A Favorite Panel: The Demon: Driven Out #4

I like the Demon: Driven Out. A lot. The art's pretty, Jason's suitably tragic without wallowing, Etrigan's a bit more over the top with the mass-murder, but one can blame that on the repressed anger of his temporary host, lots of Japanese/Japanese-American characters and language stuff.

Even if I spent the whole issue trying to figure out if Ame's name was supposed to be Ame as in "rain" or Ame as in "candy".

But that's probably because accent/syllabary stress is something I find impossible. I can make myself *understood* pretty easily in Japan, but I'm never going to sound like a native.

Anyway for all that, there is one panel that makes me laugh my ass off: when Jason Blood ends up on the wrong end of some Japanese gangster kid's gun.



Look at that expression. Jason Blood is *pouting*. *Jason* *Blood* is POUTING. The guy who's been alive for a millenium, stuck as the host of a demon, had his mind and memories mucked with constantly, ended up tortured in *Hell* for quite a while, whose best friend aside from a blind seer is now a living *cushion*...and he's *pouting*.

Why?

Because he can't speak Japanese. Apparently, he's fine with Latin, and the Romantic or Germanic languages, and can speak anything Celtic (wonder if he could talk to Ystin then?)...but he can't speak Japanese. And thus, he pouts.

*Pouts*.

Heh. The Japanese language and culture major in me is very amused. And this close to batting her eyes at him going: "Daijoubu desu yo. Jason-san wa nihongo o hanasemasen desu keredo, watashi wa chotto hanasemasu. Tetsudatte sashiagemashou ka?"

It's a good thing he's fictional. :-)

(And ick, romanji always looks terrible. But I'll be damned if I'm going to actually take the time to figure out how to get this thing to type in kana.)