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quixtrix · 9 months ago

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let's talk BL manga lore; on grooming, identity, and racism

spoilers for the official captain laserhawk bl manga ofc, plus brief discussion of grooming I've refrained from speaking about it because of spoilers, but it's been well over a month and I believe that it's time to openly discuss it. if you would still like to read the manga before reading this discussion, here's the link to buy a physical copy and you can search up 'Captain Laserhawk: Crushing Love' in your digital book store for it. okay time to talk about two, basically three subjects; racism, identity, and grooming. i'm starting with the grooming first, because that's the main focus of this manga. i would have to preface this by saying i've already discussed this topic in an earlier post (albeit it is a prediction, but it is a spot on prediction.) i'll briefly elaborate on it right now with what we know.

dolph's very first day with alex was carefully calculated to where dolph would be exposed to the world, but heavily rely on alex. he is shown around to alex's friends and is able to buy his own clothes, but it is under the heavy scrutiny of alex. alex ultimately decides what dolph wears, alex decides how the day goes, alex leads dolph. even when they have a beach day, take note of how alex holds dolph, dragging him around.

even the romance and the events leading up to when alex takes dolph's virginity are calculated. note how alex grasps dolph's hand, grabbing on tight enough to almost press down on his knuckles, loosening his hand, making dolph relinquish control. the context for the fight page is that after their sweet lil beach day, alex takes dolph down an alley where alex knows that he'll come across people who aren't the fondest of him. this event was calculated, alex knew it was going to happen, and he used it to test out his new lil boytoy.

also, alex taking dolph out to fight isn't just so he can get in the pants of a barely 18 year old. while holloway notes during this flashback that adrenaline is the greatest aphrodisiac, this is a test to see how good the new weapon he picked up is. how the new boy works, to see how eden's boy robot can benefit his group, not just him. its literally in the morning panels we get where alex talks with that woman, anna. they're talking about how loaded he is with tech, and while alex does consider that, he still actively thirsts over dolph.

also im jus saying if i personally was talking with one of my greatest confidants and they refer to someone i'm thirsting over as KID, i would personally be icked out. i would have a conscious and not do some weird shit, like literally refer to dolph in passing as kid in the next page. dolph aint even the first one who alex has done this shit to, as evident by this line by one of his friends, grace.

alex is a groomer and groomed dolph, case closed.

anyways! time to get on with what i really wanted to talk about, how racism and loss of idenity ties into dolph's character!

in this manga, during pillow talk between dolph and alex, we get dolph's backstory. dolph literally has only known this man for a day and he's giving him lore because alex treats him more normal than eden did. god. ANYWAYS ENOUGH DWELLING ON DOLPH BEING A VICTIM IN ALL WAYS INCLUDING BEING ONE OF THE OXFORD STUDY, we get to know about his brief life before eden took him in.

now let me turn for a moment to the show, and how we were told about dolph's backstory. this is VASTLY different than what we got in the show, with it being implied that dolph's parents were a white prostitute and a darkskinned immigrant man. this adds onto the idea that this supposedly impoverished, crack addicted boy came into this world not as an act of love, but as a mistake. not just a mistake though, his parents are supposedly the epitome of immoral, a prostitute and a criminal. not to mention that this also ties into the idea of the uncultured brown man and pure white woman, basically a racist idea that the scary immigrants who aren't like us good white christian americans (and honestly jus any homogenous group in general, though in america its ofc more applicable to white people), are corrupting our mother marys, our women. eden takes on this perspective in order to subconsciously frame in the minds of post american viewers the idea of this man as an other that they are helping and didn't at all snatch up from his mother for child experimentation. the concept of other is something that finds it's origins in fascism, and in order to mask the presence of said fascism, someone who is seen as apart of the other is given a seat at the table with the collective us, (as in the majority, or the ones that are supposedly superior), and will ultimately serve as an example of why the other are labelled as such. i go into this more with my rayman analysis. I brought up the specific portrayal of dolph's backstory from eden's documentary to showcase how eden has manipulated the view people have of this man. eden has not only manipulated the view of the in universe audience, but eden has manipulated our view.

in the propaganda documentary, we are shown photos of this man being a captain, someone of relatively high rank in the military. you can't even normally earn that through having an education, you'd have to have years of experience. he's portrayed as older than he is.

another thing, dolph fans, let's be honest with ourselves; before the manga, it was not uncommon to headcanon that man as a FREAK. with both the supposed images of dolph at a nightclub and the flashback of alex and dolph meeting outside a club, it wasn't too hard to think that the hottest man alive in that show who was fully born human was a freak. a sexual deviant. someone that a christian mother would be horrified enough by that she faints. the manga however, shows us that dolph really isn't any of that. hell, he didn't even get to go to a club before he met alex. in reality, he's around 18 years and his only sexual experience is his groomer.

say that again with me, he's around 18. he's just around 18, he's a young adult, and the environment he's grown up in has stunted him by treating him as a subject, a thing, cutting him off from anything that would humanise this child by not allowing him to see his mother. hell, even his childhood best friend serves eden by being the one in his ear, having him at her beck and call all in the name of eden.

we get none of dolph's true backstory in the show for any number of reasons. maybe it's on purpose, maybe it's a result of having to possibly cut down episodes, who knows? what matters though is that this adds a layer to the core problem defining dolph's life; the perspective others have on him warping who he is.

back to the pages with dolph's memories of his mother, we see dolph as he was when he was just a boy. he's his mama's boy, her son, a child. even when eden takes him in, he stubbornly clings to that bit of him that's pure, untainted by the idea of him being an experiment, a tool. this bit of him, this hint towards who he is supposed to be as a person, is something he clings to desperately. it leads him to follow eden's orders again because they promise that they've found his mother.

and yknow what happened with who dolph was told was supposedly his mother?

she was just a random ass indian woman.

wasn't even the right woman. they just used his identity issues because he's indian, and she was indian and in a cult that eden needed to take care of.

this, while admittedly is kind of funny, (like the confusion is funny in the moment look at ts) is actually fucked up crazy racism. they literally said that this random ass woman who happened to be indian was his mother like HELL!?!??!?!?

this insane fr. lucy didn't even double check LIKE GIRL THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR FRIEND'S MOTHER WHO HE HASNT SEEN SINCE HE WAS LIKE 6 AND YOU DIDNT EVEN DOUBLE CHECK IF SHE'S THE RIGHT PERSON?!?!?!?

moving on from that, this actually brings up a deeper layer of dolph's identity issues; the lack of cultural identity.

i want to preface this by saying that i am not entirely sure if this is the right term for this identity issue nor am i claiming to be an expert on the type of identity crisis that i am about to discuss. that being said, this specific disconnect of cultural identity that dolph has is actually reminiscent of those adopted from other countries, or transnational adoptees. there seems to be a need within these adoptees to find out more about their own heritage or their own mothers and families that they now struggle to find. while dolph does not actively go out to reconnect with his heritage, he does exhibit desires to find his birth mother. this type of identity issue seems to ask the question of 'what could I have been if...?,' and it tends to mess with the idea of the self. adoptees that struggle with this question hold a desire to go back, to almost reclaim what would have been. yes, dolph is not adopted into a family, but he is still a child under the care of eden, which became like his family, which is why i believe that this kind of identity issue could reasonably be applied to dolph. it explains why he does what he does in the manga, and how it's ultimately wrapped up by him losing this desire and moving forward. albeit he moves forward by alex instead becoming his main purpose, but this serves as the first chain of the past that he leaves behind. with this, he severs a tie that would have made him continue to be stuck under eden's control, and possibly find himself. he answers the question of what could have been with 'it doesn't matter anymore.'

but actually, he doesn't answer that question. he leaves it be.

i am reading way too into this tho lol. i would say that he doesn't explicitly say it, and that we do see a lack of dolph's past being used against him in that way because dolph has freed himself from that part, but in reality, it's because eden can't pull the same trick twice. im aware that the manga focuses HARD on dolph's grooming, but i feel like they really could have properly wrapped up dolph's identity arc with his mother if it was acknowledged at the end, but i fear we are left unsatisfied. that's one of my gripes with the manga. it gives us things that tie up loose ends, but some of these ties have entirely missed the holes they were supposed to secure. but what is done is what's done, and here we are.

tl;dr, dolph was groomed by alex. dolph's identity has also been warped by eden heavily, by how they dehumanised him as a child to be a weapon internally, to how he's shown to the public to be a case that they've saved, and yet he still becomes something that is "disgraceful." textbook example of this poor boy that we have saved that is actually jus like all the others that we know. dolph also suffers under similar identity issues as adopted children do, and this specific issue of his is let go in order to allow him to begin moving on and finding himself.

as always, im open to discussion and critique! my askbox is open as well if you want me to yap abt smth else in the show :P

#cw: grooming #captain laserhawk #dolph laserhawk #character analysis #analysis #admittedly rushed through the grooming analysis but its like.#read the manga #literally jus read the manga #its spelt out for us #i might honestly do something with the sexualisation of dolph next #its been bugging me lol #like that man could be in ym ap classes with me #hes literally my age #anyways this is a long analysis lol #long ass yap session #i have a lot of thoughts abt this manga can you tell #also sorry this isn't as clean as my other analyses are #its a ramblely one

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goombasa · 10 months ago

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Dungeon Meshi is Delicious~

My girlfriend and I have this ritual where, every night for dinner, we like to sit down together and watch a video while we eat. Most of the time it's a youtube video we both have an interest in, but every now and then we'll start or continue a series that we're both interested in. We sat down one night a week or so ago and watched the first couple of episodes of Dungeon Meshi, or Delicious in Dungeon.

And this almost never happens to me, but after learning that the manga the show was based on was finished, I felt compelled the binge all 97 chapters, and… my god, this story is so good and goofy and I love it so much.

Delicious in Dungeon is a comedy fantasy manga by Ryoko Kui, about an adventuring party delving into a dangerous dungeon to rescue their comrade who was swallowed by a red dragon. Along the way, in order to keep their strength up, they have to use the natural resources of the dungeon to survive, which involves cooking the monsters that they kill, much to the terror of some of the members of the crew. Meanwhile, while the main focus is on their adventure, everyone around them is constantly worrying about the politics of the dungeon, ownership of the land around it, and the fact that the dungeon itself seems to be getting more powerful as time passes.

This is a fantastic story, with the real highlight being the worldbuilding. Every question that I found myself asking over the course of the series had an answer, and it was always a good one. Characters make reference to dying, and that's because something in the dungeon makes it so that anyone who dies can be brought back to life so long as their body is in decent condition and their soul hasn't gone too far from said body. The layout of the dungeon has basically been thoroughly mapped, to the point where various merchants have set up shop on certain floors, or specialized delvers trade in goods unique to the dungeon. Even the way that the town built around the dungeon functions is talked about, what sort of needs a town has when its main function is to serve as a hub for adventurers looking to get as deep into the dungeon as possible.

And as the story goes on and we're introduced through dialogue and backstory to the world outside of dungeon delving, we're shown a world that has a very strict political structure and a lot of mistrust among its people, centered around, of all things, the various lifespans of each race. It's fascinating.

Enhancing it all are the characters who are all just… god, they are such lovable beans, I love them all. Even the assholes, because we see why they're assholes and most of the assholes have moments where they aren't assholes and it warms my heart to see. Laios is dense in a way that sets him apart from your usual Shonen hero as being unintelligent, instead just being really socially awkward and it is kind of endearing seeing him share his special interest with others who more often than not just see him as very strange and off putting. Marcille the mage of the group and also the one who complains the most about having to eat monsters. Unlike many other shows or stories where this trait might get old or annoying, she actually manages to remain pretty endearing all throughout, and probably gets the most character development in a party that stays pretty static through the whole adventure. That's not a knock, as they do change in subtle ways, but it isn't nearly as pronounced as you see in other stories. Chilchuck is a good example of this, as while he does open up a bit more and let's down his professional guard now and then, he mostly remains a pretty pragmatic and distant hired hand for the party, an interesting change-up for the Hobbit stand-ins who are usually portrayed as pretty adventurous or curious. And then there's Senshi. He's a dwarf and he practically lives in the dungeon, and is an experienced hunter, gardener, and chef, with unusually powerful cooking gear. He's an oddball, like Laios, and the two compliment each other well, and there are some great interplay between him and Marcille given his mistrust of magic.

And then there's the fact that almost every chapter, we get at least one amazing dish made with the remains of slain monsters, and while the Anime goes out of its way to make it look as appetizing as possible (as anime tends to do with food), the manga also has these beautifully rendered pictures of every meal, as well as a list of all the different ingredients used in its creation. It's truly lovely.

I don't want to spoil anything, but once the gang gets to their destination, the amount of twists and turns that the overarching plot takes is quite interesting, and I found myself just wondering HOW it was all going to shake out by the end of the tale. This is an amazingly fun series, and one that is well worth checking out. The anime, at the time I'm writing this, is still airing its first season, and I'm not sure how far into the story they'll make it by the end. I'm legitimately hoping that it gets enough seasons to cover the entire story, because dammit, it deserves it. They'd only need like… three, I think, it's not a super long manga. It's currently airing on Netflix. But if you would prefer to get the whole story now, the manga finished its run back last September, and all except the last two volumes have been released in English by Yen Press, with volume 13 set to release in March of 2024, and the last volume coming at an unspecified date after that (at the time of writing).

It's been a long time since I've felt the need to binge a manga after seeing even a little bit of the anime, so I really think this one is something special. And it's an original fantasy story too! I feel like it's getting harder to get good fantasy anime that isn't dressed up like an Isekai at this point, and this story does not disappointment.

Just make sure you have a snack on hand while reading or watching. It tends to make you really hungry, seeing what they cook up.

#Delicious in Dungeon #Read the Manga #Watch the Anime #It's a lot of fun #Lots of great Food Porn #Excellent World Building

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