WA rec and Ukoku

[louiselux]

Wild Adapter rec: this is a brilliant Komiya story: Kohai by Mikona. I'm very fond of Komiya and I wish there were more Komiya/Kubota stories, or at least in places where I can find them. I think in this fic I like the feeling of tension most of all and Komiya's frustration, because the thing about Komiya is that he's teetering on the edge of knowing what it is he wants but is just not quite brave enough to admit it.

Because of something on someone's journal this week, I went back to read Ukoku's bit of the Burial  arc and sort of fell in love with him, a bit. A lot. Or more accurately with him and Koumyou.  

I thought that Ni looked sad and a bit desolate in that image at the end of the epilogue, alone with his rabbit.  But I wonder if he had a hand in Koumyou's death. I suppose I'm thinking that Koumyou knew that Ukoku would stop at nothing to win whatever game it was they were playing, even killing Koumyou despite the fact that they appear to be friends.    I don't know-- it's a sad story and I prefer to think that Ukoku misses Koumyou and didn't kill him, but then he spent years torturing Kami-sama with apparently no remorse, so perhaps he'd find it easy.

And later on I noticed a startling similarity between this picture of youkai Hakkai and this one of Ukoku.

Maybe Minekura likes to draw that pose-- who knows, but I like putting them side by side. Considering they're in the same story arc, it'd be surprising if it wasn't deliberate. I mean, they're very similar.



Ukoku about to kill his master at the temple.



Youkai Hakkai about to kill Gojyo's kidnappers

Comments

[scribblemoose]

Very interesting!

*tickles hakkai's cute youkai!ears*

*gets rent in twain*

oops.

[wildelamassu.livejournal.com]

Rather than retyping what I think, I'm going to repost a bit of a conversation about this that yukie1013 and I had in a flocked post on megmurry's journal. ^____^

WL: "instead of Nii and Hakkai I'm thinking of Nii and Sanzo as two halves of the same path

Very much so. Either one could have gone the other way, I think, depending on the environment--and Koumyou was really the only one to understand either. It's a question of rationalization vs. rationality. Sanzo and Nii play the extremes, but the spectrum is U-shaped.

While Kami-sama could be seen as Nii's direct answer to Koumyou's Sanzo, I think that you have a point in using Nii himself. In some ways, Ukoku was more whole than Nii is, and could be interpreted as a kind of parent or pre-generational figure. I think Koumyou's death stripped him of what little 'humanity' he had left (though I also suspect he orchestrated that murder, seeing as understanding someone implies having a kind of power over the one being understood).

I interpret the entire "journey west" scenario as the playing out of an elaborate chess game between Koumyou and Ukoku--one in which Nii (and the Kougaiji-tachi) and the Sanzo-ikkou muddle all the clear-cut divisions and break all the rules.

In something of the same dialectical vein, have you read Snowyheart's color wheel theory?"

Yukie: "This makes me wonder if the death itself was orchestrated. ...Well, I ahve two theories. One is that Ukoku 'rationally' (I use this word in THE loosest sense!) knew Koumyou had to die for the greater wossit, but didn't realise he would be so affected by Koumyou's death. This is turn makes me wonder HOW DAFT THE GUY CAN BE ABOUT THE HUMAN HEART. Despite all his calculating rationality, he's still a human being. When he gets angry, he goes POW, and then seems almost sheepish afterward. That intrigues me a lot: 'oh wait. uh. that was illogical, sorry'. And he does seem to get some childish glee out of teasing Kou. Or maybe it's scientific eee: 'I ring bell he go POING - check it, Pavlov lives! :D'

The second theory is that Henchmen Are Stupid. Ukoku said 'go get the sutras', the henchmen said 'you got it boss', and they came back and bragged about having fragged Koumyou (they really did, eugh) and possibly got annihilated for that transgression. Scarily, I can see this. Ukoku/Nii just smiling, running a hand over the sutra, saying, "Nice work," amiably as you please, and then snapping the head thug's neck almost clinically.

...Now I have even MORE of a crush on Nii.

Interestingly, in Minekura's colour art, Nii's eyes are a cool grey, or slate-blue.

...And lo, a crow fight on my lawn. WTF."

WL: "I agree--he just buries everything in the Ultimate Mantra of rational self-interest and acts as though logic is a religion in and of itself. And yet, Koumyou dies, and Ukoku becomes even less accessible/"sane". (I feel like he was picked on or lonely as a child, and this is a defense mechanism gone awry, awry.)

It always makes me think of young Gonou. I think the parallels are conscious on Minekura's part, and there's going to be some major plot between those two at some point. Hakkai will know he could have easily gone that way--become another Nii, if it hadn't been for Kanan's intervention and her distillation of his emotion/principles."

Yukie: "(I feel like he was picked on or lonely as a child, and this is a defense mechanism gone awry, awry.)

I concur. Observe Ken'yuu outside the temple in Burial. Very closed body language - he's all bunchy.

Nii is the ultimate over-the-top Revenge of the Nerd.

And I do think he had it bad for Koumyou. I mean, Koumyou is the only one who gets a REAL smile out oft he guy, who gets him to utterly drop his guard, who startles him. When you're a guy who prides himself on being able to 'read' anyone and be completely 'unreadable' himself...Koumyou turns Ukoku's world upsde-down and shakes it a lot.

And I do concur about he and Hakkai. Just like there are mass parallels between Sanzo and Kamisama and Sanzo and Hazel. Foils r fun XD I don't grok the Split Soul Hypothesis (though I don't disrespect people who do and do see where they're coming from), but for sure, there are major similarities."

[yukie1013.livejournal.com]

I don't know-- it's a sad story and I prefer to think that Ukoku misses Koumyou and didn't kill him, but then he spent years torturing Kami-sama with apparently no remorse, so perhaps he'd find it easy.

I don't know about torture.

I think Nii took on Kami knowing Kami would grow up looking VERY MUCH like Ukoku. And to make Koumyou jealous. I mean, Ukoku heckles Kouryuu for no reason ("I thought you were a little girl :D")...he's JEALOUS of the kid. So Kami was his way of (a) trying to make Koumyou jealous and (b) trying to prove his way is better: 'my student is more powerful, see?'

That said, Ukoku was probably kind enough to Kami, but the kid KNEW he was a replacement and a 'plaything' or pawn, so...yeah, that'll do a number on an already-damaged mind. (The implication in the manga is that Kami was a child prostitute when Ukoku found him. He asks Ukoku to buy him. Erk.)

...As I now have a thought that Kami got raised the way Ukoku himself may have. He may have gotten every toy he wanted, and his parents weren't CRUEL, but they were mostly absent. Hence the killer overachieving. A want of attention?