Saiyuki Gaiden flail
Jun. 29th, 2009 03:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elsaneRight, so, Gaiden is over. The last chapter just went up over at saiyuki_manga (and thank you so much again to everyone involved in that community).
I'm not going to be terribly coherent.
My god, Goku's limiter is off and he's aware, he's the full-on Seiten Tasei and he's still just curled in a lump in front of the dimension gate.
Kanzeon bends the rules to let him keep his name, oh.
Oh god, Kanzeon. She's grieving, and smoking, and visibly shattered -- but not in a way that shuts down, her heart is still vaster than the ocean, and I don't think I have ever loved her harder. She's being her full divine self here, Mercy and Compassion, and showing how it should be done, how life and death should be met. (And even Jiroushin, who is usually no more than a tool to be her foil, breaks his proper facade to comfort her, oh.)
Hard, staid Goujun is honorable and strict to the end, and finishes his narration by deciding he too wants to see the living cherry blossoms in the world below. Oh.
You know... I did not expect the circles. Gaiden has been a slow exquisite spiral down towards doom since the beginning, and I thought the ending would be more of a solid, final thing, as epic tragedy ends. I did not expect the ending to curve back around to Reload so explicitly, nor did I expect the cherry trees to bloom again in the final panel. I also didn't expect the Heavenly part of the plot to the left as incompletely wrapped up as it is -- Nataku's fate is not explained, and the full shape of the conspiracy hasn't yet been addressed. (I can't say how excited I am about the teaser panel for the new Saiyuki series -- Goku reflected in Nataku's sword!) It's an artistic choice I totally was not anticipating but: it fits, it fits, it fits. Flowers bloom and scatter, and after the winter, bloom again.
They're never the same flowers, of course.
I think I have to go buy the Japanese tankoubons.
Oh, Gaiden.
One of the biggest things that makes me just hurt about Gaiden, in that breathless, beautiful way, is how open and undamaged the characters are. Tenpou and Kenren are just so easy with themselves and with each other, and, my god, seeing what 8 can be like without all of Hakkai's damage is -- I have no other words -- stunning. And painful. And yet by the very virtue of being who they are, where they are, there is no way for them to live and remain themselves. The end is coming, with doom written all over it, and it would kill them more cruelly to step aside and stay alive as they are. But it's Konzen's story more than anything, and watching him wake up and learn to care and live is so incredibly powerful. I have no words.
Farewell, farewell, Gaiden crew; the reincarnations are different people, and the past is gone.
I love Minekura so much.
saiyuki_manga (and thank you so much again to everyone involved in that community).I'm not going to be terribly coherent.
My god, Goku's limiter is off and he's aware, he's the full-on Seiten Tasei and he's still just curled in a lump in front of the dimension gate.
Kanzeon bends the rules to let him keep his name, oh.
Oh god, Kanzeon. She's grieving, and smoking, and visibly shattered -- but not in a way that shuts down, her heart is still vaster than the ocean, and I don't think I have ever loved her harder. She's being her full divine self here, Mercy and Compassion, and showing how it should be done, how life and death should be met. (And even Jiroushin, who is usually no more than a tool to be her foil, breaks his proper facade to comfort her, oh.)
Hard, staid Goujun is honorable and strict to the end, and finishes his narration by deciding he too wants to see the living cherry blossoms in the world below. Oh.
You know... I did not expect the circles. Gaiden has been a slow exquisite spiral down towards doom since the beginning, and I thought the ending would be more of a solid, final thing, as epic tragedy ends. I did not expect the ending to curve back around to Reload so explicitly, nor did I expect the cherry trees to bloom again in the final panel. I also didn't expect the Heavenly part of the plot to the left as incompletely wrapped up as it is -- Nataku's fate is not explained, and the full shape of the conspiracy hasn't yet been addressed. (I can't say how excited I am about the teaser panel for the new Saiyuki series -- Goku reflected in Nataku's sword!) It's an artistic choice I totally was not anticipating but: it fits, it fits, it fits. Flowers bloom and scatter, and after the winter, bloom again.
They're never the same flowers, of course.
I think I have to go buy the Japanese tankoubons.
Oh, Gaiden.
One of the biggest things that makes me just hurt about Gaiden, in that breathless, beautiful way, is how open and undamaged the characters are. Tenpou and Kenren are just so easy with themselves and with each other, and, my god, seeing what 8 can be like without all of Hakkai's damage is -- I have no other words -- stunning. And painful. And yet by the very virtue of being who they are, where they are, there is no way for them to live and remain themselves. The end is coming, with doom written all over it, and it would kill them more cruelly to step aside and stay alive as they are. But it's Konzen's story more than anything, and watching him wake up and learn to care and live is so incredibly powerful. I have no words.
Farewell, farewell, Gaiden crew; the reincarnations are different people, and the past is gone.
I love Minekura so much.