#x-laws

Marco ♥

I'm so sorry

Shaman King Mentalite (2009) X-Laws pages, Italian edition.

First of all, I wanna give you a quick shout-out, whoever you are! You're the first person outside of my main fandom (KNB) to send me a request that's civilized and actually something I'd like to talk about so thank you! Reason number one would be, well, on my blog I've already mentioned various times that I don't like characters who abuse kids, and Marco is definitely not without corporal punishment himself. Whilst I like Ren and Jun, I also dislike the rest of the Tao family and Hao as he was mentally an adult throughout the story who didn't mind hurting and killing children (attempting to eat the souls of the Hana-Gumi waitresses for one, when two of them were still young girls is just unacceptable to me). Reason number two would be his brainwashing of Iron Maiden Jeanne and turning her into a murderer. That she forgave him for it doesn't means the audience has to. Children have a certain loyalty to their parents/caretaker figures that in abusive situations can be rather binding and making the child in question creating excuses, forgiving their parents when they shouldn't and see them with a loving kindness because they are the kid's rolemodel in life. Which brings me to reason number 3, the way Marco got absolved of all the sins he has done. Sure, he repented... By becoming a literal angel. That's rewarding him for repenting, and that is something I see as fucked up. That's one of the reasons why I respect Joco as a character- he literally blinded himself, and turnt himself in to serve time in prison for everything that he had done, continuing to carry the stamp of his prison sentence with him on his records for the rest of his life. Joco chose to repent, with no rewards, only more drama, awaiting him. That takes a whole lot of courage. Meanwhile Marco on the other hand, went on to power up in an attempt to say sorry for everyone, whilst Jeanne paid the price for the sins the X-Laws had comitted with her life. The only thing I could possibly say about that is, "Screw you Marco. I don't care if you soul 'could have shattered' because did that happen? No. The only price you actually had to pay was becoming a boy all over again. Oh boo hoo." However, I do think the Shaman King series has a problem with accountability in the first place. Children who were essentially brainwashed or didn't knew any better were held fully accountable for their crimes and didn't blame any of the adults for teaching them these things and blame themselves instead. Whilst the adults had to pay little to no price for the shit they did. I do find that harmful and victim-blaming. Reason number 4, his obsession with Jeanne. I mean, that Jeanne watch that Reiheit tried to give Teruko because he didn't have an engagement ring implies the X-Laws have Jeanne-merch. They have their own 'X' chant, which is more used as a Jeanne fanchant in the series, then it is a thing of everyone (including Jeanne) does. The way Marco himself admits he probably would have shot Ren during his wedding with Jeanne had he been there. Having been around the K-POP scene since 2010, Marco very much reminds me of a toxic fangirl that's one step away from becoming a full blown sasaeng. Just that scene of Lyserg faking Jeanne with an oversoul, and Marco being like, "the chastity belt was incorrect, that's the most important part", is seriously creepy to me. I mean, he considers the most important detail of Jeanne's appearance her chastity belt?! For fuck's sake. I can definitely see that a Shaman King reader who doesn't knows much about idol culture and how Marco is clearly written as if he were a toxic idol fan, to be like, 'Wait, the chastity belt is the most important thing? Hold on, the X-Laws are Christian coded... Do they touch little kids?!' (considering the Church's massive cover up of child sexual abuse). That scene definitely reads capital ICKY either way. Being actually obsessed with a little girl's purity as a grown man is just disgusting. So... Overall I find Marco to be an abusive creep who got off too easy, and that is why I don't like him.

Yoh goes to Iron Maiden Jeanne for a favor !