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petroniaHalfway through already. I may as well summarize while I feel like it. :P
Basically this is more setup for the next long arc. Chapter 1 touches base with the Takeda, who are keeping Yuzuru in a glass box in the basement likeCinderella Snow White; and the Oda, who are keeping Haruie in a glass box in the basement like Hannibal Lector. =_= (I feel really bad for Haruie, she got the worst deal out of all of them IMO.) The Takeda have acquired the Bomb as it were and are on the move. You find out some random stuff about Shingen's father complex. Nobunaga has put his musical career on hold and is undercover lord knows where doing lord knows what. Ranmaru acquired some interesting scars at Aso and is wearing his hair long over the side of his face in classic bishounen-with-interesting-scars style. Date Kojirou has come to terms with the idea that he's going to be a hostage forever and is pretty much going with the flow. Nagahide threw over the Uesugi for a bad job and joined the Oda, in repayment (he says) for sparing his life and getting him a new body. ^^;; Ranmaru assigns him to Shikoku with Shikanosuke (er, the skinny tanned guy with Isari-hime in books 10-12, who's constantly trying to revive the Amago clan - Chiaki collaborated with them at the time even though Takaya et al were technically speaking against them, but due to lack of communication the situation was resolved before it became an issue XD;) who cannot quite get his head around it, even though he'd talked himself into working for the Oda as well.
Also in Shikoku: Naoe, or at least a withdrawal was made from his bank account from an ATM in Tokushima. Ayukawa follows the money trail, unable to let the matter drop even though he has no idea what to do if/when he actually finds Naoe, and gets sidetracked into dorking over this. XD (Kids, do not try this at home, but if you jump in it you will wash up in the Twelve Kingdoms!) He gets Yagami to come down to help him in his search and - have I ever explained Yagami? The head of the "nokizaru", the Uesugi ninja, was a dude named Hakkai - dour fellow with a butler-ish air about him - who disappeared after book 12, presumed dead. So Kagetora gave the job to his second in command Yagami, who is a complete Kagetora Victim (tm) and spent a lot of time having jurisdiction conflicts with Fuuma no Kotarou that came down to "I'm his top ninja not you, interloper!" Of course, it turned out Hakkai wasn't dead, just working for Naoe's side. (And then he went AWOL again after Aso...) After Kagetora was stripped of his powers and disappeared, his immediate followers were reabsorbed into the neu!Uesugi, but the ones whose loyalties were uncertain were kept away from assignments of real importance. Yagami thus found himself with a great deal of free time on his hands. He and Ayukawa commiserate over 20th-century scourges such as airplanes, and there is much amusing talk about cashflow, as neither they nor Naoe are running on "official" funds (unbeknownst to them Irobe actually gave Naoe a bank card, but of course using that will let the Uesugi know where he is). They go off on their separate investigations and Ayukawa starts angsting about the state he found Naoe in after Takaya ran away, i.e. basically insane. He had a giant shard of glass right through the palm of his hand and had been staggering through woodland and swampland for days looking for Takaya, until he was covered with mud and blood and unable to stand, and Ayukawa had to cart him off to the hospital and put him on mental breakdown watch. Here's the thing about Ayukawa: he's only been "awake" for a couple of years, and was assigned to Naoe's faction immediately, so he basically doesn't know Kagetora from Adam. Insofar as he's concerned he's just the guy they fought against at Otate, whereas Naoe was his best friend (and at a guess the most logical and emotionally-detached person he knew). He is really, really unimpressed with the entire situation. XD;; The way you'd be if one of your really good friends suddenly turned into a raving crazy person over a girl/boy who is plainly just leading them on. Yagami's "Oh Kagetora-sama ;_;" attitude serves to improve his mood not at all.
Then he has to fight off a bunch of random goons from the Miyoshi clan, who suspected him of being after the "Star". More on this later.
Chapter 3: we follow a chipper young unknown named Ushio as he backpacks through a village somewhere in the vicinity of this, stopping off to renew acquaintances with various hearty general-store-running innkeeping taxi-driving ojisan and obasan. It's like watching one of those slow-moving Japanese movies that demand patience, as a little more information is revealed with each conversation (look, it's classier than the infodumps she has going sometimes, aight?). Ushio's a skinny blond currently unemployed outdoorsy "free-ter" type whose claim to fame in the village is that he was found in the woods five years ago unconscious and completely amnesiac - even his name, Mutou Ushio, was given to him by his attending doctor Mutou-sensei. Since then he's been returning to the woods periodically to camp out, fish, take hobby photographs and try to figure out who he is, to no avail. Lately he's also being harassed by a group of kids who insist he's "one of their kind" and should "join their side", along with all sorts of incomprehensible explanations, and who refuse to take "No, I'm not interested in gang membership" for an answer. You see where this is going.
As Ushio's tromping through the woods, taking photos of the autumn foliage and looking for a campsite, he encounters a sudden fog. Then he walks out of the fog on the other side (no mean feat, although he's unaware of it) and sees a naked boy bathing in the river. This makes for such a pretty picture his finger presses the shutter all on its own. XD The boy turns at the sound and Ushio is just able to see through the long-distance lens that he has one red eye, before he covers himself up and starts getting understandably PO'd.
It turns out that Takaya went into hiding in the woods because he can't stay in cities or towns - people throw up and keel over if he so much as asks them for directions. He stole camping equipment and went to Shikoku, because there's some sort of spiritual quality about the region that helps with his symptoms (this is not completely clear but I think the 88 pilgrimage sites are actually the tentpins of a giant 1200-year-old kekkai courtesy of Kuukai, and that's why the clans on the other islands have so much trouble finding out what's happening there). By the time Ushio finds him he's gone nearly feral. Takaya really doesn't want him hanging around, but Ushio is determined to make friends and genkis his way through, even offering to act as Takaya's "mosquito incense" - the Kihachi poison in Takaya's body attracts the spirits of people who died accidentally in the woods, and Takaya's let himself go so much he doesn't bother to get rid of them and just allows them to cling. However Ushio's sheer spiritual presence is enough to repel them. Takaya realises fairly quickly that he's a possessor, but that he's not lying about the amnesia. One thing leads to another and they have dinner together, Ushio pitches his tent alongside and gets a great night of rest. (Which Takaya doesn't, as he gets one of his periodic attacks of lurid sexual fantasies about Naoe. XD;;; If you thought they were bad before they knew what they were missing, etc. I wondered why Naoe actually seemed less bothered by it in Sabaku Junkyou until I realised he'd been having lurid sexual fantasies about Kagetora for years anyway, he's probably just better at coping.)
The next day they wake up, have porridge and coffee (the whole thing is described in a way that makes even me want to go camping, and I'd had enough of campgrounds by the time I was eight), and Ushio tries to get Takaya to go onsen-hopping with him until he realises Takaya doesn't want to bathe with other people. So he charitably borrows a shovel from the village and takes Takaya to this untapped hot spring he found in the woods, so they can dig themselves a hot bath. Whadda country. Nowhere can you do that on the Canadian Shield, I guarantee you that much. =_=
Basically this is more setup for the next long arc. Chapter 1 touches base with the Takeda, who are keeping Yuzuru in a glass box in the basement like
Also in Shikoku: Naoe, or at least a withdrawal was made from his bank account from an ATM in Tokushima. Ayukawa follows the money trail, unable to let the matter drop even though he has no idea what to do if/when he actually finds Naoe, and gets sidetracked into dorking over this. XD (Kids, do not try this at home, but if you jump in it you will wash up in the Twelve Kingdoms!) He gets Yagami to come down to help him in his search and - have I ever explained Yagami? The head of the "nokizaru", the Uesugi ninja, was a dude named Hakkai - dour fellow with a butler-ish air about him - who disappeared after book 12, presumed dead. So Kagetora gave the job to his second in command Yagami, who is a complete Kagetora Victim (tm) and spent a lot of time having jurisdiction conflicts with Fuuma no Kotarou that came down to "I'm his top ninja not you, interloper!" Of course, it turned out Hakkai wasn't dead, just working for Naoe's side. (And then he went AWOL again after Aso...) After Kagetora was stripped of his powers and disappeared, his immediate followers were reabsorbed into the neu!Uesugi, but the ones whose loyalties were uncertain were kept away from assignments of real importance. Yagami thus found himself with a great deal of free time on his hands. He and Ayukawa commiserate over 20th-century scourges such as airplanes, and there is much amusing talk about cashflow, as neither they nor Naoe are running on "official" funds (unbeknownst to them Irobe actually gave Naoe a bank card, but of course using that will let the Uesugi know where he is). They go off on their separate investigations and Ayukawa starts angsting about the state he found Naoe in after Takaya ran away, i.e. basically insane. He had a giant shard of glass right through the palm of his hand and had been staggering through woodland and swampland for days looking for Takaya, until he was covered with mud and blood and unable to stand, and Ayukawa had to cart him off to the hospital and put him on mental breakdown watch. Here's the thing about Ayukawa: he's only been "awake" for a couple of years, and was assigned to Naoe's faction immediately, so he basically doesn't know Kagetora from Adam. Insofar as he's concerned he's just the guy they fought against at Otate, whereas Naoe was his best friend (and at a guess the most logical and emotionally-detached person he knew). He is really, really unimpressed with the entire situation. XD;; The way you'd be if one of your really good friends suddenly turned into a raving crazy person over a girl/boy who is plainly just leading them on. Yagami's "Oh Kagetora-sama ;_;" attitude serves to improve his mood not at all.
Then he has to fight off a bunch of random goons from the Miyoshi clan, who suspected him of being after the "Star". More on this later.
Chapter 3: we follow a chipper young unknown named Ushio as he backpacks through a village somewhere in the vicinity of this, stopping off to renew acquaintances with various hearty general-store-running innkeeping taxi-driving ojisan and obasan. It's like watching one of those slow-moving Japanese movies that demand patience, as a little more information is revealed with each conversation (look, it's classier than the infodumps she has going sometimes, aight?). Ushio's a skinny blond currently unemployed outdoorsy "free-ter" type whose claim to fame in the village is that he was found in the woods five years ago unconscious and completely amnesiac - even his name, Mutou Ushio, was given to him by his attending doctor Mutou-sensei. Since then he's been returning to the woods periodically to camp out, fish, take hobby photographs and try to figure out who he is, to no avail. Lately he's also being harassed by a group of kids who insist he's "one of their kind" and should "join their side", along with all sorts of incomprehensible explanations, and who refuse to take "No, I'm not interested in gang membership" for an answer. You see where this is going.
As Ushio's tromping through the woods, taking photos of the autumn foliage and looking for a campsite, he encounters a sudden fog. Then he walks out of the fog on the other side (no mean feat, although he's unaware of it) and sees a naked boy bathing in the river. This makes for such a pretty picture his finger presses the shutter all on its own. XD The boy turns at the sound and Ushio is just able to see through the long-distance lens that he has one red eye, before he covers himself up and starts getting understandably PO'd.
It turns out that Takaya went into hiding in the woods because he can't stay in cities or towns - people throw up and keel over if he so much as asks them for directions. He stole camping equipment and went to Shikoku, because there's some sort of spiritual quality about the region that helps with his symptoms (this is not completely clear but I think the 88 pilgrimage sites are actually the tentpins of a giant 1200-year-old kekkai courtesy of Kuukai, and that's why the clans on the other islands have so much trouble finding out what's happening there). By the time Ushio finds him he's gone nearly feral. Takaya really doesn't want him hanging around, but Ushio is determined to make friends and genkis his way through, even offering to act as Takaya's "mosquito incense" - the Kihachi poison in Takaya's body attracts the spirits of people who died accidentally in the woods, and Takaya's let himself go so much he doesn't bother to get rid of them and just allows them to cling. However Ushio's sheer spiritual presence is enough to repel them. Takaya realises fairly quickly that he's a possessor, but that he's not lying about the amnesia. One thing leads to another and they have dinner together, Ushio pitches his tent alongside and gets a great night of rest. (Which Takaya doesn't, as he gets one of his periodic attacks of lurid sexual fantasies about Naoe. XD;;; If you thought they were bad before they knew what they were missing, etc. I wondered why Naoe actually seemed less bothered by it in Sabaku Junkyou until I realised he'd been having lurid sexual fantasies about Kagetora for years anyway, he's probably just better at coping.)
The next day they wake up, have porridge and coffee (the whole thing is described in a way that makes even me want to go camping, and I'd had enough of campgrounds by the time I was eight), and Ushio tries to get Takaya to go onsen-hopping with him until he realises Takaya doesn't want to bathe with other people. So he charitably borrows a shovel from the village and takes Takaya to this untapped hot spring he found in the woods, so they can dig themselves a hot bath. Whadda country. Nowhere can you do that on the Canadian Shield, I guarantee you that much. =_=
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 07:55 pm (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronia/tag/mirage
That gives you all my Mirage-related posts in recent memory. I didn't really summarise vol.20 properly, true, because it's one of those things that either take three days to write up or three minutes, depending on whether you're going to go into how they ended up there or not. XD;;
no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 08:03 pm (UTC)Would it be too much trouble to ask for a link to the correct entry/ies? m(._ _)m
no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 10:13 pm (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/petronia/329420.html
I'm going to write a summary of Karin no Oukoku, that way it'd be more comprehensible. ^^;
no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 07:56 pm (UTC)Wait, what? You mean like Snow White? Sleeping Beauty? Some other paragon? Cinderella's the one no one appreciated until she got a makeover.
XDDD the description of Ushio. Gang membership! *dies*
no subject
Date: 2005-07-25 08:01 pm (UTC)Wait 'til I actually get to summarising this purported gang. I think they just robbed Nobunaga of the "worst dressed Mirage character" award. =_=
no subject
Date: 2005-07-26 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-09 06:18 am (UTC)