Anime Thinking Method: A Creative Approach to Complex and Difficult Problems (2)

There are various theories on how to watch Ghost in the Shell in an easy-to-understand way, but as a model answer, I think the following explanation is very well done.

However, from the perspective of the 'Principle of Ignorance,' this model-answer way of watching anime is the very root cause that makes watching Ghost in the Shell boring.

To explain the 'Principle of Ignorance' simply, if you keep working on easy problems, such as completing a simple jigsaw puzzle made of only four pieces or solving a one-move shogi puzzle, human imagination, originality, thinking ability, and even humanity itself will regress. Therefore, in order to promote human intellectual growth, it is necessary to challenge difficult problems and stimulate intellectual curiosity, thereby aiming for improvements in new discoveries, imagination, and humanity.

For those who don't know what jigsaw puzzles or shogi puzzles are, let me explain it even more simply. If the condition was that you were guaranteed to get all the stickers if you bought a box of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure wafers, would you buy them and enjoy them?

It is precisely because you don't know if you can complete the sticker set that a large amount of wafers are left over, which creates an opportunity to think about the food loss problem, and leads to creative ingenuity in how to finish eating the wafers you've grown tired of.

Even then, for the ones you can't finish, sharing them with subordinates at work leads to workplace ethical issues like 'Isn't this food harassment?', or human relations theory and corporate organizational theory such as 'Won't my colleagues look at me strangely if I'm collecting JoJo stickers at my age?', and this is how humanity has developed.

Furthermore, would anyone be happy that Stone Mask Konjac is sold for 100 yen each at supermarkets and convenience stores all over Japan? The reaction of someone who doesn't know JoJo would be 'What a creepy konjac!', and from the perspective of a JoJo fan, it would be 'What value is there in a Stone Mask Konjac that is sold everywhere?', and in the end, no one would buy the Stone Mask Konjac. It is precisely because it is difficult to obtain and expensive that one can understand that the Stone Mask Konjac has value, and from this realization, it becomes possible to learn useful knowledge such as economic principles and marketing strategies through personal experience.

Even for 'Escape from the JoJo's Bizarre Art Museum', if anyone could escape easily, such an event would have no value. It is precisely because you don't know if you can escape that humanity has evolved by deliberating on escape methods while utilizing quick decision-making and abundant knowledge.

Going against this direction of anime human evolution and regressing are the shallow new humans who misunderstand that they have gained something by taking the easy way out, such as time performance, cost performance, and life hacks, thinking they have gained something by doing things easily.

In the next article, from the perspective of the 'Principle of Ignorance' mentioned above, I would like to discuss Ghost in the Shell starring Scarlett Johansson.

To be continued...

Rintaro Takechi