All the Best People Have to Be Ghosts

For a long time now, I have wondered why it is that I like Utena without loving it. On paper, Utena seems like something I should love. I've described Angel Sanctuary as "all these people who don't fully understand each other always hurting each other inadvertently" with Gnostic overtones implying that "the physical world is evil because it separates us, divides us up into these beings that can't touch and careen about and hurt each other" and, of course, weird gender and incest issues. Given this description, there's almost no distinction between AS and Utena. So, given that Utena is obviously the more intellectual of the two, and AS is clearly sillier by far, why is AS the one I adore and Utena the one I coldly admire?

While I was walking around doing nothing for an hour today, I came up, for the first time, with an answer that makes sense - if it is clearly not the content, then it must be the structure! This is slightly hard for me to accept because the structures do seem superficially similar (well, those aspects of the structure that seem relevant - I do not think the reason I don't love Utena is because of the Rose Bride duels). Both of them feature a main plot in the present and a lot of backstory, which is revealed gradually during the course of the main plot, up until the final, most important, extremely Gnostic backstory that gets revealed at the end. However, the difference between the two of them is, I think, in the balance of the backstory and the main story. It's true that in Utena the backstory is the motivation for the entire present story. It's also true that almost every important individual character has his or her own different backstory, and even that the backstories connect (to some degree - Utena's, Saionji's, Touga's, Akio's, and Anthy's obviously do). However, first of all I feel that less time is devoted to backstory in Utena and the focus is more clearly on the present. Even if I'm wrong about this (and I haven't measured it to find out for sure), I think that it's still true in the sense that people in AS spend a huge amount of time talking about the backstory with each other even in the present, whereas although we see a lot of the backstory in Utena, it seems less common for characters to be discussing it with each other in the present, such that it still makes for a time differential. Secondly, the backstory in AS is far more convoluted and interconnected; all of the characters have motivations that stem from the motivations of other characters who are connected to still other characters, whereas the backstory of Utena seems (if you don't mind my saying so) far less incestuous (as for whether or not this is literally true. . . ummm. . . that's a hard one). These two features contribute to my sense that, despite the many similarities between the two works, the backstory plays a more significant role in my experience of AS than my experience of Utena.

And of course it's very likely that this would, in fact, be a reason for me to love one far more than the other. Because I love stories where a lot of the story time is devoted to figuring out what went on in the past - in fact, that's among my favorite things. If you look at the works of art I have fallen in love with, whether it's Hexwood, Lost, Xenogears, PSME, or Hitherby - these are all stories where a lot of the narrative drive and suspense comes from trying to figure out what's already happened rather than momentum forwards. The big climactic moment of Utena isn't finding out the truth about Anthy and Akio, it's Utena's duel with Akio and the aftermath. It's something that happens in the present. But, although it is the end of the series, it would seem odd to say that the big climactic moment of AS is in fact Setsuna killing God; it seems to be more something along the lines of discovering the true relationship between Alexiel, Lucifiel, and Rosiel and the catharsis for Alexiel and Rosiel of Rosiel's death. So the climax is the reveal of the ultimate truth behind the plot; the death of God is more like a necessary afterthought (as part of the climactic reveal is the revelation that God is to blame for EVERYTHING!). This is the kind of story I love, where the whole point is to discover the truth about the past - it's the reason I fell madly in love with Absalom, Absalom! the moment I read it - because it's a book where the entire plot is laid out in the first chapter, and the rest of the book is just characters researching and then making up an explanation for it.

I don't know why this kind of narrative appeals to me more than other structures when the content is so close - but there you have it, it does. And I think that's a very helpful explanation of my heretofore inexplicable reactions.

Yay walking around doing nothing for an hour!

Procrastination. . . .

So. . . ummm. . . this week just happened, where this thing happened, which was that I kind of read all of Angel Sanctuary (I didn't actually read most of Volume 1, but I've read Volume 1 enough times that I think that's okay). Apparently, the scanslations were up illegally online at this site OneManga, which was really easy to use. I should note that even though I put in that link, I don't really recommend AS to anyone who's reading this blog who hasn't read it already. It's very unlikely to be your kind of thing.

Anyway, despite how often I've been obsessed with AS, I haven't actually ever read the whole thing before! Let's see. I own books 1-13 in French, which I can sort of read, but not perfectly. I also own books 1, 3, 7, 9, and 17 in English. Back in 2006 I read all of the books that were out in English at the time in the bookstore, which included 1-14. I've also read 20 in the bookstore because I tend to have moments of panic about Lucifer/Alexiel (I used to have a lot of moments of panic about Shion/Mokuren, too, but I think I've been mostly reassured on that front. I don't have many OTPs, but I really, really care about the ones I do have!). Other than that, I've just read online summaries (although there used to be a lot more of those than it seems there are now) - in fact, when I first fell in love with the series back in November, 2001, it was entirely through online summaries.

I was expecting Volume 15 to be relatively dull - because Kira dies in 14 and Lucifer only shows up in 16. However, it turns out that there is this amazing scene in Volume 15 where Michael and Setsuna bond over their mutual love of Kira. It was kind of awesome. Setsuna leans tenderly over Michael, and Michael bursts out into tears, and there are images of Kira and Lucifer, and the whole thing is completely awesome. Yeah.

Oh, and it wasn't until I read this fanfic and Volume 16 that it was really brought home to me that, when Rosiel revives Lucifer, this is actually Kira Sakuya's body, not Lucifer's original body or some new body created just for the purpose (this really does seem to be canon in the manga - Katou says so). Mostly, this just intrigues me because of Mr. Kira. It's like, it's not enough that the guy lost his wife and son. It's not enough that, eleven years later, he also loses the spirit that's been possessing his son's body and that he's come to love as a son. No, he also can never bury his son's body because it has been permanently possessed by the Devil. And, okay, obviously this is somewhat mitigated by the facts that: A) the spirit he's come to love as a son was the Devil and B) the Devil is much more awesome than his reputation anyway, and who wouldn't be happy to give him the bodies of their loved ones? But still - despite the mitigating factors, it still seems like the guy just can't catch a break ;-).

I feel like I do so much babbling about Kira whenever I talk about Angel Sanctuary that no one will ever believe that, say, I like other characters too, or that I actually like Zaphikel so much I'd say he's my second-favorite character. But I do! It's just I have fewer random comments to make about Zaphikel. I have to admit, though, I really really really would like to see the epic pre-manga Zaphikel, Anael, and Lailah fanfic. I'm not sure why, exactly, but I think epic pre-canon stories about three intertwined characters really appeal to me (one of the very few fanfics I've ever even considered writing is the pre-Xenogears Miang, Ramsus and Krelian fanfic). I'm not sure what I think I'd get out of the fanfic that isn't in the manga. Just more Zaphikel and Lailah, I guess (I'd say more Anael, but she appears so rarely in the manga that I have very little feel for her. I hope she is awesome enough to live up to Zaphikel and Lailah in the story I am imagining). I guess it's my trouble thinking of what exactly would be added to the manga that means I can't think of the story myself (I have also, for a much longer time, been intrigued by the epic pre-manga Alexiel, Kurai, Arachne, and Nanatsusaya fanfic, but I can't really think what the epic plot would be for that one, either).

Oh! I also think this is an annoying story because I am really not sure who I am justifiably allowed to pick as my favorite female character. I'd pick Belial, if I were confident I was allowed to pick Belial. And if I'm not, then I'd pick Sevothtarte - but am I even allowed to pick Sevothtarte? (Note that my two favorite "female" characters are the ones who are in epic unrequited love with my two favorite male characters. That probably says. . . something about me.). I really like Kurai, but I'm not even sure that I don't like Arachne more than Kurai - I mean, come on, Arachne's flirtation with Kira is the cutest thing ever, and then they get married! So. . . yeah. Awkward. Kurai is definitely my favorite unambiguously female character, but I like a lot of the more ambiguous ones more than her.

Record of Times I Have Been Totally Obsessed With _Angel Sanctuary_

1) November, 2001
2) June, 2002 (7 months)
3) December, 2004 (30 months)
4) September, 2006 (21 months)
5) January, 2009 (28 months)
6) July, 2010 (18 months)

This is the second time it's this Acey Dearest's fault, too. I discovered that she's published three Angel Sanctuary fanfics since I read "Cast it to Dogs" - all of them are Kira/Kato, but, like I said before, I don't mind Kira/Kato, and I actually really like the way Acey Dearest does it; it doesn't go against my interpretation of canon at all, and, in fact, really reinforces it. I don't actually have time to write about this, but I can't help but at least write a bit about it - "No Answer" is the least interesting to me, personally, since Kira doesn't actually appear in it at all - it's entirely Kato's reflections on Kira. "Mainsprings" is quite good, although, if I'm interpreting the ending correctly, it's really extremely bleak - but it's not necessarily good in a way that I particularly associate with Angel Sanctuary.

I think "Light Pollution" is an excellent fanfic because not only is it good, but it strikes me as good for more or less the same reasons that draw me to Angel Sanctuary, similarly to "Cast it to Dogs." "Light Pollution" is also a genderswitch AU - Kira and Kato are both female, and Kato is a closeted lesbian - which, to be honest, appeals strongly to me as I've been wanting a story about a female Kira for a long time, for. . . ummm. . . personal reasons - but I think that the story also really works on its own merits. I really wish I had more time to talk about this - but I love the way that it is entirely a story from Kato's point of view, and it does a compelling and interesting job of presenting Kato sympathetically and making the story about Kato and her concerns, but at the same time having Kato's story intersect with Kira's hidden story, which is only clear to us because we've read the manga - and certainly isn't clear to Kato! The genderswitch is effective (a genderswitch of Setsuna might have worked, also, although I think the genderswitch of Kira and Kato is ultimately more effective) because it means that Kato looks at Kira and sees a girl who has not only a father who loves her but also a potential perfectly normal heterosexual relationship, in contrast with Kato and her father who hates her and her internalized homophobia - Kato's story is all about the complexity of her feelings about Kira and the way she's incomprehensibly screwing up her life - whereas, of course, we know exactly why Kira does what she does and why her life is already screwed up. And of course we know that what concerns Kato is ultimately completely insignificant to Kira - Kato is convinced that Kira would be disgusted if she realized that Kato is a lesbian and attracted to her and imagines their relationship as impossible because of the homophobia, whereas one assumes that Kira could care less (I think there's plenty of evidence in canon that Nanatsusaya isn't particularly hung up on gender - in terms of sexual attraction, Nanatsusaya is obviously not disgusted by the possibility of sleeping with a female; it's not just in the story but in canon that Nanatsusaya is perfectly happy to possess a female body; when Kira teases Arachne in Volume 1, he knows all about who she is before he even gets into it but goes ahead with it anyway; and it's hardly as though he's likely to have any hangups about morality) - but I think what makes the story even more effective is that, since it is Kato and Kira who are genderswitched, not Setsuna, Kira's ambiguous gender comes up in the story - Kira alludes to herself as Rhett Butler (I had to look up this quotation, though - actually, encountering that quotation in that context actually made me want to read or watch Gone with the Wind, not an experience I've ever had before), not a woman chasing a man, and calls Setsuna a girl - but Kato, though she notices, doesn't pick up on the importance - Kato is left wondering about Kira but simply couldn't have the frame of reference to understand what's going on and interprets it entirely in terms of her own perspective. Like the moment when she notices Kira's bloodstain, but the bloodstain comes up entirely in the context of Kato knowing she will never have the chance to see it in full - picking up on the detail entirely from her own perspective. But of course Kato can never have Kira anyway, but not at all for the reasons she thinks.

It's a very effective story because of the story going on behind the obvious story, and because of the way the story behind the story is the motivating factor for the story we read, but, at the same time, only breaking through at moments into the story we read, and I think it fits so well with Angel Sanctuary's methods - it's like, IIRC, Katan. Katan is this hugely important character with a tragic story that runs throughout nearly all of the manga, which has a large effect on Setsuna and his life, but, again IIRC, Katan shows up towards the end and dies and Setsuna has only the vaguest idea of who he is - because their stories just haven't intersected enough for Setsuna to know, despite Katan being a major force behind Setsuna's entire story arc. The thing that's so GREAT about Angel Sanctuary is this messiness - although it's technically Setsuna's story, and it's obvious Setsuna is the hero, it's everyone else's story too, and everyone else's story often never becomes entirely clear to anyone else, so that it's all these people who don't fully understand each other always hurting each other inadvertently (well, obviously not all the hurt is inadvertent, but, with the exception of God, we mostly get everyone's motives) - and I think this messiness is really what makes Angel Sanctuary effectively Gnostic - Gnosticism works, in literature, because it's not just about the idea that the God that created the physical world is evil, it's also about the idea that the physical world is evil - and the physical world is evil because it separates us, divides us up into these beings that can't touch and careen about and hurt each other - "Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy, why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?" - or the point of Evangelion (although Eva is obviously a rather cynical take on the idea) - and this idea really explains a lot of the seeming craziness of the story and ties it together - perfect androgynous beings and gender being a division, wacky Freudian pregnancy issues with rampaging fetuses, Rosiel getting people to eat him so that he can possess them (see, it's not just a Eucharist joke, even if Eucharist jokes are the best jokes) - I realize I'm not making any sense but I really have to just say this - and I think it's that same sense - the separateness of people but the way we hurt each other anyway - that comes across so well in both "Cast it to Dogs" and "Light Pollution." So yay.

Age and Identity

I often wonder about the way that some of my favorite themes and topics in fiction seem diametrically opposed to my actual experience of real life. Like, I experience time in a very linear sense - but I love narratives that tell stories out of order and sometimes even enjoy reading books out of order in order to manufacture such a chronology for myself! One of my favorite themes ever in fiction is identity - I have always loved stories about characters who aren't what they seem to be, have trouble understanding who they are, or even have several different identities. But I've always struggled with my confusion about this being a theme I preferred - I think I'm actually more straightforward than most people in my self-presentation, and I certainly have an extremely strong inner narrative of myself as a coherent personality, fiction though that may be.

Some of the stories I really like about identity have to do with age - I often enjoy stories about characters who aren't really the age they seem to be (although I feel obliged to mention in passing my utter, enduring hatred for the damn Child-Goddess Aphrael in those David Eddings books). This predilection of mine is particularly pronounced in the case of my fondness for Rin in Please Save My Earth - it's particularly good in PSME because Rin sort of is a seven-year-old kid, he's just also sort of not - and it also probably explains some of my fondness for Kira in Angel Sanctuary, since, even if he doesn't look like a child, he's still much, much older than he looks. And then there's creepy fanfic about when he was a child. It might also be one of the reasons why I'm so perverse in thinking of Thessaly as my favorite character in The Sandman.

So, over the past few months, I've quite frequently had people assume that I'm younger than I am - a college student, even a high school student. This is fairly typical, but it's getting more interesting the older I get. It's true that I didn't graduate from college that long ago, and that I haven't really had many of the typical life experiences that one normally thinks of as distinguishing a college student from an adult. Nonetheless, college is a decent number of years back for me now, and I definitely think my mindset has changed (and, yes, matured) quite a bit in those years.

I still have a very strong sense of myself as a coherent personality, and thinking about how other people mistake me for a younger person doesn't really change that, but perhaps I do actually have some connection to these identity issues now. If I wanted to, I could really be the creepy, preternaturally mature high school student that I love to read about. I am, in that way, misinterpreted by others in the same way that so many characters that I love are. I don't really have any desire to mislead people in real life, but it still seems to put me more in connection with this favored theme of mine to think that I could, if I wanted to!

Confession

I think I like Astaroth (in Angel Sanctuary - this is going to be an entirely AS post) - and by "like," I mean that I get reasonably excited and happy when he shows up, just like I do with characters I like for other reasons - entirely because he is hot. I mean, he only plays a significant role in ONE volume. He has an appealingly tragic backstory, but since he appears in a manga with the fundamental premise that One Above. . . is experimenting / With various mixtures of human character which goes best,/
All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us," only for "various mixtures of human character" read "various mixtures of human and angelic character and also angelic fetuses" (why do you think I said I like the plot even better than the characters?), this doesn't make him stand out in any way at all. He also doesn't stand out in terms of what he actually does with his backstory; you would expect him to be kind of evil, and he in fact is kind of evil - and not even particularly interestingly so. So all that's left is that he excites me because he is hot. Darn it.

Oh, you know who else in AS is hot? Zaphkiel! Not that that is the only reason why I like him. I like him for a LOT of reasons - he has multiple personae, all of which I like, and I particularly like the combination of them all in one person. But he is, nonetheless, hot.

I. . . ummm. . . probably shouldn't even start talking about Kira. And yet once I started writing about this topic it was kind of inevitable that I would end up talking about Kira. So, leaving aside the disclaimer about my actual reasons for loving Kira with infinite, passionate love - if anyone really wants to know why I love Kira so much, just ask me in comments - I just so happened to almost by accident be reading the AS volume wherein Kira walks around in the military uniform. Now, Kira is always hot. That goes without saying. But, man, Kira in the military uniform. . . . Like, Kaori Yuki should have had Kira and Setsuna go to military school in the beginning of the manga, just so that Kira would have had to wear a military uniform. Also, she should totally write a sequel to AS about the next great war between Heaven and Hell. Sometimes we might see what was going on in Heaven, and Raziel and Raphael and Michael and Barbiel could show up, but mostly it would be about the army of Hell, and Kurai and Asmodeus and Astaroth (yay!) and Belial and Lucifer. They would have a horrible time all working together in order to fight against Heaven. It would be really funny. Also, Kurai and Belial would tease Lucifer a lot about the fact that he was married to Arachne. Lucifer would respond by being enigmatic. But mostly the plot would be about pictures of Lucifer in military uniform. That's what I think.

In Case You Didn't Know

Why you should read Angel Sanctuary

Cast it to Dogs

Apparently, this year's Yuletide Obscure Fandom Fanfic Exchange isn't including Angel Sanctuary as one of the nominated fandoms. That's really too bad - I've always enjoyed the AS stories on Yuletide and feel, as much as one can feel possessive about a fandom when one doesn't interact with it in any way, that it's one of my fandoms. For that matter, in those rare moments when I'm vaguely tempted to participate in Yuletide, it's one of the only fandoms where I can actually think up an idea for a story request (Alexiel and Madhatter. Ideally with Alexiel as Jesus. Literally, I mean, because it's heavily implied in the manga.).

So I was a little irritated to see the lack of AS this year, and, oddly enough, assuaged my irritation by going to fanfiction.net to see if AS was really no longer an obscure fandom. There were a decent number of stories, it's true, but, more surprisingly, one of them actually piqued my interest. "Cast it to Dogs", by "Acey Dearest," was really surprising good, in particular for a fanfiction.net fic. Part of the appeal, however, is probably just that it deals with Kira's relationship with his father, which is actually the reason why I came to like AS in the first place. I watched the DVD of the (fairly awful) anime adaptation of the very beginning of the manga because someone who seemed to have tastes fairly similar to mine had talked about the manga, was pretty bored most of the way through, but was interested enough in the story about Kira and his father to go and check out the rest of the story on the Internet. And then - bang! - I was caught.

I love AS for a lot of reasons - I would say that, despite my eternal adoration of Kira, I actually like the plot even more than I like the characters (unlike, say, Please Save My Earth, which I love primarily because of Shion and Rin and only secondarily because of anything else). It's so chaotic and crazy, a whirlwind, and every strand, even the ones without Kira (or Zaphkiel, as my second-favorite character) has its own appeal. But Kira is, nonetheless, very definitely my favorite character. Consequently, I love his story in the manga, and I love fanfic about him that reminds me of how appealing he is in the manga. A lot of the fanfic about him are romantic (well, this is fanfic, after all), which is fine with me. I don't particularly mind him with Kato, although that's not so interesting to me, and I love reading fanfic about him (in any incarnation) and Setsuna or Alexiel. A large part of his attraction in the original AS is his relationships with Setsuna and Alexiel, so stories putting them together really evoke the appeal of the character very well.

But this story struck me on another level - it brought back to me the very first aspect of the character, indeed, the very aspect of AS at all, that really drew me into the manga. Reading the story, even if it wasn't necessarily that great in myself, I was filled with that sense of awe that I feel in the presence of a really touching tale. I wouldn't say that the relationship between Kira and his father is central to AS, or even to Kira's character (his relationships with Setsuna and Alexiel are obviously FAR more significant). But it is nonetheless a really powerful and moving story that was my first taste of Yuki Kaori's ability to take her often very silly material and make something powerful out of it, and so I really appreciate Acey Dearest for reminding me of something that I really care about.