#also congrats to bel for marrying and sleeping w the girl he likes

[troperrific]

/ekuoto chapter 74 spoilers/

IT’S HEREEEEE!! AT LAAAAAST!

FAILMARRIAGE FAILMARRIAGE FAILMARRIAGE FAILMARRIAGE FAILMARRIAGE FAILMARRIAGE FAILMARRIAGE

Ahem.

Pardon my outburst.

Actual chapter commentary below.

Although the main event of this chapter was the beginning of Belphegor’s darkness flashback of his marriage, there are a few things I’d like to note beforehand:

Belphegor and Imuri continue to play tug-of-war with Priest in the middle. And just like the factions of the Church and the Witches, they both claim to know what’s best for Priest, each considering themselves to be the key to Priest’s happiness.

The callbacks to previous arcs via Imuri’s drawings are cool, but they ring a bit hollow, due to various reasons. Still, I don’t care about that, because it essentially gave us these panels:

“Loli version”… maybe it’s a good thing that Leah didn’t come with Imuri after all, who knows what we would hear then lol

I must admit, I found this way funnier than I probably should’ve. “Loli version” lmao, this walking garbage of a man!!

Funnier still is that this comment has double the effect to Imuri because that’s essentially her mom he’s talking about… poor Imuri lol.

Also, I quite like that Bel’s summonings (?) have been getting steadily scarier. The angry bear with edgy mallets was cute and silly, but this time we got a cute but slightly creepy clown with scissors.

We are getting there! Maybe. I trust you Bel, may your flashbacks bring forth your inner horror film abilities!

Belphegor is such an edgelord. I love that the author manages to take issues such as depression seriously, but they can also poke fun at this sort of… exaggerated, teenage-like mindset of “you don’t understand meeee!”

Also, don’t mock the power of love, jerk! Don’t you know the sort of manga you’re in??

Ironically, by declaring that there’s such a thing as “true suffering”, ergo establishing a hierarchy for pain, and assuming that Imuri does not meet his arbitrary criteria of “true pain and darkness” he’s being dismissive himself, as careless and callous as he accuses her to be.

But on the other hand…

Imuri has actually shown herself to be rather callous and dismissive about other people’s suffering. Constantly. There are a few examples throughout the manga.

Some are more obvious. For example, when she both trivialized and sexualized Leah’s emotional vulnerability and pain back in Part 2, caring more about her own jealousy than Leah’s feelings.

Or, more subtly, how she has consistently prioritized her own feelings and pride as Gehenna’s Femme Fatale over Priest’s laundry list of traumas. Feeling more irritated and humiliated that she “lost” to Asmodeus as Aria, and that this messed things up for her quest to romance him, rather than that Priest had gotten hurt again. Or even in this arc!

This isn’t to say that Imuri doesn’t care about Priest at all. She does, and a lot. But she can be just as insensitive as the Demon Lords, when it comes to minding other people’s feelings.

Despite this, Imuri has a lot of good points herself. Truly, just about everyone that has lived has probably thought “ah, fuck this shitty world”, and that’s simply no excuse to give anyone the means to do it. Even if she’s a bit callous in her wording (and about Priest’s feelings).

I loved her comment to Belphegor that it essentially “takes two to tango”, very true. However… Is this the first instance that the Virgin Mary was actually referenced in the story? Because I’m still wondering about Priest’s mom…

ALSO:

I called it!

Of course the reason women are “evil” is that they give birth to beings he considers to exist only to suffer. Of course he solely blames them, considering his immaturity!

What I didn’t expect, though, was for him to have been a father! Just… the context, that he and his wife gave birth to a nephilim, which Belphegor should’ve known better… makes this so, so much worse, thank you Aruma-sensei, I love it already.

Speaking of which… SPEAKING OF WHICH…!!

HI ONESTA!! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU!!

We’re finally getting ekuoto’s adaptation of Belfagor arcidiavolo!!

I do like and find it interesting that Belphegor went to prove that no such thing as a happy marriage existed apparently for Satan’s sake. I guess him and the other Demon Lords were getting a little too creeped out by his habit of going to Cocytus to talk to his frozen wife…

It’s quite telling, about Belphegor’s childishness, that he believes that just by “proving” to Satan that his marriage is doomed, he can get the poor snake man to stop feeling like he does for his wife.

But for all the bullshit that Belphegor spiels about marriage…

He sure changed his mind quickly!!

I like how, despite his mention of her big boobs, the paneling and framing don’t really drag the reader’s focus to them, unlike with how he sees Imuri. Here, all of Onesta is displayed equally (with sparkles!!), with perhaps a bit more attention to her face.

And I love how… judging by Onesta’s expression and her getting flustered before Belphegor even said anything, it seems she got as instantly smitten as he did.

I mean, I know all the Demon Lords are supposed to be incredibly good-looking in-universe, likely because they’re former angels and/or blessed by God, rather divine beings themselves, but…

Belphegor still retained his messy hair, eye bags and gloomy and clumsy disposition.

And yet, it apparently still was love at first for Onesta too!

It tracks though. Sarah considered the extra eyes scattered along Asmodeus’ arm to be beautiful; as a child, Leah seemed charmed and endeared by Beelzebub’s weirdness; and Tachibana is loyal to Mammon to the bone despite seeing his man child tendencies up close.

My dear girlies with innately horrible taste… I love them very much…

Curiously, this version of Onesta seems nothing like the one described in the novella (which I was very much expecting, given its rather misogynistic tone), who was a vain, arrogant, demanding and cruel woman, but that is what makes me fear for what’s coming even more…

You see, way back, when Part 5 had just started, I theorized that we would see some sort of mental illness portrayed through Onesta, as this seems to be a central theme in Sloth.

What I didn’t consider, however, was the possibility of Belphegor and Onesta having a child. A bit silly, now that I think about it, considering Belphegor’s obsession with childhood.

This, combined with the brief flashback we got from Golem, where he noted that his mother is always crying…

I think, there’s a non-zero possibility we’ll be getting some kind of depiction of postpartum depression through Onesta, or any other sort of mental illness related to childbirth.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. It would certainly explain if she were suddenly to change her current personality to one closer to the novella’s…

Also, now I’m convinced that these two:

Might just be one and the same!

Seems like Belphegor’s been projecting his family issues onto Priest pretty hard, huh?

Next chapter is gonna be hell…