Subject: AMG: Character Development. Megami ML Replies From: J. Lan Bellsmith ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sat, 7 Jun 1997, Kuraiken wrote: > from Char Depth:Belldandy > ------------------------- > > Of course, the most valid example of Belldandy's reality comes, for me, > > in vol 9, chapter 57, page 186. It's a mark of Fujishima-sensei's skill > > that a drawing can embody so much emotion so eloquently. > > Sure, she's nice, but I think that Belldandy is the same nice, sweet, > > insecure, beautiful, apologetic, loyal, combustible goddess she ever was. > > It's just that, luckily for them, nobody's been giving her a reason to get > > pissed off lately. > > Hmm...actually, I'm beginning to agree with you here too...Belldandy > seems more and more 'realistic' the more I read the manga...she _is_ > rather apologetic about everything and your example is spot on...I know > someone like that too! Can be rather annoying after some time..^^; Exactly. She may not be out serial-killing, but Belldandy has her character flaws as well as strengths. It seems to me that all of the characters, Keiichi, Belldandy, Skuld, Urd, even Sayoko, began as one-dimensional characters and grew from there. Keiichi was brutish, Belldandy sweet, Skuld bratty and Urd sexy. But after Fujishima-sensei established those character types, he used them as starting points to create more realistic and engaging characters. Keiichi's brutishness becomes insecurity and shyness, Belldandy's quietness the same, and her "frenzied need to please," (as someone put it,) stemming from her love of Keiichi and her fear that he doesn't return that love. Skuld's childishness remains, but begins to develop as a regular little girl would, and we can see her as she gradually accepts Keiichi into her family, even though she still professes to hate him. Urd's sexuality hides more tender feelings which she reveals when she thinks nobody's looking, and Sayoko, and Megumi.... Not that all of these characters couldn't stand improvement. But in they're present states, they've very well rounded, especially for comic characters. ^_^; J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Character Depth: Belldandy On Fri, 7 Jun 1996, Leonard Tai wrote: > > Now I've been on this list a while, and I've heard people who, among > >other things, claim a lot of things about our favorite goddess of the > >present. I've heard people say she isn't realistic. I've heard people > >say she's one-dimensional. I've heard people say she is, in fact, locked > >in a spiral of ever-strengthening super-kindness that threatens to remove > >any interesting qualities from her character. (I paraphrase, of course.) > The Japanese do have a thing for fascinating personalities in characters. > (Um... dimensional, um... spiral of ever-strengthening super-kindness? I > believe I had something to do with those comments, but don't get me wrong. > What I meant was Belldandy is 10th++ Dimensional and Keiichi is 4- > Dimensional. I was using "one-dimensional" as in "flat." People were saying that Belldandy was a flat, simplified character. > As for super-kindness, she's becoming more of a real lady/dream lover than > ever.) I'm not sure what you mean by "real lady" but Belldandy's -always- been a dream lover. She's beautiful and totally devoted to her man. I think, though, that if anything she's become more complex as the story has continued. > She only gets pissed off when Keiichi comes into harm. Lately she's the one > getting harmed (mostly). Probably. Really? She was pretty upset/sad when Aoshimi came onto her back in volume...what?....two or something of the manga. I'd say Belldandy, being a kind-spirited person, is upset by cruel, manipulative, mean-spirited things... Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that large portion of her anger rises in defense of Keiichi. I'm saying that it's wrong to limit the scope of her subjectivity to that, simply because that's the majority of what we've seen. After all, this is a manga about, centrally, Belldandy and Keiichi, so naturally the main portion of the stories will involve conflict between or towards the two of them. However, simply because we don't see Belldandy getting angry at other things doesn't mean she doesn't. Urd has mentioned that she does, and has displayed a fear of Belldandy in a mood from things that happened before she ever met Keiichi. Fujishima never shows Keiichi going to the restroom, but all the same, I'm sure he does. Same with Belldandy's anger. ^_- J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Character Depth: Keiichi On Fri, 7 Jun 1996, Leonard Tai wrote: > >Other characters in the manga, and > >even himself, may berate Keiichi for not being a man, but if this is true, > >it makes Keiichi more a man than a lot of guys, because he's putting his > >girl's welfare above his own desires. > Notice Keiichi's evolution from a thug in Chapter 1, to a normal guy, then > to a nice normal guy... till present-day Keiichi. > He has grown stronger emotionally. (Hey, if I had the 3 Norns as tutors...) > ^_^ True. What fascinates me the most, though, is Keiichi's reason for not touching Belldandy, and the warmth that adds to Keiichi's character. Without it, Keiichi is just a pervert who lusts after Belldandy but doesn't have the guts to make a move. With it, he's a man in love who's afraid that very love will hurt its object... In his own way, he's as thoughtful of Belldandy as she is of him. J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chan Wei Lik Subject: Re: Character Depth: Keiichi >From: JBPendragon [bellsj01@student.ucr.edu]=09 >>True. What fascinates me the most, though, is Keiichi's reason for = not touching Belldandy, and the warmth that adds to Keiichi's character. Without it, Keiichi is just a pervert who lusts after Belldandy but doesn't have the guts to make a move. With it, he's a man in love who's afraid that very love will hurt its object... << And yet as Keiichi himself wondered, is he just rationalising his = inability to act? If this continues however, I feel Keiichi may be = putting Belldandy on too high a pedestal for his own good. She wants to = be his companion, not to be worshipped by him. Still this is an = interesting discussion. It shows yet another side to Keiichi that was = never capitalized on. More wasted ideas... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chan Wei Lik Subject: Re: AMG: Char Development. >From: JBPendragon [bellsj01@student.ucr.edu] >Keiichi's brutishness becomes insecurity and shyness, Brutishness? I've never seen Keiichi to be brutish in the manga. I remember one guy saying Keiichi was like a thug in vol 1 was it? What did I miss? >>Skuld's childishness remains, but begins to develop as a regular little girl would, and we can see her as she gradually accepts Keiichi into her family, even though she still professes to hate him. There hasn't been much interaction depicted between Skuld and Keiichi lately. Skuld still seems to actively disrupt Keiichi's attempts to get close to her sister. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Character Depth: Keiichi On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Chan Wei Lik wrote: > And yet as Keiichi himself wondered, is he just rationalising his > inability to act? If this continues however, I feel Keiichi may be > putting Belldandy on too high a pedestal for his own good. She wants to > be his companion, not to be worshipped by him. Still this is an > interesting discussion. It shows yet another side to Keiichi that was > never capitalized on. More wasted ideas... Actually, though, I'm not sure I'd say that Keiichi worships Belldandy or puts her on a pedestal. Well, of course he does to a degree, she being a goddess and all, but not to a hampering extent. I'd read his hesitation more along the lines of, say, a mortal couple where the boy knew/suspected that becoming intimate would make his girlfriend ill. It's a crude comparision, but something like an STD. It's not that he is too awed to act or because she's a goddess, but that he thinks there could be negative repercussions for her. Still, your point about his rationalization is important. It could all be in his head. I tend to think it's a bit of all of the above. With all due respect, I remain, J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: AMG: Char Development. On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Chan Wei Lik wrote: > >Keiichi's brutishness becomes insecurity and shyness, > > Brutishness? I've never seen Keiichi to be brutish in the manga. I > remember one guy saying Keiichi was like a thug in vol 1 was it? What > did I miss? Hmmm. Well, although I have both the english translation and the japanese original of the early manga, I don't read it very often, since I am adverse to Fujishima-sensei's early art. (It's okay, but not nearly the beautiful imagery of his later stuff.) So I haven't done any translations in the earlier parts of the series. Still, the english version did seem to depict Keiichi as a bit...rough. It may be the fault of the translators, though. I have a feeling that Keiichi's original personality could blossom into its own discussion. > There hasn't been much interaction depicted between Skuld and Keiichi > lately. Skuld still seems to actively disrupt Keiichi's attempts to get > close to her sister. Yes and no. In the later volumes, (10+) I get the distinct impression that, although she's still going through the motions of keeping Onee-sama and Keiichi apart, she isn't nearly as passionate about it as she once was. That could just be my own reading of interpretable connotations, but that's how it seemed. ^_^ With all due respect, I remain, J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Character Depth: Keiichi At 12:45 PM 6/10/97 -0700, JBPendragon wrote: >On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Chan Wei Lik wrote: >> And yet as Keiichi himself wondered, is he just rationalising his >> inability to act? If this continues however, I feel Keiichi may be >> putting Belldandy on too high a pedestal for his own good. She wants to [...] >Actually, though, I'm not sure I'd say that Keiichi worships Belldandy or >puts her on a pedestal. Well, of course he does to a degree, she being a I don't think K1 does that either. Judging from his speech pattern, I see very little evidence of "worshipfulness." Conversation between two are fairly informal (actually, Belldandy is the more formal of the two) and K1 usually calls Belldandy by her name without any suffix (-san, -sama, -chan, etc) and uses "kimi" if he's using a pronoun, which isn't often. "Kimi" is quite a bit less formal/deferential than "anata," although pronouns in general are not used much in Japanese and are harder to rank than honorific suffix. Much of that can be K1 just bluffing, trying to hide his uneasiness by feigning closeness that he is not yet quite ready for. Maybe he is still insecure and thinking that once he makes a move, there'll be a thunderous "Psych! What were you thinking, you little human?" from the Heaven as the megami leave him for good. --C h a e ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chan Wei Lik Subject: Character Depth: Keiichi >From: Chae An [chaean@hom.net] >> Maybe he is still insecure and thinking that once he makes a move, there'll be a thunderous "Psych! What were you thinking, you little human?" from the Heaven as the megami leave him for good. That reminds me, perhaps Keiichi actually is worried about how much it will hurt if she should have to leave him for good. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Character Depth: Keiichi Message-ID: Reply-To: megami On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Leonard Tai wrote: > I noticed how Belldandy and Keiichi addressed themselves. ie > in otokotomegaminoRabuSongu (hope you know what that was) A boy and goddess' love song. > K1 used "kimi"s and Belldandy used "anata"s. Well, Belldandy is, as Chae (I believe,) pointed out, very formal. Yeesh, after a few years, she's still calling the guy she's in love with "Keiichi-san." At least she's not calling him "Morisato-san"!! In regular speech patterns, Belldandy leans towards the -masu verb form, rather than the informal and more commonly spoken -ru form, as well as strong feminine usages, such as the addition of -wa at the end of sentences. "Sou desu wa" as opposed to "Sou da." For those with no Japanese background, let's just say she's very polite, as one might expect. ^_^ J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Henry J. Cobb" Subject: Re: Character Depth: Keiichi The only way to really settle this is to write it up in a comparable fashion. So, what if instead of going through AMS, K1 had instead been selected to take on Lum in the tag match that started UY? So, you've got K1 with his earthly situation as usual, but the unearthly element is the flying electric demoness. (Adjust her age to be the same as his, so she can drop into school without complaint. Alternatively, she's a "child" prodigy and so counts as college level already, but the upperclassmen (who count as stormtroopers) are very suspicious of what K1 is doing with the underage girl...) What happens? (Hopefully he won't have to endure too much of her cooking...) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kuraiken Subject: Re: Character Depth: Keiichi JBPendragon wrote: > goddess and all, but not to a hampering extent. I'd read his hesitation > more along the lines of, say, a mortal couple where the boy knew/suspected > that becoming intimate would make his girlfriend ill. Hmm...I dunno...one thing that I seem to 'pick up' from Keiichi is that he's awfully shy...he doesn't always make known what he's actually thinking/feeling...no doubt he respects Belldandy and all that but I'm not so sure about him being afraid that them being together and all would 'hurt' Belldandy in any way...I mean, look, if Kamisama truly did not approve do you think the Belldandy or indeed, the megami-tachi would be able to remain on Earth for as long as they have been? > It's a crude > comparision, but something like an STD. Err...sorry, J-san but which STD are you refering to here? The only STD I know is a "State Transition Diagram" ^_^;;; > It's not that he is too awed to > act or because she's a goddess, but that he thinks there could be negative > repercussions for her. I'm not sure I agree...what negative repercussions? Remember the megami can't do just about _anything_ they want...so if they can do something it's probably because they are allowed to...err...am I making sense? > Still, your point about his rationalization is important. It could all be > in his head. I tend to think it's a bit of all of the above. > > With all due respect, I remain, > > J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: JBPendragon Subject: Re: Character Depth: Keiichi On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Kuraiken wrote: > Hmm...I dunno...one thing that I seem to 'pick up' from Keiichi is that > he's awfully shy...he doesn't always make known what he's actually > thinking/feeling...no doubt he respects Belldandy and all that but I'm But in this instance, we get to hear Keiichi's -thought bubble- so we know it's exactly what he's thinking. I asked about the translation, and someone verified it. It goes along the lines of Keiichi saying that he's afraid if he gets too close to Belldandy, she might not be able to go home if she has to in the future, and he might not be able to let her. > not so sure about him being afraid that them being together and all > would 'hurt' Belldandy in any way...I mean, look, if Kamisama truly did > not approve do you think the Belldandy or indeed, the megami-tachi would > be able to remain on Earth for as long as they have been? See above. From Kami-sama's timely help when the megami-tachi had lost power due to Yggdrasil's crash, as well as the fact that he hasn't recalled her, despite her post being completely abandoned, I tend to thik that Kami-sama is on the side of koi. But I would not---and I think Keiichi isn't willing to---presume to know the mind of the Lord. The closer they get, the harder it would be to part, and Belldandy cannot go against Kami-sama's command (well, she has, but if Kami-sama pressed the issue, Belldandy doesn't stand a chance). So if he ever -were- to call her back... > > It's a crude > > comparision, but something like an STD. > > Err...sorry, J-san but which STD are you refering to here? The only STD > I know is a "State Transition Diagram" ^_^;;; Sexually Transmitted Disease. > > It's not that he is too awed to > > act or because she's a goddess, but that he thinks there could be negative > > repercussions for her. > > I'm not sure I agree...what negative repercussions? Remember the megami > can't do just about _anything_ they want...so if they can do something > it's probably because they are allowed to...err...am I making sense? Again, see above. J. Lan Bellsmith, Lord of Pendragon