i’m nearly half way through kokou no hito and i was inspired to read this manga because
when i went to south florida earlier this spring, i was waiting for a friend to come back from the restroom at a barnes and noble we ducked into on my last evening there. i was flipping through the few big coffee table type books that were showcased, thick, hardcover, glossy pages. i started with architecture ones but then saw one about a photographer who followed a few mountain climbers as they scaled up k2. it looked crazy, they were in these sling tent things that looked like hammocks (portaledge? hanging tents? vertical camping? –> quick google search). they were great photos. lots of pics of the three dudes in their bright colored (yellow, orange, blue?) coats and goggles and beanies. there were few captions but most of it was the photographer talking about how much of a beast the main climber was. i spent probably, like, not even 5 minutes looking through that photo book but it definitely stuck with me
someone on one of my anime twits just finished and the screencaps she posted looked gorgeous
my favorite part of the left hand of darkness was genly ai’s and estraven’s 840 mile journey across a wintery, harsh, unforgiving landscape
maybe it’s just the icy bits that really do it for me. but also, where i am currently in the manga, mori stayed back with nimi to die together. actually, mori witnessed a whole buncha people dying. so, again, not very much of the left hand of darkness here.
but you know what is very the left hand of darkness? when genly watches estraven ski down toward orgoreyn and is killed and either remembers or communicates with estraven over mindspeech one last time. i don’t remember which because i was too busy crying on a bench at astoria park right before a tennis match when i read that scene. anyway, in pacific rim (2013) raleigh becket also had to witness his brother yancy die while they were still drifting. meaning that he felt his brother’s pain, thoughts, feelings and everything during his dying moments as if they were his own.
anyway, i’m thinking about all three of these stories a lot, and feel absolutely So Normal about all of it