Released in 1998, "Kite" is a violent anime by director Yasuomi Umetsu. The film revolves around a schoolgirl named Sara who is orphaned in her early teens, whose parents are the victims of a gory double murder and who unwittingly finds herself becoming an assassin.
In the late 1990s, the film would be idolised by teenagers for its elaborate, violent action sequences. Later, when they stumbled upon director's cuts of the film, many of the same fans would recoil in disgust. Labelled child pornography in many countries, these various cuts feature extended sex scenes in which the young Sara is repeatedly raped. These rapes are presented as titillation. But were the film's action sequences any different?
The "assassin" or "hitman" genre has always had paedophillic undertones, even in the mainstream, with films like "Leon" and "Kick Ass". Violence itself always has a sexual element, and vice versa. Indeed, many English metaphors for sex have violent connotations. Sex is associated with hitting, the penis is oft treated as a weapon (fire blanks etc), various euphemisms (bang, beat it, tear it up, hit it, knock up) conceptualise sex as violence and even the modern, grammatically correct words we give male and female sex organs originated from explicitly violent Latin and Greek words (sheaths, swords etc). Today gaming terminology is similarly rife with sexual euphemisms (rape, owned, gang-bang, teabag etc).
On a chemical level, the brain's reward systems for aggression and sex are also similar, whilst identical neurons in the hypothalamus light up during both belligerence and sex. Exposure to either also induces similar neurochemical pleasure responses (dopamine, oxytocin etc), which oft leads to addiction escalations in which the subject requires "harder" and "more intense" experiences of violence and/or sex.
On a metaphysical level, the likes of Freud and Lacan have also recognised the overlaps between sex and violence. In psychoanalysis, for example, the death drive exists in opposition to the pleasure principle. But the pleasure principle is itself the death drive, as the aim of the instinct is in every instance a satisfaction which can only be obtained by either removing the state of stimulation, or by constructing a vicious circle of repeatedly transferred desires. The sex act, then, not only chases an unattainable ideal of wholeness, unity or an impossible end, but at its most extreme is predisposed to eventually seek an outright eradication of pleasure; the self desires both its own destruction and the annihilation of the Other. Suicidally, the self seeks to at once consume, destroy, violently merge with and transcend the Other; to go beyond ecstasy.
In other cases, sexual fantasies may have unconscious intents which aren't even sexual. They often serve to assuage an existential lack, for example, whilst other violent forms of sex are acts of hatred, humiliation and dominance, pleasure derived from defiling the other or fuelled by the anger of having been made into an object and defiled oneself. Such fantasies lead into the psychological dead-end of sado-masochism. Pornography, in some cases, also has its basis in resentment, either unconscious or openly.
Japanese animation is itself riddled with misogyny in all sorts of creepy manifestations. Such things range from slight to more overt stuff like rape and sexual assault scenes. "Kite's" multiple cuts - the film's essentially a series of murders and rapes - were themselves created to cater to different Eastern and Western demands. Western markets lapped up the film's stylised violence but balked at the sex, whilst unrated cuts of the film became cult hits in Japanese and European sex markets. Today, as Western social mores change, things like "Kite's" sexual assaults are increasingly viewed as just another acceptable part of power fantasies.
4/10 – Worth one viewing. "Kite" would influence and be homaged in Tarantino's "Kill Bill".
In the late 1990s, the film would be idolised by teenagers for its elaborate, violent action sequences. Later, when they stumbled upon director's cuts of the film, many of the same fans would recoil in disgust. Labelled child pornography in many countries, these various cuts feature extended sex scenes in which the young Sara is repeatedly raped. These rapes are presented as titillation. But were the film's action sequences any different?
The "assassin" or "hitman" genre has always had paedophillic undertones, even in the mainstream, with films like "Leon" and "Kick Ass". Violence itself always has a sexual element, and vice versa. Indeed, many English metaphors for sex have violent connotations. Sex is associated with hitting, the penis is oft treated as a weapon (fire blanks etc), various euphemisms (bang, beat it, tear it up, hit it, knock up) conceptualise sex as violence and even the modern, grammatically correct words we give male and female sex organs originated from explicitly violent Latin and Greek words (sheaths, swords etc). Today gaming terminology is similarly rife with sexual euphemisms (rape, owned, gang-bang, teabag etc).
On a chemical level, the brain's reward systems for aggression and sex are also similar, whilst identical neurons in the hypothalamus light up during both belligerence and sex. Exposure to either also induces similar neurochemical pleasure responses (dopamine, oxytocin etc), which oft leads to addiction escalations in which the subject requires "harder" and "more intense" experiences of violence and/or sex.
On a metaphysical level, the likes of Freud and Lacan have also recognised the overlaps between sex and violence. In psychoanalysis, for example, the death drive exists in opposition to the pleasure principle. But the pleasure principle is itself the death drive, as the aim of the instinct is in every instance a satisfaction which can only be obtained by either removing the state of stimulation, or by constructing a vicious circle of repeatedly transferred desires. The sex act, then, not only chases an unattainable ideal of wholeness, unity or an impossible end, but at its most extreme is predisposed to eventually seek an outright eradication of pleasure; the self desires both its own destruction and the annihilation of the Other. Suicidally, the self seeks to at once consume, destroy, violently merge with and transcend the Other; to go beyond ecstasy.
In other cases, sexual fantasies may have unconscious intents which aren't even sexual. They often serve to assuage an existential lack, for example, whilst other violent forms of sex are acts of hatred, humiliation and dominance, pleasure derived from defiling the other or fuelled by the anger of having been made into an object and defiled oneself. Such fantasies lead into the psychological dead-end of sado-masochism. Pornography, in some cases, also has its basis in resentment, either unconscious or openly.
Japanese animation is itself riddled with misogyny in all sorts of creepy manifestations. Such things range from slight to more overt stuff like rape and sexual assault scenes. "Kite's" multiple cuts - the film's essentially a series of murders and rapes - were themselves created to cater to different Eastern and Western demands. Western markets lapped up the film's stylised violence but balked at the sex, whilst unrated cuts of the film became cult hits in Japanese and European sex markets. Today, as Western social mores change, things like "Kite's" sexual assaults are increasingly viewed as just another acceptable part of power fantasies.
4/10 – Worth one viewing. "Kite" would influence and be homaged in Tarantino's "Kill Bill".