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Gen Urobuchi crossposts: Ryuunosuke's death, Saya no Uta, plots
I may find a scattered few Tumblr things which I want to preserve (and honestly probably should have crossposted) here. Here are some from my fangirling over Gen Urobuchi tag. He's the guy that did Fate/Zero and Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Aldnoah.Zero and Saya no Uta and Psycho-Pass and basically everything I love; "nicknamed Urobutcher by his fans, Urobuchi's works often contain dark and nihilistic themes, tragic plot twists, and heavy usage of gore" (Wikipedia).
Favorite example of Fate/Zero light novel v. anime: Ryuunosuke's death.
(The beautiful mess that is the relationship between Kiritsugu, Kirei, Gilgamesh, Tokiomi, Kariya, Maiya, Irisviel, Saber, Aoi is even better, and the ending with the Grail is the very bestest, but Ryuunosuke's death makes a nice single scene.)
Anime scene here; LN scene and blather below the cut.
The content in each is near identical! But the LN allows explicit conformation via the narrator. Fandom frequently skews perception of Ryuunosuke by taking him at his word that his serial killing is art, making him suave or compelling when the text explicitly says he is not—the LN especially so: he's weird, socially functional but disconcerting, with tacky clothes and an unsettling affect. Becoming more creative or increasing his scale doesn't make his art worthy. It's only in his death that he finally realizes what's been missing—he wasn't looking for something external, but for something literally internal. The LN has the narrative capability to state this, to confirm that what he did before was a failure, that only this is a success.
I went into Fate/Zero my first time expecting to love Ryuunosuke, because violence as art is my thing. I spent most of the series confused, betrayed by impressions by fans, because that wasn't the character I was seeing. It wasn't until this scene that my precious Murder-kun* came together, and he's not my favorite Fate/Zero character even now (I don't have one; my favorite is the Kiritsugu/Kirei/Gilgamesh/etc/etc dynamic) (although Waver, man, lemme tell you), but this is my single favorite scene in both original and adaptation, because while Ryuunosuke was perpetually, intentionally imperfect—he is perfect here.
* ...Ryuunosuke is a long word, okay, and didn't flow well in the impassioned 3am essays I was sending friends when I first read the LN; nicknames happened, I'm sorry, but this one fits.
* * *
As always, taking forever-too-long to get to important stories by favorite storytellers, but: I played Saya no Uta. And there is a certain guilt in that, because it's eroge and has particularly questionable sex; gratuitous barely begins to describe the frequency, loli love interest, and non-con.
But:
That crystalline moment when Saya offers to revert Fuminori's brain damage, and he turns her down.
Saya's love of Fuminori is interesting, and the good end, when she gives birth, is beautiful and a successful inversion of expectation: it's by all means a horrible thing but the narrative has manipulated us into a different viewpoint, different values, just as it's changed Fuminori. But I don't always find her love convincing. She's too often, too intentionally, inhuman—but her love is based in absorbed human values, it's distinctly human; the two don't mesh.
Fuminori's arc is more solid. When he accepts Saya and refuses her cure, we watch his values change. He's cognizant that he's been manipulated, by circumstance and by Saya, but he embraces it. Most narratives would linger on either discovery or betrayal as Fuminori realizes Saya's true identity and its consequences; Urobuchi pushes through that to something more meaningful: agency. There's catharsis in Fuminori's choice—to treat things as he sees them, to love a beautiful girl and to murder monsters—but also devotion. Devotion with conviction, without restraint, without morals. He knows exactly what he embraces and what he puts aside when he chooses her, and does it willingly; he takes it to reprehensible extremes, and he doesn't mind, and we are left to navigate the anxiety of whether or not we do. "The man who fell for something inhuman gives up his own humanity for the sake of their love. A happy ending, don't you think?"
To say this, this defiant amoral devotion, is my holy grail in character dynamics is no exaggeration.
Devon and I watched Psycho-Pass, and then Fate/Zero, and are now finishing up Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I'm a bit of a Gen Urobuchi fangirl; these are all rewatches for me and all new to him.
Urobuchi's plots are thick with revelation, but they're never cheap twist endings. Everything's foreshadowed, everything makes sense in the end, which makes for satisfying rewatches: you catch all the clues, and everything is more poignant when you know what's coming. I love Urobuchi foremost for his characters and for the intimate connection between character and plot, the way people are shaped by their experience, the way characterization echoes the story's themes, and when you have forewarning that connection is particularly clear.
But the real pleasure of watching the boy watch these stories is that all of his narrative curiosity is intentional. Every time he wonders something about a character's motives or an unexplained worldbuilding mechanic, the answer is crucial and imminent. "It seems like all the girls have different powers—I wonder what Homura's is?" came moments before Kyubey answers and asks the same question; and the answer is of course another question, one central to the entire narrative. This sort of matryoshka storytelling, where mysteries reveal other, even more important, mysteries, isn't just clever storytelling. It's very clever storytelling—how uncommon and rewarding to find such intentional writing—and it's a tool to create active viewer engagement.
I'd even say that the relationship between characterization and plot revelations is echoed in the relationship between story and consumer: we are as engaged, and therefore as affected, as they are in the search for truth.
Favorite example of Fate/Zero light novel v. anime: Ryuunosuke's death.
(The beautiful mess that is the relationship between Kiritsugu, Kirei, Gilgamesh, Tokiomi, Kariya, Maiya, Irisviel, Saber, Aoi is even better, and the ending with the Grail is the very bestest, but Ryuunosuke's death makes a nice single scene.)
Anime scene here; LN scene and blather below the cut.
Red. Pure, captivating red.
The glistening, vivid, fundamental color that he had always been seeking.
Ah, this is it—Ryūnosuke instantly understood, a faint smile on his pale lips.
The color he was searching for all along. The thing he teared through all sorts of places to find but could never obtain, the true “red.”
Lovingly, he embraced his abdomen, gushing with fresh blood.
"I see...... I never realized, huh......"
"The darkest place is under the candlestick"—those words were well said. He had never thought that what he was seeking could be hidden somewhere so near himself...
He was intoxicated, his skull completely filled by the surging analgesia. The second shot struck him in the center of the forehead.
Even though his entire head above the nose had been blown away without a trace, his lips still traced a smile of total bliss.
—Fate/Zero Volume 3: The Scattered Ones, Gen Urobuchi, trans. Baka-Tsuki
The content in each is near identical! But the LN allows explicit conformation via the narrator. Fandom frequently skews perception of Ryuunosuke by taking him at his word that his serial killing is art, making him suave or compelling when the text explicitly says he is not—the LN especially so: he's weird, socially functional but disconcerting, with tacky clothes and an unsettling affect. Becoming more creative or increasing his scale doesn't make his art worthy. It's only in his death that he finally realizes what's been missing—he wasn't looking for something external, but for something literally internal. The LN has the narrative capability to state this, to confirm that what he did before was a failure, that only this is a success.
I went into Fate/Zero my first time expecting to love Ryuunosuke, because violence as art is my thing. I spent most of the series confused, betrayed by impressions by fans, because that wasn't the character I was seeing. It wasn't until this scene that my precious Murder-kun* came together, and he's not my favorite Fate/Zero character even now (I don't have one; my favorite is the Kiritsugu/Kirei/Gilgamesh/etc/etc dynamic) (although Waver, man, lemme tell you), but this is my single favorite scene in both original and adaptation, because while Ryuunosuke was perpetually, intentionally imperfect—he is perfect here.
* ...Ryuunosuke is a long word, okay, and didn't flow well in the impassioned 3am essays I was sending friends when I first read the LN; nicknames happened, I'm sorry, but this one fits.
* * *
How wicked and terrible Saya is.
Perhaps others fear and loathe her. I, however, find her malevolence irresistibly charming.
As always, taking forever-too-long to get to important stories by favorite storytellers, but: I played Saya no Uta. And there is a certain guilt in that, because it's eroge and has particularly questionable sex; gratuitous barely begins to describe the frequency, loli love interest, and non-con.
But:
That crystalline moment when Saya offers to revert Fuminori's brain damage, and he turns her down.
Saya's love of Fuminori is interesting, and the good end, when she gives birth, is beautiful and a successful inversion of expectation: it's by all means a horrible thing but the narrative has manipulated us into a different viewpoint, different values, just as it's changed Fuminori. But I don't always find her love convincing. She's too often, too intentionally, inhuman—but her love is based in absorbed human values, it's distinctly human; the two don't mesh.
Fuminori's arc is more solid. When he accepts Saya and refuses her cure, we watch his values change. He's cognizant that he's been manipulated, by circumstance and by Saya, but he embraces it. Most narratives would linger on either discovery or betrayal as Fuminori realizes Saya's true identity and its consequences; Urobuchi pushes through that to something more meaningful: agency. There's catharsis in Fuminori's choice—to treat things as he sees them, to love a beautiful girl and to murder monsters—but also devotion. Devotion with conviction, without restraint, without morals. He knows exactly what he embraces and what he puts aside when he chooses her, and does it willingly; he takes it to reprehensible extremes, and he doesn't mind, and we are left to navigate the anxiety of whether or not we do. "The man who fell for something inhuman gives up his own humanity for the sake of their love. A happy ending, don't you think?"
To say this, this defiant amoral devotion, is my holy grail in character dynamics is no exaggeration.
Devon and I watched Psycho-Pass, and then Fate/Zero, and are now finishing up Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I'm a bit of a Gen Urobuchi fangirl; these are all rewatches for me and all new to him.
Urobuchi's plots are thick with revelation, but they're never cheap twist endings. Everything's foreshadowed, everything makes sense in the end, which makes for satisfying rewatches: you catch all the clues, and everything is more poignant when you know what's coming. I love Urobuchi foremost for his characters and for the intimate connection between character and plot, the way people are shaped by their experience, the way characterization echoes the story's themes, and when you have forewarning that connection is particularly clear.
But the real pleasure of watching the boy watch these stories is that all of his narrative curiosity is intentional. Every time he wonders something about a character's motives or an unexplained worldbuilding mechanic, the answer is crucial and imminent. "It seems like all the girls have different powers—I wonder what Homura's is?" came moments before Kyubey answers and asks the same question; and the answer is of course another question, one central to the entire narrative. This sort of matryoshka storytelling, where mysteries reveal other, even more important, mysteries, isn't just clever storytelling. It's very clever storytelling—how uncommon and rewarding to find such intentional writing—and it's a tool to create active viewer engagement.
I'd even say that the relationship between characterization and plot revelations is echoed in the relationship between story and consumer: we are as engaged, and therefore as affected, as they are in the search for truth.