2012-08-15, 15:46 | Link #10263 |
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2010
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Paraphrasing off elsewhere:
"The parallel here actually shows growth because Medaka's saying the same thing, but the connotation is completely different. Medaka knows very well how important Zen was this arc (you could see how happy she was when she learnt he was looking for her), so this time she says it as a joke, knowing that Zenkichi is confident enough in himself to laugh with her. And he does, because they're close enough to make jabs at each other. The direct callback shows how much they're grown since then, more than anything else." |
2012-08-15, 16:29 | Link #10264 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2011
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Medaka is a mind beast too huh. I cant believe I am saying this but I did not like Kumgawa this chapter, he was talking for the sake of talking, he did not say anything that the others could not say. If he is going to open his mouth he better be pissing somebody off or failing. Like a proper troll.
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2012-08-15, 18:29 | Link #10266 | |
Member
Join Date: Feb 2012
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2012-08-15, 19:39 | Link #10267 |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2012
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Wow.
Just, wow. Absolutely atrocious. Really goes to show how the past arc meant nothing at all, huh? Yet another instance where Kaisos has managed to speak my mind. And did Torai just say that Medaka's her favorite prez with a blush? Ok, that's kind of funny. And cool. But other than that... |
2012-08-15, 21:43 | Link #10268 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Age: 35
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lol. I don't really know why people still bother being Zenkichi fans. It's not as if Nishio hasn't made obvious this won't be a standard "wish-fulfillment" shounen story. Ideals like "work hard, you'll reach your dreams someday" are cheap. If Nishio already blatantly criticized most shounen stories as being power fantasies (i.e. 'be the main character, have the best bullshit power, and you get to win'), then it should be obvious that he will never let the male self-insert character (Zenkichi) be in that position.
You don't get to think "wow, Zenkichi is so awesome, I wish I could be like him". You get to think "poor Zenkichi, he'll never get a break/has no natural talent, I am like him". And that's how he'll stay. (On the other hand, it's not like Nishio really manages to escape from shallow wish-fulfillment fantasy. The entire issue of Medaka being in love with Zenkichi cheapens the whole thing. Her 'single weakness/dependency' in the form of Zenkichi turns her into a caricature. You can't respect her as a self-determining human being.) The above is false, somewhat. Medaka's weakness prevents her from being a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Nonetheless, her position/role in the story vis-a-vis Zenkichi inherently makes any uncomplicated romance between them a cheapening of the narrative. Zenkichi's acceptance of his non-"special" role and ordinariness is vital to his character. It's the entire premise of his "Devil Style". With regards to the parallel lines which I posted (also, for the record, I didn't actually make that picture; I also stole it from "somewhere" :P), you should actually be respecting this aspect of Zenkichi's character growth and maturation. Medaka was right in both cases to tell Zenkichi to get over it, because caring for someone does not equate to coddling them for their failures. Rather, it is only because Zenkichi does not expect coddling from Medaka that he can even begin at present to think about being worthy of being in a romance with her. |
2012-08-15, 22:45 | Link #10270 | |
Homo Ludens
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 34
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Quote:
Hell, at the end of the last arc, Zenkichi DID achieve his dreams by working hard, or at least we were led to believe that he did. Really? I feel as though she has no empathy for other human beings whatsoever. It's why I want her taken down a peg, but of course that will never happen. It's been frustrating for a very long time. |
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2012-08-15, 22:53 | Link #10271 | |
The GAP Man
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2012-08-15, 23:46 | Link #10273 | |
???
Join Date: Aug 2008
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It was also method to keep those stuck with this manga from chapter 1 for Medaka X Zenkichi hooked. If everything between them is resolved that crowd may very well drop the manga. Not everyone is here for the meta commentary afterall... |
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2012-08-16, 02:06 | Link #10275 | |||
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Age: 35
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Quote:
The real point is that it's not a question of "if I put in the effort, will my dreams come true?". It's an ultimatum of "if I don't put in the effort, I will never amount to anything". That is the reality for talentless people. Even with all your effort, it might still be the reality that your dreams are 100% impossible. Compared to the geniuses who seem to effortlessly achieve countless things you could never even hope to, that might seem like a cruel reality. However, despite that, it still comes down to the talentless to fight and struggle. Because they are talentless, it is not their dreams, but only their effort itself which makes their life meaningful. To tell a talentless person that they can achieve their dream just so long as they try hard is a lie. It is irresponsible, it is a delusion, it is self-convenience. However, to tell a talentless person to fight--in fact, that is the only meaningful thing that you can do. The end of the previous arc did not really show Zenkichi achieving anything. Even the feat of "defeating Medaka" could hardly be called something Zenkichi really wanted to do or tried hard for. What the previous arc actually did was show Zenkichi's will to fight despite all the hopelessness of being talentless/not "special"/incredibly far from Medaka--his will to let his effort be the only thing upon which he stands. That was Devil Style, Zenkichi's rejection/negation of the "Main Character". Truthfully, Zenkichi has no actual idea whether he will ever actually win, whether his effort will amount to anything; what Zenkichi's gamble symbolizes, really, is only some level of faith in the meaning of his effort and struggle in the universe. Quote:
The real point is, empathy itself is merely a moral input. The action which results is dependent on numerous other factors, which might override explicit empathy. For example, under Friedrich Nietzsche's thinking the common association of the "correct" moral response to someone else's suffering (i.e. Zenkichi's failure) being "pity" is a component of a morality system known as "slave" morality, which emphasizes the resentment of the inferior/less fortunate people (i.e. slaves) towards their superiors. Under the opposing morality, the "master" morality of superiors emphasizing self-determination and the instinctual, life-sustaining "will to power", the correct moral response to another person's suffering is cruel indifference. This is because the greatest offense to any person living by the principles of master morality is to have their pride/self-determination trampled upon by the pity of another. As you can see, both moralities are motivated by empathy. So that is to say, you can't really judge whether or not Medaka has "empathy" just by looking at her actions. As for myself, I am fairly confident that at that point in the manga Medaka did understand Zenkichi's feelings. You have to understand, however, that even despite understanding Zenkichi's feelings, there are many legitimate reasons for why it might've been correct for Medaka to say what she did as opposed to comforting Zenkichi. Quote:
Rather than between Nishio's endless Mary Sues and the readers, accordingly, it'd be more accurate to say that the dialogue is actually between Nishio and his readers themselves. However, it's obvious that Nishio's intention isn't just to say "hey, I'm better than you", either (in the first place, no one would actually buy or enjoy that sort of book/story if that were the entire content, anyway). As a matter of fact, Nishio's protagonists themselves often are far in the shadow of alternative "perfect" characters in his stories, whether being self-loathing failures, inhuman sociopaths, incomplete "weapons", or talentless teenagers. In fact, the true purpose of the presence of "genius" or "genius characters" in Nishio's stories is merely to highlight that prior described reality, to force people into understanding of that distance between our own small worlds and the vastness of reality, i.e. true talent and genius. The real subtance of Nishio's stories themselves is not merely in the existence of genius characters, but how his protagonists, living in a world influenced by or aware of those geniuses, proceed in the face of that. Last edited by Sol Falling; 2012-08-16 at 05:39. |
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2012-08-16, 05:34 | Link #10279 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Age: 35
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Quote:
When you try your hand at something, and then witness that others are/have been hopelessly ahead of you. When you "devote" your life to something, and then witness your achievements being surpassed at a hopeless rate by some flippant upstart prodigy. When you press yourself to your limits, but see your greatest efforts surpassed by a genius who is simply flat-out better than you. Basically, when you run into a wall which you recognize makes all of your effort meaningless, that is the feeling of being "talentless". It's a self-conscious feeling of explicit inferiority. You can also describe it as a sensation of not being "special", of not being the Main Character of any story ever worth telling. For 99.99999% of people, being talentless is either a sensation which you have already succumbed to, or one which you subconsciously fear/acknowledge will catch up to you at every turn. |
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Tags |
action, comedy, harem, nishio, romance, shounen, student council |
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