Defense of Hawatari Yuiko
Hi, I'm Ddae, a seventeen-year-old Australian girl who dislikes extremist behavior in fandoms. I've been reading posts in this community for a while, and it's only just occurred to me to get an LJ and post myself. ^^
I recently discovered a manga called LOVELESS, by Kouga Yun (who also created Earthian). I liked the sound of the story and the characters, and, since I couldn't find anything about it on the net besides random mentions of it in blogs and scanlations, I downloaded the scanlations.
Basically, LOVELESS is about a world where everyone has cat-ears and tails. There's this bizarre system where some people are somehow chosen to become warriors who fight for an unknown cause. They're set up in pairs--a Sacrifice, who takes the damage and is the master of the pair, and a Warcraft, who does the fighting. The main character, Ritsuka, is a Sacrifice. The main female character, Yuiko, is not.
Frankly, I was quite disgusted with the scanlations. The editor obviously despises Yuiko and keeps inserting her own comments about her. For example:
-_- Oh please, Ritsuka, just kill her all right? Pretty please?
But he doesn't like you, bitch.
What about killing yourself now? :)
. . . which I think is taking it too far. Hate Yuiko all you want, fine. Just don't presume that I hate her too, okay? I like Yuiko.
As far as I can tell, the editor dislikes Yuiko because of her attachment to Ritsuka and her air-headed behavior. She even hates Ritsuka's therapist, commenting, "Don't you think this 'doctor' is a bitch? :)" Personally, the only female LOVELESS characters I hate are Yuiko's bitchy "friends", but hey, who wouldn't hate them?
I just don't get it. Sure, Yuiko may come across as silly at first, but if you give her a chance, you'll see that she's just lonely. Her parents are never home (her father hadn't taken a vacation for four years) and her so-called 'friends' do nothing but pick on her. Even so, she deserves recognition for being the only one to try to befriend Ritsuka and she does try to improve herself--starts referring to herself as 'I' instead of 'Yuiko' when Ritsuka says it makes her sound stupid, and she reads more--the books Ritsuka likes, nonetheless--this is the kid who reads Nietzsche, people. It seems that she has low self-confidence: she doesn't believe that she can get high scores in maths like Ritsuka does, and when Yayoi asked her out, she freaked and gave him stupid reasons for rejecting him. I mean, it's obvious that she didn't reject him because he's shorter--she hangs out with Ritsuka, and he's the same height as Yayoi.
I assume that Yuiko would also get demerit points in many eyes for her appearance--she has very large breasts for a twelve-year-old, and she tends to wear midriff-baring, low-cut shirts and short skirts or tight pants. However, Soubi also dresses remarkably similarly, and he is a very popular character (in a fandom of about ten people, but that's beside the point!).
Yuiko does not behave like a bitch. She is kind, engaging in conversation with him because she genuinely cares about people and wants to help him ease into life at a new school. The "bitchiest" thing she does is comment that Ritsuka seems to have split personalities, but she had no way of realizing that those words would affect Ritsuka so much. She persists in trying to make him her friend because she hates loneliness. She recognizes that Ritsuka isolates himself from others and tries to coax him out because that's what's best for him.
What's more, Yuiko is not "getting in the way." While Ritsuka cares for her as a friend, it's clear that neither Ritsuka nor Soubi is interested in her romantically. Kio's a lot more of a threat to the Soubi/Ritsuka relationship than Yuiko is--he lives with Soubi and is blatantly possessive of him ("I'm Soubi's wife! I can go through his things!"). So there's no need to bash her for caring about Ritsuka. He cares about her too, however much he may act otherwise. THEY. ARE. FRIENDS. I'm sorry you don't understand the concept of "friendship". Even if you interpret her behavior as a crush, it's like Shinonome-sensei says: she's twelve. She might think she loves Ritsuka, but she's probably misreading her feelings.
Even if I didn't think the Yuiko-bashing was unfounded, a scanlation is not the place for it! Let people make up their minds for themselves. I really hate it when people do this kind of thing. My first experience with Fushigi Yuugi was a Seiryuu fansite run by an extremely rabid Miaka-basher. I heard that she was butt-ugly, had an irritating voice, did nothing but eat and screech, and had every single guy in the series falling over her. I first heard about D·N·ANGEL from a review that hated on Risa, declaring her to be shallow and selfish, and claimed that the only thing wrong with Daisuke was that he was in love with her.
An anime is coming out in the next couple of months, and I must admit to being a little apprehensive. LOVELESS has angst, catboy bishounen in chains and shounen ai--it sounds like the kind of thing fangirls would flock too. Frankly, I'm terrified the fandom will turn out like Gravitation's.
I recently discovered a manga called LOVELESS, by Kouga Yun (who also created Earthian). I liked the sound of the story and the characters, and, since I couldn't find anything about it on the net besides random mentions of it in blogs and scanlations, I downloaded the scanlations.
Basically, LOVELESS is about a world where everyone has cat-ears and tails. There's this bizarre system where some people are somehow chosen to become warriors who fight for an unknown cause. They're set up in pairs--a Sacrifice, who takes the damage and is the master of the pair, and a Warcraft, who does the fighting. The main character, Ritsuka, is a Sacrifice. The main female character, Yuiko, is not.
Frankly, I was quite disgusted with the scanlations. The editor obviously despises Yuiko and keeps inserting her own comments about her. For example:
-_- Oh please, Ritsuka, just kill her all right? Pretty please?
But he doesn't like you, bitch.
What about killing yourself now? :)
. . . which I think is taking it too far. Hate Yuiko all you want, fine. Just don't presume that I hate her too, okay? I like Yuiko.
As far as I can tell, the editor dislikes Yuiko because of her attachment to Ritsuka and her air-headed behavior. She even hates Ritsuka's therapist, commenting, "Don't you think this 'doctor' is a bitch? :)" Personally, the only female LOVELESS characters I hate are Yuiko's bitchy "friends", but hey, who wouldn't hate them?
I just don't get it. Sure, Yuiko may come across as silly at first, but if you give her a chance, you'll see that she's just lonely. Her parents are never home (her father hadn't taken a vacation for four years) and her so-called 'friends' do nothing but pick on her. Even so, she deserves recognition for being the only one to try to befriend Ritsuka and she does try to improve herself--starts referring to herself as 'I' instead of 'Yuiko' when Ritsuka says it makes her sound stupid, and she reads more--the books Ritsuka likes, nonetheless--this is the kid who reads Nietzsche, people. It seems that she has low self-confidence: she doesn't believe that she can get high scores in maths like Ritsuka does, and when Yayoi asked her out, she freaked and gave him stupid reasons for rejecting him. I mean, it's obvious that she didn't reject him because he's shorter--she hangs out with Ritsuka, and he's the same height as Yayoi.
I assume that Yuiko would also get demerit points in many eyes for her appearance--she has very large breasts for a twelve-year-old, and she tends to wear midriff-baring, low-cut shirts and short skirts or tight pants. However, Soubi also dresses remarkably similarly, and he is a very popular character (in a fandom of about ten people, but that's beside the point!).
Yuiko does not behave like a bitch. She is kind, engaging in conversation with him because she genuinely cares about people and wants to help him ease into life at a new school. The "bitchiest" thing she does is comment that Ritsuka seems to have split personalities, but she had no way of realizing that those words would affect Ritsuka so much. She persists in trying to make him her friend because she hates loneliness. She recognizes that Ritsuka isolates himself from others and tries to coax him out because that's what's best for him.
What's more, Yuiko is not "getting in the way." While Ritsuka cares for her as a friend, it's clear that neither Ritsuka nor Soubi is interested in her romantically. Kio's a lot more of a threat to the Soubi/Ritsuka relationship than Yuiko is--he lives with Soubi and is blatantly possessive of him ("I'm Soubi's wife! I can go through his things!"). So there's no need to bash her for caring about Ritsuka. He cares about her too, however much he may act otherwise. THEY. ARE. FRIENDS. I'm sorry you don't understand the concept of "friendship". Even if you interpret her behavior as a crush, it's like Shinonome-sensei says: she's twelve. She might think she loves Ritsuka, but she's probably misreading her feelings.
Even if I didn't think the Yuiko-bashing was unfounded, a scanlation is not the place for it! Let people make up their minds for themselves. I really hate it when people do this kind of thing. My first experience with Fushigi Yuugi was a Seiryuu fansite run by an extremely rabid Miaka-basher. I heard that she was butt-ugly, had an irritating voice, did nothing but eat and screech, and had every single guy in the series falling over her. I first heard about D·N·ANGEL from a review that hated on Risa, declaring her to be shallow and selfish, and claimed that the only thing wrong with Daisuke was that he was in love with her.
An anime is coming out in the next couple of months, and I must admit to being a little apprehensive. LOVELESS has angst, catboy bishounen in chains and shounen ai--it sounds like the kind of thing fangirls would flock too. Frankly, I'm terrified the fandom will turn out like Gravitation's.