“I guess one would have to be, inventive”

…is what the character Trevor Goodchild (Æon Flux) says, as he delights himself in trying to figure out how organ-less aliens make love. That’s interesting, considering what Peter Chung (director of Æon Flux) once said about his work. To overcome restrictions on the amount of sex and violence that could be shown on television, he claims to have come up with substitutes for sex organs so that things that wouldn’t normally be sexual take on sexual innuendo. For example, the screenshot below on the left depicts two people having ’sex’ by deflating and inflating their special suit.

Honestly though, I couldn’t stop laughing. The very notion of a guy moaning and reaching his climax because of alternating pressure was just too much for me. Æon Flux offers plenty more, such as exchanging-eyeball-sex, bird-sex, artificial-vertebrae-sex, and et cetra. Regardless of its intention (comedy? arousal?), there is no denying that they are–as Trevor puts it–inventive.

Warm Cyberpunk

Is Kaiba a Cyberpunk? We’ll get to that in a minute. As some of you may already know, I have a soft spot for Cyberpunk anime. They tend to exhibit unconventional storytelling, fascinating dystopias and visuals of highly artistic merits. A popular criticism against the genre is that viewers find it difficult establishing any emotional connection because characters are so lifeless. Titles like Serial Experiments: Lain and Ghost in the Shell movies for example, feature characters who rarely present themselves empathetically, which is somewhat expected as they inhabit a world dehumanised by our constantly advancing technology. Personally I find such sterile quality strangely alluring, but I can see why it can isolate some viewers. In any case, Kaiba is many things. Experimental anime, fairy tale for adults, intricate mystery…but what intrigued me the most was how warm it felt compared to the previously mentioned series that treats similar existential themes in an emotionally cold manner.