I’m going to discuss Kaiba in of the three modes of persuasion: ethos (persuasion through presentation), logos (logical persuasion), and pathos (emotional persuasion). I do this, because the fact that Kaiba is very uninteresting to me is ironically very interesting to me.
Regarding ethos:
I felt secondhand embarrassment watching Kaiba, because I’ve made art like Kaiba before: Art that is so serious and earnest yet so unimportant. Kaiba is an entirely serious show, but I could not take it seriously. The biggest problem, in my opinion, drives the anime so much further down than any of its “minor” shortcomings and cliches (information being withheld, inexhaustible flashbacks, spoon-feeding the plot to the audience, guns that fail to work only against important characters, songs that try hard to evoke melodrama, characters with simple motivations in service of the plot [this is not a character-driven story, which makes it a little less interesting imo]). The biggest problem is so much worse than any of those mediocre story-telling devices. It is the unshakable nature of the anime being completely serious, unironic, and unapologetic in its attempt to wow and move the audience using very insubstantial drama and minimally explored themes (of memory chips, replaceable bodies, human nature, capitalism, and globalization). Most of the characters being one-dimensional (had a few traits each) and acting like children (suitable and reminiscent of kids shows) did not help matters.
Regarding logos:
The “sci-fi” (science-fiction) tag is truly the most enigmatic scrawl I’ve had the prerogative to investigate. I used to think that only the highest of stories deemed scientifically plausible would be conferred this emblem of intellectual creativity; I was quickly proven wrong as I noticed that some sci-fi are almost completely implausible, or at least, grossly speculative and without a single line of justification. I decided then that there must be a spectrum, a scale, as with most things, on which some sci-fi are more science and some more fiction. Today, I disagree with both of those past stances. I now think that all sci-fi contain some speculative elements and some realistic elements, and, in effect, concede that every sci-fi is indeed unrealistic, which is why they are called “sci-fi” and not “hyper-realistic stories containing only currently available technologies.” To put it simply, all sci-fi contain unexplainable phenomena that may or may not come to exist in the future.
However, some sci-fi really stretch the boundaries of its genre. I’ve noticed that anime in particular often does this, where borderline fantasy is often either tagged as or mistaken for potential future technology/circumstances. Kaiba is one of those anime. How? As Charlie would say: You do the math.
I’m kidding. I’ll do the math. In Kaiba, rich people buy poor people’s bodies. That will not happen in our world. And I don’t mean human trafficking or smuggling organs. I mean rich people transplanting their memories into poor people; this will not happen. For countless logical, medical, ethical and legal reasons, rich people will instead artificially design or request the most efficient bodies from tightly controlled labs with scientists and AI smarter than we can imagine. Kaiba, in that sense, is completely irrelevant to reality if it seriously means to be sci-fi. Besides some symbolic value or being a mental exercise in futility, Kaiba is valueless in of being a sci-fi, void of any logical merits.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ve gathered absolutely nothing new or complex from this anime that I haven’t thought or known about already, despite my dire efforts to derive from the anime any food for thought.
Regarding pathos:
I’m the kind of person who becomes teary-eyed watching anything the slightest bit sad, and yet, I only teared up during this anime from the stress induced by the fact that the anime said near nothing despite being so stressfully fast-paced. It rather reminded me of The Tatami Galaxy.
About Chroniko’s story: I was sad and really almost cried. But I was also mighty bored. I am sorry (to the animators who tried hard), but each of the sob stories were so standard and cliched that my mind gnawed at itself in boredom. I understand that Chroniko’s story is a real world problem, however. I think that it is an IMPORTANT theme, but it wasn't any radical or deep one, just like every other theme in the show.
Ultimately, I award Kaiba with its extra score (2 instead of 1) for having allowed this self-analysis. I’ve wondered before why some stories don’t engage me. It was especially puzzling this time because I love sci-fi. I understand a bit better now.
