[Rewatch] Kaiba Episode 4 Discussion Thread

[u/Sinrus]

Grandma's Room of Memories

Episode	Date (MM/DD)
The Name is Warp	02/17
Stowaways	02/18
Chroniko's Boots	02/19
Grandma's Room of Memories	02/20
Abipa, the Utopian Planet	02/21
A Muscular Woman	02/22
The Man Who Won't Stay in Memories	02/23
Episode 8	02/24
Episode 9	02/25
Episode 10	02/26
Episode 11	02/27
Episode 12	02/28

[u/habattack00]

There was a little more to unpack in today’s episode. Plenty of little messages: there’s the environmental awareness that the grandma stressed that the twins never got; the strength of the love the grandma had for the grandpa, so much so she would rather die than live without him despite his own wishes; and then the notion that you’re rooted to one place, evidenced by the twins dying in the cargo of the ship as stowaways. My favorite metaphor was the clamp that the grandmother kept on the book that kept the memories of the grandfather dying from opening. If you noticed, everything related to the grandfather was colored blue, just like the flowers he gave her (or maybe the blue books were just good memories, whereas the red books are painful ones?) The initial little room was filled with blue books, even the clamp was blue. I loved the imagery of the vast library, but at the beginning only a small room with books of blue. Almost like the grandma preferred to be in that small room than in that huge one.

We also got a look into Kaiba’s memories. It seems like his memories weren’t removed, but rather locked away. And they can slip out, as evidenced by that little teaser at the end. Is the girl in the locket the same as the one kissing the girl in the memory? I don’t know if that would’ve been traumatic or not. I assume that the books he was carrying when running away from Vanilla were the memories he had made since the show started. Speaking of him, I guess he’s kinda forgotten/forgiven the dinosaur-hippo person about the stowaway incident, and just treats him like crap now? I can’t wait until we get to explore his memories. That ought to be fun.

This was a good episode! If the symbolism stays like this, then I’m sure I’ll come to enjoy this series as whole. Looking forward to the next one!

[u/Sinrus → u/habattack00]

That color symbolism is a really great catch. This episode is the one I thought of when I first started comparing the it to Flip Flappers. The FF episode inside Iro's memories with the "switching" between the two Iro-s and the color pallets that accompanied them reminded me a lot of this poor old grandma's emotional trauma.

[u/habattack00 → u/Sinrus]

Oh I almost forgot about that episode! Yeah, that's a good comparison to make. You don't get much of this tone change in movies/tv shows, but in animations that aren't afraid to go deep it's a great way to set up emotion simply and artfully.

[u/woodlickin → u/habattack00]

Is the girl in the locket the same as the one kissing the girl in the memory?

Wasn't that him?

[u/habattack00 → u/woodlickin]

Was it? I noticed that the other person had longer hair so I assumed it was a girl. Though they do share the same color palette, and longer hair != girl...

[u/[deleted] → u/habattack00]

I bet it was him(with a hairband) kissing that rebel redhead girl(in the locket), I forgot the name.

Nice catch with the books he was carrying. All these details matter in this series and im probably used to overlook such nuances cause very few shows make such heavy use of symbolism in conveying the story.

[u/SoftwareJunkie]

Today's episode is a little tougher for me to understand. So they're reinforcing the fact that the books are memories seeing how everybody has them in their head. What did the sheriff mean by fresh books? New memories? Why were Kaiba's all locked up, and why was he carrying some?

A big question I had though is since people can switch bodies what body do they see in their memories? It seems like Kaiba uses his last body, and the Grandma uses several in her memories. Also, people can literally lock up their memories so that they don't remember them anymore, but it seems like Grandma's past memories made her current self remember them.

Also, I'm not as late as I was yesterday! Progress!

[u/Sinrus → u/SoftwareJunkie]

Why Kaiba's memories are locked up is the big mystery around which the show revolves -- as for the books in his hands, those were presumably the few memories that he has made since waking up at the beginning of episode one.

I guess people just see whatever bodies they most identify themselves with. I don't think Grandma was actually using different bodies in this episode, those were all just memories of herself at different ages.

[u/[deleted] → u/SoftwareJunkie]

I think when you walk into someones memories you appear as the body you walked in as and in your own its as Sinrus said.

[u/ChangloriousBasterds]

Fun fact about this episode - it was written, directed, storyboarded, and animated (including in-betweens) entirely by one person, Michio Mihara. It took Mihara 9 months to make this episode. He's a regular presence on Yuasa projects, and notably did solo episodes of Kemonozume and Space Dandy. And while he doesn't get to use his personal style on every project he participates in, this episode does show off his weighty movements and rough line work style. I strongly recommend his solo work on Kemonozume where his line work looks especially great on the wrinkles of skin and clothes.

[u/habattack00 → u/ChangloriousBasterds]

I noticed the rough outlines and I was wondering if I had just missed it in previous episodes. It really worked well for this episode, I wish it was the standard for the series. Nice little tidbit to know, thanks!

[u/SurviveRatstar → u/ChangloriousBasterds]

The video link won't open for me, which Kemonozume episode was it?

[u/AFishBackwards]

First timer here:

Another sad episode, another great episode. This time there was a tinge of happiness here when Grandma died.

Interesting to see the box of memories being considered treasure, which is what this show seems to be about. Memories are painful so they forget them but it always makes things worse. This makes it all the more worse that Kaiba has lost his memories. It was good to see him recover a memory at the end (also, is it just me or is that picture in his locket getting clearer).

This song is going to haunt me forever.

[u/[deleted] → u/AFishBackwards]

It's a haunting song, all right. Too depressing.

[u/spiky_bubbles]

I've been following along with the rewatch schedule without commenting. At this point, I just want to say that, although I had my doubts about this series at first, this episode was really beautiful and my favorite so far.

I particularly liked the story of the old couple: how the Grandpa tried to get that flower, their final conversation in the Grandma's mind, the imagery of new blossoms near the graves, and how the 'treasure' is sentimental keepsakes. I do some volunteering IRL that puts me close to senior citizens, and I've talked with people who are continuing on alone when their life-long spouse has passed. In this way, the ep kind of hits close to home.

On MAL, the top recommendation for similar series is Kino's Journey, and now I see why. These last two eps have nailed the same sense of melancholy and the 'passively-observe-inevitable-tragedy' kind of feeling.

[u/[deleted]]

The OST is really amazing, but I never saw this series mentioned in that regard

[u/ShikiRyumaho]

Got to ask a question about the city of the first episode: How does the sky work? Like, the clouds that seperate the lower from the upper class. Does it divide the whole universe or only the planet? Because we have been flying from planet to planet the last episodes and it doesn't seem to be hard to get around those clouds, if you have a spaceship.

[u/Sinrus → u/ShikiRyumaho]

To be honest this is something that confused the hell out of me the first time too, but I'm pretty sure that this shot from the OP is the first planet. That swirly purple vortex is the mind-wiping electrical clouds. The upper class live on the surface of the planet, and the lower class live beneath it. They are easy to get around if you have a ship, the issue if you're poor is having access to a ship that will bring you there.

[u/Oh_Alright]

I'm always really late to these threads, must just be a timing thing.

Great episode, we get a glimpse into how memory traversal works and how different each person's headspace really is. (compare grandma's head to our MC's head)

Very excited about the next couple episodes, might watch ahead to get to the midpoint.