The Blackberry Walk

Of Tomino’s works, King Gainer isn’t the best known. Beyond it’s iconic opening, and this video, you’re unlikely to come across it unless you’re looking through the catalogue of Tomino works. But despite being aimed at a younger audience - as many of Tomino’s not so child friendly works are (see Victory Gundam) - Tomino manages to explore mature and academic themes within the show. The premise of the show is thus: after a global freezing event, mankind coops themselves up in eco-domes across the world, which may only be traveled between via ironclad trainline monopolies who also wield paramilitary deathsquads to patrol the surface for escapees. However many nonetheless plan escapes from these domes, in the form of Exoduses. The show follows Gain and Gainer on their Exodus from what’s likely somewhere in Europe across the Eurasian steppe to ‘Yapan’, and their fights against the trainline goons attempting to prevent their Exodus. As is nearly always the case with Tomino, the show is a mech show. Tomino likes mechs, and has a knack for incorporating the themes of what a mech actually is into the themes of the show. Typically, Tomino incorporates Nietzschean themes, such as with the Newtype in Gundam; and with the mechs in King Gainer being named an ‘Overman’ - a direct translation of Ubermensch - King Gainer is no different. In Gundam, Tomino tries to battle with what the coming of the Ubermensch means for society, and how the Newtype and the Oldtype may interact, such as through Bright and Amuro’s relationship. King Gainer however looks at the phenomenon through a more theological and moralising lens, through the idea of the overfreeze. As a preface, I’ll be spoiling parts of the show, so if you dislike spoilers, go and watch the show. Through the main cast’s exploits, the head of Siberian Railways is captured, and his moving fortress, the Agate, is infiltrated. Buried within it’s icy interior, in a Dante-esque image, Cynthia in her moral confusion summons the Overdevil, the most powerful kind of Overman. The Overdevil has the power to Overfreeze, which is the ability to freeze anything with hard ice; but the Overfreeze also has the power to fill the individual with coldness of the heart, essentially possessing the practitioner. Gainer, Cynthia, and then Sara all fall for the spell; a spell which makes one embittered, blaming others for their faults, blinding oneself to compassion. A spell which can only be broken through love, and, as we later see, their memories of the hardships spent together. Gainer’s Overman, the King Gainer, is also in some way related to the Overdevil, using the same Overfreeze powers; and whilst this ultimately isn’t explored too much, there is a sense that the greater the Overman’s power, the closer his ability match the Overdevil’s; that the supreme power is that of frost in the heart. Carl Jung - a name that hasn’t been written on this blog for some time - wrote his longest book on Nietzsche. The book is over a thousand pages, and is a compilation of a long, private lecture series he gave to his students on both Nietzsche’s work and his psychology. Whilst I haven’t read it myself, from secondary sources what I gather is that Jung poses a dichotomy in Nietzsche between Power and Love; power, on one pole, being gained at the expense of compassion, on the other. This idea, however is certainly not unique to Jung: it is a large chunk of the Christian message. Through pride, the central sin¹, man becomes unable to love, or exercise charity, which is in turn the Overfreeze consuming Cynthia and Gainer. Through the Overdevil, their pride has consumed them and they have submitted to the rule of the Devil. The finale of the show sees the Overfreeze affect the railway lines freezing each and every eco-dome, turning them to ice. Only through the King Gainer’s final Overheat can the world thaw. But more than just the domes thaw; the world, which was once completely uninhabitable due to ice, begins to thaw in turn. One of the concluding scenes sees the Duke of the eco-dome from whence the story starts ponder going on an Exodus himself; this is more than a thawing of the recently formed ice: this is a thawing of ice far deeper in their hearts. This world of hovelling and cowering is a world whose hearts have turned to ice. It is a kind of shirking from nature and a rejection of life. Here we have two competing themes, which at first seem in opposition. We see the critique of the Ubermensch in the form of the Overfreeze, and the callousness power can give; but in contradistinction there’s the freeze in the hearts from not manifesting spiral energy and not wanting to leave the cave. Somehow one must burn with enough heat to be driven to leave the cave and accomplish great things - to leave the pack - whilst simultaneously not having so much heat that you give the cold-sensation of scalding, and become cold of heart in your power. There is a kind of powerful warmth and compassion which must both leave the cave, and also help others. Christianity is often maligned as attempting to hammer down the ‘proud’ (to stand proud is to stand over the rest) nails in order to create some kind of mediocrity, but I disagree that it’s a fair interpretation. Often Christianity can regress into a kind of Pharisaic moralism, the Slave Morality Nietzsche lampoons, but at its heart the life of Jesus is a message of exceptionalism and standing against the herd, even if that means being persecuted for it. What Tomino resolves in the finale of King Gainer is a kind of grand thawing of society, creating a society of enlightened people who won’t stand for being oppressed in eco-lockdowns, but also won’t fall for the same hubris of the overfreeze. Through this freeze-thaw process, the barriers of people’s hearts are broken down, melting the frost, making way for the sprouts true charity: the charity to become exceptional for the sake of something higher. 1. Only now do I realise how oxymoronic the concept of central sin is. To sin is to miss the target, to have low accuracy, so to have a central sin does not only not make sense, but is a kind of gnostic inversion wherein the spiritual path is to find power in taboo breaking. What is central is Christ as a kind of light bulb, and sin is becomes stronger as you move further away and the light cannot reach as easily.