Fruits Basket vol 17 by Natsuki Takaya
Oct. 29th, 2007 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmoore So, apparently, it's been a while since I read a "normal" (visually) shojo manga...I was reading this and staring at the sparkles andthe feathers and the sparkly feathers and the giant saucer eyes and going "whaaaaa...?"
But forget that. This volume was mostly about Akito, one of my most utterly despised manga characters ever, and it was a volume designed to make us start sympathizing with Akito. It rather has the opposite affect on me.
But forget that. This volume was mostly about Akito, one of my most utterly despised manga characters ever, and it was a volume designed to make us start sympathizing with Akito. It rather has the opposite affect on me.
In this volume, it's revealed that Akito, the supposedly male leader of the Sohma clan, is actually female. This is something I was spoiled for some time back. In a way, I think it's supposed to make us hate Akito less, to make us sympathize with her for being forced to live as a man, and yet, it doesn't. As a man, Akito's cruelty to her female cousins is "I do these things because I think they'll cause the greatest pain," but as a woman, it's "I dothese things to other women because, as a woman, I know that these things are what will cause the greatest emotional pain and cause the greatest insecurity, because I'm a woman and it's what hurts me the most." I'm thinking a lot, here, about an attack on a specific character that should take place soon.
The thing about Akito is that while, yes, she causes pain because she's hurt, she simply causes pain because she wants others to be in more pain. There is no purpose, no goal, no reason for the pain she causes save the need to make others feel more pain than Akito herself feels, and that's something I can't connect with. As a reverse example, take Nakago in Fushigi Yugi. Nakago causes both Miaka and Yui extreme pain, and continuously feeds Yui's pain, all for his own purpose. But he does this with a goal in mind, a purpose. While this does not make me condone with his actions, nor does that or his past make me sympathize with him, it leaves me able to connect wiith, to at least see the reasons for his actions. He doesn't cause pain purely to cause pain, but because it's the best way to manipulate the situation to suit his needs. While it doesn't make his actions any less horrible, I can at least connect with him to a degree(plus, hate him or love him, he's agrat villain, but that's not the point.) With Akito, however, there is none of that. She causes pain for no reason other than to make others feel more pain than she feels, because the only pleasure she can take is in making others feel even worse than she does.
Akito uses her pain, her trauma, as a shield, as an excuse to inflict her pain on others. She forces her male cousins to show their love for her, sometimes physically, and to allow her to touch them and treat them any way she wishes, using her hold on them and their duty to(and sometimes love for) her as justification to force them to do it, taking pleasure in the discomfort and unhappiness it causes them. Her female cousins she uses to vent her physical hatred and abuse, as well as emotional abuse equal to that which she subjects her male cousins. She takes out her desire her her lost femininity on them for being allowed their own, and physically lashes out at them, even a young child, for daring to be happy, or for daring to go near her possessions(her male cousins.) In addition to this, she refuses to allow any cousin to have an emotional bond with anyone else, especially romantic, and emotionally and physically abuses them when they do, while simultaneously tying a male cousin to her, physically and emotionally, regardless of his own wishes, ruthlessly using guilt and chilhood promises to do so.
When I see her pain and trauma, her fear and hatred for her mother and hear about her pain as a child, things that should inspire sympathy and understanding, all I can do is wonder how a person who has suffered that much can deliberately try to cause so much pain, just to cause others as much pain as she feels herself.
Oh Shigure, you could do so much better...how about that poor editor you torture so much?
The thing about Akito is that while, yes, she causes pain because she's hurt, she simply causes pain because she wants others to be in more pain. There is no purpose, no goal, no reason for the pain she causes save the need to make others feel more pain than Akito herself feels, and that's something I can't connect with. As a reverse example, take Nakago in Fushigi Yugi. Nakago causes both Miaka and Yui extreme pain, and continuously feeds Yui's pain, all for his own purpose. But he does this with a goal in mind, a purpose. While this does not make me condone with his actions, nor does that or his past make me sympathize with him, it leaves me able to connect wiith, to at least see the reasons for his actions. He doesn't cause pain purely to cause pain, but because it's the best way to manipulate the situation to suit his needs. While it doesn't make his actions any less horrible, I can at least connect with him to a degree(plus, hate him or love him, he's agrat villain, but that's not the point.) With Akito, however, there is none of that. She causes pain for no reason other than to make others feel more pain than she feels, because the only pleasure she can take is in making others feel even worse than she does.
Akito uses her pain, her trauma, as a shield, as an excuse to inflict her pain on others. She forces her male cousins to show their love for her, sometimes physically, and to allow her to touch them and treat them any way she wishes, using her hold on them and their duty to(and sometimes love for) her as justification to force them to do it, taking pleasure in the discomfort and unhappiness it causes them. Her female cousins she uses to vent her physical hatred and abuse, as well as emotional abuse equal to that which she subjects her male cousins. She takes out her desire her her lost femininity on them for being allowed their own, and physically lashes out at them, even a young child, for daring to be happy, or for daring to go near her possessions(her male cousins.) In addition to this, she refuses to allow any cousin to have an emotional bond with anyone else, especially romantic, and emotionally and physically abuses them when they do, while simultaneously tying a male cousin to her, physically and emotionally, regardless of his own wishes, ruthlessly using guilt and chilhood promises to do so.
When I see her pain and trauma, her fear and hatred for her mother and hear about her pain as a child, things that should inspire sympathy and understanding, all I can do is wonder how a person who has suffered that much can deliberately try to cause so much pain, just to cause others as much pain as she feels herself.
Oh Shigure, you could do so much better...how about that poor editor you torture so much?