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Mar. 10th, 2019 06:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vorpatrilsI've been in a funk recently so I've been gathering books and tv shows i like and popping them on while I mope in bed
Due South is now added to the Star Trek: TOS and Star Trek: DS9 pile of this is so gay how did I not notice this the first time around
Happily, I also found a download for a manga I was obsessed with when i was fourteen.
Kaze Hikaru has eluded me for nearly eight years - it's not available in Australia, or I would have bought it gladly - and continues to release one official English volume a year, meaning we're only fifteen years away from catching up.
I've always liked a girl-dresses-as-boy-for-reasons plot which speaks to the dire state of fantasy when I was growing up, it was the only plot with a female protagonist I could find that didn't inevitably involve romance. I read Tamora Pierce's Alanna series very young and adored the trope.
So the daughter of a samurai joining the Shinsengumi to avenge her father and brother - of a girl even being allowed to avenge instead of leaving it to her son or husband was revolutionary to me. Sei falls head over heels immediately but retains her dignity in doing so. No falling over herself to prove she's a woman, no but why doesn't he feel the same wayyyy. Just 'well damn' followed by accepting her feelings and moving on - not out of a sacrificial place but simply acknowledging and respecting that there isn't a place for her by his side as a woman or wife, but happy to protect him as a friend, man and soldier.
Internet searches have proven that sometime the year before last, the main couple finally kissed - it only took twenty years. However, the male love interest is so very dense and warrior stoic I have no doubt he has denied it happened or convinced himself he did it out of brotherly love.
I really wish it was more popular in the west. The romance is doomed - her love interest is based on a historical figure who'll die of TB in a few years and she's a proud woman of the bushi warrior caste which is about to be destroyed by the Meiji Restoration and opening of Japan to the West- but I so want to see the ending.
Due South is now added to the Star Trek: TOS and Star Trek: DS9 pile of this is so gay how did I not notice this the first time around
Happily, I also found a download for a manga I was obsessed with when i was fourteen.
Kaze Hikaru has eluded me for nearly eight years - it's not available in Australia, or I would have bought it gladly - and continues to release one official English volume a year, meaning we're only fifteen years away from catching up.
I've always liked a girl-dresses-as-boy-for-reasons plot which speaks to the dire state of fantasy when I was growing up, it was the only plot with a female protagonist I could find that didn't inevitably involve romance. I read Tamora Pierce's Alanna series very young and adored the trope.
So the daughter of a samurai joining the Shinsengumi to avenge her father and brother - of a girl even being allowed to avenge instead of leaving it to her son or husband was revolutionary to me. Sei falls head over heels immediately but retains her dignity in doing so. No falling over herself to prove she's a woman, no but why doesn't he feel the same wayyyy. Just 'well damn' followed by accepting her feelings and moving on - not out of a sacrificial place but simply acknowledging and respecting that there isn't a place for her by his side as a woman or wife, but happy to protect him as a friend, man and soldier.
Internet searches have proven that sometime the year before last, the main couple finally kissed - it only took twenty years. However, the male love interest is so very dense and warrior stoic I have no doubt he has denied it happened or convinced himself he did it out of brotherly love.
I really wish it was more popular in the west. The romance is doomed - her love interest is based on a historical figure who'll die of TB in a few years and she's a proud woman of the bushi warrior caste which is about to be destroyed by the Meiji Restoration and opening of Japan to the West- but I so want to see the ending.
