#KB meta yap

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 60 Follow-Up Thoughts

I don't know if I even want to tag this, I just have a lot of things percolating around after a few days to think things through a little more.

One, I kind of had a mental boom last week and that made everything seem worse than it was. So I wasn't nearly as objective or as thorough as I could have been. Chapter 60 was the first "dud" we've had in my opinion, which is incredible for a new author's first serialization. This could just be an unfortunate dip that gets forgotten about as the quality goes back to it's usual excellence.

Two, there were a lot of details that I overlooked because I was so fixated on not getting the break I thought we needed and being pissed that we skimmed through a lot of potent emotional points to get back into the action. I missed ranting about Chihiro fucking DYING and rolling out a few days like it's NBD even though I hate that sort of decision! Plus all the questions raised about his death in relation to Enten's contract and Hakuri's storehouse powers.

Three, Hakuri... I went a bit overboard by throwing a bitchfit about him being treated like Hinao. Nah, I definitely overreacted. He's not going anywhere even though he's probably going to be absent for the next few chapters. It's disappointing to be told rather than shown his status, but that wasn't good cause to fly off the handle and rant in a public post. Chihiro and Shiba didn't get nearly enough time together either. Neither did Chihiro by himself. They were all shafted in the name of having the hype (literal) suit-up moment by the end of the chapter.

I'm still anxious about him and where his development will go, though. If he lost access to his sorcery, does the storehouse and the tools within it still exist? If not, I'll have some strong worries about his character development going forward. And I'll have to dust off the clown suit after writing that massive essay about the tools being visual metaphors for the trauma he keeps buried in his heart. I trust this author to keep writing Hakuri's recovery in a sensitive, realistic way... for now. But I'm more open to the prospect that I was giving the author too much credit than I was before.

Four, I could be a little too worried about a dip in quality in this particular series for petty personal reasons. I just worry that the author's priorities and mine might not line up in the future.

I love Kagurabachi for the action like most people do- it's got stellar artwork that feels like I'm looking at movie stills rather than hand-drawn pictures. But the action only works for me if there's ample time spent to set up the emotional weight behind the fights. If we are going to skim over those emotions in favour of the "cool" moments then I'm going to lose interest.

I genuinely struggle through a lot of shounen when they ask us to sit tight for 5+ chapters of characters punching each other and yelling generic fight dialogue. Kagurabachi's biggest strength was not doing this by keeping the fights snappy yet epic, providing a good balance between action and character/plot progression. The fights can be a little longer now that the series has found success. I just don't want that to come at the expense of character building moments outside of combat.

Five, at the risk of sounding like a whiny critic... I wonder if the author's aware that he needs to maintain the bonds between the characters during downtime.

Hokazono-sensei's done an amazing job with every single character introduction. We get the gist of who the new guys are and why we should like them right away even if there are multiple layers to peel back to get the full picture. Every new character interaction sticks in the mind clearly- Hiyuki's aggressiveness, Uruha's clashing weirdness and badassery, etc. But the connections the characters have to each other -the emotional bonds that define their relationships- need to be maintained as the story goes on. Else we are just seeing cool people do cool things together for the sake of being cool.

Action movies thrive on this sort of writing where the characters are set up then set loose without much to think about in terms of how they all relate to each other. For example, the story will make it obvious that two characters fell in love by doing a simple meet -> come to know/respect -> kiss development with as little time devoted to it as possible because it's not important to show all the intricacies of how the relationship develops. The action scenes of them running through a hail of bullets or jumping out of moving vehicles are what butts are sitting in seats for, after all.

But a long-running manga series has more time than a 90-minute film to put those details in- especially with how efficiently Hokazono-sensei tells his stories. So I think that's why I was so jarred by seeing him skip over details that I would have expected to be expanded on a little more in the moment like they were in the Sojo and Rakuzaichi arcs. It's like we veered too hard into action movie territory after having a lovely balance between movie and manga storytelling techniques until this point.

My preference as a reader would be having more of that efficient bonding back- scenes like the gang being driven around in Shiba's car in chapter 26, Chihiro waking up and having some panels to almost freak out before Shiba & Azami walk in during chapter 11, and definitely more like chapter 46. We still got a lot of plot stuff done in those chapters but the tension was dropped and we got to see the characters do a little more than just set up the next major story beat.

And the plot dumps worked because we were at a sweet spot in the story where a little more tension was still welcome: ch. 11 we were still ramping up towards the first major conflict, so it was like a shaky breath before squaring one's shoulders. Ch. 26, a major setback seemed to have happened and we needed to take a tense breath to steady the nerves before planning in earnest. Ch. 46, we finally got to exhale a long breath after the end of the Rakuzaichi arc... not fully, but much better than nothing.

We need to see these characters in more contexts like that to stay attached to them. Or at least I do. I think we need less coasting on the initial impressions and flashbacks to do quick establishment going forward. More in-the-moment personal interactions between the whole cast would be very welcome. It doesn't have to go full-on manga and have talking heads yap meaningfully at each other behind dialogue boxes! Just more things that show the characters care about each other; how they're thinking and feeling in the here and now.

When's the last time we got in Chihiro's head for anything other than a strictly plot-related line of thought, hmm? Especially about someone else instead of his own circumstances! We see him reacting to others in small panels all the time which is a very welcome touch. But I'd like to spend more time with him outside of strictly necessary story insights to hear what he's feeling about his general situation and the people involved in his life. I can't believe I'm saying this, but: TELL ME MORE THINGS ABOUT HIS FEELINGS DIRECTLY!

Six, I think the pacing issues stem from the incomplete catharsis of chapter 46. Ch. 46 was absolutely great with Shiba "creaming" Hiyuki and Tafuku all night playing video games, but it wasn't quite the full reset we needed. So by Chapter 60 it feels like we're running on fumes yet we can only pause for a few gasps before pelting ahead again.

In chapter 60, the atmosphere was heavy at the start. Not tense, heavy. It was a very different kind of breaking point for tension than the prior ones I've referenced- there's a lot of emotional weight that's on Chihiro's shoulders that wasn't there before. We've still got all the baggage from early in the series hanging around and a bunch more just got heaped on with Samura's murderous betrayal and distressing lore implications. We needed a break from action-related information to catch up with how everyone's doing in more depth. A deep, steadying breath to clear the mind and fortify resolve.

This chapter needed to be something closer to a somber, extended version of chapter 46. Chihiro waking up, thinking to himself for another page and a half or so, then Shiba coming in and explaining a few things. And going into more detail about the people involved- give us a little more tension between Shiba's guilt over steering Chihiro wrong vs. wanting to help him, for example. Go a little more in-depth on what Hakuri's going through offscreen right now. Show Chihiro's cuts healing before setting out. A few shots of him and Hakuri physically recovering but still definitely not being okay while Shiba watches over them. Anything about the people we're reading this story for!

Seven, we are starting to enter edging hell with all the unresolved plot threads and little mysteries.

I haven't finished it yet, but I've been making a spreadsheet to track all the questions raised by the story since chapter 1 and we've still got a lot of things left unanswered. I'm only on my first pass of chapters 1-25 and there are 83 items on the sheet and many minor ones are still hanging around to clutter things up. Obviously many open questions like "who founded the Kamunabi and why" and "why was Shiba late to the Rokuhira's" are tied to the Seitei War and Hishaku reveals that we've been teased with for a long time now. They're huge to the story and the answers shouldn't be rushed just to get us to shut up. But there are also things like "what is Azami's sorcery" lingering since chapter 7 when there's no point to keep stringing us along except for the sadistic thrill of it, you know? Over-stimulation is a thing, you know!

There's a lot of cleaning up to do, but there's also still so much more to add...

I'm a huge fan of edging and orgasm delay/denial kink but this is a bit much even for me. I want to see some of these smaller questions get answered before we get more foisted upon us. Give us some more breathing room in the narrative before the next set of questions, okay? It'll help with the pacing if we're not asking so many questions about little things that were introduced arcs ago.

Eight, I think I'm just genuinely burning out. I wish I could stay obsessed with things for more than a few months at a time... it's so strange to be incredibly passionate then flip off like a switch. This series still gnaws at my brain though, and I hate to leave things I love even if it was only for a short while, so I don't know what to do. I want to try and make it work so that I can keep a comfortable level of engagement despite my stupid tendency to be all-or-nothing at least.

I love Kagurabachi and I want to keep doing in-depth stuff with it but part of the crash last week was realizing it got subsumed into my anxiety disorder, so... I don't know. I genuinely don't know. Anyone got a brain that doesn't turn all-consuming passions into anxiety triggers...?

This kind of got away from me, but I think that's all the complicated feels out there and accounted for.