This has puzzled me since I first saw the film. Why exactly does the near-death experience at Okinawa make Hoshino turn
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primakitty — 15 years ago(March 08, 2011 07:16 AM)
This has puzzled me since I first saw the film. Why exactly does the near-death experience at Okinawa make Hoshino turn the way he does? The film seems to hint that it's because he realised that life isn't worth much (because it's fragile?) or something similar but does this really make sense?
Like, is that a normal reaction to a near-death experience? To become a bully and spread misery upon other people? Surely it would make more sense for someone to come close to death then become an even nicer person since they'll be "grateful" to be alive, you know? I'm not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE that a transformation like Hoshino's could happen, of course it could. I'm just saying it's kind of strange and the film doesn't do much to give any more background on it other than "near-death experience suddenly Hoshino is mean to everyone." -
krdskrm — 15 years ago(March 09, 2011 02:55 AM)
"Survival of the fittest," I guess. If you don't want to be bullied, be the bully.
One kid in the movie said that it was caused by family problems. So family problems + the realization that life is too short = snap! -
dark_frances — 15 years ago(March 25, 2011 08:22 AM)
The practical answer is that he must have snapped. Apart from the horrible slowly suffocating atmosphere at school, the lack of money, problems in his family and the rest, now the universe itself seemed to want to stab and suffocate him.
Then you could say that some of the uncomprehensible Okinawan wilderness may have stuck inside him after the trip, particularly since during Hoshino's first act of cruelty (in the class, against the blonde kid) we had on the soundtrack a reprisal of the eerie music played by the Okinawan girl.
And finally, maybe it really was a case of gods being mad at him, like the guru-ish guide suggested (albeit only half in earnest)
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder -
ofshoesandshipsandceilin — 14 years ago(June 09, 2011 08:31 AM)
I'm confused too about the connection between his near-death experience and his becoming a total beep
But here's how I'm trying to understand it:
I think that most of the reason he changed was because he felt like he needed to take control.
You might remember his friends pre-change were talking about how they'd heard that Hoshino was bullied at school when he was younger. That just has to leave a mark. Bullying (at least in Japan) is deeply psychologically damaging, absolutely humiliating, and degrading in the worst most heartless sense. To be victimized in that way I mean I can't even imagine. But I think a victim would start to feel worthless, like his/her entire being was being yanked around by some jerks at school. You can't tell your parents, you can't tell your teachers, your friends can't do anything. All you can do is do whatever the bullies tell you to do, just try desperately to them from getting worse. No control.
Then there was that part at the train station where they bump into some kids who I'm assuming were Hoshino's bullies before. They provoke him to get a reaction but he tries to avoid them. His friend ends up trying to defend him. Maybe this made him feel weak if his friend hadn't done anything the matter might have ended there, but seeing his friend stand up for him while he tried to back down may have made him feel like a weaker person, again not in control.
Maybe his experience at Okinawa was what made something snap inside he almost died, and of course in a near-death situation is a situation in which you really have no control, not even over your physical life.
I don't think it was a conscious choice but maybe in the subconscious recesses of his mind, Hoshino felt this desperate need to take control, to be the one who made the rules, who made the decisions, who decided everyone else's place. It was a reaction against all the powerlessness he had felt before.
At first it started with that bullyish guy at school What Hoshino did to him was just to overcome and get back at the bullies he'd encountered before. (Not that this justifies anything that scene was so horrifying I could barely watch)
But the horrifying thing about bullying is that in environments that let it, it will spread like wildfire. No rhyme or reason. In bullying you're either the perpetrator or the victim. If you want to try to stand up to a bully go ahead you're the next target.
I don't know how to explain the horror of what Hoshino did, especially after that first bully in the muddy rice paddy. Maybe it just blackened his heart and there was no turning back in order to stop being a victim, and take some control, he needed to be at the top of his class. (But this still doesn't explain how or why he let Hasumi be bullied like that. I mean of course we can't expect Hoshino to still be all brotherly and friendly to Hasumi, but he could have at least avoided him.)
Maybe one point in the movie is that nobody CAN explain or find where one bully starts and another ends.