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?
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 12:04 am (UTC)sanada and I have been making up types of people to match Shigure up with, in place of Akito. (Unfortunately, it's by e-mail, or I'd have you join in.) They've ranged from a semi-serious attempt (a somewhat Bohemian but very pretty and free-spirited actress - think Kate Hudson, Japanese style, or maybe an artist of the same general type - we felt very strongly that it should be someone with her own creative career) to downright crack (Shigure and Misa-misa from DeathNote!).
I favor getting Akito out of the way by simply having her go into total mental collapse at being out in the real world, and having herself committed to a nice quiet sanitorium somewhere. sanada prefers just running her over with a truck ... .
Akito does all these things because she (a) has noting else to do and (b) has been raised in such a bizarre fashion that she has no empathy for anyone else at all, beyond the insight you mentioned that allows her to pick the worst thing she can do. (And I think it goes beyond female intuition: at one point when she's tormenting Rin, and Rin is thinking that she herself is bad for Hatsuharu, Akito suddenly bursts out with something like "Ah hah, I see you!" and starts picking on her about that particular issue. I think the magical bond allows her a sort of telepathic spying when she;s physically close to the Zodiac Sohmas.)
She really has no concept of how to love and cherish someone - she says the words, but she doesn't mean what other people mean when she says them.
I was certain Akito was a woman the moment she deliberately scratched Tohru's face. That's not an action a man would ever take in any world culture that I can think of.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 12:18 am (UTC)Akito wouldn't last 2 minutes in the real world, where she wouldn't have people fawning over her or falling over themselves trying to keep her from getting upset. I think the truck scenario would likely be too quick and mercful for her.
She literally exists to make sure others feel as much pain as she does, and equates love with possession...that nly goes one way 'you love me and I possess you."
I suspected pretty strongly that Akito is a woman at the face scratching, but honestly, she's so sadistic that I can see her researching how best to hurt any variety of people.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-31 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 05:31 pm (UTC)But yes. if the revelation Akito is a woman with a mean mummy was supposed to make sympathize for her?
Good luck.
I loathe her as much as ever.
Firstly, a lousy childhood is no excuse. Hers was a picnic in the park compared to Kyo, Yuki, Rin, Momiji etc etc (due in large part to Akito's lovely influence), and yet they have the grace of spirit to love others, they aren't monstrous abusers.
Second? A distant mother is a pretext, really. Akito strikes me as someone in search of justification for her vile acts. I mean, her response is out of all proportion to negative stimuli and is not towards her Mom but those weaker, vulnerable, those she can hurt the most.
Her 'abuser logic' (that she uses with everyone, but especially with Kyo, Haru, Rin and Hatori) is just...ugh. And you are right, the fact that she is a woman strips off 'Akito doesn't really realize what would hurt a woman the most' pretext from her actions towards Tohru and especially Rin (wherein she strips Rin of her femininity, symbolically, and locks her away). And her relationship of dominance with her male cousins becomes even sicker, because then it's also tinged with something sexual which is wrong on so many counts...
Basically, I loathe her with every fibre of my being.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-06 05:44 pm (UTC)actually, none of my posts were showing up on anyone's f-lists for about 5 days. I made a list of everything I'd posted on in the time once I got the problem fixed, but...
I do think Akito was dealt a sucky hand, and would deserve sympathy for her own abusive childhood, were it not for the fact she's determined to make everyone around her even more miserable than she is herself.