"Let's go catch that light that exists only for us"

[gekidasa]

....that was sadder than I expected ;_____________;








I never realized how much I came to like Kageyama until this episode. That was harsh, specially because... it didn't have to end like that, at all. If only he hadn't taken those necklaces.

And then Yaguruma... I mean, it's pretty obvious that that's what Kageyama wanted, and finally...

"Aibou, we're together eternally. Let's go catch that light that exists only for us."

So bittersweet. ;___________________________;



Kind of SxSy. In reverse, I mean, if Seishirou HAD killed Subaru... except Yaguruma really isn't very Seishirou-y, but the situation, the feel of it, it reminds me a lot of the aftermath at Rainbow Bridge.





Hide blew me away in this ep. Just... that bit where he tightens his jaw, just before he henshins, because he's not going to show much more than that, but it's enough to convey VOLUMES about Yaguruma's feelings.






ETA: dimmie, I'm pretty sure this is you were talking about today, about something you wanted to say but couldn't yet? :3

Comments

[dimmie.livejournal.com]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF YES THAT

When we were talking about Kageyama I wanted so badly to go into "AND THEN" but I couldn't. DD:

For all that I think the Hoppers were wasted from a plot logistics point of view, the conclusion of their saga is the best one in the series. Even better than Tsurugi's or Kagami's. Any way you choose to see that last scene (whether you think Yaguruma dies or lives), it's really the end for them. It's the last step on their way down, and they're still taking it together. And it's their last step into hell, but they never gave up seeking the light. So after everything they've done and been through, they're coming full circle as they always were back in day one - they're partners, and if the lights exists for one it exists for both of them, as long as they stick together. Even in death. ;_;

sçdgnlskdgjb Kageyama you fucking pathetic BITCH why did you have to get those necklaces. ;____;

[gekidasa.livejournal.com]

(NOW WITH VISUAL AIDE!)



...Yeah, I did go, for a moment, asfjhdfdjdhsf BUT THEY COULD HAVE DONE MORE WITH THEM, but then... for all that it was SAD and WAH, it is like Rainbow Bridge in that it was pretty much perfect in all its tragedy and somehow more satisfying than anything different would have been.

Which is what I meant, when I said I was pretty sure they would die because that's the best case scenario for characters like them. Somehow, if they had been given any other ending, in a way SPECIALLY if they had been allowed to go off and try to find "the white night", it would have been cheaper than this, you know?

ETA: Besides, in a way they DID go find their white night, so.



Also, I'm done with 49.

[dimmie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I definitely wouldn't them to have a happily ever after ending. I knew they eventually had to die off, whether by turning into the final villains or by another circumstance, because at the point they got at the time they cornered Kagami and Tendo and beat the living shit out of them (with Kageyama looking completely psychotic at it and Yaguruma looking so smug that he'd managed to bring Kageyama down with him), they were beyond finding any sort of magical sparklepoo salvation. But their deaths (I say their because to me it looked like they attacked each other and Kageyama died first, but Yaguruma was clearly dying too) still hurt, because of the way the whole thing happened.

Which, while still making me angst and rage and scream NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR at the screen while choking on bitter fangirl tears every time, actually made perfect sense. The whole thing with Kageyama being desperate enough to blindly trust himself something sanctioned by that same treacherous ZECT he knew perfectly well, goes just with everything else Kageyama did. It fits that Kageyama who's ultimately always been a lost confused boy trying to find some point of reference and clinging to whatever ray of light he sees, even if that later turns out to be just a reflection on a surface covering a deep black hole.

So tl;dr I agree with you about Rainbow Bridge in the sense that, it hurts to watch the characters we love die, but it hurts more because we know it makes sense. It's not just "and then they died", it's their story escalated to this exact point, and now this is what it all runs down to. It's the perfect ending for them because it's the one that makes those characters and their relationship whole. They started out searching for perfect harmony in life, and after going through hell and back, found their own little haven of light in death.

God I love these two so much. ;_;

[gekidasa.livejournal.com]

And you know, the thing about them is if you want to completely miss the point, you can see Yaguruma as dragging Kageyama down to his level, and see him as selfish or amoral for that and make him the bad guy, but it wasn't like that, not just because Kageyama was pretty good at digging his own hole.

Yaguruma DID tell him not to reach for the light and that they should live in the dark and all that, and one can see that as crushing his hope, except it really wasn't like that. Because ultimately, you see that Kageyama kept reaching for hope that wasn't real, and that THAT was what killed him, and I thought it was very telling that when he was feverish and said he got a necklace for Yaguruma, Yaguruma refused to take it (at that point it was pretty obvious that the necklaces did bad things to people and I wondered if Yaguruma sensed that like Tendou did), but at the same time, he doesn't insist that Kageyama take them off, because by then I think he knows Kageyama wasn't ever going to stop reaching for that little bit of (false) hope. And so, he'd tried to find hope for him, a hope that was real for them, the light in the dark and all that, and it's just so sad that it was too late.

[dimmie.livejournal.com]

Yesssss this. It drives me crazy how people don't understand why Yaguruma acts the way he does towards Kageyama, because THIS. Even to the very end, Yaguruma never wanted to destroy Kageyama - he made Kageyama see he'd already destroyed himself, but as soon as Kageyama realized that, Yaguruma took back the role he had before in their relationship, consciously or not.

And the whole thing with not seeking false lights was always about protecting the little monster he still felt responsible for creating, not torturing him for revenge. Of all the things Yaguruma was, he never managed to be uncaring. The tragedy was that the more he tried to save Kageyama from completely losing himself, the more he pushed them both over towards their end.

[gekidasa.livejournal.com]

Yes, basically, that. You can find so many examples that Yaguruma never stopped caring, about Kageyama in particular, obviously, but also in general. I mean, after the Mamiya Reina thing, when they walk off together and Yaguruma steps on the flower, it was a very purposeful action, he made a point of doing it, because he can't QUITE give up himself.

I do believe he had already found peace in his own nohilism though, and that's what he tried to show Kageyama.




And to pick up again what actually happened to Yaguruma, upon first watching my thought was that only Yaguruma attacked, but yes, OBVIOUSLY he was going to die, so what I thought, was that we were meant to understand that he was going to kill himself, but you're right, it makes perfect sense that they attacked each other.

Again like a certain other tragic couple.

[dimmie.livejournal.com]

it makes perfect sense that they attacked each other

If nothing else, at least because otherwise it makes no sense to have Kageyama henshin in that scene. If Kageyama planned to just let himself be killed, he wouldn't have to henshin, he'd just stand there in human form and take a rider kick to the head. I think it was more a time constraint than anything else, we only saw Yaguruma's attack, but obviously there was more material shot to that scene that wasn't shown because the last two episodes were already rushed enough as they were.

Taking it to a story level, I'm convinced Kageyama henshined because he wanted to die but he had every intention of dying like a man, even if dying was the only thing he did right in life. And possibly he already knew that by breaking their chain, the last thing they both had, he was going to break Yaguruma himself too. So if their time was up, they better die the same way they lived - partners and rivals to the end.

(obviously KickHopper is way stronger than PunchHopper, so in the missing footage we'll never see there would probably be Yaguruma secretly letting himself get hit enough times/hard enough to be sure he was done for before finishing Kageyama, so he could die with his partner but wouldn't have to actually off himself after the fight - THAT I don't see Yaguruma doing)

[gekidasa.livejournal.com]

(obviously KickHopper is way stronger than PunchHopper, so in the missing footage we'll never see there would probably be Yaguruma secretly letting himself get hit enough times/hard enough to be sure he was done for before finishing Kageyama, so he could die with his partner but wouldn't have to actually off himself after the fight - THAT I don't see Yaguruma doing)

Yeah, that's why my first reaction was 'What happens to Yaguruma!" because suicide doesn't really seme like his thing, and if he was already dying it makes much more sense.


but he had every intention of dying like a man, even if dying was the only thing he did right in life.

Unlike how he WOULD have died if Yaguruma hadn't come and saved his ass. So in a way, that's what Yaguruma did, saved him from dying without any sort of honor, alone like a dog, and instead gave him a little while of feeling accepted and like he had a place in the world with yaguruma, and when it was time, Kageyama died "like a man". So at least he could give him that.

[gekidasa.livejournal.com]

ALSO, and this is another way in which they remind me of SxS, Kageyama was, like you say, the lost and confused boy, and Yaguruma was his mentor from the start to the end, but specially his mentor when trying to find his way through hopelessness and despair.

And I know people sometime don't get why Subaru is the Hanged Man in the Tarot, but it makes PERFECT sense because Seishirou is Death. Because the Hanged Man is man descending into hell in order to gain knowledge, and Death is the beginning of something new, so I always thought that was REALLY well done on CLAMP's part, because I read it as them saying that Seishirou is Subaru's guide and mentor, because sweet, innocent Subaru is... well, he's incomplete. In order to be complete, he needs to see the other side, and Seishirou showed him that, and led him by the hand into hell, so to speak, and it was complete by makign Subaru kill him and then Subaru becoming the sakurazukamori. So the whole mentor and guide for the trip down into hell thing is why the Hoppers are oddly similar to them.

[dimmie.livejournal.com]

.....OH. Now I see what you meant. I wasn't getting the reference too well, but yes, this makes perfect sense. You're amazing, sensei. D:

(and you're not even in ~academia~ ;x)

[gekidasa.livejournal.com]

Haha, yeah. I realized I wasn't explaining that AT ALL.

I mean, I will never try to deny that Seishirou is anything other than amoral and selfish, BUT beyond that, I've always seen him fundamentally as Subaru's guide on his journey, so that's why I look at the Hoppers and think "SxS", because Yaguruma is the guide, and then in the end one destroyed the other and thus destroyed them both.

It was never about evil semes corrupting innocent ukes. :3

[dimmie.livejournal.com]

re. eta: oh? How did you like it?

[gekidasa.livejournal.com]

I posted about it, wench.

I like it as the winding down of the whole series... sort of an epilogue. As as a single episode, it's kind of weak, though. (Kind of like how I've always thought the whole "reading the last page of the book" thing is stupid, because if you really want to know how it ends, you have to read a few pages back, not the actual last page).

And Tendou in France is stupid. XP