Happy Respect for the Aged Day (敬老の日, Keiro no Hi), everyone. Since to-day was a holiday and I knew I'd be able to sleep in, I made myself a very full day yesterday. I went to see a performance by the brass band at the current junior high school I work at at 12:30. Among other songs, they performed the themes to my two favourite Matsumoto Leiji series, Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999. Galaxy Express 999 has been on my mind often in the past five years as I meet so many young people who want less and less to do with their biological bodies. Considering the pro-transhumanist messaging in Disney Star Wars and the popularity of Vocaloids in Japan, this might be a good time to revisit 999. The series follows a little boy travelling through space in the hopes of replacing his feeble human form with an immortal mechanical one. Along the way, he encounters various people whose transformations into machines result in various tragedies.
Let's honour the aged and their message about the dangers of becoming more machine than man.
X Sonnet #1740
A dusty town divides bananas fair.
A backward look invites the jeep to park.
Conditions plain were signed with lusty flair.
But lightning plunged the shop in inky dark.
Suspicious fish have taken kings and queens.
The last of watchful pawns dispensed defense.
Aquatic souls were swapped for coffee beans.
The ocean planet's pool was quite immense.
A steam conclusion marred a wasted time.
The broken glass was pushing flower shapes.
Serrated shards disturb the flowing slime.
Arrested plans were bleeding, sour grapes.
A million ashes cloud the boiling dreck.
The souls of pirates bloat the blackened wreck.
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