Quoted By:
>AH: He describes a negative drive, but the characters are supported by so
many commercial and materialistic things such as money, drugs, cultural
products. But Rei has no relationship with materialistic/commercial
things. Her solitude is based on pure material such as the concrete walls
in her room, or the dirty floor. She has no clothes other than her high
school uniform. Again, in the Japanese intellectual discourse there are
two types of children's solitude. One is Ko-girl and the other is Otaku.
The Ko-girl is social and surrounded by commercial products. Otaku are not
social but surrounded by commercial things.Both are characteristic for
their dependence on media-networks: Ko-girls use telephones to find their
customers, while Otaku fill their room with computer software, videos, or
magazines to seperate themselves from reality.
I think that those two types are, in a Japanese context, two poles of the
80's ornamentality. Rei represents a new type of solitude. Materialistic
and excluded from commercial things.
>KW: On the other hand Rei's character is quite realistic, whereas
>>Pinocchio<< is completely removed from reality, the fantastic character
of a dream.
>AH: I think that Rei is even an international character.
