XLVII
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that’s permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish — and men do —
I shall have only good to say of you.
Fatal Interview (Sonnets) – Millay
(chapter 122 raws have arrived)
Much in the way of considerations and updates in the comment section:
HEARTS OF FURIOUS FANCIES 
ugh, I can’t find the raws but l suppose are worst fears have been confirmed?
A search of Tumblage space is usually a good spot to start, and I can’t read moon, but SPOILER BELOW
but Mada sure looked like he got cold feet. He imagined choosing, then froze, made excuses to all, Hato never dropped icy self control, Sue seems to prefer clinging to Ogiue then a decision, Keiko just whatevered and Angela looked amused. Perhaps Madarame reserved his decision??? Kuchiki saved the day in an over-Kuchiki way that broke the tension and all had a fun day at historical-land, home on a train, Hato and Yajima talk about????
LATER:
Warning: it has been suggested that the 4chan/ tumblr scripts are woefully less than accurately nuanced. It is also damn hard to figure out who is talking to whom. Link below retained for the record, it leads to one of them
http://andialex.tumblr.com/post/141651061477/genshiken-122-translation
See comments below for a link to a better translation for some key pages.
Wow, this is such bullshit. Hato spends so much time and thought carefully and critically looking at this sexuality and identity, his feeling and his view of Madarame, and in the end it’s back to “it’s just BL fanasy you rotten fanboy”?! And poor Sue spends all this time showing herself to be a real person with actual communication issues and gets demoted back to “yuri fanservice with emotional maturity of a toddler”, amazing. And K[eiko] who was generally the most rational person there, well she talks about Saki sometimes so obviously nothing can happen! WTF Kio, why spend all this time carefully showing how layered everyone is and then roll it all back??? Especially Hato’s journey of self-discovery, which concluded with a big ‘no homo’ because lol queers are not real people it’s all in your head.
Hmmm.. I presume you meant Keiko, so I amended.. let me know otherwise, i fix.
So, yeah, Kio should take damage points unless he can prove a greater method to this.
A few things more on my mind. (Weird how I really got into this, as if I gave a part of my brain that had not been worked before/ in a while a good run. Ok, here goes nothing:)
Madarame is for sure now over the really really hurt part of Saki and cured of his 2D inferiority complex too. He has seen that 3 women and one guy could be interested in him, so he might be feeling a bit cocky next week, after he catches his breath – even if it was overwhelming. Sure looked like he gave Hato some though tho.. In the end, the excuses given were along a range of “truthiness” but preserved the group and individuals’ feelings, without him having to go completely “ooohhh I’m just too scared of anything”. They “recovered” the situation. (Agree strongly: Sue’s was really thin. She took the escape offered though). So Madarame might remain single, but comes out dignity intact, able to make choices, etc. And not afraid of considering Hato either – consider, but then too complicated. I wouldn’t call it a direct “No Homo”, just damn close.
Hato maintained rigid, icy self-control. Of course in chan mode she absolutely has to, I do not fault her character for that, though I prefer my analysis to the simple Mada raised the ante, Hato sees a chance to fold, takes it. Hato is by no means finished with their project. Hato is not a fudanshi. Hato remains set on being a fujoshi and out-fujoshi-ing every fujoshi they know. When Hato gets back to their apartment, sez ‘nite to Sue and gets inside the door I hope, makeup off, he doesn’t go foetal for a day. Must be ready to pop. And if Hato-chan had gone into Hato-kun mode, it might have been different. I doubt Hato-kun could have maintained such composure. Hato-chan could, and not for being ambivalent about 3D Madarame. The great project was in peril.
Second time’s that happened. (the Japanese could also read: “Don’t sell your sempai for BL)
Hato has a wedding to attend soon. I wonder if that will be the showdown? I swear the root of Hato’s entire “project” is all about Kaminaga, that high school club. …And something independent at first but later part of it about big bro too – though not BL-ish, more like pressure to follow/ measure up, some kind of generic in-family rivalry thingy, that incidentally can fold into fujoshi scripts. I doubt Kio could resist that kind of backstory, he’s been setting pieces in place for a long while in case he has to use it…
The harem situation threatened the club’s “WA”, the Second President jumped on the grenade. Yoshitake wins. The fujoshi isolationist female homosocial is preserved. Ogiue will probably do some shaking too when she gets home. Ohno and Angela will have a lot to talk about, perhaps with Sue too.
Kio Shimoku is a big fan of the Monogatari franchise. I don’t know if he knows Ishin, but I know he knows some SHAFT folks. There is a line that ends the first Mono arc, only now being made into anime, about “Everybody will be equally unhappy, together” (or something like that – somewhere on Baka-Tsuki) as a quintessential Japanese solution. Even less than “call it a win”, but everyone gets to go home more or less intact.
…But yeah, feel jerked around by Kio
Hmm…
I can’t say I’m really surprised. Madarame’s a character defined by his fears, and I realised going over the options that I wouldn’t really find it consistent with Madarame’s character unless he caved into one of them. I was actually thinking Mada okaying Sue or Keiko, when he really wanted Hato, would be interesting – a kind of exploration of good-intentioned people can let their fears make them into jerks.
Ah, but, Hato’s conversation with Yajima… I’m surprised Mada isn’t getting more shit than this. He didn’t make a strong statement; he pulled out a bunch of excuses. Couldn’t Mada have said he’s just not comfortable with starting a relationship like this, and he wants to focus on finding a job – that would be more of a statement, even if it wasn’t pleasing to the rejected parties. Why is the narrative not being more critical of Madarame here? I’m thinking about Spotted Flower, when Hato calls Madarame spineless right to his face. I feel like I need that kind of retaliation here. I think the girls all wanted a way out, and gladly took it when Madarame offered, but not even one of them makes a snide comment about how BS this is. Does Kio really want us to take that at face value?
The lame excuses read like cop-outs, but can also be read as a restoration of “honne”, just enough for everyone to save face. In that sense, they all are complicit and willing in letting the matter die.The response to Hato was the only one that mattered. Mada used code words; he even invented his concerns for Hato’s but in the syntax of typical Japanese polite evasion. Well he could – He pursued Hato as much as-kun as as-chan. His serve.
Madarame has somewhat buried “Sou-uke”. And he can talk to women about relationship stuff, not deep, but at least he no longer fugues out. And I think the worst of the Saki-hurt have been overwritten. It’s still there, but that was always a dream and this was very very uncomfortably in real time. Madarame survived.
Maybe it’s still before March 15 in Genshiken-time. Chocolate is still owed. Who knows?
I am surprised how much I got sucked into the drama. Some folks on tumblerspace are genuinely hurt, and I am able to wrap my head around their dismay. Strange how the Millay worked, twice. It had been a while since I read those. Cheers /M
Honestly, it hurts the most because for a while there I felt like Hato’s queerness was being legitimized. Neither we nor Hato knows if they’re trans or bi or genderfluid or anything at all, but there was no possible way to view him as straight. And now I feel like it was all rolled back to the original “BL fantasy” concept, that Hato’s feeling were just a confused mix of admiration and wistful thinking, and he’s was never actually IN LOVE with a men because that would be gaaaaay. And Hato’s not gay, he’s never gonna be into another guy again, and now he can hook up with Yajima to prove us you can be straight while cross-dressing and having female alter egos! It feels like such a giant middle finger to all the queer readers who saw so much of themselves in Hato, like Kio is saying “dreaming is fun but in the real world we all know how it works so get back in line and stop playing at things you can’t be”, and I think that’s what making people react so emotionally.
I mean, the shipping aspect is definitely there, but the overall reaction from the other people I know is sadness and not shipper rage. We thought maybe this time it can be different, but we were proven once again that people like us have no place in “serious” works, only our ghettos of BL and gay erotica. Back to the fanfiction and doujinshi caves with us silly dreamers.
…And yes, I get that too, now.
For all of my logical-story-analysis-follow-Kio-Shimoku’s-gamery I too am disappointed. More disappointed than I thought I’d be. Way more disappointed. So much so that it surprises me. Right up until this chapter hit, I admit to having mixed feelings – gawd knows I have gone on about them at much too much length. And I still have a lot of problems with Hato when in full fujoshi mode, the scent of Kaminaga/ the Stands/ self-sabotage remains, but damn, that shouldn’t have killed it the way it happened. Damn!
They should have had at least the chance to talk, a lot, without an audience, without Hato having to keep shields up, with privacy, with the space to speak their fears and their hearts. The doctrine of authenticity has been sinned against, mightily! It is all too weaseled out.
I wonder where to write complaint letters to Kio. As a leech, what standing do I have anyway? I wonder what the Japanese readers are saying?
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts /M
Jackrabbit – I’ve been there and I feel your pain. Persona 4 springs to mind. I want to see the narrative legitimise it too, beyond what they did in Spotted Flower, oc. But, for what it’s worth, I still don’t think there’s any way to read Hato as cis or straight. I don’t know what Kio intended but he wrote a lgbt+ character whether he wanted to or not. Right from the start, Hato’s been running across gender and sexuality lines all over the place. And just because she got rejected by some guy and he told her that she’s just a crossdressing fundanshi – that doesn’t make it true. I don’t think this is the last word the narrative will have on the subject, but even if it is – even if the next scene is cut forward five years and Hato’s in a friggin tux marrying Yajima – well, I wouldn’t be happy. But I’d stand confident on the fact that Hato’s lgbt+. Be confident!
Putting aside matters of “real” vs a “shipping fandom” those punches in the nose no doubt hurt. He’s right. No one should have to get that with their after-dinner reading.
(as rec’d by Erica-sensei) http://amercrustad.com/2016/03/25/i-dont-want-your-queer-tragedy-a-parable/
A measured consideration of chapter 122 from Dr O. Maniax
http://ogiuemaniax.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/and-time-moves-genshiken-ii-chapter-122/
The comment section is really good! (I’m envious, must work harder)
Could have been worse, a real bad example from another fandom:
http://www.blastr.com/2016-3-27/why-jason-rothenbergs-apology-fell-flat-100s-fans-and-real-lessons-learn
More Millay
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
What know I of matters of the heart? I use Millay as a crib sheet.
Works for me.
UPDATE! UPDATE!: In the light of the 4chan translation flying around, Dr. O Maniax has posted a better translation of key sections of chapter 122
https://ogiuemaniax.com/2016/03/30/what-madarame-and-hato-really-said-genshiken-ii-chapter-122-supplement/
So I am removing the excerpt and his first attempts at correcting the shading of the dialogue that he offered me via twitter conversation
Something still feels massively WRONG TO ME about the situation. Or maybe I really really want to believe that Kio Shimoku has a point to doing what he did and how he did it. Madarame sounds more sympathetic in the improved translation but the club is still, in my view not really supportive. Too much thrill seeking, too much novelty, not enough privacy. Also, it looks like he spent most of his speech speaking to Yoshitake! Huh?
I can’t tell.
Earlier I made a little “detournement” for Tumblr to work out my feelings. Kio! Are you running a character test exercise here? Because this one was built to really make it hard for Mada and anyone to “win”.
And the club sure failed the test.
http://mudakun.tumblr.com/post/141900917072/so-either-it-was-all-for-nothing-and-the-author
Even Earlier I let my rage run away with me. It would be unfair if I did not fix it after blasting it out. OK I FIX, Even if it is ugly as fuck. Rather than take down I run a full correction. I still don’t like ch122 at all. More on that in a later post!
(ONE MORE TIME: PARODY/ CREATIVE COMMENT. NOT A “real” TRANSLATION. Note sketchy “Bulgarian scan-group” mark on bottom edge. Gehhhhhhhh )