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mangamushi · 3 years

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Thoughts on Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa

FUKUMOTO Nobuyuki, 11 volumes, published from 2003 to 2006 in Big Comic Original (Seinen)

Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa (Legend of the strongest man Kurosawa) follows the story of 44 years old construction worker Kurosawa as he realizes he spent most of his life without any meaningful connections with anyone nor any special achievements. He decides to change his life so that he can become proud of his own accomplishments and efforts, and earn respect and appreciation from the people around him.

(spoiler warning)

So I’m currently binging Fukumoto manga, after having them on my “plan to read” list for several years…I started with Kaiji, but initially the first manga of his that caught my interest was Kurosawa. The themes of it are right up my alley, and I like main characters that are not teenagers or young adults.

Kurosawa has a sequel, Shin Kurosawa: Saikyou Densetsu, which is a direct continuation. I’ll mostly be focusing on the first part here.

The art is typical Fukumoto style. Odd at first, definitely not the prettiest nor the most impressive out there, but it does the job and I really grew to like it. He doesn’t hesitate to give exaggerated features to his characters, and I actually find the deliberate ugliness of the character designs refreshing. It certainly fits the story of Kurosawa, makes the characters very expressive and works well with the often comedic tone.

Although the art looks simple, Fukumoto can deliver very intense pages when he needs to.

His forte is in his use of narration combined with the picture, rather than in the drawings alone. He is a master at using a narrator’s comments or the character’s thoughts to raise tension and make the manga flow better.

Kurosawa is definitely written with a lot of heart. Both the manga itself and the titular character, feel very genuine. Kurosawa is very flawed and very human. He is rough but powerful, his desires are simple, and he is straightforward in his reactions, to the point that his impulsive nature and lack of social restraints put him in trouble, especially when it comes to women...

There are a few instances however where he comes close to harassing women, which is played for laugh, which I disliked. Those scenes made me less sympathetic towards him as he actually deserved the repercussions of his actions here.

But besides those chapters, Kurosawa is overall a likeable character, easy to sympathize with and to root for as we see him at a low point of his life.

He is clumsy in his interactions with his coworkers, which, coupled with his hot-temper, often leads to misunderstandings and prevents him from getting closer to them despite his best efforts. I actually found Kurosawa’s failed attempts at achieving popularity reminiscent of Watamote. The beginning of both series, in which a pathetic main character fails repetitively at gaining the appreciation of their peers through outlandish strategies, elicits the same mixture of pity, second-hand embarrassment, and amusement.

Kurosawa also gets into a fair number of fights. While those fight-focused chapters were not bad, I was personally less into them.

Drawing literal fist-fights in not what Fukumoto’s best at. His character’s postures are somewhat stiff, which he compensates for with heavy use of speed-lines. It is okay-ish, but I want read a fight scene, there’s plenty of fighting manga out there that can do a better job.

I like Fukumoto more when he writes more psychological battles, like in his gambling mangas. Of course, psychological elements and strategies where not totally absent from the fights, but it was nowhere as much as in his gambling manga. Sometimes I think Kurosawa was a bit too lucky in the fights, as he is not a very athletic person nor someone with a lot of experience in fighting. It did not feel very convincing to me.

Besides, it is through these battles that Kurosawa gathers allies, a reputation and respect. But most of his opponents are teenagers, even middle-schoolers ! Granted they are very scary teenagers, but I still fail to see how a 44 years old man throwing hands with teenagers is such a praise worthy thing...

I think I prefer to see Kurosawa fight and struggle to improve his life in a less literal way that actual physical fighting.

I haven’t read that many of Fukumoto’s works yet, but I feel like an important theme in them is perseverance/resilience. He puts his characters through a lot, but they tend to have some form of resistance that shines through as admirable. Kurosawa’s will to fight and to push back against adversity is sometimes the only thing he has left, and it is extremely important.

However, that is not an innate ability that comes to him easily -at times Kurosawa hides, flees, cowers. He hesitates, and he needs to think things through before he actually decides to fight.

Fukumoto: You know how protagonists in shonen manga do things like jump in to stop their classmate from being bullied without thinking about how they might get beaten up themselves? I always felt that wasn’t real. So with Kurosawa, I wanted to make a manga that shows hesitation, and how it actually isn’t so easy to defend people like that.

(Excerpt from this interview)

I like this kind of manga where characters reflect about what is the right decision to take and on how they should be living their life. And how the reader has access to their inner turmoil and thoughts.

His strength is often born from sheer desperation and desire to survive. It is when he is cornered that he can manage to act and fight even when the odds are against him. He has to make do with the very few tools and options he has, which leads him to elaborate unconventional tactics to win over his opponents.

Having cornered underdogs characters winning over more powerful, but less desperate, opponents seems like a running theme in Fukumoto’s manga (cf. the made-up E-card Game from Kaiji, in which The Slave is the only card that can win against The Emperor, precisely because it is so low that it has nothing to lose anymore).

In a way, one could argue Kurosawa follows a formula reminiscent of classic shounen manga: a character who is below average at first rises to a heroic status through willpower, effort and after fighting a string of opponents. However, there are major differences that set Kurosawa apart, besides the older characters and more adult setting (Kurosawa’s worries are grounded in reality: growing old alone, financial problems...) Kurosawa does not provide escapism and dreams. The story begins with Kurosawa as a single old man, and ends with him an even older still single man. He does not become an amazing fighter through power boost and magic training like a shounen character might.

He does want to dream big, but all things considered, his achievements are fairly modest. He is not saving the world or becoming hokage. At most he is just helping some other marginalized people from his neighborhood.

Even if he puts his life on the line to fight, what he accomplished will fade into oblivion at some point.

But, even so, his efforts and struggle are still admirable.

Besides, Kurosawa is not about friendship, at least not the kind of friendship you find in shounen manga.

In Fukumoto’s manga, people may stick together for survival, they can share intense emotions when put through the same ordeals, but it’ll rarely turn into true companionship. Kurosawa is alone from the start, and while he does connect with other people throughout the story, in the sequel those relationships are left behind as he leaves on his own to start a new life.

Fukumoto: My protagonists, on the other hand, are always alone – not only do they not have followers, they don’t even have friends. (laugh) [...] I can’t do manga where the characters readily make friends that they risk their lives for. I started out by drawing short human drama pieces, but even then – partially because I wasn’t doing long-term series, but – they weren’t generally stories about friends.

I was kind of expecting Asai, one of Kurosawa’s coworker, to have a bigger role, but that didn’t happen. (I liked the part where he tried to comfort Kurosawa after he got humiliated so I was hoping for more!)

The story isn’t very cohesive or straighforward, it just follows Kurosawa’s life, who wants to change but lacks a clearly defined goal or road to follow. There isn’t one big coherent plot, instead the story goes in different directions, shifting from one genre to another from chapter to chapter. Kurosawa even admits it himself !

The quality of the chapters and different arcs is in my opinion rather uneven.

There are some really powerful scenes, notably the very end of the manga which is very touching. Kurosawa successfully leads a group of homeless men to defend themselves against some delinquents who were threatening them, but as a result of his injuries, he is implied to die. (The sequel manga reveals he actually just goes into coma for 8 years). It is bittersweet ending as he finally achieved something and is surrounded by human warmth.

Shin Kurosawa, the sequel, is similar to the first part, though slightly more light-hearted and focused on humor (even though Kurosawa’s situation technically worsens!). It seems to be less liked than the first part for those same reasons, but I personally enjoy Fukumoto’s humor and his more slice of life-y mangas. It has many genuinely funny moments. Once in a while there are still some chapters that feel deeper/more thought provoking, as Fukumoto likes to reflect about society, life, and humanity in his stories.

For anyone looking for other manga with similar themes, I can recommend Furuya Minoru’s excellent Wanitokagegisu . Both feature very lonely adult men who wish to turn their life around, and oscillate between humor and psychological drama.

#fkmt #saikyou densetsu kurosawa #fukumoto noboyuki #kurosawa #manga

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duxarcana · 4 years

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Clear Card Chapter 40 Review

Looks like the fandom has kind of died down; there was no hype about the new chapter, and no one is talking about it. Since it seems no one else has uploaded a review of the new chapter, I’ll do so here (not that anyone will ever read it).

So let’s start off with the GLORIOUS cover artwork. I’ll admit I let out a rather loud squeal when I first saw the video thumbnail. This is one of the most beautiful outfits Syaoran has worn, and the similarity of its style and color scheme to his previous outfits makes me hope that we may one day see this as a battle costume. Kaito looks stunning here as well, and it’s nice to see his staff in colour. The image of these two enemy magicians who both hold the power of the Moon and are connected to time, depicted together, wielding their magical artefacts among clock gears with a full moon in the background--this image is simply ethereal.

Now, moving on to the content of the chapter:

We start off with Sakura recounting to Tomoyo the circumstances of The Mirror attending school in her place. I’m always down for some good Tomoyo content (which seems to be kind of lacking in Clear Card), so this chapter was off to a great start.

We also find out that because of all this, poor Syaoran was late to class. Since he seems to have quite a serious concern for punctuality, I hope he wasn’t too stressed out about the situation. I feel bad for the poor card, too. Accidentally coming to class without the homework was scary enough for me back when I was in secondary school, even without attempting to impersonate someone else on top of it! At least Sakura apologizes for putting her through that.

Sakura then gives the outfit she wore back to Tomoyo, and explains that she repaired it with Repair. Tomoyo comments on how much the card resembles her. I find it kind of funny that although she had seen it earlier in Chapter 34, she didn’t notice it looked like her because she was too busy fangirling over the adorableness of Rewind (weren’t we all?).

She then asks Sakura to not use the card except in emergencies, and to bring all other items to be repaired to her instead (she even makes a pun on the card’s name by saying “repair” in English, which was cute). I also find Tomoyo’s protectiveness of the dresses she made to be really cute. I hope at some point CLAMP allows her to tell Sakura how she feels, as it would not only continue their trend of LGBTQ+ inclusiveness (another aspect which seems to be lacking in Clear Card), but would be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how much Sakura has matured in the supportive answer she would surely give to her dear friend.

Suddenly, enter Syaoran! He apologizes for being late and talks about his conversation with the teacher. We are also blessed with this precious image:

Anyway, something interesting is that since Japanese typically doesn’t require pronouns if they’re implied, the gender of his teacher is never revealed, but in other languages, these pronouns are necessary. The Spanish and French translations both chose female, but the English translation chose male.

Syaoran mentions how the teacher was worried about him taking care of himself when he’s living alone. I agree with your teacher (and Yue, and Sakura, and Eriol...), Syaoran! Please make sure you’re taking good care of yourself!

Then poor Syaoran goes on to do what he always does: doubt his own abilities and claim to not be able to do anything. As much as I hate it when he does this, I can honestly relate to him a lot. I hope he learns to develop more self-confidence and realizes how important his contributions are!

Sakura does her best to reassure him a bit, but it doesn’t look like it did much. Another thing I am hoping for in the series is for Sakura to at some point attempt to help Syaoran with his anxiety, instead of just commenting about it to others. I get that she’s trying her best, but I wish she would realize the extent of Syaoran’s insecurities and actively help him to overcome some of them.

Thankfully, Tomoyo brightens the mood a bit by starting to film them, leading them to start quickly opening their bentô in embarrassment, where we are graced with another beautiful picture of Syaoran:

Syaoran informs the two that the teacher also told him that on Saturday, their school will be having a zyugyôsankan, an event in Japanese culture where parental figures visit the school to observe their child in class for a day. And that’s the last we see of Syaoran in this chapter...

Sakura brings home the information, worried that her father will be unable to attend due to work. Tôya begins to offer to go in his place, but Fujitaka interrupts and excitedly declares that he can go, calling the university to arrange for him to not work that day. It feels like Fujitaka has been shown to be very cheerful and innocent in Clear Card. Sakura’s personality is often compared to Nadeshiko, but it is nice to see that she gets some of it from her father as well.

We then see that Akiho is having a similar conversation with Kaito. She talks about how she told the teacher that no one could come to observe her, as all her family is living overseas. She also mentions that there were other students who didn’t have any family members who could come, one of which would obviously be Syaoran. Since we don’t see him at school at all on Saturday, I wonder if he went about his school day alone or just stayed home. I just wish someone (like one of his friends, maybe? Looking at you, Sakura and Tomoyo) had remembered him that day and made sure he wasn’t lonely :(

But anyway, enough about my favorite character, since CLAMP clearly doesn’t feel the same way.

Kaito slyly remarks that he could go to the school as her parental figure, if Akiho so desired. Akiho, blissfully ignorant of Kaito’s evident malicious intent, says she would be very happy if he did so. I must admit that while I wish Akiho were a bit more perceptive, her elation is very cute. I hope Kaito listens to Momo and realizes how much Akiho cares about him before he decides to do any evil stuff around her--or worse, continue to use his time magic and sever his soul beyond repair.

After Akiho is safely out of earshot, Momo asks Kaito if he intends to “do something”; i.e., attempt to cause the creation of another Clear Card. Kaito says that he would like to if he has an opportunity, but explains that his real reason for wanting to go is that there is a person he assumes will be there whom he would like to meet.

The day comes, the parents see the children in class, et cetera. The topic of Sakura and Tomoyo resembling their parents comes up, and Sakura asks Akiho if she looks like any of her family members. Akiho says she doesn’t know, as she has rarely seen the faces of any of her family members, and she was told her parents passed away right after she was born. This is very interesting information. While the depiction of the person assumed to be Akiho’s mother on the cover of Chapter 37 having angel wings did suggest that she was not alive, it has now been more or less confirmed. However, Akiho’s phrasing unnerves me a bit. The creepy and clearly evil Clan to which she belongs, which has always valued the gaining of more power above even the lives of its members, informed Akiho that right after she was born, her parents “passed away”? I wonder what terrible fate befell the two of them after their failure to bear a magical child...

Sakura, being kind as always, takes Akiho’s hand and tells her with a smile that she is the first person whom Akiho resembles. An innocent comment that, with the knowledge of the forced magical synchronization of Sakura and Akiho, becomes slightly less cutesy.

Kaito comes in to watch the choir practice, and Fujitaka seems quite startled--I wonder if, with half of Clow’s power, he can sense Kaito’s presence?

We find out that the person Kaito wanted to meet was indeed Fujitaka. Here lies another bit of discrepancy between translations. In the Japanese and Spanish versions, Kaito says that the vessel they have created (i.e. Akiho) holds even greater magic potential than Fujitaka, half of the reincarnation of Clow Reed. In the English version, however, he says that Fujitaka himself is a vessel, and that he is an even bigger one than Akiho. (I did not finish the chapter in French, and it seems CLAMP has taken down the video now, so I unfortunately do not know how the French version translated this scene.) The quality of the official English translations for Cardcaptor Sakura, whether the original manga or the Clear Card chapters, is just pathetic. It’s no wonder I spend half my time in the fandom answering basic questions for English fans--the garbage translations can’t even bother to properly translate essential plot points. Just how is it that the unofficial fan translations people produce are more accurately translated than all of the OFFICIAL English translations? Alright, I’m done being salty. Back to the chapter.

Kaito is all ready to start causing mischief in order to inspire the creation of a new card, when who should appear...but NADESHIKO. Oh my god. The intensity of her expression, the mild fear in Kaito’s eyes...I am entirely ready to see Nadeshiko protect her husband and the two little Alices in Chapter 41!

If you read this far, thank you so much for taking the time to hear my thoughts!

#ccs #clear card #lgbtq #syaoran #yuna d. kaito #cardcaptor sakura #cardcaptor sakura clear card

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inonezurights · 4 years

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plot twist: nezuko is actually going to be the one to use the breath of sun technique. theres some evidence for this scattered about the manga but it mostly plays into kny’s ongoing theme of inheritance.

evidence under the cut!:

1.) nezuko conquers the very sun itself.

as a demon she is able to do the one thing muzan could never dream of accomplishing (despite using alchemy and various other methods to fix this set back to his conditional immortality)

2.) the markings that appear when she taps into her well of power. she becomes more demon-like but gains a monumental power boost.

nezuko doesnt eat humans. my theory is that this is her demon slayer mark (you could argue that its just a demon mark but it makes more sense for it to be a demon slayer mark) vine-like marks appear all over her body. we know later on in the manga when demon slayer marks are revealed, that they come in all shapes and sizes.

her vines resemble gyomei’s marks in a way. demon slayer marks arent limited to a certain size or shape or only showing up in one location on the body.

3.) spider lily.

relates to the above point. ufotable sums it up best visually in the kimetsu no yaiba end theme sequence. nezuko is associated with spider-lilies. in the manga muzan is turned into a demon by a doctor through the use of a medication muzan’s spent centuries attempting to recreate.

the medication held a key ingredient- blue spider lily. but a freshly turned muzan killed the doctor before learning its secrets, thinking it didnt work.

the vine-like demon slayer marks on nezukos body may be a reference to this!

4.) A: nezukos blood demon art.

okay before we get into this.. lets clear up some things about breath of fire vs breath of sun.

all breaths are derived from the breath of sun. its creator, yoriichi tsugikuni did his best to teach as many swordsmen his talent but no one could perfectly recreate it.

rengokus family utilized breath of fire.

tanjiro remembers his fathers dance of the fire god in a near-death battle against rui. but... he was unable to sever ruis head by himself. the breathing technique took too much out of him

(despite his father telling him theres a way to breathe where you wont grow tired even after hours of vigorous activity. tanjiro’s father being a frail man usually seen bedridden before his death but able to dance barefoot in the snow for hours)

just like tanjiros father comes to him in a near-death hallucination, nezukos will is awakened by her mother’s visage telling her tanjiro is in danger. she activates her blood demon art.

the ability for her blood to burn demons or take on an explosive quality.

its only by nezuko coating ruis strings in her blood, weakening them so tanjiro can actually cut through them.

this moments badass and turns the tides in the series but it almost takes a back seat to tanjiros dance of the fire god. its plainly there but the intrigue of his new sword style captivates the audience.

tanjiro and nezuko are the generation destined to end a cycle of hate.

tanjiro inherited yoriichi’s hanafuda earrings.. but nezuko inherited his will and breath style. the ancestral memories tanjiro witnessed depict young yoriichi as the younger twin sibling to the first upper moon, kokushibou.

young yoriichi is naturally talented with the sword but doesnt enjoy it like his older brother. instead opting to protect and support the weak around him (for instance their sickly mother. young yoriichi acting as a crutch for her)

(”youre weaker than your little demon sister. but anyways, youre pathetic!! You’re the big bro, so you ought to be the one protecting your little sis, not the one being protected.”

“Hey, man. How do you feel now? You’re alive, pathetic and alone. Your last ray of hope pretty much used up all her strength.”) the above page paralleling the plight of the twins.

during the fight with kokushibou he expresses similar sentiments. hes alive but hes all alone and pathetic, never able to surpass his human brother who died gracefully.

also, nezuko is often in a defensive / healer / support role like her twin counterpart.

4.) B: Fire vs. Sun & Nezuko’s other blood demon art

Shinobu points out that theres a difference between the breath of flame and breath of sun / fire and to never refer to the breath of flame as the breath of fire. she tells him that he’ll have to speak to rengoku about it

taken from the wiki: “The kanji for "sun" (日ひ hi?) has the same pronunciation as the kanji for "fire" (火ひ hi?).”

nezuko’s other blood demon art is burning demonic poison out of inosuke and uzui

its an advanced form of the technique she uses to wake up tanjiro and the others on the infinity train!

5.) whats in a name?

nezuko and tanjiros names. taken directly from the wikipedia:

“ The first part of her first name means "red bean" (禰豆ねず nezu?), and is also part of the Japanese word for a flower, the Japanese Snowball(五禰豆ごねず gonezu?). The second part is a common female name suffix, which translates to "child" (子こ ko?). “

nezukos name essentially means “flower child” further proving her connection to the blue spider-lily and it being an intentional detail. also interesting to note with her demon slayer marks.

“ His first name contains the kanji for "charcoal" (炭たん tan?), "to heal" (治じ ji?) and "son, male" (郎ろう rō?), which is also a common male name suffix. “

throughout the series tanjiro is shown to be a healer.

he heals urokodakis pain of losing his beloved students. he defeats the hand demon and releases all the dead childrens’ spirits.

he welcomes zenitsu as a travel companion and doesnt abandon him, becoming zenitsus first friend and a motivation for him to stay in the demon slayer corps.

he earns inosukes respect and helps teach him what its like to live not just for the sake of survival.

he heals giyuu who still blames himself for his sister’s death as well as sabitos. hes able to push giyuu to forgiving himself and working past his mental block

he even helps get genya and his brother sanemi to the point where they can understand one another again. he gives them that push

he heals shinobu. allowing her to know her older sister’s wish and legacy will be carried out even without shinobu there to ensure it. shes able to commit to her plan of taking in a lethal dose of wisteria poison so she can take douma out.

he heals the rift in rengokus family with rengokus dying request. even leaving while still injured to speak with the deceased pillar’s surviving family. comforting rengokus little brother.

he helps kanaos heart awaken, giving her the push to do what she wants without the flip of a coin. its through his dedication and kindness he earns her respect

some examples with demons:

he shows mercy to ruis “mother” (killing her gently when he realizes she welcomes death to escape endless terror).

as rui dies he rests his hand on the boys back, realizing despite all the horrible things hes done, he was once a kid.

when confronting the drum demon kyogai (telling him his blood demon art was superb and treating his writing as if they werent trash by refusing to step on them) he allows the demon to remember who he was long ago.

he rolls the temari towards susamaru as she dies, wanting to play with her toy.

theres a few other examples but i think ive... made my point here.

6.) how?

like its creator, i believe breath of the sun came to nezuko naturally. its why shes able to rapidly gain strength in the heat of battle, why she doesnt need to consume humans. her will power is so strong (breath styles typically require self-discipline)

they even make a point of showing shes still breathing but asleep while tanjiro trains.

a style of breathing where the user can move without losing stamina... thats nezukos secret.

this is how she will defeat muzan and try to save tanjiros life!!!

conclusion: tanjiros a red herring change my mind

#KNY Spoilers #statements #KNY Theory #theory corner with ya boy #long post #body hororr

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