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coquelicoq · 1 year

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Hi again! Thanks for answering my previous ask! I find it funny that I have the opposite thoughts about story formats, feeling more comfortable with static images from manga (or words in a book) than the fluidity of animation/live action series. I guess having read manga since I was like 10 I'm just used to it as a format and don't find the points you make any issue? (Always read top to bottom, then right to left, and dialogue has pointers or an icon in/besides the bubble, rarely left wholly to context.) While in contrast, during dramas I often feel that I didn't get to catch the details before they're gone from the screen. Regardless, it was cool to hear your opinion on manga! 🐰💛

(By the way, yep, natsuyuu simply comes from mashing the words together to make the name shorter, which is pretty standard, especially if there's not enough words to make an interesting acronym. And if I may comment, I love the FMA manga, so if you do get to watch either of the anime version, I would enjoy knowing your opinions on the FMA:B adaptation, since it's the one that's closest to the manga. Only if you decide to watch and share, of course. 🐰💛)

that is really interesting! i like that you're distinguishing between static forms like books/manga and moving forms like animation/live action. that makes a lot of sense. my first instinct is to think of it as forms with pictures (manga/graphic novels/animation/live action) vs. forms without pictures (books), because any time there are words and images, the images become secondary to me. i'm so into words that sometimes i don't even look at the images because i just want to get to the next words! whoops!!

thank you for explaining the whole "natsuyuu" thing because i was almost at the "i don't know what this is and now i'm too afraid to ask" point and then i would have just been suffering in silence lol. i think FMA: Brotherhood is the one that was recommended to me earlier, so hopefully i will get around to watching it someday! thank you for all of this info and for your thought-provoking questions! have a lovely friday <33

#i wrote a bunch of stuff about what i mean about the panel order being difficult for me but deleted it because it was sooo long #and because i thought about it more and the bigger issue is just that. i skip over the pictures. which is...kind of major lol #funnily enough right to left instead of left to right isn't difficult at all. for whatever reason i adjusted to that right away #so that's not the problem. western comic books aren't any easier for me than manga EXCEPT that they tend to be in color #and this manga at least is not #i didn't realize how much i was relying on color for context clues and continuity and telling characters and settings apart #until it wasn't available and now i'm like...oh wow color was doing a lot of heavy lifting for me lol #asks #anon #gonna tag this #comics #for tracking purposes #also you said that the order is top/bottom then right/left...but the cheat sheet for noob americans in the back of this natsuyuu manga #says right/left then top/bottom! so what is the truth!!!#it's complicated because sometimes panels are horizontal and sometimes they're vertical...sometimes they're diagonal...#sometimes the person on the left/bottom speaks before the person on the right/top...#sometimes dialogue at the top left is meant to lead into dialogue immediately below it or below and slightly to the right #and sometimes you're supposed to start over at the right side of the row below #hm hm hmmm. really makes u think

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loriache · 2 months

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"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.