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no-name-mutt · 3 years

Text

And (Working Title)

Mostly unedited here. Probably many mistakes.

Ji-Woo Suzuki was six generations removed from her ancestor Shimazu Nariakira, a galvanizing feudal lord of Japan during the Meiji Restoration. Shimazu Nariakira’s most famous quote was words that Ji-Woo worked to install firmly into her life.

"if we take the initiative, we can dominate; if we do not, we will be dominated."

After years of war, scheming and destructive cajoling, Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910. Korea was considered a part of Japan until the end of WWII and subsequently, the fall of the Japanese Empire in 1945.

During this time, Ji-Woo’s great grandmother, Jeong-Ja was forcibly betrothed. Jeong-Ja (ji-young ja) was eleven years old. Jeong-Ja was arranged to marry Sora Nariakira. Sora abhorred the thought of marrying a Korean woman. Sora, as with most other Japanese people during this time, saw Koreans as second class citizens to the Japanese. In their marriage, Sora took every opportunity to order Jeong-Ja like a slave. One late night, Sora forced himself upon her and Jeong-Ja became pregnant.

A daughter was born, Hina Nariakira. While Korea was under Japanese control, it was initially illegal to change your name. As it were, Koreans that refused to change their names, were unable to enroll in school, receive mail or even receive meal rations. Eventually the colonial bureaucracy allowed the changing of names, and as much as 84% of Koreans changed their names. Speaking the Korean language was banned and Korean newspapers and printing houses were forced to close. Nearly 200,000 ancient and historical documents were burned. Korean youths were volunteered and conscripted into the Japanese army. Shinto shrines were built, and became places of forced worship. Japanese colonial policy became a clear policy of unlimited cultural erasure.

Hina attended school and became a voracious reader and journal keeper. Hina, as a product of her environment, became fluent in both Japanese and Korean. From an early age, it was evident that Hina was highly intelligent. Her vocabulary in both Korean and Japanese quickly surpassed Jeong-Ja’s and Sora’s respectively. Though Sora was quick to forbid speaking Korean in the household, Jeong-Ja taught her in private.

Sora frequently had Hina recite aloud his military orders. If there was ever a word that he didn’t understand, he would strike her. This was a sign to make the order as comprehensive as possible, though his reasoning was always, “Do not waste my time with pointless words!”

Life for Jeong-Ja and Hina was of unceasing malaise. Their only solace was in each other.

From reading Sora’s military orders, Hina became familiar with impending military movements, encampments and strategies. Hina learned of an upcoming landing of US Ships to discuss treaty possibilities. Hina devised a plan in which Jeong-Ja and her would flee their home to seek refuge with the US Navy. Somehow, discovering their plan, Sora attempted to stop the two from fleeing.

In a frenetic haste, Hina jumped on to Sora’s back, holding on to him with an arm around his neck. He drew his Manchukuo manufactured pistol, the Sugiura, and started firing wildly. Hina kept a dull pen-knife for protection and stabbed him three times in the chest, and twice in the neck. In a matter of seconds, Sora had fired every bullet in his pistol, one of which struck Jeong-ja in the head. She died instantly. Hina fled to the US Navy ship, covered in blood and alone.

The Korean peninsula has been in an imperial theater of war since the late 1800s. It remains a strong strategic naval position and is between three of the strongest and most hostile countries; Russia, China and Japan.

Hina found herself as a refugee, aboard a US battle cruiser. From Hina’s journal, we know that while aboard the ship, she was raped multiple times by a Japanese-American Navy captain. Hina became pregnant. Clinton James Suzuki was a rising star among the ranks and arranged his marriage with Hina. He thought that having a baby out of wedlock would be detrimental to his military career. Hesitant, and silently unwilling, Hina agreed to the marriage. Through this, Hina became a US citizen.The wedding was expedited and facilitated onboard the cruiser. As her belly grew, so did her hatred for Clinton Suzuki.

Hina silently imagined his death in whatever setting they found themselves in. If he choked while eating, she wouldn’t save him. If he had fallen overboard, she wouldn’t call for help. If he slipped and fell down the stairs, she would elect to simply walk away. When the two arrived back in the US, there was to be a Navy welcoming parade in port. All of the seamen were to be standing with their wives (if they were married) on the dock as the Navy cruisers came back to port. Though Hina’s husband would have preferred to not be seen with his very young and very pregnant immigrant wife, he thought it would be a great opportunity to rub shoulders with those higher in command.

As the ship was coming into port, the anchor was dropped, and four inch thick mooring lines were lashed from the anchor to the ship to the dock. Hina’s husband was the first one out on the dock behind the commanding officers, hoping that it would impress a lieutenant, admiral or anyone with any sort of authority. She happily let him stand as far away as possible from her.

As the last mooring line was being lashed, a massive and potent rogue wave rocked the ship, and snapped the thick cable. The cable whipped downward and cut him cleanly in half from the right collar bone, down through the groin. His body fell apart like a sliced melon. Hina was silently imagining him drowning in the bay, but she never could have envisioned that. For a second she was stunned, and then started to laugh hysterically. She was finally free.

Hina easily found translator work. Although Hina adhered to strict ideals of frugality, she made enough as a single mother to comfortably support her newborn son Kaito Suzuki. Kaito Suzuki stood an average five foot nine inches. His hair was short, poofy, and straw like. His arms and legs were thin and underdeveloped, though his torso was somehow, rather round. Kaito had a round face, unremitting acne and eyebrows in need of a good trimming. He attended public school. He was unremarkably below average. He found little interest in extracurricular sports and clubs; instead, he spent most of his time skipping class, smoking pot and hanging out with his like-minded friends. After barely graduating high school, Kaito was given an ultimatum, either find work or attend college. In the end, Kaito decided to move out of his mother’s house and found work as a second shift janitor at night and weekend garbage collector.

Kaito Suzuki and Ji-Woo I(the first) first met when she decided to stay late at the commercial real estate office where she worked. Kaito was just starting his shift, starting by collecting the garbage around the office. Ji-Woo I was a quiet, mild mannered individual. She came from a good home and an affluent community. Ji-Woo I was going through a “rebellious” phase and began making a flurry of short-sighted decisions all revolving around Kaito. The two developed addictions to different drugs and made small time scams in order to fund these new habits. Ji-Woo I unexpectedly became pregnant. The night they found out, Kaito grabbed her car keys and said he was going out for cigarettes and never returned. Hina was the only person in the delivery room when the daughter was born. Ji-Woo I was emotionless. She stared emptily at the crying newborn girl. Ji-Woo I looked to Hina in silent disdain. Hina nodded in affirmation. When Ji-Woo I was released from the hospital, Hina drove her to the airport and handed her some money. Neither Hina nor the newborn baby girl ever saw her again.

Hina decided to name the baby Ji-Woo II, after her mother. (Whom despite the situation, actually quite liked.)

As a baby, she cried constantly. Even in sleep, she murmured and wept in unsilence. Ji-Woo would stop crying only momentarily if she were fed pureed sweet potatoes or ripe apricots.

When Ji-Woo was six months old, she stopped breathing for nearly two minutes. Hina panicked, rushed to the emergency room. But by the time Hina arrived at the the hospital and Ji-Woo was breathing again and after that point, Ji-Woo never cried again. It’s as if she were an entirely different baby. Ji-Woo excelled in school and surpassed all of those around her. She had few friends throughout her youth. It wasn’t until her mid twenties when she learned how to simply “get along” with those around her.

Ji-Woo took a master’s degree in Japanese History. Then continued on to get a doctorate in Korean History. After a few bored years of teaching, Ji-Woo left to attend law school.

Everything about Ji-Woo was professional. Her skin was fine, with a healthy touch of melanin. She had high cheekbones and slightly sunken cheeks. A slightly upturned, pointed nose, symmetrical eyebrows. A single asymmetrically placed mole populated her face. She was beautiful. Equally strong and delicate, like the skeletal system of a great predatory bird. Her hair was long, to her lower back, though it was always pulled taut into a perfect braid. She wore simple, gold Tiffany earrings. She purchased them for herself. Ji-Woo’s wardrobe consisted mostly of well-fitting dress suits that obeyed her movements like a harshly conditioned army. There was never a loose thread out of place. Not even so much as a single piece of lint dared to adhere itself to her. She had an athletic, hidden, muscular build that I couldn’t help but to admire.

As a lawyer, Ji-Woo was ruthless. She constructed such pithy arguments, the opposition was often left speechless. And on a few occasions they were left literally stammering. Ever professional, Ji-Woo never showed any form of celebration or elation in victory. She spoke clearly, with seriousness and a dose of harnessed emphasis. Ji-Woo’s days were neither ‘good days’ nor ‘bad days’. She took on the day’s obstacles as if she had rehearsed them wholly the day before (though probably didn’t need it.).

The first time that I saw Ji-Woo Suzuki I was somehow dragged into a meeting of which I had no reason for being in attendance. I was struck by her. Though I prayed I could stay hidden, as a fly on the wall. Ji-Woo Suzuki led a team of class-action specific lawyers. Without ever speaking with her, one would simply assume she was the unquestionable leader. Only after an introduction, Ji-Woo Suzuki would offer to call her “Ji”, as a favor to you. It was not uncommon for people to reply to this offer by thanking her. Though, they were often left deciding whether to continue calling her Ji-Woo out of respect or interpreting her offer as an order. Most people continued to call her Ji-Woo or Ms. Suzuki.

I was staring at her. She was unpacking her case notes. People in the room started conversing. She uncapped a Montblanc rollerball and began to write. Just then, she stopped writing, wrinkled her brow in confusion and looked up directly at me as if to ask, “Who are you, and why are you here?” Her look was sharp, piercing but gentle. A needle and thread.

She looked right through me. And that was the first time I knew,

I was going to marry Ji-Woo Suzuki.

The meeting must have ended. I assumed so because the room had started to clear out. I hadn’t really been paying attention, not that I should have been. I wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place!

I pretended to collect my things slowly trying to match Ji-Woo’s pace so we could incidentally leave the conference room at the same time. This was quite difficult because I had no belongings to pack up, nor a briefcase to put them in. So I took out my phone from my pocket and pretended to reply to an email. I looked up again and she was already pushing her chair in (when did that happen?!). She moved with intent. I hurriedly shoved my phone into my pocket and jumped up to meet her in the doorway.

“Hi”, I said, giving my best impression of someone far more casual than myself.

Ji looked at me quizzically, replied dryly with “Hello” and continued past me. Just like a fighter-jet breaking the sound barrier, she was gone, leaving only a potent echo. I must’ve blacked out, because the next thing I knew, she was already halfway down the hall. A paper came loose from her briefcase and she didn’t seem to notice.

This

was

chance.

I fast-walked down the hall as coolly as possible, “hey wait!” I called out. But she was already rounding the corner down the hall. I picked up the piece of paper, in perfect cursive writing it read,

I see you, do you see me?

5:00pm

My temple wrinkled in confusion. I looked up again and she was gone. The heart in my chest reminded me of its presence with a mighty thump. I felt myself sweat. Was this meant for me to find? I returned to the copy room and returned to my work.

But all I could think of was one Miss Ji-Woo Suzuki. One moment she was there, and then she was not.

In the periphery,

of where I wanted to be.

I felt invigorated. Anxious and curious.

Piqued.

I got back to the copy room and looked at my digital casio watch, 2:04pm.

My inbox of “to be copied” was now spilling out. I assumed position in front of the plastic, off-white monstrosity.

First, I’ll take the source material in my left hand! Then! I read the copy instructions and made the proper adjustments and number of copies. After the copies were completed I placed a single paper clip on the ream and set it in the pick up box. Organized alphabetically. To most people, the job would seem boring, though I would argue that there are quite a lot of nuances to it. For example: Eighteen copies of pages one through three, six copies of pages four through ten, and that’s an easy one.

A page goes in, the scanning light travels from right to left, and left to right, pages come out. I know the machine inside and out. I know because I have had to take it apart and reassemble it, not without hiccups, of course. I went home that day with a black ink stain on my chest. Like I was blasted by a shotgun, and bled black. The skin on my belly was still stained where the ink and bled through the shirt.

Occasionally pieces of dust or folded paper would cast a shadow on the rest of the page. It caused a ghastly, black, pixelated shadow to print on the copies. Sometimes the shadowed copies were fine to pass along, sometimes, they were better discarded.

At five pm, I stood outside of Ji-Woo’s office. I was nervous to enter. She sat behind a sleek mid-century desk with her legs folded. Her slate gray dress suit and Mac Pro reminded me of a brutalist era sculpture I saw once as a teenager. I didn’t understand the sculpture then, though maybe I do now.

She had nice legs, I absolutely understood that. I caught glimpses of her toned calf muscles through the gap of her desk as I paced as casually as possible in front of the open doorway.

After a few paces back and forth, I heard her call out to me, “You can come in, you know.” I froze. Then somehow came to find myself sitting in the chair across from hers. The desk remained between us. I didn’t know what to say, at that moment, I couldn’t be sure if I knew how to speak.

“I noticed you today in the Carter vs. Amadeo-Hastings meeting.” She said.

“No… I mean, yes, I was there. Just trying to learn what it’s all about.” Do you think she bought it?

“Are you interested in practicing law?”

“Uhm, yeah, interested? Definitely.”

I actually had only worked at the office for about a month. I was still fairly unclear on what business the office conducted, let alone the ‘partners’. Before, I worked at the busiest copy center in Seattle. I got let go after I yelled at a customer, “Stop breaking my shit!” and in my defense, they were going to break the

Konica Minolta c754e! Those things aren’t cheap, and the replacement parts take three weeks to get to the states.

“Would you like to go to dinner with me?” She asked.

I felt a draft in the back of my agape mouth. Ji-Woo liked a breeze in the office. I found that out later that night when she told me at dinner.

We continued to see each other after work every Tuesday and during the day on Saturday. This was when Ji-Woo allowed herself recreational time. I learned a lot about Ji-Woo’s schedule during this initial period of dating. I found her structure and stoicism quite sexy. She made all of the reservations at restaurants. And not just nice restaurants, she even made reservations for tacky hole-in-the-wall places that she knew I would like. A few times she would order for me. Like a mind reader, she would always order exactly what I wanted yet never in a demeaning way. She seemed to know exactly when I wanted to speak for myself and when I was comfortable with her ordering for me.

After about a month, midday on a Friday, she sent me an email. The subject line simply read,

“Tomorrow Night 4/16/2019”

Hi Kentaro,

Please meet me at my house tomorrow night at 6:00pm. We’ll go to dinner. I’ve made reservations at 7:30. Casual attire.

This was more or less the usual date query. Though, interestingly, she signed it at just Ji. Futhermore, she would usually ask to meet at six with reservations about the time it took to get to the restaurant. Surely we weren’t going somewhere that was an hour and a half away.

That night, I was talking to an old friend of mine, Leo, on the phone. I was telling him about Ji-Woo and I. About how I eagerly awaited those Tuesdays and Saturdays. And about the one time I asked her out on a whim on a Friday night. She declined. I was upset for a while. But respected her need for personal space, and strict schedule. “It’s just how she is”.

I told Leo that we hadn’t had sex. “That’s good dude, she’s probably a Sazae Oni” he replied sarcastically. I didn’t understand his reference, but as his tone implied, it was a snide comment I’d best ignore... but didn’t.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked sharply.

“Sa-zae Oh-ni!” He said louder and slower in syllables, as if it were common knowledge. He continued, “They’re these folk tale snail mermaids that preyed on Japanese pirates. They would pretend to be in distress, but when the pirates brought them onboard, the sazae oni would chop off their balls and hold them ransom for gold. They’re like, obsessed with gold or something.” A weird silence filled the phone line as I looked around the room, waiting for him to finish.

He started again, “ok, it doesn’t matter. You’re the Japanese one, should you know what a sazae oni is?”

I held my lips taught, annoyedly.

“Well, is she someone you’d bring home to meet your mother?” He asked me. I thought about this for a while. I imagined a cartoon caricature version of my mother asking me, “Why would you want to be with someone that is so serious all the time?”

Up until this point I had never even seen the inside of her apartment. Whenever I was to meet her there, she would already be outside the gate waiting for me.

That Saturday night I took a cab to her apartment building as I usually did. It started to rain on the way over and fog grew in density the closer I got to the apartment. I didn’t check the forecast beforehand, and I didn’t have an umbrella. I arrived at the gate and Ji-Woo wasn’t around. I checked my phone for any missed messages from her, but there were none.

I buzzed her intercom. “Hi, I’m here. Are you there?”

“Still getting ready, come up.”

She buzzed me in. This was it, I was finally going to see where(and how!) she lived. 6th Floor, apartment 6F. Embarrassingly, I panted a bit when I got to her floor. I stood on her doormat, it said ‘Welcome’. I was slightly damp, everywhere. I wore an old grey knit sweater. I had washed it so many times the collar was getting tiny holes. Faded blue jeans and shabby sneakers. I checked my casio, 6:00pm exactly. “Yes! Perfect timing” I exclaimed silently as I clenched my fist in victory, then knocked on the door insouciantly. “Come in!”, I could hear Ji-Woo shout from behind the door. I opened the door, slowly. I floated in like an astronaut, opening the hatch to an alien planet. I opened it to a small foyer. There was a modern-looking coat rack which I hung my soggy jacket on. To the right was an inviting, lamp-lit living room. There was one of those long arched floor lamps spilling its light on an Eames Lounge chair. I imagined Ji-woo perched on it, with a warm beverage, reading a dense book. Floor to ceiling bookshelves and floor to ceiling windows lined the rest of the room, I realized it was a top floor corner apartment. Black and white photographs and pen drawings hung on the wall. There were blankets draped on the modern couches. It felt uncharacteristically cozy. The furniture all flowed perfectly, like it was a team of designers’ life’s work.

On the left there was another closet. Then further down, it opened up to the dining room. “In here” She shouted, from that direction.

I kicked off my tattered sneakers and the uppers deflated like popped balloons. I took one step toward the kitchen and I was struck with the most extraordinary smell. It was rich, minerally and spicy. I let my nose lead the way.

She stood at the stove. She was wearing a loose knit navy sweater that was well loved and jeans. Her sleeves were pushed up. She was wearing a nice apron. Her hair was pulled back, not in a braid, but in a perfectly round bun.

The dining table was set for two. Plates, silverware, a wine glass for her and a beer glass for me. There were two candles and a decorative bowl. The bowl was filled with some unknown liquid that looked like molten gold. I wanted to stick my finger in it but didn’t.

She turned and saw me, and I saw her. “I didn’t mean that casual.” she said jokingly. Lately she has been making more and more jokes, but only during our dates. It was comfortable, and usually pretty funny.

“It smells so good, what is it?” I said. I walked into the kitchen and leaned against the counter by the stove. She leaned over and planted a kiss on my lips. I was so surprised that it was over before I could react. There was a battle in my head between the heavenly smelling food and the thought of the kiss.

“It’s almost ready. Get us drinks from the fridge.” She instructed me. The fridge was filled with different sized glass containers. They all stacked neatly, each with a label of what it was and a date. There was a bottle of white wine and a fancy looking beer with today’s date. I took them from the fridge and opened them. She looked as though she were a professional chef. She moved with tempered urgency and precision. “Budae-Jjigae. Budae is ‘army’ or ‘army base’, jjigae is ‘stew’. It’s a recipe my grandmother taught me... a long time ago.” She stopped what she was doing and looked off into space.

A few seconds later, she regained consciousness from her memory and started to plate the food. It was finished.

It was delicious. It was perfect. It was obvious that Ji-Woo had made this dish many times and was able to recreate it perfectly. “How many other romantic interests had she made this for?” I wondered, but quickly spurned the thought. I wasn’t shy, and got a hearty second helping.

I wiped my mouth and leaned back in my chair, and polished off the last of my beer. I wanted badly to unbutton my pants and relieve the pressure on my waistband. Instead, we got up and cleaned the kitchen together.

Later on, we found each other on the sofa near the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I was elated. Warm, with a full belly. Calm, sleepy, but present, I closed my eyes and relished.

“Do not fall asleep.”

Ji-Woo instructed me. “I will be right back.” She said.

Insubordinately, I was falling asleep when from down the hall, I heard her call me, “Come here, I need to show you something.” I sleepily approached the room at the end of the hall. A bedroom. As I got closer to the doorway, I could see a mirror’s reflection in the bedroom. It truly was a bed-room. A queen size mattress and two small side tables with lamps were the only furniture. Warm, golden light spilled out of the bedside lamps that reflected off the polished hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. A single, brand new candle was lit on the nightstand. But there was no lighter or matches anywhere. How was it lit?

Ji-Woo lay on the bed, one leg crossed over the other. Her right arm supported her posture. Her hair was down. It was now I could fully realize the length and volume of her hair. It flowed down her back and fanned out perfectly behind her like a ginkgo leaf. The low lighting in the room accented her dark makeup. Her eyeshadow shimmered subtly.

She was wearing a lacy bodysuit of lingerie so scant, it could hardly be described as clothing. A lacy and delicate fabric choker connected to thin straps perfectly obfuscated her nipples. Ethereal panties suspend a pair of elegant garters. The fabric adhered to her slender, toned body as if it were made custom.

She eyed me fervently,

And I was very awake then.

After it was over I felt euphoric and peaceful,

Unburdened.

I turned over, towards her in bed.

I put my head on her chest.

And I heard nothing.

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rae-does-stuff · 3 years

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Chocolate Brown and Olive Green Japan x Nyo!Greece (Part 11/Last Part)

Started: March 27th 2021

Ended: March 31st 2021

Word Count: 6651

Reminder: I don’t own Hetalia or Nyotalia. I’m also using Nyo!Greece instead of Canon!Greece but everyone else’s gender is the same as to what it is in canon. I’m sorry if characters are OOC.

The Present, White Day

Greece walked up the hill. Her boyfriend, Japan, told her that it was something important and that she should get there quickly.

Greece was curious as to what was so important so she tried to get there as quickly as possible.

When she got to the top of the hill, what she saw astounded her. The cherry blossoms on the tree were falling in a romantic manner and there was a blanket and basket on the ground. There were even little candles around the area.

That's when Japan came from behind the tree. He greeted, "Hello Greece-Chan."

Greece asked, "Is this for me?"

Japan confirmed it, "Hai, it is."

He handed her a box of chocolates.

Greece smiled, "You're really going all out. Is there a special occasion I forgot about?"

Japan explained, a light blush dusting his cheeks, "Today is White Day."

Greece nodded and sat down. She was really touched by the gesture. She remembered celebrating White Day before but it was never this grand.

Greece and Japan began to eat and chat. Greece noticed that Japan was blushing as time went on.

When it was time for Greece to leave, she stood up and prepared to leave. Japan stopped her, "Greece-Chan, wait. I need to tell you something."

Greece turned around and saw Japan blushing a lot. She tilted her head in curiosity and motioned for him to continue.

Japan took a deep breath, "Greece-Chan, in all my long life, I have never thought that I would be able to get close to someone. Especially in a romantic way, but you changed that. You are my first love and one of my closest friends. We may have had our arguments, but I believe that we got through them. You helped me forgive myself and I thank you for that. I love you and as a thank you for helping me with my issues and showing me how to love,"

He got on one knee and pulled out a ring, "Will you marry me?"

Greece let out a small gasp. She felt her olive green eyes well up with tears of happiness, "Yes."

Japan stood up and gave her the ring, "I love you Greece-Chan."

She looked into his chocolate brown eyes and gave him a kiss, "I love you too Japan."

The End

Thanks so much for reading my first fic! I've noticed that Japan x Nyo!Greece doesn't get a lot of love so write this fic to change that. I am so sorry for the length of this one-shot. I only intended for it to have 1,000 words or something similar. Anyways, I figure I should explain a couple of the events in the fic:

- In June 1889 Japan and Greece begin relations by signing the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation. I couldn't find any info on the treaty itself.

- From 1916 to 1917 Greece was split in between joining the Allies and staying neutral. The result was the country getting split in two.

- In 1919 Japan proposed a Racial Equality Proposal. Despite getting a lot of votes for adding it to the Treaty of Versailles, the U.S said that it needed to be a unanimous vote. Instead, they gave Japan Germany's stuff in China and some islands in the Pacific.

- In 1932, the Japanese military invades Manchuria without the permission of the government. They blow up their own railroad in the Mukden Incident and blame it on the Chinese to invade Manchuria. They set up the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo. The world is stunned by the war crimes the Japanese army committed there.

- Later that same year, the Lytton Report is released revealing that the Mukden Incident was staged and that Japan should give Manchuria back to China. In 1933, Japan leaves the League of Nations.

- In 1940, Japan joins the Axis. Greece and Japan cease all relations with each other during World War II.

- From 1940 to 1941 Italy attempts to invade Greece. The Italian ambassador tried to ask the king to let Axis troops through Greece but the king says no. The Greeks push back the invasion and the Italians need to call the Germans for help. The Germans and Italians together invade Greece. The Greeks fighting hard enough to make Italy need help from Germany delays Operation Barbarossa.

- From 1946 to 1949 Greece is thrown into Civil War. The Communist party of Greece attempts to take over the government. Britain gives Greece funds but eventually has to pull out because they ran out. America stepped in with the Truman Doctrine and supported Greece.

- In 2005 the Global Durex Sex Survey has revealed that Greece has the most sexual activity and Japan has the least. Yes, this was based off the strip where Greece and Japan sleep together in canon. And the survey was the basis for the strip where Greece and Japan sleep together in canon.

- On Valentines Day (February 14th) in Japan, women give men chocolate instead of it being the other way around. On White Day (March 14th), men return the favor by giving back roughly two or three times the amount of chocolate they received.

Thanks for reading!

#hetalia #Hetalia 2021 #anime #nyotalia #giripan #nyo!greece #Chocolate Brown and Olive Green #aph greece #aph japan #hws greece

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revive-turtle-island-now · 4 years

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UNBELIEVABLE.

So called “leftist” Bernie Sanders just promoted pro-colonial, pro-imperialist America First ideology, and slammed the entire country of China as a ““big bad communist nation”.

BERNIE SANDERS IS PURE EVIL JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER WHITE HOUSE PRESIDENT.

I used to support him, until I began reading about how Bernie Sanders doesn’t oppose colonialism nor the existence of colonial genocide and colonial puppet states (like the European and Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo, U.S.A., South Africa, Canada, Brazil, etc).

There is no lesser of two evils in the U.S. political system. Voting won’t do ANYTHING about anti colonial revolution, or reviving countless native languages, cultures or sustainable anti-colonial societies.

NO PRESIDENT CARES in the U.S. about anything that goes against colonialism and settler’s “culture”.

Who does care?

#anarchy #vote nobody #fight for anti colonial revolution #Anarchist #communism #news #tweets #no gods no masters

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countryshitposts · 4 years

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You’re Shooting Your Bullet The Wrong Way

Pain, I Let The Bullets Fly Oh Let Them Rain

Trigger Warnings: Rape

Also whoever gets the symbolism i made TELL ME

AO3 Link

Name Guide:

Sulian- Soviet Union

Choson Inmin- North Korea

Renmin/Jung-gug- China

Minguo- Republic of China

Nippon Koku- Japan

Nippon Teikoku- Japan Empire

New Zealand thrusts a newspaper underneath America’s nose at seven in the morning, rudely interrupting her morning coffee and general mood for the day. She can already feel an incoming headache, resonating deep inside her as her blue eyes skim the pages, resting on the featured headline. Normally she would not care for headlines and news stories, believing that she’s updated herself every so often, on cold lonely nights with a mug of steaming tea in her hands, looking down from her balcony and into the wild, breeze flowing down at her hair as she checks her phone for new inquiries and to see if there is anything that can potentially be useful to her; either for entertainment or for her job.

She furrows her brows as she reads the headlines again and again, clutching the smooth surface of the newspaper, acting like it has done something wrong to her when in reality, she was the one missing-in-action, out of the game, because she was busily fixing that god-awful broken television that kept bugging her due to the fact she could not watch all of her weekly shows last night in a bathrobe.

“What do you think of this?”, New Zealand asks his sister, quirking a brow at her direction, like she was the boss and everyone has to follow her orders.

(Technically, she is the boss- from taking care of this whole department while the others had gone to their free periods and such, or to the point where her hair is in a bun and looking over at the files in alphabetical order, hoping for the morning to go easy on her.)

“I don’t know; how do you think I should react?”, she replies to her brother, who shrugs a little.

“This might be our one chance on getting into Teikoku’s lair once and for all”, New Zealand replies, and he points at the picture of a man in his late thirties, dark brown eyes staring at the camera, smooth dark hair shining from the light. Manchukuo, it read. “This guy was one of his bodyguards, and now he’s got a vacant position that one of us can occupy.”

“You can take care of this; I’ll be watching.” She leans back onto her swivel chair, legs on the reception desk, boredly looking at the lights blinkering above her, the ceiling plain white and she reminds herself to actually paint this whole dull station to look more entertaining than the pieces of paper scattered around her office day and night.

“You’re going to participate in this”, Canada speaks up from where he was sitting, Vietnam in front of him, possibly talking about something important. “We need you on this case, America. Because I feel like this Teikoku case will spiral out of control due to the diabolical plans he has up his sleeve.”

America groans- Canada was using his ‘older brother’ voice (despite the fact America is older than the bastard by a few years); at times Australia would mimick his tone of voice whenever they were alone to make Kiwi and America better, but now she handles the lamp on her desk, feeling its metal surface underneath her warm palms, wanting to throw the object right at Canada’s face, wanting to hear him shout in surprise as the lamp will collide with his face. She doesn’t, though; she’ll have fun torturing him during practice.

The front door opens and like fishes swimming their way to where the food is, they turn their heads towards the swinging doors, to reveal Philip (two hours late, like he always is), with an even more eyebrow-raising surprise; he was holding a vase full of white orchids, its petals flowing softly in the rising sun before he rudely closes the doors, his face looking utterly exhausted like he’s ran a marathon, dark circles over taking the space under his eyes like it was a cosmic deity of space and his hands were trembling, perhaps forcing them to work to death and in excruciating pain, leaving them immobile as he tries to carry the light-weight vase with visible difficulty. His hair was messy and standing on ends, like he had just woken up from the soft and sweet tendrils of sleep just this morning, put on his shoddy attire (it doesn’t even look ironed; the ruffled creases is obvious) and walked from hell to work.

But everyone’s eyes weren’t on Philip looking the slightest bit ghastly or sleep-deprived despite drinking down three cups of coffee based on how rushed and fast he walks, no; their eyes were on the pale white orchids, the wind inside of the room making them bow down obedient and willing to listen to their master. The colors were ghostly, touched by a spirit from another realm, like someone had just died.

The silence was broken by Philip, who, in his coffee-blazed haze, glares at everyone. “What?”

Canada was the first to recover, a smirk playin on his lips, light eyes staring at the orchids. “So, who is it?”

“Whose what?”, Philip snaps, walking towards his desk and harshly placing the vase on the table- America sees the orchids bounce, its only fluid movement of life before becoming silent once again.

“Uh, ya know”, Aussie eyes the vase again, “the orchids.”

Philip glances at the orchids, like it was the first time he acknowledges their presence as he raises a brow. “These? A friend gave them to me this morning.”

Canada’s smirk grows wider, his brows wiggling. “A ’friend’, hm? Or perhaps… a secret admirer?”

Philip rolls his eyes, sighing. “Look, it’s not like that okay? Just… drop it.”

America blinks at the tone of curtness Philip had in his voice, especially when he starts to curse the god above to why the coffee machine is empty and who wasted the favorite flavor of his, mumbling something incomprehensible before resolving to go outside, away from the eyes, to go buy somewhere.

As he opens the door to the outside world again, the sun and electrical lights made America catch on to something she did not notice a while ago.

There was a golden ring on Philip’s finger, a pattern of small words deciphered into it, its golden gleam and glow reflective throughout the sun.

“America, we really need your help in this case”, Canada pleads with her again, voice soft and literally like a small boy, but she scoffs.

“Ya’ll can do that on your own”, she replies, examining her gleaming and polished nails in the light. “I’m going to be here. Watching.”

“We need you more than as a watcher”, Canada argues back, his voice becoming impatient as his strings of kindness start to loosen. “We need you on our team, to spy on enemy eyes.”

“What makes Teikoku so special anyways? He kidnap a boy’s mother- big deal. Does that make him different from other mobs that also kidnap people?”

“Well, no, not really-”

“Well you have my answer. I’m not helping, you’re on your own.”

“Will this change your mind, then?”, Philip intervenes from the end of the table, holding up a small slip of paper. He walks up to America, giving her the brittle piece of evidence to why she’d volunteer onto this crazy cuckoo quest her brother had just started because he’s too compassionate to a child. She reads and rereads it, the messy and garbled writing surely belonging to Teikoku, due to his harsh lettering and vocabulary. She could just imagine him writing this message with a small smirk on his face, loving the way he would toy at the people he would crush under his shoes when the time comes.

Her eyes tell the story all by itself. Absolute boredom once she starts reading the words and language written in the letter, slowly widening in surprise and panic, the words and letters slowly murdering her on the inside, one hand letting go of the letter to hold on to her throat, as if the words are latching onto her, suffocating her with a pillow. America’s eyes of terror stare from Canada’s concerned expression to Philip’s furrowed brow.

“Where did you find this?”, America asks the one who gave her the letter, him fiddling with his pen.

“I decided to look into someone else’s files for the Teikoku case”, he says, eye averting from the audience, expression unreadable, lines clearly well-rehearsed like he has heard this question one thousand and one nights and his mouth of silver would answer words golden, words of promises, showering jewelry onto the person he is speaking to. “Tokyo, his brother.”

“He wrote his plans to his brother? Then how did it end up in Tokyo’s file?” Canada asks with a suspicious look on his face.

Philip sighs, “Look, sometimes I can hack into others’ documents; Tokyo’s letter history wasn’t secure at all, which is how I got the letter.”

“Philip asks full permission to search out the files for Teikoku’s family”, Aussie intervenes, raising his hand.

“Apparently Teikoku’s letter to Tokyo was hidden beneath another sheet of paper to the point we haven’t even noticed it”, Kiwi adds.

Philip was distractedly playing with the ring on his finger, eyes full of longing… before turning back to America. “So- are you in this or not?”

America looks back at her audience, eyes expectant, monitoring and watching her evert move. It was a choice of a lifetime; to stop Teikoku’s evil deeds before the seeds of malevolence he had planted grow over night, into a tree deep in the gardens, standung still, swaying to the beat of the winds and its leaves will become darker, shaping the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve had eaten due to a snake’s evil treachery. America looks at the tables, its metallic state replicating her face but more distorted and highly surreal, everyone’s eyes are now melded into one being. She sighs, defeated.

“Fine, I’ll join.”

Koku stands outside of Teikoku’s office, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms at the same time carressing his bruise. He winces once his fingers brush the wound on his forearm, once a gash from last night now bandaged but he can still see the traces of crimson blood when he dares look at it. He’d bit his lip during the whole process of tending to his wound, trying not to glance at it because he knows that it is quite a gruesome sight, clenching his eyes closed, feeling the nurse’s hands near the wound and even above it, making him wince ever so slightly. Teikoku was there, encouraging him that everything will be fine, it was just a gash he had earned from the shattered chandelier glass.

It was obsessively itchy in the bandages, and he tries to resist scratching his forearm because goddamn it the whole bandage was itchy, like hands trying hard to find his sensitive spot but ultimately failing because he is both angry and irritated. It was much better than the obliterating pain he felt when he realizes he actually has a wound on his arm.

Koku inhales and exhales; whatever the reason, he dislikes the sight of blood.

He hears his brother in his office, talking to someone on the phone in a hushed voice, always knowing when someone is at the door. Koku decides to spend his time waiting for Teikoku by rehearsing his words, clouds of words and letters forming in his head like precipitation is going to drown them all. He tries to pick his words carefully, walking on a tightrope that once he looks down he sees a dark abyss opening its mouth to engulf him wholly. He forms a coherent sentence in his mind, a cloud to his clear-headedness; he hears the squeak of a door and Koku snaps out from his thoughts.

“Koku”, comes the voice of the elder, actually tinged with surprise as he finds his younger brother, “what brings you to my room?”

Koku bites his lower lip, opening his mouth and trying to remind his brain not to stutter. “W-well, Manchukuo’s dead.”

Teikoku’s face clouds over, but instead of white cotton clouds blocking out the sun his whole face looks like a thunderstorm is brewing. “I am aware of it.”

“He has three children”, Koku continues, “I believe that they need to be notified of their father’s…”, he swallows down bile and the word ‘dead’, “passing.”

Teikoku nods, his face still settled into a deep frown. “Is that all you wish to talk to me, brother?”

Koku shivers a little, like Teikoku’s stare is stabbing into him, and he has never felt this feeling before, like the whole surrounding is now covered in ice, freezing him until he cannot move, eyes searching for a way of warmth before dying in fiery cold.

“No”, Koku fixes his hair awkwardly as a way to compose himself, “since Manchukuo is… dead, I feel like what he left - aside from his children - is a vacant position for a job.”

Teikoku lifts a brow, suddenly intrigued. “A job.”

Koku nods, “For um… as a bodyguard for the family.”

Teikoku’s frown transforms to a thoughtful look, seemingly considering what Koku says, before looking back at his brother with a small smile on his face. “I’ll consider it; but you do the job interviews, hm?”

Koku’s face lights up, ultimately nodding- he had never received a serious responsibility before, and he now feels eager to do as his brother says. “I will, not to worry Teikoku.” Before he turns to leave, however, he looks back at him. “Where was Palau, during the dinner?”

Teikoku smiles mysteriously, hiding a secret, the snake inside of him trying to jump out. “She had a dinner date in another restaurant; she didn’t want us to disturb them, so I didn’t invite her to eat dinner with us.”

(Palau had been thoroughly as shaken as Koku was when she comes out of her car, pale as a ghost, shielding her body from her father, eyes swivelling from he to Koku. She doesn’t look like she even ate, as thin as she had once was, no joy in her body and replaced by fear clawing at her alive.

Koku had asked what happened to her date, and, her eyes flinging to Teikoku, she smiles a little before saying, “I enjoyed it.”)

Koku nods, telling his brother he will see him later during lunch, walking away from his brother and his room, hearing the door close behind him. As if the cost was clear, as if his third eye tells him that the threat has now long gone, his smile fades and turns into a small frown. His fingers linger on his wound before the little pinch of pain becomes too much for him to handle, his pacing becoming faster, shuffling his feet across the smooth tiles of floors like he is now being lifted by an angel with wings. His train of thought goes from his request to his brother to what happened last night.

Koku thinks about the catastrophe that was last night: how an unruly gang knew Teikoku’s name and wants his blood; how Manchukuo seemed to recognize one of the members; how that man was seen dragging away another boy away from Teikoku; he doesn’t get why that gang targetted his brother, of all people. Perhaps of his money, he assumes, because they are one of the richest families in the city, and Teikoku’s charming grin while handling his well-tailored suit can tell him that they wish to smear his blood on his own fortune, to claim it as their own. But there was something else- the way the boy with the eye-patch tries to aim his pistol on Teikoku, wishing vengeance as he tries to shoot the bullet ready to kill him. The way Teikoku did not flinch nor look casual when he sees Manchukuo’s body, blood dripping from the hole in his head, like he expected this outcome and expected his death.

Maybe there is more to Teikoku and he is only scratching the surface.

America sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, tying her hair up in a bun, looking at her reflection in the bathroom’s mirror. When she tells them she actually wanted to join this wild case against Teikoku, they give her a job where she wouldn’t sit back and watch this whole disaster play out. At the very least, she isn’t going to disguise herself as a prostitute to seduce her clients, like what Canada is doing now. She takes out her compact mirror to try add a little splendor to her face, then dabbing herself with perfume to somewhat impress her brand new 'boss’, as Australia so elegantly put it.

(“Looks like you’re the one being ordered around now”, Australia snickers as he gives her a bunch of uniforms to sort out through to see which suits her the best.

America gives her brother a glare before picking out one from the pile, “I’ll have fun removing your lunch time privilages.”

Australia goes pale.)

America looks back at her reflection again, cerulean eyes making contact with its duplicate, steeling herself for what was about to come, rehearsing the words in her head and trying hard not to let Teikoku get the best of her. Of course, she reminds herself to never be nervous of Teikoku, that he is the worst of them all, a single demon escaping from hell to create an all new spawn of monsters lurking around every dark corner, a shadow to one’s eye. She takes a deep and sharp breath, applying lip balm on her lips and she gives herself a small smile, to look like nothing is wrong and everything is fine, and that she isn’t infiltrating a bastard’s home every time he isn’t looking.

America replays her role in her head, trying to clear her mind.

Be hired as one of Teikoku’s bodyguards.

Find evidence in his files.

Arrest him.

Sounds like an easy enough plan, America thinks to herself, the problem is whether Teikoku is smart enough to see through her.

Another reason why she did not join this whole goose chase in the first place: she indisputably is aware that Teikoku is a conniving and perceptive man- one wrong move he’ll put a bullet through her skull or do something much worse than a quick and painless death. She had met him, once; during a party by one of the highest officials in the city, intent to become allies with the richest of businessman and highest of officials.

Teikoku was the least talkative out of everyone she has ever interacted, crossing his arms and never inviting anyone to his personal space unless he is called by someone else, putting on anelegant and charming smile that wins the entire population, disregsrding his eyes; grey orbs that swirl with absolute evil and lust for power, his hands conjoining as he looks towards the surroundings with intent and ambition painted across his face, waiting for the right moment to strike like he was a lion waiting for the prey to be surrounded to jump out from their hiding and tear its food apart, piece by piece, grinding its teeth to their flesh as they squeal and scream and kick but the grip is firm, until their screams die and their hearts will stop, knowing that this was the end of their existence.

America refuses to remember the way he looked at her, the way he looked at the other women from a distance, smiling wickedly ever so slightly, a smirk on his face, glass of wine in his palms, studying its contents.

America looks back at the mirror, giving herself another confident smile, before stalking out from the bathroom and into the fatal situation that she has gotten herself into, with no way back unless it’s through Teikoku’s head.

Canada has never been to a brothel before.

(Well, if he counts those times his father tried to get him to loosen up a bit and lose his virginity to strangers unknown to him. He declined his father’s offers, knowing that he should save his virtue for someone special, but later that night he made the mistake of letting someone into their house in a drunken haze, his room smelling of honey and lemon for days.)

He opens his phone to send Aussie and Kiwi a message, that he was already in front of Teikoku’s very own brothel and house for prostitution, ’The Comfort Zone’, as he so elegantly put it.

(He can see why it is called like that; providing comfort and sweet sweet lust to the clients paying for a cheap fuck or two, but for the prostitutes being forced to work in this place they are stuck in the deepest pits of hell, forcefully playing the game of lust with their customers, knowing they don’t enjoy it, and never will.)

Canada takes his time pacing at the entrace, trying to make himself look unrecognizable and obscure from the cameras littering around the place, covering himself, trying to look unrecognizable through the blur of the mobitoring and predating cameras littered around the whole place, fixing his hair, making himself look less more of an officer and more as an awkward and newcomer looking for a quick fuck like their stored lust has now been unleashed.

But for the first time in his life, he isn’t looking forward to get laid.

He needed answers and evidence to destroy Teikoku and his family once and for all, ridding the world once more of life that taints blood with inklings of darkness, first small drops like a rain before the storm hits, before the thunder claps and the lightning flashes and strikes across the sky, until it becomes a downpour but instead of drying once their old enemy the sun is shining ever so brightly and radiantly, they dry until nothing is left but their ghosts.

Taking a deep breath, he walks in.

Renmin wakes up feeling warm, either from the sun escaping through the barriers that is the windows and curtains, the soft blanket covering his waist down, or Sulian’s warm arms wrapping around him. He can feel Sulian’s breath on his neck, the way his lover’s chest rises and falls like the beat of his heart, eyes closed and lips parted, as if expecting a kiss from the deepest tendrils of sleep, waiting for someone, anyone, to wake him up with a touch on the lips. Renmin just smiles, of course; nothing had ruined his peaceful morning with Sulian, their night ecstatic and amazing, each of their kisses giving them more and more warmth until it burnt on their skin and lips like forging the flames of a dying sun. He carefully carresses the man in front of him, his lover, on the cheek, feeling the softness of the skin from a hardenned man, always in for battles, but never displaying affection.

Except for him.

The warm arms enveloping him pushes his bare body, only flesh and no clothing, closer to Sulian’s chest, shirt ruffled and tattered from last night’s latest game for naught. Renmin sighs once again, putting his arms around Sulian’s much larger and bulkier body, cuddling himself closer in his chest.

They can stay like this forever; time standing still, stopping them from doing anything, no one disturbing them, an unbreakable glass dome around the couple, serene and sturdy, letting them rest until they grow old and die, thus ending their small string of love, cut by fate.

Of course, nothing can last forever- he hears Sulian groan, a sign he has roughly been disrupted from his peaceful sleep and is brought back to the nightmare that is his life, and his dream that is Renmin, smiling back at him. He opens his amber eye, taking in his surroundings like he was in an unfamiliar setting with no way back, until his eyes find Renmin’s, body entangled in a mass of blankets and his arms, smiling a little back at him. Sulian smiles as well, feeling his day become better just by looking at the star near him, brightening like a damned solar flare, until burning out and becoming mortal like the rest of the universe.

Renmin feels a kiss on top of his forehead, a kiss of love burning through his head like the bullet he embedded on his own brother’s forehead, no sense of remorse, and no time for such rushed reunions.

All he needed was Sulian, and that is the objective that makes his heart melt.

“Zaoshang hao”, he greets, as he feels the arms around him stretch and Sulian yawning. He feels another kiss on his forehead, then on his lips, short but brilliant, making him feel at home.

“Morning, lyubov”, Soviet greets back, still entranced from sleep. Renmin chuckles as Sulian once again puts his arms around him, bringing him closer. “I have been dreaming about you.”

Renmin smells the sweat and blood on his shirt, sighing a little. “As you should.”

They stay like this once again, the entire world against their union and against their love for one another, but they too, hate what the world has given them and wish to correct the perspective given to them. Minguo had made the same mistake, trying to tear them apart to keep his younger brother loyal, but in the end he lost one ally to another.

He can feel old grudges rising inside of him, remembering Minguo’s red face once he says he was in an alliance with Sulian’s gang, remembering the way his older brother’s hands were up on his throat, choking and suffocating him, depriving the boy of needed air to sustain himself and one hand crawling up until it reaches his eye, and as Renmin cries and screams and kicks and pleads with Minguo, begging for forgiveness, but like a doctor’s scalpel digging into one’s flesh to draw out blood, the fingers plunging into his sockets and ripping his eye out like it was nothing but a toy stuck and wedged into the wall, the hands stubbornly never giving up on its onslaught until at last they finally meet their goal. A hand unconsciously comes towards the wounded eye, a raw flavor on what those wars have done to him.

A sigh comes from Sulian- not one of disappointment but a pitying one. “Thinking about Minguo again?”

Renmin snuggles a little more into him, “Well, sort of. It’s been a decade and I still haven’t found him.”

Amber eyes melt into gold. “Is it because of your meeting with Manchukuo last night?”

Renmin fixes his hair, staring at the ceiling. “Well, yes; we’re all aware that he works for that bastard man now, but to see him again… it just made me feel strange.”

“Perhaps from the fact I murdered your own blood?”

Renmin snorts, “Oh please- I’d care less about family who’s rejected me lying down in front of me dead.” He kisses Sulian again, feeling a hand on his back to elongate and deepen their passion, until seconds later Sulian lets him go, light in his eyes.

“Let’s go eat breakfast, then”, Sulian says, getting up, his waist below covered by the covers until he stands, looking for his clothes, leaving Renmin to monitor his back, feeling his skin prick with more passion.

They were late for breakfast, of course; breathless and messy hair, clothes absolutely falling down like they had a small quick fuck (of course they did) before walking out of the hall and in absolute bliss, the members of their small mob knowing what they’d just done but never commenting, preferring to be as silent as the lambs than scarring themselves with what the couple does in bed. Breakfast, like all other periods of feeding members, were quiet, hushed voices the only one trying to tap on the window of silence, as everyone clinks on their plates, eating in small and rhythmic bites to savor their meals and their energy for another day. Some were not eating and instead having a conversation with their friends; some were smoking outside with a cup of coffee as their meal; and some - like Inmin - were busily scheming silently.

Inmin was one of their youngest members- recruited at the mere age of thirteen just to find his mother in the darkest corners, going through desperate measures to find her. He was a young and naïve boy, once upon a time; a small smile on his face, amber eyes full of fractured innocence, ready to be used for one’s advantage, to be played with until his innocence shatters. He had lived happily with his family from beyond, but his desperation to find his mother made him and his twin drift apart, a single dust speck in the winds. Madness came to him like a swift wind dealing with a tree trying to stand during a storm- an explosion had racked the boy’s nerves one day, and a shard had scarred him for life, maming contact with his eye. When he wakes up from his slumber, he was hysterical, blaming his family and everything for what has happened to him.

Inmin remains silent but at the same time vocal to this day.

Sulian tells Renmin that he was going to get them breakfast, and Renmin swivels around towards Inmin’s table, only one person sitting on it, never eating, thin but able, holding a newspaper, and, judging by his face, once again exercising himself to read the printed words. Once he senses Renmin near him, however, he stops trying to read.

“Joh-eun achim, Jung-gug”, Inmin says with a small voice, hoarse from last nights shouting and screaming and crying about how they were close, so close to getting Teikoku. He turns back to the newspaper. “I’ve reread the same page over and over but the only thing I can understand is - well - your brother’s death.”

Renmin nods, taking the newspaper from Inmin’s hands and reading the section of Manchukuo’s death. His eyes skim the page, paragraph by paragraph, until he freezes, his eyes flying wide as his entire blood runs cold. If Sulian had given him a cup of coffee earlier, he would’ve spat out the bitter and hot liquid before dropping it on to the floor.

Inmin seems to sense his discomfort, and he blinks and asks, “Are you alright?”

Renmin does not reply, looking at the last paragraph about Manchukuo’s death, the photo of his dead older half-brother haunting him, like he came back just to mock Renmin.

The death of Manchukuo was hard for his boss, Teikoku, who says that Manchukuo was a loyal friend in the end, and to his three children, Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, who were waiting for their father to come home until Teikoku breaks the news to the three orphaned kids.

“He had children”, he says in a small voice, barely a whisper. He can feel the whole world once again laughing at him, noticing his horrible decision when he let Sulian go in for the kill. Of his brother. Of a father. A father of three small children, oblivious to the matters of death and are now paying their father’s price.

“Do you feel guilty of the fact that I murdered someone with three children on his shoulders?”, Sulian asks from behind, making Renmin jolt from surprise as he turns and faces Sulian, two pairs of plates with meals and two cups of coffee, juggling them in each hand. His eyes were on the printed words, while Renmin’s were on his shoes, feeling ugly guilt churning inside of him, a feeling he had not felt ever since he sees Nanjing being dragged by Teikoku but never doing anything about it, because that was Minguo’s responsibility but he did not see him look for his wife, having disappeared to thin air. His hand shakes a little, like the whole world had gone cold, creeping up from the wake of the warmth of the fireplace until it catches him by surprise, freezing him alive. A little sprinkle of sadness, then of guilt, was enough for him to suffocate of his deeds.

But he sucks that up; he did not have any time to cry or mourn Manchukuo’s death, knowing he is nothing but a hindrance now gone from his life. He looks at Sulian straight in the eye, who was trying to test his composure, wanting to see him cry.

There is less time for humility and more time for pride.

He smiles pleasantly, “No, not even a bit.”

America makes her way through Teikoku’s halls, being escorted by his half-brother - Koku, she reminds herself - who was waiting for a flood of people coming to their home for a new job but only she arrives. She remembers the way Koku was fidgeting in the entrance, pacing back and forth, rehearsing speeches to himself all the while fixing his hair to look nice in front of an audience. The way he smiled at her as she approaches, was like the sun had become brighter and stronger, flares scorching from his veins but instead of malevolence the smile is genuine and happy, unlike Teikoku’s. The way he shook her hand, like he was eager to meet her, as if he has been closed off from the world and has only ever interacted with his family.

(According to his records, Koku was home-schooled by Teikoku; maybe that is why he seemed so happy yet awkward to interact with someone outside his family.)

The halls were lit by small lamps on the walls, giving the white paint a sort of radiant yet looming energy, a candle dancing with the flames on its head to give their surroundings a better light. She looks at the floors, patterned tiles sounding as she steps on them with her heels, looking at Koku who was humming to himself as he busily stares ahead. She keeps her head low, but looking at the long halls until they reach the intersection where the halls end into dozens of rooms, railways of patterns around them.

“Just continue following me, we’re almost there”, Koku tells her, and she looks back at him, dark hair smoothed out, gray eyes sparkling and glinting.

She thinks that, despite the fact they are half-brothers, their resemblance is uncanny, and not even Tokyo can be compared to how similar they both are. Perhaps the only difference is the air around them; Teikoku presents himself as a meteor that is slowly looming closer out of the naked eye until its impact cannot be stopped and it shakes the entire world, while Koku was a small comet, passing by in a wink of an eye.

Even his voice enchants her a little, just a little- she reminds herself he is just like his brother, his innocent demeanor a ruse to let her guard down until he leaves her to rot in a hole.

She is wary of how unusually calm and somewhat bright behavior is odd for someone who was caught in a crossfire last night. She eyes the bandaged wound on his forearm, a red crimson hue surrounding the gauze. She and Koku go through the dark hallways again, seeing the entire house so… huge yet monochrome, blank walls as if eyes can escape through its blank stare, looking at her suspiciously, knowing of her intentions of goal. Koku stops at a large door, mahogany penetrated for patterns as he unlocks it and ushers her in.

Like the walls from the hallways, this was painted a lonely white, sorrow surrounding her, eating her whole slowly but surely, and she turns back to her guide who was busily arranging some things out of the way.

“Sorry about this room, it’s the only vacant one in the house”, he finally says after a while of arranging chairs. He looks back at her, tilting his head, “well, if you accept or get this job, you can have this room.”

America shakes her head, plastering a small smile, “No, I’d rather stay with my family.”

Koku nods, no malice or grudge hidden in his eyes. “I’d understand; I wouldn’t want to be separated from my family as well.”

With a content smile on his face, he asks, “What’s your name and do you have any family members?”

“My name’s America”, she replies coolly, leaning back on her chair like it’s the end of the world, “my father was England, I don’t know my mother, and I have three brothers.” Her eyes turn from the windows featuring the blue skies to Koku’s thoughtful face, magnetized by how the creases of his brow fade whenever he raises his eyebrows, the tongue sticking from the edge of his lip like a small child trying to make something out of his own sweat and tears, determined to impress their parent.

Koku’s gray eyes meet hers and he gives her a small smile and her cheeks color, heart beating just a little faster than it was before. She shakes herself out of it, playing on a strand of her hair, averting her gaze from Koku like a dazed school girl. Her mind reminds her smitten heart that he is a mission, bait for her demise, knowing he’s only pretending to be her companion until she makes the wrong move.

“Why do you want to apply to become a bodyguard?”

“The news last night was quite a surprise, to be honest.” She picks at her words on the platter, calmly choosing them with one finger to lead her on until she gets the job. “An experienced bodyguard, of one of the most powerful businessmen, killed by a lover of a mob boss… I don’t like mafia mobs, you see. They took my father away and they, well…” She leans closer to him, getting the boy in front of her, just a teen, invested. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt, of course.”

Her cerulean eyes meet with Koku’s gray ones, her fingers lingering on his larger but smoother hands a little, playing with him, even if it means seducing him to get this job because at the very least, he is not his brother. She blinks at him, trying to look innocent, a damsel wanting to save him from the bandits who’d run his castle dry. He goes entirely red, America feeling his hands shake.

“I-I…”, he sputters, hormones raging deep inside him whilst America smiles at him, a devil in Eve’s clothes. “I a-appreciate your concern, but I don’t need protection.”

America feigns surprise and hurt, her eyes twinkling more with pure unaldurated lust and desire for Koku. “Oh? Even if you say you’re protected by Teikoku, he’ll never be always there for you, always busy and away for his work.” They are now a small distance apart, their lips almost touching if America would lean a little more, looking at Koku’s lips, entranced before going back to her job. “I would always be there.”

Koku gulps, slow and short. “I…”

America smirks a little, licking her lips, “The choice is entirely yours, of course; if you’d like me to work undeterred in your home, or you can kindly send me on my way.”

Koku hesitates; his hands fidget as his gray eyes go from her then to the window and then back to America, her legs crossed and owning a straight face, lips tingling. It was as if the entire world has gifted him a mysterious box, letting him decide whether he should open it without knowing the cost, or if he should ignore it, trying to disregard the feelings of temptation and curiosity burning up inside of him and live through another day of debating whether he should or should not open the box. America wants to laugh; Koku’s face looks like a mix of a small child and an old man facing a choice that will decide his fate, but her heart is still beating in a fast pace, but she assumes it was from hoping he’d accept her than how completely cute he was in that expression, hair covering a small side of his face.

The silence between them was a cloud of wisps, blowing ever so hard in their direction, in love with teasing the both of them, making the both of them feel antsy outside of their own comfortable space.

“My brother did say it was up to me whether or not I should hire you”, Koku finally says, making America perk up. “So… I feel like hiring you would be a good choice.”

America smirks deviously, but she turns back to him who was smiling brightly and holding out a hand. She hesitantly takes it, warmth suddenly surging up from the hand touching her hands and into every part of her body, energizing her to continue with this tomfoolery they had assigned to her. She gasps a little, like this sensation is always there, she just refuses to search the inner depths of her mind for this beautiful yet bamboozling feeling. Her mind is jumbled, playing a sweet and soft melody, her eyes seeing the stars.

But once Koku retracts his hand from her grasp, she feels the warm walls around her, making her as cozy as she is in a fireplace, crash into her with cold arms, her mind goes back to the plan.

“You’ve made the right choice”, America assures Koku, who chuckles a little, making the woman in front of him - once again - frozen in place, time standing still as she awkwardly fidgets with her hands; why is she so… awkward whenever Koku does one small move of happiness? This is normally what a lot of people do, laugh whenever there is something funny to laugh at, but for Koku, his laugh… it was like the stars were twinkling above her, showing her the way.

“You should come with me, I’ll break the news to my brother about your hiring.”

Her blood runs cold.

The whole city was cold during the night- it had just rained the afternoon before the sun’s flares had died and gave the light to the moon, now glaring down at her with its soft light, not guiding her into beyond but watching her with its eyes, the craters all seemingly moving like they are irises. She breathes in a little, shivering from the cold, and how horribly revealing her clothes are for this temperature. She shudders as another gust of wind blows out of nowhere, like a kiss on her skin growing to become prickly thorns. Her heels were worn from walking around the city too much, holding the satchel the stranger had given to her tightly before she was freed from the infernal pits of hell, the room more like a prison cell despite the fact that it looks more like a suite than anything she has seen in her entire life.

She can still remember the arms, searching her, roaming on her small figure as they try and take what they want from her, pinning her to the soft matress of the bed, becoming her worst enemy, back flat against its soft yet sharp underneath her. She used to kick and scream, trying to get them away from her, that this wasn’t the job she wanted and that she used to be so much more, so much valuable than being one prostitute on Street Number Sixty-Three. Shanghai recalled those disgustingly fake sweet voices, calling her petnames as they touched her, their voices lingering before disintegrating; she has been called those and hated every single one of it.

But that was before.

Before she decided to play their game, become Teikoku’s sweet little seductress, meek and submissive while retaining her seduction, charm and wit, easily making her a fan favorite.

Shanghai did not want this, nor did she care becoming a different person from who she was, but Teikoku made her like this. He broke her apart, piece by piece, putting out the only shards that he liked on her. He broke her, bones and mirrors and all.

She huddles around the jacket the stranger had given her once more, as she fusses with the satchel, feeling the rolls of money he gave to her, the canned goods enough to last her a week or two if she rationed it just enough. The jacket was her only layer of clothing from the cold and protecting her body due to only wearing lingerie once he ushers her out from her window and into the bustling city she had not touched but only watched for years. Shanghai would remember sticking her head out of the windows to feel the breeze and wind of being free, having freedom she used to have before she was locked up in a cage with no return to the wilderness. She had seen - with her very own eyes - everything change, innovations and technology happening here and there, the shapes on her eyes becoming taller, wider, larger, but even then, when the entire world is on the brink of collapse, she can find solace at the fact that nothing is changing, even if they are forcing her eyes wide open to the surroundings around her.

Shanghai steps on a puddle, immediately soaking her heels much to her grimace, looking at the lamposts littered around the street, luminating small pieces of the concrete road, as if they are trying hard to battle the darkness during the night, yet they are failing because of course they are. She decides to think of where to stay, but her mind comes up blank.

The police department? Absolutely not. She had her fair share of clients boasting that they are in high-ranking positions such as catching crime and putting them in jail. How can they be good men when even they clutch the treasures of corruption, perhaps even wanting to undress her as they work with their higher-ups and telling them they can handle her, but instead they’d put her in the backseat of the car and drive her back to the brothel and take advantage of her and her body-

She shakes her head, shedding a single tear in her eye.

No to the police department, then.

Shanghai tries to remember the old house she and her old members used to share, either dead or had gone through the same fate as she did, becoming slaves for Teikoku, grovelling and begging for him to feed them, even the tiniest bit. The house must probably only be standing in their own minds now, ever since Minguo vanished into thin air one night, no news of where he went, but she knows he is a coward who never became their saving grace. He chooses to hide his wings of darkness in favor of running away, never to come back because he is now just a mortal with nothing on his shoulders.

She frowns a little, thinking about the last time she saw Minguo, exchanging fires with his own brother before she is knocked over the head.

She then feels a tap on her shoulder, and she lets out a small shriek that pierces through the whispering night, jumping and stumbling until she trips on the road; thanfully the jacket was soft enough to land on and act as her cushion.

“Oh dear; I am so sorry.” A man’s voice says from behind her, and panic rises from her chest as she knows she will now have to deal with another man being shoved into her life and for her to play games. She feels the damp road beneath her, and she gets up, slipping a little before a hand catches her wrist.

Shanghai freezes up from the sudden touch and she inches away from the newcomer and sees that it was a man, business suit and smooth dark hair, blue eyes full of concern.

(She does not know whether it is genuine or he is feigning concern- she has learned never to trust anyone again.)

“Are you lost?”

#mine #writing #you're shooting your bullet the wrong way #countryhumans #countryhumans america #countryhumans new zealand #countryhumans canada #countryhumans australia #countryhumans philippines #countryhumans china #countryhumans soviet union #countryhumans north korea #countryhumans japan #countryhumans japan empire #countryhumans kpg #tw: rape #rape tw

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firesofdainix · 5 years

Conversation

This is countryhumans but i still digress and am embarrassed

Also this is Five the Musical now pft

[Manchukuo]

Annexed.

[Boxer]

Beheaded.

[Empire of China]

Died.

[Minguo]

Exiled.

[Zhongguo]

Survived.

[Manchukuo]

And tonight, we are...

[All]

LIVE!

[Manchukuo]

Listen up let me tell you a story!

[Boxer]

A story that I think you've heard before!

[Empire of China]

We know you know our names, and our fame and our faces, learned all about the glories and the disgraces.

[Minguo]

I'm done cause all this time, I'm just one word in the UN corp!

[Zhongguo]

So I picked up a pen and a microphone,

[All]

History's about to get overthrown!

[Manchukuo]

Annexed.

[Boxer]

Beheaded.

[Empire of China]

Died.

[Minguo]

Exiled.

[Zhongguo]

Survived.

[All]

But just for you tonight...

We are LIIIIVE!

[All]

Welcome to the show to the history mix!

Switching up the flow as we add our prefix!

Everybody knows that we used to be five sons!

Raising up our hands til we hit the ceiling!

Get ready for the truth that will be revealing!

Everybody knows that we used to be five sons...

But now we're...

Ex-sons!

[Manchukuo]

Annexed.

[Boxer]

Beheaded.

[Empire of China]

Died.

[Minguo]

Exiled.

[Zhongguo]

Survived.

[Manchukuo]

All you ever hear and read about!

[Boxer]

Is our crimes and the way it ended...

[Empire of China]

But a pair doesn't beat a dynastic flush. You're gonna find out about our lives.

[Minguo]

Tonight we're gonna show you our sides! Cause we're taking you to court!

[Zhongguo]

And every shooting star, has its light, and you're gonna here mine... with all my might.

[All]

But just for you tonight...

We are LIIIIVE!

[All]

Welcome to the show to the history mix!

Switching up the flow as we add our prefix!

Everybody knows that we used to be five sons!

Raising up our hands til we hit the ceiling!

Get ready for the truth that will be revealing!

Everybody knows that we used to be five sons...

But now we're...

Ex-sons!

[All]

Annexed.

[Manchukuo]

My name's Manchukuo first son of Qing,

Was ruler for only twenty minutes,

It's not much for a king,

And I was controlled

By Teikoku,

So Soviet Union killed me.

And took away my lands.

[Boxer]

Prick up your ears on Boxer, who lost his head.

[All]

Beheaded.

[Boxer]

For my rebellion against the foreign devils.

Lock up the French, lock up the British,

Boxer is here,

And the fun's begun!

[All]

Died.

[Empire of China]

Wô shì Zhonghua Diguo

[All]

Shi!

[Empire of China]

When the throne was empty I was like,

[All]

Shi.

[Empire of China]

But I wasn't good at handling the politics,

Funny how we all discuss that but never Zhongguo killing Musl-

[All]

Exiled.

[Minguo]

I'm that Taiwan guy, yeah I'm up next, see.

I made China a democracy, yeah I'm that sexy.

Why did I get exiled?

Well my sun maybe white,

But my uniform's red.

[All]

Survived.

[Zhongguo]

Four down I'm the final successor.

I saw all of them to the end of their lives.

I'm the survivor,

Zhongguo Renmin.

I bet you wanna know how I got this far.

I said I bet you know how we got this far.

[All]

Do you wanna know how we got this far?

All right we'll let you know how we got this far! Cause!

[All]

Welcome to the show to the history mix!

Switching up the flow as we add our prefix!

Everybody knows that we used to be five sons!

Raising up our hands til we hit the ceiling!

Get ready for the truth that will be revealing!

Everybody knows that we used to be five sons...

But now we're...

Ex-sons!

#i talk #mine

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whatisonthemoon · 2 years

Text

Sasakawa: The philanthropist with the heart of a fascist

by Ben Hills, source: https://benhills.com/articles/japan-unlimited/sasakawa-the-philanthropist-with-the-heart-of-a-fascist/

“I am,” Ryoichi Sasakawa once famously boasted, “the world’s richest fascist.” There is not much doubt about either claim.

With a net worth estimated by Barrons magazine at $1.3 billion, Sasakawa has spent the last third of his long, extraordinary life trying to buy the Nobel Peace Prize by becoming the world’s greatest philanthropist.

He has also spent tens of millions trying to whitewash his past – his association with Japan’s yakuza mafia, the gigantic web of bribery and corruption that surrounds his empire, and his three years in jail as a suspected war criminal.

Now aged 95, confused and confined to a wheelchair, Sasakawa finds himself once again the centre of controversy following Macquarie University’s decision to accept a $2 million donation from the foundation that carries his name.

Sasakawa has never been able to shake off the image of ultranationalist fanaticism that he cultivated in the 1930s.

The son of a wealthy Osaka sake-brewer, he made his first millions speculating on rice futures – and dedicated his first fortune to sponsoring the war.

In 1931 he founded Kokusai Taishuto, a paramilitary force of 15,000 soldiers – with their own airport and 22 fighter planes – garbed in dark uniforms modelled on those of Benito Mussolini’s brownshirts. In 1939 he achieved a lifelong ambition and met Il Duce, whom he described as “a first-class person … a perfect fascist and dictator”. Cultivating close ties with the military and the Mob, and establishing a power-base as a member of Japan’s puppet parliament, Sasakawa was one of the most influential figures urging war. When Japan invaded China and established the pseudo-state of Manchukuo, he organised patriotic airlifts of supplies such as sake, sweets and pickles.

Sasakawa still makes a pilgrimage each year to the family tomb of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto – another close friend and ally – the Japanese commander who masterminded the attack that sank the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour.

Sasakawa had a good war. Operating from a base in occupied Shanghai, he made a fortune smuggling gold and diamonds, and shipping minerals for the military. When the war ended, he refused to repent or go into hiding.

Sasakawa drove through the streets of Tokyo to Sugamo prison – where the war criminals were later hanged – accompanied by a brass band playing the navy anthem and shouting “banzai” – “May the Emperor Live 10,000 years”. He turned himself in, claiming he was offering himself in place of Emperor Hirohito.

Although he was released without trial after nearly three years behind bars, a 1947 US Army intelligence report made no bones about it. “(Sasakawa)is a man potentially dangerous to Japan’s political future,” it said. “He has been squarely behind Japanese military policies of aggression and anti-foreignism for more than 20 years. He is a man of wealth, and not too scrupulous about using it.”

There are some who speculate that the Americans released Sasakawa to counter the growing threat of communism. If so, they chose the right man. Along with his friends Syngman Rhee, the Korean dictator, and Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese nationalist leader, he founded the World Anti-Communist League. Among other coups, the league claims to have played a part in the 1966 overthrow of Indonesia’s President Sukarno.

Financially, Sasakawa’s great coup was bribing enough members of Japan’s new Diet (Parliament) to persuade the postwar government of Shigeru Yoshida to grant him an exclusive licence for what was to become Japan’s greatest gambling industry after horse-racing, power-boat racing.

Inspired by a Life magazine article he read in Sugamo Prison, Sasakawa built 24 courses around Japan – like small moats with grandstands overlooking them – where drivers race power-boats. The industry turned over an eye-popping$27 billion last year, mainly in totalisator gambling, of which about $900 million went straight into Sasakawa’s pocket.

To be more precise, 3.3 per cent of the turnover went to the Sasakawa Foundation, his pet charity. In the 30 years since Sasakawa was given the franchise, the foundation has doled out $13 billion – last year, it had more money to give away than the Ford, Rockefeller and Japan foundations put together.

The list of those who have benefited from “Don” Sasakawa’s largesse -that’s what the tabloids call him – is an honour roll of the great and the good. He has been jogging with Jimmy Carter ($4 million for his library), dining with Elizabeth Taylor ($1.3 million for AIDS) and has been given an award by the World Health Organisation ($27 million towards eradicating leprosy). He has hugged Pope John Paul II, posed for pictures with Arnold Schwarzenegger and received Japan’s highest honour from Emperor Hirohito.

When Linus Pauling, the US Nobel laureate, accepted $5 million from Sasakawa to establish a scientific institute, he was challenged whether it was appropriate to take money from a fascist war-criminal. “Perhaps he’s just trying to make up for past misdeeds,” Pauling said.

Not everyone is as charitable. As long ago as 1980 the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan turned down an offer of $135,000 which they saw as a crude attempt to buy them off. And the University of Chicago refused a hefty donation, Professor Bruce Cumings declaring: “To my knowledge, Chicago is the only American university with a major East Asia program that did not take money from the foundation.” Of late, however, Sasakawa has been under increasing fire in Japan. One of the top officials of his foundation was arrested on bribery charges after a police raid on its offices in the Tokyo suburb of Toranomon.

More seriously, the Ministry of Transport – which technically controls the foundation, but which in practice uses its network of quangos for cushy retirement jobs for hundreds of its employees – has been demanding reforms, including even stripping the name Sasakawa from what is actually supposed to be a government welfare fund.

In failing health, his money rejected by an increasing number of institutions, and with the media baying at his heels, Sasakawa may at long last be losing control of what he calls his “private army of 15 million” -although his son Yohei, 56, the illegitimate child of one of 500 women Sasakawa boasts that he has slept with, can be expected to put up a fight to retain the empire.

Either way, Macquarie University would be well advised to bank the rich old fascist’s cheque as soon as possible. Ryoichi Sasakawa won’t be the world’s greatest philanthropist for much longer.

#Ryōichi Sasakawa #sasakawa #fascism

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criterioncollection · 7 years

Photo

What was it like to work with Bernardo Bertolucci on a film as epic and ambitious as The Last Emperor?

I first met Bernardo at Cannes when I was there for Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. Oshima introduced me to him at a party, and he was talking on and on about this movie he was producing, which was The Last Emperor. Then, after some years, I got a phone call. Then a script was sent to me, and I was told to go to China immediately . . . but as an actor. When I read the script I saw that my character, Amakasu, commits hara-kiri. That didn’t sit well with me. It was symbolic of this traditionalist Japanese stereotype that I don’t really like. It was kind of inconceivable for someone [as modern as] him at the time to commit suicide by seppuku. I thought it wasn’t right for the film, which was trying to be a historical tale. Amakasu is a fascinating character because, although he’s a fascistic military person well-known for killing anarchists, he lives in Paris before going to Manchukuo. Also, in the film, his office is decorated with a very futurist and modernist design. I was able to talk this through and finally convince Bernardo to change the sword to a gun.

During the shooting, there were a lot of Chinese-American actors, coming from California mainly, but they were working inside the actual Forbidden City. They had these traditional Chinese hairstyles, these long queues, and this hairstyle was so strange for someone to have after the revolution in Chinese society. So the Chinese people thought they looked like ghosts from the old world and really hated watching those guys walk around in the palace. It was so funny.

When shooting was done in China, we did interior shooting at Cinecittà. I saw Marcello Mastroianni there, walking in the yard with a cigar—it was unreal. After shooting was done and a few months passed, I got a phone call from the producer about doing the music for the film.

You hadn’t planned on that originally?

No. I said, “Well, how long do I have?” And he said one week. One week for this giant, epic film! I asked for two weeks. Of course I was complaining, but one time Bertolucci had said, “Well, Ennio Morricone did it,” so I had to do it. I wrote forty-five music cues in one week. I found Chinese musicians around Tokyo and recorded them and then I brought everything to London. Just after arriving, I played the music for Bertolucci, the editor, and some other Italian crew members. I played a piece called “Rain” and they started holding each other and crying “Bellissimo! Bellissimo! Molto bellissimo!” This is the pleasure of working with Italian people. That is the reason I can’t stop working with people like Bertolucci.

I imagine the process changes from director to director, but do you enjoy immersing yourself in someone else’s creative universe when scoring a film?

To me, it’s always a struggle to work on film music because each filmmaker is very different and it’s almost impossible to satisfy someone completely by writing music. But I keep coming back because, as when I worked with the Italians, it can be the ultimate pleasure. It’s also good for me and for my music because it forces me to learn new things, like North African music for The Sheltering Sky, Chinese music for The Last Emperor, or Celtic music for Wuthering Heights. Each time is like a little journey into an unknown culture.

Sonic Memories: A Conversation with Ryuichi Sakamoto

#the last emperor #bernardo bertolucci #ennio morricone #wuthering heights #the sheltering sky #cannes #merry christmas mr. lawrence

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jgfiles · 7 years

Text

Re-watching Joker Game: Ep 5 Robinson

So, as I proposed a re-watching, here I go continuing on doing the re-watching. Hopefully someone else will join! ^_-

Also, hopefully there’s someone out there that read all this stuff… as I know it’s pretty long… shame on me for analyzing things too in deep…

Mind you, what follows are my ramblings over Ep 5, comprehensive of my impression on how the frames were structured and so on with some occasional reference to the other Joker Game media.

Also, for personal comfort, I’ll use the characters’ names even if the anime hasn’t stated them yet. In short, as this is a re-watching and not a first watching, you’ll also get a telling that’s mixed with my knowledge of the future. Consider yourself warned.

And now, let’s start.

So yes, like in the previous episode I starts with the preview for this episode that was in Ep 4.

Now, we’re again in whatever place the previews take place… and, at first, we see only Tazaki’s reflection and it looks like he’s about to fall asleep.

Kaminaga joins him and points out Tazaki looks sleepy, which Tazaki confirms, saying he has been incredibly sleepy lately.

Kaminaga suggests him to sleep when he’s sleepy as, when the time is ready, he’ll wake up on his own.

It’s an interesting reference to what happens in his episode, in which the soldier who helps him is called the ‘sleeper’ basically a dormant spy that activates himself only when the SIS captures a spy, though you can actually see it as a reference to how it seems they didn’t let Kaminaga rest properly while he was taken prisoner or how he faked giving up but ‘woke up’ just to catch his chance to escape. Whatever you prefer.

And now let’s dig into the episode.

As Yogiri [夜霧 Night fog] plays in the background, as well as a rain falling sound, we start with the episode showing us London’s most iconic building, the Big Ben while the writing in overlay telling us that yes, we’re in London and the time is still 1939… well, I’m saying still 1939 but since in Ep 4 we actually were in 1941, the time would have changed had we watched the episode in the transmission order.

Differently from how they did in Ep 6 the episode doesn’t waste time showing us London (differently from how Ep 6 felt the need to show us Hsinking). It’s likely not due to lack of love for London, merely because they probably assumed Japanese viewers wouldn’t be interested in viewing 1939 London. 1939 Hsinking was part of Japan’s history Japan having turned it into Manchukuo’s capital and having shaped its structure. I guess Japanese viewers might have felt curious about it even if the city actually isn’t important for the plot. 1939 London isn’t something Japan contributed in building. If it’s different or the same from present London is probably something that doesn’t interest Japanese viewers so, instead than showing us shoot of 1939 London, the next we see is a street.

A person is running through it, trying to shield himself from the rain.

Allow me a moment to talk about how they showed us the street and just the feet of the person running, their shadow moving over the puddles. It’s a beautifully detailed scene that still keeps hidden the identity of the person running while giving us an idea of what’s going on.

Next we see a street lamp, the camera moving closer to it to tell us that actually the running person is running close to it. And then we see this person finally climbing some steps and arriving to a door. The anime was careful, it hadn’t shown us the face of that person yet. It has to be if it wants to keep its identity secret.

The runner is Kaminaga, who actually had a role in Ep 1 & 2. It was minor but it was enough to make him noticeable. Probably it would take little for us to recognize him.

Kaminaga takes his time in front of the door to pat away the droplets of rain from his coat. I can’t deny I love Joker Game for its care in the details. Many over anime would have forget to show this. Also let me jump back to a second to mention how Kaminaga climbed the stairs. Like someone who’s tired after a run. Because he ran to get here. That’s care in the details, guys.

There’s to note that while Ep 1 took special care of having odd shoots that actually were subtly delivering messages on how to read the scene and Ep 6 instead was mostly focused on showing us the relevant things, Ep 5 is the episode in which they use Kaminaga’s body language to let us know what’s going on. Ep 5 main focus is really Kaminaga. The interrogator and Marks are really minor roles. Ep 5 is almost Kaminaga’s “monologue”, a monologue not made just by words but also by actions, expressions and it’s not easy for an anime to have a single character to remain on the camera on his own for so much time, often without having the chance to do much because he’s supposed to remain seated. So sit comfortably and watch how beautifully Ep 5 makes Kaminaga expressive.

Back to the episode we see the man looking up. The camera moves and we see what he was watching. Hum… here I think they could have done a better job because it’s actually hair but it’s a bit hard to say it at first glance.

It’s common knowledge that sticking a hair to the door is a trick to see if someone tried to get through said door. The hair is still there. Kaminaga now opens the door. The camera moves and we see that door is actually another door to enter inside the Maeda London Photo Studio (actually the ‘o’ in Photo is missing but probably they’ll correct it in the dvd version). Sort of a backdoor only on the side of the shop more than behind it.

This might lead us to think that person is Maeda, the owner of the shop.

The camera shows us that person getting in, hanging his hat, moving to unlatch his coat (it’s a trench coat, typical in London at that time period). We still haven’t seen his face and the place his dark. Then, that person moves to turn on the light. We see his hand reaching for the switch but, before he could turn it on, a strong light blinds him and he has to cover his eyes. If we’ve good memory we can now realize he’s Kaminaga, one of the D Agency boys.

The background music switches on ‘Kinan’ [危難 Danger]. When Kaminaga manages to open his eyes again he can see a man, also wearing a black trench coat, pointing his gun at him. The choice for black isn’t casual, it makes him look creepier.

The camera doesn’t bother to show us his face, it focuses on the gun pointed at Kaminaga, so as to emphasize the danger Kaminaga is in.

The guy tells him in English ‘I spy you’. Why they use an English sentence here and won’t use English later on even if it’s clear that through all the episode they’ll speak in English?

It’s to tell us that the guy pointing the gun at Kaminaga is English. Why is it relevant? Because Kaminaga entered in the Maeda shop. We could assume that guy is Maeda, and therefore a Japanese, instead the fact he speaks in English is meant to be our hint to figure out he’s English without seeing his face and without him needing to have stereotypical English traits. It’s a Japanese anime code and Japanese anime viewers, just by this, get the message.

There are no subtitles for what he says so it might be not so easy to figure out what he said for a Japanese viewer but they deliberately chose a simple sentence spoken slowly and including the word ‘spy’ that’s likely familiar to who’s watching ‘Joker Game’, so as to give Japanese viewers more chances to figure out what’s being said. If you do, you can guess the guy is an English spy and not… let’s say just a robber.

Kaminaga raises his hands slowly. He doesn’t seem impressed but then two other guys, dressed as that English guy, appear from behind him.

Why dressed the same? It’s not a problem of poor wardrobe or an uniform, it’s just a visual message to let us know they’re in the same group with that other guy. Because they seem all the same (even the little we can see of their facial features seem the same though their heights are different) we immediately assume they’re all companions.

Kaminaga looks behind himself now that he’s surrendered and starts to look more nervous. Admire the close up on Kaminaga’s face to better deliver Kaminaga’s feelings. His eyes are wide open in surprise, his eyebrows lowered in a worried frown, his mouth closed in a tight line. Kaminaga knows he’s in troubles.

The guy from before, now in Japanese, tells him that he’s under arrest for espionage. Why he’s now speaking in Japanese? Because we already got he’s an English guy, there’s no need for the anime to remark it, now we need to know what he’s saying and so they let him say it in Japanese.

I’ve heard reviews in which people complained they should have let them keep on talking in English as they’re in England. Now… first of all it’s not so easy to find Japanese voice actors good at English and willing to do all these dialogues but… well, if they had kept on speaking in English it would have meant to sub their whole dialogues for the Japanese viewers. This would have forced the Japanese viewers to devote part of their attention reading the subs instead than just watching the episode for… no good reason at all. Once that first sentence was said, Japanese viewers knew the dialogue was being done in English and, very likely, weren’t interested in hearing it all in English. So why waste time and money for something that wasn’t necessary and was detrimental to the enjoyment of the episode?

‘Kikan’ [機関 Agency] starts and we gets Kaminaga telling us the usual shortened version of the explanation of what D Agency is.

Then this ends and we get…

…the opening. Which is the same as usual. Kaminaga is the second spy that appears in it and he seems about to do something. At around the end of the opening we also see him jumping off a wall.

In short the opening, by showing him twice, did its best to help us to not forget Kaminaga’s role in Ep 1.

By the way let’s talk a moment of Kaminaga’s role in Ep 1. The main point of his role in Ep 1 was having him saying a sentence:

‘For example, if Japan lost the war, the people would promptly learn to take all their faith and put it in the antithesis of their original beliefs.’

Why that’s relevant? This sentence is fundamentally why Kaminaga, and not another spy, was chosen for this episode. In this episode Kaminaga is tempted to switch sides. Even the official info on the episode given on the Anime homepage hinted at how Kaminaga would be tempted to switch sides. The sentence Kaminaga said to Sakuma was meant to make us doubt of Kaminaga’s loyalty to Japan, was meant to let us believe that, once Kaminaga were to be put into a situation in which he would ‘lose’ (he’s betrayed by Yūki) he would easily stop serving Japan and start working for England. We weren’t supposed to forget Kaminaga and his sentence, so we could be better tricked into believing that yes, he would easily switch sides, and the opening had the job to help us remembering him (Miyoshi and Odagiri as well as what they did in Ep 1 will become important in their episodes).

Anyway the opening ends and we resume with ‘Joker Game’.

‘Shijima’ [静寂 Silence] begins to play while we’re shown a beautiful sunset on the sea.

As in all the episodes, this is the point in which we can see the title. Normally I don’t mention it, but this time it becomes relevant because the title of this episode is ‘Robinson’ and, after seeing the title, Kaminaga’s voice begins on explaining us who Robinson Crusoe is.

For us western “Robinson Crusoe”, the novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719 is a classic. In Japan though it was translated on in the ‘900.

I couldn’t find the exact year for the first translation, I know that the editor that translated it opened in 1914 but the oldest translation I could find for it was dated in 1951 and titled “Robinson Driftworm” (ロビンソン漂流記 Robinson hyōryū-ki), changed in the following translations into “Robinson Crusoe” (ロビンソン・クルーソー). Note that it could very well be that in 1939 Robinson Crusoe wasn’t translated in Japanese yet as Kaminaga is reading a copy of the book that has the title in English… which might hint at how the book Kaminaga read was an English version (the D Agency boys know English just fine so reading it in English wouldn’t be a problem for him).

Anyway all this is to point out why ‘Joker Game’ feels the need to summarize the story of Robinson Crusoe for us. Westerns know it pretty well because it’s a classic by 300 years… but for Japanese viewers is a book they started to read possibly only by 60 years and I’ve no idea if, for them, it’s a classic. So, while for us this info dump is useless, for Japanese viewers it might be necessary as many of them might be not so familiar with the story.

So guys, before claiming that Joker Game is giving us useless info, please, always remind that the intended target were Japanese viewers and they have a standard knowledge that’s different from ours. It breaks my heart to read of people complaining that Joker Game is wasting time explaining useless stuffs that we already know when Joker Game is actually doing all this because its intended target didn’t already know about all this.

Back with the story. I’m not going to retell for you Kaminaga’s summary as we already established people here is familiar with “Robinson Crusoe” story. It’s an interesting choice though to have Kaminaga summarize Robinson’s life as a sailor while the camera is showing us shoots of the sea, and then of a ship on which we can see Kaminaga is, watching the sea that was shown to us. It subtly hints at how there will be, in the future, parallels between Robinson and Kaminaga.

Anyway Kaminaga grows bored with watching the sea and goes back to his room. We see that, in it, he’s reading a book, and we can easily figure this book is “Robinson Crusoe”. Kaminaga, MEANINGFULLY, stops in his summary of “Robinson Crusoe” after mentioning the part about Robinson saving Friday. This is the core of the episode and the part we were meant to remember, that’s why Kaminaga stops here but the scene is smooth, Kaminaga is still in the middle of the book so we can assume he stops here because he hasn’t finished it yet.

By the way, it’s pretty easy to figure out that this scene is a flashback, and that Kaminaga is on his way to England here.

The camera shows us the title of the book Kaminaga is reading, ‘The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’ (subs tells to Japanese viewers the translation of the title). As said before the title is in English, a hint that the book is in English (which increases my impression in 1939 it wasn’t translated yet).

There’s a smooth visual effect. After seeing the title of the book in a shoot that basically shows us only the book and nothing else, the book is lowered and, instead than seeing Kaminaga’s room again, we see Yūki in his office. It’s a flashback in a flashback.

It shows of when Kaminaga got the book from Yūki, the man telling him, without even looking at him (he’s reading a letter), that the book is a parting gift and then raises his hand as if to wave at him. He doesn’t look at Kaminaga in the eyes. I wonder if he feels guilty knowing which are his plans for Kaminaga’s mission and what Kaminaga will have to go through.

We go back to Kaminaga staring at the book while being on the boat.

Kaminaga puts down the book and resume with summarizing the story of “Robinson Crusoe” so no, he hadn’t stopped in the middle, he had read it all, the pause on Friday had been DELIBERATE. And the summary starts again by talking of how FRIDAY SAVED ROBINSON from solitude. Kaminaga now rushes to end Robinson’s story saying he was forced to spend 28 years on the island and wondering if the book is a message to tell him that his mission might last that long.

Kaminaga’s idea isn’t farfetched as in Ep 1 (LOL, Ep 1 was relevant in more than one way, do you notice it now?) Yūki talked of how spies might have to spend years in a foreign land in solitude (ironically that part is close to the part in which Kaminaga talked about how if Japan were defeated people would switch their beliefs… I told you that choosing Kaminaga for this episode was an amazingly good choice) so Yūki’s parting gift might be a way to tell Kaminaga just this… but well, we’ll discover actually there will be much more to it.

The transition moves from a Kaminaga wondering all this lying on a bed to present time Kaminaga currently in the Maeda shop surrendered by English spies. ‘Seion’ [静穏 Quiet] starts playing as Kaminaga is grabbed and gagged.

The camera moves on the guy who was pointing his gun at Kaminaga. And here there’s another nice visual idea. Fundamentally, instead than showing us what’s happening to Kaminaga, the camera shows us what Kaminaga is seeing. So the camera waves, which implies Kaminaga is twisting his body in attempt to escape then a black curtain start falling on the view, which implies someone is also putting a blindfold or something like that on Kaminaga. We don’t see the whole thing, but because we can get it and the camera shows us what Kaminaga was seeing we end up getting ourselves in his shoes and the scene gets even more scary as if we were the ones being blindfolded.

We’re about to experiment what a spy goes through when he’s caught. Prepare yourself!

We see a car stopped on a gate.

Someone check in then the car is allowed to continue its run inside the gate, toward a building.

Now, I’ve no idea which building that one is. It’s not the SIS headquarters as that one was in 54 Broadway and looked different so if there’s someone who’s knowledgeable about London (as I fail at this)… well, I’ll love if he were to tell me which place the one they took Kaminaga is.

Back to the story. Everything goes black…

Then the curtain rises again, showing us Kaminaga’s legs, a table and some feet under the table. We’re back into Kaminaga’s vision guys as it’s clear they had removed the blindforld. The camera moves up, implying Kaminaga raises his head and we see the owner of those feet.

This is probably his best shoot and he looks as anonymous as humanly possible, also thanks to his eyes which will always remain in the shadows.

We aren’t meant to have feelings for this guy. He’s just the interrogator and, fundamentally a plot device, Marks’ tool. This episode is Kaminaga’s episode. On him it’s placed the main focus of the story. Everyone else is just there for Kaminaga’s story to work.

When we’re shown Kaminaga. He’s still gagged, two English Military Policemen holding him with his back slightly bended. Kaminaga is looking around anxiously and looking none too pleased. As soon as they removes his gag he demands to know what’s going on and that they got the wrong man. He’s panting and his body language is very expressive. It has to be because, as said before, for a while all that we’ll have to see is Kaminaga sitting there and being interrogated. Try to think how boring it would be if he remained still and kept always the same expression. Never mentioning that, in such situation, it would feel pretty unrealistic. I wish I could show it all to you but it’ll be too many shoots so I’ll do the reverse. I’ll show you just a shot and ask you to wonder how the scene would have felt like if ‘Joker Game’ has decided instead to leave Kaminaga in that same position with that same expression. Boring, right?

The interrogator apologizes for the rough treatment and we can see from Kaminaga’s body language he’s calming down a bit. He seats more comfortably, he’s not pushed toward the interrogator as before. A gold star to his voice actor as well as Kaminaga’s voice is also well reflecting his status and he’s still panting.

Kaminaga is asked who he is so he introduces himself as Izawa Kazuo, a photographer in Maeda London Photo Studio (remember? The place in which he was captured) in Oxford street. Now, even who is totally unfamiliar with London like me probably had heard of Oxford Street so I guess it’s a good thing for Japanese viewers as well that Kaminaga’s shop is in a place with a familiar name.

The interrogator seems friendly, Kaminaga seems to be calming down. He mentions going to the pub near Kaminaga’s shot to drink Stouts (at the time the term meant either strong beer or strong porter [dark beer] while now is generally used to refer only to porters) and we can see Kaminaga relaxing more, attempting a smile and saying he too goes there to drink.

The interrogator gently asks him if Kaminaga knows why he was brought here. Kaminaga looks first surprised then lowers his gaze and looks elsewhere as he claims he has no idea. The interrogator tells him he’s suspected to be a spy. Admire again the many changes in Kaminaga’s expression and body posture. You could do a set of emoticons just with this episode’s Kaminaga and would probably cover most of the emotions available if not all.

Also ‘Tōryaku’ [韜略 River] starts being played in the background.

Anyway Kaminaga first acts surprised then says it’s ridicule (have I mentioned how good is his voice actor at switching tones?). The interrogator isn’t impressed. Kaminaga lowers his head and seems a bit desperate when he claims he’s just a photographer and they could ask his uncle to support his claim. We know Kaminaga is a spy but Kaminaga is doing such a good work we could forget about it. He really seems a man who has realized he’s in deep troubles but is innocent and he’s sort of trying to find a way out.

Photos are tossed in front of Kaminaga and it turns out they had been observing him for two weeks.

Hum… in the photos there’s Kaminaga… but very little is visible of who might be with him so they don’t seem very compromising photos. However the interrogator says they keep Kaminaga under surveillance for two weeks and saw him meeting up with German spies and member of the British Union of Fascists, which they find an odd company for a mere photographer. Well, personally I wish I could see those guys in the photos as everyone who’s not Kaminaga is hardly visible in them but let’s let it slide. Those people aren’t important in the story, after all so maybe this is exactly what her lack of visibility is subtly trying to tell us.

Kaminaga insists he doesn’t get what he’s saying and that he hadn’t even been in London for a month… in short he was in London by around three weeks… which loosely hints at how, if the SIS began to immediately keep an eye on him two weeks ago, in short around a week after he arrived, it might be not because he made a mistake and made himself suspicious but because someone tattled him out.

Kaminaga insists on his version. The camera does a close up on him but… moves slightly. It’s a good idea for many ways. First of all still shoots are boring. If the camera were to remain still nothing would move as we can’t even see Kaminaga’s mouth as he’s speaking. Second, the… waving of the camera gives us the subtle impression it’s Kaminaga’s world that’s waving.

As Kaminaga professes his innocence the interrogator says ‘very well’ which causes Kaminaga to raise his head with a vaguely hopeful, vaguely surprised expression. I’ve already said it many times but just admire the work they do with Kaminaga’s expressions and movements in this episode as he’s interrogated. He’s really the focus of the story.

The interrogator crushes his hope claiming they’ll only take a break and this will be a long day and Kaminaga lowers his head defeated. The shoot is angled in such way that it seems almost as if he’s ‘disappearing’ in the table.

And now beware. The interrogator tells him he can go to the toilet. The Military Policemen (they’re two) raise him.

As ‘Suiri’ [推理 Reasoning] starts playing we see Kaminaga walking through a corridor following one of them. The camera is careful to show us he’s passing in front of a room with an open door. Inside it, men are discussing on where to send more men and, on the wall, a map of the place is hung, in a position that makes it perfectly visible from the door. The camera makes a close up on it and then on Kaminaga’s eye, discretely looking at it, so that we know that he too noticed it. Once they pass that door everything blur and goes dark as the scene changes.

Now… Joker Game is a story that asks you to pay attention to subtle details. Yet it slammed in our face a map of the place Kaminaga is in. It did more than slam it in our face. It slammed it in Kaminaga’s face. The open door, the people talking of what could be useful for a spy to hear so as to attract his attention just in case he wasn’t being careful, the map in plain view… We don’t need to be an amazing D Agency spy, we would have noticed the map as well.

Of course, after hearing people speaking low of the Military Police in Ep 1 & 2, one might think those guys are just careless morons. The hero managing to catch a glimpse of the map because some moron let it in plain view is an often used cliché of action movies. We might not pay attention to how, fundamentally, all that the map was missing was a giant neon sign saying ‘look here’ and this is suspicious per se. We’re losing sight of a detail, we’re being tricked by Joker Game because we let ourselves blind by movie clichés, like Sakuma in Ep 1 & 2 was blinded by his own faith in the emperor. And Kaminaga is letting himself be blinded as well, not by movie clichés, as he’s not genre aware, but by his own confidence. These people are morons, he’s a super smart spy, of course they will make a mistake.

In itself it’s good we will meet Marks only later on in the anime (in the novel Kaminaga met Marks almost immediately). It makes easy for us to think that the people there are all morons if we don’t know there’s also an amazing guy in the place orchestrating all this.

Kaminaga is forced to sit down. The MP are rough with him. He seems worn out. It’s likely our clue that this has been lasting for more than around two minutes (the time the previous scene lasted) plus the time for a break. Otherwise it would be odd for him to be so worn out (though yes, he never went to sleep). They point an extra light to Kaminaga, blinding him (I love how they made it! It almost blinded myself as well!).

Kaminaga is roughly pushed down on the table as he’s told the interrogation will continue as ‘Kōsoku’ [拘束 Restraint] starts playing in the background.

Now since I met people who had no idea on why the blinding light is used in interrogations, well, I’ll tell you this is a mean to cause extreme sensory discomfort. It’s fundamentally a ‘tame’ form of torture that wears you down and makes harder for you to lie convincingly. It seems that keeping the victim in a poorly light place and then blinding him and yelling at him he should confess or similar things was also used as a method of torture as it increases the sense of fear in the victim and makes easier for him to end up on speaking the truth.

So, while it might seem not so terrible, in the long run this becomes a way to torment the person you’re interrogating, same as holding Kaminaga still in an uncomfortable position or being rough to him or letting him get little sleep.

As the interrogator resumes questioning Kaminaga we see that someone is watching what’s happening, and even having it recorded on a camera. We’re not told who he is but, to refresh everyone’s memory, I’ll tell you that’s Lieutenant Colonel Marks, the spy master of the English service.

The anime implies how the interrogation method is affecting Kaminaga while still taking care to be discreet enough not to scare impressive souls. The camera shows us Kaminaga having troubles to keep his eyes open against the strong light…

…the interrogator’s mouth as he speak (do you notice his teeth? Remember the matter about teeth and psychological threatening perception?).

We don’t hear what he says as the audio is replaced by the musical background but from the way he opens his mouth we can figure he’s being loud, probably yelling, which is another way of tormenting someone who’s being interrogated. Kaminaga seems always more fatigued and then we see a hand being slammed down. They’re probably threatening him… and Kaminaga’s head falls down and all turns black, a hint that Kaminaga might have fainted.

The next scene opens again with Kaminaga being carried in the interrogation room by two policemen. His back is bent and he seems fatigued. In the anime it’s unclear but the novel tells us he had to go through a week of this. When he sits down he can’t stand straight, his back is still bent and his head lowered as if it’s too much effort to keep it raised. We see someone walking close to him holding a red book and when we see Kaminaga’s face his eyes are half closed and there’s sweat on his forehead. He might have just arrived there but he’s already worn out.

The one who just arrived asks him if he knows what’s the red book (the title says it’s the ‘Army intelligence codebook volume 3’). Kaminaga gives it a quick look then shakes his head slightly, evidently too worn out to speak. Again, the whole scene so far is handled by Kaminaga, the focus all on him. The other (who’s no one else but Marks) stand but we can’t see his face just his legs. So far he’s for us still a non character, somewhere who exists, like the MP around Kaminaga but that had no real identity. It’s his voice actor who starts to help us forming an impression of him. His voice his smooth, calm. He claims he envies Yūki for having such good subordinates.

I guess the subtle implication is that Kaminaga did so good that Marks decided to take the whole thing in his hands (it seems in the novel he immediately did so). Kaminaga shows surprise at this and then the camera moves on Marks and ‘Senpuku’ [潜伏 Latent] begins playing. It’s in this moment in which Marks is going to become the other protagonist of this story.

Marks’ character design is ugly. While the scar on his face is something he had in the novel as well, even Miwa Shiro is aware his face resembles a light bulb and joked about it in his twitter posts.

It’s ugly because he must clearly look as the scary, bad guy, the adversary in our eyes and the more creepy he is (and he’s rather creepy if I can say so), the more the tension gets raised but, I wonder, if the fact he looks like a light bulb was meant as a visual foreshadowing that this man is goddamn bright, a match for Yūki. It’s also so memorable because, even though Marks won’t show up a lot, we’re supposed to remember him as we’ll see a glimpse of him in Ep 10 as well. We’ve to remember this guy and ‘Joker Game’ is making its best to make this easy.

Kaminaga’s thoughts introduce us to the guy. He tells us his name and rank as well as his job. He’s the British service spymaster.

Marks says the time is up and they can’t wait any longer. I’m not 100% sure because I’m working with the subs here but, by his tone and by the wording used in the subs he seems to use a polite speech. Anyway a small box is offered to Marks by a Military Policeman and inside it we see a syringe and a vial. Marks informs us that is the last truth serum they’ve developed. Now, we can’t fully read the name on the vial, what we can read is just:

-ANE ALKALOID -OMBINATI- T-T/35 -perimental drug -of medical purpo- -de in C-bra-

If we make a wild guess we can assume that what’s fully written on the vial is:

TROPANE ALKALOID COMBINATIN t-t/35 Sperimental drug fof medical purposes Made in C-bra- (sorry, no idea where it’s made…)

Now a tropane alkaloid used at the time as truth serum was scopolamine, later replaced by barbiturates like Sodium amytal and pentothal (the truth serum usually used in spy movies…). Anyway, as all these names might not tell you much let’s try to break it down.

First of all a truth serum isn’t the magical recipe that forces you to tell the truth. The scopolamine was a drug that more or less put people into a kind of "twilight sleep" which caused people to speak extremely openly about things they normally would be very inhibited about.

As Marks says that’s their new truth serum, I’m not sure if it’s still scopolamine as scopolamine is the oldest truth serum which used tropane alkaloids and was dropped early on due to the side effects, among which are hallucinations, disturbed perception, somnolence, and physiological phenomena such as headache, rapid heart, and blurred vision, which distract the subject from the central purpose of the interview.

Still Scopolamine was replaced by barbiturates DURING WW2 and by the time this episode takes place WW2 has just started so Scopolamine should be still in use. Maybe Marks is just using an improved version of it or some sort of improved FICTIONAL version of it.

Back to the episode Marks claim that the ‘truth serum’ will tell them much more about Kaminaga than any amount of torture.

Kaminaga’s expression changes from surprised into a scared one as he sees the syringe.

The Military Policemen hold him down forcefully and raises one of Kaminaga’s sleeves. Marks, calm and smiling, preparing himself to do the injection, tells Kaminaga not to worry and that they know how capable and loyal he is before bending down on him. The voice actor well expresses how Kaminaga is scared even though he’s just making sounds of distress.

Marks’ image is replaced by Yūki’s as it looks like it’s Yūki who’s about to inject something in Kaminaga.

The most likely implication is that Yūki also had used truth serum on Kaminaga.

Meanwhile the camera focuses only on Kaminaga’s dilated eyes. It’s just by watching them that we understand when Marks started to inject the drug into Kaminaga and Kaminaga started to be affected by it and losing consciousness. Again, this episode uses Kaminaga’s body language in a scene that fundamentally has him still and restrained to tell us what’s going on. I’m impressed. Anyway, as Kaminaga loses consciousness everything goes black.

We then hear a voice and then, slowly the screen moves from black to showing us a recorded tape being played. The voice we’re hearing is a recorded on and, from what it’s saying we know it’s about to reveal a secret and asks to the one he’s talking with to not reveal it.

We see Kaminaga now. He’s seating limply on a chair. He’s awake but he seems out of it.

The voice asks to the one its speaking with if that person knows the Maeda London Photo studio on Oxford Street, which is the one in which Kaminaga was working. The tape is stopped. Marks’ voice asks Kaminaga if he knows to who that voice belongs to. It’s noteworthy to point out that, differently from before, Kaminaga will now remain motionless and expressionless as he’s interrogated. He speaks but that’s all. And from his stillness we get even better he’s under the effect of the drug.

Anyway as ‘Kaigi’ [懐疑 Skepticism] begins playing, Kaminaga replies it’s Sotomura Hitoshi a Japanese diplomat who just arrived in London. The tape resumes on being played. Sotomura explains how Maeda went back to Japan and then mentions his young nephew who just came to take over, in short Kaminaga. He insists on demanding the one he’s talking with won’t tell around. The person who answers him is clearly female.

Meanwhile the camera, who was on Marks, clearly visible, ‘moves backward’ to include Kaminaga as well, only Kaminaga is slightly blurry at first. Everything in the scene is meant to visually underline how Marks is in control, how he’s dominating Kaminaga... though Kaminaga will still remain the main character. He’s the one in front of the camera, after all, Marks being BEHIND him.

When Sotomura mentions the name Kaminaga is using for his mission ‘Izawa Kazuo’ and saying he’s a Japanese spy, we see Kaminaga reacting for the first time by closing his eyes and saying ‘Stop. Shut up.’ He’s clearly talking to Sotomura. Of course the tape doesn’t stop and Sotomura goes on talking about D Agency. Kaminaga asks him to stop again while the tapes goes on and the man claims only a selected few in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs even know it exists. Don’t forget this, it’s important.

Marks smiles creepily. His face is half in the shadows as he does it.

He then sits down at the interrogator’s table. The interrogator is nowhere to be seen, it seems Kaminaga and Marks are alone (though actually there are Military Policemen around as well as the interrogator). Marks asks Kaminaga if he understands the situation he’s in. Note how tables are reverse now. Marks is the main character of the scene. The camera focuses mostly on him, not on Kaminaga. He’s the ‘winner’.

Kaminaga replies he’s been sold out.

Marks posture hides his mouth, we see only his eyes. Why is that? Marks is a spymaster and what we should pay close attention to is how he’s studying Kaminaga. Marks isn’t just swallowing all Kaminaga is saying confidently, he’s still studying him. He probably knows the truth serum isn’t 100% reliable.

Anyway he asks Kaminaga if he knows who blew his cover to which Kaminaga replies Yūki. Now we’re allowed to see that Marks is smiling as he says they’re getting somewhere now, his gaze being beyond creepy.

Kaminaga is looking up, the camera is straight over him, looking down at him and moving closer as Kaminaga says: ‘use me’.

Remember what I told you at the beginning on why they picked up Kaminaga for this role? Kaminaga has been ‘defeated’ by Marks. And what Kaminaga said defeated people would do, once defeated? They would put their faith into the opposite of their beliefs. And so he does. We can assume that Kaminaga is really willing to switch sides because what he said in Ep 1 fits with him being someone who would switch sides if placed in such situation. It’s brilliant and let me remember you of something. Kaminaga said the same even in the novel… but in the novel it’s never said he’s Iwao Kazuo. In the novel we don’t know who was the spy that takes the role of Iwao Kazuo before being Iwao Kazuo. The choice of giving such role to Kaminaga is one made by the anime (no idea if they asked for input to Yanagi Kōji)… and it’s BRILLANT because it can perfectly trick us into believing that Kaminaga might consider switching sides.

Of course he won’t but, on a first watch, you don’t know and you might end up assuming he would.

Anyway Marks is happy they finally managed Kaminaga to join their ranks and Kaminaga’s reply is sort of heartbreaking as he says he has nowhere to go back to. And it’s worth remembering that Yūki too was betrayed, and he too had nowhere to go back to and yet he still went back and he still remained loyal to Japan. Yūki’s dedication to Japan is different by Sakuma’s but still impressive… and this is a good hint of how, differently from what Sakuma feared, he wouldn’t have chosen men who could switch sides.

Note how, in a way, Marks is playing the role of the good cop, compared to the previous interrogator. He never yells at Kaminaga or is hard to him, he claims he makes a most pleasing offering and he subtly remind him he was sold out by Yūki. There’s to wonder if he’s the one who subtly suggested Kaminaga that it was Yūki who sold him out as actually it’s Sotomura who did it. Yūki might not have figured out that the guy would tattle everything to Marks’ spy and might not have even talked directly to him. Maybe Sotomura knew it because someone else also tattled it out.

Back to Marks he says that the fact that Kaminaga was sold out by Yūki is the best letter of credit Kaminaga could have to get their trust and again he asks Kaminaga what the red book is.

‘Shōbi’ [焦眉 Emergency] begins playing.

The camera leaves Marks and return on Kaminaga. Kaminaga turns his head to look at the book and, this time, Kaminaga replies. Now… it wasn’t that difficult, I would have read the title on the cover and known about it as well but well, I guess the question is here because it has a deeper meaning.

As Kaminaga replies Marks, always in his ‘I’m your friend’ behaviour, motions to the previous interrogator, who leaves, and then goes near Kaminaga, rests his hand on Kaminaga’s shoulder and whisper in his ear they’ve already a task they want Kaminaga to perform. Note how Marks’ behaviour is subtly persuasive. He’s like a snake hypnotizing his prey.

Kaminaga turns slightly toward him. He’s sweaty, has dark rings around his eyes and his cheeks seems more sunken than usual thanks to the light. Anyway he doesn’t look good.

Something big is placed with a thud in front of Kaminaga, startling him. Let’s remember that, Kaminaga is drugged on the top of having had to go through a third degree for a week.

It’s a machine to send coded messages, in fact Marks tells him his first job will be to send a coded telegram to Japan. Then, kindly, informs him they’ve prepared the message and encoded it and converted to Morse code for him to send. Note how deep he is in his good cop part? He’s so ‘kind’ to Kaminaga… Kaminaga only ‘simply need to send the message using the unique keying style assigned to Kaminaga. It’s just a small job, Marks isn’t really asking much of him.

He then motions for a policeman to untie Kaminaga and that one does it. As Kaminaga doesn’t immediately start typing, Marks is fast to encourage him. He asks him what’s wrong and reminds him that a minute ago he said it himself that Yūki sold him out. Therefore he reminds him Kaminaga has no other option left. Really, this guy is manipulative as hell.

Kaminaga’s hand moves slowly, which well works to increase tension but also to express his indecision and his drugged state then everything goes black. If you were hoping Kaminaga would resist temptation… no, Kaminaga ended up sending the message.

The first thing we see next is a light match, then appears what’s around it. Marks is using that match to light his pipe. It subtly tells us his job is done. The then reads the message Kaminaga sent and hands it to the interrogator, claiming that now Kaminaga is openly one of their allies. Then instruct the Military Policeman to take him get some food. There’s to wonder if this implies Kaminaga never eat while being there.

Kaminaga is still lying limp on the table, the policeman has to grab him and pull him up. And here we will start to see that Marks is MUCH MORE than the good cop. As the policeman is pulling Kaminaga up, Marks remind him to handcuff Kaminaga. The policeman is surprised but Marks replies that, until they’ve confirmation their fake intel damaged Japan, they can’t allow him to leave. In short, Marks isn’t trusting Kaminaga one single bit. This is a HUGE hint that Marks is a cautious guy and not an overconfident one. He has tormented Kaminaga, drugged him, told him he was sold out, made him admit it, manipulated him into sending fake intel and… he still doesn’t trust Kaminaga a bit. He even instruct the policeman to not let Kaminaga out of his sight.

Really, he’s not the man who would have let a map of the place hung for everyone dragged in the interrogation room to see should the chance arise.

Kaminaga is tied, although his hands are tied in front of him and not behind his back. Remember of how I talked previously about ‘tame’ forms of torture? Forcing someone to hold his hands behind his back is also part of this. The fact that they’re tying Kaminaga’s hands in front of him now, while denoting a lack of trust, also signals they aren’t planning to torment him any longer.

There’s also something else worth to note. Before Kaminaga was always escorted by two policemen. Now it’s just one. Yet Marks doesn’t trust him. Why is that? We’ll discover it soon.

This is the moment in which the episode switched in its second part. The interrogation has ended, now it’s the time for the escape because yes, Kaminaga has merely pretended to have been defeated. If you believed for a moment he was… well, he had fooled you (though considering the story and the fact we’re only halfway through it I bet very few let themselves be fooled).

‘Suiri’ [推理 Reasoning] begins playing. It’s more relevant that it can seems as we’ve heard it being played already in this episode and that was when Kaminaga saw the map. This is Joker Game playing with our sensory memory. Hearing again this song at such a short distance is meant to cause us to remind that scene and figure, even though no one had told us anything, that Kaminaga now could try to put the knowledge of seeing a map of the place to good use.

Kaminaga and the policeman are walking. Kaminaga is ahead of him, keeping his head lowered. He stops at a crossroad in the many corridors of the place and claims he needs to go to the toilet. He’s told to go to his right but Kaminaga claims the one around the corner should be closer and moves toward it without waiting the other. The policeman follows after asking him how he knew. We don’t get to hear Kaminaga’s reply but all this is to also remind us that Kaminaga saw the map of the place and hadn’t forgotten it. The same goes for Kaminaga’s assertiveness in choosing in which toilet he wants to go. It’s our clue to figure out this is a man who’s merely pretending he was defeated but he’s actually not.

We see Kaminaga in the bathroom. When he’s washing his face he starts screaming. The policeman with him goes to look what’s wrong. Kaminaga, with a shocked face is pointing at the mirror. It’s not suspicious per se, as said before the drug injected into Kaminaga could cause hallucinations and the man might think it hasn’t worn out yet. Anyway, he asks Kaminaga what he’s saying in the mirror and Kaminaga catches this chance in which his guard is low to hit him and cause him to fall on the ground.

Hum… the sound the blow made was so strong I thought Kaminaga broke his neck but no, if he needs to tie the guy down he’s evidently still alive… and this is a good point to remember everyone that D Agency’s rule ‘Don’t die, don’t kill’ exists merely because killing in certain situations would be unprofitable, not because D Agency boys can’t kill at all. Yūki himself will throw a grenade to the enemy, when taken prisoner, which might have killed someone. Yūki isn’t above killing. He’s just not doing it his main method as instead the Army would like to do.

Compare Gamo’s actions in the novel and in the anime. Novel Gamo is a member of D Agency and has no need to kill Cho as this could raise unnecessary suspicions. Anime Gamo is a member of Wind Agency which embraces the Army’s mentality and kills Gamo. It’s out of luck that Graham doesn’t get suspicious because Cho suddenly ‘disappeared’/died.

Anyway, back to the story.

‘Tansaku’ [探索 Search] is playing and here I guess the search is for a way out.

Kaminaga explains that he wanted to go to that toilet to confirm its location. In short he wanted to make sure that the map was true and that, according to it, he was in the point he thought he was. He then begins his escape. He wants to go to the third floor, where there should be an emergency staircase from which he could get out on the storeroom rooftop and escape on the main road. Kaminaga runs, even though we see him moving in a slightly slow motion (which increases tension as well as the impression of how badly Kaminaga longs to reach the third floor), sends on the ground a military policeman and causes him to faint and, when he says that right around that corner there’s the door that will lead to freedom… he reaches a dead-end.

It’s meaningful how they had him remark the way out was around the corner before having him turn the corner. It has increased our expectations as well and so our disappointment when there’s no way out.

Kaminaga even feels the need to go rest his hand against the wall and push, as if he can’t believe there’s no way out as he asks himself ‘why?’…

…and here he realizes the truth. He was against Marks, who’s also a genius spymaster. The map placed there in full view… well, that was a trap to check Kaminaga’s loyalty. This was way faster than wait if Japan would be damaged by Kaminaga’s fake intelligence and way safer. In fact, that result would be affected by many variants, Japan might not decide to trust Kaminaga’s intelligence for its own reasons or something could get in the way, or the opposite could be true, Japan can pretend to trust in Kaminaga’s intelligence so the English will believe in him and then Japan can use him as a double spy.

In this way instead… Marks can check immediately Kaminaga’s loyalty and with no harm whatsoever. Marks set up things so that Kaminaga could have the chance to escape, even assigning to him only one guard, knowing that Kaminaga would be tricked into escaping in a dead-end and therefore, if he were to try to escape, Marks would catch him back soon enough.

A fine trap and Kaminaga should have expected it considering he was working against the British SIS spymaster… but Kaminaga, like many D Agency boys, was overconfident, undervalued Marks and fell right into his trap. Marks would have never let him see that map if it would have lead him out of the place. Kaminaga could have figured it out and we as well.

Can I be cruel and laugh at the fine irony of all this? In Ep 1 & 2 the boys made fun of Sakuma who, at first, wasn’t capable to see beyond the beliefs that had been taught to him… and here we’ve Kaminaga who is ‘blind’ to an obvious trap Marks, the English genius spymaster set up for him.

Well, Miyoshi will have it worse. He had Sakuma believe he would have to stab himself… and Karma will come to bite back Miyoshi by having him die due to stabbing. ‘Joker Game’ has a fine sense of irony. Let’s remember also Odagiri… who tried to help Sakuma to understand how spies work… only to figure out in the end that he’s also not suited to be a spy. Karma, indeed.

Meanwhile the Military Police realized that Kaminaga escaped and they’re closing in on him. They know where he should be so it’s not hard work for them to converge on him. Before they can reach the floor Kaminaga is in though, as ‘Kinan’ [危難 Danger] starts playing, Kaminaga notices the symbol of the planet Venus drawn on a corner of a door…

…and realizes something.

The scene switches. The Military Police is on Kaminaga’s floor. They know he’s trapped. They reach the corridor in which Kaminaga ran. Can I mention again I love the cure in the details that Joker Game has? Have you noticed how the wallpaper is ripped on some points? It would have been easier to keep it whole but it being ripped gives it a touch of realism.

A Military Policeman gets into the corridor and goes straight at the door Kaminaga was observing, demanding for him to come out. He opens the door…

…but, at the request of one of his companions demanding to know if he found him he places something down and claims he’s not there.

Did Kaminaga manage to escape? No, he’s there.

The soldier lied on purpose. We’ll discover why later.

The Military Police regroup complaining Kaminaga has disappeared. Marks joins them. They tell him Kaminaga has disappeared. Marks informs them that, since the floors below are completely secured, they’ll continue secure the following floors, a hint he thinks Kaminaga managed to escape on the floors above them. Likely he thinks he can’t escape from them, as jumping down from the fourth floor or higher would probably kill him so Marks feels he’s still technically in control. Kaminaga should be somewhere inside. If he’s not on the third floor he should be above it.

‘Yūki’ [結城 Yūki] begins playing.

And now, we see what the soldier left in the room in which Kaminaga was in, a map and some keys…

…while Kaminaga explains us what happened. Remember ‘Robinson Crusoe’ the book Yūki gave him and that gives the title to the episode? Robinson, who kept on acting as an Englishman even when on a desert island is the perfect allegory for a spy in an enemy country that has to keep on acting a part. As he says so Kaminaga takes what the soldier left him and goes on explaining. Remember how when he narrated the story of Robinson Crusoe previously the episode tried to put a subtle emphasis on Friday? How Robinson saved Friday?

The camera shows us the soldier who pretended not to see him now. Kaminaga claims this guy probably normally works as a soldier of his majesty the queen and activates only when the SIS captures a Japanese spy. Kaminaga says he’s a ‘sleeping spy’, a ‘sleeper’ who goes under the codename of ‘Friday’ which is represented by the astronomical sign of Venus.

Why is Venus the planet for Friday? It might be not so obvious to who doesn’t know from where the word Friday comes but the Romans called Friday the dies Veneris, in short, the day of Venus, the goddess of beauty. In English the goddess Venus was associated with the goddess Frigg. In short for them the ‘die Veneris’ translated in ‘Frigg’s day’. Do a little twisting that always happens as time goes by and while Italians end up with ‘Venerdì’, English people end up with ‘Friday’, both supposed to mean ‘day of Venus’. From here to connecting the day dedicated to Venus with the planet dedicated to Venus I guess the process is easy enough.

Now… as we see Kaminaga escape, Kaminaga goes on with his exposition. So we learn that while Kaminaga knows that sleeping spies exist, he had no idea that ‘Friday’ existed as Yūki never mentioned it so that Kaminaga would never be able to confess his existence. In short, it was done to protect Friday (I guess Yūki too didn’t trust Kaminaga up to this point…). He however handed him ‘Robinson Crusoe’ so that Kaminaga could figure out things should he need Friday’s help. In short Yūki was planning ahead of Marks.

We next see again the scene of Yūki giving an injection to Kaminaga, only here we hear what he says. He asks the students to split their consciousness in multiple levels so that information that the enemy can have stay at the top level while what he can’t have stays at the bottom of it.

Now… I wish they had explained things better because yes, the memory has various layers and what Yūki talks about seems akin to a mix up between suppressed memories and repressed memories.

Just so you know in VERY SIMPLE TERMS…

Suppressed memories are part of our conscious experience and are usually unpleasant memories we deliberately kept out of consciousness because they are painful, disgusting, shameful, or stressful. Since we do not want them to disturb our current life, we make a conscious decision not to think about them, however, if asked about them, they are readily available to consciousness and are recognized as personal history. In short they aren’t so hard to recover as Yūki makes them look.

Repressed memories are memories suppressed beyond the realm of conscious awareness and are normally almost exclusively relate to traumas of unbearable pain, fear, or disgust, whose repression is usually caused by torture, threat of severe personal harm, interference with the most fundamental biological needs, and sexual abuse. Those are normally not accessible to consciousness even after long questioning and providing stimulation with pictures, sounds, or written documents of the repressed events. So the problem here is that it would be that Kaminaga wouldn’t be able to recover them himself unless he is given an ‘access code’.

What Yūki is asking to the boys is to consciously create suppressed memories that are so ‘suppressed’ that reach a level akin to ‘repressed memories’… though they aren’t repressed otherwise the boys wouldn’t be able to retrieve them. While I guess this can more or less be done we stumble into a problem with what Kaminaga says next. But let’s go with order.

Kaminaga explains that when he sent the false information he related the message verbatim, with no errors. This too was part of a plan as a perfectly keyed coded message sent to D Agency signals that actually Kaminaga is experiencing troubles, that he has been captured and in need of help. So far so good and also amazingly smart. Kaminaga was looking like he was obeying to Marks and betraying Japan when actually he was sending an S.O.S. to it.

Now however Kaminaga says that this info is stored so deep in his consciousness he would have to be killed before anyone could extract it and this seems a bit more shaky because, if the memory isn’t a repressed one it can be retrieved… and even repressed memories can be retrieved nowadays (though it’s much more complicate) and this doesn’t cause the death of the person from which you retrieve them.

However what Kaminaga says in itself is not impossible if we assume that the implications are that:

- Kaminaga wouldn’t reveal that info under any type of physical torture. If they were to keep on torturing him despite him remaining in silence the whole thing would only end with Kaminaga’s death. People who died under torture without confessing anything existed, hence this isn’t impossible.

- Kaminaga also has strong tolerance to the truth serum. People are affected by it differently with some being more affected and some being less affected. In order for the truth serum to work on Kaminaga you should overdose him as otherwise he can handle it. Remember, the truth serum is fundamentally a drug. Overdosing Kaminaga could/would lead to Kaminaga’s death. Hence Kaminaga assumes he’ll die before speaking.

In the novel and in the manga Kaminaga was capable to lie while under the truth serum. This might be seen as a hint his tolerance is strong enough he can remain in control of himself when given it enough to make up elaborate lies.

So it’s not so much just a matter of layers of consciousness but also of Kaminaga’s resistance to physical torture and drugs. Layers of consciousness just make harder for him to slip up.

However, in regard to the truth serum, this is all in theory. When Yūki tested truth serums on Kaminaga he likely stopped before it could become fatal and Marks is trying the latest truth serum developed on him. The effects of truth serum also are conditioned by other factors. So, unless Kaminaga is so highly immune to drugs in general (because Marks might have used a different type of drug than the ones Yūki tested on Kaminaga) it’s safe enough to assume not even overdosing him with whatever type of drug would make him talk, we can’t guess for sure the outcome injecting ‘truth serum’ would have on him.

But well, maybe this is Kaminaga’s overconfidence speaking… or it’s just anime talk to make Kaminaga look cooler.

Back to the anime we go.

While Kaminaga explains all this he manages to get out of the place and reach a parked car. He knocks on the window and says what’s supposed to be the sort of random sentence that identifies him to allies. The one in the car gives him the appropriate response that identifies him as well as someone sent to retrieve Kaminaga. Kaminaga gets in the car and the two of them leaves.

We see a flashback of Yūki giving a lessons to the D Agency students, telling them that when an enemy captures a spy he wants to use it to send false intel to the enemy so that’s the best moment to get a chance for the spy to escape. In short Kaminaga has been waiting for Marks to ask him to send intel back home right from day one. He never meant to betray Japan, he just played that mummery to have a chance to ask for help. So in a way he sort of remained in control… at least till he didn’t fall on Marks’ trap.

As Kaminaga is being carried away by the car he explains us what spurred all that. ‘Yogiri’ [夜霧 Night fog] the music with which this episode started begins playing as if, with Kaminaga’s explanation, we’re coming to a full circle.

Three months ago they learnt that confidential Army intel was being leaked to the British due to a diplomat who wasn’t encoding his communications. The Army protested but couldn’t connect the leak to the diplomat so the Ministry of Foreign Affairs turned a deaf ear to the army.

So that’s Yūki’s plan. He had Kaminaga being captured due to a diplomat leaking his identity so that Foreign Affairs would be clearly put at fault and would have to obey to the Army request. After all Kaminaga can testify he heard Sotomura giving off his name and other info as Marks kindly let him hear the tape.

As he thinks all this Kaminaga briefly reads a newspaper. We can see the date, it’s November 16. World war is already ongoing but it was in a ‘quiet state’. Poland had been invaded by Germany and Russia but England, France and Germany weren’t seriously fighting each other yet. It’s what was called the Phoney War or, and we can see this name quoted on Kaminaga’s newspaper, Twilight War.

Anyway Kaminaga doesn’t really spend much time watching the newspaper (though he’s supposed to be a fast reader so this might not mean much) and put it down, wondering where he’ll end up next before closing his eyes, maybe trying to fall asleep.

In the meantime we see that his car is travelling toward a boat, a hint that Kaminaga is about to leave London and, likely, England.

Ending theme.

This is possibly one of the best episodes of Joker Game, both for the storytelling choice as it turned something that was meant to be visually boring (a man seated and held still being interrogated) into something expressive and intriguing, put in a certain amount of actions and a lot of twists. It also chose wonderfully which spy had to interpret it.

Sure, some parts in it were a bit blurry. I’ve mentioned the whole thing about split consciousness and Kaminaga’s confidence he’ll die before speaking. We can continue with how the place in which Kaminaga was restrained has surprisingly few men walking through it. Sure, maybe they were all busy searching for Kaminaga elsewhere but well, it feels a bit hazardous. Some complains about the Sleeper fundamentally being a plot device… and it’s true. He doesn’t have a real characterization nor a name. It’s also true though that sleeping spies existed, that it wasn’t relevant for us to get emotionally attached to the sleeper who, for us, looks so much like the other English military policemen we’ve hard time recognizing him from the others more than we would have had recognizing Yūki’s students the first time (at least they had suit of different colours, the sleeper is dressed EXACTLY the same as the other Military Policemen and doesn’t seem to have distinguishable features) so this is part of the plan and isn’t meant to be a lack in the plot. The sleeper is one of Yūki’s tools, nothing more. This is Kaminaga’s episode, after all. Even the interrogator was nothing more than Marks’ tool, and even if we saw closed up of his face, it hardly made an impression. In a way Marks had to have such noticeable features exactly because he had to manage to stand out despite having a relatively small role.

Yes, Marks’ look is grotesque but I think the idea is that Marks has to look scary, creepy and he does. Wonderfully. He’s also rather good at his work, personally I think he’s Yūki’s best adversary.

So yes, I loved this episode.

And this was Joker Game Ep 5. Thank you to everyone who was brave and patient enough to sit through my long, long ramblings for the whole episode. I hope other people will feel like sharing what they had observed while watching it!

#Joker Game #Kaminaga #Yuuki #Howard Marks #Sleeper #JG Robinson #Joker Game Random Thoughts #Joker Game ReWatching #Joker Game Anime #Izawa Kazuo

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lusaph · 4 years

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Been really weirdly obsessed with reading everything about Manchukuo I can find recently. It's such an interesting part of WWII to me and I can and will read everything I can find on JSTOR and the library, once that reopens.

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eddycurrents · 4 years

Photo

Crimson Lotus - Chapter Three

Story: John Arcudi | Art: Mindy Lee | Colours: Michelle Madsen | Letters: Clem Robins

Originally published by Dark Horse in Crimson Lotus #3 | January 2019

Collected in Crimson Lotus

Plot Summary:

Crimson Lotus comes for Agent Dai.

Reading Notes:

(Note: Pagination is in reference to the chapter itself and is not indicative of anything found in the issue or collections.)

pg. 1 - I think the little bits of history of Japan’s occupation of Manchuria (or Manchukuo as it were) that we get here as a backdrop is fairly interesting. Very little Asian history, even recent Asian history, isn’t largely disseminated in North America, so even little pieces are appreciated. A lot of us probably don’t even know the extent of Japanese expansion and occupation through the Asian mainland.

Also, for intelligence agents working with Baolu, it’s kind of funny that Dai and Shengli would be among the last to find out about his death.

pg. 2 - I’m not really sure on the provenance of making someone pay for a charm.

pg. 3 - I suppose some would consider this “charming”.

Also, just in regards to the coin. That would often be considered a more common form of charm throughout China. Used for a variety of different purposes by a variety of different faiths. Most I’ve seen have a more traditional hole in the centre, though. That said, it looks like the Hong Kong coins in circulation at the time were definitely whole.

pg. 4/5 - Great double page spread here from Mindy Lee and Michelle Madsen. I love the design here of the weird tiger.

pg. 7 - Conventional weapons on a magic creature is always a funny learning curve in stories.

pg. 8 - This is gorgeous. Dissipating into butterflies is a neat visual.

pg. 10 - I would guess that the Crimson Lotus would have been commonly known, at least through intelligence circles, after whatever she did in World War I.

pg. 11 - The gas masks are an interesting touch. It gives the Japanese officers a bit of menace.

pg. 12 - Crimson Lotus’ appearance is interesting here. Though still kind of stocky, she’s not the elderly, fat Japanese character that we see a year later (chronologically) in Lobster Johnson. She looks younger, with a more militaristic garb.

pg. 14 - Love the blue of the lightning from Madsen.

pg. 15 - Taking Dai alive is reinforced here. It’s still not entirely clear what Crimson Lotus thinks that Dai knows.

pg. 17 - It is kind of neat to see the villain trying to bargain with one of the heroes.

pg. 20 - Nice reveal that Dai didn’t die. Though, he’s still pushing that obnoxiousness bit.

pg. 21 - It seems like there are even more plans that we’re not privy to as Shengli checks in with Major Zhou.

pg. 22 - Although that “Crimson Lotus doesn’t know that Dai’s alive” bit didn’t last very long.

Final Thoughts:

I think it’s interesting that Agent Dai is basically being modelled after the traditional “James Bond” type spy, and since it’s at a distance removed from actual James Bond the character convention comes off as a complete jerk. Often times completely ineffectual and rather dismissive of the people around him and their beliefs. At one point this kind of cavalier attitude would have been a sign of a “manly man”, but now is just considered a boor. It kind of makes you want to cheer on whatever the Crimson Lotus’ plans are.

d. emerson eddy still thinks those monkeys are creepy.

#Give 'em Hellboy #Hellboy #Crimson Lotus #John Arcudi #Mindy Lee #RaisingHellboy #392

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countryshitposts · 4 years

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You’re Shooting Your Bullet The Wrong Way

Chapter 1

AO3 Link

Death of a Bachelor

Trigger Warnings; murder, violence, blood

Name Guide

Nippon Koku- Japan

Teikoku Nippon- Japan Empire

Sulian- Soviet Union

Renmin- China

Choson Inmin- North Korea

Daehan Minguk- South Korea

Daehan Imsi- Korean Provisional Government

"Koku, our brother's calling us!" Koku lifts his head up from where he was loathing the words he had just typed on the keyboard, a small twinge of excitement in his face. He immediately closes the bright screen of the laptop and exits his bedroom, running down the long and winding stairs that he loved playing on when he was a sweer child, along with his older brother who'd accompany him.

He lands on the floors gracefully, seeing Teikoku staring at him with a huge smile on his face.

"Teikoku!", Koku exclaims, running towards his brother, laughing a little. He feels Tokyo's grimace from far away, giving him a sense of discomfort that will plague him for sometime before deciding that his brother is simply just jealous of the affection Teikoku gives to him.

(Sometimes he'd see the desolation in his children's eyes too; a spark of hope that Teikoku would move on from Koku so he could embrace them in such a filial way, and ocassionally, Koku would wonder why he wouldn't notice his own children.)

"How are you today?" Teikoku ruffles his hair and Koku - with a smile - protests against it.

"I'm fine, onii-chan!", he replies with a small laugh. "I'm finishing the latest chapter of the book I'm writing."

Teikoku chuckles, "Well, tell me if you're finished with the whole thing; I'd love to read it. But first let's have dinner, shall we? Manchukuo!" He calls onto his butler, who scuttles out of his room, all stumbling and awkward as he fixes his glasses.

(Koku thinks that Manchukuo should - say - be more prepared and look absolutely professional and impressionable, lest many think that their bodyguard... isn't a bodyguard and more like a chaperone who would read books and a cup of coffee in his spare time.)

"Yes, sir?", he stutters, causing Teikoku to frown up at him; Manchukuo fixes his tie and hair, leading it to become more dishevelled rather than kept, like a dog with fur sticking on their ends.

"Start the car. We're going to have dinner someplace else." Teikoku's tone was crisp- like he wanted to hit Manchukuo in front of everyone to humiliate him, showing how intolerant he is of his behaviour and the way he works. Manchukuo rapidly nods as he scampers towards the exit doors, Teikoku's eyes following him in an ill-mannered and impatient face; one second and he'll be shot at.

Koku smiles a little at Teikoku, whose frown turns upside down as he looks at his half-brother, the simplest speck of light in the cloud covered sky, reaching to the dark depths of the sea to pull out the orient pearl in the murky waters.

He looks at Koku brightly with a glint in his eyes, "Where would you like to have dinner, then?"

Koku shrugs, knowing full well that he's not fond of making decisions of his own. "Where do you want to go, Teikoku?"

Teikoku thinks for a moment before clicking his tongue. "There's this new restaurant that opened at the centre of the city; you'll adore it."

Koku nods, "And I trust your judgement."

("I don't", Tokyo whispers to Hokkaido, who hums affirmation, Koku barely catching their exchange before moving on.)

"Your ride is ready, sir", Manchukuo's head protudes from the front door, and Teikoku's mood immediately sours, already strutting to the doors, Koku and the others trying to catch up with his fast pace.

Manchukuo and Teikoku were busily talking - out of earshot - as Koku, Hokkaido and Tokyo busy tehmselves in the passenger seats (Okinawa sits on Hokkaido's lap, his half-brother steadying him).

He looks out the dark lenses of the windows, giving everything a much darker and subtle tone of sadness; from the evergreen shrubs Koku had planted years ago with his tiny hands, being helped by his brother as he works, turned to a much more darker shade of what has transpired.

The car ride was not annoyingly noisy to the ears nor unbearably silent- Manchukuo and Teikoku were making small talk in hushed voices, like a buzzing bee in Koku's ear thinking the small insect has hit jackpot before being swatted away by a large force. Okinawa was getting fussy on Hokkaido's lap, gurgling and wanting to be transferred towards Tokyo, who was silently reading, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, looking so much at peace.

Koku would sometimes envy at how... normal they seem to be around each other, like they are the best of friends who stick through even the most hardened times, and whenever they look at each other there was such understanding in their eyes, like they empathise in whatever way. And he remembers that whenever Teikoku arrives, they'd freeze up and halt their conversation, their eyes following after their own blood with fear, like he was a predator in their area full of prey. Like they were wary that Teikoku would turn his head to them with either a small smirk on his face, intent on humiliating them, or with an angry frown that'd mean it was the end of their world and he'd tear them apart until they were shreds of life.

They were awkward and wary around Koku too; a simple smile at their direction is enough to make them flinch or send them running to the other direction. Like he was Teikoku. Like he means harm and he needs harm to sustain his lifeline.

(He will never get why they are not fond of their own blood.)

So Koku sits in silence, grey eyes on the car's carpeted floors (credits to Teikoku).

Manchukuo parks the car in a spot where the sun never leaves them, always bothering them despite the fact it is being conquered by the moon and stars who wish to devour the light to make way for the darkness, and the dying sun forging its flames on the surface of the moon, mangled holes giving off the light the sun but weaker before it dies, and at twilight it rises back from the dead and the cycle continues.

"Ugh, the suns' reaching everywhere", Koku says as he exits the car, arm above his head and shades present underneath his eyes, the glaring light of the sun still escaping through the darkest filters of his innate boundary. "For a dying light against the sky, it's still annoyingly bright."

Teikoku laughs a little as he emerges from the car, "Don't worry, dinner's coming."

The brand new restaurant seems to be jam-packed, despite the fact that - according to Teikoku - it had just opened yesterday. Its huge windows reflect himself, his dark hair and pale complexion, striking gray eyes that looks through the reflections and into the thrums of people inside them; the people already comfortably seated on the seats around the tables, waiters and waitresses serving them their long-awaited dishes for the day, the chandelier above them glowing golden with its light bulbs looking more like waxed candles dancing with flames than inventions of electricity. It was enticing, and at the same time making Koku uncomfortable; for some reason he can never really be at peace with the notion of being in a place full of people, strangers- maybe it was because he only grew up knowing and getting used to only his family talking to him, so that talking to another person was now an act of force and a chore (although chores are much, much better than talking to a complete stranger).

Koku spent so much time admiring the place and daydreaming that he has - once again - built a glass dome, protecting himself from any disturbances that will disrupt his thought process and serenity, which can only be shattered like a vulnerable and pricey vase with one voice.

"Koku!", he feels a hand snake around his shoulders, and he jumps a little before instinctively calming down when he is faced with Teikoku's small smirk on his lips. "Daydreaming again, weren't you?"

Koku absently nods, his eyes turning back to the inside of the restaurant, its golden streaks of light looking much more realistic than it intends to be, making the whole venue all the more charming. "This place is beautiful."

Teikoku chuckles a little. "That it is- you want to go inside? I'd made a reservation a week ago."

"Of course I do!"

"Well then", Teikoku takes a step and Koku's feet follows, "let's go in, shall we?"

Once the door opens to let his family inside of the grandeur, he feels a rush of cool air collide with his warm cheeks, the scent of cooked food filling the air, jazz music playing from the speakers above them and small chatter reaching his ears. He hears the clinks of wine glasses and people laughing, trying to look and act their absolute best in the midst of formality. The sizzling of frying pans reaches Koku's ears too, as the door to the kitchen swishes back and forth like a baseball bat in a player's hands, ever so ready in a match and ever so used to the feeling of the hardened wood around his palms. The smell of the atmosphere makes him wonder if he could eat thin air; a mix of wine, roasted beef and many other specialties he can trace, lingering in the air as its smoky fingers play with their heartstrings one by one, being replaced with another, then another, then another.

Koku takes a seat right beside Teikoku, who was once again talking to Manchukuo in a hushed voice.

(Seriously, what are they talking about and why are they keeping the conversation from him? Was the question in his mind, along with others, but he swallows them down in fear of making his brother ultimately mad.)

So he keeps his eyes straight forward, eyeing every detail that catches his eye- that Okinawa is now playing with Tokyo and Hokkaido's wine glasses, making airplane noises; that the chandelier above them is swaying slightly as the air changes its course towards it; that a waiter is covering his face with a mask, hands clasped, leg bouncing impatiently, looking everywhere, turning his head left and right like he was expecting a guest- until at last, he looks right ahead at Teikoku before fast-walking to the kitchen's door...

Koku blinks, his eyes never leaving that door until he hears someone snap his fingers, and he turns his attention back to his family, now ordering their desired meals. Teikoku looks at him expectantly, fingers drumming the table and raising a brow at his direction. Koku deliberately has no time for ordering, so he tells Teikoku he wants what his brother wants.

Teikoku blinks a little, "Are you sure you want spicy food?"

Koku nods with no hesitation. "Sure."

Teikoku dismisses the waiter with a little wave, before resuming his conversation with Manchukuo.

The ignored boy decided to dream about how one day, he will become a world renowned writer. He can already imagine his books in many a shelves, waiting to be read by people who wishes to read the words he has so carefully integrated into the delicate pages that can be folded or thrown into the lake but words still readable (of course he would not accept his book being treated that way), and interpretative to the audience as their eyes roam around the words looping the page with hunger, beads of sweat dropping from the pores of their skin as their finger bends to turn the page.

(He would accept the fact that not everyone would like the way he write though; at least he would get the pleasing of a few audiences and even good compliments and reviews that will make him red for the next few months.)

He hums a small song his mother used to sing to him before she mysteriously vanished (a melody he hums everyday to remember his mother by), trying to look busy by examining the plain white napkin and tissue at his side of the table, at what is the highest tone the wine glass can go when he starts hitting it purposefully with a spoon, and basically tuning everything out until it becomes a static buzz like it is all in his head.

And then like a bomb buzzing throughout the sky to create a cataclysm of events, the whole world implodes all around him. Then the next second seems like everything was in slow motion; there was a buzzing and ringing in his ears that were like a whole garbled mess of another language that a barrier had been formed around them all. Everything was falling to bits in such a slow pace, he wonders if he really is in a movie setting but seemingly so real- the chandelier, instead of plummeting to the floors is slowly but steadily falling like the flipbook did not fully construct its drawings properly and the choppy fall of the chandelier is the result of it; he hears Teikoku shout but the rest of it is slurred and drunk, their table flipping over as glass shards fly across the restaurant, everyone else seemingly stuck in a choppy format, eyes widening in surprise, drinks being spilled, trays being thrown away by the sheer force of the explosion...

And then the spell breaks, as the chandelier plummets to the ground, light bulbs shattering and splaying all over the face. One even tries to impale him right over the eye, and he tries to dodge it, but it seems that his feet are glued to the floor, only watching it come closer, closer to his face to hit its target-

A hand yanks him back down behind a dining table, which has now been turned to a shield; nearby, he hears the sounds of guns clicking and people shrieking and screaming, the thudding of feet loud in his ears. He slowly turns to face Manchukuo, pursed lips and furrowed brows, as he readies his own gun for a battle.

"Stay here with Tokyo and Hokkaido, alright?", Manchukuo tells him, tight-lipped, "me and Teikoku will handle this mess." Koku nods absently, his gray eyes following Manchukuo's departing body from their hiding spot and into the mass of blood.

Koku is in a state of shock, unable to move nor get up from where he was hiding with his siblings. Instead of the air and wind supporting him in his every breath, they are puncturing his chest as his bones break apart to form splinters surrounding his heart but his ribs trying to shield the damned source of his life, beating the way his ears are now ringing a high melody. Koku chokes a little, feeling small particles of dust being absorbed into his throat, his lungs suffocating him whole. Koku tries to get up, but his legs feel like jelly, like they've been broken to tiny pieces. He breathes in and out, but he cannot inhale that fast and hard as his lungs start to fall apart underneath all this smoke and dust, hidden beneath gaps to conjure up a surprise attack reserved for him and only him.

So he follows his chaperone's word and stays with Hokkaido and Tokyo, both shell-shocked and trying to soothe Okinawa who is now shivering and shaking.

Manchukuo has been trained - blood and sweat - for this; it's pulsing in his veins, as he finally put all his hardwork for good work. He can feel a sense of relief once he can finally hold the smooth surface of a gun again, its shine rivalling the moonlight from outside, which had just risen to conquer the orange ball lighting up the entire day. He takes a look at it for a moment, admiring its handiwork, before filling it with bullets meant to target people, sinner or saint.

He sees his boss in the midst of the stampeding crowd, causing more chaos and difficulty rather than easiness. The crowd in front of him were like animals- one single event will conjure surprise, shock, panic and fear that will cause them to go hooting and making the situation even worse. Manchukuo then hears a group shouting in a spur of languages: Korean, Russian, Chinese; and he turns his head towards their direction, seeing them cock their pistols, ready to shoot at Teikoku and give themselves a well-earned pat on the back for a job well done.

Mancukuo swallows his nervousness away, his nervousness because he has grown accustomed to the ways of the mob, its deep, sick, and twisted insides that are all full of rot but he has no mind for this: Teikoku promises his children will be spared from his great wrath, if in turn he works for him.

He remembers that night clearly; there was a slight glimmer of malevolence in his eyes as he offers this deal to Manchukuo, all those years ago, but he thinks nothing of it, young and immature with nowhere to go, accepting the deal and taking Teikoku's hand, then training hard, to murder, to be a puppet, and ultimately becoming Teikoku's right-hand man in the scale of things, a blurred view of what is right and wrong.

(Every night, when he comes home to his children, barely old enough to understand the basics of the entire world and how it revolves around the sun, he thinks; thinks if he is doing the right thing, the right will, the best of the best to keep his children safely underneath his arms, to the end of his days.)

So, he takes another deep breath to make himself at peace that he is going to have to kill once again, before pulling the trigger, once, twice, thrice. All of them drop to the ground like flies once their monster pulls out a repellent that has murdered them all. Blood oozes from their bodies, but their murderer is now running towards his boss, who is shielding himself with a table, gunshots being heard and he tries his best to dodge them.

(For someone wearing glasses, he was a good shot- he'd use it to make people underestimate his prowess.)

"Sir, Soviet and his mob must have known of your plans for the day", Manchukuo pants, finally reaching Teikoku, veins in his hands pulsing, a glare set on his face as he peeks outside of their barrier before almost getting shot by a stray bullet.

"I know that", Teikoku replies, "the question is how to get rid of them."

Manchukuo looks back to dozens of men in black, holding out guns poised to shoot and kill in one motion, towards the sea of bodies surrounding him and Teikoku. The first option was to run like an idiot towards the perpetrators before getting shot or stomped to the death with heavy feet by the crowd. The second was to hide in the same spot, hoping and praying to the gods above that this entire operation will go down the ground, since they are, in this case, outnumbered, them finally becoming the prey.

"There are too many of them, sir", Manchukuo notes, "we don't have enough men to fully wipe out all of Soviet's men coming for our blood tonight."

"Are you underestimating my power?" Teikoku pulls his trigger and lets out a bullet, straight to one's head, but before he falls another bullet goes straight to his head to hit his comrade behind him, also dead. "Anata wa?"

Manchukuo blinks at the two corpses, whose lives had just been shot through the heart abruptly by Teikoku himself, the sun that even the plants wilt and dry up. He shakes his head, "Iie, Teikoku-sama."

(He learns the hard way never to cross even the slightest side-eye from him, his gray eyes showing the bespectacled boy a portal to the fiery pits of hell itself.)

Manchukuo inhales and exhales, relaxing himself as he aims the gun on two more violators and shooting them, straight through their head, their bodies falling like the plague has taken them one by one. And then he sees a spurring object, almost hurdling towards him before he sidesteps out of the way just in time. His glasses fall out to the floors, and he is overcome with panic as he drops to the floor, searching for his glasses while his vision swims like a river flowing right at him.

Then he hears the cock of a pistol, its metal clinking against its owner.

"Manchukuo", the newcomer greets, allegedly knowing his name; his voice was... familiar, except it was now in a lower tone of voice, no innocence left in him. "It's... nice to see you again."

Manchukuo feels the smooth and cold handles of his glasses, and he puts them on, blinking a little to satisfy himself of his clear vision. Then he sees him- the face on the missing posters he's hung up in his room to reminisce a time where everything was kept in their house, just a block away from where he is residing now. The old, abandoned house, grass overgrown and conquering the old white walls, untouched for decades, a ghost in time, but a ghost visible to his eyes nonetheless. The phantoms of the past loves to toy with him, as he walks by that same old house he has left all those years ago, to pursue a desperate way to get money, without his brothers by his side, and Teikoku had taken him in like a small cat stuck in the jaws of death, mangy and beaten.

"Renmin?", he asks, narrowing his eyes as he takes a step closer, but the other falls back. "Is that you?"

Renmin's eyes linger from the gun in his hand, and to Manchukuo's face, searching for a sign, with an unreadable look in his eyes. Manchukuo's lips curl to a small smile and a sad laugh resounds from deep within him, finally being released after years of anguish.

"It is you!", Manchukuo embraces the young man, Renmin struggling underneath his grip as his gun falls to the tiled floors, making a sharp sound from underneath the sounds of gunshots and the sight of crimson liquid everywhere. "How long has it been since we last saw each other? Two years? Three?"

"Ten years", Renmin deadpans, lips pursed to a thin line, eyeing the gun on the floors. "We haven't seen each other for ten years, and here we are."

Manchukuo's smile falters a little, but he keeps it glued to his face, overjoyed at the sight of his brother, obscured from the entirety of his life for a decade. "But... we finally see each other again. I would've preferred a much more decent setting", he looks at the broken and shattered glass windows, the once highly refined setting of this venue tumbling to ruins after just a day of its reign, a king succumbing to his land after just annexing the furthest of regions in his empire, "but we meet again nonetheless."

Renmin nods, breaking away from Manchukuo's arms, "So we have."

Manchukuo's mind was not on the corpses scattering to the floors, the foreign languages swirling around his head, making him dazed the longer he is with Renmin, the one that got away. Tears were forming in his eyes, a dam about to break to unleash a wave of unresolved emotions, trying to break out of the cold and frozen prison hidden behind his eyes to punish him for ever letting them dry up. He holds his brother's hand, smooth and warm underneath his rough and calloused palms, and he wonders; if his life with Soviet was smooth sailing, the seas calm in his grasps, the sky blue and the water clear. And his life was rough, always a stormy day and night, his boat rocking back and forth as the angry waves try devouring him deep into the waters like they are sirens luring their hypnotized prey only to be torn to shreds.

"We can escape this madness, you know?", Manchukuo says, voice breaking, clasping more onto his younger brother, his hands growing colder like death is overtaking him. "I can start the car. We can leave. Not without my kids though, I love them to bits, and you'll adore them. We can rent an apartment in another city, out of this shit we've dug into."

Renmin's eyes show no sign of comprehending his older brother's message, always empty, and then... it shines a little. His unreadable face turns to one of excitement (but it looks forced, for Manchukuo's part), the hands on Manchukuo's warming like its life had returned to it, hope rekindling from this life of misery. "That would be... lovely, Manchukuo. Away from everything we've ever known, and into the unknown. That's such a brilliant plan. Come here for a moment."

He pulls on Manchukuo's arm, and he follows, compliant. Before he can think clearly however, Renmin pushes him to the floors, pistol on his hand, a small smile tracing over his face, watching his brother below him widen his eyes in surprise before realizing how dire the situation is; Renmin aims the gun at Manchukuo and shoots- he misses his head, but he gets his thighs at the very least.

The bullet was like a small little button, just deadlier and thicker, his delicate skin being punctured by the cursed thing and blood comes spilling out. The pain was unbearable- a thousand needles cutting deep into his skin, trespassing to the deepest crevices of his soul as the blood gushes out towards his wool clothing, the dark hue of his pants clashing with the crimson red, pulsing in his veins, pooling into his clothes and absorbing it like a wet sponge after washing the dishes. His breathes are ragged, struggling to stabilize his condition as his heart beat increases faster, panic rising in him as he trembles and shakes; he has only ever felt the metal clad against his head whenever he speaks out too many times against Teikoku, but he has never been shot.

Until now, that is.

A thousand screams were trying to erupt from his mouth, mind and veins, pulsing too much, his fingers engraved deep into his palms, puncturing him ever so slightly, in the simplest of ways, blood dripping from his mouth due to biting too much.

"Dàgē", Renmin's voice was soft and dim, Manchukuo straining to hear his voice. "This is goodbye."

He does not lift his hand however, but Manchukuo sees it- a dot a distance away from them, growing increasingly nearer and before he has time to finally get ahold of his situation, everything goes black, the end of his act, the end of his play.

Renmin stares at the limp figure that used to be his brother, tuning out all sounds from anywhere else as he looks at those dark eyes- full of hope to have a new life, away from the mobs, away from Teikoku, away from this madness; now just a listless stare into the oblivion he is now falling through. He hears a cry from somewhere distant, but he pays no mind, kneeling down and closing his eyes, his face cold as death had come to him fast, the hole where the bullet went through dripping out blood, glasses askew. Renmin takes in a deep breath, sighing a little before he feels two arms wrap around him like a coat during the winter season. He feels a kiss on his cheek, and all of a sudden he grows warmer.

"Sulian...", he sighs as he kisses his lover on the lips, the larger chuckling as they deepen their kiss on enemy ground, the floors splattered with blood, all screaming in pandemonium. But Sulian was his heaven, a dream come true, and with him everything is serene. Sulian breaks their kiss however, uttering a needy whine from Renmin but he shushes him.

"Listen, lyubov". Renmin's ears stop clouding the drenches of his skull, then he hears it- blares of a police siren.

"Gāisǐ de", Renmin swears underneath his breath, already realizing how heavy their situation is right now. "Gather the men, get out of here before the goddamn police arrive." He finds another strapping young man eyeing Teikoku, eyes narrowed, hands relaxed on the gun, poised to kill. He sighs a little, "I'll take care of Inmin."

Renmin swerves and ignores the mangled bodies scattered about the floor, the gunshots never scaring nor hindering him as he makes his way towards his goal- the unhinged man by the kitchen door, his only remaining eye furious with passion and fiery vengeance on the one who ruined his life and made him plummet to where he is now. The blaring of the sirens were getting louder now, becoming a source of irritation in his ears.

"Inmin." The adolescent almost drops the pistol he was holding until he reflexively catches it with a hand. He glares at Renmin and stares back at his target. "We need to leave; the police are here."

"I don't care!", Inmin hisses, eyes still on Teikoku, murdering his way through the bodies, looking more like a deity punishing the mortals than a man himself. "I want to kill him. I want to torture him so that he can feel the pain he gave me."

"Now's not the time Inmin!", Renmin snipes, hands on Inmin's arms, pulling him back to the exit, comparable to a mother scolding and forcibly taking a child from a store of sweets. "The police are there and if they see you with a firearm they're going to handcuff you! We are not bailing you out!"

Inmin growls, trying to shake off the firm grip on his arm, "So what if I get stuck in a cold cell for the rest of my life?! At least I know what happened to my mother!"

"Your mother wouldn't like it if her dearest son sees you in a prisoner's outfit, would she?" He knows he should feel bad about threatening Inmin like this, but he'd done this to him most of the time; from doing housework chores, guilt tripping him, and to this. One word of his mother not being appreciative about his life, Inmin's whole confidence comes crashing down to a zero, just the way Soviet likes it.

Inmin's arm goes slack, and he lets Renmin drag him from the chance of finally getting the sweet vengeance he so desired ever since he was a child. Revenge was calling out to him, a voice seducing him to kill Teikoku before it is too late, trying to bribe him of a life of riches for one soul. One heartless and wretched soul, enough to rid the world of one person who doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as they do. He sees Teikoku smile, shooting as many people as he wishes, sometimes missing Inmin's comrades to shoot civilians, and sometimes he would aim perfectly at his comrades and shoot, one last drop of life disappearing from the world. And he was laughing; the bastard was laughing, enjoying what he has done, enjoying himself trampling all over the corpses.

The last thing Inmin sees before Renmin closes the door behind them was Teikoku's gray eyes on him, his lips in the form of a wide smile that sends shivers down his spine.

Inmin needed a peace of mind after the latest gathering from his mob. He takes a cigarette out from his coat's pocket, lighting it up, serving as the only source of light, the moon being covered by the clouds like a gray blanket hovering over the sky. His hair was flaked with sleet, and he shakes them off for the umpteenth time this night, sighing as he takes a load of the scenery outside of the cramped spaces he's been living in. Inmin sighs at how wondrous the buildings portray a scenic landscape in the night, the small glow of the stars trying to conjure and replicate the glow of the moon. The dim lights of each building shows silhouettes of family, friends, and couples doing something private, only for it to be broad casted by the lights inside of their home, and whatever they are doing.

Inmin did not get high of the feeling of a cigarette in his mouth, releasing a puff of smoke, watching it stretch across the sky like a wisp before it completely disappears. He wants the feeling of cannabis underneath his nose, enlightening him and making him feel like he has no problems at all, his sadness drowning away just from snorting the plant until he feels like he is happy enough to do his own thing, and then the spell wears out few hours later, leaving him weary and tired, cursing the effects.

(Of course, his comrades would decline him of his usual stash this night; he was thrashing about, swearing and making the newest members overwhelmed with his act.)

"Family...", then his only eye lights up, finally remembering what he has to do to finish the night off.

Repeating the address he promises never to step foot after they rejected his offer to help find their mother by looking for a mob that will aid them and their financial business. He remembers the shit he's said to them, as he steps on the dead cigarette stick as he runs from the edges of the city until he finds an apartment building.

He has seen the building change, all those years ago, becoming much refined, more appeasing to look, no more moldy walls and rotten would that is sure to make the whole place collapse with one slam of a door. Inmin walks towards it, steps light, not wanting anyone to be aware of his presence, of him going back to the home he deserted in search of someplace else. The eye underneath his eye patch was tingling, as if sensing he belongs here, to the family he has his eye on ever since leaving, ever since he has become an outlaw, a watcher in their lives leading and progressing on.

Inmin dips low as he watches Minguk through a window, book on his hands, and he focuses hard on the words on the large book his twin was holding, but all he can comprehend are words ever changing, flying out of the covers of the book and into the window, and he becomes disgruntled at the fact he can never do anything right, even read a goddamn title. Minguk's mouth was moving, perhaps reading and memorizing the passages in the book he was reading, coffee on the table.

Ah, Inmin looks at the dark circles underneath his brother's eyes, the way his fingers would twitch when he flips to another page. He's pulling an all-nighter again. Baegchi.

He looks through another window, seeing his samchon cooking something, a small smile on his lips, eyes closed as he lets his dream over take him, back to the days where everything was alright and dandy.

Inmin sighs- nothing has changed from the last week, his family still being poor ignorant souls while he is searching for their mother, their souls giving up on the probability she is alive and well.

So he runs, to the midst of the night, the sky camouflaging him as he runs back to his mob.

Dàgē- big brother in Chinese

lyubov'- love in Russian

Gāisǐ de- damn it in Chinese

Baegchi- idiot

Samchon- uncle

#mine #writing #countryhumans #countryhumans japan #countryhumans japan empire #countryhumans kpg #countryhumans north korea #countryhumans south korea #countryhumans manchukuo #countryhumans china #you're shooting your bullet the wrong way

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