please just take a moment with me to appreciate how "s'envoyer en l'air" has so much comedic potential as an expression considering Chuuya's ability and how much mileage two teenagers who love antagonizing each other could get out of it
the apothecary diaries does such a great job of portraying how traumatizing it can be to be a victim of pedophilia and grooming, instead of romanticizing it like a lot of anime series do. it is disturbing, it makes audience uncomfortable and disgusted — which is how we must feel about pedophilia. you're not supposed to feel comfortable because it's 'normalized' or 'just fiction'; you're supposed to feel disgusted.
the creator didn't make anshi 'fall in love' with the previous emperor or develop a stockholm syndrome — instead, she took her revenge in the same way he hurt her and other girls, which he deserved. her anger, hatred and disgust towards him are rightly justified and realistic for a victim of pedophilia.
the older palace lady (who might or might not be a ghost) told the girls abt her story as a victim of the previous emperor at the ghost story gathering:
whether or not she was a ghost, she wanted her story to be heard, of how much the victims suffered at the hands of the previous emperor. they were imprisoned for the rest of their lives in the same place that ruined their lives. telling her story might be the only way for her to find peace within herself.
an abuser may die but the trauma he leaves on his victims will last forever. it does not go away.
it's even presented as a horror story because there's nothing more terrifying than SA.
(i may have missed a few points but im keeping this brief. thank you for reading my essay!)
watched conclave today and i have to say that as someone that grew up in a christian environment i got kind of emotional ??? like in the speech that the cardenal does about war that part
kyubey i dont think human teen girls are the most emotionalest of everyone in the universe i think youre just a misogynist
This is an extensive post of how abuse afflicted Yugi Amane and even Hanako's behavior well into afterlife. Of course, emotional abuse is directly related to physical abuse, so I'll be talking about them together for the most part.
We don't know why or who is behind this, and I won't particularly talk about it since it's not the focus anyway. We know his abuse started somewhere during his first year and was repeated until his suicide, july of his 2nd year. According to Tsuchigomori, he was badly injured every single day, so that's at least around a year worth of constant physical abuse.
However, it's important to note that it's very likely that before the physical abuse, emotional abuse was already consistently taking place, with multiple signs- He's isolated, experiences social withdrawal and has no friends, skips classes & school activities and has poor academic performance that contrasts his actual capabilities.
His emotional development is poor; He has difficulties expressing and understanding his own feelings, very likely a factor in the degradation of his and Tsukasa's relationship where Tsukasa can't understand Amane and Amane can't understand Tsukasa either due to lack of proper communication, and something that carries well over into the afterlife as Hanako.
The physical abuse worsened his already messed up mental state, and everything ultimately drove him into depression. He engages in behavior that puts his own safety in jeopardy (Like when he was way too close to falling over the window, both of his feet were at the very edge of the window frame), and while his love towards space stayed the same, he was overtaken by feelings of helplessness.
Even a rock could travel from the Moon to Earth, which gave him hope. It's important to highlight the word "even". He claims that if 'even' a rock can go this far, so can he, suggesting very low self-esteem. It's an object that carried him through many hardships because of this hope, but everything got so bad said hope just made him feel worse. At some point he started experiencing active suicidal ideation, marked by him giving away his treasured possession to Tsuchigomori in order to rid himself of this "hope", and declaring that he decided he wouldn't "go anywhere", a clear metaphor for deciding he would give up on his future and take his own life. He decided he cannot go anywhere near farther than a rock.
As we mostly see his ghost self, we have a clearer vision of Hanako than we have of Amane. We can easily see his horribly low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. When we catch a glimpse of his perspective, we see how distorted his sense of self is.
He repeatedly claims that he isn't worth anything and that his existence itself is a punishment, and so refuses to disappear, considering that it would only be a release from the torment he deserves.
He hates himself down to his core, although this is a combined result of both depression via his experienced abuse and his PTSD of the murder-suicide. As Amane, he was capable of saying that it's fine if he's tormented this terribly, that even if there's no reason for it, he forgives it, massively contrasting Hanako who is incapable of forgiving himself, claiming that even if he had a super special reason for Tsukasa's murder, there's not a single justification that would warrant forgiveness. He's capable of forgiving anything that anyone does to him no matter how horrible, but not of forgiving himself.
As such, verbal abuse directed at him is taken positively by him, such as when Akane states that "reformed villains", refering to Hanako, make him sick, continuing to talk about how he can never take back what he did, essentially degrading him. He was given very harsh words that visibly hurt him, even implying that it triggered his PTSD for a moment, yet he could only claim that Akane is the type of person he likes most, as he was essentially validating and feeding into Hanako's already deeply negative view of himself.
This is also supported by his time in the Picture Perfect arc via his belief that he's undeserving of anything better for himself. Hanako said it himself in 71 that he wished he could've lived a normal life with Nene and Kou, and the Picture World reflected exactly that.
It's a world that was shaped exactly like he wanted, and that's exactly why he hated it. He knew what his reality was, and furthermore, he knows of his crimes and how he was the one who destroyed his own future, and so thinks he's undeserving of it.
He refuses to look at the stars for too long, because that reminds him of the hopes and dreams he gave up on in reality- He has no right to dare pick them up again, further highlighted by him refusing to go on the moon in the End of a Dream. His wish wasn't granted while alive, and now can't be granted after death.
In his helplessness, he is unable to reach for better circumstances for himself. After all, he's quick to adapt to whatever bad thing comes his way. "It's just how the world works", and he has to accept it.
However, we know how that doesn't apply to the people he cares about. He may have given up on everything, but he is unable to give up on the people he loves. No matter how much he suffers, no matter what he has to do, he wants the people he loves to find happiness.
No matter how much he tried to tell himself he isn't supposed to care, he desperately wants them to live the fulfilling lives he didn't have. And if he is the one that gives them the salvation they need, he finds the indulgence to want a small part of him to live through them, the indulgence to hate himself just a little bit less.
He actively attempts to hide his past from other people, being content with them only knowing basic information about it (that he's a murderer), mainly because he doesn't want to appear vulnerable or know how much of a horrible person (according to himself) he actually is.
When it comes to people he has a good relationship with like Nene, he's actually afraid of them finding out, and even months after promising he would tell Nene everything, he's still reluctant to do so due to overall difficulty with opening up- exposure to characters or topics that relate to his past more often than not results in reactions varying from heavy emotional distress, expressing aggression, anger, guilt and/or shame, to reliving traumatic events. Avoidance seems to be his main method of coping.
Hanako suffers from emotional dysregulation. He not only has high difficulties processing and expressing his feelings, but has difficulty picking up on others' emotions as well. For half a century he had been socially and emotionally neglected while also being incapable of ever maturing past the age of 13, much less healing from his past experiences. They rather worsened due to a supernatural lifestyle. When he first met Nene, he wasn't behaving appropriately at all due to this and their relationship went through many difficulties due to his lack of boundaries and poor emotional intelligence, and him communicating his true feelings is always a rare occasion.
Not only did he not take into account other people's feelings ("Yashiro will hate it, but it's ok, she'll move on someday and live her life", not taking into account and understanding others being possibly spiteful over his actions and direct their hate towards innocent parties), he doesn't even take into account his own ("Why? Good question. Why am I doing it?" and "Even though I was prepared to never see you again, I'm so happy to have you back. Weird, right? There must be something wrong with me"). However, due to Nene's influence, he seems to be a little more upfront with his feelings lately.
He's also incredibly self-reliant. Both events of Picture Perfect and the Severance were a result of Hanako doing everything by himself without consulting anyone. He decided by himself that he's the only one that should dirty his hands as he was already a sinner, that it's easier to dump everything on the one that's already guilty of similar crimes, because he didn't have any other solution in sight. It's important to note that he took the *entire* blame for the Severance- Even if all he did was feign ignorance to no. 6's actions.
Him being grounded in the miserable reality he finds himself in is both a strength (as he is quick to adapt to his conditions) and a major weakness- He'll only be able to see the most practical, yet unfortunate approaches.
In the Clock Keepers arc, he wanted to trust Kou when he said he would save Nene, but his attempt quickly turned to failure when he was not seeing any tries, let alone results. He was even upset at Kou when he considered that if he wanted the job done he should have just done it himself, knowing that his methods aren't ones someone would approve of. Methods that he doesn't approve of himself, but carried them out anyway in his despair.
In fact, Hanako did not break free from the shackles of abuse. He is a child that has been placed in a position of leadership filled with various responsibilities for fifty years. He is committed to his duties as a mystery after being promised salvation by 'God', believing that his sins would be forgiven, but he's essentially just being used.
He is, in present time, still repeatedly emotionally abused, manipulated and exploited to fulfill others' agenda. After all, control is at the heart of abuse, and his vulnerabilities will continue to just get taken advantage of as long as he's only capable of masking and avoiding them. However, Nene's influence upon him seems to make him capable of slightly improving himself, even if it's just very small steps at a time.
GUYS, what if in the next chapter (123) there's other of those time fluctuations and yashiro is able to interact with the amane that's fixing the clock without time traveling and that gives her the info she needs so she doesn't jump with so little clues of what changed in the past
crying
something about how the night changes or something
Storm Bringer deleted scene
binary star - a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to each other (ex. sirius, the dog star)
more astronomy au content who cheered !! i say as i look out to the silent crowd
Kobato and Osanai start their high school lifes with the goal of becoming "ordinary", while getting away from their pasts. But the duo time and time again ends up putting themselves in the middle of mysterys to resolve.
For starters I want to say I love this anime. It wasn't in my watchlist this season, but after I saw gifs of the first episode I got curious with how pretty it looked. So I watched it. And it enchanted me.
I have to admit that I love mysterys and slice of life, so after ep1 i thought this series was just that (specially if one makes expectations with hyouka), but I was actually surprised with the twist of the overall cases being a lot more complex and serious.
I still found it refreshing tho, not all mysterys have to be murderers, they can be simple like doing cocoa or finding a poshette; it touches something i was craving and it makes reality, the common moments in our lifes, a lot more interesting.
(I want to make this post more about the anime as an adaptation and make my thoughts on the story another one, where i talk about the novels,,, so i'll leave that there).
The anime in itself is just so good, is stunning; the animation, art, character design, backgrounds, music and sound, the voice actors, direction; everything works so well together and creates a feast not only for the eye.
Even if there are moments i wish would have made it to the anime, is obvious it won't be a 1:1 adaptation and tbh they aren't a big deal for the entire picture. Also, I have to point out that how it translastes the novels to such a different media is a bit fascinating.
Kobato is the one that narrates the novels and even if they could have used that in the anime anyways, i like that they didn't. Kobato's sarcastic comments or how his thought process goes is lost, but it doesn't change him as a character. We are shown the mask he is trying to create for himself, but fails to mantain. That mask that everyone around him sees.
Specially if we take in consideration how kobato is an unreliable narrator, so in the anime we have this chance to see what he really wants us to see of himself, but we can also see the things he hides.
Also, without him narrating the animators and team are able to create the myteryous atmosphere that is around the characters and specially in the relationship between Osanai and Kobato. that have such a unique dinamic.
I like that they don't give us the answers to the characters with just words, but showing. and if we take into account the type of media an anime is, I find this the right choice.
BUT, i do regret that some moments where lost, like kobato running outside of the school at the end of the spring tart case after osanai doesn't answer, even before kengo finishes talking or the panic attack he has in the elevator being changed to the moment under the bridge. i think taking away this moments belittles how important osanai is for him...
On other point I was curious how they'll adapt the story considering it was modernized and the climax on the first book is bc kobato has an old cellphone, but i think it was fine how they did it.
This is definetly one of my favorites animes, not just this season, but this year. I really recommend it for the mystery fans.
And I'm specially exited to see how they adapt the 3&4 novel and their relationships, can't wait!!!!
reviews something something the only place where i'm not a hater @/myotsune on twt
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