Apparently I have something to say each episode for TM8.0 too, though at the moment, like the other two series I am blogging on, I wonder if I can keep it up, so I am not going to promise anything. For TM8.0 episode 2, we are taken through the aftermath of the earthquake through the eyes of Mirai and introduced to our last major character, Kusakabe Mari. As I expected, we were given an insight to the survivors and their states of mind after a major earthquake.

The first thing that is prominent as a theme throughout episode 2 is the idea of “shock”. In fact, to say it is an “idea” is to understate its significance; here is an excerpt from Wiki regarding the psychological status of shock:

Acute stress over reaction (also called acute stress disorder, psychological shock, mental shock, or simply, shock) is a psychological condition arising in response to a terrifying event. It should not be confused with the unrelated circulatory condition of shock.

“Acute stress response” was first described by Walter Cannon in the 1920s as a theory that animals react to threats with a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system. The response was later recognized as the first stage of a general adaptation syndrome that regulates stress responses among vertebrates and other organisms.

In other words, it is quite possible for people to be in a mental state of shock following a calamity, notably more so if it is on a large scale like the earthquake featured here. For people living in earthquake-prone areas or exposed to similar disasters (for example, if you had been through numerous slightly smaller or one or two similar scale earthquakes, the chances of you going into shock are lesser but not necessarily so), shock probably hardly comes to many, but it can still manifest itself in different ways.

For Mirai, she has just lost her very footing in her world – the possible loss of her brother, which becomes the theme for episode 2. Her first action though is to pick up her phone right after the earthquake, but her expression already shows that she is in denial over Yuuki and is afraid of losing her very own grip on reality…or perhaps, she wants to, but cannot, in order to avoid the pain of losing her brother, an icon of stability in her life so far until that point.
 

It is also not unthinkable that this is the exact same thought running through most of the people’s minds at the time, but it is even more painfully evident for Mirai as she has to deal with both her own fear and shock of the quake, and the even bigger fear of losing her brother by not even going to look for him. In the end, she takes the only action that one would expect she believes is right, yet is taken because of the very fact that anything else would make her slip fully into an isolation from reality – she goes to search for her brother.

I am not saying Mirai is cold-blooded here, I am just pointing out that, until the quake, Mirai has practically no concern for anyone or anything else except on a superficial level. She just took everything for granted, including her kind younger brother, and so, up until the quake and his disappearance, she had actually been unconsciously depending upon several basic things in life that she had no recollection of leaning upon…until it is taken away from her in almost a snap of the finger.
 

Scenes like this are not uncommon following a major earthquake – the ground is twisted so much that the foundations of even the strongest buildings would be thoroughly shaken, and thus the ground no longer becomes a horizontal flat plain that we are used to, but rather angled slopes and bumps become the norm. ghostlightning sees this particular scene as an indication of an “uphill climb” for “Mirai’s redemption”. I am not going to read as deep into that, but I do agree with him that Mirai will face problems that she must surmount in order to get through the experience.

As a general rule of thumb after an earthquake like this, it is unwise (if you are still alive and kicking) to stay in a building that is no longer stable; in fact, staying in any sort of building is considered to be unsafe. Evacuations should, in theory, be as orderly as possible to avoid panic, which is the last thing anyone wants. Full panic results in loss of judgment, reckless decisions, and impulsive actions that lead exponentially down into the abyss of no return. Interestingly though, none of that really happens here, which leads me to believe that the inhabitants are used to earthquakes (not of such a scale of course) and that shock may have a more important effect than I thought – in shock, you are numbed and thus unlikely to do anything, and in such a case, doing nothing other than follow instructions and guides such as evacuation orders may be the safest thing to do.

That is not to say there is no panic, but more of a controlled level. You can see some of it in the man who knocks down Mirai at the entrance; he is obviously irritated because he is actually fearful. Most people would be like that following a catastrophe, so if you happen to be in somewhat the same situation as Mirai, there is no point blaming him; everyone is afraid. It only goes one step further to know that when one is afraid, one gets irritated by the slightest thing, anything to vent their fear on and to escape from the situation, if only a little.
 

Here we see an all too common example of self-blame – Mirai blames herself for letting her brother go on what would be otherwise a short trip to the toilet that has resulted in his possible death. In fact, most victims would do the same in a similar situation, especially kids who do not understand that what happen was beyond the powers of anyone, least of all themselves, to prevent it from happening. Had she been with Yuuki, it would have been not one but two kids that might be trapped, or worse, dead.

I must say, throughout the episode, the portrayal of Mirai’s blame, her behavior, attitude, and finally when Yuuki gets rescued, is most accurate and at the same time, gets viewers to instantly empathize with her. A shoutout for her seiyuu, Hanamura Satomi, here, for she did a very good job throughout the entire episode. At the end, when Yuuki has been rescued and they are on somewhat safe ground, Mirai returns to her old self, albeit a far more subdued version, and the shift does not go unnoticed.
 

Scenes like this staircase are also all too familiar in the aftermath of a major earthquake, and so are the actions Mirai takes on an impulse to attempt to get to her brother. A little dramatic here, but one can easily imagine this same situation happening to a sister who might have lost her younger brother and thinks it is her own fault somehow that he might be dead.

If you ever get caught in the same situation facing the kind of stairs that Mirai does, do take Mari’s advice and avoid it – staircases that even look unstable are the very ones that might just collapse on you without even a little warning.
 

Sound advice indeed, please follow it if you ever get in the same situation. The problem, of course, is how Mari phrased it – she did not mean to put it across in such a way, she just said it on the spur of the moment to try and make Mirai understand the possibiilty of Mirai getting seriously injured and maybe even dying too. Of course, to a 13-year-old girl who might have just lost her younger brother, such words do not go down well, driving her to further impulses. Luckily, she was stopped by Mari rather quickly.
 

It is all too important to calm someone like Mirai with an embrace such as this. It is maybe the only way to get her to stop doing all the things that will get her into further trouble and make her search in a more rational way for her brother. Touching scene…and by this time, Mirai has been crying about half the episode. One should expect that anyway – harsh reality such as this is really very hard for a 13-year-old teenager to take.
 

Other than out of immediate concern for her brother, Mirai’s holding hands with Yuuki actually goes beyond face value. Few know that physical contact, or even just the voice of a person close by, for a person trapped under debris or in a similar situation to Yuuki’s (imagine a building that collapsed and there are people trapped inside debris that requires quite a lot of heavy work to get out – firemen in rescue operations and rescuers used to earthquake aftermath scenes would be all too familiar with these circumstances), may be more than enough to keep a person alive. Allow me to quote a book that has a very small section touching upon a firemen rescue of a trapped person in the building that has collapsed:

Dane kept his fingers pressed against the flesh. He knew, whoever it was, was unconscious, but he also knew the importance of human contact, even to an unconscious mind.

For the interested, the book is titled “Atlantis” and was written by Greg Donegan, and deals with an alien invasion in the form of a military thriller. In any case, extrapolated, any person that is alive but trapped, would be continually reassured just by the presence of someone on the other side of the rubble. So if you find someone somehow, stay with that person and keep in constant contact if you can do so without endangering yourself (and others) as well; it helps a lot just to be around.
 

This, and the scene at the beginning of the post, serve to inform the viewer of just how big and devastating the earthquake can be. For foreigners, the sight of Rainbow Bridge twisted and eerily lit by the glow of fires around the city might seem to be just another devastated scene, but if Rainbow Bridge is as famous as I believe it is, it is a landmark for the Japanese viewers and goes way deeper than that in driving home the scale and destruction of the earthquake. Imagine if the Washington Monument got knocked down, for those of you living in the U.S. In some ways, the 9/11 incident can also be taken to have the same psychological impact as this particular screenshot shows, even if people do not want to be reminded of it. The difference is that 9/11 was a deliberate act of terrorism, while this was done via a natural disaster.

Fires are all too common after a major earthquake, and so are other disasters related to major quakes, such as landslides and mudslides. It can take a very long time to extinguish any fire; the loss of electricity to major parts of the city, and the lack of clear roads (usually blocked by debris or contorted to an unusable extent) can hinder rescue efforts as well.
 

I hardly conceive that it might even be possible for a provider to be still online and working after a major quake, but it is quite true that the provider’s servers or stuff like that would be in an area largely unaffected by the quake. As Mari later observes, only one provider appears to be working. Loss of effective communications is another side effect of a major quake and is probably one of the most annoying hindrances to rescue efforts. How do you know where to go if no one can tell you where rescue is needed?
 

Actually this is the usual depth at which an earthquake occurs, at least to the best of my belief and recollection. Most quakes are that far down due to the plate tectonics I mentioned that start quakes; at that depth is where the real stress and movement occurs. Quakes that occur closer to the surface are much less frequent and actually preferred to ones that occur deep down – a quake close to the surface deals way less damage even if it is larger in scale comparatively. For example, a 9.0 quake that occurs at some 2-3 km below the surface would deal considerably less damage than one that took place 25 km down and measures nearly 8.0 on the Richter scale.

The reason is because the waves have far less time and distance to propagate, and far less matter to go through. They therefore affect less material below the surface, leading to less effects above the surface. Quakes that occur close to the surface are really few and far between, however. In fact I hardly even remember a case where a reported quake occurred close to the surface, at least in recent times.
 

An interesting question indeed. Mirai has gone back to her old self, or somewhat so, by this point. She then questions why a complete stranger would help them, especially since Mirai was rather cold to her earlier at the gift stall. Mirai herself cannot believe that a complete stranger would bother about two kids, including one (herself) that seems hardly worth helping.

On the other hand, Mari is the quintessential type you want in a disaster like this. Unlike Mirai and Yuuki, she understands the depth of their circumstances and that she can do nothing about it, or her daughter that is far away. Even if her daughter was in trouble, without communications and just by being far away, could Mari have done anything to help her? Instead, there are two kids here that require help and support, encouragement to keep them going, and that is something Mari can do and put her mind to. In a way it takes her mind off her worries about her kid; having someone to care for and protect in an emergency can make you stronger (yes it is a placebo effect but one that can be really effective nevertheless where such a situation is concerned).

It would be interesting to see how Mari’s and Mirai’s relationship develops after this.
 

This is the same trap that many parents fall into and most do not realize that it is because of their very dreams of a good life for their own children that ultimately destroys both the child’s or children’s future and the parent’s relationship with their child or children most of the time. What a child needs is not a parent, as far as they are concerned, that goes to work early in the morning every day, comes back late at night too tired to play or even worry about the child; what a child truly needs is a parent that actually functions as a parent just by being around, paying attention to the child, letting the child know that there is someone they can fall back on and protect them both physically and emotionally.

This is largely the reason why there are many broken families and juvenile problems nowadays; parents just do not realize that what they are doing (that is, work to get rich for the sake of the child’s future) is actually having quite the reverse effect. Parents, if you ever read this, realize that you need to know there is a balance between working to keep a family, and spending enough time with your own child to guide him or her the way you want. A child does not need anything more than a parent that is in his or her life most of the time; a child does not need anything less than neglect by the very parent(s) that bore him or her.
 

At least, Mari realizes that what she is doing may take so long that her child would eventually slip from her and that she might never be able to give her daughter the happiness that Mari desires for her. Of course, realization, and actually doing it, are two very different things. Perhaps, with the aftermath of the quake in Mari’s mind, she will get around to actually doing something about it now.
 

Relative to the animation route they have taken with the series, I find the presentation of the Honda Super 4 to be very accurate to an actual one, right down to the engine and mirrors. The Super 4 is meant to be a street bike; the side mirrors that you see here are, in width, longer than even the box that is usually prominent at the back (in aesthetic terms, a Super 4 is one of the bikes that do not look ugly when you put a box behind), and offers one of the widest views of the rear available to bikes. These default rectangular mirrors should not be changed if you are looking to ride a similar bike, you can trust my experience on that.

Other accurate depictions of the bike include the shots in the ED as well. I must say though that an 8.0 quake would rock any bike over, even if a bike is on a mainstand. Bikes have two different ways of “rest” – you can use the more common sidestand, or (usually an addition on a Super 4 and not available on a stock model) the more stable mainstand, which is installed in the center part at the bottom of the bike. All riders here must learn how to put a small bike on a mainstand in their first license for riding the lowest class of bikes (SG has a tier system for bike riding, the lowest class is known as Class 2B and is only available for bikes up to 200cc in power); it is that much more stable and slightly harder to do. I have no idea if a bike can be shaken to the ground if it is on a mainstand though in an 8.0; additional weight and the bike’s make would be the differential factors.

In this depiction though, Mari’s Super 4 falls on its right side, the side not supported by the sidestand. Imagine the sheer force of the quake to be able to shake a bike to the ground when it was already leaning to its left, and the Super 4 is a fairly stable and heavy bike. Mari also cleans the display glass of the left round thing (I have no idea what they are called but they are one of the most prominent features of a Super 4); that is where the odometer is.
 

It is quite right despite her rather blunt way of putting it – Mari has no obligation at all to take care of the Onozawa’s. Why then, does she? Like Mari says, there really is no real reason. They just happen to be there, a bunch of complete strangers driven together by a catastrophe. Perhaps Mirai and Yuuki remind her of her own daughter Hina, which she can currently do nothing for. Whatever it is, we should be thankful were we in the same shoes as Mirai and Yuuki, though, with Mirai’s personality, it is small wonder that she rather takes the pessimistic view that Mari would leave them alone given half the chance.
 

I mentioned in my previous post about these aftershocks; further thinking would lead me to believe that cracks and fissures appear in the fragmentation (which is quite possible) during a major quake, and thus the rocks in the crust, over time, try to fill in the larger ones and lead to more movements on a smaller scale after the main quake, which would result in aftershocks. Aftershocks do not directly pose much danger but can lead to further destabilizing elements that have already been made severely unstable by the main shock, and that is the main reason why after a major quake, staying out in the open is the best solution to take – you never know when another piece of debris might just fall on you.
 

Finally, the “round cake” that Mirai likes might signify how things might look to her in times to come – she prefers the smoothness that a round shape represents, a happy and full family for example, or a sign that things can only be better and smoother in their journey back home. More character development and interaction is imminent throughout the series as I see it, and I can only hope that more insights are provided as we go through the aftermath of a magnitude 8.0 quake in the remaining 9 episodes of the series.

Related posts:

1. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 11 – Yuuki e…
2. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 06 – Abandoned Choice
3. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 03 – AfterShocks
4. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 10 – Oneechan, Ano ne…
5. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 04 – Tokyo Tower Collapse