#jia_talks

Personally, I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to think that Kim Soleum would actually date anyone while being fully aware that he would have to leave them eventually. He keeps his officetel/motel rooms impersonal. He keeps his coworkers at arms' length. He lies. He deliberately pours in efforts not to get too attached to the inhabitants and the world. Having a lover would tie him down. His wish is still, first and foremost, to return home where ghost stories do not exist. He is not cruel enough to dangle the promise of commiting to a relationship to anyone from the wiki that he loves very much.

(As readers, though, we realize that those exact efforts, when combined with his sincerity and kindness, exacted the very cruelty he tried not to inflict upon the people around him, cough cough, especially Hyunmoo, coughChoi—)

So, here comes the outlier: how do we explain Braun? Braun, almost always by Kim Soleum's side, always aware of his inner thoughts. Arguably, you can say that Braun is the being closest to Kim Soleum, the most intimate with his thoughts and fears. Whether Kim Soleum likes it or not, Braun is the most familiar with the depths of himself.

I feel like one of the reasons why Kim Soleum is so close to Braun is because he subconsciously thinks:

"Because Braun is a ghost story, a monster, he operates on differing sets of social rules and feelings; thus, Braun will not react to Kim Soleum leaving the same as humans normally will."

I believe that Kim Soleum is still of the same opinion, even after the divorce-bombing arc, where Kim Soleum saw how Braun reacted to the plushie getting torn. Even though Braun is the most familiar with Kim Soleum and would act with Kim Soleum's best interests in mind as consideration, Braun, as a personality, as an inhuman who believes in entertainment even at the cost of Kim Soleum's safety, will not consider Kim Soleum's consent as a variable. Kim Soleum understands that they operate on very different rules. He accepts that Braun will never share Kim Soleum's beliefs. Thus so, Braun will just have to accept that Kim Soleum will eventually leave.

Their bond is very much real, but it is also forged, broken down, then later reforged with the fact that Kim Soleum cannot stay. And Braun accepts that. Eventually, all the other people have to accept that fact as well.

First, the good parts: The dance and styling are reminiscent of popular k-pop (major K/DA + BP + IVE vibes for the girls, BTS/NCT Dream + Atz/Skz for the boys). The ridiculous variety show, yes, they exist, but not quite like the one in the movie where it feels like a mashup of Hot Ones, Japanese game shows, and Donnie and Connie more than anything. Obsessive fan culture, a bit touched upon, with the opening introduction, but didn't explore it enough, especially with the dating taboo (missed opportunity, I'd say), fans were too supportive and too positive for the Huntrix + Saja Boys thing.

So, those good things are are also the bads: the way these are portrayed seems pretty surface level, sanitized, simplified, over the top and comical. Eating carb-heavy, presumably spicy, greasy foods right before singing? Horrible idea, their voices will give out. No rehearsal and soundcheck before the concert? Unprofessional. Announcing a new single a few hours before release? Without marketing and promotion months beforehand? Holding a live show right after said sudden release? There are other kpop groups in universe, How Do They Get Their Slot in music shows with the sudden, unplanned release!?

The industry is cut-throat and competitive, which is barely shown through how Saja Boys dominated the chart and suddenly removed Huntrix from their throne. Often, idols don't have that much of a say of creative nor executive decisions. Even those with such freedom will always have to relay their decisions to the top brasses first before moving a limb. So: no, Rumi will not be able to release the song with one single click. Especially if it's Huntrix, a group single and not, say, Soundcloud Mixtape. And no, Rumi won't be able to just leave a live show without repercussions. Media will have a field day with that, and netizens will leave scathing remarks and not-unfounded criticism along with mean-spirited bullying. Plus, after the mess with the Idol Awards, their career will not be able to recover. "Public breakup" will either paint one side as evil or dunk on everyone. All in all, the portrayal of k-pop in this movie is terribly unprofessional and fantastical. How did it not get out that the girls broke into the men's baths? And how did they not get protest trucks and threatening letters when Huntrix and Saja boys were seen chummy chummy in the same fan event? Did the girls not receive any PR training at all?

Many celebrities have gone down overnight over lesser offenses: women being too thin or too fat; being spotted clubbing and smoking weed. Huntrix wouldn't survive a year. In my opinion, they could have capitalized on how cutthroat the industry is when Saja Boys are trying to topple Huntrix's top dog spot: make use of scandals and rumour mills, destroy their reputation, and usurp their throne.

It's made to be palatable for audience unfamiliar with k-pop, but made to capitalize on the name k-pop on its title, with characters, especially the girls, written to be quirky, relatable, disney princess template with not much other personality traits. Honestly, I think that even if you erase the K-pop in the title and all the gratuitious Korean vocab, names, and hanboks, and make them ambiguously-fictional-Asian instead, they will not make much difference narrative wise.

My major gripe with this movie are 1. that it's trying to reach too many audience and generalizing and simplifying everything that it ceases to be K-pop; and 2. that either the characters tell and not show (the whole everything with Rumi and Jinu, Zoey's "people pleasing" tendencies) or they don't at all (Mira's "insecurities"); that even after watching the movie, I don't understand these characters nor their motivation beyond that they sing, dance, look pretty, and #relatable. They're just vehicles for the aesthetics, and that's it.

a game about devotion: a man's despair when all is taken away from him, a dog's loyalty to chase after his dear humans, another man's attempt for penance to set all things right, a girl who wants to save her savior, said savior who willingly shoulders the burden so that his little girl shouldn't have to-

-and a cat who knows devotion, but doesn't remember it. but he relearns about it. and so he saves them all.

i keep thinking about yomiel, how he's just a zombie, alive without truly living. and his only companion, a cat, whose fur he can't feel, who is named after the person he loves the most. who he brings along everywhere. who he's going to bring along for when he finally has his respite. and just when his pieces have started to finally fall into place for his vengeance to be enacted, just as he reached the light on the end of the tunnel- his only friend died, because of him.

i also keep thinking about yomiel and cabanela... cabanela has wronged him so, the one who set up all the dominoes to fall in the first place. yomiel had his revenge, enacted with his own hands. and yet cabanela's still here, remorseful, not knowing how far he had pushed yomiel, how far yomiel had fallen, and succumbed, and drenched his hands in blood, for all cabanela knows, in this new, pristine clean timeline, it's only set in motion because of cabanela's mistake, and not yomiel pushing the boulder down the dominoes-

-how does he accept the apology from the spotless, bright, clean visage, who is left in the dark? who doesn't know how he gleefully painted his loved ones in the red he oh so hated?

anyways yeah cabayomi/yominela(?) post-canon. god.

I actually like kaishin, I shipped kaishin way before I shipped akam, and this reveal is pretty much a too-long-overdue on aoyama's part because... well, 30 years of on-and-off serialization.

I get that many are mad. I, too, am so baffled that it circles back to hilarious. The relation makes sense story-wise and does not make sense profit-wise at the same time. Alas, kaishin is not the biggest detco ship in japan at the moment (kaishin got dethroned since around a decade ago, I'd say, they're still popular, but not to akam's extent in japan).

That said, a lot (but not all, love you all who don't participate in this) kaishin shippers are being so obnoxious in their anger. It's a gay ship, you know aoyama would never make it canon anyways. Just because kaishin was an "unproblematic" ship back in the day, before the cousin reveal, doesn't make it any more canon than other fan favorite ships. (Kaishin is one of the tamest, most vanilla, and mass-appealing gay ships you can find in detco, since both parties are still teenagers, technically, and both are written as cool™ protagonists who are rivals, and I stand by my case.)

Also: to the other side of the fandom, aka fans who insist on every fanwork to be canon-compliant and glorify the mediocre het romances aoyama's written into his stories, don't be homophobic while you're tapdancing on the cousin reveal. If you don't have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself.

Anyways, ship what you want. If you don't feel comfortable with kaishin being incest, maybe step away and clear your head and find other hobbies on the side. You can stop making content about them, or you can always ignore canon, and put that disclaimer in your fanworks, especially on ao3. Fanworks are fair game and free playground, you can play sand however you want. It doesn't make your works invalid. Just tag your works properly if you do mean them to be incest. They're fictional anyways, fictional morality does not translate rigidly to real life laws and morals and principles. To add, fanworks are simply derivative of the original, nothing you make is any more canon than the fanworks others have made.