Compilation that may or may not grow over time
this is one aspect of Gabby I think about fairly often and it’s the contrast of some of her attitudes, particularly here I’m talking about a kind of childishness, and more in a tween sense than ‘her being a teenager’ sense.
From her intentionally adorning situations with child-like sentences to her twin braids, she seems to have aspects that appear younger from what I’m assuming is her age range (about Asa’s age).
”Lemme play too!” “Tagging in” “I won’t bite children” and the saying of “gabu” when biting with Gabriel stand out to me. (I’d also like to say I’m curious if the first two change a lot on the official eng release but in the spanish release the first has a similar tone.)
Design wise Gabby’s twin braids do feel that are to give her a youthful look but it is also a matter of perspective on what one associates this type of hair with. I see this type of hairstyle mainly used in media for younger girl characters and (from what I’m aware of) the only other character with a similar style in Arakawa’s work is Nina Tucker. There’s also her overall style of clothing with a bunch of baggy sweaters and longer pants with the only real tight clothing to her figure being the turtle neck and tights she wears on her… uniform? Signature style.
Her drawing style, this one stands out like a sore thumb to me, it looks like something a really young child would make and it bears some resemblance to how at times some drawings of abused children lack certain features or be disproportionate, Gabby doing Yuru’s bangs in a few lines then over marking his eyes and mouth without drawing any of his actual features is also something worth pointing out.
Her name Gabby or specifically Gabu-chan, “Gabu” is an onomatopoeia of biting on something hard if i’m not mistaken, while the suffix “-chan” which while can be used for teen girls it’s also used on younger kids, and seems to actually be part of her whole name. We do not know if this name was given to her or if she came up with it, but she chose it and it does seem something a kid would name themselves.
Not writing all of this to say “Gabby is younger” and is more like “I think she has some stunted development.” I am very intrigued by her character and I really do hope we get more insight on why is she the way she is.
The duality in characters is something I really like in Yomi no Tsugai and contrasting the childishness with the violence and gorey murder is super fun to me. She even asks for permission (mainly from Jin) to murder. Hilarious!
