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goldenkamuyhunting · 5 years ago

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Golden Kamuy Volume 2 Data Hunting

So this is a collection of assorted information about Golden Kamuy Vol 2 inclusive of data, points to ponder, notable quotes and so on.

It was a terribly long work and I don’t expect it to be perfect. If you notice something is wrong (especially in the translation from Japanese) or missing please, feel free to drop me a note.

I will try to do something similar for vol 3 as well but I don’t promise at all I’ll manage it.

Anyway, I’ll hope you’ll enjoy this!

VOLUME 2

Cover: Asirpa & Retar

Chapters: 10

First printed: 19/February/2015

Volume only extras: Sugimoto’s black and white illustration, Retar’s tiny black and white illustration, reprint of Huci’s words to Sugimoto now translated, 2 page extra story about Sugimoto and Asirpa eating river otter, Asirpa wearing a Kaparamip, frontal and back image, the Ainu sentence ‘Kanto orwa yaku sak no arankep shinep ka isam’ (“Nothing comes from heaven without purpose”).

GENERAL INFO

Notable or recurring Characters: Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Gotō (後藤), Wilk (ウイルク), Retar (レタㇻ), Toraji (寅次), Umeko (梅子), Toraji and Umeko’s child, Asirpa (アシㇼパ), pimp (妓夫太郎 ‘Gifutarō’), prisoner who was tailing Sugimoto’s group (杉元達を尾行していた囚人 ‘Sugimoto-tachi o Bikō Shite Ita Shūjin’), Hijikata Toshizō (土方歳三) , Ogata Hyakunosuke (尾形百之助), Tsurumi Tokushirō (鶴見篤四郎), Shiraishi Yoshitake (白石由竹), Noma (野間), Okada (岡田), Huci (フチ), Makanakkuru (マカナックル), Nikaidō Kōhei (二階堂浩平), Nikaidō Yōhei (二階堂洋平), Osoma (オソマ), Tamai (��井), Tanigaki Genjirō (谷垣源次郎), Tsukishima Hajime (月島基), Ushiyama Tatsuma (牛山辰馬), Wada (和田)

Maps of the places mentioned:

Meiji years mentioned: Meiji 9= 1876, Meiji 23= 1890, Meiji 37=1904, Meiji 38= 1905, Meiji 40= 1907, Meiji 41= 1908.

Weapons used:

- Arisaka Type 30 rifle: Sugimoto, Tamai, Noma, Okada, Tanigaki, Tsukishima, Nikaidō Yōhei, Nikaidō Kōhei

- Arisaka Type 30 bayonet: Noma, Sugimoto, Nikaidō Yōhei

- Ainu bow (Karimpaunku) and aconite poisoned arrow (Ay): Asirpa

- Ainu short knife for women (Menomakiri): Asirpa

- Ainu hunting knife (Tasiro): Asirpa

- Koishikawa Arsenal Type 26 revolver: Tamai, Ushiyama

- Murata Sword: Hijikata

- Borchardt C-93: Tsurumi

- Amappo: Makanakkuru

- Sutu: Asirpa

- Dango skewers: Tsurumi

Convict appeared and their tattoo owners (at the end of the volume):

1. Gotō: Sugimoto

2. Prisoner who was tailing Sugimoto’s group: Sugimoto

3. Hijikata Toshizō: Hijikata (original and copy)

4. Shiraishi Yoshitake: Shiraishi, Sugimoto (copy)

5. Tsuyama: Tsurumi

6. Ushiyama: Ushiyama, Hijikata (copy)

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08. FLIGHT (逃走 TŌSŌ)

First printed: 09/October/2014 Weekly Young Jump 45

Characters: Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Wilk (ウイルク), Tanigaki Genjirō (谷垣源次郎), Tamai (玉井), Noma (野間), Okada (岡田), Ogata Hyakunosuke (尾形百之助).

Location: Near Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: None.

Time: 1907/1908 (?) Late February.

Historical events mentioned: None

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Wilk.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None.

Character deaths: None.

Animal deaths: None.

New Ainu words:

- Isepo: “Small creature that cries ‘iii’”. Hare

- Pukusa: Alpine leeks

- Osoma: Poop

Food and drinks: Hare’s raw eyes. Citatap with hare and ohaw in which it’s cooked. Sugimoto adds to it Miso as well.

Useful info and points to ponder:

- The Ainu legend about why Ezo hare have black spots on their ear tips is a cautionary tale against greed ‘If you don’t let greed get the better of you, you won’t have to spend your life running’ that well end up mimicking what the characters will do, run around for more than a year searching for the gold.

- Asirpa offers Sugimoto’s the hare’s eyes as, by custom, the man who caught the hare, gets to eat the eyes… but actually it was Asirpa who caught the hare 2 chapters ago. Noda said Asirpa wants to genuinely share all the food she finds delicious with Sugimoto so she’s not trying to gross him out… but she’s definitely forceful with him (with Ushiyama she’ll be much nicer) considering Sugimoto is clearly not willing to eat them.

- Sugimoto eat the eyes, same as in the past chapter he ate squirrel brain and says ‘hinna’ probably out of politeness, which might be why, after Ogata refused to eat animal brain and they reached an Ainu village, he told him to behave politely.

- Sugimoto literally says the warm food makes him alive again, not just that it gave him his strength back. That’s because not much before he risked dying by hypothermia, after falling in the frozen river.

- Asirpa is not against adding something she never heard about to the soup, she’s against adding MISO to it because she thinks it’s poop and, even though she forced Sugimoto to eat Ainu food when he didn’t want to, she isn’t shy to refuse eating Miso rather vocally, insisting it’s poop and refusing to believe Sugimoto who, for three times, will say her it’s not, her comments ending up on making Sugimoto feel as if she’s implying he’s a freak.

- Sugimoto confirms he’s scared of bears when Asirpa orders him to check a bear den and he asks ‘why him?’ although he obeys. He claims his disliking of bears is due to their last encounter with one.

- Asirpa explains Sugimoto her father was so brave he would crawl into the den clutching a poison arrow and kill the bear himself with it. It’s a system to kill a bear that Sugimoto will deploy when the bear will attack Anehata.

- Asirpa’s father clearly underwent a change in character design as in this chapter he has much has sunken cheeks, the scar of his face is either missing or much shorter as it’s supposed to continue on his cheek and yet it doesn’t and his bear is much longer and the same goes for his moustaches.

- Although despite Asirpa telling him according to Ainu a bear doesn’t kill a human that enters its den Sugimoto is firm in how he won’t get in, saying they already have to handle convicts. He’ll change his mind when it’ll become a matter of survival.

- When refusing, Sugimoto acknowledge they’ve already to face dangerous prisoners (‘Kiken'na shūjin’ 危険な囚人). Sugimoto is aware the prisoners can be dangerous… and he also knows the 7th could be dangerous. In short he was already aware he was exposing Asirpa to risk but hadn’t developed with her a bond strong enough it made him think he should apologize for involving her in this and discouraging her from continuing.

- Tamai’s group manages to find the hut Asirpa and Sugimoto had left short after they did (the fire was put out recently).

- Tamai seems to have a good opinion of Ogata, thinking he wouldn’t let a hunter and a child take him down and that he didn’t push his body to the limit just to brag but to tell them something.

- Noma is more prone to think Ogata just fell on his own and wrote ‘immortal’ to brag about how he didn’t die. While it looks like he’s not having a good opinion of Ogata, there’s also to consider Tsurumi will comment Tamai, Noma and Okada are all experienced mountaineers, something Ogata probably isn’t. So Noma’s negative judgment might also stem from the fact Ogata went to wander on the mountain alone when he didn’t know it well and this might have lead him to make mistakes that experienced mountaineers wouldn’t do (like standing on a snow cornice like Sugimoto and Shiraishi in the past chapter).

- Okada has a very minor role but, interesting enough he asks about Ogata’s conditions.

- We learn in this chapter Ogata’s jaw got broken in the fall so he couldn’t talk, yet he did his best to communicate with the others. Vasily, who also can’t talk, except for his attempt to deliver, through drawings, who he was searching to Sugimoto, hadn’t really made an effort at communicating with others, though, to be honest, the others hadn’t done an effort to talk with him either.

- Ogata only wrote ‘immortal’ because he tried to write ‘Immortal Sugimoto’ (although in English we favour ‘Sugimoto the immortal’ in Japanese is ‘Fujimi no Sugimoto’ with “immortal” ‘fujimi’ written first) but, apparently, fall back to unconsciousness before ending the sentence. We’ve seen Sugimoto is pretty well known for his nick so, writing it down would have given people an immediate grasp of who had attacked him. It’s also worth to mention that the message was possibly aimed not at Tsurumi but at Tamai as we’ll discover Ogata was in a rebellion with Tamai, Noma and Okada.

- Noma’s sentence about Ogata claiming to be unkillable it’s actually “did he want to say ‘I’m immortal’?” which is, ironically, Sugimoto’s catchphrase and probably Noma himself, who had met Sugimoto at Port Arthur, slapped himself later on when he realized what Ogata was actually trying to say. On a sidenote as ‘Fujimi’ is generally translated as “immortal” but technically mean “not-dead/not-dying” maybe Noma meant Ogata only wanted to say something like “I am not ding” but this is a speculation I’ll let to who’s more knowledgeable of me in Japanese.

- Tanigaki do not take part at all in the whole discussion about Ogata. While it’s true it’ll turn out Tanigaki is not a chatter, it’s also worth to mention Tanigaki doesn’t like Ogata so he probably wasn’t interested in his whereabouts, although it’s also true he was busy searching for Sugimoto and Asirpa and he’s the one spotting them.

- When Asirpa sees the flashing light caused by binoculars she can’t realize what are they, although Sugimoto does. I guess this hints Asirpa has little to no experience with binoculars.

- Tamai, Noma, Okada and Tanigaki use “Karafuto-style” or “Russian-style” skis. Noda confirmed that back then ski weren’t in use in Japan yet but that he assumed they could have been introduced in Hokkaido due to the prosperous trade with Russia.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Sugimoto: “So the moral of this story is…”If you don't let greed get the better of you, you won't have to spend your life running”…” (‘Tsumari sono ohanashi no kyōkun wa “yoku o dasanakereba nigemawaru hitsuyō mo nakatta”… tte kotoda na’ つまりそのお話の教訓は『欲を出さなければ逃げ回る必要��無かった』…ってことだな)

- Asirpa: “Here, Sugimoto. you can have the eyeball.” (‘Sugimoto, usagi no medama tabete yoi zo’ 杉元、ウサギの目玉食べて良いぞ Lit: “Sugimoto, you can eat the rabbit’s eyeball”)

- Sugimoto: “Ahh… It's warming me up from the inside. I can feel my strength coming back.” (‘Ā…-tai ga nukumaru. Ikikaeruu ~’ ああ…体が温まる。生き返るう～ Lit: “Ah... my body gets warm. I’m coming back to life~.”)

- Sugimoto: “This is already pretty delicious, but I bet If you added miso it would really enhance the flavor. What do you think?” (‘Asirpa-san, ko no mama demo jūbun umai ndaga, miso iretara zettai au n janai no? Kore’ アシㇼパさんこのままでも十分美味いんだが、味噌入れたら絶対合うんじゃないの？コレ Lit: “Asirpa-san, it is delicious enough as it is, but if you put in it Miso, it'll definitely fit well, right? I think this.”)

- Asirpa: “Are you trying to feed me poop!? I refuse to eat a bite!” (‘Watashi ni unko kuwa seru ki ka! Zettai tabenai zo!’ 私にうんこ食わせる気か！絶対食べないぞ！Lit: ‘Do you want me to eat poop?! I'll never eat it!’)

- Asirpa: “Eww, He's eating poor and smiling while he does it.” (‘Uwaa… unko tabete yorokon deru yo kono otoko’ うわあ…ウンコ食べて喜んでるよこの男 Lit: “Wow... he’s happy to eat poop, this guy.”)

- Sugimoto: “Don't talk about me like I'm some kind of freak.” (‘Hito o hentai mitai ni iu n jaarimasen yo.’ ひとを変態みたいに言うんじゃありませんよ)

- Asirpa: “There's an ainu saying that goes: a brown bear will never kill a human that enter its den.” (‘Ainu no iitsutae ni kō iu no ga aru “higuma wa suana ni haitte kita ningen o kesshite korosanai”’ アイヌの言い伝えにこういうのがある『ヒグマは巣穴に入ってきた人間を決して殺さない』)

- Sugimoto: “Hell no. I’m not going there. We’ve already got our hands full chasing dangerous criminals. It’s not like we starve if we don’t catch a bear right now. Let’s get out of here.” (‘Zettaiyada. Oretachi wa tadade sae kiken'na shūjin o tsukamaenaki ya naran noda. Ima sugu higuma kuwanakya uejini suru tte wake jane~eshi. Ikōze’ 絶対やだ。俺たちはただでさえ危険な囚人を捕まえなきやならんのだ。今すぐヒグマ食わなきゃ飢え死にするってわけじゃねぇし。行こうぜ Lit: “Absolutely not. We just have to catch dangerous prisoners. I wouldn't be starving to death if I didn't eat brown bears right now. Let's go”)

- Tamai: “It’s hard to believe a capable man like superior private Ogata was taken down by a couple of hunters… but maybe they know something.” (‘Ogata jōtōhei hodo no otoko ga ryōshi no oyako ni yara reta to na waru enga... Nani ka shitteru kamo’ 尾形上等兵ほどの男が猟師の親子にやられたとな悪えんが... 何か知ってるかも Lit: “A man like Superior Private Ogata being taken down by a hunter and his child seems (the) wrong (option)… They might know something.”)

- Noma: “It’s possible that he simply slipped and fell on his own.” (‘Tan no hitori de karraku shita dakedato waruimasuga nē’ 単のひとりで滑落しただけだと悪いますがねえ)

- Okada: “How's his condition?” (‘Yōdai wa?’ 容態は？)

- Tamai: “He managed to regain consciousness once. However he wasn't able to say much with a broken jaw. He used what little strength he had to write something with his finger. ‘Immortal’.” (‘Ichidodake ishiki o torimodoshita kirida. Ago ga warete hanasenakattaga. Sono toki-ryoku o furishibotte yubi de moji o kaita. “Fujimi”.’ 一度だけ意識を取り戻したきりだ。アゴが割れて話せなかったが。そのとき力を振り絞って指で文字を書いた。「ふじみ」。Lit: “He managed to regain consciousness only once. His jaw his broken so he couldn’t talk. At that time, he collected all his strength and wrote some letters with his finger. ‘Fujimi’.”)

- Noma: “Perhaps he was trying to boast about being unkillable? To fall into a frozen river with injuries like that and come out alive is remarkable good fortune on his part.” (‘Ore wa fushida to demo ītakatta nodeshou ka ne?’ 俺は不死身だとでもいいたかったのでしょうかね？Lit: “Did he want to say ‘I’m immortal’?”)

- Tamai: “No, I don't think that's it... he pushed his body to its limits in order to tell us something. He wouldn't use that effort merely to brag or joke.” (‘Iya... Yatto no omoi de wareware ni tsutaeta noda. Karuguchi hazu ga nai’ いや... やっとの想い��我々に伝えたのだ。軽口はずが無い Lit: “No… he hardly managed to tell us. It couldn’t be a frivolous talk.”)

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09. CORNERED RAT (窮鼠 KYŪSO)

First printed: 16/October/2014 Weekly Young Jump 46

Characters: Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Tamai (玉井), Noma (野間), Okada (岡田), Tanigaki Genjirō (谷垣源次郎), Gotō (後藤), Shiraishi Yoshitake (白石由竹), Retar (レタㇻ), Ogata Hyakunosuke (尾形百之助).

Location: Near Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: 203 hill in Port Arthur (current Lüshunkou) (China)

Time: 1907/1908 (?) Late February

Historical events mentioned: Russo-Japanese war (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905), Siege of Port Arthur (1 August 1904 – 2 January 1905), Hokkaidō shikaryō kisoku (北海道鹿猟規則 “Hokkaido Deer-Hunting Regulations”) (1876)

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Tanigaki, Noma and Sugimoto.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None

Character deaths: None

Animal deaths: None

New Ainu words:

- Kitura sisam ohaw or si omare wa e: The man I was with puts poop in his soup and eats it.

Food and drinks: None

Useful info and points to ponder:

- This is the chapter in which Asirpa teaches to Sugimoto that if he walks on bamboo grass his footprints will become less obvious. Sugimoto forgetting about this will become relevant in chap 228 when he’ll get lost and Asirpa will have troubles finding him.

- When realizing they can’t shake them Sugimoto will decide for him and Asirpa to split up, claiming that the soldiers would chase only the adult’s footsteps, not Asirpa’s. Tamai’s group will actually chase both, specifically sending Tanigaki to track her and Sugimoto was aware this could happen, as he specifically instructed Asirpa on what to do, should they find her.

- Sugimoto also, instead than hiding the skins somewhere, entrust them to Asirpa claiming that if they were to find them on him, they would kill him on the spot but that if they were to find Asirpa, she should hand them to them and pretend she knows nothing because they aren’t the types who would kill a kid. Not only this is purely Sugimoto’s assumption but he knows it’s baseless because later, acknowledging the 7th division is dangerous for Asirpa too, he will try to leave her behind. At the moment though, he entrusts the skins to Asirpa because he hasn’t developed a bond tight enough with her yet and therefore prioritized trying to protect himself and the skins, underestimating the danger he put her in.

- Sugimoto claims all Asirpa cares for is for someone to find the gold (so that Noppera-bō will be executed and her father avenged) therefore whoever were to do it would be fine for her. This remarks that Asirpa has no interest in the gold itself (which would therefore go all to Sugimoto if they were to find it) but also that Sugimoto didn’t realize Asirpa cares for him as well.

- Asirpa’s sad expression at such words and her warning he shouldn’t fight them or they would kill him prove she actually cares for him.

- To Asirpa’s words Sugimoto replies with his catchphrase “I’m Sugimoto the immortal”. It seems a cool scene because he’s the main character (so we know he’s not going to die) and because “Sugimoto the immortal” was introduced as his nick. When Tanigaki, in chap 231, will reply the same to Inkarmat in a scene that parallels this one though, we’ll realize how silly and unbelievable of a reply it is in a real life situation.

- It’s Okada who finds Sugimoto’s and Asirpa trails even if it’s Tanigaki who afterward tell them that Sugimoto and Asirpa split.

- Tamai sends Tanigaki after Asirpa. This is likely not really because Tanigaki is the best tracker and Asirpa is better than Sugimoto at hiding her tracks but likely because Tamai and the others are in a rebel group with Ogata and, if Sugimoto were to turn out involved in his incident, they wanted to question him without risking for Tanigaki to overhear something compromising.

- Tanigaki claims he’s a Matagi of Tohoku who has seen animals double back on their tracks countless times, basically telling us he’s a hunter. In fact he easily finds Asirpa.

- Asirpa tells Tanigaki a random sentence in Ainu to pretend she doesn’t know how to talk Japanese.

- Tanigaki doesn’t talk Ainu, not even a little bit.

- Although nervous, Asirpa decides not to hand the skin to Tanigaki and hides it on the tree she was hiding on. Ironically, one of the squirrels she loves to eat cause the skins to fall down and be seen by Tanigaki.

- Tanigaki asks Asirpa if the man with the army cap is her brother or father because 63 Ainu joined the army and so he’s thinking the man with the army cap is actually an Ainu related to her.

- When Tanigaki discovers the skin Asirpa attempts reaching for her poisoned arrows. Likely she only meant to scare him as she doesn’t want to kill anyone but Tanigaki can’t know this, which is likely why, later on, he’ll use her as a human shield seeing her as dangerous as the others despite her age.

- Although Tanigaki doesn’t point his rifle at Asirpa, he charges it, automatically becoming more threatening.

- Retar is then shown running toward Tanigaki from behind.

- An unclear scene shows Sugimoto running with his rifle on his shoulder but in the next panel he has it in his hands.

- Sugimoto lies and claims he escaped because he believed the soldiers were there to catch poachers and he was hunting deer illegally using an Ainu kid as his guide. He’s pretty smooth in his lie, showing he can be a good liar although his sentence is, in itself, too elaborate if he had really bee a poacher. Not only he confesses his crime too easily and too calmly despite having tried so hard to escape but he also adds unnecessary information as Asirpa being his guide. Tsurumi would have easily spotted his lie, but with Tamai’s group it can work.

- On a sidenote Sugimoto would be hunting illegally for two reasons, because he doesn’t have a hunting licence and because hunting deer was limited to a period that went from November to January.

- It’s worth to mention the deer hunting regulations greatly impacted on Ainu life (Japanese even forbid to everyone to hunt deer from 1890 to 1900), also forbidding to hunt them with poisoned arrows or amappo (they were supposed to use rifles like Kirawus does) and fundamentally making most of them illegal hunters.

- Noma says he saw Sugimoto at the field hospital in Port Arthur. As he knows Sugimoto’s division and also his nickname but Sugimoto doesn’t seem to know/recognize him, evidently he was merely pointed to Noma. There’s to say the two had crossed path in Mukden also, when Noma was among the men transporting Tsurumi and Tsukishima (Tamai was there as well) but, evidently, back then he hadn’t recognized him.

- As soon as Noma points out the one in front of them is Sugimoto the immortal, Okada immediately confirms to know him by reputation and Tamai also, like Noma, connects the dots and realizes Sugimoto is the one who attacked Ogata.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Sugimoto: “Asirpa-san. Let's split up. I'm the one they're chasing not you. Here. Take the tattooed skin. I want you to hold on to it. If I'm holding it when they find me, they'll probably just kill me on the spot. If they happen to catch you, don't fight back! give them the skin! act like you don't know what's going on. they're not the type of guys that would kill a child. In the end, all that matters to you is that someone finds the Gold! So does it really matter who finds it!? Just do as I've said, Okay?” (‘Asirpa-san futa te ni wakareyou. Yatsu-ra wa otona no ashiato dake o karera ga anata o ou hazuda. Irezumi hito kawa kore o… Asirpa -san ga motte itte kure. Ore ga motte ireba osoraku sonobade korosa reru. Moshimo Asirpa -san ga tsukamattara issai teikō sezu ni yatsu-ra ni watase! Nani mo shiranai furi o shiro. Kodomo made korosu renchū janai! Asirpa -san ni totte wa kinkai sae mitsukete kurereba sore wa dare datte ī hazuda. Ore ga itta tōri ni suru nda zo ~tsuī na?’ アシㇼパさんふた手に分かれよう。やつらは大人の足跡だけを彼らがあなたを追うはずだ。刺青人皮これを…アシㇼパさんが持っていってくれ。俺が持っていればおそらくその場で殺される。もしもアシㇼパさんが捕まったら一切抵抗せずにやつらに渡せ！何も知らないふりをしろ。子供まで殺す連中じゃない！アシㇼパさんにとっては金塊さえ見つけてくれればそれは誰だっていいはずだ。俺が言ったとおりにするんだぞッいいな？Lit: “Asirpa-san. Let's divide. Those guys should chase only after the footsteps of the adult, not yours. The tattooed human skins, these… Asirpa-san should take them with her. If I had them I would probably be killed on the spot. If Asirpa-san gets caught, give it to them without any resistance! Pretend you don't know anything. Those guys are not those who would kill kids! For Asirpa-san, it’s important the gold is found. Whoever it, is fine. Do it exactly as I said it, okay?”)

- Tanigaki: “Aw, shucks. I have no idea what you're saying. I'm not some monster here to gobble you up. please come down.” (‘Maitta na sappari wakaran. Totte kuttari wa shinaikara orite oide.’ まいったなさっぱりわからん。捕って食ったりはしないから降りておいで Lit: “Annoying, I don't understand her at all. I won't catch and eat you, so come down.”)

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10. GAMBLE (博打 BAKUCHI)

First printed: 23/October/2014 Weekly Young Jump 47

Characters: Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Tamai (玉井), Noma (野間), Okada (岡田), Tanigaki Genjirō (谷垣源次郎), Noma’s grandfather, Asirpa (アシㇼパ).

Location: Near Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: Noma’s grandfather charcoal-making hut, up in the mountains

Time: 1907/1908 (?) Late February

Historical events mentioned: None

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Noma.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None.

Character deaths: Tamai (killed by a bear), Noma (killed by a bear), Okada (killed by Tamai)

Animal deaths: Mother bear (killed by Tamai)

New Ainu words:

- Itatani: Cutting board used for meat

- Rikosinot: “Tossing up”. A bear attack in which the bear bites its target and throw it up in the air over and over.

Food and drinks: Bear citatap.

Useful info and points to ponder:

- During the confrontation between Tamai’s group and Sugimoto, it’s clear the 4 of them are all scared. Sugimoto is without weapons and against three armed men but Tamai’s group, due to Sugimoto’s legend of being immortal and dangerous, is also scared of facing him.

- Tamai is the one who manages to remain the calmest, ordering to shoot Sugimoto in the knees, a sign they didn’t aim to kill him, at least not at first.

- At the prospective of being shoot in the knees, screaming his catchphrase ‘I’m immortal’ Sugimoto decides to overcome is fear of bear and try entering in its den in hope Asirpa was right and the bear won’t attach him.

- Tamai is completely pissed off by what he judges an act of cowardice from someone who’s called ‘immortal’ and who fought like a ‘Kishin’ to the point he decides to shoot into the hole personally, even if this means he could kill Sugimoto and not get any info from him. It’s unknown if the fact that Sugimoto hurt Ogata, one of his underlings, also played a part in Tamai’s anger (Tanigaki had a good opinion of him so Tamai could be a superior officer who cares about whose under him and he also expressed appreciation for Ogata).

- Noma’s question is actually more vague as he says only they won’t be able to ask him what happened, without mentioning Ogata, even if it’s clear he’s referring to what happened with him.

- Despite being mountaineers, none of the three realize the hole is a bear den.

- Despite the shock of seeing the bear running toward him Tamai recharged his rifle but, as Nihei will point out later on, he didn’t manage to shoot the bear. The bear, with one paw, will manage to rip his face and his jaw away, the shock causing him to press the trigger and, inadvertently kill Okada.

- Regardless of the situation Noma remains calm and talks to the bear. He explains his grandfather worked up in the mountains making charcoal (this confirms Noma is a mountaineer and might point out he’s from Hokkaido). His grandfather warned him when meeting a bear running or playing dead won’t work. One has to stay calm and talk to the bear, looking at him in the eyes until it calms down and then shoot him in the head which Noma does, claiming this is revenge because a bear killed his grandfather while he was in his charcoal-making hut.

- Noma’s grandfather’s teaching were wrong. As Nihei will later do, Noma should have shoot the bear when the bear was standing, aiming for his heart and not for his head as a bear skull is really thick while the brain is small, hence it’s pretty difficult to kill the bear this way. As a result the bear gets up and attack Noma, his claws cutting his stomach and causing his intestines to come out, therefore giving him a fatal, although slow killing wound. Noma will still pull out his bayonet and stab the bear multiple times challenging the bear before the bear will toss him in the air over and over, causing him to end up on a tree where he’ll die, still holding his bayonet in his hand, albeit he’ll lose his shoes.

- Noma might have had some contacts with the Ainu as he’s aware they consider bears gods of the mountains.

- Despite the terrible wound he received, Tamai will manage to stand up again and shoot multiple times to the bear’s skull with his gun, until he’ll empty the revolver. Then, after giving a last glance to his fallen men he’ll die as well, probably of blood loss. Overall both Noma and Tamai revealed themselves as tough guys who, despite their terrible wounds, still managed to fight and eventually took down the bear.

- After he shows up, Sugimoto will comments Asirpa was right in saying a bear doesn’t kill who enters in its den and wonders if she threw off her pursuer already (he likely has realized since 3 soldiers came after him the 4th should have gone after her, proving they would chase both of them). He’s however clearly unconcerned and even takes time, before walking to help her against an adult soldier, to talk with the bear cub and hide it in his coat. This clearly implies back then he didn’t care for her as much as he’ll do later.

- Sugimoto, coming out of the bear den, was holding a bear cub in his arms as if he were a child. He claims since the cub’s mother is dead he can’t leave him there but he can’t promise Asirpa won’t turn him into Citatap. It’s not a joke but this will be developed in the next chapter.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Noma: “But what if we hit him in the head and he dies? We won’t be able to ask him what happened with Ogata.” (‘Shikashi… Atama ni demo atete sokushi sa setara nani ga atta ka kikidasemasenyo’ しかし。。。頭にでも当てて即死させたら何があったか聞き出せませんよ Lit: “However… If we hit him in the head and kill him immediately he won’t be able to tell us what happened”).

Noma: “What's wrong!? You scared!? The Ainu call you a god of the mountain? Pathetic! I'll show you what it means to take on the 7th division!! Come and get me!!” (‘Dō shita a! Iru nda ka? ! Ainu ni yamanokami to agame rare teru bunzai de yō! Teikoku rikugun dainanashidan aite ni tada de sumu to omou na! Kakatte koi ~tsu!’ どうしたあ！怯んだか？！アイヌに山の神と崇められてる分際でよお！帝国陸軍第七師団相手にただで済むと思うな！かかって来いッ！Lit: “What's wrong! Are you frightened? ! Someone who has the social standing of being worshipped by the Ainu as the mountain god! Don't think you’ll win easily against the 7th division of the Imperial Army! Come on!”)

Sugimoto: “Your mom’s dead and I can't just leave you here. I'll take you with me… but I can't promise Asirpa won't make you into Citatap.” (‘Omae no kāchan shin jimatte hottokene~ekara tsurete kukedo… Asirpa-san omae o chitatapu ni shite kutchimau kamo na’ お前の母ちゃん死んじまってほっとけねぇから連れてくけど…アシㇼパさんお前をチタタプにして食っちまうかもな Lit: “Your mother is dead and I can’t leave you alone so I'll take you... but I'm afraid Asirpa-san might eat you as Citatap.”)

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11. AINU KOTAN (アイヌコタン AINU KOTAN)

First printed: 30/October/2014 Weekly Young Jump 48

Characters: Tanigaki Genjirō (谷垣源次郎), Retar (レタㇻ), Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Huci (フチ), Ekasi (エカシ), Hapo (ハポ)*.

Location: Near Otaru, Asirpa’s village near Otaru

Other Places mentioned: None

Time: 1907/1908 (?) Late February

Historical events mentioned: Hokkaido Wolf extinction (1890)

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Asirpa, her grandparents and her mother.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None.

Character deaths: Ekasi (illness)

Animal deaths: None.

New Ainu words:

- Horkew Kamuy: “Howling God”. Hokkaido wolf.

- Kotan: Village

- Nusasan: An altar. Objects like the skulls of the bears were enshrined there.

- Cise: House

- Mukkur: An Ainu musical instrument also known as Mukkuri. It’s a sort of mouth harp.

- Pu: A type of building used as a storehouse

- Huci: Grandmother

- Ekasi: Grandfather

- *Hapo: Mother (to be honest this word isn’t used in this chapter but as Asirpa’s mother is still unnamed and Asirpa names her relatives using Ainu words I listed her as such)

Food and drinks: Brain of a bear

Useful info and points to ponder:

- Differently from Sugimoto Tanigaki immediately realizes Retar is an Hokkaido wolf and not a white dog.

- Retar bites Tanigaki’s leg and use it to toss Tanigaki around, breaking his leg and causing him to go unconscious, before attempting to bite his throat and kill him. Differently from Tamai and Noma, Tanigaki won’t attempt to fight at all.

- Asirpa stops Retar from killing Tanigaki, saving his life. Later, fearing Sugimoto would finish him off, Asirpa will tell him he’s dead, potentially saving Tanigaki’s life a second time. Tanigaki will never thanks her for this, although, as he was unconscious, he might not have realized she had made sure he wasn’t killed.

- Between telling Sugimoto Tanigaki is alive and leaving him in Hokkaido’s wilderness Asirpa judges the safest option for Tanigaki is to be left there as she assumes he’s tough enough to survive this. Her assumption is slightly off as Tanigaki could have probably handle it on his own if he had tried going back, as Tanigaki tried to chase them he fainted and needed to be rescued by Nihei.

- Asirpa’s assumption on they being safe because he can’t go after them with his leg snapped like this is not taking into consideration that if Tanigaki had gone back he could have told to the other soldiers exactly where they met and who they are, with the result that many soldiers would came for them, aware they should search for a man and an Ainu child.

- Asirpa’s reasoning to stop Retar is she didn’t want him to become a Wen Kamuy due to her, though she thanks him for saving her.

- This time Retar not only approaches Asirpa and laps her face but let her rub his belly and scratch his favourite spots as he remained there with an expression of enjoyment. However, as soon as Sugimoto comes close, Retar takes a majestic pose and then hurries to leave.

- It’s worth to mention Asirpa too, once she got rid of Tanigaki, didn’t run to try save Sugimoto but remained with Retar, petting him. However for her it was probably the first time she got herself threatened by a soldier and, anyway, according to the plan she was meant to escape. It’s noteworthy though how things will change for Asirpa as well and worrying about Sugimoto trying to run to help him will become often the first thing she will do in the future.

- Probably, seeing Tanigaki on the ground, taken down by the wolf, subtly drove in Sugimoto’s mind the point Asirpa had been in danger.

- In the past chapter Sugimoto warned the cub he couldn’t promise him Asirpa won’t turn him into Citatap. We see he meant it for real as first, he very clumsily tries to hide the cub in his coat, then, when he’ll get discovered IMMEDIATELY, he tries to childishly deny its presence as he think she’ll want to eat it. As it’ll be clear Asirpa saw the cub, he’ll claim he’ll take care of the cub and will be his mother, to which Asirpa points out he doesn’t know how to do. At this he won’t dare to oppose to her, handing it for her to eat it, although he’ll say he won’t manage to eat his brain. Honestly, if this was how hard he was going to fight for the cub’s survival he could have abandoned him there. Asirpa is right in saying he doesn’t know how to take care of it, but he could have said something along the lines of ‘I’ll learn’, instead he gives up. Also his approach to the whole thing is very childish, though probably this is due to Noda wanting the thing to be ‘funny’.

- Although Asirpa didn’t mean to be creepy looking not to eat the cub, Sugimoto saw her like that and was surprised when she told him Ainu don’t eat cubs but raise them, which is why she’ll bring him to her village.

- Asirpa is welcomed by the children of the village, showing she’s popular among them. Women also, seeing her, recognize her.

- In the anime the man near the Pu is Makanakkuru. In the manga, unless Makanakkuru’s character design underwent a drastic change, he seems to be another man who still get a close up and to give a long stare to Sugimoto and Asirpa.

- Sugimoto is confused because no one seems to be afraid of him. Asirpa explains him Ainu are curious and love new things but Sugimoto’s problem is another. As he thinks it was Asirpa’s village which was gathering money to fight the Japanese, he believes he’s unwelcomed there and therefore sees again the village as threatening looking through his ‘Sugimoto vision’ and therefore wants to leave the cub there and then go away immediately. It’ll take him a while to realize, as Asirpa said, Ainu are really just curious and don’t aim to harm him.

- Asirpa’s grandmother is her grandmother on her mother’s side. She seems serious and Asirpa explains she can’t talk Japanese but she still wants Sugimoto to spend there the night as he’s the first guest Asirpa brought there. Asirpa also explains that Huci’s husband was the most important man in the village therefore nobody would say anything against her and add as a proof how Huci’s tattoo is very large because the more important the man, the larger is the tattoo the wife gets. From this we can speculate Asirpa’s grandfather was the head of the village. We don’t know though who the current head is.

- Greeting Asirpa’s grandmother is one of the few instances in which Sugimoto removes his hat. Meeting her he calls her ‘Obā-san’ (お婆さん “Grandmother).

- As soon as Tanigaki wakes up, he lights a fire and takes care of his wound. However he decides he won’t search for his companions or go back to report to Tsurumi what had happened but that he’ll hunt Retar and won’t stop until he had killed him, blaming his Matagi (hunter) blood in him. This act actually constitute desertion and more than his Matagi blood what’s to blame is the fact he is hiding in Tsurumi’s troops because he’s ashamed of himself, yet he doesn’t see the army as his place and longs to go back home.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Asirpa: “You're the last Horkew Kamuy (wolf god), I couldn't bear it if you became a Wen Kamuy (Evil God) for my sake. Still, thank you for saving me.” (‘Omae wa saigo no horkew kamuy (ōkami no kami-sama) na ndakara, watashi no tame ni Wen Kamuy (warui kami-sama) nanka ni natcha dame. Demo tasuketekurete arigatō’ お前は最後のホロケウカムイ（狼の神様）なんだから、私のためにウェンカムイ（悪い神様）なんかになっちゃだめ。でも助けてくれてありがとう)

- Asirpa: “Here we go～who's a good wolf!? this is your favorite spot, right? I remember～” (‘Yooo~shi, yoshi yoshi yoshi koko ka? Kokoda na? Shitteru zo?’ よおぉーし、よしよしよしここか？ここだな？知ってるぞ？ Lit: “Gooood, good, good, right here? Is it here? I remember it.”)

Asirpa: “… Let’s go. He’s already dead.” (‘…Ikou mō shin deru’ …行こうもう死んでる)

Sugimoto: “I'll take good care of him! I'll be his new mother!” (‘Koitsu wa ore ga mendōmiru ~tsu! Hahaoya kawari ni naru nda a!!’ こいつは俺が面倒見るッ！母親代わりになるんだあ!! Lit: “I’ll takes care of this guy! I'll be his substitute mother!”)

Sugimoto: “Fine, I understand… but you’ll have to eat him alone! I can’t bear the thought of putting salt on his poor brain and eating it!” (‘Wakatta… koitsu wa Asirpa-san dake de kutte kure. Koitsu no nō miso ni shio kakete kuu toka oreniha murida’ わかった…こいつはアシㇼパさんだけで食ってくれ。

こいつの脳ミソに塩かけて食うとか俺には無理だ Lit: “Okay… Only Asirpa-san should eat this guy. It's impossible for me to sprinkle salt on his brain and eat it.”)

Asirpa: “Huh? I'm not going to eat him. when we find a bear cub during a hunt. it's our tradition to raise it in the village.” (‘Hā? Taben zo. Watashi-tachi ha ryō de koguma o tsukamaetara mura de taisetsu ni sodateru fūshū ga aru’ はあ？食べんぞ。私たちは猟で子熊を捕まえたら村で大切に育てる風習がある Lit: “What? I won't eat it. If we catch a cub when we’re hunting, we have a custom of carefully raising it in the village.”)

Asirpa: “We Ainu are more curious than anyone! deep down, we just love new things!” (‘Ainu wa kōkishin ōseida. “Atarashimonozuki”na nda’ アイヌは好奇心旺盛だ。『新し物好き』なんだ Lit: “The Ainu are brimming with curiosity. The ‘We love new things’ type”)

Asirpa: “Look at this tattoo! The more important the man, the larger the tattoo his wife can get.” (‘Miro. Kono irezumi. Erai hito no okusan hodo ōkina irezumi o suru nda’ 見ろ。この入れ墨。偉い人の奥さんほど大きな入れ墨をするんだ)

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12. KAMUY MOSIR (カムイモシリ KAMUI MOSHIRI)

First printed: 06/November/2014 Weekly Young Jump 49

Characters: Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Huci (フチ), Makanakkuru (マカナックル), Unarpe (ウナルペ)*, Ekasi (エカシ), Hapo (ハポ), Osoma (オソマ), Wilk (ウイルク), Ushiyama Tatsuma (牛山辰馬), Hijikata Toshizō (土方歳三), prostitute.

Location: Asirpa’s village near Otaru, Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: None

Time: 1907/1908 (?) Late February

Historical events mentioned: None

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Asirpa, her grandparents and her parents.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None

Character deaths: Ekasi (illness), Hapo (illness)

Animal deaths: Bear cub (killed in a Iomante)

New Ainu words:

- Kamuy mosir: “Land of the gods”

- *Unarpe (ウナルペ): Aunt (to be honest this word isn’t used in this chapter but as Asirpa’s aunt is still unnamed and Asirpa names her relatives using Ainu words I listed her as such)

- Iteseni: Stand for weaving mats.

- Asirpa ekimne patek ki wa menoko monrayke eaykap: Asirpa spends all her time in the mountains, and can't do a woman's work.

- Kemeiki neya itese neya menoko monrayke eaykap menoko anak aynu hoku kor ka eaykap: A woman that cannot sew or knit is unable to get an Ainu husband.

- Tane sinuye kuni paha ne kor ka kopan: She's nearly of age to get tattooed, but she refuses.

- Sugimoto Nispa tan matkaci etun wa encore: Mr. Sugimoto, please take this girl as your wife.

- Tan kumippoho kuepotara wa mosir kuhoppa ka koyaykus: So long as I'm still worried about her future, I can't depart this world in peace.

- Nispa: Mister

- Sinna kisar: “Strange ears”

- Si taktak: “Clump of feces”

- Opkehur: “The farter”

- Huuratekki: “Raised stinky”

- Ekasiotonpuy: “Grandfather’s butthole”

- Kimun Kamuy: Bear

- Heperset: Cage for bear cubs

- Iomante: “To send something/someone off”. Ceremony in which the bear cubs are sent off.

Food and drinks: Mixture of meat broth and rice water

Useful info and points to ponder:

- Asirpa explains only her and her grandmother live in that house as her aunt and uncle live in a different one. Her mother died of illness soon after giving birth to her so that she never really knew her. We know though it wasn’t IMMEDIATELY after giving birth to her because in late chapters it will be shown that she was filmed while holding Asirpa on her back. Asirpa’s grandfather fell sick and died 6 years ago. This is relevant because, as he likely was the head of the village, it’s possible he was the Ainu who knew about the gold hideout. In chap 2 Asirpa said the ‘Noppera-bō incident’ took place 5 years ago, therefore AFTER her grandfather’s death. This might mean her grandfather passed the info to Wilk, his firstborn husband and, after his death, Wilk decided to act. On the other side later Noda said Wilk was in jail by 7 years, therefore BEFORE her grandfather’s death so the old man might have known something about it. It’s also worth to note that, if Asirpa considers Huci’s home her home, it’s possible Wilk never built a home for himself, his wife and daughter. Now… this would happen among Ainu if there was no male heir that could inherit, so the daughter’s husband would move in his wife’s home and become a family member. However we were lead to think Makanakkuru is Huci’s son which would make him the male heir. That is unless he’s actually not Huci’s son but was adopted into the family because he married the second daughter or because he was parentless. We’ll see.

- Huci calls Sugimoto ‘Sugimoto Nispa’ while, from now, on he’ll call her ‘Obā-chan’ (お婆ちゃん “Grandmother”) (in the previous chapter it was ‘Obā-san’ (お婆さん “Grandmother)).

- Huci complains that since Asirpa spends all her time on the mountains and can’t do woman works like sewing or knitting won’t get an Ainu husband. Plus, despite being nearly of the age to get tattooed she refuses doing so. Due to all this Huci asks Sugimoto to marry Asirpa because, as long as she’s worried for her future, she can’t depart this world in peace. Long story short very likely Huci invited Sugimoto to spend the night because she thought he could become Asirpa’s husband and that’s why she brought him home.

- Note that Huci didn’t mean they should marry right then but Ainu had no problems to promise children in marriage by arrangement between his or her parents and the parents of his or her betrothed, although the marriage would happen only when the involved kid/kids would be of a marriageable age, which, for women, was around 15 to 16 years of age (varied from village to village), the age in which they were regarded as adult and in which her tattoo is complete. Marring a Sisam was often encouraged among Ainu because it was believed it would lessen discrimination toward them.

- We’ve heard that the pimp speculated Asirpa is around 12/13, which would yes, make her close to marriageable age.

- Tattoo age varied from village to village, with some starting when the child was 6/7 and other doing it later, when the child was around 11 years old, and other even later, also due to the Japanese ban on tattooing (the ban were done in 1799 and 1871, with the ban renewed in 1976) that didn’t stop the tattooing practice but required it was done in secrecy. The real important point though is that, according to Ainu women, marring without tattoos was a great sin and, if they did, the legend said, they would die and go to hell where the demons would take large knives and do the tattooing all at once. It’s worth to note the profession of tattooist was exclusive to Ainu females and being tattooed rather painful as they would do it by cutting he skin with a knife and then rubbing soot into the wound.

- After Huci asked Sugimoto to marry Asirpa we can see her face is slightly flushed and her ears are red but she refuses to translate her grandmother’s words and, lowering her gaze, say to Sugimoto instead Huci had said people shouldn’t eat poop.

- Sugimoto doesn’t seem to notice Asirpa’s embarrassment nor how Huci supposedly shouldn’t know he eat Miso/poop and cheerfully replies it’s not poop but Miso, though one of his brows is furrowed. Through the story is hard to say if he’s really completely oblivious to Asirpa’s crush on him or he’s just pretending to be, because not interested.

- Osoma is Asirpa’s cousin. Ainu children were raised almost naked until about the ages of four to five but at 6 they would be given a real name. From this is possible to speculate Osoma is around 4/5 years old as she’s dressed but also still retain her filthy name (when Tanigaki will be back after a year she’s still called Osoma… has Noda forgotten about this, has she kept her filthy name or is she still not 6 yet?).

- Asirpa’s filthy name was Ekasiotonpuy, which means “Grandfather’s butthole”.

- Sugimoto continues viewing bears as “monsters” (怪物 ‘Kaibutsu’), commenting it’s hard the bear cub will become one when he grows up. However he previously called the bears he met ‘bakemono’ (バケモノ “monster”). It seems the difference is that a ‘Kaibutsu’ is something that looks ugly or creepy or unidentifiable and therefore is defined as a “monster” while a ‘bakemono’ got some supernatural power and turn into a “monster”. So it’s possible while Sugimoto saw the other bears as nearly supernatural creatures he was afraid of, in regard to the cub he’s just telling he’ll become something as creepy as them. However there are actually debates over the implications of the two words so take this with a grain of salt.

- Asirpa discourage Sugimoto to keep on petting the bear cub, saying he’ll get attached to it so, when he’ll have to say goodbye to it, it would hurt. She knows that, when the bear will grow up, Ainu ‘will send him to the land of the Gods’. Therefore Asirpa doesn’t pet the cub because, if she keep her distance, she won’t get too attached and it won’t hurt parting from it. She explains when she was a child she doted on a bear cub like she would with a younger brother so, before it got ‘sent away’ she unsuccessfully tried to sneak him out and return him to the mountains. She got discovered and the adults were furious with her but she was so sad that she couldn’t take part to the sending away ceremony. In short, prior to her father’s death Asirpa was already thinking distancing herself from people would spare her from the pain of loss.

- Sugimoto’s idea they’ll return the bear in the wild is naïve. Asirpa has explained not much ago how Ainu use every part of the bear and they’re bear hunters. Of course, if they were to have a bear they wouldn’t release it to the wild to just hunt and kill it later.

- Sugimoto is overall negative about the idea of ‘sending back’ the bear cub. He calls it ‘killing’ and, even after Asirpa explains him their religious beliefs he questions her, saying if she really believed in this, killing the cub (Sugimoto says “killing the bear cub” [子熊を殺すことは ‘koguma o korosu’] not “sending it back”) wouldn’t be a sad thing and that therefore she’s avoiding the cub because she doesn’t believe it. Basically Sugimoto, who doesn’t believe in the Ainu beliefs, is trying to have her saying she doesn’t believe in them as well.

- Asirpa’s reply is very clever. She defends Ainu beliefs saying that within them there’s a lesson that help them to survive. Basically they wrap Ainu’s actions in a narrative that make easier to make things that are beneficial to Ainu like killing the bear cub LATER instead than IMMEDIATELY ensures them more meat and fur. This makes Asirpa thinks that the overall teaching is correct. In fact the bear cub has to be killed once is older as they need its meat and fur. You can strip the whole thing of the story the bear cub is sent back but you can’t say killing the bear cub is wrong, on this Asirpa is firm. On the other side she acknowledges that, even if killing the bear cub is right, this wouldn’t save her form the pain of saying goodbye so she keeps her distance so as not to get hurt.

- In a way the whole thing presents parallels with how Sugimoto will spin a narrative in which it’s okay to kill Russians and convicts because they’re soulless evil people. The problem here is that Asirpa doesn’t tell him killing the cub is right because it’ll go back to the world of gods but because they need meat and will confirm that saying goodbye to it is painful while Sugimoto will tell her she shouldn’t feel pain for bad guys’ death because they’re soulless and don’t feel pain when they died. Asirpa doesn’t hide herself between a nice narrative, she faces the truth and acknowledges it’s painful so she tries to protect herself from it by distancing herself. Sugimoto hides the truth (during the war he needed to kill to survive) behind a narrative that dehumanize his opponent. On the surface it can seem similar but, by being aware of the truth of her actions (she kills the cub because she needs to eat) Asirpa can control them (she doesn’t need to kill the cub if she were to have enough food). Sugimoto instead ends up on blurring the borders because if you embrace the fact that people who oppose to him are bad and won’t feel pain when killed you can kill them regardless of your survival being involved (which is why he can consider involving himself in murdering the convicts for gold even if the convicts weren’t directly threatening him), won’t just distance from them but dehumanize them and overall have problems copying with his instinctive sense of guilt as he tries to suppress it as unneeded… though of course, Sugimoto’s problems stem from very traumatic experiences so it’s sadly normal he developed maladaptive coping mechanisms.

- On a sidenote Asirpa’s attachment for Sugimoto in a way parallel the attachment she felt for that bear cub as, if everything goes according to Sugimoto’s plan, he’s not going to stay in Hokkaido but go back to his village to marry Umeko. It doesn’t help Sugimoto gets paralleled to a bear.

- Sugimoto comments that Asirpa’s way of thinking is ‘genjitsuteki’ (現実的) which can mean “realistic”, “pragmatic” and “practical”. I’ve heard there’s some debate on which would be the better translation but I’ll let the decision to people more competent than me. What hits me is that Sugimoto then comments Asirpa is different from other Ainu. While I think he means it as a compliment toward Asirpa… well, he’s learning about Ainu and Ainu culture through her so from where his impression on how other Ainu are if not from stereotypes? In a way his statement mirrored the one of Asirpa. She thought him being a good warrior was impressive for a sisam, he thinks her being realistic/pragmatic is uncommon for an Ainu. To Asirpa’s credit though, she had to interact with Sisam more than he had to interact with Ainu (to sell what she hunted and buy things, in fact she had explained how she got used at them insulting her) so, at least, her opinion is based on a partial direct contact.

- Asirpa’s name was given to her by her father. As we had learnt in this chapter children get their real name at around 6, this means Wilk was still around when she was 6. She explains it means “new year” but also “future” declaring this means she’s a new kind of Ainu woman for a new age. It would be interesting to know exactly how she has gotten her name as we know Wilk had ambitions for her but Asirpa explained names are given according to the children’s personalities and what they’ve done in life not what their parents hope for them so I’d like to know what she did/say that made her have such name. Was it just the fact she preferred to hunt versus sewing and knitting? Or there’s a story behind it?

- Hijikata and Ushiyama’s meeting take place in one of the many brothels in Otaru that also doubles as a soba restaurant.

- Hijikata informs us that Ushiyama, whose nick is “Ushiyama, the undefeated” (‘Fuhai no Ushiyama’ 不敗の牛山 ) has a voracious sexual appetite, the consequence of which was the prostitute he was with tattled out his presence to Hijikata.

- Ushiyama’s reaction at having been betrayed is to toss the prostitute at Hijikata. There’s to say Ushiyama tends to toss things. When they’ll go to Shibukawa he tosses one of his men through the roof, when facing the 7th, he tosses Shiraishi at them and when they fight with the fake Ainu he tosses Ekurok at them. So, not only for him it’s normal to toss people, but as she has just betrayed him to a man who Ushiyama assumes is there to kill him, he likely wasn’t going to be considerate with her. On the other side I’ve had the feeling Noda has later shifted Ushiyama’s characterization a bit so it’s possible Ushiyama originally was meant to be a worse person than the one he ended up on being in the end.

- When Hijikata place his sword against Ushiyama’s forehead the sound effect implies a tapping, meaning Hijikata wasn’t trying to cut Ushiyama’s head but is holding his sword there merely to threaten him.

- Ushiyama also got a Type 26 revolver, likely by the soldiers they had killed when they escaped.

- Differently from what Asirpa thought it isn’t necessary to skin the convicts to get their tattoo, Hijikata, who was the leader of the escape plan, knows it’s enough to cover the body in oil paper and trace the tattoo so as to get a precise copy. When he says so he shows Ushiyama a copy of a tattoo. It should be supposedly his own as, at the time, he had no others, but as Ushiyama isn’t yet his ally and the manga pointed out more than once how copies might not be reliable (Ushiyama himself saying so to Shiraishi), I wonder if that copy is a fake.

- Hijikata as with himself a couple of underlings. It’s unknown where he got them but he asks Ushiyama to join as well. Through the story Hijikata will recruit more convicts and voice his concern over the mistreatment of the convicts so, although he’s completely capable to kill men without hesitation, it’s possible he meant to join hands with all the 24 convicts.

- In a way Hijikata is set up as the direct antagonist of Tsurumi as they’re both two bright and manipulative army men who dream to make a separate state out of Hokkaido.

- To Ushiyama who asks him if Hijikata plans to face the army with a sword, which is nothing else but a relic of the past, Hijikata replies age doesn’t matter, boys just love playing with swords… through it’s worth to note we’ll discover Hijikata uses a rifle well enough. So he’s likely aware of the sword being a relic but he still swing it because he evidently favours it.

Notable changes from the magazine version:

- This chapter in the magazine version had a color cover. In the volume version it has been turned into a black and white one. It’s also worth to mention this cover has the same image that will be used for the volume cover.

Notable quotes:

- Asirpa: “My aunt and uncle live in a different Cise (house)” (‘Betsu no Chise (ie) ni oji fūfu ga iru’ 別のチセ（家）におじ夫婦がいる Lit: “In a different cise (house) are my uncle and his wife.”)

- Asirpa: “Once children turn six years old and have formed their own personalities, we give them a real name based on what they've done in life.” (‘6-Sai kurai ni natte seikaku ga dete ki tari Sonoko ga okoshita dekigoto nado ni chinande chanto shita namaewotsukeru’ ６歳くらいになって性格が出てきたりその子が起こした出来事などにちなんでちゃんとした名前を付ける Lit: “When around 6 the child’s personality has appeared and we give him a decent name after the events that happened to him.”)

- Asirpa: ““Kill” isn't exactly the right word. We think of it as "sending him back. All the useful things around us, all the things with power beyond our control, we revere them all as Kamuy (Gods). We've maintained a good relationship with the Kamuy by expressing courtesy and gratitude.” (‘Korosu to iu yori “okurikaesu” to iu kangaekatada. Watashitachiha minomawari no yakudatsu mono-ryoku no oyobanai mo no, subete o Kamuy (kami) to shite atsukai, kansha no girei o tōshite yoi kankei o tamotte kita’ 殺すと言うより『送り返す』という考え方だ。私たちは身の回りの役立つもの力の及ばないもの、すべてをカムイ（神）として扱い、感謝の儀礼を通して良い関係を保ってきた Lit: “Rather than to kill it our thought is ‘to send it back’. We treat everything that is useful and that is beyond our power as Kamui (God), and we have maintained a good relationship through courtesy and gratitude.”)

- Sugimoto: “Do you really believe all that Asirpa? If you believed it, then sending that bear cub off wouldn't have been anything to get sad about, right?” (‘Asirpa-san wa sore shinji teru no? Shinji tetara koguma o korosu koto wa kanashī koto janai ndaro?’ アシㇼパさんはそれ信じてるの？信じてたら子熊を殺すことは悲しい事じゃないんだろ？Lit: “Does Miss Asirpa believe in that? If you believed in it, it wouldn’t be a sad thing to kill the bear cub, right?”)

- Sugimoto: “Could it be that some part of you didn't believe it, so you tried to let the bear escape?” (‘Doko ka de shinji tenaikara koguma o sake teru n janai no kai?’ どこかで信じてないから子熊を避けてるんじゃないのかい？ Lit: “Maybe you're avoiding the bear cub because you don't believe it somewhere?”)

- Asirpa: “Within every belief lies a useful lesson to help us survive. For example, If we raise the bear cub instead of killing it right away, that means we end up with more meat and fur. We've lived our lives following those lessons so I believe that they are correct. But that doesn't mean saying goodbye doesn't hurt. That's why I keep my distance, so I won't get too attached.” (‘Shinkō no nakaniha watashitachi ga ikiru jutsu ga haitteru. Tatoeba tsukamaeta koguma o sodateru no wa ōkiku nareba soredake kegawa ya niku ga torerukarada to watashi wa omou. Sō yatte watashitachi wa ikite kitakara tadashī kotoda to watashi wa shinji teru. Demo wakareru sabishisa wa dō shiyō mo nai. Dakara watashi wa kesshite jō ga utsuranai yō ni kyoriwooku nda’ 信仰の中には私たちが生きる術が入ってる。例えば捕まえた子熊を育てるのは大きくなればそれだけ毛皮や肉がとれるからだと私は思う。そうやって私たちは生きてきたから正しい事だと私は信じてる。でも別れるさびしさはどうしようもない。だから私は決して情が移らないように距離を置くんだ Lit: “Inside our faith there is the means for us to we live. For example, I think that the reason for raising a caught cub is that the larger it gets, the more fur and meat we can take. In this way we have survived so that’s why I believe it’s correct. But the loneliness of breaking up can't be avoided. That ’s why I keep my distance.”)

- Sugimoto: “That's a very pragmatic way of looking at it. You really seem like you're a bit different from the other Ainu.” (‘Kangaekata ga genjitsu-tekida na. Yappari Asirpa-san tte Ainu no naka demo chotto kawatteru n janai no?’ 考え方が現実的だな。やっぱりアシㇼパさんってアイヌの中でもちょっと変わってるんじゃないの？ Lit: “This way of thinking is realistic. After all isn't Asirpa-san a bit different among the Ainu?”)

Asirpa: “My father gave me the name Asirpa. It means "New year" but it can also means "Future." I'm a new kind of Ainu woman, for a new age!” (‘Asirpa to iu na wa chichi ga tsuketa. ‘Atarashī toshi’ to iu imidaga ‘mirai’ tomo kaishaku dekiru. Watashi wa atarashī jidai no Ainu no on'nana nda!’ アシㇼパという名は父がつけた。「新しい年」という意味だが「未来」とも解釈できる。わたしは新しい時代のアイヌの女なんだ！)

Hijikata: “Your voracious sexual appetite has cost you. wouldn't you agree, Ushiyama the undefeated?” (‘Ōseina seiyoku ga ada ni natta na. Fuhai no Ushiyama!’ 旺盛な性欲がアダになったな。不敗の牛山！ Lit: “Your voracious sexual appetite has cost you. Ushiyama the undefeated!”)

Hijikata: “It doesn't matter how old you are. Boys just love to play with swords, right?” (‘Ikutsu ni natte mo danshi wa katana o furimawasu no ga sukidarou?’ いくつになっても男子は刀を振り回すのが好きだろう？Lit: “No matter how old it may be, boys like to swing their swords around, don’t they?”)

——————————————————————————

13. GUARDIAN SPIRIT (憑き神 TSUKIGAMI)

First printed: 13/November/2014 Weekly Young Jump 50

Characters: Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Makanakkuru (マカナックル), Osoma (オソマ), Wilk (ウイルク), Huci (フチ), Tsurumi Tokushirō (鶴見篤四郎), Tamai (玉井), Noma (野間), Okada (岡田), Tanigaki Genjirō (谷垣源次郎), Wada (和田), Tsukishima Hajime (月島基).

Location: Near Otaru, Asirpa’s village near Otaru, Mukden (currently Shenyang) (China).

Other Places mentioned: 203 hill in Port Arthur (current Lüshunkou) (China), Mukden (currently Shenyang) (China).

Time: 1907/1908 (?) Late February

Historical events mentioned: Russo-Japanese war (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) Siege of Port Arthur (1 August 1904 – 2 January 1905), Battle of Mukden (20 February - 10 March 1905), the Treaty of Portsmouth (September 5, 1905)

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Asirpa and Retar and about Tamai, Noma, Okada and Tanigaki and about Tsurumi.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape:

The people in Asirpa’s village were hoarding gold to battle against the Sisam… which led to the gold being stolen and Asirpa’s father being killed along with all his comrades. Their ancestors gathered all that gold and for decades it lay untouched by anyone then some men decided to use it to buy weapons. Everyone in the village believes they were killed by the wrath of the Wakkaus Kamuy. Ainu do not use rivers to do laundry or wash away excrements but people decided to pan the water for gold, causing the water to grow cloudy and the fishes unable to breathe, risking to cause their disappearance and the disappearance of the animals that feed on them. Soiling the water to gather weapons for war should never have been done therefore the gold was possessed by some sort of evil spirit and cursed. (Source: Makanakkuru)

Character deaths: Makanakkuru’s cousin (got hit by an amappo), 7 Ainu (killed in the Noppera-bō incident), Wada (shoot in the head by Tsukishima as per Tsurumi’s orders)

Animal deaths: Sakhalin sculpins

New Ainu words:

- Heperesinotpe: A special toy for bear cubs

- Raomap: Trap for catching river fishes

- Amappo: Arrow trap used to catch animals

- Wakkaus Kamuy: God of the water

- Turenpe: Guardian spirit that comes in and out through the back of the neck

- Kinaohaw: Soup made with many vegetables.

- Sutu: Punishment road.

Food and drinks: Sakhalin sculpins, Kinaohaw with roasted sculpin, daikon, carrots, potato, spinach and kombu (Sugimoto also adds Miso to it)

Useful info and points to ponder:

- Sugimoto carries around the bear cub holding it in his coat.

- When Makanakkuru stops Sugimoto from turning on the Amappo, Sugimoto’s first though, as he hadn’t realized about the trap, was being ‘unfriendly’ with him. In fact Sugimoto’s reply ‘Nanka-yō ka?’ (なんか用か？“What do you want?”) sounds rude because apparently you use it when you suspect something and the background behind Sugimoto darkens. Sugimoto will later apologize for this, explaining why was his reason for his rudeness.

- Makanakkuru explains how aconite poisoning from the Amappo would cause one to suffer for a long time instead than dying instantly, killing the person slowly.

- Makanakkuru mentions his cousin got hit by an Amappo but, although he manage d to get out the arrow, as there was still poison inside the wound he was in agony for several days, his body swelled up and he died.

- Asirpa’s arrows also have aconite poison but evidently in a much bigger amount as she states a bear would only manage to make 10 step while a human won’t manage to make one. After hearing all this, it’s impressive Ogata managed to survive being hit by one of Asirpa’s arrows.

- Makanakkuru uses ‘watashi’ (私) to say “I”.

- Makanakkuru, after telling Sugimoto his name, explains him Asirpa is his OLDER sister’s (‘ane’ 姉) daughter and Osoma’s father. The fact that Makanakkuru calls Asirpa’s mother his ‘older sister’ doesn’t necessarily mean they’re related by blood as, although there’s a Japanese word for ‘sister-in-law’ you can also call her just ‘sister’. What we can see for now is he doesn’t resemble neither Huci nor Asirpa’s mother (though Huci might have gotten small eyes due to her old age), while Osoma’s mom seems to have Huci’s square face and a nose more similar to hers. However, unless it’ll be specifically said or we’ll get to see Asirpa’s grandfather we won’t be able to tell if Makanakkuru took from him or not.

- We learn from Makanakkuru that since Asirpa lost her father she’s been going into the mountains alone. In the past chapter we discovered she learnt to distance herself from others so as not to suffer when it would be time to say goodbye. As we’ll later learn she had tried forgetting Wilk, her going in the mountains was probably also a way to distance herself from others after undergoing the trauma of losing her father.

- Makanakkuru says he had been worried about her so now he can rest easier since there’s a strong guy like Sugimoto with her and that since Asirpa is smart (‘Asirpa wa atamagaī’ アシリパは頭がいい “Asirpa has a good head”), if she likes Sugimoto this means he’s not a bad guy. My general impression is Makanakkuru too, like Huci, thinks Sugimoto is there to marry Asirpa.

- Sugimoto’s reply can either be ‘it’s him who gets saved by Asirpa’ or ‘it’s him who gets helped by Asirpa’. At this point, Asirpa has only saved him from the bear but all her teaching and hospitality are helping Sugimoto to live in Hokkaido.

- I do wonder if Sugimoto’s apology, which comes kind of late, is because Makanakkuru said since Asirpa like him he’s shouldn’t be a “bad guy” (‘warui yatsu’ 悪い奴) and Sugimoto felt the need to confirm he isn’t by politely apologizing or if it’s an attempt to push Makanakkuru to talk.

- Makanakkuru asks Sugimoto if he heard about the story of the gold from Asirpa. Evidently he wasn’t told that Sugimoto learnt about it from Gotou and he’s assuming Asirpa told him that to explain her father’s death. In short Makanakkuru might not know Sugimoto and Asirpa are searching for the gold.

- In chap 2 I wondered about Asirpa’s words which only implied it was the people of her village which was involved in this. Makanakkuru instead says clearly it was the people from THEIR village which collected the gold dust to fight the Sisam… when we know at least two people weren’t from Asirpa’s village. Retcon or Makanakkuru is misleading Sugimoto? Asirpa was young so she might not have known not everyone was from her village but Makanakkuru should have done it.

- It might mean nothing but normally they were talk of ‘kinkai’ (金塊 “gold nuggets”). Makanakkuru here talks instead of ‘Sakin’ (砂金 “gold dust”). As of now I’ve managed to find the word ‘Sakin’ coming up only when Huci told the tale of the gold and when Hijikata said he knew the right amount of it. It might have been used other times and I might have missed it, of course but still it’s worth pondering.

- In the manga Sugimoto merely asks Makanakkuru “Who do you think was the criminal who stole the gold?” which scanlation preferred to translate it with “Do you have any idea who it was that killed them?” assuming the crime is to murder those Ainu. The anime instead modifies the sentence so it’s not vague anymore and becomes “Who do you think was the criminal who stole the gold?” (金塊を奪った犯人に心当たりは？ ‘Kinkai o ubatta han'nin ni kokoroatari wa?’). As the original sentence didn’t mention which was the crime, we can’t say if this addition was done in cooperation with Noda or it’s just an anime thing which however implies Sugimoto is more worried for the stolen gold than for the killed Ainu.

- Makanakkuru is rather vehement about how the river shouldn’t be polluted explaining how harmful it is gold panning for rivers. Long story short he believes they absolutely shouldn’t have done it, especially to support a war.

- When asked to say who could have killed the men Makanakkuru invoke the supernatural. It’s the wrath of Wakkaus Kamuy, the god of water. The gold dust was possessed by a ‘mamono’ (魔物 “evil spirit”) and cursed. In short he doesn’t pin the blame of those deaths on any human, be them Ainu or Sisam. They deserved it (because they dirtied the river) and the gods or the spirits punished them. Compared to how Asirpa searches always for a realistic explanation this seems pretty abstract… unless we’re meant to interpret it as ‘the men were killed to punish them for their actions’. This can also mean that Makanakkuru views the killer as someone who represents the gods and brought on those men their wrath… but as the Ainu think killing is wrong maybe Makanakkuru thinks who did the deed in order of doing it was possessed by something evil. It’s kind of like saying, they deserved it, but it wasn’t our place to punish them. It’s interesting how the visual at this point shows Wilk. At the time we didn’t know Wilk was innocent so we could think the visual did so to show who was to blame for the crime of murder… but, if anything, Wilk could have blamed for wanting to use the cursed gold to wage war.

- Huci can see the Turenpe (“guardian spirits”) residing on the back of people’s neck and offers food to her own. Much, much later (chap 231) we’ll discover she says her guardian spirit can tell her the sex of a baby about to be delivered.

- According to Huci Sugimoto has a very powerful Turenpe. Sugimoto wonders if it’s him who makes him immortal and then offers him food, pleasing Huci.

- The scene implies Asirpa will hit Sugimoto with the Sutu. A box explains us a Sutu is normally used for crimes like theft or punishment and therefore is not to be used lightly but to have a girl hit a man is sadly a type of gag that’s considered ‘fun’. So, while Asirpa does it clearly to assert her own authority (Sugimoto doesn’t have to disobey her or there will be punishment) and role as some sort of teacher, ultimately this is taken away by the scene intended to be humorous and clearly done with Sugimoto’s ‘permission’ as we know he could easily rip it from her.

- Overall Huci, who views Sugimoto as Asirpa’s future husband, seems pleased with his behaviour. He offered food to the guardian spirit, embracing Ainu traditions and Asirpa could, at the same time, ‘discipline’ him. It’s also worth to mention how Huci accepted Miso, that all the Ainu exchange for poop, without hesitations, proving either she trusts him or that she wouldn’t refuse an offering from him whatever it is (or that she knows Miso). I guess she thinks Sugimoto brings in the benefits of Asirpa marrying a Sisam (who, she believes, would accept her even if she didn’t know how to sew or knit as well as Sisam’s privileges) while embracing Ainu culture and obeying to her granddaughter. Honestly she feels naïve. She hadn’t realized Sugimoto isn’t interested in Asirpa like that but has another woman in mind and that he acts like that out of politeness not out of belief. This is made even more dangerous by the fact that at the time there were many Wajin who would come in Hokkaido, take an Ainu bride and then dump her when they would return back home.

- As he did for Ogata, Tsurumi is out with his men to search for Tamai and Co. With no luck this time.

- Tsurumi tells us that Tamai, Noma, Okada and Tanigaki are all experienced mountaineers, and Tanigaki is even from a Matagi family so it’s unlikely to believe they would get lost or stranded.

- Wada calls Tsurumi ‘kisama’ (貴様 “you”). As said in chap 5 ‘kisama’ is nowadays an insulting way to say “you”, normally translated as “you bastard” but back then it was the normal way to say “you” in the army. We don’t know though, if Noda is keeping this into consideration. So, while Wada is clearly angry at Tsurumi it’s hard to say if he’s being insulting or not in Noda’s intentions.

- Wada might sound rude to Tsurumi but his complains are all legitimate. Tsurumi shouldn’t have moved his men till Otaru (they were meant to stay in Asahikawa), among the men Tsurumi moved one ended up in critical conditions and four are missing. In addition Tsurumi also took weapons and ammunitions from Asahikawa (in fact we’ll notice later that even first class privates have, occasionally guns they weren’t supposed to have).

- Wada uses ‘watashi’ (私) to say “I”. His ranking is “Captain” (大尉 ‘Taii’) which makes him higher in rank than Tsurumi, who’s a First Lieutenant.

- Wada is drawn there by Tsukishima, who’s the one who’ll shoot him in the head. Very likely it was a trap to get rid of him. As we’ll learn Tsurumi prefers to deal with superior officers by blackmailing them or indebting them to him I guess this means Wada had no dark spots in his past as Tsurumi couldn’t blackmail him into obedience. On the other side, as Tsurumi could manipulate Yodogawa, he could have asked him to just remove Wada from duty or something instead than killing him so I wonder if there’s more than what it looks why on Wada’s death that made important for Tsurumi to kill him. It’s possible Wada too was connected to Ogata and Tamai’s rebellion, hence that’s why he worries about them so, by killing him in secrecy, he wanted the rebels to lose his support and, at the same time, it would work as a warning to them.

- For the first time we see Tsurumi’s brain leaking. Tsurumi explains that during the battle of Mukden a piece of shrapnel from an exploding shell lodged itself into the front of his scull which causes a bit of odd fluid to leak out. I wonder if the mention of that happening is painful for Tsukishima who has to steady himself to be ready to kill a superior officer.

- Tsurumi bites off Wada’s finger. I wonder if Wada pointing his finger awoke unpleasant memories (Tsurumi’s family lost its prestige, due to Tomoharu’s death he wasn’t allowed to advance) or if he did it just because he could. He claims it’s just because his frontal lobe took a bit of damage so he has troubles controlling his temper but that aside he’s the picture of good health and takes pride in his scars who, according to him, make him look dashing. I wonder if it’s more in them he sees Olga’s face disfigured by a bullet.

- Remember when I said Sugimoto almost killing a superior officer was a big deal? Wada wanted to have Tsurumi killed for biting his finger off… and it was completely okay at the time.

- Tsurumi has Wada be stripped off his uniform and buried. In short he plans to keep his death as a secret and have him ‘disappear’.

- Tsurumi paints the whole thing as a battle between lower ranks and higher ranks, claiming the graves their companions got in Manchuria were beneath the cold barren stone, that they hadn’t received reparation from Russia and therefore were left with nothing despite fighting to defend Japan’s borders and therefore their war is not over. Tsurumi conveniently skips on how, between him and Wada, there’s only a rank of difference.

- To clear up a little Tsurumi’s words in an historical contest:

The “graves our comrades in Manchuria got” likely refer to the many graves they left in Port Arthur, where, according to Tanigaki, more than a half of the 7th division died. I guess they can include the ones of the battle of Mukden as well, although they’re probably a reference to the scene of Tsurumi in front of the graves at Port Arthur.

The “reparations they still hadn’t received from Russia” refers to the Treaty of Portsmouth and to how from it Japan didn’t receive any Russian reparation. It’s not so much Japan’s fault on that, as Russia agreed to many things but would have preferred resuming the war than agreeing to give reparations to Japan for a war Japan started and here there’s the problem. Japan, despite doing well during the war, couldn’t sustain the continuation of it. So while Tsurumi’s talk might seem an attack to the state that gave up on fighting without pretending reparation, not considering that war over would have lead to Japan’s defeat. Therefore Japan did as well as it could and Tsurumi is merely feeding up the discontentment.

The soldiers left with nothing refers to something that Tanigaki will explain later, that when Hanazawa ‘committed suicide’ the government blamed the 7th division so they received no metal or monetary reward and were treated as outcasts. To be honest this is not an historical point as this didn’t happen in real life but just in “Golden Kamuy”.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Asirpa: “f you don't clean and gut sculpins right away, the flavor suffers! Hurry up and get them, you dolt!” (‘Kajika wa hayaku sabakanaito aji ga ochiru hayaku tori ni ike baka!’ カジカは早く捌かないと味が落ちる早く取りに行けバカ Lit: “Sculpins will lose their taste if they are not handled quickly! Go get it soon! Stupid!”)

- Sugimoto: “She's so cruel!” (‘Hidōī’ ヒドーイ Lit: “Mean!”)

- Sugimoto: “What do you want?” (‘Nanka-yō ka?’ なんか用か？)

- Makanakkuru: “My name is Makanakkuru! Asirpa is my sister’s daughter. And I’m Osoma’s father.” (‘Watashi no na wa makanakkuru. Asirpa wa watashi no ane no musume da. Soshite Osoma-chan no chichioya’ 私の名はマカナックル。アシㇼパは私の姉の娘だ。そしてオソマちゃんの父親)

- Makanakkuru: “Ever since Asirpa lost her father, she's been going into the mountains alone. I've been worried about her. I can rest easier knowing a strong guy like you is with her.” (‘Asirpa wa chichioya o nakushite karamo hitori de yama e itte shimaukara shinpaidatta. Omae mitaina tsuyo-sōna otoko ga isshonara anshinda’ アシㇼパは父親を亡くしてからもひとりで山へ行ってしまうから心配だった。お前みたいな強そうな男が一緒なら安心だ Lit: “Asirpa, after losing her father, had been going on the mountains alone, so I was worried. It’s safer if she’s together with a strong looking man like you.”)

Sugimoto: “No, I 'd say she spends most of the time saving me.” (‘Iyaiya kotchi ga tasuke rare-ppanashi de’ いやいやこっちが助けられっぱなしで Lit: “No, No, I’m the one who’s being helped by her.”)

- Makanakkuru: “Asirpa is a smart girl…If she likes you, it's safe to say that you're not such a bad guy.” (‘Asirpa wa atamagaī. Aitsu ga natsuku ndakara omae wa warui yatsu ja nai nodarou’ アシㇼパは頭がいい。あいつがなつくんだからお前は悪い奴じゃ無いのだろうLit: “Asirpa is smart. As a guy she’s emotionally attached at you are probably not a bad guy.”)

- Makanakkuru: “You heard the story from Asirpa, right? About how the people in our village were hoarding gold to battle against the Sisam… which led to the gold being stolen and Asirpa’s father being killed along with all his comrades.” (‘Asirpa kara kiita nodarou? Watashitachi no mura no ningen ga shisamu to tatakau tame ni sakin o atsumete ita ni to ya. Sore o ubawa rete Asirpa no chichi-tachi ga korosa reta koto’ アシㇼパから聞いたのだろう？私たちの村の人間がシサムと戦うために砂金を集めていたにとや… それを奪われてアシㇼパの父たちが殺されたこと Lit: “Did you hear it from Asia? How the people of our village were collecting gold dust to fight the Sisam… and that Asirpa’s father and the others were killed after being robbed of it”)

- Makanakkuru: “Our ancestors gathered all that Gold. and for decades, it lay untouched by anyone. then some men decided to use it to buy weapons.” (‘Ano sakin wa wareware no senzo ga totta mono de, nanjūnen mo zutto fure rarezu ni ita monodatta. Sore o ichibu no otoko-tachi ga buki o kaou to te o tsuketa’ あの砂金は我々の先祖が取ったもので、何十年もずっと触れられずにいたものだった。それを一部の男たちが武器��買おうと手を付けた)

- Sugimoto: “Do you have an idea who it was who killed them?” (‘Kinkai o ubatta han'nin ni kokoroatari wa?’金塊を奪った犯人に心当たりは？ “Who do you think was the criminal who stole the gold?”)

- Makanakkuru: “Everyone here believes it was the wrath of the Wakkaus Kamuy (God of the water). We Ainu don't do our laundry in the river, nor do we use it to wash away excrement. That’s how much we care about keeping the river clean. But the people decided to pan the waters for gold…” (‘Wakkaus kamui (mizu no kami) no ikarida to min'na itte iru. Ainu wa kawade wa sentaku o sezu haisetsu-mono mo nagasanai. Soko made shite wareware ga yogosanai yō ni ki o tsukete iru kawa de sakin nante torukara…’ ワッカウシカムイ（水の神）の怒りだとみんな言っている。アイヌは川では洗濯をせず排泄物も流さない。そこまでして我々が汚さないように気をつけている川で砂金なんて採るから… Lit: “Everyone says it's the wrath of Wakkaus Kamui (water god). Ainu in the river don't do laundry, nor do we wash away excrements. We go so far to take care of not getting the river dirty so taking gold dust...”)

- Makanakkuru: “Soiling these pristine waters just to gather weapons for war…It should never have been done. That Gold was possessed by some sort of evil spirit. it was cursed.” (‘Ainu ga arasoi no tame ni kawa o yogosu nante zettai ni atte wa naranai. Ano sakin wa mamono ga tsuite iru norowa reta monodatta noda’ アイヌが争いのために川を汚すなんて絶対にあってはならない。あの砂金は魔物が憑いている呪われたものだったのだ Lit: “The Ainu should have never pollute the river for a war. That gold dust was possessed by a demon and cursed.”)

- Wada: “How dare you take my men all the way out here to Otaru without my permission! What the hell do you think you're doing?” (‘Kisama watashi no buka-tachi o katte ni Otaru made hikitsurete. Dōiu tsumorida’ 貴様私の部下たちを勝手に小樽まで引き連れて。どういうつもりだ Lit: “How dare you take my subordinates and drag them to Otaru without permission. What did you mean to do?!”)

Wada: “In the first place, how the hell have you managed to keep the rank of first lieutenant with an injury like that!? I can't cover for you anymore! There's no longer any place for you in the imperial Japanese army!!” (‘Somosomo son'na kega no arisama de kongo mo chūi ga tsutomaru ka! Mō kabai kiren! Tsurumi! Kisama ga rikugun ni modoru basho wa mohaya nai to omoe! !’ そもそもそんな怪我のありさまで今後も中尉が務まるか！もう庇いきれん！鶴見！貴様が陸軍に戻る場所は最早無いと思え！！ Lit: “In the first place, how can you continue working as a lieutenant with such injuries? I'm not covering for you anymore! Tsurumi! There is no longer a place for you to return in the Army! !”)

Wada: “You're a goddamn lunatic. Fire at will.” (‘Shōkide wa nai na… ute’ 正気ではないな…撃て)

Tsurumi: “The only graves our comrades in manchuria got were beneath the cold, barren stones. We still haven't received any reparations from Russia. The soldiers that defended the frontier were left with nothing but barren, worthless land. Our war is not over.” (‘Sen'yū wa ima demo Manshū no areta tsumetai ishi no motoda. Roshia kara baishō-kin mo torezu, moto tondenhei no temoto ni nokotta mono wa yaseta tochi dake. Wareware no sensō wa mada owatte inai’ 戦友は今でも満州の荒れた冷たい石の下だ。ロシアから賠償金も取れず、元屯田兵の手元に残ったものはやせた土地だけ。我々の戦争はまだ終わっていない)

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14. HOWLING (遠吠え TŌBOE)

First printed: 20/November/2014 Weekly Young Jump 51

Characters: Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Osoma (オソマ), Huci (フチ), Makanakkuru (マカナックル), Retar (レタㇻ), Wilk (ウイルク), Ainu kids.

Location: Asirpa’s village near Otaru, near Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: None

Time: 1907/1908 (?) Late February

Historical events mentioned: None

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Asirpa, Wilk and Retar.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None.

Character deaths: None.

Animal deaths: River otter

New Ainu words:

- Esaman: River otter

- Kisarri: “Long-eared monster”. A toy of some sort you wave standing outside a window making terrifying noise to scare the children inside.

- Uko Karip Ciwe: “Ring catch”. An Ainu children’s game in which everyone competes to catch a ring made from vines and tossed into the air.

- Ratcako: A light stand that holds a scallop shell that contains whale or fish oil.

- Aca: “Father”.

- Sugimoto Nispa. Asirpa anakne kueyam pe ne. Neita pakno turano an wa unkoraye yan.: “Mr. Sugimoto. Asirpa means more to me than anything in the world. Please always be there for her.”

Food and drinks: River otter cut into bite sized chunks cooked into a ohaw with pukusa (alpine leeks), windflower, daikon and burdock root. Also boiled river otter head.

Useful info and points to ponder:

- According to Ainu, River Otter/Esaman are incredibly forgetful Kamuy, so eating them or mentioning them would cause people to forget things.

- Sugimoto is a complete fail at making scary sounds. Asirpa instead excels at them.

- Makanakkuru tells Sugimoto that while Asirpa and her father were out hunting one day they saved a tiny wolf cub from a bear. Since it looked like a tiny snowman they named it Retar, “White”. Asirpa and Retar were inseparable but after Asirpa’s father died they went up into the mountains however on a night they heard a howling and despite Asirpa’s pleading Retar to come back and not leave her, retar left, leaving her behind to cry for him and her father.

- Makanakkuru comments that Asirpa may act mature for her age but in the end she’s a lonely, fragile little girl who had smiled rarely since that day but recently seemed much happier because she enjoyed her time in the mountains with Sugimoto.

- Makanakkuru too, like Huci points out, how Asirpa, up till then, after her father’s death had lived for most of the time alone on the mountains, especially after Retar too left her. Likely this wasn’t just because she liked to be there but also because, due to the pain of her father’s loss, she has tried reducing her chances to form attachment to others in fear of losing them as she’s afraid to be abandoned again, something that Inkarmat will remark as well and that’s a fear she carried within herself from when the bear cub she loved like a brother died. Her isolation protected her from pain but, at the same time, bereft her of happiness. Humans are social animals though and, as she got closer to Sugimoto, as Makanakkuru noticed, she became much happier.

- Makanakkuru calls Sugimoto ‘Sugimoto-san’.

- Noda has Huci talk to Sugimoto but as no one translates what she says, he doesn’t know what she’s peaking about yet he still says he understands and that she means that she and everyone in the village love Asirpa very much. This is because Noda is subtly telling us Sugimoto is an “unreliable narrator” of some sort. In fact in many manga the main character’s interpretation of an event is THE RIGHT INTERPRETATION. However we’ve already seen more than once how ‘Sugimoto’s vision’ doesn’t match with the truth. He thinks Gotou is harmless and a guy who tells tall tales… he’s not. He thinks the men of the 7th trying to get the gold are the dregs of the unit… they’re not. He thinks Asirpa doesn’t care about him… she does. He thinks the soldiers won’t follow Asirpa… they do. He thinks the Ainu are unfriendly… they aren’t. He thinks Makkanakkuru has bad intentions… he saves his life. He thinks Huci is telling him she loves Asirpa very much which pushes him to leave her behind… when at the end of the volume in an extra page we see Huci is also telling him not to leave him. And in future chapters he will interpret things in the wrong way again and again. Sugimoto is not stupid, he’s simply not perceptive. He presents things as he sees them through his experiences but his role as main character doesn’t insure his interpretation is right so we can’t take Sugimoto’s opinions/interpretations as the one of a reliable narrator and therefore as facts just because he’s the main character, as he’s often wrong.

- I wonder if, while watching Asirpa playing with the other children, Sugimoto in a way felt cut out. Not that he was jealous of them but he probably realized those children were Asirpa’s words, she was meant to play with them and have fun. On the opposite Sugimoto has no one he was meant to be with, he’s with Asirpa, in her village, but he doesn’t belong to that place. While Asirpa has people who care for her he has no one. Yet he has grown attached to her as well, we see he thinks at her with fondness but then he thinks at her when he escaped from the 7th and frowns, realizing he has put her in danger. So he does to her the same thing he has done to Umeko. He leaves her behind because he doesn’t want to put people HE CARES FOR in danger (he knew when they were escaping she too was in danger but back then he didn’t care about her as much as he cared about her now so he wasn’t overly concerned… now he is). However this time the thing is even worse because not only he doesn’t discuss the thing with her or at least say her goodbye or talks with an adult, let’s say Makanakkuru, but just leaves in the night. It’s clearly painful for him but, despite hearing more than once that Asirpa has issues with abandonment, he’s abandoning her and the people who have welcomed him. Asirpa wants to have faith in him but Shiraishi interpreted his behavior as him double crossing her, stealing the skins and running away. Overall this would deserve a long discussion but that’s not the place for it.

- Before leaving Sugimoto would like to caress the sleeping bear cub yet hesitates. This is not so much for the bear cub but for himself. In this moment he’s leaving he’s keeping it at distance to make the separation less painful… which is partly probably why he doesn’t say goodbye to Asirpa either.

Notable changes from the magazine version: In the magazine the translation of what Huci said was placed in a note in the page in which she’s speaking. In the volume the translation is placed at the end of the volume.

Notable quotes:

- Makanakkuru: “Asirpa may act mature for her age, but in the end she's still a lonely, fragile little girl… Asirpa has rarely smiled since that day, but recently, it seems like she's been much happier. She must be enjoying her time in the mountains with you, Sugimoto.” (‘Otonabite wa iruga Asirpa wa samishigariya no itaikena kodomona noda. Son'na koto ga atte kara Asirpa wa egao o misenaku nattaga, saikin wa zuibun to akaruku natta. Sugimoto-san to yama ni iru no ga tanoshī ndarou’ 大人びてはいるがアシㇼパは寂しがり屋のいたいけな子供なのだ。そんなことがあってからアシㇼパは笑顔を見せなくなったが、最近はずいぶんと明るくなった。杉元さんと山にいるのが楽しいんだろう)

- Sugimoto: “…I understand, Grandma. I know you love Asirpa very much. You and everyone in this village.” (‘… Wakatta yo obāchan. Asirpa-san wa obachan ni aisa re teru nda na. Mura no min'na ni mo’ …わかったよお婆ちゃん。アシㇼパさんはお婆ちゃんに愛されてるんだな。村のみんなにも)

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15. SCENT (におい NIOI)

First printed: 04/December/2014 Weekly Young Jump 1

Characters: Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Retar (レタㇻ), prostitute, Umeko (梅子), Toraji and Umeko’s child, Umeko’s mother, pimp (妓夫太郎 ‘Gifutarō’), owner of the Soba restaurant, Nikaidō Kōhei (二階堂浩平), Nikaidō Yōhei (二階堂洋平),

Location: Near Otaru, Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: Umeko’s house in her village in the Kanto area

Time: 1907/1908 (?) March

Historical events mentioned: Russo-Japanese war (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905)

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Sugimoto, Umeko, Toraji and Toraji and Umeko’s child and about the pimp.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None.

Character deaths: Toraji (killed during the war)

Animal deaths: None.

New Ainu words:

- Ipapkeni: Deer whistle

Food and drinks: Nishin Soba

Useful info and points to ponder:

- The chapter starts with Asirpa immediately pointing out how Sugimoto’s escape in the night wasn’t selfless but “too selfish” (勝手すぎる ‘Katte sugiru’). They were working together for a reason, because it helped both of them. Him leaving only means Asirpa will have to work alone, not that she’ll give up.

- Again, although Noda remarks Sutu aren’t to be used lightly, he presents Asirpa planning to whack Sugimoto with it in punishment, in an humorous light.

- It should have been complicate for Asirpa to explain Huci, who believed Sugimoto to be her future husband, why he was missing.

- Asirpa’s behaviour though, contrast with Umeko’s, at least as far as we know. Even though both were worried for him, Umeko let Sugimoto go, Asirpa chased him.

- Presented with the problem of a missing Sugimoto, Asirpa first checks all the hunting huts then decides that trying to find him in Otaru would be too difficult for her and therefore she needs Retar’s help. In order to get it he tries to lure him using a deer whistle, hoping if he hears the sound of a prey he would run to her. Actually though it seems Retar came because from Asirpa’s scent he could tell she needed help. This gives us an idea of how distressed Asirpa was if Retar thought he needed to go help her.

- Sugimoto, seeing a prostitute, thinks she’s Umeko. Although there’s a vague resemblance this is also likely because he desperately wants to see her.

- Seeing a woman that looks like Umeko triggers in Sugimoto a flashback. Toraji’s child has grown enough he can stand and talk. He brings flowers to his mother and, due to her sight deteriorating, Umeko recognizes them thanks to her sense of smell. In chap 100 we’ll learn it’s springtime. In that moment a soldier (Sugimoto) arrives. He’s dirty and unshaved. He hands to a woman who might be a servant or a relative what he says to be all that’s left of Toraji, his finger. The woman bows, telling him they had given up on recovering his remains and thanking him… before realizing he looks familiar and asking him if he’s Sugimoto Saichi-san. At this Umeko comes closer, her child clinging to her and asks him if he’s really ‘Saichi-chan’. He turns away from her but Umeko seems happy as she admits she can only see a blur and asks him if he has come back home. However she catches a scent that makes her shudder and asks him who he is. Sugimoto sees himself in his army uniform covered I blood, wondering what did he smell like to her and saying the person he was is dead, wondering if, should she regain her sight, would she recognize him.

- It’s worth to point out it’s implied Toraji lost both arms and legs so… where did Sugimoto got that finger? Is it really Toraji or is he bringing her some bones to ease her heart?

- When Sugimoto stops the prostitute and realizes it’s not Umeko he tells himself that of course it’s not her as Umeko wouldn’t be selling her body at some port town in the frozen north but he also tells himself he has to do something and fast. Although Sugimoto says so, it’s likely just to reassure himself. He doesn’t know how Umeko’s situation is. Even though it’s unlikely she would sell her body in Otaru, she might be selling her body at home. Meanwhile, as he tries to find the gold her sight deteriorates… and the irony of him telling himself he has to hurry up when we know that more than a year will be gone with him still not having found the gold is rather cruel but at the same time this is a call back at the story of the hare of chap 8. For the greed of getting all the gold Sugimoto had been running after it through all the story getting also horribly wounded and killing more people when he could have tried to just get a job and remain near Umeko. Maybe he would have never managed to collect enough money to heal her eyes but he could have supported her.

- Sugimoto goes asking for info to the pimp who wanted to sell Asirpa to a brothel. The guy, despite wanting to sell Asirpa, tells Sugimoto that if he finds the guy, with a really strange tattoo, who hurt a prostitute in a friend’s brothel will make it worth his while because he was born and raised in a brothel and won’t forgive assholes who go around hurting prostitutes. Now… while it’s nice he cares and even the past time he worried that Asirpa was there to taunt his girls… well, he wanted to sell Asirpa. Is this guy who claims to care for prostitutes’ well being, unable to understand that forcing someone into the profession is a quite horrible thing to do? Or is it a mere racist matter, because Asirpa was an Ainu he was sure there was nothing wrong in selling her as if she were a thing? Still he doesn’t send Sugimoto there to sell him to the 7th because the pimp will cooperate with Shiraishi too and won’t try to sell Shiraishi to the 7th.

- The guy who hurt the prostitute the pimp was talking about was clearly Ushiyama by the way.

- We’ve another example of Sugimoto’s poor perception sense. The woman at the Soba restaurant that also works as a brothel tells him she’ll bring the girl immediately and, in the meanwhile, he should have a bowl of soba. As Sugimoto eats she goes to call the men of the 7th instead with Sugimoto not suspecting a single thing and not even realizing she’s taking too long.

- Sugimoto says he’s a Kanto guy… which is something we could have guessed as he was in the 1st division that’s the Tokyo division but it’s nice to have confirmation he’s from that area as Aoyama Kenkichi for example, despite not being from the Kanto area, will join the 1st division.

- When the Nikaidō brother comes in the soba shop searching for the guy looking for tattoo, Sugimoto kicks them both, sending them flying. This prompt another soldier to try to attack him. Sugimoto sends him on the ground and steps on his face, likely breaking his nose (well, at least he didn’t step on his throat). However there are three more soldiers who aim at him their weapons. Sugimoto acted out of instinct and fought well however not only his attack made him really suspicious, but the people he attacked are other veterans who were merely doing their job and who, due to the war, possess the same instinct of him to kill who attacks them so it’s no surprise if the Nikaidō brothers will inscribe him in the list of the people they want dead.

- As Yōhei and Kōhei look almost the same, it’s hard to understand who is who. If you want some help recognizing them Yōhei is the one with the puttees, who’ll hit Sugimoto’s legs and then give Sugimoto’s face a real beating with the butt of his rifle. Kōhei is the one who pointed his rifle at him and told him to get down so that when he were to shoot at him the bullet won’t hit anyone and who told Yōhei to stand back because he wanted to kill him right now. After Yōhei’s death Kōhei will start wearing puttees.

- Both brothers are bleeding profusely through their nose and, possibly their mouths, bruises on their faces due to Sugimoto’s kick, but while Yōhei is just being violent, Kōhei would just kill Sugimoto and get done with it. After Yōhei’s death Kōhei had probably blamed himself a lot for not killing Sugimoto that day, when he had the chance.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Umeko: “Who… are you?” (‘Anata… donate?’ あなた…どなた?)

- Sugimoto: “Ume... just what did I smell like to you? The Saichi you knew... is probably long gone. Even if your eyes are healed, will you really know that it's me...?” (‘Ume-chan… ore wa don'na nioi ga shita? Ume-chan no shitteru ore wa mō konoyo ni inai nodarou ka. Me ga naotte mo sugu ni oreda to wakatte kureru ka na’ 梅ちゃん… 俺はどんな臭いがした？梅ちゃんの知ってる俺はもうこの世にいないのだろうか。眼が治ってもすぐに俺だと分かって��れるかな Lit: “Ume-chan ... What did I smell like? The me known by Ume-chan probably isn’t in this world anymore. Even if your eyes heal… will you immediately understand that it’s me?”)

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16. SHINIGAMI (死神 SHINIGAMI)

First printed: 11/December/2014 Weekly Young Jump 2

Characters: Tsurumi Tokushirō (鶴見篤四郎), Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Tamai (玉井), Ogata Hyakunosuke (尾形百之助), Nikaidō Kōhei (二階堂浩平), Nikaidō Yōhei (二階堂洋平), Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Retar (レタㇻ)

Location: Otaru, near Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: Hanazono park in Otaru, 203 hill in Port Arthur (current Lüshunkou) (China).

Time: 1907/1908 (?) March

Historical events mentioned: Russo-Japanese war (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) Siege of Port Arthur (1 August 1904 – 2 January 1905),

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Sugimoto and Tsurumi.

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None

Character deaths: Russian soldiers.

Animal deaths: None.

New Ainu words: None.

Food and drinks: Dango skewers.

Useful info and points to ponder:

- It’s Tsurumi who saves Sugimoto’s life from the Nikaidō’s brothers who wanted to kill him, claiming he didn’t want him dead yet. However, as he saw him fighting, it means he also saw the brothers hitting him over and over and didn’t stop them.

- Tsurumi too uses ‘Watashi’ (私). However he doesn’t use ‘kisama’ (貴様 “You”) for Sugimoto but ‘omae’ (お前 “You”). Is he trying to sound more friendly or less?

- Tsurumi introduces himself saying he’s Sugimoto’s ‘Shinigami’ (死神 “God of death”) and that he can blow Sugimoto’s candle anytime. This is a reference to a Japanese myth of human lives being represented by candles and the Shinigami snuffing the out to kill a person. In early Meiji era there was a famous Rakugo program titled “Shinigami” which referenced this idea.

- Sugimoto, with a good poker face, says he’s working for a guy whose favourite prostitute got hurt by a guy with a tattoo and that wants Sugimoto to beat said guy. Sugimoto says he asked the old lady to bring out the girl but when he saw people with guns he tried to escape. While this time his story is closer to the truth (he was actually sent there by a pimp, not by a customer) this doesn’t change the fact he has overreacted. The ones with the guns were soldiers and if he really meant no harm and is no criminal he shouldn’t have attacked them to try to escape. Tsurumi doesn’t buy it at all and doesn’t even bother to hide it, though, to Sugimoto’s credits, what really damns him is that Tsurumi saw his way of fighting and recognized him.

- There are 3 soldiers in the room in addition to Tsurumi and Sugimoto, though we can only see the Nikaidō brothers. The anime is of no help as, apart from increasing the number to 4, it doesn’t show them.

- Tsurumi’s interrogation method is clever. He figured Sugimoto was a tough nut to crack so he let Sugimoto talk without countering anything, so Sugimoto doesn’t know his cards he only knows Tsurumi isn’t buying it. Then he distracts him with sweets, which, as Sugimoto admits, is something he doesn’t commonly have, causing him to relax and lower his guard, to casually mention the word immortal, saying one of his men, who barely survive, wrote it with his finger. It works to send Sugimoto, who has not even finished his dango, into a hurry to escape, which is nothing else but a confession. As to deliver the final blow comes the accusation, he’s the one who sent Ogata to hospital, complete with Sugimoto’s name and nickname.

- Sugimoto, who knows he’s screwed, find nothing else to do but annoy the Nikaidō brothers, increasing the grudge they feel toward him. It’s not because Sugimoto gets off on this but because this gives him some measure of control and, therefore of confidence. In fact he manages to sit down calmly and insist he’s not Sugimoto.

- Tsurumi tells Sugimoto he has seen him fighting at Port Arthur once, although Sugimoto was a little away he was fighting like a ‘Kishin’ and Tsurumi couldn’t tear his eyes away from him.

- In hindsight the fact Tsurumi couldn’t tear his eyes away from Sugimoto should have told us that a man who’s fascinated by such brutal murdering method is up to no good.

- Tsurumi concludes he recognized Sugimoto by the way Sugimoto fought in the soba shop. Meaning if Sugimoto had let himself be arrested pacifically Tsurumi might not have recognized him.

- Sugimoto keeps calm and denies it. His poker face is back in place but this time he doesn’t have a lie ready.

- When Tsurumi hits right on the spot again, surprising him by realizing Sugimoto has the tattooed skins Sugimoto feels the need to regain confidence again by acting confident and vaguely insulting (he asks if Tsurumi is insane).

- Tsurumi plays along, allowing the tension to drop then… stabs Sugimoto with the skewer and Sugimoto failed to realize if he wanted to insist denying of being Sugimoto he had to react. He just remained there, without even blinking, which proves he’s Sugimoto the immortal.

- Tsurumi subtly hints at how he’s a man who can adapt himself. If the fire of Sugimoto’s candle is an immortal flame he’ll just destroy the candle. We’ll see through the story he’s not one who can’t adapt to the situation but stubbornly insist on the same way.

- Asirpa’s plan is to track Sugimoto by having Retar smell a sock he left behind and search for him by nightfall as Retar stands out too much.

- Tsurumi continues delineating his modus operandi. He tells Sugimoto if he wants to survive he has to join him. This parallels how he’ll tell Ariko that if he wants his family to survive he’ll have to side with him. It also tells us something about Tsurumi. He understood that Sugimoto has a strong wish to live, that he’s alone and that he’s angry and proud of his ability as a fighter, in fact, after the stick, ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t join me’, he presents him with the carrot, the carrot being his great plan to conquer Hokkaido in which Sugimoto can avenge himself from how he didn’t gain anything from the army and hope to have a place, with an extra spoon of sugar when he says that Sugimoto is the courageous soldier he needs. People are always who Tsurumi needs, he says the same to Tanigaki too. It’s also worth to compare this speech with the one Tsurumi had with Asirpa in vol 21. Tsurumi is in control here, after scaring Sugi he explains him something trying to make him feel involved on an emotional level and appreciated. It’s probably a variation of his usual speech for soldiers. With Asirpa he never had such plan to win her over in fact he doesn’t even try to talk with her but just orders to take her away. It’s Asirpa who engages him in a discussion but he hardly attempt to win her over with his speech which was more likely a pretence for his men and Sugimoto than for her.

- Tsurumi claims he has lost many men due to the war claiming he has less than a hundred scattered all over Hokkaido. I do wonder if he says so to get Sugimoto’s sympathy by mentioning the ones who died in the war. Men are, after all, conscripted each year so Tsurumi should have already got a replenishment unless they decided to simply give him less men because there’s not a war at the moment… though of course Tsurumi might wish more he has.

- Sugimoto’s question reveals his feelings on the idea of the men of the 7th wanting the gold. He thinks they only want it in order to get rich. He doesn’t imagine they might want it to do something.

- Tsurumi makes clear the gold isn’t to share among them but to use for military expenditures, informing Sugimoto as well of how they took army from Asahikawa but those aren’t enough and then presenting him with what looks superficially like a grandiose plan but making it really simple and easy. Basically Tsurumi’s plan, even explained in such a simple manner, is extremely disadvantageous for his men who would see no gold and take a huge risk above them becoming rebels. However as he seems so confident and try to play on emotions his plan doesn’t seem so bad.

- When Tsurumi talks of heroes on the battlefield destined to the life of vagrants he’s very likely referring to Sugimoto only, as his men aren’t vagrants but still in service, while Sugimoto seems to be one. In fact Japanese is vague enough we can’t tell if he’s referring to more people or just to Sugimoto.

- Sugimoto refuses, removing the stick that’s through his cheeks. As he’ll state later it’s not like he’s against Tsurumi’s plan, it he has another priority (he needs money fast for Umeko and he thinks he can get it by finding the gold) and he’s afraid of consequences because he hid the skins with the weapons of the other soldiers he killed.

- Since the carrot didn’t work Tsurumi returns to the stick by going back on threatening him in hope to force him to comply. Sugimoto should have remembered this experience in which, even though he had 2 skins, Tsurumi didn’t try to come to compromises with him and tortured him to get what he wanted instead than thinking Asirpa would have some leverage with Tsurumi just because she knew the code.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Tsurumi: “I'm your Shinigami. Your life is a candle, and I can blow it out any time I choose.” (‘Watashi wa omae no shinigamida. Omae no jumyō no rōsoku wa watashi ga itsu demo fuki keseru zo.’ 私はお前の死神だ。お前の寿命のロウソクは私がいつでも吹き消せるぞLit: “I'm your death god. I can blow out the candle of your life anytime.”)

- Tsurumi: “We were heroes on the battlefield. but once we got home, all that awaited us was the pathetic life of a vagrant. Did we gain anything for our service? I'd say we lost far more than we gained wouldn't you? A courageous soldier like you is exactly who I want in my army. Let us fight together, Sugimoto!” (‘Senjōde wa eiyūdattanoni furusato e kaereba hōrō seikatsu. Nani ka mukuwa reta ka? Ushinatta mono no kata ga ōku wanai ka? Watashi wa omae no yō ni yūmōna heishi ga hoshī. Wareware to tomoni tatakatte kure’ 戦場では英雄だったのに故郷へ帰れば放浪生活。何か報われたか？失ったものの方が多くはないか？私はお前のように勇猛な兵士が欲しい。我々と共に戦ってくれ Lit: “Although you were a hero on the battlefield, you returned home to a wandering life. Did you gain something? Wasn’t it more what you lost? I want a brave soldier like you. Fight with us.”)

——————————————————————————

17. TRACKERS (追跡者 TSUISEKI-SHA)

First printed: 18/December/2014 Weekly Young Jump 3

Characters: Asirpa (アシㇼパ), Retar (レタㇻ), Shiraishi Yoshitake (白石由竹), Sugimoto Saichi (杉元佐一), Tsurumi Tokushirō (鶴見篤四郎), Noma (野間), Okada (岡田), Tamai (玉井), Nikaidō Kōhei (二階堂浩平), Nikaidō Yōhei (二階堂洋平)

Location: Otaru.

Other Places mentioned: None

Time: 1907/1908 (?) March

Historical events mentioned: Russo-Japanese war (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905)

Includes flashbacks or info about the characters past: Yes, about Sugimoto and Nikaidō Yōhei

Info and the characters’ theories about the ‘Noppera-bō incident’, the gold and the escape: None

Character deaths: None

Animal deaths: None

New Ainu words:

- Cinoyetat: rolled birch bark used as a torch

Food and drinks: Dango skewers

Useful info and points to ponder:

- Asirpa can ride Retar.

- Asirpa, believing she has found Sugimoto, does what was implied in chap 15, hits him by surprise on the head with her Sutu without checking it’s him first.

- Asirpa calls Shiraishi ‘Dappun-ō’ (脱糞王 “Defecation king”), instead than ‘Datsugoku-ō’ (脱獄王 “Escape king”). Scanlations go with “Excrement king” because similarly sounding to “Escape King” and close enough to “Defecation king”. It’s worth to note Asirpa likely remembers how he’s called but she hadn’t forgotten he made the Ainu=dog ‘joke’ in chap 6, and will keep on calling Shiraishi the wrong way until he volunteers to bring her in Abashiri chap 49.

- Shiraishi won’t use the Ainu=dog joke again but just call her ‘Ainu no Gaki’ (アイヌのガキ “Ainu brat”). ‘Gaki’ is not very polite but it’s pretty common to use to refer to a kid. Problem is Asirpa doesn’t like to be viewed as a kid.

- This chapter starts the beginning of the recurring gag of animals biting Shiraishi’s head wih Retar doing so trice, each time Shiraishi annoys Asirpa.

- Shiraishi might have noticed Sugimoto took the wrong sock… yet Sugimoto didn’t.

- Shiraishi summarizes Asirpa’s situation as ‘Sugimoto double-crossing her, stealing the skins and running away’ which is likely what Asirpa fears he did but she’s trying to hope that’s not the case.

- The model for Shiraishi Yoshitake ended up in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. There’s to wonder if the Shiraishi too was betrayed as he ended in jail for stealing but we never saw him stealing anything.

- We learn Shiraishi is always up with local info, and therefore knows Sugimoto got involved in a fight and was arrested by the 7th.

- Hearing Sugimoto is in danger Asirpa points one of her poisoned arrows at him, demanding he’ll take her there. It’s unlikely she had the time to remove the poison so if she were to shoot by mistake, as she herself explain, Shiraishi would die quickly. She said she didn’t want to kill anyone so I think she only wants to threaten Shiraishi but if she were to let go of the arrow by mistake she would kill him. This works as a huge hint that Asirpa might end up changing her stance of ‘I won’t kill anyone’ to ‘I’ll kill for Sugimoto’.

- Shiraishi shows again he’s clever. He didn’t fight Asirpa, he takes time and escape. His only problem is he doesn’t how good Retar is as a tracker.

- Asirpa informs Shiraishi no one can escape Retar’s tracking ability, not even if one were to hide in a toilet. Shiraishi will remember this.

- Tsurumi clearly had Sugimoto tortured in attempt to get him to tell him where the skins were. Sugimoto’s face is blending much more than before, and he has two skewers pulled through his cheeks (remember he removed the previous one Tsurumi stuck through him). Sugimoto is a tough guy who wouldn’t have talked easily yet Tsurumi tortured him to get him to talk. What in the world gave Sugimoto the idea Tsurumi wouldn’t have tortured Asirpa to get what he wanted from her without having to give her anything in exchange? Also note that sadly, back then, torturing people to get them to talk, was a pretty common practice so it’s not even surprising or considered particularly evil.

- Sugimoto’s reasoning is flawed. He thinks he couldn’t have pretended to join them because he wouldn’t have fooled Tsurumi as Tsurumi knew he had tattooed skins and would want them in exchange but Sugimoto hit them along with the equipment he looted off the soldiers the bear killed. Basically he’s afraid they would believe he killed those soldiers and kill him in retaliation Honestly I don’t think Tsurumi wouldn’t care but this isn’t the real problem. The real problem is he thinks everything went down the drain because he tried to do it by himself. In truth everything went wrong merely because he did it poorly. If he’d done everything in the same way but Asirpa had been with him when he was arrested, the only result he would have bought home is that Tsurumi would have had the both of them. However it’s clear he feels alone so the idea this is the reason why he’s in trouble probably stems from this.

- What’s also worrisome is… ‘when did he hid the weapons?’ Did he do so after they died, before reaching Asirpa, losing even more time before going to check on her? Or did he do so afterward? But if that’s the case why didn’t he try to retrieve Tanigaki’s weapon also? Because if he had, he would have realized Tanigaki was very much alive and walked away on his own.

- Nikaidō Kōhei calls Sugimoto ‘Kushi dango yarō’ (串団子野郎 “Skewer dumpling bastard”), mocking him because Tsurumi put through him skewers.

- The Nikaidō brothers are clearly people to hold grudges. Being first kicked by Sugimoto and after having him make fun of them set them on their hardest in paying him back and it only will get worse from here. We know nothing about their past so it’s hard to say if the war turned them like that (it sadly happened to way too many soldiers) or something else triggered it or they were like that right from the start. We’ll see if we’ll ever get more backstory.

- As Yōhei and Kōhei look almost the same it’s hard to understand who is who. Kōhei is the one who doesn’t believe the guy they caught is Sugimoto while Yōhei, noticing the swelling on Sugimoto’s face has gone down, thinks he might be Sugimoto and considers cutting out his guts (something that will inspire Sugimoto later on). Kōhei points out they can’t kill him if they want info from him so Yōhei would like to force Sugimoto to talk by cutting off his finger. He makes the mistake of getting to close to Sugimoto who hits his face with his head, causing him to lose a tooth. Yōhei is also the one who manages to partially stab Sugimoto, while Kōhei’s head gets trapped by Sugimoto’s legs.

- I’m starting to think everyone and their mom knew Sugimoto during the war. Even Yōhei says he heard rumors about him regarding how he recovered overnight from wounds the doctors thought were fatal.

- Yōhei remains the more violent prone while Yōhei remains the most rational. Where Yōhei just wants to cut Sugimoto’s guts out K ō ehi reasons they need him alive.

- While Yōhei seems to be there just to kill/hurt Sugimoto, there’s to wonder if the twins were actually there to get him to tell them where the skins were without Tsurumi hearing, as it’ll turn out they actually were in a rebellion with Ogata, Tamai and the others.

- Assorted translations more or less agree that when Sugimoto speaks up the first time, he mumbles something unintelligible. In the anime they actually have him asks Yōhei if he was the one who hit him in the soba shop. In the volume version though Sugimoto didn’t talk enough to voice that whole sentence as he only says ‘bonbon’ (ボンボン). While yes, it’s likely meant to be an unintelligible sound, ironically enough it’s Koito’s nick which means “pampered rich boy”… but it’s unlikely that’s what Sugimoto is saying as I don’t think Yōhei fits the description.

- Sugimoto shows his best skill is dealing with close contact enemies. He fakes being weak, whispers to get Yōhei close and then takes advantage of it to strike him, manages to break the chair so as to manage to bring in front of himself his tie hand, to stop Yōhei from further stabbing him and to restrain Yōhei. This is impressive (and also a bit unbelievable as it seems adults with normal bodies can’t just manage to bring forwards their hands if they were tied behind themselves.)

- As he’s stabbed Sugimoto yells his catchphrase, “I’m Sugimoto the immortal”.

Notable changes from the magazine version: None

Notable quotes:

- Asirpa: “Huh? You're not Sugimoto.You're the "Excrement King"…what was your name again?” (‘Are? Sugi moto janai. Omae wa tashika…“dappun-ō” no…’ あれ？杉元じゃない。お前は確か…『脱糞王』の… Lit: “Huh? You’re not Sugimoto. You are... the “Defecating King” ...”)

- Shiraishi: “That's "Escape King!" and the name's Shiraishi Yoshitake!” (‘“Ore wa “Datsugoku-ō” no Shiraishi Yoshitake da!’ 俺は『脱獄王』の白石由竹だ！ Lit: “I’m the “Escape King” Shiraishi Yoshitake!”)

- Shiraishi: “So, let me guess…Sugimoto double crossed you didn't he? I bet he just stole the skins and ran away! It all makes sense now. that means the rumour I heard really was about Sugimoto.” (‘Nanda omae… sateha sugi moto ni uragira reta na? Irezumi no kawa o mochinige sa reta ndaro. Naruhodo gatten ga itta ze. Yahari ano uwasa wa sugi motodatta ka’ 何だおまえ…さては杉元に裏切られたな？入れ墨の皮を持ち逃げされたんだろ。なるほど合点がいったぜ。やはりあの噂は杉元だったか)

——————————————————————————

VOLUME COLOR GALLERY

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w-k-smith · 5 years ago

Photo

Once again, tumblr has hidden the version of this post that has links. (Clearly, weird fan fic where ghosts eat candy bars is just *too radical* for this website.) This story is also available on AO3, under the username w_k_smith.

Chapter Two is here of “Don’t Go to the Netherworld!”

In this chapter, Beetlejuice and Lydia make their way through Saturn, but are waylaid by Zagnuts, a boy band, and all the obstacles the desert otherworld has to offer.

Chapter One: “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife” (6/19/20) Chapter Two: “Worm Welcome” (07/03/20) Chapter Three: “Ghost to Ghost” (upcoming) Chapter Four: “To Beetle or not to Beetle?” (upcoming)

Warning: This story contains depictions of, references to, and discussion of topics like suicide, untimely death, abuse, and body horror - you know, like the musical does (though this probably has more). Know your boundaries, and stay safe.

New chapter under keep reading!

“I don’t understand,” Lydia said, as they crossed from the midnight of the administrative area, toward the hot afternoon of Saturn, through the twilight in between. “What’s Saturn? Are we going to the planet…somehow?”

“Nope. Totally unrelated, and don’t ask me who named it. Saturn is the part of the Netherworld that acts as a trap for ghosts who get out of line, like if you try to leave the house you’re haunting, or jump the line in processing like someone I could mention. Going through processing would only take a couple steps, but Saturn is an anti-shortcut from the feverish nightmares of M.C. Escher. It’s a giant desert, and it’s full of sandworms. Those are snake monsters that eat ghosts. Foreshadowing?” he muttered to himself.

“This is so weird,” Lydia muttered. “I love it.”

She didn’t seem like she was being sarcastic. Maybe hanging around her wasn’t going to be too terrible.

Unfortunately, he saw trouble ahead.

“Keep your head down,” he whispered to Lydia. “Look dead. Deader than that. And don’t sneeze! Dead people never sneeze!”

“What?”

“Hello, Beetlejuice,” said five tenor voices in unison. A cluster of expressionless young white men was drifting through the shadows toward him and Lydia. The boys had died in their late teens and very early twenties, long enough ago that two of them sported frosted tips. They were dressed just differently enough to be distinguishable from one another, in dated pants and t-shirts with no personality.

“Hey, Boy Inferno,” he grunted.

“What are you doing out here?” they asked. They all floated six inches off the ground, in a formation reminiscent of migrating ducks.

He rolled his eyes. “Just running an errand for Juno. Miss Argentina find that living intruder yet?”

“Not that we’ve heard. Who’s your friend?”

“New hire. Juno wants her on border patrol. Her name’s Lydia, and she’s boring. Kids these days, you know, they think eyeliner and TikTok counts as personality. But them’s the rules: if you add to the work, you have to help out.”

“Do you want to hear the introduction song, Lydia?”

Geez, they didn’t back off easy. “Save that for people who’ve committed genocide or worse.”

“We were talking to Lydia.”

At his elbow, Lydia scratched the end of her nose. Boy Inferno caught the gesture, and as one, cocked their heads.

“What did you die of…?” they asked her.

“Um, I don’t want to talk about it,” Lydia said, which was the wrong thing. All newlydeads ever wanted to do was blather on about how they’d bitten it.

“OK, you got me!” He stepped between Lydia and the boys. “This isn’t an approved mission to Saturn. We were actually trying to, ah, hide out from Juno for a while. She is in a mood today, I tell ya. Just impossible. She wants me to take a statement from all the recently deceased who were in line when the alarm went off, and then pinch each of them really, really hard to see if they still have nerve endings. I’d rather swallow my own toenails. Remember that time Juno made me swallow my own toenails? You were there for that, weren’t you? So be a hive-minded pal and help me stay on the DL. This one already threatened to tattle if I didn’t show her my good hiding spot.” He jerked his head at Lydia.

Boy Inferno blinked.

“Alright, then,” they said, and each voice sounded suspicious. But they drifted back toward the administrative area.

Lydia stared as they went. “Who are those guys?”

“Boy Inferno is a dead boy band. They didn’t have enough brains or personality to be individuals when they were a living boy band, and when their tour bus crashed, the situation got worse.”

“Yikes. And speaking of yikes, what were you saying about sandworms? Are they going to eat us?”

He waggled one hand back and forth, and started walking. “Eh. It’s probably OK. You’re alive, so they’ll leave you alone. I’m half-ghost, half-demon, which confuses them more than anything. We’ll be fine if we don’t run into a sandworm that’s pissed off or starving.” They were crossing into Saturn proper. The terrain changed from dark gravel to rolling sand dunes dotted with twisted rock formations. Wooden doors hovered here and there, from three feet off the ground to 20 stories high. There was the light and warmth of a yellow sun, but if you turned in every direction, you would never see a sun or any other stars in the royal blue sky.

“Huh. Now I kind of want to meet a sandworm...” Lydia said, looking around like one was going to pop out from behind a dune.

“Yup. That’s definitely foreshadowing.”

“So…what’s it like? Being half-demon? How does that, um, happen?”

He waved his hands to turn them into sock puppets – one red and bearing a vague resemblance to Juno, the other a grey blob and as good a representation as he’d ever had of his father. “Hello, children!” he said in a screechy voice. “Let’s talk about the occult birds and bees. When a demon woman tolerates a living human male very much…”

She shoved him. “I know that, gross! I’m ace, but not completely ignorant. I just wondered if you were ever alive.”

He put his hands back to normal. “Uh-huh. I was alive. Looooong time ago, though. Long enough that we didn’t pay much attention to what year it was, and only bathed twice a lifetime, and drank beer instead of water. Hm. Or maybe that was all just me. Anyway, Juno only had me to see what would happen if you mixed demon magic with ghost abilities. Turns out, you get yours truly. She hated the result, and I never got any little siblings to chase around. But it’s fine with the just the two of us; my mom has this sweet thing she says to me every day: ‘I wish you had never been born.’ I think it’s a Swedish pet name.”

“How did you die?” Lydia asked.

“I asked a bunch of annoying questions that weren’t any of my business and someone stabbed me.”

“Ha ha,” she deadpanned. “How far is it, anyway?” she asked, shading her eyes. “I don’t see anything…”

“Distance doesn’t really work like that here, and we could move way, way faster if we were both dead. But it’s pretty damn far.”

She sighed.

He had to give Lydia Deetz this: she was a trooper. She was wearing a dress, and boots that were very much not made for walking, but she kept moving, eyes forward, not a single complaint. When her stomach growled like an angry guard dog, she held her head high and acted like she didn’t notice.

“OK, time for a break!” he said.

“No!” she said. “We have to keep going.”

“If you keep going like this, you’re going to collapse, and then you’ll die, and a sandworm will eat you, and that’s my whole day gone. Sit down.”

“I don’t need to.”

She was going to give him grey hairs, she really was. He shook one hand like he was shooing a fly, and she stumbled backwards until she sat on the closest rock.

Lydia’s eyes bugged. “What am I – what are you –?”

“You’ve never been possessed before?”

She stood back up. He waved his hand again, and she sat.

“No, keep it up,” he said. “This is fun.”

He flicked his fingers, and her expression brightened.

“Beetlejuice, you’re my role model!” she said, in a tone much more chipper than any that had ever come out of her mouth, he was sure. He released her.

Lydia’s face soured like old milk mixed with lemon juice, and she made the fingers-down-the-throat gesture. “I’ll sit for five minutes. Don’t do that again.”

“I always knew I’d make a great babysitter!” He settled on the other side of the rock. He folded his hands over his stomach, figuring he’d take a nap if she stayed quiet.

She didn’t. “My mom would love all this,” Lydia said. “Her favorite holiday was Halloween. We’d make our own haunted houses in the garage – but in the summer, when no one in the neighborhood was expecting it. She liked the weird stuff in the world. Or – she likes the weird stuff in the world. She doesn’t just avoid it, like most people do. Like my dad does. I think she’ll like you, even.”

He wanted to make a face at the idea of a well-adjusted person liking him (though it was a nice feeling, deep in his black heart), but Lydia couldn’t see him, so it would be wasted effort.

She was quiet for a while, and he thought he was free to drift off to sleep.

“Um…do you have any food?” she asked.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a handful of Zagnuts. He tossed the kid two. “Here ya go.”

“Why so many Zagnuts?” Lydia asked. “They’re good, but I didn’t think people ate these anymore.”

“It’s the only candy in the vending machines in the Netherworld.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because everything around here is at a baseline of low-grade crappiness. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Are you really supposed to spend eternity here when you die?” she asked, in a muffled way that told him she’d bitten off half a candy bar at once. “It seems like it should either be a whole lot better or a whole lot worse.”

“You aren’t supposed to spend eternity here; that’s the point,” he said. He popped a Zagnut into his mouth, and swallowed it wrapper and all. “You have to move on, eventually.”

“To what?”

“Do I look like a priest? Or a philosopher? Or a TV psychic?”

“The last one, a little. A bad one. The kind who gets tricked by reporters to help contact their dead kid, but it turns out the kid is really alive and just in the next booth over in the Denny’s.”

“Touché. The point is, nobody around here knows. You hang around the administrative area until you’re ready to go into the miserable nothingness of the Abyss, and then you swirl around in the Abyss until…I dunno, something else happens. Maybe you just stay in the Abyss forever. I don’t plan on finding out anytime soon.”

“Is that where my mom is?”

“Yup. If she didn’t come running when you first came through the door, she’s definitely gone through security. Don’t worry, though. You poke your head into the Abyss and shout her name a few times, and she’ll come right out.”

He lied easily. He always had.

“I’m just surprised she hasn’t tried to contact us,” Lydia said. “I guess she must be confused, because we moved and everything. My dad dragged me out to Connecticut, away from New York and all our friends and family, to work on this stupid gated community project he has in mind. And he took my annoying life coach with us. She’s friendly and positive, and keeps trying to make me fill out a star chart. I don’t know why he thinks she’s helping me. It’s not like there aren’t actual therapists in Connecticut. I don’t get it.”

He chewed another Zagnut for a beat, waiting to see if she was making a joke. Then he broke the news. “Your dad is boinking the life coach.”

“What?!” she said. She whirled around the rock to sit right next to him. “How can you know that?”

“Um, because I’m an adult with a brain.” He grabbed the top of his head and lifted his skull to show his grey matter.

“He isn’t…Dad’s not…” She slumped. “He’s totally sleeping with her.”

“Totally,” he agreed.

“How could he do that? Mom’s only been dead a few months. Well…when he sees Mom – if he just talks to her again – he’ll understand what an ass he’s been.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, non-committedly.

“How much farther do we have?” she asked.

“Long enough to aaaaaaalmost make you give up and collapse in despair.”

She groaned.

For a second, he thought her groan was superhumanly long and loud, and he prepared to be impressed. Then he noticed the ground was shaking.

“Looks like it’s our unlucky day!” he said. “Run!”

They both got to their feet, and made it about five steps before the sand exploded to their left. A sandworm rose from the earth, its black-and-white stripes blurring into grey. At the peak of its jump, its inner head came out of its mouth, eyes glaring, jaw snapping.

It dove back down toward them.

He dodged one way, and Lydia dodged the other. The spray of sand blocked out everything, and when it all cleared, the sandworm had risen from the ground again, undulating in and out of the dunes. Lydia stood in place, looking all around. But it was hard to know where to run when you were being attacked by a sandworm.

The sandworm’s chomping heads came out of the ground an arm’s length from Lydia. She yelled, and punched it in the closest eye.

The heads hissed and thrashed, knocking Lydia down. The sandworm dove down, and the sand around them whirled and roiled, until he felt like he was standing in boiling dirt.

When the sandworm rose again, it accidentally scooped up Lydia. She showed a little more survival instinct than she had before, and clung to the sandworm’s back.

“Knock it off!” he heard her say. She nudged the sandworm with her left boot, and the sandworm turned to the right. But it had had enough of its passenger, and whipped its body to throw Lydia like a beanbag.

She shrieked as she fell through the air. He stretched his legs, about 20 feet, and caught her.

As he dragged her back to the ground, he braced himself for another attack by the sandworm. Maybe if he transformed into something big and scary, showed some lionfish spines or extra limbs, the worm would leave them alone. Getting swallowed would be no good. Not only did he usually try to avoid getting eaten, but sandworms’ digested prey just wound up back in processing…after a wait of at least a decade or so.

The sandworm jumped over their heads, dove into the ground, and kept going. Its writhing body upset every dune it plowed through, but it didn’t double back.

He wasn’t going to look a gift worm in the mouth.

“And don’t come back!” he yelled. “G’on, git! Git!”

Lydia jumped out of his arms. “That was awesome! I thought I was going to die, but it was awesome.”

He was more tired than he’d been in a while. He was tired like Juno had been screaming at him for hours. Also, there was a lot of sand in his shoes. “You did OK But why the hell did you try to punch it in the face?”

She didn’t look ashamed in the slightest. “I thought it would be like avoiding a shark attack. That’s what the Discovery guy said during Shark Week: punch the shark hard in the eye so it leaves you alone.”

“Since when has punching something made it leave you alone?” he asked. “That has never worked when I’ve tried it with people.”

“Because then the shark – or the sandworm – thinks you’re too much of a threat and it ignores you. I made it go away, didn’t I?’

“I seriously doubt you’re what made it leave, Karate Kid. If a sandworm had its multiple hearts set on eating us, it would take more than your mechanical bull riding skills to dissuade it. I don’t know – I’m not so sure it was all that interested in us.”

“If it wasn’t going for us, why did it come over here?”

“I said I don’t know! I’m not a sandworm scientist.”

“Your hair is changing color,” she said, pointing at his head.

“Can you blame me? I’m pretty pissed off right now.”

She brightened. “It changes color with your mood?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I touch it?”

He grunted, and tilted his head. She patted some strands on the right side of his head, which were dark green at the tips, but probably working their way to red. The cocoon the caterpillar had made behind his ear popped open, and a death’s-head hawkmoth shot into the air and planted itself on Lydia’s nose.

“Augh!” she yelped, and fell right on her ass. He doubled over laughing while she tried to get back up with dignity.

“You’ve taken things too far this time, Beetlejuice!”

Once, just once, he’d like to go 48 hours without hearing those words shouted at him.

He turned to see Miss Argentina stomping up a sand dune, clipboard in hand, sash askew, which meant she was really really really upset.

“What have I done this time?” he asked, resigned.

“What have you done this time?” Miss Argentina pointed at Lydia. “Let’s start with child endangerment! And the fact that your disappearance has about given Juno apoplexy.”

“Ah, she loves me.”

“No! She just knows that if she hasn’t heard from you in twelve hours, it means you’re up to something! And that means the rest of us suffer! I’m just glad she gave me clearance to go to Saturn to look for your sorry, sagging ass, so at least I was able shoo a sandworm away from some newlydeads. I have a sneaking suspicion you bear some responsibility for that, too?”

“OK, that is both not fair and completely true,” he said. “And I’ll have you know I’m doing a good deed. I’m guiding this one around the Netherworld.” He jerked his head at Lydia.

“And why, in the name of all that is sacred, would you consider that a good idea?”

“Um…” He faltered. He may have been able to fudge a few details with Lydia, but Miss Argentina had been around long enough to know how the Abyss worked.

“Newlydeads…” Lydia said. “That must have been what attracted the sandworm. It wasn’t coming for us after all.”

“Why did you drag newlydeads with you?” he asked, happy to change the subject. “What, did you need help shouting at me? Anger backup singers?”

“Of course not.” Miss Argentina frowned. “But – that’s a good idea.” She clicked her pen, and scribbled on her clipboard. “I am actually writing that down. If Boy Inferno is free…”

“Excuse me!” came a woman’s voice from the bottom on the dune. “I’m so sorry – could you wait just a minute?”

“It’s very hard to walk on sand!” came a sexy, nasal male voice from the same direction.

“These newlydeads have a problem, you see,” said Miss Argentina, her voice icy. But something was wrong – she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on Lydia. “Apparently, a living person used their Handbook without permission.”

Lydia became interested in the horizon. “Huh. That’s weird.”

Miss Argentina jabbed a finger in Lydia’s face. “Oh, don’t even try that on me, living girl. I am not in the mood today.”

“Whoof! We made it.” The newlydead couple crested the dune…and he was smitten.

The woman was white, a pretty blonde, in a green wrap dress and suburban-mom-at-the-nice-grocery-store boots. Her companion was a beautiful Desi man, with light brown skin and a lock of black hair hanging over his forehead that he immediately wanted to run his fingers through.

“Oooooh…” he said. “Hello, sexy…”

Lydia looked at him with a scientific expression. “Which one?”

“The Trader Joe’s guardian angels over here. Not that Miss A isn’t pretty easy on the eyes herself, but she’s a friend of Ellen, know what I mean? A patron of U-Haul. An adopter of shelter cats. Wrong tree, is what I’m saying. But she loves me platonically.”

“She doesn’t,” Miss Argentina said.

The couple pushed past him and bent over Lydia.

“Oh, thank goodness!” the woman said.

“Lydia!” said the man. “I’m so glad we found you. We were worried sick!”

“Adam, Barbara?” Lydia said. “What…what are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to go to the Netherworld.”

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice fanfiction #beetlejuice the musical #lydia deetz #fan fiction

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simplyabsolute · 5 years ago

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Headcanon SPOP Ages

I know there has been a lot of debate on the princesses ages, and it’s really unclear to define some of them based on things like their species, how they age, and a lot of other unknown facts. But, for some reason, I have decided to try and break down their ages piece by piece with what little information we have ahead of the Season 4 premiere.

Mara (Early 30s at time of "death")

• There’s still a lot to learn about Mara, and I think we’ll get a lot of answers out of this upcoming season. However, so far, we know there hasn't been a She-Ra in well over a thousand years (before Adora) and it seems like Mara didn't live that long even though she accomplished so much... But based on her appearance I would say she was probably in her 30s when she "died" or I guess, disappeared?

Angella 🤷‍♀️ (less than 1000)

• She’s another mysterious character. We don’t know her species, when she was born, if there’s any more of her kind (besides Glimmer) or really what happened to her in the portal. What we do know is that she's an immortal being and that she is not a first one. She also did not know about Mara and has only heard stories of She-Ra prior to Adora's appearance.

• Technically since he's a clone of Horde Prime we can't be too sure of his real age or if he ages differently because of this. But based on his physical appearance and the rapid decline of his health (because of his defects) I place him in his late 50s, but he could be older than that too.

Hordak (Late 50s?)

Shadow Weaver (Late 40s or Early 50s)

• If we assume that Light Spinner was in her 30s when she was teaching Micah as an early teen and that he had Glimmer approx. 10 years later and given the fact that she's a teen now, the numbers add up somewhere around that age. But, just like a lot of others on this list, we don’t know her species and how she ages, so it’s hard to tell.

Micah (Late 20s at time of "death," 40s now?)

• I'm basing this on his appearance and the apparent graying in his beard as seen in "Remember." Since I personally believe that the portal would be unable to recreate beings that have passed, and that Micah in person looked much older than his mural, we can assume that he's definitely still alive and that he has aged normally during his time away. Also, in that episode he looked like he was probably in his mid 40s which would make sense given the passage of time since Glimmer was a baby to now.

Princesses Parents (30s to 50s?)

• Honestly, it's hard to tell given the fact that the only princess’ parents we've actually seen are Angella and Micah. We definitely need more information about them to make a precise estimate.

Entrapta (Early 30s)

• I believe one of the She-Ra crew members said that Entrapta was in her early 30s, plus there haven’t been any mentions about her parents and she appeared to be living alone with the robots in Dryl during season one. Also given the “subtle” hints at her relationship with Hordak, it would make sense that she would be older than the other princesses.

Spinnerella and Netossa (Late 20s)

• To me, they seem to be the oldest princesses in the Rebellion right now. This is based on appearance (obviously) and the fact that none of the younger princesses hangout with them, or really knew what they did prior to season one. They are also one of the few canon couples on this show and usually canon couples are older in shows that are intended for a younger audience.

Perfuma (26 or 27)

• She also seems to be an older princess, given how well established she is in ruling her kingdom and overall physical appearance. She also seems to be in full control of her powers and is confident in her ability to use them, which we see younger princesses like Glimmer and Adora falter in.

Sea Hawk (25 or older)

• I’m basing this one mostly on his personality, since his physical appearance isn’t much to go off of. Yes, he has a mustache and is well built, but that doesn’t really help us define anything. What we do know is that he is an adventurer and very spontaneous, often acting compulsively without thinking (i.e. setting boats on fire) which indicates to me that he isn’t that emotionally mature yet, but I could be wrong.

Scorpia (23 or older)

• I know some people might fight me over this one but hear me out. Obviously, she has to be older that Adora and Catra because she’s not in their squadron (with Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio) and she was already a force captain by the time Catra became one. Also, her overall appearance and demeanor makes me think that she’s in hermid-20s.

Mermista (22 or 23)

• I think she has mentioned her Dad before in the series and she appears to be newish when it comes to ruling her kingdom. Her powers are also pretty well developed, but I feel like she has more to learn somehow. The fact that she could possible be in a relationship with Sea Hawk also influences me to place her in her early 20s.

Adora (19 or 20)

• Noelle has repeatedly called her a young adult in interviews on several occasions. Her upcoming path to self-discovery also seems like something most young adults go through in that age too. But, technically speaking, I guess she's over one thousand years old too given that she's a first one who came into the future through magical portal, right?

Catra (18 or 19)

• I don't see there being a huge age difference between them given that they grew up together and everything else that has happened between them. And the only reason I'm listed Adora as being older is because her cannon birthday comes before Catra's.

Bow and Glimmer (17 or 18)

• Just like Catra and Adora I see Glimmer and Bow being close in age given that they also grew up together, etc. But in my headcanon I believe Bow is older than Glimmer based on his occasional maturity and emotional stability. He always seems to be the one that mediates his friend’s outbursts and his overall willingness to make new friends is very mature of him.

Frosta (12)

• I think she's the only princess that we know the canon age of. In the newest short we see her celebrate her 12th birthday. She is also surprising mature for her age and she seems to has excellent control of her powers.

Well, those are my opinions 🤷‍♀️ Feel free to disagree I know it's going to happen anyway 😂

#spop #shera #adora #catra #glimmer #bow #scorpia #entrapta #hordak #shadow weaver #spinnerella #netossa #frosta #perfuma #headcanon

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bodytoflame-ao3 · 5 years ago

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Fem Percabeth 19. Shy kiss or 74. Kisses Where One Person Is Sitting In The Other’s Lap

anons. i love every last one of you. i want to appreciate you on main SHOW YOURSEEEEELFFFFF.

Read on Ao3

i can't believe you're sitting next to mejust open up your eyes and tell mewhat do you see?

do you see somebody looking back at you?or do you see somebody that's in love with you?

coloring book ..//.. the regrettes

Annabeth's hand drifts, crawling across the bark of the tree trunk to rest on top of hers. Percy's suddenly hyperaware of everything around them — the musk of the fire, the way it crackles and sparks; the heat rising towards her, and the heat in her face. Annabeth looks over, smiling until her face softens as she notices Percy's hesitance.

“Hey.” She lifts her hand from Percy's and runs it down her arm, her touch light and gentle. “It's just me.”

It sends a shiver all the way up to her shoulder. That's the whole point. It's her. Her best friend. And her girlfriend — it's hard to stop buzzing with excitement when Annabeth Chase is her girlfriend. It's an almost unreal feeling; she spent so much time lamenting her feelings for her, coming to terms with the idea they'd never be a reality. Then Annabeth touches her like this, holds her hand, kisses her, and her heart pounds in her chest like she's never felt.

“You okay, Percy?” she asks.

“I'm— I don’t know.” Percy stutters, looking around. She's not sure what she's looking for — it's late, and most of the other campers have gone back to their cabins already. She supposes she has to face it eventually; “I get so nervous around you,” she admits. It’s hard for her to say. She’s been a hero in the eyes of the world for too many years now. Being vulnerable was not an option, nor a choice.

Annabeth scoots closer to Percy, her fingers brushing against her cheek as she sweeps wisps of hair behind her ear. “Percy,” she sighs and smiles, her eyebrows furrowing — a bittersweet smile. “It’s just me.” There’s a softness in her voice Percy’s never heard before. It’s almost strange to hear her talk like this, so quiet and kind.

“I know it’s you, that’s… that’s the whole…” Percy sighs, “This is exactly what I was afraid of.” She lets it out in frustration, because it’s the only way she knows. Being vulnerable is the easiest way to get yourself killed.

“What?” Annabeth asks, not moving her hand from Percy's cheek, but running her thumb along the side of her face, urging her to keep going.

“Things… changing between us," she manages.

“Perce,” her gaze softens even more, taking hold of Percy’s hands with her free hand. “You’re still my best friend.”

“It just doesn’t seem real sometimes.” She clarifies, “All of it, I mean. The war being over. The fact that I’m still here. Alive. And—” she starts to laugh, “—and you like me, which I still don’t completely understand.”

“No, I— I know what you mean. I know this is… scary, or weird, or,” she chuckles, “whatever, but we’ve been through much crazier stuff.” If they could navigate the labyrinth, they could figure out a relationship. Not that she hasn't asked herself so many questions about it: She’s wondered about so many things — What would her father think? And her mother? Sally Jackson’s already been like a mother to her; no doubt she’ll be thrilled. But what happens when summer’s over? School? And college? The only thing she’s sure of is that she wants Percy to be by her side just like she has for the past five years. Everything and everyone else be dammed.

Percy whispers, “Can I kiss you?”

She wants to laugh, and tell Percy she doesn't have to ask. Instead, Annabeth smiles, and presses her lips against Percy’s. She still can’t get over how incredibly soft she is; her lips, her skin, her hair (she’s a girl, Annabeth tells herself). She’s so gentle with her now — their first few kisses were so frenzied, built up with years of desire. Now, she kisses Annabeth so delicately, so chaste.

Secretly, Annabeth yearns for the intensity of their first kiss. “You don’t have to be so shy about it.”

“I don’t really know how to do this, Annabeth,” Percy laughs, knowing Annabeth knows no more than she does.

“I like you. I trust you.”

Percy pushes her curls out of her face, her fingers combing through, mirroring how Annabeth did it. “Sorry. You hate it when people touch your hair.”

That’s true; it’s a tangled, frizzy mess when people touch it, raking their hands through without a care. But Percy’s hands are so gentle; “I like it when you do.” It’s just that when you’re this close I feel like I’m going to lose control. When thoughts like this flood her mind, she has to remind herself that it’s okay to kiss her — she’s spent so long suppressing that desire into the deepest recesses of her mind.

Percy smiles back at her, stroking her cheek with the lightest touch of her thumb, and Annabeth can’t take it anymore. She kisses Percy, not the innocent, closed-mouth kisses they’ve shared in the past few weeks — deeper, yet somehow sweeter. She moves her lips in tandem with Percy, and it feels like she’s floating. Annabeth wonders if she feels the same. She’s not thinking, or she’s thinking too much; she lifts Percy into her lap, eliciting a squeak from her.

Percy hates how overwhelming it is. All she wants to do is kiss her, but her brain is preoccupied with every sensation traversing her body; specifically, Annabeth’s searing touch, her warm breath against her neck. She pulls away, and wraps Annabeth in a hug, burying her head in her curls, the sweet scent of lemon flooding her senses. “You’re perfect.”

Annabeth blushes, and she’s glad Percy can’t see, because even though their dynamic has shifted, she knows she would still tease her. “You know, you drive me crazy sometimes,” she whispers. She does, in more ways than one. Somehow she manages to both frustrate her and turn her brain into a mushy mess with the littlest movements. No one has ever made her feel this way, she realizes. Just Percy. And that’s scary — but refreshing. It’s scary, not in the far too familiar way she feared for her life, but the kind of fear that makes her feel alive.

With that, Percy kisses her again. Annabeth curses her stupid, hormonal teenage brain, because it’s like her logical side is gone. The only thing she can do is trace the slope of her waist through her t-shirt; so desperate to be close to her, yet so afraid of scaring her.

Annabeth’s touch feels like it’s burning her skin, and she wonders just how much more intense it would feel without the fabric separating them. It’s hard for Percy to rectify having these kinds of thoughts about her — part of her still feels almost guilty, like she’s somehow bad for wanting it — because she repressed them for so long. Because before, Annabeth was just her best friend, her straight best friend who she stared at and dreamed about kissing. It felt wrong, thinking about her like that when she’d never feel the same. (Now, she kisses her; her lips soft and pink with the lingering scent of strawberry lip gloss, and she wonders how she could ever think it was wrong.)

Annabeth laughs, running her hands down Percy’s hips, “This is weird.” It's weird that she's kissing the girl she grew up alongside, the one who conquered an impossible prophecy and came through it stronger than anyone would've guessed.

“But, like… good?”

Her smile shines as bright as the light of the fire. “Definitely good.”

“I really like you, Annabeth.” You don’t even know. They've spent half the summer as stolen kisses and sneaking through camp at night, yet she still doesn't understand the gravity of how Percy looks at her.

“I like you too.” she adds jokingly, “Regretfully.”

Percy shakes her head, letting out a laugh. And they're okay — because they’re fumbling hands and awkward laughs — but they’re figuring it out together.

#prompt fill #fic #~1k words #anon #annabeth chase #pjo #fem!percy jackson #fem!percy #wlw percabeth #made

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jinniesmeow · 6 years ago

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good evening. this is a very long rant. if you’ve been tagged in this, it means I have a message for you :’) it’s at the bottom of the post, and that’s the most important part, so dear mutuals, feel free to just go read that part and don’t feel forced to read all that bullcrap I've written. thank you if you do, thank you if you don’t.

if we’re not mutuals and you’re reading this, well I guess thank you because this is hella long and cliché af. I'm sorry to everyone for this. though it kinda has nothing to do with what I'm saying, I was feeling particularly gay tonight and I'm in my feelings right now so yeah. if you’re willing to read, just click, you know how that works.

first of all, hello. thank you if you’re reading this, whether we’re mutuals or not, this isn’t a private post so if you’re reading this, hello to you, I hope you’re having a wonderful night or day and I guess sorry for what you’re about to read if it’s considered TMI. I don’t know everyone on here so I'll start with the basics. I’m zia, aka users jinniesmeow, yunholy, hwangitzy and very recently yuzukhei. I'm (almost) 19, and in case you didn’t know, I'm French. and Italian, fortunately or not, idk. 100% European and white anyway, and my ancestors were all 100% racist and homophobic (I mean Poland and Italy? come on.). My sister, who’s turning 23 this year (she’s not on Tumblr), and myself are the first generation in my family to be queer on whichever side of it it is you’re looking at.

Indeed, (if you didn’t know somehow, now you do) both her and I are pansexual. thankfully, our mom is far from being homophobic and racist and she’s a very open minded person, like really. neither of us have ever had a coming out, and none of us plan on doing it. I totally understand the necessity for some people to come out to their relatives and all that, but here’s why I personally refuse to do it: I don’t get why I have to tell people I'm not straight. I think it only fuels the fact that being straight is seen as the norm, because do straight people ever announce they are straight? exactly. being queer (gay, lesbian, pan, ace, whatever) is not abnormal, it’s not unnatural, so I refuse to have to scream it to everyone, and I don’t mean by that that I'm trying to hide my queerness, because I'm very open and honest about it, and I always have been. I hope one day, we won’t need to come out anymore and that people will stop assuming our sexuality. until then, I'll let people get flustered whenever I imply that I'm not straight without having ever stated it clearly before because fuck that shit.

anygays. so, like I said, I've always been very open and honest about my romantic and sexual orientation. I know lots of bi/pan people “realise” they are queer when they’re a bit older, during their teenage years or early adulthood, but (un)fortunately I am not one of those. I have literally always known I liked girls too (in the first place, I mean). actually, I’ve always thought attraction and romance were about the person, like, I mean it was an evidence to me ever since I was a child, and how can I explain that I got slapped in the face when I discovered that it was not a universal thing, that it was not “the truth”. so there I was, in the middle of elementary school, openly saying I liked girls in front of everyone because I thought it was normal. I mean, it is, but you get what I mean.

on top of that, the term “pansexual” has been occulted and invalidated for years, and most people didn’t even know of it until like maybe 3 years ago. remember, I'm 19, and there I was in middle school at 13 years old telling people I was pansexual when they’d barely even heard of bisexuality (while everyone else was like ‘I'm straight!! ew the gays’ btw). honestly, I cannot count how many times I've been called a pedophile, a necrophile and zoophile. by my very own friends, yes.

same with high school, but I'm not going to repeat myself. just for the precision: no, I have never been physically or mentally bullied for that, however, I was mocked a lot because of how tall I am (I was 1m73/5′7 at 14) and because I can be quite androgynous since I don’t have big boobs. I have large hips though, so those fucking males didn’t miss the chance to pick on me for that too. obviously though if I've never been full on bullied it’s because: 1. I've always had friends and I've never been a ‘loner nerd’, 2. I was tall and intimidating, 3. I was respected for my intelligence and grades and wasn’t being full of myself about being a top student, and 4. because I was neither fat nor a person of colour, obviously, and those are privileges I'm very aware of. I have still been called a ‘woman with a dick’ and other transphobic shit and was often treated as if I were a boy, though.

I still identify as a girl. I have been so, so complexed about so many things about my physical appearance for so long, I can’t count how many hours I have spent looking at my naked reflection in the mirror, feeling disgusted, wishing I had bigger boobs and that I would “look more like a girl” and so on. how much I have hated my body is something I can’t even measure. as of today, I've realised there is no such thing as “looking like a girl” and I've made a lot of progress on liking my overall appearance and accepting my body, sometimes I even think I'm hot™ and definitely think men don’t deserve me but for some fucking reason I can’t choose my sexuality (crazy right) and I still am attracted both romantically and sexually to them :/

anyways. now you know how long I've known that I'm a pansexual and throughout all these years, every time someone talked about the community or when pride came, no one mentioned us pansexuals, and I've seen us being invalidated so many times I really started doubting myself. I was like, “it’s like being bisexual, I'm just being butthurt and pushing it too far” but at the same time I never stopped calling myself pansexual. to some people, it’s just a preference in the choice of words to say you’re bi or pan, but to me there is a difference, even if it’s the smallest ever, and yes. being bi and being pan are “basically the same thing” and both orientations are very close but that very difference means everything to me. I am attracted to people, romantically and sexually, regardless of their gender. that is exactly it. and it’s very important to me.

I'm sorry if this is a mess, it’s hard to say things in the right order when I have so much to say, but I'm going to go back to what I was saying in the beginning about my family. I talked about my mom. my parents have been separated since I was 6 and haven’t spoken to each other in like 12 years btw. so, as for my dad, I know he wouldn’t care. he’s not homophobic, not racist. he does say homophobic and racist things sometimes, without realising it, like a lot of people do, and that doesn’t make him a homophobe. I know he doesn’t care if I'm gay, and I feel good just knowing that. however, remember, my family is italian. everyone around us is 100% straight (except for my cousins, I'm pretty sure one of them is bi-curious and the other is ace, but they aren’t open about this at all and have probably never questioned their sexuality lmao) and then there are my sister and I in the middle of it, and we’re like “yup, we’re the gay cousins”. the italian side of my family is huge. like really, my father has a total of 24 cousins (and I don’t mean the little ones and all that, I mean first degree cousins), so imagine how many of us there are in total when you’re counting everyone’s kids, spouses, grandkids and great-grandkids (you read that well, some of his cousins are old, some are even deceased). and they’re italian. and 100% into their religious set of mind that has them believe their god forbids being gay and that we’ll burn in hell. whatever, would’ve been going there anyway, gay or not so it’s not like I care, all the more reasons to be a fag.

and yes I have proof they are racist and homophobic, I've heard the things they’ve said. so, I, whomst has had depression for basically all her life and also has every existing form of anxiety there is, don’t exactly feel comfortable around these people. and on top of being gay, I listen to “Ching Chong music”!!! how do I have to put into words that I know exactly what they think of me? I even have blue hair now so like, blending in even less than before. so yeah.

to add on to that feeling of worthlessness, when I entered high school, I was still a top student without doing any type of work whatsoever, but then depression got the best of me (like for real this time how am I even still alive tbh) and I fell so hard I could barely stand going to school anymore. my last two years of high school (it lasts 3 years in France) have been disastrous. I barely attended and could barely manage keeping my grades above average, because I had zeros on 99% of my homework since I never did it. still had good enough grades on tests though, and it saved my ass.

honestly, I don’t even want to talk about these years and how I was feeling, because it’s still too fresh for me and I'm stil trying (yes, trying) to heal from it. I can say without a doubt that they were some of the worst years of my life though. however final exams came and my ass managed to get a really good grade without revising anything, this way I could send a big, huge, fuck off to my teachers who had been shitting in my face for years and making me feel like the hugest shit on earth. I hope they choke on their jealousy. then I went to uni for about three months, where I majored in English, but eventually decided to stop because I couldn’t go a day without having a panic attack on the train, because I still couldn’t get my ass to do any work, because I was bored out of my mind and just when I had started feeling better after leaving high school I was sinking further down. I spent months staying home without seeing anyone but my mom and doing nothing but watching Netflix (the French catalogue isn’t as interesting as the American one btw). then, I finally found the guts to go see a therapist. not gonna say it was a mistake, but I'm glad I stopped because this bitch was just here to take my money. I took antidepressants for a few months, and I have stopped really recently, actually. in all honesty, I have gotten much better, thanks to my own doing, I've worked so hard on getting better and I'm proud of how far I've come.

today, I can finally say for the first time ever in my life that I am proud of who I am.

the whole point of saying all of this shit you have (maybe) read is not because I want people to give attention to me or anything like, I don’t want pity or anything and truly don’t think there are any reasons for people to feel any pity towards me. I'm saying this because I want to thank the people around me for just existing, for supporting me, for making me feel validated. because you might not realise it, but (a lot of) you are often talking about your problems, and it makes me realise that I'm not the only one feeling this kind of way. it makes me realise there are people who might understand me, even just a little. and when I see you talking about your sexual/romantic orientation (or lack of so) it also makes me feel accepted. I see you guys reblog such validating things, and then some of you even have pride flags in your layouts, and you have no idea how my heart feels about it. if you weren’t aware, I'm a twitter person. I've spent so much time on there, I have met lots of people, lots of which are part of the community and openly supporting it, and yet I have never felt more validated than since I've been on here.

I've also met the people I consider “the most” as my internet best friends on here, like my best best internet friends, if that makes sense lmao, and not actually on twitter (although I might be pushing it because I have actually gone from IVL to IRL with most of them so like... whatever.) point is: I have met amazing friends I'm so thankful for on here. and all the people I see in my dash, to all of you, thanks for everything too even if we don’t really talk and if we haven’t had actual discussions before. now if you want to, you can always come to me to talk about whatever the fuck you want.

so, here, I want to thank all of you, because today I'm finally starting to think maybe, just maybe, that I want to keep on living and that good things might happen to me. I have no plans for the future, since I never imagined myself getting this far in life, but I'm still willing to give it a try.

please, if after you’re reading this, you’re thinking about telling me cliché things about staying strong and all that, I'm going to ask you not to do it. it just feels like pity to me. or choose your words wisely, I'm begging you, because I can’t stand thinking anyone would pity me. please don’t feel like that, that’s not the point of this.

I'm doing this as a thank you, and as a message to everyone out there who’s read this. I hope my words mean something to you. maybe help you? it’s ok to be confused about who you are. it’s ok not to like yourself, it takes so much work to get better and all that, but just know that you can do it, it is possible to do it. it takes time, it will hurt, but it’s an option. it’s not impossible.

now. I have some people I want to send a quick message to. I guess some of you will be surprised, but just read what I have to say please, and know that from the bottom of my heart, I mean it.

@hwangwhatjin Emily. I don’t even know where to start, and soon I won’t even be able to see what I'm typing anymore because the tears I've been fighting while writing all this crap have started flowing all of a sudden the second I typed your name. you’re the first friend I made on here. we started off nothing, and I was a no one, and yet you still talked to me and all that. you’re honestly one of the most tolerant and kind people I have ever met in my life. you’re the exact opposite of prejudiced, you’re so open minded, so not giving a shit about other people’s quirks (I mean it in the right way) that don’t concern you directly, like people are who they are and you don’t give a damn about it, it’s amazing. I know this doesn’t sound like a compliment, but I can’t find the right way to put this. you’ve also always been there to listen to me whenever I wanted you to, and you have never judged me once. you have no idea how thankful I am for having you in my life. I wouldn’t want to have anyone else hold the title of bro. I love you so, so much, and I'm sorry we haven’t been talking lately. I hope I can help you just like you’ve helped me and support you as much as you need me to in the future, and I want you to know I'll always be there for you, I'll never let you down. you have no idea how much I can’t wait to meet you so I can wrap you in a blanket and give you hot chocolate while I light up a gingerbread scented candle (yes, I remember) and put on some blink-182 and stroke your hair because it’s what you deserve. you’re one of my best friends, like ever, and it’s such a pain we’re so far from each other, fuck this damn channel. one day I'll just swim to you to hear your wonderful accent you say you hate so much. anything to see you. I'm sorry I'm so old, I wish it were less of a problem, but as you grow up this gap will be less and less of an obstacle, so let’s just be patient, yeah? I love you, bro. roach bros to the end of the line.

@pikachulein Laura. ok. where do I start and how do I stop my eyes from sweating so much. you know, I'm just gonna say it. in my opinion, soulmates aren’t the people we’re especially meant to be with in a romantic way, and we might even have several of them. I just think they’re people who just bring you so much, and people who are like another version of you, but different. kind of like I described in my Felix au, actually. when I call you my soulmate, I really mean it, because I'd never thought I'd meet someone who understands me so well because they relate so much, someone who basically shares the same mind because hell, when have we ever had different thoughts on something like... it will never cease to amaze me. it’s only been a few months since we’ve known each other, but I actually think you’re one of my closest friends. hell, on the day we meet, because I'm not taking no for an answer, I don’t even know how I'll be holding up like, I won’t know how to act. so in advance, I'm sorry if I'm so weird at first. you’ve listened to the story of my whole life and you’ve shared your experience back, and you have no idea how thankful I am for that. maybe you haven’t realised, but you’ve been of a huge help to me. thank you for being so understanding, for not judging me, for being so open about everything with me, thank god I have someone with whom I can talk about literally any subject without it feeling uncomfortable or like i’m being judged. I have so many things to say I can’t even find the words, honestly. I’m just so thankful that you exist and that I have you in my life, and that you actually like me as a person too. thanks so much. you’re my best bitch, together we’re the baddest bitches of the pan squad and I can’t wait to travel across Europe with you for real. the world ain’t ready for us.

@hanniesunshine Isabel. you’re just the biggest ray of sunshine ever. everything about you is so pure I'm even scared to be one of the people you talk to because I feel like you don’t deserve to talk to me (I mean like you deserve much better than me) and that I'm way too filthy for you. you’re always so good and kind to me, so, so supportive, and I can’t even thank you enough for that. honestly, every time I see you somewhere, kakaotalk, WhatsApp, Tumblr, I just can’t help but smile because you’re the purest and brightest being the earth has ever seen and I can’t believe you would actually want to talk to someone like me. I'm so sorry for everything. I'm so sorry for being such a cold bitch (and for using this word) sometimes, and for almost never finding the right words. thanks for always being so eager about reading my content. I'll keep supporting you, and I'll do better in everything!! I love you, so, so much. I'll always be there for you if you need me or want me.

@sleepyracha Marie. I'm so, so sorry I'm so inconsistent and that I don’t talk to you as much as I used to, I hope we’re still okay. I just want to thank you for being the open minded person you’ve shown me you are and for supporting me all the time, and for very interesting conversations about literally anything. I promise I'm learning Spanish and that soon we’ll be able to talk together in another language than English. I hope you’re doing well and that you know I'm always there for you, and if Tumblr isn’t the best place for you, tell me where you want me to be for you. congrats on passing this year, you’re someone amazing and you’re so chill, it feels so good to see someone like that. thank you for even talking to me in the first place, thank you so much and I love you.

@lesbianbias Nina. you’re such a soft and pure person, I'm so glad you were my skz anon and that I got to meet a wonderful person like you. you’re always showering me with love, and I always feel like I don’t deserve it. thanks so much for all the support, please, please never change. I love you and you’re amazing. thank you for being so chill as well. I'll make sure I'll return that love to you.

@xiaocity siya. thank you so much for listening to me, you know what I'm referring to. I know you’re one of those who really deeply understands me and I'm thankful we got to talk, even just a bit. I'm always there if you need me, thank you for supporting me and my works, and be more confident in your writing, it’s good!! I think we actually have a lot in common too, so if you ever feel like talking, feel free to drop by in my dms.

@littlefallenrebel Sophie. we haven’t talked that much, but I feel like we should talk more. we have a lot more in common than we think, I'm sure of it. thank you for being you, thank you for the messages you’ve been spreading with your posts and reblogs. you’re an amazing person and I'm happy you’re my mutual because you’re a truly good person.

@visualgiggles sam. thank you for your reblogs, whatever they’re about they never fail to cheer me up, whether they’re about tolerance or just memes, even the latter help me regain faith in humanity. we haven’t talked that much but I would gladly talk some more with you if you ever wanted to. you’re a wonderful person and I'm thankful you’re my mutual.

@dreamypansexual I don’t think we’ve ever talked, I'm not even sure I know your name so I don’t want to say something wrong. but that doesn’t matter, because you’re still one of the people who make me feel the most validated here. hell, you literally have a pan flag as your layout (your user... I mean yeah). your posts are always making me feel so much better because it proves me that there are still such tolerant and open people out there, so thank you.

@cloudyyboii honestly, I think it’s kind of the same as with your friend right above between me and you. it doesn’t matter though, thanks for the validation and the tolerance you’re spreading around. love you.

@jxsng Kylie. I don’t think we’ve ever had a private conversation, but whatever. you’ve shown me lots of supports in every other way and you’re such a sweet and open person, I'm thankful you’re my mutual. I feel small next to people like you because I feel like you hold the whole world in your hands, you’re one of those meant to go places and it shows. I'll always support you too. thank you for everything and I love you.

@ggukksrose shims. you’re definitely one of the people who make me feel validated the most, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I always see you sticking up for others and telling the haters to go fuck off, and you even did that with me. you’re an amazing person, and I admire you for the confidence you’ve managed to achieve and I wish you the best in the future, I hope you’ll only get better and better with your fights and if anyone ever messes with you I'll be throwing hands. just say the word. I love you.

@cypher-yngi Emerson, am I wrong? we’ve never talked though we’ve been mutuals for so long. from what I've seen, we have a lot in common and I'd be more than ok to have even a simple conversation with you, even if you said Orangina was good. you’re also one of those who have helped me feel valid and realise I'm not alone in this world, so if you’re ever feeling alone, and if you want to, let’s be alone together, maybe? gotta love FOB. also, you have amazing music taste. and you're a fellow yoongi stan, and that itself says a lot about the kind of person you are. thanks for existing and I love you.

@wonwonbebe ah... have you ever told me what your name was? I have terrible memory. doesn’t really matter. I love you, I'm so thankful that you were my anon and can’t believe you actually went through all that just to talk to me. you have no idea how thankful I am. you’re a wonderful person, and I'm so, so happy to see that my mutuals are all so amazing and tolerant. thanks for all the positivity.

@psycho-robin-chan robin, right? we’ve talked a bit before. if you read what’s above, you’ll probably find some parts a bit familiar, haha. I actually loved this conversation with you, if that makes sense? it’s always interesting and it feels good to let it out. I also like seeing I'm not alone, and I like to think that when I speak about such things with people I might also be helping them feel better. so thanks, you also make me feel valid with your posts and reblogs, and you’re such a tolerant and open and chill person at such a young age. never change anything! thanks for being here and supporting me.

@mirohell sage! we haven’t been mutuals for long, and I'm not expecting you to read everything I've written, it’s ok if you don’t, really. I just wanted to thank you real quick because you’re already showing me lots of support and I feel like we’ll be getting along well. if you want to read this, I'm sorry for putting so much on your shoulders so quick lmao, you’ll basically be knowing so much about me without having asked for anything. feel free not to read it, I'm repeating myself again but really, the actual important part of this post is this one where I thank you all individually. so thank you!! I'll do my best in supporting you in the future as well, and not only by showing your edits some love haha

@theminho min! we haven’t been mutuals for long either, but thank you for caring about me. thanks for even just following me. thanks for this message you’ve sent, it means a lot really. you don’t have to read all that I've written above either,, don’t feel pressured, I just wanted to thank you personally too for just being here and for the support. feel free to come talk to me whenever you want (if you ever want) and I'll be supporting you always!!

@justlovingkpop my sweetheart, you’re just too cute and so supportive and loving. thank you so, so much for everything and for coming to talk to me!! I'll go reread some of your work soon to because I've missed it. thanks for existing, and know that I'm always there for you. love you lots.

@strawb-milk-tea my babyyyy I'm going to repeat it but thank you and I love you and you’re so cute and you’re NOT a potato ok, you’re so, so pretty like I knew I was gay but phew... I feel valid too when I see you. long live the gays.

@five-pence hey there! it’s been a while. hope you’re doing well. thank you for supporting me, thank you for making me feel valid as well, and I love you very much. I'm here whenever.

@jooheonenthusiast yo. we’ve basically only talked bc of that one post I made, and it’s been enough to show me that you’re an amazing person and a bad bitch. thanks for your support and fuck the homophobes. I love you.

@marriael adellum. you’re a really kind person. you’re so pure. and you make me me feel very much valid, love your profile pics from the last days by the way. thanks for existing and I'm glad you’ve joined us on the network, it’s a pleasure to have someone like you around. hope I'm not too much of a pain in the ass.

@channiiebby gryphon. we’ve never talked privately, but you’re a sweetheart. thanks for being you. you’re valid and you know it, and that makes me feel valid too, so thanks for showing me it’s okay to be who you are. I love you.

that’s it. I'm out of words. I've been at this for like 2 hours now. if I think of anyone else, I'll just reblog and add them. but right now I feel totally empty because of all the emotion hive poured into all this and I need to recharge, so good night and I love you all. thank you for your time and attention.

happy pride month everyone,

your friendly neighbourhood pansexual, zia.

#on this note #good night everyone #I love y'all #rants #personal #<33 #sorry for bothering you all with this

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axiang-n-chengling-s-dads · 6 years ago

Text

Why is S4 Fucky

I know we've probably waxed poetic about this, but I needed to clear it all so that I can work in the theories.

Also @delorb thought that Johnlockers only disliked s4 because of no canon Johnlock, so to them and all the others who think so, here's why s4 was fucky.

TST

1. Sherlock says to John and Mary that he knows exactly what he's going to do, but says doesn't really know about it to the govt officials.

2. Sherlock's behaviour towards Mary is weird at best, showing WAY too much affection for someone who literally tried to kill him.

3. And he's suddenly trading John for Mary on a case? I mean the three eventually go together on it, but he says that she's better than him, when last episode he was literally praising John (pretty damn smart) in his MP.

4. John is writing his blog but it's actually a .jpg file??? Like did literally no one on the editiing team notice just HOW noticeable that was?

5. Sherlock forgets whether the victim was a girl or a boy (your daughter... Sorry- son.) Smartest guy around indeed.

6. Mary jumps in front of the bullet, so since SHE has he time to do so, Sherlock would have had the time to jump away, and yet the greatest consulting detective of all time couldn't figure that out? Also, Moftiss broke their OWN rules that they'd made, making Mary's death too dramatized ( a bit spurt of blood and you do flying backwards)?? Why?

7. John is somehow blaming Sherlock completely for it, and giving him a note via Molly that we don't ever get to read. Mary in his head and a goddamn angel all of a sudden?

8. Also, John Watson, literally known for his loyalty, apparently cheats on his wife? (Though we're still expected to root for their marriage and believe it was a happy one?)

TLD

8. Mary sends a 'Miss me?' Note (What IS that all about? Constantly comparing her to Moriarty if they don't want us to make that connection?)

9. Sherlock is high As a kite, about to OD, and John cant be FUCKING BOTHERED TO EVEN CHECK UP ON HIM? Ruining a character arc much?

10. Also, Eurus dressing up like John for Sherlock and Sherlock for John (all dark haired, mysterious, and doesn't do this with OTHER people but she'll make an exception for John?) To LURE them. Ok. Ok.

11. "Is cup of tea code?" Like why do they fuck us up like that?

12. Culverton Smith is literally dressed up like John?

13. John is beating the SHIT OUT OF SHERLOCK? John Watson who once punched an officer who called Sherlock a freak? Hitting Sherlock until he has to be admitted to the hospital?

14. John doesn't even THINK of saving Sherlock unless Mary tells him thorough a CD? HOW did the two survive before she told them how to breathe?

15. The whole the Hug™ scene just... God. And Irene still making John jealous? This isn't really a point but that scene made me teary...

16. Eurus shooting John with a gun that was definitely NOT a tranquilizer, and then we have NO EXPLANATION of what happened next? Are we supposed to forget it ever happened? Please tell me.

TFP

15. Please don't even get me started on this one. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

16. Again we start with this weird horror house thing and we have no explanation to how things progressed till here?

17. Mycroft talking about the whole Secret Sibling Story™ like Henry Knight in THoB except Sherlock DELETED an entire person from their life who lived with him for years and not just one tiny scene of his life.

18. Eurus being able to get out of Sherrinford but still going back in????? WHAT? WHY?

19. There is a motion sensing bomb. Which grey escape alive. By jumping out of the fucking window. Ok. Fuck pHysics. I get it.

20. Sherrinford is shaped like a heart... Seriously look.

21. They write an entire message on the sand in big ass letters and the most secure place ever doesn't notice?

22. Sherlock not realizing there's NOT a glass in front of him when he's literally two cms away from it? The audience I understand, because of their cinematography (brilliantly done, btw, but lacking logic. Also if we've come to that point. EURUS' THREE DISGUISES WERE MIND BLOWING i didn't have a single fucking idea they were the same person)

23. Sherlock not listening to John when he says Vatican Cameos? Thank you Moftiss for properly destroying their friendship arc.

24. Also those torture rooms were more of a torture for John that Sherlock? Anyways.

25. Eurus connects them on the phone with a little girl, but the girl was actually in her head. So who were they talking to???? Can Eurus also change her voice to a tiny girls? Ok.

26. Apparently Eurus and Moriarty planned all of this in five minutes? In which they just basically creepily mirrored each other's actions and eye-fucked? And Moriarty made all these recordings before his death? Like he knew all of this was going to happen, and her Eurus only did all of this years after his death? Why the delay?

27. (Also NONE of the Johnlock fans wanted the ILY scene to have been with John instead of Molly, and here's why: )

28. The whole shoot either John or Mycroft was really painful, but anyways. Now they're apparently transported to Sherlock's Childhood home and Eurus is able to have people make fake walls all around? Wow that's pretty resourceful.

29. Also the place has a fake dog bowl labelled 'Redbeard' so either Victor Trevor ate out of a dog bowl or Eurus knew Sherlock hasn't figured it out. But that can't be possible, because when Sherlock entered she was amused that he still didn't know ('oh, you still don't know about Redbeard do you?.)

30. John is in a well, and is chained to the said well, though later in the episode he climbs out of it with a rope, because the chain fucking dissolved in the water?

31. Also, John in Sherlock's head could break every bone of a persons body while naming them, but this real John can't tell if he's looking at HUMAN OR ANIMAL bones? Did Moftiss have a personal vendetta against John to destroy him so completely?

32. Also when John is about to die in the well, Sherlock's only response is 'Try not to drown?' The same Sherlock, who,in TEH, stole an motorcycle, rode all the way to a bonfire, jumped into the fucking fire to save John, all bbecause of a text. Wow. Are the same people writing the show anymore?

33. Also a point worth noting. Mycroft sends Sherlock to Eurus, who knows the truth about redbeard, and who could catch him unaware by the fact that he's actually a HUMAN and not a dog, without telling him the truth. Or did Mycroft also repress his memory and turn him into a dog?

34. We save the little girl (with whom we'd been talking on the phone) in eurus head, and eurus too, who wanted to kill Sherlock, but that's cool, everyone near him is trying to do that these days.

35. Sherlock and Eurus are now best mates (and hopefully she wont try to kill him again, but that's okay) and her family visits her, baker street is okay really, like what bomb ever exploded? Just the mirrors broken a and the wallpaper needs replacing that's it.

36. Also, Mary the Dictator is back at it again, telling John and Sherlock how to live, along witH little messages like (I know what you two could be if I'm not there) and life at baker street is back to normal. (Also John never really apologised to Sherlock for beating him to death, but then again, everyone tries to do him in these days.)

37. Also no one talks about the trauma, or literally anything that happened?

38. Also everyone was wearing blue and EVERYTHING was blue until the last few scenes?

Of course this may be just bad writing, but I find it hard to believe that. Maybe there's another reason?

Please feel free to add, or discuss.

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

Not-So-Very Lovely

by Viorica

Sunday, 26 July 2009

Alternate title: "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Rape House"~

I can't figure out what happened to Stratford this year. Last year's season was brilliant, with at least eight shows that I'd happily see over and over again. This season, not only has the quality of the productions dropped drastically, they seem to have given up on having any kind of coherent theme running through their program. Last year's playbill- which included

Fuente Ovejuna

The Trojan Women

The Taming of the Shrew

, and

Shakespeare's Universe: Her Infinite Variety

- was full of plays that examined the role of women throughout history. This year, not only do they not have any theme, someone appears to have thought that a good follow-up to shows like

Fuente

, and

Trojan Women

was a show that derives its humour from the sexual enslavement of women. Hilarity!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

is one of Sondheim's lesser-known musicals, and for good reason- the majority of the songs are rather bland and forgettable. The show's main "appeal"- if you can call it that- comes from the jokes. The story revolves around Pseudolus, a slave living in Ancient Rome, who wants nothing more than to gain his freedom. Pseudolus belongs to Hero, a dopey young man who still lives under the thumb of his overbearing mother. One day, his parents leave for a visit to the country, and Hero confesses to Pseudolus that he's fallen in love with a girl who lives in the neighbouring brothel. That is, it's referred to as a brothel- since the show repeatedly establishes that the women within are the spoils of war, who are bought and sold with no say whatsoever in the matter, it's actually more accurate to call it a rape house. Hero promises Pseudolus his freedom if the woman can be freed and united with Hero, and hijinks ensue, culminating in a revelation from Hero's long-lost neighbour, Erronius.

You can probably spot the musical's first problem just from the paragraph above- the entire plot revolves around

a fucking rape house

. Not only that, but nowhere in the text is it ever suggested that the existence of this place is in any way wrong. On the contrary, the fourth musical number takes place in said house, whilst the women therein are paraded in front of Pseudolus and Hero, and Pseudolus barely restrains himself from groping them. Each of them women fits into a different stereotype- the Cleopatra-wigged Egyptian twins, the dominatrix, and even a goddamn African warrior princess, complete with a leopard-print bikini, spear, and war whoops. Sexism: now with bonus racefail!

But, you might think, it can't be all bad. So the courtesans are one-dimensional sex objects- what about Hero's love interest? Surely she has a vested interest in freeing herself, and is canny enough to see Hero as a way out of her situation?

You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Philia (as she turns out to be named) is in fact a total ditz, the dumbest of dumb blondes. Her big musical number, "I'm Lovely", is all about her complete uselessness at doing anything besides being ornamental:

I'm lovely, All I am is lovely. Lovely is the one thing I can do. Winsome, What I am is winsome, Radiant as in some Dream come true. Oh, isn't it a shame? I can neither sew Nor cook nor read or write my name. But I'm happy Merely being lovely, For it's one thing I can give to you.

Now compare it to Pseudolous's first big song, "Free":

When I'm free to be whatever I want to be, Think what wonders I'll accomplish then! When the master that I serve is me and just me-- Can you see me being equal with my countrymen? Can you see me being Pseudolus the citizen?

Not only is she useless at pretty much everything, she has no willpower. Although she falls in love at first sight with Hero, that doesn't stop her from flinging herself upon anyone who she thinks has a claim to her. You see, Philia has been sold to Miles Gloriosus, and shows no emotion whatsoever about it. If someone tells her that he owns her, she'll automatically flop to the ground and spread her legs apart, adding even more of a disturbing submissive subtext to the whole thing. Of course, she ends up trotting off into the sunset with Hero, but I doubt she'd have shown any kind of resistance if she'd ended up being carted off by Miles.

Everything resolves itself eventually- Philia is freed, as are the rest of the courtesans (though as their pimp gleefully informs the audience, "I'll just get more!") Pseudolus is freed

and

gets the dominatrix courtesan into the bargain, Hero's parents (who consist of a long-suffering father and a shrewish, domineering mother- gotta squeeze more negative female stereotypes in there!) bless their son's marriage, Miles Gloriosus gets the Egyptian twins, and Erronius is reunited with his long-lost children, allowing the show to squeeze in one last rape joke:

Erronius: My virgin daughter!

Hysterium (a slave disguised as Philia): I'm not a virgin!

Erronius: Those filthy pirates!

Ha ha! Gang rape is hilarious!

I suppose it's pointless to indict a musical written in 1962 for lack of political correctness, but that's no reason not to blame the people who keep it alive by routinely staging it. Apparently, it's very popular as a school production. Want to trivialise women who are raped and sold into sexual slavery?

Funny Thing

! Because

The Boys From Syracuse

just didn't have enough rape jokes.Themes:

Theatre

Minority Warrior

bookmark this with - facebook - delicious - digg - stumbleupon - reddit

~Comments (

go to latest

)

http://francoisdillinger.blogspot.com/

at 05:46 on 2009-07-26Not much to add. But here's a

here's a link

to some fail at Comic Con.

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Rami

at 07:00 on 2009-07-26That doesn't sound particularly savory, I'll give you that -- and you would have thought that by the latter half of the 20th century they would have known better.

I've not seen it, and I know very little of Sondheim in general -- I've seen a couple of productions of Into the Woods and that's about it. Is there any kind of way in which the play could be seen as ironic?

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Nathalie H

at 15:00 on 2009-07-26I would say that the song

Lovely

is definitely supposed to be quite ironic. However, that doesn't necessarily vindicate it, and from what I remember of seeing this show (albeit a few years ago) I'd say that the Power of Irony ® does not save this show from its general sexism fail.

(Disclaimer: not seen this for a few years. Didn't notice most of this stuff when I did, and am slightly ashamed of that. Therefore, comments I make are mostly based on knowledge of the song 'Lovely' rather than much I remember about the show of a whole. However, I do agree that the score's not that great.)

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Viorica

at 16:37 on 2009-07-26

Is there any kind of way in which the play could be seen as ironic?

According to Wikipedia, some directors have chosen to cast Pseudolus as female, which *could* be seen as ironic- one female slave attains freedom through the enslavement of other women. However, it's mostly up to the direction, not the text itself, which doesn't have any nudge-wink "We're really deconstructing all this sexism!" moments. So it's up to each individual production to draw attention to it. The one I saw didn't, though when I raised the issue afterwards, several of my (female) group members said that they'd felt the same way.

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Jamie Johnston

at 19:40 on 2009-07-26Ladies and gentlemen, a Defence of Sondheim on Three Fronts. These will be Point Out The Parody, Concede The Worst Parts, and Shift The Blame.

Yes, this is not the jewel in Sondheim's crown. It comes very early in his career, only slightly after

West Side Story

I think, and, more importantly, it isn't really a full-blooded Sondheim musical. It's a play by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart with songs by Stephen Sondheim. The original idea was Shevelove's, and though Sondheim was involved from an early stage he always felt that his work on the show didn't really fit what the other two writers were doing. When he asked his friend James Goldman about it, Goldman said, "The book [for those who aren't musical buffs, this is the term for spoken dialogue, and sometimes also the general plot, in a musical] is written on a kind of law-comedy vaudeville level with elegant language, and you have written a witty score, a salon score". Sondheim found it was too late to really address the problem, but he later used to advise people, "Make sure you and your collaborators are writing the same show". (I'm getting this from pp.151-152 of

Meryle Secrest's biography of Sondheim

, by the way.) So to some extent one needs to look at the score (including lyrics) separately from the book, because the same criticisms may not apply equally to both. Having said that, he did collaborate on a show which is undeniably pretty much Carry On Up The Tiber (even if it does have what I maintain is a more than averagely sophisticated score), so clearly a certain amount of fail there. But before I entirely leave the blame-shifting part of the defence, let me observe that really the only criticism that's made above for which Sondheim himself is responsible is the song

Lovely

, which I suggest doesn't deserve the criticism.

As Nathalie's already said,

Lovely

is definitely and quite transparently ironic. It's principally Sondheim taking the mickey out of himself, specifically out of the lyric he'd written a few years earlier for the

West Side Story

number

I Feel Pretty

. The song is, as Viorica says, "all about her complete uselessness at doing anything besides being ornamental". Philia is a spoof of the standard one-dimensional love-interest. What Sondheim didn't like about

I Feel Pretty

was that it was the female lead singing un-ironically about how she derives her entire feeling of self-worth from the fact that a boy likes her and this makes her feel attractive. Which is what

Lovely

is sending up. And, to be fair to Shevelove and Gelbart, I think Philia is written fairly consistently throughout the whole show as being utterly useless is every respect, and her admirer Hero is similarly written as a rather feeble adolescent who is fixated on her for no better reason than that she's pretty. Remember that he's played in the film by Michael Crawford, and this was before

Phantom Of The Opera

, opposite Annette Andre who had mostly played dumb blondes in TV series like

The Avengers

and

The Prisoner

. You don't cast it that way if you want the audience to see the leading romantic couple as anything other than complete nit-wits. The point is rather missed by comparing Philia's big number to Pseudolus'. Pseudolus is the main character and drives most of the plot. Philia is a comic device whose purpose is to be completely passive and uninteresting. A much fairer comparison is to Hero, whose

own solo song

is an equally feeble and empty-headed genre-self-parody.

... Forum

as a whole is an uncomfortable combination of homage and piss-take, with Sondheim being almost exclusively on the piss-take side but the other writers hedging their bets. The plot and the characters are cut and pasted together from Plautus, and some of the humour comes from caricaturing the already exaggerated comic tropes of Roman comedy (which was still worth doing in 1962 when a reasonable number of people had studied Plautus in school). That's one of the main reasons why Pseudolus is the only really interesting character: in Roman comedy the slaves are the only remotely multi-dimensional characters. Now in a sense

... Forum

is a step backward from Plautus because Plautus actually has some reasonably well-developed female slave characters; but that, I suspect, is because the other thing the show is trying to parody is the post-vaudeville tradition that in the UK produced things like the

Carry On

franchise, which went mainly for the one-dimensional female leads that

... Forum

parodies (and which is also where the ghastly parade of racially-stereotyped sex-slaves comes from, because although there is national stereotyping in Roman comedy it has quite a different character). The show is a commentary on one ancient comedy tradition and one contemporary one. It isn't a very successful commentary, largely because its non-musical writers spend at least as much time simply indulging in the bad habits of both traditions as they spend making fun of them. But you can't really look at it outside the context of Roman comedy and 1950s low farce because it makes no sense without that background.

And that's why Viorica is entirely right to suggest that it probably shouldn't be staged any more, except for audiences who have some familiarity with Plautus and with '50s comedy. It doesn't make sense any more in the same way that

Avenue Q

won't make sense in 40 years' time. But that's also why I don't think it's right to accuse it in quite the way this article does. In particular I think the criticism that

... Forum

doesn't "suggest[..] that the existence of [Marcus Lycus' establishment] is in any way wrong" falls a little flat. (I replace "rape house" with "Marcus Lycus' establishment" in that quotation not because I want to suggest the establishment isn't an abominable thing but because "rape house" is too tendentious, "brothel" is, as Viorica observes, too benign, and "place where men pay a pimp to have sex with slaves who clearly never consented to their involvement in the enterprise as a whole and are clearly not getting paid but who apparently do expect to and are expected by others to consent to specific acts of intercourse" is too long.) What, one has to ask, is the alternative? Point out that slavery is wrong? I would be more worried, frankly, if anybody had felt in 1962 that that might not be taken for granted by everyone in the audience. Replace the sex-slaves with free women freely choosing to have sex for money? That would be a flagrant anachronism, would entirely destroy the plot, and would in any case only make it 'okay' provided one took the view that entirely unexploitative prostitution is possible and acceptable, which is far from universally accepted. Have no such establishment in the story at all? Sex-slavery is so central to Roman comedy that its removal would make it completely pointless to do a musical based on Plautus in the first place. I guess you could say that in that case they just shouldn't have done a musical based on Plautus. That's a respectably coherent view, I suppose, but a little puritanical for my tastes. As it is, they do almost as well as anyone could do without abandoning the whole project: the pimp is clearly not meant to be a sympathetic character; the only character who seriously proposes to exploit any of the women in question is Miles Goriosus, who is as close to a villain as the play has; and the sex-slaves are indeed all freed at the end. To object that the pimp will only buy some more is effectively criticisizing the show for omitting to abolish the whole system of slavery as part of the ending, which is a bit like criticizing

Rent

for daring to have a happy ending without having one of the characters discover a cure for HIV.

... Forum

has problems, and probably shouldn't be done any more - certainly not in schools - but one has to look at it as a parody, albeit one that intermittently falls off the wagon when Sondheim isn't writing it.

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Viorica

at 21:02 on 2009-07-26

Philia is a comic device whose purpose is to be completely passive and uninteresting

So . . . she goes from being a one-dimensional female character because the creators didn't bother to flesh her out to a one-dimensional female character who is such because the plot demands it? That's not much better.

the only character who seriously proposes to exploit any of the women in question is Miles Goriosus

Not quite. During "The House of Marcus Lycus", Pseudolous drools over each of the women as they are paraded in front of him, and only turns them down (with visible disappointment) when Hero points out that they aren't who he's looking for. Even in the most throwaway jokes, like Hysterium's "Isn't it amazing?" in the clip you linked to, it's being played for laughs, and given the actual nature of what

does

go on there, it sits very uncomfortably with me.

I never noticed the parallels between "I Feel Pretty" and "Lovely", but then I never read the former as Maria deriving her self-worth from her relationship with Tony. Rather, it seemed to be capturing the first-relationship giddiness that the character is experiencing at the time. It could have been done without the theme of "I find myself attractive because a boy likes me.", it seems, if not better, than certainly more relatable than "Lovely"

Philia's status as a parody of dumbass love interests is questionable, simply because unless you're actively looking at it that way, it isn't really obvious. Which goes back to what you said about it being a parody of vaudeville- if you aren't familiar with what the original writers were going for, it just reads as an extended dumb blonde joke. Hero is similarily stupid, but it just doesn't carry the same connotations.

To object that the pimp will only buy some more . . .

My objection isn't so much that Lycus intends to buy new girls, it's that the lines is thrown in as part of the Big Happy Finale. "I'm free!" "I have Philia!" "I've found my children!" "I'm gonna buy some more slave chicks!" It's rather jarring to see it presented as something we should be happy about.

probably shouldn't be done any more - certainly not in schools

Unfortunately, what sparked this article was the annuncement that my local youth theatre is putting it on next year. :/

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Wardog

at 16:36 on 2009-07-27I'm a bit embarrassed ... I actually saw the film of this with Michael Hordon and, uh, I wasn't offended in the slighest. I didn't think it was a great musical, to be honest, in that there was Jamie mentions above a definitely disjunction between what the songs were trying to do and what the script was.

I'm not say, by the way, Viorica, that I don't think you should find it offensive and I definitely agree that it probably shouldn't be regularly taken out of the Sondheim box but I saw it as basically not especially decent parody...

And it does have some lovely Sondheimish moments.

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http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/

at 18:44 on 2009-07-27

I'm a bit embarrassed ... I actually saw the film of this with Michael Hordon and, uh, I wasn't offended in the slighest. I didn't think it was a great musical, to be honest, in that there was Jamie mentions above a definitely disjunction between what the songs were trying to do and what the script was.

I can go you one better--I was in this play in high school and wasn't offended by it. The four male leads were played by the four buddies who were the most talented in their senior class and it was fun to watch. (The four leads not including Hero.) I think it just played as so vaudevillian it didn't occur to me to read it that way. I have only positive associations with it just from that production.

In fact, when I think of "I'm Lovely" I rarely remember Philia singing it. I mostly remember the scene where Hysterium sings it in drag.

It's not all that memorable for songs, certainly. The two that mostly survive are Comedy Tonight (a song that starts out saying nothing should be taken seriously) and Everybody Ought to Have a Maid, a celebration of sexual harassment on the job. Which is pretty bad, but probably beaten out by even more blatantly sexist songs in other musical.

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Nathalie H

at 19:07 on 2009-07-27Jamie: Thanks for all the background, you've really illuminated what's going on here - why I always felt it was a poor show compared to Sondheim's usual fare, with which I am fairly familiar although not quite in that level of detail, and also why anyone felt the need to write the bloody thing in the first place!

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Dan H

at 10:49 on 2009-07-29

I'm a bit embarrassed ... I actually saw the film of this with Michael Hordon and, uh, I wasn't offended in the slighest.

I think the thing about the film is that it's so clearly of its time that it's quite hard to be offended by it because it was so clearly made in the 1960s and is so clearly parodying a style of comedy that was very popular at the time. Of course as Jamie observes part of the issue is that it's not an especially good or consistent parody.

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Jamie Johnston

at 18:55 on 2009-07-31

- Viorica

Sorry, I seem not to have explained very well. My point is not that the plot demands her to be one-dimensional. That would, as you say, be no excuse. My point is that the show itself is making a point about the fact that the plot demands her to be one-dimensional. This is actually one of the few points on which I'd argue that

... Forum

rises above being iffy but often enjoyable to actually be a rather clever and admirable piece of work, because here the parody isn't just of 50s comedy or of Plautus but of an extremely common fictional trope. How many stories have there been throughout history, and continue to be, in which the leading boy falls in love with the leading girl based solely on her beauty, sometimes without even having had a single conversation with her, and in which her beauty is therefore her sole relevant characteristic. Usually it turns out that she does have many other attractive features, and sometimes even some unattractive ones, but when you look carefully you still find that these make no difference at all to the boy's love for her or to anything else in the story, so they're entirely irrelevant and are really just after-thoughts added on to disguise the fact that the writer has no interest in her as a human being.

... Forum

mocks this type of story ruthlessly and, I'd suggest, fairly effectively, by making it utterly explicit that the leading girl's beauty is not only her sole relevant characteristic but in fact her sole characteristic. D'you see what I mean?

I'll concede the point about the scene's in Lycus' house. Yes, we're being invited to laugh at the fact that these various men are leering over women who haven't chosen to be leered over, and that probably isn't a good thing, even though to a great extent we're laughing not at the women's predicament but at the way the men's brains entirely stop working as soon as they see a bit of thigh. Similarly it's a fair point about Lycus' comment in the final scene, although I'm not sure that we're necessarily supposed to be glad that he's going to buy some more slaves; but nor is it supposed to totally spoil our enjoyment of the show, which it would if we really thought about it, so yeah.

As to

I Feel Pretty

, yes, there are certainly much more charitable readings of that song, but the one I mentioned is, as I understand it, more or less Sondheim's own feeling about it, which is what lies behind his spoof of it in

Lovely

. My own feeling about the song is somewhat different though still not altogether positive, principally because it makes Maria seem a bit obnoxious. But I try not to think too hard about

West Side Story

because the music is so utterly fabulous and the story is so utterly bleh.

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Arthur B

at 19:09 on 2009-07-31

But I try not to think too hard about West Side Story because the music is so utterly fabulous and the story is so utterly bleh.

I think this is a common problem with most adaptations of

Romeo and Juliet

, since the motivations of the characters are simply baffling to modern audiences. (Then again, I think

Romeo & Juliet

works best if you assume that Shakespeare's attitude towards the young lovers is absolutely cynical, and that the tragedy isn't in the woeful and awful things that society does to people in love so much as it's in the idiotic and ridiculous things that people in love do to themselves.)

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http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/

at 19:54 on 2009-07-31

My point is that the show itself is making a point about the fact that the plot demands her to be one-dimensional. This is actually one of the few points on which I'd argue that ... Forum rises above being iffy but often enjoyable to actually be a rather clever and admirable piece of work, because here the parody isn't just of 50s comedy or of Plautus but of an extremely common fictional trope.

That's how I've always taken it--it hits that idea pretty hard, I think. And that's very Sondheim. It reminds me of "Kiss Me" from Sweeney Todd, another song that sends up the trope of young lovers in love for no other reason than the girl has yellow hair. And in that song, imo, he manages to mix the mocking of the trope with real sympathy for the girl's predicament. Anthony comes across as maybe a bit foolish for claiming to be in love with a girl he's only seen, but Joanna is grasping at her only chance to escape a horrible fate.

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Shim

at 22:29 on 2009-07-31

...the motivations of the characters are simply baffling to modern audiences.

It's a shame the way good stories of their time end up seeming nonsensical. Admittedly people do adaptations, but some don't lend themselves to that either. For example, farces are a problem because the embarrassments characters are trying to avoid are often irrelevant now. The old chaperone, breach-of-promise and so on school of things is out too.

On that note, I feel modern comedy sometimes struggles because you have to stretch things further and it's hard to do that well. Being found by the Bishop visting another woman's husband doesn't cut it any more - now you have to be in your underwear and covered in caramel. Or whatever.

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http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/

at 19:51 on 2009-08-02OK, I'm rather late to the conversation here, and I haven't seen the musical, but: it would be completely anachronistic for any of the characters to suggest that sex-slavery was anything other than The Way Things Are. And a completely straight portrayal of a morality that's so alien to our own could, if done well, be both deeply unsettling and very good. I'm reading Plato's

Republic

at the moment, and I'm getting that sensation a lot.

Incidentally, it was interesting to hear about Miles Gloriosus. I've noticed a tendency for characters called Miles in fiction to be villains.

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Jamie Johnston

at 23:38 on 2009-08-02Of course, anachronism and its geographical equivalent (what's that called, anyone? anatopism?) were themselves notable features of Roman comedy, so one could do quite interesting things with that...

When you've finished with the Plato, try to find Betrand Russell's summary of it in his big ol'

History of western philosophy

: it'll reassure you that no, it isn't just you, Plato's ideal state really does sounds absolutely horrifying.

Villains called Miles? Interesting. In this particular case the name is actually lifted directly from the plot of one of Plautus' comedies,

Miles gloriosus

, meaning 'the full-of-himself soldier' (which is what the character in

... Forum

is).

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Wardog

at 22:54 on 2009-08-03Hehe!

Anyway, I think you can count yourself lucky, Miles. Characters called Kyra are invariably prostitutes.

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Viorica

at 01:45 on 2009-08-24My mother went to see it this afternoon, and brought back a program. This passage (from the director's notes) stuck out:

All great musicals have serious underpinnings, and this one is no exception. It involves a love story, of course, as most musicals do, but the driving force of the plot is the quest of the central character, the slave Pseudolous, for his freedom. For all its zaniness and goofiness, Forum has at its core a real concern for human rights and human dignity, and it is from that essence that the show draws its emotional life.

. . . yeah.

#Ferretbrain #A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum #Minority Warrior #Viorica #Theatre

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