My old college's basketball team won big tonight, let's celebrate with the random late-nite drop of one of my favorite early Hibari chapters! This is a great chapter to highlight a few hallmarks of SHK as we transition into a new arc about boobs. Yes. But first, we have Hibari interrupting a peaceful morning at the Oozora Household with her regularly scheduled bullshit. Which is of course perfectly reasonable, she's going to be singing with a friend's band for the school culture festival where she'll win the student vote for most popular girl. And Tsubame's bitching about sisters swapping clothes because yeah...what a freak that Hibari is.
Seriously, this is cool. And I like that the official Peow2B translation helps with a lot of these. I'm using the old Hachimitsu scans for this by the way, it's just easier. We'll have a great moment this volume to talk about how much better the new release is. But this reference. Kiyoshiro does sound familiar to people reading a blog that started about the Akazaya Nine. I earnestly wonder if the reference is the same because Denjiro does hit a similar pose in his introduction. Kiyoshiro Iwamono was a very famous wild man rock star in Japan. By this point he'd be an elder statesman it makes sense for a kid like Suzume to know. Here's a great clip of him covering the Stones classic Ruby Tuesday. Hibari's just doing his signature sign-off. Cute. Though, worth noting Hibari's not emulating a like...Boy George-style gender bending artist, Suzume's just saying her outfit is wild.
Oh, and because it's cool Hibari has stuff like this this is the song she's singing in the culture festival. The anime just uses Kongara Connection for licensing because yeah...they definitely weren't going to invest seriously in this one but we can dream for a remake right? The manga does have a lot of little bits like this, where you can make out a popular song on the radio or something. Eiiguchi has excellent taste, and Ippu Do is canonically one of Hibari's favorite bands. New Wave is dope and I refuse to entertain contrarian arguments to the contrary.
There's also something real like, sure I can karaoke the right Blondie or Fiona Apple song well but it's a little easier to make something like Oasis more feminine. Bumping a Tenor up to a smoky Alto always hits. Helps when I had plenty of experience practicing a couple my old band used to cover but still. There's an elegance to it, and I appreciate seeing little touches like this out of Kiku & Hibari both. It works to your advantage the audience will understand the girl is trying to replicate a male singer. Tracks with, found it interesting when I did a theater program for a lot of queer youth the trans ones almost always wanted a role in line with sex assigned at birth "because it helps put the before in my own life more in the sense of playing a character." For the record, my first choice for karaoke is Prince's Never Take the Place of Your Man. Which I'm certain is a choice Hibari would approve of.
She's just having fun right? But for being so fun and cute you get the prize of snotty bitch Hanazono deciding you're so conceited you need to be taken down a peg.
I dunno, didn't really want to clip the boob stuff. We play with the implications of all this on things like locker rooms. We are pretty grounded in reality here. Hibari's not immune to comparing herself but pretty shy about her body and more concerned with getting in and out quickly. It's only when Hanazono starts pressing the issue that we have any. And through the magic of Hibari, the entire plotline is really just a Trojan Horse to showing a girl dealing with normal body image issues in a shonen manga. In hindsight, I wonder if any of this (or Rumiko Takahashi's similar flair in Ranma 1/2) was influenced by the very popular 70s American sitcom Three's Company. Which started from a premise of main character Jack acting gay to get away with a landlord approving him renting a room in a suite with two single women...but often used that humorous premise as a way to showcase real homophobia in a light you typically couldn't in that era.
That's Hibari's magic, by taking her out of the context of being primarily an object of affection, even if she is as the series develops, you get to be one of the most realistic, three-dimensional women in the whole history of the magazine. Nothing about Hanazono makes her sympathetic. But especially seeing her motivation be pure spite over Hibari's popularity. Like, never met a TERF in real life who wasn't like this. A few of her friends are intimidated by her, but Hanazono wasn't exactly #2 in the popularity poll...
Another day of Japanse Music @ Zef
Roaming around in my Japanse music collection, revisting some Japanese albums that i haven't heared in a long time, and enjoying a few new discoveries.
Reverberation #393
1. Beach Freaks - ????
2. Uku Kuut & Maryn E. Coote - Miracle82
3. Guille Garcia - Sun Will Shine
4. Sweet Beats - Sugar
5. I Level - Minefield
6. Ippu-Do - Nevermind
7. Pascal - Incubo D'oggi (DJ Bronco Edit)
8. 101 BAND - TELEPHONE
9. Evans Pyramid - I Want Your Body
10. Napoleon Cherry - No Need For Us To Explain
11. Cheryl Glasgow - Glued To The Spot
12. Freeez - Southern Freeez
13. Ofrenda Vytas Brenner - Playa De Agua
14. Ayelen - Southern California Style
