The World is Already Over

Some notes on Neo Sora’s Happyend, coming of age in social movements, the near future, and anti-tech narratives in art

ROUGH DRAFTS REMINDER

A reminder that I am about to embark upon a cross-country odyssey with my friend Maurice to work on our podcast Rough Drafts. We were funded by the People’s Media Fund in the Greater Philadelphia area to interview writers, artists, academics, filmmakers and organizers across the North American continent. Our podcast is broadly about artistic/creative processes, American subjectivity, masculinity, and social movements. We read a lot of books for each episode so readers are encouraged as guests. Check us out everywhere. If you’d like to be a guest on our podcast, please message me on here or email us at rough.rough.drafts@gmail.com.

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I’ve written a bit about coming of age and how that relates to politics. Much of my fiction these days deals with growing up. In the ever globalized urban world, we come of age in ways that are often quite universal. High school graduations, exploring abandoned buildings in the urban landscape, running from the cops, sneaking into 18+ shows, crushes, friendships falling apart, finding new interests, and people moving away are all common things in our young lives. These also are all events that happen throughout Happyend, a film by Neo Sora. In addition to being a more traditional coming of age story, the film narrates a political coming of age for some of the characters. Events that also punctuate the film include protests where police turn violent, sit-ins against school administrators, and political meetings with older people. I found this intensely relatable. My high school girlfriend and I attended rallies for socialist politicians, read political theory and took part in social movements. Adolescent doesn’t really end in high school, but it’s a fundamental part of our development. As someone who politicized in high school, a rare thing for people in the United States as most radicals find their politics in college, the film really hit a chord with me. I found myself grinning as the protagonist Yuta attends an organizing meeting cause he got a crush on the radical baddie in his class, who is introduced as she makes a critique of the police. Because truly, who amongst us has not? I think the way that the film illustrates the romance of political movements and personal political transformation is quite unique especially in an American context. Coming of age stories are often devoid of a political character, focusing instead upon nostalgia, rather than understanding that part of youth is having an eye towards the future, as all political movements do. Back then, I found myself drifting away from some friends because of my politics, the film points to that in ways that are tragic, bittersweet, melancholic and romantic just like life.

The film follows a group of five friends although it focuses a lot of it’s time on the protagonists Yuta and Kou. In the broader world, the film is set in the “near future,” there is a right wing prime minister of Japan who is using the threat of frequent earthquakes (perhaps an analogy for climate change) to impose authoritarian measures across the country. In this near future Japan, the State and Capital restructures themselves in the midst of crisis, and that’s word to Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. Unsurprisingly, these authoritarian measures often target non-Japanese nationals and the youth. Throughout the film, the rise of right wing xenophobia, increased police power and an AI powered surveillance system Panopty are the main drivers of the film’s plot.

The film really captures a ton of things I’ve been thinking about in regard to how art and politics often conflict. The two central characters Yuta and Kou are both into Djing, but as the film progresses, Yuta gains political interest. He is frustrated with Kou’s apathy. Yuta remarks at one point something along the lines like “Don’t you think about anything other than music?” And the reality, as someone who grew up playing music and being in music scenes, I often felt that way. The film having a criticism of music scenes is fascinating as the orthodox position on the Left these days goes something like “art is resistance.” The idea that art can be a stand in for political organizing is ridiculous. I think it’s important that artists themselves recognize the limits of their vocation. A song or a painting cannot force a fascist out of power. Narratives about “art as resistance” should be understood as ultimately recuperative. It is not to say that art is not fundamental to make sense of our personal lives, but to locate it as a site of resistance is delusional. As I’ve argued elsewhere, I wouldn’t understand myself without certain albums or novels, but those things do not stand in for organized resistance.

They again argue about apathy after Yuta attends a demonstration that is repressed by the police. Kou remarks that “The world is already over.” In many ways, Kou’s subjectivity is typical of a nihilism that often seems to infect the artistic classes. I’m not against nihilism as I’ve written other places because I think it’s often a legitimate expression and reaction to our current conditions. When Kou says this, we should take it seriously as it’s a popular position. Despite this, the political situation even if we choose to ignore it, finds us eventually. Kou and the gang steal music equipment from their school and set it up in a abandoned area. While Kou and Yuta bring a final subwoofer to the spot, Yuta is harassed by the police as he’s not a Japanese national. Throughout the film, there’s a lot of commentary on the right wing turn across the world that’s hostile to “foreigners” in an increasingly globalized Japanese city. Either way, Yuta leaves with the police as he has to provide proof of his legal residency, so Kou goes on alone. When he gets to their spot, their equipment has been thrown out. The formerly abandoned spot that they were using to store their gear is being developed to build earthquake proof buildings. Even if you avoid it, politics will find you, perhaps in the most uncomfortable or even violent ways.

But one of the things that the film highlights throughout is how lots of regular people are content with oppression and allowing themselves to be dominated. Fumi, the radical baddie, fumes at a meeting to their radical teacher Okada about how her generation is completely apathetic. She is not exactly wrong. There are repeated moments where students defend the surveillance system Panopty, blame the troublemaking on students of non-Japanese students and generally just go along. Even in the film’s climax, where students take part in a sit-in to demand that their principal gets rid of the AI surveillance software, one student almost ends it because they are tired. The reality is that social movements are torn apart by their own participants first and foremost. One thing I encounter frequently on this website is invocation of abstractions like “organizing the community” or whatever. The uncomfortable reality that many leftists seem unwilling to understand is that the “community” itself can be fascist or just simply uninterested in their left-wing vision of the world. I do not mean to say this to discourage people from organizing politically, but the uncomfortable reality is that people are not just automatons. Lots of people who are oppressed or exploited have ideas about struggle or resistance that many on the Left would find objectionable. This isn’t to say the oppressed don’t have a stake or ability to resist. As an example, Yuta and Fumi end up organizing the sit-in with other students considered to be foreigners, even if not all of them join.

It’s fascinating that this film has been written about as science fiction as all of the technologies present in the film exist in real life. Face identification is a technology that exists. Happyend reminded me of the better episodes of Mr. Robot. Our reality is cyberpunk, what’s the point of speculating? We can just write about reality. The idea of the “near future” setting is fascinating because the near future could just be a year or two from now. The film takes on somewhat of an anti-tech position, which is rare generally, especially in left-wing media. The main goal of the student protestors is resistance against a surveillance system. Increasingly, the forces of domination rest upon digital technology. In general, art these days is uncomfortable to acknowledge this. Maybe it’s because most artists rely on tech. Despite this, there has been a rise of widespread resistance to AI data centers and Flock cameras in the United States. Another reminder that the “near future” that’s depicted in Happyend is just our reality, although it’s a more positive one. While I’m supportive of people taking individual actions against tech like getting rid of their smartphones, collective action against oppressive tech is the solution in a longer term sense. It’s nice to see that depicted.

The film grapples with a growing anti-tech animus that animates many of us. Towards the end of the film, the student protestors sing a song they learned from the radical group their teacher Okada was a part of. The refrain is “The best person in the world is a computer.” The impersonal cold computer driven logics of capital that drive our society are parodied with this song. While engaging with Peter Haff’s idea of an independent technosphere that has developed independently from forms of human social domination in his wonderful book Hellworld, communist geographer Phil Neel talks about how “Haff’s hypothesis gestures in the right direction, insofar as it emphasises that emergent, supra-human forces follow their own dynamics, which exceed and diverge from the needs of the species from which these forces have emerged.”¹ I think the part idea that the “best person in the world is a computer” kinda connects to this in the sense that the computer logics that govern our society are increasingly alien and hostile to the needs of most human beings. It’s refreshing to see a movie that gets at this. Again, if our reality is a cyberpunk dystopia, why make art about a speculative future? The present will suffice.

The film is not perfect politically. The action that the characters take is a small one. Even Fumi remarks that their actions are not enough when you think about the whole political/social/economic structure. Yuta tells her to lighten up or she won’t make friends. But I think searching for politically perfect films is boring. Happyend is a warm film filled with love, resistance and friendship even in the midst of the cold ugly computerized world we inhabit.

1. Hellworld, page 91, Phil Neel