TITLE : PARADISE OF DESPAIR

The pace is really starting to speed up in Casshern. Luna is turning out to be a lot more complex….and disturbing. The tone is set with her gazing at a lovely flower with one decaying petal. Inkeeping with episode 20, she recoils from the dying flower and looks away.

Casshern outright asks her if she really is here to heal people. She admits that in order to revive someone she must shed her own blood (which makes a ton of sense since Casshern supposedly massacred Luna 1). The reason that she ultimately rejected Dune was because he rejected her salvation. Luna claims that immortality is the greatest thing that life can seek. She believes that we cannot fully enjoy our lives until we are immortal. Casshern and her stare each other down and she asks him if he will take Dune’s place and protect the flowers.

We then flash to Dio and Leda. Dio reveals that his body is continuing to ruin. He is growing dull and weaker, but his mind is still clear. Leda, on the other hand, seems to not hear him. She gazes off and states vehemently that Luna will be hers. Meanwhile, Ringo is growing worse. She collapses from fever/ruin. She feels disturbed by Luna and asks to be taken away. Lyuze agrees that she also does not want Luna’s so called salvation. They feel something unnatural emanating from Luna’s power.

Since the show’s climax is quickly approaching

the writers for Casshern realized that something was still missing from the equation.
AN EVIL ROBOT (TRANSVESTITE) CIRCUS

Who let the generic Sailor Moon villain wander in?

Anyway, Casshern and his motley crew wander into a very distraught robot city. The general theme of this circus is warshipping their own immortality through a never ending cycle of creation and destruction. One robot in particular continually jumps off of a tower, belly flops like a limp rag doll unto the earth and then repeats. There’s an aura of preternatural excess and a loss of value for life coming from the camp.

Casshern and crew quickly leave.

While the two of them are alone, Lyuze confronts Casshern about the world around them. He asks her if she has the same resolve to die like Dune. Lyuze lashes out and cuts Casshern’s face. She collapses against him and they embrace.

The next morning we are reunited with Oji! Again! And in a happy but hilarious scene Ringo and Oji run towards each other in slow motion and hug while collapsing on the sand. The happy moment doesn’t last for long. Oji reveals that long ago humans found a way to live forever. Braiking Boss (or as I call him…B-dubs) was disgusted by the immortals and began a mass genocide. B-dubs then ordered Luna’s assassination (I’m assuming because she’s the secret to their immortality…like she is in the here and now). Oji claims that Luna offered death back then and Lyuze makes the assumption that we’ve all sort of pondered up until now…

…are old luna and new luna strikingly different? Has she changed?

Then Oji kind of goes off the deep end. He swoops down and tries to take Ringo back to Luna. He feels that even Luna’s distorted immortality is better than death. Casshern tries to dissuade him, but Oji retorts with true teenage angst.

“You can speak nobly because you’re immortal!”

Oji : 1
Casshern : 0

This is when Leda and Dio show up. Of course, they brought droves of gener-a-bots who are mad as hell and ready to mess up our protagonist. Casshern gracefully leaps into the belly of their mob and does little more than stand there while they pummel him. While this scene has happened before, there’s one huge difference. Casshern doesn’t go berserker and pull out a can of woop ass. Instead, he continually takes the fuzz. The final scenes of the episode are poignant and raw. A la Hero Yuy, Casshern lays in a pool of his own blood, desperately attempting to feel death and ruin.

The screen shakes with violent blows as we literally watch Casshern break apart into nothing.

THOUGHTS:

1. I found it interesting that Luna would ask Casshern to “watch the flowers.” I’m assuming that flowers is a generalization for life as a whole. Perhaps even specifically transient life. I also found this request abrupt since……isn’t Casshern the one who killed Luna 1?

2. So I’m wondering what people think is going on between Luna 1 and Luna 2. Are they two different people? Did she change? Did someone make a new Luna? Oji was so vague regarding these.

3. Where’s B-dubs?

4. Why didn’t Casshern go berserk?

5.Thank you Madhouse for the post apocalyptic circus. FTW

6. I’m wondering if Leda wants to use Luna for power? to bring back her child? to punish living things for the loss of her child? etc.

7. I’m curious to see what level of Immortality Casshern possesses. Like Manji from Blade of the Immortal….you could kill him….if you dismembered the body, destroyed his head and separated the parts.

8. I feel like even if the nitty gritty details regarding Luna and Casshern’s origins aren’t fully fleshed out, the bigger issues are being addressed. Casshern sins is giving us a closed experiment where we can see why mortality is so powerful. It drives us, it controls us, it ruins us. But that makes every moment precious.

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