#birdmen meta

[birdmenmanga]

Pride Flag Iconography in BIRDMEN

There’s one motif scattered throughout official BIRDMEN illustrations that haunts me to no end, appearing in not just throwaway holiday illustrations, but also in chapter title pages and most significantly, on the final volume cover. It is, of course, the striped banners.

Anyone with a passing familiarity with pride flags will recognize the horizontal, multi-colored, and evenly spaced stripes, present in nearly every iteration of the pride flag. Juxtaposed with the midair setting that these illustrations all take place in, the link to the rainbow flag, the most well-known of the pride flags, is undeniable.

What stands out to me especially is the tangibility of these banners. See the way Kamoda is grabbing it? The way it sags under the weight of the birdmen sitting on it? It’s easy to forget in the digital age, when so many pride flags have been turned into abstractions of color, that the hex codes are meant to represent a real, physical object.

Of course, there’s a reasonable in-universe explanation for this, see, every character has a color associated with them, and it’s just a simple and convenient way to show a particular group of characters. In the first two illustrations, for example, there are five stripes, one for each member of the Bird Club. In the final cover illustration, the stripes are meant to represent the Seven of Beginning.

Even when I read through BIRDMEN for the first time, it struck me as peculiar that the Seven of Beginning didn’t quite follow the rainbow color scheme. Gayness aside, it’s a reasonable choice that creators have chosen over and over again. I mean, what’s with the indigo and the violet. They’re WAY too close. Why isn’t there a red. And turquoise, of all colors? What kind of weird and fucked up choice is that? And from the start Karasuma’s black stripe had already thrown a wrench in things. But then I realized… it’s not this pride flag. (Which has 6 stripes instead of 7, anyways.)

It’s this one.

If we include the prophet, Takayama, as the 8th stripe, taking the red slot, and replace Karasuma’s black stripe with the pink, it’s almost precisely the original, 8-striped Gilbert Baker pride flag. (If we’re going to be technical, the orange and yellow stripes are slightly off– Raphael and Malaika’s colors are more desaturated than the colors in the flag. These colors are actually closer to Robin and Arthur’s colors, which… hm… food for thought…)

Well, alright. Depending on how strict or lax you are with the cutoffs, maybe these aren’t statistically significant enough to you. Maybe it really is a genuine, honest-to-god coincidence and Tanabe just happened to pick these colors, completely independently of the Gilbert Baker pride flag. The probability of this happening is pretty low, but certainly not impossible. If we factor in the meaning of the stripes, however, it reveals this to be either the greatest string of coincidences known to man… or the alternative— that Tanabe chose to correspond these colors with their respective characters on purpose.

Let’s put aside the hot pink stripe for now. (There’s a lot to unpack there.) Takayama’s red stripe represents Life– fitting for a Birdman who can hear the voices of the dying despite not being a Linker. Even from the start, Takayama’s opening line forced our characters to confront death, and is a symbol for their will to live.

Orange for Malaika is perhaps one of the clearest connections. Her ability as an Eraser is to lift the emotional burdens from the mind– to restore the mind to a state of peace. It’s pretty clear that her ability is one of healing.

Yellow for Raphael might be hard to argue– but fascinatingly enough, the motif of sunlight has followed Gabriel since her very first introduction. (It’s a motif that has also followed Arthur and Wang Guang Feng… interesting, hm?)

Green, then, is Ende’s color— not only were they born in and raised by the Amazon jungle, they also claim to actually be the forest… “nature”, indeed.

Saqr’s color is turquoise for magic and art, and looking at his Phantom Master ability, which conjures illusions from thin air, I’d say that’s a pretty reasonable match, whether you want to interpret those illusions as magic or art (really, I’d argue it’s both).

Serenity for Barbara might seem difficult to interpret— isn’t agitation, at its core, the absolute opposite of serenity? However, the indigo stripe doesn’t stand only for serenity, but also for harmony (included in the French and Chinese wikipedia pages, but not the English or Spanish one, for whatever reason)— and from that perspective, it’s much easier to see how her Agitator ability exemplifies the concept of “Harmony”. When Barbara was introduced, Adler says this about her ability, in contrast to Karasuma’s Bellwether capabilities:

Not a controlling ability, but one which encourages teamwork and cooperation without coercion— an ability of harmony.

And finally, we have Eva as spirit. This might seem like a difficult and abstract concept to embody in the text, but thankfully BIRDMEN is chock-full of Christian references, and in particular, Ende, Takayama, and Eva are very clearly alluded to as the Holy Trinity— The Father, The Son, and finally, The Holy Spirit, respectively, tying Eva very closely to the concept of “Spirit”. (Personally I think the Holy Trinity deserves its own essay, which is why I’m not expanding on textual evidence. I’ve seen enough people nodding their heads about this interpretation so I don’t really feel the need to expand at the moment.)

Obviously I’m at the mercy of confirmation bias, but I feel like these are reasonably well-backed rationalizations, and while I think individually these arguments may not be the strongest, the fact that all of these arguments coexist is extremely telling.

So then we return to the pink stripe. The pink stripe, which is definitely not black.

Pulling our heads out of the text for a moment— let’s look at the work as a real and tangible thing in the world, shall we? BIRDMEN was a monthly publication in the Weekly Shonen Sunday, which is a relatively mainstream, family-friendly manga magazine. I think even if Tanabe intended to gun for the queer metaphor from the very beginning (which, for various reason, I do believe), even if color matching the Seven of Beginning with the Gilbert Baker pride flag was in her plans from the start, she still would have had to take out the pink stripe.

Like obviously the most immediate issue with assigning Karasuma the pink stripe is that he, uh… He’s just a middle schooler? Like he’s a kid. But even if we dodge the faux pas of associating a minor with sex by giving the sex stripe to an older character, like Eva, I still think it’s playing with fire, because I think the concept of sex itself is still very much a cultural taboo.

Hopefully everyone’s seen the post about how everything is pornographic and nothing is erotic, and the decoupling of sexiness and desire, because I can’t find it in my tumblr backlogs LMAO if anyone has that post on hand please give me a link <3 thanks <3

That is to say, for media that is aimed towards a shonen audience, you can have fanservice, you can have the occasional tit or ass as a treat, and maybe there are characters who have sex (Milan and Gabriel, for instance), but like. That’s in the gutters, in the fade to black, something done offscreen. We don’t show it, and more importantly, we don’t fucking talk about it. (This is meant to be more of a blanket statement, by the way. They did talk about it eventually in BIRDMEN and I liked what Miguel said. Good for Milan indeed…)

Not to mention that queer sex is, if possible, even more taboo than just, oh, you know. “Regular” sex. “Normal” sex. BIRDMEN is acutely aware of the persistent reputation of queer people as predators [insert The Battle Against the Press, Pt. 1 whenever I finally finish writing it], and the author is more than aware of just how easily things could be misconstrued if she chose to delve into this topic at length. Better to leave this unspoken than to make things worse.

Though I think there’s definitely something to be said about putting the sex stripe back on the pride flag, that even queer folks these days sometimes seem afraid of gay sex and sexuality, I view the deliberate exclusion of the pink stripe as a choice made out of safety. That in the absolute worst timeline where BIRDMEN is widely and negatively interpreted as a queer metaphor by the public, both the author and the magazine can, at the very least, duck out of the worst of the scrutiny by avoiding the, you know, the s-word altogether. That it’s actually fine if it doesn’t make things better for queer people, so long as it doesn’t make things worse.

So whatever. I can respect this choice. It’s a mainstream publication, neither Shogakukan nor Tanabe want to die on this hill; fine. But now comes the hard part of the essay, the part that made me drag my feet about this for ages: if Karasuma doesn’t represent sex, what exactly, then, is he meant to represent?

Well okay obviously the first thing I did was pore through all the major pride flags containing black stripes to see if I could find some type of connection there. Obviously I had to tread with caution because some of these flags are actually younger than BIRDMEN, but here’re some things that the color black stands for: genderlessness, asexuality, the sexuality spectrum, and people of color. Nothing in particular really jumps out at me— the sexuality spectrum, maybe, but the aromantic flag was created in 2014, so I’m inclined to disregard this particular piece of evidence. People of color? I mean I suppose he is, but the connection kind of falls short when he’s from such a homogenous society. I’m happy putting this down here just for the sake of saying I did look into it, and also that I personally feel like this is a dead end.

Because really, this approach feels like I’m really letting confirmation bias do the heavy lifting here, which in general is not good practice, so I’m also going to examine this question from a canon-centric point of view, rather than just a irl-queer-iconography point of view.

What I find interesting is how Karasuma defines his own color in New Gear:

Here he’s assessing his color black based on the Hue-Saturation-Brightness model (HSB, better known as HSV model, for value instead of brightness). He says nothing about hue here, because regardless of what the hue is, it still doesn’t matter if the saturation and brightness are zero. In a sense, one could say that black encompasses all the different hues… which certainly ties into his role as the Everyman protagonist. This too deserves its own essay, but once again I feel like most of us can agree on this. In one sentence, his cynicism paired with how lost he feels is easy for many people to relate to.

But more than the fact that he simply stands for all of us— I think he stands for the potential we all have to make a change. If there’s a little text caption next to Karasuma’s black stripe, I think it would say “empowerment”. It’s not the first time I’ve made this claim, but this whole story is a tale of empowerment for queer youth, in my opinion. That if we were willing to link hands and unite, we could achieve anything that our hearts dream of.

#birdmen #birdmen meta #just thinking thoughts... #jesus CHRIST it's not everything I hoped this essay to be but it's already almost 2k words and is almost CERTAINLY insufferably long #idk. NOT sold on what the black stripe means #BUT I'M SO SERIOUS ABOUT THIS ESSAY GUYS. I REALLY THINK SHE DIDN'T DO IT ON ACCIDENT. WHAT ARE THE ODDS #I wanted to talk about probability in the essay so bad. #what's the probability of birdmen ending up like this with this cast and these colors. GIVEN she was gunning for a queer metaphor #et cetera et cetera #versus if she was doing this on accident. argh. #augh.. the end of the essay is kind of weak sauce. I don't know. Although I really believe in the queer metaphor I also think like. idk #maybe it's all in my head. LOL #what if I AM delusional. did you think about that #EVEN THOUGH I FEEL LIKE THIS EVIDENCE IS?? INSANE ? ? ? #yeah idk. guys be nice to me. give me a pat on the head for this one idk #lol this is a long post innit #long post

[kitreadsbirdmen]

The “Lost” Traitor Arc in Birdmen

Hi y'all. Forgive me I'm gonna be a little rusty at this but @fronchtost is single-handedly relapsing my birdmen brainrot. We'll see for how long.

So I had this theory really early on during Birdmen's run. One I kept a little quieter about because I didn't feel I had enough but you know how my theories go! @lackadaisical-pottymouth remembers me talking about Gabriel getting pregnant before the great Fallout killed the American flock. I have actual proof that I predicted Arthur C Phoenix's dead mind getting downloaded into Takayama's consciousness because I was obsessed with working out the full extent of the Seraph mental capabilities. I get birdmen! I'm proud of that.

So here's the gist....

I think Rei Sagisawa was being set up as a sort of 'Traitor' for/to the flock.

Now, this feeling had a lot of flexibility in it and I'll dig into those ideas a bit but we can safely just assume that I firmly believe this plan was jossed very early on when the plot had to accelerate toward endgame. It's worth noting that I believe that Tanabe was pretty sure she had to move things right around... late 30's early 40's. It's the part where I could sense that she had to leave behind some ideas. Mainly Birdmen in the public eye themes, Tatsume, the group dynamic without Takayama etc. So while the Bird Club members are very well established by this time, they're put on the back seat narratively after Umino's awakening to better serve the Takayama-Eishi drama which is the lifeblood of the manga.

This is all to say that we got some potential left on the table here, especially for the Bird President, and 2nd in command Rei Sagisawa.

THE BOY

I'm a little biased, Sagisawa is the most like myself as a passionate artist with a flare for exuberance, but a gentle maybe even sensitive nature. He's used liberally in the early manga to help highlight Eishi's immature gut instincts towards privilege and to test his ability to connect with others. Takayama's hard to connect to but everyone struggles with that-- our boy can't even like the most likable guy!

That said, things take a shift with Sagisawa when he Awakens. It's one of the most surprising abilities because its... seemingly useless. I mean, he gets it right when the group is having to parse out Fox as an ally so it's convenient to the moment, but on the grander narrative, it's only used in passing. So let's talk about his Ability because it's the main crux behind this idea that he could have gone rogue in some way:

Trickster-> Antihuman Ability

Trickster makes Sagisawa a living lie detector, namely for the humans around the group. But as the name would suggest, it also poses Sagisawa as a very capable liar as well. Since the abilities are born from strong external stimuli, a strong need, and a predetermined disposition, let's dig into that.

Rei Awakens in chapter 23 very soon after Eishi, in fact, he does so moments after Eishi experiments with a Bellwether Tweet, providing a sort of physical stimuli. The need of the group at the moment is influenced by Rei's paranoia around their school teacher who set his red flags off at the beginning of the chapter. The group is on high alert after a very unsavory encounter with Eden and while Rei makes no strong motion about it, you can tell it weighs heavy on the group. Knowing who to trust is important. Finally, Rei is very emotionally intelligent, sensitive, and observant. He has a strong disposition toward reading others-- a skill that no one else in the group possesses. You might argue such a skill is born from his trauma, both from his the abuse of his brother's depressive spiral and/or the speculative neglect of his distant parents. BUT IM GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF

If anything, Rei also showed early on a very fun habit! He's a little social chameleon! He's bubbly with Umino, he's dimwitted with Kamoda, and he's calculating with Eishi! He adapts to the person he's with. I even noted that he had a perchance for this... disingenuous personality shifting as a result of his survivor's guilt with Rui-- basically embodying the popular and artistic persona of his brother to discover why he died. This doesn't mean Rei is naturally a deceptive person, it just means that he has a skillset. An incredibly useful, dangerous, and criminally underused one.

Now, while Trickster is a sensory augmentation ability, mainly used in group navigation, the proficient lying aspect means that he's better for espionage. He's the perfect spy, further capable of grounding the slowly crumbling sense of humanity that the Birdmen are holding onto. This alone tells me, that there could have easily been some kind of plot to push Rei into Eden hands-- or some subsidiary-- so that he can collect human intel for the group. It would use his abilities the most...

Ultimately, this makes Rei a traitor... against Eden. If the narrative wanted to play this well, it would be a very shifty plan with an unreliable narrator making it seem like Rei's betraying the Birdclub. But no! It could be a double agent kind of thing! We don't have any confirmation that his lie detecting and acting skills are effective against his fellow Seraphs. Honestly, we can't make this assumption at all because of the nature of their mental bond. But if we are to believe that the first abilities define the Awakened Seraph in a substantial and unique way, the group could well benefit from the ability to lie within the leadership. Actually, you might argue that Rei and Eishi's power combination helped mask from the others any lingering doubt Eishi might have had when using his ability to compel. It's subtle but if it works on other seraphim then it could be feasible for Rei to genuinely betray his Birdclub....

NOT THAT HE'D WANT TO OF COURSE....

Or? Couple of reaching things.

#1: Rei's family is rich and powerful and international. While not every rich and powerful person has to be a bad guy, there are grounds within the Birdmen universe that the rich and powerful often have first dibs on Eden's scientific market. It's an easy write-in for Rei's father to have had some contact with the country, big or small. Maybe they asked to have Rei for the Seraph project long before?

#2: The fact that his mother is foreign just offers some fluff to that idea, obviously, you can meet people from around the world in business, but Eden is defined by its global reach. Foreign and currently abroad mom makes prime Eden conspiracy.

#3: I always found Sagisawa's initial response to his transformation to be WEIRD guys. Like... red flag weird. Namely, because he's probably the most chill in the presence of the group but you can tell he flipped out when he transformed. His room is in shreds. And he stares at the Nike statue-- the same statue that holds a lot of meaning to Eden and Eva as the group houses a replica as some sort of inspiration. Now I've gone into the symbolism of the artwork and its relationship to the wings and freedom, but Rei looks at it with resentment... maybe... knowing resentment? If the Nike statue is an idol of victorious pursuits and its broken nature signifies the collapse of those ideas, then you might be able to make a one-to-one connection with Eden's scientific pursuits entirely. Rei knowing that these wings were a product from Eden? because dad? Don't argue this, I don't actually believe this, but there is some nuanced readings of these panels too.

Finally->

Yeah I just thought Tanabe might have wanted to play with this potential in Sagisawa a little bit. I know I'm biased but he seemed like a narrative favorite, especially as Eishi's equal and intellectual challenge. I am not assuming this was... ever in the cards and its a moot point to argue because it never really was... but it's fun to imagine the scenario. I know that a lot of my 'post canon' or 'complicated geopolitical setting alternate universe' content wants to utilize this for DRAMA. It's not like I think he'd be willing malicious, hell, I doubt he'd be a legit traitor (bait and switch) I just think they would play with the natural distrust his character could project.

Okay I'm rambling. It's been so long since I wrote a birdmen meta I'm literally living in the past. Birdmen Forever guys.

~Over and Out

#birdmen #birdmen meta #omg guys its been so long this is ridiculous #brainrot forever

[birdmenanime]

yo eishi is so fucking gay there's no straight explanation for him

LITERALLY!!! eishi is a bi icon (a bicon if you will)

like....okay. i genuinely believe there are pages/panels in birdmen that straight up dont make sense without the romantic lens 

okay let’s start off with the big gay elephant in the room: THIS LOOK

LIKE!!!!!!!!! OKAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

tanabe doesn’t do the gradient hashing unless it’s like a moment. Like it’s supposed to resemble like a slow breath, a long pause. Another previous example of this happening is when Karasuma realized he had a crush on Tsubame:

(also I would like to note that both eishi expressions in these pages are quite similar, the only exception being eishi in 44 doesn’t have blush marks, and he looks more tired. And like, the fact that they both show the same expressions of wonder and confusion and both a kinda realization of emotions...Eishi is bi next question)

Just..the emotions on this page as Karasuma truly comes face to face with his friend after he’s been missing, for months, at this point. He’s scared and happy and overwhelmed. 

so let’s talk about takayama and eishi, huh?

It’s obvious that Takayama’s leave in 33 takes a toll on Karasuma. He was always closest with him (as Tsubame points out in chapter 20), and Takayama pretty much solely interacted with Karasuma outside of bird club and saving people. This isn’t a rant about Takayama and his feelings for Karasuma, but it obviously impacts eishi and his own feelings, because takayama is confusing. takayama is at one moment grabbing him and climbing a tree with him, the next hes covered in shadows and preaching about “time.” Karasuma started the manga wary of takayama (considering him a threat in chapter 3), gets close to him, backs off, etc. and by chapter 24 his first instinct is to protect him from the world that won’t understand him:

( and quick side tangent, since I’m on chapter 24:

it’s basically implied in a panel that karasuma is too afraid to confirm if he has feelings for takayama, and that’s why he’s hesitant to hold his hand:

like...i get he gets embarrassed often...but the focus on the fact that eishi is blushing, and making it a sort of big deal...)

anyways, back to it

So takayama leaves in chapter 33, and he also leaves karasuma a mess. He visits takayama’s grandfather often, hoping to hear some kind of news, and to also just...learn a little more about the friend who ditched him

but it’s also karasuma, so he’s also pissed (the birthday message scene? iconic)

(i also want to briefly pull up these panels from chapter 37. Like, out of all the takayama faces tanabe could draw for karasuma to think about, she has him thinking about takayama smiling softly at him? With that sad look in his eyes? tanabe just say this boy is in love and GO)

and now that I’ve rambled for 50 years, let’s get into whiteouts

now, at this point in the manga, we know the whiteouts were (most likely) takayama and karasuma meeting spaces (held in dreams), and we also know that takayama instigates them, for the purpose of connecting and finding the Seven. So we can’t really be like “karasuma dreams of takayama,” its more like “takayama decides to appear in karasumas dreams” (which, okay, is also a little gay. i mean, he really only needed to do that once, since he already knows karasuma, and knows where he is, and he had already chosen him as the first at this point. what’s the point of having multiple whiteout sessions? the short answer is takayama missed him)

but anyways, the thing that makes this a “the whiteouts showcase that karasuma has feelings for takayama” is because of karasuma’s reaction.

Now, at this point in the manga, Karasuma is still pretty pissed at Takayama for leaving. Like, “if I saw takayama i’d punch him in the face and scream at him for a few hours” kinda pissed. 

but whiteouts also reveal another side of how he feels:

he misses takayama. a lot. above anything else, he really just wants him back

that’s why he smiles. 

Karasuma actually blushes in some of these panels, and the whiteout space is also full of sparkles and, as i call them, shoujo romance bubbles

like i get that karasuma misses him, and it’s normal for a friend to, but like...tanabe takes it to another level with all of this. karasuma from 34 to now acts like he’s going through a breakup (so many pining angsty breakup songs suit them. i have a playlist going that like, scarily fits them and their exact emotions during this)

really, the big takeaway here is that when it comes to takayama and karasuma’s friendship, tanabe always takes it a bit farther than what you would expect form a normal dude-bro friendship. more blushing. more hints. more smiles and more long gazes and “i knew youd be the first person to fly after me” and “takayama isnt interested in dating [girls]”and “Taka’s special to you, isn’t he?” and “Do you also want to save him?” 

there’s a reason that, in the current translated chapters extra, karasuma is flying after takayama

(if you read all of this i love u! id love to hear ppls thoughts, and theres so much more i couldve covered from the newer chapters! Karasuma really just wants to save takayama from himself, and it’s really touching and sad because we watch as takayama strays further and further into his prophecy, and farther away from the seraph karasuma knew. I only decided to omit their discussion of it because I felt like I’d end up talking about spoilers for the end of birdmen and how tanabe finishes their arc)

#ask #asks #birdmen #takaeishi #takayama sou #karasuma eishi #birdmen meta #long post #so sorry to my followers that dont like birdmen SDGJKSGD #ok thats the last ask i swear im done now!!! (unless i get more asks) #birdmen spoilers

[kitsoa]

I gotta clean up a bit but I think.... I’m gonna dust off my old Kingdom Hearts blog @kingofkingdomhearts cause I really like theorizing and writing meta about this damn video game and with KHUX not slowing down anytime soon I feel like I could talk for days. 

It’s kind of happening late cause this blogs already gone full fandom mode but that happened when I made my birdmen sideblog too. I’ll make an official announcement when I queue up some content cause I wanna go into this swinging so I get an audience. 

#Kitloveskh

[scatteredcloud]

Ok this is literally the most self indulgent post I’m ever going to make but I saw that MMO art with the birdmen kids and I Play League so here we are 

Eishi: Eishi is a midlaner. Since he’s considered to be the leader of the birdclub, I feel like midlane would he his sort of thing. Probably high damage/high skill champions would be in his wheelhouse. (Zed, ((Zoe)) Talon) I like the idea of him being in the role of the stereotypical leader, the face of the team, but really everyone else is just as important for making plays and affecting the game. He does have a tendency to spam ping though. (Like he’ll deathtweet GUYS THEY’RE AT BARON NOW followed by enemymissingenemymissingenemymissingasistenemymissingdangerasistasist when he is literally the only one alive)

Kamoda: Kamoda would be supp. Lets be real. He and Sagisawa make a killer botlane and Kamoda probably plays tanks. ((Life stealer and all that) Although it would be funny to see him as a lifesteal adc (Vayne maybe? She’s back in the meta and a lot of adcs are building lifesteal...)) But for tanks maybe Braum, Alistair, Leona? He’s about stuns, and tanking.

(Although he’s a great adc too. (Based on lifestealer’s abilities it might make more sense for him to be an adc, taking health from supports and all. I really like Sagisawa as the adc though, but they trade off. (Sagisawa would main Soraka, dryad skin, summon aerie runes, you know it’s true)))

Sagisawa: ADC for lifeeeeeeee I feel like he’d be one of those adcs who you doesn’t do much damage early game but as soon as he hits level six or gets his first item or whatever, that’s it. It’s gg. He’s also insane at positioning, he knows the exact range of every adc and knows exactly where to hit them from. Sagisawa would probably play adcs like Xayah or Twitch. He knows where to be to make it hurt the worst.

Umino: Jungler! She maybe late but when she gets there, OH BOY does she get there! I can see her playing more off meta junglers, maybe kindred? I don’t actually know much about jungle, it’s the role I have the least experience with. Although her with not just off meta but not even jg champions in the jungle would be fun. (Taliyah/Sol for the roam and gank potential would be neat)

Takayama: Toplaner. He’s the most distant, split push toplaner EVER. He’ll show up when he needs to, but the jg never needs to gank top because he’s just got it. 2v1 their jg is top? Not a problem. Winions get through to his turret? No they didn’t. He can duel like crazy and late game he can walk away from a fight and no one is willing (or able) to pursue him. I can see him on champions like Yorrick, Nasus, and maybe Jax. 

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Spider-Man: Homecoming or Don’t You Always Hear Harps When You See A Girl?

I don’t think I actually saw any women in the four billion trailers for Spider-Man: Homecoming that were in the cinema, so I went into this one with the bar set very, very low. I did, however, know that Aunt May would feature because of the whole internet losing their minds over the thought of a middle aged woman existing on screen.

*Spider-Man: Homecoming spoilers follow*

So let’s start with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has been reduced to his canonical high-school age, so it only makes sense that Aunt May should drop a decade or so too. However, this brings her out of the venerable status of being “old” and puts her somewhere in the middle of the ageing process itself. Mainstream cinema is obviously comfortable with portraying women as youthful, and has reserved the honour of showcasing those who have reached “old age” to basically a trifecta of Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith. You can be middle aged in a film, Gweneth Paltrow makes a brief appearance as Pepper Pots and she’s forty four at the time of writing, but god forbid you actually look it. Marisa Tomei is fifty two, and in my opinion is a very beautiful woman, but because she looks something over twenty five it seems that the only way that anyone can deal with it is to fetishise her as some sort of, and I really hate to use the term, MILF. The first reference to Aunt May is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) saying, “What’s she wearing? Something skimpy I hope.” That pretty much sets the tone for how she is interacted with and observed for the rest of the film, which is a shame because she is shown to be a caring, understanding and supportive guardian with a sense of humour, despite all the tragedy that her and Peter have endured as a family.

How male characters deal with female characters seems to be the main problem with this film, as the women themselves are fantastic. Liz (Laura Harrier) is smart, capable, headstrong and independent and Michelle (Zendaya) is blessed with an excellently dry, nihilistic sense of humour and indifference to the opinion of others that is so rarely afforded to teenage girls in film. Other girls are very much present, around the school and in the quiz team, and are played by a diverse range of actresses. It was particularly refreshing to see no white, blond love interests, or even male best friends or rivals. So what do the boys in this film do when confronted with these amazing girls? Say that they should “probably stop staring before it gets creepy” while actual fucking harp music plays in the background. At one point Peter is actually secretly looking down at Liz in her swimming costume through a literal glass ceiling. It couldn’t get much more on the nose where the gaze is concerned. Annoyingly, despite the aforementioned list of both of these girls’ excellent character traits, both Liz and Michelle become visibly, and somewhat inexplicably, flustered by Peter at some point in the film.

Outside of girls at school, the other two female characters who make a memorable appearance are Anne-Marie Hoag (Tyne Daly) - who I don’t think is actually named, I had to look her up - and Karen (Jennifer Connelly). The former appears at the beginning of the film as an older lady in a position of business control, which got my hopes up, but she is immediately portrayed as a baddie because she is taking honest jobs away from good, hard-working men. The latter is the AI in Peter’s suit, which he names (and almost very creepily named after his crush) and who takes on a strange kind of wingman role (literally and figuratively, wahey). It’s almost as though Peter is so uncomfortable talking to real girls that he has to use a semi-sentient “female” computer program for advice instead.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by the number of women that featured in this film and how strong their personalities were. However, all of the men seemed to react to them like penis-controlled pubescent teenagers, regardless of whether they were actually boys or grown men. I know part of this was the comedy of showing Peter as a realistically awkward teenage boy, it’s the charm of Spider-Man that he’s not a ripped, charismatic, fully-developed man, he’s a geeky, smart teenager and that’s a great role model. I just want to throw it out there though, if we normalise the portrayal of strong, funny, smart young women, maybe boys won’t lose their minds when they discover that’s what girls are like.

And now for some asides:

It was good to hear Spider-Man making jokes again, I’ve missed that.

They didn’t even mention Uncle Ben! Hallelujah!

Michael Keaton’s life and career as so many Bat/Birdmen is now the most meta thing ever.

#spider-man #spiderman #spider-man homecoming #film review #movie review #spider-man spoilers #spoilers #feminism #sci-fi #science fiction #mcu #marvel #superhero #super hero #mothermaidenclone #cw: language

[pleasantnightmarebeliever-blog]

Irv Gotti breakwater down-in-the-mouth the Lil Wayne and Birman beefhead | evict

Irv Gotti breakwater down-in-the-mouth the Lil Wayne and Birman beefhead | evict

Date: 2017-09-29 19:30:00

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On today’s #EverydayStruggle, Irv Joined DJ Akademiks and Nadeska to about Birdmen and Lil Wayne’s Nowadays Issue money.

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[birdmenmanga]

Coping with Loss in Kekkaishi and BIRDMEN

ohhh but you can really see the first echoes of the themes of loss of humanity in this scene... sazanami and masamori are discussing soji's memories (or lack thereof), and masamori responds with pity to the fact that soji's memories from earlier in life have been completely erased. in a sense, soji "cannot be saved"— there is no returning him to his previous state. and yet, even so...

...despite the fact that he can't get back what he's lost, he can still gain new things, new experiences, and new memories... and so even in the wake of this devastating loss, isn't that something beautiful?

and really I think that's one of the biggest things that karasuma has to grapple with in birdmen. karasuma has a similar mindset to masamori here, especially at the beginning of the series, where he so desperately wants to return to being human regardless of the cost. for him, someone like takayama, who can barely remember a time when he was human, whose parents are both dead from a plane crash, is an object of pity. oh, the poor boy.

but takayama doesn't pity himself in the least. to him, there's nothing to feel sorry for, nothing to mourn for. it's just his normal life, and that's just the way he is. sure, he has to deal with blackouts, but everyone has their own problems they have to cope with.

karasuma's awakening is a huge turning point in the series, because while yeah he does awaken in the sense that he unlocks his bellwether ability, it's the catalyst for his mental awakening as well.

his first gut reaction is as it's always been— maybe if we're careful we can find some way of stopping our evolution, of preserving the status quo.

in a sense he's already come a pretty far way from the beginning of the series— he's no longer wallowing in self-pity, but instead worrying about how he can help the others. but kamoda and sagisawa both shoot him down, telling him that what's meant to happen will happen anyways, and that in order to protect the things that are important to them they'll need power to do that.

the clincher, in my opinion, is karasuma's conversation with tatsume. Tatsume tell Karasuma about his hypothesis regarding choosing to evolve when the time comes, and he can tell that Karasuma isn't really taking it too well...

Fig. 1: Guy who is not taking it too well.

...which is probably why he follows up with this:

"Don't think of it as an unfortunate fate."

What Tatsume says succinctly summarizes what Sazanami drew Masamori's attention to, whether Sazanami meant to put such a sympathetic spin onto that or not. Don't think of it as an unfortunate fate; yes, it's awful that this happened to Soji, but isn't it a blessing that he's now under the care of your family? Isn't it good that he'll be loved and cared for by Shuuji? Isn't it good that his suffering will end here? Isn't it good that he can finally start becoming his own person, now? Even despite everything?

And Tatsume's words hit extremely deeply with Karasuma especially because it appeals to his core desires the most. What he desires— even if it ultimately isn't a great thing— is control. He wants agency and control over his own fate.

Part of the reason he was so disgruntled in the prologue was because he felt like he had no control over his life at all— which yeah, manifested as "why do we all have to go to school anyways? because society said so? fuck society!!!" and other such edgelord thoughts, but underlying desire for control is there. We see it yet again when he blows up at his mother during dinnertime, when she tries to convince him that Kamoda's a bad friend and that he ought to spend less time with him. It's my life and my relationships with my friends!! Why don't I get control over even that?!

So when Tatsume tells him, "Yes, you may think what's happened to you is a tragedy. And maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. But the key point is, looking forward, you will be able to choose. You will be able to have control over your own destiny, what you've wanted all this time, what you've always dreamed of. Don't lose sight of it now," he can't help but move his feet forward of his own will for the first time.

[BIRDMEN meta masterpost]

#birdmen #kekkaishi #karasuma eishi #the way it always turns into eishi meta... #birdmeta #soji hiura #kei sazanami #masamori sumimura #tatsume naoyuki #takayama sou

[birdmenmanga]

you know I think if only I was of more sound mind than I am now I would realize that I am actually having a birdmoment of all time

#just thinking thoughts... #It's like. I've sown and sown and sown and been so insane about my birds #never expecting to reap anything #but boy have I been reaping lately. #but it's all happening in the umbrage of the bang deadline #that I don't think i'm properly processing it all. #I've gotten into the dms of 3 separate people who used to be into birdmen (who really still are just in a backburner sense) #so much new art and meta has dropped recently #conversations are happening again #THAT I'M A PART OF .I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS I AM A PART OF IT #But I'm just not processing that any of it actually has happened #it all just feels like a huge fever dream and it feels like when I wake up after truck day it will all just have been an illusion #and I'll be here alone again #lol #incidentally if anyone cares: after the bang deadline I'm getting my bird commission done (expected time: 3 days) #and then smashing out the noir zine submission for the fanfic server #and then I have another trip with one of my besties #and then the show will be over. and I will be alone again. #IM BEIGN DRAMATIC IM BEING DRAMATIC #I KNOW I KNOW I SEE ALL MY BIRDMUTUALS HI. HI #<- NON NEGLIGIBLE AMOUNT OF BIRDMUTUALS #nonetheless this is how i feel lol #um if you're still here. hi. I love you. mwah even #if you even care!!! #GOSH DO YOU THINK PEOPLE WHO ONLY LOOK AT THE TAGS ARE LIKE. ah looks like soh (arsquare) is over the birds #BECAUSE I HAVEN'T POSTED BIRD ART IN A MONTH???? DO THEY THINK THAT??? #DESPITE THE FACT THAT I'M STILL SO INSANE OVER IT??? DO THEY KNOW. DO THEY. DO THEY.

[birdmenmanga]

excellent point!!

Prompt Week - 7 days, 14 simple prompts (2 per day). you know the drill. general is just going to be about the series at large, ship-focused is probably going to be takaeishi week electric boogaloo

Collaboration (Artswap) - Participants are paired up randomly in order to work on a single creation together. Traditionally it's a single illustration in which one person does the lines and the other does the colors, but you could also do other things like "one person scripts and colors a comic, and the other person does the linework" or "two writers pass a single google doc between them like a hot potato and they write alternating paragraphs" etc.

Podfic Challenge - A podfic is essentially an audiobook of a fanfiction. Either write and podfic a birdmen fanfiction, or ask for an author's permission to podfic (a portion of) a fic. You can get fancy, like adding sound effects or backing music, or just keep it simple and record something on your phone. Nice because it doesn't require you to create something in the traditional sense and is also a way to show appreciation to past fic writers. Not nice depending on how self-conscious you are about your voice.

Not My Medium Challenge - Create a fanwork in a medium you've never worked with extensively. For example, for myself, I'd consider illustrations, sequential art, meta essays, fanfiction, and music videos as mediums that I've worked in extensively, so I'd focus on other things such as meme compilations, music compositions, podfics, video essays, gifsets and edits, among infinite possibilities.

Draw A Comic Month - 4-week event with one week dedicated to scripting, storyboarding, linework, and colors/toning each. A comic can be as simple as a 2-panel comic to something as complex as a 30-page manga. This is one time where my comics advice is going to be ENTIRELY FREE OF CHARGE. I am going to sit in the birdmen discord at regular times throughout this event and do my best to make the comic of your dreams happen (guy who is obsessed with sequential art voice)

the collaboration is a COMMITMENT whereas the rest are things you can opt in and out at any moment. ok now go hog wild with the votes and let me know your bonus thoughts in the tags

#just thinking thoughts... #birdmen #polls #yeah I mean you could just skive out of the commitments like what am I going to do. ban you from future events. lol. #anyways be nice to me I spent some brain cells thinking of cool activities for enrichment in the enclosure #for the worried: yes I have hosted fandom events before. I did not enjoy it but I would do it for the birdmutuals #personally I like the bottom two as in I'd be most likely to participate in them #because like. lol. I know exactly what I want to make and these other things are just dreary obligations #but the bottom two are far enough from my home territory that I can like. get weird and have fun with it #also off-season secret santa and big bang were on the list #but then I wisely realized I was completely unwilling to moderate those activities so. lol. off the go #I don't think we have enough people who are willing to be bound by obligation anyways #the comics thing was originally going to be a hanzawa event #like all the detco folks have their pet peeve about canon #and the idea was that you drew a hanzawa-style comic about it #where it didn't have to look good or anything it just had to be silly #but. stealing that. we birding (we balling)

[birdmenmanga]

Top Left: Prologue 1, page 1. Top Right: Flight 001, page 1. Bottom Left: Flight 020, page 1. Bottom Right: Flight 078, page 1. Black borders have been added to show the edges of the pages with more clarity.

Absolutely fascinating that Karasuma's world opening up is represented by the way these panels slowly start bleeding out towards the margins at these milestone chapters...

Prologue 1 obviously being the baseline. Then, Karasuma is transformed into a Birdman... the first major plot development, which happens between Prologue 2 and Flight 001. Flight 020 is the chapter directly following his awakening as the Bellwether, and obviously the final chapter is the final chapter.

The way that there are birdmen flying freely in that last one... not only has Karasuma opened up to the world... the world has opened itself to them all, in turn... exploding on the spot. detonating instantly, even

[BIRDMEN Meta Masterpost]

#just thinking thoughts... #birdmen #as a bonus. the panel of Takayama flying off in the final chapter? NO panel borders. at all. #truly flying more freely than Karasuma ever could

[birdmenmanga]

had an absolutely delusional dream in which I was paging through the Chinese version I have of birdmen and noticing that some of the text was colored and writing a huge meta post about what it all meant

#just thinking thoughts... #crazy. i might be unwell.

[birdmenmanga]

The Crucifixion of Arthur C. Phoenix

I talk quite a bit about Takayama being a parallel to Jesus Christ, and while that’s true, you have to admit that Arthur gives Takayama a run for his money on who the most Christlike figure in BIRDMEN is… and Arthur might even be winning.

In the scene where the American flock is exterminated, Arthur and several of his close comrades are lured down into the farm by a single captive Birdman. This, however, is a trap, and as soon as they get close enough…

…an explosion is detonated at the farm, decimating the scene. As we all know, snipers and fighter jets take out the rest of the flock, leaving only Robin, Rooster, and Gabriel as the survivors of this massacre.

Nearly thirty chapters later, Robin finally breaks free from EDEN with Alva and her new flock. From the very beginning, Robin had intended for her campaign to invoke religious imagery, as we can see with the destruction of the initial building she had been kept in:

This in itself is already fascinating, playing with concepts of divine retribution, mourning, and the like, but when she truly begins her campaign against EDEN, the first thing she does is burn down the farm that she, Arthur, and the old American flock grew up in. The scene below is an obvious parallel to the scene of Arthur’s demise:

As Robin wished, her subordinates have carved out the shape of the cross more closely this time, and it’s evident that she is not the one being crucified; the orientation is wrong. Instead, it’s a tribute and memorial to the former Bellwether, Arthur C. Phoenix– beloved by all, betrayed by Sky, the Birdman who truly died on the cross for the sins of the American flock.

[BIRDMEN meta masterpost]

#birdmen #arthur c phoenix #robin howard #birdmen meta #just thinking thoughts...

[birdmenmanga]

41 (OTP Masterlist)

HIIII BESTIE <3

You didn't send a ship and therefore I will take this chance to expound upon both Karasuma and Takayama as well as Karasuma and Sagisawa <3

OTP Questions Masterlist

Who’s the most self-aware?

You see, I think being self-aware and being true to oneself are two different things. You can follow your heart's every desire, and still not really understand yourself (Takayama lol). On the flip side, you can be extremely self-aware, but also be a seasoned master in shoving whatever you're aware of in a disused warehouse. Yes, I'm talking about Sagisawa <3

I think I have a fair amount of evidence for Sagisawa being the most self-aware of the three. Even right from the get-go, Sagisawa was the only one who remembered his pact with Takayama, which in the grander scheme of the Metaphor seems to indicate that he's done quite a bit of self-reflection and is aware of his own queerness without any prompting from the others. When he awakened as a Trickster, he was fully aware of the fact he had awakened, and simply chose not to share.

In contrast, Karasuma's certainly less self-aware than Sagisawa. He needed Sagisawa to tell him and Kamoda that they're Birdmen now, and when he awakened as a Bellwether he needed Takayama to tell him that, too. Here, too:

Ch. 10, Seek

Karasuma's super caught up in the consequences of yelling Takayama's name while they were fighting his blackout, but he completely forgot about the fact that. like. he did that. and it's his fault. he completely forgot he was part of the equation at all. Maybe in some way he believes he can't really control his own behavior! Fascinating food for thought. Especially when he's thinking it over by himself:

The airplane is sending me. Is he thinking about his father in this moment? Is he thinking, "No, I might believe my own behaviors to be out of my control, but just as an example, my dad's behavior of being away all the time is definitely something that's within his control. I can change." And then in the text: "I will change. I suppose... It's my mistake..."

I think it comes down to the fact that Karasuma's sharp, for sure, but he struggles to conceptualize and verbalize his thoughts and feelings sometimes. Look at what Takayama tells him when Karasuma confronts him about his Awakening:

Ch. 21, Monster "You're the one who best understands it, right?"

The thing about Karasuma is that he understands things quite well on an intuitive level. Overcoming his biases on a cognitive level is a different matter though, and genuinely I think he's the king of being in denial. So sometimes, even when he's self-aware, he's also, you know,

Actually, now that I'm saying it, I think Takayama and Karasuma are both very Aware with regards to the greater workings of the world (Takayama on a more broad, universal and esoteric scale, of course). But between the two of them, Takayama is relatively MORE aware of the world and LESS aware of himself. It took him years of being a Birdmen and huge catalysts for change for him to even recognize that he wasn't self-aware. Same convo:

Ch. 21, Monster

I think it's especially interesting that in this chapter, Karasuma calls him out on his bullshit "I don't get a thing". Karasuma asks him about the specifics, and Takayama is able to answer-- when the question is about Birdmen. I think what he really means when he says he doesn't get a thing is that he doesn't understand the feelings in his heart... which isn't really what Karasuma's trying to ask about in that moment. Of course he's dissatisfied with that answer. He's trying to find out what happened to himself.

If Karasuma is fighting a constant battle to quantify his thoughts, Takayama doesn't even see the fact he's unable to verbalize/process his thoughts/emotions as a problem at all. (Once again Souji and Takayama are on the same wavelength.)

Ch. 19, New World

Takayama's lived his life in a way that he's become incredibly disconnected from the world. If there's nothing he truly cares for, then he doesn't need to respond in an emotional way to it. He doesn't need the skill of being self-aware at all.

There are tons of posts about Takayama's heroism, and the disconnect between being Takayama, the prophet and savior, and Takayama, Some Guy from Class A. In a lot of ways, Takayama not only feels obligated to remove himself from his emotional needs, I don't think he's even fully aware that he's done so. Cue the finale, which I was going to hide under a cut, but I've run up against the 10-image-per-post limit so I'll be detailing it under a reblog tomorrow I fucking guess

#birdmen #birdmen meta #karasuma eishi #takayama sou #sagisawa rei #asks #midnight-revelation #I didn't realize I had so much to say about Karasuma and Takayama. I feel like Rei got shafted #maybe I'll say some more about him later??? #anyways I'm realizing that my 'im so normal about birdmen' post strat is actually the best #because reblogs of posts aren't limited to the 10 image limit #like my patho/shinichi essay had 12 images #and tumblr didn't throw a fit about that

[kitreadsbirdmen]

Don’t Set Me Free

Vulnerable. 

If you’ll allow me to drop in suddenly and get personal, I’ve had a lot of life change lately and I like to put things into perspective using the media I adore. And it’s TakaEishi week! So let’s talk a little about... freedom.  

I have found myself reflective with my concept of relationships, be it from societal expectations for companionship and my growing sense of otherness with the collective understanding of love. But in this reflection I’ve found a growing comprehension on just how...  harrowing it is to open yourself up to someone and act recklessly against your own self interest for the chance of fulfillment-- whatever that even means. 

It’s so... silly really. A ridiculous exploit lacking logic. ‘Hey stranger-- fairweather friend-- last chance-- I’m going to give you the key to my absolute emotional demise and hopefully you’ll give me yours and we’re just gonna... pray our mutual destruction is postponed for a little while.” Absolute madness.

To connect is to leap blindly. 

To jump is to lose touch with gravity. 

To love is to fly. 

Which kinda brings me to my favorite scene in all of Birdmen. I kinda got all prose-y when I wrote my Dissimulation and it’s still a post I read again and again. It reminds me why I adore Eishi. Why I adore the themes. Because it captures the core of what Birdmen is trying to inspire.  That fear. That begging, pleading anxiety against things that are different and unknown and liberating. It’s so ingrained in our human experience we could live our whole lives going through the motions, getting mad at what we can’t change but never trying, remaining isolated in the face of honestly vulnerable connection-- never truly alive. And that’d be okay. That’d be safe. 

Eishi has lived like this. Angry at the society that pressures him but unwilling/powerless to fight against it. Surrounded in the comforting hate of everyone around him, rejecting the possibility for empowering understanding. Caged in his own self-hatred, aware that he is a hypocrite to his hearts’ earnest desires. A walking tragedy. A bird that will never fly. 

Shall we say it aloud? Eishi’s confinement is a relatable one. Society. Expectation. Oppression.

Eishi’s salvation is universal in nature. Connection. Bonds. Love. 

Enter. Takayama. 

Blank, almost child-like ignorance to the bars around Eishi. Blatant disregard. Had he been of a more excitable disposition, we might of seen him laugh at Eishi. Because while Eishi see’s absurdity in the reckless submission connection forces-- Takayama sees logic. Of course you can fly.

That isn’t Takayama being coy here. Yeah Eishi’s got wings, but that’s not his hang up-- it’s submitting to his bond. Connecting with Takayama. Expanding his gaze beyond himself to consider anyone but himself. And Takayama is the pioneer to that personal transformation. He literally invites Eishi to fly. He literally connects Eishi to a perspective greater than his own. He literally saves Eishi. 

My favorite line in all of this is; “I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m set free.” because it cuts to the crux of his self hatred. He’s anguished by the possible person he is underneath his masks. He’s not sure of himself. His status quo will shatter... But the answer is so easy...

He’ll live.

----

 Takayama single-handedly performs this miracle on Eishi. He so simply... plucks him from his cage and sets him free. It’s unconditional and almost ineffable. It’s the reason I liken this relationship to more unexplained expressions of agape. The devotion of the divine. Worship. Take whatever interpretation you want from that-- discuss the duality at the merit of it’s ambiguous portrayal in the series proper. There is love. There is a connection. 

And through that they are free. 

And isn’t that scary as hell?

#birdmen #birdmen meta #takaeishiweek2019 #this went in a fun direction i will probably dig more into the concrete with the next prompts if im inspired

[kitreadsbirdmen]

An Encounter with Duality

An Analysis of Birdmen Flight 048′s chapter cover

As the current arc kicks into high gear, the flock gathering new allies left and right in their search for the 7 Wings, the reintroduction of a former ‘foe’ brings things to a satisfying start. Fiona has had a remarkably rocky start with our main cast so when Takayama sweeps her away into the front of their mission as a pivotal ally, we are left with only one panel– a context-less chapter cover following her cliffhanger addition to the cast–  to make sense of the moment and further define her role in the narrative. What’s more, this scene is depicted in such a manner, utilizing allusions to two notable works from Western Artistic Canon, that it comments on the nature of the most elusive and important character yet: Takayama Sou. By modeling the scene of Fiona’s encounter with Takayama after Marianne Stoke’s 1900 painting Death and the Maiden, while simultaneously presenting a portrait depiction of Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa in the background, Tanabe illustrates a conflicting duality of good and evil resulting ultimately in ambiguity. By first drawing visual comparisons between this cover and the named alluded works, the respective analysis will inform the deeper implications of this scene and the characters involved.

A Demonic Invader:

Death and the Maiden depicts a young woman’s late night encounter with a winged being clothes in black and raising a hand to her alarm. This motif of pairing a symbol of purity and life, such as a young woman, with such an apparent opposites as the embodiment of death was common in Renaissance paintings, exercising the fragile relationship of these two dichotomies. We see this painting invoked in the above cover, Takayama approaching Fiona in her bed, as death so does to the girl. Fiona’s pose emulates Stoke’s Maiden, holding the blanket up to her chest with an expression of alarm. Even her elaborate fashion sense permits her to wear a dated night gown that resembles the Maiden.  The almost contrived presence of feathers from Fiona’s down pillows invoke the feathered nature of Stoke’s death– a detail that Tanabe’s Seraphim can’t achieve by nature of their powers. Takayama’s looming pose paints him as Stoke’s death angel easily, while also hearkening back to the ominous associations the public granted him early on in chapter 6:

Malignantly painted, Takayama becomes this force of nature, feared by men and notably, this young girl.

The context of the encounter is paradoxically more positive than presented. Takayama seeks out Fiona to complete their ensemble and prepare for the grand mission of gathering the 7 Wings. Whereas it can be assumed that Stoke’s painting illustrates the injustice of a young girl’s brush with death, Tanabe’s cover works as a positive force in the narrative, moving the plot along in an agreeable direction and liberating the girl from Eden in hindsight. Yet the overwhelming tone of an uninvited presence, consuming Fiona’s space, covering her in the ominous black of his wings, and eliciting her apparent surprise, tells the audience at first glance that this is a potentially sinister moment. It aligns with the constant ambiguity of Takayama’s actions to date, questioning his intentions and his motives to the point of frustration.

There is a foundational sense of duality in Stoke’s painting that isn’t properly translated to the cover, but felt in the deeper analysis. While acting as an inevitable force of nature, Death hold out its hand in gentle reassurance. This is something that Takayama does not mimic, but by virtue of his heroic actions and pacifying moments prior to now, we are reminded of his capacity for genuine good that belies the ambiguity of his actions.

A Divine Guest:

While a noticeable feature in the background of the scene, the identity of the portrait is one of importance. Best visualized in the volume release of the chapter cover, the audience glimpses a small section of a greater work:

(picture courtesy of @hiurasouji )

From the distinctive sunbeam’s the portrait was identified as a cropped version of Bernini’s famous statue, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Observe:

This statue, completed in 1652 and resting in the Roman Catholic church Santa Maria della Vittoria, depicts a scene from an autobiographical text, penned by the female subject of the work, a nun named Teresa of Avila. The episode denotes her religious euphoria during an encounter with an angel

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.

Chapter XXIX; Part 17, Teresa’s Autobiography

The notable parallel here revolves around yet another winged being visiting a woman. The differences put Takayama in comparison to not an ominous force of nature but a divine being of great power and purpose. Unlike the Stoke’s painting, this encounter is at face value a strikingly good and joyful thing. It serves to thus paint Fiona as overwhelmed with the otherworldly power and mission of her visitor. An appropriate reaction to Takayama’s unfathomable presence that she earlier remarks. Though it can be said that Fiona’s parallels to the painting are diminished in the nature of the cover’s framing. By cutting off the portrait to only show the arm of the visiting angel, space and composition restraints aside, the metaphor is weakened. Takayama’s connections to divine forces are as abundant as his more sinister comparisons.

This final page to chapter 29 invokes the same style of religious lighting as the Bernini statue while placing Takayama in a messiah role to the public. Ominous features notwithstanding, what is a remarkably ‘good’ visit from an angel proves with an inlaid duality that it is just as thematically gray as the Stoke’s painting furthering Takyama’s ambiguous alignment.

While an autobiographical excerpt, the symbolic nature of the nun’s divine encounter that Bernini depicts implies an undeniable sinister nature to the event. Teresa’s episode makes note of the angel’s spear, which appeared to be “thrusting at times into [her] heart” and blanketing her in “excessive pain” that paradoxically turns to the titular ecstasy of the encounter. It is no accident that the spear in the portrait is what is most clearly seen in within the cover, highlighting this contradictory sense of pleasure and pain, violence and good will, with the actions of our Takayama.

An Overwhelming Moment:

There is an argument to be said that Takayama is clearly acting on the agency of some unknown power. The allusions to those forces have the potential to work beyond simple catalysts for tonal reception. In regards to the actual plot elements at hand this cover serves to give us insight into Fiona’s emotions. The ambiguity between the two allusions paints a sense of uncertainty with Takayama and the present mission. It also serves as a potential reasoning for her clear attachment to him. Before this moment, Takayama interacts with her two seprate times, both in negative and hostile contexts. The first time is after Eishi Awakens and he performs a Force Link.

This is an act that is clearly distressing to Fiona, leaving her crying, begging her innocence to him, all with the lost agency of her wings forcibly sprouting. She leaves this scene with a sense of understanding of Takayama, noting the unfathomable nature of his mind and the newness of the emotions he felt through Eishi. Later on he again engages her in a similarly hostile manner:

(dont mind me just doing the work of god dear fiona)

This hijack that he does is the definition of invasive. These two moments then get topped off by the bedroom raid making the audience question her emotional state. It is apparent during this chapter and the next that Fiona doesn’t bond well with the other Seraphim but instead clings to this serial offender of her agency.

and then later she only permits Takayama to touch her shoulder:

(minor post 049 spoiler)

And this seemingly contradictory behavior I feel is justified in the context of the cover of flight 048. By connecting her to the subjects of these two works, her complex relationship with this force is explained. Teresa’s experience with the angel is overwhelming, while also serving to affirm her faith. The Maiden’s encounter with Death is a commentary on the inevitable nature between the two. The fear and reverence are two parts of the same the same coin and the duality of Fiona’s encounters paint her relationship with Takayama with the broad strokes of religious worship or natural comprehension.

In the end we are left with the great mystery of Takayama, a character that exceeds the labels of good and evil while acting in the stark presence of the protagonists. The use of Bernini and Stokes work in one depicted scene proved to emphasize this and ally Takayama with further connections to greater powers. And within the more present understanding of the story the cover enlightens the audience with a backdrop for this confusing relationship so quickly formed between Fiona and Takayama.

All in all we ask ourselves:

why u so fukin confusing takayama?

This was written on 7/5/17 when the chapter was released in the Japan. After so much waiting, it was finally translated and I can post this. This mainly reflects my perspective at the time and is in now way influenced by spoilers. 

#birdmen #birdmen analysis #flight 048 cover analysis #birdmen meta #forgive this for egregious mistakes