Darksummerswind - Wicked Devil

Anya's Marshmallow Sofa

So, to time with release of the newest SxF chapter, here's my little rant about some theories I have on the cover of the second volume of SxF, featuring everyone's favorite little psychic. I'm not an expert or anything, I just wanted to put down my thoughts.

This is the Marshmallow Sofa and yes, that’s its actual name and I absolutely adore this funky thing. It was designed by a duo named George Nelson and Irving Harper in 1956. Only about 187 of these were made due to expense costs and design flaws, which I’ll touch on in a bit. They are considered a collectors item that can sell up to $15,000 so if you have one you might get a good penny if it’s authentic. It also happens to be the piece that Endo selected for Anya's cover.

Looking at the cover, the one of the first things I’m sure people will notice are the colors of the cushions: red, green, and yellow. Each one represents a member of the Forger family; red being Yor’s, green being Loid’s, and yellow representing Anya. Similar examples pop up throughout the series, such as below:

Now, a unique defect the sofa has it that it will flip should someone sit on the edge of the sofa without a counterbalance. Notice how Anya is not only sitting in the middle of the sofa, but also between the colors of her parents? She’s the center piece that not only completes the family dynamic that is the Forger family, but also keeps them in balance. She helps her parents multiple times in their missions and is a constant reminder as to why they are fighting for a peaceful world in the future. She's the thing keeping them from falling over.

Something else I wanted to talk about the cover is how empty it is. Similar to Yor’s or Bond’s covers, the cover is void of anything that belongs to Anya save the stuffed animal that she had before Loid adopted her. I think that this speaks volumes of what Anya’s cares about the most in her life. Her family. She’s surrounded by the colors of her parents and the bond that is represented by the attaching frame work of the sofa that holds her up. The animal is the loneliness that she felt before she met Loid and Yor, a kind of constant reminder that plagues her throughout series, reinforcing her desire to keep her family together at all costs.

I do have one last theory and granted, this one might be a stretch. On the cover, Yor’s color is to the left of Anya while Loid’s is to her right, with her remaining front and center. If you take a look at the third and first volume covers, you can notice how Loid is mainly placed on the right of his cover while Yor occupies the left of hers. I doubt this was intentional, but I like to think it is.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the second volume cover. I might be completely wrong but this was really fun to do research on and I’d love to hear what people think about it.

I'm truly glad Shonen is finally solving its terrible portrayal of romantic relationships between their leads! And all it took were two necessary ingredients to make it all work!

1.) A generous serving of actually making the woman a fucking person with an actual personality and their own motivations.

2.) A dash of neurodivergence.

It do be like that.

It was my very commitment to writing that kept me from it. I wanted so much for it to be that ideal, submerged experience that I put it off. I saved it up. I longed for it, missed it, got bitchy about it, petulant, then again thought of it with a pang–an adored but long-gone love. 

- Bonnie Friedman, Writing Past Dark

Art by David Nakayama

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