#hakuouki critique

[eleiyaumei]

Grooming in Hakuouki: Sweet School Life: Harada

Everything here is my personal interpretation and opinion. I am not declaring anyone to be a groomer, I am just looking for signs that one might interpret as signs of grooming. Also: Feel free to criticize and correct me.

Eventually, I will take a look at Hijikata and Kazama as well.

Sources: HSSL translation by @hakuogakuen​.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/protecting-children-sexual-abuse/202010/how-recognize-the-sexual-grooming-minor

CW: Discussions of grooming of minors.

If you do not want to read about this topic or about Harada’s potential involvement in it, do not read any further. Take care of yourself and be safe.

 Note: I do not intend to attack you or your love for this fictional character. My intention is to educate others in this fandom (esp. minors and people that are close to their underage relatives) on the characteristics of grooming.

I am not saying people shouldn’t fantasize about (their) teachers (as a teenager I also had a crush on a teacher – who was a tiny bit like Hijikata, actually) but I am recommending anyone to watch out IRL for warning signs of grooming concerning yourselves and the minors that are close to you.

Yes, fiction is not reality. But it can inform and/or warp our perception of reality. Many of you are probably able to distinguish between the two and would not endorse this behavior IRL. And this game might have already taught you about this topic. (Toma’s route in “Amnesia: Memories” taught me to recognize the warning signs of abusive relationships and even though he was my favorite love interest there, I knew what he was doing was not okay.)

Still, I wanted to make this analysis. Because as a teenager, I only knew that that one teacher in our school shouldn’t be touching his students in the manner/frequency as he did. But no one, including me, felt the need/ was confident enough/... to report this behavior to our parents, other teachers, or the director. And there are so many other ways that teachers (or in general people in power) can be inappropriate.

Analysis below the cut.

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki ssl #hakuouki ssl #hssl #Hakuoki: Sweet School Life #hakuouki: sweet school life #grooming in hakuouki ssl #grooming in hakuoki ssl #hakuoki analysis #analysis #critique #hakuouki critique #cw: discussion of grooming #cw: discussion of grooming of minors #cw: grooming #harada sanosuke #sanosuke harada #yukimura chizuru #chizuru yukimura #Harada-critical

[queengurako]

Salut j’espère ne pas te déranger. Je voulais ton avis sur un livre sur le shinsengumi que je viens de découvrir: as-tu entendu parler de “Shinsen gumi: the shogun’s last samurai corps” de Romulus hillsborough? Est-ce qu’il vaut le coup en tant que livre de non-fiction sur le shinsengumi (même si ce n’est qu’une introduction) ou est-ce qu’il vaut mieux vite passer son chemin? Sinon, aurais-tu des recommendations de livres sur le sujet en français ou en anglais? Passe une excellente journée.

Coucou 😊

Ça fait plaisir, j'espère que tu vas bien.

Alors en effet, je connais très bien ce livre que j'ai découvert dès le début où je me suis passionnée pour Hakuouki et toutes les adaptations sur le Shinsengumi et mes recherches pour mon mémoire en Histoire.

Romulus Hillsborough a fait plusieurs livres sur cette période que j'ai en ebooks et je peux te les passer si tu veux. Cependant, il est reconnu dans le fandom du Shinsengumi et les historiens que Romulus Hillsborough n'est pas une référence. Enfin, sa situation est assez paradoxale car il est l'une de nos principales sources sur le Shinsengumi, le Bakumatsu et les impérialistes accessibles pour le plus grand nombre en anglais...mais son écriture n'est pas celle d'un historien. Elle se base sur le sensationnalisme dans le style et une part des légendes/rumeurs autour des faits relatés et ne se base pas sur une méthodologie propre à la recherche historique. Par contre, il mobilise des sources et des noms qu'on peut trouver et qui peuvent aider à confronter avec d'autres sources. De fait, ses livres je les ai lus mais plus pour avoir une base et rebondir sur les pages wiki japonaises pour vérifier si ça concorde ou me diriger vers d'autres sources et ouvrages plus scientifiques.

Donc ma conclusion c'est : en un sens oui ça peut servir si tu as un esprit critique dessus et sait que ce qu'il y aura dans ses livres n'est pas un ouvrage 100% historique mais une bonne entrée en matière pour trouver des noms, creuser des faits ou avoir la mention d'un événement et chercher dessus. Car au final, tu chercheras.

J'ai pas mal d'ouvrages pas forcément sur le Shinsengumi, je vais essayer de te faire une liste, ensuite si tu as des besoins spécifiques (pour ta fic je suppose), dis-moi et je reduirais les choix :)

Bonne journée à toi ❤

#replies #ask #history

[impracticaldemon]

Hakuouki Edo Blossoms ~ Harada’s Route

Though disappointed by the translation quality (again... sigh...), I just want to say that Harada’s EB route is giving me all the harachi feels that I love.

They really built up the beginning of the route (with Harada, Sannan, and Chizuru).  There are a number of scenes that I thought they actually improved (but for the #*$&^! translation).  I’m a happy fan right now.

Honestly, I can critique and analyse, and I may later.  But at the moment I’m happy that Sano’s expression throughout EB has been warm and caring rather than uber-flirty (or leering).

♥♥♥ loving the floofiness tbh ♥♥♥

~ Imp

#hakuouki #edo blossoms #imp plays eb #harada sanosuke #more screencaps and comments later #if people are interested? or not i suppose since i control the blog #bwahahaha #srsly i'm falling for harada again #warm fuzzies #but ofc i adore saitou-san #loved his route too but for some truly wonky translations

[eleiyaumei]

My (ups and) downs watching the second Hakuōki movie

A follow-up to my post about the first movie.

(Note:  I’m sorry if in this post I come off as harsh. But it is possible to  love something and simultaneously criticize it and illustrate its (potential) flaws. And that’s what I intend to do here. Plus: This is only my opinion and if yours differ from mine, that is totally valid! ^-^)

Yeah, I’m not a fan of this one... But to be fair to the movie and fans of it, here’s some things that I like:

(+) IBUKI THE FEMINIST – Hyperbolic way of praising Ibuki for saying: “Harada and Hijikata think they know what you want but the only person who is able to know that is you.” (*This is my translation of the German subs which I expect to be more accurate than the English sub/dub but that might be wrong, so feel free to correct me!)

(+) Sannan infiltrating Kodo

(+)  HaraShira – Harada’s death scene & Shiranui bringing his spear to Aizu, fulfilling the former’s last wish

(+)  Okita getting to fight one last time & him (talk-)fighting together with Saitō

What I dislike the most about this movie is the ways in which the narrative and/or characters both disrespect female protagonist Chizuru and undermine the romance between her and Hijikata - in my opinion.

Detailed analysis below the cut.

1) (The Narrative) Disrespecting Chizuru

- after Kondō’s surrender, Chizuru prepares to fight but Hijikata has already killed every enemy (I’m not saying she should fight but her being passive in general is my major problem with the movie’s handling of Chizuru.)

- Harada completely understands Hijikata’s reasoning for lying to her and leaving her alone in Edo but does not acknowledge the fact that Hijikata has hurt Chizuru and disrespected her choice/autonomy (but then agrees with Ibuki that Chizuru should do what makes her happy)

- While fleeing Edo, Chizuru falls off a (seemingly obvious) cliff and is saved/taken in by Kazama.

- There, when Kazama asks her what she would do about her evil-doing father, she answers that she would stop him. – Later, Kazama stops Kodo instead by killing him and Chizuru thanks her for that. Kazama says that makes her worthy of being the heir of the Yukimura clan. For what? Being not too proud to show gratitude?

- Chizuru is forcibly and passively confronted with her father – the reason she started her journey with the Shinsengumi in the first place – instead of actively seeking him out and confronting him.

- Heisuke saves her and Kazama kills Kodo.

- Chizuru takes a journey alone to give Hijikata the Makoto flag. But this is never shown, she misses the Shinsengumi and is taken to Ezo by Kazama.

- In Ezo, she runs towards the Shinsengumi and is hit by the impact of an explosion. Her Oni powers activate – I bet she will heal soon enough to get out of the danger zone. But Hijikata runs up to her, ultimately saving her, and she passes out.

-  When Hijikata is shot off his horse, Chizuru falls off with him, sees him lying and bleeding, is attacked by a Fury, does nothing and is suddenly saved by Hijikata. (That attack wasn’t in EB.)

(The Narrative) Undermining the Romance

- several emotionally bonding/romantic scenes/CGs are left out (see above)

-  Hijikata doesn’t eat her food – It starts out with Chizuru noticing that he hasn’t eaten and then telling him he should eat. He refuses. When she later brings him food with a note he should eat, we never see if he listens to her or not because he is overwhelmed by bloodlust.

- Hijikata doesn’t drink her blood. When Hijikata is overwhelmed by bloodlust and Chizuru notices it, she offers her help but he throws her out of the room. Separated by a wall, both suffer from that situation. Just painful to watch, not romantic at all.

- Kondō includes “becoming a rasetsu” in the things Hijikata did to fulfill his (Kondō’s) wish – even though in the first movie, it was ambiguously framed but hinted at that he did it to protect Chizuru. Hijikata does not disagree with this statement and both share an emotional farewell. Platonic, most likely, but as dramatic as a scene where two lovers have to part (and the music that plays during the scene would fit there too) (Kondō/Hijikata shippers, I get you.)

- After Kondō’s surrender, Hijikata doesn’t react to Chizuru’s encouraging words when she hugs his back.

- “dumped over DM”: Hijikata tries to say to Chizuru’s face that he wants her to stay in Edo but then lies to her to wait for him at a tea house. She waits for him for hours then finally receives a letter from him. He’s disrespecting her choice and autonomy just like in the game but him not having the guts to talk to her directly makes this worse – or at least bad in a different way.

- 1 hour into the movie, with 12 minutes left, we have our first and longest romantic scene between the two leads where they pour their hearts out. All in all, too much too late with too little build-up.

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki movie 2 #hakuouki movie 2 #warrior spirit of the blue sky #hakuoki analysis #hakuouki analysis #hakuoki critique #hakuouki critique #analysis #critique #hijikata toshizo #yukimura chizuru #justice for chizuru #just my opinion

[eleiyaumei]

KW Routes of the 6 new love interests

(Art from the EB Deluxe Pack on Steam)

Older or better informed members of the Hakuōki fandom, I have a question for you:

Why are the KW routes of the older three Love Interests (Sannan, Nagakura and Yamazaki) so drastically different from those of the newest three (Iba, Sōma and Sakamoto)?

I guess the older three were given their mini-routes in older games in a fashion similar to that in Sweet School Life and then for Kyoto Winds, Idea Factory just added a few more scenes to the already existing routes... Of course, for the newest three they could not use the same strategy.

But re-writing several scenes to include the newest three and use their Shinsengumi-outsider status as an excuse reason to ramble on and on about explain in detail the Shinsengumi, Furies, politics and historical facts? How dare this game call itself an otome?!

I’m almost finished replaying KW for my Love Interest Scenes Compilation and I’m bored out of my brains since the “explaining scenes” that I cut out before because they had nothing to do with the Love Interest/romance NOW are exclusive to each of the three remaining Love Interests’ routes but at the same time, these scenes barely have any influence on the Love Interests or their relationship with Chizuru!

(And Chizuru is usually just sitting/standing there, contributing nothing (or just a few sentences) to the scenes. Even if she has a new scene with the Love Interest, she mostly does nothing until the LI comes to save her (e.g. when she follows Takeda or is accosted by Miki). Poor girl, ignored by Idea Factory as always again...)

What bothers me the most, though, is when/that these exclusive “explaining scenes” repeat information Chizuru/the player already knows. These are just there for the player to see the newer three’s reactions but contribute nothing to plot and story! Maybe - maybe! - somewhere in the scene, Chizuru/the player learns something new or specific about the LI but in these cases, the repeated info should still have been cut out.

Sōma’s route is the worst offender since it mostly consists of Sōma learning more about the Shinsengumi and its ideals, history and secrets. This route is barely about Sōma and least about his relationship with Chizuru. Like I said when I first played the game: The love story in his route is mainly about his love story with the Shinsengumi. And it serves the purpose of manipulating the player’s opinion on the Shinsengumi more thoroughly than any other route. Thanks, I hate it.

As a result of these exclusive “explaining scenes”, Iba’s scene compilation is 4 hours long whereas Yamazaki’s is only 1 1/2 hours long.

Who at Idea Factory thought these strategies with the new LIs were good ideas? The older three’s scenes are way too simple and too short (around 5mins each or less) while the newer three’s are too long (10-20mins) each. This is wayyy too unbalanced for the game, imo.

#Hakuōki #hakuoki #hakuouki #kyoto winds #hakuouki kyoto winds #hakuoki kyoto winds #nagakura shinpachi #sannan keisuke #yamazaki susumu #iba hachiro #souma kazue #sakamoto ryouma #love interest scenes #otome routes #fandom question #hakuouki critique #hakuoki critique #critique #mini rant #mini-rant #just my opinion

[eleiyaumei]

Who wants to complain about the (KW&) EB translation with me?

@fuckyeahbakumatsu I saw you doing that so... Let's complain how, for example, they did our boy Sōji dirty!

My Japanese is good enough to understand that he said "I am/was Kondō-sans little brother" there. (...Did he really say "pussy"? I hope not.)

Then, there are just some word choices I hate, e.g. in my favorite scene:

I'm not a native English speaker but I'm sure that last one doesn't make any sense grammatically nor semantically -.- What the heck are they trying to say here?? "Became engrossed in each other('s body)"?

#hakuouki #hakuoki #hakuōki #okita souji #edo blossoms #otome #hakuouki translation #translation #translation issues #otome translation #critique #i love souji #but dang that translation

[eleiyaumei]

Hakuōki "hot take"/cold take: Kodo

Maybe it's just my white German guilt speaking but I think we shouldn't, perhaps, forgive racist, eugenicist, genocidal Kodo for what he did, even if he's our/Chizuru's father. (Even though the games clearly want us to.)

Filial piety be damned but having empathy with perpetrators at the cost of acknowledgment of the damage they caused and the people they victimized is immoral in my honest opinion.

Also, from a writing perspective: Having Kodo as a morally plain-bad villain representing the "evil scientist" stereotype in multiple routes makes a redemption or even just empathy for him difficult to achieve. Same goes for Sannan but he at least gets a better chance to be understood in his own route.

(Like with Star Wars: Darth Vader's sacrifice in Ep. 3 of the original trilogy doesn't really work if you haven't seen him as Anakin Skywalker and witnessed his journey beforehand. And even then it's hard to empathize with him at all because of all the atrocities he's committed.)

Kaoru might be easier to forgive or at least empathize with since we know that he's been heavily traumatized since childhood and never was able to recover... But empathy for Kodo is prioritized in EB which can be seen in the several times he's sacrificing himself to save Chizuru (which likely serves as an effort to redeem his character).

It feels similar to the Eren situation in Attack on Titan and might portray a pattern in Japanese media/society in so far as they acknowledge the crimes committed (that mirror Japan's colonization and war crimes in WW2) to a certain extent but still empathize, even sympathize with the Japanese perpetrators while never doing reparations, apologizing or acknowledging the harm they caused to the full extent. More attention is given to the "despair/emotions/thoughts that led to" the perpetrators committing the crimes than to the repercussions and the victimized. Again, this is highly immoral.

#hakuouki #hakuoki #hakuōki #edo blossoms #yukimura kodo #kodo yukimura #nagumo kaoru #critique #hakuoki critique #hot take #or rather #cold take #pls don't try to justify Kodo's crimes #and pls don't say I'm overreacting

[eleiyaumei]

Harada has always been like this

ID: There are two pictures. The first consists of two rows of screenshots of Harada speaking, one row from the game “Hakuouki: Sweet School Life”, the other from the game “Hakuouki: Kyoto Winds”. In the first row, Harada says: “A kid, but not a kid, huh? ... Is that so? You’re so innocent still.” (then, smiling teasingly) “...You’d better wish for a nice gift from Santa.” In the second row, Harada says with an insecure smile: “Huh? Well, you’re not an adult.” (then, smiling teasingly) “...Oh, does it bother you? Being a little immature isn’t always a bad thing, you know. ...A little bit of vulnerability and innocence always makes a woman much hotter...” The second picture juxtaposes two kisses between Harada and Chizuru, one from “Hakuouki: Sweet School Life”, the other from “Hakuouki: Edo Blossoms”. In both, Harada is grabbing Chizuru and kissing her while she stares at him with wide eyes.

I’m sorry for this critical/negative post, Harada fans! I’m sure you can separate fiction from reality perfectly.

But I don’t since I think fiction can always have an impact on us, consciously or uncounsciously. Plus, I want to be critical and honest about a franchise I rather like.

After finishing reading the HSSL translation of Harada’s route by @hakuogakuen and reading over and over again “He’s so mature... I’m just a child... He’s the gold standard among teachers. ...We could be seen as lovers...but the world around us wouldn’t accept that so easily.” among many other iffy sentences, I got upset.

I’ve been an insecure, lonely girl like Chizuru in HSSL but I was lucky enough to never meet a man like Harada in my teenage years who would have been worse in real life than in-game. I’m afraid HSSL might have taught teenagers that this kind of relationship was okay and they might have gotten into similar “relationships” with older men and might have been hurt from that... (That’s just a worry, no accusation!)

I’m working on a “Grooming in Hakuouki SSL: Harada” analysis right now.

Feel free to ignore this post and any other related to this.

#hakuoki #hakuouki #Hakuōki #hssl #hakuouki ssl #hakuouki sweet school life #critique #harada sanosuke #hssl harada #Harada-critical #grooming in hakuouki ssl #cw: brief mention of grooming #just my opinion

[eleiyaumei]

Does Chizuru have a hobby?

Soo... I’ve only played Hakuōki Kyoto Winds and Edo Blossoms and read through a translation of Okita’s route in Sweet School Life (by @hakuogakuen ) and am genuinely curious:

Is there some kind of media where Yukimura Chizuru is said to have a hobby or other interest?

Since the games all mainly focus on the love interests, I find it plausible that there’s nothing specific on Chizuru’s interests but I might be completely wrong about that.

Does someone in the fandom know?

(I’m asking you all because I currently don’t have the time and resources to do my own investigation.

I know that in the media with the historical setting, there might not be the time for Chizuru to have or for the medium to talk about her personal interests. But there’s some Hakuōki stuff out there with a modern setting so it might be different there.)

#hakuōki #hakuoki #hakuouki #kyoto winds #edo blossoms #hakuouki: sweet school life #yukimura chizuru #chizuru yukimura #random fandom question #not a critique #this question is directed especially at the #chizuru defense squad #chizurudefensesquad #since her having or not having a hobby could be brought up in a discussion of her #like whether or not she is an individual with specific traits etc. #so the squad might know this question and maybe even the answer to it