Speed Grapher ep...17?

[meganbmoore]

So, how did Tsuitengu end up a crime boss who smokes money and runs a club dedicated to sexual deviations, whose inner circle gets to molest a teenaged girl who can give some of them superpowers when they molest her?

His origin, naturally, is sooper dooper extra sad and tragic.  When he was 13, his parents committed suicide because of debt, resulting in he and his 5-year-old sister being sold into slavery.  After being passed around a bit for torture and bondage and probably rape, he was sold to be a soldier who was part of an experiment.  On his last mission (it's always the last mission) everyone in his unit but him (always the last survivor) died.  To keep him alive, the scientists went Frankenstein on him and grafted parts of his dead comrades' bodies to him, giving him super powers.  Soldiers kill the scientists, he kills the soldiers, and then he sets off to destroy the people who ruined his family.  Conveniently, Kagura's family.

He is apparently adamantly opposed to the rape and trafficking of young girls.  Except Kagura.  Where he's responsible for a good bit of it.

Though at least now I know that he's not her father's zombified body wanting to marry her, and that his staring intently at a little girl and asking her age and then sparing her father wasn't because they realized that they had yet to present small children in a sexual way.

But seriously, does this "here is his angsty backstory and it totally makes him more interesting and sympathetic" thing ever work?  Because anime and manga are pretty obsessed with it.  And somehow, telling me that I should totally sympathize with people who do that and find  them more interesting for the so so sad backstory typically kills my interest.  Darcia in Wolf's Rain is a possible exception, though there, we knew from the start that it  was because he wanted to save the person he loved, and he was actually portrayed less sympathetically towards the end, not more.  Maybe Shuri in Basara, but the good and bad both were on the table there from the start, and it was never and excuse or a justification, just an explanation.  And, you know, he probably suffers for his actions more than any other manga character out there.


ETA:  Hmm...does Scar in FMA count?  It was made pretty clear from the start that his actions were wrong, but his need for vengeance was justified, and in the manga, he all but bluntly states that no, his angsty backstory doesn't make him any better.


Incidentally, this series has now had m/f, f/m, f/f and m/m rape.  At least three varieties include pedophilia.

Comments

[re-weird.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember that when reading Flame of Recca a while ago. It worked because it revealed his motivations without attempting to revise his past actions to make them more acceptable or his personality to make him more of a woobie. I really need to read past the tournament arc, though.

[pikabot]

Yeah, it worked because it wasn't an attempt to excuse his actions in any way. Kurei is still a monster and intended to be viewed as a monster; he's just now somewhat sympathetic, as well. That hols true throughout the course of the series and is one of the reasons why I find his character fascinating. He is at once sympathetic and a monster while diminishing neither.