Yuki Kaori - Godchild, vol. 08 (Eng. trans.)
Thu, Jan. 31st, 2008 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterWaaaaaah! No more Godchild!
Still, this was: OMG PURE AWESOMESAUCE.
My favorite quote (maybe. I have many favorites), which works just fine completely out of context. Also, it is amazingly not spoilery at all for the series, considering that it could be said by and about pretty much anyone:
"I'll give you his head after everything is finished. Then like him, you can live your life while embracing the mutilated corpse of a loved one."
I started laughing hysterically when Merriweather and Oscar bump into the kid in the train and what I thought was a decapitated head wrapped in cloth fell to the ground! Decapitated heads! Of course!
Of course, it wasn't decapitated heads... sort of. It was a doll head concealing the skull of what was once the decapitated head of a child! Even better!
Also, upon refreshing my memory with Godchild 7, I must say this: Viz's preview LIES! There are no embryo skulls! Skulls of decapitated children's heads concealed in creepy dolls' heads marketed as a good luck charm (Yuki Kaori, I love you forever just for that!), yes, but embryo skulls, no.
Right, must get past the decapitated heads. And this is only page five or so!
I didn't realize Cain in glasses was actually an attempt at disguise. I figured it was just Yuki Kaori deciding that glasses were sexy and putting Cain in them, a la Lucifer's Edward Scissorhands outfit and Kira in a military uniform in Angel Sanctuary and Cain sleeping naked. I am a little disappointed that there is no author's note on the sexiness of glasses.
On the other hand, there is a giant one-page spread with evil!Riff (I cannot call him Riffael because then I will die laughing and never finish writing this up) sitting in a huge chair, with a NAKED CAIN WITH SCARS ON HIS BACK standing behind him.
I repeat: NAKED CAIN WITH SCARS ON HIS BACK!!!!!
Where was I? Oh yeah, glasses.
Unsurprisingly, Octavia, the medium Cain is trying to talk to, sees through Cain's disguise, despite the fact that she is blind! Not only that, but she possesses.... blindsight!
It's like hindsight, but ten times better!
Every time I think the translation can't get worse, it does.
Oh yeah, and there's a creepy white-haired violinist who plays a touching duet with Cain. Unsurprisingly, said touching duet ends in tragedy.
There is a lot about Delilah's plot to a) blow up England, b) destroy London, c) wreak havoc upon the human race, d) call down Stonehenge, or e) something else I cannot quite figure out. But it has to do with Stonehenge and doll's heads disguising decapitated infant skulls and Queen Victoria's sixtieth birthday and obelisks and angel statues.
Oh, and Cain promises to come back to Merriweather, and I take it as a sign that he is DOOMED.
OH! I forgot! So Octavia's blindsight is what hypnotized Riff and created nice!Riff and then Riff kills her to stay evil only not soon enough so nice!Riff wedges his toe in the crack of the door and begins to fight evil!Riff in his mind and argue and there are touching flashbacks to young Cain!
Somehow Cain gets to Delilah's secret headquarters and shoots Alexis. Wait, no. I just read Mely's summary, and apparently Riff shoots Alexis. I swear, I finished this only an hour ago and I still can't figure out anything! But! In a gesture of heroic self-sacrifice, Jezebel Disraeli throws himself in front of the bullet and actually manages to make me feel a little sorry for him, largely because he is at least not cradling warm intestines, bawling over his dead lamb snark, or being tragic about being the recipient of his sisters' organs. I feel heroic self-sacrifice, even for someone incredibly evil, is a big step up from insane murderer.
OMG! ONLY!!!!!! THIS IS THE BEST PART EVER OMG AWESOME!
Alexis reveals that RIFF IS A CORPSE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE!!!!!!!!!!! AND HE IS DECAYING!!!!!!! I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH EXCLAMATION POINTS AND IT WAS SORT OF FORESHADOWED EVEN!!!!!!!!!!
I mean, really! He turns out to be a fake personality constructed to get close to Cain to cause great emotional damage and I thought THAT was the big Riff reveal only he is also a clone corpse thing brought back to life and he is decaying like Mikaela and all the Augusta clones and OMG! And he has a decaying hand of DOOM!
And then! Jezebel does something which actually sort of makes me happy, in that he slits his own throat to bathe Riff in blood so Riff can live another day! I still think Jezebel Disraeli is insane and evil, but at least he is being helpful now. Cassian, who I a) completely did not recognize and b) completely forgot about, cradles Jezebel lovingly. I laugh hysterically as I realize at that moment that he is lovingly cradling the body of the doctor who gave him a brain transplant so he no longer had to live a hundred years in the body of a twelve-year-old.
I am fairly certain Yuki Kaori did not intend to invoke that reaction.
OH!! How could I forget?!?! Cain sees Riff come back after Riff's psychic battle with himself, and Riff tells Cain that he was delayed! It is awesome! I nearly expect Riff to bend down and tie Cain's shoelace, but they are interrupted by something. Possibly Alexis and Delilah's demonic plans, or exploding obelisks. It is hard to tell.
And then! We see Alexis' true plan! He intends on creating and reanimating bodies so he can bring Augusta back from the dead! I cackle when he reveals Augusta's dried up and mummified head and tally her as number 3 in the "decapitated heads meant to be resurrected via artificial or inhuman bodies" list.
Possibly Alexis' true plan was revealed prior to this, but I can't remember, nor do I care, because nothing sticks in my head save loligoth kimono, chibi eyes on a plate, and Cain and Riff's pure true love.
And! He intended Augusta's new body to be the incestuous and cursed child of incest of Cain and Suzette, and then Cain and Mikaela, and when that was thwarted, he decided to use Crehador's dead girlfriend Sheila's body!
The only reason why I even remember Sheila is because I beta'd![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
edonohana's Crehador/Cain fic (also has Cain/Riff).
Um. Something happens. I am pretty sure Alexis dies because stuff starts to fall down.
Oh wait! Now I remember! Cain embraces his father, but it's only a ruse to stick him in the neck with a pin coated with the poison.... CANTARELLA!
You should have seen me, I was flapping my hands around in unutterable glee at the collision of my two favorite crack series of course Cain would use cantarella! I just... OMG! Collision of crack series!
However, I do not forgive the Viz translators for spelling it as "cantalera," particularly as it shows horrible ignorance of a) Wikipedia and b) work other translators have done for the title of another crack goth shoujo historical series.
And then! Cain and Riff find each other! Or actually, Riff finds Cain! Even though Cain has TORN OUT his magnetic earring! And then we discover that evil!Riff wanted to think he could only find Cain via the magnetic earring but good!Riff of course has a psychich bond to Cain and then we see a flashback of Riff finding Cain as a child, and both child!Cain and now!Cain reach out to Riff, and they collapse in an embrace as we see Riff's SKELETAL HAND OF ZOMBIEDOM wrap around Cain's back and it is AWESOME and I LOVE IT!
(even though a teeny part of my head was thinking of Dr. J's evil clicky machine hand and the evil clicky terminator hand and Anakin Skywalker's evil clicky metal hand)
But clearly Riff's is different because it is an evil but not clicky hand of skeletal zombiedom! And it expresses his pure and true love for Cain! It is like Cain is being embraced by death, literally!
And then Riff tries to thrust Cain away so at least Cain will be safe, but Cain says he cannot leave Riff like, saying, "You swore that you'd give your soul to serve me...!!" And he flings himself at Riff, and we see Cain smile happily for what may be the very first time in the entire series.
You know, Yuki Kaori totally did not get my sympathy with organ-naming, lamb-eating, intestine-cuddling Jezebel Disraeli, but the skeletal hand embrace? OMG priceless!
Back with Merriweather.... she tells a group of old men that she will now rule the Hargreaves estate. I cheer.
Then she is menaced by Alexis, whom I thought was dead. I boo at Yuki Kaori's women. Then we discover that Alexis is dead, it's just that the resurrection spell succeeded and Augusta has now possessed Alexis' body and apparently she was the mastermind behind it all and manipulated everyone around her even when she was just a dessicated and decapitated head.
I boo even more at Yuki Kaori's women and pretend that entire plot resolution did not happen, particularly as it was a really lame-ass way to justify Alexis as actually loving Augusta.
And then we thankfully get to see Merriweather, all grown up and married to Oscar (?!) and pregnant (?!?!), and then I take back the "thankfully."
But! A worn and ragged Crehador drops by and gives back Cain's ring, and we flash to: CAIN AND RIFF EMBRACING FOREVER EVEN THOUGH RIFF HAS A ZOMBIE SKELETON HAND!
I feel I have been remarkably restrained with the allcaps and exclamation points. Really.
-coffeeandink's synopsis
In conclusion: *FLAIL* SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER RIFF SPOILER!
Still, this was: OMG PURE AWESOMESAUCE.
My favorite quote (maybe. I have many favorites), which works just fine completely out of context. Also, it is amazingly not spoilery at all for the series, considering that it could be said by and about pretty much anyone:
"I'll give you his head after everything is finished. Then like him, you can live your life while embracing the mutilated corpse of a loved one."
I started laughing hysterically when Merriweather and Oscar bump into the kid in the train and what I thought was a decapitated head wrapped in cloth fell to the ground! Decapitated heads! Of course!
Of course, it wasn't decapitated heads... sort of. It was a doll head concealing the skull of what was once the decapitated head of a child! Even better!
Also, upon refreshing my memory with Godchild 7, I must say this: Viz's preview LIES! There are no embryo skulls! Skulls of decapitated children's heads concealed in creepy dolls' heads marketed as a good luck charm (Yuki Kaori, I love you forever just for that!), yes, but embryo skulls, no.
Right, must get past the decapitated heads. And this is only page five or so!
I didn't realize Cain in glasses was actually an attempt at disguise. I figured it was just Yuki Kaori deciding that glasses were sexy and putting Cain in them, a la Lucifer's Edward Scissorhands outfit and Kira in a military uniform in Angel Sanctuary and Cain sleeping naked. I am a little disappointed that there is no author's note on the sexiness of glasses.
On the other hand, there is a giant one-page spread with evil!Riff (I cannot call him Riffael because then I will die laughing and never finish writing this up) sitting in a huge chair, with a NAKED CAIN WITH SCARS ON HIS BACK standing behind him.
I repeat: NAKED CAIN WITH SCARS ON HIS BACK!!!!!
Where was I? Oh yeah, glasses.
Unsurprisingly, Octavia, the medium Cain is trying to talk to, sees through Cain's disguise, despite the fact that she is blind! Not only that, but she possesses.... blindsight!
It's like hindsight, but ten times better!
Every time I think the translation can't get worse, it does.
Oh yeah, and there's a creepy white-haired violinist who plays a touching duet with Cain. Unsurprisingly, said touching duet ends in tragedy.
There is a lot about Delilah's plot to a) blow up England, b) destroy London, c) wreak havoc upon the human race, d) call down Stonehenge, or e) something else I cannot quite figure out. But it has to do with Stonehenge and doll's heads disguising decapitated infant skulls and Queen Victoria's sixtieth birthday and obelisks and angel statues.
Oh, and Cain promises to come back to Merriweather, and I take it as a sign that he is DOOMED.
OH! I forgot! So Octavia's blindsight is what hypnotized Riff and created nice!Riff and then Riff kills her to stay evil only not soon enough so nice!Riff wedges his toe in the crack of the door and begins to fight evil!Riff in his mind and argue and there are touching flashbacks to young Cain!
Somehow Cain gets to Delilah's secret headquarters and shoots Alexis. Wait, no. I just read Mely's summary, and apparently Riff shoots Alexis. I swear, I finished this only an hour ago and I still can't figure out anything! But! In a gesture of heroic self-sacrifice, Jezebel Disraeli throws himself in front of the bullet and actually manages to make me feel a little sorry for him, largely because he is at least not cradling warm intestines, bawling over his dead lamb snark, or being tragic about being the recipient of his sisters' organs. I feel heroic self-sacrifice, even for someone incredibly evil, is a big step up from insane murderer.
OMG! ONLY!!!!!! THIS IS THE BEST PART EVER OMG AWESOME!
Alexis reveals that RIFF IS A CORPSE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE!!!!!!!!!!! AND HE IS DECAYING!!!!!!! I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH EXCLAMATION POINTS AND IT WAS SORT OF FORESHADOWED EVEN!!!!!!!!!!
I mean, really! He turns out to be a fake personality constructed to get close to Cain to cause great emotional damage and I thought THAT was the big Riff reveal only he is also a clone corpse thing brought back to life and he is decaying like Mikaela and all the Augusta clones and OMG! And he has a decaying hand of DOOM!
And then! Jezebel does something which actually sort of makes me happy, in that he slits his own throat to bathe Riff in blood so Riff can live another day! I still think Jezebel Disraeli is insane and evil, but at least he is being helpful now. Cassian, who I a) completely did not recognize and b) completely forgot about, cradles Jezebel lovingly. I laugh hysterically as I realize at that moment that he is lovingly cradling the body of the doctor who gave him a brain transplant so he no longer had to live a hundred years in the body of a twelve-year-old.
I am fairly certain Yuki Kaori did not intend to invoke that reaction.
OH!! How could I forget?!?! Cain sees Riff come back after Riff's psychic battle with himself, and Riff tells Cain that he was delayed! It is awesome! I nearly expect Riff to bend down and tie Cain's shoelace, but they are interrupted by something. Possibly Alexis and Delilah's demonic plans, or exploding obelisks. It is hard to tell.
And then! We see Alexis' true plan! He intends on creating and reanimating bodies so he can bring Augusta back from the dead! I cackle when he reveals Augusta's dried up and mummified head and tally her as number 3 in the "decapitated heads meant to be resurrected via artificial or inhuman bodies" list.
Possibly Alexis' true plan was revealed prior to this, but I can't remember, nor do I care, because nothing sticks in my head save loligoth kimono, chibi eyes on a plate, and Cain and Riff's pure true love.
And! He intended Augusta's new body to be the incestuous and cursed child of incest of Cain and Suzette, and then Cain and Mikaela, and when that was thwarted, he decided to use Crehador's dead girlfriend Sheila's body!
The only reason why I even remember Sheila is because I beta'd
edonohana's Crehador/Cain fic (also has Cain/Riff).Um. Something happens. I am pretty sure Alexis dies because stuff starts to fall down.
Oh wait! Now I remember! Cain embraces his father, but it's only a ruse to stick him in the neck with a pin coated with the poison.... CANTARELLA!
You should have seen me, I was flapping my hands around in unutterable glee at the collision of my two favorite crack series of course Cain would use cantarella! I just... OMG! Collision of crack series!
However, I do not forgive the Viz translators for spelling it as "cantalera," particularly as it shows horrible ignorance of a) Wikipedia and b) work other translators have done for the title of another crack goth shoujo historical series.
And then! Cain and Riff find each other! Or actually, Riff finds Cain! Even though Cain has TORN OUT his magnetic earring! And then we discover that evil!Riff wanted to think he could only find Cain via the magnetic earring but good!Riff of course has a psychich bond to Cain and then we see a flashback of Riff finding Cain as a child, and both child!Cain and now!Cain reach out to Riff, and they collapse in an embrace as we see Riff's SKELETAL HAND OF ZOMBIEDOM wrap around Cain's back and it is AWESOME and I LOVE IT!
(even though a teeny part of my head was thinking of Dr. J's evil clicky machine hand and the evil clicky terminator hand and Anakin Skywalker's evil clicky metal hand)
But clearly Riff's is different because it is an evil but not clicky hand of skeletal zombiedom! And it expresses his pure and true love for Cain! It is like Cain is being embraced by death, literally!
And then Riff tries to thrust Cain away so at least Cain will be safe, but Cain says he cannot leave Riff like, saying, "You swore that you'd give your soul to serve me...!!" And he flings himself at Riff, and we see Cain smile happily for what may be the very first time in the entire series.
You know, Yuki Kaori totally did not get my sympathy with organ-naming, lamb-eating, intestine-cuddling Jezebel Disraeli, but the skeletal hand embrace? OMG priceless!
Back with Merriweather.... she tells a group of old men that she will now rule the Hargreaves estate. I cheer.
Then she is menaced by Alexis, whom I thought was dead. I boo at Yuki Kaori's women. Then we discover that Alexis is dead, it's just that the resurrection spell succeeded and Augusta has now possessed Alexis' body and apparently she was the mastermind behind it all and manipulated everyone around her even when she was just a dessicated and decapitated head.
I boo even more at Yuki Kaori's women and pretend that entire plot resolution did not happen, particularly as it was a really lame-ass way to justify Alexis as actually loving Augusta.
And then we thankfully get to see Merriweather, all grown up and married to Oscar (?!) and pregnant (?!?!), and then I take back the "thankfully."
But! A worn and ragged Crehador drops by and gives back Cain's ring, and we flash to: CAIN AND RIFF EMBRACING FOREVER EVEN THOUGH RIFF HAS A ZOMBIE SKELETON HAND!
I feel I have been remarkably restrained with the allcaps and exclamation points. Really.
-
coffeeandink's synopsisIn conclusion: *FLAIL* SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER RIFF SPOILER!