Doujinshi commentary: Beat

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Circle:		Unknown
Type:		Normal, serious story. 34 pages.
Date:		2000/9

This doujinshi's story begins in a city (it appears to be either Lindblum or Alexandria) when Vivi drops a few seeds. Zidane asks him what they are, and Vivi explains that his grandfather used to like them a lot, so he carries them now. While chasing after Zidane, Vivi trips and scatters the seeds, then scrambles frantically to pick them up again. Then he sees a girl angrily fling a dog doll into the water. Vivi is aghast. Why did she do that? She answers harshly that she no longer needs it, and strides off. Vivi looks at the doll floating in the water for a while, then gathers it up and holds onto it. He thinks at length about his own existence; he himself was created as a doll, to be thrown away later. Is he needed, and what is the reason for his existence? He wishes that his grandfather was still alive to teach him. Zidane finds him sitting by the water, completely soaked, crying and holding the soggy doll. Vivi tells Zidane about what he has been thinking. Zidane replies very emphatically that Vivi is alive, he does exist, and he has to make his own decisions about what the meaning of that is. The girl who threw the doll away turns up, now looking sad, and Zidane gives her back the doll. At the end, Vivi plants the seeds so they will grow.

Whew. I spent a lot of time translating this story. I didn't get anywhere near all of it - slang and complex sentence structures throw me - but I could sort out what people were saying and thinking most of the time. Other doujinshi have touched on Vivi's fear that he is only a doll, but this one addresses it head-on. I liked how, at the end, Vivi planted the seeds - he was no longer going to just hold on to his past, but put it to some use, symbolic of deciding what the meaning of his own life was going to be. I was a little less pleased with how callous Zidane acted: first he walked off while Vivi was explaining about the seeds, then he scowled at Vivi for crying, and finally he yelled in Vivi's face. I suppose the last part was just "tough love," and he did act mellower right afterwards.

This is a small doujinshi, about 5.75 x 8.25. Pretty densely packed in terms of quality artwork; I wish the images were bigger. (The scan looks much rougher than the original; smooth greys do not scan well.) Many of the backgrounds are not artwork at all, but photographic images of buildings, landscapes, water, et cetera. They go well with the art as opposed to clashing with it. Oh, and the doll that the girl chucks in the water looks exactly like a Beanie Baby version of The Liquidator from the cartoon "Darkwing Duck." If you know the character, you won't be able to see the doll without thinking of sales pitches.

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