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]

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.