Otaku, No Video

"pleeeaaaase..." by MADdemoiselle on Flickr

In catching up on Comics Worth Reading–a blog title I’m envious of–I came across this wonderful line in a review of After School Nightmare:

I’m guessing that a teen will think all this love triangle/body dimorphism stuff is much more dramatically fascinating than I do. I just found it wearying. This is another one of those stories that wouldn’t have anything to tell if people would only honestly talk to each other….

This is a key storytelling lesson. It’s okay for characters to keep secrets from each other, as long as they must. Tetsuo can’t admit to his fellow macho gang members that he’s experiencing severe psychological problems, because they’d perceive that as weakness. Kei can’t tell Kaneda that she works for the resistance, because she can’t tell anybody.

Sometimes, authors mistakenly add secrets in the belief that secrets are inherently interesting. They’re not, especially if keeping them shatters realism.

An interesting example of an interesting secret appears in the original Dominion Tank Police OVA. Hard-working police officer Leona is kidnapped by rampaging cyborg bank robber Buaku. During a break while they’re on the run from the other tank police, an exasperated Leona asks Buaka why he became a criminal in the first place. He thinks about this, and we fade to a flashback of Buaku’s early life. He was born in a laboratory test tube as a test subject. We never know what the lab was researching, as Buaku had no idea himself (does a rabbit in a lab know what serums are being injected into it?). His was a life of tedium and torture. Then, the lab was shut down by the army, who executed the scientists and trucked the test subjects off to be destroyed. Buaku literally fell off the truck in the middle of the city, and innocent that he was, was quickly taken advantage of. The police picked him up, and boom, he was a criminal. He knew no other life.

When we fade back to the present day, Buaku waxes philosophical, then changes the subject. Leona never knows Buaku’s history, and Buaku never shares it with her. He wouldn’t. It’s a special secret for him, something that he wants to keep secret. That’s the kind of secret to keep.

Compare this to the typical fantasy story of a Boy (or Girl) Prophesied To Save The World, who is kept completely in the dark about it until his (or her) country is invaded. Especially if said Boy (or Girl) slacks off in his (or her) training. I don’t care how much of a burden it’d be for the kid to know; tell him (or her) so the he (or she) will understand the importance of said training and buckle down. What sane person would not tell the savior of the world at some point about said prophecy, especially if it was due to come true soon?