using yukina’s bday as an excuse to release probably nonsensical thoughts about bs3 again because i have a problem
so y’know how garupa kinda skirts around dealing with difficult/complex situations involving side characters like family members. in the beginning it felt like the writers might’ve planned to go about it differently with stuff like aglow bs1 and introducing hagu’s home situation and of course yukina’s father in roselia bs1 but then retconned/downplayed the “her family don’t talk about music anymore” in a song unfinished and thereafter barely touched on whatever Bad Things happened in the past. Including in bs3 where it would’ve been very appropriate to do so since it is about roselia going pro and yukina having reservations about it. but THE THING IS. it’s maybe precisely because of what Isn’t said that bs3 makes me absolutely insane
yukina is a future-oriented character who is ironically haunted by her past issues coming back to bite her. it happens in bs2 of course but bs3 somehow reads like a parallel to her pre-bs1 spiral into obsession as if it’s sort of indirectly addressing what was never shown, in a way that says This Way of Handling Things Is Very Very Her. she starts out happy and fulfilled just like she was as a child. she’s having fun with music and no longer using it as a means to an end. but then things change and suddenly everyone else has a reason to want to go pro and she alone doesn’t and she falls back into forcing other people’s goals on herself to the point she seems to want what they want more than them (i’m not saying she didn’t want to go to fwf but it wasn’t out of her own ambition y’know … it giving her a purpose seemed more important) and doing what she thinks she has to do instead of listening to her heart and it’s like … this is what happened before just less extreme
the fact that we See It Happen unlike in bs1 when she was already deep in the hole she dug herself into. we see it. the moment she commits to this new goal, her new everything, because god this girl does not know what half-hearted devotion means. the quiet quiet resignation as she agrees to sing a song she said roselia would never perform again. the lies the persuasion the betraying her values and justifying her own actions to herself as well as the others the rash decisions without consulting the others the desperation hidden under the logic as she keeps singing and singing and it’s not working and she knows it but can’t stop. no no yukina no not again. don’t do this again. she does it again. she has roselia to snap her out of it but. oh to be the same person you always were in changed circumstances and you’ve grown so much and yet. you can’t escape the curse of being you. she is so real for this
not addressing stuff explicitly Could be a device that reflects yukina’s avoidance of her feelings. in bs2 we’re not privy to her thoughts at all until she breaks. in bs3 she thinks about the future like it’s a logic puzzle so that’s all we get but yeahhh her actions say otherwise. she’s scared of what will happen to roselia if they go pro but rationalises the living hell out of it, downplays her concerns and decides they’re doing it anyway. everyone else wants to and it’s the best path for them! her father gets one passing mention as if she’s over what the industry did just because she talked to one (1) pro musician in the zeal of proud event. she is not over it. “I thought that perhaps the fulfilling time we spend on our music would end,” she admits later. does that sound like someone who’s over a very similar fulfilling time having ended before. (tweaked the translation because it left out the 終わってしまう which is the most important part.) then ako and rinko reassuring her that change isn’t so scary and doesn’t mean the end and no one ever mentions the past but ugh it’s there
also LOUDER as a symbol of the past and unfulfillment and incompleteness and the whole birdcage thing associated with it … goddamn she really did leave that baggage behind only to find herself trapped again before concluding that it’s not that she won’t sing it anymore, it’s that she can’t. like it’s something beyond her control
(isn’t it ironic that the Sprechchor mv shows her bandmates trapped when she’s the one who actually is. almost like she feels responsible for holding them back with her uncertainty and thinks the entire burden of freeing them rests on her—)
yukina isn’t bad at emotions, quite the contrary especially in events where she plays support, but she just does not want to deal with her own feelings when they act up. she’d rather things be controlled and orderly! which is not how emotions work! people think she’s just an ass because outwardly she doesn’t appear to be struggling until the rationalising and problem-solving and bashing her head against a wall don’t work and she’s forced to face her feelings and there’s nothing more threatening to her sense of control than oh god Feelings
the senkou mv as a representation of that … her antagonist self depicted as a violent and unpredictable threat that literally puts her system on red alert but who is also made of light and y’know, that pure wide-eyed child at her very core who reminds her of her love and passion for music … her entire arc about rediscovering that love, and facing her feelings both good and bad being the key to facing music. and bs3 has her acknowledge that she needs to talk stuff out Before she ends up doing all sorts of reckless and confusing things as a band-aid solution yet again
the way she is such an unstoppable force and yet. she’s just a girl who sings. sayo accused her of having no vision beyond fwf all the way back in bs1 and … she really didn’t. she wants to reach the heights of music which is a really abstract unworldly concept and music when it’s connected to her love in its purest form is what matters to her, not fame or commercial success, and yet she keeps sabotaging her truth and and
(really interesting contrast with rui who thought her love meant nothing without talent and recognition while yukina thought she had no right to sing with impure feelings despite being talented and recognised)
anyway thoughts eating my brain. funny how roselia bs3 is the one where yukina is “too nice” and the only bs3 where no one ends up in tears but the things it does to me … the glass shattering in the pv was way too dramatic for the tone of the story but maybe that was the point
