#having literally read the manga i was not emotionally prepared for how incredibly they adapted it

[t4tlawlight]

YOU'RE AN AVENGER, A DEATH ANGEL. YOU KILL PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR IT, WHO DESERVE TO DIE. YOU'RE A WATCHDOG, A PROTECTOR OF THINGS DECENT. YOUR COMFORTS ARE SACRIFICED FOR EFFICIENCY -- YOU CAN'T DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE WITH PEOPLE MOANING AND CLINGING TO YOU, YOU CAN'T STRIKE WITH POSSESSIONS WEIGHING YOU DOWN. YOU HAVE A CLEAR HEAD AND NO REGRETS. YOU CAN TAKE OUT ANYONE BECAUSE YOU'RE STRIPPED DOWN AND YOU DON'T DEPEND ON OR TRUST A SOUL. YOU ARE EFFECTIVE BECAUSE YOU DON'T LOVE ANYBODY OR ANYTHING. YOU'RE A ONE- MAN FORCE, THE PERFECT INSTRUMENT OF DESTINY.

– "INFLAMMATORY ESSAYS 5" by Jenny Holzer

(this is a companion piece to Love and Belonging, my early drama light analysis! [LINK] i heavily recommend reading it before continuing this analysis, as i reference events and ideas explained in that post.)

in my previous analysis of drama light, i focused on the events that led him to become the man we see in the beginning of the drama: a gentle, kind man who is underachieving but still brilliant, who takes a maternal role in his household after the death of his mother. This is all crucial to understanding Light’s character in the drama and how the events leading up to him becoming Kira change in line with his altered characterization, but that analysis only barely skimmed the surface of Light’s character development throughout the drama, and especially after L’s death.

the drama fandom--including me!--is somewhat guilty of making blanket statements about drama light’s morality as opposed to his manga counterpart, that drama light is kinder and gentler in comparison to manga light. this may be true early on, but i would argue that as the series progresses, drama light willingly and deliberately throws away his love and humanity just as much--if not more!--than his manga counterpart.

to understand what i mean it’s important to compare light’s relationship with his father between the adaptations.

in the manga, light grows up idolizing his father, loving and admiring him and wanting to follow in his footsteps as a police officer. his morality that leads to him ultimately becoming Kira comes from Soichiro, as does his dissatisfaction with the world as he sees his father work himself to the bone trying to eradicate crime that seems to never end.

there’s a lot more that can be said about the nature of their relationship and about how Light desperately seeks his father’s approval, but instead of typing out an entire analysis i’ll link you to this post by tumblr user mikami [LINK], which is a very good analysis of the two of them in the manga.

conversely, in the drama Light begins much the same, but Soichiro choosing to chase a criminal instead of being by his wife’s deathbed--leaving his children to witness their mother’s passing alone--strains Light’s relationship with him. Light has much of the same morals and worldview as manga Light, but now believes that his father’s morality is more or less worthless, since he had to give up his family to pursue justice.

Light: When my mother died when I was a kid, my father was off chasing a criminal… I thought my father’s form of justice couldn’t be worth much, if he had to sacrifice even his family to see it through.

– Episode 7

however, it’s important to note that while Light is cold with his father and resents his occupation, that does not mean that Light does not still love and idolize his father. he wants his father’s love and support, and he cares as deeply for him as does his manga counterpart. in fact, drama light only becomes kira out of a desire to protect his father--after his first, accidental murder, he throws away the Death Note and tries to forget about it. however, his father is taken hostage by a criminal who intends on seeking revenge for Soichiro putting him in jail years ago, and Light is forced to retrieve the note and write the criminal’s name to protect his father.

[photo: a zoomed in shot of the Death Note. Light is writing the name “Otoharada Kuro” in Japanese. the penmanship is shaky and nearly illegible from how hard Light’s hand is trembling.]

– Episode 1

Light is literally shaking with terror as he writes the name of the man about to kill his father.

and this is not something Light does lightly--after he saves his father and it’s announced that Otoharada is dead, Light is absolutely stricken with guilt and horror for murdering two people, including the man who was about to kill his father. he saved his father’s life at the price of another, because he loves his father--and his entire family--very deeply.

it’s also worth noting a slight difference between the manga and the drama; after the mock execution, drama Soichiro admits that he believed Light could be guilty and was prepared to die. Light--who at this point has no memory of being Kira and thus completely believes himself to be wrongly accused--does not blame his father for not trusting him. Light, who desperately wants his father’s approval, does not blame him in the slightest: instead, the subject of his anger is Kira himself for putting Soichiro in this position and making Soichiro suffer.

Light: I… I hate Kira. Kira, who made you suffer this way… I hate him so much. Soichiro: Light… Light: Please catch him. I believe that you can catch Kira, Dad.

[photo: Light and Soichiro in an abandoned parking garage. the two of them are crouching beside Soichiro’s car. Soichiro is hugging Light, who weakly raises his hands to hold his father in return.]

– Episode 6

the two of them embrace and weep before collecting themselves and returning to Countermeasures.

by this point in the story, it’s obvious that both versions of Light love Soichiro very much. Light is creating his “new world” for the good of humanity but also for the people he loves the most--his family.

later, the emotional death of manga Light comes after the passing of his father, which he never wanted nor planned for. he never wanted Soichiro to be in a position to get hurt and he is never, ever the same after Soichiro's death, especially because he never gains his father’s approval for his actions as Kira--in fact, Soichiro leaves him with an outright rejection of Kira entirely.

[panel 1: a close up of Soichiro’s eye. he looks like he’s in pain. the speech bubble above his head reads, “I still have the eyes. And according to that Shinigami… Ryuk, I can’t see the lifespan of someone who owns a notebook.

panel 2: Light is standing above his father’s prone body. Matsuda stands behind him, bandages on his face and arms. Soichiro continues, “Light, you’re not Kira… I’m so glad…” Light looks shocked in response, a speech bubble above his head reading only “!” Matsuda says, “O-of course he isn’t! You were still worried about that?"]

the fact that Light can never gain that approval leads to him becoming incredibly dissatisfied and simply going through the motions--it’s what leads to him treating other people like cogs in a machine that will listen to him without any free will of their own, which is what makes him not foresee that Mikami might take action of his own accord. this is how Light gets caught in the end.

in the drama, however, Light experiences more than just his father’s rejection. Soichiro confronts Light directly about being Kira, catching him in the act. this is, of course, Light’s worst case scenario--he does virtually everything he can to lie his way out of it, to get his father back on his side, but fails. Soichiro acknowledges the fact that it was his fault that Light turned out this way, and also that he failed to notice that Light was suffering up until now--and then begs Light to turn himself in, in a scene that echoes L’s confrontation with Light from a couple of episodes prior.

when Light refuses, Soichiro begins to write his own name in the book.

Light: No way. Dad… Stop it. Dad! Stop it! Dad! Soichiro: There’s a struggle going on in your soul right now, isn’t there? That’s what it means to take someone’s life. That’s the weight of a human life. Do you understand, Light? Light: If this suffering is the real thing, I really can’t forgive criminals. I realized it, Dad. Even someone like me… There’s something even I can do to serve the world. Soichiro: How does killing people serve the world?! Light: I’ve sacrificed a lot of things, too! You of all people must understand how I feel! We’re working for the same thing. To protect the peace for everyone. With that notebook, I can create a world without crime! I’m just like you! Soichiro: You’re wrong. Open your eyes, Light. Come back, Light.

– Episode 10

with this ultimate rejection of Light’s actions, Soichiro finishes writing his name and Light allows him to do so. it isn’t as though Light couldn’t have stopped him if he really wanted to, either; on one level, turning himself into the police as Soichiro requested would have saved his father. on another, we see him rip the Death Note from Soichiro’s dying hands moments later as his father attempts to burn the book. Light is perfectly capable of saving the book and only acts when the Note is in danger, not his beloved family member.

of course, we never see manga Light exactly in this position, either, and I can’t say that I think that manga Light would have turned himself in or physically ripped the Note from Soichiro’s hands. both Lights did virtually everything they could to never be in a situation where they had to choose between the safety of their family members and being Kira, and I doubt manga Light would have done well emotionally with Soichiro outright rejecting him, his actions, and his ideology.

however, their actions and behavior immediately after Soichiro’s death is extremely telling. when manga Light is rejected by his father, who died as a result of a plan gone awry, he is completely devastated.

[photo: a panel of Light Yagami screaming over his father’s body. tears are running down his face, and he yells, “Dad! Dad! Don’t you die, damn it!”]

he sheds tears--which are rare for manga Light--and he mourns over his father’s dead body for quite some time. as i said previously, he is never the same man again after his father’s death.

drama Light sheds tears as Soichiro writes his name and is clearly upset by his passing, but his mourning period is immediately interrupted by desperation to get the Note back. he spends Soichiro’s last moments wrestling with him for the Note, and once his father collapses he takes the note, wild-eyed, and holds it to his chest protectively. in this instant, he cares more about the safety of the book than his dead parent--because he had just chosen the notebook, and being Kira, over his father.

after Soichiro’s funeral, Light thinks this:

Light [internally]: Dad really did open my eyes. If I am to become a God, sacrifices are inevitable. No matter who it is that pursues Kira, I will erase them.

– Episode 10

this is Light implicitly saying that sacrificing his family members--sacrificing Soichiro, the man he began killing in order to save--is inevitable if they oppose Kira. of course, this is very similar to the way that manga Light distances himself from Soichiro after Soichiro’s death, to save him from the hurting that it caused him.

[photo: a panel of Light Yagami’s face, zoomed in close so we can only see one eye, his nose, and most of his mouth. He is scowling, most of his eye cast in shadow, and he’s sweating and panting. He asks, “Dad? Are you talking about Soichiro Yagami?”]

of course, all of this begs the question of how drama Light--who began a sweet, gentle boy who was more or less coerced into using the Death Note to begin with--got to a place that even manga Light didn’t have the chance to get to, where he was more willing to save the Death Note than his own father. it’s important to consider another relationship that drama Light has that’s much different from manga Light’s--his relationship to L.

manga light respects L's intelligence and sees him as an equal, as entertainment at times, but he doesn’t like him. not even during yotsuba arc, where they’re ostensibly on the same side--in fact, i would say yotsuba Light has more reason to dislike L, seeing as though he believes L to be falsely accusing him and having tortured him for virtually no reason. they're not actually friends--it’s a manipulation tactic. moreover, L sees him the same way. they were not friends and they both intended on killing each other until the bitter end.

by comparison, drama light and L's relationship starts that way--with the two of them wanting to kill each other, with a pretense of friendship that is actually an excuse to get close to each other to try and test for weaknesses--but the difference is that they, well, fall for their own bullshit. during yotsuba arc, Light’s memories are rewritten in such a way that he believes that L and light are genuinely on friendly terms, and L finds himself over the course of the arc going from respecting Light’s talents and thinking him as something interesting to genuinely wanting him to not be Kira and seeing him as a friend.

if you want to know more about L’s thought processes during the series and specifically the blue scene I recommend reading my analysis about him [LINK] but what is important to note is that L does not want to kill Light anymore by the time episode 8 rolls around. like Soichiro later will, he attempts to convince Light to confess--with the intention, we later find out, to potentially give him a way out. of course, Light doesn’t understand this and believes, for the moment, that it’s a fight to the death--so he writes L’s name in (what he believes to be) the Death Note.

this is intrinsically different from the way Light kills L in the manga. manga Light convinces someone else to do the dirty work and he is absolutely gleeful when L dies, gloating over his dying body--but up until this point L has made manga Light’s life an absolute hassle and expressed time and time again that he intends on executing Kira, who he believes to be Light. L wants to kill him, and they are not friends. while drama Light also believes it’s a “me-or-him” situation, he cannot deny that he actually likes L, that he wanted to be friends with him--he wanted, like Soichiro, for L to accept him and to be a part of the world Kira would create.

[photo: Light, cast in blue light, is bent over double. we’re looking at his face from below, from L’s point of view on the floor. his face is contorted with grief, face wet with tears and spit. He says, “I’d have wanted to be your friend forever.”]

– Episode 8

these are what Light believes to be his last words to L, so he has no reason to lie. he’s weeping as he says it, seeming absolutely heartbroken. this is the first time that Light kills--or attempts to kill--someone he cares about, and it’s the moment he decides to throw his humanity away. if he hadn’t cared so deeply for L before deciding to kill him, I don’t think the scene with Soichiro would have played out quite the same. Light even says it himself right before he writes L’s name:

Light: I can’t afford to lose to you. I’m creating a perfect world, without crime. To see that happen, I… L: Light… Light: I… I’ve decided there’s nothing I won’t do!

– Episode 8

these words are immediately followed by Light attempting to kill L. this is the fundamental moment that Light throws away his humanity, literally deciding that he would do anything for his new world, including killing his friends if they stand in his way. this culminates in him letting his father die and ripping the Note from his hands. he believes that the ends justify the means and that this is the only option he has.

it’s important to note that it isn’t that Light stopped loving his father, or stopped liking L--it isn’t that he lacks guilt over their deaths. it’s exactly the opposite. while their deaths--and the deaths of the Countermeasures team that he planned to take place, as well as the FBI and countless other people--are a necessary evil in order to make the world a better place, Light has to absolutely jump through hoops to justify it to himself and compartmentalize the guilt. as I said earlier, Light saying that Soichiro’s death was inevitable is a way to distance himself from the pain and guilt and rejection he feels, but as he’s dying that guilt cracks back open wide. when he sees that the Death Note is on fire, he panics and begins crawling towards it.

Light: Not yet. I can still do more. If I give up now… What was it all for?

– Episode 11

this is immediately followed by a flashback to Soichiro’s death, where Soichiro questions him about how killing people serves the world--after he crawls a little further, he flashes back again to L, recalling L’s desire to be friends with him.

these flashbacks go to show that Light feels a deep and profound guilt for killing both of them. he’s justified and rationalized it to himself as being for the good of the world--he chose being Kira over both of their lives. however, this means that if Kira fails, if he dies and the world goes right back to the way it was, then all of it was for nothing. he gets himself into a situation where he has to keep killing and killing people he cares about because if he stops then it means that all of it was for nothing.

it’s honestly an incredibly sad situation, that someone so full of kindness would become ultimately cold-hearted in an effort to cope with guilt.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Episode 11: “This Is A Wonderful Inn”

Funnily enough, an episode involving the characters literally soaking in a warm bath is exactly what I needed to watch after yesterday’s episode of Sarazanmai, lmao.

But this episode isn’t JUST pure fluff or anything. There’s a bit more going on with it.

Thoughts under the cut. [And spoiler warning for the whole manga]

Even though this episode ends at the same spot that episode 12 of the 2001 anime did, it ended up being a fair bit different in practice, as a natural consequence of how the last episode differed from it’s equivalent episode from the 2001 anime.

This episode adapted chapters 17 and 18 of the manga, whereas episode 12 of the 2001 anime just covered chapter 18, since it covered [parts of] chapters 15-17 in the episode before it. So instead of the hot springs trip being padded out into an entire episode, it only takes up the back half of this episode, and instead of being in the Valentine’s Day episode, Momiji’s story about the Foolish Traveler is in this episode. Which might be a bit odd to some people who just watched the 2001 anime, but this is a lot more faithful to the manga, and in terms of pacing I think it works a lot better.

For one thing, Valentine’s Day and White Day are a month apart, so the 2001 anime had to basically have a month-long time-skip in the middle of an episode since they crammed those two parts together, whereas in the reboot they’re separate episodes, so the jump forward in time is a lot more natural. And I feel like Momiji’s story has a bit more weight when it doesn’t get brought up in the exact same episode as Tohru buying everyone chocolate.

But even more than that, when I watched the 2001 anime for the first time a while back to prepare for the reboot, I thought that the hot springs episode was one of the slowest and most dull episodes of them all. It’s not a very eventful chapter to begin with, and padding it out into an entire episode was just . . . not great, especially since it involved them giving Ritsu’s mum like a thousand times more screen-time which pushed her way over the line into being obnoxious. Even in the reboot her whole brand of comedy still bugs me a bit, but at least there’s only, like, two scenes of it this time around.

And on the note of Ritsu’s mum, this episode reminded me that it’s kinda weird, in hindsight, how the English translation of the manga just has her straight up go ‘I hope you can meet my son one day, he’s a nice boy :)’, or something like that, considering that one way or another Ritsu’s gender is meant to be ambiguous. They even had Momiji refer to Ritsu with he/him pronouns in the scene afterward. I actually looked through both my English edition and my Japanese edition to make sure, and yeah the English version just adds in gendered pronouns and stuff that aren’t really meant to be there, and it leads to this really awkward situation later on where Tohru’s genuinely surprised to find out that Ritsu is a boy later on, which doesn’t make sense if you’re reading that translation, lol.

But anyway Ritsu as a character is a whooooole can of worms that I’ll get into when he comes up later on. If I remember right, I think the hint we got at the outline of season 1 from that one video Funimation posted implies that Ritsu’s intro will be in episode 17, so I guess that’ll be when that happens.

Anyway, even before the hot springs stuff, the first half of this episode is all about the Foolish Traveler story and how it relates to Tohru “self-sacrifice is my middle name :)” Honda.

It’s really funny watching so many new viewers be really thrown off by how dark the whole story is, and how it just ends with the traveler being a disembodied head with empty eye sockets. Though I think it feels especially creepy in this version of the story since it has such a unique and vivid animation style that really makes it feel like a dark fairy tale, which I loved.

Momiji pretty much spells it all out for the audience, but the whole point of the story, as it exists within the manga as a whole, is that while Tohru’s habit for self-sacrifice and selflessness is genuinely a character flaw that hurts her at times, it’s not something that should be exploited and belittled. It’s all about respecting how other people choose to express their kindness, and about pointing out how the people who choose to treat her badly are the ones who are in the wrong, not her.

I think the reboot in particular has been pretty good at portraying Tohru’s maturity and depth, but I hope this episode in particular makes it clear to new viewers that she’s not some cliche Mary Sue who’s super perfect and has nothing wrong with her. If anything, I’d say that part of the story as it goes on, even if it’s a small part, is about interrogating the way that we think about conventionally kind and feminine heroines in these sorts of stories. There’s a whole list of characters who have their opinion toward Tohru evolve as they get to know her and understand how she really is as a person, and the story also slowly peels back the layers on all of her repressed trauma and complexes that lead to her being this way in the first place.

It’s been really interesting how this reboot has inspired a lot of discussion from people who’ve been fans of the series for a decade or more, and how their feelings toward the series as a whole and Tohru as a character have evolved over the years. I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how they disliked Tohru when they were younger, because they thought she was stupid and annoying and overly perfect, but as they got older and looked back on the series with a more mature perspective, they realized how much of a genuinely good person she is. It’s kinda funny that stuff like this shows how different types of kindness can be misunderstood and disrespected by people [especially when it intersects with stuff like misogyny], considering that one of the first scenes that really shows Tohru’s true colours is when she talks about how her mother always told her that everyone has their own different type of kindness that they grow inside their hearts, and that those differences can lead to misunderstandings and conflict.

There also seem to be a lot of people who didn’t understand the point behind Momiji’s story when they were kids, and that’s basically the same thing. When you’re a kid, it’s easy to look at a person whose kindness is exploited by people with bad intentions, and to go ‘well they’re just an idiot who deserves what they get’. But that’s not really how it works.

It’s worth noting that in an interview you can find in the last volume of Yen Press’ collector’s edition of the manga, Takaya pointed out that after hearing Momiji’s story, Kyo decided to stop calling Tohru an idiot. It’s a really subtle detail that I know I definitely didn’t notice the first time around, but it makes sense, and it’s really cute. He’s such an incredibly Good Boy [tm] who’s trying his best to slowly improve himself and be kinder in his own ways.

Also the scene with them on the balcony with the sheets flying in the air and the neat direction trick where the shot of Tohru gets covered up by one of the sheets blowing in the wind and then when it moves away it shows Kyo was CINEMATIC POETRY and I am not emotionally prepared for when a very similarly framed scene is gonna happen way way later in the reboot.

The inn sequence was really fun and cute, but I’m really glad it was just half the episode rather than the entire thing. It’s not really enough material to carry an entire episode on it’s own.

It’s fun to watch new viewers get into legit shipping wars with the whole Tohru/Kyo/Yuki love triangle, lol. These early episodes are really leaning into the Tohru/Yuki ship-tease. I guess it goes to show how much they’re getting invested in the reboot, at least. I wonder how many new Tohru/Yuki shippers are gonna get disappointed over how their whole deal develops, especially after this episode.

I have a loooot of thoughts about the whole Tohru/Yuki situation in general, and it’s a bit too early to really bother getting into it, but I at least wanna say that it’s kinda funny seeing some Tohru/Yuki shippers who’ve read the manga be like ‘I’ll never be able to accept the idea that he just saw her as a mother figure! He was definitely crushing on her!’, since my opinion on the matter is somehow both more or less the same and also the exact opposite of that. Let’s just say that I have a lot of thoughts about Yuki’s performative attraction toward Tohru.

Anyway, I think that’s about all there is to say. Though I still think I ended up saying a lot more than I expected to. This wasn’t exactly the most eventful episode ever, but it was really fun and relaxing. It was a pretty necessary breather episode to have between episode 10, which was a fair bit heavier on the dark and worrying foreshadowing than most new fans probably expected, and the upcoming episode 12, which is probably gonna REALLY catch people off guard with how dark it’ll be, considering how well the reboot’s handled it’s more dramatic moments.