sci-fi owns my soul
So in between writing papers like mad and going to all sorts of end of the year shindigs, I've been loving the return of tv shows and also reliving some good old anime stuff. Like Yami no Matsuei and X/1999, which in between the really cracked out outfits and the random flying sakura petals and villains with trench coats and missing eyes, is some
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"Yami no Matsuei is actually the weakest of the anime and manga series I love, so I'm damned if I know why I've written the most for it. The plotting is on crack, the humor and the darkness aren't particularly well-integrated, it doesn't a great deal of thematic complexity, and I have major reservations about its treatment of gender, its portrayal of homosexuality (where the only explicit homosexual acts are nonconsensual and my God does volume 4 of the manga NOT make me feel any better about this), and the aestheticization of sexual violence. But still I love it. I love it for Hisoka's angry determination and sudden vulnerability and for Tsuzuki's desperate generosity and sudden strength. I love it because the anime version does, unexpectedly, have a fairly consistent theme of abuse survivors fearing--or giving in to--the monstrous in themselves, and only being saved by their willingness to give and receive love. I love it because it says love doesn't solve everything, but maybe it can save you when it really counts. I love it for the blood on white flowers and the sadness of cherry blossoms and the beauty of the rain and the glory of phoenix-fire, and I love it for the shadows of bars across a child's cell, across a man's hospital bed. I love it for the incredible hotness of Evil Tsuzuki and his black, black wings, and I love it for Hisoka's conviction that there's no point in consoling lies--and his slow realization that hope isn't always a lie after all.
But mostly I love it for the Hisoka/Tsuzuki, because I am a sap, I really am, and Hisoka never thought anyone would want to save him and Tsuzuki never thought he deserved to be saved. I love it because Hisoka snarls and Tsuzuki brings him cold soda, because Hisoka's bait in a trap and Tsuzuki comes for him anyway, because they merge everything they are within two days of meeting each other, because they're holding each other together in flames."
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