corhocysen

RAL 6011 'Reseda green'

i want to become mediocre at everything.
i speak 🇬🇧🇳🇱 well, i'm currently learning 🇯🇵, and i can maybe read some other stuff


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it's called Super Cub Rei and it's about Reiko, before she meets Koguma. i don't like it as much as i like the main story, and i think i've managed to figure out the reason.


whoever is writing it (i think it's Sakae Saitou?) seems to think of Super Cub being a story about buying things and driving around — and so in Rei, Reiko also buys things and drives around. but while that assessment isn't strictly wrong, i think it's incomplete.

to me, the big theme of Super Cub is that buying things and driving around can be a way to engage with the world and the people in it. it's about ownership, yes, but not in the sense of paying money, or legal rights — it's about ownership as a social and physical process. the bikes aren't just the bikes, they're also the effort it takes to keep them running, and a hobby you can share with others.

by removing that human element, the motorbike, equipment, and parts she buys are just objects again. they don't mean anything. i think that's why it hasn't hooked me in the same way.


when media is bad (or more just mediocre, i guess) in this way, it always makes me wonder how i would go about fixing it. i think whether that's possible depends on how much of the existing structure you're willing to keep. i certainly reckon you could make something more compelling while still being a prequel to Super Cub, and about Reiko, but you'd have to make it about a different series of events.

if i were to do such a thing, i think i would focus on the implied story that the manga just skips over: it starts with Reiko in elementary school, when her grandpa lets her ride their beat up old Super Cub around the land they own. then there's a timeskip, and she's 15 and aiming to get her license as soon as she turns 16. at this point she can already drive, repair, and modify a motorbike.

but it seems like it'd both be more interesting, and more thematically resonant, to follow her as she learns to drive this shitty old bike. introduce more of a human element by having her learn it from someone. have her get in trouble because she's like 12, and thus 1) not allowed to drive on public roads, 2) stupid enough to do it anyway.

have her break her arm and get scared of riding for a while. have her grandparents (parents don't seem to be around much) ground her. tell the story of why she moves to a cabin in Hokuto from her rich family's house in Hachiouji. there's so many options!

if only i were a good enough writer to tackle such a project lol. being able to draw would be nice, too...


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