warning: i edited this all in one night and it is very long, will add pictures soon; basically this yap sesh is all abt splinter and how the rise fandom failed the crap out of him
When you hear the name Lou Jitsu, what comes to mind?
A flash of fleeting fame and ill-gotten glory? The commercialization of a ten-thousand year old culture? Conceitment? Insolence? Greed? Lithe and fit and capable of exponential profit, the perfect figures, six of them, wads of cash to wipe a powdered brow. Women hooked on either sides of toned and spray-tanned arms, readily switched out for bigger, better, a harem, a retinue of debauchery. A smile that blinded, bleached bright perfection, uncanny, uncaring.
There was never enough room in the sky when Icarus fell, it seems.
Now, let me ask another question.
Imagine death. Featureless, unforgiving, imminent. Imagine fire, molten edifices lapping at exposed flesh, a sea of flames. Imagine pressure, indomitable, inescapable. Imagine innocent lives, eight sapphire jewels boring into the soul, wet with uncertainty, pronged fingers grasping at tattered satin sleeves.
When you hear the name Splinter, what comes to mind?
Sacrifice? Duty? Honor? Patience that transcends understanding, an unshakable sense of internal peace, wisdom preceding the beginning of the ages, sprinkled with honored grey hairs. Calm and quiet and mild mannered, soft eyes with a voice that caressed wounds, an infinite sadness resting in the creases demasked into his cheeks.
Forever a mystery remains: where Daedalus looked first when he found his son was no longer behind him.
When most people in the TMNT fandom think of Rise Splinter, they think of a disappointment. A joke. A pitiful fall from grace. After all, the show was canceled for a reason. And everyone is entitled to their own opinions. What would the world be without this variety?
Then I sit with myself, and I rewatch episodes while dreaming about the ones that never got to see the light of day; and I think and I stew and my heart aches with the feeling that they could be wrong.
Hamato Yoshi is, in a way, everything the Hamato are not. Patient. Sacrificial. Fearless. From his youth, Yoshi was expected to be something like this. His mother died doing her duty, a task so great and profound, it outweighed the importance of her son. His grandfather Sho quickly took the mantle, guiding his grandson in the way of the Hamato. It was all that remained of their family. It was all that mattered. In Yoshi’s mind, the Clan would always—must always—come first. It took his mother. It would take him, too.
Yoshi, however, was quickly shown to be the opposite. He wanted nothing to do with the system that let his mother die. To a young Splinter, the Clan was nothing but a hindrance, something to be ashamed of. Yoshi, being a teenager in what appears to be 1980s Japan (given the show takes place in 2018 and he is canonically in his 40s), would be growing up during the later half of the Showa Era—Japan’s second “Golden Age”. The economy had become strong post-war. Technology made massive leaps and bounds. Musical genres like city pop and idol culture began to rise to national recognition. People from all over the world began to consume manga and anime, the East and the West blending together as both rose to power. Japan became romanticized, fetishized, and sought after. And still, Sho badgered Yoshi with these scrolls of yore and stories of times before. Everything was moving on. Yoshi was trying to move on. But here his grandfather was, dragging him behind. Making him remember. Forcing him into that shell. In this kettle of pressure from the emerging Westernized cultural fondue of familiar Japanese customs and unfamiliar American attention and idolization, Lou Jitsu was born—a persona that served as an escape from the expectations of the Hamato that Yoshi had been subjected to ever since he was a young boy.
This Westernized caricature of Hamato Yoshi is a very familiar phenomenon with immigrant children. That pressure to conform, to double your “Whiteness” in order to be accepted by the dominating culture, even in spaces that are meant to be yours. How many Black stories have I heard about children wishing they could “be white”? Or OCs stripped of melanin decorating third grade, second grade, first grade sketchbooks of young kids of color? It might not always be obvious, especially if you are not a POC, but it is a common phenomenon for many (not all!!) non-White kids living in America or influenced by American media. Yoshi, too, has this moment of perceived “clarity”: he does not belong here, in Japan. He belongs in America, where people will accept new ideas and forms of expression, validate his unique talents and interpretations of the world, listen to his perspectives. Take him seriously. Grant him freedom.
Sweet child with wings of wax.
Yoshi cuts his grandfather off. It’s reasonable. The Hamato clan demands too much. Every day, it’s sacrifice, duty. You are a weapon. Lou Jitsu is not a tool. He is a star, a champion, an idol. He refuses to see his grandfather, who continues to pursue him until he doesn’t anymore. Lou goes to America to find fame. He finds attention—albiet not exactly what he seeks. See, Hollywood in the 1980s is not a safe place to be if you are a person of color. For the longest time, American media has made light of non-White actors and actresses. Popular movies depicting actors like Eddie Murphy or Jackie Chan frequently included racial stereotypes disguised as comedy. The film Coming to America, for example—starring Eddie Murphy and released in 1988—depicts a fictional African king coming to the states to find a wife. While innocuous in concept, the execution is rife with microaggressions about people who live in African countries (for context: I am a second-generation West African immigrant). I highly doubt Lou Jitsu was immune to any of this. Yes, he escaped the toxicity of his oppressive family expectations, but everything else was stripped, as well. His name was erased. His culture was made into a joke, mere entertainment for an audience that could seldom pronounce the names of the foods he grew up eating.
In the season one episode “Jupiter Jim: Ahoy!”, we see a clip from a Lou Jitsu movie, Lou fights against characters in red lion masks (which are Chinese and not Japanese, btw) who speak in stereotyped “choppy” (ugh I hate saying that) accents common in films “representing” East Asian characters (i say “representing” as sarcasm; this is just racism at its finest). For the sake of the episode, I believe these stereotypical accents were done in parody of real life representations (ex. a group of people filming a parody of a racist commercial and imitating it bar for bar). I highly doubt the actual creators of Rise intended to genuinely depict characters in a racist light, given the show’s diverse background. However! In the context of the Rise canon universe, I can imagine the fictional directors of this fictional movie are probably trying to depict East Asian people in a stereotypical way. (I hope this makes sense). That being said, Lou Jitsu fully leans into this depiction. We see it again in “Origami Tsunami”, with the clip shown in the movie the turtles are watching at the beginning of the film. The same stereotypical accent is used by both of the featured actors, including Lou Jitsu. It’s especially incriminating when you listen to how Lou Jitsu typically speaks in other flashbacks; during “Goyles, Goyles, Goyles” in season two, we hear Lou Jitsu speaking to Hugunin and Mungin when in prison, and he sounds nothing like he does when he is acting in those movies. His inflections feel less forced and “anime-dub” levels of purposeful awkwardness. He sounds casual and doesn’t stress certain vowels in the way that many racist depictions of East Asian people tend to do.
Perhaps I am looking too far into it. Every actor has a tone they take up when the cameras are on. That budding confidence looks good on him. I wonder what excuses Yoshi told himself.
Yoshi drifts further from his Clan. He fills the void with loud parties and the attention of women. The only person who returned his affections wound up being a giant spider demon, forcing him to fight in—and I reading this right—a to-the-death underground battle royale? Talk about rough. But the worst part isn’t being turned into a spider woman’s slave. It’s losing his relevance. See, once he disappeared, the world forgot about Lou Jitsu. Who knows his name: randoms in ninja chatrooms who joined the Foot? His dojos were turned into clown houses or sold to other property owners. His movies faded into obscurity. All along, he was a puppet, a toy, something to be laughed at. Tossed aside. Burnt upon reentry. How familiar this sensation is to us.
The turtles gave Yoshi a second chance.
Yoshi learning he was a nobody now became easier with the mutation of his body. Irrecognizable, Lou Jitsu could live on through his sons, inspiring them. I wonder how many videos of his exploits or movies that did him much worse did he hide from his sons on purpose, scared they would become like how he was, once.
And so he became Splinter—neither man nor legend. Onto his shoulders, the responsibilities of a father. So the scrolls remained forgotten, covered with trash under his bed. But he thought enough about them to take them with him from Japan. A piece of his childhood, almost? At one point, he even tried to convince his sons to follow its ways, knowing full well how its standards had been used to hurt him so badly when he was their age. Confusion ran thick in the rat’s blood and there was no one to answer his questions, as it tends to be. It’s so hard to let go of the things that hurt us, especially as immigrants. There is so much clashing, cultural dissonance, pain. Neglect. Abuse. Maybe Yoshi believed the scrolls could give him answers one day. Maybe he believed he wasn’t looking hard enough.
His sons were turtles. Pure and unfettered, blissfully unaware of what it truly meant to be Hamato. Do you think he buried himself in his loveseat watching Japanese commercials to remind him of home? Did he fear getting close to his new sons, unplanned, unexpected, unexplainably his—would he ruin them like his grandfather did, all too demanding and all too close? Would they long for him like he did his mother, a hand to hold in the dark? Would they ever long for him at all? After all, nobody wanted Lou Jitsu.
Splinter tried to reach out to his sons when they were just getting used to the idea of him never being there. And still, he tried to make them feel wanted. To provide. To listen. To apologize. Sho never apologized. His mother could hardly look into his eyes, give a reason, hold him once before she left. But Splinter was the first to tell his sons he was sorry for trying to make them something they were not. Splinter was the first to give his sons room to express their unique, weird, dum-dum selves. Splinter was the first to make his sons the most important thing, not prophecy, not duty. After all these years of being second to the Clan, Splinter had the choice to put his family first. His sons were not weapons. They were people. They were intelligent boys who could fight like bastards. And Hamato Yoshi was so proud to be their Splinter, their more than, their father—even if he sucked at it.
I might be bald (or delusional), but I just know he wanted to break the cycle so badly.
Oh, Icarus, with your hopes and dreams. How ever did we let you fly so close?
Do you think he breathed his last with a smile? Do you think the pantomime of his life—playing against his unconscious as his eyes closed a final time—showed the best parts?
I hope so. Heaven above, I hope so.
There are so many things Yoshi in Rise does that hits close to home as an immigrant kid. Because even with all the cultural context in the world, all the historical knowledge and the ins-and-outs of what is yea in your parents’ culture and nay in yours, after all the background knowledge and the language discrepancies and the what I really meant was’s—I look into the sapphire eyes of those teenage mutant ninja turtles, and I know it still hurt anyway.
Such sweet boys. I know if I were Splinter, I would be so proud, too. Gosh, do you ever wish you could tell it to their faces? They look like they could use a word or two of encouragement. I know I would’ve. All of them, mercy. I tear up every time.
How many times does Splinter have to tell himself sorry before he finds enough peace to sleep at night? Not just to his sons, but the people in his filming days who suffered the same racial discrimination that he turned blind eyes to, the people in the Battle Nexus he was forced to kill, until he took a vow of permanent pacifism. He’s been through it, hasn’t he?
Navigating a new country (especially when that country is orange man poo poo land) is so difficult. Indescribably so. My parents struggled. I struggled. My family struggled. We yelled and hurt each other. We said things we didn’t really mean. We longed for answers and a sense of belonging. We tore through walls, systems, unspoken rules we really should never have been following in the first place. And we kept going.
“Had I had faith in how special you each are, none of this would have happened.” Gut me like a fish, why don’t you.
Rise Splinter was failed by the TMNT fandom. If you read down this far, I hope you understand why I think so, now. Splinter is not a good person. He’s not a good dad. And yet, that’s never stopped someone from being loved, from changing, from choosing to be better. Had Splinter lacked even an ounce of humility to admit he was wrong to his sons, I might be able to believe he was an irredeemable, selfish monster. And yet, I think about all that I’ve written above and the web of complexity thickens. I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t. Not with what I know. Not with what I’ve lived through, and still am. It makes me sad when people fight towards media literacy and miss so much at the same time. Sometimes the loudest voices aren’t always right? I don’t know.
Perhaps it's a lack of POC perspective. A vast majority of the TMNT fanbase is White. The series itself was made by White men. This makes it hard to communicate some of these different interpretations of characters, intentional or not. (This is not a jab at anyone at all, please let me be clear. It’s simply something I’ve personally noticed.) Sometimes it feels very hostile to interact with TMNT fans because of subtle racism or racial ignorance. Not to mention the mix of sexism in there as well (which I have another doc on involving April). And that sucks, especially when there’s nuance to be had.
How do imperfect humans embrace their imperfection? What makes someone deserving of forgiveness or not? Perhaps we should all slow down and really ask ourselves: What would Lou Jitsu do? and ask each other the same. Maybe that’s the only way to really understand.
(If you read this whole spiel, thanks! I wasn’t planning on posting this, but then I heard abt this TMNT megaproject thingie happening and I went “hey why not?”. I hope this made you think a bit more about Rise and how its characters are written. I could be biased since Andy and Ant said they wanted to give Splinter a redemption arc and that was the whole goal, so that bg knowledge def puts his actions in a different light, but most of this analysis was drafted before I read the transcript for that interview.)
tl:dr rottmnt splinter is NOT a (totally) terrible person and it's actually bc of societal conditioning/miscommunication with his sons bc of cultural differences, unresolved familial trauma from splinter's mom dying and the almost religious nature of hamato clan tradition, and a generous helping of insecurity on splinter's part
let me know if you also want the doc on how i think there's an allegory for religious trauma and abuse hidden in splinter's relationship w his grandfather, his mother, his sons, and the clan at large bc i also think that's relevant to this project; also the one abt racism, sexism and April O’Neil in the Rise fandom
I also have a doc on Leo’s season 3-4 arc from 03 if anyone wants to read that too
OK OK i'll stfu up now its 12am where i am
tangentwithtanner
izzy806
baratheonpilled
