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Rurouni Kenshin is the one show I've been able to compartmentalize "this artist is a douchebag, but the series is still good" ... if we ignore every scene involving Misao or Tsubame https://t.co/4isM2E0gMP
Something I was thinking about the other day (and didn't feel like raising the topic, but since Kenshin is trending hey what the hell) RK does a bunch of interesting things with the shounen format, one of which is how it handles ideological conflict via physical conflict https://t.co/oRIVkjyR6E
"We won the fight, so that makes us morally superior?" "No, that's the *bad guy's* ideology." https://t.co/BwlKeD2h69
This is during one of the aftermath chapters where we learn more about why the villains were rebelling against the Meiji Government, which we already know has done some shady shit https://t.co/rJurYVK1Tr
(though doing slightly more research into the Maria Luz Incident, YMMV? https://t.co/F1Z7DGc2BC)
And because this is a historical manga, the irony can cut much deeper So the characters are fighting to preserve the peace, which in turn means supporting the Government, which makes the morality a lot more murky https://t.co/AsNfdtJYyj
Adding on, the Meiji government only *exists* because of the bloody revolution that was the Boshin War, which ended just eleven years prior https://t.co/BHrkIsmse1 This is the inciting incident for the story. The *first page* of the manga shows Kenshin fighting in it https://t.co/0ji0tvQUZq
And when Kenshin goes back to finish his training with his master, he gets called out on this hard (he does still learn the final techniques; it's not that far out-there) https://t.co/D6ViEgmWLa
So by this point in the story, Kenshin knows that even though the current system has a ton of problems, the answer is not to throw it away and build a new one. Because he already tried that, and it just made the current flawed system 🤷♂️ https://t.co/S3I2ufRKBV
you cannot use The Tools Of Evil for good. you might get superficially nice-looking outcomes for a bit, but the rot goes deep into the heart of everything. the corruption creates resentment, hatred, contempt that will erupt in the next cycle of violence https://t.co/2X6LcKri2C
I will say that Speaker for the Dead also still holds up It's just a shame that the author didn't seem to have really understood his own work https://t.co/ebYlbRCdlN