He /is/ a creepy psychopath, of course, but he does in in a different way than usual and it sets me wondering why.
Well, I'm terribly fond of him; but I freely admit that I get there by cherrypicking canon liek whoa, and that even then my reading's almost certainly partly a result of not having had previous experience with manga psychopaths. This is yet another of the reasons that I find myself needing to fix the Kyoto Arc, or else to veer off well before we'd get there; he strikes me as a completely different character in his earlier appearances, and I'm not so interested in the vengeance-obsessed, destiny-ridden angsty version.
One of the things that caught me about that earlier Muraki is that air he has of conspiratorial delight, as if his whole pursuit of Tsuzuki and Hisoka is not only a glorious game, but a game he expects them to love too. The expectation is insane, but there's a weird lack of malevolence about his approach. And when you combine that with the business about his private war with death and decay, things get really complicated and interesting, because what kind of a serial killer is driven by an unrelenting personal hatred of death, not only his own but everyone else's too?
But anyway. Now, as you might have predicted, I'm going to agitate for the shikigami story too. I'm not sure your analysis of that relationship is playing off the same dynamics that I see between them, for all that it's heading toward similar outcomes -- but that, of course, only makes it more intriguing. After all, I already know how I see it; the prospect of an entirely new perspective on that relationship is more enticing than simple agreement could ever be.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-05-05 03:42 pm (UTC)Well, I'm terribly fond of him; but I freely admit that I get there by cherrypicking canon liek whoa, and that even then my reading's almost certainly partly a result of not having had previous experience with manga psychopaths. This is yet another of the reasons that I find myself needing to fix the Kyoto Arc, or else to veer off well before we'd get there; he strikes me as a completely different character in his earlier appearances, and I'm not so interested in the vengeance-obsessed, destiny-ridden angsty version.
One of the things that caught me about that earlier Muraki is that air he has of conspiratorial delight, as if his whole pursuit of Tsuzuki and Hisoka is not only a glorious game, but a game he expects them to love too. The expectation is insane, but there's a weird lack of malevolence about his approach. And when you combine that with the business about his private war with death and decay, things get really complicated and interesting, because what kind of a serial killer is driven by an unrelenting personal hatred of death, not only his own but everyone else's too?
But anyway. Now, as you might have predicted, I'm going to agitate for the shikigami story too. I'm not sure your analysis of that relationship is playing off the same dynamics that I see between them, for all that it's heading toward similar outcomes -- but that, of course, only makes it more intriguing. After all, I already know how I see it; the prospect of an entirely new perspective on that relationship is more enticing than simple agreement could ever be.