#yeah i'm kinda reading chapters of this manga in a random order at this point

[mikurulucky]

Wait... the landlady's name is Masu too!! Just like the cook in Harlock 1978!

And with this one shot epilogue, we now have a full name for her. Masu Yamata. All this time I figured she'd be named the same as her Harlock counterpart, but wasn't 100% sure. This at least confirms it!

Also, this third(?) generation descendant of Nobotta is named Orita Oyama. Kinda the opposite name meaning of Nobotta's name, the first kanji of his name meaning to ascend while the first kanji of Orita's name means to descend. Interesting little detail there, considering what this fella goes through here lol.

So this one shot is set in a future Earth, possibly in the 2050s or so? Everyone's setting off into space, Tokyo's filled with smog, futuristic tech everywhere, local shops Nobotta always went to have all closed down, and we follow the descendants of the main Otoko Oidon cast. Meanwhile Orita's looking on at what's going on and is both confused and lonely, wondering "Am I gonna die?" like his 1970s ancestor would often say.

It kinda reminds me a little of the Spongebob episode, Gone, where Spongebob finds himself all alone in Bikini Bottom lol.

[icharchivist]

I was rewatching DGM hallow and I remembered that Lavi and Bookman occasionally engage in telepathic conversations. How come I've never seen this talked about more in all the years I've been in this fandom? This is really weird. Even most of the Noahs think it's weird/creepy when someone reads their thoughts/talks in their head. The more I think about the Bookman the creepier they get. I'm not implying they're evil. Just really weird. 1) Telepathic w/each other. 2) Not only against attachments-

2 but against having a heart (not even the past Jedi at their most radical taught padawans to not feel anything). 3) If Bookman and Lavi are the standard then they either think they're above humanity or hate humans or or just indifferent. 4) they have SO many secrets that they keep to themselves no matter what. 5) they will never feel loyalty for anyone/thing that doesn't further their own ambition and even then they can easily drop you like you mean nothing to them. 5) They routinely erase-

3 each other's minds and none of them remember their birth names. 6) they swap identities so many times their own growth as individuals is trivial. 7) Ever single (possible) bookman we have met has either exhibited creepy or hostile behaviour. 8) they take to neutrality so strongly you can question if they even think to care what will happen to them if the Earl's plans succeed. 9) Are they even self aware? I'm not expecting a complete disaster. But I am expecting the bookman to weird me out.

Okay so for the telepathy i will have to come back to it when i will re-read it bc i don’t really remember it in Hallow and I think the scene I think should be that one??? Is the fact that ii’m almost certain i remember it being confirmed that Lavi and Bookman talk a whole other language. Apparently the Bookmen would have had their own language and I think i remember that in the manga it was translated by having weird bubbles to specify they were talking in that language (and it is possible that, due to the fact the anime couldn’t just pull a new language that was a work around to still have one of their Bookmen conversation being visible using telepathy).

But i really don’t remember the scene in question in details so i will have to check that out again but I THINK it is Bookman Language related more than telepathy and that the telepathy was a way for the anime to translate it

THAT SAID if the idea of Telepathy is a thing (which tbh could still be??? Bookmen already messes with minds a lot with the whole deleting memories thing who knows the hell they can do) it could explain also a lot of much more silent looks that we kinda justified so far by “they know something we don’t”. It might have been conversations we missed. 

Still unsure though i’ll get back to that when i will properly have re-read those parts bc this is really intruiguing me now

I know the fandom had talked about the Bookman’s language though but i’ve never heard of telepathy before now?? Idk 

And yeah like you say this is very weird bc putting them on the same level as Wisely is... very weird. Besides considering how much Lavi still struggles to get people around him i am fairly certain that if telepathy there are it i between the Bookmen only, not all knowing as Wisely.

But yeah aside from that, mood. The Bookmen are seriously a creepy brunch. Not in a bad way, but in a “this is extremely shady and I get you’re doing that to be neutral but i’m not sure those means are actually legally or morally applicable”

I agree with all your points. 

and i’ll elaborate under cut bc i might have gone carried away,

well 1) i just discussed it there, either Telepathy which would be a whole new can of worm, or a whole other language that would still applies that they have a special language to keep secrets in. And tbh it would also make sense that they would write down records in a secret language since they don’t actually let people Read their reccordings: Bookman specify that it comes with the part to “chat a lot”, they won’t share the written reccords (which they MUST HAVE for the the survival of the clan), so “Secret Language no one else in the world know” rings as shady to me.

4) NOT TO MENTION we know that Bookman also keeps secrets from Lavi (when meeting Cross’s altered akuma, Bookman specifies it was only something he (and Cross) knew about.). And it’s not to mention secrets that the Bookman in charge keeps from the rest of the Clan (see again, how Lavi’s eye is only known by Bookman Sr, not anyone else in the clan seems aware of that)

6) Apparently about their switching identities, something very creepy that came out of the latest Komui corner too is that the name they have during a war is the name that the recording will officially get. Meaning it’s not even that “Lavi” calls himself like that for the people around him, it’s that even after Jr would have moved on or died or anything, the Records of the Holy War would still be called “Lavi”. And we know that the names picked seems to have meaning that applies to each wars (as Wisely smugly smile realizing Lavi’s name’s meaning, but doesn’t tell people). So even more of a disconnect with their sense of humanity since they have to be distanced from their own names, as their names become history as it goes. Which makes Jr’s identity crisis over how “Lavi” is “him” even more creepy tbh, bc it extends that “Lavi” isn’t just a reccord name anymore, it is not just the Holy War anymore, it is part of Jr as a BEING. And to me that’s even creepier that it’s even something Lavi has to worry about.

8) this is honestly one of my biggest questions. If the Earl’s plans work, all humanity will die. Or at least there had been no mention so far of any “saved people that would go through the Ark”. (there had been speculations about the real purpose of the Akuma and how its evolution process would be perhaps a part in creating supperior beings to salvage during the Flood like the original Ark did, and i’ll need to get back to the chapters tha thints that there are more secrets to the Dark Matter than it just reversing the innocence, BUT personally I have issues with this theory because of how easily the Noah do torture and kill the Akuma at times and seem to look down on them. But I would agree there seems to be a bigger purpose to the Akuma and the Dark Matter that we cannot even imagine.)Regardless, I don’t see anyway for the Bookmen Clan to survive, else the Noah would have found way to keep them on their sides and not torture them like they do now and exclude them. Yet we know at some points the Bookmen were “on the Noah’s side”. So what the hell do the Bookmen expect to happen with the Flood? Is their neutrality so important that they are ready to litteraly go down with this ship when the end of the world come? Yet we know they have some self preservating instinct it seems, so why? It just enerves me so much!

9) Yeah same, basically.

One last thing i will add: How the HELL did Bookman manage to find himself and Lavi innocences he knew they would be accomodator to when they decided to join the Order? Bc the Corner mentions that Bookman decided to set them into the Order to watch BEFORE they even got in contact with the innocences, and Lavi mentions that “Gramps just knew we’ll find innocences we would be compatible with” and how????? How the hell??? You can’t just make it that easy for the two of them to randomly connect with two random innocences (and we know they’re the one who have shown the least actual connection with the innocence) after arcs and arcs proving that the innocence is picky and sentient, that its own personality affects who they end up picking, that even the synch can change depending of how the innocence feel to their acomodator, and Especially, that the Order had DECADES of experimentations that were basic human rights violation due to how desperate they were to not be able to have enough people synchronizing with the innocence.

You  cannot have a full arc of telling us the Order did an entiere experiment about bringing fallen exorcists’s brains back in new bodies in hope the innocence would synch with said bodies, while letting those bodies decay under the pain of the innocence, for the sLIGHT CHANCE an innocence could be compatible again, only to then tell us “oh yeah we wanted to join the order so we ended up finding two innocences that we could connect to.”

For exemple: Take the Crows. it’s obvious the Crows want to help the holy war, as the Third Exorcist project proved a whole brunch of people were ready to put Dark Matter in their body to fight back the Akuma. And from all those Crows, from all the experiments we know the Order have carried on, somehow, as long as we don’t know of a “Former Crow Exorcist”, it means it’s not that easy. Not when you have a whole military branch who would be willing to be God’s apostles. And it’s not even counting how others Orders’s soldiers like the Finders would or not jump on the occasion.

So how the hell did they do that? How the hell did Bookman find those? bc even if they don’t connect to their innocence on an emotional level, they seem like proper innocence. Else Allen would have commented about how the souls don’t disappear like planned, like when he saw how the Third Exorcists killed the Akuma. Besides, we also know Bookman fears Lavi’s innocence could turn into a crystal type, so it confirms this is legit innocence, and that Bookman doesn’t have full controle over it.

How could Bookman be so sure they will become accomodator BEFORE finding any innocences? It raises seriously worrying implications considering all we know about the innocence and how hard it is to find accomodators for it this far in the saga. 

*take s a deep breath* anyway that said,

tbh part of me understand the feeling of “wanting to disconnect your feelings” when you watch history happens, because history is goddamn overwhelming. For having studied history for a few years i’ve personally had a few breakdown just over thinking about the amounts of horrors you read about one year after the other, so to have to remember all those horrors AND reccord current horrors, I understand in principle the thought that shutting those emotions down is the easiest way to record it. 

In principle.

Because in practice this is (a lot like you compared) nearly impossible witout losing their humanity and even losing perhaps an important part of how to understand and translate human experiences through emotional lenses. That’s the major issue with this logic.

had they done that for so long they don’t even question it? Or are they perfectly aware that it’s exactly why they cannot afford emotions? what are their view on the world and it coming to an end? How far are they willing to go in order to keep their own secrecy and status squo? Do they even realize the possible irony of them “not meedling with history” while the only fact that they are meddling by taking the dispositions they do to remain hidden/uninvolved? Not to mention that wanting it or not, Bookman and Lavi had meddled in the Holy War. Would they remain fully neutral, Bookman wouldn’t have had to tell everything he knew about the Noah to Komui in his first appearance for exemple. 

Lately it seems like they seem more interested in the Noah losing (self preservation kicking in) but that does raise the question of how far they are willing to share the secret history and how much is considered “medding with history”? Because this “secret knowledge no one should have” IS changing the course of history by being shared.

Do they even realize or do they really see themselves as walking books who can deliver information if pressed a the condition it doesn’t require to dig in their secrets? Where do they draw the lines?

I have HUNDREDS of questions about the Bookmen and it drives me insane. I won’t exclude that i might be overthinking it bc man, gotta wait between chapters huh, and that perhaps it won’t be that complicated or deep, but the more you get to see how shady the Bookmen are the more you wonder how and why?

Anyway that fascinates me. Bookmen pls unlock your secrets,,