青の6号 (OVA): Hayami’s Flashback
Well…its been awhile since my last post. Been busy with work and confirming my trip to Comiket 75. I’ve had this post in the draft box for some time, and its only recently that I had time to finish writing my thoughts about this.
This post is an examination of the 20-second scene at the start of EP3, concerning Hayami’s flashback about his past. Freezing and taking snapshots of the sequence proved to be rather tasking.
1. Grampus research project
Hayami looks eerily similar to that boy (lead) character in Evangelion. The cone-like part of the Grampus in this picture (towards the foreground) is actually the cutter arm array. You can barely make out the line dividing both arms as they’re joined up.
2. Flooded city
Looks like a view from Hayami’s apartment (Tokyo Base?).
3. Tipped aircraft carrier
No sign of fire or damage to the carrier. My guess is that it got tipped over after the flooding. Is it me or does the ship look rather small? I’ve seen the Nimitz Carrier before (in person), and it was HUGE.
4. UN assembly riot
This scene was probably meant to illustrate the breakdown of the old world order, following the events of the flooding. The layout of the assembly, plus the faint shape of the logo on the podium makes me believe that this scene was taken from the UN assembly building.
5. Wrecked submarines
The design of these subs look WW2-ish. They don’t look like missiles either. Hmm…
6. Fires on the horizon
The thickness of the smoke in the background makes me believe that its oil rigs that are burning, not ships.
7. Living in rooftops
These must be some really tall buildings. The water runs so deep in this picture. Nice housing layout by the way 😛
8. Battle at sea?
Those drums in the foreground look like depth charges. Another WW2-era like destroyer in the background.
9. City in ruins
How did those buildings manage to stay sideways. And is that Hayami’s dog? 😛
10. Mass migration
Wow. Whats going on here. Fires raging in the background (is that a city?), people being carried on stretchers, and everyone looking surprisingly well dressed.
11. Portrait of despair
For some reason, this picture reminded me of the award winning B/W photograph “Migrant Mother” by Dorothea Lange, 1936, about the Great Depression.
12. Mass burials
There’s still quite a large area of high ground apparently, enough to conduct mass burials. That person standing over the bodies could be a priest. What disturbed me most was the sight of that bulldozer in the background – its pushing a large pile of corpses. Guess there isn’t time to be respectful to the dead.
13. Waterfront living
Post apocalyptic Venice? Hehe. Sanitation and traffic must be really bad here…
14. Project Blue
The coconut trees to the right of the picture look suspiciously similar to the ones encountered by Hayami and Kino in Antarctica…
Well that concludes this post. Hope it was an enjoyable read 😛
THE BLUE DOME 
Nice photos Tank, I forgot all about them.
No problem 😛 I like hunting for little plot details and continuity elements, and this 20-sec scene was filled with them.
Hey ticktank, good to see you’re still kicking.
I imagine the aftermath of Zorndyke’s attack being a lot like hurricane katrina, but on a larger scale.
Economic collapse was probably instantaneous if Zorndyke’s forces were able to stop international trade by controlling key waterways. Globalization is promoting a shift towards coasts in countries including China and India by fostering a world trade largely dependent on shipping. If Zorndyke was able to stop major shipping lanes it would be an economic crises on the same scale as the great depression.
All Verg would have to do is destroy some ports in Saudia Arabia using the Ghost Ship, and all the developed economies would go from first world to third world overnight.
A lot of countries would use the ensuing chaos to settle old scores so there would probably be an explosion of ethnic conflict/cleansing. Governments were probably overthrown.
I think like 90% of all the world’s largest cities are coastal cities so a lot of people would die in the initial wave of attacks.
There’d probably be a large refugee crisis too as a lot of people were displaced. I think around half a billion people in more than 160 countries live in areas less than 10 meters above sea level. Depending on how much Zorndyke’s initial attack raised sea levels,
Tokyo, New York, Mumbai, Shanghai, and Jakarta could have been all wiped out. There’s never a refugee crises anywhere close to 500 million people being displaced.Small island states like the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and the Cayman Islands would cease to exist.
The long term effects were probably really nasty too. Zorndyke’s actions were affecting the climate so there could have been an increase in droughts and food shortages. After the attack, a lot of people would have died from not having access to medicine, clean water, food, proper shelter. The chaos that followed would have bad too as any central authority collapsed in some countries/cities. People would fall back on to their hunter gather instincts to survive (looting, robbing, killing). There’d probably be a lot of small armed groups replacing local governments in the hardest hit areas.
Money probably became useless too. You can’t eat paper. Goods that could help you survive would become more valuable than money. Hayami probably really made a good living off being a scavenger.
Also, there was a world war going on during this. No one would have time to rebuild if Zorndyke’s Children were constantly trying to wipe out humanity.
#4 isn’t the UN, but is actually a famous image of US Congress from around the time of beginning of the Great Depression (1930s). IMO, you’re right that it’s meant to illustrate the breakdown of order.