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Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudoubu - BD/DVD Bonus Illustrations

Tsurune Flower Analysis—the Twins and Shuu

Senichi & Manji

アマリリス/Amaryllis (JPN)

Amaryllis have quite a few meanings in hanakotoba, with one of them seemingly contradictory to the other meanings. First, we have ‘splendid beauty’: the twins, like much of the cast, are definitely attractive (perhaps them being twins give them an extra boost?) so that speaks for itself.

Next up are ‘pride’ and ‘talkativeness’, which one could very easily relate to Senichi and Manji given the way they act about themselves and towards most other people. Particularly with their no holds barred way of speaking and how they seem to intentionally rile up some that they know can’t say much against them due to their difference in ability. In both the novel and anime we can see their pride in their technique as archers (at times to the point of haughtiness), so much that they’re not afraid to go toe to toe against someone they feel they can best in archery. This is particularly best illustrated in the novel (book 2, chapter 1 part 2). The twins were unmatched at their current middle school until they saw Shuu perform at a competition, which at the time they saw as a challenge. It’s very much known the both of them admire Shuu’s skills, but their underlying motive was to initially get close to him to ‘steal his skills’. However, their intentions changed not too long after.

Which brings me to the last, 内気 (uchiki). Most translations would give you ‘timid’ or ‘shy’ but the word also means ‘unsure’ or ‘diffident’, hinting at a lack of self-confidence. I feel the latter meanings apply better to the twins, though the anime understandably hasn’t touched up on contents from book 2 as much, but we see a better hint of this early into it. In the same chapter Senichi, describes himself as a ‘cheap, insignificant existence’ against someone like Shuu especially after the prefectural tournament, which is quite a blow to himself considering that between the brothers, he idolizes Shuu more. As for Manji, the same feeling comes earlier than his brother’s, dealing with his bout of hayake which—as we’ve seen with Minato—heavily derails an archer’s confidence. During the finale, he’s even shown crying, the weight of Kirisaki’s loss and his own frustration about contributing to it likely coming down on him.

Amaryllis (Western)

The Amaryllis flower with its unique design is simply eye-catching; it’s no wonder it holds the meaning of beauty and attention. In the Victorian Era, they considered these flowers as a symbol of one’s vanity and strong pride. To this day, people have associated these flowers to these meanings. Considering these messages, it’s accurate to match them with the twins. When they first appeared on screen, they’re shown bickering with each other about hitting the other’s target. Motomura comments on their fast shooting and anyone watching would clearly be entranced by the speed of their release, wondering how anyone could hit at such a pace. How they talked with Kazemai upon meeting them and insulted their team as well as made fun of Minato’s hayake shows them to be prideful and cocky.

Their ability to shoot faster than anyone and manage a hit also captures the attention of the viewers, much like the flower itself with its unique design. Being prideful also means they strive for attention, and we can see how the twins seem to do just that for Shuu. Their trait of firing insults to their enemies also raises their potential for having enemies, and that can be considered as getting their opponents’ attention as well. However, despite their prideful acts, no one can deny that the twins also have a sort of beauty in them. Appearance-wise, their similarities also make them unique from others. But under all their cockiness, they can also have a soft side to them as shown by how their character improves as the story progresses in the novel. We also get to see a difference in their personalities which can make them distinguishable after Manji develops hayake, and that can be considered a beautiful development for these two.

Shuu

チューリップ/Tulip (JPN)

In hanakotoba, white tulips can signify “lost love”. When we mention love, people immediately consider romantic or passionate love, but in this case, there is a difference when you consider the kanji (失われた愛) where the character for “love” is read as “ai” and can be translated in the general sense of love. Associating this with Shuu could mean the love he had lost from his mother. In the novel, it was explained how Shuu’s mother never treated him as her own son with the excuse that she’s no good with children. Shuu was taken care of by nurses and his grandparents as he grew up. From this background, we can grasp the idea that he was unable to obtain the love of a mother since childhood. Another thing we can consider about lost love could be his love for kyuudou. In the last episode of the anime, Shuu missed his final shot because he wasn’t “looking at the target”, unlike Minato. This means he was more focused on his opponent than on his own form. His insecurity grew and little by little as he had lost the actual meaning of doing kyuudou.

In the OVA, Masa-san compares kyuudou with falling in love and stated that Shuu had never been in love. He says that doing kyuudou involves entering a state of ego-annihilation, where one exists with only an awareness of themself and the bow. Shuu may have loved kyuudou, but he has yet to reach this state as Minato and Masa-san have, and we have yet to find out if he will anytime soon.

The flower also holds another meaning: Fame. This we can easily associate with Shuu considering how he’s known in various schools as the unstoppable Young Prince. With his skills in kyuudou and the beauty of his form and shots, everyone is easily enthralled just by watching him. His record of being unbeatable also makes him well-known.

Tulip (Western)

Tulips have a rather romantic meaning in the English world. General meanings are fame, charity, declaration of love, perfect lover, perfect/deep love, and rebirth. Meanings specific to the color white include worthiness and forgiveness. “Fame” can possibly allude to Shuu’s reputation in the archery world and as the Young Prince within Kirisaki due to his immense skill, as it’s been implied that he has some level of popularity at Kirisaki. “Declaration of love” could point towards Shuu’s feelings towards archery or that famous scene in Episode 8 at the end where Shuu told Minato to ‘take responsibility.’ “Perfect and/or deep love” may be alluding to Shuu’s deep appreciation of archery. “Rebirth” in the metaphorical sense could likely refer to Shuu’s slowly changing attitude about kyuudou; in the anime, he says that one shouldn’t shoot for the sake of someone else, though it sounds more cutting than what Shuu actually means. The director mentions the particular line in their interview in the fanbook and says that when Shuu says this he does recognize Seiya’s skills as an archer, however, as someone who strongly cares about kyuudou, he’d like if Seiya cared more about improving himself because he cared about the sport rather than just for Minato’s sake. Ultimately, at that point Shuu regards kyuudou as something you improve at for your own sake, the members of Kirisaki noting that he doesn’t really give advice or offer help unless you approach him. But in chapter 1 of book 2, he voluntarily asks Minato for advice to help with Manji’s hayake, later even joining Sase and Motomura to ask their coach to let Manji remain in the team as both the twins would quit should Manji have been dropped from the main team. He even says (in chapter 2) that he’d like to remain in a team with them.

sources under the cut

Keep reading

bowcrazy

Edit: (07/09/19) I’ll just be translating the director’s full comment about the scene from episode 8 and how he views Shuu and Seiya’s relationship here for better reference!

Though it might be easy to misunderstand, Shuu doesn’t actually hate Seiya. He recognizes his skill as an archer; this is because Seiya, who only just started kyuudou in middle school, was chosen to be a regular in a powerhouse school like Kirisaki Middle. One could say his skill stood out to him. However, (the development of*) his ability was originally only fueled by his attachment to Minato, and Shuu thought this to be a waste. So while him saying “It’s because you don’t love archery.” in episode 8 might seem like a harsh scene at first glance, Shuu is just honestly saying his feelings. But due to the lack of words, it can be taken like that. It’s just that, to Shuu, kyuudou is something precious.

To this extent I could even relate this to how Shuu finds another archer ‘worthy’ in his eyes because of his high regard for the sport and how he feels about other people’s motivations for doing it.

bowcrazy

Tsurune Flower Analysis—Minato and Masaki

Minato

ニオイバンマツリ/Nioibanmatsuri (JPN)

This might’ve been the toughest in the bunch to research! It’s not a very common flower so it’s not listed on any of the English hanakotoba pages I looked at, which means I had to search in Japanese *sweats*. Nioibanmatsuri are small cluster flowers that bloom a deep purple/blue and then lighten until they become white. Their hanakotoba are 浮気な人 (unfaithful person/someone who fools around); 夢の名 (dream name), 幸運 (good fortune), and 熱心 (enthusiastic/fervent). Obviously, Minato isn’t an unfaithful person, but the phrase in context of the nioibanmatsuri refers to the speed at which the blossoms change color (as in, they can’t stay faithful to just one color). In regards to Minato, this could be a nod to his constant development throughout the story. Nothing in particular jumped out at me for what “dream name” could possibly mean, and “good fortune” probably doesn’t mean anything besides the hope that Minato and his team will continue to do well—especially since all the boys’ flowers seem to have an additional meaning of “good fortune”. “Enthusiastic” speaks for itself—Minato’s ardent love of kyuudou is one of the main points of Tsurune! Additionally, nioibanmatsuri are often seen as a signal that the rainy season is about to begin, which could nod to the trials and tribulations our poor protagonist always seems to go through.

Yesterday Today and Tomorrow (Western)

The flower itself seems rather obscure, so I wasn’t able to find an exact definition. The common English name for the flower, however, seems to hold some weight. “Yesterday, today, and tomorrow” are words/expressions used to describe time-related experiences—the past you can think back on, the future you can plan and envision for, but today is the only time you can actually take action.

Many of Minato’s present conflicts stem from traumatic events from the past, i.e. the accident that killed his mother and, more recently, his target panic. With the past also comes his relationships with Seiya, Shuu, and Ryouhei. At the start of the series, he defines himself by the past and shrinks from others and archery because of them. At the time, his future seemed rather hopeless too, since he believed that he would never be able to overcome his target panic. With Masa-san’s and his other friends’ encouragement and support, however, Minato was able to start actively trying to improve his archery skills in order to get rid of his target panic. Another thing to note is that Minato was also able to move on from his mother’s death and compete in archery once more because of Seiya’s encouragement in middle school. By being continuously proactive “today,” Minato can leave “yesterday” behind and do something more “tomorrow.”

Masaki

ネリネ/Nerine (JPN)

Here we have yet another puzzle of a flower; at first glance you could definitely think it’s your typical red lily, if not for the fact that lilies typically don’t grow in clusters on a single stalk and the stalks are typically leafy. After a lot of trial and error (and reference from a jp tweet) the diamond lily, or nerine (particularly the ‘nerine afterglow’ hybrid of the species) has shown to be a rather fitting candidate. But enough plant talk; we’re here for the hanakotoba.

Upon checking through a few sources, hanakotoba doesn’t differentiate them and only has a general catch-all set of meanings for nerines. These being: ‘I look forward to the day I meet you again’, ‘endurance’(‘patience’/’perseverance’), ‘brilliant’, and ‘a sheltered child’ (it actually says daughter but for the sake of it being Masa-san let’s say child) with some sources adding ‘happy memories’, ‘radiance’, and ‘a lovely smile’. Before I get to it, I’ll just quickly take out ‘sheltered child’ as that doesn’t feel quite true for Masa-san, while ‘a lovely smile’ seems to speak for itself.

For someone like Masa-san who we know dearly admired his late grandfather, the meaning of ‘happy memories’ (though they became a touch bittersweet once he’d developed his hayake and became estranged from him) would connect rather well. He speaks highly of his grandfather in both the novel and anime despite Masa-san saying that he was ‘discarded as someone who didn’t follow instructions’ by him. In the anime’s last episode and in the prologue of the first book (though he’s yet to be explicitly named as such in the novel), we also see Masa-san (along with Minato and his mother) as a middle schooler watching —enthralled— as his grandfather was competing, the memory clearly something fond that strengthened his passion for kyuudou. We can also consider his new memories with Minato and the rest of Kazemai as something this would relate to since it, in a way, is his new beginning. I would connect ‘I look forward to the day I meet you again’ to his grandfather as well, but in a more metaphorical sense, as we can tell Masa-san is somehow reconnecting with him by way of returning to kyuudou to better understand him and himself.

‘Endurance’ speaks for itself considering his long struggle against his hayake and his efforts in finding suitable methods to remedy it. ‘Radiance’ and ‘brilliant’ could likely be attributed to the beauty of his shooting form as well as his natural talent in kyuudou.

Nerine (Western)

Nerine don’t have specific Western meanings, so for the purpose of this post we’re using red lilies. Red lilies symbolize purity, majesty, wealth, honor, purity of heart, innocence, pride, regal bearing, high-souled aspirations, a lofty spirit, rebirth, motherhood, passion, love, beauty of youth, amiability, fertility, femininity, unity, and transience. The majority of the definitions described are for the flower in general, but “passion” and “love,” especially the former, are tied to red.

Masa-san does come off as “regal” and with “majesty” whenever he actually shoots. “Motherhood” can possibly stem from the fact that Masa-san becomes a parent-like figure, or at the very least a sort of guardian to Minato in the absence of his mother, and father by extension because Minato’s dad is noted to be often busy with work. “Purity,” “honor,” “innocence,” and “beauty of youth” can refer to the fact that Minato was able to overcome his target panic at Yata no Mori/in Masa-san’s presence because we all know those words don’t describe Masa-san. “Rebirth” could refer to Masa-san’s love for kyuudou, as he had fallen out of love for it and was going to quit before he decided to become Kazemai’s coach. “A lofty spirit” and “high-souled aspirations” may refer to the fact that Masa-san is quite the admired figure/idol in both the archery world and to his students at Kazemai, or possibly how he wishes to surpass his grandfather. “Amiability,” “pride,” and “honor” can be tied to his character traits. “Unity” may refer to how the Kazemai archery team was able to connect to each other well under his advice. “Transience” could refer to Minato’s initial belief that Masa-san would only be in his life for a short period of time.

sources below the cut

Keep reading

bowcrazy

Edit: (07/09/19) Hello, this is one of the mods here on bowcrazy! I received my copy of the fanbook today and found some interesting additional info about Minato’s flower that might be interesting to know! In the director’s choice highlight for the first episode it’s mentioned that the overall theme of the show (and the overall work that is “Tsurune”) is “再生” which means “rebirth/regrowth/regeneration/restoration” (I’ll be using these interchangeably to fit into context from here on), specifically referring to Minato. It’s written that the flower’s (“Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”) ‘rebirth’ is used to symbolize Minato himself. I had to do a fair bit of searching about the plant to figure out if it was literal or not, but my best guess is due to the nature of the blooms changing from the three colors (purple, lilac, and finally white) while still on the plant. In a way they could be attributing that to Minato’s continuous growth as we’ve already mentioned in the post above.

In the comment from the author, Ayano Kotoko, she also echoes the director in saying Tsurune is about “再生”. A snippet of her comment is:

“Tsurune” is a story about regaining* what has been lost* and restoring* what has been broken.

Additionally, besides being the flower shown at the very beginning of the show I also think this might be the flower shown on the ending theme (from visual similarity at least)! However, please take that bit with a grain of salt as the comments from Choucho only refer to it as a white flower.

Notes: -the original jp snippet (『ツルネ』は手放してしまってもの、壊してしまったことを「再生」する物語です) doesn’t phrase the sentence like I did as I fixed it to sound more natural. Literally you’d get ‘restoring that which has been lost, and things that have been broken’, hence two separate meanings of 再生 being used, -”手放して” literally means ‘to let go’ or ‘part with’ but it sounded a bit awkward so I changed it out

bowcrazy

Tsurune Flower Meanings Masterpost

Minato & Masaki

Ryouhei & Seiya

Kaito & Nanao

Senichi/Manji & Shuu

Writers’ Notes: For our first major post, four members of our team have come together to talk about two of our favorite things: Tsurune boys and flower meanings! Spreads of the Tsurune mains with flowers in the backgrounds have been released with each DVD set, so we’ve decided to take a deeper look into each of the flower meanings and how they might relate to each character. The flowers were identified based on both our own investigation and the Japanese fandom’s identifications. However, some of the identifications were a bit iffy, so we decided to analyze both possible flowers to cover all our bases.

Japanese flower language, or hanakotoba, is Japan’s system of symbolic meanings. Hanakotoba predates the Victorian Era, long before the western world had begun to create their own definitions for flowers. The meaning of flowers can get more specific and change depending on the color and the exact (sub)species. We’ll be listing both western definitions and Japanese definitions in order to provide a compare and contrast, especially since some flowers can contain very different definitions depending on the culture (although any intended meanings are likely the Japanese interpretations due to the source material being Japanese). Please note that none of our contributors are experts in floriography, so while we did our best to research there may be some inaccuracies, especially with identifying specific strains of flowers.

khadlja

metamorphesque

Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, Vladimir Nabokov

khadlja

it’s been a month since i last saw you. since i last touched your face, your hair, your beard. a month since i last heard your voice.

ever since we got married, the longest we were ever apart was the one week you went for umrah with your father. even then, we never went a single day without talking to each other.

i miss you. i miss your voice. your unconditional love. how you always saw the goodness in me. even if i messed up, you were able to look beyond my mistakes and shame to the core of me, which you always believed to be inherently good and pure.

i’ve resumed my 1-1 sessions. i miss telling you before heading to my home office - “pray it goes well!” and you smiling as if to say, “i know it will.” i miss coming back to tell you - “i’m so blessed to be doing this work, it went SO well!!” and you smiling again as if to say, “of course. i didn’t doubt it for a second.”

i hope and pray Allah (swt) is kind to you beyond anything we can imagine.

i read the other day that sayyidna ubbay bin ka’ab (ra) is the qari, the recitor, of this ummah. Allah (swt) commanded the prophet (saw) to go and hear his recitation.

i prayed that you get to meet sayyidna ubbay, my dear qari husband, in the realm you’re in.

your babies miss you every day. even their play revolves around you. they fall asleep to the lullabies you (thankfully) recorded for them.

we love you more than words can say.

we trust that Allah (swt) has a plan for us.

but today? today nothing can make up for the pain of your loss.

loveologistic

TSURUNE IS SO UNDERRATED FR!!!

ezralva

glasses-wearer archer's agony: Takehaya Seiya

kimbapisnotsushi

tsurune really said do it if you’re scared. do it if you suck at it. do it and make mistakes. do it even if you’re not as good as anyone else. do it for your reasons and do it the way only you know how to. do it if you love it, if it makes your body sing, if it makes you feel alive, if it makes you think this life is worth living.

do it and give it your best shot, because, really, what else have you got to lose?

cofeekki

Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudoubu Episode 11 "The Pain of Empty Release"

treecakes

Natsume Yuujinchou Episode/Chapter Guide

Updated: 30/8/24

treecakes

Natsume Yuujinchou Episode/Chapter Guide

Updated: 30/8/24

cestcirque

“I feel like I got some strange intuition then, that it seemed like a long battle had begun”

cestcirque

some tsukishima crumbs for you

xeviares

Haikyuubu Masterlist

I reread them pretty often, so I decided to make this

All of them are posted by @kuromantic, so thanks!

Please note that this post will only be updated, not reblogged, so you will need to click on the original post if you do reblog.

I will also reblog to announce a new update.

This week:

The Clenching Oikawa-san

Last Chapter:

Fukurodani’s Big Eater

Next chapter: In two weeks!

Chapter 1: Akaashi Predicts (Almost) Everything

Chapter 1.5: Akaashi Hosts a Bokuto Pop Quiz

Chapter 2: Kenma the Champion

Chapter 3: Ushijima, Spirit Destroyer

Chapter 4: Kita (Almost) Never Laughs

Chapter 5: The Association Drinks A Lot

Chapter 6: Mika is Sick of Volleyball

Chapter 7: Hana Puts Up With Way Too Much

Chapter 8: Nakashima Has Too Many Fans

Chapter 9: Aone Keeps Too Many Secrets

Chapter 10: Oikawa Gets a Translator

Chapter 11: Tora Tries to Get a Manager

Chapter 12: Tendou Makes Manga

Chapter 13: The Managers Make Food

Chapter 14: The Miyas’ Bodyswap

Chapter 15: Aone and Yachi

Chapter 16: Seijoh Washed Ashore

Chapter 17: The Coaches

Chapter 18: Bokuto and the Principal’s Office

Chapter 19: Let’s All Become Hyakuzawa

Chapter 20: The Cats and Snow

Chapter 21: (No One Wants) Oikawa as a Youtuber

Chapter 22: Terushima Tries to Get a Job

Chapter 23: The Karasuno Neighborhood Meeting

Chapter 24: Isekai Shiratori

Chapter 25: Kanoka’s Delinquent Love

Chapter 26: Bokuto and Kiryuu’s Interview

Chapter 27: Tanaka and Nishinoya’s Exams

Chapter 28: Ukai and Saeko’s Meeting from Hell

Chapter 29: Seijoh Plays Cards

Chapter 30: Yachi’s Presents

Chapter 31: Kuroo VS Daishou

Chapter 32: Inarizaki’s Fortune Strips

Chapter 33: Taketora’s Youtube Debut

Chapter 34: Futakuchi and some kids

Chapter 35: Yachi’s Valentine

Chapter 35.5: Haikyuu Folktales- Oikawa-Taro

Chapter 36: Tendou the.. Kappa?

Chapter 37: Suzumeda’s Diet

Chapter 38: Sakusa’s Problem

Chapter 39: Ougiminami Recruiting

Chapter 40: Nekoma Plays Online Games!

Chapter 41: Oikawa Tries and Gets Tamed

Chapter 42: Karasuno Lottery

Chapter 43: Sakura with Yachi’s mom

Chapter 44: Android Aone

Chapter 45: Go Go Michimiya!

Chapter 46: Fukurodani Eating Contest

Chapter 47: Shiratorizawa Flower Fairy

Chapter 48: Shimada Mart Advertising

Chapter 49: Seijoh Goes Fishing

Chapter 50: Inarizaki’s Comedy Routines

Chapter 51: A Couple’s First Beach Date

Chapter 52: Kuro(o) the Kitten

Chapter 52.5: Haikyuubu Extra Sketches

Chapter 53: Ushijima’s (Virtual) Reality

Chapter 53.5: Extra Sketches 2

Chapter 54: Akaashi and Udai

Chapter 54.5: Extra Sketches 3

Chapter 55: Hirugami’s Pokémon

Chapter 56: Survive the Drive!

Chapter 57: Oikawa’s Trip Abroad

Chapter 58: Daichi the Diplomat

Chapter 59: A Terrifying Apartment

Chapter 60: Kenma and Volleyball

Chapter 61: Tendou’s Double

Chapter 62: Inarizaki’s Spring Clean

Chapter 63: The Grand King

Chapter 64: Daichi Can’t Catch a Break

Chapter 65: The Aone Army

Chapter 66: Kiyoko’s Avant-Garde Art

Chapter 67: Tanaka and The Monkeys

Chapter 68: The Murder Of Bokuto

Chapter 69: Asahi and Nishinoya’s Globe Trot

Chapter 70: Shiratorizawa’s Hay Fever

Chapter 71: Kuroo’s Demonic Hair

Chapter 72: The Switching Twins

Chapter 73: Aone’s Problem

Chapter 74: Bokuto the Magician

Chapter 75: Seijoh’s Day At the Beach

Chapter 76: Ushijima Turned Into A Baby

Chapter 77: Karasuno Shopping Avenue’s Test of Courage

Chapter 78: Kuroo Tries Social Media

Chapter 79: The National Team’s Photo Shoot

Chapter 80: Fukurodani’s Big Eater

Chapter 81: The Clenching Oikawa-san

xeviares

I wonder why Oikawa’s so tense today… Find out in the newest Haikyuubu chapter! (Don’t come at me for the name okay-) @kuromantic

shibayamm

Inarizaki & Foxes

The HQ panel at Jump Festa 2018 gave us official meanings behind the Inarizaki names, aka the foxes each member’s names were based on (except for the Miyas and Coach Oomi, who aren’t based on foxes).