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branchandroot: oak against sky (Default)
[personal profile] branchandroot
You know, I'm starting to wonder whether Konomi really doesn't like heros. Or, at least, not shounen sports heros.

I mean, Our Hero started out as a villain, and seems to be going back to his origins, really.

And the Hero School, Seigaku, is getting no development whatsoever. It's like Konomi doesn't really know what to do with them, or how to do it.

Rikkai gets development. Fudoumine gets development. Kirihara and Tachibana have storylines that are far more like proper hero types. Or, more to the point, like proper samurai hero types, since that's the kind of story tenipuri really is. They grow out of their total bastard-ness and insecurities and psychological hangups and gain...

...okay, the only way to put this precisely is to say they gain true swords. I'm sorry, but this just /isn't/ a sports manga.

Tezuka, well, as best we can tell, he's already there. And Ryouma... for a while it looked like he was progressing in that direction, but Konomi seems to have lost track of that thread. Ryouma's struggle is with his pre-existing talent, and that's a totally different shape than /any/ kind of shounen hero.

And this would be so damn much more explicable if Konomi had just given the boys swords! I mean, all the tropes and character types and lines of struggle would match then! As it is the fact that they're in modern schools and fighting with tennis racquets runs severely against the grain of actual character action and development. It's so totally against its own grain that it actually fascinates me for that reason. Tenipuri is one of those brilliantly, utterly flawed stories that makes case studies for future generations to ponder.

And for the life of me I can't tell whether Konomi is at all aware of this. I'm inclined to doubt it, actually.

When you add the anime to the manga, and take into account the way the anime writers have made valiant attempts to turn the story into a shounen sports anime, it gets even more interesting. I do wonder a bit whether to descent into total crack, in the anime, is an expression of the anime team's growing madness and despair at how the story itself is resisting them for reasons which might not be immediately obvious. It would be so much fun to see one of the arcs done over in proper, matching, samurai-story style; that would be an appropriate 'revenge'.

*eyes the AU bunny sneaking around the underbrush with trepidation* Um... that wasn't quite what I had in mind...

Date: 2006-05-25 04:49 pm (UTC)
ext_9969: (Default)
From: [identity profile] meitachi.livejournal.com
This is a really interesting thought...

Ryouma's struggle is with his pre-existing talent, and that's a totally different shape than /any/ kind of shounen hero.

That completely struck me, though, as really, really true. I'm reflecting on Slam Dunk (oh my current love ♥) and Naruto and the like, and Ryoma's the only shounen hero who's not starting from hidden, raw talent and overcoming all sorts of odds to finally display that talent. (I still love him endlessly because I'm biased, but.) Seigaku really doesn't get much in the way of development either--the fact that they win all their matches is proof of that. Losing would help them grow and make their victories hard-earned and much sweeter.

:/ I'm not exactly sure what Konomi-sensei is doing with the boys either.

I mostly stick around to love on Hyoutei now. ♥

Date: 2006-05-25 05:04 pm (UTC)
ext_9969: (Default)
From: [identity profile] meitachi.livejournal.com
I'm not sitting here and encouraging your AU plot bunny, of course not. But I'd love to see samurai!Ryoma. *__*

And Atobe. Atobe in any way is good.

Date: 2006-05-25 06:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] giving-ground.livejournal.com
*feeds the bunny and tries to look innocent about it*

I'm a little too brain-dead after lab-work to comment very coherently (unfortunately almost always the way when I sit down at my computer, heh) but that was interesting to read at least.

Date: 2006-05-25 06:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] giving-ground.livejournal.com
Well. At least it has more of a reasonable basis than my AU bunny, which has been running wild since some time last autumn and resulted purely from the fact that the idea behind it amused me. (That and the trouble I had at the time with making the PoT characters convincingly sound like teenage boys. A problem I still have but am at least working around a bit better now. Possibly.)

Date: 2006-05-25 06:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] giving-ground.livejournal.com
Yes... I especially find this with Rikkai, although that's probably only because I've devoted more time to trying to figure them out and concluded that (for example) Sanada is not fifteen, whichever angle you look at it from...

Some days it gives me a headache. On others I can just go along with it.

Date: 2006-05-25 06:01 pm (UTC)
prillalar: (Default)
From: [personal profile] prillalar
Konomi... it's like he wants to make Ryouma into that samurai character who's empty of soul and on the edge of crazy because he's so good, and has been consumed by his own talent.

I don't think I have anything to add, but I wanted to say: yes.

Date: 2006-05-25 10:01 pm (UTC)
prillalar: (Default)
From: [personal profile] prillalar
I think PoT appeals so much because is such a glorious mess. All my favourite writing fandoms have been like that. The ones that are tightly plotted and consistant never (or rarely) make me want to add anything.

Date: 2006-05-25 06:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chronolith.livejournal.com
[thwaps AU bunny] No, mine. I have dibs on epic crack-tasticness. You'll have to wait your turn.

Actually, I thought the entire time that Konomi was trying to write a modern samurai story using modern forms of compition and just picked tennis because it wasn't kendo (oh god, so done to death) or baseball (also done to death) and periodically freaks out because tennis and compitions don't really work the way that they need to for the story. So he gets sort of muddled.

At least, I'm going to assume that he was intending this to be a modern samurai story because it makes bits of my cracktastic Revolution Tennis Sanctuary work. Like making Saiyonji and Touga characters that would actually connect to the PoT boys, rather than making the PoT boys run screaming in the other direction. It doesn't fit much with the girls from SKU, but it does make the relationship between Saiyonji and Touga all kinds of fucked up and fascinating.

I keep thinking about heaven and hell and why the demons & angels want particular souls. I keep coming back around to the idea that heaven and hell are created through though, essentially, and thus are highly malleable. So you want strong, creative souls who will shape the realm into interesting things and then have the force of will to keep it that way.

I was thinking about links and bonds and SKU's underlying story about self actualization & self realization. And I think what I want to do, ultimately, is pull Anthy together (because right now she's in at least 3, maybe 4, parts) and when she comes together she's going to be very, very powerful. Given that her psychic pain created Ohtori where she runs over and over the same trauma. Kurai is stuck as a kid, basically, (like Micheal) because her development was arrested. I think between Anthy and Utena she could get a jump start. Utena fits in there as both the catalyst and the stabilizer. And Utena has her own issues with idealism and a tendency to live in a cloud castle.

Where I want to end is with the three of them pulled mostly through their trauma and issues, and strong enough to form a triumvirate. Remember in the manga there is that trio that Kurai consults? The name of which escapes me. the idea is that the three of them become that, but a little more active, more invigorated.

Or something.

Date: 2006-05-25 07:08 pm (UTC)
ext_1114: (Default)
From: [identity profile] written-in-blue.livejournal.com
Frigging massive AU bunnies. *grumbles, but only quietly*

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