H is for Hokuto
Apr. 8th, 2018 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhodrymavelyneI’ve always loved trios and triumvirates. Three people who balance each other in power and personality, playing off each other with an intimate, interconnected bond.
The trio could be all involved romatically or something else all together. There’s something about the number three, something about that dynamic which has a touch of the mythic to its balance.
Yes, three can be a crowd, but is it ever an interesting crowd.
One of the most interesting I ever saw in action was the Tokyo Babylon trio of Subaru, Hokuto, and Seishirou.
Subaru was an onmyouji. I’ve yet to find a translation for this in English which completely conveys what that means. Sometimes it’s translated as medium or spiritualist.
I watched Subaru lay ghosts to rest, cleanse areas of dangerous spiritual energy, and fight magical battles using a distictive style. He lived in Tokyo with his twin sister, Hokuto.
Hokuto was everything her brother was not. She was brash and flamboyant where he was shy and hesitant. Hokuto designed outfits for both herself and her twin. Her own costumes tended to be particularly bizarre.
Hokuto’s bold and original fashion sense inspired Gabrielle and myself. As proprietor of the Navel, ‘Brie decided to create strange hats and skirt designs of her own.
We might never have come up with some of the ideas we have if Hokuto hadn’t given us an example of what we could do.
Hokuto would often show her outfits (and her brother’s) when going out with Seishirou, the third member of their trio, a man quite a bit older than the twins.
Hokuto got along quite well with Seishirou, but he wasn’t her boyfriend. No, she decided he was the perfect boyfriend for her twin brother. She did everything she could get the two of them together.
This was unheard of in the early 1990s. I only discovered Tokyo Babylon years later. Hokuto’s role as an advocate of a m/m pairing touched me. Here was a girl like me, who wanted to see the two main male characters in a relationship together.
Hokuto’s desire to pair Seishirou and Subaru up had terrible consequences, considering that Seishirou was in fact a dark onmyouji himself. He’d been stalking Subaru for years, even since he first met his opposite, this innocent and pure hearted boy under the sakura tree where Seishirou buried the bodies of his victims.
Subaru would be next, but it amused Seishirou to play with him, to try and see if he could love this beautiful boy who was everything he wasn’t.
Hokuto’s decision to pair the two up had terrible consequences. She herself faced a tragic end, due to her desire to make things right after her brother’s heart was broken.
Yes, Tokyo Babylon had a tragic ending, all the more painful because of the playful, lightheartedness Hokuto brought to the manga.
This didn’t change the example of Hokuto of being bravely and boisterously herself. She gave Tokyo Babylon a unique touch of individuality and spirit. She made her twin adorable by creating an androgynous clothing style for him, making Subaru unique.
She definitely made herself unique. The interaction between Seishirou and Subaru was all the more because she was there.
There’s never quite been a trio like Subaru, Hokuto, and Seishirou. I’m not sure if there ever will be again.
This is why Tokyo Babylon remains to this day my favorite manga. This is why Hokuto is still one of my favorite manga characters.
The trio could be all involved romatically or something else all together. There’s something about the number three, something about that dynamic which has a touch of the mythic to its balance.
Yes, three can be a crowd, but is it ever an interesting crowd.
One of the most interesting I ever saw in action was the Tokyo Babylon trio of Subaru, Hokuto, and Seishirou.
Subaru was an onmyouji. I’ve yet to find a translation for this in English which completely conveys what that means. Sometimes it’s translated as medium or spiritualist.
I watched Subaru lay ghosts to rest, cleanse areas of dangerous spiritual energy, and fight magical battles using a distictive style. He lived in Tokyo with his twin sister, Hokuto.
Hokuto was everything her brother was not. She was brash and flamboyant where he was shy and hesitant. Hokuto designed outfits for both herself and her twin. Her own costumes tended to be particularly bizarre.
Hokuto’s bold and original fashion sense inspired Gabrielle and myself. As proprietor of the Navel, ‘Brie decided to create strange hats and skirt designs of her own.
We might never have come up with some of the ideas we have if Hokuto hadn’t given us an example of what we could do.
Hokuto would often show her outfits (and her brother’s) when going out with Seishirou, the third member of their trio, a man quite a bit older than the twins.
Hokuto got along quite well with Seishirou, but he wasn’t her boyfriend. No, she decided he was the perfect boyfriend for her twin brother. She did everything she could get the two of them together.
This was unheard of in the early 1990s. I only discovered Tokyo Babylon years later. Hokuto’s role as an advocate of a m/m pairing touched me. Here was a girl like me, who wanted to see the two main male characters in a relationship together.
Hokuto’s desire to pair Seishirou and Subaru up had terrible consequences, considering that Seishirou was in fact a dark onmyouji himself. He’d been stalking Subaru for years, even since he first met his opposite, this innocent and pure hearted boy under the sakura tree where Seishirou buried the bodies of his victims.
Subaru would be next, but it amused Seishirou to play with him, to try and see if he could love this beautiful boy who was everything he wasn’t.
Hokuto’s decision to pair the two up had terrible consequences. She herself faced a tragic end, due to her desire to make things right after her brother’s heart was broken.
Yes, Tokyo Babylon had a tragic ending, all the more painful because of the playful, lightheartedness Hokuto brought to the manga.
This didn’t change the example of Hokuto of being bravely and boisterously herself. She gave Tokyo Babylon a unique touch of individuality and spirit. She made her twin adorable by creating an androgynous clothing style for him, making Subaru unique.
She definitely made herself unique. The interaction between Seishirou and Subaru was all the more because she was there.
There’s never quite been a trio like Subaru, Hokuto, and Seishirou. I’m not sure if there ever will be again.
This is why Tokyo Babylon remains to this day my favorite manga. This is why Hokuto is still one of my favorite manga characters.
