#Hideo Shimada

[zuzusiii]

Shinichi being a protective boyfriend

[rehdhoodie]

shimada oh what a creature u are

[8bit-box]

I love you four eyes Shinichi I love you

[artblooger19moon]

Parasyte Movie Marathon

Parasyte part 1: November 29 2014

Parasyte part 2: April 25 2015

[slag0000]

3ヶ月ぶりに万物有情です。日程だけは決まっていたのですが、ひしょちさんとの2回の共演ののち、古川さんが抜け、ようやく詳細が決まった模様。今回参加の時岡さん、お名前は見かけるのですが、お会いしたことなく、フリー系の方、というくらいしか知りません。どんな感じになるのでしょう。

●2023-07-23(sun) 江古田 Cafe Flying Teapot “万物有情”

act: 時岡秀雄(sax) 橋本英樹(tp) 高橋直康(b) 島田透(dr) open 19:30 / start 20:00 charge 1500yen(+1d)

[xchiyuki]

✧ Symbiosis; Chapter 8: Us

series masterlist | previous chapter

It’d been a year since they’d left their old town, since they’d fled from the world.

And it’d been a year since all the fear of the parasites settled down.

After the government figured out how to identify a parasite, thanks to a strange incident in which a body of one of them was found mostly intact, most of the remaining parasites went into hiding. They very rarely ever came out and into the public eye, and if they did, it was because they couldn’t fight their killer instincts forever. The ones who learned to adapt were the ones who survived the eradication of their species. They learned to act the part as humans, just to ensure that they could survive.

But there were so few that ever truly learned what it meant to be human.

“‘The mystery of the mincemeat murders remains unsolved… but a panel of judges are going to try to unravel the mystery?’” Hideo scoffed at the ad on the television, glaring at it like it’d offended him as he flipped the channel. “Some stupid show about a stupid subject. They’re just trying to make headlines.”

Rolling her eyes, Kayoko dropped onto the couch next to him. “Yeah, well, that’s what the news does. It’s their job to make headlines,” she replied.

He changed the channel back to their television show that they’d been following for the past few weeks. It was a rerun, but it was much better than the stupid news shows that were celebrating the anniversary of something so morbid and so uncomfortably familiar for Hideo.

“Doesn’t mean that they have to drag up those memories. The events happened a year ago.”

“That’s long enough for the vultures to swarm.” She glanced at Hideo, who was still glaring at the television with crossed arms. “Are you still beating yourself up over the school?”

He sighed, hanging his head as he slumped, his arms falling to rest at his sides. “How can I not? Every time I remember what happened last year, I remember that in one day, I more than tripled my body count.” He rubbed his temples, trying to force the memories away. “I’m not proud of what I did,” he mumbled.

Covering his hand with both of hers, she moved to look him right in the eye. “You’re acknowledging your mistakes. That’s all anyone can ask of you anymore,” she murmured, squeezing his hands in hers.

“The families… they must want me dead.”

She frowned. “But what would that solve? Nothing. That’d just start more senseless violence, because all that stuff about revenge? It’s all lies. Revenge helps no one. It doesn’t bring back the dead. It wouldn’t even make them rest easier. It would just turn more people into murderers, and the last thing this world needs is more murderers,” she replied, turning his hand to face upwards, tracing characters into his palm.

It was something that she’d started to do after the incident. He often got lost in thoughts or even went into a tailspin whenever he remembered the atrocities his body had committed. To help ground him, she began to trace the words into his palm, words that helped him remember why he’d run away with her in the first place.

They helped him remember why he was alive. They were all words he was familiar with. They spelled out words that he clung to in order to remember that he was not just a mindless killer. He was someone with a life of his own now. He had reasons to live.

Hope. Happiness. Life. Love.

Us.

The last word was a new word, one she’d never traced against his skin before.

He glanced at her, seeing her staring down at his palm. She slowly traced the characters again, as if to repeat the word to him.

Us.

“Us?” he murmured.

Nodding, Kayoko tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yeah. Because remember what we agreed? There isn’t much of a difference between our species.” He still looked confused, so she continued, “The differences aren’t what put our kinds at odds. It was how similar the two species are. We all have the same composition, the same thoughts, and the same goals. The only differences are in how we achieve those goals.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What I’m saying is that everyone went about it the wrong way.” She gently placed her hand in his, curling her fingers around him. “Both species separated themselves from the other. They fought instead of working together. They all had a mentality of ‘us’ versus ‘them.’”

Realization dawned upon Hideo as he began to understand what she was saying. “You’re saying that there is no ‘them,’” he finally said.

She nodded, looking up to him, her eyes sparkling with maturity and wisdom beyond what a human her age should have had. “There’s only ‘us.’”

Shinichi was trying to live without Migi.

It was hard, especially after all that they’d gone through with each other in just the span of a few months. After finally coming to understand each other, Migi had just decided to disappear one day. Even after a year of his right hand being dormant, Shinichi still found himself longing for the company of someone who he could say truly understood him, in ways that no one else could.

Sometimes, he even caught himself talking to his right hand, like it would respond. It never did.

It was no longer “Migi.” It was just his right hand.

Loneliness crept up on him sometimes. Only a year ago, he was fighting for his life against otherworldly creatures intent on devouring humanity. He was struggling to accept that he was walking a thin line between human and not. He had a foot in both worlds, and they were both difficult for him to find a balance between.

Once he did, he found that he no longer had to perform that balancing act.

He could be human again.

Somehow, it was like he’d forgotten how to be “human,” or, at least, “human” the way that he used to be. Human in the way he saw the world as filled with black and white. Human in the way that he perceived threats and danger. Human in the way that he wanted to fight fate whenever it did something that he didn’t quite agree with.

But his entire view of the world had changed, thanks to the time that he’d been stuck between the worlds of parasites and humans.

He understood now that the world was painted in shades of gray, not just black and white. There weren’t just two sides, but many different perspectives of the same world. He understood that there were some threats he could face and some he had to run from. He understood that fate did what it wanted without any regard for how he felt.

He understood that there were things that he could not change.

“Shinichi!”

Some of them, he didn’t want to change.

He looked up, seeing Satomi wave at him. He waved back with a smile, then stood.

“Did I keep you waiting long?” she asked cheerfully.

He shook his head, feeling something like peace wash over him. “Not at all,” he replied, studying her smile, wanting to memorize it, so he never forgot it.

It had taken Satomi a while to truly come to terms with what had happened involving Hideo and Kayoko, and later Shinichi’s involvement with the parasites. She’d been thrown into the center of the conflict, as she had later befriended Kana, who had also been killed. She’d been forced to watch as Shinichi — the Shinichi she knew and cherished so dearly — vanished, only to return after one of the creatures showed some form of humanity right before she died.

Ryoko Tamiya had shown Shinichi that both of their species were similar in some ways — more than Shinichi originally expected, having labelled parasites as monsters and humans as nothing but human. Both species were fragile creatures, who had the ability to sacrifice themselves for those that they cared about. She’d shown that she could feel, hurt, and bleed in the same ways that he could.

They were more alike than they were different.

“Thank you.”

She’d thanked him right before she died, wilting as her body hit the ground.

She’d left him with her baby and her parting smile. Two things of hers that were more human than he ever thought that parasites could be.

Even after all of the things that happened, Shinichi never told Satomi what he was, what he had been. He never told her that he’d had one of those things in his right arm, which was why he changed, why he became so bitter and angry and vengeful, why he was filled with so much hatred. He never told her about how close he’d been to dying each time he disappeared, knowing it would only upset her. He never told her, and she had never pushed him to tell her.

He’d told her about his mother, but she’d just held him, and told him that he didn’t have to talk about it, if he didn’t want to.

He didn’t talk about it.

He’d only melted into her arms, holding her just as tight as she held him. He’d thought back to the way that Hideo held Kayoko when they stood on the rooftop, protecting each other from the dangers that surrounded them.

It was the same way that Satomi held him.

A hug filled with delicate, fragile care. It was soothing and warm, overflowing with all of the love and affection that could be forced into the hug.

It was so human.

“What my species does isn’t living. There’s something unique about the way humans live, and letting myself experience that has only made me want it more. I want to live. I want to be alive.”

Thinking back on Hideo’s words, some of the last words he’d ever heard the parasite speak, Shinichi understood. In that moment he had sympathized with the parasite, who had decided that he was going to live in a different way, one that was incompatible with his existence as a parasite. He was going to be as human as he could, in the ways he knew how. He was going to walk the line between parasite and human, the way Shinichi had.

Somehow, Shinichi knew that Hideo had been successful in finding a new life and living it as a human. After all, he was lucky to have Kayoko to lead him in the right direction. He knew that she would pull Hideo back if he ever strayed from the path that led to humanity.

Just like Shinichi had Satomi to do the same for him.

“Shinichi?” He snapped back to his reality, seeing Satomi gazing at him, half worried, half teasing. “Where did you wander off to this time?” she asked, a strange mix of curiosity and knowing in her gaze.

Smiling sheepishly, he stuck his hands in his pockets, curling his right hand into a fist and then back again. He turned his gaze towards the unchanging blue skies, the ones that had been the same shade, even a year ago. “I was thinking about Kayoko and Hideo,” he admitted. “I figured that they must be happy, wherever they ended up.” He looked back to Satomi, who was watching him.

She smiled as well, her entire face softening. She reached out to take his right hand. She’d avoided holding it only a year ago, but now, she was unafraid. There was nothing left for her to be scared of.

He was Shinichi Izumi again.

“They probably are,” she said softly. “I wonder where they went, though. I can’t help but think about her sometimes, and wonder if she’s still out there.”

Satomi knew that Kayoko hadn’t died that day, like many had assumed.

When the police had finally arrived on the roof, they had only found blood splatters from both parties. The blood from Hideo’s bullet wounds and the blood from Kayoko’s gash. But they didn’t find either of the teenagers. They assumed that Hideo had kidnapped her and run off after killing so many students, believing she was his target from the start.

They never found Kayoko’s body, but after three months of searching for both her and Hideo, they’d written her off as dead. She had no next of kin, but the school mourned her, just like they had the rest of the students who had died in the massacre.

Shinichi was the only one who’d seen Kayoko after she vanished off the rooftop. When he’d gone to see her on the day they’d left, she’d welcomed him with open arms, even after all he’d done. She’d greeted him with that same smile that she always did.

“I know why you’re here. Don’t apologize, Shinichi. Just promise me that you’ll live well. Make Satomi happy, and make yourself happy. Okay?”

She’d made him swear that he’d put his own happiness first.

At the time, he wasn’t sure what she’d meant by “live well.” He didn’t see how he could have, not with all the death and destruction that was surrounding him.

But now, he knew.

She wasn’t just telling him to “live well.” She was telling him “be happy” and “forgive yourself.” She was always good at reading him like that. She knew exactly what he needed to hear, even before he needed to hear it. She’d offered him a smile, before explaining that he’d caught them right before they were leaving. They’d chatted for an hour, but then, Shinichi was alone in the apartment.

The suitcases had disappeared after he’d gone to the bathroom. And with them, Kayoko and Hideo had vanished, leaving no trace that they’d ever been there, except for a photograph sitting on the dining table.

He had to smile, remembering the photo she’d left behind.

It was one that Shinichi and Kayoko had taken as children. They were on the playground, with Shinichi holding Kayoko on his back. He was beaming up at her, proud of how he’d managed to lift her up, even though his knees shook, while Kayoko was smiling right back, congratulating him on a job well done.

There was a note on the back, hastily scribbled in marker. Thank you for saving our lives, she’d written. Those were the only words she left him with, but they meant a lot to him.

He was doing the right thing. He had done the right thing. He’d let them go, let Hideo live. He didn’t become a killer, and he’d given the two a chance to start anew.

“She’s out there. I’m sure. She and Hideo are probably together right now.” He squeezed Satomi’s hand. “Just like us.”

Hideo Shimada couldn’t tell the future.

For all his intelligence, the one thing he would never know was what would happen next.

He didn’t know if there was a “happily ever after” written in his future. He didn’t know if he would live as long as he thought he would. He didn’t know if he’d be able to keep living as a human being or if his true self would be exposed.

He didn’t even know if it would rain the next day.

All he knew was that he was living, at that moment. He was alive in every sense of the word. He was living the way that a human would.

At that moment, he was human.

In that single frame, a single second, a snapshot of happiness in a painfully long life, he was human.

He was lying on the couch of his apartment, the one he’d helped pay for with a job he’d gotten the human way. The television was on, playing that movie that she loved so much. He finally understood why those humans did such strange things for each other. His arm was wrapped around the girl who was lying over him, her own arm draped over his stomach. Her head was on his chest, listening to the heart with a beat stronger than it had been a year ago.

Looking down at her, he wondered if she knew the answer to some of the harder questions. He wanted to know more, he wanted to be more.

“Kayoko. What are we?” he finally asked, his voice carrying throughout the small room.

Silence answered him for a moment as she stared up at him, her eyes showing only confusion.

But that confusion quickly disappeared as she beamed.

She broke their gaze, moving to rest her head on his chest again. She breathed in and out, her breaths matching the rhythm of his heartbeat.

“We’re ‘us,’ Hide.”

Us.

That had a nice sound to it.

fin.

[the-monkey-ruler]

Lupin the 3rd Part II (1977) ルパン三世

Director: Noboru Ishiguro / Koichi Sasaki / Hayao Miyazaki / Kyosuke Miku / Hideo Nishimaki Screenwriter: Kaoru Miyazaki / Tsuji Yamatoya / Tadaaki Yamazaki / Takumi Konno / Hiroshi Kaneko / Masu Shiroyama / Tsune Mori / Yu Taue / Shunichiro Koyama / Shoichiro Okubo / Yu Sarata / Yuki Shimada / Kaoru Shichijo / Hiroyasu Yamaura / Yoshiyuki Okuyama / Tomoaki Takahashi / Ya Shiono / Kyoko Jono / Masayuki Tsuikawa / Akinari Takato / Mitsuo Yosomono / Tatsumasa Sugimura / Kiyohide Ohara / Yoshio Ura / Misaki Sugi / Kazuyuki Sugi / Takehiko Mokuno / Shigeru Komiya / Takao Hamada / Wataru Takao / Keizo Fujimoto / Ichiro Hakimoto / Keiko Sugie / Yoshihisa Araki / Hideo Takayashiki / Kuno Mishima / Issui Katsura / Maji Kondo Starring: Yamada Yasuo / Kobayashi Kiyoshi / Masuyama Eiko / Inoue Makio / Natani Goro Genre: Animation / Fantasy / Adventure Official website: http://lupin-3rd.net/index.html Country/Region of Production: Japan Language: English/French/Italian/Tagalog/Japanese Date: 1977-10-03 Number of episodes: 155 Single episode length: 30 minutes (155 episodes) Also known as: Rupan sansei: Part II / The New Lupine III / 鲁邦三世TV系列2 / TV第2シリーズ IMDb: tt0159192 Type: Appreciation

Summary:

The series, based on the Lupin III manga written by Monkey Punch beginning in 1967, centers on the adventures of Lupin III, the grandson of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc's series of novels. He is joined by Daisuke Jigen, crack-shot and Lupin's closest ally; Fujiko Mine, the femme fatale and Lupin's love interest who works against Lupin more often than with him; and Goemon Ishikawa XIII, a master swordsman and the descendant of Ishikawa Goemon, the legendary Japanese bandit. Lupin is often chased by Inspector Zenigata, the dogged detective who has made it his life mission to catch Lupin.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupin_the_3rd_Part_II

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwJbP_mpnxw&list=PLj2Ugc-vxcWEvomV4nRhXY9ESB3XRLFiw

[parashiteposting]

Bored so I'm gonna overanalyze parasyte.

Through a certain viewpoint, the human characters of parasyte are an exploration of trauma (primarily due to all the murder) and how people react differently to it.

SHINICHI

Shinichi, as our main character, goes through a lot of hardships, ranging from being attacked by what looks like his mother, to having to hurt other "people", to witnessing horrific murders. His heart becomes harder in response, though he mistakes it for being parasitized, and he has a hard time telling other people like satomi of his problems due to the perception of danger.

Though his emotional capacity seems to have been diminished, in truth they're under guard, as seen when painful emotions like fear and panic still burst out of him when he witnesses something he didn't expect. Even his father thinks shinichi is emotionally stronger than him, almost like a robot (or "made of steel").

This sort of thing resembles people irl who are currently going through trauma and seem to stand strong despite it, but in actuality are only strong because there's nowhere to be safe and vulnerable, after which they break down.

SHINICHI'S FATHER

Shinichi's father's trauma is less extensive yet still terrible. His wife has died to something that seems almost impossible, a random freak accident he could never have imagined, and yet he can't tell anyone about it. The government has told him, personally, that there's nothing he can do to stop this from happening to other people, and he can't get the closure of a public funeral because she's likely still publicly a missing person case. He can't even commiserate with his own son because of how unbelievable it is (and he doesn't want shinichi caught up in that mess at all), but shinichi still depends on him as a parent.

With no power to change things for the better and no way to physically get away, he finds a temporary mental escape in alcohol and depression in his attempt to recover.

SATOMI MURANO

Satomi's trauma, despite also being the source of one of shinichi's traumas, is rarely focused on. However, it's one of the worst witnessed by regular humans; her class comes across hideo shimada during his rampage and is nearly all killed by him, blood and gore included. She in particular barely escapes with her life as the monster approaches, saved just in time by shinichi.

(frankly the survivor's guilt must be horrific.)

Having nearly lost everyone and everything, she understandably clings to shinichi and struggles with his changes, so different from the simpler happy days when they first got together. Unlike shinichi who shields himself from his trauma with mental and emotional distance, hers struck close to her heart and she is often reminded of it.

KURAMORI

Detective kuramori, in contrast, has lost everything. Unlike the previous three characters, his two loved ones are gone and there's nothing holding his resulting self-destructive urges back.

The combination of guilt for having gotten involved in something that killed them and the power to do something about the person he thinks is at fault (tamura) makes him go a little mad. He gives information to the police to take care of the others, then hares off to take more personal matters into his own hands regardless of his own safety.

AND OTHERS

There are several other not-well-adjusted humans involved in the story (the ones who don't die anyway), but there's less to write on them.

The baby had a terrible mother yet still cried when she died (reminiscent of shinichi's own mother-related trauma and his inability to hurt her even when parasitized).

Kana's boyfriend mitsuo lashes out after her death due to his own powerlessness, displaying a more conventional form of grief to contrast with shinichi's own trauma response.

Mamoru uda is another foil to shinichi, having been parasitized with his own life problems, yet despite frequently crying seems relatively well-adjusted and happy to help.

Mayor hirokawa has no backstory, but a human-hating person like him can't possibly have lived a normal, happy life.

Uragami is unfortunately the kind of person who causes trauma.

I have little to say on yuko bc she was cut off immediately in the manga while a lot was added or changed for her anime depiction and I don't want to rewatch just for that.

[ogradyfilm]

2023: A Year in (Movie) Review(s)

Every cinephile has at least one Holy Grail. It's a common story: interest in said rare movie is piqued by a fleeting allusion in the pages of some neglected reference book or obscure magazine article. Gradually, curiosity evolves into infatuation, then obsession, manifesting as a desperate pursuit that might persist for decades, the search constantly hampered by the tragic fact that the White Whale in question remains stubbornly elusive—either out-of-print or never officially licensed or localized in the first place. And even if it is available (usually through sources of dubious legality), the image quality is always barely a step above an nth generation VHS transfer.

Well, in 2023, I managed to cross five such films off my personal “bucket list”—and despite the year’s numerous challenges (financially, in particular), I think that’s an accomplishment worth celebrating. Thus, in the interest of posterity, I’ve enumerated them below, along with brief descriptions and links to the corresponding reviews I wrote immediately after seeing them:

A Page of Madness: Of all the miraculous discoveries on this list, this one was undoubtedly the most unceremonious and anticlimactic. I randomly stumbled across this silent avant-garde masterpiece (of which I became aware way back in college) while nonchalantly browsing Amazon Prime’s digital library; suddenly, there it was, available to rent for a paltry three dollars. The movie itself was sublime, of course; after spending such a significant chunk of my life hunting it down, however, the relative ease with which I ultimately acquired it couldn’t help but feel a bit… underwhelming.

Samurai Wolf: Although Hideo Gosha’s lean, mean chanbara classic has never truly been out of reach to those “in the know,” my own research into the assorted bootlegs and unauthorized foreign imports available via various online marketplaces was… less than encouraging. Fortunately, Film Movement came to the rescue like a chivalrous ronin; the restoration on the company’s Blu-ray release is borderline pristine, enriching the director’s already bold compositions and dynamic camerawork. Nihilism and moral decay have seldom looked so beautiful.

Angel’s Egg: Home video copies of Mamoru Oshii’s surreal animated allegory tend to be obscenely, prohibitively expensive in the West, and tickets for the infrequent repertory screenings generally sell out almost instantly. Thankfully, a recent overabundance of free time afforded me the opportunity to experience the film’s haunting, hallucinatory magic under ideal circumstances—in a theater absolutely packed with fellow fans and aficionados. The Q&A with art director/character designer Yoshitaka Amano that followed the feature presentation (courtesy of Japan Society) was just icing on the cake.

Door: While Banmei Takahashi’s taut, suspenseful, claustrophobic thriller is the latest addition to this list (I learned of its existence roughly a year ago, through out-of-context clips shared between several Twitter accounts), you shouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating my enthusiasm for it—my desire to see it burned with the fiery passion of a spurned admirer. As luck would have it, my thirst was sated rather quickly compared to the previous entries on this countdown; the movie played at this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival—perfectly scheduled to coincide with the Halloween season.

Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis - When I initially encountered this ambitious, extravagant, and extremely expensive special effects extravaganza, the only viable way to view it was in twelve parts on YouTube, compressed to about 240p resolution—a format that hardly does the spectacle justice. Thank goodness for the fine programmers at Japan Society; the big screen really smooths out the movie’s minor flaws and superficial blemishes, and Kyusaku Shimada’s magnificent performance as the nefarious Yasunori Kato certainly benefits from a more expansive frame. Guess I can finally stop requesting the film in the feedback section of literally every post-screening survey…

And that essentially sums up my 2023; the satisfaction of enjoying so many films that had been taunting and tantalizing my imagination definitely took the sting out of the whole "prolonged unemployment" situation. With that said, I’d like to wish everybody a very Happy New Year! Hopefully, my adventures in cinema will continue in 2024. (For God’s sake, will some distributor please show Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Sweet Home the love it so richly deserves?!)

[byneddiedingo]

Takashi Shimura in Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa,1954)

Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba, Daisuke Kato, Seigi Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Isao Kimura, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Bokuzen Hidari, Yukiko Shimazaki, Kamatari Fujiwara, Keiko Tsushima, Kokuten Kodo, Yoshio Kosugi. Shinpei Takagi, Eijiro Tono, Tatsuya Nakadai. Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni. Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai. Production design: Takashi Matsuyama. Film editing: Akira Kurosawa. Music: Fumio Hayasaka. 

It's a truism that silent movies and talkies constitute two distinct artistic media, and to judge the one by the standards of the other is an error. But it's almost impossible to watch films made by older directors, especially those who came of age when silent films were being made, without noticing the efforts they make to tell their stories without speech. It's true of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Howard Hawks, even though they, especially Hawks, became masters of dialogue in their films. And it's true of Kurosawa, who although he didn't begin his career in films until 1936 and directed his first one in 1943, was born in 1910 and grew up with silent movies. I think it helped him learn the universals of storytelling that are independent of language, so that he became the most popular of all Japanese filmmakers. Others rank the work of Ozu or Mizoguchi more highly, but Kurosawa's films manage to transcend the limitations of subtitles more easily. Of none of his films is this more true than Seven Samurai, which is also generally regarded, even by those with reservations about Kurosawa's work, as his masterpiece. That's not a word I use lightly, but having sat enthralled through the uncut version, three hours and 27 minutes long, last night, I'm willing to endorse it. It's an exhilarating film, with none of the longueurs that epics -- I'm thinking of Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939) and Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) -- so easily fall into. I don't know of any action film with as many vividly drawn characters, and that's largely because Kurosawa takes the time to delineate each one. It's also a film about its milieu, 16th-century Japan, although as its American imitation, The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960), shows, there's a universality about the antagonism between fighters and farmers. Kurosawa captures this particularly well in the character of Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), the would-be samurai who reveals in mid-film that he was raised as a farmer and carried both a kind of self-hate for his class along with a hatred for the arrogant treatment of farmers by samurai. Mifune's show-off performance is terrific, but the film really belongs to Takashi Shimura, who radiates stillness and wisdom as Kambei Shimada, the leader of the seven. There are clichés to be found, such as the fated romance of the young samurai trainee Katsushiro (Isao Kimura) and the farmer's daughter Shino (Keiko Tsushima), but like the best clichés, they ring true. Seven Samurai earned two Oscar nominations, for Takashi Matsuyama's art direction and Kohei Ezaki's costumes, but won neither. Overlooking Kurosawa's direction, Shimura's performance, and Asakazu Nakai's cinematography is unforgivable, if exactly what one expects from the Academy.

[zuzusiii]

Parasites doodle

I should have included Joe too.

[rehdhoodie]

Hi guys *throws this at you* bye guys *runs away and trips atleast 7 times*

[wolfchild48]

Ayakashi Soushi (あやかし草紙)

Ishikawa, Hideo (石川英郎) x Kishio, Daisuke (岸尾大輔); Toriumi, Kousuke (鳥海浩輔); Shimowada, Hiroki (下和田裕貴); Miyata, Kouki (宮田幸季); Chiba, Isshin (千葉一伸); Houki, Katsuhisa (宝亀克寿); Fukuyama, Jun (福山潤) Copyright Fifth Avenue 2004 Mangaka: Shimada Manami (嶋田まな海) Illustrator: Koujima Naduki (こうじま奈月) Genre: Romance, Yaoi, Multiple Couples Date: 27 January 2010 Company: Fifth Avenue (フィフスアベニュー) Website:…

[cave35]

Akira Ishida 

 Saiyuki (TV) as Cho Hakkai Gintama as  Kotarō Katsura Parasyte -the maxim- (TV) as Hideo Shimada Pandora Hearts (TV) as Xerxes Break One Piece (TV) as Cavendish Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV) as Kaworu Nagisa Natsume's Book of Friends (TV ) as Shuichi Natori Naruto (TV) as Gaara of the Desert NANA (TV) as Shinichi "Shin" Okazaki

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[musicaddictartist]

Something I drew on Ibispaint X a long while ago. I did okay with shading and better with the blending and coloring.

[xchiyuki]

✧ Symbiosis; Chapter 7: Alive

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The news called his kind “monsters.” Everyone called him a “monster” that day. From the girl who had caused all of this to his classmates who he thought had known him to the police officers who only saw the bloodshed he’d caused.

He’d heard it so much that he was starting to believe it.

“Kayoko!” Hideo rushed forwards, pushing his broken and bleeding body. He caught her before she could topple forwards, cradling her in his own wounded arms. “Kayoko… I didn’t mean to…” he sputtered, trying to contain his hatred for himself. He gathered her in his shaking arms. She was so small.

He’d hurt her.

He’d sworn that he’d never hurt her.

She smiled weakly, her eyes darting frantically all over before settling on his face. “I’m okay. I’ve been through worse,” she lied. She said that he was a bad liar, but she was just as bad, if not worse.

“You’re bleeding.”

It was obvious, but he couldn’t help it.

He was still trying to understand what he’d done. His blades had pierced through her without him even thinking about it, and now, she was lying in his arms, bleeding. He wondered how he could have not recognized her. They were together all the time, and he swore he knew her better than anything. Yet he’d failed to recognize her, and now, she was injured.

Emotions stirred within him. He struggled to place them, only half noting that feeling meant that his mind and body were both coming back under his control. It took him a few moments, but he remembered what he was feeling.

Guilt and regret.

All of this was his fault. And he hated himself for it.

Slowly smiling, she reached up, placing her small hands on his shoulders. She pushed herself up, angling herself a certain way. “Shinichi is going to try to kill you. Can you see him? On the rooftops behind me?” she whispered in his ear.

Hideo didn’t want to take his eyes off her, but he looked. He could see a small figure in the distance. There was no doubt that it was Izumi, preparing to kill him. But for some reason, there was no anger in his heart left.

There was only a grim feeling of acceptance for what was to come.

“You should let him kill me,” he spat, his hatred for his own existence bubbling over.

Shinichi flinched, his right arm faltering mid throw, the rock in his grip suddenly feeling much heavier than it had only moments before.

“What’s wrong, Shinichi?” Migi demanded. “Why didn’t you throw?” 

He hesitated. “Kayoko is up there with him. She’s blocking me.” He paused, squinting, focusing on the girl and the parasite she was protecting. “She’s bleeding bad. He hurt her, but she… she’s protecting him,” he said, bewildered.

Migi simply replied, “That’s love, isn’t it?”

“Not a chance. I won’t let him kill you.” Kayoko glared at him fiercely, her words strong as she held herself close to him, pressing her chest to his as her arms tightened around him. “If we’re dying, we’re dying together.”

He hesitated, his hands twitching. “You can’t. It’s not right… if you die,” he breathed, repeating the mantra that he’d said over and over in the months that he’d known her, even though he’d had the chance to take her life so many times. It was the only reason she was alive in his eyes, although if he thought about it, it wasn’t much of a reason at all.

A soft smile came over her as she pulled away to look him directly in the eyes. “Yuko did something to you in the Fine Arts room, didn’t she?” He nodded.

“She threw something on me, and now I can’t change back into a human.” As if to demonstrate his failure to her, he tried, but his face only ended up as a skin-colored blob of flesh, some of it still half burned from the acidic liquid he’d been drenched in. “Whatever it was, I believe it was an acid that burned this form. There are too many dead cells in this form. They interfere with the communication to the rest of my body.”

She ran her fingers down his body, feeling the bullet holes in his skin and uniform. She flinched, but did not pull away. “And those police officers shot you,” she murmured, her fingers twitching as blood stained her skin.

He nodded again. “I don’t blame them. They were doing their jobs. I am a murderer.” He paused. “A monster,” he added quietly.

“But that wasn’t you hurting those people. Even if it was your body, it wasn’t you. You didn’t want this.” She smiled again, the smile he’d come to know over the course of his lifetime as a fully functional being. “After all, you can’t control fate, right?”

“I tried.”

She moved her hands back to his shoulders. Hesitating, she reached for his true face. He flinched away, thinking that she would be disgusted if she touched him. But she kept him steady. She gently touched his true face, feeling his true self for the first time.

“Does this hurt?” she murmured.

He shook his head. “No. I can barely feel anything. My cells are still dead,” he confessed.

She bit her lip and grabbed at her grey skirt, ripping a large strip of fabric off of the bottom of it. “I’m going to try to rub some of the dead cells off, okay? So you can try to shift back to human form? Will that work?” He said nothing, simply lowered his head to be within her reach.

Her touch was gentle. He felt himself leaning into it, fighting to keep his eyes open. He kept one of his eyes locked on Izumi, preparing to pull Kayoko out of the way should he choose to attack with her still in the way. Another turned its gaze upon the piercing wound that his blade had caused in her side. He fought to keep from flinching at the gory sight. Hatred for his own existence filled him.

“I hurt you.”

She hummed. “I told you that it’s okay. We’ll treat it as soon as we can get you back to safety.” She smiled at him, continuing to rub away his dead skin with the fabric.

He could feel some sense of control coming back to him. He gently reached up, taking her hand in his, gently pulling the fabric out of her grasp. “That’s enough. I’ll be okay from here. I want to keep you from bleeding out.” He pushed the grey strip against her side, like he’d done that first night when she’d been lying on the kitchen floor, bleeding.

“What about you? You’re full of bullet holes,” she protested.

He concentrated, pulling his blades back to him. He could feel his human form coming into shape again, the eyes and the hair all back where they belonged. He was Hideo Shimada again, and he was back in control of his own being.

“You’re only a human,” he finally replied, gazing down at her with his human face. “You’re fragile, and I can’t let you die.”

She smiled, knowing what he was about to say. “Because it’s not right?” she guessed, knowing what his reasoning was. He nodded again. She paused, her smile falling from her face. “Hide… we can’t stay here anymore. Not after this.”

Looking down, he felt something stir in his gut. He could place it faster than he had before. It was remorse, where he felt such intense regret and guilt that his heart — his slowly-beating, barely-alive heart — throbbed painfully in his chest.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Her hand reached up to cup his face reassuringly. “I know you didn’t.” She smiled as his hands came to rest on her shoulders, him staring down at her, his usually blank eyes starting to show a twinkle. “But we have to make the next move. What do you want to do now?” she asked softly, letting her hands fall to rest on his chest.

“I want to live,” he replied immediately. “I want to live with you.”

Migi perked up from around the rock. “I can feel something…” Shinichi glanced at his hand, which had moved to stare at the building. “It’s strong. Much stronger than any other signal I’ve ever felt before,” it explained, eye narrowing.

Shinichi frowned. “What’s he feeling?”

“Many things at once. His thoughts are no longer disjointed, but his signal has increased. He is more powerful than he has ever been.”

“Migi, what is he feeling?” the human half demanded.

Closing its eye, the parasite thought. There were many different signals that he had to sift through. “Most of them are emotions I am unfamiliar with. Love is one of them, but the others… I suppose that I can sum them up as an uncontainable desire to live,” he finished, opening its eye once more.

Hesitating, Shinichi looked to the school rooftop. He saw how they were wrapped in an embrace, Kayoko’s back still turned to him, angled so he could not kill Shimada. From where he stood, they looked like any other human couple.

“Can you hear his thoughts?” he finally asked.

Migi briefly glanced at Shinichi in confusion, but nodded. “Yes. He is thinking the same thing, over and over.”

“What is it?”

“He is thinking ‘I want to live with Kayoko.’”

She beamed. “Then, let’s run away from here. Far away, where they’ll never find us!” she suggested with a glimmer of life in her eyes.

Kayoko’s smile was bright, brighter than he’d ever seen it.

Maybe it was because it was a ray of light after the darkness that had just happened. Or maybe it was all of the emotions that were flooding into his body at once. Or maybe it was the way that he felt so human, more than ever.

Or maybe it was because he realized that his way of living was not living.

It had none of the happiness or laughter that existed within human lives. It was empty and cold and lonely, and Hideo was tired of living that way. He wanted to keep experiencing this warmth that his kind was so unfamiliar with. He wanted to live.

I want to live with Kayoko.

Perhaps it was a bit much to presume that it was the emotion that humans called “love.” He had yet to experience anything like it, and that emotion was a powerful thing. It was the driving force behind many human stories, the reason behind many otherwise inexplicable decisions that humans made. Many people used love as a way to motivate them, to drive the decisions that shaped their entire lives.

A monster like him could never feel love. He didn’t deserve it.

“Hide? Did you hear me?”

He heard her.

Slowly, he pushed the corners of his lips up in a gentle smile, softening his gaze as he stared at her. She didn’t show the shock if she felt any. She just returned his smile, her beaming smile growing smaller, until hers mirrored his.

“Yes. Let’s run away.”

Even if he wasn’t human, even if he would never fully be human, he would get close if he was with Kayoko. He could become something similar to Izumi. He could become an inhuman being that was caught between the lines of human and not.

“Let’s go somewhere far.”

And even if he wasn’t human, even if he thought he didn’t deserve to feel love, he figured that, maybe, just maybe, he deserved to feel happiness.

After all, every human deserved happiness. Why didn’t he?

“As long as I am with you, I think that things will be fine.”

His tone of voice didn’t change. He still spoke without emotion bleeding into his words, but that didn’t bother him. It wasn’t his tone that mattered to him. It was the message that he said, the words that he carefully selected in order to let Kayoko know how important to him she was.

She clearly understood, as she reached forwards, hugging him. She locked her arms around his neck, holding him close. “I’m okay if it’s with you. You saved my life more than once, Hide. I want to help you now.”

“You do,” he replied softly, returning the hug as best he could. He was sure that it was awkward, but it was all he could do. “You make me feel more human. I understand how you said ‘love makes people do crazy things.’” She flushed, but he continued. “I can feel the way you can now. And it’s because you taught me how to do so.”

Kayoko was crying, but she was still smiling. He reached up to wipe her tears from her face, worry settling deep into his gut. Before she could ask anything, she shook her head with a watery smile. “These are happy tears, Hide,” she assured him. “I’m just… so glad that you’re alive.”

In the end, Shinichi never threw the rock.

He couldn’t bring himself to murder someone who was still human. Especially not someone who he’d nearly killed with his carelessness and anger. Not someone he cared about.

Even if it meant taking out one of the inhuman creatures that he hated so much, he didn’t want to lose what made him human. He wasn’t yet ready to give up his humanity just so he could fulfil the angry hole in his heart. He wasn’t even sure if killing Shimada would fill that hole.

Somewhere inside him, he was glad he didn’t kill both of them.

He was glad that they had disappeared before the police reinforcements arrived on the rooftop. He had turned away for just a moment, and when he looked back, they were gone. He was glad that he had given them that chance. He was glad that the police, when they had stormed Kayoko’s house, where she had once lived with her parents, they only found the house void of all personal belongings.

After all, she was never legally living at Hiroshi’s house.

“Shinichi, where are we going?” Migi asked as they walked down the empty streets. “I thought you wanted to never see Shimada again.”

He smiled dryly. “It’s not Shimada I want to see. It’s Kayoko,” he explained, glancing wistfully at the buildings around him.

“You’ll see both of them, you know. They are practically inseparable now.” He ignored Migi, choosing to believe that this was the final time he’d get to see Kayoko, his old friend who he’d nearly killed.

He wanted to ask for forgiveness, even though he was sure that she’d tell him that there was no need to. To him, there was. He had pushed her away, called her a traitor. He tried to make it up to her by not giving away her location, the place she truly lived with Shimada, but he knew that she deserved to hear the words from him.

The apartment building was hidden away in the corner of the street. He found the address, the one Kayoko had given him during the funeral, and knocked on the door.

A pair of unfamiliar eyes met his as someone opened the door.

Shinichi’s eyes went wide. The face staring back at him was unfamiliar, but somehow, he knew exactly who it belonged to. “Shimada…? Is that you?” he practically breathed, shock seeping into every part of his body.

“Hello, Izumi. Migi.”

The parasite had changed completely within the week following his disappearance. He no longer had neatly-kept, brown hair. Instead, his hair was a messy black. His eyes were no longer those blank, emotionless eyes that every parasite had. Instead, they sparkled with something akin to life.

“I don’t understand,” Migi murmured, shock lacing its normally unflappable voice. “How could this be? Now that I know it’s you, it’s obvious that this signal is yours, but I couldn’t tell it was  you until now.”

Shimada managed the smallest of smiles. He didn’t seem threatening at all. In fact, he seemed like less of a threat than Migi, and Shinichi actually trusted Migi. “It’s because I let myself feel. Emotions make us human, and being human makes us less of… whatever it is that we are,” he replied easily. He opened the door wider, gesturing for them to come in. “I knew you were coming. Kayoko’s getting some snacks ready with the food we have left.”

Shinichi slowly entered the apartment. It was barren. There was nothing decorating the walls or the hallway. Besides the odd piece of furniture here and there, there was nothing to show who lived in the apartment, or even that it’d been inhabited at all. No photos or paintings, nothing of the sort. There was barely anything, save for a few suitcases that sat by the door. They were all closed, stacked one on top of the other.

“Are you… going somewhere?”

Nodding, the parasite closed the door behind Shinichi. “Yes. We’re leaving. We’re going to try to get a fresh start in a new city. Maybe a new country if that’s what we have to do.” He paused, looking at his former enemy. “I know that we can’t live here anymore. I feel bad for taking her away from her friends, but… well, it was her idea.” He chuckled.

“Her idea to do what?”

“Run away, of course.” Shimada softened as the conversation shifted to Kayoko. “We’re both ready. There is barely anything left for either of us here.”

Shinichi shook his head, slowly trying to digest everything that Shimada had just dropped onto him. “Why… what made you decide to go?” he asked almost disbelievingly.

The now black-haired boy hesitated, bowing his head. “After… after I came to my senses, I felt regret. I hated myself for what I’d done. The day before it happened, I’d swore I’d never harm another human being. But I wanted to protect the secret that Kayoko and I held. If it came down to it, I would have let you kill me,” explained Shimada, his voice low with the burden of emotion.

The two walked into the living area together, one that was connected to both the dining area and the kitchen, which were the same.

“What changed your mind?” Shinichi was genuinely curious now.

Glancing towards the dining area, Shimada nodded towards the girl whose hair was in a neat bun atop her head as she wrapped a boxed lunch in a blue cloth. “She did. She was ready to die alongside me. When I saw that, the only thing I could think was… I want to live.” He glanced at the human, a small smile on his face. “Haven’t you ever felt that way?” he asked quietly, his tone sounding like it was begging Shinichi to verify his feelings.

Shinichi slowly nodded. “Yes. I have,” he murmured.

“Then you know exactly what I mean. I’ve come to understand something within the past few days, Izumi.” He looked directly at Shinichi, his eyes sparkling with the life that a parasite should never have been able to show. “What my species does isn’t living. There’s something unique about the way humans live, and letting myself experience that has only made me want it more. I want to live. I want to be alive.”

Slowly realizing what the other boy meant, Shinichi nodded. He understood. He knew why Shimada and Kayoko were leaving.

“Run as far away as you can, Shimada. And don’t look back for anything.”

Shimada slowly smiled once more. “I can’t promise that. If Kayoko falls behind, then I’m going to look back and wait for her. She is the one keeping me alive, after all.”

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