Love Is In The Air. But You Have To Be Careful So You Don't Get Hurt.

bucchigiri is about how one awful, selfish, cowardly boy is still loved by a boy he showed kindness to and how even though he finds himself undeserving of it, he wants to be able to love him back

oh I think I took too much shrooms I just had a vision of Reki teaching Matakara skateboarding

literally shaking with excitement original aladdin theory is real can’t wait for everything to fall apart for arajin

YOH CANT FUCKING DONTHIS TOMME SHUT HP SHUT UP SHUT UPP

Damon Maitsu and Kai Monteago Art by Seraph; Posted September 1st, 2022.

sweet orange marmelade, it's you

it's interesting how despite her freakiness, mahoro isn't on the same level of delusional as arajin or matakara. arajin and matakara keep chasing the object of their affection (mahoro for arajin, arajin for matakara) to fuel their own coping mechanisms, and in the process they start to build up a version of them that only exists in their heads. meanwhile, mahoro fangirls over marito and chases after him, sure, but she knows that he won't listen to her and leaves when she knows he doesn't want her there. i think she's self-aware to an extent because mahoro knows what kind of person marito truly is. i hope next episode arajin finally realises that he and matakara are wearing the same hat and does something about it.

out of context episode 8 spoiler

hear me out: aramata SLOWBURN. i mean painfully slow. it takes them (almost) a whole decade. mainly because i think their relationship needs to develop to where they are both fully comfortable and fully accepting of their relationship, as well as attraction to each other. i think matakara knows he likes arajin already but post-canon it takes a while since they're trying to balance their relationship to be more equal. he also isn't entirely sure if arajin likes him back and wants to let their friendship heal first. arajin is deep in denial about being attracted to men in specific so i think it would take him longer. he'd accept being attracted to matakara first (because over time, i think he'd open up, accept his own insecurities and mistakes more etc) but when it comes to being attracted to men he's used to thinking of himself as straight and gets defensive when questioned so when he actually confronts it years later he'd be like "...wait a minute" the same thing i said about matakara applies here (trying to heal their relationship first before anything else) also they both take their relationships really seriously (implied in this short story) so i definitely think they would have to go through a lot, be certain about it and commit fully.

☆. preview pics for the 8th episode of Bucchigiri?! + preview vid :3💥

Questions Of Love In Bucchigiri!?

Hiroko Utsumi is no stranger to distilling homoeroticism into their works, but Bucchigiri!? is able to take it a step further as it intertwines with the hypermasculine idea of fighting and gangs. Because of that, Bucchigiri!? poses two questions to the definition of love and how people experience it.

"What is love versus lust?"

Truthfully, it's a rather simple question to answer (at least to someone outside of high school). The point being the depth of feeling. Lust is strong but shallow, while love moves much deeper.

And the second episode in particular expresses this very strongly through the two gang leaders, Marito and Ken.

They don't feel any way in particular about Arajin until they feel their punch. After that, like Marito says, they just can't forget about it. That's all they know about this kid, "his" punch. And that's all they want from him as well.

The point is to express superficial lust towards Arajin because of something they only experience one single time. They believe that they want the strength behind the person no matter what because of a single moment.

And it's a great comparison to make against Matakara's feelings for Arajin.

Matakara doesn't need to feel "Arajin's" strength to know how he feels about him. On the contrary, he only ever needed to fight (really train) beside him to come to understand that emotion. Even more than that is Matakara's understanding of Arajin outside of fights, and he focuses in specifically on Arajin's passivity and carefulness.

Because of that, you can begin to draw the conclusion that "Lust" is represented by actions involving violence and action, while "Love" stems more from passivity and aversion in this context. Which I think is really really great. It's sort a sort of symbolic explanation of the whole point of violence being boorish and shallow while other communication is deeper and more valuable.

"How much is love worth if they don't love you for who you are?"

Super easy example here with this one. Just look at the Love Forever stone Arajin gives Mahoro vs the friendship one that he gave Matakara.

The whole point is that Arajin's love in the hands of someone who doesn't love him isn't valuable at all, nor is it valuable in the hands of someone that doesn't love him for who he is.

Marito and Ken can only feel something for Arajin because of the strength channeled through him by Senya. It's something entirely foreign to Arajin as a person, and represents both how shallow the gang leaders are, but also how shallow Arajin is.

Loving yourself is something that's tricky to do, and obviously especially so for high school kids. I think it's well understood at this point that Arajin struggles to love himself in a meaningful way, and that's expressed by his willingness to take on Senya.

Case and point being that he intentionally used Senya's strength to try and make himself look good in front of Mahoro, and in the same way used it against Ken to the same effect.

He's afraid of being and accepting himself, so he's allowed something else to speak for him. And while that catches the eye of many, including Matakara, Arajin himself already knows that it's nothing more than a farce to save face.

It's just... really great work in terms of narrative as it bundles so many different aspects of love together to create this complicated web that all stems from Arajin's inability to love himself. Matakara loves the current Arajin, but that Arajin is unable to face himself so he runs from the reflection that Matakara offers and buries himself in lust and unrequited romance.

And that all just comes from high school kids duking it out for fun alongside mystical fighting people that can merge with humans.

It's definitely a step up the symbolic ladder in comparison to Sk8 The Infinity, but I think it's allowed Utsumi to express much more in terms of romance through implicit narratives.

These first two episodes have been incredible, and I'm loving every moment and want to share every bit, but the overall production effort Mappa's been putting in leaves me in an awkward spot for sharing stuff like this.

I really love to, and I want to celebrate the efforts of the staff behind the series, but Mappa rains on that parade with its terrible scheduling and work ethic. The credits are a veritable mess that make episodes like this an incredible feat. And I'll celebrate that and share what I want to, but I do also want to call out Mappa for their terrible work as a studio.