These days I sometimes find myself wanting to listen to the theme song of Armored Trooper VOTOMS, "Honoo no Sadame." There aren't many songs that carry as much of death and emptiness as that one does. Yet at the same time I think: aren't we consuming "death" and "hell" as something cool?
For people of old, "hell" was the most terrible thing of all. Blood, death, shame, war, famine — these were close to daily life. So when someone said "You'll fall into hell," it wasn't a mere phrase; it was a fear that shook the whole body.
But what about the present day? Death is isolated behind hospital curtains, war and famine pass by as fragments of the news, and on social media they are drowned out by cat videos. Words of terror have gradually been reused as "cool phrases" — fuel for entertainment. "Honoo no Sadame" is one of those. It carries the scent of death and hell, yet we hum it with our chests swelling.
And then we laugh at ourselves. "We live in an age where fear no longer feels like fear." "We enjoy death as entertainment without confronting it as death." We cast an ironic smile at that helplessness.
In the end, perhaps this is the nature of the ordinary person. Consuming death and hell, yet still living and still enjoying. Bearing that "helplessness," today I listen to the song once more.
...Namu Amida Butsu...
Japanese note (original): 炎のさだめを聴きながら ― 死と地獄を消費する凡夫
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