Thank you Masha

There you go. Tearing up after seeing your post on your bday. 

I saved the pic of you and your grandma comparing hands, using it as one of my backgrounds now. 

disillusionment and hope

I have finally reached a stage in life where I can buy non-pirated mangas without feeling guilty. (shouldn't it be the other way around lol) Unfortunately good stories are scarce, and passion is rarely rekindled, hence I sway between these somewhat extreme states of disillusionment and hope...

Bungou Stray Dogs - Though not much, I actually know a little bit about the Japanese writers in the Meiji and Taisho eras beyond a lot of them dying from consumption and poverty etc, so you can imagine my excitement when the manga boasted of the setting that these literary giants band together, go on adventures and fight crimes, and my shock horror bitter disappointment when I realised the characters were in name only and lack any kind of nuances resembling the historical figures. I mean even depiction of Dazai's suicidality was nothing beyond the superficial and quite bland. and when Ichiyo Higuchi became a cruel but stupid and unimportant mafia woman--- I think I was ready to put the book down and declare it a waste of money.
(no pictures as I do not recommend)

Moriaty the Patriot -- if the previous one is just bad this one is horrendous. I was lost for words apart from WTF. I hope to find a way to put in a formal complaint somewhere though my Japanese is non-existent.
1st chapter opened with a young aristocrat burning his whole biological family alive because they were snobs and didn't treat the working class very well and he wanted to turn the page and lead a more noble upright and sympathetic life. (????????) okay this was morbidly twisted but I would put up with it for now--who knows maybe down the track he would reveal a Patrick Melrose kind of developmental history and admit he's just taking revenge---
and then Sherlock Holmes showed up -- invited Mrs Hudson and Watson to a seedy bar, faked a message from Mrs Hudson to seduce a brute in the bar, and took leave from the scene so that Watson could rescue the damsel in distress and earn Mrs Hudson's trust and become his housemate. (???????) Mrs Hudson got harassed and groped in the process.
after I puked---Okay this stupid sociopathic piece of junk is not Sherlock Holmes alright. period.
(no pictures as I strongly advise against)

Lastly, the chance encounter with Golden Kamuy gave me immense hope...

Well researched and very interesting historical and cultural background(there was a Ainu dialect linguist as well as a Russian translator on the project), diverse characters with depths, and I am always always excited to see Shinpachi and Hijikata, especially as they are not going so gentle into that good night. If Saitou pops out somewhere later even better but hey I am not greedy...
Think what I appreciated most was that the author was incredibly merciful. His universe was a cruel universe, plenty of blood and gore and people die quickly and easily like candles being snuffed out, but the ones who were vulnerable from fate were the adult male characters - those who actively played a role in the universe, those who needed to take responsibilities for themselves and their surroundings.
-while the animals, the children, and the weak and elderly were invariably respected, cared for and sometimes with very happy endings. I melt every time following the story lines of Retar the wolf and Ryu the Hokkaido Inu, and so relieved that they did not have to be sacrificed in any way for the development of this human story.


what makes me a bit uneasy though was the dynamic between Asirpa and Sugimoto - especially after I realised that she's only meant to be 12-13 (seriously even 15 would be a much more comfortable number!) It was very obviously accepted in the story that there was a special bond between the two while every other adult male character treated Aspirpa as a child. @_@ am sorry, after the Watsuki scandal I think of the P word wherever I go and definitely have some PTSD...
Having said all that, the Kenshin romantic lines on the other hand were a lot more appropriate and clear cut - Kaoru at 17 was considered an adult and could have something going on with the 28yo Kenshin, while Misao at 16 was clearly and consistently considered a child. though she was infatuated with Aoshi, there was never any indication even subtly that Aoshi reciprocated in any kind of way...
...but guess what Watsuki turned out to be? oh the irony...
well in that case I will try to be less paranoid and just enjoy the story for now.

and a much less important shortfall XD the male characters were diverse in looks and personalities and actually all quite likeable, but they were all too "straight" (and probably too involved in battling the harsh elements to have space and energy for anything else) that none really stood out and could make me go starry-eyed... but hey like I said... I am not greedy...

Hajj

So... following Kenshin’s footsteps, I recently visited Hakodate. ^_^ Surprisingly enough after my very angry rant earlier this year about the lacklustre storyline of the Hokkaido Arc - the plot took a more exciting turn in the last few months and focused back on Saitou, interactions between Kenshin and Saitou, as well as the comical addition of Shinpachi which I thought was a really positive spin.

So, hope is re-instilled and I am pleased that I saw it with my own eyes now rather than later. Photos of Goryokaku and Hekketetsu-hi Monument and the memories that I was physically there myself will probably bring back some positive emotions for years to come. Moreover who knows when Watsuki will do some unforgivable deeds again and Hokkaido arc will die prematurely...or more likely when my own moralistic attitude will take over and my love for kenshin will be no more.

Goryokaku was very touristy - mainland groups taking photos in throngs up on Goryokaku Tower-- I bet they didn't know a thing about the history and cared even less. Hekketetsu Monument on the other hand was deserted - it was away from pretty much everything else though and was up in a mountain. I went there early in the morning by myself (didn't think hubby would appreciate it and also underestimated the distance -_- lol). It was a chilly long hike (maybe only 15 mins but felt like an hr due to my physical unfitness) and there was this eerie buddhist temple leading up to it...@.@|||| think I got a bit freaked out even with the images of my favourite superheros cheering me on:

There was a certain degree of sadness as I looked at Hakodate city (maybe its just me with my chronic dysthymia). it was desolate, ran down, almost a haunted version of its old self - about 150 years earlier when it became a port to the outside world - foreign influences and trade flooding in as well as migrants from the rest of japan - and that strong and glaringly bright sense of hope-- that with willpower and hardwork alone, great things can be made out of this harsh cold no man’s land...

Such was the hope of Kenshin's times--this heroic inevitability perhaps bound to fail, but something I so lack and so desperately want to hold onto..

I also bought the Kenshin merchandise - cross scarred apple pies. Just for the boxes really. -_-||| the apple pies themselves taste a bit like 老婆饼…… Not the most impressive Hokkaido pastries...

anyways this is getting a bit long for a jet lagged brain, I have wanted to talk about Kenshin, and Saitou, and Kenshin+Saitou for the last couple of years but kept procrastinating. maybe another time... lol

Hope instilled

Hegira

So, it has been more than a year... issues settled and maybe...almost back to normal. the Kenshin Hokkaido Arc restarted in the Jump monthly serials, and Watsuki promised fans a good story, as a way for himself to reflect and repent etc. 2 new manga volumes have been published and the 2nd volume made it to the Top 3 selling chart (The other 2 are both current weekly serials, and I guess it just shows how robust Kenshin’s old fan base is) New kenshin movie is in the making - though I really have doubts about Takeru Sato pulling it off as teenage kenshin this time... (isn’t he also well in his 30s now??) but never mind...

In this whole time I have been ruminating, and am still ruminating now. About Watsuki, about Kenshin, Saitou, Kaoru, Hiko-sensei...the familiar storyline playing over in my head again and again.
and I guess mostly about myself, and why this continues to haunt me so much.

Loyal fans have come to Kenshin’s defense and the most often heard argument has been the need to separate the art from the artist, though in my mind that is almost a whitewashed lie. Art simply cannot be separated from the artist and in many ways art really IS the artist. What you commit to paper is often the innermost you coming under the sun - ironically more vulnerable and exposed than a pedophilia arrest in the news.

I guess that is where I get stuck.

I have been quite disappointed at the Hokkaido story since its 1st chapter, even with Watsuki’s moral failings aside, and the subsequent chapters so far did very little to salvage it.
What’s with the agitated parade of all the past popular characters in the initial chapters? And in the recent ones even Hiko-sensei? He’s in the mountains making pottery and the story hasn’t hit the critical point so leave him alone! Just an attempt completely lacking in confidence to grab hold of the different fan bases so they don’t drop out? -_-|||||
I won’t even mention the fact that Saitou-san appeared in almost all the marketing materials yet his role in the story was fleeting and he shyed away from showing the world that his left hand was injuried in battle against a powerful opponent — that’s really not Saitou-san is it?
I am dreading but also waiting for Hokkaido Arc to end quickly and prove that it is pale, feeble and crap so I can really fly off the handle about it. Yes I know I am just an angry obsessional perfectionistic fan who’s on the lookout for something to be pissed off about—-

But maybe the anger did not stem from Hokkaido - it was elusive but raising its head already back in Tokyo with the Jinchu Arc. Though somewhat representing the good and evil polarity, siblings Tomoe and Enishi actually were both rather chaotic in their coping style facing grief and loss. It is hardly explainable only by the loss of a mother when they were young but the role of their father seemed very much missing —yet we at least know he was well and alive and held a respectable position in the Bakumastu at least till Tomoe was at a marriageable age....

If he remained invisible and absent till the end that was that, but a bit later in the story this jovial irrelevant and somewhat out of place old man popped up in the village of the fallen — first doing some supportive counseling to Kenshin and later, aromatherapy to Enishi... and somehow in the midst of all these low key psychological support stuff he revealed himself to be Tomoe’s father (hence - Enishi’s father too and Kenshin’s father in law?)

Even as a teenager I found it very odd and unconvincing and doesn’t quite make sense.

And just maybe, the very same odd and incoherent sentiment,15 years later, drove the naggingly unsettling pretext from which all the events take place in Hokkaido - the hegira in search of Kaoru’s absent father - who was assumed dead for years and was hardly missed in the original story. yes Kaoru was in the habit of picking up older men off the streets (lol) but she was quite clear in her need for servants to do her household chores and not for paternal replacements. Funny enough, even in the midst of this current Hegira, Kaoru 5 years older and now a mother herself, still seemed rather chilled about all this kerfuffle. The proactive one jumping up and down about finding this new father-in-law he never met and drove all this adventure to take place - is Kenshin.

I do find this misplaced father complex rather cringeworthy. My fondest memories about the Kenshin story and what made it full of warmth, hope and security is its offering of a glimpse to a world, though toxic, ruthless, and misleading, without a care for its young and weak—is also littered with spiritual fathers left right and centre, who come in all ages shapes and forms but invariably true to their values, honest to their feelings and noble at hearts, who will meet you along the treacherous road, each playing his part guide you through bits of the journey till you safely reach the other end.

I really missed that. And I kept wondering what happened, for Watsuki who created this glorious world full of brillant fathers, to spiral down into this pitiable regressed form, repetitively, pathologically depicting the process of finding a wayward father home as the ultimate fulfilment, as well as the desperate need to show that despite absence and abandonment, such a father is still a very good father and even his absence must have been for a decent and noble reason.

And ultimately what does this say about me? - who remain on ill terms with both parents, perhaps for a very long time too, just that getting married made everything came out under the sun a lot more. — who have been in this state of chronic dysthymia and acopia perhaps because there were never much faith (or shall we say illusions?)in my biological father’s ability to tackle the world. - who as a teenager found the Kenshin story life changing and inspiring and wanting to create a secure world of fathers of my own but now many years later as a disgruntled middle aged woman really doubting this could even be done—

And yet...I am feeble and ambivalent even in this acceptance of the impossible - now and then I would still dig some graves and rattle some long dead bones...hoping to replicate this security...for myself and maybe for others...someday...somehow.

Though as I was venting, the latest chapter of Hokkaido Arc came out - in its last page, there was half a silhouette of Saitou-san, with an injured arm still recovering—
But still standing tall, still smoking, and will still give Kenshin some attitude once he walks through that door. Not parental at all but most containing.

And that was enough. I am feeling hopeful again, maybe just enough for me to survive another day of suppressing negative emotions dealing with my family of origin.

When the prayer curtain falls

I haven't written for a while. A lot of lifestyle changes has taken place. I have also turned another year older. I have noted with sadness, perhaps mostly disappointment in myself - that I have finally reached Saitou-san's age.
Yes, fictional I know, but it was a magical number to me for a long time.
The stage of life Saitou-san was at when he met and challenged Kenshin with his famous lines -

The last time we fought, was on the battlegrounds of Toba-Fushimi. 
So,that makes it ten years. 
Ten years...
Two little words said in a breath.
But living it through, is an awfully long time. 
As you put it, ten years...
is long enough to make a man ROT. 
Drowning in your self-satisfaction and phony righteousness...
How can the Hitokiri Battosai protect people without killing?
Have you forgotten?
"A Swift Death for the Evil"
That was the code of justice common to both the Shinsengumi and the Hitokiri. 

i will digress a bit and do some housekeeping updates--
In Feb this year, Watsuki-sensei was not charged but only fined for his paedophilia habits. The fact, that after all the media upheaval and fans' bitter disillusionment etc etc, his punishment turned out so proportionately light, made me suspecting that his perverse collections were perhaps anime-only, and had nothing to do with real children. -_-|||| But, enough was enough and the damage was done. Ironically the very man who made Saitou-san someone not holding back such memorably sharp criticism -of a man previously upright "rotting" after years of invisibility from the public eye - has apparently rotted himself.

Strangely or not I did not actually find it so hard talking about his perversity. Maybe slightly more of an understanding of the culture has allowed me to be condoning. After all, not so long ago compensated dating with under aged school girls was still not taboo in the jap society and only became illegal in very recent years. Instead I struggled hard with the fact that he has rotted in less perverse and much less obvious ways and somewhere inside me still bloody hurts every time when I think about it.

When news came of the Shonen Jump 50th anniversary exhibition - I was determined to do an otaku business trip, and so I did. (yes I ate the delicious Anzai-sensei pudding that had the boing boing bouncy texture just like when Hanamachi bounced his chin XD)

I read Watsuki-sensei's interview from the official exhibition catalog (beautifully bilingual, beautifully translated). The talented genius storyteller has become a disappointment in so many ways - in fact - he was at a complete loss as to why Kenshin was such a popular series. Quoting him:

"30% of the readers were female when it was first serialised. Today a lot of females read Shonen Jump, but back then it was rare. Now that I think about it, the reason why it appealed to so many female readers could have been due to the story being told from a woman's perspective. I didn't realise it back then"

You've got to be joking.
*facepalm*

There really wasn't such a thing as "a woman's perspective" in the Kenshin story. In fact, Watsuki's depication of apparent adult female characters (and there weren't many) were actually terrible fails. In retrospect this is hardly surprising for a man who struggled with mature sexuality and turned to paedophila. Megumi and Tomoe were merely make-believe 2D symbols of what beautiful women should be like and lacked any convincing character depth. Kaoru - got a lot of positive light as the female lead but was incoherent at best, and otherwise quite regressed and impulsive, with a brain completely not in the league as any of the other main characters. I wonder now and then how much he would have subconsciously modelled Kaoru on his own volatile needy mother...(this is going a bit far but I won't be surprised at all if he had one) The Kenshin story told from Kaoru's perspective? - that would be a nightmare.

So what has made a story lacking in convincing female characters so genuinely appealing to female audiences?

Oh the mystery and the irony.
He has not a single clue the real emotional and intellectual needs of the very subpopulation he is sexually attracted to.
Or maybe he intuitively had, once upon a time. and  now he has rotted, and lost it.

I think the discontinuation of the Kenshin sequel in response to his public fall from grace is a good thing.

Talking about pre-loved manga artists rotting... Takehiko Inoue is another. Well he hasn't committed any socially unacceptable crime yet, so my accusation of him rotting is for now but a cowardly whisper.
He has recently upgraded the slamdunk series covers with some new artwork...
Lots of media praise about youth, passion, friendship, nostalgia blah blah blah...
I am sorry... they actually look horrible. They look like middle-aged narcissistic men posing as lively hopeful high school students. Each of their facial expressions convey nothing but "my face alone is a work of art".

I think i feel a bit sick. I will do some comfort eating to cope with that.

the mad man

So I have gone back to re-read Kenshin since hearing about the scandal two weeks ago. These days I read much slower than I used to, but I still love the Kenshin manga to bits. I also caught up with a friend lately and talked about Watsuki-sensei's fall from grace. We watched two of the three Kenshin real-life movies together so the grief was really shared. We concluded that no matter what happened, Kenshin will remain as the best manga for us, so the only question remains - how now can we ever share it with our children? or our children's children?

Lots of memories came flooding back as I went through the story once again. There were many things I have held dear, but there were more things which have been ingrained in me and became second nature, and only now I realised -they actually came from Kenshin!

i really hope to note down all the things I want to say about Kenshin and Saitou before the end of the year, but these days I read and write so much slower than before so I am not too sure whether this is too ambitious. T_T There were so much I wanted to talk about Kenshin and Saitou, but before that I thought I really should give Soujiro a mention.

There was a part when Soujiro felt very challenged by Kenshin's world view in the midst of their battle and said one of most agonising things -
Back at that time, you... you did not come to rescue me. 
If what you have been saying are the truth - why? why did you not come to rescue me back then?
Back then, no one came to my rescue. 
The only thing that saved me was Shishio-san's words, and a short sword that he gave me. 

To which Kenshin replied-
You kept on mentioning about "back then" and questioned why wasn't I there to rescue you.
I am not able to travel back in time and I simply cannot imagine what really happened at that time or place,
but if it is not all too late, is it okay if we start the reparation now?

I guess I can easily imagine this being the universal unspoken conversation that takes place at work...

the most memorable thing about Soujiro is not what he said and did as a character but what Watsuki-sensei said about him when his part of the story came to a conclusion. Despite painting him as the teenage heart throb and being ever so sympathetic about his traumatic childhood and the choices he made subsequently - Watsuki-sensei's view on the approach of life he took was clear---

No matter what external difficulties one encounters in one's family or the wider society, no matter how difficult and bitter your life has been, being a person, living in this world, the one single thing you cannot give up is thinking independently.

There you go. It was a lesson I held dear as a miserable clueless teenager vulnerable to falling into all kinds of toxic external expectations.
and now looking back 17 years later, it is as needed a lesson now as it was back then.

Just for that alone, Watsuki-sensei is still Watsuki-sensei.

Oh and this article from Mockingbird is very timely.
Love the art, hate the artist?