strawberry-jan

[strawberry-jan]

Chill out ?

#thank you op #i was just describing this to a friend as the most perfect piece of fanart of these two

[strawberry-jan]

i started ishin can you tell who i’m obsessed with

#nagakura my beloved :> #ryoma you should give him some of your cats you don't need 3 #also there's nothing about this that I can recall in ishin but: I also love thinking about him stealing okita's food all the time #snatching up that tripe in all eras/AUs

[strawberry-jan]

1985

#ough augh never not thinking about these two in the mid-80s #op I love the colours on this so much

[strawberry-jan]

im reading your isshin fic series and let me just tell you that i looove all the extra research notes, it helps bring so much color and understanding to the world <3 had to skip the last two chapters in the secret history of saito hajime (haven't actually played the game yet and the spoiler warning scared me but once i do!! i'll get back to it!!) but what i've read has been just marvelous. you have such a lovely style that feels like a gentle river carrying you from one destination to the next so smoothly and easily. maguro-san is my absolute favorite bit. thank you for your work and i hope you have fun while writing, be it for isshin or any other source material! <33

Ohh, wow, thank you for stopping by my inbox to say this! I hope you enjoy Ishin once you have a chance to play it. (The third story in my series takes place after the credits roll and it spoils allllll sorts of things from the late game, so definitely don't read that yet!)

Out of all the games in this series, mainline and spinoffs, Ishin holds a special place in my heart because - at the risk of sounding kind of corny - my desire to play it and write things about it got me doing all sorts of other things that were enriching in their own right and that reinforced my fondness for the game in turn. I first encountered it when a friend streamed the original Japanese version for another friend to live-translate for us, and I fell in love so quickly and completely that I had already ordered a copy for myself before the stream ended. Not long after that, I decided that I'd finally do what I'd been talking about for years and start learning Japanese so that I could at least read the menus, and I'm still studying today. The business of writing fic for it has also pushed me to do all sorts of fun research; I'm planning to make a post on here with all my sources once I've wrapped the fic up. (I would also like to do a big illustration for the series, but it's been a while since I last plugged my tablet in, so we'll see.)

All of this is to say: I'm having a ton of fun writing for it - particularly the most recent chapter - and it makes me very happy to hear that people are enjoying reading my work and the thousands of words' worth of endnotes that accompany it. It's been a bit lonely writing for Ishin at times, because it feels like it sort of came and went within a few months in the English fandom and fics about it sink pretty quickly to the bottom of AO3's pond, but that's also been a bit freeing. Even when I'm writing the fandom's Big Ship, it's in a context where there aren't that many eyes on my work, so I feel like I can just do whatever, and the people who are here for Ishin will be here for all of that. Spend the whole first part of a chapter talking about Edo-era laundry-washing? Translate a bunch of corny 19th-century haiku? Shove in a weird side rarepair that like one other person on AO3 has written about? No problem!

Anyway, thank you again! It made my evening to see this in my inbox. <3

#ask #text post

[strawberry-jan]

END OF THE YAKUZA

#I cackled so hard at this #thank you OP 'does anyone know if we have yakuza tomorrow' is gonna live in my head forever

[strawberry-jan]

started playing mahjong

#posts laser-targeted to me #you get it OP

[strawberry-jan]

majima goro i love you text me

#love all of these #but you know i am hollering at the shishido sighting in particular

[strawberry-jan]

Happy Birthday, Yuko

#the storytelling in this ;_; #nishiki refusing to ron his sister #kiryu doing whatever with his tiles - not pushing or cutting 100% safe tiles - average rgg mahjong player

[strawberry-jan]

I had thought that my days of writing long fandom effort-posts were behind me but then I finished Gaiden and welp, here I am. I ugly sobbed at the ending and then spent the next several hours ugly sobbing in textual form at friends. I have some thoughts; I am going to put a few spoiler-heavy ones (read: a lot of them) under the cut after this brief (read: lengthy) spoiler-free introduction.

Y6 and Y7 left me feeling like the writers should’ve just retired Kiryu from the series after Y5, even if it meant leaving him lying there in the snow and never following up on whether he’d actually made it back to Haruka or was just dreaming. I have complained at length about nearly every aspect of Y6, but since it’s directly relevant to my feelings about Gaiden, let me state my gripe with the ending specifically: it was an absolutely bizarre move to position that game’s ending (1) after Y5 and (2) within a game that hits the player over the head repeatedly with the message that setting yourself on fire to keep other people warm is a mistake that hurts not only you but also those around you.

Kiryu walks down the sunny path away from Morning Glory at the end of Y6, and everything about the framing suggests that even though it’s bittersweet, it ultimately tends toward sweet: the old generation has made way for the new, Yuta is there to look after Haruka in Kiryu’s place (don't get me started on this), and his family is safe for good. The problem with this is that it’s a shit resolution considering the game’s themes and also a devastating ending specifically for Kiryu. We’ve just come off the heels of Y5, where it’s more obvious than ever that despite his gruff, stoic exterior, at heart he’s a warm, caring man who badly needs to be with the people he loves. Exiling himself to Nagasugai made him unspeakably unhappy; what he wants, and what everyone in his family wants, is to be together, and this is something that Y6 harps on initially and then forgets in its ending. Walking away from Morning Glory forever is condemning himself to a lingering death and neither Y6 nor Y7 acknowledges this meaningfully. (Y7, in fact, is infuriating about this; Kiryu’s cameo there felt so cheap and unnecessary that I, one of the man’s biggest fans, was irritated at seeing him there.) It would have been kinder to just kill him outright at the end of Y6.

In that context, Gaiden feels like an apology that also tells you, gently, that we're at the end of an era - for real this time.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Still Thinks Sunglasses Are a Proper Disguise is a roughly 25-hour outing (depending on how much time you sink into mahjong and whether you can get over your embarrassment long enough to close your blinds and watch the painfully awkward live-action hostess videos) in which the writers spend most of the run-time reassuring you, “Yes, actually, we do understand this character and the ramifications of his decision.” There are so many points in the story where it comes up that his family is the one thing that Kiryu wants and the one thing he can’t have. He’s explicit about his desire; you can go so far as to ask a wish-granting vagrant in a silly substory full of Dragon Ball (and also ball) jokes to give him his happy, peaceful life back, because even when Kiryu’s up to his balls in testicular puns, that’s what’s on his mind. There’s no façade that he puts up; the game simply acknowledges this want and goes, “Yes, that was the lesson you learned and discarded; sorry that you can’t act on it anymore, but that window closed in 2016 when you decided to die instead of taking the briefcase full of cash.”

So. This is sad enough. But what really broke me about the ending – and what I know really broke a lot of other people – was the fact that it’s so devastatingly clear that even if Kiryu were to have taken the Omi’s terrible offer to do away with Hanawa and get himself back to Okinawa, it wouldn’t have mattered. I think the writers were very deliberate about having everyone refer to the “kids in Okinawa” (yes, also in Japanese) when they make threats toward Kiryu’s family or talk about his desire to see them again. Kiryu thinks of them as his kids, but when he looks at the recording on Hanawa’s tablet, he sees adults with adult jobs and adult lives of their own. They love him, but their world has moved on without him, and there are no “kids in Okinawa” to return to; all this time, Kiryu has been clinging to a vision of his peaceful life with his kids that doesn’t exist and, in fact, cannot exist anymore. The series has always taken place (barring the spinoffs) roughly in the present moment with real time passing between entries, and I’ve never felt it so painfully acutely as I did in that moment when Kiryu realizes that Haruto can write.

And this is all of a piece, I think, with the speech he gives earlier in the game about wanting to do right by Kazama, Nishiki, and Yumi – more idealized visions of people he once knew and still loves. Hell, even though I’m disappointed not to get the fanservice that would’ve been Kiryu talking to Daigo, Majima, and Saejima at length, none of those members of the old guard have interacted with him since he left the hospital and went to jail at the start of Y6. It’s not just his kids who have moved on: Daigo is doing things for himself without sneaking back into Suzuki Taichi’s life to beg him for advice, and though Majima does roll his eye at Kiryu and tell him to stick around for a bit after the brawl (and the little knife-throw made me go hohohoh because I'm shameless and will take whatever scraps the studio deigns to give me), he and Saejima are bickering and joking around with each other like an old married couple. They’ve moved on, too, and Kiryu’s world is ghosts all the way down.

It's not all miserable, of course. I do genuinely love that Kiryu’s kids are happy, and although Kiryu sobs that he needed them more than they needed him, that seems more like a function of his chronically low self-esteem than anything based in reality. You can tell that the Morning Glory kids regarded him as a positive force in their lives and that they still do as adults – Taichi, for instance, says that he decided to be a firefighter because he wanted to protect people like Kiryu did. Kiryu’s family looked up to him but, crucially, without falling into the cycle that Kiryu did when he looked up to his own father figure. And it really warms my heart that clearly Haruka has been telling Haruto about her dad, such that the kid knows enough about oji-san to draw a picture of him with the rest of his family. I think a lot of other media’s writers would have chosen to make the Morning Glory kids bitter about Kiryu’s absence, to have them resent their dad for repeatedly disappearing on them. Maybe they did in fact feel upset with him for a while, but the video presents them all as happy and hopeful that maybe someday their not-dead dad will come back to have a drink with them – and I do hope that Y8 allows this to happen in some way. It wouldn’t be a return to his old life, but it would be something.

Anyway: I’d feel weird about talking at such great length about all of this without talking about the Big Dissolution Brawl and everything around it. It's all connected, after all. Just as Kiryu comes to the painful acknowledgement that his little world has moved on, so too does he have to beat it into Shishido’s skull that the organization that he’s still clinging to is a thing of the past. It’s not just that anti-Yakuza laws are making it more difficult for them to function and that the police and politicians have found ways to use them as scapegoats and pawns. It’s also that everyone who’s been in the business long enough understands that even the best men among them are still bastards and their organizations aren’t worth saving. Tsuruno – probably my favourite new character – is a fiercely loyal man who’s known for taking guys like Shishido under his wing; he also has no compunctions about plotting to murder Hanawa, threatening Kiryu’s family as a manipulation tactic, threatening Kiryu himself with a red-hot branding iron, and using Kiryu as an accessory to murder. Notable cool dude Watase made use of the Kijin Clan because their assassination services were necessary for him to get ahead, and he and Tsuruno readily discard Nishitani III the second he becomes a liability – gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, after all. (I am not going into anything else about whatever the writers thought they were doing with Nishitani. I think there was something to do there with the game's interest in names and legacy but then, in classic RGG Studio fashion, they forgot to elaborate on it in any meaningful way.) For the first time since the late 80s, Kiryu is even forced to explicitly consider Kazama’s faults – albeit only briefly, and only in a substory.

Shishido himself wants to be the final boss of a previous game as if there's some kind of throne left to contend for (and his final fight is actually pretty reminiscent of the brawl with Aizawa, a high point in the series). And, at Kiryu’s insistence, he’s allowed to get out his blustering final speech about it – but he shouts about refusing to allow the old guard to dismantle the structure he’s ascended while everyone around him who actually matters is standing there, like, “Dude, the Tojo and Omi are over; read the room.” We're playing through the epilogue to Kiryu's saga, and we're seeing everything that drove that saga's conflicts being tied up or taken apart as needed. The kids will be alright no matter what happens to Kiryu, and while we already saw the Tojo Clan bite it in Y7 after its long decline over the course of the series, we're finally seeing that from the perspective of the guy who prolonged things by shoving Daigo into the chairman's seat and coming back to Kamurocho once a year or so for a Millennium Tower punch-out. Kiryu even acknowledges that, like Shishido, he loves this shit - "You hear someone out there's stronger... And soon your only thought is how to defeat them," he tells the man. But he goes on to say that that dream is meaningless in the face of other people's daily struggles. Again, it's time for everyone to move on. It's time for you as the player to move on, and you're being given one last real-time shirt-rip brawl against a man who won't accept that the era is over in order to underscore the point that it's over.

I’m not entirely sure how to finish this already too long post. There's a lot I haven't even touched on. I will say that I love Hanawa and Akame and Tsuruno. I love going back to Sotenbori. I love yet another game in which I can slam through the koi-koi and mahjong completion lists. I love all the callbacks and the sequence in the castle where you fight not-Kiryu and they've given him Gun and Sword like some kind of budget Sakamoto Ryoma. I love playing dress-up with my big burly guy. I love everything about the big boys’ night out in Chapter 4. I love that immediately after being tortured by Daidoji agents Kiryu can wander into the next room over to ask for a turn on their Sega Master System. I love how funny this game is when it's not socking me repeatedly in the gut. More than anything, I love that even though Kiryu’s enduring the world’s most drawn-out death sentence he’s still Kiryu and he’ll still snark at people and get really into little cars and involve himself in people's problems at the drop of a hat. I wish that I’d gotten to see Kiryu getting tripe with the old Tojo guard at the end of the game, but that’s what fic is for. I will not be writing that fic any time soon because I’m still way too deep in my feelings about this game to write anything cheerful about it. As I said, Gaiden feels like an apology, and while it made me cry harder than a video game has ever made me cry before, I’m so happy to have received it.

#like a dragon gaiden #there are no spoilers above the cut but if you click through uhhh watch out #this was an embarrassing number of words SORRY #and I hardly touched on some aspects of the plot

[strawberry-jan]

“I’ll just write this short little fic”, the author says, not realising they’re doomed by the narrative

#ME EVERY TIME #ask me about the one-shot I started planning to end my latest series (hint: it's no longer a one-shot) #or the inordinate amount of research I've done for the preceding two fics in the series

[strawberry-jan]

All of Gaiden's finale is a sob fest and unbelievably emotional but:

Kiryu crying and showing off Haruto's artwork to Hanawa in sobbing grandpa mode.

Just.

Fucking.

"Look at that." (Turns so Hanawa can see the drawing). "He can read and write now. The last time I saw him, he couldn't even talk."

And sometime after.

"Turns out..I needed them (his kids) more than they ever needed me."

Just.

Goddamn.

Kiryu is in full breakdown mode too. Really seeing him sobbing over the tablet, wiping snot off it because he can't contain himself just puts you in a fit right beside him.

I dunno anyone who will finish this game dry eyed.

#i finished this game earlier this week and i'm still reeling #absolutely destroyed #i keep trying to make a post about it but i have sooo many thoughts and i keep making myself too sad while trying to get them out #unreal how emotional these writers are capable of making me feel over a fictional old man

[strawberry-jan]

This is why I read the reddit comments

#yeah!!!!!!

[strawberry-jan]

Look!! I made Tenkaichi Street from Y0!! :))

#omg OP this is amazing #look at all the fine details!!!!!! #the use of the mirror is so brilliant too

[strawberry-jan]

Kenzan Substory: The Yamato-e Painter

Below the cut is a translation of Kenzan substory #45, “The Yamato-e Painter.”

Please be warned that this story contains an incident of sexual harassment that’s played for laughs in a homophobic manner. This writing is very much in line with the kinds of storytelling choices that RGG Studio has made in the past and has since disavowed through disclaimers or even outright cuts in their remastered games and remakes. 

Yamato-e is a genre of painting that (as the name – literally “Japanese painting” – suggests) takes specifically Japanese people, places, and themes as its subject matter. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s page on yamato-e provides a helpful summary of the genre’s history. Most relevantly, by the early 14th century, artists working in this genre had begun to produce realistic portraits of subjects such as poets, courtiers, military heroes… and perhaps, in Kenzan, a certain wandering swordsman. 

[Kiryu is wandering about in Kawara when he runs into a man dressed in a white kimono with a pink-ish overcoat. The man – identified in the text box as “Ranzan” – waves him down.]

Ranzan: Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment? Where on earth did you train that magnificent body of yours? You’re not like all those other meatheads…

Kiryu: …

Ranzan: Ah, my name is Ranzan. I’m a traditional Japanese painter. Surely you’ve heard of me? 

Kiryu: …

Ranzan: My specialty is warrior portraits. If I may impose, would you be willing to let me paint you? If I were to depict that figure of yours, I’m certain that it would be a most wonderful piece: a work to be handed down through the ages! This is a once-in-a-lifetime encounter – I can’t just let this opportunity pass me by! Please, I’m begging you! I’m prepared to offer you a most handsome reward… 

[Kiryu is presented with a choice to accept or refuse Ranzan’s request; we choose to accept.] 

Kiryu: Uh, yeah… I’ll think about it. 

Ranzan: Yes, I would be most grateful if you would! This must be fate! 

[Ranzan wipes his forehead, then points off into the distance.]

Ranzan: Well then, let’s go to my studio right away. Please follow me. 

[The screen fades to black. When we return, Kiryu is standing in front of Ranzan in the middle of his studio. Various paintings are on display, and there's one in progress on the table to Ranzan’s left. The painter faces Kiryu and mops his brow again.]

Ranzan: Ah! How wonderful! A magnificent physique, like a rock that’s stood since time immemorial! Eyes like a tiger’s that peer into the very depths of one’s heart! Hmm… Hmm, hmm… Yes, that’s it! 

[Ranzan leans in and nods at Kiryu.]

Ranzan: Pardon me, but would you mind removing your clothes, please? Just your upper body is fine! I, Ranzan, am prepared to give this painting everything I’ve got…! 

[Once again, Kiryu is presented with a choice to agree to his request or refuse. Naturally, he agrees.]

Kiryu: Okay, got it. 

Ranzan: Yes, oh yes!  

[The scene fades to black. When we return, Kiryu has stripped down to his fundoshi.]

Ranzan: Ah! How beautiful…. Those burgeoning muscles – they bring to mind a cascade of cool snowmelt… The more I look at them, the more breathtaking they become… 

[The camera pans slowly down to Kiryu’s junk.]

Ranzan: Hmm… Hmm… Hmm, yes, I have it! Just one more thing, if you please: would you be so kind as to remove your underwear? 

Kiryu: …No way! 

Ranzan: Really, now… We’ve come this far and now you’re hesitating!? I’ll get that thing off even if I have to do it by force!

[Still in his fundoshi, Kiryu gives Ranzan – identified as an “Excited Guy” in the splash screen – a thrashing. Note that this title is probably a pun: the verb that the writers use to describe Ranzan – “tatsu” (たつ) – can also refer to getting an erection. After the fight, Ranzan falls to his knees at Kiryu’s feet.]

Ranzan: Ohh… The pen is weaker than the sword. 

Kiryu: What the hell do you think you’re doing?! 

Ranzan: From the moment I saw you, I was smitten! And what’s more, it was no mere fluttering of the heart… Yes, this is what they call love…!  

Kiryu: …

Ranzan: I’m so terribly sorry! Please don’t think ill of me… I want to make amends somehow… But at the moment, I have nothing of value. The only things here that are worth anything are these paintings – but I still need to eat. You can take whichever one you like, but please be merciful and just take the one.  

[A text box pops up and asks which one you’ll take (and adds: please show mercy and choose only one). The options are a painting of a warrior, a painting of an actor, or a painting of a famous place. The outcome of the story isn’t affected by the painting that you choose here, but the warrior and actor paintings sell for 10,000 mon, whereas the scenery sells for one single mon. In any case, once Kiryu picks a painting, the scene fades to black again, and we return to the street where Kiryu first encountered Ranzan.]

Ranzan: It pains me to part ways… I look forward to the day we meet again. Farewell…

[The screen fades to black, and with that, Ranzan is gone. A box pops up informing us that Kiryu has received 1000 EXP.]

#once again this is my translation with mothball-league's checks #there's a let's play that translates this story but the translator completely leaves out ranzan's effusive praise #which is like half the point of this story #this is part one of a series i want to do about everyone in kyoto sexually harassing kazumanosuke #also i translated this because my fic in the kzmj zine riffs on the substory #super excited to post that when I'm allowed :>

[strawberry-jan]

I’m finally playing ishin. This is my first like a dragon game, am I playing it right?

#the ahahaha/ohohoho gave me a big ol smile #i love these op

[strawberry-jan]

Thinking about how when my oldest brother took Japanese classes his professor was like your pronunciation is really good 😊 but you need to watch movies that aren't about the Yakuza because you sound like a criminal

#this is gonna be me i know it

[strawberry-jan]

Routine

#i love you suzuki taichi