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Suki Dakara Suki
I read "Suki, A Like Story" years ago, and wrote it off as boring and badly suffering from Clamp's icky ideas of how love works. I read it again, and I changed my mind. A bit.
"Love is love, and all love is good" might be a charming mantra, but love stops being good when it is the non-platonic love of a third grader and her thirty-ish teacher. Yes, it sounds like either a particularly nasty joke or something out of the mouth of a pedophilia apologist, but that is a sub-plot in Cardcaptor Sakura. Clamp's progressive views on love are painted within an uncomfortable frame. Toya and Yukito get to be in love with each other for the same reason that Kaho and Eriol get to be in love with each other, namely because every kind of romantic relationship is completely okay in Clamp's universe, be it between people of the same sex, between adults and children, or between human beings and non-sentient humanoid robots.
And then Suki, A Like Story, which is about Hinata who is sixteen but has the mental maturity of a seven year old. It is the story of how much Hinata likes Mr. Aso, her new neighbor who is also her teacher. Mr. Aso, who walks her to school and starts eating breakfast and dinner at her place because she insists on inviting him. Yeah, nothing weird about that at all. And it's Clamp, so there's nothing creepy here, just a cute love story. Between a girl who probably still believes in Santa and a man twice her age. Who happens to be her teacher.
But I won't harp on about this for much longer; you get the point. Back in the mid 2000s, I thought Hinata was a stupid character, that Mr. Aso was just like Toya and Shuichiro and that guy in Clover (as far as I've read it), that the secondary cast was a lot less interesting than what Clamp can do on their good days. I thought the story was boring; I read it because I had this unstated wish to really get into Clamp, and then I forgot it.
The thing I realised as I read it again is that I'd probably really like it if it wasn't a love story. Because Hinata, for all the utterly unrealistic naiveté, had an outlook on life that made me feel a bit better about mine. No matter how unbelievable it was: there was something in those moments when the artwork softened around her as she proclaimed how much she liked those simple things in life that made me feel as if the world is better than I normally think it is. And Mr. Aso, who I thought was just your average badly-characterised super seme type, I now realised was funny because he is perpetually annoyed while reticent by nature, and I love how his mimicry communicates it. I started really liking Emi after I realised that she's like a prototype of Tamayo from Angelic Layer; I really paid attention to Tomo and found that he wasn't such a creep this time around, even if his connection to Aso is still hard to believe in. Even Hinata's crush on Mr. Aso is adorable if taken out of the context of the story it is in. I used to think that Suki was completely forgettable, but I've changed my mind. The premise is uncomfortable and the plot is dumb, but the stuff of which Suki is made is something that I can quite like.
There are ways in which 90% of Suki could have remained and made it something that isn't inappropriate. They could've played it as friendship. They could've played it as a one-sided crush. They could've played it as a one-sided crush with a side dish of Mr. Aso's issues. They could have done more or less everything the same, except for the part where they start dating in the end because dear God, Clamp, he is twice her age and she has the mind of a seven year old.
Also: the bears. Stick to the smut, Tomo. Your picture books are awful.
"Love is love, and all love is good" might be a charming mantra, but love stops being good when it is the non-platonic love of a third grader and her thirty-ish teacher. Yes, it sounds like either a particularly nasty joke or something out of the mouth of a pedophilia apologist, but that is a sub-plot in Cardcaptor Sakura. Clamp's progressive views on love are painted within an uncomfortable frame. Toya and Yukito get to be in love with each other for the same reason that Kaho and Eriol get to be in love with each other, namely because every kind of romantic relationship is completely okay in Clamp's universe, be it between people of the same sex, between adults and children, or between human beings and non-sentient humanoid robots.
And then Suki, A Like Story, which is about Hinata who is sixteen but has the mental maturity of a seven year old. It is the story of how much Hinata likes Mr. Aso, her new neighbor who is also her teacher. Mr. Aso, who walks her to school and starts eating breakfast and dinner at her place because she insists on inviting him. Yeah, nothing weird about that at all. And it's Clamp, so there's nothing creepy here, just a cute love story. Between a girl who probably still believes in Santa and a man twice her age. Who happens to be her teacher.
But I won't harp on about this for much longer; you get the point. Back in the mid 2000s, I thought Hinata was a stupid character, that Mr. Aso was just like Toya and Shuichiro and that guy in Clover (as far as I've read it), that the secondary cast was a lot less interesting than what Clamp can do on their good days. I thought the story was boring; I read it because I had this unstated wish to really get into Clamp, and then I forgot it.
The thing I realised as I read it again is that I'd probably really like it if it wasn't a love story. Because Hinata, for all the utterly unrealistic naiveté, had an outlook on life that made me feel a bit better about mine. No matter how unbelievable it was: there was something in those moments when the artwork softened around her as she proclaimed how much she liked those simple things in life that made me feel as if the world is better than I normally think it is. And Mr. Aso, who I thought was just your average badly-characterised super seme type, I now realised was funny because he is perpetually annoyed while reticent by nature, and I love how his mimicry communicates it. I started really liking Emi after I realised that she's like a prototype of Tamayo from Angelic Layer; I really paid attention to Tomo and found that he wasn't such a creep this time around, even if his connection to Aso is still hard to believe in. Even Hinata's crush on Mr. Aso is adorable if taken out of the context of the story it is in. I used to think that Suki was completely forgettable, but I've changed my mind. The premise is uncomfortable and the plot is dumb, but the stuff of which Suki is made is something that I can quite like.
There are ways in which 90% of Suki could have remained and made it something that isn't inappropriate. They could've played it as friendship. They could've played it as a one-sided crush. They could've played it as a one-sided crush with a side dish of Mr. Aso's issues. They could have done more or less everything the same, except for the part where they start dating in the end because dear God, Clamp, he is twice her age and she has the mind of a seven year old.
Also: the bears. Stick to the smut, Tomo. Your picture books are awful.