"Dragons" features two brothers, Hanzo and Genji. This animated short reminds me of myself and my little brother. My brother and I often fought with each other so I know how both Hanzo and Genji feel about each other. I, like Hanzo, am the older brother so I am going to defend Hanzo a bit more than Genji in this blog. The story of Hanzo and Genji is that they were part of the Shimada ninja clan, which was a crime-oriented syndicate run by Hanzo's and Genji's father. Once the father passed away, the elder council asked both Hanzo and Genji to run the family business. Genji refused to do this because he didn't want the responsibility. The elder council asked Hanzo to do something about Genji and Hanzo ended up killing Genji. However, Genji was revived by Dr. Angela Ziegler, who is Mercy at Overwatch. In exchange for the new cybernetic body, Genji joins Overwatch. With the help of Zenyatta, Genji learns to accept his new body. That is the story before the animated short from above.
I can totally understand Hanzo's logic to force Genji into helping him run the family business. Being the little brother, Genji doesn't realize his responsibilities the way Hanzo does. With their father being dead, it is now up to Hanzo to teach this to Genji. The only thing that I don't agree with Hanzo doing is that the fact that he killed his little brother. As the older brother, the first rule of being the older brother is to "Protect younger brother" (or sometimes younger sister even). Trust me when I say this but this is the most important thing that the older sibling must learn from their parents, without fail. Doesn't matter if you are out with your friends or your parents are away, you must always look out for your younger brother. So I have a hard time understanding why Hanzo would choose to kill his brother. Sure beat him up or something but don't kill him.
Having said all that, Genji probably had this coming to him. If he had grown up to become more responsible maybe this wouldn't have happened. Genji, like my younger brother, probably spent most of his time being a nuisance to his older brother. I often think that younger brothers are born to be just a pest to the older brother. Being the older brother, I know that I can't go and tease my little brother for no reason. If I do, the little brother will always go crying to mom or dad (and the older brother gets in trouble). But on the other hand, if the little brother starts teasing the older brother, the only way to shut up the younger brother is to beat him up (older brother is still the one that gets into trouble even though he didn't start the fight). You can clearly see this in the animated short especially when Genji tells Hanzo that burning incense isn't the right way to honor his brother's death. Either Genji must be very brave or stupid to confront Hanzo again because if Genji keeps insulting Hanzo, it will probably get Genji killed again.
Another part of the animated short that reminds me of my brother and I is the scroll in the room where Hanzo killed Genji. The scroll translate to "Dragon", "Head", "Snake", "Tail". This is very ironic that it is written this way because I was born in the year of the dragon (Chinese astrology) and my brother born one year later was born in the year of the snake. Some other ironies are that if you noticed, Genji is taller than Hanzo (which the same for myself and my brother - my brother is taller than me). Genji is probably the better swordsman, just like my brother (we both did Kendo growing up so I know that my brother is better than me). I think what Hanzo should do is what I did. I know I used to feel sad and depressed but what made me into such a positive force was listen to Juno Reactor's Samurai. And hopefully I get to do that soon again because the Juno Reactor live show is very closely approaching - yes!
