glad it's out right now.
All right. Including this episode, I think we made five episodes. I kind of wished we,
you know, could have done it like every single episode. Then it'd be like 25.
It would've been too many. Yeah.
Yeah. It'd be too many. I didn't think it was going to be this great anime.
And there are parts of it that are kind of slow.
Yeah.
But overall, it really, it really paid off.
Yeah. So check those episodes out in the description.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. If you liked this week's episode,
please give us good reviews on Spotify and Apple podcast or like and leave a comment on YouTube.
Make sure to subscribe and follow 2AMOTAK. It'll keep us making more fun episodes.
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