![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
*is slow*
(1)
...So. Part of me probably knew that something like this was a possibility, but...despite my ability to separate canon fact from fanon fiction in my mind in order to safely wallow in the depths of ff.n, some of the popular theories and assumptions necessary for using his character in a story must have rubbed off on me: I expected his past to have featured some sort of revenge-quest-inspiring tragedy in Japan, rather than...this.
(In my defense, such tragedies feature often in the pasts of the manga's characters; also, given the situation of the world setting, there is a sharp increase in probability of those close to members of the Black Order--indeed, even completely unfortunate strangers like, say, cops investigating suspicious disappearances, passengers on a boat, nuns at an orphanage--meeting horrible horrible demises, and if the ones you love are dead and you know who's responsible, wouldn't you want to gear up and set off hell-bent on not coming back until you have their bloody decapitated head(s) in a burlap sack?(2))
...Um...that terrifically convoluted paragraph just above is code for "I'm not one of those fans who are incapable of separating Kanda Yuu and Uchiha Sasuke (as two distinct characters from two distinct fandoms), I swear." Despite the timing of my falling into the D.Gray-fandom coinciding with my falling-out with the Naruto fandom, despite my incredible obliviousness and myopia when it comes to my own psyche, I am in fact aware and appreciative of the fact that D.Gray-man is not Naruto, never was never will be, and in fact is quite unlike my former fandom in...well, probably not every way, that would be unrealistic, but a lot of ways; as such, the characters are not the same set of people and should not be treated that way.(3)
For one thing, this fandom's pissy sword-happy Japanese prettyboy happens to be an artificially engineered soldier who constantly sees lotus blossoms that aren't really there.
...
That's right. Kanda is a pretty pretty test tube baby who hallucinates pretty pretty flowers.(4)
8D
Win~ ♥ ♥ ♥
Although really I'm just happy we got any information on him at all. It may be precious little, and incredibly vague and ambiguous to boot, but it's the most insight we've had into his character since...uhhh...frickin' Mateel, man. That was like a million years ago.(5)
See, I'm one of those people who aren't satisfied with their understanding of a story until they can crawl into each major character's head and live there, and Kanda has been giving me grief since day one. We know practically nothing about him--his motivations, his past, his goals--and this is compounded by the fact that he's the type of character that avoids other people and never talks about himself. For almost two hundred chapters, we didn't get even a single flashback, while Allen, Lenalee, Miranda and Krory were spilling themselves all over the place; hell, even Lavi, the closemouthed Bookman apprentice, got some time in the limelight (largely thanks to Road's attempt to dissect him). Kanda eats alone, trains alone, fights alone. That in itself has been an insight into his character, but for me it's not enough. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why he fought for the Order, why he placed so much importance into completing missions successfully. No matter which of the fannish theories I borrowed--ancient family curse, clan massacre, famine, pestilence, big family, small family, richer or poorer--none of them fit.
It's probably because most of us have been assuming that since he's Japanese, he grew up in Japan. In fact, given enough thought, it should've been clear that D.Gray-man's Japan is an Akuma-infested wasteland,(6) and all the Asian cultural influences on the characters have been Chinese: the Asian Branch is in China, traditionally run by the Chang clan, and the casual (well, non-uniform) outfits we've seen Kanda wear have all been Chinese in style. Whether he was genetically engineered from the beginning or biologically enhanced at a young age, he must have been raised at or near the Asian Branch; the Order may be all he's ever known. Rather than an Accommodator randomly chosen by the Innocence, he was actually designed to be the perfect soldier. That's why he acts like he's trying to be one. Insert epiphany here.
Many others have probably figured this out already; despite my IQ and ability to memorise random facts, I'm ridiculously slow. It took my brain forever to connect the dots between Kanda's lotus and the rose from Beauty and the Beast. It took even longer--until the third reread of ZONE--for the connection between "Robin" as an Akuma with Julia's soul and Allen in chapter 36 with Mana's skull hovering above him. Also, chapter 186 was released on the 23rd of April, and I didn't read it until a couple days ago, and didn't reread it until today (I was hoping sleeping on it would help the implications sink in more). So, uh, if this isn't news to you, please for to disregard. I'm used to looking like an idiot.
Now I'm off to don the cape and mask of OCD-Creature and spend hours collecting and analysing everything we've ever learned about this elusive character...because that's what I do.(7) *exeunt*
(1) I have decided, on a whim, to stop cluttering up my paragraphs with misuse of parenthetic comments. Now I will be abusing footnotes instead! *yay* As for whether or not this will be an improvement, well...time will tell. Onward!
(2) Well, maybe I'm assuming too much violence of the supposed "you." In the lens of a character in aShakespearean tragedy shounen anime/manga, then.
(3) No matter how many fic there are on the Pit involving Kanda's whole family being murdered horribly when he was young--except for him, obviously--and he swore he won't die until he's taken revenge on whoever did it (usually the Earl)...!! Fangirls can be so original.
(4) Ostensibly, these flowers also tell him to set things on fire and kill people.
(5) (Okay, 170 chapters, same difference.)
(6) Heh, wonder what that says about Hoshino-sensei...
(7) Also, must needs to recalibrate some of the stories I spin to entertain myself when I'm bored, distracted, can't sleep, or...well...whenever I zone out, really. It would count as fanfiction if I ever wrote it down, but I never record any of the crap I've come up with in my head for any fandom, whether it be Inuyasha, Tokyo Mew Mew, Naruto, D.Gray-man, whatever. My reasons are a mishmash of low self-esteem, laziness,jealous possessiveness not really wanting to make them public (they're mine, dammit), and my ass-covering face-saving mantra of never-leave-a-paper-trail (or electronic trail, as the case may be): I've seen people so embarrassed by their past work that they have to forge an entirely new identity to get away from it, and know for a fact that despite my rapid growth I have been far too much of a n00b in the past--had I been posting all the stories I spin in my head up on fanfiction.net, you would see a rapid progression from ignorant American to wapanese wannabe to shameless pr0nner to experimenting RYFG to snobbish intellectual to my current standing, all interlaced with various grades of autistic tunnel vision and hasty retconning to cover up the varying levels of shame. My one serious project on FF.N (a) went nowhere (b) was completely rewritten (c) was then relentlessly revised and edited over and over again until it was abandoned.(8)
(8) ...Okay, that was a long-ass footnote. *headdesk* Must...contain...verbal...diarrhea...!! Why does my brain have no shut-off valve? *laments*
...So. Part of me probably knew that something like this was a possibility, but...despite my ability to separate canon fact from fanon fiction in my mind in order to safely wallow in the depths of ff.n, some of the popular theories and assumptions necessary for using his character in a story must have rubbed off on me: I expected his past to have featured some sort of revenge-quest-inspiring tragedy in Japan, rather than...this.
(In my defense, such tragedies feature often in the pasts of the manga's characters; also, given the situation of the world setting, there is a sharp increase in probability of those close to members of the Black Order--indeed, even completely unfortunate strangers like, say, cops investigating suspicious disappearances, passengers on a boat, nuns at an orphanage--meeting horrible horrible demises, and if the ones you love are dead and you know who's responsible, wouldn't you want to gear up and set off hell-bent on not coming back until you have their bloody decapitated head(s) in a burlap sack?(2))
...Um...that terrifically convoluted paragraph just above is code for "I'm not one of those fans who are incapable of separating Kanda Yuu and Uchiha Sasuke (as two distinct characters from two distinct fandoms), I swear." Despite the timing of my falling into the D.Gray-fandom coinciding with my falling-out with the Naruto fandom, despite my incredible obliviousness and myopia when it comes to my own psyche, I am in fact aware and appreciative of the fact that D.Gray-man is not Naruto, never was never will be, and in fact is quite unlike my former fandom in...well, probably not every way, that would be unrealistic, but a lot of ways; as such, the characters are not the same set of people and should not be treated that way.(3)
For one thing, this fandom's pissy sword-happy Japanese prettyboy happens to be an artificially engineered soldier who constantly sees lotus blossoms that aren't really there.
...
That's right. Kanda is a pretty pretty test tube baby who hallucinates pretty pretty flowers.(4)
8D
Win~ ♥ ♥ ♥
Although really I'm just happy we got any information on him at all. It may be precious little, and incredibly vague and ambiguous to boot, but it's the most insight we've had into his character since...uhhh...frickin' Mateel, man. That was like a million years ago.(5)
See, I'm one of those people who aren't satisfied with their understanding of a story until they can crawl into each major character's head and live there, and Kanda has been giving me grief since day one. We know practically nothing about him--his motivations, his past, his goals--and this is compounded by the fact that he's the type of character that avoids other people and never talks about himself. For almost two hundred chapters, we didn't get even a single flashback, while Allen, Lenalee, Miranda and Krory were spilling themselves all over the place; hell, even Lavi, the closemouthed Bookman apprentice, got some time in the limelight (largely thanks to Road's attempt to dissect him). Kanda eats alone, trains alone, fights alone. That in itself has been an insight into his character, but for me it's not enough. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why he fought for the Order, why he placed so much importance into completing missions successfully. No matter which of the fannish theories I borrowed--ancient family curse, clan massacre, famine, pestilence, big family, small family, richer or poorer--none of them fit.
It's probably because most of us have been assuming that since he's Japanese, he grew up in Japan. In fact, given enough thought, it should've been clear that D.Gray-man's Japan is an Akuma-infested wasteland,(6) and all the Asian cultural influences on the characters have been Chinese: the Asian Branch is in China, traditionally run by the Chang clan, and the casual (well, non-uniform) outfits we've seen Kanda wear have all been Chinese in style. Whether he was genetically engineered from the beginning or biologically enhanced at a young age, he must have been raised at or near the Asian Branch; the Order may be all he's ever known. Rather than an Accommodator randomly chosen by the Innocence, he was actually designed to be the perfect soldier. That's why he acts like he's trying to be one. Insert epiphany here.
Many others have probably figured this out already; despite my IQ and ability to memorise random facts, I'm ridiculously slow. It took my brain forever to connect the dots between Kanda's lotus and the rose from Beauty and the Beast. It took even longer--until the third reread of ZONE--for the connection between "Robin" as an Akuma with Julia's soul and Allen in chapter 36 with Mana's skull hovering above him. Also, chapter 186 was released on the 23rd of April, and I didn't read it until a couple days ago, and didn't reread it until today (I was hoping sleeping on it would help the implications sink in more). So, uh, if this isn't news to you, please for to disregard. I'm used to looking like an idiot.
Now I'm off to don the cape and mask of OCD-Creature and spend hours collecting and analysing everything we've ever learned about this elusive character...because that's what I do.(7) *exeunt*
(1) I have decided, on a whim, to stop cluttering up my paragraphs with misuse of parenthetic comments. Now I will be abusing footnotes instead! *yay* As for whether or not this will be an improvement, well...time will tell. Onward!
(2) Well, maybe I'm assuming too much violence of the supposed "you." In the lens of a character in a
(3) No matter how many fic there are on the Pit involving Kanda's whole family being murdered horribly when he was young--except for him, obviously--and he swore he won't die until he's taken revenge on whoever did it (usually the Earl)...!! Fangirls can be so original.
(4) Ostensibly, these flowers also tell him to set things on fire and kill people.
(5) (Okay, 170 chapters, same difference.)
(6) Heh, wonder what that says about Hoshino-sensei...
(7) Also, must needs to recalibrate some of the stories I spin to entertain myself when I'm bored, distracted, can't sleep, or...well...whenever I zone out, really. It would count as fanfiction if I ever wrote it down, but I never record any of the crap I've come up with in my head for any fandom, whether it be Inuyasha, Tokyo Mew Mew, Naruto, D.Gray-man, whatever. My reasons are a mishmash of low self-esteem, laziness,
(8) ...Okay, that was a long-ass footnote. *headdesk* Must...contain...verbal...diarrhea...!! Why does my brain have no shut-off valve? *laments*