#sk8 the infinity meta

[cum-villain]

I'm thinking of consumption in terms of Langa Hasegawa.

The most obvious example is one that everyone remembers, and is really just a gag for laughs; the constant eating. Having a large plate of 10 burgers and still being hungry after, the victory banquet in which his closing shot before Adam lands is chomping on a burger, the joke about him constantly asking Reki about bento, the multiple references to poutine. He's obsessed with food, and eats a lot of it. Which is perfectly normal, hes a 17 year old boy, and an athlete on top of it, of course he'll be eating a lot. But this isn't the only way in which consumption matters.

See, he's consistently slotted into the role of "Eve". Various analysts can disagree whether he actually is Eve, or whether Adam was mistaken and Eve is actually Tadashi, or whether Eve is truly nonexistent. But for the purposes of this, we're going to focus on the fact that the show references him as being Eve for a large portion of the runtime. "Eve" is the bringer of original sin, the corrupting force of "Adam". But what makes her so sinful? What makes her corrupting? Consumption. Eve eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, consuming what is forbidden, is what makes her Eve. The very role he's put into is one of consumption, of luring others into consuming.

In this metaphor, consumption of the forbidden fruit is analogous to skateboarding. Skateboarding is consuming the forbidden fruit. The more you skate, the more you improve, the more you win, you more you keep eating that fruit. Entering the zone, then, is swallowing the final bite, finishing your meal and letting it all be consumed. But of course, Langa doesn't stay in the zone. Why? Because he wants to continue consuming, to continue to skateboard and continue to eat. If he's finished the final bite, then there's nothing else to consume. And so, he flees the zone.

This actually is quite interesting when it comes to Adam parallels, because the Matador of Love, the one who puts on a play about wanting to consume love, who skates like he wants to die, is the one who truly doesn't want to consume anymore. He wants to stop consuming, let this bite be the last. But Langa drags him out of the zone, forces him to continue consuming.

[danceofthephilos]

Hanakotoba and the Meanings of Flowers in SK8 the Infinity

Ranging from very overt allusions in the text to single pieces of official art, almost every main character in SK8 has been associated with a flower. Hanakotoba, the Japanese language of flowers, is something that the creators were attentive to, evidenced by its mention both in the show itself and by staff in discussion about the episodes, and considering how hanakotoba might have been taken into account in the other examples of flower imagery can add an interesting layer of symbolism to speculate on.

The hanakotoba columns on GreenSnap were my primary source for this post, but I've crosschecked the meanings on multiple websites as much as possible to ensure the factual information here is accurate to the best of my ability. This is quite a long post, so bear with me.

🌹 Roses 🌹

Naturally, the first flower to start with is the one that is directly mentioned in the show itself:

As Adam says, red roses do mean "passionate love", though his particular wording (jounetsu no ai) is slightly paraphrased from how that meaning is typically worded. (If you look up the meaning of roses in hanakotoba, you may see netsuretsu na koi (熱烈な恋) instead.) They can also simply mean "love" and "passion" (ai and jounetsu, as Adam uses in this line), as well as "beauty" and "I'm in love with you."

In Japanese as in English, red roses are a very classically romantic gift, so in the finale and the Blu-ray box art, it seems Adam's passionate love hasn't waned.

There are also specific meanings for certain numbers of flowers in a bouquet of roses, and while it's never stated how many roses are in the first bouquet Adam brings Langa, extrapolating from how many flowers are visible in the shots and how many are hidden, as well as the bouquet at Adam's birthday display at the 2022 NAMJATOWN collaboration containing 50 flowers (as I was able to confirm from some fans' photos from better angles, that I won't be reposting here as they were personal photos on Twitter) I believe that the bouquet in the show also contains 50, which means "eternity."

Adam's bouquets to Langa are also not the only times roses appear in relation to him, nor is red the only color they appear in. Several flashback shots of Ainosuke and Tadashi as children feature red roses, which has quite clear subtextual implications, especially alongside the comparison between Tadashi and Langa made in the show itself.

But one prominent flashback also includes pink roses, meaning "deep impression."

In Ainosuke and Tadashi's last scene together in the finale, there's a vase of purple roses behind them, meaning "pride" or "respect."

And his graffiti tag from the 2022 Infinity Week art features blue roses, which, along with being in Langa's image color, mean "dream come true", "impossible" or "miracle."

Roses also have a lengthy history of associations with gay men, both in real-life Japanese gay culture and in the boys' love genre, and how this relates to the use of rose imagery in SK8 could (and likely eventually will) be its own post, but it's an extra aspect to take into consideration with Adam especially.

As a bonus, the mangaka for the official manga adaptation also drew Langa and Reki with red and blue roses (respectively) to celebrate the season finale:

And while Reki is never associated with roses in any more official capacity, Langa does have red roses in his house that are visible in a few scenes:

~

🌷 Tulips 🌷

This is another one that's directly confirmed, this time regarding Shadow's bouquet in the ending montage.

For love bouquets, Adam uses roses, so Hiromi-chan's was tulips and white baby's breath. In hanakotoba, red tulips mean "confession of love." Pink means "sincere love." Orange means "shyness", so we went with these three. Plus, white tulips are "new love" or "unrequited love" so we stopped there… (lol) By the way, in hanakotoba, baby's breath means "innocent love" and "gratitude."

(Episode 12 Director Masatoyo Takada, Skater's Backstage)

Tulips in general mean "charity" and "thoughtfulness", and Shadow is frequently associated with them outside of just this scene, whether on his clothes or in official merchandise. "Tulip" is also the name of the flower shop where he works!

He's holding another bouquet of tulips on the Blu-ray box art, as well, with the same colors as in the finale - but with the addition of the mentioned white tulips for "unrequited love", and yellow tulips, which can mean "honesty", but can mean "unrequited love" (or "hopeless love") too... Sorry, Shadow.

~

🌺 Hibiscus 🌺

Moving away from directly stated connections into slightly more obscure ones, Reki is nevertheless visually associated with hibiscus in several places, both in shots in the show and in his 2021 birthday art.

Hibiscus flowers generally can mean "new love", "trust" and "I believe in you" (a meaning thought to originate from Hinduism), while red hibiscus specifically (as Reki is depicted with) mean "bravery."

Hibiscus flowers are also considered as symbol of Okinawa as a whole, making them an especially fitting flower for Reki, who's implied to be of indigenous Ryukyuan descent and is the character who could be considered the most representative of Okinawa (and Langa's new life there) in the show,

~

🌸 Cherry Blossoms 🌸

This one is fairly self-explanatory; Kaoru's surname is Sakurayashiki (sakura being the Japanese word for cherry blossoms), his S name is Cherry Blossom, cherry blossoms feature on his costume and heavily in the decor in his calligraphy studio, et cetera. As one of the most well-known and famously Japanese flowers, they're well suited to Cherry's traditional Japanese image, and the whole aesthetic of his character is themed around them. Even his birthday is on March 27th, Sakura Day in Japan.

In hanakotoba, cherry blossoms' most well-known meaning is "moral beauty", a phrase referring to the beauty of someone's personality or character. They can also mean "graceful woman" or "pure-blooded", and the specific species of cherry blossom that the ones in Cherry's design resemble (somei-yoshino cherry blossoms) can additionally mean "noble" or "innocent." The fact that the same flower with such elegant meanings is related to both his public and S personas adds to the characteristic duality between his outward appearance and private personality.

While not specifically hanakotoba, the French meaning of cherry blossoms also appears to be well-known in Japan - "ne m'oubliez pas", or "don't forget me", associated with ending relationships.

~

💮 Chrysanthemums 💮

Another flower associated with a character through their surname, chrysanthemums are the "kiku" (菊) in Kikuchi. A chrysanthemum also features prominently in the design on Adam's skateboard.

Chrysanthemums also appear on both Adam and Tadashi's clothes in a few pieces of official art.

Chrysanthemums' meanings in hanakotoba are all variations of "nobility" and "purity." They're a flower with great cultural significance in Japan, being the crest of the Imperial family, and often appear as a symbol of Japanese society itself - including on the badges worn by both Diet members such as Ainosuke and even certain ones worn by their secretaries, making this flower one that's representative of a very important aspect of both their lives.

While there's no particular history to this meaning, due to the romantic color, red chrysanthemums such as the one on Adam's board can also mean "I love you."

According to director Utsumi in the 2022 Infinity Week livestream, the chrysanthemum on Adam's board was a happy accident, as Thomas Romain, the artist who designed the board, didn't know Tadashi's name or anything about his history with Adam when creating it. The double layer of symbolism is an incredible coincidence!

~

🌻 Sunflowers 🌻

Joe doesn't have any particular connection with flowers in the show himself, but there is one piece of official art featuring him with sunflowers, which complement the strong association he does have with the sun.

In hanakotoba, sunflowers mean "admiration", "longing" or "I'm only looking at you" - originating from the way sunflowers will always turn to face the sun. As this particular piece of official art was for a magazine feature for White Day (a Japanese holiday where men receive gifts from women they gave gifts to on Valentine's Day), perhaps they're meant to be a gift to him. As Joe's stronger association is with the sun itself (his tattoo is of the sun, his board has the word "sole" - sun in Italian - written on it and a sun incorporated into the design, his restaurant's name (Sia la Luce) translates to "let there be light") he could be seen as the sun that the sunflowers (his admirers) would look towards.

Along with the hibiscus in the image, Reki's birthday event in 2021 also featured sunflowers as part of the display, fitting his yellow image color.

~

❄️ Snowdrops ❄️

And finally, one more case with only a single piece of official art - but one with a very interesting history behind its meanings. In Langa's 2022 birthday art, he's shown holding snowdrops - a natural association with his S name and the fact that he's a former snowboarder.

In hanakotoba, snowdrops mean "hope" and "comfort." These meanings are said, as you will find on any Japanese hanakotoba site, to originate from a story about Adam and Eve dating back to at least 1925, if not earlier (with 1925 being the earliest version of the story the Japanese Wikipedia page on snowdrops is able to cite.) As the story goes, after Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, an angel took pity on them suffering in the winter cold and turned the falling snowflakes into snowdrops, to console them and give them courage. In that 1925 version of the story, the first snowdrop was specifically a gift to Eve:

The Snowdrop Legend When the first winter lay white upon the earth, Eve sorely missed the beautiful things of the field. An angel who pitied her seized a snowflake and, breathing upon it, bade it live, for her delight. It fell to the earth a flower, which Eve caught to her breast with gladness, for not only did it break the spell of winter, but it carried assurance of divine mercy. Hence the flower means consolation and promise.

With both the superficial connections of being winter flowers named after snow and their connection to SK8's intentional biblical themes (as producer Mari Suzuki described the show as a whole as "the story of Adam searching for Eve" in Animedia March 2021), these have some of the deepest meanings of any of the flowers depicted, despite only appearing in a single piece of art.

The flower imagery SK8 uses is fascinating and surprisingly layered, especially knowing the deliberate attention to hanakotoba that was paid in certain cases, and it'll be interesting to see how it might continue to feature in the future.

[specterthief]

so this is the thing i was working on that made me decide to do that poll and go over the timeline first, kind of to preempt anyone who might argue about the placement here - adam's backstory in chronological order!

the flashbacks are scattered across several episodes so i thought it would be an interesting and useful reference to put them all in one video in order like this (and i also resubbed the scenes myself at the same time just for my own satisfaction with the translation)

and for some extra information, according to the concept art book, ainosuke is 6 years old in the first two early childhood flashbacks (and probably 7 in the third, as it looks like it's in the following summer), 17-18 in the first high school flashback and 18 in all the following ones

(edited because the end of the video cut off??? hopefully it works now???)

[cherryblossomsandhydrangeas]

On Cherry Blossom’s Skating Style

One thing I’ve noticed in this fandom is that many people assume that Cherry’s skating style is lesser- or easier- than many of the other skaters at “S” and that he can’t do anything without Carla. Some people also take Adam’s “boring” remark as a statement of fact rather than something meant to cause further pain to someone who was already down.

There hasn’t been a set group of people doing this, it’s pretty much all over the fandom; even fans of the character get into this mindset. And, frankly, I want to say:

Carla’s calculations don’t mean shit if Cherry doesn’t hit that angle.

Yes, Carla tells Kaoru what angle a curve is going to be and how far away it is/time to it, however, it is up to him and his skills as a skater to be able to hit that angle, and he has to hit it perfectly for her calculations to have been of any use.

Carla’s calculations as a whole are only useful for that one match as well. We’ve been shown in episode one that the “S” track is constantly changing. Multiple trees fall and a rock slide happens during Langa’s race against Shadow, and whatever scans and calculations Carla would have made on one pass down the track would be completely useless for a second run.

Carla does not skate for Cherry- if she did then there would be no need for her to calculate angles- Kaoru is the one in control and he is the one putting in most of the work. Note:

Cherry is the one who has to keep his balance and footing when his skateboard is transforming from short form to long form and vice versa.

Cherry is the one who skated a curve with his eyes closed while also dodging Adam’s Love Hug- which could have gone wrong in a multitude of ways, i.e. Cherry’s hair getting caught under his board, Adam shifting his position and running over Cherry, Adam grabbing onto Cherry’s pony tail and dragging him along the track, etc.

-

Carla’s use while skating (or observing) are also overstated by fandom. Cherry does not use Carla to determine if someone’s body tilt is off or if they should change their footing; he does that all with his own mind. Remember, this is the same character that:

Knew that Langa was a snowboarder after seeing him put his foot on a skateboard for the first time outside his studio.

Wasn’t in the least bit surprised that Langa had been snowboarding since he was 2yrs old, and comments on his improvements in skateboarding in such a short time period.

Determined that Joe’s body tilt was off and that he was losing time to Langa during their beef down to the milliseconds.

Predicted Adam’s move-set during Reki’s first beef with Adam.

Immediately recognized that Reki wasn’t doing his best during the start of his second race against Adam.

We have to remember that Carla is Cherry’s assistant. While she is very important to him (and that’s another post I’ll make later), she is not the one who is in control and never will be.

-

On two (final) notes:

One, remember that it was Cherry that Reki went to to ask for help in Langa’s first beef against Adam. Remember that during that beef that Langa flashes back to Cherry’s advice to help him during the first half. And remember that during Langa’s second beef with Adam, Langa uses Cherry’s move to dodge Adam’s Love Hug Full Swing Kiss Combo.

-

Two, there’s a reason why some of the S Gallery were considering Adam v. Cherry to “already be the finale”, and that’s because Cherry is a formidable opponent.

Think about how difficult it must be to face up against the “perfect skater”- and how enticing the thought of maybe beating him must be. Any little mistake you could possibly make would put you behind big time. He has the ability to change the shape of his board to go faster down the track and his skill in maneuverability was thought to the factor that would win in his beef against Adam had they actually made it to the factory as Adam’s speed wouldn’t have helped him inside the dilapidated building.

[rubywolf0201]

In all honesty, all of the complaints about Bucchigiri's characters remind me far too much of the complaints towards SK8's characters as it was airing. So much bile hurled towards ADAM being a p*do and violent abuser who should've been arrested, even as the series revealed how much he was abused physically and mentally by his family and how much better the series would be without him. Just like what I'm seeing with Arajin here.

It felt like there was an inability or refusal to actually engage with the character stories and running themes, and instead a need to quickly condemn actions done by these characters.

I hoenestly can’t say much about Adam since I have yet to watch SK8 (I’ll get into it soon) and my opinions aren’t the best but I’ll keep this in mind while forming it once I get into the show itself.

But you are right how there’s certain people who just refuse to analyse what BUCCHIGIRI?! has offered so far, not to mention a lot of it is just what they have watched on a surface level.

But however, opinions are opinions. If they think it’s bad or they drop it, then it’s on them. For me, I’ll make fan content and analysis of BUCCHIGIRI?!

[imaginarylungfish]

wowow this was such a great analysis of sk8:

[literallyanyname]

So I've seen a lot of people group Banana Fish and SK8 The Infinity together and I both do and don't see the similarities. Sk8 has much, much lighter, happier vibes. (Also, it's weird to watch Sk8 after BF when Sk8 treats some relatively minor issues like life or death and BF's issues are ACTUALLY life and death.) Sk8 also has a more rounded, developed side cast. BFish really only gives solid character development to Ash, Eiji, and Shorter (in that order). However, both shows come off as very realistic.

Also, I don't get the same feeling from Ash and Eiji as I do from Reki and Langa. Asheiji share a really raw emotional intimacy. They're in a series of horrible situations, and they cling to each other to cope with that. Also, it seems like there's a LOT more romantic subtext. They share a room (and it is implied that they later share a bed), regularly make declarations of love to each other without actually saying it, and then there's the really obvious nod to the audience with the love charm Eiji's sister gave him.

Reki and Langa honestly come off as just bros doing bro stuff. It's just a very close friendship to me. (But also they're both in safer, healthier situations). They don't need to cling to each other. Also, Sk8 actually treats them like teenage kids, and BFish does not.

[allthefujoshiunite]

Have you watched Buddy Daddies? If you have do you like it?

Random ask....Do you think anime like Free, Sk8, Jeweler Richard and Yuri on Ice are queerbaiting or at least have semi canon couples? I mean I love those anime series and my fav otps are from those series, but what do you think?

P.s Love your latest meta, it really made my day and when I read them, I also found answers to my internal questions my self...Thanks for sharing them...( I'm not the anon who asked that)...

💐🌷🥰🤩

Hello! Today's great coincidence that made me chuckle into my morning tea was getting asked about my opinion on queerbaiting by two different people, 1-hour apart 🤣 Thanks a lot, both of you! I'll put my two cents down about queerbaiting discourse in anime and I know it's silly to mention but just to be sure, these are all opinions, and my opinions only. 

Before I start rambling about gays, no I haven't seen Buddy Daddies yet. I've been very excited about it ever since I've seen the PV but as you may know, I decided to review every first episode of the Winter 2023 season so I'm pretty much swamped... I'm saving Buddy Daddies to savor it! If you wait a bit, you'll be reading my first impressions of it soon. 

So. Okay. Queerbait. First of all, definitions because for the love of BL gods, people have been throwing words around without knowing what they mean. 

According to this interesting book that's been sitting on my TBR pile, Queerbating and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, the definition of queerbaiting is as follows: 

Queerbaiting describes an industry tactic where “those officially associated with a media text court viewers interested in LGBT narratives... without the text ever definitely confirming the nonheterosexuality of the relevant characters.” For this reason, the term is seen as exploitative, and when fans use it to describe a series, its marketing, or the actions of producers, they are engaging in a “form of queer activism.”

There are other terms coined by the scholars such as "covert courting" (i.e. targeting gay consumers using subtle elements not intended to be picked up by heterosexual audiences) etc. but in my opinion, these terms are built upon the presupposition that there is a queer audience to bait into consuming your media. And I'm not sure whether there's a group of audience that is acknowledged as queer in the minds of producers and/or creators in Japan. 

What they want to tap into according to yours truly, however, is FujoMoney. No, it's not a new currency, although now I kind of wish it was. There's an interesting video on it that delves deeper into the topic but in short, they are after the buying and creating potential of shippers. Creating fan content is, in itself, a grey area legally but it's overlooked because the franchise profits from it immensely. A similar practice, if you're or have been into K-pop at some point, is the fansites. Normally, they shouldn't be allowed to make merchandise off of the artists and gain profit from it. However, they attend concerts out of their own pockets, take these photographs using their own cameras, and contribute greatly to the group or the individual artist's popularity. Tl;dr: it's free real estate for the companies. 

So I guess the term we're looking for is fujobait, rather than queerbait. What the higher-ups want to attract are shippers who are buyers and/or fancreators. Look at any sports anime and you'll see. There have been multiple times when I got into a series because I've seen a shippy fanart or a video edit of a character. And to be honest, if I was more fortunate economically, they'd be making that kind of monetary profit through merch off of me as well. xD

While queerbait and fujobait might seem like they mean the same thing, they eventually are not because the former capitalizes on real-life stigmatized identity while the latter relies on a consumer's practice of queering the content at hand. I'm personally not as interested in putting the label of "right" or "wrong" on these terms, so I'll leave it at this for now. 

Moving on to the series you mentioned, they can't all be put into the same box, but can be divided into two groups where Free and Sk8 rely more on fanservice and the intricacies of the relationships are left to the shippers' imaginations while Jeweler Richard and Yuuri!!! on ICE are entirely different. Especially, Yuuri!!! on ICE because there's no room left for discussion or different readings that Yuuri and Victor are a couple. They literally get married, and the only reason some people still to this day question whether they are canon or not is because of eurocentrism/racism. I come across reels of real-life women taking a ring out and putting it on the ring finger of another woman with people cheering in the background and no one is asking to see their marriage registration in the comments. On the contrary, they congratulate them! The exact same scene is there in animated form, so why do we even question its validity? 

In the case of Jeweler Richard, sadly light novels aren't my thing. I have only seen the anime and have read the first volume of the manga. However, I've read an extensive blog post on the light novels comparing them to the anime adaptation. From the blog post, their relationship is evident even though to an anime-only it might come off as implied. I personally didn't think it was implied even in the anime, but if anyone else did, we have our answers in the source material. 

All of this then begs the question: does having things spelled out on screen matter? If yes, to what extent it matters? I mentioned in the previous meta post that the consumers of Asian media are already lucky when it comes to the existence and variety of such content. I'm personally someone who's in favor of having media to consume at hand instead of waiting for the Perfect Representation. I don't even want representation, because what is representation anyway for a non-monolithic community with a deep, rich history? I want portrayal, and while having things openly said is cathartic and something I want to have, I won't discredit the works I enjoy and find meaning in just for the sake of it. Especially content that come from countries with heavy censorship or a high possibility of GP backlash.

Plus, while I'm not in any Chinese BL or BL-adjacent work fandoms, I watched dramas here or there and have a lot of mutuals who are actively in the fandoms of certain series, so through osmosis, I learn a couple of things as well. I've seen people talking about the cultural significance of certain choices in these works that someone who's not well-versed in the codes of the Chinese culture won't be able to pick up, i.e. characters wearing red can be an insinuation on marriage because red is a color worn in weddings. Or there's no way I would pick up that Chinese BL dramas are dubbed over just so they can pass censorship. Would it be better if China were to be supportive of LGBTQA+? 100%. Should people there push for the content they'd like to see or portrayals that they see themselves in? Without a doubt. Should it mean that they should get nothing until they get exactly what they want? A hard no. There must be still works that portray such relationships even if they are implied because I see this attempt as getting a foot in the door. 

To sum everything up: what I want is to enjoy what I read/watch and share it with others while trying to keep a critical eye on as much as I can. My background is in STEM and I'm not formally educated in humanities anyway. What I try to do is to read and discuss questions I have in mind, and writing helps me order and expand my thoughts. I find value in trying to keep an open mind instead of gatekeeping and micro-analyzing every little thing, or at least, I try not to let them take the fun out of it. To quote the great Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts:

I am not interested in hermeneutics, or erotics, or metaphorics, of my anus. I am interested in ass-fucking.

Easily one of the best books I've read in 2022. Pure brilliance.

[givereadersahug]

Comfort Characters

There was a post on Reddit asking about your comfort characters and I thought I'll share my response here.

I don't actually have one comfort character, but I do routinely think about the following three constantly throughout my day and into the night.

First up is Kaoru from SK8 the Infinity. A new one on this list. He's such a tsundere. Rarely show emotions, but yet he *feels* so much for his friends and will do anything for them. He's an adult I aspire to be --- competent, got his stuff together (career-wise), has devoted friends that are there for him and he is there for them. And yet he's not all put together. He has trust issues, given his past with Adam, but he doesn't let that hold him back. When I need a pick me up, I just think about him and Kojiro and what they are doing. He's definitely a wholesome character to me, like receiving a warm hug.

Another one is Severus Snape from Harry Potter. He is such a complex character and I can spend a day thinking about his motivations, his childhood, his part in the battle against Voldemort. How he balanced working for Albus & Hogwarts, being a spy inside Voldemort's inner circle, and helping Harry out --- all in his own complex, messy ways. He's such a morally gray character, who has so many sides to him, and he *changes* from childhood to adulthood to the teacher Harry met in first year and to the very end of his life. A truly full dimensional character, I think, and representative of how not everyone is what they seemed to be and how people have the capacity to change. He legit taught me to be more accepting and welcoming and that everyone deserves a chance.

And finally, MCU Loki. My true love. The one I truly give my heart to wholeheartedly and without question. I constantly think about him --- his relationship to Thor, his family, his place on Asgard, the loss and the confusion he must have felt after finding out he was adopted, after his mother's death, and even after Odin's death. He has a tough exterior, he's a trickster, pretends to be above everything that relates to his brother and Asgard and yet he *died* for him, and for his people. I'm mostly speaking about Loki pre-Endgame. I haven't seen anything that has Loki in it post-Endgame, so I'm not entirely too sure about his character arc in his show or what he's up to in his other appearances. That's a different Loki to me, on a whole different path, and well. I'm still stuck on his death in Infinity War. 😅 Loki had done things in his past that are not entirely kosher, but yet his love for his brother, his family, and even Asgard is *there* just right underneath. You just need to chip a little to get under his exterior -- devotion to the T that he literally died for them.

So, yeah. 😅 I spend too much time thinking about them. It cuts down on the banality of life as I wait for the next thing to happen. 😂

If anyone wants to talk about their comfort characters, tag me! I'm curious to see what yours are.

[cum-villain]

SK8 the Infinity's ending left a significant amount of people unsatisfied. One of the primary complaints was that Reki, the protagonist, never defeated ADAM, the antagonist. However, Reki's arc was never about winning. In fact, the show has never endorsed winning being the goal.

In most sports anime, there's a typical progression: Protag wants to be the best in a sport, and is often an underdog with great potential -> protag goes through Difficulties and trains -> protag eventually becomes the best and wins. But in SK8, winning was never the goal. It was merely a side effect of having fun.

Langa snowboarded with his dad because it was fun, he gained those skills because it was fun. Langa began skateboarding because it was like snowboarding, it was like being with his dad, and for the first time since his dad's death he found something that was fun. He spent a lot of time training because it was fun. He won against ADAM not because his goal was merely to beat ADAM, but because racing against ADAM was fun, and learning how to beat him was fun.

ADAM is an antagonist not necessarily because he's strong, but because he puts winning over having fun. He once had fun with skating, but his childhood conditioning, the pressure to be perfect in everything, eventually won out, and he stopped having fun because he focused on being the best. But, he's unsatisfied with being the best. He wants to skate with someone, he wants the thrill of high speeds while holding someone's hand, he wants to have fun skating with a friend. He needed to learn that skating isn't just about an adrenaline high, a spare moment of escape; it's about doing something fun.

And that is why Reki, the protagonist, didn't win. He didn't need to. He just needed to learn the core message of the show: Being good isn't the point, having fun is. Reki is good, but he isn't an elite skater, and for a time that gives him doubts. But he learns that fun is what matters, not skill level, and laughs after he loses to ADAM because he had fun, even if he didn't succeed.

Small side note: This also contributes to the show's queercoding. Being a perfect person isn't the goal, being a happy person is. Do what makes you happy, not just what's "correct". See the double meaning there? It's no mistake that ADAM, the successfully rich young politician, the skating master, is the antagonist who redeems himself, and is arguably the most queercoded character in the show.

[danceofthephilos]

"Repent and Make Efforts"

Kaoru's calligraphy display in episode 5 is very obviously targeted, but between natural difficulties in translating idioms, changes made in the English dub, and misunderstandings of the general meaning of "repentance", exactly what he's communicating often gets lost in translation - which is a shame, because it's not only a very telling moment about Kaoru's own feelings about Adam, but one that ends up being very important to the themes of the entire show and many of the central character arcs.

To give some quick establishing information, what Kaoru is writing in this scene is a called a yojijukugo (四字熟語), or four-character idiom - set idiomatic phrases that are very similar to (and originate from) Chinese chengyu (成语), which you may be familiar with if you've read any linguistic analysis of danmei. Four-character idioms are very common subjects for calligraphers like Kaoru, and the ways they can be used in speech make them very difficult to translate concisely. The particular idiom Kaoru has written here, read from right to left, is 悔悟奮發, a real four-character idiom (though usually written 悔悟憤発 in modern Japanese - Kaoru is using the Chinese hanzi.)

Read kaigo funpatsu, both the Crunchyroll subs and the dub translate this as "repent and make efforts", which is... fine enough given the complexity of translating yojijukugo. It's quite a literal translation, looking at the phrase broken down into its components - 悔悟 can indeed be translated to "repentance", and 奮發 means "to exert oneself." As an idiom, it means "to regret one's mistakes, and work hard to recover." It generally refers to remorse, but can also mean coming back from a loss. In this exchange from a Japanese website explaining the use of the idiom, it's used to describe recovering after a loss in a competition:

Tomoko: You must be in high spirits, to be practicing on your day off. Kenta: Everyone was shocked when I was eliminated in the first round of that tournament the other day. Next time I'll get my revenge. Tomoko: Oh, so you're trying to make a comeback*, good luck!

(*in a perfect example of how difficult yojijukugo can be to translate when used in regular speech, a translation as literal as "repent and make efforts" would sound very silly in English here.)

And this idiomatic meaning is how Kaoru explains it - and where I believe some misunderstandings are originating from, both due to the overall interpretation of the word "repent", as well as changes in nuance in the explanation given in the dub. To begin with, let's look at Kaoru's dialog in Japanese. (Due to him immediately explaining the meaning, I chose to leave kaigo funpatsu untranslated, unlike the official subs.)

And the same dialog in the dub:

It should be apparent just from this that Kaoru in the original and Kaoru in the dub are saying completely different things. Originally, Kaoru makes no mention of making peace with people that have been hurt, because that isn't what kaigo funpatsu is referring to. Kaigo is personal, internal regret - kaigo funpatsu is about self-reflection, recognizing one's mistakes and striving to do better, considering your past in order to take your next steps in the future. That could involve making amends with wronged parties, but it's not part of it inherently - Kaoru's original dialog doesn't even allude to people being hurt at all, because it's not relevant to the idiom.

It's here that I believe the word "repent" is causing some trip-ups: it's being taken in the Christian sense of atonement or penance, an action done to achieve forgiveness from others or redeem oneself for sinning, but Kaoru is simply talking about realizing you've done something wrong and feeling remorse for it. (Or, specifically, about Adam realizing he's done something wrong and feeling remorse for it.)

And while his last line in the dub is at least a bit more in the spirit of kaigo funpatsu, it's still missing what is at the heart of Kaoru's feelings about this idiom, and about the man it's clearly targeted at - the idea of coming back from one's mistakes, something that does not come up in the dub at all. The first word Kaoru uses, bankai (挽回), does mean "to recover", but also "to regain what was lost" or "to return to the original state." Torimodosu (取り戻す), as well, specifically means to regain something that was lost - in fact, it's the very same word Tadashi uses when speaking of Adam "regaining his love."

Kaoru is not asking Adam to personally make things up to him, or to anyone - Kaoru, at heart, believes in Adam, and believes that he can, and should, still come back from everything. Even in the finale - after the Full Swing Kiss, after his naive hopes of simply returning to how things were in high school are shattered - his first concern is still for Langa to make Adam understand that.

Like with Kenta in the example exchange above, kaigo funpatsu isn't about Adam atoning for his sins - it's a call for him to recognize he screwed up and move forward without making the same mistakes.

And he does, or at least he's beginning to take those steps. He recognizes the mistake that matters most to the themes of the story, and that led to everything that happened in his life since - that he lost sight of the innocent love for skating he had as a child.

He finally admits what Tadashi meant to him;

he directly defies his abusive family's wishes by working against Takano rather than throwing Tadashi under the bus;

and he finally shows up as Adam in daylight, on someone else's "turf", to celebrate his own defeat - reaching out to his former friends and gracefully accepting loss, things he refused to do even an episode prior.

He may not be begging for forgiveness, and with this coming at the very end of the series there's a long road still ahead of him, but he's recognizing that he did things wrong and he's making an effort to move forward in a better way - and in doing that he's regained the most important thing he lost, his love of skating.

And Adam isn't the only one whose character arc kaigo funpatsu describes, either. Reki regrets his mistakes...

...and comes back from them.

Langa recognizes his mistakes and comes back from them - and is even able to help Adam do the same.

Tadashi, more clearly spelled out than anyone, recognizes his mistakes...

...and he's able to come back from them, too.

None of these resolutions involve big direct apologies, or any kind of penance to earn forgiveness. (Personal forgiveness isn't something SK8 takes much interest in dwelling on or making characters earn in the first place, and its approach to forgiveness could easily be a whole other meta in and of itself.) They don't have to, because in the end, Kaoru's idiom is not only a message to Adam - one that he ultimately does receive, if a bit later than Kaoru hoped - but a moment that spells out a big part of the show's thesis.

Everyone is going to do things wrong in their life, one way or another - but anyone who regrets their mistakes and makes an effort to do better should be able to recover from them and regain what they lost.

Only season 2 can show us what moving forward is going to look like, but when it comes to what counts to the core narrative, everyone's taken the first steps.

[specterthief]

Genesis 2:18

(english translation from the new international version, japanese translation from the japan bible society interconfessional version)

skateboard anime has driven me to comparing bible translations, and the realization that the dialog at the end of episode 11 (particularly tadashi's) appears to be referencing the bible verse first describing the creation of eve. sure, maybe a stretch, but this line comes only about 20 seconds before "let's fall together, because we're going to become adam and eve", and there's enough attention to detail to the biblical references in this show for adam's board in the finale to be missing a rib on one side.

tadashi's use of ふさわしい here is also tying back to an earlier piece of dialog in sk8 itself, a use by adam's aunts when the idea of ainosuke's arranged marriage first comes up:

this idea of adam being in need of a "suitable" partner, and the fundamental clash between his family's intentions for him to marry a woman and his own genuine desires as a gay man, form such a fundamental throughline to his story, and the way that this is part of his overarching biblical storyline really shows the care that was put into the writing - and that the show really is, as the producers describe it, "the story of adam searching for his eve."

[specterthief]

i was curious to check because i remembered cherry's board got redesigned in the blu-ray edits, but there is still a good amount of blue on the board! (actually a slightly darker blue, too... i'm still not sure it's a very close match for the blue on joe's necklace, but it definitely got closer in color in the blu-ray than it originally was)

Ok sk8 speculation time:

I was wondering what joes necklace was and then I looked at it and thought it’s probably a piece of a skateboard. You can tell because of the layered looking shit on the side.

Skateboard jewelry above for comparison. Then I was thinking who’s skateboard? The colour is blue, so hear me out:

[cum-villain]

I was watching the later parts of Sk8 with people this morning, and I had a realization that is probably obvious to some of you, but hadn't really hit me before.

One of the major themes of Sk8 is connections to others: Having people around to make life fun; dealing with the pain of losing those around you; that despite how painful it can be, you have to try again to have any happiness. I'll start off talking about Langa.

The Langa in the show is a Langa who just lost one of the most important people in his life, his father. Because of this, he's in a strong depression. Snowboarding, a hobby since he was a toddler, gives him nothing, because all that he can think of is that he can't snowboard with his father anymore. He's in a new country, far away from everything he's ever known. He's lost almost everything, and all he can really think about is finding a way to help support his mother, searching for a job.

But then, he has something: He meets Reki, he makes a friend. He learns how to skateboard, a hobby similar to his old one, but this time he has someone he has be with again. He's no longer alone in his depression, he has people in his life, and eventually, he can even laugh again.

When he and Reki fight, he loses the person who brought him to this hobby, he isn't happy anymore. He doesn't want to skate just to skate, he also wants to skate because it's a connection to his best friend. When he's in the zone, is all alone, the thing that brings him back to his senses, back to living, is a reminder of his best friend; "Fun", something that he can only have in the real world, the world with his friends.

Meanwhile, Adam didn't have someone to pull him out of his abyss; Originally, Tadashi helped him not be alone, and through him he met Cherry and Joe, but because of Adam's father, they were pulled apart when it mattered most. Adam was all alone, with no way to have fun anymore. And when that happened, he had two choices: die, or find a different way to live. And he ended up choosing the second, putting winning, the value his upbringing beat into him, above all else.

But he didn't actually want this. He told himself that he was satisfied with winning, that he didn't need connections with other people, but in fact, not having a friend was what led him to his despair. The funeral beef was essentially a suicide attempt; he had nothing left, he didn't win properly anymore, so he might as well die along with his Eve. And if Eve doesn't exist, all the more reason to end it. Because "Eve" wasn't really someone he was in love with, it was an idealized dream of someone, anyone, rescuing him from himself again.

And Tadashi ended up realizing this; The crux of what destroyed Adam was losing connections to people, being successful at his hobbies or his career wouldn't bring him any happiness if he was alone at the top. His current method of bring Ainosuke-sama happiness was flawed. So he trusted Adam's happiness to Langa, someone who he thought could teach Adam have connections with other people again. And his trust was warranted, Langa managed to bring Adam back and teach him that it was okay to want friends, that he had people willing to be friends right in front of him.

You see it with other characters as well. Kojiro and Kaoru, friends since they were 5, with the iconic line, "At least we have each other, right, Kaoru?". Miya, who made it big, but lost his friends, and didn't want it at all. Shadow, who skated so that he could connect with his manager. Reki and Oka, who knew they would never be able to win, but that wasn't the point, was it, what brought them happiness was their friendship with other skaters, skating as a ritual of love. And not in the way Adam thinks of it, "love" as something painful and malicious, love as something that brings people together.

[danceofthephilos]

SK8 Cast Image Colors, and the Super Sentai Roots of Character Color Coding

Unlike my post about hanakotoba, where only a few examples can be confirmed to be intentionally meaningful choices, image colors are an aspect of SK8's visual symbolism that has been explicitly assigned by the creators to each of the eight main cast members. From design elements to official art and merchandise (such as the art and the Infinity Week logo above) to shots in the show itself, these image colors are a consistent aspect of the series' visual language, and colors, like flowers, have meanings and associations that can provide interesting insight into why these colors were chosen for these characters. Color-coded casts are also strongly historically rooted in the super sentai subgenre of tokusatsu series, a genre that has had massive impact on Japanese pop culture, especially battle anime like SK8, in part, is, so I'll also examine the archetypes associated with their colors in super sentai (and, in Adam's case, another important piece of anime history.)

As color associations can vary by culture, I made sure to use Japanese sources - I mainly started with the dictionary on TC Color Therapy for basic color meanings but frequently checked other sources. My primary source on colors in super sentai is a paper on color theory in tokusatsu by Misako Takahashi, along with fan wikis such as Pixiv Dictionary and other Japanese blogs analyzing the subject. I also supplemented with quotes from SK8's staff when relevant.

All the image colors come from the official character guide included in volume 4 of the Blu-rays.

Reki Kyan - Yellow

Despite his red hair, Reki's image color is yellow, the color of the signature hoodie he always wears at S. Yellow is associated with brightness, cheerfulness, fun and excitement - all things that Reki embodies at his best, and are very important parts of his character arc and what he represents to the people around him. In Utsumi's instructions to colorist Yukari Gotou, as shown in SK8 Design Works, she requested Reki's design have "so many bright and colorful primary colors it's tiring" in order to draw the eye, fitting of a bright and energetic protagonist. Yellow is a common color for team members in sentai anime, being the third most common after red and blue and appearing in the majority of series, and are often bright and cheerful "life of the party" type characters as well. This is a trend dating back to Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, the very first long-running super sentai series (beginning in 1975,) whose color coding has persisted for decades. Kirenger, the yellow member in Gorenger, was even a big eater with a signature favorite food (a trait more commonly attributed to Langa, but Reki's love for ramen and all things salty - even toothpaste - is a recurring bit in SK8 as well) and a big family.

In Takahashi's paper, she quotes another academic, Asako Yoshida's, analysis of another core aspect of yellow sentai characters, where she describes them as "an intelligent type who gathers information and forms strategies before taking action", and "rather than fighting on the front, they're a tactician who uses their wits and comes up with strategies," traits that Reki also shows frequently, especially in his biggest triumph in episode 11.

Like many of the image colors, it's also used in the show (both in the opening - highlighting his yellow-orange eyes - and in episode 11.)

~

Langa Hasegawa - Blue

Langa's image color is blue, selected along with white from the beginning to fit his snow theme. Blue is associated with positive meanings like calmness and intelligence, but also more negative ones like coldness, sadness and loneliness, fitting of both Langa's calm exterior and the grief that's central to his storyline. Blue sentai members are classically considered "cool" characters, an association that remains strong even as actual characters of that type have grown somewhat rarer over time, with newer series sometimes deliberately subverting expectations. Like yellow, the association of blue with the cool member of a team also dates back to Gorenger, with Aorenger (the blue member) being a cool, stoic character who came from a snowy region. Takahashi quotes Yoshida's description of blue heroes as "the calm, composed and cool second in command type," a character who "doesn't worry about what's in front of him, never seems to get worked up and deals with things calmly," which certainly describes the impression Langa gives off at first - and belies what SK8's producer Kyoko Uryuu described (when comparing him to a petit gâteau) as his "surprisingly passionate" interior.

Like with Reki, Langa's color is shown off in the opening and in the show itself - notably as his "aura" when he's in the Zone with Adam.

~

Miya Chinen - Light Green

Miya's image color is light green, usually shown as a yellowish lime green. I'll get to green as a whole for Kojiro, but yellow-green specifically is associated with youthfulness, beginnings and hope, as it's the color of newly budding plants - and it can also be associated with immaturity, all meanings fitting of a very young character like Miya. While his costume is meant to be an in-universe game character, his bright green hood could also be seen as vaguely evoking Link from the Legend of Zelda series.

Green sentai characters have more varied archetypes, but were historically often the youngest member of the team, while more recently it's been a trend for them to be the oldest member of the team - fitting for the youngest and oldest members of the six characters making up SK8's main "team." The idea of a green member being the youngest also dates back to Gorenger, with Midorenger (the green member) being an innocent younger boy compared to the rest of the team, who was treated like a "mascot" of sorts and even shared Miya's affinity for animals. It's also become a trend for green characters to have close relationships with the yellow members, and to be in conflict with the red members.

Like with most of the other characters, Miya's color is highlighted in the opening.

~

Hiromi Higa - Purple

Hiromi's image color is purple, the color of his lipstick and the inside of his cape. Purple is associated with mystery, rarity, luxury and nobility, and in Japan in particular it's frequently associated with horror (from urban legends like the purple mirror to the common use of purple miasma to show disgusting/horrific food in anime.) Purple sentai members are incredibly rare, and at the time of Takahashi's paper the few that existed were usually mentor figures, but several since have been "dark heroes" or antiheroes - as "Shadow-sama" (fitting of the link to nobility) calls himself, as the self-proclaimed Antihero of the S community. With how he becomes a close friend (and even somewhat of a mentor) to the boys despite his very antagonistic first appearance, he certainly fits the "enemy-turned-ally" archetype, and while he's not actually the much older mentor early purple members were, Reki constantly calling him "old man" does evoke that trope too.

His color appears in the opening as well as featuring heavily in his S costume.

~

Kaoru Sakurayashiki - Pink

True to his surname and aesthetic, Kaoru's image color is pink, the color of cherry blossoms. Pink is associated with beauty, grace, luxury and love. Just like in the west, it's considered a very feminine color - also shown in the fact that pink sentai members are almost exclusively women, and typically particularly feminine and glamorous when on teams with other female members. This is a case where Cherry is in large part a departure from the classic color coding just because of his gender; SK8's colorist, Yukari Gotou, even expressed in Skater's Backstage that she was a bit worried about having a male character with pink hair, but Utsumi described him as a "pink ninja" from the get-go in her coloring notes.

And even Kaoru isn't completely immune to hitting the sentai archetypes either, with his noted beauty and a concern for his looks that Kojiro mocks as effeminate in the series; the contrast between the feminine characteristics he has and his masculine voice and personality are a core part of how his character was designed. He even has a surprising connection with Momorenger (Gorenger's pink member, and only woman) in his affinity for kicks. (As of 2022, there's also finally been a male character properly featuring as the pink member in a sentai series in Avataro Sentai Donbrothers.)

Of course, on top of featuring so heavily in his design, Cherry's color is also used in the opening.

~

Kojiro Nanjo - Green

Rather than Miya's light green, Kojiro's image color is a regular green. Green is associated with calmness, stability, growth and nature, fitting for a very calming and stable mentor character who just "goes with his feelings" like Kojiro - but like light green, it can also signify immaturity, which also suits a character who proudly proclaims to be a "kid" when he's on vacation. Where Miya fits the "youngest member" trope for green sentai members, Kojiro fits the "oldest member" trope, and he also fits the recently trendy close relationship with yellow and conflict with red. In Takahashi's paper, she quotes Yoshida describing green characters as a whole as "a caring type who's always concerned if things are peaceful" (also fitting of Miya, who's always the most concerned for Reki and Langa,) "a soothing person who makes you feel warm and comforted just by being next to them" and as someone who "loves their friends, and 'being together with everyone' is important to them," and in Utsumi's color notes in SK8 Design Works, she described Kojiro as "A calming, mature green. Comforting."

And like with the others, on top of being his hair color, Kojiro's color is also shown in the opening.

~

Ainosuke Shindo - Red

Naturally for the "Matador of Love", Adam's image color is red, a color associated with love, passion and excitement, but also danger and anger, covering both sides of the duality of Adam's connection with love and romance and his violent skating. Utsumi's color notes in SK8 Design Works describe it as "the color of love and blood", and described Adam himself as "a guy who stole a main character's color" - fitting of the fact that in sentai series (and many anime influenced by them,) the red member is almost always the main protagonist and leader. (And perhaps a cheeky reference to Reki, though it seems Adam's color was decided on much earlier on.) Between red and blue being tied for their inclusion in sentai series and yellow in a close second place, the three primary colors form a core trio of characters in sentai series that's also reflected by Reki, Langa and Adam as the three most central characters in SK8.

While many works follow Gorenger's lead with the red protagonist being a hot-headed, passionate natural leader (a role that Adam does command at S as a whole, at least at first,) it's covered such a wide spectrum of protagonists over the course of the genre's history that red's biggest association is simply "being the main character," superseding a single specific character archetype. To momentarily dip into the history of anime itself rather than tokusatsu's influence, I'd be remiss not to mention that thanks to the influence of Mobile Suit Gundam (a franchise that both writer Okouchi and character designer Chiba have history with and mentioned in interviews on Febri as inspiring their interest in anime) it does have a memetic association with speed (and rival characters,) as Gundam's frequently-imitated masked antagonist Char Aznable's custom red mecha is notoriously "three times faster" than any other. (Adam's voice actor, Takehito Koyasu, has even played two "Char Clones" himself.)

As with the other characters, Adam's color appears in the opening but it also surrounds him frequently in the show even from his first appearance, including a red glowing aura to mirror Langa's blue when they're in the Zone (even in the finale when the red is gone from his costume.)

~

Tadashi Kikuchi - Gray

(Tadashi never got an official Twitter icon like the other characters, so I used a different piece of merch.)

Lastly, Tadashi's image color is gray, which is mostly known for being... a bit of a non-color, though it can be associated with gloom, ambiguity or uneasiness. It's mostly seen as a color that blends in and doesn't stand out by itself, which was the purpose behind Tadashi's color scheme, as Utsumi described in her notes as wanting his coloring to "make the main character stand out", given that he was designed from the beginning to appear alongside Adam, who has the "main character's color." Gray is an incredibly rare theme color in sentai series, to the point that there aren't specific character archetypes either; in 2014, at the time of Takahashi's paper, the only gray character she noted was a literal ghost. Even Tadashi's image color is alienated from the other skaters'...

While there are comparatively few (and less obvious) examples of Tadashi's image color appearing in the show, his last emotional scene with Ainosuke takes place in an almost entirely gray room.

It'll be interesting to see how these associations might continue to be used in the future.

[specterthief]

every scene in sk8 that uses langa's heart-pounding sound motif in order! i mostly put this together for myself but i figured others might find it interesting