yeah, so. beseeching miniscule friends list.

there's a scene in gensoumaden saiyuki volume two, pages forty-eight and forty-nine. the dialogue entails (and, yes, I am an avid connoisseur of tokyopop):

"goku was upset, you know. he really hates secrets."
"feh. nosy little punk. my business ain't on display here. got it?"
"that kind of talk can be upsetting."
"ah, it's just 'cuz he's a kid."
"I didn't mean goku. you're making me upset. if you feel that way, then consider me a child as well."

this is in regards to hakkai telling goku and sanzo about gojyo's past.

I don't particularly like that scene, personally. I feel that hakkai was far too cavalier about divulging information that was not "on display," whereas everyone else--especially hakkai--is permitted a certain degree of taciturnity regarding their own personal scars. I found it vaguely unsettling, if not outright insensitive.

"insensitive"? hakkai?

yeah, yeah. I know; I know.

I found that conversation difficult to interpret, or perhaps I was reading too deeply into it. perhaps not. what exactly was hakkai talking about when he said "if you feel that way"? to what "it" was gojyo referring to when he said "it's just 'cause he's a kid"?

personally, admittedly, there is a sort of cheap thrill in knowing more about someone than anyone else. cho hakkai, gossip. nice.

I just found it unsettling.

remember that I rarely, if ever, advocate scenes in which gojyo collapses in a sobbing, blubbering heap on hakkai's shoulder and tells him everything. I suppose, eventually, hakkai's curiosity (post-burial arc) would have been on a rapid, if steady, increase. that, too, brings up another set of questions: what if banri was the one who revealed gojyo's heritage to hakkai? perhaps not. perhaps it's just me being overappreciative of the no-eyebrows ex-boyfriend.

the thing is, if hakkai wished to find something out about gojyo, hakkai would be the sort to wish such knowledge from gojyo's own mouth.




re: overappreciative of the no-eyebrows ex-boyfriend.

I'm vaguely interested in performing brief character studies for banri.

firstly, I'd like to draw your attention to this particular page in the burial arc--a flashback at the beginning of the third chapter. there's something really rather terribly empty in gojyo's eyes (kudos to minekura), isn't there? dead and cold and flat, existing, not living, meaningless steps and unfeeling punches, scuffs under his eyes. he looks cold. he needs a huggle.

sounds odd, I know, but around the time that he drags gonou in, gojyo is not that same, empty person. he's outwardly confident, no longer a stranger to emotions, familiar with physical warmth but not so familiar with emotional warmth. at least he smiles, right? he's charming and interpersonal, knows which buttons to push, laughs at himself halfheartedly in the mirror where he might once have shattered the surface containing his reflection. life is so easy it makes him wanna puke. he might consider himself lower than dirt, but he's confident in his ability to survive and to do whatever he needs to do.

as odd as it sounds, I think banri is at least 30% responsible for the man gojyo is today, vices and all.

as odd as it sounds...

...oh, hell. I'll get this down in prose form someday.