![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Accuracy of Death
I just had a moment of wall-throwing with "Accuracy of Death" by Isaka Koutarou, the basis for the movie. It's a collection of six short stories, apparently interconnected, though I haven't read past the first one.
The premise is that Chiba is a shinigami. When he gets assigned a target, he has seven days to decide whether the target is going to live or die. This time his target is Konishi Kazue, a depressed customer complaint agent at an electronics company. She explains to Chiba that she was named Kazue (one blessing) as if her parents were hoping for her to have one, just one good point, and even that meager hope was dashed. Lately her life is even worse because she has a crank caller who keeps calling to complain about various broken electronics and asks her to talk, even to sing.
So he stalks her, and he eventually asks her to go into a karaoke box with him, which needless to say freaks her out. It turns out that he's a famous music producer who's in love with her voice! So everything's all right then, RIGHT?
a) I find this terribly disrespectful to women who've had bad experiences with creepy men in customer-service jobs. Which is pretty much every woman in a customer-service job. If you are acting like a creep, it is natural for women to assume that you are in fact a creep! If you're secretly a famous music producer you should come right out and explain yourself, even if you have some stupid excuse about that "destroying the honesty." Because not being creepy to women is more important than that. You don't take understandable fear and turn that into "Ha ha, big misunderstanding!"
b) So... her life is not worth living unless some famous music producer says it is? I am thinking that this is not actually what we're supposed to think, since Chiba is characterized as a bit of a bastard, and (having attempted to fully spoil myself and decide whether to see the movie or not) there's another story about Kazue left to come. But still!
I still plan to see the movie, I think - there are three stories in the movie, of which I've only read the first, and it's possible that the end will redeem the beginning. I'll probably finish the book. The reviews failed to spoil me as much as I'd have liked, but they don't give me any reason to suspect I'll hate it... and really, aside from that it's a good story.
The premise is that Chiba is a shinigami. When he gets assigned a target, he has seven days to decide whether the target is going to live or die. This time his target is Konishi Kazue, a depressed customer complaint agent at an electronics company. She explains to Chiba that she was named Kazue (one blessing) as if her parents were hoping for her to have one, just one good point, and even that meager hope was dashed. Lately her life is even worse because she has a crank caller who keeps calling to complain about various broken electronics and asks her to talk, even to sing.
So he stalks her, and he eventually asks her to go into a karaoke box with him, which needless to say freaks her out. It turns out that he's a famous music producer who's in love with her voice! So everything's all right then, RIGHT?
a) I find this terribly disrespectful to women who've had bad experiences with creepy men in customer-service jobs. Which is pretty much every woman in a customer-service job. If you are acting like a creep, it is natural for women to assume that you are in fact a creep! If you're secretly a famous music producer you should come right out and explain yourself, even if you have some stupid excuse about that "destroying the honesty." Because not being creepy to women is more important than that. You don't take understandable fear and turn that into "Ha ha, big misunderstanding!"
b) So... her life is not worth living unless some famous music producer says it is? I am thinking that this is not actually what we're supposed to think, since Chiba is characterized as a bit of a bastard, and (having attempted to fully spoil myself and decide whether to see the movie or not) there's another story about Kazue left to come. But still!
I still plan to see the movie, I think - there are three stories in the movie, of which I've only read the first, and it's possible that the end will redeem the beginning. I'll probably finish the book. The reviews failed to spoil me as much as I'd have liked, but they don't give me any reason to suspect I'll hate it... and really, aside from that it's a good story.