ETC (Paranoia Agent)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since July 2006. |
| Paranoia Agent | |
|---|---|
| "ETC" | |
| Previous episode | "Happy Family Planning" |
| Next episode | "Mellow Maromi" |
ETC is the ninth episode of the 2004 animated series Paranoia Agent.
[edit] Prophetic Vision
"To begin...figures pop out from a cranes beak. A sweetfish jumps and goes crashes with fish meatballs. A dancing reed is in love with the notion of love. A buzzing horsefly breaks out in a nervous sweat. An ant rubs its eyes in disbelief. And the books written by a duck with negi on its back is a sorrowful-ending cariciture of birds and beasts. And then..."
[edit] Plot
After hearing of the incident in the previous episode, several women share increasingly absurd rumors regarding Lil' Slugger. Kamohara, the wife of a screenwriter, is the newest addition to this group, and has much difficulty getting a story in. The following is presented in sequential order:
The first story is based on a report of a suicide in a nearby apartment complex.
- We see a young man who is disturbed by his continually poor performance on college entrance exams. As he studies in his room, he believes himself to have dropped something. As he looks for said object, his mother calls him to dinner, at which he responds aggressively that he has no time to eat. When she leaves, he finds what he "dropped", the algorithm to determine the area of a circle. The scene jumps to the exam room where he nervously waits as the test is about to begin. Just after he starts the test, he begins to sneeze, expelling the formulas he had memorized the night before onto his test paper. He heads to a bathroom, where he continues to regurgitate math formulas, and attempts to re-consume them afterwards. He then suffers a nervous breakdown, and is attacked by Lil' Slugger. He is discovered by the exam's proctor some time later, who is shocked to find that the bathroom is filled with piles of the aforementioned math equations, and finds the boy staggering out of the bathroom stall he was in, vomiting one last burst of exam answers as he collapses on the floor. As he does so, the word "bat" falls onto his forehead.
The second story is based on a report of a murder of an elderly woman in another complex.
- A furious old woman throws a bowl of store-purchased fish-ball soup to the ground that was made by her daughter-in-law. Her son, consumed with his work, rarely has time to come home. The old woman attempts to force her daughter-in-law into laboring as her personal servant, stating that because she sold her home in the country to make the down payment for her son and daughter-in-law's condominium, she should be rewarded. She aggressively attempts to make her daughter-in-law's life miserable, encouraging her son to work extra hours and to forget his wife's birthday, and purchasing a mortar and pestle for the young woman so that she could make a proper meal for the old woman. The young woman attempts to kill the old woman, but she is interrupted by the doorbell; thinking it is their husband/son, the two women dash for the door; the old woman, who arrives first, is then killed by Lil' Slugger.
The women speculate that the daughter-in-law was Lil' Slugger's intended victim, as she was more in a state of emotional distress than her mother-in-law. They conclude that Lil' Slugger made a mistake, since the old woman was the first at the door.
Kamohara interjects with her own story:
- A doctor informs a woman that she is three weeks' pregnant, due to in vitro fertilisation. Later that day, however, two nurses report to the doctor that there was an error in the procedure, and that both the wrong sperm and the wrong egg were used; in other words, the baby is totally unrelated to the parents. The doctor threatens to kill the nurses if this information is leaked to anyone. The doctor continues to lie to the woman about her child. Soon she begins to feel intense pain; the doctor feels a miscarriage might occur. As he conducts an ultrasound, he notices that the child in the womb is holding a crooked bat, like that held by Lil' Slugger.
The other women chastise Kamohara for fabricating what they believe to be an unrealistic tale. As the wife of a screenwriter, the women assume that she must have an affinity for making up stories.
- A young man pushes a young woman in a wheelchair along a body of water near a hospital. She asks him if he remembers when they first met; a short scene shows the two reaching for the same book in a library. The scene cuts to a hospital room; the woman states that the man is a final gift sent by God to be with her in her final days. She says that when all of the dead leaves fall from some ivy branches outside the window next to her bed, she will die. The man, distraught that his soul mate will soon depart, attempts to prolong her life by spending all night in the rain painting a false leaf on the wall upon which the ivy grows. We see a montage of romantic scenes; the young woman, blushing, giving something to the man; the two lovers riding in a rowboat on a pond; the two of them kissing on a forest path. As he finishes the drawing, he looks back at the window of the room his beloved in resting in. She looks at him, then collapses. The man sees the image of Lil' Slugger standing beside her. Panicking, he tries to run toward her, falling off the ladder he is standing on. In the end, they both die together.
The women comment that the story has a romantic element to it. They conclude that it is a good thing they went together.
- A baseball pitcher receives aid from his fellow teammates as to what type of pitch he should throw in the final inning in order to win the game. However, every teammate gives different advice, and so the pitcher is unable to make up his mind as to what a winning strategy would be. As he prepares to throw the ball, he notices that the batter is actually Lil' Slugger.
Kamohara is quick to point out the glaring inconsistencies in this rumor: the women apparently saw the event on television, so they could not have heard the conversation between the pitcher and his teammates. She also can't understand why no one else noticed Lil' Slugger on the home plate. The other women simply respond that Kamohara didn't watch the game.
An overweight man passing by on the street inspires the next rumor.
- A tall, thin man, a professional boxer, is jogging along a foggy street. As he jogs, he finds a piece of cake on the ground. Although tempted to stop and eat it, he tells himself that he must maintain his health if he is to be successful, then goes berserk and destroys it. Continuing with his jog, he then sees a plate of sushi, and again enters a berserk rage, destroying the food. He then finds a plate of hot food, and falls to the ground. We can hear a referee counting. The man enters his rage and destroys the food. He continues on, only to find Lil' Slugger behind an entire table of food--a banquet. The boxer proceeds to eat all of the food on the table.
Kamohara tries another story:
- The next story depicts a starving, bearded man on a remote island in the middle of the ocean, with only a single palm tree on it. The many tally marks on the tree suggest that he has been on the island for many months. He cries out in frustration, then spots a protrusion far out in the ocean. At first he wonders if it's a periscope, only to realize he is looking at Lil' Slugger, bat raised, emerging from the water.
The women harshly criticize Kamohara, calling the story incredulous. Kamohara tries another:
- A Yakuza crime boss beckons a servant to bring in Lil' Slugger. The servant is nervous, and Lil' Slugger sneaks into the room and attacks the servant.
Again, the women chastise Kamohara. They are not convinced that someone like her can have had contact with someone of that social status. Kamohara tries one more story:
- In the final story, we watch as a group of scientists watches the launch of a rocket. In mid-flight, the rocket explodes; the contrails of smoke from the rocket engines spells the phrase "I love you" in Japanese. The smiles of the scientists turn to frowns, and they all turn their heads to the side to see Lil' Slugger in the doorway, brandishing his crooked bat.
The scene shifts to a melancholy Kamohara returning to her apartment As she enters, she discovers her husband lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. He is still conscious, claims to have been attacked by Lil' Slugger. She tries to get the story out of him as he begs her to call an ambulance and slowly dies. Meanwhile, the other women's gossip is now about her...
As the end of the episode as the camera zooms out, the buildings are noticed to be aligned in such a way to appear as "ETC".
