thinking about how dongsik and joowon are the inverse of each other. thinking about joowon's journey realizing that blood is not thicker than water, ties can be severed from abusive family members (no matter how painful that is) and that among many things, his father's cruelty is what took away and destroyed dongsik's family who actually were a positive force in his life. many things about beyond evil appeal to me, but i mainly want to put a pin on the central themes of the show, particularly the failures of adults and parental figures, how that ripples through the lives of their successors in an especially vicious and self-destructive manner. this is a commonality found between multiple characters in the show (minjeong, joowon and jeongje) - but i want to put emphasis on joowon's struggle with this because his path to freedom was walked to completion, in comparison to minjeong whose life was cut short and jeongje who we part with carrying the painful knowledge that he may never achieve absolution, as his journey has only begun.
the show, technically starts at the beginning of joowon's journey/arc. unfamiliarity and discomfort force him to adapt and self-reflect, because the only way joowon was able to free himself was by breaking every rule his father set for him, going beyond his selfish confines and breaking down the walls he built. joowon is unable to get his physical body dirty, he is emotionally closed-off and is incapable of understanding why the people in manyang, particularly dongsik, would look out for anyone other than themselves. he is selfish, rigid, guilt-ridden and bashful; but it is exposure to dongsik's unwavering faith in and patience for others (for jeongje, for sangbae, for the people of manyang that have wronged him for years) that erode his harsh edges. dongsik, although not without flaws and contrary to what his outer appearance and manner of speech radiate, is kind and forgiving. that kindess, that forgiveness, as well as joowon's own guilt and shame is essential to getting him to a point where he is comfortable bloodying his hands, his clothes, and his face to protect dongsik (+ jihwa and her partner. to protect his friends).
dongsik recognizes joowon's pain too ("i know what it's like to be blamed for something you didn't do"). he sees his guilt, it's not inordinate to what joowon's done per se but a large portion of it brings so much shame to joowon ("please, stop doing unnecessary things out of guilt.") how could i have been so self-righteous when the man who bore me is responsible for so much misery? how do i rectify this, how do i absolve myself from the guilt? all dilemmas joowon grapples with, and dongsik, knowing pain and shame all too well does not grant joowon mercy when he is bowed down, forehead to cuffed hands while joowon's own are also cupping dongsik's, begging for it. mercy is letting joowon go, it's lifting the burden of responsibility off his shoulders - but instead, dongsik’s final request ensures that joowon truly atones ("i ask you to arrest me" - "no, how could i do that? i have no right") by informing him that the only way to live with guilt is to try and do right by the people who expect something from him. "joowon-ah", dongsik says as he softly picks up joowon's clenched fist, the look they share informs joowon that going through with the arrest is how he'll do dongsik right. it's what dongsik, his now friend, expects from him. that's what their final scene as partners is all about, in my opinion.
and something good does come out of dongsik's firm but tender confrontation. joowon gradually becomes a better person who seeks community and whose life, in return, is enriched by the friends that forming community gave him. dongsik and joowon's parting is bittersweet, but in letting joowon know that his actions matter to others and that he is wanted and expected by others - (jihwa, as part of the larger collective whose feelings towards joowon are influenced by dongsik's, texts him and checks in - that expectation to show up and empathy for when he does not respond is an invitation letting him know that there is a place for him if he chooses to occupy any) - dongsik sets him free.
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@aquataines ohhh absolutely i am soo happy to talk about food as an amalgamation of the uchihas love and the way it haunts them after the massacre. i'm really passionate about this so you don’t even understand the can of beans you have opened. i am going to be talking about both canon and filler in this though, because there is lots of supporting canon however filler continues to support and fuel this thought.
growing up with his family, sasuke is very commonly shown at the dinner table with his family eating together, and it’s where a lot of conversations with his family take place. now to start this off, i’m going to point out the obvious that the uchiha canonically are a clan that holds too much love inside of them, which is what develops their sharingan. carrying so much love within you of course needs an outlet to come out. we don’t really see the uchiha showing much verbal affection towards each other but sasukes family very obviously loves each other. fugaku even tells itachi that he doesn’t wish for words of flattery, but nonetheless to show his thanks and return the love back to itachi for what he said fugaku immediately offers to get him his favourite snack, dango. so we would infer that they communicate their love to each other in a different way. food.
sasuke and his family really share their most intimate moments together when they are in the kitchen at the table. here is where sasuke asks fugaku why itachi doesn’t give him much attention while at the dinner table, and fugaku explains that itachi is just not very social, sasuke later admits to mikoto that he thinks he’s unfavoured between him and itachi by fugaku, to which mikoto explains the differences between him and itachi and reassures him that he’s not. it’s where they’re seen talking most commonly just in general as well, about the sharingan, about training, exciting moments, ect.. the dinner table is where their love is shown when they gather together and eat the food that mikoto has made with the love for her family. it’s where they feel most comfortable to show their love and be honest because in the kitchen is where their love grows.
why is the food their centre of love though? just in general making food for someone is something very special, intimate and ultimately caring. you are turning basic ingredients and foods into something for others to not only to take nutrients from, grow and gain strength from, but also to spend time with them and enjoy the taste of the food you made with care together. you pour the love you have into the food you make for the people you love because you want to see them be happy and healthy. for people like mikoto and itachi who’re shown to enjoy cooking, it’s something special that they put everything into because not only do they want to see their family eat to keep them alive, but they want to see them enjoy the taste and feel the care and love for them that they’ve stored within the food as they make it. they want to place their love inside their family and have them carry their love around wherever they go and what better way to store their love inside them other than to put it in the food your make for them? mikoto is obviously the main cook of the uchiha household and she makes sure that her family stores the love she puts into the meals she cooks inside of them. she is frequently seen ensuring that her kids are fed, making sure they’re filled up, making them lunches, giving them snacks and making sure they are eating good food.
itachi as well, in filler, spends the episode finally getting to be around sasuke and bond with him. the day was spent making sasuke happy and sharing the love that he does have for sasuke with his brother, and at the end of the day makes a huge feast for sasuke. he made him so much food to show sasuke that he cares about him and loves him, he wants to see him eat and he wants to see him eat well. he intends to pack him full of his love. not to get into the fact that clearly mikoto would have had to teach itachi how to cook, sharing the ‘secret’ of spreading love. now this isn’t canon however i personally would like to think (considering how young itachi is here and how much he can make already on his own) that mikoto also had started teaching sasuke how to cook a little as well. this will come back later, which is why i mention it.
the common theme within all of these meals— all of mikoto’s dinners, her bento boxes, fugaku and itachi’s dango, and his feast for sasuke— they are all good, yummy food. they’re something you want to eat and hold inside you and cherish. they’re all made and/or given with care, thought, intention and love.
sasuke grew up eating a variety of good tasting and well made food.
after the massacre, though, he changes. sasuke has lost the love from his family, he doesn’t have it anymore. sasuke grew up with food being the indicator of love, and grew up with the dinner table being the centre of family and bonding. as a reaction to the loss of his family he couldn’t bare to keep storing that love inside him, food as a love language died with them. his family was now gone, and the thought of storing love (read: well made food) inside him after his family was killed was not in the question. after the loss of their love, the only thing he needed to focus on was catching up to itachi to kill him.
here we can see what foods sasuke favours post massacre. “sasuke’s every move is designed to make him stronger, he approaches his diet with equal intensity.” his diet has changed drastically. from being fed a large variety of yummy, well made food filled with love and care for him to enjoy eating, he goes to eating raw and bland food, anything just to get stronger quicker. you could argue that he just didn’t know how to cook, which i can’t say he didn’t, but as i stated before it seems very likely that mikoto started teaching the boys to cook from a very young age, added to the fact that sasuke intentionally only starts eating food for its nutrients and health benefit, it’s fair enough to infer that he can cook at least some meals that he used to eat, he just can’t bare to anymore.
“he never selects his meals based on what he actually likes.” we look to his favourite foods to eat and they’re broken down into their health factors. this kid, reportedly, is known to be eating raw tomatoes simply because he wants to get stronger as fast as possible. he does not like the taste of what he is eating. he does not eat food with the intention of enjoying it’s creation. with the loss of his family he lost the will to store himself with love (this is not to say he does not still have love, he has been stored with love all his life, he is an uchiha, he will always be motivated by love), he couldn’t bare to continue consuming love filled food so he ate food solely to get stronger. food made with no care, thought, intention, or love. the love of his family haunts him. this is beside the point but i can’t even begin to express how heart breaking that is. the uchiha show their love with food and sasuke stops eating food created with love once he loses his family, all the love he had.
sasuke, isolated, left all alone in this village with no friends spent his time from 7 to 12 years old avoiding the love of food. but when he finally finds someone to create a bond with, what does he do?
he offers naruto food. despite what he says, this an olive branch to start forming a bond with naruto. this is him extending care with the intention of filling naruto so that he doesn’t go hungry. whether the food was made with love or care doesn’t matter because at that moment sasuke put the intention into the food. it’s how he creates bonds, it’s how he shows care and how he shows love because that was how he was raised, he was raised to bond over food, to show care and to love with food.
the uchiha’s love has always revolved around food and it’s woven so into the text that at this point it’s not even a head canon to me, but fact.
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there was a bbbat rhyme anima talk event today~ it was as chill of a time as it could be with kimura in the room lol but we got to hear some fun stuff from them!!!!
when asked what were their favourite scenes from the anime, kimura answered the place bbbat’s fight scene episode stood out to him bc it looked like a dungeon
ishiya-san really liked how this time around, they got to rap by groups in addition to teams!!!! it was really neat to sing with his fellow 2gumi lol
amasaki-san loves that one scene from bbbat’s episode where 2️⃣3️⃣🌙⚖️ were attacked by enemies while trying to hit the time switch. that whole it’s a shark!!!! no it’s actually humans!!!! scene is really funny lol
hayama-san really loved seeing everyone’s ending song animations!!!! like you could tell they were made with love and care for each division and their fans
sakakihara-san loved just seeing jyushi’s bandmates make an appearance and seeing them interact within the plot!!!
takeuchi-san really liked the visuals in sanity!!!!! especially that kaleidoscope visual they gave bat!!!!
they also asked for general impression in the anime and starting with bat:
hayama-san was really impressed with the artstyle lol. it’s the first time they got to see bat move and on top of that, the style pays a lot of respect to kazui-sensei’s art!!!!!
sakakihara-san liked how they managed to show jyushi’s growth as a person, have his still push him forward as he takes a step forward to help someone else
takeuchi-san got to see hitoya’s office for himself in the anime and was really impressed with how big his office is actually lmao
on bb side, kimura prefaced with how ordinary bb’s character setting is compared to like, mtc’s yakuza, policeman, soldier set up since they’re just a trio of bros. but that in itself is their power and it’s nice to see in the anime too
ishiya-san liked how they portrayed bonds in the anime and the strength those bonds brought!!! he gave an example of jiro feeling a little pressured but ready to step up to the challenge after hearing saburo’s contributions in the 3gumi episode
amasaki-san really liked how the anime showed a sense of each division protecting their hoods!!! kinda got hoodstar vibes lol
next they had to come up with a word or phrase that encompasses bbbat’s dynamic/vibes. for whatever reason kimura was really having a hard time understanding this as a concept (and it lowkey killed ishiya-san and amasaki-san’s braincells lol) but since bat were on it and ready they went up
hayama-san wrote ‘love’, sakakihara-san wrote ‘shounen manga’ and takeuchi-san wrote ‘one big family’
hayama-san said bbbat share similar expressions of love, bat shows their familial like love, bb has their love as siblings and ichiro and kuukou have carried on their love as partners from their naughty busters days (at which hayama-san and sakakihara-san started giggling like the fudanshi they are LMAO)
their energy and action kinda gives shounen manga to sakakihara-san!!!!
it was at this time bb finished their answers and revealed they all so happened like woah crazy coincidence bruh wrote the same stupid pun that doubled as them saying ‘they’ve got some kick ass ball busting energy!!!’ and them flexing their bonds lol
bc of this takeuchi-san didn’t get to explain lol and after kimura poked fun at him for it, hayama-san managed to tie all their response together since they were still similar in vibe. amasaki-san said hayama-san was being too nice to them LOL 😭😭😭
the last segment was them playing a quiz game where they had to watch a scene from the anime and answer a weirdly specific question about it lol. bat won 30-29 (LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) and it was very entertaining lol but there were two moments that made me really laugh lmao
at the start of it, ishiya-san and amasaki-san all of a sudden stood up and started jeering and shit talking like actual six year olds lol. not a single bat seiyuu had the thought to rise to the provocation LOL but takeuchi-san protectively blocked them with his arm and told them they didn’t to need to stoop to their level lmao
for the first question, they needed to answer what was ichiro’s phone battery at in the scene. kimura loudly stated this was his hour (he knew the answer lol) and as takeuchi-san stepped up to rep bat’s answer, hayama-san coyly leaned over to look directly at kimura to ask, ‘was it in the 70s? 🙂or the 60s? 🙂maybe 50s? 🙂’ and the way kimura just froze LOL
kimura: that was really scary!!! like yikes!!!! yikes!!!! i thought i was being puppeted for a second!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭
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