It’s #WorldMentalHealthDay 2023, and I have returned with a new (?) show, a new set of analyses of shows that have significant importance to me. As I have moved to the United States for grad study, I seek shows that bring me familiarity and comfort for now.
And the topic for this year is a topic that is so dear to my heart, unbeknownst to me for several years.
So, TLDR: I had many, many discussions with several friends about cognitive functions and was exposed to many discussions related to the topic. It was interesting, and my friend told me that my cognitive functions attracted me to certain topics, such as relationships (or as she said, “Fe-atas tendencies”). Not just in a romantic context but the relations that people had within the ties of a relationship.
I tried to reflect on it, and realization finally struck me. Of course. It made sense. Everything I have consumed and loved always had the elements of “relations” or “ties” between humans. It further exemplifies how much I love stories about people being human and just bouncing back from their people problems.
So I’ll talk about that. People, Human, and Support.
Since it’s a WMHD topic and I am trying to bring new research here as well, I will highlight the importance of support for your mental health and overall well-being. (Yes, I will use *that* Harvard’s research)
Thus, I will redirect you to two of my favorite media that I consumed in a very god-like amount lately.
- Detective Conan Movie 25: The Bride of Halloween
- Suzume no Tojimari
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Detective Conan Movie 25
It’s very hyper-specific, movie 25 which entitled “The Bride of Halloween” centered around one of the characters that made me commit a heinous 50-chat-chain-messages to several friends, much to their dismay.
I know what you’re talking about.
“Ndin, Detective Conan's movie’s plot is just bad people blasting buildings that the movie highlighted during the movie's opening. The movie will end with Conan (and friends) defying gravity's actions, which rival the Fast & Furious franchise!”
And yes.
I agree with you.
But. Stick with me.
I watched Detective Conan Movie 25 in 2022, and as an avid Detective Conan movie enjoyer, I went in with curiosity to find out which poor building had to suffer millions worth of damages this time. However, I ended up closing the video player with red, bumpy eyes, nose full of snot, and disheveled tissues on the table.
I immediately fell in love with the movie just for depicting human relationships and companionship, which became a central topic to the movie’s narrative. I think it still sits in my favorite Detective Conan Movie of all time.
Then, I picked it up several weeks ago after watching the newest movie with a friend, and I fell in love even more.
From my perspective, the core of the stories is that everyone in this movie literally is grieving, with Furuya Rei or Amuro Tooru at its central story. Even the policemen members and the newly-introduced side characters are just people who are processing their own grief with their own stories.
The movie’s synopsis goes like this: A mysterious, famous bomber named Plamya who terrorized the world was said to be in Japan. They blew up several locations in Tokyo. Conan, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, and the Public Safety Bureau are working on uncovering the bomber, all while trying to protect nearly 500,000 lives during the Halloween event in Shibuya. During this movie, flashback stories were introduced, ones that are related to a character named Amuro Tooru/Furuya Rei.
Tldr if you don’t know about Amuro Tooru/Furuya Rei (the same person, I will refer him as Amuro from now on):
So. He’s a new (?) character in Detective Conan for the last 9–10 years and was one of the fan favorites, especially in Japan. He is the responsible person (character?) who singlehandedly successfully dethroned Avengers Infinity War in Japan, failing them to achieve a perfect top-ranked movie worldwide in 2018. (Honestly, Conan movies vs MCU movies in Japan never fail to crack me up because it happened again in 2019.)
Amuro Tooru is a waiter who works in Poirot Cafe and is also a member of the Black Organization Syndicate, Bourbon. He possessed amazing deductive skills and enrolled himself into Kogoro Mouri’s favorite disciple (which means he could pop up at a crime scene whenever the main trio was around). However, he is also working as an undercover agent working for the secret police, Public Security Bureau (PSB), and his real name is Furuya Rei; with his real mission: to expose and take down the syndicate once and for all.
I must admit that I did not like Amuro much when he was first introduced, like a friend’s friend who said he’s just a new fan service character. Well, You are not wrong.
However, I was in love with his characterization and narrative when his fellow friends were introduced to the story through Wild Police Story, his past.
In his story, we were introduced to his four peers: Hagiwara, Matsuda (yes, that famous Matsuda from the Ferris wheel bomb case), Date, and Hiro. Wild Police Story should be a series of its own, but I digressed. It explores one of my favorite things:
how your relationship web tangles with each other and how it affects people around you, and even yourself.
For example, we meet young Amuro, a hard-working, headstrong individual who enjoys being right. He had a fallout with Matsuda, a laid-back mechanics genius. They found resolution in compromising that despite their differences in personality, they could work well as a team, successfully saving their instructor who was involved in an unfortunate accident. I really enjoy how their relationship pans out, actually.
However, all four of them shared a common thing that Amuro did not share: they all died in the main storyline. Back then, I had no idea that Amuro had already lost his core, most important support system :)
What happened then?
Movie 25 happened. The movie teased about Amuro’s peers' roles before they died in the main storyline. The action was great. I mean come on, brave policemen fought a mysterious bomber and worked together to defuse this huge, catastrophic chemical bomb. The team succeeded amazingly, yet that was the last time they gathered, alive and well. It was a great flashback addition.
(Until I realized that they died after this flashback…..)
During the course of the movie, as we shift to the present time, Amuro keeps showing emotions that resemble regrets, longing, and, most importantly, grieving about his friend’s death. However, one thing is comfort for us as audiences who were invested in their relationship and stories: Their feelings, knowledge, advice, and values live within Amuro as he determined to stop Plamya from detonating the Shibuya Scramble.
One of the characteristics that we easily picked up is that due to the nature of his character (you know, as a double agent with triple identities to uphold) Amuro grieves alone and by himself. He does have several other people that we as the audience know he could rely on, but none of them came close on how his relationship with his four peers panned out. They were his best friends and his main support system.
So it is no wonder, for me, an acute Fe-atas with rumination tendencies, there will always be “what ifs” in regard to Amuro’s relations with his four peers.
What if Hagiwara survived the initial bombing? What if Matsuda cut the wire in the Ferris wheel? What if Date stepped back and the car missed him? What if Hiro had lowered the gun and listened to what his fellow undercover agent had to say before shooting himself?
What if Amuro still had the most supportive, accepting people in his life?
Will he still choose to grieve alone?
(I always find myself feeling so depressed whenever I think about this.)
My depressed state (for a fictional character nonetheless) was perpetuated by this ending song and the lyrics:
when familiar roads and streets do not feel familiar anymore because the ones who made it familiar are not here anymore. You long for them to be here. You are trying to get by living on the once-familiar roads and streets, but all of your efforts are rendered futile. Yet you had no choice but to hold on.
Everything that Amuro was and now— is the same as how everything we are and now is; touched and influenced by people around us.
The habits we picked, the values we hold dear, and the knowledge passed on within our families or within circles of friends will always live within us as we practice them, sometimes without us even noticing.
If I use Amuro Tooru’s example; Amuro always reminded himself not to panic when defusing bombs because Matsuda told him to do that once during the Academy. Amuro picked on Judo quickly because that is what Date, who was good at it, taught him in the Academy.
As you read those sentences, I am sure you also have some of yours, right? The novel you read because your friend from junior high school said it was a good read for them and became one of your favorite series of all time. The artist that you took a liking to because your crush said it was their favorite band. Or even the restaurant your parents told you they sold their favorite martabak, which became your comfort food growing up.
As human beings and social beings, we cannot truly be alone. We need other people and relations to keep us going.
I felt like the words and the emphasis on relations and connections resonated with me personally. Especially whenever my friend (read: Natha) pointed out that it is ingrained in my natural Fe-Atas tendencies.
In retrospect, I need my friends to be my trash dump whenever I have this episodic feeling to channel my Fe-atas energy. For example, I have this behemoth English-Indonesian essay about Movie 25 that I wrote at 3 AM in the morning.
(Actually, this article is an excuse for ME to talk about Movie 25 and Amuro Tooru’s character analysis more comprehensively instead of spamming it to my Bangsal GC, Ratu, or Marisa. I love you all to death for enduring my spams ❤)
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Suzume no Tojimari
Listen.
I have always loved Makoto Shinkai’s movies, but I never loved one the way I love Suzume no Tojimari.
I watched the movie with no expectations except being amazed by how Shinkai immersed you in his art style, colors, and cinematography. I, however, did not expect to leave the theaters while sobbing violently into my best friend’s shirt.
Suzume no Tojimari, if you haven’t watched it, follows a young girl who travels across Japan to save the country from its impending doom by locking “doors” that are a gateway to supernatural beings. Throughout her journey, Suzume and we as the viewers, met many kinds of people and fascinating characters that made the story humane; it made you trust humanity once more.
Even if you’re a first-time watcher of Makoto Shinkai’s films, I highly recommend you try to watch Suzume because it talks about my favorite piece: how humans build relationships and how you cope with grief.
I will go on a deep-dive analysis here, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, feel free to go back and watch it. It’s really amazing. Highly recommended.
Are we good?
Good.
I bawled on Suzume no Tojimari during Act 3.
It was the Act where everything accumulates, and you started to understand why Suzume did everything she did throughout her journey.
To give you context, Suzume Iwato is a 17-year-old girl who ventured through Japan’s many prefectures in an adventure that I can say is dangerous for any high school student ever; she did it without thinking about how it may affect her in the long run. Suzume simply does not care and throws herself into many dangerous options and choices that are really risky for her.
I have read many reviews that commented on Suzume’s questionable choices, leading her to dangerous encounters. Some didn’t like it because it was too dramatic, yet some could sympathize. I was the latter.
In Act 3, it was explained that Suzume was consumed with grief.
Suzume, when she was a toddler, was the victim of the March 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in the Tohoku region, also known as “The Great Tohoku Earthquake.” The total casualties were around 19,000, and many of them are still missing to this day. In Suzume no Tojimari, Suzume’s mother was also one of the casualties.
I remember whispering to my best friend, “If Suzume turns out to be the victim of 2011’s tsunami, I think I will cry” before the revelation happened. As the movie finally revealed the word “Sendai, Tohoku”; I remember my voice hitches because I knew that my prediction was right.
When Suzume opened her child’s drawing book for the first time after years, the movie gave you the sensation of what it was like the loud alarms, the screaming of searching for her loved ones, people crying for help, and Suzume’s cries in search for her mother while her drawing book was full of black scribbles that covered the whole page: I was already full-blown crying.
Her mother’s death, a kind and loving mother who built her a chair that she loved dearly, was built as a belief that Suzume was just lucky to be alive and she firmly believes that her luck might run out soon. I even think at one point Suzume feels like she doesn’t deserve to be the one who survives the earthquake.
I remember writing on Twitter that Suzume might feel like living right now is like living in a limbo. She only focuses on going through her life day to day and not really focusing on living her life, and Suzume hyper-fixates on her past. For Suzume, it is difficult to focus on stuff around her, with the exception of her own self.
It explains why Suzume was so easy to just follow Shota and Daijin around Japan just to feel something — the thrill and excitement of finally making meaning in her life whilst all this time, all she felt for her life was luck. She was lucky to be alive, and she was sure that her luck might be running out soon.
At first, Suzume was adamant that she was not afraid to die. Hence, she throws herself so easily into numerous life-threatening situations. However, as the movie progresses, Suzume begins to develop and finally voices out, frustratingly, that she doesn’t want to be in a world where Shota, the male protagonist, is not in it.
For the very first time, Suzume wanted to live.
That switch made me well up with tears, tbh because to witness someone not focusing on how not to die, but wanting to live for me was amazing.
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The one red string I wanted to connect between Amuro Tooru and Suzume Iwato is how human relations and support play within their narrative and story.
I always love stories that make sense with a hint of human relations intricacies within them because I always believe that human relations and support in one way or another, always benefit us.
Last February, an 85-year-long Harvard study found one of the secrets to a long, happy, and successful life: Social Fitness. The researcher explained that “personal connection creates mental and emotional stimulation, which are automatic mood boosters, while isolation is a mood buster.”
Social Fitness does not mean you always need to have tons of people to be your best friends, which are some of the questions I normally get asked during peer counseling sessions. As we reach adulthood, our focus on relationships is not on the quantity or number of best friends we have; we tend to focus on the quality. The meaningful ones. The ones that can make us feel liberated and supported; or if we fall, we rely on them to catch us.
It is actually explained in a developmental psychology theory by Jean Piaget, that during our 20s or 30s, we have tendencies to build, maintain, and foster healthy relationships, romantically or platonically.
Or you can find this in more new pop-culture aspects: The new Petualangan Sherina Movie. If you are a young Indonesian, you are probably familiar with the theme songs from the movie (and probably have heard about the buzz of the second one). “Menikmati Hari” in the first movie and “Hari Kita Berdua” in the second movie.
In the first movie, we heard “Betapa bahagianya, punya banyak teman. Betapa senangnya!” (translated: How happy it is to have many friends! How fun it is!). In the second one, we heard the lyrics somewhat developed into a “Betapa bahagianya, bersama berdua. Betapa senangnya!” (translated: How happy it is to be here with you. How fun it is!).
You don’t need a huge circle to feel supported; some people that you know that you can always rely on them are probably more helpful.
Or you can see your relationships and support system in this diagram below: 7 Circles of Friendship.
People have different opinions on relationships, friendships, and their degree of closeness. Sometimes, you can be the only person to determine and understand how the people around you play their parts in your life. Not everyone should be your best friend or the one you can rely on, but it is important for you to know the ones you consider close and trust.
Or you can use CNBC’s Seven Keystones of Support.
- Safety and security: Who would you call if you woke up scared in the middle of the night? Who would you turn to in a moment of crisis?
- Learning and growth: Who encourages you to try new things, take chances, and pursue your life’s goals?
- Emotional closeness and confiding: Who knows everything (or most things) about you? Who can you call on when you’re feeling low and be honest with about how you’re feeling?
- Identity affirmation and shared experience: Is there someone in your life who has shared many experiences with you and helps you strengthen your sense of who you are?
- Romantic intimacy: Do you feel satisfied with the amount of romantic intimacy in your life?
- Help (both informational and practical): Who do you turn to if you need expertise or help to solve a practical problem (e.g., planting a tree, or fixing your WiFi connection.)
- Fun and relaxation: Who makes you laugh? Who do you call to see a movie or go on a road trip with who makes you feel connected and at ease?
Not everyone can fill all of the seven supports solo; sometimes, maybe we could mix them up — It’s important that we know what values and needs that we have in life; including the people that we would like to be a huge part of our lives for a long run.
And yes, there is something scary, one way to put it, in putting our trust in others, the ones we cannot control.
And I feel you, for some people, doing all of this is hard. But I hope you know that help is always available if you seek them. Psychologists and other mental health professionals are here to help you adjust and solve those kinds of problems :)
Kak Riza, the resident beta-reader and my-screamings-recipient; is one of the licensed psychologists you can talk to! There are also more licensed clinical psychologists over at @wefanpsyou, who are also available for online consultation! Please check them out!
Anyway, here’s to World Mental Health Day 2023!
I hope you are all living and thriving.
Now that my duties are finished: I will return to my telegram chats with Ratu and spiraling more and more 🙏
See you next year!
