“Stop! You’re hurting him!”
So Meryl speaks when Vash is being dragged across the desert by car. I’ve surmised that dubs, in general, have gotten a lot better since the 90s.
And hey? She’s the spitting image of Rem? I definitely didn’t notice that before, if it’s even been there the whole time. Seems to be a lot of doppelgangers running around in these shows - - Rei being Shinji’s Mom, Hohenheim and Father being duplicates, et cetera. Actually, identity confusion of the Freudian Oedipal complex variety seems hella popular in Japan judging by these shows. EVANGELION, FLCL, even GURREN LAGANN to an extent, all had underage male protagonists suffering serious sexual tension with mother/big sister surrogates. I’m sure somebody, somewhere, has written a riveting thesis paper on the subject.
Speaking of the psychological undercurrents of this show, I wonder if Rem would’ve kept telling Vash to adhere to this code of theirs if she’d actually survived in the ship crash. It seems like something he was too young to properly grasp at the time and his understanding of its applications have been frozen ever since. I’m honestly not somebody who rages at the notion of a hero choosing not to kill, but the fact that Vash goes into anxious hysterics before, during and after his decisions speaks to this part of his psyche not being fully developed. That makes for even worse maladjustment considering he's supposed to more than a hundred years old.
Speaking of normal development and all that, I’m getting the sense that Vash and Meryl’s potential relationship is going to be one of those old tragically unrealized romances - - and I’d say it’s more her fault. It’s the classic case of a gal playing hard-to-get and actually turning the guy away. If she’s really so out-of-sorts about him, slapping the guy when he finally show some (if maybe a little inappropriate) affection is a little counterintuitive. And, for all they, he's walking away to his death, now, and the more appropriate opportunity is never going to arise.
Watch this episode, “Live Through,” below and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE . Order them on Amazon here & here . Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk
Oh and I think your right about Vash being too young to fully grasp Rems words. It's brought up by some of the villain's condescendingly and I think the final episode touches on it slightly.
Just saw the Trigun movie last night. Nothing spectacular but it was a fun ride. Kinda like the Cowboy Bebop movie, it's basically a long episode.
I'm not even sure he's been around normal people for most of his life. They kinda skipped that whole part.
meow
Look at the relationship of Misato and Shinji. I completely understand her reason, but I don't see how Misato thought she was helping a boy who felt like no one wanted him by constantly telling him to leave.
Though, you get in that scary place in trying to understand women. They can do pretty much whatever they want, and it's always our fault for not understanding it.
In the more standard manga/anime, brother/sister theme isn't treated very seriously and more a source of humor.
How does she a glimpse of his memory? Is there telepathy in the manga?
I was thinking about checking that out (maybe it if's on Netflix streaming) but I think I've had enough TRIGUN.
I'm not going to say this is a psychologically-deep show, but there is some... consistency to how he's not fully developed as a person.
I have noticed, actually. I just couldn't think of a relevant way to bring it up. It IS a very Todd McFarlan touch. As I recall, he used to put spiders into all his SPIDER-MAN covers.
Is that term Japanese I feel like I've heard it before.My dirty mind still insists that she really wanted to jump his bones and a lot of her antagonist behavior can chalked up to denial...
Grrrrrrrrosssssss.. ha ha ha.
I should look up some of Todd McFarlan's covers
The cat come from Yasuhiro Nightow early works, I forgot what the name of it.
Oh yeah, tsundere is a huge influence in manga/anime. One you probably want to become familiar with, because yo will see it a lot. You could probably describe Asuka Langley Soryu as a tsundere character. The way she acted disinterested in Shinji, but would become jealous.
The term is sort of a made up phrase of combining two Japanese terms. Firstly, there is "tsun, tsun", which basically means disinterest or to turn away. Secondly, there is "dere dere", which means being "lovey-dovey".
I think part of Misato wanted to be a mother to Shinji. The problem was that she didn't really know how to do that. She was the type of person who associated comfort with sex. She was already so heartbroken by the death of Kaji. She was in need to comfort. She saw how shattered Shinji was after Rei died and thought he needed to be comforted as well. I think she really did try and put a move on him in that scene, but when he pulled away she was ashamed of herself at what she tried.
One of my favorite scenes in Evangleion is of Misato crying as she clings to Shinji's clothes after the indecent of him being absorbed in the LCL of Unit 01. She's the only one down there weeping, and demanding the Eva to "Give my Shinji back!". That could be a statement made my a mother of her son, or a lover might make.
Now, as to that scene in EoE. That's the confusing one. She blatantly promises him sex when he returns, but she knew she was going to die from her wounds. Maybe she wanted him. Maybe she thought everyone was going to die and she wanted him to feel passion for once in his life. When Instrumentality took place and everyone was seeing their heart's desire. She saw Kaji there, and learned Maya was hot for Ristuko.
It should be interesting to see what Evangelion 2.0 does with Misato's past relationship with Kaji. Seeing how in the original series he was the one who showed her Lilith, but in the first movie she seemed to know about that right from the start. Despite her talking about only just starting there recently. That kind of removes Kaji's plot driven purpose. So, what is he there for now? Personally, I would love these Rebuild movies to be 2 to 3 hours long.
I'm also intrigued as to what this new girl Mari will bring to the mix since she wasn't in the original. It's been so hard to hold off and not watch the fansub pirated version. I can not express how much I would love to see this in theaters.
You see, this is what I love about manga/anime. There is so much to talk about. So much subtext that actually means something. In standard comics, they are convoluted messes with as many writers that they have in any given year. We can have these deep conversations about the histories and the motivations of the anime characters.