Brain-dumpage for further reference
Nov. 10th, 2003 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaThe problem (or the thing, at any rate) about reading series all mixed up like this is that one starts to see correspondences, and by that I don't mean that Sasaki Kojirou is from Echizen. *g* No... Vagabond in a lot of ways is a kind of extreme, shounen manga ethos at its most stripped-down and terrible; makes you see sports manga (and even, say, Naruto) for the sublimations they are. Not that sublimation isn't a good thing. Sublimation into anything from board games to company-man fervour is what keeps latter-day society going, or we'd all be spilling our innards out onto sandy beaches instead of playing PS2. You know how I say people go see Gladiator-the-film for the same reason that Romans went to see gladiators at the Colosseum, the only forward motion involved is the invention of CG? Well, indeed. Motto Tsuyoku Nare laid bare is basically a monkeytestosterone urge to bash in the other ape's brainpan with a rock, and it's a testament to the monkeytestosterone-ity of humanity at large that it can produce such beauty in the eyes of the beholder (me in particular). But pointy metal things to balls is not such a bad progression.
Halfway between Vagabond and TeniPuri you get Peace Maker. In passing, the source of the illogical Japanese fascination with the Shinsengumi (because it is rather illogical): something to do with mono no aware. The last functional flowering of a certain beauty. It's still beautiful now in obsolescence, but Japanese aesthetics is never about superfluity. ...Mind you it took people a century or so post-Shinsengumi to figure out that it was obsolete. Once they did, though, they looked back and found a metaphor... Oshima pursues the train of thought to its stern logical end: the beauty is destructive to those it seduces and thus must be destroyed, or no progress can be made. (Refer Mishima's Kinkakuji, which is the individual counterpoint to the societal view.) The bishounen is to the Shinsengumi as the Shinsengumi is to Bakumatsu Japan. No joke, but of course he had to go and drown it in sex.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Okita Souji really is the last hurrah of the bishounen ideal, isn't he?
Want to finish my GB drabbles. Want to write drabbles for PMK, for that matter, except I'm really not far enough into the series as yet, and anyhow I'll probably be fabulously wanky about it and call them "netsuke" or something. Have been storing up a certain type of tanbi-wank that hasn't been employed properly since Maidens, and am dying for a series to dump it all on. Pity the fandom if I ever manage to drag my arse down to Villa Maria in order to rent Juuni Kokki. (No, no, wait wait wait I can be even wankier than this - "fuchigashira". Will someone please shut me up and tell me to get back to paid work? Thank you.) Will try again for manga today. Possibly kibishii ojisan made the person who took out the Peace Maker tankoubon bring it back in three days too.
Halfway between Vagabond and TeniPuri you get Peace Maker. In passing, the source of the illogical Japanese fascination with the Shinsengumi (because it is rather illogical): something to do with mono no aware. The last functional flowering of a certain beauty. It's still beautiful now in obsolescence, but Japanese aesthetics is never about superfluity. ...Mind you it took people a century or so post-Shinsengumi to figure out that it was obsolete. Once they did, though, they looked back and found a metaphor... Oshima pursues the train of thought to its stern logical end: the beauty is destructive to those it seduces and thus must be destroyed, or no progress can be made. (Refer Mishima's Kinkakuji, which is the individual counterpoint to the societal view.) The bishounen is to the Shinsengumi as the Shinsengumi is to Bakumatsu Japan. No joke, but of course he had to go and drown it in sex.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Okita Souji really is the last hurrah of the bishounen ideal, isn't he?
Want to finish my GB drabbles. Want to write drabbles for PMK, for that matter, except I'm really not far enough into the series as yet, and anyhow I'll probably be fabulously wanky about it and call them "netsuke" or something. Have been storing up a certain type of tanbi-wank that hasn't been employed properly since Maidens, and am dying for a series to dump it all on. Pity the fandom if I ever manage to drag my arse down to Villa Maria in order to rent Juuni Kokki. (No, no, wait wait wait I can be even wankier than this - "fuchigashira". Will someone please shut me up and tell me to get back to paid work? Thank you.) Will try again for manga today. Possibly kibishii ojisan made the person who took out the Peace Maker tankoubon bring it back in three days too.
