tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4798744626372711858.post1088992871735103130..comments2022-01-09T15:55:12.856-08:00Comments on Brilsby's Whims: Review: Sweet Blue Flowers (2009 Anime)Simon Brilsbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12922819494593801127noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4798744626372711858.post-10163278031760605392016-10-14T07:31:38.658-07:002016-10-14T07:31:38.658-07:00Fumi needs to pretend to be a princess to fit a pr...Fumi needs to pretend to be a princess to fit a prince, and thus they keep a perfect image for each other which neither of them can maintain without a sense of betrayal (I suspect thus, that is), and their idealised love is to have no pretence, as their hearts cry for sincerity, but yet, in order to taste this romantic love, their true self must not be revealed…<br />Hence Akira is introduced, a framing device to some extent. Her initial purpose is to frame Fumi and through their interaction, we hear Fumi’s past and her emotional dilemma, and we get a strong characterisation of Fumi (and we can get the character of Akira from her interaction as a frame device with the story-telling characters), but she is not necessary in term of Fumi’s psychological maturity.<br />In term of story-telling, Fumi’s past can be introduced through stream of consciousness, flash-back, and other methods than a frame device, but through this manner, we see also why Akira is more suitable than Sugimoto for Fumi, because Fumi can be vulnerable in front of her. Nevertheless, the problem still remains, artistically, that Akira will service generally a secondary character in Wandering Son, a royal friend who listen and support but does not have any psychological drama beyond the troubled friends, that is, she doesn’t have drama and conflict of her own. If we delete her from the story, Fumi’s maturity will perhaps come later, but this emotional centre is still to be the same, the foundation of the emotional core for this art is not to be shaken.<br />Akira is not Saori (as a friend who wishes to support, wishes her beloved to be happy, but also has her own emotional need, and that is, she has loved) in Wandering Son, but Kanoko, a character introduced in chapter two, and no named until volume two, as everybody’s friend…<br />Kanoko has remained a secondary character in Wandering Son, whilst Akira is needed to be both frame device and our dear protagonist’s lover… It is a contradiction, as to present another’s story in the best light, she is nipped off her own complex psychological struggle in favour of other’s drama, but as one, a love interest, who should play a major role in our protagonist’s life, she is underprepared for the expectation.<br />Akira can be, thus summarised after all the stream of consciousness, flash-back, in a summary of Fumi’s finally goodbye to the reader, that “I have fallen in love with one that I can show my true self”, and that is all we need to know, that she has found love.<br />Yet the best or ‘the worst’ (depending on your perception) part of the artistic style and emotional truth about this creation is that, it transcends the gender, that whether it is a story of heterosexuality or homosexuality, or inter-racial romance, as long as it is about love, even with animals… the emotion is universal and worth investing. At one hand, homosexuality has perhaps little to do with the emotional core of the story, but at another hand, perhaps that is more truthful towards how LGBTQA community wishes to be perceived beyond their labours, and after all, love is love, human is human…Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05950740333899110792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4798744626372711858.post-52213636775061665652016-10-14T07:31:23.390-07:002016-10-14T07:31:23.390-07:00Sweet Blue Flowers, is written and illustrated by ...Sweet Blue Flowers, is written and illustrated by our dear acquaintance, Takako Shimura, who has given us Wandering Son. Everything we can praise that one, we can give to this one as well — humanised character, water-coloured backgrounds with simple characters with complex psychology.<br />However, what is the unique artistic expression from our sweet flowers? Shimura perhaps (as I have not read the manga or watched the anime), began to use a ‘new’ model of story-telling, rather than begin-middle-end structure, we have middle-begin-end instead. We are in the middle of Fumi’s pain, or we are in a lots of different characters’ pain, before we discover the cause and learn whether they would move on. “Coming-of-age story” is a healing process.<br />The controversy of healing process here is to fallen in love again… We are at the realisation stage of the existence of substitute/filler lovers. We love because we have a hole in our heart, and Fumi and Sugimoto love each other sincerely, less like lovers, but more like two soldiers both wounded in the battle, two cats licking each other’s wound. Yet, the most problematic part is that both of those two have not realised that initially…<br />Love to fulfil the solitude, the inner-need is so universal, sensibly, it is the wrong reason to fall in love, to cling on an idealised image of love, losing one’s own identity further, (we drink the poison to relief the thirst), but who is so emotionally wise at the start? It is important to encounter the past, to arise above it, and learn to be independent, loving oneself before loving others… and that moral lesson is to be fully learnt with all the struggles on the road, mistakes must be made, false hope must be cherished, and new wound must be crafted…<br />Fumi and Sugimoto love each other, but do they love the real human being behind all the pretence of glamour — the self that is abandoned, the crying self… Yes, they do love each other, but not in romantic love. They love in a universal way, a sympathy of ‘oh, you must feel the same’, ‘you must understand’, and ‘you are wounded, too’, a love derived from human sympathy, as in the sense, we are all humans who need love…<br />Sugimoto’s self-invention as a prince attracts not just Fumi, yet, Fumi has fallen in love romantically an idealised symbol nonetheless, it is a dilemma of gender expression — prince seems to have more freedom, more liberty, but underlies the problem of concealing and compressing one’s true emotion.<br />Fumi and Sugimoto both create a situation where their romantic love will dissolve if Sugimoto becomes a ‘real human being’, but the most mature form of romantic love is to, though improve upon each other, but also accept one’s past. This acceptance is unacceptable in the foundation of the romantic love, and Fummi and Sugimoto would be better to be friends than lovers (the same problem perhaps also exist within Shuichi and Yoshino for Wandering Son).<br />Even though their romantic love is dissolved, they would both heal psychologically and move on. Pretending to be something else is impossible to maintain without further mental breakdown. To simply be oneself is best form of maturity — independence without pretence.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05950740333899110792noreply@blogger.com