#and sent matsuri instead

[violetnaps]

anyway since we know nothing abt miyako my headcanon is ukitake had a whole thing about stealing talented officers from other divisions and she was brought into 13th directly as a 3rd seat with the intention of being made lieutenant when kaien took over as captain

[the-tragic-heroine]

死鬼祭 | Shiki Matsuri

fandom: tokyo revengers

characters: kurokawa izana, kakucho, haitani ran, haitani rindou, madarame shion

pairings: tenjiku x female reader

cw: blood, violence, minor character death, supernatural elements, she/her pronouns used for reader

—✧ SUMMARY ✧—

The villagers say that you cursed them all. You believe that they were the ones who cursed you. (Or, in which the circumstances of your unfortunate birth woke a forgotten, slumbering god.)

Very vague depictions of the supernatural here, and a few cameos of specific yokai if you can spot them! Title is based off of a song by KODOKULOVE! More characters may be added as the story progresses.

Read on AO3 Read Chapter One | Read Chapter Two

CHAPTER 参 THREE

Though you did not know it, Izana and his followers had been watching over you ever since their awakening, cloaked in the veil that separated the world of the living and the spiritual. As you murmured daily prayers and polished floorboards until they sparkled under the sunbeams filtering through the trees, Izana revelled in the sensation of life flowing through his veins. Some days, he stood right by your side, eyes twinkling in amusement as you jumped and looked around, searching for a figure that was just out of your mortal vision.

“You’re not gonna show yourself?” Kakucho asked, eyes following Izana who in turn, followed you as he always did.

“Not yet,” the white-haired god said, smile never leaving his face.

Kakucho merely nodded, and vanished.

Unlike Kakucho, who frequently appeared to accompany his master, the rest of Izana’s followers were not so willing to linger. Now that they were finally awake, they were quick to tire of watching the little human’s mundane routine—which consisted of a pitifully boring cycle of eating, cleaning, and sleeping. Alone. So instead, Izana sent them to wrangle with the troublesome demons that managed to enroach onto the shrine’s holy ground.

“We could cleanse them all for good,” Rindou said one day, after having dispersed of yet another. “They’re just gonna keep repopulating themselves unless we purge the entire village.”

“Not yet,” Izana said again.

“I don’t know what you’re planning,” Ran sighed, twirling a braid around his finger, “but it better be good.”

When finally, in the dead of night, a commotion sounded right outside the building’s walls, Izana allowed his hand to part the veil. One-by-one, each of his fellow spirits followed in silent understanding. As expected, there was a horde of malevolent spirits trailing after the gaggle of teenagers—and more slithering close behind. None had noticed them yet, too eager to gorge on the turbulent energy surrounding the village kids—until Shion leapt forward, of course.

“Hey there, demons,” he barked, cracking his knuckles and throwing his arms wide open. “It’s me, y—“

He disappeared with a muffled yell under the ensuing swarm. Rindou rolled his eyes while Ran ignored his plight completely, calling out to Izana, “We’ll handle the perimeter.”

“I’ll leave it to you,” he replied, robes fluttering as he descended further into the shrine. When Kakucho moved to follow, Izana halted him with a raised hand.

“No,” he said. “Ensure nothing makes it inside. That’s all.”

—✧—

Perhaps Izana had underestimated himself, after all those years of lying dormant and powerless. Surely the others felt the same, although none would ever admit to it. Instead he allowed his growing irritation to carry him down the corridor—just in time to hear you scream. At that moment, he saw something. A tiny fragment of a long, long dream, etched with centuries of tears and stained with the blood of a mother who offered him his very last worshipper. Izana threw his head back and laughed, for he may be a god, but fate was surely a stronger force than he.

I know now, he thought, a grin splitting his beautiful face in two as he rushed forward. I know why this was meant to be.

The moment he reached you, the flame being pressed to your face went out. Your tormentors had not a second to react before Izana’s hand was gripping the face of the nearest person and slamming it right through the floorboards, raining splinters upon the horrified group. With his other arm he hoisted you against his torso, dropping the now unconscious body to hold you fully.

“Sleep,” he murmured, pressing two fingers to your forehead. Your sobbing dissolved into one huff of breath before you lost consciousness.

At the same time, Kakucho stepped inside, followed by Ran, Rindou, and finally, Shion—who looked particularly scuffed up and disgruntled. Izana did not need to ask them to know that they had cleared the shrine of demons. Now, their attention was turned to the ruckus caused by frantic shouting and scrambling limbs.

Like fleeing insects, Izana mused with a sick sort of glee, and spoke. “Don’t let them escape.”

—✧—

While Izana focused on healing every crevice of your smouldering face and bleeding head, he basked in the sound of cracking bone and pained shrieks, softly humming his own little tune as he worked. The task would likely take up all of his current energy, so as much as he would have liked to join the fray, he acquiesced to sit away from the violence and simply cradled you on his arms. Every time you stirred, he shushed you with a gentleness unbefitting a man who just minutes prior had nearly crushed a person’s skull.

“Don’t let them escape,” Izana had commanded earlier, “but don’t kill them. Ensure that they will live, then send them back home.”

He lifted his head to watch.

Ran was seated on the back of one boy, who lay flat on his stomach while blubbering incoherently, laughing as Rindou leisurely snapped every joint in his hand, finger by agonising finger. Shion was a simple creature, choosing to pummel their faces while guffawing at each consecutive spurt of blood. Kakucho, however, stood off to the side, brows furrowed and staring down at the kid he had just cleanly knocked out in one hit. The unconscious boy was the one who led the group, Izana realised—and white hot hatred, masked beneath his ever present smile, surged to the surface.

“Kakucho,” he said. The black-haired man froze, then slowly turned to look at Izana.

“I’m giving you a special task,” he said, all the while stroking the contours of your sleeping face. “Wake him up and make sure he stays awake until you have beaten him half-dead.”

Kakucho did not answer, but Izana was not worried. He watched, beaming, as his most loyal of followers placed a hand over the kid’s eyes. The moment they opened, Izana turned away and closed his own, continuing to hum; as expected, the rhythm of Kakucho’s pounding fists was the best for your very own special melody.

—✧—

Your knees buckled, body falling right against Ran whose arms happily encircled your much smaller frame to keep you steady. Shion grumbled something about the beanpole hogging her all to yourself but it all went in one ear and out the other. Between the lingering memory of searing pain to their nonchalant retelling of utter brutality, you did not know which was worse. It was then that you realised, with a mounting horror that sent bile rising up to the back of your throat, that perhaps even worse of all was the tiny voice at the back of your head whispering, Good. They deserved it.

“You realise now, right?” Ran cooed, as if having read your exact thoughts. “There’s no need to act like you’re above enjoying revenge. You might be a shrine maiden, but you’re human too. Aren’t you?”

“I…”

“Think of it as divine retribution, or some shit like that,” Rindou piped up. “Izana’s a god and we fucked ‘em up on his orders, right? They got what was comin’ to them.”

You couldn’t look at any of them.

“I don’t get it,” Shion groaned. “Didn’t they try to kill ya? Why’re ya feelin’ sorry for those bastards? We just gave it right back.”

They’re right. They’re right, and yet…

“What are you guys doing?”

Kakucho’s curt voice jolted you out of your thoughts. For a moment, you were relieved to see him return home—only for the thought of him coldly beating a human being into a coma to flash through your mind.

“Ran,” he continued, not noticing your growing discomfort. “Let her go.”

“Aww, you’re no fun. Just wanted to get to know our little princess a bit more.” Still, the taller man released you, and you hurriedly scrambled to find your footing before Kakucho would realise something was wrong. You grabbed the broom that had been discarded earlier.

“I have to sweep the other side of the building,” you announced, forcing your voice steady. “Bye.”

“[Name]—“

You pushed past Kakucho and rushed off.

When your footsteps receded, he turned his attention to the men now sitting innocently around him on the floor. “What the hell did you tell her?”

“Nothing that wasn’t true,” Ran drawled, lying down on the engawa with his arms behind his head. “I’m taking a nap.”

“No, you aren’t—“ But Ran was already snoring. “…Fine, do what you want. Just don’t blame me once Izana comes back and sees the chores unfinished.”

And with that, he whirled around and went after you.

—✧—

“[Name], open the door.”

No response.

“Please?” he tried again.

He heard you shift around inside of your room. Then, a soft but petulant, “No.”

“Why not?”

A pause, before you said, “If you really wanted to, you’d be able to come in, anyways. Doors can’t stop you.”

“Are you…” Kakucho swore quietly to himself, making a mental note to put the others through the wringer. He swallowed. “Are you afraid of me?”

Your ensuing silence answered his question.

“[Name],” he sighed, “I don’t know what they told you, but I would never hurt you. Ever.” He would sooner off himself if he dared lay a hand upon you—if Izana didn’t kill him first, that is.

More silence followed, broken only by the sound of a barely audible sniffle.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m coming in.”

You were sitting in a fetal position at the farthest corner of the room, back pressed up against the wall and face buried in your arms. Kakucho slipped in through the closed door and made his way carefully toward you. The sight of your shoulders shaking ever so slightly as he approached hurt more than any injury a demon could inflict. After a brief hesitation, he crouched down. To his surprise, you were the one who spoke first.

“All I wanted was to live,” you whispered. “I just wanted to live normally and not be a burden to anyone.”

Kakucho was already a man of few words—but this time, he truly did not know what to say.

“Why did it have to be me?” Your grip around your knees tightened. “Everyone hates me just for existing. Why did my mom have to die and leave me all alone here?”

“You’re not alone,” he interjected. “Not anymore.”

Slowly, like someone trying not to spook a cornered animal, he placed his hands on your arms, gently tugging them apart—and to his relief, you put up no resistance. Your shoulders slackened, though still trembling with muted sobs, and after setting your limp arms aside Kakucho reached forward. Calloused fingers stroked underneath your chin and tilted your head up to look at him. The sight of your utterly broken, tired expression sent a pang right through his chest.

“We’re just like you,” he said, cupping your face in his hands. “All we ever wanted was to live.”

You stared at him from behind wet lashes.

“The world is cruel,” he continued, brushing your cheeks free of tears with both thumbs. When more trickled from the corners of your puffy red eyes, he wiped them too. “You’ve experienced the worst of it. Let us protect you and our new lives—even if we must be equally cruel in return.”

He watched your gaze trace the scar that sliced down his forehead and over one misty white eye.

“Izana treasures family more than anything else,” he whispered. “So… don’t be afraid of us. Please.”

He waited with bated breath as you continued to stare at him. Then, so quietly he didn’t even notice, your arm shifted—and you placed one small hand over one of his. Underneath his palms, he felt the corners of your mouth lift.

“Okay.”

—✧—

When Kakucho slipped out of your room, he nearly walked right past the younger Haitani brother who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, next to the door. He stopped, then turned to face him. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“Whatever you wanna call it.” Rindou pushed off the wall and strode toward the garden. Without even checking to see whether Kakucho was following him or not, he asked, “She alright?”

“Now you’re concerned?” Kakucho sped up to walk beside him.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Rindou grunted, adjusting the round glasses perched atop the bridge of his nose. “Just figured that Izana wouldn’t be too pleased if our only remaining human follower started losing faith in him.”

“Maybe you should’ve considered that before you told her everything.”

“Hey, hey,” he said, holding his hands up. “We haven’t been around humans in a long fuckin’ time. Got too excited and forgot that they’re sensitive. ‘Specially the girls. Besides…” Serious lavender eyes glanced over at Kakucho. “She ought to know. What Izana is really like, I mean.”

Kakucho stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? You don’t?” A sneer stretched across Rindou’s face. “Don’t play dumb, now. I thought you were better than that.”

“I’m leaving—“

“Izana isn’t the same benevolent god as he was back then and you know it. More than anyone else.”

His fists clenched at his side. Before Rindou could say anything else, Kakucho was gone, disappearing into the warm summer air and leaving behind only the loud droning hum of cicadas in his wake. He sighed. “Alright, you bastard, you can come out now.”

A chuckling Ran emerged from behind a tree. “Seems like you’re getting soft yourself, little bro.”

“Shut the hell up.”

A bush rustled nearby. Both brothers turned their heads to see Shion pop out, leaves clinging to his shaggy blond mane. “Why the hell is everyone eavesdroppin’ around here?”

“Fuck off, Shion.”

“Yeah, fuck off, Shion.”

—✧—

Once again, days passed idly by. Especially now that you were banned from returning to the village for the time being (not that you were very keen to go back anyway) you found yourself spending more time with Izana and his odd group of servants. Before long, though you hated to admit it at first, you gradually began to enjoy their company. The various yokai that lived in your vicinity were friendly enough but nothing could quite replace the value of human companionship. Or, at least, human-shaped; on occasion you caught yourself forgetting that they weren’t of this world. Their manner of bickering and daily shenanigans reminded you much of your own neighbors’ antics, back when you still lived in the village, and it left you feeling an odd sense of both warmth and longing.

Still, there was no doubt that despite watching Ran chase Rindou around the garden while holding a particularly disgusting gremlin of a demon; or Shion knock himself out by accident yet again; or Kakucho’s face flare with the brightest shade of red when he walked in on you changing… they were powerful, dangerous entities all the same.

“Hey, don’t wander off,” Rindou barked at you, snatching a demonic spirit from midair and crushing it in his fist. “If you go too far we can’t protect you properly.”

You glanced over your shoulder from where you had been perched on a boulder right at the boundary separating the shrine grounds from the forest, watching the malevolent dark shadows twist and dart through the trees. After mulling over your thoughts for a few seconds, you spoke. “Can’t I learn how to do it, too?”

“What?”

“To protect myself,” you huffed. “So you guys don’t have to worry so much about me.”

Rindou’s answer was immediate. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

You scrunched up your nose at him. “It’s not like once I know how to do it, I’m gonna start trying to beat them up for fun. I’m not Shion.”

The two of you ignored the sudden loud sneeze that erupted from inside the house.

“Look,” Rindou said, moving to sit beside you. “There’s a little you can do with the help of talismans and spells and shit, but even with Izana’s blessing it would take fuckin’ years for you to reach a level where you can get rid of even one of ‘em on your own. Self-defence isn’t gonna cut it; just ‘cause you can see ‘em now, doesn’t mean your physical body can touch ‘em.”

“That’s okay,” you said, perking up visibly at the mention of talismans and spells. “I still want to learn. With you guys around, taking care of the shrine has gotten a lot easier—and some days I just get so bored, you know?”

“…You still feel lonely, huh.”

Your shoulders stiffened at his remark, then relaxed as you heaved out a sigh. “Sorry,” you mumbled. “I don’t wanna sound ungrateful or anything… but there’s still a part of me that wishes I could still be normal. Have a family. Chat with neighbours. Attend celebrations. Not hide, afraid of everything that lies right outside—at a distance so close, yet still can’t reach.”

Rindou was quiet as you talked, but in his mind he was frantically trying to recall how either Ran or Kakucho would comfort you; their way with words was far better than his in this sort of situation, much to his annoyance. Coming up blank, all he could think to do was grab your hand and pull you to your feet. “C’mon.”

“Wha— Where are we going?” Your round eyes darted from Rindou’s face to your clasped hands and back again, as if you couldn’t quite believe it.

“Inside, to get a paper and brush. Don’t get mad at me if you get tired, though; I’m not a nice teacher.”

He couldn’t help but sneak a glance at you, out of the corner of his eye. When he glimpsed your face bursting into a brilliant smile, he finally understood what Izana had been trying to save all along. Closing his eyes and allowing himself to feel the way your much smaller hand gently squeezed his, he could only hope that when the time eventually came, you would understand, too.

[tenjin-no-shinja]

Aoi Matsuri 葵祭

This festival is one of the 3 Great Festivals of Kyoto. I was quite lucky as the year I visited was the first time in 3 years since COVID that they'd held the event.

The name refers to the Hollyhock plant. The origins are that back in the 500s there were a series of plagues and other natural disasters that struck the city. An oracle was done that linked them to the wrath of the kami at the Kamo Shrines (Kamigamo & Shimogamo). In order to pacify the kami, the emperor partook in several acts, including sending horses and elaborately decorated things to the shrines.

It's essentially been repeated ever since.

According to Wikipedia:

"The procession is led by the Imperial Messenger. Following the imperial messenger are: two oxcarts, four cows, thirty-six horses, and six hundred people. The six hundred people are all wearing traditional dress of Heian nobles (ōmiyabito), while the oxcart (gissha) is adorned with artificial wisteria flowers"

The center focus of the festival is the Saiō (斎王) who historically was a female member of the imperial household, sent to represent the Emperor. Nowadays she is played by an unmarried woman. The other key player is the imperial messenger.

Interestingly enough the plants used during the festival are rarely Hollyhock, and instead Katsura leaves and other plants act as stand ins. Both this festival and the Jidai Matsuri festival involve people dressing up in period clothes which was quite entertaining to watch.

One of the fun things about the festival is that it falls on my birthday, so it was really fun to be able to celebrate it during that day :D

[broken-clover]

8- Festival

This is one prompt that I included with some sort of image already in mind, perhaps I'll blame my recent playthrough of the Teal Mask putting me in a festival mood. I like the thought of Baiken and Anji introducing Delilah to bits of Japanese culture as a soft of family thing. I will say that I tried my best looking up accurate information on how to put on a yukata and tie an obi properly, but I apologize if I ended up inaccurate somewhere.

This one's also a bit of a gift for @rex101111 because we all know you're a notorious baiken liker, and it seems like you could possibly use something a little lighthearted right now.

-

Delilah very slowly looked down at the thing on the bed, then back up to her caretaker, and down again.

“...I don’t get it.”

Baiken sighed. “I know it’s not your usual thing. Anji suggested it to me. Figured if we were taking you to a full-on proper matsuri, might as well dress for it.”

The girl did her best to keep her nose from wrinkling in displeasure at the thought. “It’s…really fancy.”

“Just looks like it. First time always feels a little weird, even when it’s just a yukata instead of a full-on kimono. I felt the same way when I got my first one. I tried to find one where the fabric wasn’t rough to the touch, figured if I was gonna ask you to wear it for more than a little while it wasn’t fair to make it itchy, too.”

After another back-and-forth look between Baiken and the bed, Delilah tentatively reached out and thumbed the garment’s sleeve. “It’s kinda weird…” she half-murmured. “But if it’s important to you, big sis, I can try it once.”

“I find it helps one get into the spirit of things!” Anji chirped, making both of them jump back at his sudden appearance.

“How many times do I have to tell you to knock that off?!” Baiken visibly restrained herself, both from pulling her sword out and in keeping the litany of swears currently on the tip of her tongue from jumping out around a child.

Anji feigned innocence. “I simply wanted to see Delilah’s thoughts on the lovely gift you procured for her! I know you were worried about sizing, what with it being a surprise and all, I thought you would be relieved to see it was a good pick after all!”

“Shut it.” The woman’s face tinted scarlet. “You gonna stand around here all day, Mito, or can the kid get changed without you watching the whole damn thing?”

“Alright, alright.” He raised his hands and took a step back. “I’m just going to stand behind the divider, alright? I’ll be nearby in case you need any help tying the knots or folding anything.”

His hands stayed up as he moved, vanishing behind the panels of wood on the other side of the room. “Also, that’s another coin for the swear jar, Baiken!”

“Oh, sonuva- !” She growled, gritting her teeth. “Just stay in the corner and spare me your color commentary.”

“It looks like a bathrobe,” Delilah said.

Baiken sent a pointed glare at the divider as Anji snickered. “I guess it’s a little similar. You gotta do a few steps to put it on right. Might take a few minutes. That okay?”

She nodded. “Alright. With something like this, you can wear your usual stuff under your clothes. With the real fancy ones, you gotta wear special stuff under it, or nothing at all. But that sorta thing’s for real special occasions, weddings and that kinda thing. I don’t wear mine that way, either. Too much work.”

At that, Delilah tried to imagine Baiken in something very, very fancy, like the kimonos she had seen at the museum from before the war. It was quite difficult to envision. It seemed like that would get in the way of swinging a sword.

Baiken guided her into slipping off her usual dress and putting the new one on. Delilah looked down at herself. Her arms moved up and down, making the abundant material flop around.

“It’s too long.”

“Nah, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Pull up the edges so it’s close to your ankles.”

She did as she was told. “Good, yeah, like that. Just try to make sure it’s even on the bottom. Fold the right side against yourself. Yeah, like that. Then you take the left and put it the other way over the top.”

“Make sure it’s left-over-right and not right-over-left!” Anji chimed in. “Don’t want to scare anybody!”

“That’s what you do when they’re dead,” Baiken explained, noting Delilah’s confused look. “Mmkay, looks like it fits alright. Make sure it’s not too loose, you wanna be able to move around but not make anything untie itself.”

So far, she wasn’t too confused. Though she had to readjust it a couple of times, Delilah found a good fit that didn’t feel too much like being squeezed. Baiken had been right, the material was pretty soft, and that made the whole thing a little less uncomfortable.

“Nice, nice.” The woman nodded. She handed her some kind of string. “This part helps keep it closed. Tie it around your waist.”

“This looks different from yours,” Delilah gestured to the sash holding Baiken’s kimono together.

“Nah, I got one underneath this. It’s a separate part. Though now that you bring it up…”

While she knotted the string, Delilah watched Baiken root around in the closet. She came back with a bundle of pale pink fabric. “This’s the part that goes over the string. The obi helps keep things more secure.”

Baiken moved behind her. “Don’t turn around, I’m gonna help you put this part on.”

“You still remember your ties, Baiken?” Asked the voice in the corner.

Delilah felt a tug around her waist. “Heh. My mama tried ‘n tried to get me to learn how to tie my own belt. Never stuck. Thankfully, you’re still pretty young and haven’t had much practice yet. Nobody’s gonna bat an eye if you wear a kantan obi, plenty of adults don’t know how to tie their own anymore.”

“It’s a lost art.” Anji gave a mildly dramatic sigh.

“Oh shut the hell up, yours isn’t even in a proper damn knot, anyway! You’ve just got it tied in a dainty little bow, princess.”

“How cruel! And another coin for the swear jar!”

She groaned. “Anyway, here, grab the little thin strips. Just knot ‘em together any way you usually do, that bit gets tucked away.”

At least that part was easy. Delilah wondered how people did this every day, they must have had a lot more patience. She preferred being able to just slip on something comfortable and be done with it. But she did feel a bit fancy like this, the patterns were so much brighter and fancier than she usually wore. When she tucked in the sash’s knot, it did look cool, too.

“One more thing to put on.”

Baiken reached over and undid the rope of reddish-pink cord that was tied snugly around her waist. Delilah held out her palms and let it coil like a little woven snake.

“Another belt?”

“Just…try ‘n not pick at this one, okay? I know some of the bits are kinda loose, it’s just old.”

“What’s so important about this?”

“Eh, mostly just an accessory, some hold the knots together, but I mostly just use this one ‘cause it looks good. Though if you were wearing your first real yukata, it’d be nice to have something to tie it all together.”

Delilah didn’t quite follow the logic, but Baiken knew more about all of this than she did, so she trusted it made sense. The Japanese sure seemed fond of belts. She looped it around her waist and tried to replicate the knot Baiken used. It came out uneven, but when she looked back up, she was smiling.

“Yeah, I was right. Looks good on you.”

Delilah tried for a little twirl. Something about how the loose sleeves flapped did feel very fun. “I feel pretty.”

“Hold on, I’m gonna go get a decent mirror.” Baiken headed for the door. “Anji, you still have that one you made in the kitchen?”

He must have nodded, as Baiken departed in silence. Anji emerged from his hiding place, eyes immediately going wide.

“Goodness, well aren’t you adorable! All ready for your first festival!”

“I feel like big sis.” She waved the sleeves again. “Do you help her put hers on?”

“Nah, Baiken’s an expert. She can do all her folds and ties one-handed!” Anji paused. “She really gave you her kumihimo?”

The girl squinted in thought. She ran a finger across the braid. “This thing?” Anji nodded. “She told me to put it on top.”

“Huh! Never thought I’d see the day…”

“What’s so important about it?”

“It was her mom’s. She did a lot of weaving- well, that’s what Baiken told me, at least. She hated whenever I tried to touch it, I used to think she just hated having any of her stuff touched, but I think this one’s an old personal keepsake.”

Delilah went silent. Suddenly, this whole thing felt a lot more sentimental. Baiken wasn’t normally so passionate about clothing or getting dressed up, but now it made a bit more sense.

Anji guided her out of the room, all dressed up. Once she’d gotten enough time to admire her reflection in the mirror Baiken offered, the three of them stepped outside and headed in the direction of glowing lanterns.

He pointed off to one of the colorful stalls. “C’mon, kiddo, let’s go see if we can fish up a water yo-yo!”

“Huh?”

“Oh, it’s a festival staple. I think you’ll get a kick out of it.”

[gean-grey-blog]

@officialbabayaga so funny story My autistic ass was also obsessed with the autistic anthropology show. So when I wasn't good enough at math to be a doctor I went to school for anthropology instead, studied skeletons from the first people to settle Maryland and the first people colonists killed and enslaved in Maryland

My college requires a grad level independent research project and I ended up doing it on fandom and queer identity exploration, and AO3 even posted it and promoted it and shit. Nine years later my gen z trans guy roommate and I were talking and we found out that he saw that survey and it made him feel seen and he lied on his age to be able to participate and he was answer #18.

I also ended up sailing tallships, doing archeology, being sent to Japan to do research on the material culture of the Gion Matsuri, and then using that anthropology knowledge to go into community organizing and mutual aid

And if you're now going "what the fuck is your life"

1: I've gotten a lot of that in the past like 36 hours since I posted this and it's now over 10k

2. The answer is I also have ADHD

say something funny

[justsasuke]

Sasuke birthday headcanons for Team Taka Matsuri Day #3: feel good/family (set in an AU where everything is happy, with Team Taka thrown in too because ofc they'd be Sasuke's friends group)

Sasuke doesn't love lots of attention concentrated on him at once so he always tries to hide his birthday from his friends

Itachi ofc knows this, and uses it to plan the biggest surprise parties because he's a doting older brother and can't be stopped

Mikoto makes the best birthday meals, but Sasuke only ever asks for onigiri and tomatoes.

Fugaku is a doting father and will spend way too much money on gifts unless stopped.

Mikoto will not let him go shopping alone for this reason.

Sasuke prefers more practical gifts (like socks or a new backpack for school), but will love anything he's given by people he cares about.

the Dinosaur Plush was a gift from his parents when he was five and he has kept it in his room ever since. He once cried when he came home from school and it was gone (Mikoto had taken it to give it a much needed washing)

Sasuke doesn't really love sweets, so his parents buy a watermelon instead of ordering a cake. (watermelon is fairly expensive in Japan and is usually saved as a treat for special occasions or gifted)

The one time Suigetsu told Mikoto he would be in charge of the watermelon and brought a square one to the party

(they now only buy square ones for Sasuke's birthday)

Karin usually hand makes her gifts--because it "adds more love" and her most recent gift was a hand towel that she embroidered with Sasuke's initials. He actually uses it.

Fugaku is head of the Uchiha clan so every time anyone has a birthday any relatives who live in the area will stop by at random to bring a various assortment of gifts. Sasuke loves the senbei from the local granny the most.

they also get packages sent from family who live farther away (a common tradition in Japan), so their front hallway is usually crowded with crates of fruit and other regional specialties by the end of the day.

Karin, Juugo, and Suigetu always leave the Uchiha home with bags of an assortment from said crates of fruit/other regional specialties. (Mikoto gives it to them)

Madara is the weird uncle who has been trying to get Sasuke drunk since Sasuke was 12.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer IV: The Wife of Chu Zihang

The moon shined bright, surrounding each of the pink blossoms of Chizuru in a bright halo. I leaned against the bark, sitting against one of the hundred year old trees, gazing upwards, letting my mind relax, while little Ru’Yi satisfied her hunger, pulling greedily at my breast, curling her fingers against my skin, gulping milk like a little pig.

I should be grateful. If she didn’t wake up to eat, it got painful to move around. She was too much of a good thing however. Even though I was reluctant to pull her off early, she had no self control. If I didn’t stop her, she would eat too much, burp and spit up everywhere. Right now, I had nowhere to bathe.

So I pulled her away, wiped myself with  my shirt and flipped my bra up.

At least the night wasn’t as cold.

The Cherry Blossom park was already getting ready to open the Hanami Matsuri later this month, the same one Chu Zihang and I had visited. It was a moment that existed only in our memory. According to official record, I had been in Paris on assignment with the principal. They didn’t know about my teleporting.

I climbed to my feet, rocking and patting Ru’Yi. I’d appeared just at this spot. This was the picture Johann had sent me as a reference point. A wide cobblestone path lined on both sides with the oldest trees in the park. I’d appeared there and he saw me.

I closed my eyes picturing the bright spring scene. I remembered how wide his eyes were behind his glasses. He didn’t believe what he was seeing. He ran to me, hugged me tight.

I squeezed Ru’Yi to myself in recollection. His hand slipped under my chin. He kissed me. My body grew hot like a furnace. I gasped for breath.

I opened my eyes and the tears slipped down my face. “Johann... I miss you.”

The tears continued to fall as I made my way through the memory. We didn’t hold hands. He stayed close at my side, and only our pinky fingers hooked together. We listened to the traditional music and listened to people recite haikus. Girls took selfies in their yukatas with their friends.

At the end of the path was the large mirror pond that reflected the glory of the flowers, doubling their brilliance against the sky. Johann said that the water reflected on my face, that I had cherry petals in my hair. I reached up and pulled down a flower. I crushed it in my palm and sprinkled it on my head. Then I looked up at someone who wasn’t there.

I froze. Adrenaline coursed like lightning through me. Someone was there.

I lowered one hand to Spider Fang and settled Ru’Yi into the soft grass. I gripped the hilt, unlocking it from its sheath. I’d broken out into a cold sweat, trembling. I shuddered, just like when Chisei had released his Soul Skill earlier that day. There was a powerful enemy very nearby.

Even though there was no one around, my body reacted like there was a knife to my throat.

The tall ancient cherry trees cast shifting shadows and my eyes darted to every movement. I knew there were Soul Skills that used shadows and made someone invisible, but those were relatively rare.

Johann occasionally had me train with him blindfolded to help me hone my other senses. It wasn’t about necessarily having super hearing or being able to smell your opponent’s breath. But more about process of elimination and spotting the anomaly in the surroundings.

My eyes slowly shifted to the pond. It reflected light from the moon in the water and the water was still like a mirror. It reflected the shadow of a person crouched low, his face turned not to me... but to Ru’Yi.

I rotated out from behind the tree, drawing the sword in an upward arc while my fist swung close behind it. Another blade met mine.  We exchanged blows four times in quick succession before I consciously realized who this person was.

I recognized him first by the blade he carried, the hunter’s blade, Dictator. My murderous intent receded like a tide and we broke away from each other.

“What were you thinking, trying to snatch Ru’Yi?” I was breathing hard, more out of an angry fear than exhaustion.

“Because I knew if I had her you would have no choice but to come peacefully.” He was smiling at me, but without malice or arrogance. He was dressed in a fine button down shirt, black vest and slacks, like he was going to a dinner party. “Unfortunately, your instincts were a little too good.”

“You were careless.” I shot back.

His smile faded. “I came all the way here for you... for a reason. Things are going to get very bad for Lu Mingfei and I’d rather not have the Academy targeting you.”

“Tell the Academy that my only aim is to find the one who disappeared Chu Zihang! I don’t have the skeleton, I don’t know where Mingfei is, and I don’t know who harmed the principal. Leave me alone!” 

“We can’t leave a mentally unstable hybrid just wandering around, Carli.”

I immediately brought my guard up. Caesar came running, extremely fast. While my technique matched his, I couldn’t equal his raw physical strength. He smashed Spider fang to the ground and stepped on it with this foot. I staggered back, stumbling over a tree root.

It was a chance Caesar couldn’t resist. His shadow descended on me.

Tongzi’s edge tore through the fabric of his shirt, knicking his skin in a long curving line. Dictator came up in a belated attempt to block a strike I’d already made.

For a moment, his side was left open. If I wanted, I could have drilled Tongzi straight into his heart with an Alchemy blade that negated a Hybrid’s healing factor and scrambled Dragon blood. Instead, I cut him again and fled, hurrying to retrieve Spider Fang.

But there was no need to hurry.

Caesar stood, raising one hand to his chest, his fingers coming away red.

Caesar had graduated from Cassell College shortly after my marriage to Johann. He was sent to man the helm at the Executive Department in Italy. He’d married Nono and settled down easily into the job. Everyone respected him as a dragonslayer, the killer of Dragon King Norton. Since the Student Union members were so numerous, he had influence over commissioners who were members and stationed in areas all over the world. One could honestly say that he was an Emperor out of Cassell.

And yet, this emperor had been cut twice in quick succession by a junior student 6 years younger.

I swallowed hard, wondering if he was going easy on me the way Mingfei did when we were playing Street Thug together. So I didn’t gloat over this accomplishment. Caesar was Chu Zihang’s greatest rival for a reason.

His expression had grown quite a bit more serious. The amusement in his eyes became mixed with irritation. “I wouldn’t be doing this, if Lu Mingfei hadn’t gotten Nono involved.”

“By running with an accused traitor, she risks her own future. I would rather get this over with as soon as possible.”

I took a deep breath. “Then you understand why I have to stay free. Chu Zihang is to me like Nono is to you. Every day he’s missing is painful!”

“Chu Zihang is not real.”  He said this slowly, firmly.

“If he’s not real, then how come I can cut you?” Caesar was Chu Zihang’s greatest rival, but what was Caesar without Chu Zihang? While Caesar was in a coma, Johann lamented to me how his skills had gone down without Caesar to push him to greater heights. This Caesar with out Chu Zihang was slower, because the one advantages he had over Caesar was speed!

I shot out like an arrow, bringing the sword down and up, dancing around him, one maneuver seamlessly followed by another.

It was how Johann and I always practiced, a long series of strikes that were like a dance to us. It helped us maintain a sense of an attack range while at the same time, maintaining a sense of staying just out of range of the opponent, looking for a single opening that would land a hit.

A sword master might go seven strikes or ten strikes in a row with much practice. But before I was too pregnant to move, Johann and I had gotten up to twenty five without a break or a breather.

The Caesar I knew was the only one who could stand up to such an aggressive, unrelenting series of attacks. But this wasn’t the Caesar I knew. This was a weak Caesar, a fake Caesar! That’s why Spider Fang stung his knuckles, cut along his wrist, bit his shoulder. He grew increasingly confounded while I settled into the rhythm. My eyes grew colder, more contemptuous.

I’d backed him against the edge of the mirror pond, panting from the effort. “You’re nothing without Chu Zihang to challenge you. No one can challenge you like he did.”

“Except for you. Because you’re his wife?”  Caesar smiled, tilting his head. He used Dictator to cut a length from the vest that probably cost a thousand dollars but had been ruined in the fight. He tied it, putting pressure on where I’d cut his wrist. 

Did I go too far? I didn’t want to seriously hurt him. “Do you believe me now?” I asked.

“You make a good point. But that doesn’t change your current predicament. The Academy grows increasingly impatient with Mingfei. They’re going to go all out on him. I’d hate for you and your daughter to get caught in the crossfire. If you want to continue your investigation, you can do so from the Gattuso residence.”

“No thank you.”

“You’re out of strength, Carli. Your heart is beating to its maximum capacity. Don’t try and attack me again.”

I suddenly realized that the Soul Skill was sensing was Wind Devil. He knew where I was because he could hear my heartbeat and my breathing. “How long were you watching me?”

“While you wandered the park like a mad woman you mean? Talking to an invisible person?” The mocking light had left his eyes.

My face grew hot. He wasn’t supposed to see that. When I acted that way, I knew I looked crazy. “It’s the only way I can keep his memory alive in a world that has forgotten him. Okay? This place has special meaning to us.”

“If everyone forgot about Nono, would you willingly date someone else? Or be married to someone else, even if no one else believed you? Or would you try to find her no matter what anyone else said?” I asked.

The words seemed to have an effect, but not the one I intended. It was only because I was already keyed up that I saw his hand to his holster, where Desert Eagle rested and I dove to one side rolling behind a tree to escape. But he’d already followed me, kicking out my legs from under me and following me down to the ground. I landed hard on my back, winded.

He pinned me under his weight and pressed his forearm against my throat so hard I thought my windpipe would collapse. His blond hair rested against my forehead and his blue eyes gazed sadly into mine as my lungs heaved but failed to draw in any air.

I had to escape, but without oxygen my muscles and mind grew heavy. I reached for the last resort.

Caesar would have seen my eyes blaze and shine with a yellow light. My pupils would constrict into sharp vertical sickles. My skin itched as scales feathered down my arms. 

My hands went from scratching, to clawing with nails sharp as knives.

Power surged through my muscles and I tossed him off me. He went sailing through the air and landing hard, scrambling to his feet. I rushed toward him, howling like a storm wind. His form came at me in my vision. I collided with him, with both hands and feet  like an animal bringing him down again.

I heard him scream. My claws had hooked around his ribs. 

Blood rage increased dragon blood purity, which also intensified the desire to kill the object of that fury. Shocked, and wondering if I had pierced his heart, I pulled my fingers from his body. 

His hands wrapped my neck and he slammed his head into mine so hard my vision exploded into stars. He grabbed my neck again and punched me hard, pummeling me in an effort to bring me down.

I lifted my hand and caught his fist, my claws digging in. I smashed my other hand into the wound I’d created in his chest, funneling all my strength into it. HIs ribs collapsed under the blow and he fell, unable to rise again.

I blinked, dizzy with one too many blows to the head. But I heard him ask, grunting with the pain. “Blood Rage.... where did you learn it? That’s a forbidden technique!”

I leaned against the trunk of a tree, staggering to make my way back to Ru’Yi. 

“Chu Zihang taught me.”

[abjectaspiringfailure]

Touka and Kuzen - contrasting managerial styles

TG 143

I wanted to take a look at Touka and Kuzen through the lens of how they handled situations differently, and how they handled their creations of cafes for their loved ones. It’s well known that Touka’s creation of ;re paralleled Kuzen’s creation of Anteiku. However, Ishida goes out of his way to show the immense differences between these two characters. This difference, and how it came to be, is portrayed in their backstories, and how  they carry themselves in the actual story. This post will cover things in both TG and TG;re.

So, to start with, we’ll cover Touka’s backstory. Then, we’ll cover Kuzen’s backstory. Then, we’ll note the difference between these two characters, how it shows in their backstories, how it shows in their characters, so on and so forth.

TG;re 71

Touka’s first encounter with tragedy is at a very young age. Her mother and father are engaged by Arima. While her mother holds them off, her father escapes with her and her brother. The loss of her mother leads her father to engage in ghoul cannibalism and developing a kakuja. Eventually, he ends up running into multiple ghoul investigators lead by Shinohara and Kureo Mado and is captured by them.

There are two versions of the stoy here - according to Yomo in TG;re 71, Arata was targeted for his power. Touka’s story in TG;re 120 is that her father was killing ghoul investigators; there, we learn she laments her father’s decisions, and blames herself for his actions.

TG 71, 70

Touka and Ayato end up being turned into the CCG by the very human neighbors their father encouraged them to trust, respect, and make sacrifices for. Touka is forced to kill one of the CCG agents that attempts to capture them as a result, and they flee.

TG 71, 70

Of course, before he left, her father instilled lessons on Ayato and her. These aren’t the only ones, of course but they are the ones we’ll be discussing. Before leaving, Arata instructs Ayato that he must keep his sister safe. For Touka, he instructs her that she must teach him about life. These are things that parents often say to their children, but it ends up taking on a different meaning for Touka and Ayato due to their childhood. Because of their circumstances, Touka ends up shouldering these burdens herself, quite literally, in the form of Ayato.

Now, lets talk Kuzen.

TG 119

Kuzen grew up completely alone. He never had anyone but himself to rely on - as a result, he ended up killing countless humans and ghouls. He started cannibalizing at a young age not for the reason that many other characters do - loss of others and the desire for strength - but instead because he wanted to live a long life and not go hungry (this is reminiscent of Roma’s backstory TG;re 135). Because of his strength and willingness to kill, he comes into contact with V. V provides him with food, shelter, and clothes, and in exchange, he continues what he’s already doing - killing. Kuzen’s needs in regards to safety, food shelter, and clothing are met. However, he feels unfulfilled.

The hierarchy of needs is not necessarily linear, but, generally speaking, it goes like this: human beings have physiological needs (eg food, water, shelter), safety needs (eg not fearing death), esteem needs (eg a career), social needs (eg love and family), and finally this leads to self actualization (eg fulfillment of one’s potential). Kuzen’s physiological, safety, and esteem needs are all being met by his employment by V. However, he still lacks loving and belonging. He still isn’t reaching his potential.

TG 119

And in comes Ukina, serving Kuzen coffee. Ukina was, according to Kuzen, an undercover journalist. The topic of her current story was V, the organization Kuzen worked for. Kuzen believes that Ukina was unaware of his status, as he was of hers, and that they happened upon one another. Eto provides a different version of the story - Ukina approaches her father because she’s aware he’s a member of V (TG;re 64).

Ukina is the first person Kuzen ever connects with intimately. She teaches him how to read the complex kanji he cannot understand. Through Ukina, Kuzen finds a place of belonging and higher fulfillment. Kuzen gets close to Ukina; she accepts him even after she finds out he’s a ghoul. Kuzen spares Ukina, and they eventually have a child together.

TG 119

Eventually Ukina’s objective is found out. Of course, V cannot let that stand. V orders Kuzen to kill Ukina. He does so, with Ukina’s last words being her remarks about his loneliness. One thing I want to note here is that, contrary to popular belief, Kuzen didn’t leave V. He simply stopped being part of their secret police. He just flat out says this, in much more polite words. That’s what “unable to cut ties” means. That’s why every time he goes to “work”, he’s wearing a V uniform. It’s why Kaiko can just walk right up to him later on in Tokyo Ghoul. There’s a reason why Eto was left in the 24th ward, after all.

This isn’t to say Kuzen didn’t make his own moves against V (such as sheltering Rize from their view), but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a member still. All of the members of V are shown making moves against other members of V - eg, Kaiko, introduced as the face of V, helps Furuta kill the Washuus who are supposed to be higher ranking members of V. Arima and Furuta are both members of V and make their own moves against it. Matsuri also immediately considers members of V to likely be the culprit behind the attempt on his life. V in general is a very Darwinian organization that seems to compartmentalize and encourage, unintentionally or not, competition among its members as is common with authoritarian organizations.

Now that we’ve established these backstories before they began interacting in universe, lets take a look at how these two characters interact, and how they play off one another.

TG 71

There are substantial takeaways from these backstories, and what these characters actually value at heart. Kuzen’s story is a story of loneliness preceding tragedy - Touka’s story is a story of loneliness succeeding tragedy. Kuzen was always alone, but surviving. That is his state of being. It is what he knows. Touka’s situation was always with a family - making sacrifices to protect family, to survive with family. While both Kuzen and Touka ended up alone for a time, their actions and reactions are different.

It’s best encapsulated by Kuzen’s words to Touka after he hears of her and Ayato getting into a fight Tsukiyama, and splitting up once again. Kuzen’s words to Touka here aren’t exactly subtle - he’s not exactly being coy about implying Touka should prioritize herself over Ayato, by noting that fighting for family and food has its limits before mentioning Ayato’s violent tendencies. Kuzen then implies that Touka going for school and working at Anteiku would help her do better with Ayato. This makes no logical sense, however.

TG 71

The tragedy of Touka and Ayato was, from Ayato’s point of view, caused by humans. Arima took away their mother, followed by their father being taken away by Shinohara and Mado, followed by almost themselves being taken away by their own neighbors. They were betrayed by the very humans they suffered for at their fathers request. Touka is not only going to school with more humans, becoming friends with humans, she’s also spending time at Anteiku working as a human waitress, seving human customers, to pay Kuzen back. As a result, Ayato is being left alone, unchecked, and unguarded. Ayato gets upset and ends up running away, causing even greater chaos than he did when he was with Touka, and in much greater danger as a result.

This isn’t Touka’s fault. She’s a child herself in a very rough situations. Children running away from home isn’t uncommon, especially when they’re under stress and they feel they’re unappreciated and unloved, as Ayato does here. That doesn’t mean that he’s actually unappreciated or unloved, of course. The difference between a normal human teenager running from home, and Ayato running from home, is that Ayato’s family, in the form of Yomo and Touka, aren’t doing the smart thing and coming after him. They’re just letting him run rampant. Now, fortunately, this ends up working out for Ayato (YMMV) in that Aogiri Tree takes him in, rather than the CCG, or a rival ghoul gang that was angry at his attacks.

However, this is still the exact opposite thing that Kuzen intended. If it wasn’t for things that Kuzen couldn’t have predicted (eg Tatara), Ayato may very well have died. This is kind of a repeating pattern with him and it goes understated. So, before we go any further, lets go over his and Eto’s backstory again, before we get back to Anteiku.

TG 119

Ishida actually demonstrates how this plan failed, but lets go over this story, because there’s some obvious flaws with it.

So Kuzen leaves Eto in the one place that V will never find her. Inexplicably, Eto just comes out of nowhere, “filled with hatred of the world”, and decides to attack the CCG. During these attacks, she receives a lethal wound. Fearful that V might pursue Eto in addition to the CCG, Kuzen becomes Eto’s substitute and attacks a random CCG base, receiving a lethal wound himself.

Okay, lets start with Eto’s motivation for her attacks. This is only going to be briefly covered, because the Eto/Touka parallels post covers this attack more thoroughly. Eto didn’t just pop up out of nowhere, as we know, she was actively being hunted by V and the CCG to begin with.

TG;re 66

Noroi ended up like Noro because V killed him. Shortly thereafter, as coincidence would happen, the CCG decided to do a “whack a mole” operation where they run into Eto at the specific coordinates they were sent to investigate in the deep section of the 24th Ward. It really can’t be stressed just how low the odds of this are.

TG;re 127, TG 80, TG 95

The Goat base in the middle of the 24th Ward in the D sector was 5 kilometers below the surface. The place they were attempting to escape to by going deeper was E14. Sector F124 is described as being part of the “deep”. We’re not given any reference points, and because V14 was just below the surface, it’s not necessarily linear. However, Eto was still located over 5 kilometers beneath the surface at the minimum.

The 24th Ward is a highly confusing, inconsistent labyrinth that is incredibly hard to navigate. And yet somehow, inexplicably, Marude’s team happen to run into Eto in the deep section they were sent to investigate. The implication here is that V failed their mission of killing Eto, and then tried to follow up with the CCG to kill Eto.

Why do I say the CCG’s battle with Eto occurred shortly after Noroi was killed? It’s simple.

TG;re 62

Noroi isn’t present with Eto when she is attacked by Marude’s team. You’d think that as her protector, he would be. Even Noro isn’t mentioned at any time for the original Owl campaign, despite being a known as a powerful fearsome ghoul of Aogiri. Eto’s also explicitly a penniless orphan right after her rebellion.

This is the first sighting of the One Eyed Owl and Eto cited both her mother’s death and Noroi’s death as a reason she cannot accept V, and Eto’s battle with Kasuka Mado is a parallel to Touka’s and Hinami’s fight against Kureo Mado, wherein Eto plays the part of both Hinami and Touka.

TG 124, 16

Eto didn’t just pop out of the abyss a fully formed kakuja that just hated the world. She didn’t even have a kakuja when she started her campaign, it’s shown as just a kagune. She was provoked by the the world controlling fascists that were intent on killing her and even went looking for her in the place that her father said would protect her from them to begin with. Kuzen knows, even after he “protected Eto”, that V was still pursuing her. We know this because he explicitly says so.

TG;re 71

So, lets move on to the part where Kuzen says he protects Eto. Eto receives a “lethal” wound…

TG;re 61

…that isn’t lethal to a kakuja one eyed ghoul. She literally lost an arm. It’s just damaging her combat ability to the point she was forced to run against multiple special class level investigators with reinforcements on the way. This type of injury is a non issue when it comes to “survival” to someone like Eto, who can, for example, be sliced in half and then chucked off the top of a skyscraper and survive. A ghoul’s regeneration is only stopped when their kahukou is severely damaged.

Then Kuzen takes her place without informing her or coordinating with her, and then also receives a “lethal” wound…

TG 69

And this somehow makes V and the CCG stop pursuing Eto because why, exactly? What changed here? If anything, shouldn’t the CCG and V be more enticed to go after the Owl, as it just received yet another supposedly lethal wound, if said lethal wound was really considered significant to begin with? It’s not like Kuzen immediately stepped in minutes after Eto received her wound and covered for her while she escaped. She explicitly escapes on her own.

Lets look at the logic here from two perspectives, one where Eto is in hiding and  the CCG and V don’t know her identity, and one where she’s in hiding and they don’t.

If Eto was in hiding, and CCG and V didn’t know who or where she was, they wouldn’t be able to find her immediately to finish her off anyway. She’s in no immediate danger danger of being attacked as long as she’d not found. In that case, Kuzen’s attack is pointless. Actually, it’s less than pointless - it’s pinning an attack she had nothing to do with on her, and giving the CCG valuable anti-Owl experience to use against her due to the similarities of their kakujas.

If the CCG and V does know who she is, then it doesn’t matter if Kuzen attacks again. This attack doesn’t change the fact that, in this theoretical scenario, Eto’s identity has been exposed. Kuzen’s just getting into another fight that is pinned on Eto and changes nothing.

How does this stop Eto from going on the offensive again and running into V or the CCG? What’s stopping the CCG and V from going after Eto while Kuzen’s faking his attack? Now that Kuzen just ran into some random fight completely unrelated to Eto and received a “lethal” wound, how will he be able to help Eto if she is attacked? The answer is “it doesn’t do any of that”, because we know what ends up happening.

TG;re 86, 69, 52

Arima engaged Eto so close to the time frame that he engaged Kuzen, you can even see that Eto hasn’t even gotten enough time to regenerate her arm yet. Eto was made into a figurative quinque of Arima’s at the age of 14 because Kuzen’s attempt to protect her had no logical way of doing so.

TG 139

Because Arima wasn’t referring to a replacement for IXA here when he said he needed a quinque. Because Kaneki was not literally a quinque he went around killing ghouls with. Arima was referring to a new metaphorical quinque to replace an old one. The old one being Eto.

This isn’t fridge logic, this is something Kuzen should have thought about immediately, and it’s not like he didn’t have time. Kuzen says that he immediately knew that Eto was his child, and consider the description of the Owl campaign.

TG 69

Kuzen had months to think of a plan to help Eto. This was what he decided to do. Kuzen’s plan was liable to fail. It never made sense to begin with in any way, shape, or form to accomplish its goal to save Eto, and so of course it didn’t. Why would it? Kuzen’s not solving any of Eto’s problems - making her feel loved, actually protecting her, giving her guidance.

If it weren’t for Arima secretly hating V and his job, and Eto telling Arima she wants to “fix the world” she would have been killed. Eto survived because of Eto. Lets compare this to Touka, who was in a similar situation with Hinami

If you’re wondering “what should Kuzen have done?” the answer is to ask Touka, who actually succeeded at her goals.

TG 23

I talked above how Volumes 2 and 3 of Tokyo Ghoul are effectively a parallel between Eto, and Touka and Hinami. It’s well known that Touka’s creation of ;re was meant as a parallel for Kuzen’s creation of Anteiku. There’s a reason for this. Lets take a look at how Touka handles the situations with Hinami and Kaneki that Kuzen’s also in, shall we?

TG 16

Kuzen left Eto in the 24th Ward. He tries to do the same with Hinami.   Immediately, Touka gets enraged. You can’t just leave an orphaned 14 year old alone in the 24th Ward. The 24th Ward is considered one of the worst places in Tokyo Ghoul to live, let alone for an orphan. Children shouldn’t be left unattended in general…

While Touka’s reaction here (”Kill all the doves”) is an overreaction, it’s an overreaction to Kuzen’s overreaction. And yes, this is an overreaction. What logical reason is there for Kuzen to throw Hinami in the 24th Ward? I think it’s safe to assume it relates to the CCG confrontations that he gives moments later to Touka’s idea of killing all of the CCG.

TG 16

That still doesn’t make sense, though. Because even if he’s not on the radar because of his connections with V, Kaya, Koma, and Yomo are. A ghoul’s face being exposed is a big deal, yes, but the investigators had no knowledge of what Hinami actually looked like, and a simple investigation of his own could have solved that.

TG 20

To clarify this description is so vague as to be meaningless. It’s basically saying “this vaguely child sized person with a clover dress and a coat”. Hinami literally has to change her clothes and survive a few months and she’ll no longer fit this description in any way. In the end, there is a middle ground between these two sides - Hinami stays with a member of Anteiku and they protect her, and that’s exactly what happens anyway.

TG 31

Oh and also Hinami gets a haircut, grows because she’s still growing, and changes her clothes. Because she’s alive. The thing is, this is such an obvious and simple answer to the problem at hand that it should have been Kuzen’s first reaction. Touka’s not realizing this immediately is logical. Touka herself has a history of losing people to the actions of the CCG - her own parents directly, and indirectly Ayato. Touka being blinded by her rage is understandable.

Kuzen, meanwhile, has no excuse. He’s many times her age. He’s coolheaded enough to realize not to attack the CCG, and he’s old enough that he should have experience to realize the flaws in his logic. Again, like with his decision to “help” Eto, this is not a split second decision.

TG 17

As a result of him not doing so, the very thing he was trying to avoid, Doves dying, ends up happening anyway. And the very result he was trying to avoid, vengeful Doves, follows. This is a pattern with Kuzen’s actions. His actions keep leading to results he doesn’t want, because his actions have no logical basis of succeeding at anything he claims he wants them to.

TG 25

Kaneki, Touka, and Hinami subsequently are all almost killed. Kuzen and Yomo eventually show up, but they were mainly preoccupied with Kaneki and in the case of Touka it wasn’t even a last second save Hinami did. Kureo Mado’s quinque was in the midst of being swung meters away aimed at Touka’s head when Hinami cut it off.

All because Kuzen lacked the foresight to think that abandoning an innocent 14 year old in a hellhole was a bad idea. And he really should know better. Kuzen left Eto in the 24th Ward after Noroi died and he got… obvious results.

TG 32

Lets move on to Kaneki’s encounter with Tsukiyama. We’ll start this by making an observation of Touka warning Kaneki about Tsukiyama. This might seem insignificant, but it’s not. Touka’s warning almost worked, were it not for Tsukiyama’s cunning and Itori’s goading, Kaneki would have likely avoided the Gourmet Arc. It’s rather interesting comparing this to both Itori and Tatara’s commentary on Kuzen, where they both make a good points about Kuzen’s treatment of Kaneki.

TG 34, TG 54

There was literally no good reason for Kuzen to not warn Kaneki of the impending danger around him. We know Kuzen’s reasoning here, according to Yomo, it’s to keep Kaneki from getting caught up in the confusion. The problem is that’s already too late. Kuzen already knows Kaneki’s mixed up in V’s business, the CCG’s business, and the Clown’s business, whether he likes it or not. He knows, and decides not to tell Kaneki.

To get back to Tsukiyama, Kuzen’s reaction shows, once again, a lack of learning anything.

TG 40

This is one of the many times that Yomo starts to questions Kuzen’s decision, but doesn’t fully follow through with the thought process. And it’s hard to do so, which I’ll get into later, because Kuzen has many redeeming qualities. But that doesn’t change his downsides. Remember, his inaction almost resulted in three of his people getting killed, and resulted in two members of the CCG getting killed.

Tsukiyama himself literally almost just had Kaneki tortured to death and eaten alive by a group of hungry ghouls. They just finished having a conversation with Kaneki about this very issue. Yomo is clearly worried about Kaneki, and he has a very good understanding of his strength because he’s been training him. This is not stuff that has not already come to pass - this is stuff that has passed.

TG 40

Que Touka, almost as if it’s a joke and she was listening in on them. As if her expression directed at the discussion and Kuzen’s poor decision making, and not Loser. As if it’s meta commentary.

TG 42

Touka picks the opposite decision that Kuzen does, and is in the right. Had she not shown up, Tsukiyama would have likely eaten Kaneki and Kimi, and killed Nishki. You can’t really be hands off when the guy in question is trying to kill one of your people, you know? But Kuzen doesn’t see it that way.

TG 18

You could say that, in a sense, Touka is paying Kaneki back for his own disregarding of Kuzen’s direct orders saving her in the process. One of the patterns that goes hand in hand with Kuzen constantly getting the worse outcomes is of course, characters going against Kuzen’s will and getting improved outcomes.

TG 59

Kaneki’s rescue from Aogiri is actually an example of Kuzen doing the right thing. Still interesting to note that Touka immediately knows she’s going to save Kaneki and makes it known, which contrasts with Kuzen’s malingering on the issue.

TG 124

Kuzen’s stand at Anteiku was also just pointless. He frames it as a stand against V for Eto when Kaiko chats with him, but how does fighting at Anteiku do so? How does this protect or help Eto? How does fruitlessly dying against the CCG stop V from going after Eto? Again, it doesn’t.

Even if Kuzen was going to be chased by V, we know you can avoid them for years with occasional fighting (see: Shachi, Noroi and Eto, Rize pre-Binging). And if you actually want to fight them, there are better means than playing defensive against a bunch of CCG agents protecting literally nothing.

TG;re 140, 65

It’s not like this is like Rushima and Coachlea, where the goal is to split the forces of the CCG to enable a rescue operation. The diversion Aogiri Tree made was an absolute necessity for the success of the Coachlea raid. And it’s not like there are countless numbers of noncombatants who couldn’t defend themselves if Kuzen didn’t fight, like in the 24th Ward. The stand made there was a necessity to stop the slaughter of civilians.

Kuzen didn’t have to fight, and neither did the Dobermans or the Apes. A lot of people just ended up dying for no reason. Anteiku was just a place that could have been rebuilt, which is exactly what the rest of the Anteiku crew sans Kuzen and Kaneki did. It was literally a building, the people inside the building are what mattered. And Kuzen decided they had to die and then effectively blamed it all on Eto. Because regardless of whether or not that’s what he intended, that is what he did.

TG 128

Kaneki is clearly implying that this entire battle, this entire fight is entirely Eto’s fault here, he’s just not saying her name. We’ll get back to this later on, because it’s important, and it explains a lot of the Anteiku/Eto interactions.

TG 130

Now the Anteiku raid itself. Kuzen framed the entire thing as a fight for Eto. He brings Kaya and Koma along with him, but as noted above, this doesn’t actually help Eto in any way. As noted above, if Kuzen just ran away, hid himself, anything, really, there would be no consequences to anybody.

Touka attempting to rush to Anteiku was a foolish move, and it makes sense that Yomo stopped her. The problem is Yomo’s response to Touka’s response. Touka’s the only person in this situation who’s actually shown putting any thought into the situation, and yet she’s being belittled for it.

TG 130

Kaneki, Kaya, Koma, and Kuzen are all on suicide missions for no good reason, hoping that things will work out. Touka is desperately trying to understand, but can’t, because there is no logical reason for this to happen. People are just dying over a literal building. Touka’s objection destroys Kuzen’s argument here about redemption through death and how arbitrary he makes it. Yomo really has no good responses to Touka’s objections here, he just deflected with saying she’s too young to understand the thing that he himself doesn’t understand. He even outright agrees with her.

TG 130

He tries to play off her being confused by a senseless action leading to countless deaths as her “throwing a temper tantrum”. He adopts Kuzen’s policy of inaction once again, even though he feels this is all wrong. He even acknowledges this years later.

TG;re 171

The problem is that he still doesn’t see the pointlessness of Anteiku, here. No one does. Even Nishki and Kaneki were trying to rationalize the battle as Kuzen trying to cause enough chaos that the Anteiku crew would not be found.

“Or how it could have ended without losing Anteiku…”

We are literally shown how to have ended the situation without losing Anteiku, outside of a name change. It’s literally a situation that Yomo himself was in just months before in universe. It’s just that Yomo can’t bring himself to acknowledge the reality of Kuzen’s actions. He somewhat seems to have started to understand it towards the end of ;re, but not quite. On some level, he’s still trying to justify the battle. “Maybe if I had fought in that battle” is just that. The right answer would have been to… not fight.

So, what was Kuzen’s real reason for the battle of Anteiku?

TG 120

I think the answer is the same as it is for many characters in this series. We hear it from Touka, who rather purposefully shares many parallels with both Kuzen and Eto, talking to Kaneki, in an arc that is a parallel to Kuzen’s own. Saying this to Kaneki in the chapter right after Kuzen tells his story to Kaneki, and right before the destruction of Anteiku.

Kuzen didn’t establish Anteiku solely for Eto’s sake. He did it so he could say to himself he founded Anteiku for Eto’s sake. Kuzen didn’t fight the CCG for Eto’s sake. He fought the CCG so he could say he fought for Eto’s sake.  He did it for the self satisfaction, a way to soothe the guilt.

Because Kuzen , just like Kaneki, hated being alone. And so he starts doing anything he can to stop from being alone, while paradoxically wanting to die while living as long as he can, like Kaneki did. Anteiku is a parallel to Kaneki’s story as a whole.

TG 126

Just as there’s a reason Eto was hunted down and forced to work for Arima (and yes, she’s forced to; the moment Arima discovered her identity, she has no choices left) despite Kuzen’s “protection”, there’s a reason that Anteiku was destroyed despite Kaneki’s “protection”. Because destroying Aogiri doesn’t solve the underlying issues that cause threats to Anteiku to begin with.

It doesn’t break the bird cage caused by V, it doesn’t solve the issues between humans and ghouls, it doesn’t even remotely encourage that. Destroying Aogiri doesn’t even solve the immediate threats to Anteiku in Tokyo Ghoul - V, and groups that work with them, like, say, the CCG. The groups who actually targeted Anteiku and actually destroyed it, and not just a theoretical that Kaneki proposed in his head.

TG 63

Because Aogiri never intended to attack Anteiku, a few individual members did of their own accord. Think about it this way: If they were intending to destroy Anteiku and kill all of its members, why would Ayato be in Aogiri when his goal is to protect Touka? There’s nothing that actually indicated that Aogiri had any interest in Anteiku outside of just checking out Kaneki’s worthiness as a possible One Eyed King.

Tatara, Eto, and Arima never even intended for Kaneki to be tortured in the first place.

TG 54, TG 75

Tatara actively writes off Kaneki and gives him to Ayato, not Yamori. Ayato, as in the guy who angers Yamori, and who Yamori didn’t want to cross. The reason Kaneki was tortured was’t because of Aogiri using Yamori as a roundabout means to do so (why would they bother doing so in such a manner?), it was because of, primarily, Nico’s extensive machinations enabling Yamori to do so.

TG 58

Kaneki projected Yamori, a guy who has less in common with the average grunt of Aogiri as Kijima does the random grunt of the CCG, onto the rest of Aogiri Tree. Yamori was legitimately hated by the Aogiri members as a whole, this is made explicit on multiple occasions. Yamori also rather explicitly has literally no loyalty to Aogiri Tree.  His motive? “it’ll be fun”.

Yamori torturing Kaneki was explicitly treason here, in the sense that he had to commit treason to do so. The only reason that the Bin Brothers didn’t try to fight Yamori was Nico and the oncoming CCG battle. We’ll leave this at that for now. However, it’s made clear that Nico was the one who enabled Yamori to torture Kaneki by stopping Kaneki’s and the others’ escape at every turn and being the one who lead Yamori to him in the first place.

TG 139

The tragedy of the original Tokyo Ghoul wasn’t that Kaneki’s actions amounted to nothing because the CCG’s attack made Kaneki’s actions against Aogiri meaningless, and he decided to shoulder the burden of fighting everyone alone. The tragedy of the original Tokyo Ghoul was that Kaneki didn’t actually protect Anteiku, because his actions had nothing to do with protecting Anteiku. In the end, Kaneki ends up in an unwitting battle against the One Eyed King and is defeated before he can reach his goal of Anteiku. He fought a series of pointless battles against Aogiri, because a Clown set him up.

TG 78

That’s why Nico’s saying all this to Furuta in a chapter called “Diversion”. It’s… literally right there. Eto and Aogiri a diversion for Kaneki from his true goal: being loved and finding happiness. Nico even kind of just outright says they had Kaneki tortured because they wanted to see the changes a human goes through when they enter despair. There is a very, very good reason why Kaneki is always portrayed as being at his worst when he’s going after Eto in both Tokyo Ghoul and Tokyo Ghoul ;re.

They’re mentioning Eto indirectly here, and how she’s not the One Eyed King (Nico lied to Kaneki - not Furuta) to foreshadow quite a bit. The tragedy of the original Tokyo Ghoul was that Kaneki’s actions were meaningless the entire time, that he wasn’t actually fighting the real threats to his loved ones, and he learned the wrong lessons from his experiences.

TG 143

That was the point of this entire scene with the Clowns celebrating at the end of Tokyo Ghoul. Like, they’re even referencing Yamori’s line here. Kaneki went on some random warpath against someone who is mostly irrelevant to his happiness and could have even been an ally to him (like Tsukiyama, or Nishki), who eventually became an ally to him in ;re, but not the actual threats to Antieku.  Kuzen is the same as Kaneki. That’s how they parallel. The only difference between Kaneki and Kuzen is that Kaneki was tricked and misled, whereas Kuzen wasn’t.

TG;re 71

Kuzen is completely aware of this fact. He knows his actions aren’t actually helping Eto. That’s the subtext here, even if Yomo doesn’t pick up on it. Yoshimura even lampshading that, more often than not, he gets the opposite outcome than what he wants in his statements here.

TG;re 62

I believe this scene to be grossly misinterprreted. The question I usually see pop up here is “Why is Eto getting so unreasonable here, so ungrateful towards her father?” There seems to be this perception that Eto could just walk in through the front door, that Kuzen would just welcome her with open arms. But there’s nothing to suggest that he would.

TG;remake 1, TG;re 62

This novel Eto drops in front of Anteiku is about the longing for parents, or in other words, a family, while living in a hellish situation. Just look how long he lingers on the novel she drops in front of his door. This indicates the novel itself has meaning to him.

TG;re 63, TG 124, TG 119

Consider that Eto looks just like Ukina. Now consider that Eto makes public appearances and has her novels known around the world. Kuzen even imagines Eto in his mind’s eye during his speech to Kaneki. The implication here is that Kuzen is just as aware of Eto as she is of him. The other implication here is that Kuzen’s lingering on Eto’s novel because he knows she just walked by and dropped the novel as a message to him.

The real question should be “How does Eto know who Kuzen is?”

TG;re 71

The implication here is that Kuzen came forward to Eto. Given his foiling with Touka, and his intentions with Hinami, all point towards one thing: Kuzen’s last embrace of Eto? Wasn’t from when she was a baby. It was probably shortly after she published her novel. That is how he knows V is still pursuing her. That is why she is so angry. That is how Eto knows who he is. That is why Kuzen lingered on Eto’s novel for so long. Kuzen did with Eto the exact same thing he wanted to do with Hinami. Only with Eto, there was no one to tell him “this is wrong”.

Eto started working as a novelist as a 14 year old. Eto was forced to become a child soldier as a 14 year old, fighting a war against V, who controls the entire world, as a 14 year old. Not for her own selfish ends, not for simple revenge, but for the plight of her fellow ghouls.

TG;re 65

And Kuzen’s not helping her, he’s not taking care of her, he’s not taking notice of her, he’s not actually doing anything for her. The opposite of love is not hatred - the opposite of love is indifference. And Kuzen comes off as being completely and utterly indifferent towards Eto’s struggles. Eto’s writing novels about living through hell, because she’s being hunted by V, other ghouls, the CCG, and the only support system she believes she has at that moment is maybe Arima.

TG;re 62

So when Eto walks by Kuzen having a happy fun time with his new family, while she’s suffering alone, when she’s being hunted by V, she gets upset. And it’s completely understandable. She’s struggling alone.

(this image is from TG 125 and TG;re 71)

Kuzen wished for Eto’s embrace, to have a cup of coffee with her. He created Anteiku as a home for her, the name being an anagram of her name and her mother’s name; but in the end, it never amounted to any more than a wish. V was never going to go away without someone to stop them, and Kuzen had already resigned himself to never be able to do anything to beat them.

Therefore, Eto could never come to Anteiku. Kuzen referred to Eto using such terms with fantastical connotations, but simultaneous common usage, such as “wish” and “miracle”. Perhaps that was by design? Because he knew the arbitrary requirements he designed to be met could never be.  These words would have immediate meaning to those around him as merely expressing desire; but in reality, they’re acknowleding it’s pure fantasy.

We’ll contrast Touka’s inaction with Kuzen’s inaction, because they’re two very different things. Both Kuzen and Touka made homes for Eto and Kaneki respectively to return too, and both avoided grabbing them and bringing them to those homes. But the reasoning here is polar opposite.

TG;re 42

Touka doesn’t want to bring Kaneki to this home she made for him because by being part of the CCG, he’s protected. The investigators know his identity, and will search him out if he runs away. Being in CCG custody and under their protection? It’s the safest thing for him. Of course, if he does run, he will always have a home at ;re. Touka is actually ignoring her own wishes, her wish for Kaneki’s return, because she thinks this sacrifice is necessary to keep Kaneki safe - because she believes he’s safer without her.

The other part of this equation is, of course, Haise Sasaki and the members of the CCG. Haise Sasaki is just as much a part of Ken Kaneki as any other “personality”. Haise is not something that can simply be removed from Kaneki.

TG;re 121

Which is something that holds to be true. The moment “Haise Sasaki” became “Ken Kaneki”, Akira Mado stopped associating with him. Because names are not without meaning. Memories are not without meaning. The thing that brought Kaneki to Touka, was the thing that took away Haise from Akira.

TG;re 99

And in the end, when V and the CCG does come for Kaneki, even after his identity has been exposed and his face plastered all over television?   Touka has Kaneki stay at ;re, fulfilling her promise.

TG;re 124, 123

And Touka is also forced into a situation where she learns there’s an army on its way to her location. So what do she and Kaneki do? They don’t fight a pointless battle they run, sending Kaya and Koma aways instead of forcing them into a suicide battle. While Touka is fond of ;re, she recognizes ;re as what it is: a building. Something that can be rebuilt, an inanimate object. Of course, things don’t go as planned, and Mutsuki, Aura, and the Oggai show up to fight Kaneki.

The violence Kaneki and Touka used here is proportionate to the threat they faced until they can find an opening to leave. Because the important people were sent off. They had already left, because that’s the logical thing to do when you find out an army is approaching your position and there is nothing of strategic value in the place you’re staying at.

TG;re 130

And even when the CCG followed, Touka still stayed with Kaneki. Compare this to Kuzen’s response to V and the CCG hunting for Eto, his teenaged daughter, who’s identity is not truly known by anybody. And hey, even if they come for you, guess what? Touka has the answer there, too. Touka had an objectively harder job than Kuzen at this point, because Kaneki’s face is now being plastered all over the news. Eto is a… relative nobody. V is hunting her down, they’re trying to kill her, but it’s not like her identity is known to such an extent.

Many people recognized Touka’s parallels to Kuzen with regards to ;re and Anteiku, but I’m not too sure I agree with people about what they meant. The reason Touka succeeded in making a home for Kaneki and Kuzen failed in making a home for Eto wasn’t because Eto “couldn’t understand Kuzen’s love for her”, but because Kuzen never made the right decision, and moreover, knew that in his heart. Touka makes this explicit by rebuffing every decision he makes at every level. That’s why she’s a better manager.

That is not to say that Kuzen didn’t make some very good decisions, because he did.

TG 9, TG;re 71, TG 125, TG 71, TG 47

Kaya and Koma were, at one point, violent ghouls who fought others often. Because of Kuzen’s leadership and guidance, they calmed down. They joined him, and became more peaceful. And not just them, but those who followed them.

Or lets use Yomo as another example. Kuzen saves Yomo’s life from Arima, then brings him under his wing. Mellows him out. This is going to be a pattern with Kuzen. Kuzen also saved Yomo’s niece and nephew.

For Touka, Kuzen acts as her father figure and sends her to school. Touka is noted to have “cooled” a lot from this. She established one of her most important relationships here.

For Kaneki, he gives him a family. He tells him, at his weakest moment, he has a place to be. Anteiku is a place of belonging Kaneki discovers when he, as someone who always felt he had nowhere to belong besides Hide, believes he has become a creature alien from both worlds.

He also gives Nishki a way to have relatively moral food. Nishki is also mellowed out by Kuzen’s actions. He becomes far more accustomed to peaceful interactions with others.

It’s just that, if you notice the pattern, none of these good decisions have anything to do with Eto. And indeed, good decisions make people more willing to make people overlook bad decisions. But it doesn’t change the fact that he failed Eto. It doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t help her. It doesn’t change the fact that he got people killed, because of decisions that had immediate, easily seeable answers available to him. But, a reoccuring theme of Tokyo Ghoul is this:

TG;re 159, TG 1, TG 47, TG 98

People really, really, really don’t like to acknowledge the bad. They only want the good. That there is a hidden truth to the world, a darkness, that no one wants to face.

TG 54

It’s best encapsulated by Kaneki’s statement here. Kuzen hid a ton of information from Kaneki - information Kaneki desperately needs. But at the same time, Kuzen gave Kaneki food, a family, counsel, and the ability to do things. Kaneki has very good reason to have doubts in Kuzen, but he writes it off as just his irritation and confusion. Irritation and confusion that was caused in part by Kuzen’s hiding of information from him.

As for why Kuzen treats Eto the way he does? He can say it’s V, but I think it’s more than that. Kuzen has some interesting wording that he uses when he goes on his speeches, pertaining to one thing: “Birth” and its negative effects.

TG 78

He first says it here, relating birth with anger, sadness, death and mass murder. But the best example, the one that gets cited as being “such a good speech”, is the one I want to focus on:

TG 126

“from the instant we are born, we are evil”

His speech itself is in reference to an interpretation to the idea of the Original Sin, which is literally the chapter title. The Original Sin, in the way Kuzen applies it, is the belief that all people are born filled with sin, more or less as Kuzen describes it. This speech itself comes off as kinda cool when you consider how it contrasts with his managerial position at Anteiku, his attitude, and his past, but as Kuzen describe the Original Sin, it’s arguably literally meaningless.

“acts which snatch things away are equally evil”

“life itself means evil”

Kuzen’s statement equates, say, Donato stealing children’s lives with Amon stealing donuts as a child. It’s honestly a really depressing speech. The speech comes off as someone who was forced to kill countless people to survive, and then willingly killed countless more at the behest of a conspiracy, attempting to justify themself. A conclusion so meaningless that “death squad member” is equal to “newborn baby”, which is literally the point, because he’s clearly trying to rationalize his treatment of Eto here with this philosophy.

TG;re 63, TG 119, TG 1, TG 70

Both Eto and Kaneki greatly resemble Arata and Ukina. Kuzen’s killing of Ukina is the darkest moment of his life. It is, quite literally, the only time that we ever see Kuzen shed a tear - that we ever see Kuzen truly express vulnerability to such a level. For Touka, this is a reminder of the good times she had, the more simple times. The time she spent with her father was special to her. Touka has positive memories of her father, who kept his darkness hidden from her; Kuzen has negative memories of Ukina, who he was forced to kill. The resemblances carry emotions that are completely contrasting, and further explain Kuzen’s avoidance of Eto.

“I know that I am ‘evil’, and so are you“

Based off of what Kuzen’s wording here and his mind’s eye view of a “violent ghoul”, he associated Eto with death, with destruction, with evil.

TG 40

Because when he’s describing a ghoul committing senseless murder, he’s thinking constantly of Eto. Eto’s body language actually contradicts his descriptions of course, showing immense stress. This is honestly just Kuzen projecting, which you realize in chapter 119, because he’s describing himself when he was younger and thinking of Eto. He’s literally seeing the worst of himself in Eto. And Eto also sees the worst of Kuzen in herself. That’s part of the reason why she wrote the Black Goat’s Egg.

Kuzen’s rebellion, in the form of the Battle of Anteiku, did nothing that couldn’t have been done better. No one ever got the chance to directly call Kuzen out for what he did, to try to get him to reconsider, Touka being the only one who even considered it, at least not in a way were it was trying to justified his actions. He staged this massive battle that legitimately served no purpose. All because, ostensibly, “for Eto”.

TG;re 86, TG;re 52, TG;re 69

The One Eyed King plan is something that has a limited time table to complete. And if Eto doesn’t do what Arima says, then he could force her to become the One Eyed King by attempting to fight her and killing himself like he did against Kaneki. Which is something Eto doesn’t want, because she thinks everything she touches dies. Because she thinks she’s toxic. I went over this in the Eto’s novels post, but the Black Goat’s Egg is basically about Eto’s self loathing and belief she’s toxic.

TG;re Vol 5 poem, Black Goat’s Egg excerpt

TG;re 74

There is some inference here, essentially the idea that Arima gave Eto the same choice he gave Kaneki when it came to Touka - it’s not explicitly stated, but there’s some hints. I understand there’s the idea that Kuzen and Eto made no attempt at reconciliation, and that’s actually understandable. But… I’m pretty sure the subtext is they did, because the literal text is that she’s bothered by his passing.

TG;re 65

Furuta brings up Kuzen here, and the death of those around her because of her actions. Something that really grates on Eto. Eto has no real response to Furuta’s points, because these things actually bother her, which is why she just responds with “I’m on the size of the weak, you’re on the side of the strong”. It’s a deflection about  

Eto is planning on dying here to atone for her sins. She doesn’t think she’s someone worth living, worth saving. That’s why she smiles in the same manner as Kaneki after making a request for someone to do something they’re already planning on doing, for Kaneki asking Urie to save Mutsuki, and for Eto asking Kaneki to fight Arima. Eto is actually paralleling Kaneki throughout his “Reapernki” and “Shironeki” phases, and these parallels run back 13 years.

TG;re 68, 55

You’ll notice there was an awkward pause here from Eto that went completely overlooked during this conversation when Kuzen was mentioned by Kaneki. This isn’t her being angry. This is her not having anything to say when he immediately brings him up, the rest of her conversations with Kaneki being constant quick witted banter (that devolves into mentally ill rambling shortly after this, but).

This awkward pausing is actually repeated later, with Eto’s human father figure, Shiono. An awkward pause, followed by a joke. These scenes aren’t a perfect parallel; but they’re rather close.

TG 99, TG;re 119

There’s more hints of course, and it relates to Rize’s treatment by Furuta. You can actually see Rize here and the immense agony she is clearly in. This is a clear cut indication that Kanou donors aren’t given any type of pain supression system, and that more over, they’re fully aware of their surroundings.

Why is all of this relevant?

TG 143, 124

When you cut to Kuzen, if you look closlely you’ll notice that he’s smiling. And it’s in a panel that was paralleling an earlier panel, where he’s miserable when talking with Kaiko (with the panel mentioning Eto’s existence is a betrayal of V), but smiling next to Eto. Pretty hard to do when your body is hooked to machines and being harvested, right? The idea that the last panel we see of Kuzen was drawn this way for no true purpose seems rather unreasonable, no?

You can’t peacefully smile in immense pain like that. But you can if you’re not in immense pain. Kuzen would logically be on painkillers here, and since Kanou didn’t do this for Rize, it would logically be at Eto’s request. Is that a good ending? No. And this also doesn’t excuse what Eto did here. I think that will probably be hard to swallow given the general assumptions surrounding Eto, but I didn’t agree with the idea that Eto didn’t care for her father, because her actions towards him don’t make sense otherwise. I’m also not sure how else someone going through a painful procedure would smile and be completely asleep outside of painkillers.

TG 99

It further explains why Furuta knew to use Kuzen against Eto. If Kanou knew Eto cared about killing Kuzen, he would have probably mentioned that to Furuta. Kanou and Furuta were consulting constantly. Kanou knew, back when Kaneki confonted Kanou in his lab, that Kuzen and Eto were related by blood. Kanou had been aware of Kuzen and Eto’s relationship from the beginning.

To get back to Eto, the problem here is that Kuzen’s speech, his entire rebellion against V, is being framed as for Eto, but because how horribly he pulls it off it ends up being against Eto. Because no one actually benefited from the Anteiku battle outside of V; it was demonstrably meaningless in its objectives. But in the end, it wasn’t meaningless to the people it left behind.

Because everyone who survived Anteiku? They all worshiped Kuzen. And Kuzen just staged this massive fight, which meant nothing and did nothing, while framing it as for his daughter who they don’t know. The daughter they’ve been told is a horrible monster. The daughter they believe was the one who was being unreasonable, when Kuzen was the one who decided they could never be together. The daughter who objectively had no control over Kuzen’s actions at any time, but is being blamed for them regardless.

TG;re 75

Eto, of course, ends up saving the Anteiku crew from certain doom not once, but twice. It should be noted that Eto jams up the machinery here befoorehand, too, so even if she fails to manifest her kakujja, the Anteiku crew won’t die.

TG;re 75

And rather than trying to seek understanding or reconciliation they just. Don’t. Ever. Because there’s good reasons to have blood between them, but there’s… no attempt at understanding. Eto sincerely attempts to help them here. She is the only reason they are alive.

The idea she might be saving them because she’s keeping a promise, or she’s trying to help Hinami out, or they’re her fellow ghouls, or she’s Kuzen’s child, and therefore helping out family, doesn’t even enter into their mind.

TG;re 175

They don’t do much of anything both times, there was a refusal to even acknowledge her the second time. She actually shatters the Kuzen quinque, here, too. That’s how they were able to win against Kaiko, because he lost his SSS rated quinque that allowed him to effortlessly dominate them. They were about to be killed by Kaiko, and she’s objectively the reason they’re alive, and there’s a refusal to acknowledge her.

There was a refusal to even acknowledge her existence for the last 80 chapters. They’re literally doing the exact same thing that Yoshimura and Arima did to Eto. Well, except one person:

TG;re 129

[smxmuffinpeddling]

#9 death of someone close

Yuzu’s name was still written on the nameplate by the apartment door. The breath in Harumi’s throat caught upon seeing the loopy handwriting that was Yuzu’s signature, alongside her mother’s name and… Mei’s. 

After much internal deliberation, Harumi eventually found herself pacing restlessly in front of Yuzu’s door. Or rather, the place Yuzu used to live in before-- Harumi had to take a moment to prepare herself for her own thoughts-- Before the accident that took her life.

“Damn it,” Harumi muttered under her breath as she quickly wiped at her stinging eyes. Sometimes it felt like she had finally run out of tears, and then she would see something or hear something that’d remind her of Yuzu and her emotions threatened to suffocate her. Just yesterday she had sat down to eat and then she remembered the time Yuzu accidentally spilled an entire ice cream sundae on herself. Harumi had laughed so hard at her expense that day--

Harumi slapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a sudden sob. “I can’t do this,” she whispered into her trembling hand, turning her back and walking away from the door. She could barely contain herself, how on earth was she supposed to confront her dead best friend’s sister? 

One of the hardest parts about losing a friend, Harumi discovered, was returning to school and seeing everyone moving on with their lives. It was as if Yuzuchi had never been there, had never stumbled in as a shock of color and became the first genuine friend Harumi ever had. Her fellow classmates gave her a wide berth as if she would snap at any moment, and with damn good reason. Anytime she saw someone smiling or laughing, she felt an irrational hate poke at her with a hot stick. Every time she saw that particular empty desk she either wanted to grab someone and remind them of the girl who used to sit there or just burst into tears. Her entire head hurt from the effort of resisting those urges and constantly clenching her jaw to hold it all in. 

Hard times like these made her pull out her phone, made her instinctively text Yuzu to tell her about how much her day sucked and it was all Yuzu’s fault. Texts that would never get a reply now, and after doing that a few times she very nearly smashed her phone against the nearest wall before texting an apology. 

Her phone informed her that none of her messages had been read. 

She didn’t think she could possibly feel any more isolated in the world until she noticed Nene crying into her lunch instead of eating it, or Matsuri skipping classes to sit on the roof. Seeing her friends suffer made Harumi straighten up and roll up her sleeves. She made sure Nene ate her food and dragged Matsuri back to class. Giving everyone else a push forward gave her something to do, but bizarrely she felt as if her own life was at a standstill and wondered why.

That was when she noticed Mei could still sit up straight in her seat. The student council president continued taking notes in class. She continued reprimanding students in the hallways, in fact with more frequency than ever. Harumin observed the other girl in utter disbelief. Surely, Yuzu’s death affected her too? She searched desperately for a trace of solidarity, but Mei seemed to ignore her existence completely. 

It hurt. Harumi was certain Yuzu had been in love with this girl, and she couldn’t even be bothered to grieve her stepsister? The person who was the center of Yuzu’s universe could still raise her hand and ask a question about the lesson? Harumi could barely comprehend the words on the chalkboard. She just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. And over time it infuriated her more and more to the point she would spend class glaring at the back of Mei’s head. How cold could one person possibly be? 

Despite all her better judgment to distance herself, Harumi couldn’t help the impulse of trying to reach out. Maybe she was desperate to connect with someone else who had been close to Yuzuchi, or maybe she was stupid with grief. Or maybe it was Matsuri’s text goading her to do it, her messages having taken on an edge of cruelty in Yuzu’s absence. Either way, one day Harumi caught the student council president striding past her in the hallway and decided to follow her.

“Hey, prez.” She almost missed Mei’s tiny flinch at her greeting, falter in her stride stuttering her movement for only a moment before she continued walking.

“What is it?” Mei asked tersely without even looking at her. Harumi bristled as she easily matched strides with her. Her attitude used to be able to resist other people’s animosity, like water off a duck’s back, but these days her anger always seemed to be simmering under the surface ready to erupt. Especially at Mei’s attitude when Yuzu was in the damn ground--

“I was just hoping we could talk.” 

“I’m a very busy person, Ms. Taniguchi. Any inquiries you have can be directed towards a teacher.” 

Ignoring a very clear dismissal of her, Harumi stubbornly persisted. “I was thinking the class could hold some sort of memorial for Yu-”

“No,” Mei sharply cut her off. “We don’t need a distraction from our studies.”

The statement struck Harumi like an unexpected gut punch. “Are you serious?”

Mei wasn’t looking at her. She just kept going like she was above it all and Harumi not only saw red, she drowned in it. “A memorial isn’t a damn distraction, how could you even say that about Yuzuchi? Was that all she was to you?”

Mei stopped walking so suddenly Harumi nearly bumped into her. “Could you please not say her name?” 

“What?” 

Mei finally turned her head but avoided eye contact by staring over Harumi’s shoulder. Her gaze looked lifeless and heavy with fatigue. “Just stop.” 

The skin around Harumi’s neck was hot with the vitriol she spat. “You’re unbelievable. Was it easy for you to move on? After Yuzu cared about you so much?”

She could actually see Mei shutting down. Whatever sign of life she had in her eyes dimmed further and her fists unclenched themselves to hang limply at her sides. Harumin must’ve gone mad because she actually wished Mei would look more hurt. That she’d express fucking SOMETHING! 

“We’re done here.” With that Mei turned crisply on her heel and stalked away. 

“Hey!” Harumi yelled after her, blood boiling. “Are you just going to pretend that she didn’t fucking exist?” Harumi almost couldn’t believe her eyes when Mei sped up, practically running away from her. “She deserves better than that!” 

She nearly didn’t notice that she was barreling over Himeko, who she was surprised to find struggling to hold her back. The small girl gave her a pleading look to leave Mei alone. Shaking, Harumi stepped back. She angrily wiped tears from her face and stormed the opposite direction, pushing through staring classmates. Mei made her feel even more miserably alone and she hated her for it.  

The day after that Mei didn’t show up to school. Or the day after that, nor the day after. For an entire week.

‘Didn’t know she cared’ was Harumi’s spared bitter thought towards the student president. She tried not to pay it any mind since she was in the process of attempting to move on with her life... But dammit, she was bothered. Like something was bringing Mei’s name up in the back of her mind and pushing it to the forefront. She texted Yuzu: “you’ve infected me with your sister obsession.” 

She had never cared much for that particular Aihara, why should she now? 

“Because Yuzu-chan cared,” Matsuri said over their half-eaten lunch. They both seemed more interested in pushing the food around on their plates than actually eating. They shared more of an appetite for being equally miserable than eating. “Yuzu-chan cared a lot. She was a good person like that. Ignoring Mei would be like… Wasting Yuzu’s kindness,” Matsuri shared her theory with none of the smug satisfaction she usually carried with her. Just cold hard facts. “And you, Taniguchi-senpai, are too much of a mother to let it go.”  

“Will you come with me?” Harumi asked.

For the first time in days, Harumi saw Matsuri smirk slightly. But it was a smirk that sent chills of concern down her spine. “No way.”

“Why not? We’re all in the same boat here.”

“I won’t forgive her.” She stabbed her food with a fork. “If I see her, I might kill her.” Her smile was empty. “And that would definitely waste Yuzu’s kindness.” 

Their conversation haunted her. She tried to bat the thought away but it soon took over her head. Yuzu had cared about this girl so damn much. And if any part of Mei was human, she definitely cared about Yuzuchi. She couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Mei was just freakishly good at hiding her suffering to the point she devolved into robot-like behavior. 

The thought propelled Harumi to stand in front of what used to be Yuzu’s door now, fretting over what the hell she was supposed to say. Before she could chicken out and after she got her tears under control, she pounded on the door and waited. 

And waited. Probably a good minute or two went by as Harumi shuffled awkwardly in the hallway. Could it be that nobody was home? She had come all the way here, she didn’t feel like giving up now. She lingered another moment before she played a little game of ‘where would Yuzuchi hide a key?’. The game proved to be easy since she immediately found the key under a flower pot that had a sun doodled on it. She couldn’t help but palm the key fondly. ‘Yuzuchi would definitely want me to sneak into her house right now,’ she reasoned rather reasonably. 

Light from the hallway spilled slowly into the dark apartment. Harumi wondered again if no one was home, but a dreadful curiosity pulled her further inside despite her doubt. As she removed her shoes she noticed another pair at the door; probably Mei’s. The place was a mess. Dishes were piled high in the sink and the trash hadn’t been taken out. It looked lived-in yet lifeless at the same time. Harumi quietly made her way through the house in fear of disturbing anything. The bedroom door was ajar and Harumi hesitated. This was seriously creeping her out. Goosebumps popped up along her arms from a sudden chill and before she knew it she was inside the bedroom as if she had been pushed by an invisible force.

She’d only been here once before.

“Wait… do you share this bed? With the prez?” Harumi had asked incredulously. “Yikes! That’s gotta be awkward!” 

Yuzu had laughed, scratching the back of her neck bashfully. “Heh, yeah it can be awkward sometimes… but it's actually not so bad!”  

Harumi was snapped out of her memory by movement in the corner of her vision. Startled out of her skin, Harumi yelped in fright and held her hands up in vague defense. What greeted her was a dark figure huddled next to a desk that Harumi thought was a ghost for a second before she focused her eyes. Sitting on the floor hugging her knees was Mei. She looked so small Harumi wouldn’t have realized she was there if she hadn’t raised her head to stare at Harumi with eyes that seemed hollow. 

“Jesus, prez,” Harumi hissed through her teeth. She kept her hands up, still spooked. “I didn’t think you were home so I let myself in-”

“What do you want?” A cracked whisper, like a ghost herself. Her arms tightened around her knees, curling into herself. “Yu… She’s- she’s not here, so...” she weakly croaked. Her eyes trailed away as if forgetting that Harumi was there already, trapped as she was in her own misery. The lump of utter resentment in Harumi’s chest she had built up towards Mei eased as she took in the sight before her. She had suspected something bad but this was worse than she had imagined. Harumi slowly approached her.

“Where’s your mom?” Harumi asked in a gentle voice. Mei’s exhausted eyes slowly shuttered at the question and Harumi wondered how long she had been like this. She looked pale and thin, and the bed didn’t look slept-in. 

Mei’s head shook a little. She still wasn’t looking at Harumi. After a few seconds, Harumi started to suspect that Mei hadn’t heard her at all until the other girl cleared her throat. “She went with my father. I told her I would stay with Grandfather.”

“But that was a lie,” Harumi easily concluded with a tired sigh. Taking her hands was like touching a corpse and Harumi tried to rub some warmth into them. Damn the maternal instincts that pulled her here. “Let's get you cleaned up for now, alright? Can you stand?”

“Leave,” Mei quietly demanded. Harumi easily ignored the weak command. She had never been that great at following student council orders anyway. Taking her hands, she attempted to lift the other girl to her feet. “Go away!” Mei’s voice cracked as it went up in volume. 

“Nice try, prez, but you’re stuck with me.” Her limbs were limp. It felt like if she pulled any harder, she’d pull her arms right off. 

“There’s no point,” Mei hissed, reddened eyes watering whatever liquid she had left inside her. “This is my punishment.”

“Oh shut up,” Harumi snapped at her. “As if Yuzu would ever blame you for anything. Now get your ass up.” This time when Harumi tried to heft her up Mei put up a fight. but she was weak so if was like trying to wrestle a tall sleepy toddler. 

“Let me go!” Mei’ pushed at her shoulders, determined to rot away, it seemed. “Please!” 

With a growl and a shove, Harumi tossed Mei onto that stupid double bed, but Mei’s grip on her shirt pulled her down as well, landing her in a pile of limbs. Being in the bed itself seemed to make Mei even more frantic, her streaming eyes flying wide as a scream bubbled in the back of her throat. She struggled, striking out at Harumi as she battled her demons. 

Panicked, Harumi gathered the other girl in her arms and held her tightly. “Mei,” she finally used the other girl's name, pleading with her to calm down. “You’re not alone, Mei, I promise,” she shushed in a soothing voice. By some miracle, it was working and Mei gradually stilled in her arms. With Mei’s face squished between her breasts and her hand stroking through her hair, Mei’s exhaustion knocked her out hard. Her hand clutched limply at Harumi’s shirt as she snored softly against Harumi’s skin, and it was suddenly difficult to remember why she hated her so much. 

The next morning brought with it a shuffling pale figure poking its dark head out of the bedroom to peek at Harumi searching the kitchen cabinets for a bottle of syrup. 

“Hey,” she waved awkwardly as Mei emerged from her den and stared at her. “I’m not exactly a cook like Yuzuchi was, but I found some frozen waffles, so- aha!” she finally found a bottle of maple syrup and placed it on the counter next to some half warm waffles. “You need to eat something.” 

Mei glared at her as if she had a million things to say to Harumi. “Get the hell out” was at the forefront, Harumi imagined. But at least they were conveying some sort of emotion, so it was a start. Her stomach conveyed even greater emotion with a grumble that shook the walls of the apartment. Mei actually grew a little color on her pale face and Harumi pretended not to hear the sound. It took until Harumi turned away and pretended to clean the counter that Mei stiffly sat herself down and nibbled at a waffle. Harumi didn’t expect her to say anything, let alone the words that ended up coming from Mei’s mouth. 

“You smell like her,” Mei whispered. “Why?” 

Harumi blinked in surprise, turning back to Mei. “I- um… I started wearing her favorite perfume after…” she trailed off, not having the energy to finish the thought. 

“It helped me fall asleep,” Mei admitted, still in a dusky voice that was like a quiet morning in itself. “Thank you.” 

Harumi smiled warmly at that. “You’re welcome, Prez.”

“Now get out.”

“I don’t think I will.”

The following week, Mei stood at the front of the class early in the morning. She was still pale, but no longer translucent. When she announced in her clear student council president voice that the school would hold a special memorial service for Yuzu, Harumi placed her head down on the desk to hide her tears. The heavy weight on her shoulders was dispersing and it made them tremble with relief. 

“You sure had your work cut out for you, Yuzuchi,” she typed into her phone. Her finger hovered over the send key. 

[les7saisons]

7Seeds Gaiden part 3

Last part. I kept doing other things but with the third volume of Mystery to Iu Nakare coming out soon, I thought I’d better finish my reread so I could continue Tamura’s new work! So let’s get started.

Our characters successfully built their new home base and are now living in it. I love the way it looks like, here’s a picture:

Kurumi is a bit worried because Arata doesn’t cry much, especially at night. Fujiko and Ban think it may be that she’s sensing that there are dangers in the wild, like young animals can do, and keeping quiet to stay safe. Kurumi and Ryuusei are amazed that a baby’s able to feel that.

Gengoro wants to raise the spiders for their thread and for food. Semimaru is horrified and it leads to a discussion about the fact that Semimaru and Arashi both have the insect ideogram in one kanji of their names (Arashi never thought about it and it destroys him)

Hotaru, Gengoro and Nijiko also have it so Semimaru quickly cheers up, saying they’re the “insect team”. This makes the others join the game with name-based teams like the bird team, the flower/fruit/plant team or the seasonal team. Natsu thinks it’s neat how they can make up various teams like that and it leads them to talk more with different people and to get to know them better (Haru, who she was a bit scared of, is the one who comes up to her to ask if she’d be in the same team as him, since they’re named after spring and summer)

There’s also the new curly haired gang (Chimaki, Matsuri and Kurumi joined) which Haru eyes suspiciously because Koruri is hiding something...

Near the Ark, Tsunomata studies Rikako’s notes, hoping to learn how to wake up the children. The robot Peru is found in the water, all dented, which makes Semimaru and Natsu emotional (Chimaki later makes up something for Peru in the little cemetary they’ll build)

Botan talks with the Summer A team about their relationship with Ryo and Ango, they end up going to see them and Ango apologizes for his past behaviour. He has decided to ask again to borrow the boat, this time to everyone. Botan ask once more what he wants to do with it. He answers that he intends to bring the stuff from the various shelters to Sado, then to leave to search for other people, like the american team who sent the letter or people that may know how to make the Ark work. That he’ll talk to them about the people here and show them the way over there. He says he’ll definitely return. Gengoro backs him up and says they can be trusted to keep the boat in good shape. Karita asks Ran what she thinks and she says she’s fine with it (saying that useful things should be used and that she thinks Ango’s not the type to come up with such a big lie and then do some evil deeds lol)

But she asks them to not start shit with other countries that would lead to some kind of war. Ango says he’ll be careful but he glances at Ryo with the biggest distrust ever, going “YOU TOO, RYO!” while Ryo pouts. Supposedly, they should not have communication problems because they learnt some english, spanish and chinese back during their studies... I kind of wish we knew about that before, it seems a bit last minute to bring it then?

Anyway, when Botan asks if it will only be the two of them leaving, Matsuri interrupts saying she’ll go too, reminding Ryo that he said she’s necessary. And yeah, though  Matsuri probably doesn’t speak any other language well, I kind of get the feeling her social skils may be needed to avoid trouble! Before leaving, they make a ceremony for the departed. Chimaki sculpted tombs for them. Shigeru’s body, Rikako’s remains, the little stones Koruri bought are put there. Ran also put Izayoi’s glasses, that she had kept all along. Aramaki asks for a prayer for team Winter.

While Ango and Ryo are getting ready, Karita comes talk to them about Mozu’s hand that he found. As he leaves, Ango realizes something and asks him which hand it was. Karita doesn’t seem completly sure but says the left one, which makes Ryo laugh and say that in that case, Mozu’s alive and sacrificed it as bait. He adds that maybe they’ll meet again, to which Ango agrees, with a contemplative look on his face. Ango asks Karita to talk about it to Hana, which Karita intended to do but he doesn’t want to tell everyone or Kurumi may feel guilty about it. 

What Koruri was hiding from Haru was a present! A mini-piano that she made with the help of the curly haired club! Haru tries it, which brings him to tears and laughter. Koruri asks if the sound is not the one a piano should make but he says “it’s the sound of a piano from this world”. They are super cute.

Ran remarks that there seem to be some couples forming all around and Karita agrees, saying that Akio and Chisa looks like they get along well, then asks if Ran’s feeling lonely. She says Akio can do what he wants to, then adds that she’d be alright with Karita if he is with her. After a moment of shock, he shouts seriously that he’ll do it. Definitions of the verb he uses have both the meaning of embracing someone/having sex with them so I guess there’s kind of a double entendre? Because Ran laughs, saying she’ll want to do the same too and that he’d better be ready. Which makes Karita faints.

Natsu and Matsuri have an heartbreaking goodbye scene in which they cry while holding each other. Everyone watches while the boat sails away. Ryo reveals to Matsuri that part of why he felt that Hana was in the way/a problem was that he thought she could become an equal partner to Ango. Meaning he was afraid of getting “replaced”.

Ango is embarrassed by Matsuri and Ryo snuggling up and looks towards the sea. He thinks that he’ll face the future, for everyone and for himself. THE END.

...

Actually there’s also a little bonus story about the making of the carvings of the 7 Fujis. Takashi met Chimaki’s dad, Kiichi, who was in a live sculpting troupe (we see them sculpt a wooden Toraji, at a show), and offered them this work for an astounding amount of money, part of it paid in advance. They’re pretty creeped out because Takashi is super shady obviously but Kiichi needs money to go see his son who’s living with his divorced wife. Unfortunately she ends up leaving Chimaki with her mother a few years later and runs away with money he sent. Having last seen his son when he was two, Kiichi is scared of seeing him now, he keeps on sculpting and sending money instead, to the grandmother this time. His only clear memory of Chimaki is them drawing together.

One day, they learn that something is being constructed under one of the Buddha they finished. They ask Takashi about it and he ends up telling them the true. Even after that, Kiichi keeps sculpting. Once they are done with the 7 Fujis, Takashi tells them that they’ll be allowed inside any shelter they want and they’d be allowed to name some family members and friends they’d wish to stay with. Kiichi wants to send his son to the future instead.Takashi says that he’s a candidate and agrees to put him on a team after making sure Kiichi wouldn’t prefer to meet with him in a shelter. Kiichi then asks for Chimaki’s grandma to be put in the same shelter as himself. 

We get a little scene in the future with Chimaki mentioning his oldest memory is of drawing with his dad. Then we skip to some unknown point in the future, on the last page we see children running/playing in the water and the door of the Ark being open. 

So that’s it!

Obviously, I left out a lot of stuff, Tamura puts little details everywhere and there would be so much to talk about but it took me so much words already, even for just describing events. Sorry if it was boring, I started those “chapter talk” posts with the idea of talking about what I liked in each chapter but with translations being very slow and myself deciding to keep doing those while reading the volumes in japanese, I ended up doing more of a summary of things.

[midnight-in-town]

Kakugan differences

So you know Uta’s last birthday art...

and how he’s covering his right eye, as if indicating that his only kakugan is on the left side? 

Well, what if he was the second OEG of the timeline instead of the first?

The first OEG (the Nagaraj, the One Eyed Washuu) was this guy...

but as explained twice in the last two chapters, he apparently didn’t escape his Kakuja so he could be very old and trapped in the 24th ward.

Meanwhile, Kaneki in ch121 and Nishiki told us in ch128 about a second OEG who threatened the CCG and led to V’s creation...

...and as you can see, his left eye is emphasized on. So what if the Uta we know is the second OEG who “was a hero of ghouls who led the CCG to destruction”?

As to whom he would be to have a Washuu kakuhou (special kakuhou with cloning abilities?) and look like the One Eyed Washuu...

how about a rare hybrid (i.e natural OEG, like Eto) born in the sunlit garden?

Uta being responsible for V’s creation because he raised havoc around 50 years ago would also explain this:

since Roma was sent to prison basically around 20 years ago (and they apparently knew each other from before) and since she said that she knew the “king of the underground”.

For the record though, at this point, this title might refer to either of these two OEGs, since both were apparently driven underground:

...And in fact, Matsuri wouldn’t be against doing the same to Kaneki:

Finally, Uta being the second OEG would even go with @kingkishou​‘s theory that Uta somehow passed on the OEK title to Arima at the time of the Clowns’ annihilation and it also allows me to introduce one of my untold crack theories...

...which is that the reason Uta is the only one who kept his mask on during ch98 was because he didn’t want to be recognized by Kaiko from V (since V defeated him 50~ years ago).

TL;DR Uta is probably a (natural) OEG if just because...

...and several birthday arts that imply he only has one Kakugan. 

However, considering that the One Eyed Washuu’s kakugan was on the right side while Uta’s might be on the left (+ he doesn’t have mole), maybe Uta is another OEG from the Washuu family, except that he came into the picture half a century after the first one. 

In other words he’s the OEG Nishiki talked about in ch128.

[linkspooky]

The Hardest Lessons Learned

We’re actually given, several hints not only this chapter but beforehand. Including the chin touch as he says he’ll catch up, that Kaneki did not really believe he would make it out alive from this fight. 

That Kaneki, while deciding he wanted to live and find a purpose for living, had resigned himself to his death once again.

In this chapter we finally witness what has been put off since basically 100, and that is true tragic consequence. Not from the cruelty of the world, but rather for it’s lack of forgiveness towards Kaneki’s wrongdoings. It’s Karma. Remember, everything that happened so far Kaneki has been warned of far in advance.

When Kaneki takes no steps himself despite being warned several times ahead of time, how can tragedy be averted? When Hamlet fails to avenge his father and spends the entire play in indecision. When Romeo and Juliet fail to think on their situation and their families and decide to get married instead. When Othello fails to trust or believe in his wife the smallest amount. 

When Oedipus pursues the truth, but is at the same time terrified by that truth then how can he possibly avert tragedy? 

Kaneki’s greatest fear, that he’ll be locked into his decisions and forced to bear witness, powerless to change the results.

Kaneki’s greatest oversight, that there is a reason behind all of the suffering in his life. That he is special in some way, that his motivation is stronger, the unfounded assumption that he is important, he matters, he stands above all others. 

That he is the main character of a tragedy.

As assumption that makes him forget that just like himself, there are also people fighting for things that are important to him, to protect them, and therefore his own urge to fight or protect is not somehow more special, more stronger, or guaranteed to win him the fight.

We were warned as explicitly as one chapter ago, that we cannot fight our loss. That doing so is really an attempt to spare yourself from the loss, or substitute yourself into the loss and therefore the price for fighting your loss is always yourself. 

We see Furuta lecture Kaneki, on other basic things he was warned about.

Kaneki is told, not to base his decisions on his feelings, to learn to trust anothers and not to base everything on himself, and most of all to make and stand with his decisions and we see him do none of these things. He renegs on the one decision he did make, he fails to trust both Tsukiyama and Nishiki with him to come with and provide support and instead goes entirely alone back home, he makes his entire decision based off of a bad feeling he had in the first place. 

Furuta tells him as much, one small difference in the fight and he could have won. What that means is that Kaneki really has learned absolutely nothing since the last time he fought Arima and ended up in a similiar situation.

Unlike Arima though, Juuzou is not secretly fighting with the intent of bettering Kaneki. Kaneki’s unlimited supply of mentors who are willing to take the blame for him, and take the consequences for him, set up all things in his favor on the assumption that this time, he might move, seems to have finally run dry. 

From the Anteiku arc forward, Kaneki has only ever moved as a result of another pushing him. Hinami begs him to save her mother, Itori pushes him to investigate the Gourmet, Ayato kidnaps him and bodily drags him, Yamori tortures him until he’s finally ready to defend himself. Aogiri moves on Kanou before he does. Uta tells him point blank where Rize is hiding. Touka tells him to go back to Anteiku. The Anteiku raid happens before he returns. Arima drags him out of V14 by the hair, but only after Hide told him to go down that route to fight. 

Eto returns his memories for him. Kanae saves Tsukiyama, not him. Arima slits his own throat. Eto tells him to become one eyed king. Furuta stages an attack on the CCG for him. Furuta resolves the clown raids himself, by operating both sides of the conflict. 

Kaneki puts off making any kind of decision himself for as long as humanly possible, and when he finally does make that decision he goes back on it. He decided to return to Anteiku, he decided to return to the 24th ward all alone.

We see countless parallels to the Anteiku raid. With Yomo saying that you have to live while losing once more, Touka choosing to run away from the conflict eventually rather than stay and fight, but I think most importantly of all Kaneki is once again stopped from achieving his want of protecting someone just short, by an equally obstinate force in Arata armor who just like him, refuses to change and instead chooses to protect what little they have remaining at the CCG.

Not only that, but also Juuzou and Kaneki much like Amon and Kaneki had no reason to kill each other, and yet still fought because each considered their reason far more important than backing down. 

The translation for Jaiminis box is especially relevant here, for two reasons. One that Darum’s are supposed to carry each other’s wishes, and two that paradise is exactly what Kaneki was aiming for. A world where Humans and Ghouls could get along is certainly a utopia by the series standards. 

Kaneki is a Daruma, an eyeless doll that was meant to carry Arima’s wishes. Yet, this chapter brutally tells us what the result of that ambition was. To break him, Furuta shows us where Arima’s hope, the hope of the garden children led them.

Yet, when Kaneki never once truly tried to follow Arima’s will, how could he expect a different result. He continued to use the garden children as child soldiers, even knowing that child soldiers could die, and as a result they did.

Ghouls were being slaughtered in the streets and yet Kaneki never once showed up directly to fight for the sake of ghouls. He let the situation get this bad, for the annihilation rate to reach 88% and still acted as if he had a chance at winning. The only thing that moved him to maybe finally directly confront Furuta was the risk of a human life once again. Kaneki only ever showed up to protect CCG officers, he wasted resources to restore Akira a human, he considered risking everything to save Yoriko a human. All while claiming that he was fighting solely for the sake of ghouls. 

Kaneki blatantly and brazenly did not care at all for the masses he was claiming to be protecting, so why should he have been able to protect them at all?

What we are witnessing right now is an eclipse. The moon has moved entirely in front of the sun, and we see the shadows at their longest points. All of the characters involved in this chapter, are born raw to us at their deepest and darkest. 

Suzuya Juuzou was willing to slaughter the entire goat base, and even his good friend Haise for the sake of continuing to prop up a corpse. Even knowing that Shinohara himself might never come back. 

Touka Kirishima sacrifices basically everyone and everything in order to try to make it out safely, only to realize that Hinami, Yomo, Take, all of those sacrifices were in vain. Not only that, but even if she did manage to make it out alive, Kaneki has already been cornered minutes before she even realized her own hopeless situation. 

Miza simply clings to Naki’s dead body, and stays behind even after everybody has left as if that’s the only thing to live for. Naki looks to be truly dead, with perhaps Miza to follow soon after him. 

Take seems to have failed utterly in his last purpose, the last thing Arima entrusted him with. Two out of three of the children in his care have died, perhaps four out of five if we’re going to flashback to the Tanakamaru and Aura fight soon. 

Ui remains nowhere to be seen, Mutsuki is fried, Yomo is lifeless and marching towards his own certain death now. Nobody has achieved what they want. A true darkest point.

Yet.. why does Furuta leave Kaneki alive?

Furuta has only bothered to leave someone alive on purpose once in the past, and it created the greatest threat to his power as the Washuu King.

Furuta is not tactically stupid enough to leave loose ends. After all, the only time he’s ever surprised is when the audience is equally as surprised as him, such as Marude and Matsuri both coming back from the dead to challenge him. In those cases, with Marude’s disappearance, and Matsuri’s having several V squads sent after him he had every logical reason to assume they were dead. Furuta’s usual MO though, has always been to kill all the witnesses present, whether Matsumae, the V members with Eto, and even his attempt on Urie and Kuroiwa.

So why would Furuta suddenly change his strategy now and leave it to Hajime to simply torture and toy with Kaneki until he died. It can look like sadism, but if you remember Donato similiarly toyed with Urie, and yet at the same time both left him alive and gave him the exact same words he needed to grow later on in the story.

It was in despair and loss, what Kaneki has been avoiding from the absolute beginning where Urie finally learned. 

So we have Furuta, our cruel and relentless teacher. There are also several hints left behind in the narrative still that this is not Kaneki’s final moments.

 1) The parallels between the Arima Kishou fight and Kaneki’s moment of realization when absolutely all looked loss [x].

2) The implication that Kaneki could reverse his problem with a massive amount of cannibalism. 

3) The fact that Dragon has yet to make an appearance despite being the so called final boss, and also that Uta suggested Dragon itself could be a weapon against the CCG rather than Goat.

4) Furuta’s suggestion that first he would win, and then dragon would appear. Well, in this chapter we witness Furuta claiming his absolute victory without the appearance of dragon afterwards.

5) The numerous amounts of foreshadowing that Furuta was orchestrating his own death, and actually did not care at all for V and the Washuu’s wars.

(Furuta even makes a promise here that he’ll mess up the one eyed king for Eto. Earlier he suggests in gest that the two of them should work and cooperate together. )

6) The Nagaraaj. If the manga ends here then Ayato’s journey to the 24th ward was incredibly pointless. As well as the explanation about the old one eyed king. Ayato wouldn’t be strong enough to counter Juuzou so was the explanation simply to get him out of the way.

Or was it forehshadowing to establish that if pushed to this point, this is a power that Kaneki himself could summon. That the same way the Original One Eyed King sunk the 24th ward an entire city in order to retreat from the newly formed black investigators and V, that when it seems all hope is lost, Kaneki might summon this power from himself. That this could be dragon, especially since Furuta deliberately says Dragon is named in honor of his Washuu roots. The legendary Nagaraaj are also dragon kings in the japanese version of the myth, according to @randomthoughtpatterns. 

Not only that but the presence of Oggai all around him leave Kaneki with a framed out source of RC Cells to buffet on, if he truly decided to keep fighting. 

7) 143 Parallels

Chapter 143 of Original Tokyo Ghoul, was called Ken [x]. Chapter 62, where Kaneki reached a similiar realization was called Kaneki.  Chapter 143, is completely without a title. In otherwords it’s nameless.

Perhaps then this is the chapter, where finally Kaneki accepts his role. Where he finally decides to truly become the nameless king. 

Only after having learned from the loss he experienced right in front of his eyes, what exactly it was that needed to be changed.

[meliecho]

Kimi no na Wa fluff needed! Taki and Mitsuha's actual first date! Disaster or success?

((Ok, for this one, I recommend listening to this on repeat.  Katawaredoki))

MUSUBI

He knew her name.  

Somehow, in that fateful moment on the stairs, she knew his as well.  But she didn’t know Taki Tachibana at all.  Or at least that’s what she thought when she walked home wrapped in a blanket of weightless fluff. Its origin confused her. Of course she didn’t know him, but at the same time, his voice, dark blue eyes, smile, physique, even the way he stood with is weight shifted slightly to his right foot were among the most familiar pieces in her life.  

Mitsuha Miyamizu made it back to her apartment, dropped her keys on the table, and flopped face down onto her bed. 

“Taki,” she mulled his name over and over.  “How do I know you?”

He’d summoned up the courage to ask her to coffee at a local cafe tomorrow.  She’d answered ‘yes’ with tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. If he’d asked her to fly to the moon, she would have agreed without hesitation in the same way –anything to keep his face always in sight, to never lose him again.

Again… 

She sat up and pressed her hand to her heart.  Had she lost him before? 

Her fingers curled into the fabric at the lingering sense from their meeting.  For the first time in eight long, difficult years, after holding her breath for an eon, she felt like she could finally exhale.  She fell back to her pillow with a wistful smile. What an amazing feeling. 

Her eyes suddenly shot open.  

“What on earth am I going to wear?!”

* * * *

The small bell attached to the cafe’s glass front door tinkled when she entered.

They’d agreed to meet around 10am. She’d taken the day off from work specifically for this reason, and told her boss that it was a personal matter. Since she’d been employed at his company for five years, she’d gained his trust a while ago, so she was granted as much time as needed without any problems. It was a relaxed office anyway –the kind where she could work in jeans and kick her shoes off.

Mitsuha scanned the room.  He wasn’t here yet.  She checked her phone for the time.  It was only ten minutes ‘till. Of course he wasn’t here, he still had time.  He wasn’t as retentive about scheduling as she was.  She chuckled softly, though paused.  It wasn’t right to make assumptions about people.  

“Hi.” 

She squeaked in shock at the sudden voice from nowhere and spun, nearly dropping her phone.  

“Sorry,” Taki apologized. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“I wasn’t scared,” she immediately defended out of natural habit.  “You just caught me off guard.” 

He smiled.  “Ok. Sorry anyway.”  He glanced around for an open table and found one near one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows curving around the dining area. “There’s a table over there.”  

They moved through the sparse morning crowd, making them feel like they were the only ones, and took their seats.  

Mitsuha peered at the menu with blinders on and tucked her index fingernail between her teeth. It was a habit she’d gained in her second year of high school for some odd reason, and never dropped it. She knew she should let it go, however it was soothing. She didn’t want to.

She was too nervous to think straight, so went with her usual order to keep things simple.  Her eyes drifted up to the man across the table, who’d taken on an identical studious pose over his own menu. They mirrored each other perfectly.  A slight giggle left her before she could stop it.  

Taki glanced over the menu.  “Hm?  Is there a joke on this menu I missed?” 

“No. I just thought I was the only one who did that. No one else in my family, and none of my friends bite their nail. I don’t know where I picked it up.”

“Huh.  I’ve kinda always done this.” He shrugged, then realized he’d become too relaxed.  “If it’s bothering you, I’ll stop.” 

“It’s fine, It actually makes me feel less weird.” She sent him a disarming slight smile. 

 Taki didn’t know why he was examining the menu so closely.  He came here all the time.  He’ll just go for his usual. It’ll be easier that way.  “I’ll have a strawberry crepe.”

Her eyebrows lifted a little.  “Me, too.  With chocolate. It’s my favorite here.” 

“Same.  I come here all the time; normally for breakfast.” 

“I can never make it until after work. This place is on my way home. They have–”

“–the best coffee,” they both said simultaneously.  

It brought their conversation to a halt.  They stared at each other for a moment, unused to someone outside of family finishing their sentences.  

Taki was the first to break it.  “Jinx! You owe me a soda.”

“What? You can’t jinx me,” she defended, enjoying the mirth of their conversation, and the bite in their retort.  “We’re on a date, you nerd.  Jinxes have no effect.”

“You made that up.” 

“Oh really.  Ok, so how are you going to prove it?”  

“I…  Well, there’s…  it’s…” air hitched in his throat, then he resigned in a soft breath.  “Ok, you win this round.  I’ll get you next time.” 

“Good luck trying,” she laughed. 

He couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face.  Her laughter rang like golden bells in the twilight.  

The twilight…  Thinking of it brought another word to mind he hadn’t thought of in a long time: Katawaredoki. It was in a different dialect, and it wasn’t a word he heard on a normal basis, so how did he know it? 

Their food arrived.  Taki and Mitsuha enjoyed their breakfast strawberry crepes with small talk in between about each other’s lives.  

Time flew away from them, leaving them in their own bubble of frozen infinity.  

They left the cafe, chatting about their work, their families, and their crazy friends.  The whole while, Taki felt like he was hearing these stories from an old childhood companion.  

Their meandering took them to a Lord’s Garden a couple of blocks nearby –the same one Taki’s apartment looked out over. 

They walked along a manicured dirt path beside a pond where cranes drifted lazily along the sun-sparkled waters.  

“It’s odd, but,” Mitsuha began, “I feel like I’ve known you forever.” She paused under a cherry tree. Soft, pink blossoms drifted around them. 

“Yeah. Me, too,” he agreed. He wanted to tell her he felt more comfortable around her than he did around his closest family members and friends. There’s no way that should be possible with a total stranger.  Then again, Mitsuha wasn’t a stranger anymore.  He’d known her name the day they passed on the stairs, but had no way to explain how.  

She reached out her palm to catch any wayward petals in her palm. “I love cherry blossoms; The scents on the breeze, the feeling of life it gives off.  They’re ephemeral, but every year, they keep coming back no matter what.  They kind of remind me of home.”  

“Where’s home?” He asked. 

A breath of memory followed her answer. “Itomori.”

He blinked.  That was the name of the town he was obsessed with for a while in late high school for reasons that confused him and his friends.  The sketches remained tucked into an art book on his desk.  “You’re from there?  Wow.” 

“Yeah,” she whispered.  Her fist clenched. Why was she telling him this?  Things like this were not topics to be brought up on a first date.    

Her memories of the summer comet strike were hazy, and included a black-out point for nearly the entire day before the comet struck. She could understand being traumatized by the event that wiped her home off the map –the meteor’s ground zero was her family’s ancestral shrine, after all–but the events before hand of daily life, and the shrine’s matsuri should be normal. 

That night, she’d ‘woken up’ on the road covered in scratches, not knowing why she’d run down the mountain, or why she was crying. But what left her with the largest unanswered question of her life was the mystery of who left one simple phrase written in black marker on her right palm; ‘I love you.’ 

She opened her fingers again to stare at her clean hand, clearly imagining the quickly-scrawled handwriting once more. Instead of her own voice, however, the voice that echoed through her memory…was his.  

“Are you ok?”

She’d been caught daydreaming again. How embarrassing on a first date.  She nodded and smiled.  “I’m fine.  It’s getting late. I should head home.” 

“Wow, we’ve been out here all day. I completely lost track of time.”  He cringed.  “If you had anything else planned, I…”

“It’s fine.  I had today cleared.”  

They lingered silently in each other’s presence for a few moments. Neither wanted to back away from the other.  

Taki’s chest pained at the idea of going back home to his empty apartment. 

Mitshua’s desire to always keep his face in sight fought with her will power.  

“Hey,” Taki began.  “Can I…see you again?”

Mitsuha nodded.  “I’d like that.” 

He felt relieved.  The empty apartment awaiting him instantly became a stay-over location until he could be with her once more.  A idea flared to life. “How about tomorrow? There’s going to be a cherry blossom viewing here.  They hold it every year.” 

“I know.  I watch it from my balcony.”  She pointed to a nearby apartment building at the end of the street.  “I live over there.” 

His jaw dropped.  “You’re kidding.  I live about three blocks that way,” he thumbed in the opposite direction.  “So, between us is the cafe and park.”

“Weird,” she mumbled.  “But…convenient.”   

Mitsuha thought she chose to live here because it was a close bike ride to work, when in reality, she’d been drawn to this area, this park, and this cafe.  Every time she walked through it, she felt like she was approaching a calm in her personal storm without ever finding the source no matter how many times she wandered these garden paths. 

He stood before her now, the epicenter of that calm. 

“So,” he wheedled into the stillness, nervous about asking her on a second date, “how about noon? We can get lunch, and join up with some groups from there?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  “I’m off tomorrow.  Yeah. I’ll be at the cafe. Don’t be late, ok?” 

“I still have to get you for that dodged jinx.” 

They shared a light hearted moment, lingering even more as twilight waned. 

“Well…” 

“Well…”  Taki rubbed the back of his neck.  He’d dated before, and been nervous before, but with her –even with the level of comfort he felt–he didn’t know how to end this.  Honestly, he didn’t want it to end.  Taking the initiative, he lifted her small hand in his….. and froze.  

And image of her in a school uniform looking back at him from the mirror of a traditional-style room he didn’t recognized flashed through his mind.  

She slipped her hand away and stared at him.  His face surged forward from her memory looking back at her from the mirror of a tiny apartment bedroom.  Uneasy at what just happened, she slid her foot back.  “I… I gotta go.”

“Mitsuha…”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Taki.  Don’t be late,” she repeated, and jogged down the path toward her building.  

The sun set. Twilight had ended.  

Taki could still feel the warmth of her skin against his own. He was confused by what he remembered, but given hope by it as well.  

Whatever he needed to do to ensure he could see her again day after day for as long as he drew breath, he would do. 

He would not lose Mitsuha Miyamizu again. 

——–

End.

[gachaesthetic]

The big long Gachapin @ Anime Matsuri recap, volume 3

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2

Holy crap it took me forever to get to this one sry

Day 3 - Sunday

So it was the last day of the con, and the last meet and greet section with the band. Before running over to get my autograph ticket, first we stopped by the merch booth to see if they added anything new because I wanted those luggage tags dammit! Well, no luck on that, but they put out a set of three stickers that they weren’t selling the day before so I grabbed those. Two of the stickers I’d never seen before - one had the band logo in a white outline with a clear center, the other was more like a bumper sticker - so I asked my Japanese gachaman friend if they were new. He said, yes and the white one it particular was very special because in Japan they only give those away as a reward for getting a certain number of stamps on your concert stamp card. So it was very rare to be able to get my hands on those as an overseas fan!

The autograph session that day was in the middle of the exhibit hall, but we were told (repeatedly) no photos. :/ the members came out in casual clothes this time. Hana was wearing a sweet owl shirt. Oreo had a dress that said “HAM” all over it. Koga dressed in typical Koga quality fashion.

Ady was wearing her Music Battler cosplay, and we were standing in line when the members appeared on the opposite end of the stage. I think Mai noticed first and she poked Oreo to get her attention, and when oreo saw, her face lit up and I swear she made a little squeal.

I decided I was gonna try and bend the rules a bit and get them to sign something that wasn’t from the con but was official merchandise, and Koga (who was first in line) totally OK’d it and let me do my bag! They were pretty lax about it, Todd got his Hana drumsticks signed by everyone and the gachaman brought all of the new member t-shirts from the current tour and had them sign them.

I was wearing Nenne’s member shirt that day, and Koga noticed immediately and very sincerely thanked me for worrying about her.

Hana was next. As she signed my bag, she said, “I saw the book you gave us. I’m really grateful.” She said this with so much serious in  seriousness and again, sincerity. I saw that Koga was also making eye contact with me during this, and nodding along to what Hana was saying. I told Hana I was happy, and that’s when she said “I almost cried,” and made the little crying motion under her eyes with her hands. I know almost cried at that precise moment right in front of her. she took my hand again--that day she was doing the “one hand business deal handshake” with everyone, but again she took her time with me and gave a little squeeze, and she had a different little smile this time, it felt more like heartfelt gratitude than the coy fishing from the day before.

I’m like... crying as I think about this even now. It’s one thing to meet your favorites, to support them in person, to thank them personally for being part of your life. I would have been happy just with that. But what I never expected at all was for it to go the other way around. To make an impression on them they won’t forget. To receive their gratitude. To make that kind of heartfelt, reciprocal connection with somebody irrespective of language and distance. To know that all the hard work I’ve put in the past two years, learning about them, supporting them, and sharing my love for them to others, all of that mattered to them.

Tomo-zo was next... I always draw a blank on what to say to her lol. So I asked what the members were going to do that day after the signing. She looked around at the others and was like “ehh... what are we doing today?” Mai and Oreo interjected with “eating!” in both English and Japanese. Lol. Then Mai jumped in--”oh! We had Whataburger!!!” I asked her how she liked it and she gave me the biggest “oishii” I have ever heard. Never change, Mai-chan.

Oreo remarked about my bag--”how did you get this?” and i told her I buy a lot of things from Japan, also I told  her I was friends with Jou and asked if she remembered him. She did:) and I told her to please come back, and with the same sincerity as Koga and Hana had, she bowed a tiny bit in her seat and said, “we definitely will.” It was very un-Oreo-like how solemnly she said this. She waved at me as I left the stage :)

There was an area with chairs in front of the stage, so I sat watching everyone eslse take that turn and about that moment all the emotions I referred to above hit me, and that’s when I finally stared crying. A lot. It was kind of a mess.

After they finished the signing, Oreo beckoned Ady over from afar to take pictures with her! The rest of us awkwardly followed behind a few hundred feet to where they took her to take photos. Then after that, we watched from afar as Gacha went and played on this big bounce house obstacle course where two people race up to the top and then go down a slide. Oreo faceplanted at least once. I wonder if you can guess who the ultimate winner was?

The next time we saw them was several hours later at the closing ceremony. Koga spoke on behalf of the group, and besides all the generic thank you for coming stuff, she talked about how happy she was to meet the fans from overseas and then she mentioned the fanbook and how happy they were to receive everybody’s messages. I cried again. rip

Finally, we loitered outside of the ballroom for a few minutes hoping to meet up with Todd, but instead we intercepted Gacha on their way out of the venue and managed to thank them one last time and wave them off. They descended the escalators, and from our balcony we watched them ride off into the sunset. I cried more.

So, yeah, that was the greatest weekend of my life. I can’t imagine a single way it could have gone better, and I’m just so grateful I was able to be a part of it. Yes, my ultimate goal is to see them in Japan, but even when I do, it’ll never be an experience like this, where I had so many distinct opportunities to interact with them. At a Japanese show they maybe would have noticed me and it would have been like, oh, there’s a foreign girl here, cool. But because of AM I know they‘ll remember me - the Hana-oshi girl who was wearing the Ravers, who was in the front row and knew all the words and choreography, who snapped the rubber band at Oreo, who sent warm wishes to Nenne, who gave them a book full of the international fans’ feelings, and yes, who cried a lot. I don’t think anything could have replaced this experience.

I’m going to make it to Japan, but also, they’re going to make it back here. And I’ll be there no matter what. And I hope a lot more of you guys can join me next time. :)

[vocaloid-news]

VOCAMERICA Heads Overseas! 

EmpathP’s expanding Western Vocaloid concert series is heading to Europe! VocalNexus (a German fan-made radio broadcast) is planning to take VOCAMERICA to the Swiss anime convention Aki no Matsuri. Listen to EpmathP’s announcement video below:

A crowdfunding campaign is set up on StarNext (a German crowdfunding site) for those who wish to help out in getting a projector for the performance. For details on rewards, click “Keep reading.” 

If you want to help out VOCAMERICA, consider checking out the crowdfunding page! Another great way to help is by becoming a Patreon for VOCAMERICA’s new Patreon page! I made a post about that right here. 

Keep up with VOCAMERICA through VNN, Aki Glancy’s Facebook/Twitter, the Patreon page, and/or the crowdfunding page. 

Now then, if you choose to participate in the crowdfunding campaign, you can expect to receive various rewards. Because of Germany’s copyright laws, VOCAMERICA merchandise will not be sold, but some concert merchandise will be sold at the actual concert! The rewards tiers for the crowdfunding campaign are: 

€5 Digital “Thank You” Card: A digital thank you card sent via email with a chibi illustration of VocalNexus’ mascot “Florian”, [which] will be illustrated by MiYuki.

€15 Art Print A printed thank you card: The digital thank you card will be printed and you also receive an additional A4 poster of VocalNexus’ mascot illustrated by Vinny-Vieh.

€50 VOCALNEXUS Reward – CD: You receive the printed thank you card, the poster, VocalNexus stickers, and a VOCAMERICA CD that you will only be able to receive through this crowdfunding campaign. (Limited to 60 people.)

€100 Big VocalNexus Reward: Everything from the previous rewards plus you will be mentioned during the live broadcast and in the booklet of the CD as a sponsor. (Limited to 20 people.)

€250 Aki no Matsuri Reward: Everything from the Big VocalNexus Reward, a ticket for the concert on Saturday, plus an A2-sized poster of the concert sealed in a glass frame and signed by EmpathP and Freaky Lulu. (Limited to 3 people.)

€500 Big Aki Not Matsuri Reward: Everything from the previous rewards but instead of a Saturday ticket, you’ll receive one for the whole weekend. You will also receive a tour with Freaky Lulu through the concert area and be able to have a Q&A session with her. (Limited to 2 people.)

Don’t forget that international orders will have free shipping! 

VocalNexus has three major goals for the campaign. They are: 

First Goal: €3,300: At €3,300, VocalNexus will cover the costs for renting the projector for the VOCAMERICA concert. It will also settle the live radio broadcast of the concert as well as light sticks and additional materials like posters for the concert.

Second Goal: €4,500: With this amount, VocalNexus will rent a big hall for the concert, so more visitors can attend VOCAMERICA.

Third Goal: €6,400: VocalNexus will buy the projector and offer it for other conventions in the future.

If the money earned goes beyond the third goal, VocalNexus will use the remaining balance to improve their radio program by getting better microphones and Vocaloid CD’s. 

Don’t forget to donate some and show your interest in VOCAMERICA! By showing that there is demand, VOCAMERICA may expand to other countries in the future! 

[bureaubitch-a]

📱 hmu

01.     washuu yoshiko.  [ DRAFT ]

        he’ll be ashamed to admit this later, but having this mobile number lends a little bit of apprehension alongside a tentative sense of pride. oh, for matsuri it’s only business  ( urie had copied the number off an email that went all around the division )  but he wonders if he can say the same for yoshiko when it hasn’t exactly been commission orders that make him seek her out. 

              ↳     hello. this is rank 1 urie. just wanted to confirm that this number                        is the correct one

        … ah, no. maybe he can’t send that. won’t she think that he thinks that she’s prone to making stupid errors if he sends that?  ( he deletes everything he’s written a second later. ) 

02.     washuu yoshiko.  [ DRAFT ]

        —  not business doesn’t mean unprofessional, though. it’s a fact that urie realises he’s becoming hung up on. what’s the best way to balance the formality of an email with the brevity necessitated by a text message format? 

              ↳     dear washuu.  [ edited: -san ]  i want to inquire about                        your availability this week so that we can discuss                        adjustments to ginkui’s remote activation calibrations.                       i will be at the main office every day this week, but  —

… should he just call her instead? 

03.     washuu yoshiko.  [ DRAFT ]

        it’s a message he ends up typing three or four times  ( and deleting each time )  before the part of his mind that knows this is childish catches up to his fingers. 

              ↳     your brother is a fucking piece of shit

        it’s true, and part of him hopes she agrees  ( but it’s best not to leave a record. ) 

04.     washuu yoshiko.  [ DRAFT ] 

        urie remembers testing something once … a nickname, koko, and even though he’d offered it with one eyebrow raised he’d still earned the verbal equivalent of a slap to the face for his venture. once burnt, twice shy  —  maybe this is a message that he could get away with  ( it doesn’t include the nickname )  but he finds himself erasing what he’s written instead of tapping the ‘send’ arrow. 

             ↳     can we meet for coffee? 

        ( she’d probably say no anyway. )

05.     washuu yoshiko.  [ DRAFT ] 

        he’s out of shiba’s exam room before quarter past nine. still, urie’s coat remains folded over his arm; he’s not really ready to face the crisp january air right now. maybe it’s the fluorescent lighting, or the faint smell of antiseptic, but his headache threatens to develop into some kind of migraine. it’s how, once he’s a safe distance away from shiba’s prowling grounds, he ends up curled into a chair in an empty meeting room, a hand propping up his head and an elbow digging into his aching stomach. 

        the light on the phone’s screen is unpleasant.

              ↳     i need to talk to someone. 

        … but yoshiko shouldn’t be his first choice, he knows that.  ( talk to saiko, your deputy leader! talk to matsuri … no. no, that can’t be an option. really, on the off chance that yoshiko mentions something … ) 

        he’s quick to delete the message, and after a second’s hesitation  ( maybe to remove the temptation )  he shuts the device off too. 

        they have their own problems right now  ( and he shouldn’t act like they’re his allies. ) 

01.     washuu yoshiko.  [ SENT ]

        there are, ultimately, very few messages that urie gathers up the courage to send, the few that he feels are appropriate; he’s not sure whether it’s treading on eggshells or on broken glass when dealing with her and her brother, but either way it demands a careful step. anyway, this is a game of timing … not too soon  ( he doesn’t want to seem too eager )  and not too late  ( worse, if it looks like he forgot. )  

               ↳     thank you for your assistance today. please have a good                        afternoon.