On historicity and laws

after religion, or constitution, start to examine itself historically its can only delineate and make itself weak in slow and agonizing process. without noticing, slowly but steadily, the code describing the principles of laws change its meaning.

at first people can notice that by this understanding something change and point it out. depending on the spirit of their time, namely in how open they are open to the change, so the the understanding of the principles will start to change. secondly as the historical understanding start to build up so a new principles start to arise as facade, creating facade on the previous most sacred. finally after series of changes like this the principles change without recognition and the original tradition which they went out from get more and more forgotten and hidden , all awhile nobody can even notice that the code that guide their life have changed so drastically.

 some might keep the code written or even maintain the lawgivers writings and life, but once the principles changed enough, they would be so far gone to build again.

the less sophisticated way we see it today is in the idea of progress,  so when the liberals go against the past in hope to a better future proudly, they do it through the historical lens, they attack the foundation of the lawgivers in themselves and even challenge the very authority of the tradition as they see in front of their eyes a new, and they would claim better, times ahead. from the conservative it seems they see the same thing only instead of looking on the future, they see the better future as the past as they understand it through the historical lens. all awhile they are not noticing that by the lens they change the very ground they are standing on, as they are not living in the mythical past.

both of the sides end up changing the tradition from within, one try to change the tradition embedded in the civil law through the historical lens but also put new tradition above it which he sets as goal, the other try to understand the tradition of the civil law as well his own unique tradition to some degree and in the process change it. 

On Mazinger Z & the war of modernity

while watching the original Mazinger Z I just realized how fear of war the narrative itself. its will probably fall under over analyze kid show with robots, but I guess its fit my liking for kid shows with robots.

1. The scientist in mecha show have double role, both the bringer of peace and the evil conqueror. in the show its start by presenting the bringer of peace, the grandpa of the main character, Dr. Kabuto, which later on succeed by one of his students who show his discoveries of a new alloy called "Japanimium" in a somewhat adversary of defense and for a better technology. he also build the main mecha in the show used to defend form the evil enemy. on the other side there is Dr. Hell, a rough student of , Dr. Kabuto, who discover an Mycenaean temple with bunch of destructed robots, when they check the records in the temple they find out that the Mycenaean built this robots to war which ultimately ended up destroying themselves. Dr. Hell renew the robots the help of a scientist team with the hidden plan in mind of world domination.
In it we see play with the role of science, both as a defense and bringer of good and help to maintain society, but as bringer of war which connected to unjust, chaos and war. the backdrop in it is of course WW2 and Hiroshima, event which lend echoes throughout much of the mecha world, surely the production as well as Go Nagai are not strangers to the work of Osamu Tezuka or Yokoyama which heavily dealt with such issues in series such as Tetsujin 28th, Tetsuwan Atom, and so on.
2. play on the Classical vs modernity, both in their good and bad, but ultimately lead to highlight the imperfection in them. the evil forces flash out to be originated form the Mycenaean, hence the past. the choice itself is also unique as the specific time have some classical element but its not classical in the classical sense, that is saying its not a prime example to learn from when we usally think on Ancient Greek. Dr. Hell shown constantly in backdrop of greek temple with his mage like stick(which translated erroneously in HK subtitles to crabstick) he both show the past in his sources, imagery, and combined with small touch of anti-religious messages inherited by the European tradition Japan partially absorbed. the focus is on the war in fairly one sided manner but with the images its show more complex image then just the big evil doctor and the dealing itself is with the usage of technology in war.

On the other hand, the good side show as modern city dwellers, blessed with the technology, liberal life and overall peaceful, though behind it lies the danger of the technology. as Dr. Hell is creation of this world, and the main robot, Mazinger Z have his own inner demons, as its embed within itself a demonic uncontrollable force, which can always come out. in fact the opening shot of Dr. Kabuto showing the new alloy to some government and investor like figures also hide such tenets on the role of technology as well as the immediate development for defense. further more when Dr. Hell find the temple its as if he was finding Atlantis, hidden culture that for some reason in Japan took the face of war in more then just Mazinger Z, but also Umi no Triton.
3. Its a bit outside the claim on war but another interesting feature is in the contrast between heroes and villains, the main hero of the show Kouji Kabuto showed as a simple young man who try to help in full-heart and passionately, there is no ambiguity in his aim and overall he pretty naive image, naivety that also contain tacitly danger of lack of knowledge and gullibility. on the other hand the evil main agent, Baron Ashura, is a two-faced "monster" half face male and the other female, in the manga at least he contain certain tragic elements as backstory that slowly build up. In a way its can be connected as if I remember correctly Ashure play similiar role of naivety, only he dragged down to the dark side, though I can't recall completely. a lot of Ashura reflection in the story is on what can be called the war within as its character that in fact contain two and at certain parts, each part of Ashura can disagree with the other, at least from what I recall from the manga and other entries in the Mazinger saga.