Canada Day Pastimes

[flemmings]

An entry in camwyn's lj got me into searching and dling the Japanese national anthem. Nothing like having an anthem that goes back to the 10th century, yes. I'm a novice at this stuff and nothing but mp3s will play on my machine -even though I've got the software for other formats- but I now have two very nice ones, one of which (from here) reminds me happily of the NHK sign-off. I get all misty hearing it. I want to hear that nice female voice telling me to check my doors and make sure all fires are put out.

Otherwise have done a careful read of Even a Worm, after barely skimming it for a year and change. I don't know if Hazel is really as slimy as I want to believe him after hearing what his cheering section has to say about him, but he's certainly slimy. Maybe one has to be 20 to see the attraction. (OTOH after this one I'm ready to fall in love with Hakkai all over again. How delighted a little character development makes us. Pathetic we are, bach.)

And that casual comment from someone, that Saiyuki can be seen as a chess game between Kanzeon and Nii, has made me very happy.

Comments

[incandescens]

And one can perfectly well argue that a personal history of major tragedy and angst and whatnot does not provide an excuse for current behaviour. Look at our protagonists, after all.

Limpid eyes and silvery floating hair doesn't excuse sliminess. I'd swear that Kami-sama was less obnoxious in some ways that Hazel; Kami-sama never grew up. Hazel has. I don't like what he grew into.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's something to that last. Kami-sama, even to me reading the series in installments, was clearly lacking in something basic. Even as a villain he didn't live in the same world as everyone else. Hazel... does. True, he's a foil as well: the example that makes Hakkai certainly and Sanzou quite possibly question their basic assumptions. It doesn't make him any more likable. (Nor do I want to think that recent re-meeting suggests that he was the same kind of victim as Kami-sama. A week, was it? is hardly the same as 'from childhood onwards.' Be nice if Hazel was going to act as a foil to Bunnyman as well.)

The end of the burial arc however has me seriously wondering if there's more in the bunny than what we see coming out of it. A certain question of place prepositions with respect to Koumyou's whereabouts is highly suggestive. Also am I mad or did the youkai who killed Koumyou take his arm away after cutting it off?

[incandescens]

Koumyou's arm . . . hm. I seem to recall that the images of dead Koumyou show him as having lost an arm, but I'm not sure whether or not they specifically say the youkai took him away.

However, when Gyokumen's giving orders to barcoded-Kougaiji, I have a vague memory that she told him to bring back Sanzou's sutra "and one of his arms". Are we cross-correlating to that here?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Yup. If she asks for Sanzou's arm then the suggestion is it wasn't entirely fortuitous that the youkai cut off Koumyou's. Next question being, what do we need a physical bit of these Sanzous for? ...especially since they didn't use any of the scorpion-youkai-killed-Sanzou's flesh (that we know of.) OTOH she may have forgotten there was a scorpion-youkai-killed-Sanzou in the first place. Mangaka do that, alas.

[incandescens]

Maybe it's to help regenerate/revive Gyumaoh. Feed him on the flesh of Sanzous, etcetera?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

That's consistent with the properties of Sanzou flesh as laid out in the original novel. I suppose it's a possibility. One never knows which bits of the source will get thrown into the manga, after all-- nor how they'll come out in the resulting okonomiyaki.

[incandescens]

Or then again, perhaps Gyokumen was just trying to make sure Sanzou got killed, and framed her request in the traditional Wicked Stepmother model. ("And bring me back Snow White's heart!") :)

[kickinpants.livejournal.com]

A certain question of place prepositions with respect to Koumyou's whereabouts is highly suggestive.

Hm, I have no clue what this means? Could you explain. I'm really curious. (I don't remember the arm thing either. Really? That's so interesting...)

I still don't like Hazel. Gato's fun though.

Nii is so interesting though. I wonder if near the end, it will be fight between him and Sanzo (since Koumyou is technically out of the picture.) I also wonder when Nataku will be popping back in...

*Technically* out of the picture

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Last page of the Burial arc in vol 4 we have Bunnyman saying- or thinking, I suppose: it's the words between frames- 'Datte, hora, anata wa, ima mo mada soko ni iru kara.' Back of Nii is the bunny and a half moon. Since Koumyou has been identified as the moon presumably the soko refers to that, but it's an awfully far away thing to be soko in the ordinary way of things. Much closer as a soko location is the bunny on the railing, which also appears in closeup in the top frame just above the datte hora anata wa. Now the bunny could be there to mark that there's been a transition from the Ukoku of the previous pages to the Nii of the present, but its double appearance in a page with only two frames in it bothers me.

Especially since I don't understand the orite inai of the actual dialogue; but if it's the 'quit' sense of oriru it suggests even more strongly that Koumyou is still around somehow. 'Neither you nor I have quit/ withdrawn (from this' = 'we're both still at it.') 'Cause look, even /now/, you're *still* here.'

Which could be purely metaphorical- Nii can't ever get away from the thing that lights up his night: the memory of Koumyou/ the moon. But it might not.

Nataku... I don't hold my breath. He looked pretty dead in the last eps.

Re: *Technically* out of the picture

[kickinpants.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, I see. That is interesting. Hmmm... (ponders) If he is alive, would he be wandering around armless? Or would he have been reborn?

I don't know why they need the arms unless it's because Sanzos use their hands when praying? If you need the flesh of a Sanzo, I don't know why you'd specifically need an arm otherwise...

As for Nataku, I think he's in a coma/sleeping/whatever. He coming back into the picture will most likely lead to Goku regaining his memories and all the following conflict. Unless that is just his body sitting in the chair in heaven, and he's already been reborn on earth. I think he'll be back in the story, either as himself or as his reborn self. (theory)

Re: *Technically* out of the picture

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Koumyou's not alive-alive, but the fannish suggestion a ways back that Nii had somehow incarcerated his soul in the rabbit sounds ominously close to what we see here. Clearly a specter is haunting Nii Jen'i, but since Nii /is/ Nii one doubts that a mere specter would do it. Or else Koumyou is his one weakness. 'I (or someone) killed you but you're still around.'

I doubt Nataku's been reincarnated. Itan don't, do they? if we go by Homura. He's the one character I might just see Minekura using in the main series, since she likes him so much.

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

I don't like Hazel either.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Let's form an anti-Hazel fanclub.