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Woxin 6&7
I quite see why no one trusts Gou Jian as far as they can throw a fit. He's the sort of volatile character that turns into Ivan the Terrible. Now a bully like Wu #2 is doubtless far nastier in practice, but that's because he's nasty all the time. You don't have to worry about him going over the edge into excess, just about avoiding his everyday temper. The difference between him and Gou Jian is the same as between a pit bull in a garden and a highstrung cat. The pit bull's safe enough if you stay out of his garden, but you never know when the cat will claw you to the bone.
Not helped though by me never knowing when Gou Jian is serious and when he's acting for others' benefit.
On a general Sheesh guys note: if the first thing *I* think of when Heyi is suborned is 'I hope to Christ you sent your family elsewhere,' will someone tell me why Fu Tong didn't think of it, let alone Heyi?
I suppose I shouldn't ask what's the deal with Wu's royal apparel and why one mustn't accept it? (Great cruxes of Woxin, along with the first appearances of the dancing girls. If Ya Yu knows we're not supposed to have frivolous entertainments at times of national crisis, why does she order frivolous entertainment for her husband? Seems so unlike her.)
I also have a distressing tendency not to recognize Fu Chai whenever he shows up. He's got a terribly generic face.
Oh, and as for Fan Li- all Chinese strategians are the same Chinese strategian, I hope you know that? When the Japanese make the Woxin anime Fan Li will have silver hair and violet eyes and bedazzle a suddenly very manly Gou Jian. Or maybe *Fan Li* will head off to Wu to dazzle Fu Chai, and gain the release of his king.
I continue to whizz through Kohri no Mamono, blinking at my own speed. For something that light and fluffy and been-there-done-that it has surprising resonance, and some day I may figure out why. Ishuca is a lot less irritating than most transparently innocent uke types, and for my money even better than his counterpart (name long since forgotten) in Yakumo Tatsu, who was not bad himself. Possibly it's the absence to date of any kind of kewl animus figure; even Blood is pretty down to earth. For a demon, I mean. No, please don't tell me about Wild/ Weird; if *he's* the one I don't want to know.
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I vaguely remember the part about the robes of Wu. If I remember correctly then only the overlord would make a gift of it to his subjects, so if Yue accepted it would mean that they view themselves as a tribute kingdom to Wu instead of its equal. As for the dancing girls don't read to much into it. Ya Yu wanted to distract her husband from all his troubles, and dancing girls are really nothing extravagant. It's not that he's not supposed to have frivolous entertainment at the times of national crisis, it's his opponents trying to find every excuse to make him look like a profligate wastrel unfit for the throne., so if it weren't the dancing girl it would be that Ya Yu was dressing too extravagantly or that his serving maids are too pretty etc etc.
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"But Fu Chai was adamant that he didn't go for smooth-faced plausible young men, so Fan Li had to send airhead Xi Shi instead." Why have your Chinese BBs not done the version where Fan Li lays down his delectable body to secure Gou Jian's release? You can bet that bit'll be in the anime as well.
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Fan Li does go to Wu to dazzle Fu Chai, and gain the release of his king. :P
Hahaha that he does. :D Although silver-haired violet-eyed Fan Li is almost too terrifying to contemplate.
R.e. royal, uh, carraige I think it was, I think someone mentioned it's something the 周天子 i.e. theoretical ruler of everyone would/should do. As
R.e. Ya Yu I think it's good that we see this small misjudgement on her part, otherwise throughout the series it's all ohh Ya Yu how well you know me etc. etc. etc. and Y = P yes? Also I think it makes a nice conterpoint to episode 7 when Gou Jian himself
frolics amongorders the dancing girls himself.R.e. Heiyi it's like, Fu Tong says he will help him gain royal employment again so I suppose Heyi thought Gou Jian would be properly grateful for Heiyi's help in gaining the kingship. As for Fu Tong, he probably wasn't planning for anything after the assasination, frankly. Why didn't it occur to either man that Gou Jian would have ordered the assasin and family hunted down in any case? Huh, men.
I also have a distressing tendency not to recognize Fu Chai whenever he shows up. He's got a terribly generic face.
But he's the only one with a moustache in the shape of the character 八! And that ridiculous swirl of hair in front of his topknot!
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He was planning on being dead and sucks to be everyone else. Well, fine, but dear God, did Hei Yi not realize *you can't go around assassinating princes without repurcussions*? Fu Tong may have been near the end of his rope, but that Hei Yi is so overcome surprised to find his house burned to the ground-... Men, as you say.
Fan Li- man, I might start disliking him just in order to be perverse. Here's our brilliant unflappable strategist and I'm waiting him to come up with some strategy already, instead of general platitudes about what troops need if we only had like half a year to give it to them. (grump) Hoping he'll redeem himself in the next eps (have finished 8.)
But I'll say Gou Jian's first interview with Wen Zhong was like sunlight and fresh air. Finally he meets an intellectual equal, after all the fuzzy-thinking conventional soldiers and courtiers and yeah, king-his-father who've been bogging the action down since, well, the series started. Granted the subtitles are probably to blame for half that impression, still- Wen Zhong has the smarts, even in English, as does Wu Zi Xu and, it must be admitted, Wu Zi Xu's royal master.
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The old King of Wu may be a terrible unpleasant human being but he gives me the impression of being not a bad king. At least he has more depth and, uh, grasp of human nature than his second son. Which says a lot about the character of the times, I suppose.
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Yeah, King Wu is not a bad king at all. And I suppose at the time the definition of good king is one who extends the borders of his country as the apparently easiest way of enriching it.
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And suave sinister Chinese kings don't? :D
But Fan Li is sort of irritatingly "oh I'm so smart I know something you don't" self-assured in the beginning, I'd forgotten exactly how much until I rewatched.
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Oh, er, and while you're here, it can be more chinese lesson time nao pls? In that sentence 稽会你好无辜啊,谁让你摊, what the hell is the sense of 摊?
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Though yes, Fan Li does start out like one of these kewl Japanese characters, but this being a Chinese series there will be plenty of people who'll take him down a notch or two, in particular Wen Zhong.
Oh, on the Chinese BBS people have also paired up Brute Sr and Wu Zi Xu. And a proper old couple they make. Note that part where Brute Sr goes to visit Wu Zi Xu and exclaims over his old and shabby furnitures. Wu Zi Xu replies that they were given to him by Brute Sr. himself, and he would never part with anything given to him by his beloved liege. :D
So that means in the Chinese context one can also read the suffering of Gou Jian in Wu as the persecution of the poor daughter-in-law by his widowed and nasty mother-in-law.
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I shall have to stop reading the subtitles and start looking at the action more closely. Gou Jian didn't seem to be flirting to me, natch; he just seemed to be so happy to have found someone he could talk to on his own level (well, and vice-versa) that he relaxed into something resembling humanity.
Brute Sr and Wu Zi Xu
I should be happy that all these old guys are getting some, a situation unthinkable in the west, but-- yuk. No. Not
Gimli and GandalfBrute Sr and Wu Zi Xu. Wu Zi Xu and Bo Pi, *maybe*.no subject
They have matching lovebird whiskers! No one else has whiskers like theirs! 8D
But Wu Zi Xu and Bo Pi is very complex and intriguing.
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*chokes* where, where?!
Though I can imagine that the BBS people would have come up with tales of the uber-seme Prince Guang of Yue (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%98%96%E9%97%BE) and his (historically accurate) young silver-haired (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BC%8D%E5%AD%90%E8%83%A5) brilliant adviser after that interlude with the old and shabby furnitures.
the suffering of Gou Jian in Wu as the persecution of the poor daughter-in-law
*two thumbs up*
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also, either the wiki article has screwed up the date of Wu Zi Xu's birth, or the series is making him look a lot older than he should be, premature white hair from shock of father's unjust execution by king of Chu notwithstanding.
(Wu and Yue seem to be benefiting tremendously from Chu refugees.)
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(Still trying to figure out how they managed to screw up the date: 562? - tad too old; 556 or 546 seems about right.)
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And then the whole cycle repeats itself with Fan Li and Gou Jian and karma bites Wu Zi Xu's ass but hard, which makes me very happy. (Chu should put a stop to its brain drain to neighbouring kingdoms. This never ends well.)
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I can't tell either,
the cheekbones are too distractingChen Daoming's expressions and voice never give anything away.Re: Heiyi - what rasetsunyo said. Fu Tong probably misled Heiyi into thinking that Gou Jian would forgive him. Though it seems a bit strange that his family didn't immediately start screaming and trying to run on seeing armed men barge into the house asking for him.
Hoping he'll redeem himself in the next eps
He does. But only with a little help from Ling Fu Tong and various twisty turns of psychology that somehow work out. Wen Zhong seems to have a better head on his shoulders, but alas, more honesty than is good for said head.
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I do see Fan Li redeeming himself, but it was Gou Jian who brought the prisoners to the battlefield. Hasn't been said (or hasn't been said in English subs) whose bright idea that grandstand morale-destroying act was, and from the evidence I have I'm happy to assign it to Gou Jian.
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Getting back to what i know, my favorite character in Koorino is the bold headed temple master. He is so kakkoii. um ちょい悪おやじi suppose. And i think it might be that you are not annoyed with Ishuca because he deals with his ずるいinnocence (didn't know how eles to express his disposition)heads on. In other words he is strong in mind, if not in physical strength. You cannot help but cheer them on and wish them happiness and peace at the end of their journey.
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Haven't met temple master yet, only the very puzzled young priest who's following Blood and Ishuca around. And yeah, Ishuca's naive cheerfulness has an innate tough-minded quality to it. He's the kind who walks in unthinkingly where angels fear to tread and gets away with it because, well, his innate personal niceness is 100% genuine and unshakable. Absolute conviction like that is next door to insanity; people don't know what to do with it. (Have known people like Ishuca in real life. They're a menace, if only because other people keep falling in love with them.)
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Oh onthe lighter note, the temple master is the confused young priest's grand pa(not blood related.) i suspect that the mangaka has a soft spot for him too, cause she wrote an one volume side story about how the master became a priest.
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