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fuctacles · 9 months

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Unusual, but maybe not in a bad way

Eddie's shoes might look good, but they were never a good choice for summer rains. He kept forgetting that and letting the reality of his fashion choices hit him hard in the face. Or knees.

The bus had a moving plate in the middle that usually wasn't a problem but today wasn't usual. Today the rain was pouring and Eddie's phone was at 15% because he had been too lazy to plug it in before falling asleep. So today he had to switch seats to one next to a charging port and as he was making the short voyage, a few things aligned perfectly to make today unusual, and in a bad way.

The rotating plate was wet from the rain.

The soles of his shoes had no grip.

The bus turned left.

"Shit."

Eddie gathered himself off the wet floor, cursing his shoes, the weather, and the throbbing pain in his knee. Without looking up he fell heavily into the seat that was his destination, afraid of the amused stares he might catch. His dignity? Gone. His pants? Well, they were torn already anyway so one new hole didn't make much difference. His knee? Bleeding, apparently. As he rubbed his knees, one of his hands came out red. He groaned.

"Of fucking course." He just had to hit something sharp on the usually safe and relatively smooth surface.

When he was reaching to plug in his phone, someone grabbed the pipe just above the USB port. Eddie looked up and found a man looking down at him. He also realized the golden frames of his glasses complimented his hazelnut eyes beautifully.

"You should clean this up," the man said instead of making fun of him or asking if he was okay. No, he was holding out a packet of wet wipes like some kind of saint.

Eddie hesitated for a moment but while his dignity might be gone, the gorgeous man in front of him wasn't. He took the offered wipe.

"Thanks," he murmured, wiping the cut and the surrounding skin, cleaning off sand and blood.

The man dropped a backpack on the vacant seat next to him. Eddie eyed the pins attached to it; a couple of dinosaurs, a Hufflepuff crest, ‘protect trans kids’, and… a bisexual flag. Score.

"Pirates, Hello Kitty or dinosaurs?"

"Huh?"

"Band-aid," the man clarified, shaking a small tin can he fished out of his backpack. "I work with kids," he added like it explained everything. Well, it kind of did. Upon opening, the tin revealed an assortment of colourful band-aids.

Eddie hummed in thought, considering his choices.

"Dinosaurs."

"Good choice," the man praised with a smile, probably the same one he showed to the kids. Was he a teacher? Because suddenly all the teacher-student porn scenarios gained a new appeal. Where skimpy pencil skirts didn’t work on Eddie, a soft green jumper just might, apparently.

The man handed him a dino band-aid, apparently expecting him to apply it himself. Well, of course. They were two strangers on a bus, after all.

Disappointed, he put it on the cut, missing the amused tilt of the teacher's lips.

"Do you need anything else? I have some candy; lollipops, gummies…" The man flipped through the contents of his bag.

"Gummies?" Eddie's interest was piqued.

"They have colourful fillings and a tiny dragon on each wrapper," he advertised, offering him a small baggie to choose from. Again, his tone reminded him of an adult talking to a kid. This shouldn't be working on him as well as it was.

"Can I have two?" he asked, looking up into these stunning brown eyes. The level difference was not helping. Has he not sat down on purpose? To tower over poor Eddie's tiny metal heart?

The man smiled as he took a quick conspiratorial look around.

"You can even have three, just don't tell my kids," he whispered

"I ain't a snitch!" he assured and picked up two green candies and an orange one. Because red flavours belonged in the trash.

Or apparently in the plush mouth of a handsome stranger, since he picked one of those for himself. Maybe Eddie didn't hate them that much, after all. He could make an exception. Especially if he could taste them the fun way.

"You sure you don't want a lollipop? Water? Extra band-aid?"

Eddie shook his head adamantly but had a nagging feeling the man was stalling. His gaze dropped to the flag badge, giving him an instant shot of courage.

"Your number?"

The soft teacher's smile turned sly, and he knew he took the right step. His metal heart thumped in his chest, the sound resonating against his ribs. What a fun feeling.

"Better hurry up, my stop is next."

Eddie nearly dropped his phone in his haste to put in the string of numbers.

"What do I…?" he asked when the empty ‘name’ box stared at him from the screen.

"Steve," the man offered, just in time for the bus to stop. The doors swung open, and he was gone, but while the physical distance between them grew, Eddie now had the comfort of having him in the palm of his hand, hidden behind a number.

>> Thanks for the candy! 🖤 - Eddie

[Steddie masterpost] [Ao3] [ko-fi]

#steddie #mine #yes i wrote it after slipping on the bus #literally on my phone that was charging on the usb port i fought for #but i was wearing yellow lego adidas shoes bc im not cool and edgy like Eddie #but in my experience doc martens and similar shitkickeresque shoes work just as badly on slippery surfaces so this is still valid #my lego shoes slap otherwise thank you very much #i did not meet hot teacher tho bc im not a hot metalhead #teacher steve harrington #steve harrington works with kids #meet cute #vaguely poland coded #the candies are the ones from wawel #i remember buying all my store had once and dousing them in vodka to eat on my bday

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prezaki · 19 days

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Bucchigiri?! and 'being Honki' - a Show about Identity and Human Connection

With Hiroko Utsumi's newest work as a director now completed, I want to take a moment to discuss the thematic through-lines of Bucchigiri?! and explain why I think that the story was very coherent even if it first seemed erratic.

At the heart of the series is the concept of the Honki Person(TM) - and that's where the confusion starts. Leaving the word 'Honki' in Japanese for the subs suggests a lore-heavy emphasis on some kind of supernatural mechanic in-story. It caused many viewers expected a well-defined shounen-typical power system - but that isn't what Honki is nor what it was ever meant to be.

"Honki" is the Japanese word 本気, which means Seriousness, Earnestness (or doing something 'in earnest, for real' if used as an adverb). 'Honki People' literally just means 'Earnest People'

And thus "Honki" is doing double duty as a red herring Lore Concept and a regular word - an intentional ambiguity that is inevitably lost by translation.

In the show, the characters do initially think of the 'Honki Person' as a literal thing to become (a supernaturally powerful master martial artist) rather than as a state of being in which one is earnest - but the thing is that the narrative proves them wrong.

But before we get to that, we need to dig a little bit deeper into what a Honki Person is thought to be in-universe:

"Historically", those thought of as Honki were fighters who participated in conflicts 300 years ago - a bit after the end of the Sengoku Period, the continuously warring states that had defined Japan for two centuries. With the advent of the rigidly structured Edo Period, honorable fighters with no clear systemic alliance were no longer needed and the aspiring Honki People(TM) were mercilessly gunned down. This feels out of left field for an anime like Bucchigiri?! to focus on, so I propose a second more allegorical layer to impose over the literal pseudo-historical read.

Even beyond the historical fact that gun imports changed warfare, the usage of guns here is deliberate to represent something. Guns are associated with authorities, and contrasted against the Honki People(TM) shunning weapons and fighting only with their own bodies.

To be Honki(TM) means to be true to yourself and secure in your own identity - this is something that is a hindrance to a social system that relies on rules and groupthink to sustain itself. Supporting this assumption, the theme of 'death' by weapon/authority is mirrored in the show several times:

On the one hand, we have the NG Boys, a gang set apart from the other gangs in the story by their even more rigid hierarchical structure and their willingness to use weaponry. They all follow one leader, have one uniform look, and appear basically brainwashed into blind obedience.

The association of weapons=structure and authority is made pretty clearly through that alone, but is also enhanced by all the members of the NG Boys living under constant threat of being fed to the real authorities of society: the police. Fear keeps everyone in line.

And further, the idea of society as an oppressive force (especially to the lower class) is put into direct focus through Mitsukuni and Matakara. Poverty is brought up briefly before through Senya (our main Honki Person(TM) was a nameless orphan after all) and brought back with the Asamine brothers:

Mitsukuni wishes to escape his social status in order to offer a better life to his brother - and he's forcibly held down by the oppressive system around him.

The cop that causes Mitsukuni to go to jail is equivalent to the guns that shot Senya and Ichiya.

(Utsumi has explored this underlying socially critical current before. Not for nothing, her previous series SK8 opens with the memorable bridge of the title song reading: "before society can kill us".)

But Bucchigiri?! isn't about overthrowing the system. It's about the individual. Understanding the context about authority just helps setting the real theme into focus.

And that theme is to hold on steadfast to who you are and allow yourself to connect with others, even in various kinds of adversity.

After this long, long preamble, let's get to the actual main characters!!

Matakara and Arajin are people who are ruled by fear and who spend 11 episodes running from others and themselves in two very different ways.

Arajin is pretty hated as a protagonist, which amuses me a little, because nobody hates Arajin more than Arajin hates Arajin.

His past cowardice in failing to protect Matakara has clearly shown him that he is a pathetic person and he's spent his whole life since then trying to avoid being reminded of this. He avoids Matakara, the strongest reminder of his failure, but further than that he avoids connection with anybody that he could see as a peer.

Arajin is solely focused on finding love and romance because he feels inherently inferior to every person he would be invited to contrast himself against. He avoids other guys because he hates himself. He shuns connection and pursues only people (girls) he views as different enough to not invite any comparison.

Matakara meanwhile has major abandonment issues - he's lost his parents, Arajin, and his brother. Everyone important to him keeps vanishing from his life and in order to keep himself from feeling powerless about this he decides to blame himself.

If it's his own fault that people leave him (because he's weak) then there is something in his power that he can do in order to avoid being hurt again (becoming stronger). In order to maintain this state of motivational self-hatred, he puts others on a pedestal.

Matakara needs Arajin to be strong, powerful, honest and admirable... because that is the image he holds himself up by. In Mitsukuni and Arajin, Matakara creates god-like icons to chase after. And by doing so, he also shuns genuine connection.

Being confronted with Arajin as a flawed person gives Matakara a breakdown because it makes it harder to run from his own loneliness by focusing on chasing after Arajin.

Arajin is always running, but Matakara is always chasing... because he can't stand to look behind and face his monster.

In a lot of ways, Arajin and Matakara can't connect because they care about each other. Arajin can't stand what he allowed to happen to Matakara because he cared about Matakara. Matakara clings to Arajin because he loves him.

This theme of love hindering connection is again mirrored in two other characters - Senya and Ichiya, of course.

Ichiya, unwilling to confront his own terminal illness head-on, wishes to avoid it by goading Senya into killing him. By doing this, he can run from his own weakness and put Senya on a pedestal instead.

Meanwhile Senya is attached to their connection as-is and wishes to maintain this master-disciple dynamic forever - going so far as to deny his own strength in order to avoid acknowledging their changing dynamic.

Both of them are denying something about themselves.

It is their self-denial that makes their communication and thus connection break down.

Ichiya can't make Senya go Honki(TM) (which should have definitely been translated as an adverb here, e.g. 'failing to make him get serious') because he is also not HONEST with him or himself.

In the finale, Senya finally admits his motivations (his illness, his perceived weakness) and he is rewarded with the honest fight he'd been craving. They both stopped running.

This theme becomes even clearer through the two leads, of course, but even earlier than that it exists in Mahoro.

Mahoro's scene in episode 6 is the thematic linchpin that carried the whole show on its shoulders. Through Mahoro, everyone in the cast gets their first glimpse at true unrelenting Honki(tm) - and it is something totally unrelated to fighting prowess.

Mahoro is physically powerless against Akutaro, but she won't run. She has a heart that won't run away, the key quality of the Honki Person(TM), because she has an unshakable sense of self-identity.

It would be easy to dismiss her cutesy design as a contrivance to give Arajin a conventional-looking love interest despite going to Delinquent Academy - but it also says something about HER. Mahoro marches to the beat of her own drum. She does not care that she does not fit in, she does not mind being alone - she'll stick right to her own aesthetic and priorities.

So it's easy for her to call out Akutaro - and in doing so, call out the whole cast along with him:

You're empty. You are nothing but a shell, shaped by how you relate to those around you. You have nothing to offer.

And how are you supposed to connect with anybody, when you don't even know who you are?

(Notably, Mahoro is also a character who refuses to compromise on her self even for love - she knows she does not appeal to Marito, but she's not changing herself to be more his type. Her Honki does not budge, even for him.)

And lest you think I am exaggerating by connecting the theme of identity and emptiness back to all of the cast instead of just Akutaro: it does come back with Matakara.

Matakara can't believe anybody would know him and care for him, because he doesn't know himself.

For Matakara, facing himself means acknowledging his fear of abandonment rather than externalizing it as a hallucination of a literal monster.

But facing yourself doesn't just mean facing your demons, it also means facing your own positive qualities. And that is Arajin's story.

Even as Arajin turned into a scummy, evasive and selfish guy, there is a part of him that has a throughline to who he always was. He's someone who can get invested in others with reckless abandon.

Whether as a child with Matakara, or in the present with Mahoro... Arajin wants to connect.

Bucchigiri?! is a show full of innuendo and sexual gags. Merging with a genie gets equated to sex, fighting gets equated to sex... and of course this is for laughs, but it's also thematic.

Because all these things are about connection. About facing someone else with your whole self.

On a literal level, yes, Arajin absolutely wants to get laid. This is his sincere desire, and good for him.

But at the same time, his battle cry of 'I want to lose my virginity!' is him crying out for a real connection, even at a time when he shunned the idea thereof.

In the end, being a Honki Person(TM) has nothing to do with fighting. Fighting is the way a lot of the rough and tumble guys on the show like to connect, but it is not the only way to do so and not the only way to be Honki(TM).

Arajin never learns to love brawling - he did it out of circumstance and necessity, but it's not his hobby. He does not need to discover some hidden love of fighting, because this show fundamentally isn't about how 'fighting is inherently good' or anything.

It's a show about how even when you hate yourself and think you're as low as it can get, acknowledging your own self in full is the first step to finding a real bond with somebody else.

It just also happens to feature a bunch of delinquents who love to punch a lot.