夏の思い @natsunoomoi - Tumblr Blog

About this blog

I unpinned the previous pinned one because it was too long and it was when I made the design and name change.

This blog is basically my personal one where I write thoughts and use it to comment on things. If you want my portfolio where I post artsy things I make, go to ekcportfolio and if you want my travel related posts about I do/see around Japan, go to teacher-reika. Every now and then if I have other personal commentary to add to something I post on those places, I might reblog it onto this one too, but otherwise go there for that stuff.

I'll probably post other more mundane things that may be related to either of those blogs here like stuff I bought in those places or things I got that I'm going to scan or something, but yeah....

Name of the blog means “memories of summer” or “Natsu’s memories”. Because my birthday is in the summer one of the names I went by when I was in uni was summer related, but I couldn’t really decide on which one I wanted. Like I thought Natsumi was too boring. Natsuko was too, but I kind of liked Natsuko? I kind of more or less settled on Natsue. I used them for my in-my-head explorations of the worlds I enjoyed watching in media, so my self-insert character was some variation of Natsu at any given time so I would just think everyone would *just* call me Natsu. I used it a lot for games and character creation too.

So yeah, that’s where that comes from and it’s more personal to like my inner thoughts and everything, which is more what this blog has become. The actual Japanese name I go by more often is Reika actually because it’s based on my Chinese name, which my grandma, who chose it, decided it would be better to give me a Chinese name closer to my English name. My English name is Elizabeth, which is often written as 伊莉莎白 in Chinese. My Chinese name is 伊莉, so it’s basically like calling me Ellie or something. I probably could have a Japanese name that’s just “Eri” too, but that's too on the nose. But I mean, technically it wouldn’t be wrong either if people called me that. My Chinese name in Cantonese is read as “Yilei” and in Mandarin “Ili”. I never much cared for the Mandarin reading. In Japanese it uses the second character in my Chinese name as the first is basically meaningless. The second means “jasmine” and to kind of make my Chinese name more Japanese and sound nice, I have Reika written as 莉花 so that the meaning didn’t change much and using more of the Cantonese pronunciation. More commonly in Japanese it’s read as Rika, but like names are weird and you can use whatever reading you want and I've seen people use it as "Rei" too. So yeah, that’s why my Japan blog uses Reika and this one I use Natsu.

The header photo I use probably more represents me now as well as that’s a park that’s near my home. It’s from Ritsurin Kouen during hanami season almost four years ago.

The side-bar thing has simple stuff about me. The middle thing is like alignment, horoscope, and other stuff like that. The last one is a charanavi alignment, which is hard to explain because it’s like a horoscope analysis thing that hasn’t really left Japan.

The Japanese in the footer is a quote from the Hojoki by Kamo no Choumei. It’s basically a quote that is a metaphor for time and how it keeps going and changing. Just like my life.

Content I blog/reblog about:

Anime - Anything I've seen is a potential, so check here. My absolute favorite is Yu Yu Hakusho, so there's a lot of that and other Jump manga turned anime. Non-Jump includes stuff like Bungou Stray Dogs.

Critical Role/DnD - Anything from all CR campaigns, general DnD and sometimes some Dimension 20 stuff.

Video Games - I play FFXIV, but I like almost anything by Square Enix (all FF and side games, Nier/Drag-On Dragoon[Drakengard], Kingdom Hearts, Bravely, Star Ocean, World Ends with You, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Super Mario RPG, Mana series), the Tales series, Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Ragnarok Online, the Sora no Kiseki series, Animal Crossing, Smash Bros, Breath of Fire, and a bunch of mobile apps and a great deal of which also overlap with aforementioned titles. I have a bad mobile app problem though and keep starting new ones. FFXIV - Reika Mikazuki; Xiaohua Mikazuki. I have other alts too of different races, but I play Lala the most.

Movies/TV shows & Actors from those things: Most of the movies are probably Western movies and like Marvel, but I watch other things to and have an interest in cinema. Also sci-fi properties like Star Trek and Star Wars. Disney movies too, but never got into the TV shows. TV side probably not as much because most of the shows I used to watch back in the States are either over or got so long that the plot got really convoluted and/or I haven't been able to keep up. Probably a bit here and there from different stuff I happen to be watching when I'm home in Japan.

Seiyuu - Sometimes general stuff, sometimes my faves. Most of my faves are male and are the popular ones that voice the characters everyone likes. Unless it's related to Critical Role, this doesn't include any English VAs. I understand Japanese and even when I was still learning, watching subs was more useful because it helped me to study so I never got into the English VAs.

MXTX works especially SVSSS because I read that one during lockdown since I had time. I unfortunately don't have time for the others so much, but I watch the donghua. This is also the only BL you will probably see me talk about because most BL I've seen isn't good or worth talking about.

Various other Chinese novels and literature because I've read classics, had a period where I was obsessed with Journey to the West/Xi You Ji, and have a couple of mobile apps that let me read translated modern online novels.

General good for society stuff.

Random thoughts that come up during my day. Sometimes related to my teaching and my cute and/or funny students.

Life stuff.

#about

Sengoku A Live

I just discovered this was a thing because I was looking for covers and it is HILARIOUS. I love this so much. It's a bunch of seiyuu singing old popular Japanese songs. I'm looking through the Youtube channel and seeing these titles and I'm like, "I think I know this song..." then I click on it and IT IS.

Right now I'm listening to "if..." and I took one look at the title and I was like, "That's a DA PUMP cover, isn't it?" because only their song has the ellipses at the end. Then I clicked on it and IT IS. Man, I used to listen to this song in high school because I was obsessed with DA PUMP because the guy I liked back then liked them. It didn't work out with him, but there was a certain period of songs where DA PUMP's songs were really good for me and "if..." was during that period. Still have the PV and best album and the actual single for it and everything and all the multiple versions of it, so it's a real kick right now listening to a bunch of seiyuu randomly cover this.

But also, that's not the funniest one. The funniest one was the Morning Musume "Love Machine" cover. WTF. XD Unexpected Momusu.

Catching up on TGCF

I've just been behind on all anime watching so I'm finally catching up on season 2. I don't think I'd noticed until now though how much Mao from SID's voice has a similar vocal resonance/overlap with Kamiya Hiroshi's voice until this season. Like the juxtaposition of going from the OP to Xie Lian speaking just made me notice there's a similar vocal range where it almost sounds like the OP is being sung by Xie Lian.

Catching Up on BLEACH's Thousand Year Blood War Arc

So yeah, title, but watching this and catching up, I saw Otori Rojuro's bankai and I have some questions.

I've gotten into Hoyo games lately and I love HSR, but BLEACH absolutely finished its manga run years before Sunday was planned or released. I know Mihoyo's also a bunch of nerds too, so it's probabl y a reference/homage in a way, but yeah Sunday's boss form in Penacony is very similar to Otoro-taicho's bankai Kinshira Butodan. If it's a reference, they have also run with it and made some significant changes to it to make it unique, but it does look very strongly inspired.

But also I tried to Google to see if anyone else thought so and it kind of makes me sad that I found nothing because it means only older nerds like me watch BLEACH and would notice.

Can you please tell what yukina said to kuwabara in japanese about hiei when kuwabara mentions hiei during DT and kuwabara's response to it? I'm kinda curious what yukina said in japanese? it was translated in english to hiei having piercing eyes or a sharp look . I don't understand if she is simply commenting on hiei's appearance (in a good or normal way ) or was she trying to get information about hiei through kuwabara?

I can check this, but I'm a bit busy to go hunting around the entire arc for when this conversation took place (I can't remember that well off the top of my head), so it'll be awhile. If you have an exact chapter number it'll be a lot quicker.

Firstly, the reason I'm so obsessed with the child comment because it fits the yyh timeline and two because I'm not into the kuwabara x yukina ship. like u said let's assume that hiei and yukina are like 60 years old by the end of the series, hiei achieved A class when he's like 5 okay so are you trying to imply that hiei stayed at the same place for 40 - 50 years before he move to a different place? He still stayed a A class demon for 50 years instead of moving up to S class with his potential? Hiei who always wants to pick a fight was able to take care of his tear gem for 50 fucking years ?! No fucking way! It's hiei we're talking about he's bound to lose one way or the other. I agree with the fact yukina has better social skills than hiei I just said she only seem to have one close friend i.e. kuwabara because togashi was too busy with the main characters, if you read the final chapter you can see yukina was the only one who didn't laugh when kuwabara was teasing Keiko about yusuke's goddess comment. Now, I'm not sure if yukina stayed silent because she "read the room" it only means yukina didn't understand the joke and she's not really close with Keiko. Unlike hiei who is rude as fuck, yukina is really polite so it's much easier for her to interact with people make connections , rely on them and without those connections yukina wouldn't able to survive in the human world. I never said yukina have no skills or try to undermine her with the child comment. I said yukina can be just as young and mature as hiei, she doesn't have to be a 50 years yokai to achieve maturity. If you're trying to say yukina is smarter than hiei, I agree with you yukina was smart enough to hide her tear gem from tarukane for 5 years by hiding in her stomach an idea that hiei never bothered to come up with. She hid the fact about her family by saying that they gave her "permission to search for her brother" even though there was no reason for her to lie to new friends who are friends with kuwabara. Just to be clear even if yukina and hiei are not 14 years old, I wouldn't mind, if togashi said they're 50 years old I will believe him and not change a thing about it.

I'm not implying anything about their age, but it's just that it's not confirmed about their age outside of a range through context clues.

Also, Hiei reached A class by the age of 5, but after he got his jagan he got shot back down to D. He had to learn to survive and rise back up again and how long he spent doing that is kind of up in the air. As much as I'd like him to be the same age as everyone else, he's still a youkai and their age development stages can be different. How long for him to become functional again after falling down to D is unknown and we don't know how low into D he fell. Kurama also was in D at the start because he was born into the body of a human, but as other people elsewhere have commented about the both of them, they're not true D, but very high D. How far Hiei fell into D we don't know, and when he had his surgery we also don't have any idea as well as no clue how long it took him to fight back up again and get his body to cooperate the way he's used to.

Further, Hiei's desire for strong opponents and fighting was a thing when he was still the prodigy thief that he was, but he was also maybe a bit more chill about it and just wandering around. The Hiei we know from the series more actively tries to find challenges, and that could be a habit/symptom of the difficulty he felt from falling down power levels to get his jagan and the struggle to come back up again from the dregs. Being drained or "failing" in that way, would create that kind of neurosis and it'd be especially pronounced in someone who experienced it a long time. If it took him 50-60 years to get up to the point where he felt good enough to start searching in Ningenkai, that'd really frustrate him, but it'd also be part of the reason why he kind of has an obsession with power and getting stronger if he had to live that way for so long. Living through that frustration would do that to you and makes that just as feasible as if he did it in a shorter amount of time. There's a lot of wiggle room with this before we see him in the series.

Additionally, Makai is straight up another dimension. We don't even know if time flows the same there as it does in the human world. In the Japanese, when Mukuro comments on his age as a prodigy, she says "by your 5th year" which is a weird way to say that, and could imply that Makai time or even Youkai time could also be different. Their years could be longer or shorter. We have no actual idea of the equation. They're likely very similar, even passing through the portal if there's a way to adjust time too we can't be sure.

For me this is a thing I suspect could also be a noted difference because Reikai is an actual place in East Asian mythology and Enma Daiou is an actual deity in East Asian mythology -- particularly Chinese and Japanese, and in ancient Chinese tales there is absolutely time dilation between the Human World and places like Reikai. I can't remember the actual equation, but there's a time scale mentioned in the Journey to the West novel for when Sun Wukung goes up to Heaven to ask for help. The Chinese Heaven isn't a place where dead people go, but is a place where deities live and it is on the same time scale as Reikai/the Underworld because when Wukung was messing stuff up King Yama/Enma Daiou went to Heaven to complain about him to the Jade Emperor. Journey to the West is one of the 4 Classics of Chinese literature and is arguably the most famous of the 4 stories in all of East Asia, so it has a very significant impact on the depictions of Enma Daiou and Reikai. Enma in Dragonball is even similar looking, and that's no coincidence because they look very similar to classical Chinese depictions in art. For Asian people that know this mythology, it's kind of like, oh yeah of course because people know about King Enma from mythology and classic literature, but it's not obvious to people from outside of Asia who don't read it as part of their culture. Mythologically, I think the time dilation/difference accounted for how King Enma and his attendants and even Heaven could track so many souls and oversee so many things, and the explanation of ancient people is that something funky with time was going on.

I add this point not to confuse you, but to just point out and say that you probably shouldn't focus too hard on the timeline of events and get too hung up on those semantics especially with events that took place before they were in the Human World. Yu Yu Hakusho is an original work, but it is a work that derives some things from actual mythology. Youkai and human conflicts were even a thing in those ancient Chinese novels like Journey to the West. It's not new. The idea of youkai coming to the Human World and eating people is also not new. So many different creatures including youkai wanted to eat the monk in Journey to the West, and further back in time there's my favorite novel Feng Shen Yan Yi/Creation of the Gods that is a fictionalized account of the end of the Shang/Yin Dynasty and the start of the Zhou where each side had Heavenly help from different sects of Taoism. The Zhou had human Immortals on their side, whereas the Shang supposedly was getting help from the sect that accepted youkai. This lore is ancient. And honestly, Togashi is probably vague about their actual ages because he is aware that youkai lore is ancient, so he doesn't want to mess with it. There are actual people who study mythological youkai and that is their life, so time is probably going to stay vague on events prior to the series.

Ancient lore for a lot of kinds of youkai development though imply that for some species, there's rapid early development from baby to childhood and then their growth can slow to normal and then when they reach adulthood seem to stop because of a longer lifespan. It's mythology and it's real unclear, and there's multiple kinds of species. So I really understand if that whole part on time and how old anyone is is real hand wavy because the lore across the board is going to vary a lot significantly because it's ancient beliefs of different villages and regions and so on and it's best to just not address it and make it too complicated.

Yukina's reactions to things I don't think you should think so hard into. That isn't necessarily a sign that she isn't close to anyone or of her social skills or how close to anyone she is. Even if she understood the joke, it doesn't even necessarily mean she's "not close to Keiko". She could just not laugh so as not to offend anyone at all. That is a real omotenashi Japanese thing to do too, and is also another way of being polite. Even myself as a teacher I have to try to not show laughter or amusement at the stuff the kids do because I need them to behave. I can laugh about it later when they've gone home safely and I've stopped them from turning the classroom into a zoo.

Regardless of any of that though, she's a youkai that spent most of her life in Makai and might not understand the joke because it involves human culture. She's from a different world. There's any number of reasons why she might not understand a joke the gang makes about anyone or anything if it involves context that she has no experience with. Like if you watched a Manzai act in Japan, even if it's translated for you, there's jokes you're not going to laugh at or get because you're not Japanese and you lack the context.

For the tear gem, that's a strategy that Yukina did so that Tarukane didn't get an item that was precious to her. Hiei didn't have the mindset to think of it. It doesn't make him less smart than Yukina or imply anything like that at all. Hiei specifically says in his flashbacks he wore it in the open on purpose because other youkai wanted to take it from him so it would bring fights to him. He didn't really know what it was or how precious it was to him until he lost it because he was using it as bait. Nothing about our conversation even implies how smart either of them are even and there's different kinds of intelligence, and intelligence is different from ignorance. Ignorance is not your fault. You have no control over not knowing something before. Lacking the intelligence to know that you should strive to not be ignorant, is a different story and is a sign of someone not being smart. Similarly being ignorant, knowing your ignorant, and continuing to make uninformed poor choices, decisions, or draw conclusions based on that ignorance is also a sign of not being smart and is the area that Kuwabara tends to be in, which is why Hiei gives him shit. Neither Hiei nor Yukina have a lack of intelligence problem and aren't really smarter than the other. The things they don't know don't make them stupid. They are just a product of a lack of experience and not being in a situation to learn that thing. This hole in their knowledge has also been subject of fics and doujinshi and even the drama CDs for the last 30 years because it's funny when Hiei learns about a new human thing and it's hilarious watch the silly way the gang tries to teach it to him. Like the fics back in the day, I think one popular trope was Kurama introducing Hiei to strawberry ice cream and that creating an obsession in Hiei where he always wanted strawberry ice cream. The anime team used Hiei's ignorance a lot to make jokes even on merch. Like there's one pic with Yusuke shoving a firework sparkler in Hiei's face with a huge grin on his face and Hiei has a relatively happy looking face, but is also pushing Yusuke out of his personal space. It's just funny.

Honestly, I think togashi used the term child to emphasis the fact that hiei is around the same age as yusuke and since hiei's character is based on the chuunibyou, I guess he must be around 13 - 14 when he first fought yusuke, in the three kings saga it was mentioned quite a few times that hiei is really young as he didn't knew much about the three kings and thought it was a fairytale. Personally I feel that yukina has the same level of maturity as hiei, I don't think her living with the ice maidens made her better at communicating with people cuz unlike hiei, yukina doesn't really have many close friends besides kuwabara in the manga, while hiei has yusuke, kurama and mukuro. Anyhow, yukina is hiei's twin sister, since togashi already called hiei a child there's no reason for him to call yukina a child too. Like you said hiei's development might have been stunted because of the circumstances but gaining friends made him mature by the end. I know i said too much but i find the idea of hiei and yukina being the same age as the rest of the yyh group really interesting imo it makes the perfect sense, don't you think?

I'm not sure if it's interesting, as much as it just is and people are different.

Also, you don't have to have friends to know how to socialize. Even if everyone around you is hostile and you don't like your hometown, you learn how to socialize and be civil with the people around you. That kind of thing happens normally all the time. LGBT child grows up in the Bible belt countryside of the US with everyone around them, or at least most people around them, spewing hateful things about them. They are a child that is waiting and biding their time for their chance, their opportunity, to leave to go somewhere safer where they are free to be themselves. Even in that kind of a situation, you do learn to communicate better, but in a very specific way. I think you're greatly underestimating how much socialization a person can get from simply being around other people even if those other people suck.

Yukina is a very kind person, but her kindness is probably fostered by Rui who likely cared for her in her mother's absence. While Rui didn't actively act against the wishes of their leader or their people, it's made very clear that she agrees more with Hina and was not happy about throwing Hiei off. Rui very likely raised Yukina in a certain way, that allowed her to grow kindness, but at the same Yukina had to be around to be around everyone else in their home who is cold. She has to survive, so she also knows and learns how to have a certain level of outward politeness even if inside she holds deep resentment. That kind of outward attitude is also very Japanese and a trademark of Japanese customer service. The customer could be the most raving bitch of a Karen, and you still have to smile through it and pick your words precisely to balance what the customer wants and what you want/are able to provide, which can go up to doing things that outwardly seem humiliating, but are designed to bring the others' guard down so that you don't have to do something else more important. It's a game of social chess, and it's a thing that Hiei cannot do because he grew up in wildlands and after early childhood didn't spend that much time with the bandits that took him in.

Hiei in contrast is very blunt and straight and wouldn't have been in any place where people would talk or gossip. Even then for surviving purposes, he would fundamentally be uninterested in people's gossip, so the Three Kings wouldn't be a thing that made sense for him to know about and would logically become a fairytale to him because he spent so much time in the woods among the trees alone. Like he straight up is just not in situations or circles where he would find out actual news about them because he stayed away from everyone at a certain point.

Relatively though, you would know who's the leader of the place you're in, but beyond that it's of little significance to his everyday life. That's also a kind of life that probably people in 2024 now aren't aware of as much because the internet connects us all so much. But before fast communication, the common farmer or regular lay person could not give a shit about who the leader was in the castle or whatever. It's true in every country prior to modern communication and the printing press. Whatever the leader did, did not matter because their big decisions for the country didn't affect their everyday life. It's likely Hiei knew that the Three Kings existed, but it's more that he didn't know or needed to care about whatever issues they had between them because it was irrelevant to what he needed to do to live.

Yukina on the other hand is able to show her caution and able to handle difficult social situations mainly through her conversation with Hiei about "finding her brother". She might be a kind person, but that conversation in particular shows that she does have hidden strength and "darkness" (not the right word, but I can't think of the right one atm) of her own. I recall also, during her time at Tarukane, she tried to be cold to him and not allow him to get gems so easily, but like instead he killed people that helped her, killed her bird friends, etc. Other beings are essentially hostages since she can't be attacked directly to get the gems, and I think I recall Toguro being brought in specifically because they couldn't get gems out of her recently. Yukina shows a number of times she has skills to pivot her reactions to different kinds of people, and that is a social skill and a kind of maturity that Hiei doesn't have. It is also a kind of maturity that adults in Japan have, but kids do not as they are straight and blunt don't know how to "read the room" or observe other kinds of Japanese subtlety. The adults in their life and their parents teach this to them. They fundamentally do not have the same level of maturity as Hiei acts like a child that never learned how to do that, and that's more that what he means. You're taking the "child comment" way too literally to fit what you want and ignoring Yukina's skills and achievements to serve what you want to be true about Hiei.

Other than the above, Yukina's also just more able to join in on activities with Yusuke & Co, while Hiei in contrast is still looking out of a window and largely ignoring what's going on. It's not necessarily that he's completely uninterested, but it's probably really awkward for him so he'd rather be a bit away from the group instead of joining in and maybe looking stupid or whatever. Being able to join in with new people and dive into new experiences is a kind of socialization skill. It can come naturally to some people, but it also takes some practice. Yukina had to survive in her home, but she also befriended animals which are skittish and run away. Being more approachable takes practice and is something Yukina has from not staying away from interactions. Hiei basically focusing on survival for most of his life and was alone is not able to really navigate that kind of situation.

Also, I don't know if it's a translation error on the part of the interpretation from the translator in the English version, but I have the Japanese version of the chapter where Hiei says that he "thought it was just a fairytale" and in Japanese it's ambiguous actually whether or not he thought the Three Kings themselves were a fairytale, or rather the war between them was a fairytale. I've never read any translations. I have the whole series in Japanese and I can read it. He's comments in that page is that he's "heard about the feud between the Three Kings", and then in the next panel says that the thought it was just a fairytale. It doesn't say it was specifically about the Three Kings' existence, but more about their struggle for power. That can be a sign of youth, but only because youkai live for hundreds of years and if you are younger than the last time there was a war or significant conflict, hearing that nations don't get along is like a fairytale. If that nuance was taken out of the English translation, I don't know what to tell you. It's for that reason I don't really rely on translations so much. I've made translations of my own, and there's a lot of compromises made to the text to get the gist of it so that you can get it on screen or in a box readable that I genuinely feel bad for English speaking fans because they are *missing* so much context and nuance that was also there in the same sentence.

For a modern day example, right now we have a number of wars/horrific things happening in the world. For a lot of people who are younger right now, they were not alive when this conflict started and do not understand the history. There's a lot of misinformation going on about who's at fault and why, and it's easy to get misled if you don't know the history of how it started. I had the fortune of having a history teacher in high school that taught me the history and it's a fucked up situation for everyone, and basically everyone sucks. It's also a mess that we as the newer generations in the world inherited because the creators of the original situation were naive and real stupid and tried to solve a "problem" they perceived by ignoring people that exist now for their own agenda. But also because we are a newer generation, there's a lot of people who do not get taught this history and are taught by the adults in their life to blindly support one side or the other hence leading to the clusterfuck screaming match and actual war and war crimes and turbulence we have now. The conflict has been going on so long that people don't remember how it started. Strife and difficulty is just the modern reality, and the start of it and the actual source of the conflict is like a fairytale because it's so far in the past and not talked about.

Back to our source material, Mukuro even asks if he'd heard about their conflict because it'd been 500 years. Like we know Hiei and Yukina are definitely less than 100, so their last conflict was a way long time ago and they were in a stalemate/truce for 500 years. We also don't know how their specific species ages either because they could both be 60 something and we'd never know either, but that'd imply that their trauma and living in strife and difficult situations lasted longer than if they were around the same age as the rest of the crew. That said, their objective reality and lived experience is not one of war and conflict, so hearing that battle is about to break out is like, what? Why? Kurama's comment after Hiei tells him his plan about going to Mukuro's though is that he "wasn't born yet" so "he doesn't know how frightening Mukuro is". There's 500 years of time for him to not know. It's not that he's a literal child or that he's "too young". It's that it literally happened *way* too long ago for him to know about it still being an ongoing grudge and how bad an actual conflict could be.

Togashi calling hiei a child really makes me not want to ship hiei and mukuro as a couple?!

He's a child in that he's probably about the equivalent of Yusuke's age at the start of the series because Yusuke was a 14 year old Jr High school student and that's still a child. That's kind of why in the live action they aged up everyone to at least high school because a lot of the things that they do are unacceptable things for a Jr High School student. My current job I actually teach children of about that age in Japan, and yeah, they are children. Japanese idea of children though is maybe a bit different in that children are considered children until they become of legal age. I teach kids from age 2 until high school or even sometimes until university because sometimes kids stay longer past even high school. They all still fall under the purview of a "kids eikaiwa" because they are underage (under 20 legally in Japan). Japan also has a ceremony for people who will become adults every year in January called "Seijin no Hi". It's a national holiday celebrating the coming of age of all children in the country turning 20 that year.

Further, Hiei and Yukina are twins. If the gang doesn't have a problem with Kuwabara chasing after Yukina because of age, then the two of them are around the same approximate age. I also think that Togashi is not being exactly literal about Hiei being a child. He and Yukina are twins and the same age, but he says that about only Hiei? I think it is more like lack of socialization since he was alone for most of his life so his outlook on life is more like a child in comparison to others including Yukina. Yukina would have had more socialization with other children and members of Hyouga no Kuni even if she ultimately disagreed with their outlook. It's probably more a comment about traumatic and circumstantial stunted development.

Togashi also says that he made Mukuro to be the kind of person that Hiei would date. As I mentioned to someone else, I don't ship. I follow canon. Mukuro also generally keeps a respectful distance and allows Hiei to do as he likes, but they have a special place for each other and care for each other, which is something that could grow into something else later as Hiei gets older. If we look at both of them though, they connect though because they have pain and trauma from awful people. Hiei was lucky enough to have other resources, but Mukuro had nothing growing up, and then only built up her empire by masquerading as a man and hiding her identity and being ruthless and earning respect via fear and skill. The people under her definitely respect her and care for her, but more in an official capacity. Hiei is the first time in her entire life that she connects to another person through empathy and that means a lot to her and I kind of respect that. Hiei will also not stay a child forever, and he can decide for himself what he wants.

Also, just because they are made to date each other doesn't mean it's a thing that will last. Age difference relationships as long as both parties are legal are difficult, but not impossible if both people can adequately communicate with each other. They are very easy to have power imbalances as often the younger person is less established in life and can become dependent on the older one and the older one can use that dependency to control them. For Hiei and Mukuro, the power imbalance thing basically doesn't matter. Mukuro has more experience, but Hiei is a genius thief and has his own incredible skills himself, so there's a mutual respect between the both of them and Hiei has his own independence and is free to come and go as he pleases. The normal dangerous dynamics in an age difference relationship don't exist between them.

However, what would become an obstacle in their relationship is Mukuro's unresolved issues about her past. Her past is not her fault, but at the same time she wasn't given an opportunity to heal properly from them and the way that she views her chains as a badge of honor is an admirable attempt at reclaiming her past, but at the same time she isn't really letting go. In the manga, she also punches Hiei for causing a trauma trigger over her memory over her father. I didn't use to be okay with that scene, but recently I had my own trauma actually triggered and I learned that you literally temporarily lose your mind and all sense of what you should do and your brain throws you into self-defense mode and you lash out unintentionally. It is a bonkers experience and while what you do in that state is still your fault, there's some amount of grace that can be afforded and you can try to make up for it later when you're lucid and get treatment so that it doesn't happen again and you can respond appropriately to triggers. You can learn signs and means to ground yourself and keep strong in the present and what's happening now instead of flying back into the past in your mind like you're still in that moment of trauma. Mukuro is not getting treatment and she has those issues. Hiei ends that chapter by kind of forcing her to address her issues to a degree by bringing her Dad to her frozen by Kurama's plant for her birthday so she can decide if she wants him to live or die, but honestly it's going to take more than that to fix her trauma and fixing it is a choice. If she doesn't choose to fix herself, Hiei will eventually get tired of her traumas. He does have a bit of an abrasive way of trying to help, but again he is well-intentioned. But Mukuro recovering from her trauma and being able to handle her triggers responsibly are the hurdle that would determine whether or not a long-term relationship would become something viable. That's up to them, but also things are in some ways promising because they both at least have each other, so there's opportunity and an out to have support as Hiei's friends are also all very friendly and probably wouldn't mind so much being supportive if Hiei decides that's what he wants. Mukuro's subordinates on the other hand are supportive, but kind of in a yes-man kind of way where they don't really give Mukuro the healthy level of support she needs to grow as a person as instead they kind of just enable her to do whatever she wants.

I love how genuinely kind and selfless hiei is, despite the shit he went through his entire life. How he cares and loves his sister even though he himself never received any love or affection and was hated for his existence, how he doesn't hate or envy his sister for being more fortunate than him, never curse or hate anyone for his misfortune. Seriously people don't really see the kindness within hiei because of his personality traits and antics. Whenever we talk about kind characters in yyh usually kurama or kuwabara names pop up but definitely not hiei's.

I think it's more like Hiei's kindness is more subtle in that involves larger more meaningful actions where he's dependable and will be there when he feels like he's needed. Like general interaction and to your face he could be kind of rude and kind of a douche, but he's like that about things that ultimately don't matter and he scales how much of that he is depending on the person. Like generally he is more nice to Yukina, but when she implied that he should go murder their hometown, he told her she should do it herself instead of asking others. It's kind of a rude way to reject her proposal, but also is a kindness to say that that line of thinking is kind of a waste of time.

While he wasn't raised really with affection though, the bandits that took him in even though it can't be said they really cared for him or anything, they at least gave him food and unwrapped him from the bandages and I assume gave him some kind of clothes so there wouldn't be a naked baby running around camp. It's not "care", but like that's basic decency. The way he talked about his hiruiseki too I think even though he didn't really interact with his mom (dead in the manga, separated from him in the anime) it's kind of implied that he felt some kind of attachment and affection from his mother's tear gem. So he had some sense and like Rui, even though she cast him away, also showed remorse for what she was doing and Yukina wanted to find him, so it's kind of hard to be completely merciless in the face of seeing people genuinely show some amount of caring even though ultimately they couldn't do anything. So it's like...I think kind of different because he had knowledge of people caring growing up, which is in stark contrast to Mukuro who legitimately had nothing. For Hiei though, he further had opportunity to let the caring and affection he had deep within him come out because he had friends like Yusuke and company around him so he'd just be in social situations with them that provided opportunity to think about other people.

Do you find hiei cute or handsome, I know you may not like him based on looks but what kind of category will you put him in ? Some people might find him scary, normal or ugly looking compared to yukina but I think he's really cute and adorable might be because I love him lol, btw can I know reason why you like hiei ? If you don't mind.

Originally when I was watching the show when I was 10, I liked Hiei not necessarily because of his appearance. Like I came to like his appearance later and when I was 10 I thought he was the perfect guy for me and used to wish that I wouldn't grow taller so that I could be shorter than him and be his perfect girl. XD I was 10, so I look back at my child logic and just laugh cuz WTF.

But also honestly, the point in the series where I decided I liked Hiei was during the Ankoku Bujutsukai when Ruka came out to separate him and Genkai from the team because they were the strongest and she was already in her sexy nurse outfit and making the audience go wild, but then it got worse when she took the outfit off and she was just covered by vines. And while other characters and the audience made commentary on her revealing outfit, Hiei did not give a shit. It was the first time I saw a male character in any media I'd ever seen that did not trip over themselves over a woman or their body, and the Western media I had around me at that time all told me that men are basically thirsty dogs that chase women and don't really care about things like loyalty or genuinely wanting to be in a relationship or married. Husbands always complained about their wives and called them a ball and chain and would get tired of their wife and cheat on them for someone younger. It was the first time I'd seen any male character not care at all about what other media told me that guys care about, so I genuinely thought that Hiei is the kind of person that can be loyal and wouldn't cheat. Like he was cool in other ways, but I'm having an internal chicken or egg situation in my mind where I'm not sure if thinking Hiei was cool came before or after this revelation and me liking him, but I know for sure in my young mind I had a massive insecurity about that and fear of future relationships and that kind of representation in YYH assuaged some of my fears and gave me hope that I too could actually find someone that could be loyal and wouldn't care if another woman threw themselves at them. There's a lot of things cool about him for sure and he's drawn pretty handsome, but I think that scene was the most influential for me.

It was clearly stated both in the manga and anime that kuwabara doesn't know about hiei and yukina being siblings and the gang will never tell him even on his death bed because kuwabara hates hiei so he wouldn't be able to live with idea of hiei being yukina's brother, right ? but seriously I do think kuwabara deserves to know since he and yukina are going to be together in the future, yeah he won't be cool about the hiei yukina situation but if yukina is happy with having hiei as her brother, kuwabara will tolerate hiei for yukina's sake and eventually start addressing him as aniki. Btw hiei hating kuwabara is my main reason for not shipping kuwayuki too.

XD Okay, cool. I thought I remembered that, but for a moment I thought that was a fever dream or something. It's been 30 years.

I don't know if hate is the operative word. Like early on that probably was the case where they really didn't like each other, but especially after the Sensui arc they all come away with a kind of tolerance and respect although Hiei still pushes his buttons, which I personally enjoy because same feeling, but Hiei tends to regard him by then as somewhat useful sometimes and there are times when Kuwabara shows some amount of caring for a fellow team mate/person in the same situation. You don't come out of that with another person with genuine hate. You can still not get along, but that's not hatred anymore.

But yeah, he does deserve to know at some point. I feel like everyone will cross that bridge if and when he actually gets around to proposing because then it's real for everyone and no one can deny it anymore. Hiei will have to even acknowledge that Yukina has feelings and then because of the practicalities of the relationship and any future children, they will have to sit Kuwabara aside and give him the lowdown. Especially the version of him at the end of the series that had gone through university and everything, but basically everyone would have matured enough that the situation would probably work itself out by then. Probably some awkward family moments, but it'll work out.

Umm, do you have the answer to today's doorknocker riddle? My brain's a bit woozy from absorbing that entire book on Theoretical Charms and I really just want some sleep but for some reason all of Ravenclaw is staying away from the common room at this time of day h e l p

Sorry, I'm away from Hogwarts right now, so I have no idea.

Do you ship kuwabara and yukina as couple? I honestly have a problem if kuwabara and yukina end up together in the near future, but I just can't get into kuwabara's hate the brother but love the sister kind of trope romance (i admit that it's funny in a way and it makes their ship interesting). Personally I like the aspect of yukina being completely clueless about romance as admitted in her character profile, I also like the way how togashi only slightly hinted they're going to be couple in the future rather than immediately turning them in a romantic couple by making yukina fall head over heels in love with kuwabara just because the series is ending. Just to be clear i absolutely hate those extra anime only kuwayuki scenes where yukina constantly worries about kazuma san, talks to the girls about kazuma san, cries when toguro stabs kazuma san. I like their relationship in the manga much better, where kuwabara doesn't really try to get too close to yukina san to the point that shizuru has to beat him up for it. By the way I don't mind if fans really love those additional kuwa yuki scenes.

As a Hiei fan, I'm not really in favor of them together either, but I've also accepted that it's a practically canonical possibility based on just the manga content alone. I don't so much mind the extra anime scenes just because Togashi did seem to imply that they were canonical. Even in the post series content artbooks he published with the character map in it, I think a fan asked him about what Hiei thought about Yukina and Kuwabara and basically he wrote that Hiei's in kind of in denial and was like, "There's no way she likes him..." If Togashi's going to address the situation that way, I can't argue against them. I think Yukina could do better, but Kuwabara also seemed to be less of a desperate dog after she was introduced, so I can see a world where they could make it work because Kuwabara seems willing to change and improve himself.

For the record for me, I do not ship. I follow canon. Togashi seemed to imply they would probably get together, so I go with that. I hate ships specifically because of this fandom and back in the day how many people were all up on the Hiei x Kurama fanpairing (what we called it then before "ships" were a thing) to the point that they were shoving it down other people's throats and saying it was "so popular it's become canon." That is BULLSHIT. Fans don't make canon. People can enjoy the series and ship whoever you want and have fun with it, but you don't have the right to shove your favorite couple down the throat of everyone else or make other people enjoy the series the way you want them to. The only person who sets canon is the author and their canon is the common language we speak to one another as fans. Things outside of that are up to our interpretation of where we think things could go, but I don't stray from what is canonically there because of how bad my experience was with shippers in the 90s. I hate it for every fandom I'm in. And plus like, I really think that Mukuro was made specifically to sink that ship because people everywhere were going overboard with it. I don't know if it's because I'm asexual, but I really felt like all the allosexual people doing the shipping were making something out of nothing and it was driving me crazy. Like a lot of people were like, "Look at this one frame at how Hiei looks at Kurama!" And then you look at it and there's nothing fucking special about it. And then like taking the anime only drawings that some of the artists at Pierrot made and being like, "Look! They are a couple!" It's like dude, just because someone at the animation studio ships them doesn't make it canon. Togashi says no, so stfu and leave the rest of us that don't think that alone.

Plus now that it's like years later and people are more familiar with LGBTQIA+ issues, people these days are thinking that Hiei was probably asexual, and I agree and identify with that and for me that's one of the things I liked about him because he was focused on other things, which is how I lived my life while so many others were focused on who they liked or were going to date. And one of the things I absolutely despise and hate as an asexual is other people pairing *me* personally with other people and going like, "Oh, you like ____ right? You kept looking at him on the bus!" which was an actual thing classmates said to my face after a field trip. Said boy on field trip was jumping around and acting like a clown on a public bus. Why would I not look at that? I hate people telling me how I feel, and more than fandom ships I hate when people try to ship real people, myself included. Like Hiei is just a character minding his own damn business and I am a human also minding my own damn business, and just people outside of us with their own imaginations put us together with other people. For Hiei it just turns into fanfics and stuff and that's fine, he's not real. For me, that turns into actual bullshit gossip in a workplace or at school that I have to squash rumors about and do damage control because someone else can't mind their own damn business.

I can't remember clearly, but I'm not sure if like Kuwabara like really knows about Hiei's relationship to Yukina? For awhile I thought he knew, but then I think I saw things that also seemed to imply he wasn't told outright and he was too dumb to pick up on what people were dancing around because to respect Hiei they couldn't outright acknowledge it either. Then there's like also that it's probably better not to tell him because I don't know if I'd trust him to keep a secret. I can't really remember actually if he knows or not.

I don't think it's so much he hates Hiei as much as they just don't get along because Kuwabara is kind of dumb. I am more tolerant of him now, but damn when I was first getting into the series I hated Kuwabara as much as Hiei did because he was dumb. It was really irritating and grating and I felt like Hiei was putting him in his place properly when they had conflict. Now that I'm older and looking back on that, Hiei is being kind of a shit and it is kind of unfair to be unkind to people just because they don't get something because everyone has different kinds of intelligence and Kuwabara later really tries to study hard to get into university and become a proper adult, and has good points of like really trying to be there for his friends. Even Hiei even comes to have a kind of respect for him by the end.

Hello, there is a question I want to ask, does yukina know that hiei is her brother ? I've seen a lot of takes of how yukina seems to naturally know that hiei is her brother but I want to know what you think since your meta on hiei and mukuro's relationship was really good.

So in the Opening and Ending Daihyakka OVA, there's some epilogue snippits there in the anime where Hiei tries to return the hiruiseki to Yukina and tells her "he couldn't find her brother". She ends the series living with Genkai and when she hears that, she just tells him it's okay, he can keep it and walks away. Genkai comes up from behind and basically implies that she's smarter than she looks and she figured it out. It's an anime only scene, but I feel like it makes sense.

Even when he was about to leave for Makai to see Mukuro, when she gave him her hiruiseki to "look for her brother" in their conversation, she accidentally called him "brother". He's shocked and she seems to notice an plays it off like, "Oops, I mean, you just remind me of him."

But like seriously, she even pauses when he's punching that rich human when they're rescuing her at the beginning of the series. It's very heavily implied that she kind of figured it out, and she's honestly probably not as oblivious as he thinks she is about it. Like he might not be saying anything, but IRL twins often tend to have some sense of each other, he is the right element, and he also keeps doing things that are distinctly overprotective like saving her from a falling wall at the end of the Ankoku Bujutsukai. There comes a point where there's kind of too many coincidences from her perspective that it'd be kind of hard for her to not notice.

She's probably content to allow him to handle the situation however he wants though because the conversation would be awkward and uncomfortable, and she can probably tell he's a bit more on the reserved side in this respect and wouldn't come right out with it. There's a bit of respecting his wishes there, and originally he had a good reason to not say anything. She can probably guess there was some reason if not just he's awkward, so she's leaving it alone and respecting it. Technically now he can tell her as Shigure removed that debt, but Hiei's not that sociable so I'm not surprised if he would continue pretending to her face just because he's not sure how to talk about it.

I'd think that he'd probably act in denial though for some time until Yukina and Kuwabara got closer to the point that Hiei wouldn't be able to be in denial that there's a relationship between them. Then he might step up and have some brotherly things to say, but also if they got serious I'd like to think he'd step up and probably talk about it more openly because in the event that they had their own children there would probably be questions about their child. In the manga, I believe the males of their species are like Hiei. In the anime, the male child is a clone of the father. The anime is probably a better scenario that would allow Hiei to remain hidden, but he may be persuaded to try to intervene to maybe stop the wedding until he realizes that Yukina's happy. For the manga explanation for his existence, there's going to be some questions when Yukina gives birth. He'd probably want to be a bit more involved so that he can find a way for her to not die like their mother as well.

So...it's possible that maybe she doesn't know, but I personally don't think she's that oblivious. Even if she doesn't know, they're probably eventually going to talk about it because of life circumstances.

neil-gaiman

I am genuinely sorry to bother you with this, but I am hoping you can help settle what is becoming a very unpleasant multi-fandom argument-is Crowley canonically gay? Some people feel he is, some people feel he may be bi/pan, but there is quite a lot of nastiness floating around Tumblr aimed at people who wish to write fan fic about Crowley having romantic interest in people other than Aziraphale. Any insight you could offer into these characters would be much appreciated. You're a treasure. <3

I suspect that I’m about to step into something I would be wisest to keep well away from. But what the hell, it’s that time between Christmas and New Year’s. And nobody’s yelled at me over the internet since I said that the TV Aziraphale doesn’t use a cell phone. *

Canonically, which is to say using the text in the book, you don’t get any description of Crowley’s sex life. The only thing the book says is “angels are sexless unless they specifically make an effort”. You can infer, and (more to the point) you can imagine, and lots of people have chosen, not unreasonably, to ship him with Aziraphale, but you are still Making Stuff Up. It could be Making Stuff Up that happens between paragraphs, or Making Stuff Up that isn’t mentioned at all, but it’s still Making Stuff Up.** (And using the kind of eagle-eyed textual analysis that Bible scholars used to decide exactly what a piece of four thousand year old verse definitely meant also counts here as Making Stuff Up.)

Which is the fun of fanfiction, and part of the tradition of fanfiction. As is, I’m afraid, grumbling at people who do not see that your ship is the only true ship, and choose to ship anyone else with anyone else.

If anyone decides that The Relationships in Their Fanfiction Are the Only True Fanfiction, it seems to me they are missing the point. The point is Fanfiction exists so that you can imagine, enjoy and fill in the gaps. The point is that you can change things and have fun with them. And the stories are absolutely true… for you.

The TV series gets deeper into Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship. It’ll be canonical for the TV series, and not canonical for the book.***

If I were to Pronounce on things that are not explicitly stated in the book, I still wouldn’t be telling you if Crowley was Canonically Gay. I would be telling you what I think, because it’s not canon unless it’s in the book. It won’t be TV canon unless it’s on the screen.

So, do not worry what other people think, and do not worry about what they say. These are not things on which people can be right or wrong, or on which anything can be “settled”.

Make fun fanfiction. Enjoy yourself. Make things up. Share them. That’s the point.

*People would only bother him on it. And if anyone gave him one as a present, it would be still be in its box, on the same shelf as the still-unboxed Kindle.

**Which was what Terry and I did when we wrote the book. And what I had to do for the TV scripts when I needed to take the story into places the book hadn’t covered.

***They don’t contradict each other, but there is territory covered by the TV series that isn’t covered by the book, particularly about Crowley and Aziraphale in bygone years. Also the Present Day in the book is probably the early 1990s, and the Present Day in the TV series is 2019ish, although 11 years ago in the book wasn’t particularly 1978, and 11 years ago on TV is post-ubiquitous cellphones but pre-smartphones.

natsunoomoi

This is just how I feel about fandoms in general, and I like the part where he specifically says "for you".

As a fan of many things myself, I really don't care how other people enjoy the series or what ships they have and root for and so on. You all have fun and enjoy the series however you like and think of it however you want.

But for real, the books, TV series, manga, comic, whatever are the common language of all fans and that is the only canon. Please stop trying to shove your interpretation of how you enjoy the fandom down your fellow fans' throats. I'm a full supporter that anyone can make up their own thing and that own thing can be a very popular opinion among many fans, but that doesn't make it canon.

I say this not to sound crochety, but because I literally had another fan try to tell me once that because one ship was so popular among the fandom that it practically made it canon. THAT IS NOT WHAT CANON MEANS. Someone acting like that is also being a dick and trying to force another person to enjoy fandom in not their own way. That is awful.

To that end, everyone else have fun with your ships and what you think of a series, but leave me and other people that don't share your opinion alone.

Nightmare story

It was midsummer before I would start university. I had to go to an orientation at my school, so my Mom drove my sister and myself down to Southern California from Northern California for a family vacation at the same time. It was fairly normal and a trip we'd made a number of times before.

This trip we had a room with two beds and I was sharing a bed with my Mom and my sister had her own.

One night I had awoken in the middle of the night and saw the room aglow with the lamp light that we'd left on. Seemed pretty normal and standard to just wake up randomly sometimes. I felt a little thirsty and as I was sharing a bed with my Mom, I leaned over to shake her shoulder to wake her to ask her for some water.

Only to my shock and horror she arose and quickly turned around revealing herself to be a monstrous hag. She had a gray palor and mid-length hair that stood on end, and an emaciated appearance. Her eyes were fierce, and sunken with a golden glow.

The hang lunged at me and wrapped its spindly fingers around my neck and proceeded to choke me until I lost consciousness.

Then I awoke suddenly gasping for breath. It was only a dream, but the room looked exactly as it had in the dream. I looked over at my Mom asleep beside me and went to wake her up to tell her about the dream I just had, but just after I shook her I was greeted once again with the same horrid hag that would proceed to strangle me again.

I could feel myself gasping for breath and choking. I tried to fight it and grasp its wrists to pull myself free, but it was useless. I lost consciousness and awoke once again in the same room only not.

This dream repeated itself ten times this night until I fought myself awake for real into our hotel room that looked exactly as it did in my dream. When I woke up for real, I could feel and sense the textures of the sheets and feel my fists clench against the fabric. I felt my breath as I heaved. I was shaken, but in awe that my mind had dreamed the exact state of our hotel room. Unlike in my dreams, I decided against trying to wake my Mom and just went back to sleep.

The next morning while my Mom was relatively normal looking, her eyes looked more sunken and tired and she looked more thin than the day before.

I randomly just remembered how many times in the entire game you essentially kill Fandaniel/Hermes/Amon, and I almost screamed.

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