I should have done this sooner, but here is some information.

English is my second language and I will probably make mistakes or sound verbose when I am trying hard to explain something. Forgive me, I am practicing to be better.

This is a blog for grown ups, which is something that is only loosely defined by age. I am in my 40s. If you can think through your feelings before expressing an opinion then you are welcome here. But I warn you that I will talk freely about very sensitive and adult themes.

I’m currently reading and writing about:

Berserk ( ベルセルク ) by Miura Kentarō (1989 – present)

Saezuru tori wa habatakanai ( 囀る鳥は羽ばたかない ) by Yoneda Kou (2011 – present)

You will find my own analysis under the tags

#eri reads berserk (see also a table of contents here)

#eri reads saezuru (see also a table of contents here)

I will probably talk about other media occasionally in connection with these two works.

I am trying very hard to have a honest approach and I won’t put anything in absolute terms. The methodology for literary and artistic interpretation that I was mostly taught from grade school to university is heavily based in historical and cultural studies. But this doesn’t mean that I will look down on people who choose a different approach. I acknowledge everyone unless they are in bad faith and don’t have good intentions.

1) Volume 12, Chapter 78: “Make a single chant. This I sacrifice”. It’s hard to top many of the moments leading to the birth of Femto, The Eclipse, minor what happens immediately after. But here, thematically, we are at the peak of the most significant arc of the whole manga, and it is very hard to replicate the same poignancy and intensity, the same investment that as readers we have built only to have all hope shattered like any good tragedy does. The depth of characterization and the subtlety of the drawing for Griffith here are just amazing, this is so carefully constructed and at the same time we are left with no certainty regarding Griffith’s choice or what he really wished for in the end (Was choosing the old dream, the castle, just a way to cope, to escape reality) which not surprising is coming back now, with the last chapter. That last gaze to Guts, in this chapter called “Parting”, is one of those unreadable moments where parts of the expression and what is happening don’t really match, and that is echoed by Guts later when he looks at where Griffith was before going to try and rescue the others. There is so much heart in the horror, it’s unbelievable.

2) Volume, Chapter 250: Apart. One of my favorite tropes is the odd meetings or improbable companionship between characters that seem to belong to very different worlds. This chapter has been one I have long enjoyed reading and thinking about. A night, two people sharing a bonfire, the theme of isolation and loneliness, and the monstrosities that come because of it.

3) Volume 7, Chapter 22: “Campfire of Dreams”. Probably the most memorable scene besides the Eclipse for those who have only watched the anime series? But it’s a really good one for sure, especially to understand Guts’s characterization. For the first time we see him talking about his men, and feeling like he’s still an outsider for his lack of an important reason to fight, beside survival or lack of an alternative, his lack of any other ambition up until that point. It’s such a good moment for Casca too, her perspective of Guts is shifting too, like ours. I love the panels where the two of them are silhouettes against the starry night, and the lights from the camp beside.

4) Volume 27, Chapter 236: Guts’s new group reaches the sea. I have pretty strong personal emotions myself tied to the sea shore, so maybe this is just me, but this is just such a great scene, especially these double pages, and the sequence of panels from Schierke noticing that Guts is looking at something, the central ensemble piece where each of the members of the group is depicted with so much fidelity to their personality, and that close up to Casca’s smile, one has to lack a beating heart not to be immediately overwhelmed by emotion. And that last detail back to Guts’s eye, a reminder that the scene was drawn from his perspective is just so well done.

1) Volume 1, Chapter 2: “Sorry but I’m not going to fire Doumeki”. Pretty amazing declaration considering what happened after. But I still think this is such an important moment of honesty, of Yashiro taking something away from Aoi, and the opposite of being malicious in this regard. I just appreciate how well these two are written as foils and parallels to each other and I would love to see more of this.

2) Volume 5, Chapter 25: Trembling hands, covering and uncovering her face. If it wasn’t for the angst and raw pain and passion depicted in a way that doesn’t seem very melodramatic or unfounded, I don’t think I would have stayed with Saezuru for this long. I don’t feel good about what goes on between Doumeki and Yashiro in this chapter, and those last silent pages were just a confirmation of how raw that was. I think I understand what Yoneda was going for in these chapters, but I really needed that look from Yashiro, that quiet resolve to not going to pieces just there. The feeling of being wanted or even loved - although expressed in just another reiteration of physical disempowerment and taking more than what Yashiro was willing to give - doesn’t erase the legacy of pain, but just makes it sharper. It’s a beautiful contrast, where the concept of “beauty” is deeply tied to “horror” of many aspects of the human condition.

3) Volume 5, Chapter 28: “Of all people, you are the one asking me about it”. My dislike for Kageyama doesn’t blind me to considering how well this character is actually written. And the original drive to seek something new to read that brought me to Saezuru was the desire to read a story about unrequited love (that stays that way, and the acceptance that follows). This is another potentially devastating and dramatic scene that is instead delivered in such a straightforward and understated manner. Yashiro covers her eyes once again and grimaces away the old hearth break. The guy who did not think that she was capable of being in love, the guy who was her first love, kept secret, buried away, now had new insight. This is so delicately cruel, we are lucky this is a fictional story. Great moment for me, that leads to wrapping up the relationship between these two for good.

4) Volume 3, Chapter 14: “It’s not a rag”. There are many moments in this one chapter that have impressed me a lot, think about the meaning of the opening pages now with Doumeki’s affiliation with the yakuza for example. But it’s the flashback to the early acquaintance between Ryuuzaki and Yashiro that has become one of my favorite parts. A conversation where Yashiro has his eyes closed or she is looking out of a window, breathing in the fresh air, and Ryuuzaki is watching, asking questions, seeing a person, wanting to know, wanting to understand this enigma. I don’t know what moves me more, probably is Yashiro’s unawareness of being looked at by someone she thinks should just be looking down at her, using her and then never thinking about it much. But that’s not always the case between people, despite all the times that it feels that way.

5) Volume 9, Chapter 51: Yashiro discovers Doumeki’s back tattoo. Specifically the rage and fit that follows, which is something that is rarely unleashed by Yashiro. This is another silent scene, and you can really read freely into it. And this is another moment in between the most uncomfortable scenes between Doumeki and Yashiro (of using sex to cope and deceive, because let’s not fool ourselves, this is something that both these two characters are doing). But there is so much to Yashiro’s rage and violence here: and the fact that now we know how the tattoo came to be or Doumeki’s reasoning for getting himself into the yakuza proper doesn’t really change how Yashiro would feel about this, when she truly and strongly didn’t want Doumeki to be “sullied” like that. And the legacy of those tattooed bodies in Yashiro’s memories? I don’t know why this turned out to be more of a list of angsty scenes, but I felt these emotions quite strongly and thought that these moments were where the story was more interesting and realized.

I played very few! I am a complete novice in many respects. So have two lists:

Top 5 games that I have played:

1) Elden Ring

2) Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin

3) Bloodborne

4) Dark Souls 3

5) Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 both

Honorable mention to Lemmings, the first game I owned and discovered all on my own as a kid for the nostalgia element.

Top 5 games that I would like to play:

1) Ico

2) Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy when the third and last game is released

3) Lies of P

4) Silent Hill F because of the story (I have not seen spoilers yet but I knew the writer)

These are the plants I would definitely feature in my garden if I had one:

1) Pomegranate trees

2) Medlar

3) Fig trees

4) Rosemary

With this one I am going with films that I personally enjoyed and rewatched more than once and not necessarily universally acclaimed best films:

1) Der Himmel über Berlin directed by Wim Wenders

2) Pane e tulipani directed by Silvio Soldini

3) Le Rayon vert directed by Éric Rohmer

4) Todo sobre mi madre directed by Pedro Almodóvar

5) Le fate ignoranti directed by Ferzan Özpetek

1) It’s fun to answer questions about your interests, so I guess any top 5 scenes from manga like Berserk or Saezuru for example.

2) For the same reason I think that it would be also fun to answer top 5 questions about the Soulsborne games I have played in the past year, like top 5 weapons, or bosses or environments.

3) Travels and adventures or places to visit.

4) Words I like the sound of in a selected language.