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blackjack-15 · 3 years

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(Pachin)Koping Mechanisms, KuroSAWa, and Putting The Ring On It — Thoughts on: Shadow at the Water’s Edge (SAW)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. For this meta and the next (CAP), I’ll have a section entitled “The Faerietale” where I break down the issue of genre within the game and how it adds to the experience.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: SHA, SAW, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SPY, GTH, Rashomon.

The Intro:

Full Disclosure: draft titles of this meta include “Yurei-sing the Tension” and “Using Your Girlfriend’s Mom’s Horrific Death For Fun and Profit”. They ultimately don’t fit the tone of the game (or the meta), but I thought they were fun…so you’re being subjected to them anyway.

Freshly out of the games of growing pains, Shadow at the Water’s Edge is the first of our two Faerietale Games, where we delve fully into Theme and Allegory and other such literary devices — which happen to support some pretty fine mysteries as well. As such, in case you didn’t see it above, both SAW and CAP will have a section diving into the Faerietale-ness of it all (partially because it’s That Interesting and partially to keep the intro section from being like 2k on its own).

SAW is interesting for a number of reasons (which I’ll go into throughout the meta) but one of the things that stuck out to me on a replay was how much it leans on Rashomon for its story about the past. For those unfamiliar, Rashomon is a Japanese film by Kurosawa Akira from the 50s that deals with the rape of a woman and the killing of her husband, a samurai, as told through four different points of view.

Nowadays called “a Rashomon episode” or “false flashback”, the idea of different, opposite points of view being shot and filmed to present to the audience is almost a cliché, but Kurosawa was the first to really bring it to film and to popular consciousness internationally.

Like in Rashomon, we’re presented with different views of the situation at the ryokan (including but not limited to Kasumi’s death) from our characters’ perspectives — and, like in Rashomon, no point of view nor opinion on what happened is ever confirmed to be the Honest Truth.

Was Kasumi’s death accidental, and on whose part was it accidental? Does the world stay the same inside the ryokan, or is it just as prone to change as the rest of the world? Is the ryokan a resort or a prison? Should you respect what your loved one wants for themselves, or is it your job to want something better for them? Takae, Rentaro, Miwako, Yumi, and even Kasumi all have different opinions on these questions, and we’re never told who’s correct, nor to what extent.

Finally, like Rashomon, the game is content with leaving a few answers undiscovered. While shooting the movie, Kurosawa was approached many times by the actors, who wanted to know what “really” happened in the movie — and each time he refused to say, wanting the story to be truly Alive in a way that it wouldn’t be if he answered their questions.

Nancy’s job is to expose the malevolent force in the game for what it is, not to heal the family, nor to make decisions for them.

And speaking of their decisions, let’s talk about what motivates our characters in this game. I know, this intro is already kind of long, and I normally keep this kind of talk for the Characters section, but given how much they intersect in this game, we’re gonna go into it here. All of our suspects here in the game are driven and informed by one thing: their coping mechanisms.

C’mon, no surprise here. It’s in the title of the meta for more than just the pun.

Because our suspects are living in the “Once Upon a Time” section of the faerietale — aka the past — it’s their coping mechanisms that drive them. Takae is driven by guilt over her daughter’s death and fear of a changing world; Miwako is driven by anger towards her family and personally-assumed responsibility over Everything That Happens; Rentaro is driven by selfish pride and concern over his loved one; Yumi is driven by avoidance and individualistic willpower.

These are all common when dealing with loss, and each of these tell us exactly how our characters are going to act throughout the tale. In a very real way, SAW is a game about how we, as humans, deal with the stories that we tell ourselves (another thing that it has in common with CAP), and how that changes the way that we perceive the world.

It’s the breakdown of Rentaro’s coping mechanism — his pride in always being correct — that causes him to Do Evil while claiming that it’s The Right Thing. Everyone else’s mechanisms are what allows for him to be as influential as he is; Kasumi is already haunting Takae, and Miwako is already feeling the world crash down around her. Even though the yurei is just wires and metal and Upsettingly Damp-Looking Hair, its presence in the ryokan isn’t physical – it’s psychological.

Remember, “a ghost doesn’t need to be real to haunt you”.

The Title:

Let’s be real here, we’re getting into the segment of Nancy Drew games where the (most of) titles just kick butt and aren’t afraid to do so. Like, Shadow at the Water’s Edge? Gives you creepy vibes right off the bat even without the yurei on the front giving you The Ring flashbacks. Properly atmospheric without being too specific, and “shadow” gives us the idea that we’re dealing with a monster that’s more ghostly, rather than flesh and blood.

I don’t even have anything negative to say about this title, that’s how good it is — plus, I mean, the acronym is literally “saw”. Awesome.

Let’s move on then to the faerietale behind the title.

The Faerietale

SAW and CAP both function, genre-wise, as a faerietale — a story with few characters, big pasts, legends and magic, and a moral at the end to tie things off. In both cases, interestingly enough, it’s our villain who gives us our “moral” — the Truth that ties the plot, history, and characters together, able to be said in a single sentence. In SAW, it’s this (rather chilling) statement from Rentaro that does it:

“A ghost doesn’t need to be real to haunt you.”

But let’s start at the beginning.

Like in a lot of faerietales, we have two sisters who are as different as can be, an inheritance (a ryokan rather than a crown or a prince), absent/dead parental figures, a wizened mentor related to our main characters (Takae), and a Monstrous Force opposing them and their ‘kingdom’. In this story, Nancy is the Dashing Outsider (not unlike the Prince from The Twelve Dancing Princesses) who vows to learn the secrets, defeat the monster, and save the kingdom, restoring balance to the ‘royal’ family and allowing them to prosper.

(And no, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in this game Nancy’s the Knight in Shining Armor when CAP and Renate’s talk about them is right around the corner, but we’ll save that for next time.)

Having established that the game is a faerietale, let’s talk about why that actually matters (beyond the fact that it’s kinda cool in itself) when we’re looking at the game.

It basically matters for a handful of reasons: it allows us to figure out the suspect Fairly easily, it allows the writers to Allude to subject matters that are a little Dark for the E/E10 rating that Nancy Drew games normally get, and provides a bridge between the (overall) concrete games of the past and the more thematic, character-development-focused games that we’re coming up on. So let’s break that down.

Assigning our characters faerietale roles lets us see immediately that Rentaro is Missing an easy assignation. He doesn’t fit the prince, doesn’t fit a sibling — he doesn’t fit anywhere, in short, which is our first clue that he’s the villain.

Even ignoring the fact that the yurei is obviously mechanical, that Rentaro has free access to the entire ryokan in a way that no other character does, and that he’s responsible for upkeeping the ryokan (which is why it’s suspicious that he’s not the one Dedicated to figuring out the mystery) — which are all excellent things that point towards Rentaro, his absence in the faerietale points to a hidden role.

Since the only role worth hiding is either an 11th hour ally or a villain, and Rentaro is present from the beginning of the game, it’s pretty clear which one he is.

Situating the game as a faerietale also lets HER play with a few more themes than they normally can, given their target audience. Starting with a rather blatant implication of suicide, the game spins on to abusive relationships, overpowering guilt, and Nancy being, well, downright mean with her questions about a family member’s death.

While Nancy’s always been a bit insensitive, the mystery surrounding Kasumi’s death sends her into the realm of bullheadedly rude (to the point where you can get a game over for it). We see why this writing choice was made in SPY (which we’ll cover in that meta), but it’s one of my favorite things about this game; it takes a slight character trait of Nancy’s and gives it a character-driven purpose.

The last function of SAW (and CAP) as a faerietale is to provide a bridge between the older and the newer games. The older games tended to be self-involved entities: they began with Nancy’s room and ended with the letter to Carson/Hannah/Ned. As the game technology improved and the player base got older, however, that started to not be good enough; Nancy and her mysteries needed to become A World rather than simply a string of cases held together with a handful of familiar names and archetypes.

The first step towards this was the inclusion of the Hardy Boys back in our Expanded games, but it’s really SAW and CAP that show an Active Transition. Faerietales are often thought of, literarily speaking, as the bridge between children’s fiction and adult fiction; they involve simplistic plots and archetypes that children can easily grasp, but teach hard lessons about the world that adults will understand and resonate with.

The earlier Nancy Drew games, on the whole (there are of course a few exceptions), are largely concrete, like the children’s fiction they’re based on. The good and bad guys are simply and easily divided, Nancy and co. are always the heroes and always do right, and the bad guys always go to jail.

The past few games leading up to SAW start to shift slightly; while generally our heroes and villains are still sharply divided, nothing is quite as simple as it seems (look at TOT, where at least a few bad guys get away and actually profit from their bad actions).

It’s here in SAW, however, where we see that take a sharp shift. Those who should be good guys (Rentaro is a Love Interest, he enjoys puzzles, he’s a ‘fixer’ by trade) aren’t good at all; those who should be the bad guys (Takae and Miwako behave a lot like early Nancy Drew villains with their cageyness, dislike of Nancy, and ability to get Nancy to Second Chance) really aren’t.

In case this point is a bit obtuse, Logan is the perfect example of what I mean.

In SHA, Charleena Purcell has a receptionist (well-voiced by JVS) that at first prevents you from talking to her, but isn’t much of an obstacle. It’s a cut and dried ‘solve this one puzzle’ and then Nancy can talk to the author as much as she chooses — it’s barely an impediment, honestly.

In SAW, we’re dealing with another famous author, who also has a receptionist — Logan Mitchell. Unlike the receptionist in SHA, who’s just Doing His Job and exists long enough for a puzzle, Logan is a rather spiteful character who enjoys hanging up on people, and does it to Nancy with Great Joy.

As a character, Logan matters; he has his own viewpoints, loyalties (that are explored in SPY as well), and his own idiosyncrasies that make dealing with him — repeatedly — a bit like dealing with people in real life. The receptionist in SHA isn’t a character, no matter how much I personally like JVS’ voice work with him. Logan is. And that’s a huge difference in the approach of the games and the shift from the concrete, insert-puzzle-and-go nature of the older games and the more abstract, thematic nature of the newer games.

Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you, the player, and your personal preferences. But it can’t be denied that there is a shift, and it’s the genius of SAW (and CAP)’s genre-shift to a faerietale that does it.

The Mystery:

Our mystery picks up where TOT left off, with Krolmeister sending Nancy to one of his favorite ryokans in Japan as a thank you for her help in the previous case.

This is how we find out that Krolmeister is apparently Spooky AF, as the ryokan is haunted.

Nancy decides to pick up a job while she’s there (the ‘how’ of her obtaining employment and an E-2 visa so promptly is ignored) as an English teacher to some of the cutest (and one of the most disturbing) children in Japan, which is how she spends her days — and how the game gets away with it taking place Solely at night.

The more time Nancy spends at the ryokan, however — and the more people connected to it that she meets — the more that she suspects that the ryokan might actually be harboring a malevolent entity bent on wreaking havoc and shutting down the place once and for all…

As a mystery, the game is solid; you spent most of your time “on-site” at the ryokan, soaking in the very well-done atmosphere, with only a few moments in-game spent at other locations (such as the pachinko parlor, Yumi’s apartment, etc.), and the amount of work that went into every detail of the ryokan is staggering (especially the garden).

Normally, I wouldn’t hang so much on the atmosphere when talking about the plot, but it’s actually relevant here, since the atmosphere is part of the plot — i.e., is it the ‘atmosphere’ of the ryokan that makes the hauntings happen, and did the ryokan kill Kasumi.

Speaking of Kasumi, she’s one of the biggest open-ended mysteries in this game. Did Shimizu Kasumi kill herself, or was her death an accident, or was it caused by a Paranormal Entity, leading to her becoming a ghost herself?

The game tells us how Kasumi died — cleaning a bath that she had never cleaned before, leading to her drowning — but the circumstances outside of her death like her will and her premonitions about her death speak less to an accident alone and more towards Something causing her death.

In my own point of view, Kasumi — remember, this is the Nancy Drew Universe, where ghosts are actually real — had a bit of Prescient Awareness to her, and knew that her death was coming, though not by what. While there’s evidence towards her knowing about her death that could, if looked at in that light, lead one to suspect Kasumi of suicide, it’s unexpectedly hard to kill yourself via drowning in a shallow body of water. Add to that her future plans, and I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Kasumi knew she would die, but she didn’t plan and execute a suicide.

Of course, there’s good arguments to be made on the other side. Whichever way you look at it, I’m just happy with the presence of loose ends, as that’s not the mystery that Nancy’s there to solve — and, indeed, without the presence of an actual suicide note from that period, is a mystery that simply cannot be solved.

The Suspects:

We’ll start with (and yes, the names will all be in Japanese rather than Western order) Shimizu Miwako, the Younger Daughter in our faerietale and the current force behind the ryokan.

As the one (via a faerietale’s rules) destined to succeed, Miwako sure does get the short end of the stick when it comes to her relationships. Her causing/contributing/worsening the rift between herself and Yumi aside, her boyfriend is actively sabotaging her and her grandmother doesn’t think she should be the one running the ryokan, no matter how good a job she does.

As a culprit, however, Miwako would have been a bit confused, given how much she likes the ryokan and the good job she does with it. For a Miwako ending to make sense, she would have had to been influenced by an actual ghost, sabotaging the ryokan without wanting to and having your usual blackouts that come with Psychic Interference. It would have been interesting, but out of the faerietale genre (and out of the Nancy Drew game genre as a whole) and thus not a very good story.

Next up is the Elder Daughter, Shimizu Yumi, who left the ryokan as soon as she could and instead sells bento boxes in Kyoto. Framed as a sort of free spirit, Yumi doesn’t see any need for her to run the ryokan and instead does something that she likes and is obviously very successful at.

As a culprit, Yumi would have, to be frank, been a major disappointment. Already taking fire from her little sister and her grandmother for the Abject Sin of not taking on the family business, Yumi would have been way to easy, both character-wise and tonally for the game as a whole. The Elder Daughter in a faerietale is usually the one who fails (the Youngest Daughter almost always succeeds), and so it’s refreshing to have everyone but herself consider Yumi a failure.

Their grandmother and quasi-mentor, Nagai Takae, is the other person who helps run the ryokan — much to her displeasure, as tradition dictates that Yumi, not Miwako, help run the family business.

Because someone who resents being there will definitely be a much better worker in the hospitality market than someone who loves the ryokan.

Takae has absolutely no head for anything but her own ideas and clings onto tradition not for its sake, but because change is scary, hard, and (in the case of her daughter’s death) heartbreaking.

As a culprit, Takae would have been interesting, but absolutely impossible — unless she was working with someone else. And as interesting as a Takae/Rentaro team-up would have been, Takae simply has no motive for scaring everyone else out. She needs the ryokan to survive, to do well, if she’s going to be able to cling on to the things that she wants.

Rounding out our main faerietale cast is our Malevolent Force, Aihara Rentaro, the ryokan’s handyman and tech expert, who secretly builds robots resembling his girlfriend’s dead mother and uses them to scare people out of the ryokan.

He’s a peach.

Not only is Rentaro our only option for a faerietale ending, but he’s also just the best option for the culprit in general. Handy enough to build a “ghost”, expected in any place in the ryokan without suspicion, and with a strong (if dickish) motive). Like all Evil Wizards/Malevolent Forces in faerietales, he wants to ruin the kingdom and steal away the Daughter — though, unlike a lot of faerietales, he’s convinced himself it’s For Her Own Good.

Which yeah is super gross, but hey, he’s our Villain. Villains should be a bit gross.

Lastly, we’re going to look at two characters who are inseparable from one another for the purposes of discussion: Savannah Woodham and her assistant Logan Mitchell.

Savannah (as we meet her in SAW) is a former ghost hunter who now writes about technology (hence her presence in Kyoto) who mentioned the ryokan in a book about the paranormal. Not being fond of interruptions, she pays Logan to be her assistant so that he can deal with the calls that she gets.

She also brings in a nice little easter egg talking about CAP, where Castle Finster is implied to be the castle she mentions in SAW.

As a character in the Nancy Drew world (as it becomes a world), Savannah is an odd presence, in that she’s a sage without being an academic. Most of the ‘authorities’ that Nancy calls for information are professors, researchers, etc., but Savannah doesn’t quite fall into that designation.

Sure, she’s written a book, but ghost hunting isn’t exactly a…respected profession or topic — and yet, Savannah is clearly the smartest person in the game (and one of the smartest people that Nancy encounters as phone friends). This is great — Nancy herself is no academic, and I do get tired of the prioritizing of Academia over actual knowledge.

Savannah also gets the best lines, and her VA absolutely smashes it out of the park. I’ll talk more about her as the Nancy Games (beginning in ASH), as a lot of her dialogue is foreshadowing for our next games, but suffice it to say that, other than the Hardy Boys and the Drews, Savannah probably fights only Alexei for the most significant NPC in the ND universe.

Her assistant is no slouch in the Significance department, though.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR SPY AHEAD, IF YOU DON’T WANT THEM SKIP UNTIL THE NEXT ALL-CAPS PARAGRAPH.

Logan (according to him) started working for Savannah to make some money during spring break and found the job too weird to quit once break was done (according to him). He loves hanging up on people, resulting in Savannah referring to him as her “lil’ Georgia bulldog”, and would like to go out on a date with Bess (according to him).

Yeah, pretty much everything about Logan should be taken with a grain of salt, as he’s the one who tells it to us, and…well, Logan is a spy. A spy who’s assigned to Nancy at least as far back as SAW, who gets close to her friend(s) and reports back to Cathedral that Nancy’s obsessed with her mother’s death and thus will probably be used by those who want to know Kate Drew’s secrets.

He ‘fires’ Savannah from being his boss prior to GTH because his work is done; he’s completed the mission he’s been assigned and is now working on other things. Logan isn’t a ghost hunter, nor a receptionist, nor a guy who wants to take Bess out on a date — until he needs to be. Like any good spy, Logan is all things to all people, and it’s his tiny bit of backstory in SPY (easily missed if you’re not paying attention — remember, in Nik games especially there’s no such thing as “optional reading” — that makes him so significant in SAW.

SPOILERS END HERE, YOU’RE ALL GOOD TO CONTINUE.

The Favorite:

There’s a lot to love about SAW, so let’s dive right in.

The first thing I’ll mention, because I just mentioned it, is Logan, who is one of my favorite parts of the Nancy Drew universe, let alone this specific game. His VA is great, his dialogue is great, his character is great — he ticks all the boxes, and I love it.

Savannah is, of course, also a favorite; any game with Savannah in it automatically moves it up a few clicks in my estimation. Savannah (and sage-type characters like her) is where Nik’s writing really shines, and her dialogue is always a joy to read and hear.

My favorite moment is actually a tiny moment, despite it being the titular incident: the shadow at the water’s edge. It’s easy to miss, but when Nancy looks in the bath and sees Kasumi’s shadow for that split second…it’s the haunting that games like HAU and CUR really wanted to have — subtle, upsetting, and fully within the bounds of the Laws of Haunting that the ND universe has set up.

My favorite puzzle is hands-down the bento boxes. Longtime readers of this meta series (which will be two years old this summer!) will know that there’s nothing that I like better than a good logic puzzle, and the bento boxes are a great logic puzzle. It’s fun, cute, and I love that you can do it as much as you want.

I do love, lastly, that this game is a faerietale. Having read and analyzed faerietales for a good portion of my life, it’s nice to see that niche interest represented within another niche interest.

The Un-Favorite:

There are a few things in SAW that I really don’t like, as much as I think this game is great.

The most important is my least favorite puzzle: the frame puzzle. This puzzle is one of the few puzzles that actually make me white-out in Rage and refuse to play further, which is a problem given that SAW is actually a great game and I enjoy playing it. It honestly stops me from replaying the game as often as I really should, given its significance to the ND universe, and for how just good it is. I usually make my sister or my best friend play it for me, but I do actually have to leave the room while they do it because it infuriates me that much.

My least favorite moment in the game is a little different, given how good the game actually is; it’s the very end where, depending on the choice that Nancy makes, Rentaro’s apology is accepted by Miwako. Sure, Nancy says it’s unlikely that they’ll date again, but this is a case where the choice to tell on him or have him tell himself should result in the same result: him having to leave. Handymen aren’t thin on the ground, and the ryokan needs help, rather than the same toxic influence that helped bring it down in the first place.

While I appreciate the choice for Nancy impacting the end — I really do — it should say more about Nancy as a character than it should about Miwako and Rentaro. That it doesn’t is a failure in storytelling at the 11th hour, which is a shame in a game this good.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Shadow at the Water’s Edge?

First things first, I would obviously change the frame puzzle a bit. I don’t think it needs removed per se, but I would definitely shift it. Give an option to skip it, perhaps, or make it easier the more time you spend on that screen, or make it easier if you go in and out of it a few times. Heck, even having it reset when you back out (or having a reset button) would be better, since getting stuck in the puzzle results in Hours of Frustration.

Other than that, I would only change the ending choice. Like I said above, the choice is great, but it should be changed to show us exactly who Nancy is (not unlike the choice in GTH). Is Nancy the kind of person who would not trust Rentaro to tell himself and thus does it, or is Nancy the kind to give him just enough rope to hang himself?

Either way, we’re given a view of Nancy that we’ll see more and more — that she is not always kind, nor infallible, nor impartial. She lets her feelings interfere with her cases, and while sometimes that’s good (again, GTH is a prime example), sometimes the only impact her choices need to have on her is to show us her character.

All in all, Shadow at the Water’s Edge is a good, mature look at the Nancy Drew universe, and continues the thread of connecting case-to-case. While it’s ultimately imperfect, I believe it’s not only one of the most fun games to play through, but also to consider in the larger realm of Nancy Drew games and in adaptation of genre altogether.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #shadow at the water's edge #nancy drew meta #SAW #my meta #video games #long post #i didn't really go into the whole Japanese Culture influences in this meta b/c frankly it's not what the meta is about #but shoot off a message to @tinkchick555 if you wanna hear about it; she's the Expert

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birdmenanime · 4 years

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yo eishi is so fucking gay there's no straight explanation for him

LITERALLY!!! eishi is a bi icon (a bicon if you will)

like....okay. i genuinely believe there are pages/panels in birdmen that straight up dont make sense without the romantic lens

okay let’s start off with the big gay elephant in the room: THIS LOOK

LIKE!!!!!!!!! OKAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tanabe doesn’t do the gradient hashing unless it’s like a moment. Like it’s supposed to resemble like a slow breath, a long pause. Another previous example of this happening is when Karasuma realized he had a crush on Tsubame:

(also I would like to note that both eishi expressions in these pages are quite similar, the only exception being eishi in 44 doesn’t have blush marks, and he looks more tired. And like, the fact that they both show the same expressions of wonder and confusion and both a kinda realization of emotions...Eishi is bi next question)

Just..the emotions on this page as Karasuma truly comes face to face with his friend after he’s been missing, for months, at this point. He’s scared and happy and overwhelmed.

so let’s talk about takayama and eishi, huh?

It’s obvious that Takayama’s leave in 33 takes a toll on Karasuma. He was always closest with him (as Tsubame points out in chapter 20), and Takayama pretty much solely interacted with Karasuma outside of bird club and saving people. This isn’t a rant about Takayama and his feelings for Karasuma, but it obviously impacts eishi and his own feelings, because takayama is confusing. takayama is at one moment grabbing him and climbing a tree with him, the next hes covered in shadows and preaching about “time.” Karasuma started the manga wary of takayama (considering him a threat in chapter 3), gets close to him, backs off, etc. and by chapter 24 his first instinct is to protect him from the world that won’t understand him:

( and quick side tangent, since I’m on chapter 24:

it’s basically implied in a panel that karasuma is too afraid to confirm if he has feelings for takayama, and that’s why he’s hesitant to hold his hand:

like...i get he gets embarrassed often...but the focus on the fact that eishi is blushing, and making it a sort of big deal...)

anyways, back to it

So takayama leaves in chapter 33, and he also leaves karasuma a mess. He visits takayama’s grandfather often, hoping to hear some kind of news, and to also just...learn a little more about the friend who ditched him

but it’s also karasuma, so he’s also pissed (the birthday message scene? iconic)

(i also want to briefly pull up these panels from chapter 37. Like, out of all the takayama faces tanabe could draw for karasuma to think about, she has him thinking about takayama smiling softly at him? With that sad look in his eyes? tanabe just say this boy is in love and GO)

and now that I’ve rambled for 50 years, let’s get into whiteouts

now, at this point in the manga, we know the whiteouts were (most likely) takayama and karasuma meeting spaces (held in dreams), and we also know that takayama instigates them, for the purpose of connecting and finding the Seven. So we can’t really be like “karasuma dreams of takayama,” its more like “takayama decides to appear in karasumas dreams” (which, okay, is also a little gay. i mean, he really only needed to do that once, since he already knows karasuma, and knows where he is, and he had already chosen him as the first at this point. what’s the point of having multiple whiteout sessions? the short answer is takayama missed him)

but anyways, the thing that makes this a “the whiteouts showcase that karasuma has feelings for takayama” is because of karasuma’s reaction.

Now, at this point in the manga, Karasuma is still pretty pissed at Takayama for leaving. Like, “if I saw takayama i’d punch him in the face and scream at him for a few hours” kinda pissed.

but whiteouts also reveal another side of how he feels:

he misses takayama. a lot. above anything else, he really just wants him back

that’s why he smiles.

Karasuma actually blushes in some of these panels, and the whiteout space is also full of sparkles and, as i call them, shoujo romance bubbles

like i get that karasuma misses him, and it’s normal for a friend to, but like...tanabe takes it to another level with all of this. karasuma from 34 to now acts like he’s going through a breakup (so many pining angsty breakup songs suit them. i have a playlist going that like, scarily fits them and their exact emotions during this)

really, the big takeaway here is that when it comes to takayama and karasuma’s friendship, tanabe always takes it a bit farther than what you would expect form a normal dude-bro friendship. more blushing. more hints. more smiles and more long gazes and “i knew youd be the first person to fly after me” and “takayama isnt interested in dating [girls]”and “Taka’s special to you, isn’t he?” and “Do you also want to save him?”

there’s a reason that, in the current translated chapters extra, karasuma is flying after takayama

(if you read all of this i love u! id love to hear ppls thoughts, and theres so much more i couldve covered from the newer chapters! Karasuma really just wants to save takayama from himself, and it’s really touching and sad because we watch as takayama strays further and further into his prophecy, and farther away from the seraph karasuma knew. I only decided to omit their discussion of it because I felt like I’d end up talking about spoilers for the end of birdmen and how tanabe finishes their arc)

#ask #asks #birdmen #takaeishi #takayama sou #karasuma eishi #birdmen meta #long post #so sorry to my followers that dont like birdmen SDGJKSGD #ok thats the last ask i swear im done now!!! (unless i get more asks)#birdmen spoilers

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puroresu-musings · 6 years

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NJPW Road To WRESTLING DONTAKU & WRESTLING HINOKUNI 2018 Reviews

April 23rd, Tokyo, Korakuen Hall:

IWGP Jr. Tag Title Match: Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI ***1/2

April 24th, Tokyo, Korakuen Hall:

Tomohiro Ishii vs. Toa Henare ***3/4

IWGP U.S. Title Match: Jay White (c) vs. David Finlay ***3/4

April 27th, Hiroshima:

NEVER Openweight Title Match: Hirooki Goto (c) vs. Juice Robinson ****1/4

Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA ***3/4

WRESTLING HINOKUNI 2018, April 29th, Kumamoto, Grand Messe:

Yuji Nagata & Ren Narita vs. Tomoyuki Oka & Shota Umino ***

David Finlay & Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Jay White & Rocky Romero & Sho & Yoh **¾

Togi Makabe & Toa Henare vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano **½

Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi & Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Takashi Iizuka & Taichi & Taka Michinoku ***

Hiroshi Tanahashi & Juice Robinson & Michael Elgin & KUSHIDA vs. Kazuchika Okada & Hirooki Goto & Will Ospreay & YOSHI-HASHI ***¼

BUSHI vs. El Desperado **1/2

Hiromu Takahashi vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru ***

Photos.

This has been a very long tour indeed, and I must admit that I’m not too fussed about it anymore, just get to the Fukuoka shows already. And even then the Bullet Club: Civil War show on the 3rd does nothing for me either, so just get to the 4th. The gimmick for this tour is LIJ vs. Suzuki-gun, CHAOS vs. New Japan, and Bullet Club vs. Bullet Club, which we’ve thankfully pretty much been spared so far.

The Korakuen Hall shows were your standard Road To... shows with some strong matches. The Suzuki-gunners retained the IWGP Jr Tag belts against the LIJ Junior Heavy squad in a match which started slow and oh so very familiar, but then turned into a very good outing. Desperado pinned BUSHI with Pinche Loco after a lot of silliness, as is prerequisite with most of Suzuki-gun bouts these days. Henare and Ishii finally squared off in a hard-hitting singles collision on the 24th. This was great, with both guys killing each other with strikes, including a great exchange later on. Ishii did a tremendous job of selling a body blow, before unsurprisingly putting the rookie away with the Vertical Drop Brainbuster in 15:20. And in the main event of that show, Jay White beat David Finlay in another great outing, after pinning him with Blade Runner at the 26:49 mark. The main problem here is that no one bought Finlay really winning, and neither are especially over as main event guys. Beyond this though, the match was really good. Also these shows drew fairly disappointing houses to Korakuen.

The Road To... show in Horishima was a lot of the same, in terms of all the usual tag variations we’ve seen all tour, but it did feature an excellent NEVER Title defence by Goto, taking on the fiery Juice Robinson. This went a little long for my liking (26:36), but it was great stuff, and the best match on the entire tour so far. The finishing stretch was highly believable as Juice nailed a devastating Brainbuster on Goto, which looked like it nearly killed him, for a great near fall, then Goto busted out the old Shouten Kai for a super-close near fall, before finally hitting the GTR to retain. Both guys looked tremendous here, especially Robinson, who has come such a long way in the last two years. Of all the people in the world to be Goto’s next challengers, Michael Elgin and Taichi came out to set up some kind of three way. This is as random as it gets folks. Then in the main event, Tanahashi pinned Will Ospreay with the High Fly flow in 18:15 to end another really good tag bout.

The returning Wrestling Hinokuni show (its been on hiatus since Kumamoto was devastated by that earthquake in 2016) was a really disapointing show in my opinion. It featured nothing bad at all, everything was pretty much good, but the top two matches didn’t deliver like I thought they would at all. The main theme of this show was LIJ vs. Suzuki-gun as BUSHI took on Desperado and Hiromu battled Kanemaru in singles contests, K.E.S. looked to regain the tag belts from SANADA and EVIL and Suzuki put the I.C. Title on the line against Naito. BUSHI beat Despy by DQ in an OK match after Kanemaru interfered, then Hiromu came in to make the Kanemaru match immediate. Takahashi won this after the Suzuki-gun guys interfernce backfired, BUSHI misted Kanemaru, then Hiromu hit his Dynamite Plancha, the Death Valley Bomb into the corner and the Time Bomb to win in 11:28. All of this was fine, but I don’t fully understand the reason for it. I have no real interest in seeing them square off in the BOSJ either. EVIL and SANADA retained the Tag Titles over K.E.S. in a very good brawl which was on a par with their WK12 match. This featured some good action, including K.E.S. hitting a Killer Bomb on SANADA off the apron and through a table, which took him out for a while and EVIL had to go it alone. He put up a brave fight, even kicking out of an assisted middle rope power slam and a Magic Killer, which put him away at Sakura Genesis. The LIJ duo rallied back, hitting a Magic Killer of their own, and EVIL hit Smith with a chair, before scoring the win with the STO at the 17:58 mark.

And Tetsuya Naito won the I.C. Title in something of a shock in the main event. This was a very good match but was just missing something. Suzuki worked over Naito’s knees in glorious Suzuki fashion throughout, locking on kneebars aplenty, and Naito did a really great job in selling this, but the Kumamoto crowd just didn’t buy Naito submitting for whatever reason. I mean it was all believable, but they were dead for his peril and struggles. For example, there were points where Suzuki had Naito trapped in a figure four and the same kneebar he defeated Tanahashi with, but you could probably literally hear a pin drop in the building. This kind of fell apart in the closing moments for some reason, as Suzuki locked in a choke, but Naito tried to counter with a neckbreaker (possibly), but they totally botched it and fell to the mat unceremoniously. They had a tremendous slap exchange, which resulted in Suzuki bleeding from the nose and mouth. Naito then hit what looked like a Northern Lights Bomb, but it too looked maybe like a botch, before hitting a Destino out of nowhere to end the match unexpectedly, and give LIJ the clean sweep. The crowd certainly weren’t expecting the finish, but popped for the Naito title win. As I say, there was nothing wrong with this match, but it just didn’t do much for me. Their encounters in the 2013 and 2014 G1s were much better in my opinion, and the finish just seemed kind of flat. One problem was it was maybe too long (30:22) and with the quiet crowd, this made it seem much longer. Naito winning is a surprise, but I suppose it keeps him at the top end of the card, and at nearly 50 years old, Suzuki, though still great, maybe can’t go at the top level as much as he’d like to, so could do with some time in the mid card and in multi-man’s. All in all, these are decent shows and the Goto/Juice match is well worth going out of your way for.

NDT

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