Forum - View topicThe Tragic Girl in Anime
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FloozyGod
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Man Your Lie in April I just did not click with me.
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13230 |
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Yuuki's mother was infected via a contaminated blood donation. They were likely unaware they even had HIV until it was too late. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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And this, folks, is why you don't trash on popular shows just because they're popular.
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RussellStar
 Posts: 7 Location: USA |
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Yep, Yuuki's mother contracted the disease via blood transfusion and interestingly enough apparently around 2003 there was an actual case of this occurring in Japan. Mother's Rosario original web novel was written around 2004. I don't remember the source but I might be able to find it. Nice article Mr. Martin. |
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5532 |
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My problem with more recent "Tragic girl" Stories like Shigatsu and Sword Art...and Plastic Memories, is that they make it obvious too quickly. AnoHana made it obvious instantly as well but since she was already dead the emotion came from elsewhere. Shigatsu, Sword Art, and Plastic Memories seemed like they were trying to "surprise" people but the revelations but they dragged it out well after it was really obvious what was going to happen and after so many episodes I was done feeling sorry for them. In the end, I felt worse for yuuki since she only had a handful of episodes while Kaori was, we knew what was gonna happen since episode 1 (unless you're not observant at all lol) so dragging it out for the entire show greatly lowered the impact. I feel that show could've been half as long. Keep the Nagi arc though, because that was the best..but they could've cut out so much other stuff like the insane amount of time spent on Kousei's unrealistic spoiler[ "Deafness"]. That was my other issue with Shigatsu...as a musician it was just laughable seeing his issue...there's hundreds of real issues musicians have they could've given him that would've made the story better.
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5852 Location: Virginia, United States |
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It is not highly improbable or unlikely. Anybody can get AIDS. In a developed country, you have better treatment opportunities, if caught early enough. Young kids can get cancer and other diseases, that adults get. As to the future, you only have to look at cancer history, They have been looking for the Cure for Cancer for eons now. Long before it became a meme. AIDS and Cancer will be with us for decades or more. Wouldn't mind having that medical coffin that RA had in the StarGate movie. |
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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You know you're reaching when you're questioning the probability of the characters catching a disease. Seriously? This is not the first time I've heard this being brought up and I still cannot understand how it's a legitimate complaint. Like X is a rare disease, so we can't make stories about people with X because the characters having it is highly improbable? How does that make any sense?
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Parsifal24
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The way Cross Game handled Wakaba's spoiler[death] always bothered me because it felt so obvious that she was going to spoiler[die]. This has always been a problem withs series that have the "tragic girl" character is that it feels so obvious that they are going to die.
That I check out emotionally because I have no investment in why I should care about why they are dead or dying other than they have some importance to the male lead or the social group they are a part of. A lot of times it feels like I'm being told: "this girl is cute you should be sad that this cute girl is dying because she is cute." You have to give me something more than a bundle of tropes or archetypes to make me care or showing that the characters care about her being dead or dying. Otherwise, it becomes like the Oscar Wilde quote for me "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing". |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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My problem with that anime was not that Kaori tragically died. My interpretation of the story is that Kaori was actually part of Kousei. While his spirit of creativity was being mercilessly crushed by his mother, it had to leave him and ended up settling in the young girl that was paradoxically inspired by it. It was at that point she started using it to become her own creative musician. When Kousei started to heal the spirit had to return, and in leaving Kaori what was left was not enough to keep her alive. Sad event, but at least while she had it Kaori had a chance to have a world she otherwise never would have. But the price had to be paid. My bigger problem is that the story never had them performing together in any kind of satisfying way. They had one on-stage performance and most if it was showing Kousei drowning and flubbing his way through a performance that he himself could not understand. For almost every episode Kaori declines while Kousei hangs on by his fingernails not to slide backwards. Kousei chokes more than he breathes. If she had to die so be it, but any sense of grace would have given them one unencumbered on-stage moment together. Doing so would have brought into the light the different parts of Kousei that had never worked together before. The anime didn't have that grace. It clearly set up that expectation and never delivered. |
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Azumi14
Posts: 58 |
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Mother’s Rosary arc was done well. Yuuki know that her time was limited but she said positive. spoiler[Yuuki AIDS was found in too late a stage to be treated. Yuuki older sister and two of the other sleeping knights died and knowing that the remaining 6 sleeping knights were soon to die they wanted to make a lasting memory. To share with her older sister and the other sleeping knights when they meet in the afterlife]Asuna and Yuuki meet and that makes the story. Beside Asuna learning how to stand up to her Mother to me it show how life is precious and how I take a lot for granted. Yuuki had no future but live her life not giving up.They light novel goes more in detail than the anime but not by much. I have not seen my life in April.
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Hello HaruhiToy!
Though I understand where your frustration arises, I disagree that their early performance of Saint-Saëns was unsatisfying. On the contrary, once Kaori calls to restart their recital, what followed was an almost transfiguring experience to watch. Kousei suffers all his usual problems, but when he briefly overcomes them and manages to handle Kaori's rampant improvisations, the resulting interactions between the two was a breathtaking spectacle. They shared an awkward but somehow eloquent dialogue through their clashing musical approaches, something the camera effects emphasised. If anything is a disappointment about the show, it is that such an arresting sequence occurs in episode four and is never surpassed by subsequent performances, not even that of the finale. I have yet to see another anime that expends its finest resources so early in its running time. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4601 |
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It makes sense in that portraying an extremely-unlikely scenario tends to strain one's suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, which at least for me personally just makes me feel like I'm being blatantly emotionally manipulated, instead of being allowed to organically empathize with the characters in the story. In SAO's case, I am aware of the real-life incident in Japan that most likely inspired that arc, but that was literally a one-in-a-million shot, and I almost feel like portraying it as something that could feasibly happen does a massive disservice by potentially dissuading people from giving blood. But that aside, maybe I can let that part slide...except SAO immediately doubles down on it with spoiler["Yep, her mom got it while pregnant, and spread it to her kids, and to her husband while they had sex, and they all died first, and now this terminally-sick girl is all alone in the world!"] It punched the pathos right up to 11, and combined with SAO's ham-fisted writing in general, my natural instinct was to just roll my eyes and say, "...really?" It's the same reason why I'll never touch any Key adaptation with a 50-foot pole, since the scenarios they spin are so ridiculous that I'd probably just wind up laughing my way through the show. Needless to say, I'm not really a fan of this trope at all, and in my opinion it takes an extremely talented writer to pull it off effectively. One of the best examples I can think of in the anime I've seen happened to be mentioned in this article, that of spoiler[Wakaba] in Cross Game. I think the main reason that one worked so well for me is that it was a senseless random accident, the sort of thing that you see depressingly often on the local news, and it was portrayed matter-of-factly without overwrought emotional embellishment. We were given the chance to see how the characters came to terms with the death, and how it affected their lives going forward. It was all done very organically, and as a result I wound up empathizing with the show's cast in a huge way. That's how you do it right. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11406 |
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Why would people be afraid to give blood? Didn't she get it from receiving blood? |
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Hauberk
Posts: 2 |
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This article was an interesting juxtaposition between tragic girls tropes.. Thanks to Mr. Martin for writing it.
I too felt unsatisfied in the ending of April where spoiler[Kaori dies and Kousei is off playing and there is no reconciliation. It almost feels as though the feeling of being left hanging is supposed to be more realistic.] I liked both April's Kaori & SAO II's Yuuki and appreciated that they both accomplished their goals in the end to be immortal in their own ways. Struggling for immortality almost makes them more human and believable for me. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4385 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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i was just thinking of that. and speaking of season 1, sachi probably should have been considered as a mention in the already dead category. we all know that some way she was gonna get bumped and it did had an massive effect on kirito during the aincrad arc. however i cant blame the writer on mentioning yuuki cause frankly that tragic tale of her's definitely had a bigger impact than imagined. not only on asuna's life but on the series in general . some fans say that the mother's rosario save the series from becoming irrelevant. |
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