#not that there's anything about aku that needs fixing. it's just that. well. *technically.* the murder wasn't ideal

[rotisseries]

atsushi's "I can fix him" complex is debilitating let's talk about it

[kyouka-supremacy]

Kyotag, I feel like you understand Akutagawa so well. I saw your post about Chuuya and how he would give Akutagawa a purpose and it just feels like you understand Akutagawa's need for some purpose, but not in the regular sense? The sense of having a purpose to absolutely surpass. Because, having 'potential' is horrendous for him, I feel, rather than being the worst. Because it means that there's something he's not touching. If you're the worst, then technically you're still the best at being the absolute rock bottom of something.

On Dazai and Aku's relationship, I feel like Dazai tried to compensate/change it after joining the ADA, however I feel like now he's taking his hands away? If that makes sense,

As in, he's letting Atsushi and Akutagawa refine each other. The same way Mori felt diamonds polish diamonds, a mirror needs a window. Dazai, if I understand him well, says that he removes himself as a resource of growth for others. I think it was when Fyodor was asking why his teammates are so reliant on him? He believes Akutagawa can find an answer for himself, in my opinion. Nothing he did was to Akutagawa's benefit in the PM other than taking him in, which, in itself, is very questionable. Akutagawa has simply managed to bend all his experiences to be a blade sharpener, to refine himself upon because he is desperate to become the sharpest edge.

Dazai, if anything, has merely observed the strange instinct to persevere that Akutagawa has, and I feel that his dominant nature is why he thought Atsushi completes him due to his recessive nature. I also feel like that's why, Shin Soukoku as a label?? (?) (?) Displays how Dazai doesn't know him as well as Atsushi does, or will at the time of partnership. They aren't like Soukoku, they are Double Grey if anything. One knows how to persevere the other knows how to surrender, extensions of the will to live and the will to die. Both place necessity on them, it's not a luxury, it's a need. Dazai can sense something of this sort, I feel, but can't fully comprehend Akutagawa — unlike Atsushi.

So essentially, I think Dazai knows he tried moulding Akutagawa's dominant nature to what he deems 'perfect' or, 'likeable'. However Akutagawa has a really strong personality, from growing up on the streets and lacking a childhood. I think Dazai's changed and has grown to notice this. That he shouldn't try to silence his nature, but give the growing vine a bamboo pole.

Thank you, I'm so happy to hear you enjoy my interpretation of the characters (╥﹏╥) Your words made my week, thank you.

I do wholly agree, being told he has potential would feel awful for Akutagawa, because for him that's just telling him there's a standard he can't live up to. Having potential is a pressure-heavy statement; for him, it's a reminder that he's not there yet and, given how lowly he thinks of himself, an affirmation that he'll never get there, either. And I can confirm Akutagawa absolutely does take pride in being the worst at things lol. As in, the worst pm individual to ever stumble across, the worst opponent of them all– he'd take these as compliments. That's something that lacks the pressure of possible failure, that's something he's already “the best” at.

As for Akutagawa and Dazai's relationship after Dazai joined the ada, yeah,,, It's really very complex and multifaceted, I really like exploring it. I've talked about this a lot recently too, but again I really stand by the fact that Dazai wants to have very little to do with Akutagawa, yet at the same time also marginally cares about him, deep deep down? (Or, although I can't find it in myself to call it anything close to guilt for how he treated Akutagawa, experiences at least a tiny inclination to make up for it). So when he finds Atsushi, Dazai is nothing but delighted to dump the task of fixing Akutagawa to him (which is funny, because Atsushi has no intention of fixing Akutagawa; but be it because of Dazai's manipulation, be it because of sskk soulmatism, he will end up doing so anyway). I really like your interpretation of Dazai removing himself from direct influence to make people grow on their own, I find it very fitting. It's also coherent with his alleged trust in his allies that's been coming up in the last chapters, as well as some kind of avoidance behavior that if you ask me is in him. And okay, I LOVE the interpretation that Dazai believes Akutagawa can find “the answer” by himself. God!!!!!!!! This concept is so good. Dazai never gave Akutagawa the answer because he knows he can't, because that's not something for him to give!!! But what he can do is put Akutagawa in the conditions to find it by himself!!!!!! Whoa stuff that's instantly integrated into my belief system for real. The way that would also be like, the only time in his life Dazai would actually be acting like a teacher / mentor to Akutagawa.

They aren't like Soukoku, they are Double Grey if anything 😭😭😭 That's what we've been telling Dazai since forever. I do like to think Dazai can't get sskk all the way to the core, if anything because I relish the thought that there's something so special and personal in their relationship, even Dazai can't control it. Agreed, not even Dazai can understand Akutagawa like Atsushi does. I feel like despite Dazai's endless perceptiveness, he will never be able to understand on an emotional level what it means to strive for a reason to live, because Akutagawa just wants to live /so much/, while Dazai doesn't. While on the other hand, Atsushi gets it. He gets what it means to feel like the right to live is something you have to gain; he gets the striving to live, because he feels it all the same.

(Not to give rise to misunderstandings: Dazai does look for a reason to live. It's just that in his case, it's looking for a reason to live so that he can stop wanting to die, while for Akutagawa it's because he desperately wants to keep living. They're such fundamentally different sentiments, I believe deep down Akutagawa and Dazai are ultimately incomprehensible to each other. That's why, when in the Heartless Cur Dazai told Akutagawa he would have been able to give him a reason to live, in my opinion he was lying. Because he doesn't have that, he doesn't have that even for himself.)

Back to Akutagawa and Dazai's relationship. Honestly, I think when moulding Akutagawa in the pm, Dazai was shooting for some kind of perfection; it's just that at the time, such perfection was making of him the perfect killing machine. And when he suddenly left the pm, he was already pretty much done. But then, Dazai's objective for Akutagawa fundamentally changed; and now he doesn't want Akutagawa to be a mindless violent executor anymore, but his own manipulation is backfiring at him, because that's what he made Akutagawa to be. Akutagawa really is the failed child in a lot of ways, an experiment gone wrong, an abandoned art piece. By the way, I really like the emphasis you put on Akutagawa having a really strong personality, because I truly believe he does. It's especially evident in Beast. We just forget about it because Dazai also happens to be the single person in the world able to change that personality to his liking, to put a muzzle on him; but I'm fully convinced no one else can (that's also why I'm reticent to believe Akutagawa would be much tame when interacting with Chuuya or Mori). It's nice to think Dazai would eventually learn to let Akutagawa's nature thrive. Because there's not exclusively beastly tendencies in it. Then if Dazai keeps being a god in Akutagawa's life (in Beast, almost in a literal sense), at least it's a god that allows him free will.

[nuttersincorporated]

My thoughts on the penultimate episode of Samurai Jack

Thoughts under the keep reading

Well I enjoyed this episode way more than the last one. There were far fewer awkward moments, thank god. I didn’t want to spend another episode cringing all the way through and luckily, I didn’t have to.

I didn’t notice last episode but Jack’s ribs are no longer showing. I guess that when the gods gave Jack his sword and old clothes back, they also restored him to physical health. That’s good. It looked like he was starving to death before. I’m not sure if he could have died from hunger since he can’t die of old age but it can’t have been pleasant to be that malnourished and it certainly wouldn’t have helped his fragile mental state.

I rolled my eyes at them splitting up so that Ashi could look for clothes. It was a fudging space prison! Yes, they’d just killed Lazarus 92 but that didn’t mean there weren’t other dangerous beings still on the loose. Since they didn’t encounter anyone else, I’m just going to assume that Lazarus 92 killed all the other inmates. However, Jack and Ashi had no way of knowing that!

It’s official, Ashi can pull off any look. I wish she’d kept the weapon and the shield but she got a sword later so I don’t really mind that she left them behind.

See, the scene where Jack is washing illustrates why I’m so annoyed that Ashi has been sexualising so much. If that had been Ashi washing, she wouldn’t have just been a silhouette in the water. We would have seen the butt. However, we never see Jack’s butt because something always conveniently covers our view even when he’s totally naked. Ashi doesn’t get that luxury. Since her mother raised her to be a weapon and she’s only recently escaped the brainwashing, Ashi didn’t even know why her being naked would make Jack flustered and distracted but she’s the character who keeps being sexualised.

I’m am a grown adult who knows hair doesn’t work that way. However, I’m still jealous of how easily and neatly Jack puts up his lovely long hair.

So, Jack is still talking to himself. I’m glad that not all of his phycological problems were instantly fixed by his meditation in episode 7. That would have been too easy and just plain ableist. “I have depression, a lot of anger and schizophrenia among other things,” “Have you tried meditation?” Yes, it helped him on the road to recovery but it was only a step along that path, which he’d already begun before that point.

It's always beautiful and heart breaking when Jack reminisces about the past. Episodes where he remembered his childhood were always some of my favourites.

Poor baby! Jack was only 8 when Aku came back and Jack started his training to defeat him. They say hell is giving someone a glimpse of heaven and then taking it away.

You know he’s right, even if Jack manages to go back in time and defeat Aku in the past, his home land was already destroyed by Aku’s evil. Yes, they can rebuild but it will never be the way it was before Aku, partly because Jack will never be the same.

Did you really think leaving would stop Ashi from following you, Jack? She’s very determined, a great hunter and she has nowhere else to go. She was always going to find him again.

Scaramouche, baby! Gosh, I love this evil fucker. He killed an entire town of people men, women and children and I still love him.

You know, if he hadn’t told Aku about Jack losing the sword, technically Jack wouldn’t have needed to destroy Aku. He could have just beat Aku’s servants and that would have been enough since Aku was no longer leaving his evil tower.

Scaramouche got restored for a short while. I liked seeing that.

I’m glad that they followed up on the episode ‘Jack and the Traveling Creatures.’ There was a lot of speculation that Jack would get back through that portal because it wasn’t destroyed in the episode itself and the Guardian saw a vision of the future which told him Jack was the one person destined to use it.

For now, it seems that all the time portals really have been destroyed and the Guardian has been killed. It looks like Jack really is trapped in the future. That’s sad however it means that the end isn’t predestined and I kind of like that. It makes everything they do mean more if Jack isn’t the ‘chosen one.’ Yes, the gods have picked him and people believe in him but fate hasn’t picked him. Jack’s victory over Aku isn’t assured. What he does matters. The future can be changed. He’s only a chosen one because that’s the path he has picked and because Aku was his father’s enemy. The universe doesn’t care if good or evil wins. If Jack walked away from his ‘so-called’ destiny, the universe wouldn’t care.

Oh look it’s a Mr Incredible, “I’m not strong enough,” moment.

Poor Jack, he has lost too much. Even if Ashi was never hurt by anyone or anything again, due to Jack’s biological immortality he would still have to watch her grow old and die. Is that how the series is going to end? Evil is defeated but Jack still doesn’t age and is trapped in the future. He stops getting close to people or interacting with others at all as time passes for everyone but him. I’ve always thought immortality was a terrifying concept.

Aku sure love to monolog.

You know, if Scaramouche can survive with just a head, maybe he can survive if only his head is destroyed too. Right?

Well as horrifying as it is to find out Ashi really is a daughter of Aku, at least people will stop saying that she might be Jack’s daughter now. Seriously, I can’t believe people thought he was her dad, especially after they got together. When exactly did people think he had sexy times with the High Priestess?

This is very reminiscent of the grim dark Samurai Bravo au except that Ashi so far has no control over the Aku in her.

You know, I think Aku would actually be thrilled if Ashi defeated Jack and then stayed around as a separate person filled with his evil. I don’t think he’d try to reabsorb that part of himself. It would give him someone else, like himself but a different entity, to talk to.

Poor Ashi! Talk about, I have no mouth but I must scream!

We know that Aku’s evil can be defeated from within. Jack did it in ‘Aku Infection,’ but then he’d swallowed a part of Aku rather than being born with Aku as his dad. Ashi is still in there though. Even though Aku is using her as a puppet, he can’t control how she thinks or feels. That kind of makes her current predicament more horrifying.

You know, Aku’s need for Jack to know he’s been defeated and to rub it in his face will ultimately be his undoing. He should have just got Ashi to kill him while he had the chance.

One episode to go. Where is the Scotsman and his army of daughters!? I want the Scotsman back! If we’d cut out the last episode we could have got to this point quicker and that would leave us with two more episodes to enjoy the Scotsman. All that happened in episode 8 was that Ashi and Jack got together and that could have been done without dedicating a whole episode to romantic awkwardness and sexual tension.

Final thoughts, this was a good episode. I don’t think it was quite as good as episodes 1-7 but it was still supper awesome.