Yami no Matsuei, Volumes 6
Jul. 14th, 2019 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kraitThis might be my favourite volume thus far! Despite a rocky start - including a false Muraki Again alarm - it's full of really adorable moments between Hisoka and Tsuzuki and some general insights into Hisoka's character, some funny Tsuzuki-Tatsumi exchanges, and ends with a sweetly charming mystery.
So, first: Hisoka - the little nerd! - is the first to show up to the newly-reopened library.
He admits he hasn't been sleeping well lately, but reacts badly when Tatsumi tries to send him home to rest because he feels he's being treated like a child. This seems to be a recurring worry or dislike he is; it's not the first time he's mentioned it, which makes me wish there was more fic about it! Shinigami presumably could be any age, but everyone else in the department does appear to be adults , and most of them have been doing their job for decades.
It'd be interesting to see some exploration of how they react to Hisoka's youthful appearance. Hisoka is sensitive about his apparent age, but how much of that is teen angst and how much is based on experience? I'd love some fic exploring various characters' reactions to Hisoka when he first started working as a shinigami versus several years in! Especially if some of the characters involved have been around the Bureau long enough that they react with surprise to Hisoka's newness rather than his youth (however Hisoka might interpret their responses).
Okay, so, here is a list of things that happened:
* Hisoka faints and Tsuzuki catches him and carries him home, bridal-style
* Tsuzuki puts Hisoka to bed, notices how barren his room is, and decides he'll bring over some plants
* Hisoka yells at Tsuzuki for being "smothering" over a minor comment, and Tsuzuki shouts right back that he cares about his partner's health, and Besides, I like you, Hisoka!
* Tsuzuki wants to help someone in need that isn't part of their case, and turns to Hisoka expecting him to argue against it. Instead? "Seriously... Okay, fine. I lost this battle the day I became your partner." (Krait, at this point: I'm ded. That is the most old-married-couple statement I have ever heard come out of a character's mouth!)
First Tsuzuki reveals his manipulative side - when Tatsumi tells him that only he and Hisoka will be sent to Okinawa, he puts on Bambi eyes and and drops "You lied when you said that my happiness was you happiness" on him, so he'll allow Saya and Yuma to go along. It works! Not surprisingly, knowing what we learnt about Tatsumi's true feelings for Tsuzuki, but that gives it a rather bittersweet twist knowing Tsuzuki thinks he's teasing someone who doesn't like him much, while Tatsumi just had his genuine emotions thrown in his face as a thoughtless tactic in a petty work argument... A little reminder of why these two couldn't maintain a partnership and kept managing to hurt each other.
These two crack me up! While on their mission, Tsuzuki sends Tatsumi a letter asking about menu advice because he wants to make dinner for the group. Tatsumi's response? A note reading "Tatsumi's Cooking Class - Fee: ¥100,000." :D
My favourite moment line is Tatsumi's, when Tsuzuki, Hisoka, Yuma, and Saya are talking. He arrives at the discussion just to scoff, "I thought I heard frivolity." :D Talk about characterisation in a nutshell.
The mystery this time was unexpectedly adorable! The 'villain,' too. :D More cases where the scary supernatural entity is an adorable guardian spirit who gets adopted by the hotel owner he was 'haunting,' please? It's not that I dislike the creepy and emotionally wrenching plotlines, it's just that the contrast really makes for extra impact. ♥
I loved the bit with Hisoka using his empathy to tell people's fortunes was funnier the more I thought about it: here's a real psychic using a real psychic ability in order to fake being a psychic with a different psychic ability!
The false Muraki Alert was a nice surprise, too! The evil owner of the modern hotel calls Dr. Muraki to come help him out with his plan to drive the Miyagi Inn out of business and force Rika to marry him, but Muraki doesn't appear. Then his henchmen band together with other disgruntled employees to force him out of the company!
Seeing a shinigami encounter someone they knew in life was cool, too. Rika is so happy to see Chidsuru, exclaiming that she must have heard wrong and Chidsuru didn't die in that accident after all! Chidsuru lies to her about recovering somewhere, and all I could think of what how long that story would hold up... We don't get to see the fallout, but it made me think about how that kind of situation might play out, and how the Bureau probably has rules and procedures to prevent that sort of thing from happening. A brief check of hospital records or obituaries would confirm that Chidsuru did indeed die, after all, and Chidsuru can hardly keep a complex lie going forever. (And it would get complex - if you were recovering in another city, why didn't you contact anyone? Where are you working now? What's your phone number? Tell me all about your apartment and your new coworkers!) Chidsuru takes it pretty well, but she's lucky to have run into a friend who can be lied to, and not someone who actually attended her funeral, or a police officer she served with who would know for certain she was dead.
On a side note, Chidsuru's name puzzles me! That's definitely not a Japanese name, unless it was Romanised very, very strangely? Chisuru or Chidosuru I wouldn't bat an eye at, but "Chidsuru" made me wonder if she was supposed to be foreign.
The author's notes in this volume (and others, to be honest) kinda give me flashbacks to Anne Rice... The author is definitely A Personality™ in a rather abrasive way. I can see adding an author's note to the effect of, "Hey, younger fans, when you write me, please be polite enough to address me instead of opening with Send me some sketches, Thanks." But 'here are the types of paper you're allowed to use when writing me'? Seriously?
I quote:
The following [types of stationery] are strictly forbidden:
Free stationery from magazines
Character stuff
Artist's stuff
Notebook paper and looseleaf binder paper, etc.
Pardon me for not having gilt-edged customised personal stationery, I guess. And she then goes on to explain that she doesn't wear accessories, she prefers blue or black ink but you shouldn't use magic markers or felt-tips, and no use of pseudonyms, please. By the end of the volume I wanted to send her a pseudonymous magazine-stationery note in green marker to the effect of, If you don't want fanmail, I suggest just saying so outright.
But other than that, I really did enjoy this book pretty much all the way through, with very minor hiccups, and I hope that's a hopeful sign for my experience with future volumes!
The bonus story featuring de-aged!Tsuzuki and Watari was short and cute as well, though in a slightly-too-twee/Not My Kink kind of way. I'm sure some fans were made very happy back in the day, though. :D
So, first: Hisoka - the little nerd! - is the first to show up to the newly-reopened library.
He admits he hasn't been sleeping well lately, but reacts badly when Tatsumi tries to send him home to rest because he feels he's being treated like a child. This seems to be a recurring worry or dislike he is; it's not the first time he's mentioned it, which makes me wish there was more fic about it! Shinigami presumably could be any age, but everyone else in the department does appear to be adults , and most of them have been doing their job for decades.
It'd be interesting to see some exploration of how they react to Hisoka's youthful appearance. Hisoka is sensitive about his apparent age, but how much of that is teen angst and how much is based on experience? I'd love some fic exploring various characters' reactions to Hisoka when he first started working as a shinigami versus several years in! Especially if some of the characters involved have been around the Bureau long enough that they react with surprise to Hisoka's newness rather than his youth (however Hisoka might interpret their responses).
Okay, so, here is a list of things that happened:
* Hisoka faints and Tsuzuki catches him and carries him home, bridal-style
* Tsuzuki puts Hisoka to bed, notices how barren his room is, and decides he'll bring over some plants
* Hisoka yells at Tsuzuki for being "smothering" over a minor comment, and Tsuzuki shouts right back that he cares about his partner's health, and Besides, I like you, Hisoka!
* Tsuzuki wants to help someone in need that isn't part of their case, and turns to Hisoka expecting him to argue against it. Instead? "Seriously... Okay, fine. I lost this battle the day I became your partner." (Krait, at this point: I'm ded. That is the most old-married-couple statement I have ever heard come out of a character's mouth!)
First Tsuzuki reveals his manipulative side - when Tatsumi tells him that only he and Hisoka will be sent to Okinawa, he puts on Bambi eyes and and drops "You lied when you said that my happiness was you happiness" on him, so he'll allow Saya and Yuma to go along. It works! Not surprisingly, knowing what we learnt about Tatsumi's true feelings for Tsuzuki, but that gives it a rather bittersweet twist knowing Tsuzuki thinks he's teasing someone who doesn't like him much, while Tatsumi just had his genuine emotions thrown in his face as a thoughtless tactic in a petty work argument... A little reminder of why these two couldn't maintain a partnership and kept managing to hurt each other.
These two crack me up! While on their mission, Tsuzuki sends Tatsumi a letter asking about menu advice because he wants to make dinner for the group. Tatsumi's response? A note reading "Tatsumi's Cooking Class - Fee: ¥100,000." :D
My favourite moment line is Tatsumi's, when Tsuzuki, Hisoka, Yuma, and Saya are talking. He arrives at the discussion just to scoff, "I thought I heard frivolity." :D Talk about characterisation in a nutshell.
The mystery this time was unexpectedly adorable! The 'villain,' too. :D More cases where the scary supernatural entity is an adorable guardian spirit who gets adopted by the hotel owner he was 'haunting,' please? It's not that I dislike the creepy and emotionally wrenching plotlines, it's just that the contrast really makes for extra impact. ♥
I loved the bit with Hisoka using his empathy to tell people's fortunes was funnier the more I thought about it: here's a real psychic using a real psychic ability in order to fake being a psychic with a different psychic ability!
The false Muraki Alert was a nice surprise, too! The evil owner of the modern hotel calls Dr. Muraki to come help him out with his plan to drive the Miyagi Inn out of business and force Rika to marry him, but Muraki doesn't appear. Then his henchmen band together with other disgruntled employees to force him out of the company!
Seeing a shinigami encounter someone they knew in life was cool, too. Rika is so happy to see Chidsuru, exclaiming that she must have heard wrong and Chidsuru didn't die in that accident after all! Chidsuru lies to her about recovering somewhere, and all I could think of what how long that story would hold up... We don't get to see the fallout, but it made me think about how that kind of situation might play out, and how the Bureau probably has rules and procedures to prevent that sort of thing from happening. A brief check of hospital records or obituaries would confirm that Chidsuru did indeed die, after all, and Chidsuru can hardly keep a complex lie going forever. (And it would get complex - if you were recovering in another city, why didn't you contact anyone? Where are you working now? What's your phone number? Tell me all about your apartment and your new coworkers!) Chidsuru takes it pretty well, but she's lucky to have run into a friend who can be lied to, and not someone who actually attended her funeral, or a police officer she served with who would know for certain she was dead.
On a side note, Chidsuru's name puzzles me! That's definitely not a Japanese name, unless it was Romanised very, very strangely? Chisuru or Chidosuru I wouldn't bat an eye at, but "Chidsuru" made me wonder if she was supposed to be foreign.
The author's notes in this volume (and others, to be honest) kinda give me flashbacks to Anne Rice... The author is definitely A Personality™ in a rather abrasive way. I can see adding an author's note to the effect of, "Hey, younger fans, when you write me, please be polite enough to address me instead of opening with Send me some sketches, Thanks." But 'here are the types of paper you're allowed to use when writing me'? Seriously?
I quote:
The following [types of stationery] are strictly forbidden:
Free stationery from magazines
Character stuff
Artist's stuff
Notebook paper and looseleaf binder paper, etc.
Pardon me for not having gilt-edged customised personal stationery, I guess. And she then goes on to explain that she doesn't wear accessories, she prefers blue or black ink but you shouldn't use magic markers or felt-tips, and no use of pseudonyms, please. By the end of the volume I wanted to send her a pseudonymous magazine-stationery note in green marker to the effect of, If you don't want fanmail, I suggest just saying so outright.
But other than that, I really did enjoy this book pretty much all the way through, with very minor hiccups, and I hope that's a hopeful sign for my experience with future volumes!
The bonus story featuring de-aged!Tsuzuki and Watari was short and cute as well, though in a slightly-too-twee/Not My Kink kind of way. I'm sure some fans were made very happy back in the day, though. :D