#also it genuinely is cute that we get to be personal with kashiwagi and see his personality a bit

[todayisafridaynight]

I like Majima as much as the next Yakuza fan but I also think Ichi and his gang are plenty interesting enough without the old guard, and I'd rather rggs focused on telling a good story than shoehorn old favourites in for the sake of fanservice. I don’t even think "Joryu" should be in Y8, I feel like that Simpsons meme of the kid going "Stop! Stop! He's already dead!" every time I remember he's going to be playable.

we on the same page my brother, like i don't mind the old gang showing up on occasion but this is supposed to be ichi's gang's turn yk. just let these mfers retire their bones are gonna turn to dust before they're allowed to rest ☠️

[majjiktricks]

A1, 6, 7, 10, B1, 6, C3, 6, 11, D4, E2, 4, F7

hoo boy this is gonna be a long post LOL ill put this under a readmore

yakuza questions from here !!

A1. Favorite character(s)? akiyama <3, majima, daigo, haruka, and kiryu ofc. if we count judgment too, higashi <3

A6. Favorite side character(s)? KASHIWAGI <3333 also rikiya. sherlock holmes girl from lost judgment, amasawa. shes so cute 🥺

A7. Favorite substory(ies)? the dominatrix one from 0 always sticks in my head as the first REALLY RIDICULOUS one i got and i love it very much. the daigo+majima one from dead souls, daigo crying in a cute little dress is still one of the funniest things ive ever seen. the one where, as akiyama, you get to talk circles around a bank scammer. the one where you take a ghost girl on a date in y7.

A10. Favorite weapon(s)? the fish cannon. i forget what its called but that thing helped me so much LMAO

B1. Which character do you relate to most and why? i too like to sleep on whatever surface is comfortable, have terrible personal scheduling, have significantly more experience talking to women than other men, and (wish i could) blow exorbitant amounts of cash on the good things for myself and people i love. guess.

B6. Are there any characters that you wish you could be more like? i honestly wish i had majima's ability to just. be batshit insane. like i need that in my life. i would rather be over the top than the anxiety-ridden mess i am now 😅

C3. Which character(s) deserved better? FUCKING. SHINJI. NO EXPLANATION NEEDED. god. and reina... and sayama...... pls give us a main girl who isnt a love plot to a leading man...............

C6. If you could revive any deceased character, who would it be and why? im beating a dead horse here (pun.. WHOOPS) but. the 1-3 villains. it would have been SO MUCH more interesting to see villains WILLING TO BE REDEEMED instead of fucking. suicidal. dead souls was a step in the right direction with ryuji, but we never got anything more than that.....

C11. Which character has the best taste in clothing? Who has the worst? genuinely think so many of these men do NOT know how to dress in a suit. not one that matches, anyway. i have to say majima has the best. because he simply does not care. and he looks good whatever hes doing. otherwise, yuya. i love that guy's clothes. worst... how to choose....... im gonna nominate minami for this. i get wanting to be comfy. but tracksuit pants? and JUST tracksuit pants? smh

D4. Which character(s) do you believe should have never existed in the first place? tbh i dont feel an unspeakable rage from many characters.. HM... if i didnt like a character, its likely i dont remember them. so. blanket statement of any perv characters tho. die.

E2. Bops: Haruka Sawamura, T-Set or Dream Line? was slightly confused by this question bc of the lack of oxford comma, but i can forgive it. i gotta say my girl haruka. i love her songs so much. dream is too slow for my taste so that rules dreamline out.

E4. Eat: Ramen or Takoyaki? as much as i love ramen, i havent had good takoyaki in so long and i CRAVE it.... theres a japanese place in the city right nearby and i just havent had the opportunity to go there in a while. ive tried it from multiple places but that ones the best. its kinda... mushy? from other places, where its actually nice and chewy from this place, and they give you a good sauce with it too :D

F7. Who are you fighting on the Millennium Tower rooftop? bro if i could hold my own in a fight with any of these men i would be set for life. uhhh. i wouldnt mind being tossed by saejima just to see what flying feels like tho. but then the pain.......

[maiji]

Niounomiya / Kaoruchujo (The Perfumed Prince / The Fragrant Captain), 2018 Tale of Genji (Uji chapters)

“He [Kaoru] gave off [...] an otherworldly fragrance, and it was a wonder how no matter where he went, the breeze that eddied behind him seemed really to perfume the air to a hundred paces. [...]This most unusually personal fragrance roused His Highness of War [Niou] to special rivalry. He purposely suffused his clothes with the finest incenses[...] In spring he contemplated his garden’s plum blossoms...”

- The Perfumed Prince, Tyler translation

Fountain pen ink and waterbrush - Papier Plume Sepia, Kyo Iro Cherry Blossom of Keage, KWZ Confederation Brown, Kyo no Oto Yamabukiiro. Many thanks to my dad for supplying his calligraphy for me to copy!

Kaoru’s nice smell, which I mentioned previously, may seem odd/random from a Western perspective, but it’s tied to a major theme of his character. A beautiful fragrance is supposed to be sign of an enlightened being, so it’s a carryover of his karma from a past life. Except in this life it drives him crazy because he can’t get rid of it and everybody always knows when he’s in the area.

I wanted to include some brief thoughts about these characters and their relationship, but it accidentally exploded into an essay. See below the cut and I am so sorry to anyone for whom the cut fails.

(The Kaoru - Ukifune - Niou love triangle is such an obvious, common point of discussion in their relationship, so I won’t spend time on that here.)

Of the three generations of friendship-rivalries in Tale of Genji, the third is by far the most diametrically opposed. Niou's a hotshot prince who chases practically any woman because he can, being so notorious that even his servants and guardians are constantly like, where the hell is Niou NOW and for god’s sakes, don’t tell him about whatever or he’s going to get into it!! Kaoru is a wannabe monk who keeps getting derailed in this pursuit, in the beginning because he's taking care of his mom, and later because he’s asked by the aging and dying Prince Hachi (whom he greatly respects and has been studying Buddhist scriptures with) to take care of his daughters. People have summarized Niou as successor of Genji’s dynamism, charm and passion, and Kaoru as successor of Genji’s spiritualist sensitivities. So I guess you can call them Genji without the morals VS Genji without the libido, which is simplified but fairly accurate.

It’s also interesting to compare/contrast their actual heritage. Niou is Genji’s grandson through his daughter the Akashi Empress. He was also Murasaki’s favourite, and he was a cute kid, but she might have been appalled to see how he turned out. Kaoru meanwhile is the result of an affair between Kashiwagi (To no Chujo’s son) and the Third Princess (Genji’s youngest wife), and though everyone involved kept the secret pretty well, he’s always had this unsettled feeling of displacement and a sense that something was weird about his mother’s situation. (I’m a huge sucker for quietly and privately sad scenes, and the brief one where Kaoru, after learning the truth about his birth, with his real father's incriminating letters in hand, rushes home to talk to his mother - and then decides never to let her know that he knows because it would only upset her - was definitely one of those to me.)

From my perspective, Murasaki Shikibu or whoever wrote these chapters did a decent job making the Kaoru-Niou friendship believable and even supportive (mostly thanks to Kaoru) before all the crap hits the ceiling later (mostly thanks to Niou). The Uji chapters are rightfully considered a tragedy, but as I was reading I found the predicaments these two kept getting themselves into, and the sheer contrast of their positions and dispositions, rather hilarious.

At one point in the story, the pair have befriended the sisters Oigimi and Nakanokimi (the daughters Kaoru’s been asked to take care of, mentioned earlier). Because both Kaoru and Niou are of excellent status, getting married to either of them is about as much assurance that a woman would be taken care of as you could get in aristocratic Heian society. Only dad kinda FORGOT TO TELL HIS DAUGHTERS that he asked Kaoru to take care of them before he died, so they think their father wants them to stay hermits in their isolated house forever. GJ DAD YOU HAD ONE JOB

So anyways, both of them are courting the sisters. Well, Niou is definitely courting one (or both, he was kind of confused who he’s talking to/exchanging poetry with, but he is Very Serious about whomever it is). Kaoru’s doing whatever Kaoru does, which mostly seems to be talking a lot to this old woman who serves the sisters because she knew his real father, and chatting with the sisters, and slowly falling in love with the elder sister Oigimi.

But Niou being an imperial prince can’t get out and travel as easily as Kaoru can, plus he’s frequently put under house arrest for his bad behaviour. This leaves Kaoru to visit the sisters regularly and plead the case of his best friend’s sincerity. I kept picturing Kaoru all bundled up and paddling out to the middle of nowhere, and apologetically explaining for the umpteenth time, “I am so sorry. Niou couldn’t make it again. Yes, he’s grounded again. No, he really is grounded. I know you’ve heard that he’s a terrible playboy, and, well, he is, but he really is very in love with you. Uh, with one of you. He’s really very serious about whichever one of you was writing to him. Really” And the sisters behind their screen are like “WTF KIND OF IDIOTS DO YOU THINK WE ARE” (Please don’t take this as an accurate description of the story)

And then you get passages like this scene. Here we have Niou observing Kaoru in private mourning over Oigimi’s death:

"After many days of tears [Kaoru’s] features had changed, although not for the worse, for they now had so fine a beauty and grace that [Niou], who deplored his own waywardness, saw that he would certainly lose his heart to him, if he himself were a woman."

- Trefoil Knots (Tyler translation)

The next few lines, beginning with "That was a worry" makes me interpret it as either Niou going, "Uh oh, better get my brain onto a new train of thought", or "Uh oh, better get my new wife - whom KAORU HELPED ME TO WIN OVER AND IS STILL TRYING TO HELP CONVINCE WHAT A DECENT GUY I AM - to my house quick in case she falls in love with him."

Obviously, I'm biased towards Kaoru. But hey, I’m not alone! Many readers from the Heian period onwards felt the same. The Mumyozoshi or Nameless Book - a 13th century work of prose criticism by an author many believe to be Fujiwara Toshinari no Musume (“Shunzei’s Daughter”), whose family was dedicated to study of Genji Monogatari - argues that Kaoru is perfect and defends him from criticism. I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but I was super amused. And there are quite a few ancient writings that extend or reimagine things to better favour Kaoru - or at least cut Niou down to size. Here’s an example:

And His Majesty the Emperor Niou said, "Wow, you found Ukifune? Really? That’s great! Uh, you’re not still mad at me after all this time, are you? Boy, I was such an asshole back then and caused so much shit for both of us. Blah blah blah grovel grovel sob sob grovel." The Palace Minister Kaoru was so thoughtful even when he was young that he put everybody else to shame, and he barely ever complained. He now knew even more that life was fleeting and everything was impermanent and that really they’d all been at fault and his depth of compassion and understanding was way beyond even what even the most devout monk could achieve. So he wasn’t bitter at all. He replied, "It’s OK, there’s no point being angry about the past. Whatever happened was fated to happen." And he chatted about this and that until they all felt better. After he left His Majesty said, ‘Goddamn he’s amazing. I’m not worthy to be in his presence.” Actually His Majesty was annoyed because the women in his service were always going on and on about how wonderful the Minister was.”

- extremely paraphrased by me from Kumogakure Rokujo (Tale of Genji apocryphal chapters)

I hope you will agree that this amazingness would not be out of place on fanfiction.net.

Conversely, to balance out this biased post, Royall Tyler wrote an essay titled "Pity Poor Kaoru" that argues the whole narrative is set up to make you feel sorry for him to the exclusion of consideration for the other characters, and that even bearing this in mind he's not really the deep nice guy everyone thinks he is. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but I do agree the reader is intended to sympathize with Kaoru (there’s a reason I haven’t seen any readers rushing to Niou’s defence). In any case, it's an interesting read with some good points. Centuries-spanning annotated fandom debates are so fascinating!

Wrapping up with some thoughts on Niou. As you may already know, I don’t like him, but to be fair that’s kind of the point. For the most part, aside from his amoral philandering ways and his heightened sense of suspicion that everybody’s doing the same thing he is, he seems otherwise a decent...ish... person. I guess lol. He's authentically very passionate about whatever his stupid inclinations are at the time, he really was housebound against his will at those critical parts in the story (although it’s partly his own fault…), and there are multiple points where he appears to feel genuine remorse at his own asshattery. 

Regardless of whether I’d like him as a real person or not, he’s a character. I recognize the Niou/Kaoru dynamic and relationship is central to the Uji chapters, his role makes the story what it is, and this is what creates conflict, interest, and entertainment. After all, while *I* would read 1200 pages about Kaoru being a monk, not everybody would. And even as I’m writing that, I admit it’s not the most exciting-sounding material.... and 1200 pages is a lot of pages... Ultimately Kaoru and Niou are great reminders that stories are only more compelling when you have interesting relationships and interactions. And I can say with greater confidence that I would read 1200 pages of Kaoru trying to be a monk and dealing with Niou being a turd. Thank you for reading my long wall of text.