![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeI reblogged a piece of SPEC fan art on Tumblr and made a rash promise to post about Toma Saya and why I love her. And apparently I'm being held to that. SO.
SPEC is a 2010 J-drama that starts off looking and acting like a mismatched buddy cop show crossed with The X-Files, and turns out to be about found families, an international conspiracy, and the worst boyfriend ever. It's actually a sequel or spin-off to an earlier J-drama, Keizoku, but I haven't watched that yet, and I didn't have any problems following SPEC. Straight-laced detective Sebumi Takeru's life falls apart when, in the middle of an operation, he seems to shoot his partner. He insists that time stopped and the path of the bullets was altered, but seriously, who is going to believe that? So he's transferred to a dead-end post in Unsolved Cases, where it turns out his new colleagues are investigating crimes affecting people with special abilities, or SPECs.
Toma Saya is Sebumi's mismatched cop buddy. At first glance she seems like a manic pixie dream girl. She pulls adorable faces! She believes in the supernatural! She is always pulling a red suitcase behind her! She's obsessed with food! Her entire knowledge of English appears to come from gangster rap!
It probably says a lot about the type of character that Toma appears to be that there was debate in the English-speaking end of fandom about whether or not she actually needed to wear a cast on her left arm, or if it was just something she did ... because.
But Toma has a strong melancholy streak. She appears to be a genius. She once had parents and a brother, but now her only living relative is her grandmother. We never quite know how much of her behaviour is an affectation, and how much is her true nature. And the question is further confused because ... well, the perky!Toma flashbacks:
Here's the mystery that made me fall in love with Toma Saya: is she naturally an eccentric, or is it a personality change caused by the loss of her hand in an arrest gone wrong? Or is it a consequence of the fact that the man she thinks is her boyfriend/fiance is literally rewriting her memories?
The pink clothes and manicured nails in the engagement flashback seem completely artificial, something that Chii created because ... why? It suited him to have a pretty, perky girlfriend? He claims he started messing with Toma's mind for fun, and then fell in love with her genius intellect. Perky!Toma doesn't seem real. But then, in the same flashback, we have what I like to think of as Olivia Dunham!Toma:
Still manicured, with her hair brushed and cut, still wearing (small) heels, but her appearance is professional and sleek, pretty much the feminine equivalent of Sebumi. And then her hand is blown off, and six months later the series begins.
And later still (...okay, in the last episode, so SPOILERS) she finds the photos Chii took while they were together, which are actually a series of creepy stalker photos. And there she seems to be a mix of her current and former selves: not especially dressed up, but not notably slobbish or eccentric in her appearance. Maybe that was the "real" Toma. The earliest flashback is of her as a schoolgirl, watching her father create and solve a complex equation that she can reproduce from memory years later. Which brings us to the next question about Toma -- not so much "does she have a SPEC" as "what is her SPEC?"
She can solve crimes by writing down the details, ripping the paper into shreds and letting them fall around her. Or, in one case, from letting Sebumi throw books at her. That seems like a SPEC, but we also see she has a prodigious memory and an eye for small, strange details, like one missing piece in a brand new jigsaw puzzle.
And then, in the last episode, she seems to stop time. Or does she? (Please, narrative gods, let the movie tell us!) A second ability, or a SPEC manifesting itself for the first time in a moment of considerable stress?
Oh yeah, right after she revealed that (a) her cast was to protect her re-attached hand as it healed and (b) she DESIGNED A GUN THAT WOULD ACCOMMODATE HER DISABILITY.
In conclusion, I think Toma is pretty great. She's an interesting character, almost a young, female version of Walter Bishop. I really need to watch SPEC again, because there were a ton of things I didn't get the first time (who is Tsuda? And aside from ruling the world, what does he want?) although I have a nasty suspicion that many of the series' mysteries are not remotely mysterious (WHY ARE SEBUMI'S TEETH NUMBERED? WHO ARE THE TRUMPET GUYS? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT TSUDA KILLED LAURA PALMER BACK IN THE DAY?) if you can read Japanese. Which I cannot. IT'S A PROBLEM.
SPEC is a 2010 J-drama that starts off looking and acting like a mismatched buddy cop show crossed with The X-Files, and turns out to be about found families, an international conspiracy, and the worst boyfriend ever. It's actually a sequel or spin-off to an earlier J-drama, Keizoku, but I haven't watched that yet, and I didn't have any problems following SPEC. Straight-laced detective Sebumi Takeru's life falls apart when, in the middle of an operation, he seems to shoot his partner. He insists that time stopped and the path of the bullets was altered, but seriously, who is going to believe that? So he's transferred to a dead-end post in Unsolved Cases, where it turns out his new colleagues are investigating crimes affecting people with special abilities, or SPECs.
Toma Saya is Sebumi's mismatched cop buddy. At first glance she seems like a manic pixie dream girl. She pulls adorable faces! She believes in the supernatural! She is always pulling a red suitcase behind her! She's obsessed with food! Her entire knowledge of English appears to come from gangster rap!
It probably says a lot about the type of character that Toma appears to be that there was debate in the English-speaking end of fandom about whether or not she actually needed to wear a cast on her left arm, or if it was just something she did ... because.
But Toma has a strong melancholy streak. She appears to be a genius. She once had parents and a brother, but now her only living relative is her grandmother. We never quite know how much of her behaviour is an affectation, and how much is her true nature. And the question is further confused because ... well, the perky!Toma flashbacks:
Here's the mystery that made me fall in love with Toma Saya: is she naturally an eccentric, or is it a personality change caused by the loss of her hand in an arrest gone wrong? Or is it a consequence of the fact that the man she thinks is her boyfriend/fiance is literally rewriting her memories?
The pink clothes and manicured nails in the engagement flashback seem completely artificial, something that Chii created because ... why? It suited him to have a pretty, perky girlfriend? He claims he started messing with Toma's mind for fun, and then fell in love with her genius intellect. Perky!Toma doesn't seem real. But then, in the same flashback, we have what I like to think of as Olivia Dunham!Toma:
Still manicured, with her hair brushed and cut, still wearing (small) heels, but her appearance is professional and sleek, pretty much the feminine equivalent of Sebumi. And then her hand is blown off, and six months later the series begins.
And later still (...okay, in the last episode, so SPOILERS) she finds the photos Chii took while they were together, which are actually a series of creepy stalker photos. And there she seems to be a mix of her current and former selves: not especially dressed up, but not notably slobbish or eccentric in her appearance. Maybe that was the "real" Toma. The earliest flashback is of her as a schoolgirl, watching her father create and solve a complex equation that she can reproduce from memory years later. Which brings us to the next question about Toma -- not so much "does she have a SPEC" as "what is her SPEC?"
She can solve crimes by writing down the details, ripping the paper into shreds and letting them fall around her. Or, in one case, from letting Sebumi throw books at her. That seems like a SPEC, but we also see she has a prodigious memory and an eye for small, strange details, like one missing piece in a brand new jigsaw puzzle.
And then, in the last episode, she seems to stop time. Or does she? (Please, narrative gods, let the movie tell us!) A second ability, or a SPEC manifesting itself for the first time in a moment of considerable stress?
Oh yeah, right after she revealed that (a) her cast was to protect her re-attached hand as it healed and (b) she DESIGNED A GUN THAT WOULD ACCOMMODATE HER DISABILITY.
In conclusion, I think Toma is pretty great. She's an interesting character, almost a young, female version of Walter Bishop. I really need to watch SPEC again, because there were a ton of things I didn't get the first time (who is Tsuda? And aside from ruling the world, what does he want?) although I have a nasty suspicion that many of the series' mysteries are not remotely mysterious (WHY ARE SEBUMI'S TEETH NUMBERED? WHO ARE THE TRUMPET GUYS? IS IT POSSIBLE THAT TSUDA KILLED LAURA PALMER BACK IN THE DAY?) if you can read Japanese. Which I cannot. IT'S A PROBLEM.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-08 09:36 am (UTC)XWA