Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi’s shining element is its drama.... Yes, you wouldn’t expect the genre-per-episode format to feature much in the way of serious issues, but the manner in which the dramatic scenes convey far more than just the simple lives of real people is strongly reminiscent of His and Her Circumstances.
... In part, this is all due to the concept [which], while not exactly original, provides a creative vehicle for the story and characters to expand.
—Anime Academy Review: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Sasshi Imamiya and his best friend Arumi Asahina are residents of the rundown Abenobashi Shoutengai (Abenobashi Shopping District) in Osaka. In Episode 1, “Mystery! Abenobashi Shopping Arcade,” a summer day like countless others is suddenly disrupted by two related events. Arumi’s grandfather, Grandpa Masa, falls from the roof of the Pelican Diner, the small restaurant he runs in conjunction with his Francophile son, in an attempt to shoo the obese family cat off the beak of a stone pelican situated above the restaurant, while the bird itself (one of the arcade’s four linchpin statues) crashes spectacularly to the ground below. Grandpa Masa is conveyed to hospital, having sustained injuries so serious that his chances of survival are uncertain. At the end of the same day, the two kids are magically transported from their so-called real world to the alternate realm of Mahou Shoutengai (Magical Shopping Arcade). This is a bizarre parallel universe where common sense and logic appear to have been altogether suspended. Arumi and Sasshi repeatedly find themselves traversing a series of seemingly absurd worlds that consist of more or less explicit parodies of familiar media and genres, including video games, movies of both the animated and live-action varieties, and multifarious incarnations of the fantastic at its wackiest and most surreal.1
Insofar as this ever-shifting frame of reference spawns vastly different domains governed by context-specific rules, the protagonists are never in a position to take their environment for granted and must, in fact, struggle to identify the type of world they find themselves in at each turn of the narrative, grapple with its laws and requirements, and interpret it accordingly. The discourse of mediaeval role-playing games dominates Episode 2, “Adventure! Abenobashi Sword and Sorcery Shopping Arcade,” whereas Episode 3, “Hook Up! Abenobashi Great Milky Way Shopping Arcade,” accords generic centrality to science fiction of the mecha variety. In Episode 4, “Fire It Up! Abenobashi Hong Kong Combat Shopping Arcade,” the formulae of the martial-arts movie come flamboyantly into play, to give way to the prehistoric-world cartoon style in Episode 5, “Extinction! Abenobashi Ancient Dinosaur Shopping Arcade.”
A collage of film-noir tropes amalgamating the visual rhetoric of hard-boiled detective fiction, the gangster film and Sherlock-Holmes London is firmly enthroned in Episode 6, “In the Night Fog! Abenobashi Hard Boiled Shopping Arcade.” Replete with popular anime characters, Episode 8, “Set Your Heart Aflutter! Abenobashi Campus Shopping Arcade,” parodies the dating-sim genre (a type of adventure-oriented video game pivoting on romantic interactions between the player and anime girls). In Episode 10, “Fluffy, Bubbly! Abenobashi Fairy Tale Shopping Arcade,” the stylistic lead is taken by the codes of fantasy fiction at its frilliest and tackiest. In stark contrast with this world of cute paper dolls and Magical Girls, the realm portrayed in Episode 11, “Resolution!! Abenobashi Battlefield Shopping Arcade,” presents a dismal war-torn version of the arcade wherein painful feelings of remorse and dejection come to the foreground despite the abiding parodic tone in which the action is couched. The show’s habitually comedic mood is ostentatiously restored in Episode 12, “Huge Reversal?! Abenobashi Hollywood Shopping Arcade,” a tantalizing pastiche of Hollywood action movies of all kinds, including Terminator 2, Titanic, Jaws, the Indiana Jones films, and legion allusions to the horror genre, the musical and the plane-hijack yarn.
Intriguingly, each transition to a parallel universe signals a related alteration in the type of discourse used by the characters to negotiate its “reality,” and an attendant exposure of the linguistic clichés that accrue to the register in hand. In Episode 2, for instance, the villain of the piece is referred to as an “honest-to-god Evil Lord,” while in Episode 3, the injunction to take rapid action against Space Pirates is justified on the basis that failure to do so would result in the Earth doing the “annihilation thingy.” The shopping arcade itself changes in accordance with the codes and conventions peculiar to the genre that each installment draws upon. Thus, in Episode 2, it exudes an unmistakably mediaeval aura and the merchandise on display accordingly encompasses suits of armor, chainmail, swords and talismans. In Episode 3, the action’s mecha-oriented thrust is mirrored by the inclusion of robotic contraptions and futuristic layouts—with a mecha version of the crucial pelican statue mentioned earlier also making a cameo appearance, as though to intimate unobtrusively a sense of continuity despite the overall adventure’s reeling evocation of an atmosphere of implacable flux.
Gainax’s own oeuvre is repeatedly invoked for parodic purposes by means of both spectacular references to major productions such as Gunbuster and Evangelion (e.g., in Episode 3) and more discrete hints at relatively marginal works: In Episode 2, the wallpaper on Sasshi’s mobile phone displays a Bunny Girl redolent of the character from the short animation produced for Daicon 4, while Arumi’s metamorphosis into a Magical Girl in Episode 8 vividly recalls the persona of Misty May from Otaku no Video.
The parodic element found in the anime is also conspicuous in the Abenobashi manga (produced by Gainax in the wake of the animation), as underscored by Justin Kovalsky in a review of the first volume. His comments apply no less fittingly to the TV show than to the printed series: “It’s a great example of Gainax’s twisted sense of humor. The corporate invaders who show up to take over Abenobashi look a lot like Zaku (enemy mechs from Gundam), so much so that a character jokes about copyright infringement. But the heartiest chuckle came when Abenobashi’s ultimate counterattack is revealed—the Banangelion.... If you’re an Evangelion or Nuku Nuku [i.e., All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, dir. Yoshitaka Fujimoto, 1998] fan, you’ll get the joke” (Kovalsky). Through both the anime and the manga versions of Abenobashi’s prismatic adventure, with its virtually innumerable forays into generic and stylistic pastiche, the series demonstrates that Gainax is not in the least scared of taking chances when it comes to experimentation.
Formal diversity makes the program deliberately discontinuous (the episodes are markedly disparate, especially at the level of genre), which contributes vitally to the defamiliarizing effect steadily pursued by Yamaga throughout. This may make Abenobashi a bit hard to get into for audiences new to Gainax’s tricks, and even induce them to find the series inconsistent. These reservations are bound to evaporate, however, as the intentionality with which Abenobashi’s non sequiturs are engineered becomes patent, and one recognizes the ingeniousness with which the various pieces are linked closely together as by dovetailing. It must also be stressed, at this juncture, that cultural allusions to legion aspects of Japanese popular culture, stereotypes, dialects and idiolects abound, and that some of these might at first impede undiluted enjoyment for the average Western viewer.
As documented by Arata Kanoh in the “Guided Tour” to Abenobashi provided by Newtype USA, one of the show’s most salient cultural references and recurring thematic concerns lies with “Onmyou mysticism,” namely, the ability to “solve all your problems by hopping from world to world.” Onmyou is indeed mentioned right from the start—in the preamble to the first installment, to be precise—and visually associated with the pentagram (or pentacle): the series’ logo and arguably the most ubiquitous symbol for esoteric practices the world over. Also significant, according to Kanoh, is Abenobashi’s assiduous employment of a “narrative style” specifically redolent of “a comic storytelling style that’s popular in the Tokyo area.” This relies on the accumulation of a plethora of loosely connected jokes rather than on single punch lines (Kanoh, p. 61).
Moreover, even as it delivers a series as jam-packed with clownish comedy as Abenobashi unquestionably is, the studio is still capable of offering a sensitive look at life through the eyes of tentatively developing kids. In its treatment of cross-generational interactions, Abenobashi’s critique of adults is certainly not as vitriolic as Evangelion’s—or even as nostalgic as Gunbuster’s or Mahoromatic’s. It does, however, work in a distinctively Gainaxian fashion in its uncompromising emphasis on the immaturity, duplicity and selfishness of grown-ups even if these unsavory traits are predicated upon eccentricity instead of downright malice.
The characters’ pervasive childishness is concurrently highlighted, which serves to remind us that if one of Gainax’s staple themes is the maturation process painfully and ineluctably undertaken by its many young heroes and heroines, the studio’s artists remain deeply fascinated with the diametrically opposite option: staying young forever. This tendency is arguably more explicitly accentuated in Abenobashi than anywhere else within Gainax’s megaverse. The show indeed evokes, albeit obliquely, the aforementioned “Peter Pan Syndrome,” namely, the concept formulated by Dan Kiley to describe the desire (potentially but not necessarily pathological) to remain anchored to a preadult world. The age issue will be examined in greater depth in the analysis of the show’s closing installment.
As the show’s story unfolds, it gradually transpires that Sasshi has no desire to go back and is, in fact, the cause of his and Arumi’s wandering between worlds. The reason behind his aberrant behavior, it is suggested, is that he knows that if they return to normality, Arumi will have to witness her grandfather’s death, does not wish to expose her to this harsh reality, and would therefore rather retreat into sheer fantasy than face the unpalatable truth. However, Sasshi also has personal reasons for not wishing to return to the real Abenobashi since, just prior to the pelican-related accident, he has been informed that Arumi’s family is just about to relocate to Hokkaido (where her dad hopes to fulfill his dream of becoming a high-class restaurateur), which would deprive Sasshi of the most meaningful relationship in his young life. Additionally, the boy is anxious about the future of the real shopping district in which he has grown up as a result of rampant evidence for ruthless redevelopment schemes entailing the demolition of vast portions of the area: a practice to which Sasshi’s original family home is seen to have fallen victim in the program’s very opening. Arumi, conversely, wishes to reenter her home world come hell or high water. This tension sustains the action throughout, providing a dramatically powerful connective tissue for a profusion of ostensibly incongruent yet subtly interlaced vignettes, incidents and digressions.
The protagonists’ quest to either recover or forsake, by turns, their original world offers something of a Bildungsroman requiring them to learn about their origins, their family histories, and ultimately themselves. This element is reinforced by the introduction, within the various alternate dimensions, of characters that are not entirely imaginary but actually replicate, albeit in a preposterously distorted fashion, Arumi’s and Sasshi’s real-life relatives and friends. Kanoh corroborates the reading of the series as an exploration of the characters’ growth from childhood to maturity, maintaining that Abenobashi is primarily a “coming-of-age” adventure: “coming-of-age experiences are often triggered by a journey into a world of unknowns.... We assume Arumi and Sasshi will travel around chasing after some goal, and when they finally find what they’re looking for, we’ll likely discover that the two of them know a bit more about life than they did when they set out” (Kanoh, p. 58).
A key figure recurrently encountered by Arumi and Sasshi as they travel across Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai’s sophisticated hobby worlds is the renowned Onmyou mystic Abeno Seimei (a.k.a. Eutus), the very founder of the arcade. For the sake of historical accuracy, it must be noted that Abeno Seimei (a.k.a. Abe no Seimei) was a real-life Onmyou master reputed to have lived during the Heian Period (the last phase of classical Japanese history spanning 794 to 1185) and to have excelled at the handling of yin-yang wizardry (which is really Onmyou’s ultimate objective). No less prominent in the areas of legend and popular entertainment than in the realm of lived history, Abe no Seimei features in countless tales and films. The TV series Shounen Onmyouji (dir. Kunihiro Mori, 2006–2007) exhibits some intriguing points of contact with Abenobashi, especially in its vibrant articulation of the Bildungsroman element. The show’s protagonist is Abe no Masahiro, Abe no Seimei’s grandson, and his principal aim is to regain the preternatural power to perceive demons and spirits that his grandfather has sealed away for his own safety. Although the boy’s initial shots at magic deliver modest results, Masahiro’s authentic abilities are gradually revealed as the adventure progresses and he becomes increasingly determined to surpass his ancestor’s competence and reputation.
In order to grasp the full import of Abenobashi’s seemingly chaotic but actually carefully orchestrated plot, it is important to acknowledge its mythical infrastructure and, specifically, its slick adaptation of a notion deeply embedded in numerous Eastern traditions and their perception of temporality, namely, recurrence. No less axial to the plot’s organization is its employment of a key topos drawn from classic Japanese folktales: the concept of interpenetrating worlds. This phrase designates everyday situations, non-quotidian domains and liminal fissures between those two dimensions, across which characters transmigrate either of their own design or as a result of enchantments. Abenobashi provides a paradigmatic illustration of this motif by rendering the membrane that putatively separates inner and outer levels of being perplexingly flimsy.
The present-day action can be grasped, ultimately, only in relation to ancient events, which it both echoes and intermingles with. Those events go back to the Heian Era, and specifically to the intrigues surrounding the characters of Abeno Seimei, his noble friend Masayuki and Masayuki’s wife, Mune. A romantic liaison between Abeno and Mune, which Masayuki has unwittingly encouraged by asking his friend to keep Mune company during his own prolonged absences from the palace, eventually results in Masayuki murdering Mune and committing suicide. Overwhelmed by guilt, Abeno resolves to perform the forbidden Onmyou ritual that will enable him to resuscitate the dead by placing himself in an alternate world in which they are still alive. As a corollary, Abeno finds himself as “Mr. Abe” in twentieth-century Osaka, a world that Mune Imamiya (Sasshi’s grandmother) and Masayuki Asahina (Arumi’s grandfather) already inhabit. Masayuki is deeply in love with Mune but the girl herself only appears to have eyes for Abe, who eventually yields to her advances and makes love with her. When Masayuki accidentally discovers this unpalatable truth, he plans to murder Abe but the latter—being smarter than his rival—preempts the acts by vanishing and returning to his Heian-Era persona, leaving a pregnant Mune behind. Her child will be Sasshi’s dad. The original affair bringing Abeno and Mune together in the Heian period occurs in Episode 9, “It Cries! The Bush Warbler Heiankyo.” The 1950s version of the liaison involving Mr. Abe and Mune is presented in Episode 7, “Flashback! Magical Shopping Arcade Birth.” This temporal scrambling at the level of the diegesis itself felicitously contributes to the show’s passion for convoluted editing.
Abenobashi’s most sensational revelation is that Sasshi, when faced with the prospective death of Grandpa Masa, unintentionally triggered a spell analogous to the one originally employed by Abeno, transforming his familiar environment into something of a portal to a series of parallel existences and thereby sending reality on indefinite vacation. This explains his and Arumi’s shift to a spate of increasingly bizarre and intricate worlds, as well as the existence of Masayuki, Abe and Mune in both Sasshi’s original dimension and the alternate ones. Episode 13, “Return to Life! The Legendary Onmyou Mystic,” supplies several snippets of explanatory material, thereby offering not only the show’s denouement but also a partially serious reflection on the joys and afflictions of both childhood and the inexorable transition to adulthood.
Arumi cannot quite comprehend why Sasshi is so profoundly reluctant to return to reality: The girl’s perception of this dimension is still innocently optimistic and leads her to believe that the real Abenobashi world has much to offer despite people’s failings and foibles. Eventually, however, Arumi does realize why Sasshi has kept the two of them wandering from one fantasy world to the other, and tearfully expresses her acknowledgment in an intense moment of wordless pathos. As for Sasshi, after lengthy and tortuous reflection, he hesitantly agrees to go back at last. The obligation to come to terms with the inevitability of a return to reality becomes unnegotiable once his father unexpectedly infiltrates the scene and unsentimentally presents the boy with the naked truth. Constructing yet another fictitious realm, the older man states, will leave reality itself utterly unaffected: “The only thing that’ll change is what’s in your head. Only your imaginary world.... In the end, you’re just a kid out even after the sun’s gone down.” Although Sasshi realizes that he can no longer indulge in his escapist dream, just as he and Arumi are about to reaccess their original world, he regrets the decision and breaks the spell intended to guarantee a successful return, which causes his father to remark sternly upon his stubbornness, aggravation etched across his countenance.
It is at this point that the adventure’s true magic asserts itself most potently: Sasshi assumes what will be his adult form—thereby revealing his self-sacrificing preparedness to leave childhood behind for the sake of his friend—and casts a spell of formidable magnitude capable of reconfiguring drastically the course of events. (This ability, it is intimated, results from his caliber as the ultimate god of Onmyou art.) We see Grandpa Masa attempting to dislodge the cat from the bird statue on the roof of the Pelican Diner once again but this time around the old man does not fall to his death. Moreover, a last-minute revocation of the Asahinas’ business deal implies that Arumi and Sasshi will not, in this alternative dimension, be separated. The shopping district itself is granted a rosier fate in this magnanimously edited version of the story, having been designated as the target of massive redevelopment likely to benefit its original inhabitants.
In this sequence, Gainax’s ambivalent take on the age issue comes dramatically to the fore. On the one hand, the sequence suggests that Sasshi’s father is absolutely right in urging his son to confront reality and the ineluctability of growing up. On the other hand, it irreverently celebrates Sasshi’s rebellious personality in enabling the boy to cock a snook at his parent’s ethical lesson, and have it his own way after all. Sasshi’s and Arumi’s return to the real Abenobashi effectively constitutes a relinquishing of the “Pleasure Principle” (in Freudian parlance) and concomitant acceptance of the “Reality Principle.” Relatedly, the move could be said to signal the boy’s transcendence of the Peter Pan Syndrome that appears to have affected his conduct throughout the preceding episodes. Yet, the Abenobashi that Sasshi and Arumi reenter is a happier version of the place than the one they would have encountered if the incidents dramatized in the opening installments had not been magically altered and their outcome inversed. This would seem to indicate that the protagonists’ point of arrival at the end of the series is still an idealized fantasy world in spite of its ostensible connection with reality.
In keeping with Gainax’s distinctive cachet, these developments show that even a series that could have amounted to a gleefully unrestrained celebration of the carnivalesque spirit is actually capable of accommodating darker preoccupations. Also entirely consonant with the stylistic preferences exhibited by the studio practically from inception, the reality level (and hence credibility) of the world depicted in the closing episode remains open to debate: neither the characters nor the audience can be conclusively certain that they are not still ensnared in ludic territory.