#zora choujin x

[tactical-shovel]

Choujin X Twitter log 1

[purpamint]

Here’s a silly little choujin x comic I decided to start a while ago after chapter 34.4, since I realized there weren’t a lot of fan comics for this series and wanted to make one myself. I had a lot of fun drawing it.

[cutecapybarapics]

[kaelan1056]

SKETCH_130

HER ELEGANCE | CHOUJIN X | 19-12-2024

[linkspooky]

What do you think of Sora Siruha character? Before this chapter, i thought Ishida seems wants us to think of her character as a tragic hero and a character that is fallen after leaving yamato mori, but then he drop a chapter where she committed genocide when she was still in yamato mori, so i wonder what do you think of her character?

Sora Siruha is an interesting character because Nietzsche would have hated her. Yet she's still seen as morally ambiguous by both characters in her own story and members of the audience. Not that you're wrong to see her that way but Nietzsche sure did hate it was religion. So, perhaps the literal nun, with angel wings, with cross tattoos, and a black halo that doubles as a crown or thorns might be a bad guy in the Nietzsche manga.

That's not to say that she's irredeemably evil, it's just ironic the Choujin X of her generation named after the "ubermensch" represents the antithesis of a lot of Nietzsche's ideas.

Nietzsche famously called Religion the opium of the masses. in Nietzsche's view suffering was not only good but necessary to life, because it aspired people to grow and anything that promised avoidance of suffering alcohol and religion for instance stagnated growth instead of promoting it.

Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

So, it's not coincidence in the Nietzsche manga that Sora who has so many religious associations tied to her is also, an opium addict who cannot survive without it's pain numbing effects.

If by Nietzschian philosophy pain is a part of the human experience, then by losing her pain, Sora Siruha also lost her humanity which is heavily implied to be part of the cause of her mental spiral.

One other thing associated with Sora is that she uses what are primarily utilitarian views to justify her atrocities - something else that Nietzsche hated as a philosophy.

So Sora believing that her future visions will come to pass goes on to committ atrocities in order to avoid even greater atrocities. Let's say that her visions are in fact one hundred percent correct. That Sora killing 200,000 people would avert the deaths of 2,000,000 or more.

Sora's reasoning in this case is purely utilitarian.

Utilitarianism actions are morally permissible if: They produce at least as much or more net happiness as any other available action. Everything should strive for a balance of happiness over suffering.

By Utilitarian reasoning her actions are morally permissible. Sora herself does not want to kill Anitise, she takes no joy in it, but she believes like any utilitarian she's responsible for bringing the most happiness over suffering to the world.

However, even if Sora's vision was 100% correct and by pulling the lever on the trolley problem and killing 200,000 she saved 2,000,000 Nietzsche would still have a bone to pick with her moral reasoning.

Nietzsche famously hated Utilitarianism. because it ignore the value of suffering, which strengthens the man. He saw that doing every and all actions for the sake of the "greater good" was something that denied the individual and discouraged individual development.

Nietzsche's criticism is that value is not something that can be quantified or proven. You can't mathematically measure in an objective sense, the suffering caused by your actions, the benefits caused by your actions. There's no universally agreed upon value for human life.

What is the "unit" of one human life?

Why are the 2,000,000 people that Sora saved more worthy of life than the 200,000 that she killed. What justification can Sora have other than "that's a smaller number." A person among the 200,000 killed could have grown up to cure cancer. Of course, even if the 200,000 weren't especially talented people, even if they were all going to grow up to work at mcdonalds why are there lives inherently worth less than the 2,000,000 that sora decided to save?

Sora is not a nihilist, she is a pure-hearted utilitarian who's actions are taken to give pleasure to as many people as possible but one more obvious criticism of her moral reasoning in choosing to sacrifice the few to save the many is that she is not an unbiased judge of values.

For example, if Anitise really did become a mad king then who would his victims have been? If he invaded Yamato Mori and killed 2,000,000 then why are the 2,000,000 lives of the Yamato Mori citizens he killed worth more than the 200,000 people that Sora killed preventing his invasion? It would be because being a citizen of and responsible for Yamato Mori Sora is unconsciously biased to put her own nation above Anitise's kingdom. In that sense, she's not really acting for the greater good, but rather the national interests of her country but she's still posing herself as a savior figure.

Sora goes on to commit these atrocities, while also continuing to see herself as a savior and believing she's operating from a higher moral viewpoint than everyone else. Yet, you can easily point out where her biases are as I just did.

In addition to the fact that we have no way of knowing if Sora's visions of the future actually are true. The fact that there are two people with future seeing powers (three if you count Tokio's dreams) who can see different things then points to the fact that Sora's visions aren't 100% true. However, even if you give her the benefit of the doubt that her prophecies were going to come true if she didn't do something, you can still make moral arguments against her actions as I just did above this section.

Sora is also extremely biased in other ways. In her origin story, she saw a vision of Queem coming to burn her convent, and was unable to stop it from happening. This clearly has affected her for all of her life, as even when presented with direct evidence that her prophetic dreams might not be true (such as another seer who disagrees with her) Sora doesn't even consider that possibility or hesitate to commit atrocities, because she's still guided by her guilt over being unable to stop her convent from being burnt.

In Tokyo Ghoul, Yoshimura once theorizes that Ghouls and Humans are psychologically the same, but because Ghouls live violent lives they eventually lose their empathy and stop seeing any value in human life as a coping mechanism.

I think Sora's slow corruption makes sense through this lens, not because of her future visions but rather because of the amount of power she had.

Choujin e aren't any different from human psychologically, they experience human emotions, but convince themselves they are different because one they're prone to get in more violent situations, and two the power they wield leads to them developing superiority complexes.

Sora plunged herself into war and had to walk on too many corpses in order to get stronger and gain the strength to fight Queem, but it's clear she didn't stop there after Queem was defeated. After Queem died Sora became the war-monger, and why? Her visions provide us one reason, but like, Sora didn't consider alternative means like diplomacy or warning anitise of what she saw? She just jumped straight to launching a modern day crusade against a foreign country, why?

Was it just easier for her to consider a military invasion because after having been through the hell of war, 200,000 became just another statistic to her?

What other reason than she had the power to do so, and Sora's superiority complex told her she had the right to wield that power however she chose to do so.

Sora and her savior complex, provides an uncanny mirror to Queem and his choujin and his choujin supremacy doctrine. Sora may have believed herself invading Antoland in order to prevent a future disaster, but when has a foreign country invading a soveriegn territory "for their own good' ever historically been a good thing. Sora may not have preached choujin supremacy but her actions don't make her too much different from Queem in the end.

Then, there's the possibility that Sora's prophecies might not even be nearly as true or certain to happen as they think they are. One of the birds basically spells it out to Tokio, that humans wanting to know the future is just wishful thinking.

Which puts Sora's absolute certainty in a new light. Is Sora's beliefs in her prophecies just a longing for control, the kind of absolute control over the future that nobody in the world but god is supposed to possess. Sora wanting to take God's place in knowing the future and being able to control her destiny goes all kinds of wrong.

I'm reminded of Attack on Titan where Eren coming into contact with the paths and being able to see the past, present and future at the same time doesn't give him godlike power, but reduces him to a helpless child. Eren's ability to see the future ends up bringing into existence similiarly to Sora, a future where he's the one comitting the atrocities.

There's also Paul Atreides from Dune who is given the power to see the future, and despite knowing and feeling guilt for a long time that some of his actions might lead to him releasing a holy war against the galaxy and killing billion, goes on to follow the future timeline he saw where he caused those atrocities anyway.

The absolute godlike power to know the future for all three of these characters Sora, Eren and Paul actually leads to them committing atrocities, not averting them as they'd hoped.

Yet, there's the tragic element of the fact she was just sixteen when this destiny was thrust upon her.

In Tokyo Ghoul Eto once referred togod as a child with extraordinary power to justify the world being as messed up as it is. Doesn't this fit Sora Shihouin as well? A child given way too much power and suddenly thrust into a leadership position?

In that way Sora reminds me tragically of X-Men characters like Jean Grey, if someone is given the power to see the future, or the insane powers of the phoenix that Jean Grey was given would they really have the moral fiber not to abuse that power? Can anyone wield that much power and not be corrupted by it?

[your-favourite-plague]

I finally managed to finish one of my Choujin X wips, yay

Once, I thought "is there something more romantic than turning into monsters together?" and accidentally started shipping them. Last chapters only worsened it.

[mypersonalsandbox]

Choujin X (超人X)

[mechadeimos]

[lotonfazer]

[mugiwara-shuenobi]

[kuregure]

For the first time, I'm not going to talk about Seraph of the end, but about Choujin X.

I just finished catching up on the manga scans and from the beginning, so far, my heart has chosen Ichiro Sato as my favorite.

But, is it just me who finds him weird now??😭

Like, idk, before he spoke with little hearts at the end of certain sentences and he smiled. But since he came back from Iwato with Tokio, there are no more little hearts and he doesn't really smile anymore 😔

I have the impression that he is hiding something, a goal. He's strange, every time he appears I find him weird! Maybe he's on Zora's side? on the enemy side at Yamato Mori and just infiltrated Yamato Mori. Maybe he's looking for "the beast" to bear the mark of Zora. When he trained Azuma for his choujin power, perhaps he wanted to see if he could also be a candidate to bear the mark.

I think he said something like "there are two people capable of carrying the mark, if there was a third it would be three" with the images of Tokio, Ely and Azuma. In addition, in one of the last chapters, he clearly tells Tokio to wear the mark of Zora so that his words have power and therefore reach to rally allies and enemies. And when Tokio said no, he was surprised or something.

And Arthur mentioned that he didn't think Ichiro's methods were good regarding Tokio's training. Additionally, Tokio told Michael and Michelangelo that Ichiro was the type to put them in danger.

On the other hand, I tell myself that perhaps I have become too overanalyzed, because I am used to finding double meanings and hidden truths with Guren, so I have the impression of seeing the same thing with Ichiro lmao idk

There you go, I find it very suspicious, although it remains my favorite despite everything!

I can't wait to know more about him, he has potential~ ❤ and also to perhaps discover his story/backstory! we don't know anything at the moment I think, or maybe I forgot!

[blog-of-hubris]

Choujin X Chapter 35 ~ To The Future..

Tokio flying to his training destination, Iwato. (It’s 10 days away by train.)

The newest chapter of Choujin X has become my favorite one in the series so far. Tokio’s coming of age story has been one of the best I have read in recent years, and I’m not surprised due to Sui Ishida being the mangaka. I’m just utterly impressed with how this chapter was handled, so bare with me as I express how GREAT this chapter was.

“Since I might try to lean on them again…”

The first thing I want to talk about is Tokio’s personal journey through this chapter, leading up to him leaving Yamato. All of it is somewhat bittersweet, as we see Tokio try to explain to his sister his idea to quit school – to no avail. She outright doesn't accept it, even talking to him in a condescending tone, throwing the fact she and his father pay his tuition. This type of attitude is a crucial enabler to Tokio's sense of self depreciation, and it was what kept him from being his true self.

This isn't to say that his sister doesn't want the best for him, nor doesn't want to support him; it shows that she never understood Tokio's true potential (neither did Tokio). Since his sister has not seen nor understand what Tokio has experienced in the past few months, it makes since she would be adamant against him quitting school.

I think what also makes this moment difficult for Tokio is that he doesn't want to scare his family. When his sister asks what he wants to do, he thinks of Zora, but doesn't say anything out loud. It's a heavy burden to tell your family you are leaving, but not be able to really explain why. It makes him look indecisive, and clueless to where his life is going, but it's quite the opposite. Everything Tokio has experienced since Ch 1 of Choujin X, has built him up for this moment.

Due to this difficulty, Tokio seeks some type of confirmation for his goals through Shiozaki, which represents Tokio's decision to stop relying on Azuma and Ely. He doesn't go to them to decide if he is really going to quit school; while he contemplates, the latter discuss if he's really going to leave between each other. I think it's incredible how Ishida is writing this trio and their dynamic. I won't say too much in this section, but Tokio's talk with Shiozaki showed that he no longer wants to lean on his friends. He wants to fly high on his own. I admire this in Tokio, because it shows how full circle he has come. I have so much more to talk about with Tokio's Growth, but I'll save that for a post of its own soon!

(The fact he wanted to go to where the choujin crime rate is at its highest is insane. Drastically different from what the tokio we were introduced to would do.)

Tokio's biggest weakness was his reliance on others. He has fully recognized that now and in a very sad moment, literally excludes his friends from his decision proves how serious he took this moment of training. He was not only prepared to train his powers, but his own personality as well. It was great seeing Tokio fly high in the sky towards his future, and also towards the person he always wanted to be.

(The conversation with his dad was amazing, and I want to talk about that as well, but I'd be rambling on forever, so I'm saving that for tokio's growth meta)

Azuma & Ely's Growth

Azuma & Ely (Timeskip)

The thing that surprised me the most about this chapter was the montage that showed Ely and Azuma's new dynamic. It is incredible that Ishida decided to take away dialogue for the second half of the chapter and just show a montage of their reaction to Tokio leaving and their decisions after. It adds heavy dramatization to every thing drawn, making you pay attention to every detail. Ishida's symbolism shines through with the bird's nest being drawn to represent the trio, but I feel like this montage showed us exactly what we needed to see to understand their growth.

Azuma takes Tokio's leave the hardest, seemly (makes sense) due to the bond that the two shared through their childhood. I think what really stings for Azuma is the deepening of Tokio's “difference”. I think Azuma has accepted that him and Tokio were made differently, however Azuma still longs to be a Hero with him. Azuma went from seeing Tokio as a secret rival (and his protector), to realizing that Tokio didn't need a hero. Now he wants to be by Tokio's side as he gets stronger, but Tokio cannot do that because of how strong his self depreciation is.

That's what makes Tokio's leave so bittersweet. You are proud his is growing, but you understand why it hurts Azuma and Ely. Azuma saying, “Is that something you can only do by quitting school?” shows that Azuma wanted Tokio to stay by his side. The truth is, Tokio does need to quit school to achieve this, because he isn't talented in the way that Azuma is.

Based on the way the montage was drawn, it seems to me that Ely and Azuma spent some time separate from each other initially after Tokio left. That was until Ely seemingly required help to study. I love seeing them become closer, developing a relationship with each other. It would suck for them to experience all of these crazy events, to treat each other like strangers.

(Not to mention the political campaign that was shown in the montage as well. It seemed like a huge thing in the aftermath of Omega Tower.)

Ely goes back to her hometown to speak to her grandfather then seemingly flies back to Yamato, a beautiful subtle parallel for Ely and Tokio's characters. We see Ely interested in buying a phone, so she gets a job at McDonald's (lol), and that's where she runs into Azuma again and the two hit it off like old friends. We even get a bit of the two doing martial arts training together, on top of seeing Azuma's ability to create a gun with his ability. I loved all of this, especially seeing Ely getting into some martial arts because her theft ability would be insane if she had strong martial arts skill behind it. (Not to mention what she can do with the smoke). Seeing her and Azuma looking like they have hit their young adult stage is giving me chills. It's hard for me to tell how much time has passed because they look like they've put years on, lol.

To The Future..

It is unclear to me how our trio will reunite after this separation period, but I'm extremely excited for it. So much has happened, and even more has happened off-screen. How will Azuma and Ely react to seeing Tokio again? But also, will the next chapter take us straight to a reunion, or will there be some time apart, so we can see Tokio's growth alone? I'm Ishida will have the perfect way to bring everything together.

Tell me what you thought about this chapter in the comments!!

[notachair]

*Me reading in the latest chapter of Choujin X that Zora is an addict cause of all the pain from "raises" at the warfront back when*: wow this bitch got chronic pain too- she's just like me fr she's ju- ahah

[cutecapybarapics]

[kaelan1056]

SKETCH_118

HER BEAST | CHOUJIN X | 10-05-2024

[linkspooky]

CHOUJIN X, CHAPTER 41 HYENA

Hello, it's time to cover the climactic battle and rescue of Palma a recently introduced character who will probably turn out to be a major player considering the sheer amount of time that has been spent on this battle. This is also the first time we've seen the trio truly work together in a fight since they got separated before the time skip so there's a lot of interesting character and thematic moments to dig in here.

I think if there's any central statement that Ishida is trying to get across in this long drawn out fight scene it's that old cliche.

GOOD INTENTIONS LEAD TO HELL.

Tokio's mentor Sato reminds him of this. While he is trying to make Tokio into the successor of Sandek because of this heroic and selfless attitude he has, he's also the ahrshest critic of that same attitude. That no matter how hard he fights, or how beautiful the path he walks, or what his ideals are intentions are not outcomes.

The power of choices is a common theme in Ishida's works, often used with a railroad motif at the same time. We are capable of making choices, we are capable at switching tracks at critical junctions too, but oftentimes there are unforeseen consequences for our choices and because of that no matter how much you overthink a choice it at times feels like you've been railroaded into an unexpected result. There is always a choice and always a consequence, and sometimes these things aren't fair or just or logical.

Azuma makes a pretty clear reference to the train tracks monologue in Tokyo Ghoul when he's going to fight the scissor choujin to try and rescue Tokio. In both cases protagonists make a wrong choice that they are then locked into for different reasons. Kaneki correctly understands that Furuta might raid his home base, but instead of splitting his forces appropriately goes alone.

Azuma similiarly is told he can't handle fighting against a Choujin and to stay out of it, and goes anyway. In Azuma's case he's told straight up to his face that his intentions aren't as noble as he makes them out to be. Did he want to save Tokio because he wants to be the kind of person who save others, or did he just want to test himself because he thought being put in life threatening danger would activate his choujin powers?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions can mean two things, number one good intentions don't always lead to good results or number two people's good intentions aren't always as good as they make themselves out to be.

Tokio post timeskip is so far shown to be true to his good nature. However, he is an Ishida protagonist and Ishida doesn't really write straightforward heroes. There is a similarity between the two scenes as I mention, Azuma and Tokio both willingly choose to charge into fights that are far out of their depths and they're warned beforehand that while sitting and doing nothing might seem crueler it also might be the smarter choice and they might make things worse by intervening. Tokio is told that he was the one who asked to take the lead on this Opium operation and now he might throw it all away to save a random stranger by charging in with no backup.

When Tokio is fighting he's able to hear Palma's cries for help in her chaosified state because of their shared connection to Zora's blood and we see he is forcibly flashing back to critical moments of his life. The scene on his beach where he made the decision to leave his life and friends behind for one year and devote himself entirely to training. The memorial for the dead he left behind in his final battle where he beat the tyrannical choujin yes, but lost most of his allies.

The text are Palma's thoughts, but they are probably things Tokio highly identifies with because they're things he's said in his personal narrative before (I want to be stronger, I want to smarter, why am I weak? i can't anymore? Why? I can't give up) something that has even appeared to us in his internal dialogue right before the timeskip.

Palma is lamenting her fate, how weak, useless and helpless she feels and how it feels like nothing she did amounted to anything and begging for help while at the same time succumbing to her berserk state. Part of me wonders if Tokio is overinvested in saving Palma not because of some higher mind heroic goal, but because number one a year later he's still stuck with the feelings of uselessness he had on the beach from watching everyone fight and die for his sake. He's stuck with the idea that if he does not do everything on his own from now on that he'll revert to his old useless self.

Is Tokio trying so hard and so recklessly to save Palma because it's the right thing to do? Is he doing it because their psychic link makes him project his own feelings of uselessness and helplessness onto her? Is it survivor's guilt from all the people he couldn't save in Iwato?

Is it because Tokio like Kaneki hates being made to feel weak or useless so at moments like this he will act on his own and act recklessly so he can pretend he's in control. I think these chapters in general are setting up more for Tokio's character, at least to add a level of complexity because really importantly if Azuma had not shown up when he did Tokio would have completely lost.

It's also narratively interesting to me how this scene compares to when Azuma charged in blindly to save Tokio from the scissor choujin when he was warned against it. In that case Azuma's good intention truly did lead to hell because he got the worst result possible. Not only was he brutally cut in half and didn't succeed in helping Tokio at all, but he also turned into a Choujin and immediately brutally attacked the person he was trying to save. Azuma wanted Choujin powers too but when he awakens he's immediately told he's dangerous and needs to control himself.

Things just don't work out for Azuma narratively. That's always been the case since the beginning. The things Azuma wants get just kind of dropped into Tokio's lap. Tokio has more potential as a Choujin. Tokio awakens first. Tokio has spent years slacking off unlike Azuma who was a martial arts prodigy and overachiever, and in just one year of hard work Tokio has far surpassed Azuma. Tokio is Sato's star pupil, while Sato remarks to Azuma's face that Yamato Mori's quality of peace keepers is on the decline. Tokio is put in charge of a large operation when he speaks up against his superiors, whereas Azuma's attitude is keep your head down and listen to your superiors and he remains in relatively the same place.

Tokio is the protagonist so the story moves forward with him and it's about his growth, whereas Azuma is continually frustrated by both his lack of mobility and lack of growth. SO in this scenario where Tokio and Azuma basically do the same thing, run in to fight without backup Azuma's ends with this horrific scene of him turning against his best friend and even losing his status as "Tokio's hero" while Tokio gets to fly off into the sunset with Palma.

I'm not saying Azuma deserves better anything, I'm just observing that things work out for Tokio and they don't really work out for Azuma. Tokio keeps movig forward while Azuma stays in place and is oftentimes left behind. That's what Azuma long suspected and feared that if Tokio put the effort in that not only would he be on Azuma's level, but he'd be much higher than him.

It's why Azuma freaks out on Ely for not taking his side in the conflict between him and Tokio. In Azuma's mind at least everything he wants, Tokio just already has. Ely doesn't mind that Tokio ditched her for a year because she's more relaxed about those kinds of things. Not only is Azuma more sensitive he's also known Tokio for all of his life as opposed to Ely who only met him recently. From Azuma's point of view though the connection he's built up with Ely for the past year as her partner means almost nothing because he thinks she's naturally siding with Tokio, because Azuma fears Tokio's just naturally better. That there's something internally missing in Azuma that Tokio has and that fear makes him play stupid high school games with Ely. "Well, why are you on his side? You're supposed to be on my side" he yells in the middle of an important mission even though hes supposed to be the most mature and goal oriented member of the main cast.

Of course, there's the fact that Tokio didn't save the day in this situation because of anything he did specifically, besides making the decision to save Palma and not give up on that even when things were looking bad. No the day was saved because Azuma and Ely showed up and they were only there because Azuma considered Palma suspicious and was following up on a lead he established beforehand. It's Azuma's detectivework that brought them there, and luck to salvage things after they went south and Tokio wasn't strong enough to handle it, not anything Tokio did specifically.

It's still a pattern though Tokio tends to get good outcomes, and Azuma tends to make choices that lead to bad ones. I'm curious as to why this is though I don't think it's going to settle on a simple answer like Tokio good, Azuma bad.

Sato's heavy emphasis on "good intentions lead to hell" makes me think that the happy ending to this chapter mini-arc might get the rug pulled out of it at a later event. Palma turns into a hyena, and Azuma had a lot of connections to hyena symbolism early on in the manga.

Something tells me we might get a scene like this with Azuma and Palma at a later point, that the happy ending with Palma now might somehow lead to a tangled tragedy in the future. It might even be a romantic thing, because Azuma's jealousy over his perception that Ely is taking Tokio's sides has shades of romantic jealousy and possessiveness to it too. I'll talk about this theory more when I'm analyzing all the reveals in the next chapter though.