#Toshitsugu Nakamoto

[imaybe5tupid]

laishuro meeting each others’ dads

(post-canon)

[cenvast]

"Toshiro Is Sexist," "Toshiro Owns Slaves": What's Really Going on With This Guy?

I've seen a lot of debate on whether or not Toshiro is problematic because he's a slave owner or because he's sexist in the context of his crush on Falin. While I do want to examine his relationship to Falin, I'd like to take a few steps back and unpack his upbringing first. We'll dive into the gender and class dynamics he was raised with and how it impacts his behavior in the main storyline.

Like all people, Toshiro is shaped by the environment he grew up in. Toshitsugu, Toshiro's father and the head of the Nakamoto clan, is the most impactful model of authority and manhood in his life. Toshiro does recognize some of his father's flaws and tries to avoid replicating them. But whether or not he emulates or subverts his father's behavior, Toshitsugu is often the starting point for Toshiro's treatment of others, particularly marginalized people.

The Nakamoto clan exists under a patriarchal hierarchy with Toshitsugu at the top. As noted by @fumifooms in their Nakamoto household post, his wife has more authority than Maizuru. She's able to ban Maizuru from parts of their residence, but despite disliking his infidelity, she can't divorce him or stop him from cheating on her. Their marriage is not an equal partnership.

On an interpersonal level, Toshitsugu and Maizuru also have a fraught relationship. While she does seem to care for him, she's often frustrated by his thoughtless behavior.

For example, he drunkenly buys Izutsumi for her — without considering how she'll have to raise this child — and invades her room in the middle of the night. When he cryptically says, "It's all my fault," she replies, "I can think of a lot of things that are your fault." She calls him an "idiot" and "believes that [Toshiro] will grow up to be a better clan leader than his father," implying that she takes issue with Toshitsugu's leadership.

Because Maizuru and Toshitsugu are described as being "in an intimate relationship" and "seem[ing] to be lovers," Maizuru appears to be a consensual participant. Still, this doesn't negate the large power imbalance between them as a male noble clan leader and his female retainer. This imbalance introduces an insidious undertone to Maizuru's frustration with Toshitsugu. Like Toshiro's mother, Maizuru doesn't have the agency to do as she pleases in their relationship; he has the ultimate authority. For instance, she doesn't seem to want to raise Izutsumi, but she has to anyway.

While Maizuru's role as Toshitsugu's mistress is significant, she's also the Nakamoto clan's teacher and Toshiro's primary maternal figure. She cares deeply for Toshiro: tailing him, feeding him, and taking responsibility even for his actions as an adult. While it might seem sweet that she cares for him like a son at first, Maizuru was notably fifteen years old at the time of his birth. In the extra comic below, he's six years old and has already been in her care for some time. Even if we're being generous and assuming that she didn't start raising him until he was six, she was still only twenty-one at the time she was parenting her boss/lover's child with another woman.

Maizuru's roles as mistress and maternal figure, in addition to her role as retainer, demonstrate the intersection between gendered and class oppression in the Nakamoto household. Despite her original role being a retainer trained in espionage, Toshitsugu presses her into performing gendered labor for him and eventually, Toshiro. She's expected to be Toshitsugu's lover, perform emotional labor for him as his confidant, care for his child, and carry out domestic tasks like cooking. She says, "Even during missions, I was often dragged into the kitchen." If she was a male servant, I doubt she would have been expected to perform these additional tasks. She can't avoid these tasks either, stating that her "own feelings don't factor into it."

Toshitsugu disregards his wife's and Maizuru's desires and emotions to serve his own interests. Because he has societal power over them as a nobleman and in Maizuru's case, her master, neither woman can escape their position in the household hierarchy.

As a result, Toshiro grew up within a structure where men and male nobility, in particular, wield the most societal power. The hierarchical nature of his household and society discourages everyone, including him as a clan leader's eldest son, from questioning and disrupting the existing hierarchy.

The other Nakamoto household members also internalize its sexist, classist power dynamics.

For example, Hien expects that she and Toshiro will replicate the uneven dynamics of the previous generation, regardless of her personal feelings. She sees her and Toshiro's relationship as paralleling Maizuru and Toshitsugu's relationship; she is the closest woman to Toshiro and his retainer, so she's shocked when Toshiro doesn't attempt to begin an intimate relationship with her. Notably, she doesn't have actual feelings for him. Her expectations are centered around the household's precedent of placing emotional, sexual, domestic, and child-rearing labor onto the female servants without any regard for their personal desires.

Hien also probably knows that her position in the household will improve if she is Toshiro's lover because she's seen it improve Maizuru's position. However, the fact that being the future clan leader's lover is the closest proximity she, as a female servant, has to power further reveals the gendered, class-based oppression she and the other women live under.

It's important to note that the Nakamoto clan bought Benichidori, Izutsumi, and Inutade as slaves, so they have less power and agency than Maizuru and Hien. The clan further dehumanizes Izutsumi and Inutade as demi-humans; their enslavement contains an additional layer of racialization.

Toshiro isn't oblivious to the gendered, class, and racial power dynamics of his household. He tries to distance himself from participating in its exploitative power structure. He walls himself off from Hien, who he's known since childhood, to avoid replicating his father's behavior and making his servant into his lover. He disapproves of his father's enslavement of Izutsumi and Inutade, and he lets Izutsumi go when she runs away in the Dungeon.

But does any of this absolve him of his complicity in his household's sexist, classist power dynamics and racialized slavery?

The short answer is absolutely not.

Despite his distaste for his father's exploitation of his servants and slaves, Toshiro still uses them. He refers to his party as "his retainers," and he has them fight and perform domestic tasks for him. You could argue that Toshiro doesn't like to and thus, doesn't regularly use his servants and slaves. In the context of him asking his retainers to help him rescue Falin, Maizuru says, "The only time he ever made any sort of personal request was for this task." But it shouldn't matter whether exploitation is a regular occurrence or not for it to be considered harmful. Toshiro asking Maizuru to cook him a meal still constitutes asking his female servant to perform gendered labor for him. He's also very accustomed to her grooming and dressing him.

Maizuru sees feeding, washing, and even advising Toshiro romantically as fulfilling Toshitsugu's orders to care for his son. They aren't fulfilling a "personal request." But just because her labor has been deemed expected and thereby devalued doesn't mean that it isn't labor or that she isn't performing it.

Maizuru's dynamic with Toshiro is also complicated by her role as his maternal figure. She loves him and wants to take care of him, and she doesn't have a choice in the matter. During Toshiro's childhood, the onus was on Toshitsugu to cease exploiting his lover and release her from servitude, but Toshiro is now an adult man. Seeing as how Maizuru defers to his wishes and calls him "Young Master," they still have a power imbalance that he's passively maintaining. Ideally, he would not ask anything of her until he has the authority to release her from servitude.

Throughout the story, Toshiro acts as if he has no agency and quietly disapproving of his father's actions absolves him of his participation in maintaining oppressive dynamics. While his father still ranks higher than him, he's essentially his father's heir. He has much more power than Maizuru, the highest-ranked servant. At the very least, he could leave his slave-owning household.

Unfortunately, his refusal to confront injustice is consistent with his character's major flaw: he does not express his opinions, desires, or needs. While this character trait obviously hurts his friendships, it also furthers his complicity in the injustices his household runs on.

Toshiro's relationship with eating food — the prevailing metaphor of the series — also parallels his relationship with confronting injustice. Maizuru mentions that he was a sickly child, so the act of eating may have been physically uncomfortable for him. As an adult, his refusal to eat crops up during his rescue attempt of Falin. Denying himself food might have been punishment for not accomplishing important tasks like rescuing Falin and/or a way to maintain control over something in his life when he felt like he'd lost control over the rest of it, again in the context of losing Falin. (Note: I suggest reading this post on Toshiro's disordered eating by @malaierba.)

But he cannot and does not avoid consuming food forever.

Similarly, Toshiro keeps his distance from his retainers and tries not to use them until the Falin situation occurs. His efforts to avoid exploiting his retainers amount to inaction — things he doesn't ask of them or do to them. But his inaction does nothing to dismantle the existing hierarchy that places his retainers under his authority, denies them agency, and often marginalizes them as not only servants or slaves but as women, and he ends up using them as servants and slaves anyways.

Returning to the narrative's themes of consumption, Toshiro cannot avoid eating just as he cannot avoid perpetuating the exploitative system of his household. The Nakamoto clan consumes the labor and personhood of those lower in the hierarchy. The retainers' labor as spies and domestic servants is the foundation of the clan's existence. Thus, the clan consumes their labor to sustain itself.

Within this hierarchy, the retainers' personhood is also consumed and erased. As Izutsumi describes, they are given different names and stripped of their agency to reject orders or leave. Maizuru and Hien also say their feelings are irrelevant in the context of Toshitsugu's and Toshiro's wants and needs. Both women are expected to comply with whatever is most beneficial and comfortable for the noblemen. Clearly, despite Toshiro's detachment from his household's functions, these social structures remain in place and harm the women under him.

Although we know the Nakamoto clan has male retainers, the choice to highlight the female retainers seems intentional. We're asked to interrogate how not only being a servant or a slave in a noble household impacts a person's life and agency, but how being a woman intersects with being a member of some of the lowest social classes.

Toshiro only distances himself from his father's behaviors of infidelity and exploitation so long as it doesn't take Toshiro out of his comfort zone. He doesn't free his slaves. He's far too comfortable with his female retainers performing domestic labor for him, and he barely acknowledges their efforts; they're shocked when he thanks them for helping him save Falin. He hasn't unpacked his sexist (or classist or racist) biases because he perpetuates his household's oppressive hierarchy throughout the narrative. Considering all of this, he inevitably brings this baggage to his interactions with Falin.

Falin is presumably one of the first women he's had extended contact with that isn't his relative or his family's servant. Because of his trauma surrounding his father and Maizuru sleeping together, he understandably falls for a woman as disconnected as possible from his father and his clan. He seems to genuinely like Falin, respects her boundaries, and graciously accepts her rejection. His behavior towards her is overall kind and unproblematic.

But if Falin had gone with him, she would've likely been devalued and sidelined like the other women of the Nakamoto household. No matter how much he loves Falin, simply loving her cannot replace the difficult work of unlearning his sexism. Love, of course, can and should be accompanied by that work, but by the close of the narrative, we gain little indication that Toshiro acknowledges or seeks to end his part in exploiting and devaluing women and other marginalized people.

A spark of hope does exist. Toshiro expressing his feelings to Laios and Falin suggests that his time away from home has encouraged him to speak up more. Breaking his habit of avoidance may be the first step towards acknowledging his complicity in systems of injustice and moving towards dismantling them.

Special thanks to my very smart friend @atialeague for bringing up Toshitsugu's relationship with Maizuru and the replication of dynamics of consumption and class! <3

[fumifooms]

The Nakamoto household - facts & theories masterpost

Table of contents:

the hierarchy & general situation

The parents

The Maizuru situation

The siblings

The other retainers

Izutsumi

Toshiro

Conclusion

I also made tldr summary charts here. This post is about collecting facts about the setting and characters, but it’s gonna be a lot of analysis on what it means through the lens of Toshiro as well, his relationship and place in everything etc etc. They have entangled drama the scale of Daltian Clan. Things are so interwoven it’s hard to keep topics neatly in their own section, because of this pictures may be relevant at several point of this but I mostly won’t be putting them in twice, you might have to do some scrolling up while reading if you want the visual proof to accompany statements. Unlike with Chilchuck’s family there’s less ambiguousness and more intricate details and implications so it’s less theorizing & headcanoning and more stringing together all the crumbs canon gave us. I also dig into some cultural parallels, especially since characters from Wa are the most culturally coded in the series. Also disclaimer that I’ll be calling Shuro Toshiro through this whole thing because that’s his actual name & Shuro isn’t even a nickname he’s shown to like, for accuracy’s sake. The servant girls have real names but are always called by their code names so I’ll call them as such, except for Izutsumi who was named Asebi which I won’t be using.

The general situation

To start off, what’s the situation in canon? All three kids of the head of the house, the three sons (Toshiro and his two younger brothers), are sent out on a vague mission to find something interesting for his father to pick the heir. Each son is thus on their own journey, out with their own group of retainers for an unsure length of time, during canon it’s been 2 years that Toshiro left the house for this mission, and they seemingly all drifted towards dungeons. It’s important to remember that this state of things is the exception and not the rule, and before this the sons lived at home and had different uses of their time, and the retainers had other jobs than care after them. See the next paragraph.

The household offers ninja services, no exaggeration or misuse of the term, mostly spyint but also "covert maneuvers" which could include anything including assassination of people high up. That’s the job of their servants/retainers at least, the heads themselves are more like managers probably, possibly samurais themselves though especially since as we see with the heirs (besides the samurai armor) they also got trained in fighting as their skills showcase. I need to dig into the history of samurais more before I can draw the parallel confidently though. The Nakamoto household is noble/wealthy, distinguished as the Adventurer’s Bible puts it, but it works for and puts its service at use for "their local lord". It buys servants, but also has families who have served it for generations like with Hien. The comic shows that there aren’t only women servants, it’s just the ones we see all happen to be because Toshiro’s retainers are only a small team of all of Nakamoto’s servants.

Above, in a page showcasing characters’ relationships with their party leader: 父親の部下を借りている状態なので、 距離がある。Doubtlessly there must be a translation of this already somewhere but I’m lazy and impatient so I turned to machine translation instead, this translates into: "Since he is borrowing his father's subordinates, there is a distance between him and them". Calling the servants retainers is what most of the fandom does and it’s accurate so I’ll be calling them this.

Hien and Toshiro were childhood friends which means the servants do have some degree of contact not even just together but with the heirs too, or maybe just specifically Hien, since both their parents were ninjas for the Nakamotos she ended up getting raised there and they let her play with him as an exception? They did end up drifting away as adults as their relationship got more professional, so it’s possible. The servants eat and sleep in shared spaces, separate from the masters, though Maizuru has her own bedroom, if the room configuration at the in is to be believed + it’d make sense since she’s governess/head servant. I’m hesitant wether to say it’s implied that this group of 4 retainers was always a bit of a team or it wasn’t and got formed for Toshiro specifically. We know that Benichidori had little contact with Toshiro before they were sent out together for example, but we do see all three girls with Izutsumi in Inutade’s extra when they were younger, and them eating in the same japanese styled room etc. The inn they stay at on The Island is western styled though they do have futons rather than beds (there’s only one bed in their shared room and Hien has it because of her rank).

From Izutsumi’s Adventurer’s Bible profile: "Maizuru, who was also Shuro's governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. After Izutsumi was taken in by the Nakamoto family, Maizuru forced her through a harsh training regimen of speech, common sense, and fighting skills. Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn't touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." "

Maizuru, called a governess, is the one training the girls, at least some of them, we know for a fact she was the one to train Izutsumi for example, and in general she’s the one in charge of the ninja girls we see. She was a ninja herself but retired from frontline missions, but has a central role managing the servants instead. Inutade for example is strong but not stealthy, and it’s said that it’s Maizuru’s job to choose how to train her and what role to give her in consequence. Her training includes manners but fighting as well, notably kunais and martial arts. Hien is shown to use bombs and Benichidori is implied to be good at disguises, Inutade uses a bold weapon like a club but it’s implied with "ogres and clubs just go together" and Maizuru not knowing where to put her to use that it’s uncommon for Nakamoto servants to use those. Their board game artworks also show their specialties neatly. When brought into the household, the servants are given new names and their whole lives become devotion to the house and their duties. The names might be intended to act as code names due to them being ninjas? It’s implied that they never use their non-code names anymore once they start serving the household. Maizuru’s training also contains language and "common sense"… Critical thinking? As well as implied etiquette. This isn’t surprising, as she was the one put in charge of raising not only Toshiro but his brothers as well.

Oh yes I want to mention that all the retainers’ "first deaths" are in the dungeon during canon, considering our main cast we’re used to death being permissible because dungeons make resurrections possible, but it’s relevant to remember that these people never died before. Never. These girls are professionals, ninjas with a sometimes very dangerous job. Messing up means death, permanently.

From what we see and with who we see, the hierarchy is:

Father (head of house, his word goes)

Mother (has status which puts her wishes above others’ and give her some control over the house, it’s unsure how much though, but hierarchy wise she’s very much above the rest but below the father)

Maizuru (governess, in charge of (at least some) servants and raising Toshiro. Two dots)

Hien (leader of their squad, trained servant from a family devoted to the Nakamotos. Two dots)

Benichidori (trained bought servant. Two dots)

Inutade and Izutsumi (bought servants. Power wise from their rank it’s unsure just how much the difference between Inutade (who has one dot), Izutsumi (who has none) and Benichidori (who has two) is, since Hien is team leader between the four servants at least that’s measurable. Inutade gets some janitor duties, and Izutsumi has a curse put on her so she doesn’t run away I suppose. Power wise it’s unsure, but socially/role wise Inutade and especially Asebi are treated worse.)

I didn’t add the sons because I’m talking more generally about the power structure and it’d depend on each sibling, like Toshiro’s wants and directives during canon trump Maizuru’s, but Maizuru is also his nanny and manages the girls so she has a lot of importance and sway even on the final decisions.

The parents

I am so pissed I forgot that we know Toshiro’s father’s name, Toshitsugu, from these panels showing the progression of the family tree. I am so pissed I’m adding this halfway into writing this whole thing, I am not gonna go back and replace every "the father" by his name atm.

The father is the part of this puzzle most important yet most shrouded in mystery, or rather a lack of details. What we do know paints a pretty full and vivid portrait: impulsive and cares mainly about his own entertainment. Maizuru calls him a fool, his sons are exasperated and go "This again?" when he summons them saying that they’re boring/dull, everyone knows he’s having an affair and he often has undignified demeanor, but what he says goes so yes Maizuru will take Izutsumi under her wing, yes the sons will be going out right away into the world to find you the 8th world wonder, yes whatever you want lord. He seems to have little care for how his action affects others, like crashing into Maizuru’s room at night and asking she take care of a catgirl, or sending out his sons suddenly with kicks to the butts. He does what he wants hen he wants and others have to comply.

Like we see with Izutsumi and Inutade, he tends to take a liking to slaves here and there and buy them on the spot, usually at entertainment places, like sumo wrestling matches for Inutade and a freakshow for Izutsumi. The Adventurer’s Bible states him acquiring Inutade as "By coincidence, Shuro's father came to see her first match; he liked her and bought her for the Nakamoto family." and Izutsumi as "She was on display as a "cat-girl" in a sideshow when Shuro's father took an interest in her and bought her." In Maizuru’s extra, he calls Izutsumi a "souvenir" he got for her, and he’s drunk so it could well be assumed that buying Izutsumi was a drunken whim, and that he mitht be alcoholic. You can’t really say that he picks them out because he sees potential in them to be a ninja or would be useful, since with Izutsumi she had no fighting training and Inutade doesn’t fit the skills they seek like stealth and she has trouble fitting in. You could assign noble goals to him like maybe wanting to help or relating to the misfits, but I think with what we see of him it’s more likely that he likes to pick up "oddities", like a catgirl at a freakshow or an ogre, especially since one of the only things we know of him is he wants his sons to bring back interesting trophies from their travels. Toshiro, about his father buying Inutade, says: "People in power desire ogre as servants, and ogres are chosen as opponents in tests of strengths or military exploits. My father bought her for similar reasons."

Also from this we can infer that he goes out to events often, like circus and sumo wrestling, again mostly for entertainment from what we see. I like to think it’s implied that he used to travell maybe still does, due to his own liking for it as a test and because he visits various places like the sideshow, plus his forearm scars in Toshiro’s extra… But him being a samurai in service of a lord could definitely explain that.

This all paints an interesting picture doesn’t it… The Nakamoto’s lifestyle is super encased in rules and social propriety, duty and hierarchy. Old noble man who’s been surrounded by propriety all his life and just wants some spark of interesting stuff happening amongst the humdrum of his lavish cushioned life at home, and is shitty to people around him in consequence and due to his privilege allowing him to. He’s despicable, but from his 3 appearances he becomes an interesting well-fleshed character, at least proportionally to the screentime he gets…

We also know that the affair with Maizuru is well known at least inside the household, so there’s no genuine secrecy around the topic. Makes sense that the wife would hate her guts.

Ahh yes the mother. Little is known about the mother, except that from Maizuru’s profile "Shuro’s mother can’t stand the sight of her, to the point where there are areas on the property Maizuru is forbidden to enter. Maizuru, however, is impressed by his wife’s strength of character." From this I glean that she does have enough power/respect in the house that she can make rules like where Maizuru is allowed to go. Also the implication that otherwise Mazuru would have access to EVERYWHERE in the house despite being only a (high-ranking) servant is a bit interesting. Wether the mother’s "strength of character" is overt and hot-headed or understated and cool-headed is unsure, but I imagine the latter more. I could see Maizuru’s angle in many ways, from being able to tolerate "that fool" aka the father both just in general and with knowing that he’s cheating on her, to knowing how hard it is to be respected as a woman and admiring her putting up with it all and still being able to have sway in the household. This is I think the only mention of the mother anywhere. Doesn’t seem like she is an important figure to Toshiro at all: in fact we hear about her on Maizuru’s profile, and seeing all of this we can see the importance of her in Maizuru’s backstory and life, moreso than Toshiro’s. I imagine she’s a bit of a recluse, which is part of why Maizuru not being allowed to roam the full house is important, because them running into each other at the house is high.

It’s unsure how much contact the parents have with their kids. What we know is that they left the principal tasks of raising the kids, or at least Toshiro, to servants. Toshiro’s profile says that he’s more attached to Maizuru than his parents, and that’s the phrasing. From the comic where their father summons the sons, it does seem like they’re more or less used to interacting, with the sons’ "This again?". So it’s not that they’ve only interacted with them few times enough to count on fingers, but how meaningful were those interactions? From Toshiro’s profile we know he has a complex where he thinks he’ll never get recognition from his father or be able to measure up to him… But is that more born out of secondhand gossip and expectations, or from direct interactions with him that made him feel that way? Likely a mix of both, especially since the father does seem to be very dismissive, uncaring and insulting with his sons. Oh, but it’s definitely notable that in the Hag monster tidbit (below in Maizuru’s section) six years old Toshiro runs to his father scared shitless for help against the shikigami, and his father casually helps him without batting an eye. Toshitsugu knows how to deal with Maizuru’s shikigamis, and he does so efficiently and without any sense of worry or urgency. Although the event traumatized Toshiro and he was very scared, it doesn’t seem like his father offered any comfort, beyond just helping getting rid of it and letting him cower behind him without comment. Toshitsugu gives hungover vibes in that one imo haha. It’s shown he was already training as a ninja, perhaps this event only reinforced Toshiro’s complex, seeing his father, the samurai the achieved man who has expectations for him, so unfazed and uncaring like that.

The Maizuru situation

Let’s establish a timeline first. It’s left vague how much time she’s served the Nakamoto family for, or how she came to be in their service. The central point is that "She was put in charge of raising their children at a young age". If straight from his birth, Maizuru started taking care of Toshiro when she was 15 years old. If from toddler age, then 16. It’s uncertain if when she stopped getting front-line espionage missions, but we know it’s late rather than early despite having kid raising duties. But well, since she’s also in charge of the ninjas she’s definitely has a multitasking role even now.

The dad prob has around 5-10 years more than Maizuru, I’d say. We only see half of his face and only a good few years in the past, around ~3 years ago probably with the shuro quest and a good 7 years with Izutsumi as a kid, but visually those are the vibes I’m getting. From Toshiro’s birth, it’s possible that the father was 15 when the baby was born too? But conception would have been closer to 14 years old then, and yeah I don’t think they marry and have kids that young. Toshiro is 26 years old in canon and is unmarried, and the heir hasn’t been officially picked, so marriage and kids don’t seem to be in the family’s priorities. Even if Maizuru do say that the father would love if Toshiro brought back a wife.

Now the elephant in the room: she has an on-and-off affair with the father and it has been si for many many years, at LEAST 7 years since that’s when we see that comic of him going into her chambers about Izutsumi, and in the comic above, Hien in that panel has an ambiguous age. Regardless it’s definitely implied that it’s a long, long-standing thing. Hien’s phrasing above makes it sound as if it’s not purely physical, as if feelings are involved, "he’s head over heels for his confidante", and who knows if this relationship is part of why Maizuru was chosen to be the governess, or even hired at all.

It’s in the feud with his father that we learn about maizuru’s affair and how after learning it he started shutting her out emotionally. It’s left vague when Toshiro learned about it, Hien made it sound as if everybody always more or less knew but I don’t think Toshiro started shutting her out when he was still pretty young. Regardless, the two are implied to be linked, his dislike of his father/complex and how he stopped getting along well with Maizuru/being emotionally open with her. Is it that he now feels as though Maizuru is actually on his father’s side and not his own, that after all if she had to choose she’d pick him over Toshiro too? Or is it that, because his father’s known to be a self-centered frivolous jerk, that knowing she lets it happen, "can’t seem to shake it", he respects her less? He has an irresponsible reputation and she does give off the vibe of needing to clean up his messes, so that wouldn’t be unplausible either.

On the flipside from her perspective, since he learned she was his dad’s mistress he emotionally shut her out, which can partly explain why she’s SO fussy with him and happy at the slightest hint of happiness or compliance, like when he listens to her and eats, or maybe even being happy that he lets her help him dress and keep tidy (imo this is supported by how they interact in the page showing him interacting with all his party members). She wants to regain that closeness they once had and for her baby chick to be alright as he’s slipping through her fingers. Man so sad to think about him rejecting her when he’s the only thing in her life. She’s raised him for 26 years, no wonder she’s so attached to him, the only thing in her life she feels true unconditional attachment for. Maizuru says that she thinks Toshiro’ll be a better head of the house than the father, too. The respect and care is somewhat onesided, given freely from her side but repressed from his end. When she cares for Toshiro is when her demeanor immediately and drastically softens. She gets easily carried away when it comes to him, rambling enthusiastically or smiling widely or tearing up. Her tendency to ramble or tell anecdotes about Toshiro is shown making Hien and Benichidori go "Here she goes again…" twice through canon.

With Izutsumi’s timeline we see Izutsumi was taken into the Nakamoto household at 10 yo, and since in the comic with Maizuru and the dad she’s shown as stinky and all I imagine she arrived there the same day, so Maizuru was in charge of her since she was first here. In fact if we assumed that it’s the same day as when he bought her at the circus show, then we could assume that buying her was a drunken whim like mentioned.

Since Izutsumi was taken in at 10 and she’s 17, this would mean that Maizuru is 34 years old here. She looks younger without makeup, but lower than that is mathematically impossible besides maybe 33 if Maizuru and Izutsumi’s birthdays line up just right.

Time for the second elephant in the room!!

Maizuru’s magic

Maizuru is the only person in the Nakamoto household, anyone from Wa really, who we see using magic, I doubt she’d be the only one who can use magic in the household but as the governess it wouldn’t be unplausible I suppose. From what we see, the magic is estimated by Marcille to be an "appropriation of gnomic magic" with an eastern script. For my analysis of written magic (though with only a brief glance over Maizuru’s magic), see this post.

If you scroll up and read the little section on Maizuru’s profile, Ninja art: babysitter: "One of the curses put on Izutsumi is Ninja Art: Babysitter, which manifests as a terrifying hag shikigami. Unless Maizuru touches the victim within a set time frame, this terrible curse makes a hag appear and chase them around with a carving knife. Maizuru originally created it in an attempt to keep Shuro from getting lost, but it ended up traumatizing him…"

From Izutsumi’s profile: "Maizuru, who was Shuro’s governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. […] Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn’t touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." It was put on her when she was 12. Since Toshiro had it as a kid, presumably the curse can be lifted off rather easily, Marcille was confident on reverse engineering it as well. It’s unsaid what the time frame is, it’s kept vague everywhere and Izutsumi herself says "who knows" how long it is. Izutsumi ran away despite the very real risk of it killing her. Essentially, Maizuru can put people in a timebomb collar

… MAIZURU WHAT THE HELL

As we might have expected, Maizuru being given the task of rasing a child at 15 did not go perfectly. This, a babysitting technique??! This comic happens when Toshiro was 6 and so Maizuru was 21. Interesting to note that Toshiro didn’t even know it was Maizuru’s doing before this conversation during canon, and he doesn’t know how to bring it up or deal with it how it affected him. Maizuru seems surprisingly uncaring of Toshiro’s feelings on the matter here, oblivious to his conflict her and fondly recalling it all.

This curse is a shikigami. From her profile: "A shikigami user, Maizuru has a variety of shikigami that have been sealed in paper as her servants. Her favorite seems to be Gyuki, a bull ogre." Now don’t ask me when Gyuki appears, I do not remember it. But before we go into the cultural/historical basis for this practice, let’s take a second to recognize the parallel that Maizuru has servants she keeps sealed unless useful in the moment, even despite having enough "attachment" to have a favorite. She’s the governess in charge of the other servants, and she has shikigamis, which she has used on the heir and the runt at the bottom of the hierarchy alike.

Shikigami, in traditional japanese folklore, are conjured to exercise risky orders for their masters, such as spying, stealing and enemy tracking. Shikigami are said to be invisible most of the time, but they can be made visible by binding them into small, folded and artfully cut paper manikins.

Shikigamis are from onmyodo, onmyoji is a profession-legal title historically but it’s what you call a practitioner of onmyodo, and so I feel content in saying that Maizuru is an onmyoji, or based on it. Her outfit reminds me of a shinto priest. It’s interestingly closer to a shinto priest outfit than a miko/shrine maiden’s (in picture below, 2 instead of 5), and I feel like red being chosen for the inner sleeve is a very charged decision since the white & red color combo is the shinto clothes color combo. Especially white clothes with red inner sleeve. Shinto priests can be women nowadays but they’re rare, and onmyojis can be considered shinto priests though it’s a more complex than that. Image below as example, source. Now I don’t think Maizuru has the role or prestige of a priest at all- But the association with onmyodo and spirituality is definitely meant to be made I think. Onmyojis are usually clothed similarly to this.

The babysitter ninja art seems to be based off of the hannya yokai. "They were once human women who were consumed by jealousy and transformed into demonesses", twisted by anger and resentment. Interesting considering her being a mistress to a man whose wife hates her. Hannyas are associated with wisdom because of its name, but there is nothing positive about them. At its highest level of "demonic corruption" if I can call it that, their body tend to become serpentine, fun link to make with her name being from the snakeberry plant.

Other cultural ties or symbolism on Maizuru’s character could be found in the motif of cranes due to her sleeves, in the tales of the crane wife, origami cranes (called orizuru, from deformation of 鶴 "tsuru" aka "crane". All names are written in katakanas in Dungeon Meshi, but thus if we had had the kanjis it’s possible her name would have been written with the kanji for crane), tennyos, and japanese crane symbolism in general. I thought cranes might have been associated with motherhood, but seemingly not in japanese culture at least, I was thinking of storks haha.

Ok speaking of her name. Maizuru is the name of an existing japanese city (舞鶴), meaning "dancing crane". From @room-surprise’s work in progress research paper on Dungeon Meshi characters’ names: "Maizuru is her ninja code name, and comes from “maizurusou”, which is maianthemum dilatatum, the snakeberry plant/two-leaved Solomon's seal/false lily of the valley. Lily of the Valley is a plant associated with motherhood and virtue… So Maizuru being a false Lily of the Valley implies that she is a false, replacement mother, and also hints at the way that Toshiro became cold towards her when he realized she was his father’s mistress, and not a pure, virtuous mother-like figure that he thought she was. Also, lilies are toxic to cats, which makes sense since Maizuru and Izutsumi have an extremely bad relationship." For more details I’ll leave it up to Room when the paper is ready to be released. Edit: It’s out!! Click here! Incredible meta that goes into a ton of details not only about Maizuru.

So some big themes of her character are: (false) motherhood, spirituality/magic, control, cranes, woman’s jealousy.

The siblings

Alriight so besides Toshiro the eldest at 26 years old, there is Toshiyuki (Toshitsuge in one fantranslation) the middle son and Toshizane the youngest (Toshikage in one fantranslation). They were all said to be raised by Maizuru. "A strange level of distance" is interesting. Why strange? I feel like this implies they do interact regularly, and that they’re all rather civil wirh each other, but they still have little bond to speak of. That wouldn’t surprise me, especially since even inside the family etiquette and propriety and rules are enforced, the summoning by his father feels very formal and they all listen to him standing in silence despite having snappy inner thoughts. It’s unsure if they were largely raised together or apart, but since Maizuru was their (at least main) caretaker/governess it implies that they were imo. They were put in competition with each other for the title of heir to the house, though it’s unsure to what degree. It’s examplified by their family all having names that start with "Toshi" that the legacy is very important and thrust upon them, cogs in a machine almost. They all think the same thing when their father summons them and has a spiel, so they’re used to the same sort of treatment and they are indeed brothers for being on similar wavelengths haha.

Toshiyuki, as seen in the comic about his retainers, the poor soul sent into Darkest Dungeon, is brattish. Rude, selfish and rather lecherous, does not hesitate to be mean to his retainers and complain he wasn’t given women retainers. Visually he looks what, 14 years old top. I wonder if Maizuru stopped using her babysitter ninja art on the heirs after it traumatized Toshiro, and if so maybe that explains why Toshiyuki Knows No Fear In His Heart™️ and that’s why he can spout off stuff like that.

The retainers for the youngest brother, Toshizane, don’t seem to be as clad in ninja gear as the other two, seems like the priority is to take care of the very young young master there? Rather than truly go adventuring and dungeoneering, perhaps. Not that it’s ever said by anyone that their quest is to go into dungeons specifically, only to find something "interesting" to bring back, but both Toshiro and Toshiyuki are shown to have ended up drifting into dungeons. Toshizane looks young, I’d clock him 8 years old personally. He’s drawn looking rather innocent, especially the headshot doodle above and in the Toshitsuge complaining about his retainers comic. ALTHOUGH on the latter, interestingly as we see with Toshiro having a smug smirk in that same panel (or alternatively a smug indifferent/uncomfortable "i don’t care about this, even though you want it so much" look which at the very least is very exaggerated from how he emotes in reality), it’s Toshiyuki’s unreliable/exaggerated vision of his brothers and it doesn’t necessaeily reflect reality, though it’s still interesting to note that that’s the vision Toshiyuki has of his brothers/the impression Toshizane gives off. That can imply juicy dynamics for the brothers, for example if Toshiyuki feels as though he’s in competition with his brothers, feels superior to them, that instead of pushing the shitty family dynamic angst onto his father he puts the blame for it all onto Toshiro. Toshizane seems maybe too young to notice the tensions and seriousness around him, maybe more coddled… IS WHAT I WOULD SAY BUT in the comic where their father send them away he’s as well-behaved and serious as the others, so clearly he has a grasp on his role.

When talking about which retainers go with who, it’s said it was the father’s choice. I’d like to assume it wasn’t an airheaded/random choice. Maybe he knew that Toshiyuki would be weird about having women in his team of retainers? And wants to forge their character or protect them in the way they need. Though how Toshiro’s party only has women isn’t only pointed out and commented on by the comic with Toshitsuge but also in the main Dungeon Meshi story, both Marcille and Chilchuck going "his party is fully made up of women", one more loudly than the other haha. So it does feel like a somewhat pointed/purposeful decision, if not that the 4 girls were already a team like I mentioned.

The other retainers

Already made an analysis of Hien and Benichidori’s relationship (+ moment compilation) here. Honestly my juices are exhausted so quick rundown:

Hien’s parents both serve the Nakamotos, so she grew up with the family and was even a childhood friend of Toshiro. She assumed he and her might end up in a Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation ‘just because that’s how things are’/‘it’d be a natural development’ if we’re to believe Hien, ahh what growing up at the Nakamotos’ with those role models will make you believe is normal hah, and was surprised when it ended up not in that way at all. They grew more distant with time, in good part because of the professional nature of their roles in relation to each other (truly a reversal of the Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation). She’s the leader of their lil squad, under Maizuru, she’s very confident and she gets the perks, like getting the bedframe in the shared inn room. For all the details just read her page. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja. I made a more in depth more speculative reading of her in this post.

Benichidori was bought, by "the Nakamotos" so we don’t know who made the final decision. She’s perceptive and submissive, her specialty is implied to be disguise. She never had much contact with Toshiro before she became part of his party. She has facial dysmorphia where she fears the judgement of others if she doesn’t wear makeup and highly values beauty, in her extra her anxiety really shows and she ends up angrily snapping at Hien. Benichidori ends up taking a big liking to Hien and from there on they’re implied to be inseparable. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja.

Inutade is said to worship Toshitsugu because he "saved her" from her horrible life conditions, buying her personally from the sumo matches, she’s extremely grateful to the family and is happy to do any work they give her and is highly satisfied with her current living conditions. She seems to find Toshiro intimidating, though. She was separated from her parents from before she can remember and raised as a sumo wrestler in inhumane betting matches, where her front tooth broke. It seems she has very littke ambitions and dreams besides obeying orders day to day, but after Izutsumi fled away she was happy for her and mused that she’d love to go out and find her one day. They’re so besties Izutsumi gave her a dream of her own I’m sobbing… </3 She has one dot, showing she still has to be attributed her role and earn her stripes.

Their approval rating of their leader. The highest total score from all the parties.

Izutsumi

Sighh where to even begin. Her timeline was put in Maizuru’s section of this post but the rundown is "taken away from parents and turned into a beastkin" at 6 yo (the human half of her soul), "sent to a sideshow on the island of Wa" at 7 yo and bought by Toshitsugu at 10 yo when he took an interest in her when he visited the sideshow. Maizuru put the curse on Izutsumi at age 12, so from then on she always had to not stray much far from Maizuru or risk death, it’s unsure if Inutade’s extra is from before that time, before she was 12, so she could still attempt many many tries to run away. If that’s the case, then Maizuru’s curse was very much treated as a last resort, honestly beyond everything else I can see it being a pain that Maizuru would need to touch her every so often on Maizuru’s schedule as well. The alternative is that, not unlike Kabru who had no regrets dying in a dungeon rather than staying with Milsiril, she’d risk her life to get a taste of freedom. Besides, you know, being a slave and having a timebomb collar with Maizuru’s curse, her frustrations with her life with the Nakamotos is most concisely put in the comic just up above, Inutade’s extra.

She has no dot tattoo, meaning she’s at rock bottom of the hierarchy. It makes sense, since unlike Inutade she’s rebellious and needs threats to obey orders, and even then might try shifty business.

This last part where Izutsumi tries sleeping with Toshiro is most interesting to me. So she’s sought out contact with Toshiro before, she considers him "the stuck-up guy" but she doesn’t exactly hate him. I wonder if this comic is set in the inn on The Island or back at the Nakamoto household, because if that’s the latter it implies that she could get access to his room if she’s sneaky.

Oh oh also, this is fanon but since Toshiro’s weapon is one used usually on horseback, and with the steadfast and upright character of horses I associate Toshiro with horses a bit, though this is wild fanon. What’s interesting is that the plant Asebi was named after is a plant infamous for being toxic to horses. Hehe hehehe he wears a ponytail… Hm now that I think of it hairdos have importance for samurais, should look into that.

Toshiro

God. Ok. Everything was leading up to this guy. Need to split open his head like a geode and vibecheck his brain crystals. Let’s get some interesting details out of the way first.

His weapon is a tachi, not a katana. The wikipedia on tachis is more in depth if you want, but I consider the article I linked to be in deoth and digestible. Tachis are heavier and longer blades than katanas, and make for better horseback weapons than close combat. The way Toshiro uses one instead of a katakana shows that he’s extra strong… And does make sense, since most monsters won’t fight in as close quarters as human fighters. If katanas aren’t a thing in the world yet could make a difference, since tachis were invented first, and once the katana was invented and spread tachis became something more common in higher-ranking samurais. In the monster tidbit of the Hag, it’s shown that even at 6 years old Toshiro was training and learning ninja skills, his first instinct to the shikigami besides running being to fight.

Toshiro knew that Izutsumi wanted to leave, for sure. He may have been sympathetic, if his cryptic look back at her in the ‘Toshiro interacting with his party members’ page means anything. As seen below though, him being sympathetic doesn’t necessarily mean that much. Also, Toshiro had to have known about the curse on Izutsumi, where if Maizuru doesn’t touch her once in a while she’d die. "Asebi must have ran away, leave her" can be seen as subtle support for her to gain her freedom, but it could just as easily be seen as him leaving her behind to die. Because the outcome options are 1) she gets killed by Maizuru's curse, 2) she finds a way to break the spell, 3) she finds a way back to them.

He’s very conflict averse. Wether it be in relationships like with Laios or the status quo. Will not stand up for 99% things including himself. He obeys his father quietly despite his anger and dislike. This is the same guy who can't even get himself to speak up to correct the butchering of his name, the slippery slope that got him tangled in the Laios party seemingly without resistance. It’s very japanese etiquette from even nowadays, never saying a direct no to not be rude. ALSO THAT PANEL, has Toshiro beaten an ogre before?? Is that a brother of his?? Does seem in character for Toshiyuki the most, unless Toshiro was desperate to earn his father’s attention with feats. On the right I’d say the ones in the foreground are two of the brothers, maybe the third being the one to gesture to the ogre. It’s worth noting that inheritance laws during the Edo period often made the heir the son with "the most merit".

When with a goal that’s important to him he’s fine with even starving for it. Although what we see him be like that about in canon is Falin, aka self-admittedly in the post-canon proposal comic "the first person he has liked this much", which for him I feel is like admitting she’s one of the first things he has truly wanted for himself and fought for, soo… It’s more like an exceptional freaking out moment than something that would be recurring, most likely. How disheveled he got is a testament to how much he would forego propriety and rules for people of his status for the person he cares about most. Maizuru says the first personal request he’s (ever?) made was for them to help him rescue Falin.

Which ahh yes, his crush on Falin. I do think idealization plays into it, he doesn’t know Falin that well for sure, but it’s more complex than that too. Falin is pretty and can have an ethereal energy to her, she’s caring and gentle kinda motherly which Toshiro would find soothing I imagine, BUT MOST OF ALL. She’s weird!! She’s just weird enough to allow and be charmed by!! Shuro was fully shaped by his upbringing and environment of nobility, social etiquette and whatnot. Yeah she’s weird and quirky, but still quiet and sweet-mannered enough that he’s like "Yes, she wouldn’t bring shame on my family name". And why would he be charmed by her weirdness? Because all he’s ever known is rules!! Conformity, fitting in!! Unlike the others he knows, she is weird without being overbearing as well. "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" She’s like his comfort character. MOREOVERRR I had totally forgotten about it, but Toshiro was shown watching a snail behind a bush and losing sight of everything else (like Maizuru calling him) as a kid in the Hag monster tidbit, the moment he fell in love with Falin it was when she looked enthralled at a caterpillar and he mentions how "most girls would have screamed or recoiled in disgust", and in the beach chibis page he’s crouching and collecting shells thinking about Falin… He likes bugs and crawly critters guys, he wishes he could be cottagecore too… It’s a genuine shared interest… . Someone pointed out that Toshiro & Falin’s relationship probaboy references this japanese folk tale, and I think that’s very interesting to note.

And Maizuru is like his mom but it’s a Thistle situation where they can’t just be a normal family and normal affectionate either- and when he learns about his father having a thing with her he feels weirded out. And like. Who knows how much he even got out of the mansion. He got homeschooled. He’s distant with his brothers. The family is in shambles

Shuro’s issue is that he was taught to be perfect and have the upmost respectable behavior, so if something annoys him he has to be righteous about it and that it’s the annoying thing’s fault or moral failing. Bro just let yourself be petty sometimes it’s healthier. With the feud with his father it’s explicitly stated that the pressure and expectations of the family name weigh on him a lot.

But then, that makes his beef with Laios so understandable doesn’t it. Not justified, but explained certainly.

Laios & Shuro and the whole mess coming to a head

I’ve made an analysis of the Laios-Shuro fight from Laios’ pov before, here. This is the Shuro pov analysis. Yes yes in The Fight, Shuro is dehydrated sleep-deprived and underate, he’s majorly off his rocker, BUT his frustration and the underlying issues are still things he felt on any day and it’s interesting to note.

Toshiro has been raised from his birth with the priority of propriety, nobility, etiquette, rules, conforming elegantly, appareances and reputation are everything. He’s modest, humble, quiet, stays in his lane and bottles all his feelings up. Wait who is this loud guy coming up to me being inconsiderate and loud af?? Does he not see me blinking in morse code that I’m not enjoying this and want him to leave?? Was he raised in a barn?? He’s overbearing and rude and way too friendly- He’s weird wtf! Not conforming to basic etiquette is illegal??! And people just… Let him do whateve he wants?? He lives well, no one stops him or kills him?? What the fuck, I’ve followed rules and etiquette thoroughly all my life, and it’s thankless work I get no recognition for, meanwhile he gets to be oblivious af and do whatever he wants without getting clapped?? Resentment, frustration, dislike, anger anger anger, jealousy.

Laios might even remind Toshuro of his dad in a way, because he SEEMS impulsive and like he does whatever he wants without a care to people around him, without thinking of how it might affect them. Doing things without thinking through the Implications. And interestingly this is a bit paralleled to to how Shuro is serious, strict, and big on the duties that come with having a leader role and the family dynamic it brings, like Laios’ own father, who Laios also dislikes… Dealing with his anger towards Laios, especially knowing that Laios doesn’t mean anything bad by it like Toshiro admits, is probably very healing to him. He stops repressing and thinks through his issues a bit, realizes what parts of his life he’s unhappy with and where all the negative feelings come from. I do think he bottles up his dislike for his father a bit, he has to at least for appearances. His beef with Laios is repackaged internalized anger for his father, but it’s ALSO repackaged frustration from his etiquette-bound lifestyle. He says it himself, when Laios is like "You never told Falin how you feel…? Alright, when I can I’ll tell her for you buddy!!", "that’s the part of you that I envy". Laios’ ability to just come out and say what he wants to, what he means. He wishes he could be free of all the rules more, that he had te courage to speak out, like with Inutade, or talking things out with Maizuru, or nit having to act like he’s not angry with his father. This narrative point of Toshiro envying Laios’ ability to say things freely and being frustrated by not being able to himself is ESPECIALLY examplified by their first interactions, the basis of their relationship: Laios enthusiastically befriending him, giving him a bad nickname and roping him into joining his party, with Toshiro never turning it all down despite wanting to, too hesitant to act possibly rude.

And now is time for the laishuro addendum… Because of personal experiences it’s a bit of a sensitive spot to me so while I see timelines in which I enjoy it I’m very picky… This is all further theorizing from me btw I’m not pushing my view here onto ppl as facts, but I think there’s more interesting bits and scenarios to bite into here. Laishuro has very cute and sweet potential. I personally don’t see the "Oh wait Laios is just girl Falin… 😳" angle because to me if anything that’d just make Shuro disillusioned with Falin lol, but like yes make Shuro learn that it’s ok to be weird with Laios 🥺 They DO have differences first of all, important ones, especially from Toshiro’s perspective. Laios is overwhelming, whereas Falin is soothing. Laios is loud and asks things of him where Falin is a calm, quiet presence. Laios pushes himself onto Toshiro, whereas Falin is content on just doing her own thing in her corner alone.

Hot take but the ultimate laishuro timeline is the one where he DOESN’T bring Laios back home, because he knows he’ll be seen as an oddity and clown by his father, and he doesn’t want Laios to be treated like the tapdancing monkey there to please and entertain his father the way he himself has always kind of been. Wouldn’t inflict that onto someone he loves. He can recognize when people are taken advantage of (mostly) like Inutade, and it doesn’t settle right with him. He might be especially sensitive to it in Inutade’s case because it’s about seeing his dad in a better light than he deserves, though. His father is his weak spot, THE weak spot.

It gets me so emotional thinking about it actually because seeing Laios played like a fiddle by his father, Laios so happy to find someone who’s enthusiastically listening to him ramble and engaging, would destroy Shuro emotionally I think. Like. On one hand being like "Oh of course my dad would find Laios fun, unlike me his boring son", super angry as coping mechanism for his intense sadness of not having positive parental attention, and then on the other he’d see Laios being treated as a clown and identify with it and that would remind him of how he gets treated similarly which he’s in denial about (more or less, but since he puts up with the family rules and follows along he hasn’t given up on getting recognition. He wants his father’s approval, and he couldn’t blame Laios for being happy with it despite how hurtful that attention truly is without Laios’ knowledge), which would be such an overwhelming conflicted mess of emotions and his worldview would shatter a bit because he has to repress it all even now, and he’d have a breakdown.

And similar deal but if he brought Falin home… Bc ok yes he idealizes her and doesn’t even know her all that well, but like I said imo what he sees in her is that "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" So meanwhile with Laios he’d have mixed feelings on him getting treated like a clown and identify with it, bringing Falin home and having her be demeaned would be like having his perfect comfort character dunked on and he gets reminded that the world can’t have anything good actually. With both Toudens it’d make his resentment towards his father even worse, he might snap. I’m not the biggest on gendered analysis tbh but Kui evidently does like to do it to some degree, with the genderbending changing their life considerably and different fantasy cultures having different gender roles and all, but Shuro idealizing the Touden sister as something perfect he cannot attain while being jealous and frustrated at Laios for being something he cannot attain is like. So compelling actually. With Maizuru’s hannya of female rage weaponized there could be a theme of pushing the blame and responsibilities of things onto women too, the responsibility to raise and to manage and to dish out the work and to clean after mens’ reckless decisions. Anyways just a tangent.

Shuro on a bad family angst day is everything I love in a blorbo… He can be a lil shitty as a treat to make his healing arc more fulfilling. Toshiro snapping after he sees how they treat Laios/Falin and he gives up the family headship to LEAVE. Maizuru arc where she has to choose between loyalty to the clan and loyalty to Toshiro, will she stay with the boy she raised or go home… To me Maizuru is much less sympathetic than Shuro, but she is pretty tragic and her selfless love for Shuro is her one redeeming quality. Babygirl take no shit no more, but also better yourself and turn your life around please and thank you… She is so evidently taken advantage of but like. What else does she have? So she just takes care of and loves the boy she raised like her own kid and goes about her daily life in servitude and doesn’t think too much about it all.

Shuro is awful a nickname but also, I think Shiro would be a good nickname for Toshiro, because it gets rid of that ‘Toshi’ first part of his name that all the male members of his family share. It severes the link to his father and the tied pressure from his family.

Laishuro brotp turning slow burn romance would be so lovely. I think college au for laishuro would be peak actually… Shuro so is the repressed "I am so normal" guy who has a furry liberation identity crisis arc… I also quite like the potential he’d have with Namari, as both work-oriented misfit foreigners cast out of their homes, and she’s also bolder so it’d be good for him, and he could bring her stability… That’s a topic for another day tho. Even he and falin are sweet tbh, they could have traveled around together even if just as friends… Bc yeah she does value him as a friend at least somewhat, she says she’ll visit him~! Mostly I want Izutsumi-Toshiro brotp fancontent.

Conclusion

The household is very hierarchy oriented, and honestly the system doesn’t seem to make anyone happy, or at least not healthily so. Sighh feudalism.

Obviously their situation are very different, but still Toshiro and Izutsumi react to the same conflict in opposite ways: when a hierarchy and lifestyle of rules and duty is thrust upon them, Toshiro obeys and believes that it’s how things simply are, always having it been drilled into him since being a baby and being privileged enough to live ok with things as they are, meanwhile Izutsumi rages and eventually breaks free and never wants to submit herself to rules or hierarchy ever again, even if that perceived hierarchy is a mutually beneficial professional party dynamic or having a role inside a well-meaning team, like Laios’ party. WHICH IS WHY THEY SHOULD HANG OUT AND HAVE AN ARC TOGETHER. LET HER INFLUENCE HIM TO GET WILDER AND THINK OF HIMSELF MORE. FUCK INHERITING THE HEADSHIP. THE SIBLINGS NARRATIVE.

As always if I find more stuff to add i’ll edit it in. Rn I’m thinking that I’ll look into ninja & samurai feudal history and try to find specific terms that might fit their roles and situations more. I should reread try to cover Izutsumi’s end of the Toshiro-Izu dynamic as well.

I greatly recommend this paper for more excellent meta on all named Dunmeshi characters and their culture!

Ah yes yes, I forgot to talk about it but we don’t know what Toshiro’s retainers have been doing with their time on The Island, especially while he was dungeon diving with Laios and co. Although in the anime’s ed in this shot we see them "stealthily" follow him around, so presumably when he’s not in dungeons they’re tailing his moves.

Afterword here, it has summary charts about the power structure & relationships and complementary pages and artworks, couldn’t put them in here because SIGH 30 pictures per post limit.

[sittiytaart]

Atleast He is not Transphobic?

Honestly, I thought of what Toshitsugu would say upon learning of Shuro being trans, but honestly from what we know of him Toshiro's Father would probably find the idea of a 'man becoming a woman' more interesting than an Albino Elephant or floating head (Funger Reference)

[dungeon-meshi-tournament]

Masterpost

[malaierba]

Yknow with how weird Toshiro's dad is if he ever heard that Toshiro's going by ALIAS SHURO abroad he'd be like, oh my fucking god finally one of my loser sons has an alias this MUST mean he's been up to interesting stuff!!!

Meanwhile Maizuru is pointing at everyone with her index and glaring at them sternly like. HE'S WRONG BUT NO ONE CORRECT HIM. She's getting her boy in that head of the household position and she's feeding all of Toshitsugu's delusions to make it happen or so help her.

[alphaketoglutaricacid]

The mental contortions u must go thru to make your mistress who you were in love w all this time but did not marry out of societal pressure raise your children but also the mental contortions u must go thru to resent the mistress for your husband doing this and punishing her instead bc you dont have the power to punish your husband

[malaierba]

That's really funny, thank you for answering, I see your vision and I love it. Falin being friends with Toshizane, what an image.

laishuro fake dating where to help toshiro win the heir competition laios agrees to fake date him so toshiro ends up bringing back a whole ass King, the Devourer of All Things Terrible, but toshiro Still Loses Somehow

[tofixtheshadows]

hi!! so there are a lot of improbabilities that make this hypothetical unlikely but: if kabru had met toshiro first & recruited him (toshiro being so passive + not with a clear goal would have helped there & kabru is ptsd-driven but very noble in his goals which can be explained) AND they got all the way down to the bottom (idk if i believe in them...but hypothetically!) would the winged lion find either of them to be a good target for next dungeon lord? one over the other? im thinking kabru has the intensity and complexity of desire necessary but i can't imagine what it would look like if he became lord of the dungeon. do you have any thoughts?

Good morning. This is a very fun thought experiment!

(side note: I got a second anon this morning with a very similar request? not sure if related. I'm gonna let this answer speak for both of them)

Toshiro sure would have had a different time of it if Kabru had gotten to him first, huh? On the one hand, Toshiro seems to like Kabru; I think it's sweet that Kabru seems to gravitate towards hanging out with him when he isn't with the rest of the main cast. So they probably would've been good in a party together.

On the other hand, Toshiro never would have met Falin and fallen in love with her. Even if she didn't reciprocate in the end, I don't think he regrets anything that happened. Even his difficult friendship with Laios was ultimately positive (for both of them!).

They definitely would not have made it to the deeper floors, I think Senshi is crucial to achieving that ... but this is a hypothetical.

I'm puzzling over the question of Toshiro, because he is a secondary character and there's only so much we know about his motivations. His big one in canon is to save Falin, even if it means all he can do is put her to rest. Without that, without her, what sort of desires does he have?

Toshiro originally came to the Island because of a demand from his father: for one of his three sons to find "something interesting" enough on their travels to bring back home that would convince their capricious bastard father to make them his heir over the others. So they're all off on their separate training journeys with their respective retainers with the added caveat that they can't return without something to impress their father. It's implied that after falling in love with Falin, Toshiro had wanted to bring back home a wife.

Since he's said to inherit the family after he returns home without her anyway, I've been assuming that the "thing" Toshiro ended up bringing to Toshitsugu Nakamoto was the story of the dungeon, the demon, and his friend Laios, king of a risen country and Devourer of All Things Horrible.

Anyway, the things we know about Toshiro's home life are kind of fucked. It's amazing he turned out to be so nice. He's always been a shy, sensitive person, and he was sickly as a child; Maizuru cared for him despite her spymaster duties and ended up filling a motherly role for him, even though Toshiro's mother is still alive. Historically, it wasn't uncommon for noble children to be raised more closely by their governesses/household retainers than their parents, so perhaps something similar was happening here (disclaimer that I don't know much about feudal Japan specifically).

We know that Maizuru loves Toshiro and dotes on him, but she's also very strict and frankly terrifying; she used the same Hag summon that she was monitoring Izutsumi with on Toshiro as a child just to keep him from wandering off. We also know that when he found out that Maizuru was having an affair with his father, it put a distance between them. Whether this is because he felt betrayed on his mother's behalf or because he dislikes his father that much, or something else, is unclear.

Toshiro was childhood friends with Hien, but as they got older, she had to take his place as one of his retainers, which seems to have severed that closeness. Canonically, he isn't close to his two younger brothers either. Toshitsugu literally bought Inutade and Izustumi (the latter as a drunken "gift" for Maizuru!). We see that Toshiro is uncomfortable with this, but doesn't know how to approach the issue. He lets Izutsumi go the second she's out of sight for five minutes, which implies to me that he really wanted the excuse to do so. Inutade is harder, because she loves being with the Nakamoto family and hero-worships Toshiro's father.

...all this to say, Toshiro has complicated relationships with his family and household. There's love there, but also a lot of coldness enforced by the upper-class need for propriety. Toshiro falls in line and acts as the proper stoic samurai, but he chafes at this; he envies Laios's gift for feeling and expressing things openly and readily. I think that's what the Winged Lion would prey on, given the chance.

I don't think he would be prime dungeon lord material, but if it came to that, I could see the Lion tempting Toshiro with a kinder vision of his life, one where he and his little brothers weren't pitted against one another, where his family was warmer, where there weren't barriers of class between him and his retainers, where he was allowed to be more himself.

Now ... Kabru.

Kabru is interesting because, since his ultimate goal is to seal the dungeon and eradicate monsters, I imagine that meeting a demon would be like a guy who's given a genie and wants to wish for no more genies. And if said genie is trying to take over the world via wishes, the genie is a bit screwed. I really think that Kabru is the character who would stump the demon(s) the most, despite his complex desires, because they are antithetical to the demon. Laios also had complex desires, but the Winged Lion lured him and set him up as the hero of a fake prophecy because a lot of Laios's desires revolved around monsters, so his wants aligned perfectly with the demon's methods. Oh you want monsters? That's great, they're the things I use to solve most of my problems anyway.

Even in the absence of prior knowledge of demons, I think Kabru's back would be up as soon as the Winged Lion tried speaking to him. Kabru's insight is almost preternatural, and he's well-versed in persuasive speaking thanks to his own silver tongue. He would mistrust the Lion immediately, especially considering its monster-like form.

Giving the demons bestial appearances is an artistic choice on Kui's part, so I don't think there's any indication that the Winged Lion & co can't look human, but the Lion might have been constrained both by Thistle's seals on it and the need to maintain the lie that it's just the innocent guardian deity of the Golden Country. If it could, I think it would try to look less monstrous, with Kabru.

Still, the point of the demons, I see, is that anyone can be tempted, anyone can be manipulated, because we are all full of buried desires that can be unearthed, and wanting things and having to defend them make you susceptible to manipulation.

Consider what Mithrun told Kabru: they keep the knowledge of demons secret because knowing the truth would not stop people from trying to have their wishes granted. After all, Mithrun was a Canary, but he fell for its temptation anyway. I've seen people characterize this as a sort of rock bottom decision, and maybe that's true, but I also pin it on his toxic inferiority/superiority complex. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes you think you're built different.

Would Marcille have stopped before unsealing the Winged Lion if Mithrun(/Kabru) had actually gotten to sit down with her for five minutes and explain why becoming dungeon lord would be a very bad idea? Maybe. Or maybe her desperation, and her own pride, would have made her decide that she knew better, that she'd be careful, that she'd go in with a plan and definitely get what she wanted with no dire consequences.

I think Kabru could be desperate enough to make a similar decision, even if his desires were antithetical to the demon. And the demons have an advantage over the aforementioned genie simile: their ability to eat desires.

If the Winged Lion were smart, it wouldn't let Kabru seal it away like Thistle. Given the opportunity, its best chance for dealing with Kabru would have been to immediately eat his desire to stop another Utaya.

I'm gonna plug this wonderful and tragic little one-shot someone wrote recently about the dungeon lord Kabru hypothetical: This place is not a place of honor.

[imaybe5tupid]

How I like to imagine their father assigned the retainers 😂

[imaybe5tupid]

This bottle of Steven’s, awakens ancient feelings.

au details under the cut

Ive been listening to a lot of Weezer lately and mostly just wanted to draw a scene like this. Toshiro’s phone says “ お父さん” as in “father” since he’s drunk calling him on impulse to have words. He’s working some kind of soulless job in a nowhere city splitting rent with Laios who’s a norwegian on working holiday(dishwasher) in Japan. They met just bc he got trapped with Laios on the connecting flight from Tokyo who chatted him up the whole time bc he could speak english, and eventually he somehow ended u sharing a lease with thisn guy to help hide from his retainers who are supposed to be living with him. Laios is mostly drifting but genuinely is in Japan bc he wants to learn Japanese and hes admired it in that detached idolising european way since he was a teen. And even though its a small nowhere city everythings very fun and novel to him as someone from the boonies of northern europe. They have their initial dynamic but also Laios cooks for him and buys him western alcohol. Sometimes your true love is the guy who shows up at work in a Godzilla shirt

[malaierba]

Toshitsugu and Maizuru

[dungeon-meshi-tournament]

Masterpost

[dungeon-meshi-tournament]

Masterpost

[imaybe5tupid]

Traveling alone is quite dangerous for a girl.

(my toshiro overcompensating trans man hc)

bonus 1

bonus 2 ft. toshiyuki (middle brother) grown up a little but still a menace