I am such a Kazuki fangirl.
MAJOR KAZUKI FIGHT makes me sooooo incredibly happy <3333 Plus, there's some pretty major character stuff in here, which makes me extremely happy.
Learned new thing re: 'prince of terror'--senritsu no oujisama--is homophonous to senritsu no oujisama--'prince of song'. Which definitely suits him. A combination of song and terror, in one word, distinguished only by writing that probably didn't actually get written all that often in Mugenjou....perfect!!!! <333
Also, his reaction to the Urafuuchouin (aka the people who killed his family, etc.) is really interesting to me. I mean, these people do pretty terrible things. They betrayed and killed the Fuuchouin main clan, they helped do the whole kidnap Himiko thing, they've been just mean and cold and selfish the whole time they've shown up. Their techniques focus around stealing the souls of others and taking over their bodies. They're the people that kidnapped and manipulated the members of Fuuga. Not to mention they all talk in really annoying ways, and Fanservice Girl (aka Maiyu) is one of them. But that doesn't make them bad people so much as obnoxious.
ANYWAYS, the point is, they're recognized as 'evil', 'twisted', and generally downright bad, within the series. They have an 'evil aura' and their 'dark techniques' are pretty disgusting. Kazuki's reaction to them, though, actually isn't 'Kill you alll!!!' as it has been up until now. He realizes that their attitude is necessary for their fighting style (come on, you have to be pretty rough personality-wise to not care about stealing people's souls). And he realizes that it's really his family's fault that this fighting style developed. After all, the Urafuuchouin are the shadow clan to the Fuuchouin. They've protected the main clan from the shadows, taking care of all the things an elegant, graceful fighting school shouldn't look at too closely. The whole idea is problematic, but the Urafuuchouin are recognized as the reason the Fuuchouin survived for so long; a combination of basest servants--people you don't want anywhere near you--and the most necessary of bodyguards. Upon realizing this, he took it upon himself to 'redeem' his school's crimes by saving the Urafuuchouin with his pure threads.
I don't know what to think about this realization of Kazuki's. On the one hand, he's recognizing a facet of reality that he hasn't really looked at before...that his school's purity and grace only developed through harming others. That they really couldn't exist without treading on the backs of others. This is good to realize and understand; you should seek to understand your own style as fully as possible.
On the other hand, though, he's still presenting as the paragon of goodness, which will now save these subjugated, evil beings from themselves. He's still better than them, not only in the paragon of good/bad guy, but also in the more worthy than them sort of sense. I see this as problematic, because--to put it in Wellesley terms--he's recognized his privilege, and then gone right on acting privileged anyways. He's going, oh, wow, this is all my school's fault, BUT THAT'S OKAY BECAUSE MY CLEARLY BETTER SCHOOL WILL NOW SAVE YOU FROM YOUR CLEARLY HORRIBLE SCHOOL. And this isn't purposeful, it's clear that he's supposed to read as being sympathetic and caring and graceful and gentle and soothing, but the basic message is still that he is savior figure here.
Now, this is honestly being pretty nitpicky when it comes to manga. XD The fact that he recognized his clan's fault in this matter at ALL is pretty astounding for manga; I mean, these are the people (not just the relatives, but the exact people) that killed his family. But it still makes me go, hmm, something still off here.
Another interesting thing: I've now seen like five different versions of Kazuki's mother's last words within the manga, all out of Kazuki's memories. They're usually 'Flee' or 'Go to Mugenjou', the latter of which always made me curious, because what the hell kind of advice is that to give your preteen, girlish son, no matter what his technical ability? But I kind of figured, okay, no one outside knows what's going on within Mugenjou, if he's in there at least the Urafuuchouin won't be able to find him so easily.
And then here, there have also been 'Don't flee'. Which....it was a massacre in a burning complex. Okay, let's talk about bad advice, right! And then, most interestingly...'Stay away from Mugenjou.' That one's interesting because it shows up when Kazuki is doing his little realization about the nature of the Urafuuchouin. He thought his family wanted him to avoid Mugenjou in order to avoid seeing the harm they'd wrought over the centuries...their 'dark karma', I believe it was translated as. Very interesting.
I wish I could get a better view of his mom. Or at least a consistent statement. Her last words are the only ones we ever see from her, and they're only a sentence, and it's getting very confusing what exactly she said. I'm going to have to go read this section in Japanese and see if I can get a better grasp on it. With Getbackers that sometimes helps.
Also, OMG JUUBEI SO COOL HERE!!!! *squee* Protecting Kazuki....sacrificing self....not sure that this actually conforms scientifically (something about magnetic rock being implanted in chest somehow causing radioactive aura? @.@) but still, he's such a determined, loyal character. Very interesting, very cool. I'm not expressing it well at all, but he's a very interesting character to me...he's a challenge to get, and every time I get another scrap of information about him, it's like another little tiny layer peels back. I swear, if I could actually step into this world, I'd spend the whole time studying Fuuga.
And then I hit the end of the translated stuff and am reminded of why it takes me so damn long to read the raws. SUCH BAD QUALITY SCANS. >:( I need to find new ones, really.
.....O.O O.O O.O Kazuki and Yohan are....BROTHERS?!?!? O-O *mind blown*
Learned new thing re: 'prince of terror'--senritsu no oujisama--is homophonous to senritsu no oujisama--'prince of song'. Which definitely suits him. A combination of song and terror, in one word, distinguished only by writing that probably didn't actually get written all that often in Mugenjou....perfect!!!! <333
Also, his reaction to the Urafuuchouin (aka the people who killed his family, etc.) is really interesting to me. I mean, these people do pretty terrible things. They betrayed and killed the Fuuchouin main clan, they helped do the whole kidnap Himiko thing, they've been just mean and cold and selfish the whole time they've shown up. Their techniques focus around stealing the souls of others and taking over their bodies. They're the people that kidnapped and manipulated the members of Fuuga. Not to mention they all talk in really annoying ways, and Fanservice Girl (aka Maiyu) is one of them. But that doesn't make them bad people so much as obnoxious.
ANYWAYS, the point is, they're recognized as 'evil', 'twisted', and generally downright bad, within the series. They have an 'evil aura' and their 'dark techniques' are pretty disgusting. Kazuki's reaction to them, though, actually isn't 'Kill you alll!!!' as it has been up until now. He realizes that their attitude is necessary for their fighting style (come on, you have to be pretty rough personality-wise to not care about stealing people's souls). And he realizes that it's really his family's fault that this fighting style developed. After all, the Urafuuchouin are the shadow clan to the Fuuchouin. They've protected the main clan from the shadows, taking care of all the things an elegant, graceful fighting school shouldn't look at too closely. The whole idea is problematic, but the Urafuuchouin are recognized as the reason the Fuuchouin survived for so long; a combination of basest servants--people you don't want anywhere near you--and the most necessary of bodyguards. Upon realizing this, he took it upon himself to 'redeem' his school's crimes by saving the Urafuuchouin with his pure threads.
I don't know what to think about this realization of Kazuki's. On the one hand, he's recognizing a facet of reality that he hasn't really looked at before...that his school's purity and grace only developed through harming others. That they really couldn't exist without treading on the backs of others. This is good to realize and understand; you should seek to understand your own style as fully as possible.
On the other hand, though, he's still presenting as the paragon of goodness, which will now save these subjugated, evil beings from themselves. He's still better than them, not only in the paragon of good/bad guy, but also in the more worthy than them sort of sense. I see this as problematic, because--to put it in Wellesley terms--he's recognized his privilege, and then gone right on acting privileged anyways. He's going, oh, wow, this is all my school's fault, BUT THAT'S OKAY BECAUSE MY CLEARLY BETTER SCHOOL WILL NOW SAVE YOU FROM YOUR CLEARLY HORRIBLE SCHOOL. And this isn't purposeful, it's clear that he's supposed to read as being sympathetic and caring and graceful and gentle and soothing, but the basic message is still that he is savior figure here.
Now, this is honestly being pretty nitpicky when it comes to manga. XD The fact that he recognized his clan's fault in this matter at ALL is pretty astounding for manga; I mean, these are the people (not just the relatives, but the exact people) that killed his family. But it still makes me go, hmm, something still off here.
Another interesting thing: I've now seen like five different versions of Kazuki's mother's last words within the manga, all out of Kazuki's memories. They're usually 'Flee' or 'Go to Mugenjou', the latter of which always made me curious, because what the hell kind of advice is that to give your preteen, girlish son, no matter what his technical ability? But I kind of figured, okay, no one outside knows what's going on within Mugenjou, if he's in there at least the Urafuuchouin won't be able to find him so easily.
And then here, there have also been 'Don't flee'. Which....it was a massacre in a burning complex. Okay, let's talk about bad advice, right! And then, most interestingly...'Stay away from Mugenjou.' That one's interesting because it shows up when Kazuki is doing his little realization about the nature of the Urafuuchouin. He thought his family wanted him to avoid Mugenjou in order to avoid seeing the harm they'd wrought over the centuries...their 'dark karma', I believe it was translated as. Very interesting.
I wish I could get a better view of his mom. Or at least a consistent statement. Her last words are the only ones we ever see from her, and they're only a sentence, and it's getting very confusing what exactly she said. I'm going to have to go read this section in Japanese and see if I can get a better grasp on it. With Getbackers that sometimes helps.
Also, OMG JUUBEI SO COOL HERE!!!! *squee* Protecting Kazuki....sacrificing self....not sure that this actually conforms scientifically (something about magnetic rock being implanted in chest somehow causing radioactive aura? @.@) but still, he's such a determined, loyal character. Very interesting, very cool. I'm not expressing it well at all, but he's a very interesting character to me...he's a challenge to get, and every time I get another scrap of information about him, it's like another little tiny layer peels back. I swear, if I could actually step into this world, I'd spend the whole time studying Fuuga.
And then I hit the end of the translated stuff and am reminded of why it takes me so damn long to read the raws. SUCH BAD QUALITY SCANS. >:( I need to find new ones, really.
.....O.O O.O O.O Kazuki and Yohan are....BROTHERS?!?!? O-O *mind blown*