I Won't Bend, I Break

[redbrunja]

You know how Reload 7 was basically 'Gojyo and Hakkai are sheerest awesome?' Well, Reload 8 was 'Goku is made of win.'

I love how well Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai fit in. Or at least, how functional they are. They're clearly a valuable part, or could be a valuable part of just about any village or community, and all their misfit natures... it's all emotional, you know?

"You're like, really a girl."

Oh, Goku. Total flirting failure.

"And don't think you can touch my sister just because you're alone with her, punk."

LOL! I loved the Pippi/Goku relationship - they were delightful together, and I loved Goku's conversations about how Sanzo is his foster father, and he's never really been around women before.

Also, Pippi? Total hottie. Why is she wearing so many clothes in the freaking desert?

I actually was spoiled for the fact that she was going to die, but I was hoping (praying) that I was wrong. Or just in denial.

I love her so much. She's acerbic, caring, and clear eyed. (Unless the subject is Lord Kougaiji.) I'm so, so pissed about her arc. While in one sense it's fantastically Saiyuki, with the idea of living your life with pride, but I am so fucking pissed that she died in the end. (Well, we don't explicitly see it, so I can imagine she's alive, except I totally can't right now.) That said, she died because she had tits.

The whole 'life with pride, start as you mean to go on, the ones who live are the ones with the strongest will' is HUGE theme with Saiyuki, but how often do the MEN who pull that die?

That's right, never.

The main four have survived just about everything, as has Kougaiji, and then you have characters like Hazel, Gat, and Nii, and it's just... the whole cast is so freaking male dominated, and despite Minakura's fabulousness, it gets really freaking old.

Besides which, you have so, so many women in refridgaraters. Kanan, MamaShaw - the most important chicks are all dead, and Yaone would be too if Kou hadn't saved her (twice). Also, virgin or whore representation it totally present and accounted for.

"She told you not to be sad. That means... it's okay for ya to live. Even if people say that you're monsters. Even if you don't know who ya are. Even then."

Ah, Goku, growing up. I love his Seiten Tensei angst.

I loved the Goku/Pippi first kiss (for both of them, I bet). Way better than what I was expecting.

And then I presume she punches him in the stomach, which makes it ten times hotter.

"...she would have grown up gorgeous."

Which made me both wibble and want to smack Gojyo, like, 'sure say nice things now that she'd dead.'

But I do like that he treated Pippi exactly like he treated Sanzo, especially cause I think Sanzo and Pippi have a lot in common, except for the fact that when Sanzo lives with pride, he, ya know, lives.

On another subject, Hazel is clearly anyone's rentboy. Oh, yes, manipulate me into doing something, and I'll find out and do it anyway,
unless the big, strong seme I'm fucking traveling with stops me.

Speaking of... I wanted more Gat backstory than one panel!

Also, the ending panel, with Gojyo describing Sanzo, Goku describing Gat, and Hakkai describing a "narcissist who speaks in an awful Western accent." cracked me up hardcore.

Comments

[droiche.livejournal.com]

Damn it. I just hope my copy shows up in my snail mail box Friday as promised because Amazon appears to have sent it to my old address even though I gave them the new address months ago (as in months BEFORE it was shipped!!!!!). >_<

There's just one thing I am dying to know: Is Pippi's actual name mentioned in volume 8? A scanlation I have hints that her name is Tsu.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Nope.

[droiche.livejournal.com]

Darn. I'm still waiting for the post office to forward my copy because, like a complete dumb ass, I didn't know I was supposed to update the order itself too. Me sooooo want that beautiful little book in my greedy little paws. *bounces impatiently*

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

See, that’s why you should always have a fair amount of female characters. That way the One doesn’t have to shoulder the entire burden of representing womankind.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[renegadekitsune.livejournal.com]

What I really loved about Pippi is that she died for what she believed in. I'd like to think she jumped ship at the last minute, but I don't know.

Minekura loves her men. She wrote a Yaoi manga with a very unhealthy (But hot) relationship...I can't say much about that.

Gat telling Sanzo that he'd have to watch out for Hazel or whatnot because his borrowed time was running ever so short? Oh god.

Gojyo and that line about Pippi? Oh good god. Wibble.

Anyone else feeling like we're getting closer to the end? Sanzo's gearing up for his fight with Ukoku which I think he's going to lose because he's not prepared enough for a fight on that scale. Goku, Gojyo, and Hakkai are going to be the ones to actually storm the castle while Sanzo's busy chasing Ukoku.

That's how I see it going down.

[droiche.livejournal.com]

I do. I suspect volume 9 will be the last of the main series. Minekura might do some occasional offshoots, but this is it for Saiyuki as a series.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

She had a fantastic death. I'm just annoyed she's dead.

Yep, there definitively feels like we're coming to the final curtain. And I love the idea that the ikkou sans Sanzo are the ones who get to Houtou Castle first.

[enderxenocide.livejournal.com]

Okay, first to get my "that's not what they said!" reaction, right after Pippi leaves Goku, and Gojyo says "she would have grown up gorgeous"? He actually said, "She's a beauty, alright. You're too observant". Not a huge difference, but to me it says more about Gojyo recognizing Goku as an adult.

But, yes. I loved this volume. Goku was amazing, and an adult. It's strange that he's growing so much WITHOUT Sanzo, I guess I had always assumed that he would be growing up WITH Sanzo's influence.

Although, I still love that Sanzo has been next to useless for the last few volumes. I won't spoil you for the next chapters, because you probably won't see them for another year, but he is still not being very helpful.

Don't worry, you'll get plenty more Gat backstory soon! I really have a soft spot for him.

I can't wait to properly talk to you about this! :)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, that one really changes things.

Yeah, taking Sanzo out of the picture really made Goku step up to the plate, which isn't surprising. (When you don't have that parental figure around, you kind of have too.)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

And it sort of makes for parallelism to the rest of the boys' lives, if you think about it -- Hakkai's parents divorce when he's toddler, then his mom dumps him at an orphanage when he's a few years older; Gojyo's bio-parents kill themselves when he's a baby, then his stepmom is killed and Jien, who really functionally was more like the real parent figure there, leaves when he's a child; Sanzo's abandoned as a baby, and his adoptive father figure is killed when he's a child. Now it's Goku's turn to spend some hard times growing up without his parental figure (although he at least still has those big-brotherly friends for support...)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

(although he at least still has those big-brotherly friends for support...)

And that is why Goku is going to be the most well adjusted member of the ikkou when this is all over.....

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Why is she wearing so many clothes in the freaking desert?

Everybody there's wearing long sleeves and such, and mostly wearing hats during the day -- remember the bit where I think Gojyo is complaining they can't even take their shirts off during the day? That's for protection from direct sun exposure -- head coverings and long but loose clothing is a pretty common sort of approach in desert regions: that protects you from sunburn and reflects some of the sun's heat, and while it sounds paradoxical, it supposedly protects you from dehydrating so fast -- the layer of insulation keeps the sweat from evaporating so quickly, so your body's not pumping out more water as quickly in the attempt to cool down.

That said, she died because she had tits.

The whole 'life with pride, start as you mean to go on, the ones who live are the ones with the strongest will' is HUGE theme with Saiyuki, but how often do the MEN who pull that die?

Well, just going with ones we've seen biting it onscreen, there's Koumyou, Rikudo/Shuei, Yakumo, Kami-sama, Goudai, Filbert, Kinkagu a whole shitload of monks in two different temples, Pippi's brother...and on the flipside, there are a bunch of girls like Shunrei, Seira and Seika, Lirin, and Yaone who've had close calls but survived. IMO, in this world it's clear that ANYONE can die -- tits aren't a death sentence and a dick is no guarantee of survival. About the only ones you can count on living through things (at least until the end of the storyline approaches) are the main characters, and they get put through such a wringer that there are times you might think death would be more merciful.

Now, yes, her central cast is heavily male-dominated -- considering she mostly publishes in BL magazines, it's clear that's where her muse lies and if you want a girl-centric storyline, she's not the mangaka you should be looking at. But I don't think she's really doing a classic women-in-refrigerators thing here; while female death or near-death was a major motivating plot point for several characters (Kanan and Gonou, Jien and Gojyo with their mom, Kougaiji and his mother, Yaone and Kougaiji), there are even more cases where it's a male character's death or death-like state that majorly affects another character's life -- Sanzo and Koumyou, Gyumaoh and Gyokumenkoushou, Rikudo/Shuei and all the monks killed by youkai attacks, Chin Yisou and his father (and whole castle full of retainers and subects), that Dark Crow youkai whose brother Gonou killed in his rampage, Yakumo and his little boy, that village girl and her father at the start of the Hazel arc, Hazel and Filbert (or for that matter, Hazel and Gat), Pippi and her brother, Gojyo and Kinkaku...add in all the times when one or another of the ikkou has nearly died and had to be saved by one of the other guys, and we'd be here all night. I think it's also telling that even with that subset of violence that's sexualized, it is not exclusively directed at women, and the violence is not eroticized. Shunrei, Seira, Kanan, and Yaone are all faced with the prospect of rape, but only Kanan is actually assaulted and we never actually see the attack or any direct physical evidence of the aftermath; meanwhile Jien was being sexually abused by his own mother, and Sanzo narrowly escaped a gang-rape (and is deeply traumatized by both the attempt and his own act of self-defense). Read between the lines, and Chin Yisou's behavior around Gonou and later Hakkai has more than a twinge of creepy sexual undertones to it as well, and Gojyo's violent reaction when he first meets Banri really makes me think he had some unpleasant encounters in his homeless-drifter-kid days. In the Minekuraverse, sexual violence is clearly not something that is only directed at women. In the sort of Western comics that gave this trope its name, I'd expect a very different treatment -- we'd *see* far more of the assaults, in lovingly pornographic detail, lots of torn clothing and flesh on view...but only the girls, of course. The guys wouldn't be in for anything of the sort.

stupid LJ comment-length limits make it hard to meta...

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

the most important chicks are all dead, and Yaone would be too if Kou hadn't saved her (twice).

But don't forget Kou's also saved Doku's life...and in turn they've both been there to watch his back when he's been barcoded and going crazy. And Gat and Hazel pretty much save each other's lives (well, unlife in Gat's case, etc.), and EVERYBODY in the Sanzo-ikkou has come close to death multiple times and been saved by one of the other guys. So to my eyes, the subtext here is less "women are weak and need saving by men" and more "NOBODY survives here without help from their friends".

I wanted more Gat backstory than one panel!

Without being spoilery, I think it's safe to say that you'll get at least a little of that wish in Book 9. Although frankly, I kind of hope she doesn't go into much more detail than what's already come up -- Gat is pretty much the only Indian anime/manga character I've found so far who doesn't make me wince and roll my eyes on some level, and after the travesty that was the anime-version backstory, I'd rather he stay mysterious and awesome instead of turning into another stereotyped cringefest.

Re: stupid LJ comment-length limits make it hard to meta...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

"NOBODY survives here without help from their friends".

Except that Pippi didn't, and I'm really fucking bitter about that right now.

Re: stupid LJ comment-length limits make it hard to meta...

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Well, friends are no *guarantee* of survival, either -- we know the Gaiden boys will all bite it eventually, Koumyou and a squillion monks couldn't/wouldn't save Goudai, Gat's pretty much running on borrowed time now, and sometimes friends wind up having to kill friends who've gone crazy and can't be stopped from hurting other people, like Yakumo with his kids, or the Sanzo-ikkou with Yakumo and Rikudo/Shuei. But I think the underlying message is that you simply can't go it alone -- Jien is clearly falling apart before he joins Kou's service, Sanzo's pretty much suicidal in his period of solitary wandering before he reaches Chang'An for the first time, Gojyo was clearly self-destructing slowly before he picked Hakkai up off the road, and Hakkai of course would have died for sure if he hadn't come along.

This is going to be interesting in the final showdown, because the Kou-tachi, the Hazel-ikkou, the Sanzo-ikkou, all are bands of friends, even if they don't always necessarily like to *talk* about those feelings; while Nii is pretty much the ultimate loner here. He has allies and underlings, some of them reluctant, but he ultimately doesn't give a rat's ass about any of them and they pretty much all know it...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Everybody there's wearing long sleeves and such, and mostly wearing hats during the day -- remember the bit where I think Gojyo is complaining they can't even take their shirts off during the day?

*nods*

I caught that one the second read through.

And you have some really good points - it's why I've read so far without having this rant. (Although i've always wished for more girls) I guess I'm just really, really burned out on having so few women in my manga, and the night I read this was a double whammy in that regards.

Still, I'm so, so sad that she'd dead. And so dispairing I can't even pretend, even though she died offscreen.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I would *not* complain if there were more girls. But if you look at Minekura's other books, including the stuff that hasn't been published in English yet and her early fan doujinshi, it seems pretty clear that she really, really likes to focus on stories about inarticulate male friendships. (And for all that she's primarily been published in BL magazines, she generally seems to like to keep the BL context deeply subtexty -- she's also very much not the mangaka you want to go to if you want mushy overt romance or explicit sex.) So I'd be happy if she wrote more female characters, but I'm not going to hold my breath because it seems pretty clear this is not where her muse lies, and she's found a market in this other niche already, so...

I'm pretty happy with the way she treats the ones she does have, at least. Just because she likes to focus on her main boys, she doesn't feel the need to make a world without women (and trust me, there's some BL manga that damn near does exactly that), and while her girls are minor characters and hence don't get a ton of screen time, they aren't belittled for being girls. Nobody tells Pippi she can't choose to go off and fight and die because she's girl. When Lirin runs off to cause trouble, Kou and company get worried because she's a kid and they care about their troublemaking little sister, not because she's a helpless little girl. When Yaone and Doku both insist on following Kou to guard his back, nobody tells Yaone that's not her place -- and when she volunteers herself to go after the Sanzou-ikkou that first time, Kou's initial resistance is couched purely in terms of riskiness, not female helplessness -- it comes across, to me at least, more as "these are dangerous guys and they've killed a lot of my subjects, I don't want to risk losing a personal friend/crush" -- and of course, she wins the argument handily.

(Speaking of Yaone, there's another awesome new Kou/Yaone piece on springkink -- one of my favorite 585 writers dabbling in het for a change, check it out!)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks for the link!

And yes, I while it's not surprising that Minukura doesn't have women when that's clearly not who she's writing about/for, it still makes me sad.