sashiepoo

[sashiepoo]

i love waking up with so many worries about where i lie on the spectrum of conformity vs authenticity and then i take a sip of my celsius and none of it matters anymore because ts is so delicious

[sashiepoo]

Request: How good really is FLCL?

FLCL is an anime that I have watched a lot of times. I am no stranger to rewatching shows, I've rewatched some of my favorites several times, up to double digits. FLCL is a show, however, that is unique in its rewatch value for me. I've watched Kuroko no Basket, Toradora, Samurai Champloo, and Ping Pong the Animation several times over because I think they are incredibly entertaining and every watch just feels like it is washing my body of stress and worry, as it all melts away with a combination of nostalgia, laughter, and thrill. FLCL of course feels like all of these things to myself, and most people, but above all else, I feel immense confusion when I reflect on my watches of FLCL. I have always rated it very low, having it originally at a 6 and I have failed several times to see the extensive value in it that so many other people do. Individually, everything makes sense to me, but it feels like it is the kind of narrative that makes nearly no sense in the way that it is organized. It feels like I am watching several character arcs play out that don't really interact in a way that you expect them to. I think the phenomenon I would describe this as, in the way that it is presented in FLCL, is this idea of multiple thematically relevant narratives that feel wholly disconnected, and it feels like the payoffs for each individual person is completely different.

From person to person, you ask them what their favorite episode or favorite moment was and the answer truly feels like a dice roll everytime. It could be the swing of the bat, Naota's first fight at the end of episode 2, it could be any comedic bit of your choice, it could be Naota throwing away the power of Atomsk, any one of Mamimi's bridge scenes, the opening scene, going full manga, you name it. My personal favorite was Canti taking flight as Hybrid Rainbow plays and if I had to give a reason for that, I think it would line up with nearly anyone's reason for choosing any scene in FLCL as their favorite.

It just felt right.

This answer is something that I think sort of defines FLCL's biggest strength, and also its biggest weakness. Let's start off with why it is a strength. FLCL is a show that displays so many narratives, and it steps full force on the gears, pedal to the metal and does not pump the brakes from the opening to the ending. I think that this kind of narrative choice is very brave and respectable no matter what. It is immensely difficult to pull something like this off and still have it feel coherent and meaningful, and FLCL does this unimaginable stretch, something which shall never be repeated. Because of this, the narrative is often something that to make sense of, you cannot rely on logic, and the show is aware of this. You are watching FLCL as if you are a dog trying to survive an attack from a tiger. As if you are falling down the sky and you can't find your parachute lever. You cannot use logic when trying to process FLCL, you have to simply let the instinctual response carry its burden. FLCL plays into this very well, ensuring that each and every aspect of the show feels like it is easily digestable and carries that same inexplicable and ephemeral feeling that keeps you on the edge but never leaves you feeling like you are required to make sense of it. FLCL is the kind of show that allows its viewers to think "I like this because I simply like it." And that is its biggest strength.

Now why is this a weakness? It is a weakness not because I demand that the laws of media consumption require me to logically comprehend everything I watch. It is because fundamentally, there is no payoff in FLCL. There is nothing that makes you think that this narrative needed to be as long as it was, ironically, because there is nothing that actually connects a lot of these individual narratives. It feels like different takes on adolescence and coming of age, some that maybe encourage the idea of becoming an adult and a lot that definitely lean more towards retaining your adolescence but within this we have so many characters that simply don't fit that paradigm, under a lot of circumstances, and effective ideas of sex, romance, and this weird adult angle to the show that doesn't hold much weight in the context of trying to emphasize remaining a child. Characters such as Haruko or Amarao feel like they are very empty under certain interpretations, and hold so much more value under others. We could of course extend this idea to nearly every other major thematic lens of perceiving FLCL and I think that generally most of them just don't hold weight in the concept of the larger narrative. I think that when you look at it as just a collection of individual narratives, FLCL feels like it just demonstrates the existence of these characters without saying much about a larger phenomenon about coming of age. When you try to perceive it as just one individual narrative about Naota, it leaves you wondering the role that essentially every other character plays. FLCL is a show made with the budget of a 26 episode series, but it obviously feels like it tries to cram in 26 episodes into the span of the few that it has. It just feels like there is so much that is trying to be achieved and yet no unifying idea or perspective.

Of course, I do appreciate works that allow the viewer to latch onto what it feels like speaks out to them, and that is a lot of the reason why I am still able to sit there and appreciate Naota and Mamimi's narratives without really caring about how they largely interact and whether or not FLCL seeks to comment on something larger than merely just showing these characters. This, however, is also a large barrier between why I think it just can't fit the bill of a truly good work. There is nothing you can largely derive and apply from it. The idea that somebody out there maybe watched FLCL and genuinely felt like there was actionable advice about how they ought to live within their adolescence more eludes me, and I think that its complication in narrative delivery does a lot more to harm its messaging than it does to embolster it. It feels like it inspires, but I can't imagine that somebody out there is sitting and is honestly saying that there was something about FLCL that has impacted the way that they perhaps perceive or act upon their life, even if it feels like the narrative does everything necessary to convey those ideas.

I understand that nobody understands FLCL fully and this is a generally common sentiment amongst most, and that is a large part of the reason why I found myself rewatching it as often as I did. It felt like there was nearly nothing that changed every watch though. Everytime I played back the narrative, it just felt like my thoughts on the show stagnated, and I didn't suddenly discover something new that made Ninamori narratively relevant, or made Haruko more than just a character device, or somehow made it such that every piece of FLCL fit in with the grander idea it sought to portray. What changed between watch to watch, was the soundtrack.

My understanding of the perception of FLCL is that it feels like there are camps that are sort of divided into a two-way Carroll Diagram based on a thematic appreciation or disapproval, along with audiovisual appreciation or disapproval. I have talked to people in nearly every single camp, and it frankly feels like regardless of which camp you find yourself dumped into, the perception of FLCL as something that you really just can't make sense of, even if you understand every single detail persists. The reason why I feel unable to give a fresh perspective on FLCL in the same way I could for any other work is exactly because in the process of lending itself to any number of interpretations of its larger meaning, it leaves itself subject to not having any larger meaning for anyone. What they really are doing is extrapolating some subset of FLCL into what it must mean for the entire story. This happens in nearly every story, and I do it myself in a lot of my retrospectives on media, but the difference is those works feel holistically tied into the ideas I discuss, whereas FLCL feels like it is demonstrably a pick one and accept that it really isn't appropriately reflected by the anime, and it feels like no matter what I pick on each watch, it just doesn't land the mark.

But what does this mean about how I think of FLCL? My score for FLCL used to be a 6, but it is now a 9. This doesn't make sense, does it? Why would something I just spent several paragraphs saying doesn't make sense and doesn't land the mark under any lens or interpretation somehow get a 9? A huge part of this shift in FLCL for me, as well as a lot of other shows for me has been a gradual change towards shows that seek to use the breadth of the audiovisual medium to its maximum, and I think that even among the more devout fans of FLCL, a lot of them really just find it to be a compelling take on adulthood that is largely marked by its directive and productive proficiency. FLCL managed to turn its soundtrack by the pillows into one of the greatest spreads of music I have ever listened to, and beyond that, the visual breadth of every single scene leaves you swelling up with emotions. Sometimes it is fine for something to not make sense, because FLCL isn't meant to be logical. Even if this paradox leaves it feeling unsatisfactory in the long run and nothing really makes sense, you can let it all float away in a rewatch, or a brief memory, where you just think that maybe it was a great song, or maybe it was a beautiful scene, or maybe it was a funny bit, or maybe it was just a poignant piece of dialogue. Maybe, FLCL just feels right.

[sashiepoo]

Hajime No Ippo: The Power of Bonds

Hi, this is going to be a very long post. To preface this, I have been reading manga for a very long time, over nearly 10 years, and I've completed around a thousand titles over this period. The first manga I ever read as an 8-year-old was Hajime No Ippo. To this date, it is my favorite manga, and I've consistently read it weekly for all of these years. Despite this, I never quite write much on the subject of it, and I think part of it is because of the lack of constructive discourse surrounding ippo, as most of ippo is very self-evident. I find that a lot of people discuss theories or harp on individual ideas presented within Ippo because its breadth makes it difficult to attach a universifying perspective to the work.

I am writing this post not necessarily to look into individual moments in ippo but rather capture what I think is the most essential portion of the series, even more so than anything else, and what i think enables HNI to be the powerful manga that it is, which is the power of relationships and bonds.

In this first portion I am going to be focusing primarily on the familial bonds presented in HNI, and talk about how they set the basis for the kind of series HNI is and provide some background about why more than anything else, HNI is centralized around and defined by the relationships between the characters, far more than anything else.

So let's start, shall we?

One of the most crucial factors to Hajime no Ippo’s success relative to every other manga, sports or not, is its appeal to reality. I touched upon this concept briefly in previous writing, but something that speaks heavily to me when reflecting on the media I consume and adore is its practicality.

What is practicality, though? Hajime no Ippo is conceptually unbelievable, and Ippo, as well as a lot of the characters that populate Ippo, are one in a million, but they never quite seem out of the grasp of reality. It never seems like they are unreasonable people and are simply just products of their circumstances. Ippo, Takamura, Hawk, Wally, Ricardo, and a lot of the other boxers that seem like genetic phenomes are humanized through backstories and upbringings that remind you for a moment that despite what we see right now, they were once weak and are on their path to strength. This is just an example of practicality concerning genetic capability, but this concept runs much deeper. For something to be wholly practical it must be reproducible, it must be realistic, and it has to be practicable. Furthermore, I must perceive value in replicating and adopting conceptual ideas from these works for there to be an appeal to practicality. I must be able to see myself reflected not exclusively as an ideal but as someone whose life experiences feel validated by the work.

This all serves to say that Hajime no Ippo isn’t about something real like boxing or something metaphorical like the pursuit of strength, but rather that Ippo serves as an appeal to the practical idea of being human. This is just one man’s journey towards actualizing their humanity, from their first step, which we bear witness to until their last. The approach that Morikawa takes with Ippo is to show how the power of the relationships in your life empower you to do and impact how you live, down to every single action. These bonds are complete and deeply intertwined, as what we see in every single character in Ippo is a wide family tree that can all be traced back to Ippo. Takamura isn’t just Takamura, but he is Kamogawa’s fighter, Ippo’s senior, the son of a massive conglomerate, a beloved brother, and a friend to every single member of the Kamogawa gym. Every character can be traced back to Ippo, and while this is exaggerated for the sake of the plot, the way the world of Hajime no Ippo revolves around him stems from his actions and character rather than merely because he is the main character. Morikawa highlights this idea multiple times through Ricardo, who serves almost as an external perspective peering in, like we do.

But why does everything revolve around Ippo? What makes him so crucial? It is because he understands the power of his words and his fists, and he understands the value of his bonds and relationships. These are things that contribute to his strength while bonds drag down monsters. Monsters is a term that the series reserves for those who are willing to cast away their lives for boxing, or frankly anything they are deeply into. Takamura, Ricardo, Volg, Sendo, Hawk, Miyata, and a few other characters that dip their toes in and out are most directly characterized by the term monster within the series. This is a very delicate dynamic that I think is more reserved for the end game of Ippo, but I mention it to illustrate that Ippo sees value in the relationships in his life, and that this trait of his has served as the focal point of the story thus far, to a degree equal if not more important to the series than boxing or strength. It is frankly just his individual path to strength, and there is no clear answer to whether these bonds empower or drag down someone.

Ippo changes the lives of the people that he meets and leaves pieces of himself within the individuals he influenced, including the readers themselves. You can see every single character that encounters Ippo walk out as an entirely different individual, and this isn’t limited to just Ippo but is visible in the interactions experienced by every single character. Aoki is driven by Tomoko, Kamogawa is influenced and brought back to reality by Miguel, and even Takamura is influenced by gag characters like Itagaki’s dad or the regular characters. And every single one of these interactions feels human. It feels perfectly placed into the narrative and never quite detracts from the tone or pacing of the series. Ippo himself often creates the most pronounced interactions, but the subtle changes through every piece of dialogue breathe life into this work and consume the reader into it, in the same way Ippo breathes life into the people that interact with him. As Sendo says, his fists are like a blade of life.

These bonds are crucial and often very heavily depend on certain social contexts that underscore every interaction of Ippo. Differences in culture, personality, background, demeanor, status, and so much more affect every single conversation and perception to which readers bear witness. You can see how the region someone was born in affects how they interact with Ippo; it is tied into their background and feels like a whole construction of a real person, and it makes the bond and characters almost feel tangible. This tangibility is accentuated only by a relationship's direct translation to reality, and as such, some of the most powerful bonds in real life tend to hold the same effects in HNI. The ones I intend to cover center around family, but the most important ones are actually metaphorical bonds that function similarly to family within HNI.

Something that never quite fails to affect me in very perverse ways and was honestly the last thing that I expected to get me emotionally was Ippo’s relationship with his biological parents. Ippo was raised by a single mother after his father had passed, and seeing Ippo sacrifice everything for the sake of his mother and watching his mom sacrifice everything for the sake of him broke me. It mirrored the exact relationship I have with my mom, as we both entrust each other with our lives and serve as each other’s only purpose. It is a delicate balance, and he never seeks to glorify such a relationship, which is why Ippo is not willing to budge against boxing unless it is reasonable, and Ippo’s mom yields to his wishes. It is a beautiful relationship to sacrifice for one another, but it is also self-destructive, and I think that the way Morikawa handles these two, as someone who was also raised by essentially a single mother, felt very real.

Ippo’s mom had always been reluctantly approving of his boxing and didn’t ask him to stop even when it got too unsafe or she needed help at the fishing company. There have been a lot of strong interactions between Ippo and his mother, but chapter 1225 dives heavily into this idea of parenthood. Ippo wants to dive into being a second after retiring and give it an honest effort.

When it comes to Ippo’s mother, something that we see throughout the manga are her many examples of her sacrifice and commitment to Ippo. The important role that she plays in his life and the amount of emotional maturity and effort she displays in every single scene she is present in absolutely breaks me. Her forgiveness but stern attitude with umezawa when he apologized, her response to Ippo’s desire to box, her refusal to watch Ippo boxing, and finally, this scene (attached below) are such beautiful portrayals of motherhood that I think have helped resolve a lot of my complexes with regards to my familial relationships. I have always competed with my brothers in my little ways and tried to impress and satisfy my mom as much as possible because ultimately, all I want is to be recognized by her. Ippo, in similar ways, simply wanted his mom to see him fight. But in my experience and Ippo’s as well, our mothers simply don’t care to see the physical manifestation and processes of our success as much as they are simply praying for our safety and happiness. iItis not Ippo’s fights but his happiness and security that keep her going everyday, and similarly it is not my accomplishments that define me to my mother but simply that I am happy and satisfied. as such, seeing the emotional maturity and development of Ippo, not as someone successful but as someone secure and happy is all that mattered to Ippo’s mom, and finally being relieved of the burden of taking care of him and watching him achieve his independence is a very counterintuitive release for a lot of people to understand, but one that hits home. Seeing her sacrifice, insistence on independence, and commitment to her late husband. It all just serves to commemorate the kind of sacrificial relationship motherhood is, and the payoff it has gives me some hope at the end of the tunnel for both me and my mother, and a deeper understanding of what it is that motivates her.

Something else that is important to mention in this chapter comes from the conversation attached below, where Ippo is talking about wanting to be a second for Kamogawa. In this scene, two essential things I've mentioned thus far come into play, one being the concept of a practical miracle. The ability to do something that is within reason, where the very joy and experience of being able to work towards and accomplish such a goal is inherently miraculous. Secondly, Ippo talks about the idea of a metaphorical parenthood. Ippo views coach Kamogawa as his father, not as a replacement but as a figure that motivates him, instructs him, and cares for him in the way a father does. Ippo’s goal beyond personal strength is to be able to fulfill these debts and bonds that he forms, and he views Kamogawa as a father to whom he has an immeasurable debt. As such, he is inspired to be a second by him and stand side by side.

All of this is to say that the miracles in our lives are those that are made of the people we surround ourselves with and the bonds we create and fulfill. It is a miraculous feat to be born to, to connect with, and to complete one another, and it is a miraculous existence to be able to commit the effort to a bond and produce a tangible result, emotionally. that is why just as much as achieving the japanese featherweight title and fighting #2 in the world is a miracle, so is being able to be a second for coach Kamogawa. Because this is a miracle produced from the bonds and efforts you hold in your life. It is a miracle to be born, to be alive, and hold that thought deep in your direst of times, that you are inherently miraculous, and can sprout miracles of your own from within yourself. And it is this understanding of the human desire to create miracles that makes Ippo so beloved to me. It recognizes the power implicit in the real tangible actions and daily mundanities and produces miracles from that, rather than by praying for some external power or some factor like luck. The magic is within yourself, not outside of you.

These miracles can coexist with misfortune and are often only miraculous because of the existence of misfortune. It is essential for the human condition not to reject misfortune and embrace miracles but to let both happen. That is why Ippo’s father passing, while unfortunate, is the only thing that enables his miracles to happen. Struggle and prosperity, and exuberant joy and excruciating sadness exist on two sides of the coin. The misfortune that was his father's death ultimately produced and exalted the miracle of his success and his desire for strength. Ippo’s father is often viewed very figuratively within the context of Ippo. This is because he lost him at a very young age, and while he was beloved to him for all this time, his father's passing left him too much responsibility and burden, emotionally and physically. Despite all of this, he never changed his perspective on his father, he never blamed the misfortunes of his life on the lack of his father, and he never turned his back on the ideal of strength that he always pursued his father as. Even now, he finds himself paling in comparison to the man he viewed his father as, and I think the way that this theme presents itself in Hajime no Ippo stuck out to me very strongly.

The way that fatherhood serves as an ideal isn’t limited to just Ippo but to several different characters, mainly the titular three featherweights: Sendo, Miyata, and Ippo. Sendo viewed his late father, a firefighter, as his true hero and sought to embody his ideal of protecting those around him. This is why his parallel to Ippo draws so strongly- because they have lived their entire lives essentially the same way. Their admiration and inspiration that they draw from their fathers resonates through their characters and serve as their strength, and I think was a really beautiful representation of fatherhood, especially when it is somewhat difficult to fully grasp a deep breadth of a posthumous death’s impact on a character. as such, what I think was the strongest grasp of fatherhood was Miyata, because he had an ideal to prove, not just one to live out. He lived a life where his father’s ideal was shown to be weak, after his dad's promising boxing career was cut short due to an injury to his glass jaw. he watched as everything in his life crumbled, his mother left him, his dad was bedridden and unable to move past his defeat, and his only source of strength, his biggest admiration was broken in front of him. His dad turned to alcohol, abuse, and neglect for Miyata to cope with losing everything in a moment. Despite this, he never gave up his adoration for his father.

Seeing how Miyata refused to give up on his father's ideal was one of the strongest moments in Ippo, and it breathed life into a character that otherwise served as a rather dull rival for Ippo. A lot of people didn't see the appeal for Miyata as Ippo's rival for a long time and sought a much better perspective in Sendo. Even back when Randy vs Miyata was first serializing, everybody thought that it was a terrible fight, as it broke apart the one thing that the series had been leading up to for nearly 800 chapters. It is this uncanny attention to an honest character that makes Hajime no Ippo such a strong work. Despite the severe backlash he has received over several years to cut his work shorter and to acquiesce to what the fanbase wants, morikawa stays strong to his vision, and even now, through tumultuous arcs, he stays committed to completing a vision that nobody besides him can believe in. it is because he know what it feels like to commit to a vision that he can create characters that are capable of doing so, despite the emotional strife that comes with such sacrifice. Miyata sacrificed everything he had been working for and controlling through all his difficult weight loss just to fight Ippo, but still gave it up to prove his father's ideal, which was something that stuck out to me as one of the most powerful representations of the symbiotic relationship between a father and a son. Oftentimes, fathers are told to give unequivocally, and it is a very commonly perpetuated trait of toxic masculinity to expect unconditional sacrifice and love with nothing in return for most providing men. Hajime no Ippo calmly breaks apart this standard through fathers that pass in pursuit of their ideals, fathers that give up on their children, fathers that leave behind their ideals, and many such examples. Despite their flaws, the characters in Ippo never let their love and duties as children fall past them. Their adoration for their parents and what they represent shine stronger than their motivations, oftentimes serving as their source of strength. It breaks the norm of fatherhood as a one-way street, and Miyata's father is one of the few times you get to see this reverse street make its way back to the father. Miyata sacrificed everything about his life and everything about his oesires just to prove that the dad he loved was right and that the ideal he is pursuing isn't wrong.

The strength of familial bonds is not simply limited to parenthood, as we see characters like Mashiba derive all their strength from something like their sister, Kumi. Following the passing of his parents, Mashiba, who was always perceived as a delinquent, fell further into this delinquency, despite not being the perpetrator of any of it. He was judged simply for his appearance, but he never cared about other people's judgements and simply leaned into being viewed as an evil person because it enabled him to protect Kumi. He would commit crimes and attack people violently to protect her. His character as the grim reaper culminates in his fight with Sawamura, where he sacrifices everything to retain his sister's honor and commits to his ideal of protecting her.

What makes this bond, in specific, so powerful is that ultimately Mashiba is at the whim of his sister, and it is the only thing that grounds him. It shows the power of the drive that can stem from a familial bond and what threatening a man with only one thing left can result in. I think one of the most integral parts of Mashiba's character arc, however, was also being able to distance himself from this bond. Realizing that he doesn't need to do everything for his sister and that he has his own desires to fulfill and his own desire to be recognized by more people than just his sister liberates the both of them. It allows him to remove his suffocating grip onto her that she is forced to cling onto as a due result of their symbiotic relationship, and it also allows him to finally fight as an honest man and give everything that he has.

While this specific relationship has a few more chapters left to really culminate, I think that the core direction and ideas that it shows through the bijective self-sacrifical relationship of these two contributes a lot to the kind of relationships that Morikawa aims to illustrate as well as showing how in some ways, giving everything for someone else can be very self-destructive, especially as a lot of the other instances of such relationships like Ippo and his mother are seen to have their downcomings but generally work out very well. It's a compelling testament to Mashiba's character. Even though we sort of take his love for his sister as granted, there's a lot of moments like these where you are reminded of just how much they've staked on each other and that while it helped them survive, that sort of mindset isn't necessarily conducive to them as healthy adults capable of independence. Moving onto what I think serves as the essence of Hajime no Ippo, I want to talk about Takamura, Ippo and Coach Kamogawa. I have put off writing this for a few weeks because I didn't quite know how to fully encompass everything that I wanted to say, especially because of my belief that this captures everything about HNI as a series, and also because HNI tends to be very direct with a lot of what it says, and the way this relationship is handled is no exception. While this might come off as a summary, I hope to make some sort of lasting connection. Let us first look at these three characters individually. At the start of the series, Ippo appears as just a meek boy living in pursuit of his father, maybe not necessarily trying to replicate him, but he finds that his father's strength is something he still tries to embody. We, of course, saw this in the previously embedded conversation between him and his mother, but if you go back to the very start of the manga, we can see that his desire for strength stems largely from a deeper desire to replicate what his father stood for. The manga's central conflict is this pursuit of strength, but how does that manifest for Ippo? What is it that doesn't make him strong enough? The idea that the manga often refers back to is that Ippo isn't a monster. Ippo's concept of strength is confronted throughout the manga in so many instances, and the actual answer is more likely than not a combination of several different factors, which is what makes the various depictions of it through Ippo, Ricardo, Volg, Takamura, and many others so compelling. Ippo, at the start of the manga, derives his idea of strength from his father, and he carries this idea up until he retires. Throughout this time, his idea of strength centers around sacrifice because that is how his dad passed away. That is how his dad's strength manifested. He sacrificed everything for everyone and died with that. This is not to say that Ippo's father's idea of strength was inadequate or that Ippo himself was weak for following that ideal, but it is that it stands starkly opposed to Ippo's deeper desire. The manga never gives a clear answer on what strength is but instead aims to show that the way strength manifests is as the power to be able to do what you desire. And while Ippo is an honest and sacrificial person, there is the side of Ippo that seeks to win, which cannot happen with his meek sacrificial mindset.

Moving beyond Ippo, we have someone that stands starkly opposed to Ippo, which is Takamura. Takamura himself is strong. From the very first chapter, he is shown to be the ideal and the definition of strength within HNI. He is strong enough to never have to lose, however, his conflict stems from his inadequacy and his inability to ever be loved. This shows itself in a lot of ways, some as gags, and some as extremely brutal and serious moments. He has no romantic partner and no strong relationship with his family. Truthfully, these are things that hold him back because the kind of monster he is can't be controlled and can't be tied down by something like relationships. Despite this, everybody yearns and begs to be loved and to feel like something to others. That is what the Kamogawa gym and its boxers serve to him. They are people that could never quite hold him back, but set up expectations and force him to keep committing to his goal of approval, while never quite giving it to him. Until he can fully achieve his goal, he must continue to isolate himself, but we can see how this continues to agonize him. The impending death of Kamogawa, the loss of Ippo, and the burden of having to do everything by himself weighs upon him to no end. All he wishes is for his surrogate father to see him shine and succeed, since he was the one person that genuinely believed in him to. What undercuts this relationship is that Takamura isn't really perceived as Kamogawa's son. He has not inherited his fists, and Kamogawa himself doesn't teach Takamura very much. As a result, it feels almost as if Kamogawa's only real stakes are on Ippo, and this tears Takamura apart.

Seeing how Kamogawa reacts to Ippo's loss to Alfredo breaks Takamura, since he feels like it is his duty to repay Kamogawa by never having him feel sad or disappointed in his ability as a trainer, second, and a coach. This is also why the distraught expression of Kamogawa during Takamura's fight with Hawk is what eventually powers him to beat Hawk. This rage is not what Kamogawa has ever embodied, and Takamura fails to understand that Kamogawa can never view Takamura entirely as his incarnation, despite Takamura being vastly more successful of a boxer than Ippo is. Obviously Takamura knows that Kamogawa is not responsible for his success, however his perception of their relationship as a burden to fulfill persists nonetheless. Their relationship always makes me wonder to what extent we owe our lives to the people that brought us up, and to what extent we owe it to ourselves. If we view Takamura's life after being saved by Kamogawa as entirely to make the coach proud, how is that any different than the life he led before, if ultimately nothing is done to service oneself. This commentary on serving the bonds of our life as a means to validate our own existence through Takamura is what cuts deep through their relationship. Above all of his ego, and his desire to be extraordinary, there simply lies a desire to make his old man proud.

Takamura brings this idea into his relationship with Ippo as his mentor. He wants Ippo to be his strongest because he wants Ippo to bring Kamogawa the kind of happiness he desires. In a manner likened to Miyata and his father's relationship, Takamura wants Ippo to prove Kamogawa's boxing. Takamura understands what it fundamentally requires to be strong more than anyone else, since he embodies strength unlike any other in the story. He doesn't doubt himself, and it is merely a matter of time for him to prove his strength. This is what serves as the basis of their entire relationship, and their brotherly bond, while extremely powerful, is also entirely dependent upon the mutual goal of making Kamogawa proud. The way that this defines their effective relationship is essential to note, because it sets up a love triangle of sorts between Ippo, Takamura and Kamogawa. Ippo is the only person that Kamogawa views as the inheritor of his fists, even though all Takamura ever wanted was to be approved by Kamogawa as his student, not as a boxer. Despite Kamogawa's approval, Ippo can't seem to deliver. Takamura is the only person Ippo views as representative of the kind of strength he wants. The way that they are all unable to receive what they want from each other is heartbreaking, and serves as the core conflict of Ippo, despite also being the most powerful relationship of the manga. They all love each other, but are they doomed to never be able to satisfy their expectations of one another? Here are some more panels that I think sum up the relationship these three have more than my words can :)

There are questions about strength and the bonds built thus far that Hajime no Ippo still has left to answer, but until then, all we can mull over is the treasure that it has been to watch the web of relationships and characters form in Hajime no Ippo, and see where it develops from here.

It is a joy to live this life with the people around you. There is nothing more valuable than the love you can give and receive from others. That is what Hajime no Ippo is about at its core, and it is your reminder to cherish those emotions no matter what, because they are all you have. Take your first step out there, and what will await you is a beautiful world.

Thank you George Morikawa!

[sashiepoo]

why houseki no kuni is important

the contemporary train of thought, to nobody's surprise, is highly existentialist. more than that, it is an eternally reverberating set of waves spawned by individuals whose thoughts swing back and forth like broken pendulums swinging between ephemeral states of positivity and eternal states of negativity. everybody wants to emulate themselves as happier than they are, despite constantly self sabotaging themselves. i always think back to houseki no kuni whenever i see these sorts of thoughts manifest in any space, be it in the comments of a tiktok, a conversation with a friend, listening to a random youtube video, and frankly present in just the implications of really anything postmodern. this sense of dread permeates through everything that we exist within, and it is easier said than done to dispel it.

houseki no kuni is a dark fantasy work that centers around gems, a species with an extremely small population that inhabit a large island, where they simply focus on surviving through their relatively long lifespans. the plot is significantly pushed forth by invasions from an extraterrestrial species known as the lunarians. the work is a beautiful look into what exactly constitutes the incredible breadth of emotions experienced by individuals, as well as a retrospective on finding meaning and understanding what to make of our inherent goals and the relationships and connection-dependent bonds that make up the human conditions. this work will contain spoilers for houseki no kuni's ending and i will mostly be discussing it vaguely as a product of the story rather than something akin to an in-depth analysis or even a thematic overview

the reason i bring up the idea of existentialism as a pendulum is that i think houseki no kuni represents this exact pendulum, taken to its utter extremes, where the tragedies and experiences of phosphophyllite seem to reflect how i view my own life. briefly looking at the process of phos as a character, we see that from the very first moment they can recall, all they ever wanted was to be useful to people. they feel this inherent debt towards the people around them, some that are seemingly based in a desire for approval and others that stem from a desire to simply provide unconditionally for those around them. a lot of works look at this sort of dichotomy between self-sacrifice and selfishness, and the possibility that both are not mutually exclusive outcomes, and i think that houseki no kuni is no exception however it applies an interesting perspective to it.

the first thing that we need to understand about phos is that their desire to help others doesn't just come from nowhere. it is a product of the society that they live in, and it is not as if the gems live by rules and implied ideas that are any different than ours. when you judge a member of society, in your own world, i want you to think about what fairly objective metric you would use to determine their worth? while there are a few valid answers, i think most of them would be based on their contributions, or some extension of their character that you think is a net positive on society. in the land of the lustrous (see what i did there), there is a heavy emphasis on survival, and the value of individuals is determined by the qualities that contribute the most to the society (hardness and capability as a fighter seem to be clear determinants of the hierarchy) and if you can't fight, your other methods of contribution, such as rutile's ability to fix the broken gems. as such, phos's desire to contribute, while seemingly based in self-sacrifice is really just a product of their own desire to be acknowledged. but this is not to say that phos is selfish, because they are a genuinely kind gem, and while we see several gems that maintain this order, contribute and are self-sacrificing in similar manners, a lot of them do it out of self-preservation, whereas phos has a desire to simply just help. they want to feel as if they're a part of the greater society

part of what makes this idea of self-sacrifice inherently disagreeable and difficult to extend to a lot of people's individual lives is exactly that they feel highly individualistic. in a world where there is everybody (8 billion is not a small number) people are inclined to think that there is only them that matters. even if we consider that there are a special few that we let into our lives and view as special, oftentimes these bonds are crude and inevitable to be broken in the pursuit of oneself ultimately the plague of individualism is exactly what separates people from the ability to unconditionally view their lives in service of others as an ouroborostic ideal, where the fulfillment of ones self stems from the fulfillment of others.

the subsequent phases of the story go through phos's increase in strength at the cost of antarcticite's life, coupled with a lot of trauma and an inability to accept the position that they always desired as a fighter. this, coupled with a distrust in kongo leads to phos's deep dive into a desire for the truth, but really it is not truth that they pursue but change because they feel it as their duty, letting it usurp and become them, as the pressure of this duty breaks phos on and on.

as we move through the story, we see phos sacrifice bits and pieces of themself, both metaphorically, and literally, as they attempt to satisfy every goal and every task requested of them, and when it boils down to it, they either are unable to fulfill any of it, or fail at doing so. this slow burn through the story, while essentially exposition, is crafted in such a compelling manner. you can truly feel the disappointment the characters experience in phos, and the disappointment they experience in themselves. this manifests itself ultimately in a destruction of all of phos's ideals that they spawned in with. their shift back to individualism is viewed as a negative thing for a lot of readers, and while the context of the story does a lot of heavylifting for the viewer's frame of mind, there should be no surprise that people tend to scorn individualistic frameworks of thought.

it is not as if ichikawa is inherently disregarding phos's pursuit of the truth as a bad thing, but i think the idea that you should do it entirely by yourself is something that Ichikawa considers self-destructive, which i think is the main idea behind everything up until chapter 80ish, where phos decides to make kongo pray. this is where the rest of the story funnels into its big sacrifice for phos. the big twist, where phos is left with nothing but themself for 10000 years. over this time, phos has tons to reflect on everything that the gems did to betray their trust and good will, and despite all of this, phos still decides to pray. following this, phos even sacrifices themself finally.

i don't want to talk at length about this portion of houseki no kuni for a couple of reasons. one is that there are tons of incredibly intelligent and perceptive people that have written about phos's prayer, and shared their perspectives, the good and the bad about it, and i find my thoughts to be nothing unique and mostly a reflection of the general consensus. what i do want to touch on, is ichikawa's final thoughts. what happens after the prayer?

first thing to point out is phos's very obvious realization. they sacrificed everything when all they really wanted was to be loved. they desired change, truth, love, but never really did anything to satisfy their own craving for love, just missions that they hoped would serve as a means to that end.

phos ends up finding a new species, new people to love and people that love them. and they live out their happy years until the sun comes to envelope them. phos feels committed to their duty and decides to stay back to sacrifice themself to the sun, and this ultimate act of self-sacrifice is i think what has brought me to the core of houseki no kuni

it was one of the most raw, and rough endings of all time, and it was filled with moments that were hard to really rationalize, and an unusual explanation of a lot of the things that were inherent to the story, but in the end, all that was left was phosphophyllite

and phosphophyllite was light... really light... there was really nothing left of them besides their goal. when everything was fully erased, that inherent desire never truly left, and so they hope they can brighten someone's day.

people feel so often that they have no purpose, and that they cannot feel loved by anyone, and yet they will never acknowledge their inherent need to love, and their inherent need to acknowledge their purpose. repressing and burdening yourself over the years with all of these thoughts, only for the most fleeting, light, and authentic portion of yourself to still yearn for you to maybe get yourself out of the passenger seat and drive it yourself. the desire to be loved is not one that can be enacted passively, and the desire for purpose is not something that can be enacted actively. to be loved and to love, and to act for your purpose, and act as a means to your purpose. houseki no kuni reminds you what exactly to pursue.

[sashiepoo]

ts pmo

in the process of reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnets on love, I think I'm incapable of writing anything that scales more than half the page

[sashiepoo]

souvlaki and non-verbal communication

words are a very powerful thing, and carry a lot of meanings, but i believe that they are also a reductive means of communication. a lot of works have considered the ideas of a pure distilled communication, from one brain to another, unified in thought. works such as evangelion, rahxephon explore this idea on a deeper internal consciousness level, while some other works like star trek or sense8 look at a unifying collective will and drive, or the breaking down of personal boundaries through the shared collective experience of life. these shows express this concept as true understanding, but they often take it to the level of a fusing of consciousness, which i think eliminates personal expression and identity. i think it is fundamentally interesting, but as a common theme of this blog, it is not practical for people to fuse their consciousness or somehow become completely unified in thought, and as a lot of these works look into, maybe it isn't even ideal for two to become one. our individuality and uniqueness and our ability to come together and coalesce as one is what enhances the human condition, rather than to eliminate ourselves in purpose of a more effective collective.

as such, i want to talk about slowdive, and specifically souvlaki, and how they have embraced this concept of non-verbal communication that feels like a true heart to heart, like a story said without words. I'll roughly go through a few of the album's tracks, highlighting how this idea displays itself through not just the lyrics but the songs as a whole, and how this central idea reflects what the point of souvlaki is.

souvlaki is an album that is centered around the breakup of the band's leading members, neil halstead and rachel goswell, and a lot of the songs discuss the various stages of their relationship, various experiences of not just love, but hate, and the collective whole experience of the two. it often talks about moments shared, and times passed, and uses the ambient elements of a genre like shoegaze to envelop the listener into the experience. the words are only used to express the sentiment and concept of the situation and all of these aspects aggregate and work off each other to bring the viewer into the world of souvlaki. it feels like you are watching a jumbled biography of their relationship play out in your eyes. i remember the first time i watched a slowdive music video i was in awe at how the music video felt like it was exactly what my mind had painted, and i just witnessed as it played out in front of me. the music and the lyrics painted a scenery for me that seemed to be a unified expression and this is in no short part the talent of rachel, neil and other members of slowdive in being able to create a shared vision of an experience. focusing on sonicality and instrumentation in a genre like shoegaze is a bit like beating a dead horse, but i would be remiss to not mention how incredibly well composed every song is, and how it plays right into the lyrics and drastically enhances the experience of souvlaki as a narrative.

looking at individual songs, first up on the podium is alison. alison has been one of my favorite songs of all time and is very comfortably my favorite off of souvlaki. alison plays out as a conversation between two people, where a man is begging for the aforementioned alison to understand that their relationship is a self-dooming prophecy. they are sinking together and he is trying to pull her out, but under the influence of their miasmatic relationship, she laughs it off, and he just gives it all up. there are several interpretations that could work for this song, such as the male being in a trance, or alison being dead, but they all come together to paint the same idea through the song, of a desperate individual trying so hard to break out of this poisonous chamber, but ultimately just being dragged back in. the imagery of a silent alison that is talking, the hallucination brought upon by the pills, and the desperation of the male character solely narrating his desire to break free, only for nobody to really be hearing him cuts deep through the listener. i think this song serves as an example of the disconnect brought about by something like non-verbal communication, as well as how your words and actions can often conflict. despite begging to leave and escape, the male character just sits there side by side with alison, engaging in the same worldview, and while his words reflect one thing, to someone who is not listening, his actions seem like they are indicating that everything is going just fine, as the song concludes on the note of alison simply laughing off his concerns about their sinking ship of a relationship

souvlaki space station is a lot more directly enchanted into the concept of words being paltry. the very first words, "closed doors bring open minds and i don't want to see you" could very well be interpreted as keeping your mouth closed to open a deeper connection. the continuing lines play off of this, with the line "see you smile inside and i don't want to know you" talking about how the visual and non-verbal communication matters more than talking about oneself. the bouncing notes in the music almost replicate the sound of a wavelength, rippling and connecting, as nothing is said but the pendulum of connection fiercely connects the two. the subsequent verse "doors close and feelings flow [...] through my mind i feel his" are another very direct way of showing how non-verbal communication enables people to understand each other more directly.

the last song i'd like to mentions is melon yellow, but i don't have too much to add. i mean it speaks for itself -

Follow the sun, I watched you follow the sun Sitting here I watched you dance Looking for the sun I watched you dance So long, so long It's just a way to love you So long, so long It's just a way to love you I saw you looking at the sun I saw you looking at the sun

love isn't just words or romantic/sexual actions. an expression is worth a million words, and the silence between the irrelevant words is where two people truly connect, and that is what souvlaki embraces beautifully in the story it shares.

[sashiepoo]

listening to twin fantasy (mirror to mirror) an this shit sounds like it was recorded on a spoon. terrible. love it

[sashiepoo]

ts fire

scripting: pokemon bw2 and the importance of talking to people

Been obsessed with pokemon since receiving a copy of white from my uncle in 2011, probably a large section of my brain reserved solely for type matchups, stat distributions and movesets, but I digress. I found out about emulating ds games around a year ago and one of the first games I played was white, (whose collective story including the sequels could be the subject of a whole other project but that's besides the point) and after some time I decided to give the sequels a shot.

I feel like an in-depth explanation of a pokemon play through isn't really necessary, you catch battle evolve blahblahblah, very standard. But then at some point throughout the game you reach Village Bridge. From what I can recall, there isn't actually much to do outside of a few battles and items you can pick up, but the layout allows for a straight cut leading right into the next area:

The linear design of the map discourages the exploration often required to get through certain areas, which I think makes Village Bridge a lot more special. At its core pokemon is a very tedious, grind-heavy game, and when you have such an easy path straight to progression, it's tempting to just fly straight through in lieu of exploring. As such, I feel like the significance of Village Bridge goes over a lot of people's heads, which is the subject of what I'd like to start working on:

Within Village Bridge resides certain NPC's that you must talk to in order to get them to play a certain instrument. That's it. There's 4 of them, one in each corner of the map, each with the ability to produce music with their own respective instruments: the flute, guitar, cappella, and vocals. I know that this doesn't sound like much, but going through the trouble of finding each musician, talking to everyone you see in hopes that they're the one you're looking for, all that effort just to hear a goofy song that sounds more of pixels than anything, it stuck with me. It felt tranquil, beautiful, somewhat intimate. Strangely, the gimmick of Village Bridge showed me the beauty that resides in talking to people. Yes, the children's game about fighting magical creatures with your own magical creatures gave me a new perspective on life. It meant a lot to me, being a shy kid I was always horribly inconvenienced by reaching out, starting conversation. Even as this issue persists, it's a little easier nowadays because of this experience, however silly it sounds. Rather than anxiety, there's some excitement at the idea of getting to know somebody you've never known, their interests, what they have to tell you.

Ever since my discovery of the musicians of Village Bridge, I've wanted to write about it, some sort of script for some short video essay that I'll never release to the public. At least this way, its significance is documented, somewhere. While the post itself captures the rough idea of what I want the message to be, it's heavy on the rough, and additional research / structuring needs to be done, along with simply making it read prettier, more sentimental. I'm writing this now to reference when I do start working on this, and that so you guys (sashrichiejonahadrienne) can read, critique, generally just let me know what you think, I've never done this before so it could be cool!. Really long post. Woaaahh...

[sashiepoo]

Recently I reread Solanin. I always think about this manga, more than anything else I have ever read. I see nothing of myself in it and everything of myself in it. I could never have the courage to put it all down like they do, and I don’t think I really even have the desire to do so. The comfort of a world of security is not worth a fleeting happiness that is still otherwise achievable. There’s so much the manga attempts to say about life, that it distills and purifies into a few crucial moments. Words are weak and fragile while experiences are so powerful. However, the experience of words are resilient and memorable while the words of an experience are forgettable, and a paltry imitation. Your life will always play out the way you make of it, regardless of the uncontrollable experiences, you are only limited by your perception. When you bound yourself to a life spent imprisoned, the sky looks heavy and low. And sometimes you will sit back and think to when the sky looked like a vast expanse. Put yourself in a position to make the memories you wish to make. Live a life that liberates you, because you only get one chance, and the deeper you let the shackles sink into your skin, the harder they clench and suffocate your limbs, your neck, your heart.

Today I hit 20. I’ve charted out my entire life a year in advance, and come next year I will chart it out again. The truth though is that none of it is really planned. I will account for what I need to do to keep afloat and keep working on myself, but I am stuck wondering how will I make friends, where will I belong, how could I ever possibly express everything I’ve ever wanted to towards my mom, will I ever find a love that feels right. I just don’t know what I want, as I sabotage myself every moment, wishing for a pleasant time in the middle of exhilaration and something to happen during peace. I see no light of hope in tomorrow and I don’t care if it is dramatic or boring because I don’t want either. I see what my future would look like everyday. It isn’t bad and it doesn’t horrify me. But how could I entrust myself to that life?

I could keep listing every complaint, every fear I have. But right now, I feel happy, really happy. And maybe it is enough to just live. These meager concerns fade for just a moment, on a brief walk to class, in the middle of a favorite song, in moments of exhilaration and peace, emotions wash one another out, like a tidal wave, and as one swings in the other swings out like a pendulum. This delicate balance guides you between the precipice of fear and security, angst and satisfaction, pain and joy, love and hate, life and death. Maybe nothing is going right, maybe you need a little more time to find an answer, but no matter how hard it is, even if it takes you to the end of the earth, walk the right path. Live without regrets, because this life leaves no room for what-ifs. Maybe this moment right now is a small part of your futile daily life. But the reality is you can never return to those days gone by.

[sashiepoo]

“There’s a demon lurking in Tokyo.”

That’s how I used to feel, ten years ago.

We were unarmed but we still randomly tried to take on the invisible fiend.

But what were we really fighting back then?

And did we end up losing?

Now I have something to protect.

I think I’m better cut out to protect than to fight.

And I’m living today to support that faint hope.

Days will feel ordinary and at the same time like I’m in a dream.

Sometimes even now that melody comes back to me.

“If I had done this then…”

“If I could return to then…”

“But I can’t become the boy I was…”

Yeah. There’s no going back.

I’ve walked too far away now.

And I have to keep moving forward.

Even if the going’s tough…

… and I have to keep on to the very ends of the earth.

[sashiepoo]

This isn’t a dream, it’s not like that It’s just not here for us, you know? Not for anyone anywhere.

[sashiepoo]

the dichotomy of type a and type b chatters is so fascinating because nobody is actually seriously categorized into one they just switch their team based on which one they’ve either been stockholmed into or find more contrarian

[sashiepoo]

can they just start fuckin already

[sashiepoo]

i wish to be seen bleeding

we’d always take turns with the knife, never going out of turn

every time we played, i’d hope that you would try to listen to the beat for once

but instead you’d simply look at the pulse of my neck with your beady eyes or listen to the pattern of my breath through your pierced ears

you would just smile and graze my skin, as we continued the suffocating farce for years until eventually the cuts stopped

as i stood covered in a thousand slashes, i looked at the thousand punctures on you. i’d keep stabbing but nothing else poured out

i took the hint and put my knife down, never knowing if i had a choice to let go

every now and then, i think about picking it back up, but i know i will never be impaled, and i know you’ve nothing left to bleed

really, i only rue it because im afraid of being stabbed, for what if my blood isn’t sweet, or is too thin, or isn’t red enough, or just isn’t there

so i wave goodbye, and as your gashes fill back up, i realize i actually didn’t care all that much for your blood

[sashiepoo]

never forgiving the internet for calling csh male manipulator music

[sashiepoo]

ode to twin fantasy and csh

for the past 3ish years, since i first listened to it, my favorite album has been twin fantasy, and i have never quite been able to verbalize why that is. my hope is to sort of outline my journey through car seat headrest, why they stuck out to me on a first listen, and ultimately how they have come to be my favorite band.

i still remember the first time i heard about car seat headrest. i was scrolling through tiktoks, back during the trend of talking about male manipulator music, and i constantly saw the name car seat headrest pop up, and i thought it was a fucking hilarious band name but never really gave too much thought as to why it had a negative connotation. i can also recall all the "i hate car seat headrest" posts while obviously not being in on the joke. all of this sort of created a very negative perception for a while.

the very first song i listened to by car seat headrest was sober to death. i listened to it on sept 5th 2022, and that day i played it 250 times. then i proceeded to listen to it another 250 times everyday for the rest of september. by the end of the month i had accrued 3000 listens to that one song, on repeat, as it consumed my life. i never dared to venture deeper into their discography, as i was content simply listening to the same song on loop for hours, as i let it breeze through my head, and every few listens, maybe something stuck out to me more, and maybe the lyrics weren't just words, and this wasn't just a song, and it was something real.

the next song i listened to was bodys, which i adored just as much, but didn't decide to loop like a maniac. instead i decided to listen to the entire album, since if i liked one song enough to listen to it 3000 times, and i liked the subsequent song (which i admittedly looped around a 100 times, idk why i was so obsessed with looping songs) then why not listen to the entire album. the first listen had a lot of things that didn't make too much sense to me, and it was the kind of album that i could never fully process in one listen and yet it all felt so real. these weren't just lyrics, and these weren't just songs. these were stories, emotions, and tangible thoughts. every song felt like a direct confrontation. there is a deep desire for acknowledgment that resonates from twin fantasy, and yet it is all directed back to the listener. the mirror motif of twin fantasy is shockingly apt, as every plea by will, every wish of his, feels like a conversation that you are having with someone, and while i can never quite fill in the blanks with individuals, the desire to be acknowledged was still there.

i could talk at length about what twin fantasy represents, but that is not why it is my favorite album. the prose of will, the instrumentation on twin fantasy, the beautiful buildup of individual songs and albums, and everything about the album would have already made it one of my favorite albums of all time, but lets be real, it has been THE album since my first listen for one reason, because it is the only thing that has ever gotten me. it is the only album that has ever understood even a little bit about me. this is not to say that i am a complex individual or i am a difficult person to grasp, and this is not to say that people have never made efforts to know me. i have just never managed to fully express myself to people. laying myself bare is scary, and even if i found someone i was comfortable sharing everything about myself with, nobody wants to reciprocate that. twin fantasy was the mirror that ripped my clothes and veils off, and let me stand in front of it naked, and feel for once, that who i am wasn't something to be disgusted by or ashamed of.

there are so many things that obviously don't resonate with me about twin fantasy, i don't really have a strong sense of personal expression, and i don't have a strong desire for intimacy, physically or emotionally. but sometimes i wonder if i only feel this way because of how i've repressed myself my entire life. the way that these ideas manifest in twin fantasy invites me to think about how i wished to have something raw and real, how i wished to be able to live comfortably in my contradictions and hypocrisy, and how much i hate love and love love, and hate people and love people, and hate living and love living so much. it reminds me that i am not in the middle, i am stretched so far to the extremes that my median lies right in the middle. it almost feels like twin fantasy was the first thing out there that ever invited me to think about what love means to me, what connection means to me, and what i wish other people knew about me. it is the first time i felt like there was something out there that cared about who i was. while i'm comfortable in my lack of sexual/romantic desire, i wish so deeply to be understood, and to be able to love and receive love, in a way that means so much more than some stupid love language that could never possibly capture the breadth of such an emotion. i desire for a love where i am seen, understood, and when everything about me is stripped to its bare minimum, i wish for the person in front of me to be able to smile, and accept me for what i am. and twin fantasy reminds me that it is a possibility. i don't hope for it or live my life to achieve it, but i know that it exists out there, and that there is a concept of love that i feel comfortable with. for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. now i know in part; then i shall know fully, even as i am fully known

and now these two remain.

enjoy the horrible drawing idk why they are so far apart LOL

[sashiepoo]

blue period chapter 1; brief thoughts and introspection about media choices

first post! talking about blue period because i decided to randomly reread a bit of it. i implore anyone that wants to read this post to actually go and read the first chapter before going on ahead, but i will include panels for context regardless :)

linked here:

enter scene. yatora doesn’t get art, because he doesn’t get expression. everything he’s done has merely been a reflection of other people’s wants and desires and expectations, naturally, yatora feels as if everything he does is performative and only done so to appease and acquiesce to a norm.

the first chapter opens, talking about how yatora either plays the part of the perfect student to his mom, or the adorable and charming delinquent to his friends and dad, roles that he plays perfectly.

neither of these bring yatora satisfaction however, because these aren’t representations of him but projections of others. he speaks to appease and not to express.

the first chapter obviously has a lot of great scenes, yatoras first encounter with mori’s painting, and yuka absolutely clocking his bullshit, but something that really stuck out to me above all else in this chapter was this overarching idea of communication. blue period spends so much of its first chapter indirectly discussing what it means to communicate and why art instantly strikes to yatora so much. it is because it is the only way he can describe his emotions, to all the different people in his life to whom he couldn’t possibly describe these genuine attributes of himself to. he never communicates as himself, depicted by the significant shifts in language he takes around each person, the attitude with which he applies himself in various settings, portraying himself as nonchalant to his friends, a dedicated student to his parents, and simply someone getting by to those who bother him such as sensei. all of these are really paths of least resistance, to avoid expression of himself because he finds it too cumbersome, too honest, and too difficult. it is so much easier to just show off different portions of yourself to different people and communicate by telling people what they want to hear and showing them the kind of yatora they want to see. but then who is the yatora that yatora wants to see, wants to be shown, and wants to be appreciated? when does he get to acknowledge his feelings and have his feelings be acknowledged by others?

as he tries to convey his love for shibuya, he immediately realizes that it is not something words can describe, because fundamentally, his understanding of the view that is in front of him is different than what his friends see. this goes for everything, not just the scene of shibuya, and ultimately that is what art means to yatora. it is him giving in and showing a unified expression of himself, as well as an understanding that is uniquely his to everyone to look at indiscriminately. it's not a false portrayal tailored to an individual. he is letting these people form their own honest impressions of him rather than the artificial and one dimensional impressions he’s always tried to show to them, but it is his vision nonetheless, and it is something that is authentically him. through art, yatora can finally tell people what he likes, and what he dislikes, and who he is, rather than telling people what he thinks they would like or dislike. when mori says “if what you see is blue then let it be blue,” it is like a slap in the face to yatora, letting him know that he should be honest about how he feels, how he perceives and do things the way they are meant to be. art is the first time yatora was able to converse with someone, not simply talk to them. maybe it’s hard to tell someone what the early morning in shibuya is but with a picture, you can paint an encyclopedia about what the early morning in shibuya means to YOU.

something else noteworthy about mori’s conversation with yatora is that yatora instantly acknowledges her talent for art, which she dismisses, claiming it as hard work and commitment. this comes as a shock to yatora, as he always believed that anybody that did art or pursued it did so because they were talented and not because they had to work hard. i think it also plays in an interesting way into yatora’s obvious talent for art, shown by his keen observation and ability to easily pickup skills and improve rapidly. as someone who was always acknowledged as intelligent for what was really his hardwork, he craved to be acknowledged for something that felt truly real to him, and assumed that would apply to everybody else, but with art, everyone assumes it is about talent, when a lot of it is really hard work.

this chapter also highlights another misconception about art being a viable means to an end as far as living goes. blue period honestly confronts these topics, especially a manga that can be seen as glorifying the path of an artist, which yamaguchi doesn’t sugarcoat. it is not easy to be an artist but it is also not a god given talent. it is not easy to make money doing art but it possible.

blue period dives deeper into this idea later on, but the importance of constantly highlighting it never quite fades, and i think it is this honesty with respect to real life that makes works like ping pong, REAL, hajime no ippo, and blue period oddly comprise my top 4. it is because they show that it is possible to find something that really speaks to you, and live with it, and find your own way to shine, despite everything life throws against you within this path. they are odes to life for real people, with real constraints, struggles, and external expectations but also people with real hopes, desires, and passions. the various answers these works come up with to the all-encompassing question of purpose and success within life, not just in practice but in essence heavily change and impact me, which is embarrassing to admit but they truly comprise a large portion of how i understand the world i live in, the people that surround me and what i want to make of it. i don’t care for art all that much honestly, and it has never struck me as something that should mean something to me, but blue period speaks to me as a human, not as an artist, serving as an ode to how one should live their life; honestly.

and for the first time, it had felt like i had talked to someone for real.