Kekkaishi Vol 12-13

[meganbmoore]

Ok, Kekkaishi, you’re supposed to be the shounen action series with a male lead that doesn’t leave the heroine behind when it’s time to fight. What’s with leaving Tokine behind when assembling the squad to go save Yoshimori and Sen? Though, as the rescue squad didn’t do much more than retrieval, I can’t complain much.

And I’ll take Tokine punching Yoshimori for running off like an idiot and lecturing him as compensation. The surprise Yuri appearance also helps. Because I do love Yuri.

I admit, I was bored by a good chunk of this. Mostly because Kaguro both bores and irritates me, and he was everywhere. And he keeps killing/beating characters who are more interesting than him.

But I did enjoy Yoshimori’s meeting with the princess, and his teaming up with Sen. I still have difficulty believing that Sen is a guy. He even has normal “destined to be sidelined from the fight” shounen girl abilities and techniques,

And am I the only one who thinks Takeshi Kongoh is Edward Elric’s long lost twin?
 

Comments

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

Maaaan, the anime did this arc so much better. I like Kekkaishi a lot, but I thought it was a huge blunder to make Tokine sit this one out, at least for such a flimsy reason.

Sen makes me laugh, because I really enjoy having a male character with such a "feminine" personality. I suppose the jury is still out, technically, but I'll be bummed if he is actually a girl.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Leaving Tokine behind was incredibly "What? Really?" It felt very out of character for the manga. I suspect Yellow Tanabe did it since the only real purpose of the rescue squad was to name a few members and they weren't going to do any fighting in the end, and he could also have Tokine holding up the entrance at the other end, but still...

I kinda want to hug Sen.

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

Tanabe is a woman, actually.

The whole thing does smack of some sort of editorial decree or something along those lines. I'd hate to think it was just for the smack at the end, though I totally went d'awwwww to Yoshimori's reaction when Tokine started crying. It happens so rarely!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I typed up the comment as I was closing up at workm hence the lack of "s/he."

It does seem to be rather editorially dictated, doesn't it?

I think it was more touching than those scenes normally are because Yoshimori is more generally nice and sweet-and unannoying-than most shounen action leads, and his whole "I must get stronger" thing comes from the fact that she has been protecting him his whole life, and his incompetence led to her being scarred for life while protecting him.

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

Well, I love Yoshimori in large part because he absolutely adores Tokine for who she is, not who he wants her to be. (Yes, sometimes he has silly little daydreams, but those are very, very, rare.) If anything, the pressure he puts on himself to live up to her expectations is unique and charming in comparison to most shounen manga.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I think I felt at this part that the author was not really sure what to do about Tokine. I stopped reading Kekkaishi after reading up to around the end of this arc, so I don't know whether the author gets a new idea, though. (Also I didn't like it enough to keep reading on)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The rules of shounen say that, now that there are more males, she must be sidelined. But that's very OOC for the manga as written so far.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Eh, with a lot of shounen, there is a complete lack of consistency, so I'm not sure if I would even speak of it in terms of OOC issues. In general it kind of annoyed me that the hero's approach to fighting was privileged so much above Tokine's, but then it's par for the course with shounen. (I think I did review it in my journal where I complained a lot about my various issues, but I'm not sure where I stopped, so it might spoil you)

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the repost; I tried to mark my spoilers with no success, so I just deleted them instead.

In general it kind of annoyed me that the hero's approach to fighting was privileged so much above Tokine's, but then it's par for the course with shounen.

No, that's not the case at all, IMO. I'm not sure how far you got, but Tokine's relative "weakness" in comparison to Yoshimori has a perfectly logical explanation storywise.

But even that aside, I never get the feeling Tokine's method is somehow "worse" than Yoshimori's. They both come with flaws, and that's part of why the emphasis of the series is on them as a team, because together they can overcome the negative aspects of their disparate beliefs. Sometimes you can't be kind (like Yoshimori), sometimes being merciless isn't the answer either (like Tokine) and the manga does a good job, especially in later arcs of exposing that for BOTH of them.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

I guess the thing is, during some parts of the story, I felt that the author was making things go too well for Yoshimori, and it seemed that events were favoring him in a way they didn't Tokine. But, as you say, I didn't read on, so that may change later. /shrug

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

I guess the thing is, during some parts of the story, I felt that the author was making things go too well for Yoshimori, and it seemed that events were favoring him in a way they didn't Tokine.

You're absolutely right. Yoshimori has it easier than Tokine in a ton of respects...and that's actually a huge plot point that leads to some very interesting character development for both.