#shimane illuminati arc

[everyryuujisuguro]

[rainymegane]

My poor Yuki-chan

[tonguetiedraven]

So I was cleaning up a few manga panels for my other blog, and darn it, I need to talk about my thoughts on two scenes in the Shimane Illuminati arc (specifically chapters 61 and 62) because Kato deserves all the applause for everything. This post will be for chapter 61 and I'll post 62 later.

TW/CW for character death, medical abuse, and mental health struggles. Content below the cut.

First, in chapter 61 we get this heart breaking page when Tamamo Kamiki dies.

To get into what I'm seeing with this panel, I need to give a brief (or I'll try and make it brief) overview of Tamamo. Tamamo gets introduced to us in chapter 52 and the first panel we get of her is her sobbing into the camera that everyone acts so cold towards her because she is sleeping with the head priest and not married to said high priest.

We are then told that she was an irresponsible and careless woman by Mike. We find out three really important things though.

Tamamo is judged by the people around her and gets a cold shoulder

Tamamo relies heavily on her daughter and the byakko to have the house run at all and has dreams of a fantastic family and house she has shown no ability to actually run.

Tamamo is in love with the (shitty) Chief Priest of Inari and that he isn't married to her.

We then find out:

That Tamamo and her entire line have always managed the terrifying and unruly Nine Tails by assimilating the god and becoming her, and that the town/shrine distrust her because of that, even though she does it to protect them. They ostracize her for the duty her family has and they judge the entire family because she had Soji's children.

Notice Soji isn't in the judged club and that Soji has never seen his daughters. He's never been to her house. It is always her going to him.

This theme of ostracization is something that pops up over and over and over again in Blue Exorcist. Almost all of the main characters had a childhood that was lonely and where they were rejected by their peers--almost always for things outside their direct control and almost always in someway connected to demons, even if they didn't know it, but I'll get to that more in a moment. Suffice to say, at this point we can see that Tamamo is isolated outside of her illicit meetings with Soji (not at all healthy as we'll see later on) her interactions with the demons around her, and her daughters, neither of which are old or mature enough to offer her the type of companionship she's in need of, which leads to everyone in this tangled dynamic having unhealthy relationships with each other.

We see Tamamo seeking connections and affections and largely being rebuffed by it everywhere except Tsukumo and the byakko. Soji's affection has strings attached, and Izumo is too fed up to offer any affection. The other members of the shrine ostracize her and give her a cold shoulder, and I'd bet money that they're vocal about their opinions any time she's around. (And they likely don't care if the kids are around or not.)

What I'm getting at is that Tamamo is lonely and you see that in how desperate she is for approval and connection and it mostly comes out with Soji. She does whatever he wants to keep her connection to him intact. We've also had a few indications thus far in the manga that isolation and depression and poor mental health are things demons take advantage of. We'll get more explanation on that later on, but suffice to say that Tamamo is not at all in a healthy spot to be constantly risking possession against an immensely powerful and evil demon.

I'll be honest and clear up front that I have no love for Soji and think him deplorable and he did not do anything to help Tamamo that we see. Rather, it seems he exclusively used her for his own pleasures without any care for her or the consequences their time together had.

I also think it's important that everyone know that Nine Tails -- at least the Nine Tails in this story -- is based of Tamamo no Mae who is an infamous yokai in Japanese lore. She has a long and complicated history with her origins unknown and a lot of political manipulation, but an important thing to know about her is that she is always depicted as a child eater. She devours women as well, and thrives on seducing men. She's beautiful and powerful and alluring, and she's manipulative.

So generations of women manipulated and regularly partially possessed by Nine Tails down the line, we have a shrine and town that reject Tamamo and her losing her grasp on the one adult who 'likes' her, and we see this moment:

We see her staring at him, enjoying the light atmosphere and gathering her courage (the sweat drop in the panel has me thinking she's nervous about this because it's not the first time this convo has happened.)

She wants him to come to her house and is trying to make it as appealing as possible. She wants a family and the life she's been dreaming up.

Soji rejects the idea entirely and pushes further by saying if she asks for him to interact with the kids in any way he'll dump her. The one adult connection she has will be lost because of her children. (Not actually. It's because he's a dick but she sees it as the children being the problem.)

She then goes immediately to Nine Tails to do the dance of spirit invocation which we're told this about:

So Tamamo--who has been isolated and lonely for at least a large chunk of her adult life is now seeing the one connection she's made with another adult (and an unhealthy one at that) potentially break because of her children-- goes to assimilate the Nine Tails in that unstable and unhealthy emotional and mental state.

It is heavily implied that Nine Tails started to take her over at this point, and you see her become more and more obsessed with Soji and more angry with her children, further isolating herself away from the small amount of support and connection she did have until she's entirely possessed by the vengeful and malevolent spirit of Nine Tails.

She murders Soji and tries to do the same to her children before the Illuminati take her and subject her to years of torture, all while she's still possessed by the Nine Tails.

One more detail and I'll get back to the scene in chapter 61.

When Tamamo was last fully in control of her faculties and saw her daughter, she saw Izumo in the same place she was. Ostracized by her community with no one but their small family to lean on. Her daughter was doomed to follow the same path Tamamo had, and at this point, it looks like this was a cycle that had been going on for at least a few generations. Isolated and connection starved women raising daughters who were isolated and connection starved children. Tamamo became overly touchy and clingy to everyone where Izumo became mistrustful. (And man does she have a lot of reasons for that.)

Now back to chapter 61 and the moment Tamamo dies.

She wakes up amongst the chaos of the zombie hoard going towards possessed Izumo, and she immediately intervenes to get the Nine Tails spirit back inside herself to save her daughter.

That's important to understand for her. She moved before the next moment I'm going to talk about. She saw Izumo possessed and didn't seem to hesitate to save her daughter. She has been tortured for five years and immediately moves to start that horrible possession again.

But while she's dancing to contain Nine Tails in herself, this is going on in the background:

Each of the other teens in the room came to get Izumo and they're shouting their support of her even while they fight an endless hoard of zombies because they came to get her. Tamamo can hear that happening and she can see that they came to help Izumo.

No one came to help Tamamo. At no point did anyone ever come to rescue her or fight for her. She was blamed for everything and was left to bear all the consequences for five years. (I am not blaming Izumo for that. She was a child and was not responsible for saving her mother.)

But with "We're here for you!" ringing in Tamamo's ears, she completes the ritualistic dance and frees her daughter from the possession.

Tamamo in her dying moments looks at her daughter and sees a community around her that Tamamo didn't have. She sees people willing to intervene and help and fight even though Izumo is pushing them away and possessed and not easy to get along with.

Tamamo, from everything we saw, was isolated and rejected by her community and had no one to support her. She was manipulated and played by her significant other and left vulnerale to possession by a society that needed her to do the thankless job and hated her for doing the thankless job. She was bubbly and friendly and still pushed away and rejected and ostracized until she succumbed to Nine Tails.

back to chapter 52

Blue Exorcist talks a lot about curses and ostracization. All the main cast suffer from it in some way or another. They've all been called terrible things and most of them have been treated as if they aren't human, and a lot of them have complicated lineages and may not be fully human which just amplifies the amount they're rejected by their peers.

For Tamamo, that curse was literal and figurative. The literal curse was the constant absorption of an insane demon that eventually consumed her until she'd destroyed what little family she had.

It was figurative in that as the head priestess and medium in charge of the rituals, she was rejected by the community she needed to support her. She was left floundering on the outside, always given just a taste of what she could have had if she was born to a different family, and left with a longing for what she would never be given and always wondering why she couldn't have it. (And yes, I'm probably reading into some things and filling in the blanks with hypothesis and assumptions.)

But in that final moment, Tamamo sees that curse of isolation and rejection has been broken by Izumo. That her daughter, who like all the daughters of the Kamiki line was alone, is no longer alone. That she has friends and support. Support that followed her into this hell and reached out to call her back even from a demon like Nine Tails.

I don't know if I've made myself all that clear, but I love the way that Kato has shown this over and over again and keeps showing the rejection of isolation and ostracization as any kind of solution. That she keeps showing through each of these relationships and arcs that it's reaching for and connecting with other people that brings change and healing and hope, and I love how she shows that through moments like this. It's a little moment that's so easy to miss, but it's so immensely huge when looked at in the context of the entirety of Tamamo's life.

I wish she knew that they would have come for her if they'd known she'd been there all this time. I wish she'd have found a community to support her and I wish she'd had someone to tell her Soji was a dick and she could do better.

I wish she could see Izumo now, still connected to her friends and even though it's the end of the world, she's fighting with and beside them. That she's seeking out connections and learned her lesson about not needing to be alone. That she's teased and loved and welcomed.

But I'm pretty sure in that final moment, she saw it all anyway.

[apparently-artless]

Winter Anime 2024 Watchlist

Mashle: Magic and Muscles Season 2

Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san

Tsuki ga Michibiku Isekai Douchuu Season 2

Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu Season 2

30-sai made Doutei dato Mahoutsukai ni Nareru Rashii (Cherry Magic!)

Classroom of the Elite Season 3

Solo Leveling

Dungeon Meshi

Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen

Sasaki to Pii-chan

Recommended to me:

Yubisaki to Renren

Bucchigiri?!

UPDATE: I am currently accepting requests for these series. For more details, CHECK THIS POST. ;)

[flower-of-assiah]

★ { Ao no Exorcist / 青の祓魔師 }  :: group :: ★

Shimane Illuminati Arc stage play booklet: exwires group art by Kato, been meaning to post this forever! still so many scans I gotta share at some point!

[ scanned by me: @flower-of-assiah] (I am cross posting my scans also on my RinShi twitter as well)

also a note: do NOT repost my scans to places like zerochan/minitokyo! if I want them on those places I'd do it myself!

[nico-everywhere]

[Nagoya Sakae] TV anime ‘Blue Exorcist Shimane Illuminati Saga’ collaboration Cafe in SMILE BASE CAFE. - [THREAD]

Notices TV anime ‘Blue Exorcist "Shimane Illuminati arc", X SMILE BASE CAFE Collaboration with the TV anime ‘Blue Exorcist Shimane Illuminati arc’ has been decided. Newly illustrated café exclusive goods and collaboration menu !

[blerdsunited]

January Anime Releases 2024

Classroom of the Elite S3 - January 3rd via Crunchyroll

Chained Soldier - January 4th via HiDive

Delicious in Dungeon - January 4th via Crunchyroll

Demon Prince of Momochi House - January 5th via Crunchyroll

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer - January 5th via Crunchyroll

A Sign of Affection - January 6th via Crunchyroll

Blue Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati Saga -January 6th via Crunchyroll

Kingdom S5 - January 6th via Crunchyroll

MASHLE Season 2 - January 6th via Crunchyroll

Solo Leveling - January 6th via Crunchyroll

The Apothecary Diaries Cour 2 - January 6th via Crunchyroll

Tales of Wedding Rings - January 6th via Crunchyroll

Banished from the hero's party - January 7th via Crunchyroll

Mr. Villain's Day Off - January 7th via Crunchyroll

One Piece Egghead Arc - January 7th via Crunchyroll

High Card S2 - January 8th via Crunchyroll

Tis Time for "Torture" - January 8th via Crunchyroll

Tsukimichi - Moonlit Fantasy Season 2 - January 8th via Crunchyroll

Metallic Rouge - January 10th via Crunchyroll

Delusional Monthly Magazine - January 11th via Crunchyroll

The Witch and the Beast - January 11th via Crunchyroll

The Weakest Tamer began a journey to pick up trash - January 12th via Crunchyroll

Bucchigiri - January 13th via Crunchyroll

Let us know what you guys think of the shows and be sure to share what animes you're looking forward to this season. We will keep you updated on any others that may drop after the 15th!

[strawsoldier]

If Kato didn't want me to ship Rizumo then she shouldn't have wrote the Shimane Illuminati arc tbh

[rinseveryday]

They really went “Blue Exorcist Shimane Illuminati Arc SPEEDRUN ANY % (no filler) 05:00:00 WR

[aonokumura]

ok question actually because it's been at the back of my mind lately

so initially I had planned on having my blog follow the anime's progress in terms of timelines, while still prioritizing manga as canon

there's a new season that comes out in October, but it's probably gonna end before a REALLY big arc where Rin goes off on a journey of self-discovery

so after that airs I was thinking abt doing a kind of time skip and portraying him as current with wherever the manga is (which is going on a hiatus until October also I think?)

so uh... where am I going with this... here's a poll. I'm not necessarily gonna go with the most popular vote but I'm curious about everyone's input

btw if ppl aren't familiar with blue exorcist. shimane illuminati arc is still during his "I'm a guy at school" adventures, and after that things change a LOT. so he does go through a lot of fun character development, but it won't be quite the same kind of interactions I guess?

[everyryuujisuguro]

[rainymegane]

I had to, because I love my boy so much and he’s perfect

[animangapolls]

[madraleen]

blue exorcist: shimane illuminati saga - season 3, eps 1-12 general thoughts on the season. but first: 1) YAY, THE ANIME'S BEEN RENEWED FOR ANOTHER SEASON, YAY YAY YAY

2) blue exorcist is pretty much the reason i dropped solo leveling mid-watch of ep8. i'd watch them on the same day, and my enjoyment of blue exorcist was so in contrast with my non-enjoyment of solo leveling that it just became cumbersome to try to keep up.

3) i haven't read the manga

-i loved the gang's interactions. i loved their dynamics and i loved their personalities.

-i thought izumo's arc was very interesting and very well-executed. it took time to bring her to a point that she could accept change, and it all felt so earned and delicate and grounded.

-i found some parts of the overall story a bit rushed, but not enough to deter my enjoyment. it was just a bit like "oh, we're past this already?"

-i screamed when shima turned out to be a spy and i kept hoping that he'd turn out to be on our side, and, well, he is, so yay, but also is he? XD can we trust him, truly? i trust konekomaru's view on shima more than i trust shima himself, you know? and it goes past the "is shima actually betraying us as we speak?" issue, it's the matter of shima's character. NOW he might not be betraying us, but can we actually trust that he won't betray us for one reason or another? idk idk like yeah sure, we can't fully trust mephisto because he's mephisto yada yada, but at least we know we share the same ultimate goal with mephisto, whereas shima is just. a complete wild card.

-i loved seeing the girlies come closer

-i wish yukio would talk to rin, man, i wish he would -.-

-i teared up during the credits of the last ep, that's how much i was enjoying being with the gang

[crownedcaps]

Curious ~ Cap Poll

I'll pick the winner to post caps for! I did not include some series on here on purpose :P You';'re welcome to leave any other series in the comments to consider as well.

[emikothewriter]

Honestly, I had forgotten this happened during the Shimane Illuminati arc. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Presenting the best gorl squad 2k24💖

🤭🩵🤭🩵🤭🩵🤭🩵🤭