#and Tozuka loves paneling parallels

[random-senpai]

With how well David Pro did the haircut scene, I just KNOW that this scene is gonna give me a heart attack when it's animated and voiced over.

[ununpanpandy]

Undead Unluck chapter 236: parallels and Ruin.

SPOILERS AHEAD

There's something very particular with the way Tozuka-sensei is managing this chapter. It's clear that Tozuka loves parallels, specially when it comes to Andy and Fuuko.

When I was reading some panels like the one above felt familiar. And it is because it's a parallel to the Spring Arc ending. Not only Andy is being honest about his feelings about Fuuko once again.

But he has resolved his perspectives about what death means to him and what life purpose is about. In his own Andy style of course.

But then, if you have been following the manga all the way around you can notice the pattern. Ok, so far we have the Greatest Death Ever parallel and the Andy resolving his feelings reference (with the contrast of the character development in Andy). And we know all the cast is here in the moment. Well, we probably are missing somebody arriving late to the party.

Good old Ruin.

I'm not saying he is actually going to appear last moment. But, UMA's Artifacts and Negators are going to dissappear in that order, there is still time for Ruin to come try to save the first two.

What if the story repeats itself? What if the fate that has been chasing Fuuko since Loop 100 catches her once again? (We know Anno Un prevented Fuuko's death in the hands of Under/Sean/Unseen, but not even Anno Un could predict the rest of the story or Ruin's fatal attack on Fuuko).

Or maybe I will go a little bit more delulu and say that somehow Ruin manages to kill Andy this time.

Either way, it will be super angsty if one of them two died because that means what Andy said about finding each other again in the future to create new memories and explore love again will be completely ruined (no pun intended).

No more "Find me at Shinjuku Station" kinda stuff.

Idk maybe it's not making any sense right now, however Tozuka has been unpredictable these last few chapters that I'm not saying this is going to happen but take it as a wild possibility.

Even more, because Tozuka doesn't play with his narrative and I have the feeling that all this build up parallels and happiness isn't just for the funzies.

That's it, let's wait and see what happens next chap I hope I'm in the wrongest of the theories possible. Why can't they be happy once, goddammit Tozuka.

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.204 thoughts

[Lord Forgive Me But It's Time to Go Back to The Old Me]

(Contents: Parallels - Nico/Feng/Ichico, Character development - Feng, Power system development/speculation - Souls, Character speculation - Sun/Luna)

Well! I guess we didn't need to worry about Nico staying a non-Negator after all, now did we? So much for keeping Nico "Unforgettable-free" eh, Ichico? Still, I feel better knowing that my prediction that they'd trigger it on purpose was correct, even if the exact method was a bit off

As usual, Tozuka continues to impress me with his ability to compose iconic panels. Nico's face when he absorbed all of the memories from Acopalypse is simply Unforgettable, particularly since it so immediately reverted him to his classic L100 appearance. What's really fun about that is that it's probably not that his body just suddenly remembered all of the stress and sleepless nights of Unforgettable, but rather it's the logical extreme of Artifact-based memory influx. We've seen characters develop headaches and nosebleeds from it before, most notably from Fuuko digging through an huge box full of Artifacts, so for Nico to absorb presumably ALL of Apocalypse's stored memories (stated to be the most of any Artifact), it makes sense that even the capillaries under his eyes would all burst at once from the pressure

The question now is whether or not this is a permanent change. I imagine not, since his previously haggard appearance was indicative of his suffering, the haunting knowledge that his most sacred memories would soon fade and be permanently replaced with the most wretched. L100 Nico had the opportunity to create new pleasant memories but actively rejected the possibility out of fear of losing the old, while in this world Nico is going to be able to embrace the support of others as he won't have lost Ichico this time. Honestly, no wonder Tozuka waited to introduce Mico to this world; he wanted to make sure Nico would be able to make room for her in his heart rather than keeping her at a distance

I wonder if that's another reason Tozuka chose Feng for this fight; not only is Feng's current focus on making himself unforgettable to future generations, but he's also a good parallel to Nico's role as a father. Both L100 Nico and Feng prevented themselves from properly forming attachments with their children, and L101 has given both of them the chance to make right on that. Shen explicitly acknowledges that he loves Feng as his father, and Feng even calls Shen his son, so while Feng may not be the best or even a good role model for fatherhood, he does make a compelling argument for parental redemption. If Nico really does have complete knowledge of the previous Loops now, the significance of this change won't be lost on him, and he'll be certain to make sure Mico can grow up happy and loved

Speaking of, Ichico's final speech in this chapter remind me a lot of Nico's in L100. She tells Nico that she knows he can save her because he's the first person she's ever loved, while as Nico was dying in L100, Ichico asked if he thought Mico could handle saving Fuuko's life and he replied "she's our daughter. She doesn't make mistakes." Both of them have absolute faith in their loved ones to pull through when the chips are down, and both of them hold each other in extremely high regard. These two really have such strong chemistry, I'm excited to see the sorts of interactions they have now that the cat's out of the bag

Now that I think of it, Nico's refusal to let Mico into his heart was pretty ironic since Ichico explicitly wanted to make sure that Nico wouldn't ever feel alone. Just like Leila asked Rip and Latla to find love in each other, Ichico wanted Nico to fill the void she left with Mico, and just like them, he couldn't let go of the past and move on. Leila and Ichico were also both in poor health and believed that since their lives were short they held less value, and instead sought to leave as much of an impact as possible in the time that they had, even if it was just to make the people closest to them happy

Looking at Ichico in that light, we can see another fun parallel to Feng! Feng's Unfade made him believe that he had all the time in the world and that he didn't need to leave anything behind because he'd always be there, while Ichico's Unsleep made her believe she had no time and had to leave as much behind as she could. Both of them, however, had adverse effects on their families, as Feng believed his children to exist for him to become stronger and Ichico believed her child to be an adequate replacement for herself, when in reality Feng should have focused on raising someone to surpass him and Ichico should have focused on preserving her life to be present for her family. Heck, Unforgettable manifested in Nico both times specifically because he saw Ichico's last moments and thought something to the effect of "I don't want her to die, I want to remember her." Doomed by the narrative, indeed!

Man, I'm so glad Tozuka used Feng here, I had no idea there was so much connective tissue between all these folks! I bet we still would have gotten something cool if it were Tella, but damn this is such juicy stuff!! I hope Tozuka keeps throwing all of his toys together in fun combos that get me to think this deeply in the other Master Rule fights too

Feng's inclusion here also continues to demonstrate how far he's developed, forcing him to put his money where his mouth is and sacrifice himself for someone else for a change. He was a bit incredulous at first that Ichico was suggesting he should die, which is pretty hypocritical coming from the guy who just last chapter said "you should sacrifice your wife to get stronger, it'll be cool." Once he realized that dying would help him understand souls better and that Nico could save him AND bring him back to life, Feng was all for it, and may well come to understand that being with people provides more opportunities for growth than treating them as expendable ever could

I am very interested in seeing how his death will improve his understanding of souls, though. The damage he took from Luna's soul blast as well as the damage he dealt to Sun (who Language stated has a physical body) with his knock-off Kamehameha both prove that souls can directly interact with the physical plane, something that Ghost previously stated couldn't be done. This may be a matter of interpretation, though, as Ghost also stated that Andy only couldn't move his limbs after having those parts of his soul cut off because he believed he could move his body using his soul. Ghost's interpretation was that souls couldn't touch physical matter and vice versa, so only a physical attack coated in soul could harm him by ensuring it didn't matter which form he was in

Luna's attack seems to be pure soul, so by that logic, she shouldn't have been able to deal damage to Feng's body, and yet she did. Is Luna's interpretation that a soul attack damages the soul and reflects its state on the body? Probably not, then one wouldn't be able to detach their soul for attacks in the first place, as that would cause the body to change shape (see Mahito's Idle Transfiguration in JJK). Does Luna interpret souls as having different properties at different concentrations? Is she coating her soul around the air to create physical pressure when launching her attack? Or is it something entirely different? Whatever it turns out to be, I think it will have pretty drastic implications for how battles are fought going forward

Finally, I want to touch on an interesting line from Language. She referred to Luna and Sun as "the Pinnacle of the Spiritual and the Pinnacle the Physical" respectively, and given Luna's hazy silver appearance, it does track that she is literally made of soul, but then does that mean Luna doesn't have a physical body at all? And in fact, if Luna is only a soul, then how did she exist prior to UMA Soul's creation? Is Soul really the Rule that allows souls to exist, or the Rule that allows other souls, existences like Luna, to be?

And if Luna is a soul without a body, then...is Sun a body without a soul? Can soul-based attacks work on Sun, or does the Union need to focus solely on physical attacks? Or, does defeating Sun require that Luna be defeated simultaneously, just like Ghost, because Luna is Sun's soul?

I know I say it all the time, but Tozuka really is following Oda's footsteps incredibly well. They're both so good at sprinkling in hints that make me ask questions rather than just spoonfeeding me answers, so while I desperately want the answers, the time I get to spend chewing them over and looking for them myself makes the questions stick with me and leave that much more of an impact. I sincerely hope that other mangaka are taking notes, cus I want to see so much more of this in Jump's future!

Until next time, let's enjoy life!