Seimaden Vol 3

[meganbmoore]

I must confess, I don't know that I like Laures that much.  The incredibly popular "manslut because of angst" trope has absolutely zero mileage with me (I think the only character ever where it didn't cause my opinion of them to drop is Gojyo) and it loses even more ground when it's because of romantic angst.  Still, he seems to be laying off that.  My main use for him, though, is saving Hilda and angsting over her and doing dramatic things there.  He does those in ways my inner 13-year-old likes.

This is Higuri You manga.  Like Kaori Yuki manga I have nothing but spoilery exclamations:

LAURES BECOMING THE COUNT'S SLAVE TO SAVE HILDA!  
LAURES IN A CAGE!  
ZADEI BRINGING HILDA TO LAURES IN HIS CAGE!  
HUGGING THROUGH CAGE!  
KISSING THROUGH CAGE!  
LAURES ENTERING INTO DEMON GLADIATOR FIGHTS FOR HILDA!
DRAMATIC CONFESSIONS OF LOVE!

There's also Roddrick and Hilda's whole "I am the hero and you are the heroine and we were meant to be from birth and destroy the demon lord except you are the reincarnation of the demon lord's True Love and so you love him and I must accept it and I will always protect you even though I'm off to kill your True Love now!"  aaaaaaaannnnnggggggsssssttttt.  It kinda makes me feel guilty that I'm not a fan of Roddrick, what with his being the good guy and all, but he's just kinda...dull, next to everyone else.

Tetius and Zadei are like an extreme "nice girl/violent bad boy and the nice girl is hung up on the other bad boy" shoujo cliche only as slash.  Which, as the main thing, would alienate me like nobodies business for my usual reasons, but as a side pairing in a gothic shoujo crack manga I read primarily to satisfy the dark urges of my inner 13-year-old who likes gothic shoujo cheese in spite of the adult's opinions.

Cheryl and Tetius are a mass collision of cute.  I'm sure any fandom this has hates her for distracting Tetius from the angsty evil demon lords.  (I don't get the impression they like each other that way anyway, though Tetius would probably be much better off redirecting his attentions to a nice girl like her.  Or boy.  Whatever.)

And Hilda goes around bashing windows in the duke's castle, looking for a way to escape  I love you Hilda.

And finally:  ROOM OF STUFFED CORPSES!  HILDA BEING TOLD HOW SHE'LL BE POSED WHEN SHE'S ONE!  lAURES!  RODDRICK!  THAT WAS YOUR CUE!

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

(I think the only character ever where it didn't cause my opinion of them to drop is Gojyo)

Mmm, yes, that's a type that often doesn't work well for me either -- I think a lot of the difference with Gojyo, from my POV at least, is that he's fairly honest about it: a lot of the rogueish Duke of Slut types seem to be the sort who will say or do ANYTHING to get a woman into bed, never mind the consequences, whereas Gojyo never really seems to seriously pursue anyone but fellow barflies who are in on the game. He's not promising marriage or eternal love, just a no-strings short-term fling -- and if you want to add in the handful of anime scenes as canon, he seems to have his own personal code of honor about not going along with anyone who isn't completely into what they're doing. He definitely doesn't come across as the sort who'd insist that no really means yes, or a reluctant girl just means you need to get more pushy and insistent. And a lot of his come-ons are more about flattering the girl and less about the hey baby, let me tell you what you can do for ME type of approach that's all too common in RL...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

And in the manga, we don't get to see Gojyo doing the slutty thing, just talking a big game, until we're already invested in his character and go into flashbacks. IIRC, that is. It's been a while since I reread the first series. XD

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we "know" he does it, but we don't actually see it much. I think the only confirmation in the first few volumes is when he's about to hit on that one girl big time early on, then finds out that she has a boyfriend and backs off(though it's debatable whether or not he would have backed of that fast if he hadn't thought she was Doku's girlfriend), and then the chick who ended up being a youkai, but, IIRC, he already knew she was a youkai assassin before letting her in.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I think he probably would have backed off -- continued flirting, but not really *serious* flirting -- even if he didn't think her missing boyfriend might be Jien. There's another scene, I forget just where in the manga, where he's hitting on some girl at the front desk of an inn, and when he finds out she's married he keeps up with the flirty chatter but it's all couched in teasing tones of how nice girls like her need to watch out for guys like him; it winds up coming across like "you're cute and sweet and way too good for me, and I don't expect I'd have a snowflake's chance, I'm just flirting because it's the only way I know how to pay compliments..."

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't think it was have been quite the near-screeching halt "possible future sister-in-law" caused, but it would have ended any thoughts of doing more than making a pretty girl blush and giggle.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

*nods* Various levels of flirty-teasing just seems to be pretty much one of his default conversational modes with any female who's not trying to kill him, including small children and ladies old enough be his grandma. (And occasionally even with women who *are* trying to kill him, and even some guys, much to Sanzo's discomfiture.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I always kind of thought making Sanzo annoyed/uncomfortable was the main point, really.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I give Gojyo the slide for that(though, in general, they're more like Yukimura, where the moral code about it keeps me from disliking them for it, but doing it in the first place keeps me from ever warming up to them the way others do...most seem to have that add to the appeal for them, though) and because he's the only character I've ever encountered where yes, it actually does make perfect sense for his issues to take that form. A lot of his issues stem from someone else enduring sexual abuse for him, which are a result of his being the product of an affair. If he hadn't grown up with an extremely skewed idea of sex and sexual relationships, I'd yell "copout!"

He also doesn't seem to have the "I have sex with a string of people to distract myself from my angst, but I discard and forget them right after. With Gojyo, it seems to be actively looking for a connection in the wrong way, instead of using it to avoid deeper connections.

In the case of Laures, he was visiting Hilda and being alpha guy protective "but now I think about how you are too pure and good for me and go to whores to distract me from the angst of losing your and then having you be reborn too good for me" which is a bit different. I think what saved it for me was that when she made him come clean about the act (as much as she could) in the first volume, she was "yeah, you may be hot, but screw you, you loser, you don't get to make those choices for me." (Which, come to think of it, seems to have had the desires effect as the only indications of any action on his part since is the possibility of him letting the count have sex with him to protect Hilda, though the count seems to be into kinky things that don't involve actual intercourse.)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I like Yukimura just fine from what I've seen so far, too. Basically, I have no problem with characters, male or female, who are cheerfully open about liking casual sex and don't seem to mistreat or look down on their partners; it's the ones who are deceptive and/or manipulative to prospective partners, or who treat them like things to be used for their convenience rather than fellow humans who are also out for a mutual good time, that really set my teeth on edge.

He also doesn't seem to have the "I have sex with a string of people to distract myself from my angst, but I discard and forget them right after. With Gojyo, it seems to be actively looking for a connection in the wrong way, instead of using it to avoid deeper connections.

Hmm, interesting -- see, I would have said that to my eyes, there is definitely an element of "sleep around as short-term distraction from pain" to the kappa, but he doesn't angst about it constantly and openly. That's a big plus for all the Saiyuki characters to me, honestly -- pretty much every last one of them has massive reasons for angst, but except when it's necessary to plot they mostly just do their sometimes dysfunctional best to just get on with their lives, instead of sitting around whingeing endlessly about how much their lives suck.

I would agree that he's longing for a deeper connection while going about it all wrong, but at the same time I also tend to think there's a (possibly quite unconscious) level of self-sabotaging avoidance of deeper connections going on at the same time; those same bargirls he focuses on seem like they're a lot more interested in finding Mr. Right NOW rather than Mr. Right. The "nice girls" like Shunrei, he seems wistfully interested in but always seems to have some excuse not to do more than his baseline casual flirting: the boy's got enough self-esteem Issues that I really tend to see him not feeling like he's got anything to offer a nice girl who's looking for a nice long-term prospect she can take home to meet her family, and sticking to girls who are only interested in one-night stands neatly lets him sidestep that whole issue.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

My problem with Yukimura isn't so much Yukimura himself, but with the idea of pairing him off with anyone. Kamijyo and Yukimura both draw a pretty broad line between people he sleeps with, and people he works with or is friends with. He very strictly limits himself sexually to people he doesn't actually have a relationship with, and people who are "in on the game." Look at how embarassed he was when Yuya walked into the wrong room and he grabbed without looking. I'm sure a bit of it was the "I'm trying to establish a working relationship with this guy and anyone with a brain can figure out in two seconds that it isn't safe to mess with this girl," but there was also sheer embarassment for doing that to the wrong kind of girl, and he limits his flirting to people who won't take it seriously, or to throw them off, either from the scent or from demanding answers/accounts, or for a fight, but with the regular cast members, there's clearly no intention (or really desire to) of ever going beyond that level. (If it makes sense, he's always struck me as incredibly interested in not being interested in anyone.)

Gojyo, I think, is just messed up. There's the "looking for a good relationship" (romantic or otherwise) thing, but it mixes with the fact that he only really has examples of bad relationships to go by, as far as we know. I think he does the "Short term distraction" thing, but unlike most of the type, I don't think he does it deliberately.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've made it up to the inadvertent-grab bit, tho' that does sound amusing.

There's the "looking for a good relationship" (romantic or otherwise) thing, but it mixes with the fact that he only really has examples of bad relationships to go by, as far as we know.

*nods* His childhood models are obviously deeply messed up, and as Cho pointed out in one of our endless metas, pretty much all of his teen and early-adult exposure seems to be drunks and barflies and petty toughs like Banri, which also doesn't exactly seem like the best place to go looking for models of healthy behavior, romantic or otherwise! And heck, you know I love Hakkai to bits too, and love the idea of Hakkai and Gojyo together, be it platonically or romantically -- but at the same time, even I have to admit that when the most positive relationship in your life is with an incestuous mass-murderer of extremely dubious sanity...yeah, you're officially a total mess.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...it was pretty early on, but fairly small. Basically, Yukimura is staying at the same brothel they were, and she accidentally went into the same room and Yukimura just kinda pounced. We cut from her getting pounced on (but not seeing who) to their both being sheepish in front of Kyo right after. I really only remember it because it came up that he never hit on Yuya(though he does use her to try to get Kyo mad/motivated later, and decides to do "how do people react to mentioning her sex life?" to parse what's been going on lately) and I distinctly remember him doing something to her at one point, and looked it up.

Gojyo's past is the the biggest mess of screwed up signals ever. As far as Issues go, his probably interest me the most, I just like maintaining a safe little distance. I also figure that any ideas he has of a healthier relationship are whatever he managed to gather of Hakkai and Kanan's relationship. Which, you know, may not help matters much...

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

D'oh, and forgot to add, I do totally agree that the short-term distraction element of the womanizing (and the drinking, and the chain-smoking) is there, but not entirely deliberate. He definitely seems to me be the sort who tries not to think about things too much. I can see there being some occasions where he might be a little more deliberate about getting smashed and picking up chicks to avoid dwelling on things, but most of the time it seems more like it's force of habit, it's easy and it feels good, living in the moment is more fun that sitting at home alone, and that's plenty enough conscious motivation for the average day.