Songs from the Bell Tree - I

Jirô Taniguchi couldn't have been more proud.

Fictional realism, while absurd in theory, gathers itself as a transition between the utopical realism and delirious fantasy, aiming for a best result in achieving creativity (defeating reality) but giving it common sense (disabling fantasy). The best of both worlds can be seen in this picture. While having for inspiration a measure of reality, with complex weather, construction poles, signs, electrical boxes, and the like... it takes it away by enabling game, and not life, design to come in place. The roads are mathematically correct, with a flat texture, the children are mostly rigid and you can't defy the gamerules. However, it gives us a comical coke immitation in Bell Wood's Cola ('bell wood' meaning 'suzuki', the director's surname), as well as original capsule toys.

The storefront is also a delight. Quite the antithesis of modern stores, notice how only letters are involved in its advertisement. In fact, if you can't read them, you could only take for granted the soft drink and toy dispensers at the front, as a hint to what might be a convenience store. This is pure design: it maintains all the usefulness, but those barren, almost dirty and old doors give us something to yearn for. That it gives us no look into what goods, if any, they might be trading in, cloaks it in a shroud of mistery, filling us with emotions as we stand by and dare enter. I'm not going to ruin anything for you, but it's quite a surprise inside, and it definitely does not disappoint.

That proves another point. If realism and fantasy are both defeated, there must concepts created to maintain the level ground; meaning that from then on out, the coherence standard is artificial, but still created by the author.