There's something in which anime, despite what most purists would like to claim, will always defeat manga. No, it's not the inherent advantage of a narration developed through motion rather than stills with imagination filling in the blanks between panels (old Berserk anime excluded). It's not the advantage that trained voice actors have over your own imagination when it comes to developing a character's range and expression. It is not even about how most anime can afford to take their time and develop the story more deeply than what the original author was able to when likely pressured by unforgiving editors and deadlines to pen everything down in a death march rush. Those are impactful things, momentous things, yes, but, ultimately, they can and will come down to personal preference.
(Particularly the thing about editors. Yoshiteru may have some words regarding that particular subject.)
Then, what is it? What is the one sole thing that anime can hold over manga's head like a spiteful older sibling taking advantage of both chronologically-induced biological disparity and the amusing younger sibling's lacking jumping abilities?
The soundtrack.
And no, that's not the same case as voice actors versus imagination: music is an entirely different language than words and images can account for. Manga can do a lot of things that approach or surpass anything that a coral team of animators will pour their wage-slave overtime into, but what it can never do is provide an actual approximation of what music feels like. As I've repeatedly claimed it's the case with cooking manga, music-focused works have to resort to allegorical imagery the likes of which would make even an experienced shaman realize he's not fit for the Shaman King tournament. Unless you're trained in reading sheet music, a vague impression is all that you're going to get, and, let's face it, if somebody was learned in something so cultured as reading sheet music, they'd never admit to reading manga in polite company.
So, there you have it: music. The one thing that anime watchers will always hold over the purists. The one thing that will make it so that an idol anime can be enjoyed in some way in public without the police being called to the scene of the perfectly blue crime. The one distinctive aspect of human expression that doesn't pour right out of the page and assault you with heart-gripping intensity like a change in hairdo will.
From Hiroyuki Sawano's intense, at times almost baroque arrangements to Megumi Hayashibara always stealing the show when she Tries Again, there are uncountable examples of music not only enhancing but defining an anime. After all, You Say Run goes with everything.
So, yes, music gives emotional cues that act as shortcuts for primal parts of our storytelling-primed brains. It makes us react before we know how or why. It makes us anticipate, notice a jarring disparity, ready our tears… or, when it comes to boss music? To the one piece that the composer will always gleefully look forward to?
It makes you wonder why it was a fucking jingle.
"So," the tall, broad owner of a gym with a jingle blocking the door of what Shizu allegedly intended to be my studio rather than premature burial ground says with a smile about as sincere as Hayama's, "I've been looking forward to meeting you."
Okay, that last part may have been sincere. Just not in the way it's likely meant to be interpreted by Shizu.
"I've been looking forward to this as well. May I call you father? The position is currently tentatively open," I say with a welcoming grin as honest as any congratulations Zaimokuza has ever gotten.
'And that's not you being tsundere in the slightest.'
It's… It's not like I like him or anything…
"Dad," Shizu says, walking around her father to get into the room and run to my rescue as faithfully as ever— "You," she adds in the same tone, glaring at me for no discernible reason whatsoever.
"Why don't you go get freshened up, dear? I'm sure you need some time to recover from your exertions," I say, as considerate as any subservient househusband should be.
Shizu, helpful as always, takes it a step further in the femdom scenario by stomping on my foot.
"Stop trying to goad my father into punching you before I punch you."
"I may be satisfied with just watching you do your thing, dear," Daddy says.
"Kinky," I comment with a praiseful tone and an eyebrow waggle.
Shizu, honey, we have already sold the illusion of femdom well enough. There's no need to keep restomping my foot.
"You. You, of all people, don't get to accuse others of ince—inappropriate familiar relations," the oldest (yet not old) of my girlfriends says.
"I don't know what you mean, and if I did, I would point out that an older brother caring for the treasure that is his little sister in ways that may seem excessive to the uninitiated is not only perfectly natural but an expression of familial love that couldn't be furthest from the filthy allegations that those who read the likes of Oreimo so easily bandy about."
"I—I'm not—Oreimo?" she says as only a single child may.
"I always knew I should have burned your entire collection…" somebody right on the edge between praiseworthy and heretic says.
"I haven't read Oreimo!"
"Ah. Read. So you watched it," I say with drab certainty and the sad realization of yet another victory of anime over the written page.
"I… I… There was a lot of hype about it, and the start of it seemed innocent enough. The incest angle came out of nowhere! They seemed like regular siblings!"
I blink at my flustered girlfriend, then at a future parent-in-law who's slowly getting about as green as his shirt.
Mission successfully failed.
"All right, now that everyone is as uncomfortable as I am with the current situation, maybe we could offer some tea to our esteemed guest, Shizu?" I say, a few notches more conciliatory than anyone who knows me may expect me to be.
"Dad, remember the night I spent in fail?" a woman with a twitching eye asks.
"I have always told you that if you need an alibi, you only have to ask," a man whom no sane judge would argue with replies.
And, really, at this point? Faced with the heartwarming image of a father unconditionally supportive of his daughter, effortlessly dismissing her grave sins of having watched Oreimo as if they weren't even worth mentioning?
It is only natural for me to be considerate and give them the space they need.
"Get him!" A woman who's chasing after me in an ironic parallel of the start of our relationship says.
"Okay," a man with a very broad hand wrapped around the back of my neck answers.
Darn it.
It looks like they're set on including me in their heartwarming family time.
━❖━
"I'm far from impressed," Mister Hikigaya, a man who deserves the 'Mister' like it's part of his superhero moniker, says, glaring at me from the other side of Shizu's kitchen counter.
Joke's on you, old man: I literally fucked your daughter on the piece of furniture you're using to dramatically cross your (bulging) forearms over as you dismiss the steaming mug of green tea placed in front of you.
"I would say he's not usually like this," Shizu says, incriminatingly leaving the second half of the sentence unsaid.
"Which I'm not. The last time I was confronted with the main parental figure of one of my girlfriends, I was wet and shirtless. I would say that clearly signals that our recent introduction can't be generalized as my de facto modus operandi."
"… I've talked with Iroha about that. I still don't know how to feel about it," Shizu says in a grumbling tone that may be the sincerest thing to come out of her since she sat opposite of me, by her father's side, to keep calmingly patting the notoriously defined muscles that I can only compare to what Yoshiteru may be hiding under his subcutaneous fat.
"He isn't joking? He just bragged about… what? Seducing your mother-in-law?" he says with the start of an eye twitch that bears a striking family resemblance to that of his daughter.
"I wouldn't say seducing—" I say with utter factuality.
"You were clasping her chin and staring into her eyes!"
"In my defense, I was sleep-deprived, and she had thrown a cup of coffee at me. Some part of my subconscious may have acted on instinct at being presented with a belligerent, older woman of the Christmas Cake variety—"
"Sweetie, I would like to reiterate my offer to serve as an alibi. Or accomplice. I don't really care. Just, maybe, keep a hold of your temper until we can lie a few tarps on the floor. It would be a shame to ruin wood this good—"
"Oh, right, I'm terribly sorry, Shizu—"
"Shizu?" he interrupts for no readily apparent reason as his fists all but audibly clench.
"—but I'll do my best to make up for whatever damage your floor may have incurred after yesterday's dramatics. You know, when you met my parents. The thing that was incredibly stressful for all parties involved and that I warned you in advance of so that both Haruno and you could get mentally prepared rather than it being a horrible, coitus-interruptus-flavored surprise—stop stamping my foot, honey. We've already established our endearing femdom dynamics that will inevitably lead to role reversal and mind-break—fuck!"
"Not in quite a while, if you keep this going," she warns me with a threat that fools absolutely no one.
'You do realize that she has multiple partners that she can fulfill her sexual needs with, don't you?'
… Is this when I think about how I am the only one with a penis, and that makes me somehow special?
'More special than Haruno?'
… Is this when I grovel and beg on my knees for forgiveness?
'That would seem wise. Which means that you're very unlikely to do it.'
You know me so well…
"Could you two stop silently staring into one another's eyes after talking about sex? Because I'd rather assume my daughter threw out her career for something other than teenage hormones," a grumbling man with some bear-like characteristics I should aspire to model protests.
"I'm glaring at him. There's nothing sexual—"
"That's a lie. In this relationship, glaring is about ninety percent of all foreplay—stop kicking my shin!"
"Stomping your foot wasn't working!"
"Oh gods, she's just like her mother…"
"That's not true! Mom would have plotted this whole thing rather than keep getting carried away by… by… things! And feelings! And, somehow, well-meaning blackmail plots!"
"… Sweetie, there are a lot of things you don't know about your mother," he says with the kind of commiseration I would expect of someone explaining to me why being a bear is not a viable career path.
You know, rather than threatening to punch me and then dragging me to meet Yukino.
(Yes, that last part was more mentally damaging than the threat of violence. I had never gotten called a sexual offender so many times in a single meeting before.)
"This is something to do with Uncle Mike, and I am so going to tell Mom that you slipped up once more—"
"I only did that the first time to help you!" Mister Hiratsuka says, his hands finally letting go of his arm muscles to put up a defensive barrier against what I'm starting to see as Shin Shizu: Musume Mode. It's not the most devastating of her forms, but he seems to be weak against the type.
"To help me. You told me about my parents' three-way to help me," she says, making me blink in slow realization and rethink precisely what bear traits I should learn from Mister Hiratsuka .
"You were panicking at your lesbian awakening! It was the first thing that came to mind!"
"Kinky," I restate, just because I don't want to feel excluded.
"Stay out of this, honey," she says, as sweet as ever.
"I mean, I would've liked to, but, you know, your father kinda barged into your housewarming party of one—"
"Is there any particular reason you keep reminding me that you're having sex with my daughter, brat?" he says, the hands no longer looking particularly defensive.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because it looks like you came here to question the validity of our relationship, and I'm somewhat tired of people doing so over the past few days. Do you know what's funny? The man who fired your daughter? The principal of Sobu High who was strong-armed into doing so? He supports us. He's worried about our well-being and, to great expense to his mental health, keeps checking up on me. Would it be so terrible for Shizu's allegedly supportive parent to act accordingly?" I ask, forcing the glibness and fake lightness on my tone.
And then I uncharacteristically shut up and look as the man in front of me takes dramatically long to stand up until he towers over me, his hand reaching across the counter and grabbing the front of my shirt to pull me half up from the tall stool as he bends down to glare uncomfortably close into my eyes.
"I will always support my daughter. I will stay by her side, no matter how much I may agree or disagree with her choices, because it's her choices, and so I love them as much as I love everything I've always loved about the too-energetic tomboy running underfoot. I was there for her before you were even born, I have been here for her all her life, and I'll be there for her in the future, no matter how things turn out with a little punk like you. And, if you turn out to be just another disappointment? I'll cheer for her to do to you whatever she deigns to do."
I steady my breath and take a deep, calming breath as Shizu stares at her father with wide eyes swimming with too many emotions.
"Okay," I say.
"Okay?" he asks with genuine confusion.
"Okay. You've got seniority. You have loved her all her life. That's not something I can—screw that. You have loved her longer? I will love her more. I will make it so she has not a single doubt that she's loved and cherished every second of her life. I will make it so that she's happier than she ever hoped to be. I will make her question the dream she's having, only to wake up to a better reality. I will cherish her, care for her, protect her, live for her, and, with my dying breath, I'll tell her that it was all worth it. That my only regret is that I couldn't live longer so I could love her even a single second more because nothing I'll ever do or accomplish will be even remotely as important as meeting her, falling for her, and seeing her look at me like I deserve her. And you, old man, better keep your end of the deal. You better be ready to help your daughter be as loved as she deserves to be."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll recruit one of the other women I'll love all my life, and Haruno and I will get creative. You see, both of us have some parental issues that we would love to vicariously work through."
"You haven't met my wife."
"If Shizu's anything to go by, I'm sure she's a beautiful, smart woman. She needs to have gotten both things from somewhere, after all," I say with a critical gaze that may be undermined by me still half-hanging from the man's broad fist.
"I could still punch you," he says.
"Yeah. Yeah, you could. You think that if the consequences of being truthful scared me, I would have gotten this far?" I answer.
Then we glare a bit more at one another, and…
"She's been… uncharacteristically quiet, hasn't she?" I hazard a guess without looking away from steel eyes that do not remind me of silver.
"She should have chimed in already, yes," he says with begrudging acknowledgment of my mastery of all things Shizu.
So, in accordance with our implicit truce, we slowly look away from one another and turn our gaze to look at…
Cute.
Super cute. Mega cute. Shin Dai Kaiser Shizu: Embarrassed Mode is ultra cute.
"Huh. Been a while," the sacrilegious man who hasn't held back his tongue in front of such beauty says, spoiling the moment with blasphemous words that imply this has happened before, and I wasn't there to witness it.
"You both are so… cringy…" Shizu says into the palms of her hands, her chin tucked between her raised knees as she remains precariously seated on her stool, and her bangs frame the sides of her covered face, allowing only hints of the deep crimson blush to peek through between half-spread fingers that still effectively impede her eyes.
"… Do you have videos?" I reticently ask.
"Maybe," he reluctantly acknowledges.
"Name your price."
"A contract letting me crush your spleen if you ever break her heart?"
"Done."
"Hate you both. So much."
"Dear, your father and I are bonding. Don't spoil the moment with baseless falsehoods," I say, still contemplating her and engraving into my memory the way her uncharacteristic ponytail exposes the red tips of her ears.
"I can hate you and love you. You both make it very easy," she says, spreading her fingers wider so she can properly glare at me in a way I would appreciate far more if there wasn't another male in the room.
"Thanks," I say with utter sincerity.
And then I go back to glaring at the man who's had the gall to say the same word right as I did.
━❖━
Shizu
"Do you have enough money?" Dad discreetly asks, trying to sound casual as I take out my wallet.
"It's just groceries, Dad," I say with only a hint of annoyance as the cashier does her best to keep scanning my purchases rather than ogle the muscles showing through the pointlessly tight shirt that he only wears when working in his gym, trying to intimidate a boyfriend of mine, or when he and Mom—gross.
"I mean, you're buying them because of me, so… least I could do?" he offers with a sheepish grin as he scratches the back of his neck in a way that's far more Dad than the display he just put on for Hachi's sake.
The display that my boyfriend just ate up. Hook, line, and sinker.
And that he had to answer in kind. Just, in a way that Dad doesn't realize is far more sincere than any threat he ever uttered to one of my scummy exes.
Damn it. Now my cheeks are burning. Again.
"Sweetie?" he insists, making me sigh and force my tense shoulders down from the protective hunch that recent memories have once again forced on me.
"It's not a big deal. I just wanted to get you away from one another for a bit," I say.
"Ah. So it was a lie that my scatterbrained daughter, who lived alone until very recently, didn't have enough food to make a proper dinner for three?" he innocently asks.
And the cashier keeps trying to stifle her laughter. And not ogle my father.
Gross. So gross. Incredibly gross. Hana Yukinoshita's levels of gross.
"I've got enough food to make a proper meal, just not a 'my father dropped by unexpectedly to try and scare my boyfriend away' meal," I say, eliciting a wince and a sympathetic look from a cashier who looks just shy of Christmas Cake—damn it, Hachi.
"That wasn't what I—"
"Will that be all, Miss?" a young woman who's no longer ogling my father but rather shooting him a very welcome reproachful look says as she hands me the credit card reader.
"Yes, thank you," I say with genuine gratitude as I try not to stare at the amount of money leaving my savings account, not to be replenished until… until I sort things out regarding my immediate future.
"You're welcome. And thank you for your patronage," she says with a bit of a wink that may have gotten me flustered years ago, before I buried my bisexuality deep in trauma and denial, only for it to creep back out of the grave after the persistent efforts of my current… boyfriend and girlfriends.
That will be hard to explain at parties.
At the very least, I think that none of my married friends will get to tease me about my lacking romantic prospects for a while…
With that dubiously comforting notion firmly in mind, I nod and smile at the cashier before saying a 'goodbye' that comes out lower than I meant it to and start walking out of the convenience store with the bags in my hand—and he takes them from me. Because of course he does.
"I can carry my own groceries," I halfheartedly say as the cool air of the street hits me.
"You can. But you don't have to," he says with a shrug, the light of the store hitting him from behind as he lifts the heavy bags easily to make a point and smiles at me like…
Like he's Dad.
"I still haven't forgiven you for putting on that scene," I tell him, silently letting him carry the ingredients for dinner as well as all the other things I remembered I was running out of once I crossed the door to the convenience store.
"Of course you haven't…" he grumbles with actual dejection.
"And you know that Mom's going to yell at you for this," I say.
"Your Mom and I have an understanding—"
"You get to mess up so long as she gets to punish you for it."
"Yes. Precisely that," he says, his tone suddenly curt, and—
Oh.
Oh, no.
"Dad!"
"What?"
"You—you've been telling me that since I was a middle schooler!"
"Yes?"
"You kept telling your underage daughter a thinly veiled innuendo—"
"Wha—not at all! That's not—how—just how dirty has your mind gotten since you started having orgies!"
"That's—I haven't had that many—we are in the middle of the street," I say, tone suddenly flat as I notice a wide-eyed man wearing a mildly familiar security guard uniform.
"… You can't blame this on me," Dad says, trying to futilely hide behind his much smaller daughter from public scorn.
So I stomp his foot.
"Hey!"
"I'm sure Mom will do worse," I say with a glare that clearly states this isn't over.
"Yeah, that riding crop of hers—"
"Dad!"
"Kidding! I'm kidding! Geez, every day that passes, I grow more convinced that I should've burned all your manga…"
"I didn't read Nana to Kaoru until I was living alone."
"What?"
"Nothing," I say, rushing forward until heavy steps follow me.
"What is a Nana to Kaoru, and what does it have to do with riding crops?" he says, right from behind me.
"Maybe if you loved manga like you say you love everything your daughter does, you would know the answer to that question," I say, my rushed steps turning into me skipping forward and turning around just long enough to shoot him a mischievous grin.
"I love everything my daughter does, just not enough to do it myself. And your boyfriend should be grateful for that."
"Dad!"
"What?"
I glare at him and his insufferably smug grin.
Then I blow him a raspberry, shoot him a grin of my own, and say:
"Catch me if you can!"
And, under the befuddled gaze of a security guard, I run down the street, chased by my father, laughing like I have nothing to worry about.
━❖━⧫━❖━
So.
Despite what seems to be the popular consensus, I really enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield.
If I had to pick one thing about them that I really hated, though?
That one line about breaking promises.
…
Sorry about that, guys. I'm still trying to go back to what used to be my norm, and I got caught up in a sudden side-project that should've easily been finished on time to post this last week (https://www.patreon.com/posts/all-right-fine-i-155233306?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link). I'll keep working to do better.
As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): aj0413, Crimson Grave, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Vergil1989 Crossover King, and Xanah. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!