#Arakawa sticking to the Tanaka brand and keeping Arslan's dead mother off the pages

[innerchorus]

Arslan Senki Chapter 125

I'm not going to cover the whole thing, just a few bits and pieces that are most interesting to me. My heart rate still hasn't calmed down, and the way this chapter ended is not helping! (No Zandeh yet, sadly... next time for sure!)

Losing my shit over these glimpses of TINY BABY ARSLAN and his birth father. Sad that we didn't get to see his mother too, though.

'Marzban' though, uh... I'll have to check the raw to see what it says there but I'm pretty sure in the novels it says that he rode off to battle with the rank of 100-rider captain. Honestly, Marzban feels like a totally inappropriate and way too attention-grabbing promotion for a man who needed to be killed off without anyone suspecting anything out of the ordinary.

I wonder what, if anything, will come of the 'Tahamenay's lost daughter' plotline in the manga? Will we ever find out the truth? Will it be different to the novels?

The end of the conversation between Tahamenay and Arslan felt very fufilling. Can't help but admire Arslan.

good panel GOOD PANEL

The end of this scene was slightly different to the novels, but I don't wanna drop spoilers here in case it comes up in the next chapter or so.

OKAY onto the last quarter of the chapter which is back with Hilmes and Andragoras...

What a horrific way to refer to the child he raised.

Hilmes trying so hard to rally himself after hearing all this, but when he hears Andragoras's reason for telling him all of this (which is totally on brand for Andragoras) he loses any composure he'd regained; he must sense that it's true.

I do think it's impressive that despite having the foundations of his world effectively shattered, he doesn't just let himself crumple, and his thoughts even turn to what Bahman said all those months ago, leading him to follow that line of reasoning in full and ask Andragoras who Arslan truly is.

He's cute here.

But of course Andragoras isn't prepared to answer that question, and the chapter ends with the two of them crossing blades for the first time aksdhjfshshj I am going to be an utter nervous wreck next chapter.