hi ! it's been a while, but life's been a lot. i'm glad to be back !! lately i've been thinking about how formative character analysis was to me a few years back, and how much about myself i've found out thinking about why my favorite characters are my favorites. it's pretty hard to overstate that impact, but either way, i really like reading people write about their favorite characters; i figured it was about time i gave something back to that ecosystem. these aren't in any particular order or anything, and they're only loosely clustered by "why i like them" in a few categories that'll be more explicit as i explain for each character. mostly, i sorted these for aesthetics... oh, but the images i chose for each character are important.
Carol Ferris, the first Star Sapphire... i said these weren't ordered, and they're not, but the Star Sapphire Corps emblem is still my only tattoo. Really quick, they're my favorite lantern corps because they were incorporated as one in my favorite kind of "redemption arc": one that takes a misunderstood villain/anti-hero and redeems the story around them or the hero they conflict with. In the case of the Star Sapphire Corps, they started out as a bunch of aliens called Zamarons and their one champion, named Star Sapphire. The same way Green Lantern has a power ring, the Star Sapphire had a gem also called the Star Sapphire that could shoot mysterious beams and had/gave the wielder a bunch of love and attraction themed powers. It was a pretty dated 1960's "battle of the sexes" kinda thing, but Carol was always the more interesting of the two to me. Go figure.
Accident or no, she was written with real psychological dimension in a way i can't really recall seeing in comics of this era giving many characters at all. It'd be sort of a part of her tradition as a Green Lantern villain; she was always conflicted and always the kind of character i could empathize with. In the 1980s Steve Englehart expanded her backstory to include the fact her father raised her like the son he wished he had; her name Carol is a "feminine corruption" of his own, Carl. There's also this space demon called the Predator that possesses the void left inside her when Hal leaves her, and as its later revealed to be a feature of being the one champion the Zamarons have all harnessed their hopes on. Her attachment to Hal is intertwined with this part of her past. He was only in her orbit as a test pilot to begin with because of the dysphoric way her father saw her, but because of the role she was pushed into, she met someone who saw her for who she is.
After Geoff Johns's 2004 reboot of Hal's continuity Carol settled into a more heroic role alongside the newly formed Star Sapphire Corps. This is the part that took her from a character i saw myself in and who invested me in the story, to the kind of symbol i would want tattooed on my body. Like all power rings, the Star Sapphire rings seek out their wearers, and they specifically go for people (mostly women) experiencing traumatic heartbreak. From pinning all their hopes on one person, Carol, with disasterous results to her well-being; to sending out fragments of power to save anyone who feels the same way she did, at a time. Carol herself kept a ring, of course. With the overwhelming power of the Star Sapphire dispersed among heroes chosen for feeling like-and-as-much-as she does (and an amicably-enough-ended fling with Kyle Rayner on the New Guardians) she's returned to Hal's life as a fellow Justice Leaguer and steady partner. No one ever talks about it, but Carol Ferris's journey to healthy attachment is one of the most dynamic character paths in comics, if you track down enough back issues to see it through.
i'm gonna be really brief about Kawaragi Momoka, i have the worst crush on her and its soo embarrassing to still get fictional crushes. i know i just went on and on basically implying that i want to marry Hal Jordan when i grow up and that's not incorrect but that's kind of a different thing. It burns me up inside that Momoka isn't real, dude. I feel like calling her "cool" is an understatement. She has the exact kind of effortless punk-rocker confidence i'm always struck dumb by. all her flaws lay me out dead. thorny though she may be it's like she's bristling with Cupid's arrows. plus if Nina is anything to go by i'm her exact type. if nothing else, she'll always be dear to me as an outlet for unhelpfully yearning after someone i once knew. actually, thinking of how she relates to Nina, i think my crush on her developed from "infatuation" into "formative fictional crush" seeing her tell Nina, with so much love, exactly what she and I needed to hear. how the shame she feels for being the unrecognized victim is not because she did anything wrong. there's a lot of power in someone who is so confident and so prickly being the one to say something that kind. it means the most, coming from that kind of person. just because everyone else is content to blame Nina doesn't mean Momoka will ever go along with it... if there's one person i'd ever want in my corner it's probably her. i don't know what else to call that besides "a crush, even on a fictional character".
Jessica Drew, the clone one from the 1610 Ultimate Universe, was the first comic character I ever really connected with, besides maybe Swamp Thing. we'll get there. this was in maybe my first year out, i didn't know any other transfems and my "friend" group at the time really liked making me the butt of every joke. it was a really intensely lonely time that i thrived in nonetheless just by keeping my head down and trying to focus on myself. in the middle of this desert, i one day found an oasis; and that was the TPB of the ultimate universe's clone saga. i'd only picked it up on a whim since i'd read something about this version of jess having a lot of transfem fans–this is because she, being an unaltered clone of peter parker, is also a trans girl, for all intents and purposes. she broods about "not being that boy, or being a boy at all". for a story that's so much about a reserved nerd altering their physiology, gaining a new identity, and being villainized by the media for that idenity, its important that at least one telling of spidey goes for this this (to me) obvious angle. and at a time i didnt have any trans "representation" aside from a few quakingly perfect positive caricatures, her existential angst spoke to me like nothing else. It still does. Even for all the clone stories i've read since there's maybe one that reaches the same level to me as the 1610 Clone Saga, in terms of being about what this kind of character is about to me.
Oh god okay Misaki... i don't think there's a way to relate to any character in Welcome to the NHK that's not intensely, perhaps uncomfortably personal. but of course i always really felt like her; in the past being so constantly depersonalized and sorta numb to it, i really related to the way she clings to Satou at the end. especially knowing the extent to which the novel was semi-autobiographical i always really admired the way Takimoto Tatsuhiko was able to break through the mental fog that comes with depression and show someone suffering past the ability of his sort-of self-insert's ability to see.
Nowadays i look back to how i related to her and i feel like it was posturing. it wasn't, it was genuine as ever; but i feel it that much deeper now that i've given my all to be there for someone and been left worse off than i was found. don't worry about that, it really deepened my connection to the book and her character. no matter how you look at it, the plot is a pretty unrealistic fantasy, right ? on the first read especially it hit me that "there being a plot at all to this kind of life is completely unrealistic." but the specific unrealisms of the plot are just as much wish fulfillment for the Misakis who may be reading. "two people who earnestly believe they have nothing to bring to the table but love, and have nothing in life but each other" is really really hard to make work. if applied to real life, its almost as maliciously unlikely-bordering-on-delusional as "this kind of shut-in life has a plot." but it's not real life. it's like a ventfic, a harsh and kind "what if?"; those nights with Satou, Misaki is asking for the same thing i plead to the starless sky for.
i don't have too much to say about my connection to Heather Mason. It's been embarrassingly long since i played Silent Hill 3 and i really do feel like that game is so strongly self-explanatory that i struggle to talk about it without feeling that im just repeating things its telling me. i do really connect with her aesthetic persona; not necessarily her fashion sense or anything but more so everything that is communicated by looking at her. i always really related to her listless expressions and the circles under her eyes. the soundtrack, too, conceptualized as "something a teenage girl might listen to," feels so much like a part of her. wandering around the mall to Lost Carol is evocative of so many of my formative experiences as a girl, and I Want Love got me through the first relationship where i felt my partner just couldn't understand a girl's feelings. the inciting incident, too... i'm being vague on purpose, but just the feeling of wanting to talk to your dad, but you absolutely can't reach him, no matter what, is captured really well in this game. i think that's pretty universal but it always hits me hard. i played this around the time i read the 1610 Clone Saga with Jessica Drew so another girl protagonist in a genre (psychological survival horror) i'm already drawn to was again like an oasis in a desert. i latched on to her as a character pretty hard and definitely remember feeling very strongly about her wanting both agency as a person and recognition as a woman and daughter, and in going through something no adult should have to as a teenager.
As previously stated, i think the soundtrack distills this aesthetic persona of hers down perfectly, so i just used the cover from it here.
Hulk ! one of the characters i think about the most. when i was growing up, i was huge into the marvel movies, and Hulk/Bruce Banner was always my favorite of those even then, as if without thinking. without getting too much into it i was a really angry kid, equal parts from getting picked on at home and school as much as from the medication roulette i was on to attempt to fix it. a lot of people looked at me as a kind of monster child, my parents included, and growing up their view was absolute. for there to be a character who deals with a lot of the same things as i did–who at a baseline is mild-mannered and intellectual, but who loses that intelligence in a rageful transformation–and yet, is still a hero... it meant a lot, and still does. as i've gotten older, i've fallen off with the movie universe and finally read more of the comics Hulk comes from; knowing more than the "man or monster" tagline from ish no. 1's cover has only made Bruce Banner's story more personally resonant. to oversimplify, Peter David's landmark run on the character established the (green) Hulk persona was created by Bruce's childhood abuse and bullying, and the body of the Hulk was created by Bruce's choice to save Rick Jones from a gamma bomb test. there's so much more than the questions of "man or monster" at play, really. Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk is maybe my favorite superhero comic ever specifically for how it grapples with the philosophy, metaphysics and psychology of "the strongest there is".
This specific picture is a Ken Steacy pin-up from Marvel Fanfare no. 22. the strongest there is, kneeling in the sand before the firey column that created him. it's a powerful image at first glance ! and the character's psychology only makes it hit harder. as with my favorite portrayals of the Hulk, it goes back to his origin. he kneels in the sand, his musculature still recognizably human. what we see of his face is recognizably Banner. he holds his hand up futilely shielding himself from a light that shines like a knife. we can see his bones in his fingers, the delicate web of his palm, and the shadows of a grimace. the remains of his clothes whip around desperately clinging to a body that no longer needs to be shielded from any elements.
Lucy/Nyu, from Elfen Lied. Given how much i just said about Hulk and his monstered/othered story resonating with me it might be surprising to hear i don't resonate with the x-men very much. aside from a few storylines and character details i feel like they really tend to shy away from the real meaning of "being hated and feared by society", the outcomes of that. Elfen Lied is my X-men. its portrayals of dehumanization are as seemingly random as they are cruel, and the story takes pains to at least imply they are motivated by misfiring scattershot evolutionary responses like disgust. the diclonii are literally demonized for the fact of their horns. in the world Okamoto Lynn paints here, that unchecked repulsion, built entirely on prejudice and preconception–hate and fear–leads people as young as children to commit over-the-top atrocities and vast organizations to fearfully venerate them as the next coming of humanity. And yet–any way you look at it, evolution is a will-less thing. It's not even something with a shape, besides the beaks of finches, and the bullet holes in wings of planes. evolution did not decree that child should have killed Lucy's dog nor does it ordain the diclonii as a superior race. many humans, made stupid and irrational by hatred of what is and terror at what may be, have decided that all on their own. despite the events of the plot unfolding as a tragedy, the sadness comes from how avoidable this all was; like most tragedies, it's an incisively motivating work in the inverse of the depressing picture painted. "It didn't have to be this way," is a hollowing refrain invoked with every kindness Lucy/Nyu's adoptive family show, and every day of a happy, peaceful life they may give her.
As stated, Lucy has an alter named Nyu whom she regressed to after escaping containment; I only say "regressed" because Nyu for all intents and purposes is a child's personality. It's very clear that it's a trauma response for the character, and also clear that Okamoto has an age regression/wetting fetish. looking at his other works bears this out. one way or another though, the agere stuff draws from parts of Elfen Lied's necessarily upsetting depiction of dehumanization that might affect its release, and that's the part that really can't be changed. also, i dont think its wrong to have weird kinks, and i would defy any author to write a story without making it about some kind of fascination, moe, or fetish of theirs, at least a little. we all like involving the things we like in stories we tell, for whatever reason we like them. or tell them.
Anyway, as with Hulk, at the very origin of the split between Lucy and Nyu is humanity. Not the drive to save another, but the starving need to be one's own hero in a maze of metal, concrete and painful experiments. It is Lucy's very struggle to escape from the machine that would make her into a weapon of eugenicists that leaves her leading her fractured innocence into a world that sees her as a monster for reasons she can never understand. As a whole, this character represents one of the most important stories in my mind. everything interesting about Elfen Lied is best exemplified in her, so this picture is really dear to me. I couldn't honestly tell you if it was Lucy or Nyu but just seeing the peaceful face of someone who's been put through so much from the worst of humanity's impulses... it's incredibly healing.
it's hard to talk about Ryougi Shiki or the Kara no Kyoukai series without invoking a phrase that better describes a later character: "love me for who i am". if i had to try, i could talk about her aesthetic persona. as with Heather Mason there's something strikingly identifiable about a girl wandering listless around industrial landscapes; her expressionless expression, often read as displeasure, hits on a similar level. i think the reason for this feeling expressed in persona are even more resonant here, though. well, there are a few moments that really stand out about Shiki's character to me. her love for strawberry ice cream born from Mikiya's active care for her in the first movie and the scene in the restaurant in (if i remember right) movie five where characters try to determine her gender. and of course the ending of the seventh film. the mystery of who Shiki is unravels over the course of the series, with Mikiya by her side. of everything to do with Shiki's past, neither the at-birth assigment of the male SHIKI personality to her dissonant soul/body nor the pain and evil that assignment inspired in her dissuade him from loving her. she has done awful things, and awful things have been done to her; Mikiya holds her just the same. as Kalafina's "Sprinter" played the same motifs from the first movie's score i realized i had a new favorite character from my first watch, and Ryougi Shiki remains closer to my heart than almost any other, for precisely who she is.
this image is also sourced from a soundtrack cover, this time from the score to the first Kara no Kyoukai movie. aside from the .hack//sign OST (also composed by Kajiura Yuki) it's the most beautiful score i've ever heard and perfectly indicative of her character as conveyed in the films' style.
Saber is a character i've had a special attachment to from the start. i always thought she was one of the coolest characters ever. And she is! it's not hard to see why so many series have cribbed heavily from her design in making their own cool, strong knightgirls... and Saber, Artoria Pendragon, is both of those things. Cool, and strong. But the thing that makes her stand out is how she gets there, what else lies beyond the presumed bounds of a knight girl's character. Her story is one of subverting roles. the girl who would be king, and the masks she had to wear to be the leader she needed to be; the king who would be a girl, and the release of every painful burden shouldered in the first place. if i say "this is the story of a girl who pretended to be a man, and then learned that's not what she actually wanted," you might get the wrong impression. it's about growing beyond the role of a defender and protector into a complete person, dropping the signifiers of distressing expectations and embracing new ones. it's not uncommon for visual novels to ask the main character, and the player, to display an extraordinary amount of emotional intelligence. think of Katawa Shoujo or the Mion/doll plot in the Watanagashi arc of Higurashi. however, in the case of Saber, it's not reliant on Shirou at all. (and the ink i could spill about that!) Saber, of her own volition, and completely surprising everybody, asks for the lion plushie. "I have longed for something small and cute," she says, "I have not had many chances to hold such a thing." this is a little past halfway in her route, so after plenty of character development. the explanation for her nigh-interminably mournful expression is revealed in this part of the story–in a past life, she went along with a life as a boy, to fit into the people's preconception of someone who could be a hero for them. in exchange, she gave up a fulfilling life, and given a second chance to live, the reader as Shirou can make the choices to give it to her. i play Fate/stay night more like an RPG than a VN, in that i struggle to go for a different ending than this one, because the story of Artoria Pendragon becoming herself is so effervescently meaningful to me.
this picture is so indicative to me of everything Artoria represents. at first glance, she's a cool knight staring angstily off into the middle distance. to me, now, i see the unsheddable tears welling just beyond the corners of her eyes. the weight on her shoulders presses on mine, too. our muscles are stiff in the chill of blue air.
"I'm no boy wonder." "I am no one's son." There are so many zingers like that from Red Hood that, in conjunction with the character's issues death and rebirth symbolism, lead me to read her character as a trans girl (named Jacyn Todd as suggested by a friend of mine. She took the former alias of her worst enemy, it makes sense to me she'd reclaim her deadname. Jacyn is also just a really tough hot-girl name that fits her character.) As with most things in comics, it depends on the creative team, but it doesn't hurt that half the time they draw her like she's been on estrogen for a few years and just hasn't told anybody.
there's also the matter of her mirroring Helena Wayne, the Huntress who was erased from existence in the Crisis on Infinite Earth. Both characters were transformed by the loss of their mother, and that grief led them to adopt new "costumed adventurer" identities. Even more than the new Huntress, Helena Bertinelli, Jacyn Todd feels like a new incarnation of that character's premise. While both were fueled by a grief from the same source, Ms. Wayne was a pretty standard 70's superheroine reflecting the standards of the Bronze Age; meanwhile Jacyn, reborn into an era of angst and moral grays, operated without preconceptions of comic-book morality. She set out to explain her feelings, going to extreme lengths to reach Bruce with the message of how much pain his morals leave her with. Calling it a revenge quest is inaccurate. It's more like a bitter message of hopeless grief, an ugly cry for help–from a hero–or if you prefer, a Bat-signal. the only problem is, they have an irrevocable conflict of ideals. Bruce can't help her with what she needs, so it feels like another betrayal from a parent. Batman, for his part, still wants his happy-go-lucky Boy Wonder back–he struggles to accept Jacyn as she stands before him. Too much of his ego, the idea of his failure, is wrapped up around what happened to her and who she is now. Jacyn is trying too hard to communicate something Bruce can't comprehend as anything but defiance of his ideals.
this image is from the last issue of the Under the Hood storyline which was the introduction of this version of Red Hood, still probably the best comic to feature the character and the most indicative of her character to me. this issue's title was "Daedalus and Icarus," combining with the broken bird imagery of Jacyn as the "dead Robin" it describes her character perfectly. After years and years as such an exceptionally happy "Boy Wonder", with little thought to the painfully hanging threads of her birth family, and finally getting the chance to–not just meet, but save, her mother–she finds out her last remaining family member was waiting to sell her out to the Joker. from that perspective, she felt the tragic consequences of not heeding Batman–her father figure's–warning. looking at it another way, it's about Jacyn coming back from the dead with soaring hopes for a violent end to her grief, and having them crushed as her father figure defends the life of the man who killed her. for all the one-liners i quoted at the start, there's one line that ties her to the "Batman's Daughter" archetype in my mind, more than any other: "because he took me away from you."
Swamp Thing, notably not Alec Holland, from Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing. That's what i always knew it as, anyway. even though i last read those trade paperbacks over half a decade ago, it stands as maybe my favorite extended run by any writer on any title. given how long it's been i mostly remember images and impressions; the feeling of weightlessness in the dissociative dream sequences towards the end, the uncanny faces of the Parliament of Trees warped and written in tree bark shaped like ragged masonry. More than anything, the way Swamp Thing grew yams in the field of its broad back. even haunted by a body that feels geographically massive, it turns its will and its form towards making food for the one it loves. as the embodiment of nature itself, it screams in pain–and in these moments makes itself vulnerable, sensitive. tenderness is the first stage of pain healing. in the end, Swamp Thing must acccept itself as nature, and the False self Alec Holland as nothing more than a constructed ideal which must be progressed away from. ...at least, that's how i remember it. again, it's been a while, but hopefully its understandable why i'd want to cling to that perception of it–but what if it, too, was wrong from the start ? this is what i love about blogging, by the way. all this personal context with how i remember things would go completely unknown if i didn't mention it in times like these when it forms a unique light in which to remember these formative works.
anyway, this picture is cropped from the first page of issue 35 of the book Swamp Thing vol. 2, but issue 15 of Moore's run (pencils by Steve Bissette, inks by John Totleben, colors by Tatjana Wood.) Aside from being a peaceful moment between the Swamp Thing and its girlfriend Abby Arcane, those artists all brought their A-game to depicting a gorgeous sunset, newspapers in the wind, a peacefully sleeping beauty, a troubled wakeful beast, and the swamp that is its domain. the wood is all bare and bleached by the water and the sun, but the cool purple banding the pale pink give a sense of respite to the harsh environment, only complemented by just how at-peace Abby looks. Her cherry-red tank top instantly draws the eye, being the most saturated color in the whole image. The real contract is the hunched pile of roots, face drenched in inky shadow, punctuated by red glare off its eyes–again, the most saturated color in the whole image. i really like the color palette in this panel for highlighting that even in the place Swamp Thing is a part of, its eyes are the same color Abby is known for wearing. the pose Swamp Thing has in this particular panel always really resonated with me. Kinda like how the "Swamp Thing never was Alec" ending reminds me of the reveal that Hulk is a different person to Bruce Banner, Swamp Thing's broad, hunched back felt painful the same way as watching Hulk's overgrown muscles contort and fill in over each other. It's the kind of picture that makes me physically feel for the "monster".
alright so honestly this post is intended to basically get all these shapeless feelings i have about characters out of my system and into words. i already did that with Misumi Hatsune to a much fuller degree than i'll manage here, but for the sake of "Completeness":
after so many stories where girls who feel like Hatsune shouldn't get what they want (and often in ways that are done very well, like Uehara Ayumu's crush on Takasaki Yu in the Love Live Nijigasaki anime) there's something special about one that sets out to depict a relationship with genuinely challenging baggage that nonetheless is so strongly the best thing for all involved. the idea of "needs vs wants" is entirely flipped on its head. Hatsune's want is to remain paralyzingly close to Saki, never changing the excellently conveyed pain of the halfway state she finds herself in (just look at her body language!)
but what she needs is to be the first person to respect the agency of the girl she loves by accepting her love and forgiveness, even as Hatsune believes herself to be unforgivable. it's the best possible outcome for these characters and also the most challenging. Hatsune's strength as a romantic heroine in episode 12, along with just how identifiable she is, from her e11 monologue down to her shy, cringing movements around Saki in the previous 10 episodes make her one of, if not my outright favorite, characters of all time.
Once again, these aren't ordered, but like, come on. Of course the character i got my online nickname from is gonna be in the free space, if for no other reason than predictability. There's so much about Iwakura Lain that i just instantly identify with. much like her i was a serious late bloomer with technology, in a way that alienated me from my peers, but i've quickly closed the gap and honestly probably surpassed most non-experts in my generation? (most of my closer friends are in tech, and im like a guppy compared to them, but most people i see make me feel like a big fish in a very small pond. i guess this is slightly stolen valor.) like her, i was too tired after each school day to do anything but wear the comfiest clothes i could in the coziest, safest corner of my room. i viscerally identify with the shot of Lain slumping into her bed in her iconic bear pajamas. as the story progresses there are so many incredibly identifiable moments. so much about Cyberia reminds me of my experience growing up on the internet, going from shy, unsure introductions, to a traumatic event and eventually, a much more self-assured return. Each of those states is retained in the view of each of her three aspects; i wrote about this before but the premise of Lain involves "this girl looks like she has a fractured, mortal mind, but in reality, everything she does makes perfect sense." you would expect a show like this to pick apart her psyche looking for something "wrong," no matter how empathetic the portrayal; serial experiments lain is as a friend to its main character. as expected for a "God of the Wired," that world takes her whole perception of it seriously. instead of "none of your fears are real" it's "if they are real (and they are, she really is being gangstalked) you are fully prepared to handle them."
When i put it like that it sounds like a power fantasy. it's not, because the only way for the universe to play along with Lain's growing delusion-coded understanding is for her to cease to exist to everyone she's ever known. that's why, like NHK, i really classify serial experiments lain as something more like a really, really excellently done ventfic–an outpouring of personally fascinating angst set in an aesthetically interesting world which is textually embodied by its main character. her visual characterization really speaks to me. i picked this shot from the opening as an example, her expression with the pale pink background really speaks to me.
Connie Kent is one of those characters, like Saber, who my love for is matched only by my traumatic inability to talk about on the Internet. for a long time i've had this reading of her as a trans girl in much the same way as i do Red Hood, you can do the math. either way her discomfort with both her fathers/genetic templates is intensely relatable; the idea of becoming either Superman or Luthor is scary and weird to her. Explicitly, from the word "go", her angst was surrounding the expectation of herself as successor to Superman. This image is cropped from the "don't ever call me Superboy!" panel–at first blush, its clear to see what i mean there. in context, its because she believes herself to be the same person as the then-recently deceased Superman. i guess i am taking it a little out of context. shes not just telling people not to call her a boy, she's so distressed by the idea of growing into being her father(/genetic template/brother sometimes) that she's preemtively annihilating her own sense of identity. my mistake.
its fine to disagree with anyone's personal readings, obviously, but if you can't understand my reasoning... unless you're working in reverse from the conclusions that the corporate rights holders want you to have i assume you had your eyes closed when reading. seriously, the only way the extant constant retcons of her character aren't disrespectful as shit to the idea of Connie Kent as a character is if you accept she's constantly reinventing herself looking for who she is. she shaves her head in another moment of hopeless despair at her genetic makeup, learning she's as much Lex Luthor as Kal-El. its so frank and upsetting it feels like its expressing in shorthand something that's only understood as a memory. that storyline is explicitly about Connie lashing out at herself; the "why" really only makes sense as a part of the full context if you understand this issue to show her to be deeply and thoroughly distressed by the idea of an immutable maturity as one of these two men. for crying out loud her deadname is in-universe a Kryptonian slur referring to an abomination on a mythic scale. following in the footsteps of either of her halves... it's not quite in the cards. her role doesn't fit.
My experiences talking about Connie's character shape my connection to her. because i've had to fight for Connie so much, my bond to her is rawly emotional. it's shaped how i sound when i get platinum mad, and how i understand misunderstandings. i cannot stand the dismissive way Grant Morrison writes her (or Jacyn to be honest, that Batman run is wayy more hit-or-miss than people give it credit for) but their characterizing Connie as an artist in Multiversity: The Just is integral to my understanding of her. i think Supernova is a perfectly corny "the super-t girl" name for her to leave behind when she retires from costumed adventuring. i think there's something to the idea of her clone body aging quicker or being more prone to injury, too; not quite the Bizarroification they used seemingly to write out a character they're not fond of. My ideal Connie Kent story would have her as sort of a magical girl/angsty esper directly post-"exile in Gemworld" struggling with things like fatigue, dizziness and migraines while being a protector of [whichever non-Metropolis city] and trying to move from that costumed adventurer life to one as an artist–but I'll save that for AO3. No matter where you look in Connie Kent's publication history you're likely to find interesting characterization. even as it was and is shaped by turbulent behind-the-scenes conditions, piecing it all together with feeling is a lot of the fun of comics.
i struggle to find the words for how i feel about Guts. "role model" is definitely not it, but something like an inspiration, in a lot of ways? Berserk as Guts' story helped me come to terms with a lot of my past; i'd been diagnosed with cPTSD a few years before i read it but maintained active denial up until i got to the part with the Berserker armor. seeing Guts looking almost scalded by the metal plating as he takes off the helmet always stuck with me, even more than the white streak in his hair the armor gives him. all the panels where he's leaning against a tree with his sword by his side really stuck with me, too. my night terrors were especially bad at that time so his inability to sleep for all the demons following him touched a nerve. a lot about the purposelessness Guts feels that ties him to Griffith so strongly was really identifiable too. and i don't think i'm special for that; it's these soft emotions, more than Guts' rage, that i think most people really connect with, whether they know it or not.
But it's not just that. i remember reading about how Miura Kentaro based Guts leaving the Band of the Hawk on the feeling of leaving college to do manga full time. Not to analyze Miura-sensei from a work that as far as i know is not otherwise autobiographical but knowing part of it, and such a crucial moment drawn with so much impact, was makes the whole story more potent to me. Guts going off alone in group settings to silently rest, having so much to never speak about–it makes me feel like a part of me knows Guts, and a part of me read the story. the gulf between what's unknown to one yet known to another so vividly, makes me want to comfort him. but i'll settle for seeing him peaceful. There are so many panels from Berserk i could have picked to represent this. and like, of course. water is wet and Miura-sensei was one of the best mangaka to ever live. like i said, to me Berserk is about, or at least best exemplified, by its tenderly emotional moments. the love scene between Guts and Casca in the Golden Age probably does this best but as far as single panels it's this one from one of the final volumes. "Guts on Elf Island" is a shorthand to me for the kind of peace that settles in once unbearable circumstances feel far in the past. as much as i felt that panel of Guts out of the Berserker Armor, more and more in my life i find myself lucky enough to experience a peace so strong that the anger and fear i once knew in everpresence is like a past life. this panel conveys the beauty of that with such a conviction; the finality of it as one of the last images Miura-sensei created for his masterpiece just makes it all the more impactful to me. everything that makes Guts so important to me is represented by this panel more than maybe any other character's image does for them. (again, one of the best mangaka ever)
i think i like Petra from Gunslinger Girl for a lot of the same reasons i like Guts but in a completely different way. Her interactions and eventual romantic (in every sense of the word) relationship with Sandro, her "handler" as a combat cyborg, moved me deeply. it's one of those cases where they have no one but each other and a guaranteed violent life, but between his jaded pity on his weapon and her promise of combat trauma filling a short, physically painful life... there's definitely a massive power imbalance, but to the point that Sandro has any say, he "wields" it such that it makes the fleeting peace of Petra's life idyllic. having nothing else to do and himself being not much of an agent, he gives her the life of a normal girl as best he can. in conjunction with the premise–the combat cyborgs being these young girls miraculously saved from painful deaths but living on borrowed time, answering to people who refuse to see them as fully human–it was exactly the kind of thing i needed to see at the time. it didn't hurt that this girl living a new life was super visually identifiable, tall with short-ish shaggy hair and the kind of fashion sense i'd have if i had someone like Sandro to go outside with me. if i remember right this picture is from the first page of the volume Petra is introduced in, and it just absolutely floors me every time i read the series. unreal serve. i need this fit now i need to be her
This particular image of Uehara Ayumu is actually from a doujinshi, myonmukyuu's "A setting where Ayumu is in love with Yu, and Setsuna cheers her on". For as emotionally affecting as the Nijigasaki anime is when setting Ayumu up with Setsuna everything about Myon's art just speaks to me so deeply; i felt too bad to crop any panel out of "Wrapped in the scent of flowers" but that comic embodies the senses of warmth and rest i so associate with love. canon has no shortage of affecting moments !! mirroring their fist-bump encouragements to each other and daydreaming about pinning the other down in a Beauty-And-The-Beast-type setting, they're as close to canon as any Love Live couple gets. and how ! i know i cited this as a technically "negative" example when talking about Ave Mujica and while SetsuPomu is kind of the anti-HatsuSaki i think that's in a very specific sense where they still end up in the same feeling but end up going opposite ways to get there. SetsuPomu is Shadow HatsuSaki and AyumYu is Metal Sonic HatsuSaki. (none of these words are in the Bible.) Ave Mujica being the benchmark for this kind of very delicate romance in my mind, i think it's fair to compare them to explain how they both hit for me despite being so different at their face. the crucial difference is just how paralyzed Yu looked having Ayumu literally clinging to her; contrast this with how Hatsune cringes away from Sakiko as she storms out of the live house and how impassioned Saki is demanding Hatsune accept her forgiveness. Yu is brought into the world of idols by chance closeness to Ayumu, who was swept up into it in that same identifiable emptiness as Hatsune displays.
at the same time, from the beginning of the story, Setsuna is there, building the musical group that would form the foundation of the plot, albeit much less consciously than Sakiko did. the name "Yuki Setsuna" literally comes from her favorite light novel hero and heroine, respectively. (ask me in a few months what i make of that.) for now i'll just say her heroic, inspirational ideals run deep. she's made her whole image around being both cool and cute, with costumes featuring motifs of duality in split colors, acting in a hero show and performing as an idol... every choice she's made for her aesthetic persona is, in some way, about motivating others. her baggage around being a solo idol makes it even more powerful if she ends up with the girl who was inspired to become the very picture of an idol by Setsuna's first solo live. Ayumu's existence as a school idol is testament to the fact Setsuna can move people to take drastic steps for their happiness no matter what, that she can be for others what she needed trying to express herself with her strict parents around. instead of trying to inspire someone who supports her in spite of their differing dreams, Ayumu ends up with someone who would love to be school idols together; Setsuna is shown her life choices do matter, because she can and has changed the life of this girl.
Outside of her relationships though i just think Ayumu's shyness about being seen as cute flipping into that full-throttle "this is okay" after seeing Setsuna perform is really moe, really fascinating. it's always nice to see girls get that "desert bloom" moment and i've definitely taken a few cues from her building my wardrobe.
Ryuugu Rena is at the core of the most effectively tragic arc in Higurashi. From her introduction at the top of the arc, its very clear the high regard she holds Keiichi in. she's terrified to upset him, because they have so much fun together. he treats her with warmth; they're close. she's very moe, genuinely very weird more so than quirky, but exceedingly harmless. Keiichi loves to tease her about her nervousness and casually reassure her. he worries for her safety and vows to protect her from scummy guys. they're close enough to have that kind of established repertoire together. and then, along with more context about the town of Hinamizawa that makes him suspect all villagers–Keiichi learns something of Rena's past, and knowing "she has a disorder normal people didn't" indelibly stains his perception of her, down to her smile. Everything about her, to him, becomes an aspect of "deception"; the "truth" about Ryuugu Rena must be the least charitable interpretation of her past actions in conjunction with her diagnosis. once, she was recorded to be violent, so she will hurt him sooner or later. no action he takes to defend himself can be wrong. (when taken as a part of a larger story about a village discriminated against into the 20th century because of ancient legends they shared the "blood of demons," there's particuarly strong imagery of "demonization" in Keiichi's warped perception.) in the shadow of this comforting delusion, Keiichi's own mental health begins to rapidly decline as he loses his grip on reality. while both of these are at play, its ambiguous how much is the plot-relevant Hinamizawa Syndrome and how much is the thematically-relevant preconception of other/wrongness. ultimately, though, Rena's dramatic measures are a perfectly normal reaction to the sudden change in the way someone so dear treats her. her "crazed eyes" were full of fear. what Keiichi read as deadpan threats were really hollow cries for "warmth, again"; her maddened screams were really confused and pained. her night of repeated apologies spoken out in the rain were an expression of grief and guilt and real human contrition. Rena suffered like a ghost for Keiichi's preconceived notions, because of the stories he heard.
if you've read the first two thirds of this post i can't imagine why it'd be hard to see why Rena connects with me so strongly. even more than the expectedly resonant parts there are just so many granular similarities to things people once close to me have told me as they drop contact. specifically the "crazy eyes" thing, or the "staring into your soul" Keiichi also references... i know how Rena must be feeling. i apologized for hours then. its a horrible, horrible feeling, to have done something evidently so wrong if it could ruin such a close bond, without even knowing you've changed–especially when you haven't. i chose this image for Rena's smile. Rena is Rena, throughout this first arc at least; this kind of happiness never became unknown to her. it was always a part of her. for a time, it came so naturally around Keiichi and the rest of their friends that the most unknown and scariest thing imaginable was a different Rena. nothing is more Ryuugu Rena than this expression. (but the original ryukishi sprites are so cute and have so much character, i can't imagine playing any other version or missing the chance to give them a nod here.)
Tsushima Yohane (yes, Yohane) is a character with a few fairly obvious appeal points, so i don't have too much to say about her. Her chuunibyou persona is like the lore you might imagine looking at Goth Anime Angel, full of misappropriated religious imagery and frilly black dresses. (If Numazu were a larger town and Yohane a little older i'm sure she would smoke on skyscraper rooftops.) The way she talks about it makes me think of like, Soultaker meets Madoka; as much as i love Yohane the Parhelion i really wish her fantasies were adapted more directly. and not just for fallen angel x demon YohaRiko yuri !! Anyway i think Yohane's chuunibyou is genuinely cool; i really appreciate how those traits aren't something she needs to move past to grow up, nor are they even something pinned on a tragic event. (as if there were blame to assign for who she is, even if who she is is harmlessly abnormal.)
For the amount of screen time she has, and how easy it would be–she's only ever really flanderized in short interactions where you can't really include more complexity than they do, excepting one time it's done pointedly. When Yohane first joins Aqours, they all redesign their outfits to fit her "little demon" image. This whole gimmick gets them in trouble for trying to exploit the novelty of a new member. The actual issue is pretty different. Yohane feels responsible and runs away, her friends realize she needs more careful attention than blunt appeasement, and they go make it up to her properly: by inviting her to join Aqours "as the fallen angel, Yohane." There's nothing about her that's too much and if there is they'll speak up. Sunshine is overall a very strongly plotted show with plenty of moments like this, that gleam with the kind of emotional intelligent writing i've only found in rare masterpiece-tier VNs like Higurashi and Katawa Shoujo (which i desperately need to reread.) Either way, it's the most important here that her friends not just accept but welcome her for who she is !! With her basic social needs met we get to see Yohane grow into herself in her own way. as she matures, as an artist and as a person, she never loses her chuunibyou. that word means "second year of middle school syndrome". its so directly tied to immaturity that unless you're watching for it, you don't notice how reliable and truly kind she is. i described her as a "sempaiful kouhai" in this episode and i stand by that.
Yohane, so down on her luck she feels cursed, meets the cutest stray puppy in the world; she brings it to Riko (who is fucking terrified of dogs) to take care of. Of course the two bond and of course the time comes to take it back to its owner. the dog looks back before following the owners inside, which Yohane takes badly. Even when the chain of bad luck events is broken, she has the presumption of a curse about her, so unfortunate happenings feed into a framing in her mind that happy ones cannot. A lesser show would have played this as a reason for Yohane to "grow out of" her chuunibyou. but Love Live Sunshine doesn't !! speaking as a girl who's still in her edgelord emo phase after over a decade, that's meaningful itself. The real issue is resolved by Riko reminding Yohane that the dog was acknowledging them for the care and kindness. this framing restores Yohane's faith in her fate; Riko springboards off the idea that this was a fated encounter to get over her fear of dogs. aside from being yuriful as anything it's just really strong, emotionally intelligent writing applied to a character type that means a lot to me. if Yohane isn't, y'know, treated normally, without the presumption she should change, she can't succeed. Even though its not really the reason why its a problem i like that the rest of Aqours hopping on Yohane's style doesn't work out for them regardless. its a lot more profound for her friends to see her as an individual who they want with them than as an icon they can sublimate into. i adore that the love her friends have, the love that changes her life, is not about fixing her or becoming her but caring for who this girl is, and all her traits i identify with.
Chii is a goddamn icon. Unqualified statement. i haven't met many people who aren't either immediately smitten by her or struck by a yearning to be her. But, talking about an image that doesn't express anything in particular originally, from the start, kind of misses the point. she makes an impression like no one else, but she doesn't mean anything by it until she learns to, learns what it means to mean it. i first read Chobits at the exact right time in my life. i knew i made a distinct impression and was just starting to work on making it into an aesthetic persona when i found the cover from one of the anime's DVD releases with Chii sitting on a telephone pole. her resting expression was as blank yet graceful as i imagined my own, and the contrast between her hair against the sky and the rough steel utility pole she's sitting on brought an effervescent fantasy screaming into the world outside my window. it was the unimaginably beautiful mixed with the grungy mundane; tainted, and made possible. At a time where i was striving to know myself, as they do to this day, the implacable and thus previously ignored impressions like these caught my eye like nothing else.
Well, Cardcaptor Sakura had by this point already spoken deeply to me for years, so CLAMP had a good record in my books, but Chobits solidified them as a favorite. Honestly i'd say Chobits is easily CLAMP's best manga work, with their best work overall being the script contributions, designs and drawings contributed by various members of the circle to Cardcaptor Sakura, the longest-running perfect show. but as something made just by CLAMP, embodying their ethos and origin, Chobits is the ideal in my mind. it's shameless; "fanservicey", if by that you mean the creators have no compulsions about rendering their characters to be beautiful and sexy, as those characters are in love. Chii as a character embodies a lot of the archetypes i most heavily fuck with to this day being 1) a constructed being 2) whose designated purpose is less important than 3) her actualization as an emotionally complete being by 4) learning what it means to love. These parts of the story about her are a sublime mixture of "nothing i haven't seen before" rendered so beautifully, carefully and thoroughly that it makes me feel it like nothing else. more than just understanding, or being reminded of, the feeling, its a conveyance of the role fiction plays for humanity, as communication of wordless emotions as impressions and the catharsis in that, in and as a love story. that raw emotion is not just what the story is about, but its reason to have been written. In the best possible way, you can tell CLAMP started their careers in doujinshi. a lot of this stuff reads like really, really excellent fanfic. like, you can also easily see why they were able to turn their doujinshi passion projects into a career, but they never lost that intensely emotive reason for creating when they got published. they grew as artists, but in many ways, the maturity of their best works is in the dignity they treat the emotionality of their more immature characters like Chii and the young cast of Cardcaptor Sakura. it elevates them. they elevate each other, creator and character. there is a love story of the two written in between every CLAMP panel. it's best captured in Chii, though. the dignity with which they treat her progressive understanding of her own emotions showed me to allow myself to grow with a kind of similar kindness that i thought i'd grown past deserving.
Rice Shower ! by far the newest character on this chart, but i can't help it. Umamusume is way, way more complexly written than most reasonable people would expect a gacha based on racehorses to be, but it's absolutely had an impact on my life since the global release this past summer. Almost all my time in that game has been spent with Rice Shower; she's still the only trainee i've taken on and one of only a few whose story scenes i've read. i just happened to pull her in some event gacha when i first joined, and latched onto her emo bangs and darkly elegant racewear, so of course her story was the first one i read.
That game story is mostly about her connection to a certain picture book, "The Blue Rose of Good Fortune". It's a fairy tale about a rose garden and a one-of-her-kind blue rose that the garden's visitors and other flowers both consider a bad omen; until one person, her "big sister", is struck by the unique magnificence of this one blue rose among the others, and takes her home to raise in a flowerpot. And, you see... Rice Shower is a really impressive Umamusume. for all her dark horse upsets, Rice identifies with that blue rose. People boo her victories. She spoils the narrative. (Rice's inspiration in life is a literal blooming bud that inspires someone to nurture her. She is moe no matter how you look at it.) if it wasn't clear from characters like Misumi Hatsune and Ryougi Shiki, my biggest inspirations in life are also stories about girls burdened with the feeling of a curse applied by the people or situations they find themselves in the midst of. (Yes, the Blue Rose is a girl, like how Hello Kitty is.) But i don't connect to Rice Shower like that. When the player chooses to be her trainer, they're stepping into the role of the "big sister" as in that story. Overwhelmed with caution, she constantly advertises her own presumption of bad luck about herself to the trainer. i take that chance every chance i get. Yes, her favorite story is the kind of story i like, too, for the same reasons, but instead of seeing myself in her, i can only picture myself beside her. i want to see her win, not just because she is like me but because cheering her on and being motivated by her would be the best thing i could do for both her and myself.
The anime focuses on different aspects of Rice. She's not nearly as much of a main character, but she has a focus arc as a supporting cast member, and being a dark horse that's honestly where she shines. fittingly enough the themes surrounding her here are to do with how she's seen by the crowds. despite her traumatic fear of rejection, she trains in secret, wearing through a duffel bag of training shoes with how hard she works to be a hero to–if not the crowds, herself, and her competitors. She's named for a blessing of happiness on a newlywed couple. To consider her malicious just for honestly competing like every other Umamusume fills her with too much despair to accept it. So, her two focus episodes are titled "A Blessed Name" and "A Small Wish." that wish is to give her all, because anything else would be disrespectful to herself and her competitors, and to be seen for it, as the kind of rival who inspires others to get better. it is her right and duty to be a contender. The sheer vitriol she receives from others for doing so paralyzes her, but no matter what her reason might be, the fact remains she must give her all. Her school's motto is "Eclipse first, the rest nowhere," as a descriptor of excellence. it could be my interpretation but i never really liked that, at least as a literal statement. Special Week's loss to Grass Wonder is about the importance of those rivals when out on the track. As it applies to Rice's arc, it's about the audience just being a crowd. They are "the rest"; for the sake of Rice's self-actualization the goal is to place them "nowhere," out of mind. It's probably expected, but contrasting with the game's "i feel like her trainer, through it all, by her" feeling, Rice's story in the anime is a lot more inspirational. Having so much experience training her in the game, watching it, i finally experienced the life-changing effects of cheering her on through her most famous victory. My protective feelings around her changed to include the way one regards and defends their hero. i don't know if i could have blown past "the rest" the same way, to honestly write my feelings here, without her example.
i have an older but still-solid post about my thoughts on Fukakai na Boku no Subete wo, or FukaBoku, or Love Me For Who I Am, archived on this site, so i'll be quick talking about my connection to Mogu-chan, the main character, here. it has always been so important to me how bad they functionally are at communicating. First and foremost, that is the impression they left on me: whiny, demanding, and problematic to the people around them. this is why i like them. The English title is "love me for who i am"; that's only meaningful if it's somehow difficult, if loving someone for who they aren't is easier. Mogu-chan's friends at maid cafe Question aren't gonna find it difficult to accept them for the cute presentation they share in common; so there has to be something else that takes the title and makes it mean something. "Love me for who i am" is a burdensome demand at first blush, but Mogu-chan's experiences have proven to them it's the only way they can be seen. As i've lived transitioning for almost half a decade now, still struggling to find my "Question" even knowing who i am, that idea is even more resnonant to me. Mogu-chan doesn't just struggle to get along, they actively fail; but for as bad as they are at communicating its from how badly they need to be understood. they are no more worthy of isolation for it. To the extent their behavior should change, it's because they're a beautiful person who deserves to be understood, and indeed, loved for who they are. Mogu-chan is Mogu-chan, and they like to look cute. if they play 20 questions about who they are, it's because they shouldn't need to answer for it to begin with.
Speaking of: Cafe Question. i really appreciate the other two most prominent queer maids being Mei, a trans girl, and Sou, who's a gay guy and crossdresser. Like yeah it's nice to get a wide array of representations in this series (especially in emphasizing the difference between these two in terms of identity while also having them bond over common experiences) but one thing I didn't clock was how structurally important they are to Mogumo's development. As they strive and struggle to put their identity to words its nice that there are two people who share their presentation but from opposite ends of the gender spectrum. if you're one of those who cares about positive representations those two are way more dependable and communicative than Mogu-chan even as they each have their own issues. there's also a comfortably cis, hetero guy, at least as far as the story is concerned, who just enjoys cosplay. In case you got a different impression from my comic book headcanons, i genuinely love that for him. For the overall story, it's interesting that there's someone whose point of "weirdness" is something they do rather than a point of identity, and i admire the kind of work that gives the characters room to establish the difference. With Mogu-chan's trouble communicating, this supporting cast is as key to their characterization throughout much of the manga as anything.
Konata my beloved. Lucky Star has always been a very dear show to me; i've seen it more times than i can count and i've always walked away from it with, honestly, more than was probably intended. My first viewing, i just wanted to be Konata, not in the way you might be thinking either. Her knowledge, her passion, the completeness of her among her friends... seeing someone socially successful enough to not be lonely without sacrificing her personality traits is really nice... i don't talk about it much, but my high school experience was very abnormal. i was in a series of alternative placement schools owing to my first two years of middle school being too traumatic to return, and those schools were so rough i was constantly rotating in and out of recovery from things like getting stabbed with a pen. i couldn't attend much. by senior year of high school i was barely leaving my room, but i'd found a solace like nothing else in anime. it was only the summer after graduating that i'd 1) meet my best friend, and 2) first watch Lucky Star. Now if you know Matpi you can probably guess we bonded over CGDCT and the works of studio Kyoto Animation. (We actually met because of a meme about LoveChuuni i'd made.) in retrospect, i was fated to become the Konata Friend. Or maybe i already was ? Since i wasn't dealing with 8 hours of class a day i had a lot more time, comparatively, to spend on anime, so i was always making references to stuff they didn't get, but we were still close. Any time one of their series had a collab with something i was into i'd mention it as Konataful experience, paraphrasing. As we've spent time together, i finally got them to watch Lucky Star for themself. There aren't really words enough to describe the feeling of going from hoping to have friends like Konata's to being the Konata to Matpiedia's Mi-wiki-tan.
It would be enough just that we have that, but for this show in particular... The last few episodes of Lucky Star are one of the most perfect stretches of television in history. i'm being so serious when i say this, the OP drop in the final episode is the best i've ever seen that done. It's what this kind of thing is all about–putting in the effort to express something that's impossible to hold in and a great happiness to let out. i'm talking about the cheerleader dance, but i'm also talking about: every doujinshi pickup and background cosplay in the Comiket episodes, the Anime Tenchou segments breaking style entirely to perfectly homage hot-blooded anime of the then-less-distant past. i could genuinely cry thinking about Konata's room. the colors are so gentle and her figure collection is drawn with specific figures that existed in real life at the time of airing . all that's thematically important !! she makes references her friends don't get, and they joke about her having sexy anime figures out in her room. They don't understand each other ! But they care for each other deeper than words can express regardless. KyoAni was the only studio that could have done this, drawn into being this lovely world. Their small, close-knit staff had already rendered some of the most beautiful animation put to digipaint, and would go on to garner a reputation for capturing the overwhelming emotion in the mundane, both in writing and in visuals. The doujin circle-like conditions at the studio probably contribute to this, the care and love that makes the beauty in everything visible. It's all lovingly ribbing, friends joking together. there is love here, and it can be seen.
Suruga Kanbaru is such a goddamn treasure. i mean from the word go, she has a lot of the best lines and jokes in the series. (She's also hot as fuck and very often wearing very little clothing, which has less to do with it than you might think.) That first arc, Suruga Monkey, is so strongly about jealousy and "abandonment" that it's legitimately altered how i visualize and process my emotions. The image of the Rainy Devil–a hairy human-like shape in a raincoat with bright red light defining its eyes with bloodlust–. For all i just talked about the love-laced presence of emotion in Lucky Star, that lovely warmth as the fixation of a heat-starved beast is captured in its booming movements like thunder against the rain. i manage it, obviously. its just how strongly that cold fury and unbalanced power captures that thing caged inside my ribs at my worst. Simply put, i know the feeling very well. her visualizing that heartbroken jealousy as a monkey's paw, even as it isn't, is so specifically identifiable it's eerie. textually, the bandages around her arm are a way to hide the "monkey's paw" that has become her since her heart broke, but they give the impression of an injury to the arm that's still healing years later. When paired with the knowledge that her foil, Numachi, committed suicide, its hard for me not to see this arm wrapped in bandages forever, concealing a physical manifestation of internal injury, as a visual allegory for self-harm. But all that aside, i first noticed Kanbaru for her openness and brash sense of humor.
Then Hanamonogatari flipping that on its head made her my favorite Monogatari character. Revealing how much of her existing character was a hybrid of Araragi's perception of those same traits, her shamelessness and freedom, and her leaning into it–it's a risky choice in such a popular series !! Even more so considering the way characters constantly lampshade their depth as "sudden character changes" and talk about the disastrous effects such a shift can knock-on to the series popularity. However, it was necessary. She's a character thus far defined by her shadow self's violent jealousy and her reaction to Araragi's perception of her. Much like she boxed Senjougahara into her perception of her, we see how Araragi has done the same–and how he will, differently, in the future. It's so brilliant it gleams even in a series known for its emotionally intelligent writing. Now that she's free of the Rainy Devil, Kanbaru's biggest need right then is to live her life for herself, since she no longer has her senpai to guide her. As usual for this series, her life thus far has already been defined by emotional extremes, but her unique spot as kouhai to characters like Araragi and Senjougahara means she's had less time to process them. The epic highs and lows of high school basketball are still fresh in her mind; she still has the very literal ghost of her forgotten rival, Numachi, to contend with. The story also needs Araragi to grow past the way he saw her. It's a tight needle to thread but by having them interact minimally NisioisiN is able to lean on Araragi's awareness of his nature as an observer to justify his being normal to her in a way he could not while being as oblivious to his preconceptions as he previously was. Like, it's super in character for him to tell someone to value themself and their own perception more, ("it does bother someone, it bothers you, and thats reason enough to take action"). That line, to me, is something of an apology without being one. It's the kind of encouragment that makes up for his part in her needing it to begin with, warning her (with full context of Numachi's suicide) the quiet death in selflessly acting along with everyone else's perceptions. If she hadn't heard that, she would have, on some level, held back for the sake of Numachi's unbothered existence as a ghost. This picture has Kanbaru looking at her Rainy Devil hand on the basketball court where she played against Numachi at Araragi's encouragement. But if i could have made a screenshot from the real results of that conversation in the car–when Kanbaru goes running, stumbles, falls, and breaks into joyous tears being able to feel her left arm hurting–i would have. That scene makes me feel for her so strongly, i've seen it a million times and it makes me bawl on eacha and every one.
i've written about Onimai on this blog, and so by extension Mahiro is the character i've written about the most recently. i'd feel a little silly just restating things i said a few months ago, but i did want to make sure i mentioned something i'd realize recently getting to hang out with one of my besties and some of her friends. the fantasy in Onimai is both in going back and growing up the correct gender and also the experience of that. The day to day of being one of the girls. That's not exclusive to Onimai, it's pretty common to the CGDCT genre. But the significance of being seen as just one of the girls, without any asterisks or postscripts, is the kind of thing i've only seen discussed and celebrated here. In addition to the wish fulfillment aspect it's also just conveying something really important and special about friendship between girls that speaks to me as one.
This thing took me way too long to write and i genuinely stressed about it more than anything. disclaimer that this is heavily personal and based on my perceptions of these characters, if you think i got something wrong write your own blog about why it matters. also if you wanna give this a shot, this is me tagging you to do it, with any number of characters; as i said this is the kind of thing i really like to read. thank you a million for reading ^___^