keep trying till you die

i got no beef if someone just didn’t like it, but stuff like “it was rushed” and “taichi gave no signs of liking touma” is….. uhhhh….. ????

absolutely 100000% i’d love to have seen taichi and touma progress from friends to boyfriends to a married couple (in a shounen manga at that! still a whoa), but from from early on the manga was indicating what kind of story it was gonna be, wasn’t it?

it’s a “youth” kind of story. reading the whole thing in one go, it reads as one arc, slowly building to an explosive clash between taichi, touma and futaba’s relationships, which gets resolved at the beach. it’s there that taichi realizes he’d wanted to change, and also where he makes a decision about the question posed at the very start of the manga: lover or best friend? he loves them both. he chooses both.

looking at it like this, the pacing makes sense. there’s the drama, the callbacks, the characters resolving their conflicts.

the end!!!!!!!!! EXCEPT. we have a chapter and a half to go. and another thing the manga has emphasized is choice: life is a series of choices. people choose over and over. this is where the timeskip comes in. it’s an epilogue.

it follows the themes set in the story: that afterwards, these three have kept living life. they kept choosing. they grew up and matured, and what ended up happening is… taichi and touma get married. the hows aren’t the point, they never were. that wasn’t the part kaito intended to focus on, and clearly they also wanted to surprise people with the “twist.” you can love them or hate them for this (i kinda do hahaha), but it doesn’t make things rushed.

and this is where “but married?!? wasn’t taichi portrayed as straight?” comes in, to which i say: LOL

hold on to your hats folks bc this boy

is bi as hell

fdsklafjl WOW THIS REALLY SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT THE CHARACTERS N THEIR FEARS,,..

yes way, tai, you dumb disaster bi

hear me out ok? i tried to be brief. tried. :D so first: why didn’t kaito just go the whole way and have an arc of them dating!?!? because kaito didn’t want to. that doesn’t mean hints weren’t there from the start, that this was unplanned. it’s just clearer in hindsight bc few thought shonen jump+ would go there.

there’re already great posts about taichi being bi but lemme breeze through– there’s the suspect looks and blushes he gives touma (ex: above pic). flattering, sexy shots of touma from taichi’s POV. his behavior, thoughts, and epic meltdown after touma confesses; far too strong for just a straight dude dealing with being confessed to.

“but the manga was 52 chapters of romance with futaba!” look at the chapter 1 splash page. three hands in a love triangle. taichi+touma’s relationship is intensely and lovingly portrayed: highs, lows, tenderness. touma is shoved into the romantic tension more than warranted for simple unrequited suffering. remember when futaba+taichi get together? the cut to gayngst and “hey touma, what about you” right in the middle of it? we learn they’re dating on a dark page after a blushy touma+taichi scene as if to say “oh no! what about touma’s heart now?” btw taichi+touma is not wholly immune to romance tropes. heck there’s a kabedon lol. futaba even says taichi’s considering touma.

futaba+taichi’s relationship is meaningful and sweet. but later on, their romance doesn’t really get developed, especially from taichi’s end. like, they exchange charms but those never become significant unlike touma’s bday gift. they’re faced with separation in college but it doesn’t generate much dramatic tension in the story. on the other hand after that talk, taichi thinks about what he loves and wants for the future and immediately flashbacks to touma’s words and touma’s Bittersweet Yearning Face. futaba+taichi still have cute moments but the relationship takes a backseat narratively, which is… not usually what you want for your endgame

again, how taichi acts after touma’s confession is… uh. he has good reason to be distracted but it’s still not encouraging? the phone call where he says “i love you” but then “i don’t talk to me about touma” + hanging up like a repressed asshole refusing to face Inconvenient Feelings? the way futaba’s insecurity doesn’t get onscreen reassurance from him and is validated by the fact that he married touma in the end lol? and after going apeshit when touma stops coming to school, it’s interesting that what takes him out of his long BSOD is “best friend power” in the charm. an affirmation of taichi+touma’s friendship, and happiness without competition, but also what stopped touma from confessing in an earlier scene, instead maintaining the status quo between him and taichi lol

“but he no-homo’d him at the beach!” he himself says: just because the feelings aren’t the same doesn’t mean they’re not there. yet. what’s important to him is to keep touma around despite the difficulties. and when he says he’d been of jealous not of touma exactly but of how touma is around his friends it seems like nothing but i uh, hm. his other big realization here is that futaba inspired him. he’d wanted to help her because he wanted to change, too, like her. which is warm and lovely but not super romantic and actually kinda echoes futaba’s “ideal vs jealousy” epiphany about attraction lol hmm.

also. this manga doesn’t treat high school decisions are permanent, quite the opposite. SO!! in conclusion!!!

between taichi’s latent attraction to touma from the start, opened to the possibility of touma as a romantic option, taichi+futaba’s relationship gaining less narrative and emotional weight later on, in contrast to the highkey emotions and overall focus on taichi+touma, and miscellaneous things i haven’t talked about like their tender handholding threaded throughout… all the foreshadowing set against the manga’s theme of continually choosing the future…

Ao no Flag Vol. 8 Extras

Raws: hungrybearstuff

Translation: Yuno

Edits: Hoshisukii

Sorry, but I need to rant about the anime Dororo on this side blog for a moment….excuse the unrelated  wall of text but…

What happened to Dororo and Hyakkimaru?

My only real issue with an otherwise conclusive and satisfying finale to Dororo was, well Dororo and Hyakkimaru. Up until episode 22 I felt that despite everything Dororo and Hyakkimaru cared for each other first and foremost. They were content with having just each other if it really came down to that.

But I think when things fell apart was in episode 23. When Dororo was finally back in front of Hyakkimaru after he got his arms back and Hyakkimaru didn’t even acknowledge she was there. 

Did he not notice her? Maybe, but I doubt it. He noticed his mother, but why not Dororo? He didn’t say anything to her. 

I take Hyakkimaru hiding his arms behind his back when his mother spoke up as him thinking that she–as being a member of the family hell-bent on stealing his body–was going to steal them away. Hyakkimaru was extremely paranoid, after all. And he ran off after Tahomaru, once again, called him a demon a “curse upon their land”. But still…why didn’t Hyakkimaru acknowledge Dororo? This was the beginning of a string of very odd choices the writers made during the last two episodes to shove Dororo and Hyakkimaru’s relationship to the back burner for…some reason.

Clearly the plot was moving at a breakneck pace, that’s fine. But I think the need to keep the plot moving made Hyakkimaru act OOC in this moment. What could have fixed this? Something simple, really, to have everyone react more in character, in fact.

When Nui and Dororo arrived at the scene of battle after Mutsu and Hyogo died, and Hyakkimaru gets his arms back, have Tahomaru run to his mother first instead of Hyakkimaru, wondering what she’s doing out of the safety of the castle, he’d be extra motivated to protect her from Hyakkimaru after his two friends just died. And while Tahomaru is questioning Nui, have Dororo run up to Hyakkimaru. Hyakkimaru hugs Dororo and is glad she’s okay, but he’s clearly very unstable, talking fast and touching her face (with bloody hands nonetheless) telling her he has arms now and he won’t let anything else harm her. Dororo doesn’t know how to react to Hyakkimaru being this way, but she’s clearly sad to see him so unhinged.

Then, have Tahomaru tell Hyakkimaru that he’s a demon who has no place trying to protect Dororo as a child isn’t safe with him. Nui tries to tell Tahomaru that he’s wrong, and Tahomaru then, like in the episode, says “You still pity that thing?”.

These words cut deep for Hyakkimaru and he runs off. Him running off HERE would make a lot more sense as he’s acknowledged Dororo, and his initial motivations of wanting to protect her aren’t ignored. And having Tahomaru tell him he’s a demon and that Dororo isn’t safe with him would make Hyakkimaru feel awful enough to run off without her and probably start to really look at his own actions. 

But instead, the show just choose to have Hyakkimaru ignore Dororo being there, after all the people he just senselessly murdered trying to find her.

Okay…?  

This should’ve been my first hint that they were going to sideline any emotional resonance Dororo and Hyakkimaru have in the rest of the show, but since these two had been the CORE of the show for so long, I thought the writers passing up a moment between Dororo and Hyakkimaru in episode 23 meant that they were simply saving it all for the final episode 24.

BOY WAS I WRONG!

[Continued under the cut…]

*Dusts off lazy hibernating mood* HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020, y’all!!! 

Thanks for sticking with me; and for the recent followers– hi and welcome (^o^) Here’s my rat kids Charlotte(s) for the rat year 🐭🐭 This basically represents what I want this year to be more of: good foods, good games, and more creation times, heheh (also more rats? ocs? maybeee?)