The word "Scavengers" is a pun, meaning both "scavenger" and "corpse eater." The animation presents the ecology of the corpse eaters from the perspective of scavengers: above death, new life thrives.
The animated series is based on the short film Scavengers, maintaining and developing its style perfectly, but with somewhat different themes. The short film has a strong biopunk vibe, telling the story of an abandoned astronaut scavenging for a living, harvesting the alien ecology like operating a massive machine, all for a glimpse of the homeland from fantasy and memory, whose skillfulness evokes a sense of heartache. The film combines the dreamcore art style of Moebius with a Tintin-like flair, vividly depicting the simple and lively scavenger and the complex, wondrous alien creatures.
The animation's style also follows suit, with longer running time and an increased budget, bringing about more magnificent alien creatures and lively, rugged scavengers.
However, the change from Scavengers to Scavengers Reigns in the title also suggests a shift in the theme and protagonist. While the short film tells a story of a reverse of reality, the animated series, through three scavenger storylines, explores the relationship between humans and nature, human love, and facing death or new life, and sows the seeds of the corpse eaters narative, depicting death and new life.
Humans and Nature
The animation depicts the crash of the spaceship Demeter, with three groups of people having escaped to a nearby wild alien planet, calling down the spaceship and crossing mountains and rivers to awaken the dormant people and establish a colony.
The first storyline deals with the attitude towards nature: indifference or concern. The white man and brown woman couple. The indifferent white man to the alien nature ultimately faces several near-death encounters, being sucked, poisoned, cloned, and parasitized. He calls down the ship, full of anxiety, hurrying, but ultimately dies before reaching the finish line.
The second storyline explores coexisting with nature: merging or separating? The black woman and the robot Levi. Levi is invaded by the consciousness and communication ability with alien creatures, teaching the black woman to blend into the raging herds of bellowing buffalos, fluctuating with the waves of lateral movement, moving together with the nature in harmony.
The third storyline deals with coexisting with nature: taming or preying. Camen was already mentally unstable, and his lover died because he failed to bring her into an escape pod during the evacuation, and him was trapped for several days after the escape pod's crash. He encountered a mind-controlling blue frog ( I name it Blue) from the alien world. Materially, Camen hunts and feeds Blue (similar to feeding grass to cattle, and cattle providing milk to people); spiritually, Xiaohei makes Camen high and forget his own problems. The once vegetarian blue frog also accepts all that Camen hunted, even cannibalizing its own kind, grows from a small fish to the size of a rhinoceros. This storyline appears to allegorically parallel humanity's habit of domesticating or preying on nature and our insatiable greed.
Death
Death accompanies several main storylines, with the presence of a kind of corpse eater flower nearly wherever there is death.
At the beginning of the series, the first pair of people use blue cows, which ultimately die, leading to the growth of corpse-eating flowers.
The bodies of the giant lice killed by the two are abandoned on the shore, leading to the growth of corpse-eating flowers.
The characters themselves are frequently on the brink of death: the female protagonist of the first group is nearly killed in the fungus cave, while the white man is on the verge of death in the ancient tree hollow, the lantern jellyfish tree's pseudosymbiosis, and the red lantern mud nest symbiosis.
The gun introduced in the first act must go off in the third act, and ultimately, the white man of the first group dies beneath a giant tree, ensuring the presence of corpse-eating flowers. His companion will continue to mourn him for many years to come.
Death is the main theme, affecting the other two groups as well. The cyan frog disintegrates Levi, and we witness the birth and destruction of a conscious robot.
Survivor Camen recalls his wife Fiona, often finding the memories almost unbearable, even unable to recall her death. The production team has stated that they were greatly influenced by 'Manchester by the Sea,' capturing the survivors' guilt and powerlessness in the face of death. The emotional expression in the animation is reminiscent of that of Chinese poet Ch'uu Yuuan's lament for the death of his King, Huai over two thousand years ago, calling for his soul through the mouth of the Witch Yang, 'radiant and deep in splendor.'
"Soul, return! The south cannot be stopped. Carve black teeth and obtain human flesh as a sacrifice, using their bones for grinding. The pit vipers flourishing a thousand miles. The nine-headed viper wandering back and forth. Swallowing people to enhance its heart. Return, return!"
In addition, the spaceship's name, Demeter, in Greek mythology, is the goddess of the harvest, who once lamented her daughter's marriage to the god of death, Hades. Here, the crew not only loses loved ones and companions due to death, but also eventually loses the Earth. This ending is similar to the short film, but their attitudes are vastly different, as, after death here, there is new life.
Corpse Eaters
Corpse eaters in the ecological system are responsible for digesting decay, thus carrying the metaphor of creating new life in death.
"Scavengers" in the short film refers to humans in the wilderness, scavenging for a living, and the same is true for the animated series. However, in the short film, humans make demands on the organisms, while in the series, the ones 'ruling' the planet are not humans, but the corpse eaters of different ecological systems, especially the corpse-eating flowers on the alien planet.
The animated series frequently depicts the presence of corpse eaters, such as the fish helping to clean Levi's wounds; the white plants growing from the bodies, with their juice being consumed by the white paper centipedes; and the fungi in the ghost cave capable of corroding human bodies within a few seconds.
They nearly poison the white man, hatch his clone, and attempt to infect the entire population, creating new sprouts like fertilized jellyfish.
These corpse eaters largely dominate the domain, but the true rulers of the alien world are the corpse-eating flowers.
New Life
Corpse-eating flowers, while born out of death, bring forth new life.
The secretion of the corpse-eating flowers slowly alters Levi's original circuit logic like salt penetrating, changing him bit by bit. Over a few episodes, we witness the birth of consciousness in this machine 'person,' capable of feelings, intentions, and even an aesthetic line.
This also makes the episode where the blue frog crushes Levi's shattered corpse particularly shocking and tragic. Even more astonishing, the corpse-eating flowers then, piece by piece, collect metal remains using biological materials to reconstruct Levi, bringing him back to life. At this moment, the corpse-eating flowers seem to possess the power of a deity.
In the climax, the rhinoceros-sized blue frog spits out secretions meant to enslave the reborn Levi's consciousness, and in a sudden rush of wind and thunder, the animation enters a montage, depicting the ancient history of the alien planet from its inception to the present in a stream of consciousness. The corpse-eating flowers seem to be both within and beyond this, like the gods of the alien world.
At this moment, Levi emits a light wave, knocking back the rhinoceros-sized blue frog. In my mind, I could only think of two sentences: 'Can you withstand the power of this thousand-year-old punch?' and 'Give me back my baby punch!'
This 'reverse growth' certainly exhibits a somewhat mythical theme, as the corpse-eating flowers seemingly reign as the gods of the alien planet.
However, the revived Levi is not a son, but a lover. Every corpse-eating flower planted by Levi grows into his likeness. Furthermore, these little guys have a strong vitality. In the final scene, a small Levi flower squeezes the experienced female pilot, leaving her no room to survive, much like a natural-born 'explorer.' This scene, like the ultimate settlement of astronauts on the alien planet in the animation, symbolizes the vigorous vitality of this fledgling life, the will of life amid death, similar to the Nepenthes depicted by the literary figure Zhang Guixing.
'Nepenthes both eat and create new life, taking initiatives in desolate, acidic, nitrogen-deficient wastelands where no grass grows.
......
This early growth of life also brings about a wealth of species, and as Nepenthes takes root, various animals and plants thrive. Just like the corpse-eating flowers, Nepenthes is born out of death and brings forth new life; however, unlike Nepenthes, it breathes with the planet, feeds on living and dead flesh and bones, reverses life threefold, and colonizes in all directions.'
Death fell in love with a robot, giving birth to new life, seemingly awakening the reign of the corpse eaters for millions of years. When a whale falls, all things rise, with wind and thunder stirring, and in the blink of an eye, it's eternal.
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