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That moment when one of the largest emotional apexes thus far in that manga you're reading looks like:
I'm doing okay; I would be doing better if I hadn't been triggered by a couple of discussions of mental illness, but that's okay too. I had here some venting about my responses to that sort of stimuli, but I don't want to dwell or repeat myself so let's move on to:
While in hide-under-the-covers mode, I'm binging on media, specifically more unusually intimate relationships with a side of the easily consumable—better yet, the taboo/guilty pleasure nature of the former, plus the fact that it's basically id-fic for me, tends to lead to the latter. If there was anything I took away from Forbidden it was "I do love me summa that," so I added some more incest stories to my to read pile. Incest is the easiest way to find taboo/unusually intimate relationships in mainstream media; it's hard to keyword search other unusual character dynamics and other "taboo" relationship types, like polyamory or homosexuality, either aren't or at least shouldn't be treated as unusual.
Along that line, I just finished reading Koi Kaze, which I swear looks fine on every page but the one above.
Title: Koi Kazi (Love Wind)
Mangaka: Yoshida Motoi
Length: 5 volumes
Rating: 4 of 5
27-year-old Koshiro meets a girl under a sakura tree and spends an impromptu, romantic day with her in the park—and then learns that she's Nanoka, his 15-year-old sister who has come to live with him and his father while she attends school in Tokyo. Kaze Koi is a surprisingly sensitive handling of sibling incest; it avoids fetishistic pitfalls and is mindful of the reader's discomfort, pushing boundaries without going too far, avoiding easy answers but still suffusing its story with hope or, at least, love. Koshiro is a particular gem, keenly flawed but sympathetic. While the art wavers just on the safe side of competent, which sometimes saps beauty from the most romantic moments (Nanoka in particular suffers), the story shines: not flawless, with a slow start and a scattered ending, and not always subtle, but rendered with sensitivity and heart. Recommended.
That's the short form. In more depth, in which spoilers abound:
Seinen romances, least of all seinen taboo romances, are a hit and miss business at best: they're often surfeited with male gaze and every awful trope of Japanese fetishism, including the sort of bulbous curvy female character which I find triggering for completely different reasons. Thus Koi Kaze was a pleasant surprise: an age difference without reeking of lolita fetishism, an adolescent female character not defined by breasts, brother/sister incest that flirts with but doesn't rely on sibling complexes; in many ways Koshiro is still a stereotypical seinen protagonist, but heavy emphasis is placed on his weakness and vulnerability and Nanoka somehow becomes the stable figure in their relationship.
The art suffers Puella Magi Madoka Magica-syndrome. big heads and round shapes and sometimes everyone starts to look the same; as such it's hard to fall in love with Nanoka when Koshiro does, because the beauty he purports to see isn't visible on the page. (Ironically, Koshiro is often drawn surprisingly well.) This translation also falters at the beginning, bogged down by stilted language.
The average hetero relationship bores me because I've seen it all before, and what it all is is often problematic; an unusually intimate one, emphasis on the unusual, has the potential to break from that—so it's a bit disappointing to see this one try to meet a number of hetero benchmarks (what about getting married? what about having babies?). On the whole, however, it's incest handled with such sensitivity—not naivety, as Koshiro is an intensely physical creature, large and hairy and sometimes horny, despite his emotional vulnerability—and honestly to succumb to convention. Nor does it diffuse its subject, either by revealing that there's no blood relation or that the siblings don't feel related: family bonding is almost as important as the romantic relationship. As stated it has its flaws, but I was consisted pleased with Koi Kaze, glad I found it and that I read it.
Aaaaand I've been watching Supernatural season 7, in between Netflix's technical difficulties (the dialog track was missing for a while; yes, really). In case you were wondering, 7.15. "Repo Man" fulfills this trope—not with much depth, as per usual (if you're not Dean, Sam, or functionally a family member, then neither they nor the show has much time for your emotions), but:
Proto-serial killer becomes full-fledged serial killer when possessed, and after an exorcism will do anything to get his demon back? that's some beautiful co-dependency and unusual identities within and expressions of a relationship; it alone could be a much bigger story, and I wish it were.
...Thus making up for the fact that the episode itself felt out of place in season 7, which has been a rocky season so far: the nature of the Big Bad makes it difficult to fit them into a progressive plot arc, but there's too many major events with major supporting characters to lead well into monster-of-the-week episodes, making those feel disconnected and irrelevant. I like what's happening with those supporting characters, and this is some of my favorite Sam and Dean (between PTSD and a reasonable sense of betrayal, their suffering finally reeks less of manpain and is actually a reaction to things that happened to them, bless). But somehow I was expecting something more like the children of Echidna from the Leviathan, more colorful and diverse, less conspiracy-theory.
Hiding under blankets but still full of thoughtful criticism—so basically: same old, same old.
I'm doing okay; I would be doing better if I hadn't been triggered by a couple of discussions of mental illness, but that's okay too. I had here some venting about my responses to that sort of stimuli, but I don't want to dwell or repeat myself so let's move on to:
While in hide-under-the-covers mode, I'm binging on media, specifically more unusually intimate relationships with a side of the easily consumable—better yet, the taboo/guilty pleasure nature of the former, plus the fact that it's basically id-fic for me, tends to lead to the latter. If there was anything I took away from Forbidden it was "I do love me summa that," so I added some more incest stories to my to read pile. Incest is the easiest way to find taboo/unusually intimate relationships in mainstream media; it's hard to keyword search other unusual character dynamics and other "taboo" relationship types, like polyamory or homosexuality, either aren't or at least shouldn't be treated as unusual.
Along that line, I just finished reading Koi Kaze, which I swear looks fine on every page but the one above.
Title: Koi Kazi (Love Wind)
Mangaka: Yoshida Motoi
Length: 5 volumes
Rating: 4 of 5
27-year-old Koshiro meets a girl under a sakura tree and spends an impromptu, romantic day with her in the park—and then learns that she's Nanoka, his 15-year-old sister who has come to live with him and his father while she attends school in Tokyo. Kaze Koi is a surprisingly sensitive handling of sibling incest; it avoids fetishistic pitfalls and is mindful of the reader's discomfort, pushing boundaries without going too far, avoiding easy answers but still suffusing its story with hope or, at least, love. Koshiro is a particular gem, keenly flawed but sympathetic. While the art wavers just on the safe side of competent, which sometimes saps beauty from the most romantic moments (Nanoka in particular suffers), the story shines: not flawless, with a slow start and a scattered ending, and not always subtle, but rendered with sensitivity and heart. Recommended.
That's the short form. In more depth, in which spoilers abound:
Seinen romances, least of all seinen taboo romances, are a hit and miss business at best: they're often surfeited with male gaze and every awful trope of Japanese fetishism, including the sort of bulbous curvy female character which I find triggering for completely different reasons. Thus Koi Kaze was a pleasant surprise: an age difference without reeking of lolita fetishism, an adolescent female character not defined by breasts, brother/sister incest that flirts with but doesn't rely on sibling complexes; in many ways Koshiro is still a stereotypical seinen protagonist, but heavy emphasis is placed on his weakness and vulnerability and Nanoka somehow becomes the stable figure in their relationship.
The art suffers Puella Magi Madoka Magica-syndrome. big heads and round shapes and sometimes everyone starts to look the same; as such it's hard to fall in love with Nanoka when Koshiro does, because the beauty he purports to see isn't visible on the page. (Ironically, Koshiro is often drawn surprisingly well.) This translation also falters at the beginning, bogged down by stilted language.
The average hetero relationship bores me because I've seen it all before, and what it all is is often problematic; an unusually intimate one, emphasis on the unusual, has the potential to break from that—so it's a bit disappointing to see this one try to meet a number of hetero benchmarks (what about getting married? what about having babies?). On the whole, however, it's incest handled with such sensitivity—not naivety, as Koshiro is an intensely physical creature, large and hairy and sometimes horny, despite his emotional vulnerability—and honestly to succumb to convention. Nor does it diffuse its subject, either by revealing that there's no blood relation or that the siblings don't feel related: family bonding is almost as important as the romantic relationship. As stated it has its flaws, but I was consisted pleased with Koi Kaze, glad I found it and that I read it.
Aaaaand I've been watching Supernatural season 7, in between Netflix's technical difficulties (the dialog track was missing for a while; yes, really). In case you were wondering, 7.15. "Repo Man" fulfills this trope—not with much depth, as per usual (if you're not Dean, Sam, or functionally a family member, then neither they nor the show has much time for your emotions), but:
...Thus making up for the fact that the episode itself felt out of place in season 7, which has been a rocky season so far: the nature of the Big Bad makes it difficult to fit them into a progressive plot arc, but there's too many major events with major supporting characters to lead well into monster-of-the-week episodes, making those feel disconnected and irrelevant. I like what's happening with those supporting characters, and this is some of my favorite Sam and Dean (between PTSD and a reasonable sense of betrayal, their suffering finally reeks less of manpain and is actually a reaction to things that happened to them, bless). But somehow I was expecting something more like the children of Echidna from the Leviathan, more colorful and diverse, less conspiracy-theory.
Hiding under blankets but still full of thoughtful criticism—so basically: same old, same old.
