Buraiden Gai Chapter 31 Discussion

What did you think of this chapter?

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Oct 10, 2019 9:01 PM

gfsdfgsdgsdfgs

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Jun 2016

3391

THIS IS A MANGA ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS ANYTHING BEYOND THIS CHAPTER.
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I think we saw both Kurata, the biker from the start of the institution, and Yukio, the guy with the unique teeth who supposedly bullied a kid to the point that they left school. Both have their own personalities even if not extremely explored, Kurata being a rough, brutish fellow who liked picking on people and Yukio being the one to call out human rights as was he one of the ‘greedy’ kids from the beginning. Them, Ishihara, the stoic, possibly selfless badass, Ogawa, the baby forced into action following Gai, and Gai all make for a group of characters that feel somewhat distinct. Not that distinct, not that interesting, but it makes them feel far less like an empty uniform group of people representing one type of person, and rather like people.

We were also introduced to the bespeckled senpai here who started that philosophical talk in the residence room. He said:

A dream is a synonym for desire.
When a desire is unfulfilled to a degree it becomes harmful and one suffers. This can be like how one suffers if they can’t eat, but rather they suffer emotionally if they don’t fulfil their dreams.
World is full of dreams and yet also full of suffering.
Therefore, desires such as following dreams lead to nothing but suffering and one should throw them away! This includes trying to escape.

My first thought was that this was said by a Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa character named Toku in the homeless arc and it made me assess the way Kurosawa addressed this problem, with a little bit of philosophy from Kaiji added in too.

I would say that a point from Kurosawa was that being human is to dream, like how Toku, the stand in for our bespectacled friend, said he threw his dreams away but bought a new suit. “If you don’t want to live a life full of painful tomorrows, then you have to throw your hopes away!”, he said. Yet, the end message is clearly not this. To touch on an early Kurosawa idea, an animal simply survives and that is a success for them, but a human cannot be happy with mere survival, they have to give their all, they have to “fight” and therefore feel “alive”. To throw away your dreams and barely get by would be throwing away your humanity in a sense.

But this doesn’t mean one should dream into the skies, Fukumoto depicts such things in Kaiji as dreaming of fortunes and he also depicts that as miserable from the side of Kazuya. The act of “living” Kaiji finds is in the task of gambling with his life on the line itself- Kaiji has to give his all. Kurosawa, in my opinion, still dreams of being intimate with women and things like that, but he finds on his journey that the task itself of mustering up your courage to fight for what you believe in is what it means to live, culminating as he goes out into a blaze of glory for an old homeless lady. Like Gai he learns pride is not one such thing he should die for, but he does find things he should and can die happy for. To quote Confession, written by Fukumoto, “living long doesn’t always mean happiness”. One needs something to fight towards to feel alive and be fulfilled and happy, and one cannot throw away their hopes and dreams. Sure, Kaiji and Kurosawa feel awful and sad and depressed but part of being human is dealing with adversity and despair and making sure you go out like a freaking ant when it counts!

Further, I think Fukumoto focuses on the essence of what it means to live in these extreme moments but also on what it means to live a mundane, for lack of a better word, life focused on in Shin Kurosawa. To push yourself everyday but enjoy the little things, the friendships you make, the meals, the power spots, the beautiful things you see. I think Hatsue, Kaiji’s mom, is a great example of a happy life in that she loves taking walks and havings baths and her beautiful son. She strives with this in mind, to our knowledge she is content with the simple. I think Fukumoto writes about the meaning of life being a duality between appreciating what you have, and pushing yourself when it comes to the things you’re passionate about rather than projections of what you think you want. This argument made me think of all of this...

However, that is all information from outside of the Gai. To call towards information within the text, I simply think we need to look back at Abe’s words about power.

“Try to imagine this! Animals as weak as they can be. For example, rabbits, rats or bugs, even microscopic organisms, all living things are working towards a future! Even with their limited strength, they’re trying to live on! Even those simple little bugs DREAM of a tomorrow! But you are even lower than they are!”

Now, look at Abe. He’s full of despair and suffering. Recall he laughed at the fact that his money will be gone to the point that no one else can take it from him, there was a sad joy in the fact that he’d have nothing left. Why is he suffering? It’s because he isn’t striving towards that future despite how much he wants to change. Doing so is hard, I think that’s why he can respect Gai. But to do as our bespeckled friend suggested, to throw away your hopes and dreams, that would mean to be even lower than a bug! Gai knows the situation he is in and yet he decides to fight on, because if you don’t fight for your dreams and what you believe in, are you human? This also works as a nice parallel to Sawai comparing them to dogs and saying they are below humans…

I must give some credit where it’s due. I love the logical argument he made, it was charming, and I love how he made me consider desires and dreams as the same. I would like to sit on that distinction.

And from there, we cut to Ishihara being tortured. Like the first callback with Kurata and Yukio, after the horrific electrocution we had one of those “accidents” brought up in chapter 9. Ishihara stayed with Gai to make sure no “unavoidable accidents” occurred but Gai couldn’t do the same for him. I was at least grateful it was a bluff and not the poison Sawai suggested, but that should create horrible paranoia. Ishihara will feel suffering and he will think he is dying. I never thought of torture with poison before but Fukumoto made me realize how real that probably is…

After that, we had a chilling moment where Sawai realized Gai might be in this very building- WITH THE SOFA BECOMING TRANSPARENT FOR THE READER!

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Buraiden Gai Chapter 31 Discussion

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