36 replies to this topic

[Comadrin]

This manga never ceases to amaze me. I think it is one of the richest in terms of character, drama, and psychological overtones that I have ever read.

Rei's original family was disgusting in the extreme. His parents and sister killed in an accident, and his grandfather wails on, blaming his dead son for dying, and whining about his hospital. No one even speaks to Rei, except for his aunt announcing that she would put him in an institution. A family like that brings the message from "Grave of the Fireflies," home once again.

In Rei's adopted family, the father was somewhat at fault, as he was so consumed with shougi that he couldn't take an interest in his own children unless they were championship material. That said, the daughter seemed to have been born evil. She seems to be bent on destroying Rei emotionally.

Rei is something of an amazing character. He has been through mental trauma that no child should go through, which has made him introspective to the point of being a mental hermit. At the same time, he keeps on pushing. I thought his conversation with the middle school baseball player was a really amazing piece of writing on the author's part. I am getting more and more interested in the chubby young shougi player who claims to be Rei's best friend. At his first appearance, I thought he was a standard, throw-away "pitiful character," however, he has unexpected depths and becomes more and more interesting.

The three sisters are amazing, and a lot of fun to read about for the most part. I sense that some revelations may be coming down the line about exactly what happened with their family. I am definitely looking forward the continuation.

I rank this manga up with a couple of other favorites in the drama category, Hoshi no Furu Machi, and Sakamichi no Apollon, for well laid out plot, depth of character, and character development.

[Purple Library Guy]

I agree this manga is definitely up there. One thing I like is that, while it has all the harsh backgrounds and so on, it has a fairly light touch in dealing with them. Not light as in making light, but . . . the guy doesn't spend his whole time angsting. He lives his life. It's a life seriously shaped by what he's been through, but still. Often with manga that have traumatic back stories the characters have, as it were, no identity except for the past that was inflicted on them--the manga wallows in it. But this guy--he's a different person from who he would have been with a different life history, but his personality is nonetheless his own, more than the sum of his tragedies, and while the past comes up, it doesn't always; sometimes what happens today is just, what happens today.
I've only read a bit of Sakamichi no Apollon; it seems pretty good so far, got to get back to it. As for Hoshi no Furu Machi, I'm very fond of it but I wouldn't put it in this league. It doesn't have the subtlety, or in some ways the true to life feel; with Hoshi no Furu Machi there's always the awareness that a plot is being well shaped, a story with certain arcs and cadence, where the action will rise now, create tension here, climax at this point; you can see the rules being followed, although with good craftsmanship. 3gatsu no Lion is at the top of the "slice of life" style where it feels more like a life being lived and stuff just happening.
This is up in territory with, say, Cat Street or Nodame Cantabile (which are classics and anyone who hasn't read them should). For manga that are ongoing right now, I might compare Yesterday o Utatte (which is very good so far).

[lunamoth]

It is indeed excellent--a story about a kind of prodigy who could do great things in his field, but is left on his own far too young to be able to develop fully as a person--at least not unless he finds someone to be unusually kind, to him. Will he?

However, for me this story has become the essence of the scanlated manga experience: waiting, waiting, waiting--loving the characters and events in each installment only to find that when the next comes out you've forgotten most of what was going on in the last. This one comes out so seldom that it is obvious that it will take many months, probably years, to finish. For me that dilutes the emotional content of the experience to zilch. In fact, it makes the experience unpleasant rather than pleasant.

It's partially for this reason that I don't any more even bother to follow most of the scanlated manga I initially made the mistake of starting reading while they were still ongoing. Why continue to court disappointment and irritation?

Except "Nana to Kaora", of course.

Otherwise, I now make a point to pick up no scanlated manga series that isn't marked "completed."

Edited by lunamoth, 16 September 2012 - 01:06 AM.

[Comadrin]

I like this manga more and more as time goes on. The last few chapters have been so realistic it is intense. I hate series where a juvenile (not being insulting, but he is STILL only 17) has some sort of epiphany and becomes the unbeatable god-like stud of whatever sport or occupation he is striving in. Especially in something like shougi or chess, it is unrealistic. There certainly are youthful prodigies, but 17 year old highschool champion chess players don't crush Kasparov or Bobby Fisher.

Our mc is learning this the painful way, more painful for him due to his past, but it still isn't easy. There are many prodigies. Few end up living up to their potential. In the music world, I can think of two, Artur Rubenstein and Martha Agerich, both incredible prodigies as children who went on to live up to their potential. Many of these "prodigies" grow up thinking they are way ahead of everyone else, and get blown away at a debut, by someone without the prodigy title who worked their ass off getting to where they are.

To go with the athletic similes, prodigy baseball and football players from high school/college teams do make it to the pros, and seldom stay "Big Man on Campus" for long in their professional careers. Bicycle racing is dominated by men and women in their later twenties and thirties. Karate and judo senseis that I have been acquainted with laugh at stories and manga with "teenage fighting gods." There are incredibly talented teenagers in martial arts. Whether they can effortlessly crush a thirty year old who has been building his body and learning technique for most of his life is a totally different matter.

Back to the musical simile, Rubenstein was the "doyen" of Paris in the earlier 20th century. A newcomer named Horowitz showed up in town. Rubenstein heard him in concert, and started practicing 10 hours a day, instead of hanging out drinking with his "artsy" friends. His "wake up call" as a prodigy happened in his twenties, and he is still regarded by most of classical music listeners as one of the absolute greats of classical piano. If he hadn't responded to said wake up call, music historians might be the only ones remembering him as a "flash in the pan" in the 1920's.

Rei is learning, luckily at an early age, that it is not all about him and his "young genius" persona at shougi. I don't like to say that, "Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill," but there is a great deal of truth to this humorous adage. Experience is NOT to be despised. As a military man for most of my life, I knew that elite warriors (Navy Seals, Marine Force Reconaissance, and Army Special Forces teams) were not 18/19 year old stud muffins, but seasoned soldiers and sailors well past their first testosterone bursts. I remember a newspaper article in my youth where several young hoods broke into an elderly African-American's home as they heard that he had been famous and rich at one time. When the police were called (by said elderly dude), they found two "youths" out cold, with concussions and broken jaws, and one with glass cuts from jumping through a window. Said elderly victim was a world class boxing heavyweight in the early part of the 20th century. He was in his late sixties or early seventies, but his body hadn't forgotten.

Sorry for the long digression. I love this manga, and the author is doing this well. Rei is learning in a realistic fashion, and I really look forward to more chapters. It is one of the best manga I have read.

Edited by Comadrin, 29 July 2014 - 07:55 PM.

[Purple Library Guy]

Interesting points. In music, it seems to me that the problem for "prodigies" is that becoming a good musician calls for two very different sets of qualities. One is an ability to learn how to produce all the right notes precisely and accurately; prodigies are generally prodigies because they are very good at that, and are able to do note-perfect performances very young. The other is about feeling and interpreting the music, expressing emotion, giving nuance, having a style, creating an experience. This is not something it's so easy to become a "prodigy" at, and prodigies at technical skills often don't have an aptitude for it.
This might not seem relevant to shogi, or to martial arts. But actually, I think it is. Look at Rei's loss in ch 28. He expresses it almost entirely in emotional terms--it's a failure in understanding and perceiving his opponent, a failure of vision. It is not a failure in narrow tactics, to the contrary it's a failure due to focusing on narrow tactics. There is an artistic and emotional side, a personal side, that seems to be required for true mastery and Rei recognizes that even if he's not there yet.
And I think martial arts, and even warfare, has similar dimensions. A fighter or a tactician to be great has to go beyond just having a great roundhouse kick or knowing how to go "by the book", needs to have a personal style and philosophy that applies the individual techniques in a unified direction. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz have very different approaches, although they don't necessarily contradict each other.

[Comadrin]

Very good point about tacticians. "By the book" is definitely the mark of a poor and unimaginative commander. Such men may have read Sun Tzu or Clausewitz, but rarely understand it. (Hell, I read through "On War on four different occasions while in the military, and never really understood that much. Clausewitz may be like Kant is to philosophy: a philosophy professor once told me, "When you think you've understood Kant, step back and take a deep breath because you're becoming delusional.) They have an "if 'a' happens, then do 'b'" mentality, and a vehement abhorrence of mental flexibility or imaginative thought. They also make lousy chess or shougi players.

I think that if you take your points and put them into psychological or anatomical terms it would be something along the lines of people using both lobes of their brains having an advantage over the most talented right brain dominant person and the most talented left brain dominant person. Pure logic is powerful, but it is predictable to a good opponent. Pure imagination is artistic and can be beautiful, but in a conflict or contest, it can be defeated by its' own randomness. Combine the two, and you have a pretty powerful arsenal of talent at your fingertips. The greatest scientific breakthroughs have been made by logical thinkers with imagination. Relativity, both special and general, could not be logically deduced by Einstein from the knowledge available at the time by using Socratic syllogisms. He HAD to have one hell of an imagination to go, not from a to b and so on for God knows how many steps, but from a to z twenty-nine to the sixth power subscript q and superscript alpha one 17. At the same time, applying physical laws and critical thinking would have prevented a number of people from making fools out of themselves by jumping on the "cold fusion" band wagon about thirty years ago.

Thanks, PLG, you gave me a whole bunch of stuff to think about and waste time with; time that could be spent worrying or something constructive like that!

By the way: I read "Angel Densetsu" per your recommendation, and enjoyed it very much. Thanks.

Edited by Comadrin, 04 March 2013 - 11:44 AM.

[Purple Library Guy]

It's an odd thing . . . I've only read Sun Tzu the once, and I know there's masses and masses there that I never touched, as it were. And it was full of ideas and points; summarizing really impressive stuff is a mug's game, and so on. And yet for all that, I always retain the impression that a great deal of the core came down basically to "Hit 'em where they ain't" with explanations of the different dimensions it can be applied in. A very sound dictum I believe in strongly.
Clausewitz . . . I probably don't understand Clausewitz, but I feel as if I do. I feel a sort of . . . shape to it, a certain sense that it's about how tradeoffs work, and how to judge them, how there will inevitably be pain and sacrifice involved in what's done and the question is how much is justified for what result, and when trying to accept too little will betray the outcome leading to worse in the end. Like the stuff about letting an enemy penetrate deeply into your country--the farther you can let them in, the longer their supply lines become, the more you can bleed and isolate them, the more effort and exhaustion you put them through (as he'd put it, the more "friction" they must overcome). So it's an advantage. But the question is how much pain can you endure to gain the advantage, because the farther you let them in the more damage they will inflict . . . which is after all part of what you're trying to stop them from doing. Where is the balance? I dunno, stuff like that.

Glad you liked "Angel Densetsu". It's great. I myself on your recommendation finally got back to "Sakamichi no Apollon" and the further I read, the more I liked it. Very impressed, the characterization, the setting, the jazz, the Tokyo students rebelling, the way the people's attitudes and thinking seemed to fit a different era rather than being just transplanted modern people, the art . . . it was great.

Edited by Purple Library Guy, 22 October 2012 - 06:05 PM.

[hero]

from the new chapter I got the impression that Kiriyama left his step sister and thats why she´s like that now. did I get that right?

[Purple Library Guy]

Oh, right, we were talking about a manga weren't we? Sorry.
I dunno. From what she said, it seems like the only thing anyone talked about at home was Shogi and she never had much head for it. Made her feel worthless, which is kind of the flip side of him feeling like he had no worth as a person, only as a vehicle for Shogi. So it feels to me more like, her being like that already, made her try for him. Seems like maybe she went for him in the first place as much in an attempt to rub his nose in the idea that there are important things other than Shogi and she has some of them so there, as for any romantic reason. And while he got the point, he couldn't in the end hack it. But maybe since he left, she's more like that than ever.

Edited by Purple Library Guy, 24 October 2012 - 11:27 PM.

[Vance Finiraldi]

I personally see Kyoko as a walking contradiction based on what we've seen so far, much like Rei can be sometimes, but in a largely different way. She seems to have some measure of pride in herself, so much so that she dislikes being pitied and treated delicately. At the seen where she sneaks into Rei's bedroom to...uh...snuggle, I guess you could call it... indicates that she has some major dependency issues as well.

I don't want to say too much on the nature of Rei and Kyoko's relationship, since Umino does a very good job at obscuring the necessary details to keep the nature of it ambiguous.

[GangBunTu]

In Rei's adopted family, the father was somewhat at fault, as he was so consumed with shougi that he couldn't take an interest in his own children unless they were championship material. That said, the daughter seemed to have been born evil. She seems to be bent on destroying Rei emotionally.

He knows first-hand that living as Shogi pro is a constant struggle. Realizing his children lack the (emotional and technical) qualities, he discouraged one and let the other gave up.
There's no argument that he has fault; yet rather than having no interest, I'd say he can't relate to his children (since shogi is his world).
 

Rei is something of an amazing character. He has been through mental trauma that no child should go through, which has made him introspective to the point of being a mental hermit. At the same time, he keeps on pushing. I thought his conversation with the middle school baseball player was a really amazing piece of writing on the author's part.

I like Rei as a character, but I have different opinion about where he stands.
Rei is so negative (glass half empty) - almost all his reminisce are negative.
His fears Kawamotos' warmth because opening himself to those brief goodness would open the way for bad feelings to seep in. He preferred numbness to block all emotions instead. In a cold rationale, it makes sense: the badness is more numerous than the goodness, furthermore the goodness is not his own - it's fleeting.
Two consecutive losses brought him to limbo but yeah, that conversation with Takahashi was a crucial turning point. That, and Shimada's pummelling.
 

That said, the daughter seemed to have been born evil. She seems to be bent on destroying Rei emotionally.

I leaned towards Vance's PoV below - maybe because I have the benefits of more chapters to contemplate on.
I don't think Rei-Kyoko relation is a shallow hate-hate: Kyoko showed belated concern for Rei's face. On the other side, despite his phobia, Rei tried to defend Kyoko from Gotou (and even from Koda).

------------------------------------------

About Koda (his adoptive father)
In ch01, answering to: "I never thought you'd be taken by your own son like that... but it must be satisfying, in a sense." Koda replied: "Well... If he had been my real son... maybe so, but."
This paints a hypocrite father - he doesn't really care.
In ch22 Koda attempted to call so many times within a day.
This paints different kind of father - he really cares.

In ch34 Koda said: "Aside from your tournament winnings and earnings from games, the lion's share of your living expenses have been covered by me."
This makes me re-assess Rei, Koda and Kyoko:
Rei: he left with expressed reason to spare Kyoko and Ayumu from neglect. Yet despite having stable income (monthly salary + tournament prizes) he still accept/expect Koda to pay the lion's share?
Koda: It made me re-think his reply in ch01. Should Rei remained in Koda's household, he could boast that Rei's achievements is due to his tutelage. However, since Rei severed physical ties, he had no claim whatsoever - except that he still gives financial support as responsible parent.
Kyoko: Her bitterness for the 'unjust' treatments are still recurring - didn't stop when Rei left Koda's house. No wonder she still out to hurt.
Seeing her father treats other kid equally is 'unjust' since own child should get better treatment; and we know from Rei's flashback that - on the contrary - Rei got the better treatments.

------------------------------------------
I find it odd that in manga/comic people readily accept every recollection/flashback as truth when in reality human memory is suspect; photographic memory is rare (if not fictional) while distortion is the norm.

I know that writers don't want to upset readers with false leads, but - in real world - with someone as negative as Rei, I'd doubted the 'neutrality' of his flashbacks.

[Comadrin]

Rei pretty much has a guilt trip about Kyoko and her brother, which was, if not planted, then actively nurtured by her.  In chapter 30, he says that she's like a cracked glass, and that he and her father put the crack there.  I think it is more likely that something was broken inside her from the beginning, and not being able to be the apple of her father's eye caused her to go over the edge, so to speak.  She appears to have a strong streak of nihilism in her, a kind of "If I can't have what I want, let the world burn" mindset.

 

 

I find it odd that in manga/comic people readily accept every recollection/flashback as truth when in reality human memory is suspect; photographic memory is rare (if not fictional) while distortion is the norm.

I know that writers don't want to upset readers with false leads, but - in real world - with someone as negative as Rei, I'd doubted the 'neutrality' of his flashbacks.

 

 

True.  Any good criminal investigator will tell you that eyewitness testimony is very unreliable, and memories are just as unreliable.  I too doubt the neutrality of Rei's flashbacks, as he sees himself as the cuckoo in the nest, and Kyoko spent a lot of time, apparently from the beginning of their relationship, pointing out that he didn't belong anywhere and no one wanted him.  For a third grader (7 or 8 years old) to have to see the broken bodies of his parents and little sister, be ignored or smirked at by the rest of his relatives at their funeral, and then get slapped into the middle of next week by someone four years older for winning a game, it's no wonder that he doesn't see things clearly and in perspective.  At the same time, I doubt that Rei's memory of his wailing grandfather or his smirking aunt talking about putting him in an institution are made up out of whole cloth.  I think it's more his perception of the memories and what they mean that are off-kilter, from his feelings of guilt and responsibility, than the memories themselves.   

[GangBunTu]

Rei pretty much has a guilt trip about Kyoko and her brother, which was, if not planted, then actively nurtured by her.  In chapter 30, he says that she's like a cracked glass, and that he and her father put the crack there.  I think it is more likely that something was broken inside her from the beginning, and not being able to be the apple of her father's eye caused her to go over the edge, so to speak.  She appears to have a strong streak of nihilism in her, a kind of "If I can't have what I want, let the world burn" mindset.

I agree completely.

You made me re-read chapter 30:

Kyoko was a girl who was like a cracked glass.

No matter how much water you poured into her, she would never be filled.

She has a family, she's blessed with good looks, she's got the support of those around her, and still she's...

always riddled with despair like a starved beast.

The crux of the matter is - what matters (to her)?

She was like Rei who learned Shogi to connect to his father. Unfortunately for her, her father didn't reciprocate.

She doesn't feel gracious because despite all that Rei considers as blessings, she doesn't get the one thing she craved (father's acknowledgment).

I think her obsession with Gotou - a married shogi pro twice her age - as her way to announce "i haven't given up yet, dad" <-- this is purely speculation.

 

 

So far I think Umino is a good writer. Some characters have depth, believably humane. Currently the Kawamoto's are painted as goody two shoes, acting as Rei's fairy godmother. This makes me curious about the tragedy that befell that family recently.

[Thunder]

Seeing her father treats other kid equally is 'unjust' since own child should get better treatment; and we know from Rei's flashback that - on the contrary - Rei got the better treatments.

I'm not entirely sure about the 'better treatments' part. Well if you consider it from the kids pov then i guess seeing their shogi's obsessed father gives a stranger kid something he(the father) loved then you're correct. But if we tried to understand it from the father's pov then you could also say that he is just trying to treat them equally. Giving your cute daughter a teddy bear is normal, giving your son who likes to play games a console is reasonable, and giving a shogi set to your other son who is introverted and stays indoor all days studying shogi is perfectly understandable.

[GangBunTu]

@Thunder: that's precisely the point; it's a matter of perspective.

That's why in my first reply to Comadrin, I said that (the father) Koda's fault was/is he can't relate to his own children.

That's why I disagree with people condemning Kyoko - without trying to understand her pov.

 

This old article shows it in larger scale:

43% (435) rated themselves high on graciousness while only 15% (155) rated others likewise.

In addition, 88% (876) felt they had done a kind act in the last six months, yet only 55% (553) felt they had received one during the same period.

You may consider giving up your seat to an elderly as an act of kindness, but a proud and fit elderly might take that as an insult -- a good intention may not be reciprocated.

 

Life is not simple black and white; therefore I may agree with 2 opposing opinions, because each side may have some grains of truth in them.

This manga brings out the complexity of life compellingly.

We can't enjoy this like typical shounen manga / hollywood movie -- every time the MC vanquishes an enemy, we clap our hands.

There is no enemy in this manga, only people (some more compelling than the other).

[Purple Library Guy]

 

So far I think Umino is a good writer. Some characters have depth, believably humane. Currently the Kawamoto's are painted as goody two shoes, acting as Rei's fairy godmother. This makes me curious about the tragedy that befell that family recently.

I think in our culture we've acquired some odd ideas about what kind of characters are "realistic"--and it actually flows from the more sophisticated, the critics and intelligentsia.  There's this feeling that screwed-up, complicated people are "realistic" and simpler, straightforwardly "nice" people with few dimensions to their character are "unrealistic".

But it isn't true.  There are lots of simple (not necessarily stupid, just not full of complex motivations) nice people in the real world; they're highly realistic.  Critics and such just don't like seeing stories about them because they find complexity and novelty more interesting, and perhaps because sophisticated people are so often themselves not straightforwardly nice and they don't like to feel measured by that standard.  So they pan that kind of character and the rest of us have come to see such characters as unrealistic, even though really they aren't.

 

Your article is interesting.  I myself am a bit of an odd case, I think.  I'm not really all that kind or generous myself, especially at an instinctive level.  My instincts run more to self-sufficiency; I don't like owing people.  But I know many people who are kind and generous--friends, my wife, some of my family members and in-laws.  My friends and I get together once a week for game night, and a couple of them just spontaneously started bringing food for everyone--olives, good bread, deli meat, cheese, like that.  It would never have occurred to me, my instinct is to just bring my own stuff except maybe on special occasions.  Now I'll bring stuff some of the time because I don't want to be sponging off my friends.  That same pride leads me to pay my share or a bit more if people are getting together to get takeout or something.  But the spontaneous generous impulse those guys have is mostly foreign to me, and I admire it.  So I'd have to be in the smaller percentages of that survey--I've been more a recipient of kindness than a donor, but I will flatter myself that I can face that truth.

Edited by Purple Library Guy, 12 August 2014 - 06:48 AM.

[GangBunTu]

@Purple Library Guy:

When I say realistic, I'm not talking about "screwed-up, complicated". 

I'm talking about everyone has faults; and most (if not all) have good virtue if you bothered to look.

About "goody two shoes" bit - if Akari really has the habit of picking up stray human (also considering her night occupation) she would have picked up much more than single stray: Rei. Kawamoto's helped Rei a lot; but as hinted in a vaguely heard remarks by Akari, they need Rei as well.

It's not agape (giving without expecting anything in return); she has her motive -- the revelation is something I eagerly wait.

 

I grew up in a rural area, so I know nice, simple people are real.

I might eat at an eatery, realized I forgot my wallet, and the vendor would smile and said: "never mind. you can pay for it the next time you eat here". As a note: the vendor never saw me before and might never see me again.

Sadly, materialistic world turns people into more calculating creatures.

Worse, some people took advantage of them. I know a guy who almost always eat for free by eating at different places every time - targeting old vendors.

[Comadrin]

 

About "goody two shoes" bit - if Akari really has the habit of picking up stray human (also considering her night occupation) she would have picked up much more than single stray: Rei. Kawamoto's helped Rei a lot; but as hinted in a vaguely heard remarks by Akari, they need Rei as well.

It's not agape (giving without expecting anything in return); she has her motive -- the revelation is something I eagerly wait.

 

 

I can't really see Akari, or her two sisters, as "goody two shoes" types.  As I have always understood it, the term is a very sarcastic one, often used to describe the type of person who dimes out fellow students or peers to a teacher or adult in authority, while taking the moral high ground.  Whether or not that is the context the term is used in here, I have never heard the expression used except in a derogatory fashion, usually connoting hypocrisy on the part of the person described.  

 

When Akari picked up Rei as a "stray," he was probably 15 or 16 years old, and had been taken to a drinking establishment (by older "colleagues"), made to pay, and forced or tricked into drinking until he couldn't walk.  She realized he was a kid when he was (probably) dragged into the establishment, and later found him passed out outside, having been deserted by his "friends."  As has been seen, even "Smith" (who seems to be growing, now that he rescued a kitten) and Issa (both 26 years old, a world away from Rei), not to mention the elderly shougi player Rei beat, take advantage of him and his youthful vulnerabilities.  Akari, who is a pretty pure person, although not stupid, later turned the tables on Issa in a perfect manner.  Anyway, when she found Rei passed out on the street, she would have had to have been a pretty hardened person to have just stepped over him (it was noticeable that she realized he had been used and dumped by his "colleagues").  She took him home, and took care of him, where she realized that he was a lonely, insecure, and extremely vulnerable person.  She also realized that he is a person that probably has a great deal to "give" as well (basically, that Rei is a good person).  

 

As someone who is hurting herself (although we don't know exactly what happened with her Mother, Grandmother, and Father, except that the two women died, we've been given enough hints to assume that everyone feels betrayed by the Father), she realized that Rei is hurting as well, and cannot leave him alone.  From the context of her remarks, I take it that the Kawamoto's "need" for Rei is not monetary or about status or anything material like that.  He is a caring big brother figure that the two younger girls need and a caring little brother figure that Akari needs.  He's someone they can help make feel wanted and loved, and he gives back what he is capable of giving.  He is closer in age to Akari than Hina chan, and someone she can talk to (as a friend or family member) more easily than those she is trying to protect from the same demons that are haunting her.  This is as much of the "need" that she has for him that I have been able to deduce from the manga so far.  If, in fact, Akari has an "agenda" for using Rei that hasn't been even hinted at so far, I will be disappointed in the mangaka and feel that the "realistic" (read "convoluted psychology driven selfish motives) turn Purple Library Guy mentioned was sprung on the readers in a particularly cheap way.

 

I think I see Akari's "night occupation" somewhat differently than other posters have.  Her family (except the aunt, who is married, and technically a member of her husband's family) are definitely poor.  She does the work, mostly to help the family finances out, and also as a favor to her aunt.  From what we've seen of her in that milieu, she has rescued Rei on two occasions.  I saw nothing to suggest she has "rescued" other patrons the same way she rescued Rei.  She takes time to try to find recipes that middle-aged/elderly customers can stomach, but that's entirely different than her "adoption" of Rei, and totally within her character as it has been presented to us so far.  She is totally devoted to her sisters and their welfare, and she seems to be nearly as devoted to Rei and his welfare.

 

Several comments have mentioned that Rei receives the "lion's share of his living expenses from Koda."  However, in chapter 11, right after moving out of Koda's home, Rei mentioned that he "relied on his personal savings over the years."  He lives pretty much like a monk, and his "extravagant" expenses, as far as we've seen, are paying for parasitic "senior colleagues" demands on him.  He isn't hereditarily rich like his friend (the tubby guy), and his spending for the Kawamoto's are mainly pudding and ice cream for Hina and Momo.  He was worried about how much curtains to furnish his apartment cost.  He eats like a bird, when not at the Kawamoto's home.  Either his stipend from the Shougi league isn't very much, or he is a terribly bad manager of finances.  He lives in a fairly substandard apartment (AC doesn't work for s&*t), and he doesn't have much of anything in the material sense.  I don't know what the "lion's share" is in this scenario, but it doesn't seem like much.  Either we aren't being told something by the mangaka about Rei's finances, or the lion's share is something that would barely keep a canary alive.

 

As to whether Akari's feelings toward Rei are agape or purely mercenary, I'll have to re-read C. S. Lewis' Four Loves to bring myself up to date on the philosophy of love, as my greek scholarship is pretty poor, as I haven't studied for years.  My bottom line is that I haven't sensed anything of the "agenda" about Akari's action or the actions of her sisters and grandfather.

[GangBunTu]

@Comadrin: gotta admit I've chosen the wrong phrase; though Purple Library Guy managed to capture my definition of "goody two shoes" = "simple, nice people".
In my answer to Purple Library Guy I tried to stress that Akari is not "simple". She is shrewd with high SQ just as you described above.
I can add another one: in the 1st chapter Hina gave direct invitation while Akari asked for help to buy some ingredients. Rei rejected the former but couldn't say no to the later.
She is nice/kind but not indifferent (like the proverb: don't give pearls to the swine) - just as you've described above as well - she chose her target of attention.

About that "lion's share" I'm confused as well. Your descriptions are indisputable. Further, after his losing streak, he considered abandoning Shogi altogether and trying to find part time job.
I can only think about "Grave of the Fireflies" where the elder brother kept family's treasure but refused to use them until too late.
I guess it's confucius/east asia mindset of frugality where "I don't have money" really means "I don't have money (to spend)" instead of "I don't have money (at all)".

I've never read C.S. Lewis' Four Loves actually -- couldn't find it in normal & 2nd-hand bookshops.

[Vance Finiraldi]

For the sake of this discussion, I recommend you all read BWYS's scanlation of Chapter 34 if you haven't already. kewl0210's translation of the conversation between Kouda and Rei has a small but significant difference. Rather than the "lion's share" being Kouda's contribution to Rei's living expenses as stated in Merc_919's translation, kewl's translation suggests that this "lion's share" actually refers to the portion of Rei's shogi winnings and salary that he sends back to the Kouda family as a means to sort of pay them back for taking care of him during his adolescence.

 

As a result, the intentions behind Kouda's words and confrontration are different in tone as well. The initial translation's portrayal of a father considering a more stern approach toward financing his not-formally-adopted son changes to that of a father attempting to convince his son that he doesn't need to return the favor for being taken care of, as if Rei's attempting to reduce the relationship between them to just that between a former legal guardian and ward (and if that's the case, I wouldn't be surprised if that was Rei's intention).

 

I'm not quite settled on which translation to go with, but I'm leaning toward kewl's, since it makes more sense in respect to the way Rei lives at home (as Purple Library Guy suggested, like a monk) and what we know of their characters so far. After all, if Rei had most of his living expenses paid for, I'd figure he'd at least have more of the basic essentials for furniture.

Edited by Vance Finiraldi, 21 August 2014 - 04:56 AM.