Haunting memories and lingering hatred pervade this anime, so much so that the notion of "despair" is almost what comes to define Canaan. There is certainly a light at the end of the tunnel for this anime, and the show is not without its laughs, but it takes a long time for us to finish the journey and be left with a satisfying semblance of hope. Canaan's characters are real and visceral; the antagonist is as haunted as everyone else in the show. It's not very often that an anime is able to pull that off with as much finesse as Canaan.
Synopsis
Years ago Alphard, the show's antagonist, was trained by the mercenary Siam in the art of assasination. She earned the name "Canaan," as if it were a marker of her potential. Siam went on to train another young girl, the Canaan for whom the show is named, after her village is destroyed in war and she manages to survive. Canaan, because of her abnormally powerful form of synesthesia, shows the potential to be better than either Alphard or Siam. This does not sit well with Alphard. After spending many years together, Canaan and Siam are attacked by Alphard, who succeeds in killing her master. Canaan has held onto her hatred of Alphard since then...
In the present day, Maria and Mr. Mino have traveled to Shanghai in order to do some investigative reporting. Maria runs into Canaan, whom she originally met some time ago in the Middle East. Canaan is currently working for an NGO that seeks to uncover the CIA's involvement with a village whose inhabitants mysteriously vanished several years ago. It is slowly revealed that the CIA worked with a terrorist organization called Snake in order to test a deadly virus on the village people. The hope was to create powerful beings who could be used in combat, beings who could be as powerful as Canaan. And this goal makes sense: Alphard is the leader of Snake, and her reasons for researching the Ua virus might be motivated by both the desire to satisfy her long dead master Siam and her distain for Canaan. The rest of the series devotes itself to uncovering the details of what occured in the "Ghost Village" while simultaneously resolving the vendetta between Alphard and Canaan.
Accolades
I give this show a lot of credit for being so ambitious. I have seen enough anime to instantly recognize when a show is going to live up to what people normally expect of anime: lengthy dialogue, absurd violence and fanservice. This show managed to keep all of that to a minimum and instead privilege viewers with a surprisingly deep story.
The characters of Maria and Canaan have a rather ambiguous relationship. It can be compared to the bond Achilles and Patroclus share in The Illiad, or even David and Jonathan in the Old Testament. In both cases there is a powerful love of companion that at times borders on homoeroticism. Indeed, Maria seems to rely heavily on Canaan for strength; Canaan can perceive Maria's kindness and love even when temporarily losing her synesthetic ability.
Maria often feels that she is a burden to Canaan, who frequently rescues her from danger and feels responsible for her safety. In a very powerful gesture of self-sacrifice, Maria is held hostage by Alphard and agrees to risk her own life in an attempt to make Canaan awaken her full potential. Maria wishes to not to rely on Canaan as the moon relies on the Sun for light, but to shine brightly beside Canaan on her own strength.
This show had the potential to be absurdly tragic. Fortunately, it did not take such a turn. There is certainly a difference between suitable, almost inevitable deaths, and deaths that are perpetrated for the sake of wanton violence, the latter being embraced by some anime. A couple of central characters die in Canaan, but death seems to have been the only natural conclusion for them. One of the victims of the Ghost Village experiments, Hakko, accidentally kills the man she loves with her voice, which emits sounds that damage the brain. She chooses to stay with his corpse as the facility the Ua victims reside in is destroyed. The woman Hakko was really trying to kill, the psychotic Liang Qi, eventually meets her own demise as she swallows pills that induce synesthesia, trying to please an Alphard who is obsessed with Canaan. Upon viewing a mirror and observing that the pills granted her white hair and grey eyes, she asks her loyal servant Cummings to kill her, mistaking her own reflection to be that of Canaan's.
Why Not 5 Stars out of 5?
The first review on this blog was of FLCL (Fooly Cooly). I realized going into Canaan that in many respects it was nothing like FLCL. The difference between the two shows creates a perfect opportunity for me to understand how inadequate standards of "good show/bad show" truly are. Even implementing a rating system on the blog isn't something I'm crazy about, but it is certainly a practical convention for letting people know what they should expect out of any given anime. That being said, Canaan's choice to be a semi-realistic anime subjects it to particular criticisms within that genre.
Alphard's decision to run a terrorist organization also seems arbitrary. While she has the training to manage a group of terrorists, one has to wonder why she would bother. In a rather hilarious rant during the Anti-Terrorist Conference in Shanghai, the U.S. president gives a speech about ending global terrorism and beginning a new era of "love and peace", a phrase he screams over and over again. It is after the speech that Alphard and Liang Qi threaten to infect the visiting international representatives with the Ua virus. The U.S. vice-president and his cabinet hastily decide to bomb the conference in order to stop Ua from being spread, but Canaan sends the bomb off course just in time. After the incident, Alphard calls the vice president and congratulates him on showing the world "the rebirth of American neoconservatism." Alphard doesn't seem to be a fan of capitalism and America's "being a menace abroad in the name of protecting third-world countries," but such concerns seem more like interesting side-stories rather than substance that contributes to the show's objectives. The CIA's involvement with the Ghost Village and Snake's Ua experiments are the only links between the U.S. and Snake that are explicitly mentioned in the show. Any other connections are not expounded upon enough to warrant attention.
I suppose that both of the complaints above point to the larger issue Canaan's story faces; Canaan doesn't do the best job of relating the history of the characters to the present day. I will praise the show's refusal to offer a long, expositional explanation of its back story. But the fact that there is so much back story as to suggest there was an anime (or video game, in this case) before this one is rather upsetting. It alienates the viewer. For Canaan to serve as an anime sequel to a video game mitigates the effectiveness and coherence the show might have if it were a stand-alone work. Many of the reviews I've read on the show have similar complaints. At the end of the series there are a good deal of questions left unanswered.
Catharsis
Siam was very important to both Canaan and Alphard. Indeed, he provided the foundations on which his two pupils based their future relationships upon. He was their 'light', as the show often put it, their source of hope and in some sense their reason for being. Alphard felt betrayed by him and saw Canaan as a threat, as someone that would ultimately cause her to feel despair. Canaan found a new light in Maria, while Alphard had died inside long ago because she couldn't get over Siam. Memories of a perfect past are strong motivators for a character; growth as an individual is either stunted because of hatred towards the person who destroyed such idyllic origins, or growth is achieved through forgiveness and catharsis. The protagonist in Claymore, Claire, faced despair in the form of a monster that killed her caretaker Teresa. Naruto's Sasuke longed for revenge due to the fact that his brother, Itachi, slaughtered his entire clan. Hell, Batman's motivation for crime-fighting stems from his desire to purge Gotham of the scum that killed his parents while he helplessly watched.
Behind every great hero must be a great villain, but equally so, both the hero and villain are impotent without a great motivation. Canaan is not a perfect show. But in creating characters who can feel pain and seek catharsis, Canaan certainly shines brightly among the best anime has to offer.
*I watched Canaan on Netflix. It is also available for viewing at Hulu.com. Canaan was produced by P.A. Works.
- Elijah Lee
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