Tsui no Sora

※This is a repost of an article originally published on note on March 2022.

　1999.

　Unthinkable as it may seem in today’s Japan, where the internet is everywhere, the country back then was gripped by chaos brought on by Nostradamus’ Great Prophecy.

　I wasn’t even in kindergarten at the time, but I still remember that uncanny atmosphere clearly. I was hospitalized for nose surgery, and my only source of enjoyment was a small CRT television installed in the ward. For someone whose entire life was confined within the hospital, that outdated TV was the sole connection to the outside world.

　No matter which channel you switched to, everything was about the end. Everyone was seriously debating occult theories, and combined with the aftershocks of Neon Genesis Evangelion, anime and films alike were steeped in gloom. Godzilla 2000: Millennium, released that same year, reflected the public mood in the most obvious way by delivering a bad ending: Godzilla rampages through a burning city, and the story ends with humanity utterly helpless.

　Japan was blanketed in denpa—toxic waves of madness. The television lighting up my hospital room, the radio droning on from an elderly patient on the brink of death, all picked up the same insane signal: “In July 1999, the King of Terror will descend.” Bathed in those waves, Japanese minds filled with speculation about the true identity of this “King of Terror.” Environmental collapse? Nuclear weapons? A comet? No one knew the cause—but one thing was certain: the Earth was going to end.

　Now, in the Reiwa era, a global pandemic has once again plunged people into confusion. This time, it isn’t just Japan—the whole world has panicked.

　In hindsight, 1999 may actually have been safer, limited as it was to television and radio. Today, people of all ages carry smartphones, small rectangles that constantly receive waves day and night. Slipping through the cracks of a confused society, towers of toxic denpa continue to transmit fresh poison. Tiny electrical stimuli travel from smartphones into our brains, shaking them subtly—but alas, while everyone wears masks over their mouths, almost no one bothers with the aluminum-foil protection for their heads. And so the waves slowly invade our minds, unnoticed and untreated.

　Meanwhile, reptilian humanoids replace key government figures one after another, only to vanish en masse later—while people gratefully accept electronic money prepared to collapse the global economy. No one notices the microchips implanted during sleep, quietly eavesdropping on our thoughts. Even the reason why the protagonist of Godzilla vs. Kong was a conspiracy theorist should be obvious by now: it was nothing less than a warning to viewers lacking any sense of personal involvement.

　The moment when all of this connects—when the long-awaited destruction arrives—may already be closer than we think.

　By the way, when people talk about the remake of Tsui no Sora, Wonderful Everyday, they often list related elements such as Erik Satie, Night on the Galactic Railroad, Cyrano de Bergerac, or Steppenwolf. But in truth, the most important element isn’t any of those.

　The answer has already been mentioned at the very beginning of this piece.

　Older than any Egyptian god, worshipped since before humanity itself, a being that brings madness and chaos—one of the Old Ones.

　The Crawling Chaos: Nyarlathotep.

　In Tsui no Sora, the protagonist of Chapter 4, Takuji Mamiya, becomes friends with chaos. The Crawling Chaos slips into the darkness. Takuji’s madness was darkness deep enough to summon it. Possessed by chaos, he eventually comes to call himself “the End Sky.” The ultimate cyclical existence, the thing that fades into emptiness… the End Sky itself.