Taigen’s love confession NEEDS to come before he finds out Mizu is a woman.
Listen. I have given this a lot of thought and the more I think about it, the more I’m sure. When looking at Mizu and Mikio’s marriage, we can see how Mikio was in to the idea of a strong woman only so far as he was still stronger than her. This is clear when Mikio insists that he wants to “see all of [mizu]” and insists that they spar; Mikio doesn’t unsheath his blade even though Mizu tell him not to hold back. He assumes he is stronger than her and when this is proven false, like the beta bitch he is, he bails.
But with Taigen it’s different. Mizu and Taigen’s relationship has been a power struggle from the start. Taigen wasn’t introduced to Mizu as a woman or a wife. Taigen has always seen Mizu as a swordsman first. And when the hostility between the two starts to cool, it is because of their mutual admiration of the other’s skill. Mizu’s strength and boldness are what win Taigen over in the first place.
We also see a very important juxtapose between when Mizu pins Mikio to the ground and when she pins Taigen to the ground. In the first instance, Mikio pushes Mizu off him and calls her a monster. He feels put off and emasculated by being overpowered. In the Mizu/Taigen scene, however, once Mizu has Taigen pinned, he stares, awestruck, into Mizu’s eyes and gets a raging hard on. Instead of feeling emasculated, Taigen get so aroused that he has a full blown bi awakening.
So we know that Taigen is different to Mikio in that he is attracted to Mizu BECAUSE she can kick his ass, not in spite of it. But Mizu has been burned before. Badly. So if Taigen were to confess his feelings and tell Mizu that her strength is what he adores most about her, she’d be like, “right, sure, heard that one before.” And that’s why Taigen needs to confess his feelings BEFORE he finds out what’s in Mizu’s pants.
In my daydreaming about a Migen love confession, I find myself reminded of this quote. How Mikio was like the exotic bird collector. He only liked the idea of Mizu knowing her way around a sword so long as at the end of the day, he can still put her back into the caged-in roll of the house wife.
Taigen is also guilty of this with Akemi. I sure there is still no small amount of attraction and love between them, but I think Taigen pursues Akemi mostly out of the personal fable he has written about himself; the poor fisherman’s son who raises himself up to be the star of his Dojo and then marries a princess. He might not have wanted to cage Akemi as much as other men would have, but he still sees her as the exotic bird. The prize. And thats why I can’t ship them.
But with Mizu it’s different. Taigen even admits that Mizu is a better fighter than him. He KNOWS he could never cage her and by the end on the first season he strops trying, opting to stand beside her instead of against her (“it’s your fight, so it’s mine” 😭) So when he does confess his feelings, he has to do is as one man to another and make it clear to Mizu that her strength is what he loves most and that he would never want her to be anything less then the superior swordsman she is.
Only then will Mizu have a chance of believing that Taigen wants to be with her, not to subdue her into a wifely role, but to stand beside her in all her greatness. If Taigen’s confession were to come after he finds out she’s a woman, Mizu might just think, “oh, NOW you want to be with me, cause you think just because I’m a woman I’ll eventually submit to you.” Mizu needs to know she is loved AS SHE IS.
Also, I just think it would be HILLARIOUS if Taigen confesses, and Mizu is like, “ well then….. I guess I should let you know…” and then Taigen spends the rest of the episode with his mind fucking BLOWN and complaining that he has spent the last several months coming to terms with the fact that he is attracted to another man only to find out the man he is attracted to is a woman! He goes through a whole bi awakening for nothing!
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Opera on YouTube
I've shared links to complete opera performances before, but I love to share them, so I thought I'd make a few masterposts.
These list are by no means the only complete filmed performances of these operas on YouTube, but I decided that ten links for each opera was enough for now.
By the way, some of the subtitles are just a part of the video, while others require you to click CC to see them.
Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)
Hamburg Philharmonic State Opera, 1971 (Nicolai Gedda, Edith Mathis, William Workman, Christina Deutekom, Hans Sotin; conducted by Horst Stein; English subtitles)
Ingmar Bergman film, 1975 (Josef Köstlinger, Irma Urrila, Håkan Hagegård, Birgit Nordin, Ulrik Cold; conducted by Eric Ericson; sung in Swedish; English subtitles)
Salzburg Festival, 1982 (Peter Schreier, Ileana Cotrubas, Christian Bösch, Edita Gruberova, Martti Talvela; conducted by James Levine; Japanese subtitles)
Bavarian State Opera, 1983 (Francisco Araiza, Lucia Popp, Wolfgang Brendel, Edita Gruberova, Kurt Moll; conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch; English subtitles)
Metropolitan Opera, 1991 (Francisco Araiza, Kathleen Battle, Manfred Hemm, Luciana Serra, Kurt Moll; conducted by James Levine; English subtitles)
Paris Opera, 2001 (Piotr Beczala, Dorothea Röschmann, Detlef Roth, Desirée Rancatore, Matti Salminen; conducted by Ivan Fischer; no subtitles)
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2003 (Will Hartman, Dorothea Röschmann, Simon Keenlyside, Diana Damrau, Franz Josef Selig; conducted by Colin Davis; no subtitles) – Act I, Act II
La Monnaie, Brussels, 2005 (Topi Lehtipuu, Sophie Karthäuser, Stephan Loger, Ana Camelia Stefanescu, Harry Peeters; conducted by René Jacobs; French subtitles)
Kenneth Branagh film, 2006 (Joseph Kaiser, Amy Carson, Benjamin Jay Davis, Lyubov Petrova, René Pape; conducted by James Conlon; sung in English)
San Francisco Opera, 2010 (Piotr Beczala, Dina Kuznetsoca, Christopher Maltman, Erika Miklósa, Georg Zeppenfeld; conducted by Donald Runnicles; English subtitles)
La Traviata
Mario Lanfrachi studio film, 1968 (Anna Moffo, Franco Bonisolli, Gino Bechi; conducted by Giuseppe Patané; English subtitles)
Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 1987 (Marie McLaughlin, Walter MacNeil, Brent Ellis; conducted by Bernard Haitink; Italian and Portuguese subtitles)
Teatro alla Scala, 1992 (Tiziana Fabbricini, Roberto Alagna, Paolo Coni; conducted by Riccardo Muti; English subtitles)
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1994 (Angela Gheorghiu, Frank Lopardo, Leo Nucci; conducted by Georg Solti; Spanish subtitles)
Teatro Giuseppe Verdi, 2003 (Stefania Bonfadelli, Scott Piper, Renato Bruson; conducted by Plácido Domingo; Spanish subtitles)
Salzburg Festival, 2005 (Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Thomas Hampson; conducted by Carlo Rizzi; no subtitles)
Los Angeles Opera, 2006 (Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazón, Renato Bruson; conducted by James Conlon; English subtitles)
Opera Festival St. Margarethen, 2008 (Kristiane Kaiser, Jean-Francois Borras, Georg Tichy; conducted by Ernst Märzendorfer; English subtitles)
Teatro Real di Madrid, 2015 (Ermonela Jaho, Francesco Demuro, Juan Jesús Rodríguez; conducted by Renato Palumbo; English subtitles)
Teatro Massimo, 2023 (Nino Machiadze, Saimir Pirgu, Roberto Frontali; conducted by Carlo Goldstein; no subtitles)
Carmen
Herbert von Karajan studio film, 1967 (Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers; conducted by Herbert von Karajan; English subtitles)
Vienna State Opera, 1978 (Elena Obraztsova, Plácido Domingo; conducted by Carlos Kleiber; English Subtitles)
Francisco Rosi film, 1982 (Julia Migenes, Plácido Domingo; conducted by Lorin Maazel; English subtitles)
Metropolitan Opera, 1987 (Agnes Baltsa, José Carreras; conducted by James Levine; English subtitles)
London Earls Court Arena, 1989 (Maria Ewing, Jacque Trussel; conducted by Jaques Delacote; English subtitles)
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1991 (Maria Ewing, Luis Lima; conducted by Zubin Mehta; English subtitles) – Acts I and II, Acts III and IV
Arena di Verona, 2003 (Marina Domashenko, Marco Berti; conducted by Alain Lombard; Italian subtitles)
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2006 (Anna Caterina Antonacci, Jonas Kaufmann; conducted by Antonio Pappano; English subtitles) – Acts I and II, Acts III and IV
Metropolitan Opera, 2010 (Elina Garanca, Roberto Alagna; conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; English subtitles) – Acts I and II, Acts III and IV
Opéra-Comique, 2023 (Gaëlle Arquez, Frédéric Antoun; conducted by Louis Langrée; English subtitles)
La Bohéme
Franco Zeffirelli studio film, 1965 (Mirella Freni, Gianni Raimondi; conducted by Herbert von Karajan; English subtitles)
Metropolitan Opera, 1977 (Renata Scotto, Luciano Pavarotti; conducted by James Levine; no subtitles)
Teatro alla Scala, 1979 (Ileana Cotrubas, Luciano Pavarotti; conducted by Carlos Kleiber; no subtitles)
Opera Australia, 1993 (Cheryl Barker, David Hobson; conducted by Julian Smith; Brazilian Portuguese subtitles)
Teatro Regio di Torino, 1996 (Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti; conducted by Daniel Oren; Italian subtitles)
Teatro alla Scala, 2003 (Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, Marcelo Alvarez; conducted by Bruno Bartoletti; Spanish subtitles)
Zürich Opera House, 2005 (Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, Marcello Giordani; conducted by Franz Welser-Möst; no subtitles)
Robert Dornhelm film, 2009 (Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón; conducted by Bertrand de Billy; no subtitles)
Opera Australia, 2011 (Takesha Meshé Kizart, Ji-Min Park; Shao-Chia Lü; no subtitles)
Sigulda Opera Festival, 2022 (Maija Kovalevska, Mihail Mihaylov; conducted by Vladimir Kiradjiev; English subtitles)
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