External Thinking Sketch | Japanese Film Viewing Edition 001: Can You Believe You Can Start Over Even After Breaking?

After watching "Bomb"

After finishing "Bomb," this was the feeling that remained with me first.

It is not just Tagosaku Suzuki who wants to destroy society.

The people around him are in the same place.

They have jobs.

They have roles.

They converse normally and behave normally.

Even so, they are evaluated by things they cannot control themselves.

Their desires are stimulated.

They are sorted.

If they are not useful, they are excluded.

Everyone seemed tired of that game.

It is not just Tagosaku who is broken.

Perhaps the other people are just continuing to behave normally while suppressing the urge to destroy through roles and habits.

The bomb did not destroy society.

It just made the already broken society visible.

That is how I felt.

I couldn't believe in the meaning of participating since I was a teenager.

The fact that there is no absolute basis for the meaning society presents is not such a surprising story to me.

Because it has been said for a long time that there is no lasting meaning in the order created by humans.

Personally, from my early teens, I could hardly believe in the meaning prepared by society.

Go to school.

Compete.

Be evaluated.

Aim for a good career path.

Work.

Fulfill a role.

What is beyond that?

In the first place, why must I participate in this game?

Is there any meaning in participating?

I suffered from that question for a long time.

Do the people around me really believe in this system?

Or are they just pretending to believe?

Is there something wrong with me for not being able to find meaning?

There was no answer.

However, continuing to participate without being able to believe in the meaning of participating wears people out.

From my teens to my twenties, I was in the midst of that exhaustion.

What remained in "Eureka"

I watched "Eureka" when I was in college.

That film also had a feeling as if the bottom of society had fallen out.

People get hurt and can no longer live as they did before.

The roles and meanings given by society stop functioning.

Even so, there was a faint hope in that film.

Sawai did not give the broken people the correct answer.

He did not persuade them that life has meaning, nor did he show them complete salvation.

He just got involved in their lives.

He was by their side.

He moved, ate, and spent time with them.

Even if you lose social evaluation and roles, you might be able to rebuild a small life within a relationship with someone.

That is how it looked to me.

At the time, I didn't fully believe in that.

I couldn't honestly think that the world was not a lost cause.

Even so, perhaps, it is not all a lost cause.

Even without guaranteed meaning, people might be able to live again with someone.

Sawai's commitment had that degree of hope, which was important to me at the time.

The despair I felt when I watched "Eureka" still seemed to have an escape route.

I felt that even if the meaning of society broke, I could build a small life outside of it.

Standing on a foothold, not meaning

My basic position has not changed much even now.

I do not think there is a meaning guaranteed by society.

I know that effort does not always pay off, and living correctly does not always guarantee fair evaluation.

Even so, I somehow maintain a place to be.

I have my experiences so far.

I have the work I have accumulated.

I have the people I have been involved with.

I have a life.

I have the time I have spent, including failures and regrets.

These things, both physically and mentally, keep me tethered to where I am now.

It is not a meaning guaranteed by society.

It is like a foothold that was born as a result of the process of living.

Therefore, I do not believe in the meaning of society, but I am not completely cut off from society either.

Meaning is not guaranteed.

Even so, people can create a place to be within their experiences, relationships, and the context in which they have been placed.

I have somehow come that far.

Trust in recovery

That is precisely why I was scared after watching "Bomb."

It was not that I was scared that the meaning of society was empty.

That emptiness was something I had known for a long time.

What scared me was that it seemed like even the feeling that people could rebuild other meanings or places to be after losing social meaning was being lost.

It is not just Tagosaku.

People who work normally, people who have families, and people who seem to be doing well socially all seemed to have lost the meaning of participating on the inside.

Surface adaptation and internal exhaustion might be progressing separately.

The despair of the past was the breaking of the meaning of society.

The despair of today might have a slightly different form.

The inability to think that we can rebuild another meaning ourselves after breaking.

Even if you step down from society, other evaluations chase you.

It is not just work.

Creation, human relationships, and life are all translated into numbers, results, and market value.

Even resting is evaluated as self-management.

People who have lost their place are even burdened with the responsibility of finding a new one.

The power to make people drop out of their place is strong.

On the other hand, the power to return that person to another context is weak.

Rather than returning broken people to society, the power to support them until they can build a small life once more.

That power seems to be weakening.

Sawai in "Eureka" stayed by the side of the broken people.

He did not give them meaning.

He did not show them the correct answer.

He just offered time and relationships for people to return to life once more.

That looked like hope to me.

In the world of "Bomb," such an existence was hard to see.

The characters are involved with each other.

They are working.

They are fulfilling roles.

Even so, I felt that those relationships were hardly believed to be things that could recover a person.

The final bomb might be people's anger or distrust.

It might be the destructive impulse latent within society.

However, it looked a little different to me.

Isn't the final bomb the people themselves who have lost the reason to continue following society?

Moreover, people who have also stopped thinking that they can rebuild another meaning from there.

This atmosphere is judged to reach people

And, there was one more thing that bothered me.

It is that the creators and those delivering it might also think that this feeling is not just for a very small number of people.

Of course, it does not mean they read it the same way I do.

However, this sense of stagnation and the emotion of wanting to destroy society are understood by many people.

They are empathized with somewhere.

It is precisely because it is judged that way that this work is widely delivered.

Expressers turn the atmosphere of the times into stories.

Those who deliver them read the number of people who react to that atmosphere.

The fact that "Bomb" is established in the current era itself seemed to be a sign that the feeling of losing trust in recovery is already widely shared.

It is not that there is a story where the bottom of society has fallen out.

People who feel that the bottom of society has fallen out are assumed to be the audience for that story.

Therein lies the eeriness of this work.

While we view Tagosaku as an abnormal person, at the same time, we cannot say that we cannot understand his feelings at all.

Including that possibility of empathy, this work is presented to the current era.


The fact that the meaning given by society is an illusion is not a story that started just now.

Even so, people thought they could build a small life outside the illusion.

Even if you break, you can live again within a relationship with someone.

Even if you lose your place, you can enter another context again.

Even without a grand meaning, you can create a small reason to live today.

What scared me after watching "Bomb" was that it seemed people were starting to think they could no longer believe in even that possibility.

Is what modern society is losing hope itself?

Or is it the trust in recovery, that people can live again even after breaking?

I still have not found the answer within myself.

(Written on 7/22/2026)

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001 Can You Believe You Can Start Over Even After Breaking?

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