#i don’t think it’d be an instance of forgiving vs not forgiving but the acknowledgement that the love was there would have to—

[crocodilenjoyer]

you know. i’m thinking about the horrifically awfulmessycomplicated relationship between ace and garp and i can’t put it into words but there’s so much resentment and anger and fear and disappointment there but there’s also love, no matter how poorly it came across. no matter how little it changed in the end. garp is there the moment ace is born and he’s there the moment he dies, and both times, he stands by. but he’s there. i don’t know if that’s better or worse.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket Manga Review ch (90)- First pages ONLY.

I skimmed thro ch-89 to know the context of ch-90. it was Cinderella’s play. In this chapter, Kyo says early on, that time has passed since the play & that they are NOW starting their third year in high school. cool.

This part will ONLY focus on the 1st few pages of ch 90 abt (kyo & tohru) & stop before kyo’s memories starts, because the early pages contain:

Tons of new unexplored analysis of (kyo & tohru) characters that unfortunately was intentionally cut & worse! “changed” in the anime.

No space to add kyoko’s story in this post.

Kyoko’s story is full psychologically & socially.. I need to take a deeeeeeep breath before I unpack it. very deeeeep breath!

-Glimpses of Tohru (the silent grieving girl) Subtle Writing of Grief:

Right from the beginning, I hate how much insight into tohru’s grief & weakness as a human being is already there in the first few pages of ch-90 than the entire 3 seasons of the anime! From few pages we have:

Tohru’s seemingly delighted watching a video. Subtly, showcasing tohru’s grieve & paving the path for tohru’s trauma exploration later in the story. Grief is not sth you quickly past, that’s the most tragic misunderstanding of grief. Time will pass, so, you’ll be better & healthier. Really?!. Tohru’s inner desire to see her mom alive manifested in her words: “ like a photo comes to life” T_T.

The story/writing/manga is acknowledging tohru’s heartbreaking & NOT cute habit of talking to her mom’s cold dead photo! In the anime, tohru talks to her a lot in se01 & it’s up to you to see as as “ cute” as all the canon characters do or actually feeling it IS wrong. Kyo’s  “ what would she do if there were a video of her mom”! “ drives the point more abt tohru being a sad grieving human~not the “advice-giving, optimistic angel, & rain-stopping sunshine in the anime.

Tohru telling kyo to NOT catch cold connecting it to se01, ep 9 (haru’s ep) when tohru was afraid that yuki might catch cold & kyo noticed that! so now in se03, they’re dropping this plot altogether within the main anime, for what? we dont even know if this part would be included in whatever “ kyoko’s” spinoff content would be. -_-’.

That’s how you write subtle trauma such as (grief) for a main (female) MC. subtlety is the key. Respect the viewers intelligence & do it.

You don’t have to give her the long speeches or the many focused ep that yuki had. he’s the kind who confront himself inwardly constantly.

You don’t have to showcase drama, confrontation & force the emotions out like you did with kyo. he runs from his trauma & punishes himself.

Tohru buries her feelings! she’s different from both kyo & yuki. So, with her subtle & symbolic scenes are enough!!!The viewers will catch it if you show it, but ignoring it, cutting it & hoping the viewers will magically predict what you cut, is weird. But the anime isn’t even into us predicting nor subtly showing her cuz this tohru is NOT the tohru we have in the anime. How?

Simply cuz there is no kyo’s inner thoughts abt small things such as tohru’s photo obsession which subtly shows her grief & trauma. If kyo didn’t monologue abt her, tohru does not exist as she’s meant to be. You loose the subtle insights into tohru if you cut kyo’s inner thoughts. Not everything kyo thinks abt in regards to tohru is romance!!! That’s a very narrow & superficial look into the writing of kyo/’tohru dynamics. Flip the pages, hmm..cut this kyoru scene here & there cuz we dont want the anime to be only their love story.. But the story itself IS NOT only their love story at all. These pages/scenes here are abt tohru as a PERSON. Not tohru the lover...

- Writing Clashes between manga & anime: (Kyo’s Conscious Gradual Psychological Exploration vs Shock Value & Drama)

In ch 90 i really love all the inner self talking that kyo’s doing. It really explains why he ended up rejecting tohru so strongly. Also, going for a trip into kyo’s mind is hella exciting, new, refreshing & full of analysis-worthy exploration! Kyo’s inner psychological argument with himself is a psychologically-informed presentation of a tried guilty mind:

“ Why can’t I stop thinking of (kyoko’s words) lately? Acknowledging that he IS remembering kyoko & never forgot her. This is also supported in the anime itself. When he apologized to a sleeping tohru in se01, ep14 & se02, ep9 , confronting yuki in the stairs & other instances as well. 

“ It’s like a lid been opened & all the memories came pouring”. Acknowledging that kyo DID open his lid since se02, ep9 byt chose to run & not confront it due to his guilt of ruining tohru’s happiness by confessing his connection to her mom. 

“ pretending I didn’t know, pretending I forgot”. Here is a blatant clash in kyo’s writing (1) between the anime & manga (2) between the anime’s episodes themselves!!. In the manga, again kyo chose to ignore & pretended to forget. Death is NOT sth you forgot. Kyo saw kyoko bleeding & dying.  The anime chose to make him totally forget & it could’ve worked if they didn’t included all the canon moments of him actually remembering & pretending to forget. Is that lazy writing? or was the director for se03 different from se 1 &2 &? chose to NOT watch the two previous seasons? Why would you consciously include a contradicting depiction of your character on screen for thousands of confused viewers? Was the scene of kyo’s shocked gave upon seeing kyoko’s photo that artistically appealing that you forgot everything? I really have NO problem of kyo forgetting kyoko if that was written in the anime since se01, but it wasn't. that's why it sucks. 

“Is this payback? maybe I want to blame ME?” augh! i love this line so much! Directly hinting to the viewers that this is kyo’s one-sided guilt before his story with kyoko even started! subtly paving the path for the reason of his rejection of tohru” I dont want forgiveness. I want to blame ME.

-I don’t mind that the anime left kyo’s thoughts of kyoko until the climax in eo8, cuz ep 8 was SO well-done! Se03, ep 8 pacing was very suitable to (1) uncovering dark secrets & death, trauma, & guilt. (2)  for exploring the effects such secrets on kyo’s character, decisions, mentality. Also, the animation of kyo’s face all ep 8 was one of the most expressive facial expressions the anime has ever delivered! The eyebrows, eyes, mouth, tears, body languages, heartache was all 100% perfect. The fact that the following eps didnt have much time to express everything & chapters were cramped is not ep 8′s fault but the decision to have 13 eps. Kyo’s delayed trauma deserved to have its own ep.

-What I DO mind is the added scene of ep 6 where he freaked out upon seeing kyoko’s picture, the concept of shock is perfect & so suitable for an anime but was NEVER properly written into the anime itself from the beginning. On the contrary, the anime itself contradict such usage of such value. Good job ruining an otherwise perfect-depiction of two traumatized characters (kyo & tohru) with ONE scene.. -_-

Side Notes:

I thought tohru is narrating the 1st page in ch-90, turned it out it is kyo!!!! Kyo narrates sth? Kyo monologues? kyo has a POV? Just the setting of kyo doing that feels different! I duno if it cuz when that happens in the anime it’s always clash & drama! lol, or cuz it’s sth original!

Shigure’s “ it’s broadcasted all over the nation” is epic! XD! you know poor stupid kyo would fall for that! XD. kyo, you really are an idiot! XD... man this scene would’ve been epic comedy~ lol.

Tohru not knowing what a “dvd” is is outdated for the anime, but to still keep the sentiment of “her wishing she’d have a video footage of her mom”, they could’ve replaced her words with “ It’d be fun watching this play years from now & remembering all the details”. I know that to some, it feels weird that tohru doesn't have video footage of her mom in this era. but trust me, this is more common than you might think. My late brother, who’s way younger than me, doesn't have much video footage, he always felt awkward & preferred not to be filmed. We got photos for him tho~

Even if you want kyo’s knowledge of kyoko to be in the climax only. You can always include this scene of tohru & kyo in the first pages in the anime somehow. It doesn't even need to be abt the dvd even tho that’s manageable. Cutting this short scene of them talking abt videos, & catching cold is cutting tohru’s trauma from its core. Then, the old grandpa’s narration from se03, ep6 would at least have some backup in the anime’s canon.

Momiji & shigure are perfect as a comedic duo!

I can’t get over tohru’s art~ <3

Pinning kyo at the beginning is epic~ kyo always gets the BEST romantic lines when he talks to himself. “ burning (tohru’s ) memories into my head or forgetting everything”. The torturing fire inside him is only distinguished by loving her but is also ignited by loving her~ what’s the solution~

[rotationalsymmetry]

Avatar and Korra and gender roles, Part 2 of 2

 So, that brings us to Legend of Korra, which continues and fulfills the trajectory Avatar: The Last Airbender was on in terms of how female characters are integrated into the story. Summary of Part 1: Avatar: the Last Airbender started out with an imbalance towards male characters, and in general only had female characters when there was some “reason” for the character to be female, such as showing a conventionally female role or so that the character could be a love interest for a (more significant to the story) male character. Often the female characters were powerful and nuanced and well-written anyways -- I’m definitely not saying that any of the characters are in there just as a love interest. What I’m saying is that, there’s a noticeable difference between female characters in Season 1 vs 2 and 3, and that difference is the writers stopped writing all characters as male by default, and only female if they couldn’t more easily be written as male. Which is how we got Toph and Azula and a wider range of female minor characters. In Legend of Korra, we’ve gone from “women can fight as well as men, sometimes better” to a fighter’s gender not even being relevant. They could have had some big story about how Lin Beifong had to fight against sexism to become the chief of police, or keep fighting against subordinates who wouldn’t respect her authority later, and...didn’t happen. Her gender was a non-issue. When Tenzin’s family is escaping from the Equalists towards the end of Season 1, and Lin risks her life to protect him, there’s no weirdness about a woman protecting a man who’s capable of fighting himself. It’s just the logical choice. And you don’t see that in action movies often: a woman risking her life to protect a group of people that includes a man who can fight but isn’t. He’s a dad, his kids need him; in the moment, that’s more important than gender. And it’s not just fighting, for instance Asami races cars and runs a major business. Lin’s sister is the head of a city; she’s a metalbender, but as far as I know she’s not a fighter at all. We get a bit of Mako and Bolin’s grandmother: a frail old woman who’s nothing special in the wider world but who definitely wields authority as the beloved matriarch of the family. We get an Earth Queen who’s a terrible and self-indulgent leader, and Kuvira the conquering dictator.

And it’s also not just that all women are tough and bad-ass; women get to be tough in different ways; women get to be tough in some ways and vulnerable in others; women get to be just ordinary people and have interesting lives (like Caia) or to be in conventional supportive roles (like Pema.) Women can be uncomfortable with children (Lin) or feel fulfilled with motherhood (again, Pema.) We get relationships between sisters (Lin and Suyin, Jinora and Ikki), which I don’t think we have at all in ATLA. And men can be athletes, artists, movie stars, non-action guys who are into fashion, devoted and protective brothers, fathers and sons. We have an arc with one of the central male characters falling into a relationship with an abusive girlfriend (although ymmv on how well that was handled -- the dynamic isn’t explicitly named as abusive in the show, although it is shown as being pretty unambiguously bad for the boyfriend.) In the first season, Mako is in an awkward position where dating Asami is financially advantageous to him and breaking up would leave him and Bolin in a difficult position, but he’s not entirely sure he does want to be dating her -- a storyline you see more often given to women, when that sort of power and relationships situation is addressed at all. It’d be easy to dismiss a lot of the interpersonal dynamics as “just love triangle stuff”, but it goes a lot deeper than “which of these two wonderful people do I want to be with.” There’s power and vulnerability and what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like. Legend of Korra’s central characters are a little older than Avatar’s characters, and they have different problems, ones that are more focused on romantic relationships. But they’re not badly done or just-for-cheap-drama. They’re saying things. And with the older characters, there is so much family drama: difficult parent-child dynamics and difficult sibling dynamics and Tenzin having trouble acknowledging he was the favored child because he was the airbender and Lin still not being ready to forgive Suyin. And the dynamic between responsible Mako and impulsive Bolin. (Incidentally, not my main point here but that’s another thing the show does well: writes characters of dramatically different ages well. The protagonist is a teenager, but younger characters (Tenzin’s children) get significant roles, and older characters aren’t just parents and authority figures, they get their own drama as well.) The plots kind of waver between classic bad guys and something more complex, and the more complex stuff...I’m not sure it always works. The overarching theme in Legend of Korra is balance, in the same way that the overarching theme in Avatar: The Lost Airbender was saving the world from the Fire Nation. There’s still, power can be corrupt and bad, but mostly the bad guys are not the ones in power (or with Kuvira, weren’t initially in power), they’re extremists trying to change the (admittedly far from perfect) status quo. Which can be frustrating if your politics run more anarchist/revolutionary/anti-colonialism. But I don’t think it’s actually a change from ATLA: ATLA actually was pro-status quo, or at least pro the status quo from before the fire nation started its take-over-the-world war. And basically pro-authority/pro-good-government. You *can* read anti-Western-colonialism messages into ATLA, but it’s a relatively indirect read; the Fire Nation is modeled on Japan and if anything the war is modeled on WWII, not on hundreds of years of Western colonialism. If ATLA was meant to be about Western colonialism, there’s a lot more they could have gone into and didn’t. It...kind of “works” better (the interpretations are more consistent) if you see it as a really simple anti-war/anti-aggression theme, rather than an anti-colonialism theme.