The premise of Sanctuary is easy enough to grasp: revolution, but why? Ostensibly, there’s nothing wrong with living in a first-world country like Japan. The standard of living is good, while education, health and technology is all fine. In other words, life is easy, but that’s precisely the problem.
We live in an apathetic world, we get our kicks from movies, anime and manga. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t real, either. It’s just escapism. I know it’s easy for me to write this now, living in comfort and with nothing serious to complain about, it’s not like I’m dissatisfied with life or anything, but at the moment it’s just… vanilla, which is kind of the point of Sanctuary. These two guys want to shake up Japan, not because it’s governed by men with evil intent, but because the younger people seem to be willing to apathetically live out their lives within a long established system of business, where there’s no ambition in their eyes, no desire to change things, no nothing, and the question is, is that how people should live?
The fictional Hojo and Asami survived the Cambodian genocide, where they saw thousands of people die for insane reasons. This is important because it grants their burning ambition a hellish context. Having survived the killing fields of Cambodia, they have no intention of wasting their lives sitting behind a desk every day; they understand that life is short and that youth is no boundary; all you need is a dream and confidence enough to back it up. So, is apathy reason enough for revolution? Hell yes.
