Tamura Yumi - 7 Seeds, vol. 11-23

[oyceter]

SO MANY FEELS!

Not listing out the trigger warnings, because they are a little spoilery, but assume a lot of triggers. PM or comment if you want to know more!

Spoilers are traumatized

Noooooooo she killed off Aramaki's dogs WHYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!

I cried so much at the entire sequence, especially Aramaki losing it when he realizes he's getting left behind AGAIN and then at the entire flashback montage with him and the dogs and omg I am so traumatized =( =( =( =(.

And now I will stop writing about it because I am tearing up again.

(Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?????)

Oh Team Summer A. You are so, so messed up. Especially Ango. I mean, out of everyone, they have the most reason to be messed up, but Ango, note how not everyone in your team has tried to rape other people. Standing by and doing nothing while Hana gets swept away is also not good! Ryo is also screwed up, but his attempts to kill Hana and Haru are much more in line with his behaviour from the institution.

(Also, training a bunch of kids you've acquired in a sketchy manner in a secluded institution is a guarantee of things turning out badly. I'm sure this even applies to training them in literary criticism or something.)

I really love the multitude of relationships in this series and how characters meet up with other, familiar-to-the-reader characters. The contrast between Arashi and Natsu meeting Aramaki versus Team Spring meeting him, Ango and Ryo with Team Summer B as opposed to Team Summer A versus Teams Spring and Autumn, how Team Spring and Autumn band together on the face of Team Summer A, the various friendships between Team Summer A members and Team Spring and Autumn members, etc.

I was especially glad Kurumi found Haru, though unlike Hana, I'm less sure it's a romance. And I enjoyed the growing affection Ran has for Hana, which I had completely not expected, given how Team Autumn was introduced.

The question of fairness also comes up a lot, from Team Summer A already disliking the other teams for not having to know survival skills and making it, while some of their more skilled brethren died during all the tests, to the revelation of Hana's parentage to herself and to the others. I love Chisa's smiling offer to educate Ango on the ways of nepotism, though I'm less in agreement with her re: the inevitability of nepotism or how having a parent far up enough to be influential means that said parent was very hard-working and/or loved their child enough to put them into the 7 Seeds program. I for one can think of many, many other reasons! And though I don't doubt Takashi loved Hana, that doesn't automatically make him a good parent.

The manga itself leans more toward the idea that everyone has something to contribute, which sidesteps the question of meritocracy. I noted before that Team Summer A's training pretty effectively undercuts the "survival of the fittest, weed out everyone!" mentality, and the narrative continues to emphasize that while Team Summer A's skills are very necessary and useful, they are not the only necessary and useful skills there are, and that there are values outside of "necessary" and "useful." It's interesting both that Tamura chose to include artists in the various teams for the series, and that in-unverse, the 7 Seeds program directors chose to include them in the teams.

I already flipped through some of the earlier volumes to find scenes with Mozu/Kaname, but now I want to reread again to see how often human violence resulting in even more human violence. The cruelty of the institution ends up with a traumatized and occasionally murderous Team Summer A; the crew of the floating Fuji ship kills each other and then the captain attempts to blow up both the ship and Japan; Takashi's involvment in Team Summer A's training ends up harming his daughter. Even Aramaki is tempted to whale into Ango. As counterpoint, you have the community deciding to exile Ango for what he's done instead of killing him, which is shown as a building block of civilization. I'm wondering if Kaname is going to meet a bad end if he stays on his "I am Death" path, or if he wises up.

I also love the moments when various characters decide that they want to actually live in this world, not just survive. It's remarkably optimistic for such a traumatic post-apocalyptic story!

Other favorite bits:

• Ryo telling Ango that Shigeru cut his own rope, that Shigeru was the hero of his own story, not just a sidekick in Ango's.


• I love Arashi asking Ango why they didn't just quit, or rebel and overthrow the teachers. I love that he does it not as victim blaming and explicitly likens it to asking victims of domestic violence why they don't leave, but that he points it out to show just how narrow your world view can become when you're subjected to brainwashing and violence like that, and to plant the seed that alternative paths still exist.


• Natsu! You are doing so well! I am always a sucker for this kind of story, even when I start out not immediately liking the character. I love her determination to learn basket weaving, her hating her period (me too, Natsu, ME TOO), how she figures out how to get around in the Fuji ship, the way the cat picture made her more determined (I am so sad she couldn't bring Nuts with her), how she rescues Arashi and Ango despite Ango's overbearing protectiveness, how she apologizes to Matsuri, how she decides to listen to herself re: checking the sauna when Semimaru is locked in. Also, Arashi encouraging her and whapping Ango for not letting her do anything makes me like Arashi so much more!


• Matsuri! And actually all of Team Summer B and their strategy for dealing with a post-apocalyptic world: talent contests! Games! Art! Crushing on boys! I even don't quite hate Semimaru?


• So many different relationships and unexpected pairings! I love Ban and Kurumi, want to find out more about the two psychic cousins, and laugh at Ryo and Matsuri, but my favorites are Ayu + Aramaki and Ango + Natsu. Oh Ango. You are so messed up. Thankfully Natsu is smart enough to not listen to you all the time. And omg, the Ayu/Aramaki show totally cracks me up, especially when she asks him if he'd like to father her children. And then how she comforts him as his dogs die =( =( =(.


• I am so glad Chisa and Fujiko are back! Though I was traumatized they ate Hana's little furry animal =(. (The animal deaths in this series are very distressing!) I wonder if they're going to go back to the mysterious rash, or if that ended up clearing up with the different diet.


• I hope the next few volumes go into Sado (?) and why Takashi told Hana to go there, as well as the background of Hotaru and Hibari and their grandmother.


• Also, more Ran + Nijiko architect arguing would be greatly appreciated...

Comments

[meganbmoore]

*skips a spoilers*

*gnaw gnaw gnaw gnaw not fingernails left at this point*

It concerns me that I still like Ango after volume 15, as that's usually an instant character killer for me.

[oyceter]

OH ANGO WHYYYYY. I know, I still like him too! I think it helps a lot that the manga and the characters treat what he's doing as something very despicable and wrong, even if he has trauma fueling it, as opposed to the usual woobie thing.

[jinian]

(Also, training a bunch of kids you've acquired in a sketchy manner in a secluded institution is a guarantee of things turning out badly. I'm sure this even applies to training them in literary criticism or something.)

Ha! Pretty sure this is the problem with MIT, too. Not that my ex was quite at Ango levels.

It took me a while to get into Ayu/Aramaki, but the fathering discussion totally did it. I really love Ayu.

[oyceter]

Ahahaha, I bet with most Ivy League schools too.

... also, come to think of it, my high school was a lot like that.

I love Ayu, although she sometimes scares me. Then again, that is partly why I love her... icy women are so my thing. I love Aramaki teaching her baseball and playing fetch with Kuroda!

[skygiants]

I LOVE TEAM SUMMER B SO MUCH. SO MUCH. I love the emphasis on the fact that, as you say, everyone has something to contribute, and so, for example, stuff like Matsuri's people smarts are just as important as Summer A's survival skills. (I had to start liking Semimaru after "SOYBEANS!!!" He was just SO EXCITED.) The Fuji ship arc may be my favorite in the series, although the Hana-Fujiko-Chisa ladyfriends arc is also pretty great.

I feel like the Summer A backstory and Zombie Shelter arcs were kind of the darkest point of the series, and while there have been dark points after that obviously (PUPPIES! :() the general tone after that has been a sort of slow climb to the light, a rebuilding -- Autumn and Spring and the non-murderous elements of Summer A starting to form a community, Summer B finding as much joy they can in everything, various members of Summer A starting to learn that it might be okay for them to find joy too.

[oyceter]

Team Summer B!!!! Oh man. I think Semimaru won me over during that absolutely terrible manzai routine he was trying to do with Natsu! Well, that and it helps that he's not as sexually harrassing! I loved the entire thing about the bacteria or whatever it was following Natsu's trail around because of her period. And that they went through several methods of trying to stop the countdown.

Yeah, I overall feel like the series has gotten less traumatic, but omg I am so affected by the animals deaths T______T. Poor dogs!!! Poor Aramaki!!!

[torachan]

I wish I had something more to say but all I can do is flail because I LOVE 7 SEEDS SO MUCH!!!!!

[oyceter]

FLAILS I saw your other comment and now must track down vols 24 and 25!

[torachan]

There's raws here: http://www.raw-manga.net/2012/03/7-seeds.html

[lnhammer]

(Avoiding spoilers while I initiate my own catch-up ... )

YAY 7 SEEDS LOVE

[oyceter]

YAY! Also, I note that it is Yuletide fandom rec season....

[lnhammer]

This is indeed true. I'll probably continue my policy of requesting and offering only PD fandoms, though.

---L.