YKK Forum

Anyone else read YKK and kind of crave such a world

Kind of a weird question but I was wonder, anyone else read YKK and have a craving to live in such a world?

I personal have always been like the people in YKK, never rushed to do stuff. I'll get to it when I do. I always get stuff done, just not always that seconds. Never in a rush or hurry. I even build my website anymore with that feel to them.
Annoys my family all to hell :D. They act like if it's not done now, be it doing dishes or going to the store to buy stuff that won't be used for 2 days, the worlds going to end that second.

I've always preferred a slow place. YKK made my crave for a world like the one alpha's lives in (Already want a place were I could live at a slower pace).

Sadly the whole world is obsessed with getting thing done as fast as possible, even when it's not necessary.

- Miah
Saturday, July 24, 2004

Sure. If I could choose among manga worlds... well, action places like Naruto would be nice, but that's just for dreaming. If I could choose where to live in the future, the YKK world would be perfect. I once thought of escaping to New Zealand and opening a café in the middle of nowhere... erm, yes...
I like the peacefulness and the way time passes in YKK... no stress, no great ambition, no "do this or your life will be messed up, believe me". -_-
Besides, I'm pretty much the visual type, I love looking at things and colours... and the scenery in YKK, well, it's just beautiful.

- Ting Ting
Saturday, July 24, 2004

I do while I read the book, but it makes me feel too melancholy. Humanity is over the hill and all that's left is the day to day. Without driving ambition, people loose vitality.
Without this hectic vitality, YKK is a tranquil mirror where haikus can be seen and for a moment, we can experience the Tao with Alpha, but I've come to enjoy the energy of this world too much.

- thubar2000
Monday, July 26, 2004

plus were only seeing this world from one very narrow perspective.
from what i can tell there are definatley some dark undertones - kokne needing to carry a gun for instance - that make me less sure about this "paradise".

- macloud
Tuesday, July 27, 2004

plus were only seeing this world from one very narrow perspective.
from what i can tell there are definatley some dark undertones - kokne needing to carry a gun for instance - that make me less sure about this "paradise".

- macloud
Tuesday, July 27, 2004

I think it would be hard to be a fan of YKK if you didn't like the slow, peaceful life of Alpha.

There's always a down side to we easy-going people, though. We have trouble getting things done. ^_^ Less laid back people get more things accomplished, but are also prone to domination, war, and predation on people they perceive as weak.

I think the author feels that way, peace cannot be had in the absence of strength, hence the weapons on Kokone and Alpha. But there hasn't been any mention of crimes still being committed in the YKK world.... maybe the guns are a relic from an earlier, more violent time.

-k

- Kempis Curious
Tuesday, July 27, 2004

living someplace like that would be nice, this world is to hectic for my tast, I like to take things easy and not rush. thats why pple always seem to yell at me and push me around, and it gives pple the impression im really slow:) perhaps we need some global flooding and stuff to shift to a slower gear. dunno, would be nice, but without stuff like internett, anime/manga, warhammer and so I would probably get bored alot:(

but anyways, sounds really tempting 4 us lazy guys

- OsO
Tuesday, July 27, 2004

We're not lazy, we're just relaxed. :P
The slow pace of YKK is prob one of the most attracting things about this manga, in our modern world, u rush through something and just after u finished; theres always something else to do. YKK offers a glance at how enjoyable life could be, many of the characters in the manga take it as it is. But we as readers see it as a paradise.

- AltF4
Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Guess I do see it as a Paradise. Their might still be viloence in it thought we havn't seen it in the Manga or OVAs. But can't help that even in a perfect world.

Actual you can tell we're all layed back and relaxed jsut by looking at the forums. No rushing to answer. Same reason why i like the whole site as well, it got that "Relax, take your time" feel to it all the old sites of the old internet (most of the old internet, which I consider back when geocities had html chats and the wired was more layed back) had before people start going craving with flash, javascrip and such.

- Miah
Wednesday, July 28, 2004

It would be a very nice place to go for a holiday :)

- Brad
Wednesday, July 28, 2004

It would be lovely to be able to visit the YKK world. Though I'm not sure I would like to live in it, I guess it would take a bit to get used to the world in YKK, and I'm not sure I could adapt to it...

- Roy Zhou
Thursday, July 29, 2004

I think many of the YKK fans here would adapt easily, i know i would...but then again i'm not really considering the things that arent shown in the manga.

- AltF4
Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Yes, but it leaves you feeling happy... and sad all at once. Thays what i love about this particular manga.. the strange emotions you experiance whilst reading it.

- Alladin
Tuesday, August 3, 2004

I, too, love the slow and thoughtful pace of the story. But I'm not blind to the fact that the slowness is the pace of gradual extinction. It seems evident that Humanity, in the story, is in decline. There are fewer of them, year by year.

If there is a point to this story (beyond the Tao of Alpha, that is) then it must be what Alpha mentions at one time: "Robots are the children of humanity."

With Humanity heading into slow extinction, there will inevitably come a time when only robots are left, and their memories. Perhaps this is why memories play such a powerful role in YKK.

- abunai
Thursday, September 9, 2004

"Anyone else read YKK and kind of crave such a world?"

Every freakin' day.

Yes, I like the slower, relaxed feel of Alpha's world. It suits me perfectly.

- martialstax
Saturday, September 11, 2004

The funny thing is that I honestly think I'd be just fine in the YKK universe. I'm an urbanite now, but I'm a farm animal veterinarian, love to tend to fruit trees, and pretty handy at building things with whatever's available. Same with my wife. She'd just do what she like to do today, middle-school teaching and vegetable gardening. Feels weird to imagine that the whole world could just completely collapse around you, and life would be all right.

- Z
Monday, September 13, 2004

Unfortunately it would have to collapse in just the right way to make that possible. There aren't any visible issues with getting basic stuff like water, food and electricity. I wonder if there were problems like that in the past.

- Brad
Monday, September 13, 2004

Mostly likely. I believe we're seeing the very long recover stage.


I wonder why everyone seem to say there is a extinction feel to the manga. I don't feel it. It's slow paced sure, but I've never got the extinction feel.

Don't need a fast paced society with millions of people to survive. Even a few thousand people can repopulate the planet, giving time.

Seem more like post-world colapse rebuild cycle. I'm betting that lots of production is done by full robitc factories (don't need many if populatiosn greatly reduced). If so the society we're seeing wouldn't be surpzing. You can be layed backed if most of work is done far away from you in automated factories and society has gone back to a kind of mix of hunter/gathers (the factories being the new "enviroment" for supplies) and market society.

And no one is in a hurry to total rebuild and repeat old mistakes.

- Miah
Tuesday, September 14, 2004

We can't be certain, but there are many signs that don't look good. One that is mentioned often is the scarcity of babies and small children. There's been a few good long threads on this.. I've re-read the manga several times now, perhaps it's time that I re-read the forum!

- Brad
Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Howdy,

It's a misconception that there is a lack of children. If you look in the background anytime there is a story set in a city like Musashino, you'll see lots of kids.

Now, this is not to say that the population is not in decline - we have clearly been told it is by the author. But I thinks it's a slower, more natural process then the birth rate suddenly plummeting.

Don't forget - Alpha lives out in the sticks and I think many people are drawing conclusions about the YKK world from watching Alpha's little slice of out-of-the-way country bumpkin living.

Best,

Dave

- dDave
Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Yes, and the shrinkage of litte towns in the boondocks is happening at an alarming rate in Japan. I read years ago on Asahi Shimbun about an adoption program that "ships" orphaned children to small islands.
If I remember right, the children spend summer vacation there, and if it all works out they move with the new family after finishing middle school.
The fishing communities in these places are collapsing. Entire islands are at the risk of becoming deserted, to great concern of the Japanese government.
At some point I expect Alpha to give up and move to Yokohama proper... especially if the roads contine to deteriorate.

- Z
Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Sure, Alpha is living in the boondocks - but is there anything left except boondocks, really? Well, nevermind that - let's look at what we are told in the manga. Aboard the Tarpon, which apparently has a fine view of the entire process of decline, the conversation turns on one occasion to the dropping population. From the context, it seems clear that there is no expectation of the process reversing itself.

I firmly believe that the author is showing us how the (human) world ends. Not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but with a sort of musing sigh.

And when the story reaches that point (which it may well do), Alpha and her family will be the inheritors of Humanity. As human as humanity, and maybe more so. All our good sides, and none of our bad. A fitting epitaph for Humanity.

Only one thing really worries me. What about the robots? Do they propagate? Or are they, too in decline? We're only told that there are very few "male" robots - but again, is gender an issue? It seems unlikely that the robots have sexual reproduction. But are new robots being made?

- abunai
Thursday, September 16, 2004

I suspect you could find areas of rural Japan today that aren't too different from Alpha's. And perhaps becoming more like it every year.

Its not just the remote islands that are shrinking in population, Japan as a whole is having children at much less than a population replacement rate. Many schools in the rural areas of Japan are closing or consolidating because there just aren't enough kids to justify them staying open. Only reason the population isn't shrinking yet is that everyone is living so long. But that may reverse in not too long. Alpha's world seems a reflection of parts of Japan in a couple decades...

- cybernezumi
Thursday, September 23, 2004

I myself would love to live in a nice quiet little rural area just like the one featured in YKK. I'm never in a huge rush to do things and do only what is absolutely needed each day. All the little side projects get taken care of in chunks little by little each day. A town in New England would be just up my ally. Even one of my sisters has said she would someday like to pack up her husband and her dogs and move to five acres somewhere in a rural area with a small house on the land and she has no idea YKK even exisists. It seems it's not just YKK fans that crave a simpler slower paced lifestyle, almost everyone at some point does.

- Christine K
Thursday, September 23, 2004

While the world of YKK is one that appeals to my rather lax attitude, I don't think I crave such a world. After all, who knows what occurred before to have it achieve such a state?

What I wonder is if we haven't perhaps lost something precious in the current pace and animal vitality of our world. Right now, we live on a starkly beautiful planet; it's people violent and vibrant. It has it's merits, our era, even though I'm often hard-pressed to find them.

Alpha and the like have regained something - possibly an attitude towards life, perhaps an insight long lost - that allows them to accept that everything is as it should be. The closest thing I can equate it to is Zarathustra’s ideal to achieve an infinite Yea-saying to all things.

They could, I think, see the worth in a world such as ours without even thinking about it.

- Rick
Saturday, September 25, 2004

Believe it or not, even Brazil put the brakes big time on population growth. The average fertility there is insufficient to sustain growth or even stasis. The numbers will start to drop pretty soon, and the average age will rise.
There is some concern about a significant statistical drop in male fertility in industrialized countries. There are several hypothesis, including synthetic hormones from anticonceptional pills, from the cattle industry, to industrial pollutants of plant-based hormone analogues.
Maybe that's what happened in th YKK world. So much progesterone analogues from a escapee bio-engineered plant (or fungus?) that most men became sterile?
About Alpha's way of life, I always wondered how could people leave in the bombed-out cities of europe and Japan after WW2. I guess you just whatever you can, when you can, with whatever you have around, and carry on ...

- Z
Saturday, September 25, 2004

Australian population is also declining, most people are carrier driven and dont find much time for a family nowadays.
back on topic, i dont crave for such a world. But i wouldnt mind living life like Alpha. :P

- AltF4
Sunday, September 26, 2004

All the aspects of Alpha's life do not seem possible for us people who have food, rent, and other needs to take care of.

However, I think it's possible to live in a calm, peaceful, and beautiful environment like Cafe Alpha. (And for some of us it is a requirement, more or less.)

One thing I've noticed is that no one watches TV or movies in YKK. Y'all might want to try that... since I put away my TV two years ago, there's less of a feeling of "schedule" in my life.

O'course, I sometimes don't recognize a "celebrity" when I see one... oh well. ^_^ Am I missing anything?

-k

- Kempis Curious
Sunday, September 26, 2004

remember, ykk is a world after a natural catastrophe, so, the world before the calm started, should have been in a huge chaos, technically, something we do not want, BUT!!, the view point of alpha, young, filled with curiousity of a newborn, its beautiful, we can live with alpha's view point, then wouldnt our world seem closer to that too?

[a nice world is a nice world regardless of the world ^^]

- Derek
Tuesday, November 2, 2004

Remember that some charachters are more resigned to the fate of the world than really happy. The way Sensei speaks of her life's work sounds to me as if she feels like it was all for nothing, and she may have regrets of had not just bummed around her younger years with ojisan. Director alpha also seems very sad over the situation.

- Z
Tuesday, November 2, 2004

All this reminds me of the tagline from Kino's Journey (Kino no Tabi):

"This world is not beautiful. And that, in a way, lends it a kind of beauty."

But I have always felt that YKK teaches it's fans to appreciate the world around them more fully, more intently and intensely. It's like the kind of awareness you get from a tea ceremony, if you have ever had the privelege. The Tao of Alpha teaches us zanshin (perfect awareness in stillness). boy, does this sound mystical all of a sudden! ^_^

All I know is, every time I have a cup of coffee now, I take a minute to really LOOK at the cup, the steam rising, feel the heat...I'm gonna go make some coffee now.

- Ian Darrow
Tuesday, November 2, 2004

Maybe it is more of a craving for an outlook like Alpha's rather than the actual world of YKK. Materially (except for her camera) we probably have more than Alpha does. But it is Alpha's attitude at the people and world around her that makes these stories great.

- Peter by the Sea
Wednesday, November 3, 2004

The Japanese have this thing about being able to see beauty despite the actual outcome of the situation. I read several accounts of the great firebombing of Tokyo, comparing it to an awesome fireworks display. One described a B-29 falling, in flames, in vivid detail, marvelling at its flaming trail.
Several witnesses also used the word "beautiful", describing the mushroom cloud after Hiroshima. It's startling to compare it with reports from the bomber's crew.
YKK show us the "aestetics of decay"...
(That expression was used in the Ghost in the Shell: Innocence trailer)

- Z
Wednesday, November 3, 2004

Howdy,

When I lived in Japan, I often spoke with someone who had lived through the war as a child. He remembered the firebomings in particular. The family would retreat to the hills when the air raid sirens would go off, and in the night, he said the bursting incindiaries looked like fireflies.

His town was burned to the ground.

Best,

Dave

- dDave
Thursday, November 4, 2004

I started reading this topic and realized that I really I dont know why I like so much YKK.
It's strange, because I never spend some time about this subject despite the fact I am a psychologyst.

Then... I stopped... looked for some pages for long time and realized.... I didn't wait find anything! This is so amazing!!! In the daily life we always waiting for some info, news, alert signal, smoke, fire, emotion, happyness, destruction, sweet, sour, sound, light, signal, complaints, congratulations...... always waiting for something.

But when I was reading YKK pages something different happened. In YKK, there are so many pages whitout speechs, just the scene, a complete "empty" images, to be seen, in other words, to be felt. A real zen moment, because I wasnt worried or waiting for 'somenthing'. Strange feeling... in my work, the people suffer so much because the future (for the what will come, what will happen, what will suffer, will. will... will... ) Read YKK is a shock in the daily rhythm life.

[Sorry for my poor english.]

- Joao
Friday, November 5, 2004

We understand you, Joao. ^_^

-k

- Kempis Curious
Friday, November 5, 2004

Any of we humans in Alpha's position would presumably have to work fairly hard to feed themselves...? Harder than Alpha does, anyway...

- Mike de Selincourt
Saturday, November 6, 2004

Though YKK is really a beauty in terms of comix, but living in such a world... From the point we can see it, it is dying society. Ruined cities. Remnants of technology (some facts are not corresponding to it, but nevertheless) I wonder if robomales was neglected by society as an "too active element for current state of things". At last, males are for evolution, invention, expansion, not for stagnation, conservation and contemptation.(Alpha is superbly profficient with it =))

I'd like to live in the world world where everything is optimistic, directed in future and energetic. Male's society. Like communistic Russia in afterwar years...
But global, technologically and morally advanced and non-capitalist =)

YKK is for learning how to savour life, not the way to exist.

- Drake
Sunday, November 14, 2004

i think the YKK world is too simplistic (spelling?) for the world to be like that there would be no advancement in humaninty/technology, life would become stagnat, we need to have a greater goal to drive us and i cant see that YKK (not in the humans anyway) if we were to all live forever or a few hundred years then a world like this would be nice, but other wise a persons life would come and go with nothing being achived, nothing left behind to remember them, nothing to even acknolwdge that they ever really existed.

- Thebranded
Tuesday, December 14, 2004

While the world of YKK is set in the twilight of humanity, there is nothing that says a new dawn will not appear. In some ways the setting is like parts of the Foundation Trilogy (the first 3 books were good, don't bother with the rest in the series), or even the Costner movie The Postman (good plot, mediocre movie that can still be rescued into brilliance with better editing). Just a single person, or robot even, can set the course towards a new era.

For all its twilight there is strangely no gloom.

- C_P
Wednesday, December 15, 2004

There are a number of inherent contradictions in YKK that I have not yet found a way to resolve, but I admit that I have been exposed to this world for only a few days.

First, the world is in decline physically and economically. Infrastructure is crumbling as roads, power grids, buildings, and the like deteriorate and the sea continues to rise again. Things are not too uncomfortable now, but the slow decline will eventually become a real problem if some efforts are not made to repair things. If the population is stable or grows, this will become more of a problem over time. If population declines and the remainder draw together, it will matter less.

The standard of living seen in YKK is dependent on manufacturing, and someone is still active and busy doing so, even if they're not seen in the manga. Power generation is still occurring, gasoline and scooters and cars are still being made. Clothing, food, tools, some electronics, books, and so on are still there, so someone in the background is taking care of business for now. I like the idea from a post above that industry may be mostly robotic in nature.

Even so, the Director Alpha prototype living in the sky on the Taapon has commented that things are beginning to get bad. It makes me wonder what has caused them to abandon the surface and what they expect to come. Can they expect to stay soaring high in the sky indefinitely. Will they drop their shuttle to remove the temptation to return to the ground as a final measure? As beautiful, civilized, tempting, and idyllic as things are now, how long will they stay that way? Is this a long-term state of events, or just an interregnum before a final decline?

- Greg Crider
Thursday, February 3, 2005

Well, suppose that fertility levels dropped dramatically, say to 1 child per 10 women (it's about 3 children now). In 30 years most of mankind would be gone. That would leave behing a huge amount of goods to scavenge and recycle, as well was tremendous stockpiles of raw materials (oil and uranium would then last for many centuries, perhaps millenia). The most scarce resource would be people.
In population biology, you see these boom-and-bust cycles everywhere. I'ts happening right now with the humans:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524814.706
Plus:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change

Google has plenty of links on dropping fertility rates and irresponsible genetic engineering.

The world of YKK is coming, and fast. Scary.

- Z
Thursday, February 3, 2005

Just for sake of argument, assuming a few things for a mathematical model: average age of procreation of 25, only 1 out of 10 women fertile (from the post immediately above, and assuming sudden change of fertility), average life expectancy of 75 years ==> after 25 years, loss of 32% of population; loss of population > 50% after 47 years; 65% loss after 50 years (rough linear figures). Actual loss figures would be curve with declining slope, but after 75 years, population would be less than 10% of current figures.

Even so, this would leave around 600 million people left alive, and this is more than enough to maintain a reasonable level of civilization IF efforts are properly organized toward doing so. In another 50 years, population would be down to about 1% of current levels, or about 60 million people worldwide. Again, this is more than enough people to maintain civilization IF there is organization of needed jobs and tasks and if the people are not too spread apart or out of touch. However, if people like their peaceful lives and solitude as much as many of the characters, organization would likely occur only with great cooperation, or by force, and there goes the idyllic life.

I'd love to live in a world like what's seen in the manga, but I don't think I'd like to see what's coming not too many years after.

- GC
Friday, February 4, 2005

"Even so, this would leave around 600 million people left alive, and this is more than enough to maintain a reasonable level of civilization IF efforts are properly organized toward doing so."

Not really. A lot of economic and social systems can only work in a continuous growth environment. It's the "Zero growth Challenge" problem I mentioned elsewhere. Some things would utterly collapse in negative growth (social security, the whole educational system, elder population care, real estate funding, open capital economies). It's a situation similar to Hilbert's curve for Oil production; you're right that 600 million is still an awful lot of people, but it is not enough to even stop the decline of civilization.
There are some distressing hints in research that suggest that mankind barely escaped extinction a few time in the past, like the "Toba Bottleneck" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory .
It also seems like humans entered the Americas not once, but several times, going extinc between successive waves of colonization.
The decline in YKK may be irreversible, from a populational biology standpoint. If the population ever recovers, they migh not be really humans anymore, but an adapted subspecies.

- Z
Friday, February 4, 2005

Even though people seem generally quite content in YKK's world, it is notable that there is still interest in advancing technology. Witness Takahiro playing with engines and partnering up with Nai in the flying business etc. So, perhaps technology will again improve (unless people disappear for some other reason).

Regarding the earlier mention of firebombs as fireworks, I have to mention that one of my favorite scenes in YKK is in the early volumes when they use the large ship-launched missile (the "Big One") as a firework. It's nice to think that there could be a situation where such a missile would have no "real" use.

ObLiteratureReferences: the Watergod and the strange organic "buildings" seen on the hillsides sort of reminded me of Greg Bear's Blood Music (organic, arguably sentient, being that's not really either plant or animal grows to cover the world IIRC). As for extinction of humans, perhaps a less efficient version of the virus in Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos (causes humans to become infertile killing off the race except for the descendants of the few stranded on one of the Galapagos islands) (-:

- vuori
Saturday, February 5, 2005

That Missile Looks like a Nike-hercules antiaircraft missile. Interestingly enough, it was deployed in Japan, and even manufactured at Mitsubishi (as late as 1980).
At 3 million dollars a pop, the most expensive fireworks ever...

- Z
Saturday, February 5, 2005

Indeed, an interesting factoid. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/nike-hercules.htm has pictures of the Nike Hercules. Compare to http://ykk.misago.org/Volume2/90 .

Though the missile here appears larger (or the launch ship is pretty small) than in reality, the launch system and usage seem accurate (the warhead is normally detonated by ground command rather than hitting something) (-:

- vuori
Sunday, February 6, 2005

There was a version of the Nike with a multiple-tube booster that looks fairly close to the one shown in YKK. There's a picture of one at this site:

http://www.tamvalleybikeclub.com/NEWS/NIKE_Missle/nike_missle.html

- Greg Crider
Friday, February 18, 2005

Reply to this topic
Topic list


Contact the translator