#ch132

[opbackgrounds]

It's a little detail, but I like how Oda has different arrow designs for different characters and regions

[new-romantic-sailors]

hadn't realised I was reading That kind of comic

[pardon-my-scifi]

Fern. Sweety. Baby. You are one of the more sane people in this world. Please don't eat the hair.

[abybweisse]

What do you think, who will be the final villains?

Maybe Queen Victoria will be a negative character in like in the anime?

Could London burn down like in the anime?

I've answered asks like this a few times.

Basically, I still expect the big bads to be Queen Victoria and John Brown, much like the queen and Ash Landers/Angela Blanc were in s1. But I doubt it would include London burning down.

I do, however, expect/hope that Tower Bridge is discussed as part of the reason the Phantomhives were attacked. Because I think that Vincent wasn't as helpful as the queen wanted when she asked for money and workers... and after the attack, the estate was relinquished to the crown, and she moved funds and people from the estate into the bridge project. Which points back to what our earl says (ch85) about how long it's taking to build the bridge -- that humans have priorities. I think that Vincent focused on other priorities, while the queen wanted all the needed resources for the bridge right away... since the bridge was historically dedicated to her dead husband, Prince Albert. There are other clues about this, like the timeline itself for the bridge project in the manga (ch85 again, see below), as well as Vincent saying (ch132) that bridges and ditches take a lot of money and help (manpower).

Sebastian points out in ch85 that the project plans were approved around when the earl was born, so 1875. Then he says construction didn't actually start until 3 years ago. This discussion is in 1889, so construction started in 1886. Well, the twins were born in 1875, and Vincent's priorities were his pregnant wife, the expected child, and their estate's prosperity. The attack happens December 14, 1885, and the demon contract is made ~Jan 20, 1886. Then construction "magically" begins around the time that our earl is working to regain the estate under the Phantomhive name. Vincent had previously (ch132 again) warned Francis/Frances that if he didn't have an heir who could run the estate, they might have to relinquish the property to the crown. That's exactly what happens between the attack itself and our earl officially becoming Earl Phantomhive. Our earl officially gets the earl title on March 17, 1886 (ch63). In the letter the queen sends to our earl, she even confirms that the estate and title were in her hands until it could be returned to the Phantomhives (or bequeathed to another family).

Though there is probably more than one reason for the attack on the Phantomhive family, I theorize that a big part of it is essentially a money (and labor) grab by the queen.

[decompression-melting]

chapter 132: fuck the plot, look at how small and cute this cat is— SHIBARI????

oh wait this is important actually. uh. what wang yi said

anyway some more cute pics. look how tiny white is next to wang yi

NOT THE CAT

business partners or partner partners ;))) either way i’m happy for her

IS THIS ALLOWED??? BILIBILI????

we could’ve had it all. we could’ve had nipples. i’ll take the shibari though

[gradelstuff]

[toyota-supra]

I’ve seen this term literally everywhere but to this day it’s still very difficult putting drifting into words in my head. I genuinely don’t understand the difference between techniques even with so much watching and playing.

I imagine though that this is impressive because it was her speed in the entry that carried her exit? still hard to conceptualize, but very cool

[officialtokyosan]

tenma’s power.... how he alone made me appreciate napes

[abybweisse]

Looked this post up for info to add to a new ask reply, and I feel the need to correct something else: Tanaka was indeed the Steward when Vincent was earl and watchdog. The household image from ch151 says so:

Am I the only one who thinks that this is pretty similar to Sebastians last name?

[kleinezoe]

I think Isayama is not just Hange, he doesn't care about all veterans except Levi. Oh and EMA. More interested in EMA and Levi

well that's true tho. but it still can't justify the change they made in 132 adaptation. I've worried about the dub will a bit of, but I didnt expect it will that cheerful. just weird. cant stand it.

[yoursjae]

Johan is going to live. He's going to live happily ever after with his two best friends, his mom, his two dogs, and his family. He's going to get that damn haircut after years of having an overgrown mullet and he's not going to die. No, he has not been with us since the beginning because he's only been here since ch132. So there's no way he's dying! And yes, I am being delusional so someone please save Johan before I actually lose my mind

[kachuusha]

the intimacy and complexity of "devote your heart" in 132

the devote your heart in 132 is usually taken purely at face value but I don't think it was meant to be just a literal sacrifice your life in the same manner as give up your dreams and die was? I understand it is easy to draw parallels with that scene but I think the circumstances leading up to hanji's departure weren't exactly like erwin's hence I believe the essence devote your heart and give up your dreams and die aren't exactly alike.

a detail that is often overlooked in ch132 was that levi wasn't exactly giving hanji an order the same way he did for erwin in ch80.

give up your dreams and die was as direct as it can get. this happened because erwin expressed his desire on fulfilling his lifelong dream to see the basement but at the same time he didn't want to fail their comrades who sacrificed their life. to relieve erwin of his conflict, levi took it upon himself to make the decision for him. levi made the choice and he gave the order.

but can we say the same thing with hanji in ch 132? when levi called out to hanji as they made their way towards the rumbling, they never let levi say a word but rather asserted their decision. yes I do believe levi wanted to stop them, you can see it in the way he strongly reacted to hanji talking about their comrades watching them (we all know what followed the last time this happened)

basically,"let me go will you" was hanji begging levi to not get in their way because they've made up their mind. they've declared to convinction to the 104th already and even named armin as the new commander. levi isn't giving the order this time around because hanji had already decided.

and this is the very first instance levi says "devote your heart". to offer up your heart would literally mean sacrifice your life but was it supposed to be taken in its most literal sense? because if so, why couldn't levi have said it to erwin as well when he ordered him to sacrifice his life? why did levi go out of his way to modify the salute form in hanji's case?

there wasn't an outright explanation from the author why levi had not once uttered this phrase but if you think about it, it kind of makes sense why he wouldn't. he isn't exactly the most expressive with words. rather than talking he'd show it in his actions. the apprehension may have also come from the fact that it felt like something the military would indoctrinate in its recruits. it is painting a glorious cause to give up your life to fight for the greater good but does everyone in the military live up to this principle? levi knows exactly how corrupt some of the higher-ups are. there hasn't been a motivator that encouraged levi to say it until ch132 where hanji zoe was the trigger.

you understand.

going back to the forest in ch115, hanji expresses their thoughts to a presumably sleeping levi. how it feels like it was finally their turn as sannes had put it once and also them expressing their desire to just stay in that forest together with levi. levi later on alludes to hanji's confession and said "I know you, you cannot stay out of the action"

it was like hanji was trying to remind levi of that moment. don't try to stop me now, you know me too well.

devote your heart was the most fitting response levi could give, but not in a sense that he was simply telling hanji to die for the cause. rather than an order, it was more along the lines of levi saying "devote our hearts right? that's how we've been living our lives, to live up to this cause" because for hanji, the words devote your heart was a way of life. their research, inventions, and motivations, it was all for the sake of a better future. all this time, they've been devoting their life for humanity. this is what I meant on the phrase not necessarily having to be taken too literally. rather than levi simply telling hanji to die as others love to put it, I believe it was the moment where it made sense to levi that hanji was the truest embodiment of it. the very same person who welcomed him and his found family into the scouts with a genuine heart.

just to add, during acwnr there was a scene right after meeting hanji where isabel remarked that she doesn't understand all this talk about dedicating their hearts and levi just mulls over the question. I don't know but maybe levi already felt some sort of connection or that hanji's passion had sparked something within him.

about levi changing the form, it wasn't a standard salute where levi strikes his fist over his own chest. they essentially did the salute together, I reiterate once more because it wasn't primarily an order for hanji to die. it was levi trying to convey that he gets them and that their hearts resonate and beat over the same thing.

and this is where the love vs. duty aspect of levihan enters the discussion. romance and levihan seems to have become a complicated topic among the fandom over the recent years, but I think there are enough evidence to back up the romantic nature/implications of their bond.

it doesn't take a genius to realize how "let's live together" is synonymous to a marriage proposal in many cultures and various works of literature. plus the fact that hanji said it right after levi almost died in their arms just puts things into perspective. and it's not like we can easily dismiss it as a heat of the moment thing because hanji affirmed they seriously considered it in ch27:

the way it was worded too? them thinking of throwing it all away and we all know except who.

what's even more interesting about this is the emphasis on jean's surprised expression and how the chapter began with jean's dream sequence of retiring for the corps and having a family of his own.

now onto one of the most popular arguments against levihan: levi rejected hanji

but did he really? I don't think it went that way. levi knew hanji all too well. he knew that abandoning and forsaking their principles for especially for the sake of personal desires would drive them into guilt for the rest of their life. also the first thing levi says when he fully became conscious was that hanji is already fixing a cart so they could pull him. if I was in levi's position, that's a clear indication to realize that hanji has decided not to stay in the forest anymore.

personally I think if there is anyone who might've felt rejected, it would be levi. he fixated on hanji's proposal but upon gaining full consciousness he finds out hanji had already essentially chosen duty over love. so to me his remarks actually felt more like him coming into terms regarding hanji's choice? I can't say the same for the order of events in the anime but in the manga, it seems like levi had fully drifted into sleep right after ifkk and there was a gap until eren summoned them into the paths. so in theory, hanji had time to process their thoughts further while levi was left fixated on hanji's confession.

now onto the other hint of romance was levi's implied confession in the form of unrquited love for titans. I'm not qualified to expound on this topic as I do not speak japanese so I will just put a link to the explanation. but the gist of it was that there was a nuance on how it was worded in the original japanese text that implies "your love for titans is unrequited but not with me"

my theory is that levi is still somewhat stuck in that moment in the forest and is probably alluding to hanji's confession by responding with his own. but why is it so late you ask? reminder that this was the only scene after the forest where they got a chance to be alone. but hanji's answer to him felt like they were trying to remind levi they've left the forest and that they're soldiers with duties and responsibilities to their comrades.

and finally, it leads us to the culminating moment. devote you heart. yes I've discussed this previously but I haven't gone in detail about the romantic aspect I'm pertaining to yet.

I theorize that hanji made a choice between love and duty back in the forest. so when levi seemingly attempts to stop hanji, they reminded him again of the path they've set on back in the forest. they cannot run away and levi knows this. he has echoed hanji thoughts that day. (the I know you line)

levi was powerless in this situation, there's nothing else he could do but accept hanji's terms. as heartbreaking as it is, he does understand. just as how his first meeting with hanji sparks something bright in him, their departure seemingly had taken away the life in his eye. it was now devoid of light.

it's devote your heart because it was the embodiment of hanji's way of life, how hanji had put duty and the sake of humanity first over their own personal wishes (hence I also see it as a choice between love and duty).

something that also catches your attention would be how the modified salute appears to have created an imagery of levi giving his heart to hanji. personally, I think his left fist representing his own heart touches hanji's. I view it levi devoting his heart to hanji figuratively. perhaps to insinuate that their hearts are one in duty and love or him imparting his heart to them. that he does understand what they must sacrifice for their devoting their hearts for the sake of mankind's safety and their comrades who had given their lives.

the moment levi strikes their fist upon hanji's chest to salute, hanji seemed surprised. it felt like it was an oh moment for them and I believe it was because hanji knew what levi was trying to convey.

they had to give up love, as first and foremost, they are two soldiers bound to their oath because of their own morality and principles.

so that's it, that's my take on the devote your heart in 132. there are still several things I haven't expounded on as much as I like such as the romantic aspect of levihan as seen in 115/126/132/139 and the plane but there is always a next time.

[pardon-my-scifi]

How tf did this chick survive alone? Petition for Frieren to always have a parent and to never be left alone.

[abybweisse]

I don't know if you've already mentioned this in any of your posts about Tower Bridge, so hopefully I'm not repeating the same idea back to you, but there's a detail I feel supports your theory regarding Queen Victoria reallocating the Phantomhive resources to that project. It's the abandonment of the Phantomhive estate and land.

I was reading this post and it occurred to me that the Phantomhive manor not being in use when O!Ciel returned with Sebastian is a sign that Queen Victoria didn't care about the Phantomhive's property so much as their other resources. O!Ciel returned to his manor in the same state it was left in during the attack, and Sebastian fixed it. Perhaps Victoria sent someone there at one time, but it seems to have been abandoned throughout the twins' captivity. Furthermore, O!Ciel and Sebastian were able to use the manor in secret for a time. No one came to check on the place until their presence was known.

I find this to be a reasonable sign that Victoria only had use for their other resources. Or none of them, but I feel your theory about her using the Phantomhives' resources is more plausible than that.

Left to decay

I've talked about it before but not with much detail.

Not only was the manor itself left in ruins, but the roads apparently needed repairs. Bridges, too, and getting trenches re-done. All the work that had been done while Vincent was there (ch132) was left to deteriorate. Only a couple months, probably, but weather and constant use will create a lot of wear and tear to roads and bridges. The roads are probably mostly dirt/gravel anyway, and those need constant maintenance to keep ruts from forming where the wheels usually roll along. And erosion, debris, etc. will start to refill trenches. Besides, we don't know what repair/building/digging projects were still just in the planning phase when Vincent was killed.

Some of the estate dwellers were still on the property, like the old man who was probably deemed too old and infirm to work on Tower Bridge, as well as some of his grandkids, who were too young/not skilled enough. I imagine that the vast majority of people who stayed would have been too old, young, or weak to be of much use to the queen.

Our earl might have found out that some of his residents left to work on the Tower Bridge project in London, but he might have figured they left simply because there were better work opportunities in London and elsewhere; he might have not known the queen relocated them... and allocated them. Or, if he knew the queen had used funds and resources (people), he might have automatically accepted it since Phantomhive Manor and the surrounding estate was in such a sorry state of affairs. It had been relinquished to her, so she had "every right" to do with it as she pleased. It's probably just never occurred to him she could have caused this to happen, with the intent to take the money and move people around.

He probably hired more people on as soon as he could. Perhaps a few previous residents returned once they found out it had been restored. And he made repairs as soon as he could, in order for the workers to transport their goods to market with ease again. Even in ch120, that old dairy farmer we see again and again is praising him for repairing those roads.

Even now, there are some younger adults, but a lot of the residents are very old or very young.

Real Ciel says that it looks like cheap goods from the US were having a negative impact on the sale of Phantomhive estate goods, and that might be true. However, if the workers on the estate had trouble even getting their goods to market, and if the workforce was reduced, the issues were way worse than whatever real Ciel realized.

[aihoshiino]

do you think b komachi (specifically the 4 founding members) were ever friends at one point? i think 45510 implied it with how ai refers to them being friends before and nino saying that ai didn’t ‘cling to her friends’

personally, ive assumed that they were never close due to that rift between her and the rest of them therefore leading ai to want to make friends with them but knowing that they mightve been close in the past (even if it was brief) before distancing themselves away and growing to resent and envy her is just

Idk it hurts

I THINK ABOUT THIS SO MUCH AUUUUUU...

The Spica novel implies they never really connected at all and that there was some pretty nasty bullying of Ai basically immediately but uh, the Spica novel also has a lot of weird contradictions with the main series so I kind of just have been taking everything from it with a grain of salt... it'd be one thing if it was actually written by Akasaka and he was retconning but I genuinely think this Tanaka guy just did not know anything about oshi no ko when he wrote it lMDKMSLSKS

SO COMPLETELY IGNORING SPICA IN THAT REGARD...!

It's hard to pin things down exactly because we've never gotten a proper snapshot of that part of Ai's life. The closest we come to having anyone from that time period talk about it is in 45510 and Nino is sooooo biased that it's hard to know how seriously we can take her words.

I tend to believe that Nino is mostly telling the truth about how things went there from a purely narratively utilitarian standpoint of "this is our only source for this particular information so she cannot be a wholly unreliable narrator", even if her obvious emotional bias means you can't just uncritically accept what she says. Kyun kind of accidentally corroborates this in Viewpoint B where she describes Ai as being a little distant and seeming to have her walls up, which matches Nino describing her as 'aloof'.

I don't think this was something Ai was doing intentionally, though! This isn't something anyone in B-Komachi would've had context for but immediately worth noting is that, given that we know Ai can't be any older than 11 or 12 when she debuts in B-Komachi, this is two years at the very most out from her being separated from her mother. As Ayumi herself admits, her abuse of Ai escalated and peaked when Ai was eight or nine years old and Ai was put into the children's home and abandoned by her not long after. Given how fresh the wounds of abuse and abandonment would've been, it's really not a shock to me that Ai might have been kind of wary and defensive in a way that would've read as aloofness to kids who don't know what's up with her.

And also, like... Ai is autistic lol! She literally has a type of neurodivergence that affects her ability to socialize on top of her being implied to have been pretty poorly socialized up to that point as well. Chances are good that during this important period of making first impressions in B-Komachi that she probably wasn't great at masking, so that combined with her already having her guard up a bit likely would have made her seem really standoffish.

With all that laid out, I think my read of what initially happened with the founding members and Ai is that they were all reaching out to each other but ended up missing the final step they would've needed to really connect. The other founding members eventually gave up but Ai never stopped trying to reach them even long past the point where even she admits that they probably hate her. She never gave up on the idea that they could be friends.

It's definitely sad! I think the way the founding members fell apart is a really good depiction of like... an emotionally messy situation where it's hard for me to really blame anyone. In the aftermath of ch132, I've seen a lot of people really ragging on Nino and blaming her entirely for Ai's isolation within B-Komachi but like... isn't Ichigo also to blame for letting things get that bad? Isn't it the manager's job to make sure toxicity like that doesn't fester? Hell, a big part of why the girls in B-Komachi resented Ai is BECAUSE of Ichigo - because the group's management spotlighted and promoted her to the extent that all the other girls felt like they were just there to be Ai's backup dancers.

Thank God that could never happen with the present day generation of B-Komachi, right? Ha... hahahahhaa...............

[gradelstuff]