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...