Heck I'm Here

Kagurabachi, Oofuri, SoRiku, and a few other things. Mostly posting stuff I write for myself into the void.

[hestzhyen]

It's quarter after 1am, I have lost control of my life.

[hestzhyen]

I have at least two massive Kagurabachi-related projects in progress as well as my Big Bang stuff and a few personal things. Sadly, my soul got taken by Morimens.

I have no excuse other than a moot said "hey there's a horror card-based roguelike that has cute guys and sexy men and some of them want to get it on with you".

It was like coming across an oasis after wading through a desert whose sands are made of exploitative franchise cash-grabs and incel goonerbait. I really needed this, alright?

[nautilus435]

Shiba Suffering Sabbatical

Sharing for a friend who is putting on this event! For the man who knows so much tragedy, we'll bring him more. Join us! It'll be fun! (Unless you're our beloved Shiba). Tag with #shibasuffer or #shibasuffernsfw

[hestzhyen]

I tried to send this earlier but the app crashed but anyway

I just wanted you to know you aren't alone in feeling angry and lost at how the world is going. Everything is fucked and it feels like theres nothing we can do. But i think its important to remember that people who can do something are trying.

It's easy to get bogged down with international politics and fearmongering, which is what they want. A scared population is a docile population. I don't think that means we need to be angry - I think that means we need to be hopeful. We only need to support each other, we don't need to support the weight of the world alone.

Maybe I'm being preachy. I know you deleted your post about this - I don't expect you to post this. I just wanted you to know I see you. I hear you. You aren't alone.

Sorry, I really do sound preachy. I hope you don't mind. I just wanna make you feel better. Peace and love from me to you✌️✌️have a nice day/evening, and keep up the good Kagurabachi translations

Thank you very much... a priv account post going on main, oops.

I do write to my congress critters; it feels hopeless, but doing nothing would be worse. There are still good people out there trying to make the world a better place but that's not the stuff that drives engagement or revenue. So we are overwhelmed with the bad stuff while good deeds go underreported. (Look who's preaching to the choir now!)

We'll all get through this one way or another for sure. I have to be in the closet while I'm in public for my own safety, but I'm still doing my weekly T injections, y'know? It's dark now but it's not going to be this way forever.

I'm not normally a quotes guy, but there's a paraphrased line from abolitionist Theodore Parker that I rely on a lot: The long arc of the universe bends towards justice. It comes from this passage in his sermon "Of Justice and the Conscience":

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Jefferson trembled when he thought of slavery and remembered that God is just. Ere long all America will tremble.

This was published in a collection called "Ten Sermons of Religion" in 1853. It's been quoted and paraphrased many times since then- probably most famously by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in "The Gospel Messenger", published in 1958. Over a whole century later! But the sentiment still rang true then and it still does now.

To me, that speaks of the hope in all of us that the world becomes kinder from one generation to the next; that old pains and suffering aren't passed on to children and grandchildren.

The fight is an eternal one but it's probably the most important one in our lifetimes. Progress seems so incremental that we feel stuck, just like how the horizon appears flat on the shoreline. But someone with a much longer view of things would be able to see the curve away from cruelty towards equity.

I'm not a religious person- I don't believe God, if they exist, would step in to help us mind things on this little blue marble. But I fully believe that human empathy and kindness will win over hatred in the long-run... so long as we keep fighting to make it so.

[hestzhyen]

Still Here

Happy Disability Pride Month.

I have "invisible" disabilities: general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, major depression, ADHD, history of trauma, PTSD. It's extremely difficult for me to interact with people, to say the least. I don't leave the house for months at a time.

I applied for disability benefits in November 2025.

I got the forms, filled them in, and sent them in December 2025.

I got notice to re-do the packet and my partner was asked to fill one out too in May 2026.

My aunt, who I had not mentioned at all, got a packet to fill out in June 2026.

My state takes about three months on average to process claims, and that's faster than the national average.

I don't know when I will get a decision this year.

I have been unemployed since July 2024. The client ran out of money so I and another contractor were let go with positive remarks on our records.

I had constant severe anxiety for days and was hospitalised in December 2024. I was stabilised, but decades of masking and repression had caught up to me. I was advised to undergo intensive therapy to find better coping mechanisms.

My partner earns half of what I did at my peak, meaning we are house poor yet not able to afford rent prices; our mortgage ($1.7k/mo) is the same or cheaper than apartments within a 1-hour drive. Farther out than that is farm country or a different state, and thus not great for my partner's (already long) commute or my job hunting.

I have been applying to jobs despite not being well enough to work out of desperation since January 2025. I rarely get responses due to the lengthy gap in my resume that only keeps growing. My most recent role in most firms has also been decimated by AI and budget cuts.

If I go back to the role I got just out of college, my anxiety will probably drive me over the brink again, even though I have help this time. I still flinch and swallow a surge of panic when my phone rings or I forget to mute text notifications.

The help I receive is often interrupted by issues with insurance- the Medicaid office in my state is chronically understaffed and overworked.

All of this will be worse in December 2026 when the requirements to receive Medicaid benefits are further restricted due to conditions included in the "Big Beautiful Bill".

But I will still be here to see 2027 and beyond.

The cruelty is the point; they want us to give up and die.

Don't. Fight to stay alive at all costs, no matter what it takes.

They can't get rid of us, they can't erase us.

We deserve to live with dignity.

[orbitingrook]

[heydocverdant]

Spent some time reflecting on the second post here, and I think I understand why fandom folks behave like that. In general, when people see things in the world that make us uncomfortable, we often automatically assume that those things are “bad”, and that it is our duty to try to fix those things to make the “bad” go away. This is itself not a negative trait to have — after all, discomfort helps encourage us to stay physically clean, and a core goal of society is to collectively achieve a reasonable degree of comfort — but it’s also a trait that must be utilized carefully, because sometimes things that make you uncomfortable exist for more complicated reasons than you may think.

When it comes to fandom culture specifically, I think that the recent online vitriol towards indie creators stems from both the desire to “fix” the things that make us uncomfortable, as well as the anxiety that develops when we feel powerless to enact real change. On the surface, it seems weird for internet lefties to spend more effort bullying small creators than large corporations, because those small creators are often making art that is more personal (and oftentimes politically-progressive) than mass-produced corporate media. Peel away the top layers, though, and you’ll find that it’s about a desire for control. The mega-corporations won’t bother to create art that will speak to you on a personal level* because that will NEVER be cost-effective, so trying to pressure them to change feels as useless as an ant vowing to crush a mountain beneath its feet; the indie creators, however, are individuals and small groups, and an ant COULD theoretically annoy them into “making better decisions”.

It sounds logical, at least at first; the problem, of course, is that it isn’t sound logic. The indie creators are small enough that you could theoretically bully them into changing their ways, yes, but this strategy forgets that the creators are trying to realize something personal to them, not to you, and that they only have a limited amount of effort and resources they can apply to the project before they lose that passion to work on it. Oftentimes, the perceived flaws in the work are completely reasonable when you consider the context around them: for context about the two creators mentioned in the original post:

Toby Fox (creator of Undertale and Deltarune) was asked about the lack of official localization for his games into other languages besides English and Japanese, and he explained that he currently has no plans to translate his games at this time. The process of localizing a script is an amount of work equivalent to writing a full new game, which is time-consuming for a largely-independent creator. The games are available in English and Japanese because Fox is fluent in those languages, so he can write the English script himself, hire someone to write the Japanese localization, and then edit the Japanese script himself to maintain accuracy. In response to this, some fans insisted Fox was discriminating against fans from Latin America and China by not producing an official translation in Spanish, Portuguese or Chinese, which ended up growing into accusations of Fox being outright racist.

Gooseworx (creator of The Amazing Digital Circus) has wound up embroiled in two recent online controversies. In the first, she responded to a question about the finale by saying that the show’s central characters are Pomni and Jax, which resulted in fans getting outraged at her alleged “favoritism” towards certain characters in her own show. In the second, she responded to news of the finale leaking with a post that said “Eh, who cares?”, prompting accusations of her devaluing the work of the animators. After this, she wrote a post indicating that she had lost her enthusiasm for TADC, which prompted further discourse over whether or not she was attempting to “guilt-trip” the rabid factions of the fanbase.

We’ve also seen similar things occur with other popular indie projects: Dana Terrace (Knights of Guinevere) was accused of transphobia for confirming that a character on the show was not transgender, for example, and I’ve seen some efforts to spark discourse against indie successes such as Dropout.tv (“they’re just trying to scam their fans!”) and Markiplier’s Iron Lung (“not a real indie movie because he spent $2 million on it!”). In some of these cases, the problem is an understandable frustration that the creator simply can’t resolve on their own, while in others the problem lies in the fans themselves. Meanwhile, megacorporations do have the resources to improve and diversify their work, but often choose not to do so for financial or political reasons: Paramount and WB have been quietly killing their animation divisions, for instance, and Disney’s begun winding down their pride-themed Marvel Voices comics out of fear of conservative backlash**.

In many ways, I think that the logic that’s on display here is the same mindset that’s been causing the American left to cannibalize itself for years now: we’re so desperate to feel like we’re fighting for a righteous cause that we start throwing punches at anyone within reach, rather than waiting to throw down with a real enemy that seems unassailable. “The conservatives are a monolith, and too far gone to be reasoned with,” we rationalize, “so we must make our voices heard to those allies that will listen!” And then, if those allies aren’t with us all the way, they’re recast as enemies in disguise that must be destroyed to keep our movement pure. We’re left to rip each other to pieces in the glorified shadow of that conservative monolith, a monument unassailed by hands brave enough to learn just how fragile it really is.

Elaborate metaphors aside, there is a simple solution to this: shut up, listen, then think. If someone’s decisions make you uncomfortable, think long and hard about why that is before you start writing callout posts and organizing a pitchfork brigade. Sometimes, you’ll find that the decisions are reasonable; other times, you’ll find that they’re not. Either way, nobody’s forcing you to like an indie creator, and you’re free to choose whether or not you still want to engage with their work.

Whatever you do, remember that the work in question isn’t really made for you, it’s being made to share with you. Art isn’t a restaurant, it’s a potluck: creators bring the stuff they’ve made to the table, and you are welcome to eat what you’d like of it. If there’s bits of stuff you don’t like in the dish, you’re allowed to pick those out and not eat ‘em, and you’re even free to express your personal distaste for that. Maybe your comments will even be taken into consideration! But if you choose to instead throw your plate across the room, yell at the creator for not making the recipe to your tastes, and try to rally others to do the same… well, you’ll just look like an asshole, there’s a strong chance that the creator might not bring anything next time, and you’re still gonna wind up hungry. And where’s the comfort in that?

Footnotes:

*corporations would dearly love to find a way to sell art that both speaks to you on a personal level and doesn’t have to actually be made at all, which is one of the reasons they’re investing so heavily in the failing generative AI sector

**this year’s pride comic did not release during Pride Month and is centered around Scarlet Witch and Vision, who are straight parents to queer children. I can only assume there won’t be a pride issue at all next year

[hestzhyen]

Kagurabachi being on break isn't so bad honestly.

Hunter x Hunter is back in all it's wordy glory

Akane-banashi continues to be underrated excellence every chapter

Ichi the Witch is absolutely golden

Animal Signal is better than expected

HAL Formula has a good thing going so far

UNDER DOCTOR is pretty solid now that it's established it's stride

Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi's still doing it's thing

Shinobi Undercover is still vibing along nicely

Other series still exist too I guess

SakaDays continues to limp along but it's ending soon so I'll stay with it

Drawn to the Fire has lost it's spark; hopefully it can rev back up with the start of the Spring Tournament

Opinion on Cannon Master still on-hold to give the absolutely stupid term "Slaylith" time to settle

Roku's House of Oddities, Me & Roboco, One Piece, Nue's Exorcist, Class 2-B Hero Destroyerz, Blue Box, Witch Watch, and Someone Hertz aren't for me but hopefully the people who like them are satisfied.

Farewell to Hima-ten!; you weren't for me but you made others happy.

Kinato's Magic please die any time thanks.

[hestzhyen]

Impeccable Casting

So, the VA for Shiba in the Kagurabachi anime has been accidentally leaked officially announced.

Thanks for the continued ineptitude, Crunchyroll. Please hire a real person to do the subtitles at least.

Shiba is going to be voiced by Katsuyuki Konishi. He's a talented VA with a very long resume of both Anime and non-Anime roles going back decades. He also speaks Kansai-ben so our favourite stinky-breath smoker is in great hands!

Fun roles he's had (relevant to my interests at least):

America from all versions of Hetalia

Dagda from Witch Hat Atelier

Hien from Final Fantasy XIV

Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia and other Tales of spinoffs

Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

...And Kiriwar from Togainu no Chi??

The interesting thing about this VA choice is that he has always worked under his current name- no pseudonyms or aliases for his porn and BL/BL-adjacent work. Of which there is a surprising amount!

He also voiced Soubi from Loveless, Segnites from Brave Bang Bravern, Shibuya Shouri from Kyo Mara Maoh!, Tetsuwa Niwa from Gakuen Heaven (TV), Konitan from Ixion Saga DT, Masamune Takano from Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi, and some BL drama CDs

He also has straight porn roles from Foxy Nudes and Night Shift Nurses: Kranke.

I think the most interesting thing is that Katsuyuki-san has exclusively voiced seme roles through his career (from what I can tell; some of the drama CDs are basically lost media), whereas Shiba is mostly an uke outside of the ShibAzami, ShibaChihi, and ShibaSoya ships. The latter of which is mostly a joke anyway. And there are plenty of ChihiShiba truthers out there too. I wonder if the casting voice will help change his perception among fujin...

Anyway, we have NSFW BL line deliveries from "Shiba", even if most of them probably aren't in Kansai-ben. What an amazing casting choice.

[hestzhyen]

Happy Father's Day to Kunishige. Lukewarm Father's Day to Samura. You Deserved That to Kyora.

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 125 Pre-Hiatus Posting

Strong feelings about this chapter... well, more like I have strong feelings about how much I don't feel, kind void.

Editor's Notes First Page: 神秘の源... [shinbi no minamoto...] "A source of mystery..." Last Page: 伝説の始まりー [densetsu no hajimari...] "The beginning of a legend..."

Yes, the announcement is true. The editorial department at Weekly Shounen Jump has decided that Hokazono needs to take a 5-week break. It's pretty unusual for the editorial department to tell a mangaka to take this kind of hiatus so it's natural to wonder what prompted it. We don't know the exact reasoning behind the decision, but hopefully it's nothing to do with poor health.

At any rate here's hoping he can rest up and come back with more banger chapters in August.

Mikaboshi Lore

How 'bout them thoughts and prayers?

I'm glad we at least acknowledge that the historical information at hand may have been influenced by the Soga clan. History is written by the victors and all that.

It's mostly to set up a contrast of one of the important lines near the end of the chapter, but yeah. The "prayers" involved a hell of a lot of human sacrifice to harness this so-called god stone. Our "good guys" aren't going to be putting holes in people and smearing their blood around, I think.

The quotation marks do a lot of heavy lifting though. We the readers know that Kunishige, Urita, Shiba, and Masumi only have good intentions here- they just want to protect their country and their loved ones. The thing about that though is weapons kill people. And Kunishige has no idea what he's making- he barely knows how to handle the datenseki's volatility!

I'm gonna have a mega long yap out about what Kagurabachi has to say about genocide and the morality of the sides involved later. It's way too much to do in a weekly chapter post. But basically, it's not cut-and-dry on who's good or evil. The Mikaboshi definitely hover towards "evil" within the story's framing, but they're not suddenly deserving of what Akemura is going to do to the civilians and children. But more on that over the hiatus.

In this version of "man harnessing lethal materials based on intuition and desperation", no one has to die. There are no sacrifices. Therefore, it's "purer" than the Mikaboshi's methods. It gives a much more wholesome feel to the blades that are going to result from this process- until Magatsumi corrupts Akemura, at least. In time, the professor's earlier comment that man wasn't meant to touch datenseki will bear true for the blades too.

It's genuinely hard not to think of the moment where nuclear fission was achieved and harnessed to make bombs capable of as-then unseen destruction. Scientists were working on logical guesswork and the lessons from the Curies- they knew radiation was extremely dangerous and accounted for that when handling the material themselves. But no one could guess the sheer devastation wrought by nuclear fallout long after the bombs obliterated cities. The Trinity test in the Jornata del Muerto desert had unexpected effects and spurred the creation of measures to deal with nuclear fallout. But no one knew just how long the after-effects would last for:

More than seventy years after the test, residual radiation at the site was about ten times higher than normal background radiation in the area. The amount of radioactive exposure received during a one-hour visit to the site is about half of the total radiation exposure which a U.S. adult receives on an average day from natural and medical sources.

Even now in peacetime, nuclear reactor meltdowns make large swaths of land uninhabitable for decades. The Chernobyl disaster is still affecting Russians and Ukranians in adjacent regions to this day with high rates of cancer and birth defects. Three Mile Island's cleanup isn't expected to be finished until 2029 at the earliest. Fukushima is slowly being re-opened, but former residents are rightly sceptical of the government's claim that it's safe to return long-term.

Every time something goes wrong, we learn something new and create better safeguards. But we will never, ever get to a state where nuclear materials -Datenseki- are completely safe for humans to use. It will always be a gamble with catastrophic results in the case of failure; if we ever think we have actually "tamed" it, we are fools. Kunishige certainly realised that after the war.

Technical Terms Ahoy

Since this is this is the last chapter we're getting for slightly over a month, I did my very best to translate it. "Bellows" and "mochi iron" and "magnetite" aren't stuff you use every day.

The EN translation didn't bring it over, so here: "mochi iron" (餅鉄, beitetsu or mochitetsu) is a whimsical name for magnetite that has been eroded into a rounded pebble shape by rivers. It's prized for use in the tatara method of sword making since it's said to not only have fewer impurities than iron sand, but is also easier to process.

Joji: "Be... bei...?" Urita: It's "mochi" and "iron"

The top left panel here is Urita explaining the word since it's pretty damn specific to the craft of tatara sword making. Kunishige pronounces it as beitetsu, so Urita tells Joji it's bei as in the alternate reading for 餅 [mochi] instead of any other number of things like 米 (rice), 皿 (dish), 塀 (fence/wall), etc. Probably still doesn't help explain what it actually is but hey. We are not here to dive into the etymology of all the techniques and materials referenced this chapter. At least I assume no one but me is.

...I don't know why they translated and rewrote that part but not noro (ノロ), honestly. Replacing that with "slag" wouldn't have made a bit of difference; it's not like noro is a specialised term without an English equivalent like 餅鉄 is. I don't understand.

Anyway, what is this "tatara" that's getting tossed in like we all kinda know what it is? It's a traditional clay furnace used for smelting iron that's operated with a foot bellows. Looks something like this:

(Read more about the history of tatara from the image's source.)

It's a very time-intensive and laborious process of iron-making that's still practised by a few forges in Japan. The Japanese version of the Wikipedia article corroborates the manga's claim that it's experiencing something of a revival (as of 2017), but the process has been demonstrated every winter since 1977 by Nittoho (Japanese Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords), the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and Yasugi Special Steel (a subsidiary of Hitachi Works). The resulting steel is used for reproduction of historical swords and firearms.

The resulting 玉鋼 [tamahagane, "precious steel"] is another specialised term- not just any steel can be called by that name. It has to be the result of traditional processes relying on iron sand.

Holy Yap

This chapter had me flashing back to that chapter where we spent like six pages explaining how the barrier around Kamunabi HQ worked. Cool info, but not something that needs so much page time to explain. That's the kind of trivia you relegate to a bonus page or notes for those who want to delve deeper on the subject. (Yes, I realise the irony of saying this when I blab about my own research all over these posts.)

I was willing to let the special Rokuhira eyes just be one of the many things we don't get in-depth explanations of in this series. I was also interested in the forging process. But Hokazono really went overkill here. It's a common new writer mistake where you wanna yap about the cool stuff you learned/thought up, but the details don't really add to the story that much.

It's cool to know that:

Kunishige and Urita are using a traditional method that's been around since ancient times

They went out of their way to prepare higher-quality materials for this

The method they're using relies on their skills and senses, no modern tech at all

Kunishige was "born" to do this because his eyes are special

But a part of me is wishing that the finer details were left out so we could get, I don't know... more insights into character's thoughts and feelings, a shot of what Chiaki and Akemura are doing, some flashbacks to Kunishige and Chiaki to heighten the emotional tension, anything but the special membrane that doesn't make sense at all and breaks my immersion a little.

It's not a bad chapter. I'm also not a pro so I wonder if I should be criticising at all. But it didn't really land with me and given Hokazono's comment this week, I think he knows he's kind of lost the plot a bit.

(Did you know that VIZ provides translations of the mangaka's weekly commentary? Now you do!)

My most delusional hope is that we come back with more time spent on showing us the characters interacting outside of strictly plot-necessary scenes. It's kinda sad that we don't know any of Chihiro's hobbies or what he thinks about most of the cast, y'know? And we're in an even sorrier state for less important characters than him.

At any rate, it's break time and I hope Hokazono makes the most of it. See you sporadically until serialisation resumes, dear void. Take care of yourself too.

[hestzhyen]

Kagurabachi Characters and Personal Pronouns v2

Updated for the Seitei War Arc (current as of chapter 125). Half-assedly alphabetical within each category.

Uchi: Very casual and familiar, used by kids and young women (especially in Kansai).

Neither Shiyumi nor Hiyuki speak in Kansai dialect, so it's purely for the casual flavour.

Shiyumi using uchi around Hagiwara speaks to how he runs his squad with less formality than one would expect (she and the others would normally use watashi or boku in his presence).

Shiyumi in general speaks with an extremely cutesy, feminine, and casual style; "Valley Girl" would be a rough English equivalent.

Hiyuki using uchi even with Kasen and Ichiki shows how much she doesn't give a fuck about propriety; perhaps how much confidence she has in herself and her status in the Kamunabi too.

Her speaking style is all around rough and somewhat rude at a minimum to pretty much everyone; she reins it in with Kasen and the higher-ups but not by much.

Atashi: Casual and cute, feminine. No one's used it so far. Not even Kiri. :c

Watashi: Slightly formal, everyone. The default pronoun if you're not sure what to use.

While Kiri uses watashi, her speech is very unique. She has a habit of saying incredibly unhinged things in a cute way. Sorta like "I wanna kill my grandfather 'cause he's a total misogynistic pig! That's why I tell him to live along life until then, tee hee~".

She's also disrespectful to her elders and superiors by refusing to use honorifics with them (much to Natsuki's annoyance).

It's also kinda rude to give a guy a cutesy nickname as soon as you meet them like she did with Hakuri (calling him "Hakurin") (though he doesn't seem to mind).

Char's normally childlike speech is peppered with random advanced words and odd turns of phrase due her time as an experimental subject for Sojo.

Boku: Polite-ish, younger men.

Toto is probably a ボクっ娘 [bokukko, "boku girl"], an anime/manga archetype of a quirky and/or tomboyish girl that uses "boku" to accentuate how off-beat she is.

Some girls, AFAB folks, and non-binary people use boku to reject traditional femininity without coming across as "manly".

Azami using boku while he's pushing 40 gives a slightly refined, humble, and overall softer impression to his character (to accentuate the gap when starts punching people to death, of course).

Ore: Very casual, masculine.

Most of the male cast use this in Kagurabachi (and other anime/manga) but it's usually reserved for speaking among close friends and family IRL.

Despite the common pronoun, there's a wide variety of speech styles represented to help differentiate the characters from one another.

Shiba and Mashiro use Kansai dialect.

Uruha switches among old-timey Samurai-esque phrasings, standard-to-casual Japanese depending on context, and "stannish" (excited fan slang) speech.

Outside of a few notable exceptions, Hakuri speaks almost exclusively in casual Zoomer slang. He minds using honorifcs though.

Chihiro's speech is generally to-the-point standard Japanese unless he's annoyed with an opponent like Hiruhiko or Sojo- then it gets a bit rough.

He's also all or nothing with the honorifics: characters either get them as expected or not at all (communicates a lot of closeness with Char and Hakuri to forego them, is slightly derogatory towards his enemies).

Kazane uses condescending Zoomer slang to be rude to Chihiro but is polite with Azami.

Even the ninjas have differences amongst themselves. Ro is relaxed and a bit informal, Moku is casual and friendly, and Sumi is plain and no-nonsense.

Kunishige's speech is casual and rough even when talking to Urita; he speaks to him like a peer, not his elder in any sense. Hence why Urita frequently remarks that Kunishige is cocky.

Other/Special:

Ariu hasn't used a singular pronoun for himself yet. He's only used 我々[wareware], an extremely masculine and formal way of saying "we". In modern times, 我々usually doesn't refer to a group of people but rather a larger organisation that they belong to. (For example, both Ichiki and Kasen use 我々when speaking about themselves and other members of the Kamunabi, but when they are only speaking about themselves, they use watashi.)

Mashiro uses ore for the most part, but he switches to boku when he internally compares himself to Hiroto, Shiba, and Yoshinojo. It shows he thinks there's a significant skill/experience gap between him and the other three.

Unknown: Character hasn't used one yet and we have a non-zero chance of seeing them do so in future chapters. Don't @ me about Makoto being there hope springs eternal.

Probably will keep updating this at an irregular interval as we meet more characters and see how they talk.

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 124 Nucleus Posting

Sopping wet creature is pushed too far: the origin story chapter.

Editor's Notes First Page: 幼き日の少年... [osanaki hi no shounen...] "As a young boy..." Second Page: 後に剣聖と呼ばれる男ー... [nochi ni kensei to yobareru otoko-...] "The man who would one day be called the Sword Master..." Last Page: 覚悟を焚べてー... [kakugo o kubete-...] "Stoking the fires with resolve..."

Soga Akemura: Siscon?

It's confirmed: Akemura is OP as hell because he originally wanted to protect Chiaki. That's really sweet! But once again, we have another character going down the "wrong path" due their obsession over something/someone to the exclusion of everything else. Sojo, Soya, Kyora, Hiruhiko... and now Akemura.

A TL note. The term for "obsession" used was 執心 [shuushin], which is used in Buddhism to express the idea of being unable to let go of earthly desires due to excessive infatuation, obsession, devotion, etc. I personally translated it as "devotion" because he's not Soya levels of crazy about his sibling. Just disconcertingly attached with a genuinely loving bond.

At any rate, now we know for sure where Akemura's descent began. I'm very interested in seeing the next steps!

I also wanna yap a little about the symbolism of the second page:

The flowers in the background are the same ones that appear with Magatsumi when it's unleashed: lilies and irises.

In general, Irises mean "good news", "hope", or simply "a message"; the more specific meaning is "happiness will definitely come". In hanakotoba, irises mean "good news", "kind heart", and "elegance". My guess is that they were chosen because Akemura started as a fundamentally kind boy that couldn't even bring himself to fight back against his older cousins.

The message association comes from their namesake: Iris (Ἶρις in Ancient Greek for "rainbow" and "the halo of the Moon"), the messenger of the gods (usually Hera) who traversed rainbows to deliver messages to mortals.

Lilies, on the other hand, have varied meanings based on their colour. In a general sense they mean "purity", "innocence", and "dignity". Without knowing what colour they're intended to be I don't want to guess on the more specific meaning. They suit Akemura as he appears to us in this arc though. He's nothing if not innocent and pure compared to the older men around him. Even Chiaki.

Lastly, the butterfly is the same swallowtail we saw when Kyora used Magatsumi during the Rakuzaichi arc. In Japanese media, butterflies are often used to represent spiritual mediums and the souls of the dead traveling between the mortal realm and Yomi. They traverse the boundaries between life and death and can also act as messengers from beyond the veil.

I find the doubling up on "messenger" themes interesting considering that Chiaki is supposed to be the reincarnation of Izanami, since she resides within Yomi and cannot interact with the world of the living directly. Akemura acting as his sister's messenger by taking up the sword for her is an interesting concept that someone smarter than me can ponder, I suppose.

There's also the obvious symbolism of a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly to apply to Akemura- he went from a naive kid to someone who could commit genocide in cold blood. I don't see any point in commenting on that though since it's beyond obvious.

A last note before moving on: how Chiaki and Akemura refer to her in Japanese.

Chiaki refers to herself as お姉ちゃん [onee-chan], the formal way to say "big sister", though -chan does make it cuter. But Akemura calls her 姉さん [nee-san], the more casual and familiar version of address. Given the strict and formal environment they seem to live in, Akemura being less polite hints that he's not quite on the same page as Chiaki in terms of what's expected of them.

As we'll see with Giyuu next, there's quite the variety of pronoun usage going on within the Soga clan that tells us some information that doesn't necessarily translate easily in English.

Soga Giyuu

We're not even trying with the names any more, are we? 義勇 [giyuu] means "heroism" or "loyalty and courage"- straight from a regular dictionary. It's used in terms with connotations of self-sacrifice for the greater good good like 義勇兵 [giyuuhei - volunteer soldier] and 義勇金 [giyuukin - relief fund/charity donation]. For fellow anime and manga fans, 義勇 is probably best known as the name of Giyuu Tomioka from Kimetsu no Yaiba/Demon Slayer. At any rate, 義勇 is the name of a noble warrior. The Soga clan seems to have a thing for high-minded names being given to their men with great potential.

Hiroto being the former chief was definitely a surprise- the dude looked like he was in his early 20's at the oldest. And now his younger brother is the next head? Somehow the Soga clan has been successfully running things with a "might makes right" hierarchy for about a thousand years I guess. Good job?

Giyuu isn't like his older brother, though. Where Hiroto was casual enough to use the personal pronoun 俺 [ore], Giyuu uses the more formal 私 [watashi]. He also has a firm goal in mind that wasn't brought over precisely:

EN: "I will restore the Soga clan." JP: 私が曽我を在るべき姿に戻す "I will restore the Soga to [our] rightful state."

He's not just going to remind the Mikaboshi and everyone else who's in charge, he's going to right some wrongs that went unaddressed under Hiroto (and perhaps previous heads before him). The way he talks and even the way he chooses to smoke reeks of him being a much more traditional person than his older brother. Hiroto smoked cigarettes like an average modern guy, while Giyuu is using a kiseru, which were traditionally associated with aristocracy and higher social classes.

So of course Akemura slicing the kiseru in half followed by this scene says it all:

Akemura's not okay with this old-fashioned way of thinking and acting. And Giyuu wasn't exactly jazzed with Hiroto's more modern attitude- look where it got him, after all. Where it got all of them.

I don't know where to put this gracefully so I'll just put it here. Giyuu is so damn formal that he uses sonkeigo (Honorific) language to refer to his older brother (兄上 [aniue]), showing a lot of respect. Other older brothers in Kagurabachi get the usual treatment

Hakuri -> Soya: 兄さん [nii-san], normal address in 99% of situations

Soya -> himself (talking to Hakuri): 兄ちゃん [nii-chan], cutesy and affectionate (the childish tone of his speech adds to the major ick factor of his personality)

Natsuki -> Ibuki (narration): 兄貴 [aniki], manly way to refer to an older brother/someone who's like an older brother

Natsuki -> Ibuki (finding him dead): 兄ちゃん [nii-chan] (reveals inner softness and how hard losing his older bro was on him)

Giyuu -> Hiroto: 兄上 [aniue], extremely formal and respectful; somewhat distant as well in some circumstances

So yeah. While I have no doubt that Giyuu and Hiroto had a positive relationship, Giyuu's not the same guy at all and he's on a mission to tighten things up. Off Chiaki goes no matter what her mom and Akemura have to say about it.

Chiaki, Kunishige, and Shiba

I'll say this up front: I didn't expect Urita to be such a swell guy. I hope we catch up with him in the present and hear what he has to say about Kunishige! More importantly though, I wasn't expecting Hasumi to give in and help Shiba at the cost of his own career. Damn.

God damn, poor Shiba looks so dead inside.

Hasumi says he's starting to "act like you guys", in Japanese (お前達, omae-tachi), so we can infer that Mashiro's death is weighing heavily on him. He was the one who introduced Mashiro to Shiba in the hopes that our favourite trickster teleporter would be brought in line and all. So this is his way of taking responsibility for how everything shook out as much as it is about his disagreement with the government's plan of action.

Thus Shiba absconds with 36kg (about 79 freedom units) of Datenseki so Kunishige can make the enchanted blades anyway. I think we can assume he's using his sorcery to lighten the weight enough to carry it in one hand.

As for Kunishige and Urita, well. The forge is lit on the dawn of Hakuri's (future) birthday and history is about to be written in a lot of blood.

Where's Chiaki in all this, though? Sadly, she's not doing much for herself yet. I'm going to withhold judgment to see how it all turns out. If she takes action to preserve herself instead of waiting to be rescued, all will be well in my book. If she's just a damsel for Kunishige and Akemura to win back, I will not be impressed. Come on, Hokazono! Have at least one woman do something interesting in the narrative before she dies! There's an opportunity to show how Chiaki rebels against all the oppressive expectations of her here!

Okay. I think I've got it all out of my system. Thank you as ever, dear void. See you next week.

[hestzhyen]

Guy with debilitating social anxiety: I will make a post that tries to engage with the wider community. I need to expand my boundaries little by little and this is a great way to start.

A few community members: engage nicely and politely.

Guy with debilitating social anxiety: I have made a grave mistake and regret everything. My maximum dose prescription of venlafaxine is the only thing tethering me to reality.

[hestzhyen]

щ(゜ロ゜щ)

So, uh... I've avoided the latest "discourse" about the Seitei War arc somehow, but do people genuinely not like it?

The last two chapters were definitely text-heavy and not in the greatest way (can we get this kind of lore dump as character introspection and interactions?!), but overall the arc's been solid so far. It's been great to go back to the earlier parts of the series and recognise when another panel, line, or scene now has extra context.

I could yap for a while about all the extremely cool characters we've met (and lost). Or how it's recontextualised and reinforced themes from Part 1. How we finally have a female character firmly in the spotlight and how wonderful she is. How many research rabbit holes I've gone down researching linguistics and historical context. How the lore dumps make me want to forget every bit of Japanese I've ever learned while I lovingly hate-struggle to translate technical stuff. There's a lot to dig into and it's been very fulfilling!

Not every arc is for every person so I'm not gonna say people are wrong to dislike Part 2. But I gotta wonder what's so horrific about it that fans are turning on the series so much out of nowhere. It just seems like more of a good thing to me.

[monobmp]

I love them forever!!!!

[monobmp]

Happy Pride Month to these two

[blameposting]

The number of people reblogging this post and then immediately reblogging a "The manga is completely beyond reproach etc"-themed post is driving me nuts. Let's learn reading comprehension together

[hestzhyen]

This is largely why I avoid talking about the series outside of my one-sided weekly chapter posts. The Twitter community is insufferable for exactly this reason + morality policing on steroids, which probably comes as no surprise to anyone. Reddit is also a waste of time since the sub speedran becoming Kagurabachi-themed shitpost/power scaler central.

But every platform has this weird phenomenon where you either have to hold Kagurabachi up as the pinnacle of manga (which it is not), or condemn the author and everyone who likes the work as degenerates who would support Hitlerbot if it became reality. We don't have to be this way.

This isn't Twitter- there's no word count limit here that prevents nuanced takes. And it's okay to be a teensy bit vulnerable when discussing fiction online! There are no real-world consequences to accidentally having a misinformed opinion or anything like that. It's okay to ask questions if you're not sure. It's not an attack on you personally if someone critiques the manga.

The folks who tie enjoyment of fictional content to real-world morality need to take a chill pill though. If you're going to throw around accusations of the author and the fans being pro- or anti- anything as heavy as genocide, you gotta be literate. Not "literate" in the sense that you can read the words on the page, but literate in that you can understand subtext, interpreting authorial intent in good faith, and how the words on the page relate to the panel(s) they're associated with. At least that much is required before the accusations can start.