One of the things I love the most about the Guts vs. Boscogn fight is the dread in Griffith’s face in contrary to the worry displayed in the faces of the hawks.
And also:
Guts used to be such a mortal weakness to him, it’s just beautiful and tragic to watch him succumb to it.
Browsing through the rebirth chapters and it just leaps out at me how utterly sexualized Griffith is, especially in comparison to Casca, who is (at least by Miura’s standards) totally desexualized.
Guts’ internal conflict is essentially desire vs responsibility, ie revenge vs escorting Casca to Elfhelm, ie Griffith vs Casca, and the visual depiction of that conflict is straight up, extremely loud and clear, naked sexy Griffith vs Casca all childlike in a shapeless cloak
yk what I was partly wrong here and over simplifying things
it’s not that Guts’ desire for revenge is sexualized through Griffith, it’s that Griffith’s sexualization is actually at odds with Guts’ desire to kill him. You can’t rly ignore “the instant I saw him… I’d forgotten my urge to kill.”
Revenge and sexual desire aren’t rly equated yet. Guts wants to kill faceless masked bird boy with great prejudice
he does not want to kill sexy naked Griffith.
Now that he’s actually reachable I’m having second thoughts oh no what the fuck.
So when the hound says he’s longing for Griffith and tells him to give him a heap of raw iron, what’s actually going on is less sexualization of revenge, and more… revengalization of sex, yk?
Sexual desire and violent stabby revenge are being equated by the hound to encourage Guts to pursue Griffith. Guts wants to stick something in him all right, and he should still want revenge, so it’s best if that something is a literal sword. As opposed to his desire for revenge becoming sexualized, the inherent sexualization of Guts’ desire for Griffith is what the hound seizes on and twists to lead Guts back to revenge.
Anyway basically Griffith’s desirability is still hardcore contrasted to Casca’s lack thereof, but honestly I think it’s less a metaphor for wanting revenge vs being stuck babysitting and more plain old straightforward gay subtext which is then utilized to give an added layer of complexity to Guts’ desire for revenge (and desire to desire revenge.)
ik this comes across as fake jokey analysis and/or giving the subtext too much weight so I can reach super hard, but tbh idk how to read this part without it. i mean you could just say that Guts fantasizing about Griffith’s pretty hair and ass and forgetting his urge to kill and whining about being stuck with Casca and Griffith abandoning him and the hound’s many innuendos are all unrelated or accidental but
“Throbbing… A faint throbbing. My blood should have been frozen…”
I wanted to paint something to highlight the complexities of Guts’ and Griffith’s relationship post-eclipse. The hill of swords scene is really just one facet of it, but the pounding heart and forgotten rage speak volumes. I also added a few closeups because painting all of the details took me quite awhile! I learned a lot and had a ton of fun doing it, though.
What she means: the reason guts has always fought with a stupidly oversized anime sword is because he’s been fighting ever since he was born. When he was a child, there was no option for him to fight with a smaller sword, so that’s all he’s used to. He’s used to being small and having to fight with a sword half the size of his body because it’s what he’s been doing since he was literally three years old. that’s fucked up. I am fucked up.
I’ve had touch by daft punk stuck in my head for 2 days and it’s such a femto/griffith song
femto, the monstrous machine-y beginning, ‘i remember touch’
griffith ‘tell me what you see, i need something more’ ‘hunger like a storm’
like 3 minutes of ‘hold on if love is the answer you’re home’ only to give way to ‘touch, sweet touch, you’ve given me too much to feel. sweet touch, you’ve almost convinced me i’m real. i need something more, i need something… more…’ which is so pre-eclipse
I just rly like how Femto’s exoskeleton can be drawn to either emphasize
Griffith’s face underneath the helmet or obscure it. It’s such a
good way to either depict Femto as a godlike otherworldly demon or a
petty asshole who can taunt Guts but can’t bring himself to kill him – or
like the bottom pic where after several epic godlike shots from
Ganeshka’s awed point of view, we see his face when he’s doing something
much more Griffith-esque: predicting what Skull Knight will do based on
logic and tactics rather than magic knowledge of fate.
Guts’
armour is more literal – when his face is hidden beneath the helmet,
he’s lost himself to his darkness. Femto’s is symbolic as his helmet
doesn’t change, only the angle we see him from changes, but imo it’s
really well-utilized to emphasize or de-emphasize whatever remains of
Griffith. And I think it’s definitely a trend – not 100% the case in
every panel, but overall when we see Femto’s whole face, it tends to be
in moments of weakness or pettiness, in moments where he’s demonstrating human feelings, however twisted they’ve become, and when either his eyes or his
mouth or both are obscured, it tends to emphasize his distance from
Guts, his godliness, his monstrosity.
Also, and tbf this I’m
less sure about bc I can’t remember every moment where Guts thinks about
Femto, but in general I think it holds true: Guts tends to picture
Femto with face partially or entirely obscured when he’s feeling the distance/difference between them and/or murderous rage
and face very visible in moments that emphasize Guts’ similarity to him, and danger of becoming him
guts: hm… why do i always think about griffith? why am i so concerned with having his attention and being his equal?? why do i feel embarrassed when he asks if he needs a reason to put his life on the line for me??
you're the only one 