Seventeen Months in Exile

An overlooked episode in Bleach’s history is brought to the fore …

As you may have guessed, I’ve still been struggling a little bit to get time to write this week. However, with this entry, that’s only half the reason for my lateness. The other reason is that my feelings on this topic are somewhat complex … well, maybe that’s not the right word … Maybe it would be easiest to explain, if I just tell you what exactly this entry is about.

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to write about what I like to call ‘Ichigo’s seventeen months in exile’ – that is, the time between the end of the Battle of Karakura Town and the proper beginning of the Fullbringer arc. That time may only be represented in the manga really by one chapter – that is, chapter 424, ‘The Lost Agent’ – but it informs and is referenced in other areas of the manga.

However, to start with chapter 424, what we see first of all is a full-colour page which echoes the very first page of the first chapter, with its profile of the character on a background as orange as his hair. This sort of bookending shows us the starkest way in which Ichigo’s life has changed since that first page: ‘He cannot see spirits.’

 

The differences between the two pages are notable, though. For, in the earlier instance, we see that the profile appears in the middle of a scene of conflict – a fight which Ichigo seems to be winning. In the later version, it appears in the midst of a page in which the protagonist is only just awaking. As far as I can see, this serves two purposes. Firstly, it has a story function, allowing us to have a sort of ‘life in a day/a day in the life’, in which we see all the more subtle ways in which Ichigo’s life has changed – how he has fallen into a routine of getting up, eating, going to school – and he takes us on a tour of how everyone else is dealing with the roles which he can no longer fill. He says that Karin has taken his place as the child with most reiatsu in the family, and ‘it seems like she’s coming to terms with it pretty well.’ And, he also says that Ishida is the one who now looks after the hollow exterminations in and around Karakura Town.

But, also – and this is one of the reasons why this section of the manga, though brief, is so close to my heart – it shows our usually active protagonist, in a more passive state, because that is how he has been left since he lost his powers. Throughout this chapter, he talks about that and the way in which others have taken on the roles which he had previously filled, and he professes to be fine with it. More than that, he says to Keigo, ‘After 16 years I’ve finally gotten a normal life. I’m fine with living out the rest of my life in peace.’ But, maybe it’s something to do with his lethargy at the beginning, or maybe it’s to do with the amount of time we spend in this chapter looking at the backs of people’s heads, and pointedly not at their faces. With Ichigo, such an emotionally disciplined guy, re-reading this chapter over and over and over again, I’ve begun to learn that the important things are the things left unsaid. Of course, this is where the art really comes into its own, allowing us to see looks on people’s faces which might belie their words, or, indeed, hiding those faces from us, as with the way that we cannot see Ichigo’s face as he talks to Keigo. Then, there’s the amount of images of Ichigo touching his substitute badge. And, his lack of remark on it implies that doing such is an unconscious habit with him. All of this points towards a nostalgic sadness that Ichigo is trying not to acknowledge.

But, of course, with his absolute breakdown when Ginjou steals his newfound Fullbring, we get his true feelings. He may have been living a normal life, doing such day-to-day things as eating breakfasts and interacting with his family and even going to school (albeit with dropping grades), and may have been putting his usual face on, but truly, ‘he wanted to regain his strength’ and was only ‘soldiering on’.

Time was when I would have drawn broad analogies between my past experiences in hospital (which I discuss here) and this aspect of Ichigo’s character, but, of late, I’ve realised that that would show only a superficial understanding both of what is being shown of Ichigo’s character and of my own psychology. I would have said that Ichigo’s seventeen months represented either the time I spent in hospital this summer or even the eighteen months which I spent incapacitated both in hospital and at home from the age of fourteen, and that his losing his newfound powers represented me going back into hospital. But, the thing is, on one level, at least Ichigo’s problems are easy to fix: he gets his powers back and he’s happy, because then he can fight and protect people. It seems that he has no lasting psychological damage. I say ‘on one level’ and ‘it seems’, because I’m not convinced that he isn’t damaged and that his seeming togetherness isn’t just a side-effect of all the battles he has to be involved in not giving him time to breathe or think. The thing with me, though, is that this is where the analogy breaks down: I do the battling – the easy part – when I’m at my most powerless, when I’m in a state from which I wish to escape. The hard part – the living of a normal life and putting a brave face on – comes when I’m at full strength.

But, if there’s one analogy between my feelings and those of Ichigo in chapter 424, it is this: I, now at least, can see how Ichigo is feeling in that chapter. I can see how he is depressed and despondent – as shown partially by his almost comment-free and emotionless narration – but doesn’t want it to show. I can see how he’s going through the motions of living and feeling distant from everyone around him, no matter how much he cares for them or how much they want to help. I can see him keeping it together by sheer force of will, while he feels purposeless. Because that’s not a million miles from how I’ve been feeling since the age of fifteen, when my brain decided that it couldn’t take this anymore.

Heck, maybe that’s it – maybe what he really wants powers for is as a distraction from the depression. I know I’d leap at the opportunity. I know I don’t have daydreams about joining K’s Homra and ‘blowing off steam’ for nothing. But, this is why the living is the hard bit: adrenaline and a fight, whether mental or physical will always distract you, give you a sense of purpose and make you feel just a little bit godly. Normal life isn’t like that. Comparing normal life to a fight is like comparing the Sims to a shooter. I don’t mean that in a snobbish way, implying that one is better. What I mean is that, while one is defined by action, adrenaline and objectives, the other is defined by the complete absence of those things. And, I just haven’t had enough life experience to have found a way to reconcile the two. Maybe the fact that I now see a difference between the two is a sign that I’m learning something. But that’s sort of why I started this blog: partly to connect with others who’ve had similar experiences and partly to unknot things in my mind and keep track of my thought processes over time, not to find conclusions. I also started it to write about animanga, though. There’s always that.

But, on that video-gamey note, I’ll have to point out that I’m also playing Spec Ops: The Line, so there’ll probably be a post on that, along these lines when I’m done. And, also, I’m interested: do you ever get that cathartic feeling when you realise that someone in a manga or any medium is feeling something you’ve felt?

L Do You Know Gods of Death Love Apples?

This post has been planned for a while for when I get out of hospital, and, surprise! I’m out now! I’m also not quite up to facing the huge blocks that are my future posts on Beowulf, Grimmjow fandom and, most importantly, Cardcaptor Sakura, as shown by the fact that I spent nearly all day sleeping yesterday and my legs are currently too tired to take me to get my breakfast.

So, I thought a fun little diversion might be in order:

Basically, while I was in hospital, I was on nil-by-mouth for four days, and for at least a week after that, my sickness was such that I couldn’t physically eat. However, all that time, I had the most peculiar cravings, and one of them was for apples.

There was a problem, though, with my eating apples even after my stomach settled, and that was the fact that I have a brace, meaning that I am unable to take bites out of apples. This might not sound like a massive logistical problem, but considering that sharp knives are hard to come by on a hospital ward, it really really was.

After a period of about three weeks, eating an apple became one of the main things I was looking forward to about leaving hospital, and my idea for this post came when a nurse mentioned about me eating more fruit. At this, I had exclaimed, ‘I love apples.’ This, in turn, made me think of Death Note, which, in turn, made me laugh insanely. This, in turn, made me wish that any of my uni friends were there who knew what Death Note was – especially Sammy who had been kind enough to bring me Death Note on her iPad before that.

But, now, as you can see from the above picture, I am currently in the process of satisfying my shinigami-like craving, wrapped up in bed. Hopefully, this is just one of many good things now to come …

BA RP Update #6.5: Day of the Cardcaptors and the Seven Trillionth Game of Reversi

Today was a day when both a lot has happened and not much has happened, depending on how you look at it. Possibly the first and foremost thing that has happened is that the pain from my surgery on Wednesday finally decided to die down. I had been surprised when I wasn’t feeling up to much by the end of Thursday, but the surgeon explained to me that I’d basically been stabbed in the ribs and that, because those muscles would insist on keeping on moving, I would be in pain for a while. Anyway, I still have a terribly bruised neck and collarbone and I have to be careful how I bend or twist, but at least I can walk properly now. It’s funny, though, the feeling in my chest now feels kind of like they’ve replaced my ribcage with biotech stuff. Maybe this is how Adam Jenson from Deus Ex: Human Revolution feels …

But, most importantly I can concentrate on things better without the pain getting in the way! Which means I can stop playing so much fricking online reversi! (Seriously, I’ve got to the point with that game where I don’t even think strategy anymore. It’s just, ‘Avoid the edge squares, then the corners.)

This means that a return to BA is definitely on the cards. I’ve made a couple of tentative posts today, but I know that it’s going to take getting all my brain’s cogs to get myself back to the place I was with BA before I took leave. (I know I didn’t write a post on that for obvious reasons, but it was pretty much just after this post that I realised that I was too ill to continue with all those commitments.) It’s not just a case of posting regularly and at length, like I do here, but it’s also that sense that as a member of the division, you are contributing to a community. I always felt that the best way to do this was to keep an eye on everything that was going on, and catching up on that is gonna take some time and brain cells. But, here’s a wonderful example of the community of Bleach. Several members had been in touch with their concern for me, so on one of my good days, I got my dad to take a couple of pictures like this:

Because I had a plan to show the people on BA that I was fighting back, and I then got in touch with the wonderful Will (4th seat) who then magicked the photo into this:

Just to tell everyone that ‘BOOYEAH! I’m bustin’ out of here! … and keeping up with my hadou practice.’ I love them all on there so much!

Also, next, teeny tiny thing on the agenda, just to finish on: there will definitely be more posts in future. Why can I guarantee this? Because a friend of mine got me to take a look back at Cardcaptor Sakura. And that rabbit hole is taking me deep, my friends … especially since I have been incapacitated for a while. Should be fun to write about it.

And, because this is only a wee, little update, here’s a wee, little link.

Ichigo and Me

Some characters are more than people we watch or read: some are a part of us …

I was going to save this post until later in the week, but, given that I had a little bit of a breakdown last night, I thought it fitting that I post this now. You’ll see why:

I know I’ve spent a good while talking about how I feel when it comes to a certain couple of arrancar, but I have only touched upon my feelings for the series’ protagonist. This isn’t because I don’t like him, or, even necessarily because I prefer Ulquiorra and Grimmjow as characters. It’s just that my thoughts about Ichigo were always kind of nebulous up to this point. I mean, he is a nebulous character – and, that’s good. It’s in the nature of a protagonist whom you have forever to develop in numerous ways that their essence will be hard to pin down to a specific speech or specific fight. However, what’s changed is that certain events before and during the short-lived fullbringer storyline and now in the more recent episodes which have helped me to crystallise my thoughts.

So, to sum up my attitude towards Ichigo, frankly I will say that, most of the time I find him to be a guilt-free emotional focus for the story, through which I can live vicariously. But, sometimes, I find him to be a real inspiration. Because, while he spends most of the story so far super-powered and steadfast, he is not always so, and the way that Ichigo is presented in these instances, to me, really shows how talented Tite Kubo is.

The examples which come to mind are Ichigo’s funk after his inner hollow prevents him from being able to fight Ulquiorra and Yammy, and most potently, what happens after Ginjou steals his newfound fullbring powers. I suppose I also might like to talk about the nuances of his feelings after losing his shinigami powers to the Final Getsuga Tenshou in relation to these things, but, in the interests of keeping this post short and pertinent, I think I’ll give that stuff its own post sometime.

I’ve already talked quite a bit in previous posts about the first of these, and I don’t want to repeat myself. But, I will say that what Ichigo’s depression and fear taught me was that it is natural for even the bravest of us to feel these emotions when we fail or face something unknown. I know I’ve already said as much in a previous post, but I think I should acknowledge it specifically with regards to my current situation.

As I have said, last night, I lost my composure. My arm was in severe pain, I was terribly cold, tired to the point of delirium and all I could see ahead of me were the uncertain weeks when I would still be confined to this hospital room. In that moment, I identified strongly with the Ichigo that would scream his heart out on a rain-spattered rooftop and even plead to have his powers returned. Indeed, therein lies some of the skill of Tite Kubo: Ichigo’s depressions are always so relatable.

But, even as I cried, I thought about the Bleach page which is my current desktop wallpaper (below), and I thought that Ichigo Kurosaki also showed me that even the bravest of us sometimes need those close to us. If even Ichigo needs to ask for help, I felt, I shouldn’t be ashamed to do so.

And all of those arrayed shinigami who lent their power to him reminded me of all the friends who are helping me everyday to overcome this. Of course, it also helped with the comparison that Rukia’s words could have been directed at me personally, as I have “come through much worse despair”.

However, even as I felt overwhelming gratitude for what my friends did for me, the little voice of doubt in my head, which creeps up on me in these moments in a manner not wholly unlike the way Ichigo’s inner hollow taunts him, started. It said, “You’re not like Ichigo. Because, every time he pulls himself together, it’s for the good of others. You are only trying to save yourself.” And you know what I did with that voice before it could continue? I told it to fuck off. Out loud. And it stopped. It took me some time to realise this, but the reason I was able to do this difficult thing was also partly down to Ichigo. I can think of two instances where he dismisses arguments against his determined course. Firstly, when he tells Ulquiorra that the difference in their power doesn’t matter, and later, when Ginjou tries to turn him against the shinigami establishment. Similarly, I realised that it doesn’t matter that I’m accepting all this help and fighting as hard as I can to get better with little sign of a righteous end. Do you know why? It’s because I realised that I would do the same for any one of my friends – and it wouldn’t have anything to do with duty or hope of gain. I would do it because it is what I believe and because I love them.

This, once and for all, proved to myself that I have the potential to be like Ichigo, that I can mirror his resolve. I just hope that I’m not the only one who can derive this comfort from Bleach, because I know I’m not the only one who needs it.

P.S. I’m going to have to leave this blog for a little while, as, yup, I now can’t use my right hand to type. (I could only upload this because I’d written a good portion before last night. However, some urgency has been taken out of the equation, as I definitely won’t be having surgery until at least the middle of next week.

‘We regret to inform you that there has been a change in our programming schedule…’

I know that this isn’t quite what I promised when I wrote my last post, but upon further thought, I realised that my idea for the last post in my series might be kind of difficult for me to achieve from a hospital bed, as I’ll be needing some scholarly resources from home which I can’t easily get. I’m trying to be optimistic that I’ll manage to do ALL THE BLOGS! But anyway, these thoughts here just struck me as more urgent. I actually wrote them last night, around midnight, as soon as they hit me. I thought it better that way. I tried to fight the urge, but it would not be silenced. So, here you go:

By the way, I really recommend you listen to the music on the video that goes with this post to get the full effect of the feeling I was having:

A few times now, as you may recall, I have talked about the Kill Bill films, mainly focusing on one particular scene in Volume 1, namely the bit where she visits Hattori Hanzo and gazes upon his collection of swords. But, tonight, in a thrilling turn of events, I would like to talk instead about an episode from Volume 2, this one being the part where the Bride is buried alive. 

What happened was that I was re-watching this film, while waiting for my latest antibiotic dose to finish, (my arm had to be completely immobile for the two hours it takes) and it came to the part with the ‘Texas funeral’, and a thought suddenly hit me: being in hospital is a lot like this. 

I know that sounds kind of melodramatic, but it bears comparison, really. Think of this: I, like Beatrix Kiddo, am trapped in a situation over which I have no control. Seriously, for the short-term future, I have a tube coming out of my head which means I cannot move from my bed most of the time. Then, I reacted in the same way that she did, at first. That is to say, I cried and freaked out. But, afterwards, I realised that I have the determination, tools and skills to fight my way out of here. I determinedly squirmed the knife out of my boot, and I set to cutting at the figurative rope on my hands, and I have started punching my way to freedom.

All of these comparisons are merely psychological, but useful nonetheless. Whenever I manage to adjust my table with only one hand or pour myself some juice likewise, that is me cutting the rope, doing the little tasks which make the big one of preparing for my next, and hopefully final, surgery possible. Every day I spend hooked to this tube, every sample that they take, that’s one punch closer to freedom.

To everyone who is helping me through this and those don’t realise how they have helped in the past, I say, “Here I come.”

“This is the form of true despair.”

Yes, I did just quote Ulquiorra. Did I mention that I like him? But, all of that aside, I just wanted to say that true despair does not look like Ulqiorra’s ‘Segunda Etapa resurrecion’. Or, if it does, it looks like many other things too, like a hospital bed after three months of illness.

Oooooh my God, mere weeks after walking away from life-saving surgery, expecting to be able to resume normal life, I’m back hospitalised, albeit, this time near university. But, I swear, that, on the day that I came into hospital (last Wednesday), was on nil-by-mouth for a day, was in pain all day, had a painfully failed CSF tap (read, ‘needle inserted into head to draw fluid’) and was told around 9pm that I was going to have to stay in, I literally freaked out. I just burst into tears, saying, ‘The only thing that got me through the last illness was the belief that I would have my life back at the end of it.’ I knew that I was being selfish. Someone, at one point, tried to calm me down by saying that other people had it worse. This did not help. Because, as much as I accept that there are people who have it worse, the only experience which I had at that time was mine, and, in that moment, my mind grappled with the sheer existential terror of everything I’d ever hoped for in my life possibly being torn from me. I had no idea what was wrong with me, and, for all I knew, I would never live a normal life again. I would be constantly bed-bound and would be fed regular drugs for the rest of my no-doubt foreshortened-due-to-lack of exercise life. Call this hysterical, but to the people who do, I contest that our sense of self could well be called an extra organ. It is SO necessary to our lives. And, the person who I am, to me, has always been a fighter. Every morning in the latter half of the seemingly endless two months of my last illness, no matter how depressed I felt, I woke up and said to myself, ‘3…2…1…FIGHT!’ But, last Wednesday, that part of myself went AWOL and the related part of my sense of self crumbled. I did all kinds of things which I never used to: I took painkillers which I could have managed without and I flinched at needles. I hated the person I had become.

But, if there is a God, then He has saved me somehow. He put a song in my head, and it was ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ from Mulan. Mulan was always an inspiration to me as a child, embryonic feminist that I was. (And, before it’s pointed out, I understand the massive irony of the song: that its supposed to juxtapose unironic endorsement of traditionally masculine traits with a context and story which shows how flawed our understanding of those traits is if we see them in exclusively gendered terms. I get that. It doesn’t make the song any less bad-ass, though. Or any less inspiring when, if you’ve seen the film, in your mind’s eye you’re seeing the heroine reach the top of that pole like a boss after being written off.)

Stories like that one, and Bug’s Life shaped my moral development. They taught me my baby’s first lessons on how to be a fighter. That song in my head brought me back to my true self. Suddenly, I could take any amount of pain. I suddenly realised that my mind was the sovereign of my body. And so, I got up and I marched, five times the length of my hospital cubicle, before stretching up on my toes seven times. This hurt like hell. But I could fight it, and right now, I feel like I can fight anything.

And this has taught me that, no matter how depressed I feel, how apathetic, how afraid, I am NOT a coward. What I am is the King of my existence. Every illness that I have, no matter how much I may at first succumb, I will fight it.

Now, I want to end by posting a video which has also partially inspired this line of thinking. The clip is from the film, Persepolis (if you haven’t seen that film – fix that! This clip is more inspirational when you know that Marjane has lived every word), which also makes fighting a metaphor for life:

The Practical Applications of Bleach in Everyday Life

A manga about a fifteen-year-old boy carrying a six-foot magical sword can be useful to the life of this nineteen-year-old female, who has never been in a fight in her life. Discuss. 

This is one of those ideas which took a while to mature into a full post. It took quite a bit longer than a week. For, I’ve been mulling over some of these ideas for months, as, here, I want to talk about Bleach in the wider context of my life, and, as such needed to bank up some examples. Luckily, I have some really good ones now, so, without further ado, I’m going to talk about the joy of Bleach in my life at large.

I suppose the best thing I can start by talking about is the way that I’ve used Bleach to consciously contextualise my experiences since I started watching/reading it, and the easiest way to do that would be for me to just launch into my examples.

The first, and possibly most hyperbolic is the way that I use Bleach to contextualise my quidditch playing. But, I think I can be excused a little hyperbole, considering the way that sports are often advertised. What comes to mind are adverts for sportswear and even certain trailers for the Olympics. I mean, they seriously had one with Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’. Now, if applying the lyric, ‘Valhalla I’m coming’, to a sport is not wonderfully hyperbolic, then I don’t know what is. Now, like I said, I don’t mind this glorifying of sport so long as there is a certain amount of self-awareness, that’s part of what makes it fun, and part of the reason why I even do it myself. So, yes, I will often see my quidditch games as being like Bleach battles. I even adapted a bit of Bleach into a quidditch motto (‘If I dodge I won’t let them tackle/beat me. If I protect someone I won’t let them be tackled. If I attack I will tackle them!’). It didn’t really catch on, I’m afraid, but it’s fitting.

The best example of this, though, was after the IQA Summer Games. This was an international tournament, and I was a beater on the UK team. We lost every match, which was fine and to be expected, considering our relative lack of training and experience compared to everyone else. It was just that I felt that I, personally, had not played to the best of my ability. The reason was, it seemed, that I just lost my nerve. Normally, I am a bit of a Berserker when it comes to quidditch, and woe betide anyone who gets in the way of my bludger or me. But, somehow, I just started to feel afraid of tackling – a new experience – and I felt like I’d let my team and myself down. So, afterwards, to spur myself on to further training, I found and wrote down in my diary two speeches from Bleach, used to make someone pick themselves up after defeat. The first was Rukia’s speech to Ichigo, trying to get him out of his funk after failing to fight Ulquiorra:

Are you afraid of losing? Are you afraid of being unable to protect your friends!? … If you are afraid of losing, become more powerful. 

The second came from Kenpachi’s speech to Ikkaku and is, overall, more fitting, if more hyperbolic:

If you like fighting, then quit bitching about not being killed! Don’t just accept defeat and beg for death! … If you lose without dying, it means luck was on your side. When that happens, focus on surviving … Survive and kill the person who couldn’t kill you! … Live! Live, and come try to kill me again.

Of course, I could only apply these so far to my situation – that is the nature of metaphor, after all – but I found them inspiring and apt, nonetheless.

But, aside from all this sporty talk, Bleach has had metaphorical application in my life in other instances, with one being quite recent – about 11 days ago, actually. Then, I had to go down for a surgery, and, ever since I was 14 and had an operation then, I’ve always felt anxious about the loss of control which anaesthetic brings. But, this time, I had just been reading Bleach volume 23 – the one in which Ichigo fights his inner hollow, and, as soon as I started thinking of going under with anaesthetic as being like when Shinji knocks out Ichigo, I couldn’t stop:

Seriously, when they put the oxygen mask on, all I could think of was Shinji saying, ‘Don’t let it consume you. You consume it.’ I didn’t feel any of my usual anxiety because of that.

So, while it might be said that I use Bleach as a way to escape my reality, I’d say that it’s far more accurate to say that I use Bleach to augment my reality.

But, indeed, I didn’t realise the extent to which this was true until I tried to give it up. Well, I actually did give it up, with very little trouble actually. It wasn’t as if it was an addiction or anything that I had to knock. I felt no loss really when I exorcised it from my life. When I returned to it, however, and started re-watching the anime from episode one, I suddenly realised what a huge part of my personality I had cast off. I realised that Bleach was one of those things which had infiltrated my dreams and lifestyle choices in subtle and almost imperceptible ways, that the examples which I have used above aren’t really that good for illustrating. It was a strange moment, watching that episode. It felt like coming home to myself. Then, to cap the joy of the moment, I spent the rest of the evening watching Bleach instead of working and still managed to turn in my best ever essay in about three hours the next day. I really think that the psychological release that watching Bleach gave me there helped me to work. It was just great to accept that while my watching Bleach might be seen by some as immature (part of the reason I had given it up), it was a part of me, and by accepting that immature aspect of myself, I felt like I grew as a human being, and became a happier, more balanced individual.

So, what metaphors do you use to define your life? Do you do this at all? Do you think it’s possible or advisable to use fiction in this way?

Ash’s Precious Little Life #1: So Much Scott Pilgrim I’m Surprised my Brain Has Not Cracked

Now, I’m very very tired right now so this update is going to be the least grammatical and sense-making post I will ever probably create, but, here goes:

Recently, I have been in hospital, and, having rushed in as an emergency, I did not take a great many things with me. The list goes:

1) 1 set of pyjamas
2) 3 sets of underwear
3) Some body lotion
4) Deodorant
5) My phone (but no charger)
6) Bleach Volume 32

That last item is quite indicative of my feelings about Bleach: I was feeling so ill when I left for hospital that I – foolishly, I admit – thought that I wouldn’t be able read in hospital. I’d really taken the book as a talisman – something good to help me feel a connection to all the good things in my life that I associated with Bleach. However, when my condition was stabilised, I found that I needed entertainment, and so read that volume, really slowly, savouring the artwork. That took about an hour. And I was stuck in A&E for eight hours.

But, I consoled myself by thinking that maybe my parents would be going back home soon to get supplies and could bring my iPod and the graphic novels which I had recently bought (while I was too ill to really concentrate on an actual book, I could still take funny books). But then I was transferred to a hospital two hours away from where I live, in Liverpool. This, of course, meant that a trip home would be inconceivable (the petrol cost! yikes!).

Therefore, when my parents visited and bought me some new pyjamas, I also asked for the next two Scott Pilgrim volumes. I was glad I did! And, continuing my habit of listing things, I will say that my reasons for enjoying the Scott Pilgrim books my dad got me were twofold:

1) How good Scott Pilgrim is – I’ve recently taken to saying that ‘Scott Pilgrim is the most intelligent comic book/graphic novel series I have ever read. And I’ve read Sandman, and Watchmen. TheWatchmen.’ There’s a certain amount of self-aware pretentiousness in this saying, in the way that it’s phrased particularly, but that doesn’t make the statement any less true as an expression of my opinion. There’s plenty of opinions and reviews around about which will say that Scott Pilgrim is one of the greatest comic books of the century or millenium, but there’s not many reviewers who would compare it to cultural behemoths of last century such as Watchmen. Although, to give these reviewers credit, I think this has less to do with fear of doing something difficult and canon-challenging (although to do so is certainly both of those things – I don’t believe that I even nearly do the subject justice) than an attempt to review the impact of the text alone, an attempt to be concise, or an acceptance of the idea that the two are doing different things. The latter is an argument which I really don’t like, as it is one which I’ve run into before when declaring how good I found Bastion to a friend, saying that I didn’t think that I’d find another game as good. His response was that I couldn’t say that, partly because I hadn’t played that many games to compare it to and partly because other games are trying to do different things. But can’t I judge one comic book or game against another for the aesthetic unity of the thing? Or how effectively presented is feeling which the creator seeks to evoke? Or the amount of nuance used in rendering the stories or ideas which the work wishes to convey? To explain the latter what I suppose I mean by that is a reference to the boundary between art and life: the two are inextricably intertwined, and, therefore, as life is complicated and nuanced, within certain frameworks, I would say that it helps for art to be so also.

These are the criteria which allow me to compare Bastion with Bioshock for instance, and, to return to my original idea, Scott Pilgrim with Watchmen. But, I would say that the idea of nuance in treatment of themes is an especially important one with regards to Scott Pilgrim, because its two main themes – an exploration of the way that young people form and live relationships and identities – are really difficult to write about. Ok, I’ll say here and now that this choice of theme does make me biased in favour of Scott Pilgrim over Watchmen, as it is one closer to my own experience, but on a more objective note, I will say that it is rare to see these subjects so maturely explored in any medium, as, unlike many, many, many, many works, it falls short of outrightly idealising romance.

(Phew, that took longer than expected.)

2) My kitchen artwork!!!!! – To explain: next year I am going to be sharing a flat at university, and, inspired by someone in the year above who did something similar, I decided to paint a canvas to hang up in the kitchen. I’ve been struggling, though, for inspiration. The other guy had just done pictures of My Little Pony characters and Adventure Time ones and the like. But I wanted to do something original. However, having read ‘Scott Pilgrim gets it Together’ (and the food section of a copy of Ideal Home magazine, in my insane boredom) an idea struck! Why not draw a picture of my friends having a great time in the kitchen, while eating pie?! (The food section had several pie recipes.) My next stage was to doodle and experiment with drawing the different people’s hairstyles and clothes. But, as I was doing so, I found myself playing a little game, giving everyone’s outfits different gaming stats (e.g. a friend of mine has an Assassin’s Creed hoodie, so that gave him stealth points in the D and D model). This gave me the inspiration to try a Scott Pilgrim-type art style, and so far, I’ve done character designs for all 13 people, and one preliminary sketch. Seriously, this kept me reasonably sane in hospital. I’m quite happy with the result, although my composition needs some work, and using a page from ‘Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together’ as a reference is presenting its own problems, such as all people in the picture being of a similar height. I hope to scan and post the different stages of my opus in picture form here in future and to update my progress here – hence the reason why I’ve given this post both title and subtitle. All future updates will have ‘Precious Little Life’ in the title.

So there you have it: Scott Pilgrim in my life. Can you believe that I’ve written all this with a banging headache?