Demon's Bond, the routes so far
Sep. 5th, 2019 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollSo far I've done the Chitose, Kazuya and Kazutake route, and I'm two chapters into the Shin route. Thoughts so far:
Chitose: So far the only love interest that I've wanted to smush together with Yukina and say 'now kiss already!' I really like their dynamic, they are both young and make a lot of mistakes but they respect and care about each other and treat each other as equals. The only big deal that really gets made out of gender roles is Yukina needing to learn how to sew. But in the end they're both clan leaders and both acting as clan leaders. The ending where she goes to Satsuma felt kind of underexplained - if her clan is matrilineal why is she going to live with his? But I'm going to guess that it was just that she was going there *now*, not that it was a permanent plan to live there, and that the question of where they were going to live was still unresolved at the end.
The flashback ending in this one had her going to his clan *to be its leader* as his widow, and that was also nice. In general I liked how powerful Yukina got to be in the flashback endings.
I didn't like all the 'oh you held hands you must get engaged' stuff at first, and it seemed silly. In a matrilineal clan, female sexual purity shouldn't be as much of a big deal. But then I realized that it wasn't there in any other route, it's really just Chitose that you can't talk to without it people immediately saying you're going to get married. And then I realized - maybe it's a Kazama clan thing? Those Kazama men are *very* particular about their sexual purity and are taught not to hold hands with, kiss, stalk or abduct anyone that they don't plan to marry. I think this might be worldbuilding I can get behind. It even makes a sort of sense, the Kazama clan is apparently exclusively male and I can see them worried that if their men get into relationships with women that don't lead to marriage then the children (sons) won't be recognized as theirs and the clan won't survive.
But thinking of Chitose as a Kazama gives this route a sort of hidden angstbomb. Chitose is kind, openhearted, generous, and loves his human friends. Chikage is...not like that. Chitose takes the Amagiri clan in because they're friends and he'd do that for any of his friends and respects Kazutake as a mentor. Chikage treats Amagiri like a vassal. Why wasn't Chikage, like, *permanently* grounded by his grandfather until he learned to treat people better? What must have happened to the Kazama clan in intervening years? It makes the ending a lot sadder. But it also gives me some hope for what might happen to Chizuru after the Kazama route. Maybe she'll run into Chitose and Yukina and she'll see that life among the Kazamas isn't all misogyny and bitterness.
Kazyua: I liked him a lot! But I *loved* Ieyasu, who I was not expecting to like after the Chitose route, in which he looks like a sociopath on a conquering spree. In the flashback ending Yukina stays with Ieyasu as his bodyguard. Guarding his bedroom. After a highly shippy scene in which they pledge to see the new world together, and after it's been established through the route that he respects her greatly and that she helps him do the right thing. Do I ship it? Why of course I do. It's enough to make me wish the fandom existed just so I could write shippy fic for this pairing. Forget the age difference, I'll just say in this route Yukina is seventeen in Demon years, or approximately one hundred and forty in human years.
But Kazuya is great too! Of all the love interests so far, he's the one who cares least that she's a girl, which is exactly the way Yukina wants it. It pretty much never comes up in the route. And even at the end when they go off on a lifelong quest together the question of marriage doesn't really come up. I can see Yukina is really happy with him and that they are good for each other.
But, oh, the slow-motion angst-bomb. Kazyua might just live long enough to know that his political decisions lead to the destruction of his entire clan. On the plus side, Kazuya looks (and acts) so much like Saito that I'm now convinced that Saito is a branch Yukimura, from a family that intermarried with humans. So at least in the Saito route there's some hope for rebuilding the Yukimura clan.
Kazutake: Honestly I was meh about him. His WHOLE ROUTE is Yukina saying 'please take me seriously as a warrior' and Kazutake responding 'but you're a girl'. Which leads to some fun scenes. My personal favorite goes something like this:
Kazutake: *guards Mitsunari*
Yukina: *also guards Mitstunari*
Enemies attack!
Kazukate: Yukina, hide! I will go outside like a man and protect you with my manly strength!
Yukina: *quietly goes to Mitsunari's room and fights off the demons that have already broken in*
Kazutake, coming back from fighting enemies outside to see Yukina quite competently defending both herself and the guy he was supposed to be guarding: What.
So naturally I was expecting that the ending would be Kazutake accepting Yukina as a fellow warrior. But IT WASN'T. Instead Kazutake finally prevails on Yukina to go back to Yase where it's safe, and then after he's defeated the enemies comes back and marries her and takes her off to his clan. BOO.
But the route was worth it for Mitsunari Ishida, who in Chitose's route is a walking atrocity and in Kazuya's route is a pointlessly destructive warmonger, but in this route has a lot of integrity and loyalty and is trying to do the right thing. In the flashback route Yukina goes to visit Mitsunari in prison and I was *so hoping* she'd save him and run off with him. But alas this isn't Hakuouki and you don't get to save doomed historical characters by loving them. Instead Mitsunari reminds Yukina that with Kazutake dead his clan is still homeless and now leaderless and they need her help. I think I'm ok with that, especially since I can hope that once the Amagiri clan is settled with the Kazama clan Yukina can get together with Chitose.
Shin: I do not like this route so far. Shin is mean and disrespectful to Yukina and also pushes romance very quickly, which is a highly unattractive combination. He also bullies Chitose. (Hands off my sweetheart!) But this franchise has a good record for making me like characters who seem awful at first, so I'm going to keep reading. And if he's still terrible at the end, well, maybe the flashback ending will be good.
I'm definitely going to do the Senkimaru route, if only because apparently in the flashback ending Yukina becomes the new Princess Yase and I would definitely like to see that.
Chitose: So far the only love interest that I've wanted to smush together with Yukina and say 'now kiss already!' I really like their dynamic, they are both young and make a lot of mistakes but they respect and care about each other and treat each other as equals. The only big deal that really gets made out of gender roles is Yukina needing to learn how to sew. But in the end they're both clan leaders and both acting as clan leaders. The ending where she goes to Satsuma felt kind of underexplained - if her clan is matrilineal why is she going to live with his? But I'm going to guess that it was just that she was going there *now*, not that it was a permanent plan to live there, and that the question of where they were going to live was still unresolved at the end.
The flashback ending in this one had her going to his clan *to be its leader* as his widow, and that was also nice. In general I liked how powerful Yukina got to be in the flashback endings.
I didn't like all the 'oh you held hands you must get engaged' stuff at first, and it seemed silly. In a matrilineal clan, female sexual purity shouldn't be as much of a big deal. But then I realized that it wasn't there in any other route, it's really just Chitose that you can't talk to without it people immediately saying you're going to get married. And then I realized - maybe it's a Kazama clan thing? Those Kazama men are *very* particular about their sexual purity and are taught not to hold hands with, kiss, stalk or abduct anyone that they don't plan to marry. I think this might be worldbuilding I can get behind. It even makes a sort of sense, the Kazama clan is apparently exclusively male and I can see them worried that if their men get into relationships with women that don't lead to marriage then the children (sons) won't be recognized as theirs and the clan won't survive.
But thinking of Chitose as a Kazama gives this route a sort of hidden angstbomb. Chitose is kind, openhearted, generous, and loves his human friends. Chikage is...not like that. Chitose takes the Amagiri clan in because they're friends and he'd do that for any of his friends and respects Kazutake as a mentor. Chikage treats Amagiri like a vassal. Why wasn't Chikage, like, *permanently* grounded by his grandfather until he learned to treat people better? What must have happened to the Kazama clan in intervening years? It makes the ending a lot sadder. But it also gives me some hope for what might happen to Chizuru after the Kazama route. Maybe she'll run into Chitose and Yukina and she'll see that life among the Kazamas isn't all misogyny and bitterness.
Kazyua: I liked him a lot! But I *loved* Ieyasu, who I was not expecting to like after the Chitose route, in which he looks like a sociopath on a conquering spree. In the flashback ending Yukina stays with Ieyasu as his bodyguard. Guarding his bedroom. After a highly shippy scene in which they pledge to see the new world together, and after it's been established through the route that he respects her greatly and that she helps him do the right thing. Do I ship it? Why of course I do. It's enough to make me wish the fandom existed just so I could write shippy fic for this pairing. Forget the age difference, I'll just say in this route Yukina is seventeen in Demon years, or approximately one hundred and forty in human years.
But Kazuya is great too! Of all the love interests so far, he's the one who cares least that she's a girl, which is exactly the way Yukina wants it. It pretty much never comes up in the route. And even at the end when they go off on a lifelong quest together the question of marriage doesn't really come up. I can see Yukina is really happy with him and that they are good for each other.
But, oh, the slow-motion angst-bomb. Kazyua might just live long enough to know that his political decisions lead to the destruction of his entire clan. On the plus side, Kazuya looks (and acts) so much like Saito that I'm now convinced that Saito is a branch Yukimura, from a family that intermarried with humans. So at least in the Saito route there's some hope for rebuilding the Yukimura clan.
Kazutake: Honestly I was meh about him. His WHOLE ROUTE is Yukina saying 'please take me seriously as a warrior' and Kazutake responding 'but you're a girl'. Which leads to some fun scenes. My personal favorite goes something like this:
Kazutake: *guards Mitsunari*
Yukina: *also guards Mitstunari*
Enemies attack!
Kazukate: Yukina, hide! I will go outside like a man and protect you with my manly strength!
Yukina: *quietly goes to Mitsunari's room and fights off the demons that have already broken in*
Kazutake, coming back from fighting enemies outside to see Yukina quite competently defending both herself and the guy he was supposed to be guarding: What.
So naturally I was expecting that the ending would be Kazutake accepting Yukina as a fellow warrior. But IT WASN'T. Instead Kazutake finally prevails on Yukina to go back to Yase where it's safe, and then after he's defeated the enemies comes back and marries her and takes her off to his clan. BOO.
But the route was worth it for Mitsunari Ishida, who in Chitose's route is a walking atrocity and in Kazuya's route is a pointlessly destructive warmonger, but in this route has a lot of integrity and loyalty and is trying to do the right thing. In the flashback route Yukina goes to visit Mitsunari in prison and I was *so hoping* she'd save him and run off with him. But alas this isn't Hakuouki and you don't get to save doomed historical characters by loving them. Instead Mitsunari reminds Yukina that with Kazutake dead his clan is still homeless and now leaderless and they need her help. I think I'm ok with that, especially since I can hope that once the Amagiri clan is settled with the Kazama clan Yukina can get together with Chitose.
Shin: I do not like this route so far. Shin is mean and disrespectful to Yukina and also pushes romance very quickly, which is a highly unattractive combination. He also bullies Chitose. (Hands off my sweetheart!) But this franchise has a good record for making me like characters who seem awful at first, so I'm going to keep reading. And if he's still terrible at the end, well, maybe the flashback ending will be good.
I'm definitely going to do the Senkimaru route, if only because apparently in the flashback ending Yukina becomes the new Princess Yase and I would definitely like to see that.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-10 02:50 pm (UTC)As far as the Kazutake route - for what it's worth, Mitsunari also starts out thinking of Yukina as just a girl but by the end treats her absolutely as a warrior and as Kazutake's equal. I'm just going to imagine the alternate ending that canon just barely refused to give us, and decide that the flashback ending ends with her running off with Mitsunari and doing something awesome.
Re: Kazama men's chastity - it is belatedly occurring to me that evil!Kazama in the Hijikata and Saito routes makes *slightly* more sense if you think of him as a Ruined Man. He went after a woman and didn't marry her, now he can never show his face in his clan again.
You are right, Chitose and Yukina really need to make an appearance in a post-canon Kazama route fic. There is so much potential!