Forum › Gunbured x Sisters discussion

Birdi
joined Sep 19, 2014

Oh, if the thing were as expected, they give her a wolf girlfriend so Maria don`t had competition, i think

Karma
joined Oct 21, 2017

I don't believe it she really was a werewolf, what's next a Frankenstein monster?

1
joined May 1, 2015

So, she was a werewolf. I thought people were just having a laugh by saying that..
Good I guess. Loli werewolf for the win

10807fb9dea2e14573bdced1ea4c45e9
joined Aug 19, 2019

After reading so much manga Idk if I can even trust these lolis

Blanksmall
joined Nov 24, 2017

I was so hoping she wasn't going to be a werewolf, just to avoid obvious clichés, but....here we are.

Ihaveseenthelight
joined May 28, 2013

Every chapter makes me like Dolores less and less. At this point I'm hoping for more of a twist where she turns out to be the final villain, after the doctor is taken care of and Maria's sister is found.

Tragedian%202
joined Oct 1, 2020

"May the blue moonlight shine down upon you!" is just how werewolves tell each other that they're taking booty calls. It'd be hilarious if the kid turned into an adorable chihuahua on moonlit nights while still being as badass as everyone else, but I guess that's just my love for the killer rabbit from Monty Python speaking.

Kiarabg
joined Sep 6, 2018

Some unsubtle foreshadowing here: right after talking about how the sun needs the moon, the scary vampire lady starts saying stuff that “they forgot their prosperity was only because of us vampires.” I’m smelling the, “church accually is evil regards” twist. And maybe something that’s supposed to make us about-face on Dolores, cause she’s looking kinda unsympathetic rn.

I also wonder how much we should take her, “I’m just manipulating everyone” stuff at face value. IDK. It happens often enough that I think at least part of it is a persona.

joined Aug 21, 2017

Now we have a werewolf... which kind of implies there are probably other werewolves out there. Deepest lore.

Fb_img_1519001452689
joined Feb 14, 2018

nice! i was waiting for the werewolves to show up

Internet_lied
joined Jul 15, 2016

So, just out of curiosity: Just how old is "Church is Evil" trope in Japanese media, and where exactly did it originate?

10466e3de
joined Oct 25, 2014

I’m smelling the, “church accually is evil regards” twist.

How is that a twist when it was already revealed the head of church has connections to pure blood vampires in previous chapters?

And maybe something that’s supposed to make us about-face on Dolores, cause she’s looking kinda unsympathetic rn.

How does that make any sense when Dolores is clearly at odds with her father (the one with vampire connections)? If anything, this puts Dolores in a better light.

I also wonder how much we should take her, “I’m just manipulating everyone” stuff at face value. IDK. It happens often enough that I think at least part of it is a persona.

I think people seem oblivious to what's very clear about Dolores. She wants revenge. She was in love with this tutor woman of hers who died fighting monsters and she wants revenge. And she wants it enough to go against the church and her father (you know, the one colluding with vampires!!). Enough to use any means necessary to do so which is why she comes off as a bitch.

That been said, she does have a point. She made it clear to Maria since the very beginning that she was using her to achieve her goals, and Maria accepted to ally with her and use Dolores to achieve her own goals (find her sister). This was supposed to be a relationship in which both uses each other, so Mari shouldn't be chickening out now and acting all naive and shit. She knew what she was getting into, and it's what it takes to actually find her sister.

last edited at Nov 20, 2020 6:55AM

Blanksmall
joined Nov 24, 2017

So, just out of curiosity: Just how old is "Church is Evil" trope in Japanese media, and where exactly did it originate?

It's as old as time itself. And it's not just Japanese media. It's one of the best tropes in all of fiction, because it's so true to life.

last edited at Nov 20, 2020 9:55AM

Tragedian%202
joined Oct 1, 2020

So, just out of curiosity: Just how old is "Church is Evil" trope in Japanese media, and where exactly did it originate?

Historically, Japan has had a pretty tumultuous relationship with Christianity- Catholic missionaries from Europe had more trouble converting the Japanese than they did with people of other nations, owing to the highly-entrenched nature of both Shintoism and Buddhism, as well as the nature of Japanese as a language quite different from, say Indian languages (you'll have to read up on Francis Xavier for more details, since he was one of the primary missionaries involved in both Japanese and Indian conversions). Even after they got some conversions carried out and won Oda Nobunaga's favor, the religion was seen with considerably more suspicion by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa Shogunate, to the point where it was banned as threat to national unity. Christians and Catholics were publicly murdered and even crucified, with the luckier ones only forced to convert, and later on, the Shimabara Rebellion only led to more oppression. After Japan opened up in the Meiji era, the religion was unbanned, but there was this general sense of bitterness and suspicion about the faith prevalent in the country. It was seen as a sign of colonial Europe, being thoroughly anti-traditionalist and alien. The westernization of later eras did soften these suspicions, especially since churches and Catholic schools started to be established and were often seen as places of high culture and prestige (you can see hints of this in Class S stories).

The point of all this is that Japanese media has an extremely odd, almost-contradictory view of Christianity- they adore the aesthetic and love to appropriate the symbols and terminology because it sounds exotic (as seen in everything from Neon Genesis Evangelion to Seraph of the End to Bible Black). There's generally little regard given to accuracy or history, because the Church embodies the aesthetic of aristocratic, rich Europe, while also being considerably more disciplined and mysterious than a standard monarchy. From a narrative standpoint, you can do a lot with churches- everything from ninja-monks to secret angels to chained-up gods. They've got fixed ideologies, a clear cultural association, and are what you might call 'stock institutions' in the same way as you have pseudo-Nazi governments or pseudo-Victorian societies- no actual historical context is dropped, but if you see a militant racist with an armband or a baroness in a frilly dress, you generally know what to expect. Audiences are saved the effort of needing to think about what a character might represent or contemplating the political ramifications of their existence, because they know that the pseudo-Nazi is a dick and that the pseudo-Victorian is stuck-up, just as they know that the pseudo-priest/nun is dedicated and possibly fanatical underneath a façade of kindness.

The Church being evil is, as Throbelisk above pointed out, a very realistic trope, and also your basic 'everyone apart from the characters saw this coming'-type of subversion. The audience expects the Church to be evil the moment they see a priest grinning sinisterly or spot a nun beating up a choirboy, so they're spared the effort of debating the ills and benefits of religion and can just eagerly anticipate the moment where the veil comes off.

TL;DR- Part of it is just good old-fashioned religious scepticism that you commonly find in modern stories, where anyone who's super-devoted to any kind of faith is assumed to be kooky; part of it is Japan's weird love for European aesthetics versus their disdain for European society; and part of it is just because it lets you simultaneously set up and invert a status quo without actually needing to do much worldbuilding, since you've already established the three-act structure of your story's evolution- Act One, the church rules, Act Two, the church is revealed to be bad, Act Three, we take down the church and build something new. I do wish that stories actually delved into what made churches work in the first place, though- they wouldn't be so powerful if they didn't offer large groups of people legitimate inspiration and faith. There's just so much ground to cover- optimism decaying into scepticism, debates over the idea of evil, the doctrine in scriptures versus the truth, the corruption in higher echelons versus the faith of new acolytes, and a million other fascinating topics, but nope- your standard Japanese story just makes churches shady from the word go, and only uses them to give characters Bible-themed superpowers so they can brawl things out on a chapel in the final chapters. But I guess that's what people expect and want- boring debates on theology in dusty libraries between disillusioned monks would probably be less entertaining than a plan to use Satan's femur to shoot God in the throat.

43353v3
joined Jun 7, 2020

Kiki X Shanon
Maria X Dorothy

Yuu
joined Mar 28, 2015

To be fair, Christianity was very aggressive up until the 19th century in converting every foreign country. Religion was a tool for political and economic control. Building catholic schools was never innocent. The Japanese rulers of the time understood it clearly and they used force to quell these foreign influences. Can't blame them really. Buddhism and Shintoism already were tools they mastered. They didn't need another tool in their land, wielded by foreign countries.

Kiarabg
joined Sep 6, 2018

kirin's dank commentary

Your comments are always spot-on, and once again this is an excellent account that really helps put things in historical/practical perspective.

This actually goes quite nicely with another point I wanted to make: the accompanying trope that, if the church is in fact fanatical, corrupt, and authoritarian, what does that say about the people it says we should fear?

That bears on what I was trying to say earlier:

I'm smelling the, “church accually is evil regards” twist.

How is that a twist when it was already revealed the head of church has connections to pure blood vampires in previous chapters?

This is a good point, so I want to clarify. Moe girl's comment--"that honesty of yours is surely the moonlight that complements the person who is your sun... People who shine bright like the sun can only do so because they have someone like you close to them," is followed like immediately by vampire lady seeming to claim a grudge on the church for stealing credit from the vampires. Obviously, we already know we have a corrupt church--that wasn't a good way to phrase things. What I meant to express is that it seems like we're seeing some more nuance in the relationship: it's not just, "the church is a corrupt institution that is taking from the very evil it is meant to oppose" but something more like, "vampires may be dangerous, but the coordinated evil actions we're seeing might come from a history of injustice that continues through exploitation."

So, perhaps the church created the problem that it justifies its power by "solving." This still leaves us with, "church bad," but it adds to the developing complexity of vampires and aligns with the "everything is grey" aesthetic of this manga.

10466e3de
joined Oct 25, 2014

vampire lady seeming to claim a grudge on the church for stealing credit from the vampires. "vampires may be dangerous, but the coordinated evil actions we're seeing might come from a history of injustice that continues through exploitation."

That's an interesting thought. But you might be reading to much into it. After all, this is coming from vampire lady who couldn't be more evil even if she tried. I mean, we're talking someone experimenting on humans and such. There's also the fact she's clearly part of the faction that kidnapped Maria's sister, as shown in previous chapters. So, all in all, I don't think we're supposed to think they're "grey." They're totally black. As evil as it gets.

That's no too say the relationship between vampire and the church (and maybe even humans as a whole) couldn't be more complex than it seems.

We do know the head of the church has a connection with pure blood vampires. Maybe there are various faction among the pure blood vampires with conflicting ideas of how to treat humans or something. We'll see.

last edited at Nov 20, 2020 7:42PM

Kiarabg
joined Sep 6, 2018

I don't think we're supposed to think they're "grey." They're totally black. As evil as it gets.

Oh, absolutely. Having a history that got you to a point of committing atrocities certainly does not excuse your actions. I mean to say that it complicates the world more as “a place that created the conditions for this thing to happen” and that it’s looking like the responsibility for those conditions lies with the church. Certainly, evil scary vampire remain evil and scary—though, like you say, it does also open the possibility for a range of vampire attitudes and degrees of sympathetic potential.

10466e3de
joined Oct 25, 2014

I don't think we're supposed to think they're "grey." They're totally black. As evil as it gets.

Oh, absolutely. Having a history that got you to a point of committing atrocities certainly does not excuse your actions.

What I meant is I don't think there is any history that got this evil vampires to do evil. I don't think that's what is going on here. At the very least there hasn't been any foreshadowing for that. All that was foreshadowed is that there is some connection between humans and vampires. That's all.

Kiarabg
joined Sep 6, 2018

I don't think we're supposed to think they're "grey." They're totally black. As evil as it gets.

Oh, absolutely. Having a history that got you to a point of committing atrocities certainly does not excuse your actions.

What I meant is I don't think there is any history that got this evil vampires to do evil. I don't think that's what is going on here. At the very least there hasn't been any foreshadowing for that. All that was foreshadowed is that there is some connection between humans and vampires. That's all.

Ah, I see now, got it. So then, how do you interpret the, “humans forgot that what they have they have because of us” line? or (whatever the actual quote is).

[I’m not trying to be shady or anything I’m genuinely interested in your take]

10466e3de
joined Oct 25, 2014

I don't think we're supposed to think they're "grey." They're totally black. As evil as it gets.

Oh, absolutely. Having a history that got you to a point of committing atrocities certainly does not excuse your actions.

What I meant is I don't think there is any history that got this evil vampires to do evil. I don't think that's what is going on here. At the very least there hasn't been any foreshadowing for that. All that was foreshadowed is that there is some connection between humans and vampires. That's all.

Ah, I see now, got it. So then, how do you interpret the, “humans forgot that what they have they have because of us” line? or (whatever the actual quote is).

What I get from that is that there was a time when humans and vampire were connected somehow but now they don't anymore. That's as far I would read from that. I wouldn't assume that just because this evil vampire calls human arrogant or holds a grudge, it means humans did something to vampires. There's no enough evidence to jump into that conclusion. For all we know humans were slaves to vampire and now they don't, so this evil lady is pissed humans were "arrogant" enough to stop being their slaves or something. This is just a wild guess, but my point is there's no evidence to assume humans did anything wrong or whatnot.

That been said, the main reason I don't believe this evil lady's "grudge" or whatnot is justified is simply that we do know the head of the church has something going on with some vampires. But if humans did something wrong to vampires, how is the head of the church getting all chummy with vampires? It doesn't make sense, right?

All in all, I believe there are at least two factions of vampires. Some who are at least willing to form some sort of deal with humans. Those are the vampires with some connection with the church. Then there seem to be another faction who appears to be trying to destroy the church, humanity and who knows what else. This second faction kidnapped Maria's sister and seems to have brainwashed her.

last edited at Nov 20, 2020 10:09PM

Tragedian%202
joined Oct 1, 2020

So, perhaps the church created the problem that it justifies its power by "solving." This still leaves us with, "church bad," but it adds to the developing complexity of vampires and aligns with the "everything is grey" aesthetic of this manga.

Yeah, this would be a great way to add some complexity to the series while still not putting the plot on vacation for a Bible rereading arc (I think FE3H also uses the trope to great effect, although the route structure muddles the flow of information up a bit).

Personally, I think there's two ways they could go about it, apart from the whole vampires-originally-enslaved-humanity angle that one of the posters above already mentioned-

1: The Societal Angle- Vampires are quite literally created by the church, in that it converted poor, marginalized people on the edges of society into mosnters in order to engineer a threat to humanity, and then brutally stomped them out in order to win goodwill and establish order. But the vampires either got too powerful to normally suppress, or the heads of the church decided to keep some of the main covens around in order to maintain the cycle of violence and prevent radical social advancement (basically like the human village in Touhou). This would tie pretty neatly into the history of vampire fiction- the two oldest vampires in English literature have been a lesbian and an immigrant respectively, so a big part of the fear of vampires was an extension of ye olde British fear of witches and the occult- God forbid (literally) that the non-privileged seize our power and shift the status quo. This would also allow for Dorothy to realize that her entire crusade is pointless, because there is no absolute good or evil, and so the only thing she has left to rely on in this bitch of a world is her hunger for cute chicks. Basically, she'll be gay and do blasphemy (bonus points if her dead mama is affiliated with the bloodsuckers).

2: The Religious Angle- The Church descends from angels and God, but the vampires are fallen angels as well, so they argue that they have a greater claim to divinity than a bunch of corrupt assholes. It'd be pretty unlikely for the story to take this route, especially since the religious doctrine in this manga seems to be appropriating Catholicism without actually drawing on its mythology, but I'm just putting it in here because I kinda want an Armageddon-type ending where the angels and the demons duke it out for good with crazy anime superpowers and in the end, society resets and we just have Dorothy and Maria chilling naked in the garden of Eden, snacking on each other's forbidden fruits and preparing to populate the world anew with soft vampire lesbians (a society I'm sure everyone would agree is utopian).

Fb_img_1519001452689
joined Feb 14, 2018

kirin so devilman?

Tragedian%202
joined Oct 1, 2020

kirin so devilman?

Haven't watched Devilman yet, so I can't comment on that. I did read a bit of Devilman Lady, though. Fascinating manga- unabashedly smutty and schlocky, but so gloriously proud of its B-movie approach that it became bizarrely entertaining. I had to nope out after the twenty-third or so rape scene, though, especially since there was no semblance of an overall plot. I've heard great things about Crybaby, so I might watch it in the near future.

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