Disclaimer: you’ll want to review the shounen aesthetics post as always when it comes to me covering Act-Age. It’s not ABSOLUTELY necessary but definitely preferable. Spoilers for Act-Age up to Chapter 109 as well as minor spoilers for Food Wars & My Hero Academia.

“Treasure your rivalries. If you forget you have enemies then you forget why it is so important to know and learn from strategy. If you don’t think you have any I have news, you do…you just don’t know it yet. They might be institutions rather than specific people. You do not want to be caught unprepared, so if you don’t have any, make some. To be unprepared leads to a slowing or stopping of self-improvement through adaptation.”- Christopher Mott

There’s a sad irony to the path my life has taken. Everyone at some point wishes to express themselves this is known, however, this is more the case for some people than for others. For me I’ve always been a natural Epicurean, desiring a quiet life away from the world with my loved ones. Yet I live in the most interconnected age, not just in terms of being exposed to the joys and especially the horrors of a giant judgmental world but worst depending on it for my very survival. Yet again I find myself painfully relating to the trials & tribulations faced by Yonagi Kei of “Act-Age” as she climbs ever higher in the acing world. It’s been established since chapter 1 that an actor becoming unhappy due to acting would be considered a failed state in the series, as I’ve mentioned before previously in a post on the series. In the first few 3 arcs we see Yonagi’s pure heart being used to avoid this situation for others, first Chiyoko by giving her a worthy rival & friend who can break through her mask via power, then Yonagi helps save her fellow acting friends through empathy- becoming an emotional avatar of the group’s beloved director to lead them out of their despair, and then finally with her new high school friends by destroying their cynicism & reminding them what optimism feels like. Princess Iron Fan flips the dynamic and makes it so that it is the friends Yonagi has made along the way who ultimately protect her pure heart through solidarity & proper rivalry.

Context: Festivals & Trust

In order so that what I later will be clear we must fill the analysis gap between Iron Fan & Galactic Railroad by briefly covering the equally breath school festival arc. The main theme of that arc is a simple one of trust & how it transfers to “effort”. Obtensively the lesson Kuroyama was trying to teach Kei was that of the manga Liar Game- Doubting people is part of getting to know them, and one should not mistake trust for apathy, nor doubt for cynicism. ultimately trust is optimism in people born out of mutual advantage. Yonagi didn’t see a need to interact with people outside of acting, because to her it wouldn’t help her take care of her family & she didn’t want to open herself to others due to the betrayal of her father. She became apathetic to the wider world & disappeared into movies. Hina, on the other hand, became cynical of others, seeing the world as a zero-sum game, and this is the behavior we will see taken to its logical conclusion in characters we’ll explore in the next arc. Only when we take an active interest in others for its own sake and don’t make assumptions can we begin to build trust, and it is this trust in turn that allows us to work together to do great things.

In the shounen aesthetic teaching empathy & promoting optimism make up the core developing a pure heart, with power & passing of the being used to secure it. It is the job of Jump’s main characters to transform the worlds they find themselves in. While Act-Age takes place in our modern world, not even being urban fantasy, it nonetheless still adheres to this responsibility as well, ensuring that Yonagi comes to her larger role. Pure hearts build trust, & with ill intent & deception out of the picture, it becomes clear for the characters that the way to get what they already want is by following & working with others, especially the main character. The effort that’s put in even by those who believe they can no longer try like Ryoma sees their goals meet, which sees them optimistic and willing to repeat such efforts. Or to quote the queen of charisma herself they’ll complete the projects with their friendship power!

Rivals & Dancing Flames

Iron Fan sees a new character introduced along with a new symbol, both of which represent the same 2 key concepts driving the arc: ambitions & rage connect to Hanako & Flames. From the start these 2 ideas quickly become inseparable. As Yonagi gains skills, the flames dance, and they’re fanned by the ambitions of Hanako. But these ambitions are fueled by a cold rage, a rage that spreads like a flame among the characters. Hanako comes from a cold place but in the literal sense of being from the snowiest regions of Japan as well as in emotional sense via being cut off from the personal connection, she desired her whole life. However, interestingly it is this very cold which sparks her creativity in a big way; her desire for flames. So we can think of the cold as a sadness, which in turn sparks a desire for warmth. As the saying goes cold can burn, and Hanako’s desire for connection turns into a rage at her lot in life and thus can be said that her ambition, which is synonymous with her anger, is sparked by the imagination stimulating cold. Crucially this isn’t the first time the concept of sadness inspiring imagination is being introduced, indeed from the beginning, Yonagi pursued the creative medium of movies to escape her depression. Because we’ve been primed to associate sadness & creativity once you add the associations of rage caused by sadness and the ambition that follows from that the purpose of the whole story becomes clear.

Hanako & the actors feel like kindred spirits because they are. The purpose of emotions is to inspire action(1), and emotions aren’t just static states but rather a current that flows into itself & sweeps us up, both on the individual scale as well as the collective one. But what drives these currents- or montage- of emotions? It is our desire to escape the dull world by connection, connections & desires that are only possible due to our empathy and imagination brought about by evolution for the purpose of survival. The human struggle is with mastering the desire to continue on, to quell the mountain flames; or as I put it in the analysis of the first chapter dealing with the preciousness of time. I’ve spoken before on Act-Age’s relationship with Buddhism. Existence is suffering for as undying begets stagnation mere existence leads to a forgetting of oneself as man pursues impermanent things & becomes stuck in endless cycles with no progression. This represents a bad end for an actor as their life becomes a simulation of what was formerly real, and indeed Act-Age as a series has always pointed to the importance of forgetting the superficial self/ego so that in paradoxically desires are fulfilled as soon as they come up and thus disappear altogether. Through becoming one with the current you become one with the world, feelings of alienation disappear & sadness is left behind.

As was stated in the one shot of the series empathy is always there from the start so one needs not to try to induce it. All one needs is “right action” which comes from rejecting deception & being true to yourself. Children are very often used in Act- Age as the ultimate guides, as they’re ostensibly untainted by the common stagnant reasoning of the world around them. Child Yonagi is thus the perfect symbol for this arc. Unable to settle to the point of brattiness, yet she more clearly sees how things are clear. As Iwao once said children are capable of monstrous changes, surpassing even their parent’s expectations. & surpassing expectations is just what the cast members seek to do. Their flames are at their purest when striving for great heights.

Of course, the truth hurts, which is something the series definitely doesn’t gloss over. Flames burn, and if left to run absolutely wild will cause damage. This emphasizes the importance of the director & right mind. On the one hand, letting actors have too much creative control is a mistake & you need someone with the skills to wrangle these big personalities. On the other hand, directors will fail if they take in none of the actor’s input so it becomes a balancing act. They must set them off on a ship, following the not fighting against the current but on the contrary seeing them safely across. This is done by keeping a big picture view on things, & thus by seeing where the current flows & how the flames dance- in burdening the cold with resolve when necessary- you master the weather and become part of it as well. So our desires for connection that have caused us problems also become our salvation when wielded. & this explains the importance of rivalries.

In any occupation, you must honestly obstruct your rivals through your own development & dominance, and as they grow because of it they will inturn change and improve you. When I use the phrase “honestly” I, of course, mean “without deception” for that is what sets a rivalry apart from a mere competition for its own sake, which is folly. If you don’t face each other at your honest best there’s no point, as no truth will come from that. The series encourages being truthful because there can be in clashing with each other we escape the cycle of desire. Often, like with Hanako attempting to use Yonagi for the sake of art like she was used, we lie and deceive so that we may achieve an end. But where does that leave us? We cannot lie to others & not ourselves- you can’t play with fire or you’ll get burned. There is no deceiving without being deceived, and it won’t save you from dying. Indeed it is the fear of death that inspires our worst actions as if we die we can’t fulfill our desires or so we think. But this is the type of thinking that results in a dull stagnant world precisely because it is untrue. As established in the story we never die alone so there’s no reason to fear death. Again, empathy is already there from the start, we’re already connected to everything in the world; we aren’t a part of or swept up in the current or the flames, we ARE the flames. The coldness we may feel is only there because we forget. All the evil in the world stems from forgetting impermanence; the fact that it is only for a short while that we live the life of others. All “form” burns away, all that remains is always flames, entropy, disorder, change.

This is all a fancy way of saying that the main issue with humanity is that man alone among the animals is fake as hell & to avoid the unhappiness each individual needs to find it within themselves to stop that dumb shit. Don’t be an impudent human. Don’t become paint or a product. Become as gods. If life is a stage one must remember that the world of the stage is limitless. You start by remembering the happy feeling- your connection with others & the endless amount of good things you have experienced in the world and can. Once you do that others will see the pure heartedness and remember as well. Next comes trusting yourself, and there is simply no better way then to find out who you truly are then through honest struggle against another. Chiyoko rekindled Yonagi’s fighting spirit, & the same was true in reverse. From Yonagi breaking through Chiyoko’s mask in “Death Island” to Chiyoko strengthening Yonagi’s resolve in “Galactic Railroad” the 2 are always making each other better. That is the beauty of their rivalry and indeed of all rivalries, and why they’ll never abandon each other even in old age.

Dull Worlds vs Shinjuku Girls

In the manga a topic often brought up by the characters is the fact that under the capitalist system we live under actors are nothing more than commodities; tools to use for branding that facilitate sales and nothing more. This, of course, is at odds with the reasons all the characters get into acting in the first place, which ultimately all boil down to some form of self-expression and processing of emotions. While we do see this on an individual scale with how Yonagi’s father used his relationship with Hanoko to write a book, and in turn how Hanako almost fell down a similar path before being saved, this conflict is best represented by the last character introduced in the Galactic Railroad arc and the catalyst for the Iron Fan arc. I’m of course talking about the snake looking Amachi. Kuroyama & Amachi seem to be foils for each other in a similar fashion to how Yonagi & Chiyoko are, and I’m sure this dynamic will be explored further in the future beyond the crumbs we get for them right now. One clear thing stands out even now: For Kuroyama he has a deep love for the actors and people who work with him, but for Amachi it’s all about the dollar bills. Kuroyama seeks to help actors fulfill their passion, while Amachi promises fame, wealth, & the semblance of permanence at the cost of complete subordination to business interests & money, in other words, collective myths. Individuals are inescapably dependent on society for their existence, the billions present and the billions past, hence we neither live nor die alone. Under Amachi’s watch, a person’s story & labor is deprived of them and appropriated for his rich client’s needs. Amachi is the stasis quo of the acting industry and under his ruthlessly cut-throat methodology actors experience their dependence on society not as a positive relationship but as a deeply draining one(2). It’s a denial of an Actors true potential, as seen when Ogami has to leave Japan (though that wasn’t directly Amachi). You can’t do what interest you unless it’s profitable.

You’re only as free as the prisoners you keep. Kuroyama understands this & as a result “decide” things for others more often than not, preferring to provide guidance & nudge then lay down rules unless necessary. In other words Kuroyama more than any other character trust in others, and as always trust creates freedom. Rather than looking at the true feelings of the friends around us, this next arc after Iron Fan shall shine the spotlight on those who have become corrupted by society’s influence & contrast them with children who shall once again become the guides to the truth. What’s most interesting to me about all this is how Iron Fan serves as a great contrast for other stories of redemption in shounen. Where Yonagi wasn’t exploited till she was a teenager her journey somewhat reflects that of Nakiri Erina’s from food wars who also has a father who sees people as mere tools for creating products & who had to be saved by friendship plus rivalry. We see a similar story in the trials of Todoroki from My Hero Academia who has to deal with fall out of his father’s abuse of his mother and himself. The key message common amongst these stories is that to redeem oneself you cannot deny your true feelings no matter what they may be.

Can you avoid being swallowed up by rage? No. Does that make you tragic? That’s for you to decide. It depends on if you can appreciate what you have now, but you can’t do that if you’re willing to settle. You may be afraid of being shallowed up but what’s the point of life if you’re not at your best? Often we unfairly categorize emotions into boxes for simplicity’s sake that lack truth and more importantly imagination. Far from being blind like love, in truth hate activates the brain regions for a higher reason & the ability to predict what other people will do(3). How can we allow ourselves to be controlled and lead astray by myths? It comes from an over-reliance on common sense, which would see us all as tools- paints for someone else’s picture. Get angry. Say “to hell with that!” Use your imagination. We’re alive & thus more than capable of surpassing set & done the paintings in people’s minds. Our jobs aren’t to be a product sold or used, it is to reject the dull everyday world with all our innate power. Whoever your rivals & friends are that status quo is your true enemy always. So never settle- never let THEM settle and become bored.

You cannot stop your emotions from consuming you. The question is what shall you do with this wrath?

Sources:

“The Function of Emotions” by Marsha Linehan- https://youtu.be/tR-O12A78hw “‘Why Socialism’ by Albert Einstein Summary” by Halim Alrah- https://youtu.be/Rk2FR8YflrE “Deceptive Brain: Hate” by Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know- https://youtu.be/QWAfpgGwUIQ

Art: