It’s that time of the month again, so…
09/10: Dit’s quick summary!
09/10: Jezzy *almost* makes up for last post’s rant
09/10: Andy’s response to the chapter!
And… I’m the last one to respond! Woo! Go me! So Read Dit’s/Jezzy’s posts responses first.
[wpspoiler name=”Andy’s Responce” ]
I’m not too convinced with Takei’s “and they all come-together-to-fight-as-a-team.” Wasn’t Hana by himself going to Redseb’s place? Shouldn’t we go there first? Well, whatever, I guess we have this team building exercise first.
But I do think Men is going to take the “Lyserg” route this time. No, not the “Jeanne-loving” route, the “I’m on my own, but I’m just going to join another team” route. We just need another chapter of “we have different dreams, so I’m not going to be on your team” and then Men can be on his way.
I do like the plot twist of Hana fighting “classic Yoh.” Kinda hope Hana loses, just because that would be funny. Even more funny would be if Fake-Yoh then takes over Hana’s body…. hmmm…
[/wpspoiler]
[wpspoiler name=”シャーマンキング Flowers Chapter 17 Spoilers” ]
Well, this chapter sure was intense! We had plot last month and this time we get some action again.
– First we see that Men didn’t kill the guys after all. Guess he’s not a sociopath (yet).
– Hana happens to interrupt them, causing Men to attack him because HE wants to be team Hao’s leader.
– Men uses Shamash to attack Hana and make him summon the onis, but then Gakko comes into scene and stops the blow. Men kicks his ass and Yohane is a cutie again.
– Men tortures Yohane with one of Shamash’ weapons and Hana gets really pissed off, so he decides to fight back even though Amidamaru’s gone. Yohane and Gakko tell him to stop, but he starts summing onis anyways because, you know, he’s that cool.
– Hana’s dark oni crushes Shamash and Men says something quite interesting: “I’ll definitely be able to save Mother with this” So… is something wrong with Jeanne? Is she ill? Dead? How bad can it be that only God can do something about it? Guess we’ll have to wait to find out what’s going on here. He also mentions someone or something called “Daidara”…
– We learn that baby Men in volume 27 is one of the last things Hana can remember, because as we already know, someone erased his memories.
– THEN WILD HAO APPEARED!! Some of the ideas from the Oneshot are recycled here, which I really like! (Hao’s girly kimono, the cats, don’t call me uncle call me king, Hana’s left leg etc.) He tells Hana a little bit more about their enemies and how dangerous they are.
And then PLOT TWIST
– Actually Hao’s not in Funbari! It’s Hana who’s in Hao’s place, since… well… he kinda commited suicide by summoning the onis AGAIN. In the last page, Hao tells Hana that he’ll bring him back to life on one condition: he has to defeat… a fake young Yoh!!! （つω；）º·
LOOK AT THIS CUTE BASTARD
[/wpspoiler]
Chan Chan Chaaan
First off, “Daidara” may be referring to “Daidarabotchi.” Basically, it’s a huge oni.
Second: God damn it, Takei.
[wpspoiler name=”LEAVE REN ALONE!”]So, okay, I’ve already established I think the Ren/jeanne pairing should rot in Plotbunny Hell, and I even told Andy I that I hope Jeanne is dead, but if Takei is going to go along with this, he’s only proving what I’ve been telling Andy for a few years — He hates Ren.
I joked that Takei gave Ren the least amount of furyoku at the end of Mankin because he found out that his wife had a crush on Ren, and thus wanted to do all in his power to make the character suffer. I kind of slid off of this when I learned he was trying to get us to believe in the whole Ren/jeanne thing, since Jeanne, as some interviews have said and/or implied, is his favorite character. He thinks Jeanne is “unique.” Sure, he loves Anna more, but Jeanne’s still special. I figured, “Okay, well, he’s putting Ren and Jeanne together, so maybe he really doesn’t hate Ren at all.”
No. If Jeanne really is ill or dead, he’s just doing this to torture Ren.
Can we just recap? Ren grew up in a castle that reeked of rotting flesh, had no friends, no real parental or familial love to speak of (apart from Jun, of course). He was molded into a cold-blooded killer, a homicidal maniac, for his family’s purposes, causing him unspeakable pain and sadness which he was never able to adequately express.
Sure, he finds friends after thirteen fuckin’ years, but then also has to deal with the realization that he’s a murderer, and has ruined dozens, if not hundreds, of lives with his evil deeds. Nichrome is right smack dab there in front of him as a reminder of what he was.
After killing Nichrome, we have Yoh being all, “You’ll find love and have a family one day :D” which we can tell is something that he wants, even if he’s not willing to admit it to himself. So the ordeal is over, Ren goes back to school and studies and blsudfbjsdkag, and he may or may not be thinking of Yoh’s words every now and then. Could that really happen to him after all he’s done? Or was it all the stupidity and delusions of a pothead?
But no, Takei decides he finds Jeanne, they fall in love, and they have Men. We have absolutely no reason to believe he’s unhappy with any of this either. If I were to go along with this, I would say it would be just the opposite. Believe me, after a life of pain, there really is nothing better than finding true, unconditional love.
So what if Jeanne’s deathly ill? Dead? Somehow held captive? In such dire straits that not even Ren can rescue her?
Imagine Life spitting in your face, knocking you down, and basically ripping you off at every possible occasion, then finally, somehow, giving you a break and allowing you to have someone who loves you more than anything. Unconditional effing love. Now imagine Life being all “LOL I LIED” and ripping that person away from you.
All that pain Ren’s felt since he was a child is back. He losing – or has already lost – one of the two sources of happiness in his life. I can only assume he’s thinking it’s punishment for his past sins. He’s damning himself for not being strong enough yet again. When he was a young teen he’d take out his pain by killing everything. He can’t afford to do that now. He has an electric company to run, the Tao triad to rule, and I presume he’s head of the Tao family now too. Not only that, he has to take care of a child version of himself, now going through the same pain he did.
You try to tell me this isn’t the cruelest fucking thing a creator can do. I won’t be listening.
As much as I hate this pairing, as a fan of Ren, the last thing I want is for him to suffer any more than he already has.
Dit, I love you, but I really hope you’re wrong. [/wpspoiler]
