Juuni Kokki notes (ep.6-13)

[petronia]

Happy Halloween. Not that, um, I haven't been entirely ignoring the holiday or anything. XD The concept is wonderful on paper; in practice I'm one of those people who hate cheesy costumes and orange plastic nearly as much as badly-taken photographs, and have neither the time nor the ability to make a nice costume - though T has an admitted knack for it. I used to like trick o' treating as a kid, but more for the festive village atmosphere than for the cheap sweets, so the idea of just buying a bag of candy and treating myself doesn't interest me.

Thus, instead of doing anything inherently Halloweeny, I went over to Erin's place and we marathoned Juuni Kokki. Up to episode 13 now. Will be watching more tomorrow in fact, as I rented the standard three tapes DVDs, forgetting that Juuni Kokki comes a generous five eps to a disc. ^^; But it covers what seems to be the Kei leg of the story, along with lengthy En digression/flashback and what my narrative radar (sensitized by all that Mirage of Blaze water torture) insists are skipped-over chunks of novel. That sinking feeling, I tell myself, is just the creaking of my overburdened bookshelves... Anyhow, I find I like the kirin because they are um essentially Taoist fatima. ^^; I'm typically uncomfortable with master-servant dynamics in stories (I had to go back and turn the slashes in this sentence into hyphens because the basis of the thing isn't sexual either way), but I do better with liege-vassal, and I like ruler-kirin or headliner-fatima. Couldn't tell you why. For all I know it's the Confucian in me raising its head: if Heaven assigns you your position it must be right, right? Or perhaps it's that kirin seem to have the same hard life as fatima do, in the sense that they're lucky if they don't, and since they're "immortal" chances are at some given time they will. It's what happens when one's happiness is entirely bound to the will and agency of another, not to say one's physical health. I've always sort of wanted a fatima, because I'd take care of her/him, and at the same time s/he would be undemanding (whereas I balk to a neurotic extent at the idea of mutual dependence in human relationships). Was told that this was an alarmingly male fantasy, but I think if you replace "fatima" with "pony" in that sentence it ceases to be one.

Or maybe it's my thing for working partnerships again. >_>

As for the Juuni Kokki universe itself, I find it disconcertingly... "girly" is the word that jumped to mind, except that sounds insulting. (Why should it sound insulting?) It bears some resemblance to the sort of fantasy universe I would've constructed when I was... younger than nine or ten, in fact, which is when I got sucked into Tolkien. XD More precisely, though, it feels like an entirely Taoist fantasy of ancient China: yin China, without its yang Confucianist half. I find that I've begun to side with Kristin on the question of uhh fruit flavours that was discussed earlier, not so much because I like it better but because her instinct was right: it suits the tenor of the alterna-world better.

Did I miss any important notes? ...Oh yes. RAKUSHUN. AHAHAHA BRILLIANT HOW CAN ANYONE SAY NO TO THAT FACE? XDXD

Part of the rationale behind marathoning Juuni Kokki, by the way, is that it helps keep my mind off Mirage of Blaze. This is how much I'm pwnz0red by Kuwabara Mizuna at the moment: I'm actively trying not to read 5.5, because I know I have to write the summary of book 5 first or I'll never get it done, and it keeps sucking me back for a few more pages. If your name is Aki, know that afterward they went back to the hotel and IT GOT EVEN WORSE.