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mangamushi · 10 months

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The World is Mine / first chapter

The world is mine, Hideki Arai, 1997, pre-published in Young Sunday, Seinen, 14 volumes

TWIM follows a pair of criminals, Toshi and Mon, as they travel through Japan setting bombs to explode on their path. At the same time, a third force of destruction also wreaks havoc through Japan : a mysterious bear-like beast, dubbed Higumadon.

Having read TWIM twice now, I found it interesting to revisit the initially confusing first chapters after knowing the rest of the story. Here is an attempt at reviewing the manga through an analysis of the very first chapter. Spoiler free, except for said first chapter obviously.

Before digging in the chapter itself, let’s take a look at the first page greeting the reader when opening the book. The title, written in a brush calligraphy style, dynamic and angry, fits perfectly with the following content of the book. This type of calligraphy is recurring in Arai’s work, often used in the manga to depict screams and other noises, almost more part of the artwork than textual. This title page already sets the tone and style of the story. The words themselves, an assertion of power by an individual over the world itself, highlight the main themes of the manga perfectly.

BOMB

The title of first chapter, Bomb, is equally fitting, foreshadowing the explosive nature of the manga.

It can refers to literal bombs : the bombs made by Toshi in fire extinguishers, shown in the very first panel of the very first page, before anything else.

It is also a fitting title because the whole manga is like a bomb, explosive and violent, it is sure to shake the reader. Arai is known for his hot-blooded, frenetic, furious style. TWIM is polemical and powerful work, that I’m convinced only Arai could have made. To me no other manga come close to the experience of reading TWIM.

TWIM depicts the clashing of different destructive forces. The manga is characterized by build-up of power. If the first chapter is titled “Bomb”, the second chapter already escalates it to “Power Bomb”. Throughout the story, there is rising tension, eventually leading to annihilation. But after the spark, something can rebirth from the remains. This cycle of destruction leading to a blank state and finally the birth of something new, is central to the work.

Toshiya and Mon, a complex and compelling duo

The Toshi-Mon duo is introduced as soon as the very first pages.

Toshi is testing his self-made bombs on a beach, a camera in hand, perhaps to keep a trace of the power he feels he acquires through bombs.

He appears timid, hesitant, holding the camera with shaking hands and rambling about his weak spirit.

Toshi is a self admitted ordinary and weak person, yet, he is enthralled by the powerful Mon, whose irruption in Toshi’s life totally derailed it from its unremarkable path. Toshi has the skills to build bombs, but Mon is the detonator that allows him to actually put them to use. The two of them are opposite but fuel each other.

Toshi, as the technical brain of the duo, stands within a distance, whereas Mon’s very first appearance is within the explosion itself, highlighting his own explosive nature.

Next to the talkative Toshi, Mon hardly speaks, and often rather grunts and screams like an animal. The name “Mon”, immediately reminds of “Monkey” or “Monster”, though it gets another explanation later in the story.

Mon is like a wild beast, unpredictable, dirty and violent. Other scenes from the first chapter shows him having rough sex with a girl in a car Toshi drives, and violently beating a man in a high-class restaurant : Mon follows his urges, with no concerns about social conventions or morality.

He is primitive, unaffected by human rules, and does what he desires, takes what he wants, without remorse.

(gobbling up the crayfish whole, shell included.)

Right from the first chapter, the characters leave a strong impression, Arai is not afraid of exaggerating his character’s quirks, to depict the ugliness in people -both psychological and physical. He carefully draws his characters with different attitudes, gestures. Arai shows their personality and feelings through body language, the characters are rarely static but have tics, little movements in most panels.

Mon only utters one proper sentence in the chapter : "I will acknowledge myself": a recurring sentence, becoming increasingly important as the story progresses. It gives a hint on Mon’s psychology and motivations, yet those (and Toshi’s) are still mysterious at this point. Why are they setting bombs un the first place? How did Toshi and Mon meet and associate? What are they even trying to achieve ? The setting raises many questions that don’t get answered straight away. Their extremely violent behavior seems senseless, it feels even more cruel and hard to stomach without a reason behind it.

Toshi and Mon form an interesting and contrasting pair; the dynamic between them is complex.

Higumadon - nature vs human society

A third main character is introduced right from the first chapter : Higumadon.

The bear-like creature appears in front of fishermen by the sea, attacking their boat.

His apparitions are fragmented and mysterious : we either get an indistinct overall shape of the beast, or only isolated parts of him clearly depicted (just a paw, some fur..). He is compared to a bear, but his true nature is unknown.

His appearance is more suggested than shown clearly, his presence is shown through little pieces of his body, and by the marks and damage he leaves behind.

Abnormally huge, he too is powerful and destructive. He is seen again during a storm, part of a raging and violent nature.

There is already a parallel established between Higumadon and Mon. Both of them are associated with bears : Mon carries a plush bear with him everywhere, and that plush is used by Arai to transition from a scene focusing on Higumadon to a scene focusing on Toshi-Mon.

This comparison between Mon and Higumadon, both of them wild beasts, is further reinforced every time we switch scenes. When Higumadon leaves behind giant paw prints, Mon leaves footprints as well (with red wine, reminiscent of blood). When a cow is torn apart by higumadon’s paw, it is followed by a panel of a bomb in Mon’s hands.

These three could be placed on a spectrum from “civilized” to “wild animal”: Toshi who is into technology and had an ordinary human upbringing. Though he makes bombs to kill, he is reluctant to dirty his hands in more direct ways, without the distance created by long-distance weapons. He has the most awareness of doing something bad.

Mon, who seems halfway between a human and an animal. He has no problem killing and hurting others, just because he has the power to do so, the same way wild animals may kill and hunt. This makes him paradoxically both worse in his action and less morally reprehensible than Toshi.

Higumadon, who seems almost like he was sent against humans by a rebelling nature. He kills, but it’s nature as a beast/animal makes it so that you can’t resent him like a human criminal with actual bad intentions. He is just like a natural disaster that can’t be judged as morally bad.

Frenetic and dense in information

In TWIM, the mob characters are drawn with as much details as the main cast, they are often given little dialogues that don’t add to the story, but give a glimpse of who they might be, showing that even the background characters have their own lives, personnalities, for example the fishermen who first witness Higumadon in the first chapter.

This sometimes has the downside of making an already dense manga even more information and text heavy than it needs to be.

There are a lot of different characters, from all sort of backgrounds and ages. From the first chapter alone, we get children, fishermen, delinquents, a high school girl, rich customer of a fine dining restaurant... But all of them are shown as vulgar and crude.

Arai’s art might to not be to everyone’s taste, but it is good. His characters have realistic though often exaggerated features, his art is easily recognizable. The pages are dynamic, and he can create really powerful scenes and pages, some that stayed in my mind even long after I closed the book.

The art is detailed, sometimes it requires some attention to parse everything that is going on in some panels.

TWIM oscilliate between big action scenes, and scenes that are very wordy. Both are dense in information to take in.

Even starting from the first chapter, there is constant movement: Toshi and Mon are on some sort of road trip, moving from one place to another. Moreover, the narration jumps quickly from one scene to another, in this chapter alone we have change scene eight times.

Everytime, there are very precise indications on the place and date, sometimes down to the exact time. The places depicted are real, so it is possible to precisely trace the path of the protagonists.

The manga can be hard to follow at first, it is confusing, with a choppy narration, no clear direction... It seems like many people drop the manga in the beginning, which is a shame as they miss the best parts of TWIM.

The manga starts as incomprehensible, and then progressively pieces come together to form a meaningful story.

TWIM is a polarizing work, often hated or loved. Its violence can be off-putting to some readers, but those who go past the messy first few volumes are rewarded with a powerful manga like no other, and a lot to think about even after closing the book.

#arai hideki #Hideki Arai #twim #the world is mine #ザ・ワールド・イズ・マイン

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ruikasas · 6 months

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mitsuaya matching icons

#the guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all #mitsuaya #koga mitsuki #oosawa aya #mitsuki koga #aya oosawa #mine: all #mine: icons #mine: arai

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youjustwaitsunshine · 2 months

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Seb helmets: the long awaited sequel

Mugello 2020:

Not on Seb's website, but still on ferraris instagram, Seb had this helmet to celebrate Ferraris 1000th gp. (in the same week, he announced his move to aston martin)

Turkish GP 2021

a beautiful sea creature design to remind us to save our oceans. i personally really love the turtles

Singapore GP 2022

gorgeous neon rainbow on super light absorbent black design. now it can be said with finality (as of yet): jens munser and sebastian vettel never missed when it was about helmets in singapore. i have a keychain of this helmet so I'm especially fond of it.

British GP 2022

ngl i cried a bit just from pulling those pictures up again. he is so loved. i love how even though we know barely anything about sebs family, this helmet shows so much personality from his kids and hanna. this is the most gorgeous helmet of them all. however, shoutout to the subtle nigel mansell design hed have driven with if his family hadn't made a secret birthday helmet for him.

Abu Dhabi 2022

I'm so so proud to be a fan of a driver who loves his fans. The few times I've met Seb, he's always taken his time - often more than allotted - to greet as many people as he could, pose for pictures sign things etc. He feels very genuine in showing his appreciation for his fans and so I think this helmet is a beautiful monument to the love people have for him. He is deeply beloved and in turn, he loves his fans and has shown this from his retirement message that was so much more personal than a press release, over the time between the announcement to his last race and beyond. This helmet is a testament to the way we love Seb and the way he loves us back.

USGP 2022

Peace and Love baby! this gorgeous woodstock inspired piece is incredibly gaudy and glittery and very unapologetically so. i love it deeply but opinions were very split on it

Japan 2022

a very cleverly done thank you to helmet provider arai. who doesn't love opening packages? especially one as beautiful as this one! it's a bit sad to not have the little ninja mascot on the helmet for sebs last f1 race in japan, however, with his 2022 helmet designs being so beautiful and elevated, he outgrew it a bit. important side note about japan 2022 here is sebs battle to the line with fernando alonso.

Hungary 2021

Let us remember this GP for the joy it brought and not the desperation that followed. Seb came, saw and served cunt in his rainbow sneakers, rainbow shirt, rainbow mask and rainbow helmet. He drove to the podium and nothing bad or terrible happened after.

Brazil 2022

the intertwined bars of the german and then, further up, the climate change flag (and the brazilian one on top) are reminiscent of the 2018 german gp helmet!

Austria 2022

The iconic bee helmet! I actually have a few pics of this one from the Austrian GP that i took myself. Even though that GP specifically sucked so hard it made Seb sway towards retiring, the helmet is beautiful and iconic.

Honourable Mentions:

- Miami 2022: the snorkel helmet! first GP underwater, also premiering sebs GIGANTICALLY OVERSIZED climate change t shirt also found in his shoo

- Canada 2022: Canadas Climate Crimes/ stop mining tar sands. this one made a politician on twitter sooooo angry. it lost her rant a bit of credibility that she directly profited from the tar sand mining.

- LGBTQ+ CLEAN OUR OCEANS (Abu Dhabi 2021): the world's to do list. i mostly have to laugh at the unlucky placement of the lgbtq+ and the clean our oceans phrase. why are the cishets exempt from cleaning our oceans? questionable.

- Race4Women: Saudi Arabia 2021. a return of the beautiful day-glow paint.

almost all of sebs helmets are either on the sebsite or deep in jens munsers archives (difficult but not impossible to find)

Seb helmet masterpost

#sebastian vettel #ive seen a few of these helmets irl at the essen motorshow and i honestly just stood there in awe #helmets like this are such an underrated art form

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just-a-pole-sir · 8 months

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#atsushi arai #shirtless #atsushiaraiedit #mine

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nochangeintheplan · 9 months

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Drawing challenge for myself to complete the list of characters here in a month:

List is all Yakuza 0-4 + Ishin on Mudae Bot, I'm pinning it here just so i can keep track of who I've done.

Bacchus

Bob Utsunomiya

Daisaku Kuze

Habu

Hiroki Awano

Hiroya Egashira

Homare Nishitani

Jun Oda

Keiji Shibusawa

Makoto Makimura

Miracle Johnson

Nugget

Pocket Circuit Fighter

Tetsu Tachibana

Tsukasa Sagawa

Wen Hai Lee

Yuki

Akira Nishikiyama

Futoshi Shimano

Gary Buster Holmes

Goro Majima

Haruka Sawamura

Hiroshi Hayashi

Jo Amon

Kazuki (Yakuza)

Kazuma Kiryu

Kyohei Jingu

Makoto Date

Masaru Sera

Osamu Kashiwagi

Reina

Shinji Tanaka

Shintaro Kazama

Sohei Dojima

Sotaro Komaki

The Florist of Sai

Yayoi Dojima

Yumi Sawamura

Yuya

Daigo Dojima

Jiro Kawara

Karou Sayama

Koyuki

Nishida

Ryuji Goda

Andre Richardson

Goh Hamazaki

Rikiya Shimabukuro

Taichi

Yoshitaka Mine

Hana

Hiroaki Arai

Masayoshi Tanimura

Nair

Seishiro Munakata

Shun Akiyama

Taiga Saejima

Takeshi Kido

Haruka (Ishin)

Hijikata Toshizo

Kondo Isami

Oryo

Okita Souji

Saigo Kichinosuke

Sakamoto Ryoma

Takechi Hanpeita

i had to break it up because there was a limit on blocks on tumblr

#personal challenge vs passport-pls #hence the selection of games they played fjkd #they have the majimathon i have this #i know for a FACT i will not pull this off

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itsmelilyv · 11 months

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yuri recommendations for yuri day

Hello!! It is yuri day. Here is a short list of yuri I really love, if you're looking for something good to eat ~

Even Though We're Adults by Takako Shimura A bartender sleeps with a teacher, only to discover she's married. An exploration of the difficulties adults can have discovering and managing relationships.

How Do We Relationship? by Tamifull Two college lesbians start dating on a whim, but run into problems when they try to express their needs. A genuine, heartfelt look at the difficulties of communication.

Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games by Eri Ejima Girls at an uptight high school embrace their love of fighting games. Full of gorgeous renders of girls crying and screaming at games. There's a tournament arc. If you like competitive video games at all, please read this.

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't A Guy At All by Arai Sumiko An introvert with a love of hard rock makes a new friend. Incredibly stylish, and written clearly by someone with a love of music.

Liar Satsuki Can See Death by Ryouko Yuri-light. A high school girl, cursed to see death before it happens, tries to prevent it. A mix of detective mystery and slice of life, and very dark at times.

Otherside Picnic by Iori Miyazawa Yuri-light. Two college women explore a horrifying alternate universe, full of unknowable monsters, to make money while searching for a lost friend. If you like creepypasta, this might be for you.

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Bonus Round, for absolute freaks like me who constantly need more to read:

Futari Escape: Two young women do anything they can to avoid work.

A Monster Wants to Eat Me: A high school girl who wants to die meets a mermaid who might grant her wish.

I Don't Know Which One Is Love: A college woman falls ass-backwards into five relationships at once.

She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat: Two lonely women befriend each other over their love of food.

Lily (by Yy): A high school love story grows into a college love story. Slowly, deeply explores the growth of a relationship.

Moonlight Garden: A secluded, otherworldly brothel hides the lives of it's mysterious inhabitants. One wants to escape.

And as for yuri games, I really love Ladykiller in a Bind (a bratty woman explores dom/sub relationships) and Heaven Will Be Mine (several women use mech fights as an excuse to make out)

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I have read so so much yuri in the past couple of years and it's only getting better and better... we really are living in a golden age of yuri. I have at least twice as many I could recommend.

At some point I'll make this into a full, thorough post, like I did with Lily Explores Ten Transgender Manga (which I would super recommend if you want some good trans stuff~)

happy yuri day <3

#yuri #yuri day #pride #happy pride #sapphic #anime and manga

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