Week 2: Osamu Tezuka

AYAKO

This weeks' reading on Ayako was fantastic. I really enjoyed it and wanted to keep reading. I feel that something like that seems more like a depiction and reflection of circumstances and people as a way of storytelling. Initially I was intrigued by what was happening in the family dynamics,

I think his reflection on the characters are in a way a reflection of certain traits that do exist in people in very exaggerated ways. Exaggerated for today's context but perhaps quite common and accurate for the time period it was set in.

Having a status and keeping up an image is very common in the culture in general. Being of Chinese race and growing up in asia with asian parents, I truly understand the difficulties it causes to be put under that pressure. Most of the time your feelings are not as important as upholding to a certain image that is expected of you by your elders. In this way I can see what Tezuka was trying to showcase with the characters here. Of which they were all very much misguided and misled in their beliefs coupled with the pressure to uphold their believes making them do quite hurtful things to one another. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that any of them are doing the right thing but, having this pressure misleads people and pushes them to extreme behaviors. I like how he made every character unlikable because it showcases a very human side to things. Not that humans are evil but that these negative characteristics do exist. And was very much how things were back then. The pure reflection of bad attitudes going on shown here for the viewer to evaluate.

With the father, it is also another common trait for the man of the house to be king and ruler of all. Where all the others have to abide and live in a sort of "my house my rules" way. If you don't like it you can rot on the streets. I thought it was a very accurate and interesting representation of the man of the house but greatly exaggerated and twisted. How warped to think he could get away with half the things he did just because he had this sense of entitlement to himself.

The brother, treating people as assets to trade for his own personal gain, he was fueled by his fear of not inheriting his fathers fortune and his greed to want it all to himself. His selfish acts really came through as he traded his wife for inheritance.

It was funny that in the end we also get to see how Ayako grew up under all this pressure and wrapped sense of anything. Everything she knows is skewed and very unhealthy. There was no proper upbringing or role model for her to even try to learn about how to behave in a healthy decent manner. I thought that was so sad because from the start it was over for her. She never really had a chance at a healthy life. To be honest, none of them did.