Quick analysis/theory on this. Multiple people have asked about it but haven’t seemed to have made the connection.
The Hell Guard, specifically Kyouka, numerous times have dissed Givers. Mymo skipping a non-Giver Hell Guard to attack his Giver brother after attacking two Givers…isn’t it obvious?
It’s only attacking Givers because Givers are an actual threat. Likely the same logic against trash beasts applies to Mymo.
Trash beasts are aggregates of anima trapped within trash that rains from the Sphere. It is made of anima. Mymo transformed after receiving anima. Both forms are powered by anima.
Anima counters anima.
Edit: As people have pointed out, Mildretta is a supporter, so she’s not a Giver. So scratch that out!
So here’s my rewrite: Could it have something to do with the Cleaners being an organization trying to investigate the origins of the world?
I’ve been really interested in people’s interpretations of Rudo’s scars and the pain they cause.
What interests me is that people think Rudo’s pain can be managed with over the counter painkillers.
For example, there is a difference between Tylenol (that is a brand) and Advil (that is also a brand). They have different ingredients, so it’s always better to call them by their ingredients because well…those are brands.
Ibuprofen (Advil) is an anti-inflammatory painkiller. If you have an ear infection, that’s what you take. Ibuprofen reduces the production of chemicals responsible for causing the pain and the responses your body has.
Acetaminophen (Tylenol/paracetamol) is not a good anti-inflammatory painkiller. Acetaminophen is weaker than ibuprofen when it comes to inflammation because it is easily overwhelmed with the concentration of the chemicals causing the inflammation. It works similarly to ibuprofen by inhibiting pain responses. As well, acetaminophen is a good anti-convulsant.
So…if you’re writing about Rudo’s pain…ibuprofen won’t help him.
As well…both of these medications only treat mild to moderate pain.
Over the counter painkillers are far, far too weak to do anything. I’ve been on the max dosage a human can take of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) alongside an intense anesthetic and it wasn’t enough. I was still in an insurmountable amount of pain, I just didn’t care. I was too busy tripping the fuck out.
But all things considered, I think Rudo’s disability aligns a lot with osteoarthritis and peripheral neuropathy. But obviously this is a punk post apocalyptic fantasy manga so. It’s probably not that. But it is the closest translation of his condition that I could find.
So he could take either a steroid or an opioid. Yes, those. The ones doctors try hard to avoid prescribing because of how addictive they are.
There are different types of steroids, and since Rudo’s pain seems to be a bit deeper than just inflammation and skin-on-skin contact (due to the tremors he experiences) only anti-inflammatory steroids wouldn’t address all the symptoms he has. Those are usually drugs like methylprednisolone, hydrocortisone, cortisone…there’s more.
And this is especially important, I don’t think immunosuppressive medication would be a good idea considering where they live and what they do everyday. This takes out a lot more steroids. This limits our options.
So, would he take opioids?
There are two that don’t affect the immune system, hydromorphone and oxycodone. You may know them by their brand names. Exalgo ER and OxyContin. Exalgo ER is for people with Advanced Pain, people who have become tolerant to opioids.
Our little buddy would start off with OxyContin.
But…what makes Rudo’s condition very terrible is that if we’re headcanoning him as having bad days and okay days, then the irregular use of OxyContin would regularly fuck him up. Stomach issues, muscle aches, chills and sweating, tearing up and having a runny nose, irritability, anxiety, joint pain, muscle cramps, insomnia, backaches…uh. But at least he’d feel high and relaxed?
Long term use would also fuck him up, it can weaken the immune system, damage organs, impaires breathing and increases your changes of getting a respiratory infection, it worsens mental health and cognitive performance, it causes endocrine disruption and experiencing that during puberty would give him osteoporosis for real…hmm.
Sorry to say this but. Our guy is fucked.
Here I am to help!
My treatment plan: local anesthesia and laughing gas. Yep, what dentists use. There are gel forms of local anesthesia, which have been a big help for me personally.
Local anesthesia is over the counter too! So if they’re tight on resources, you could always default to that.
So all in all, don’t write about someone giving Rudo some over the counter painkiller, it won’t do anything.
Instead write about Eishia giving him laughing gas and a local anesthetic. He still won’t be able to use his hands, but he wouldn’t be in misery.
“But Rudo would be too worried about looking pathetic in front of Eishia!”
Local anesthetic and melatonin. There. Enjin can throw it at him from across his room.
Now you’re canon compliant AND realistic.
PS: Yes, my posts are very long. I am very wordy, but I don’t want to say what I think and then leave it at that. Going through why I think so and so is much more effective. I am basically dragging you all through the process that led me to my conclusion.
I was right that people can receive thoughts (anima), and I was right that these thoughts can physically change the forms of people.
But it seems, from what we know of right now, that it’s specifically degenerate souls that can change form.
Episode 11, the scene where Rudo hallucinates the Apostles, shows them mumbling about how Rudo will, as the son of a criminal, “pollute” the Sphere.
The Apostles have to be aware of this, they have to be aware of how thoughts can corrupt the forms of others, and the harsh sentencing of criminals and the segregation of their descendants has to be a reaction to this.
(I talk about how the Sphere reminds me of imperial penial colonies and the subtle theme of high-trust/low-trust systems here)
What’s interesting, though, is how the Apostles…are named the Apostles. Mymo calls his hypothetical followers Apostles as well, but they would only become Apostles AFTER changing form.
Meaning…can these Apostles change form? Are they called the Apostles because their souls have “degenerated?” What thoughts degenerated them? Can they change back? Or are they constantly teetering on the edge of a transformation and are awaiting someone to flip the switch…?
In Impasse chapter 7 (unpublished), I’m introducing a theme where the Sphereites were dehumanized and called “deficient” prior to the creation of the Sphere.
So…although it is stated that people can only change form as a result of degenerate thoughts (and the criminal justice system of the Sphere alludes to this to some degree), I wonder if that’s always the case. Which goes back to my theory on Receivers. Which are people who can change forms not because of “degenerate thoughts” (well, not all of them, in chapter 7, I introduce a character who changes forms because of nationalistic thoughts received from an entire nation) but because of love?
But of course, “anima” is a term that is most closely associated with psychology. If this manga’s themes and operations originate in psychology and specifically the treatment of the mentally ill and those who have committed crime (or who people assume will commit crime), then a positive spin of “thought degeneration” would make less sense narratively and thematically.
Still...I’m calling this a win.
But, in other news, I was right to believe Mymo has narrative similarities to the antichrist, or demons as a whole. Gountess basically “sold his soul” to be “free” and acquire wealth. Mymo preyed on it and was able to use his ability to create a proto-“My Theory on Givers and Receivers” system. Gountess’ chokers receive thoughts, Mymo’s microphone gives thoughts (to the chokers).
So, although Receiver theory could be getting beaten like a dead horse…it is interesting how it was already mimicked. The question is all whether it’s natural or induced.
It’s still possible that souls who have “degenerated” to some degree (Amo, Gountess, Zodyl, Rudo) receive thoughts (and are more prone to change forms).
I think this because of the scene of Follo wearing Rudo’s gloves, as I’ve posted about before. It seems that the gloves contained thoughts that were degenerating Follo’s mind and now I think it’s possible that if Rudo didn’t step in, Follo would’ve transformed into what we’re calling an Apostle (for now).
Then, Follo's outburst could be a result of the thoughts that were implanted in his head (which many have theorized), and maybe it was some of Rudo's anima being embedded in Follo that provided some stability.
Then...Could Rudo be the answer to stopping Mymo's rampage...?
Which goes back to the creature at Tori…La La La. Maybe something there degenerated the form of whoever that is (I’m thinking Canis) and the creature at Tori is an Apostle.
Some of you may be surprised by this, but I actually get accused of not being able to read quite often. Specifically, not being able to read when it comes to Gachiakuta…Why?
Because I see this manga as more than just commentary on classicism.
I see this manga as commentary on rich versus poor, Privileged versus Oppressed, The West and the rest.
First and foremost, let me defend my interpretation by justifying my centralization of my analysis of Gachiakuta on the Western hemisphere (which regularly includes Japan and South Korea).
Oftentimes, people tend to forget that when it comes to a medium’s themes, it actually makes more sense to center the author’s lived experience versus the reader’s. Many people interpret Gachiakuta from a poor versus rich/Oppressed versus Privileged perspective, automatically assuming that since the author has embedded obvious sympathies towards their plight, that the author 100% agrees with them on everything else…but I don’t think this is the case. And I understand why this may be scary for some people to read.
Why do I think this? It’s pretty simple. Urana is Japanese. This is a Japanese manga. Because it’s written by a Japanese person, which is a more socially conservative country, a more nationalistic country versus other Western countries…Urana is writing from a place where she sees a stark difference between her country, the countries of her continent of origin’s, and the nations she is categorically grouped into, other Western developed nations.
Before the series premiere, Urana stated that she is and has been heavily inspired by not just the city of Los Angeles, but the United States as a whole. As an American…I feel that I have the right to analyze this manga with a lens focused on American social issues as a result.
America is the third largest nation in both size and population, the most indebted nation in the world (second is Japan), the nation with the largest wealth gap, the nation with the most loud voices on social issues, and the biggest exporter of the arts and media. I’ve said that Gachiakuta is inspired by Japan, and I still think this is true, but I also think it is inspired by the United States, both inspired by its art and its problems.
So what does guilt have to do with this…?
It has everything to do with it.
Rudo often, over and over, blames himself for everything. And this is a sentiment that he has been building over time, and instead of getting better, it is getting worse.
What is worsening it?
It is the natural effect of him learning more about the Ground.
The more he learns about how the Sphere is making life hell for people on the Ground, the more he naturally blames himself. Why?
He’s a Surebrec. His ancestors are part of, if not the reason why the Sphere exists.
And people call me crazy and illiterate for drawing obvious parallels to modern social justice discourse (¬_¬)
So now that I’ve made this clear, let’s go back to chapter 3.
The third chapter introduces the third major theme of this series, which has not been explored much…it’s not just about revenge, it’s about revenge on the innocent for something that draws a parallel social problems created by the wealthy/the Privileged.
What has gotten me called illiterate multiple times is that I’ve pointed out that the human traffickers are not people you’re meant to sympathize for NOR are they people you’re supposed to think “mhm, they kinda have a point tho.”
Why? Because Rudo beats the absolute shit out of them.
The human traffickers, after learning Rudo is from the Sphere, decide to torture him based on their understanding of their worlds origins (which hasn’t been confirmed, by the way) and then use that to justify their actions of torturing and soon trafficking a 15 year old boy.
People easily jump to the things they’ve always jumped to in similar instances:
“Well they’re oppressed,” / “they’re mentally ill,” / “he’s wealthy,” / “he’s privileged,” / “it’s not a good thing to do, but you have to understand why they’re doing it.”
But the why never matters…because Rudo beats the shit out of them.
People sincerely and genuinely think like writers of Disney reboots, that if a villain has a sad backstory for why they’re doing evil, that makes them sympathetic or somehow their actions explainable. But it doesn’t explain their actions, because there’s no logical path from reason (cause) and torturing innocents (“effect”), that isn’t something immutable or determined, it’s only something that comes into being through poor moral character.
But the result of these justifications are clear. You get the shit beat out of you.
Think about it seriously.
If you plucked a random wealthy Sphereite up and told him all about the Ground, what Sphereites were doing to people (unknowingly or knowingly) and then you told that someone like Zodyl was intent on destroying you, your home, your friend’s and family’s home, over what you were likely unknowingly doing…would you let Zodyl do it? Would you let Zodyl destroy everything you’ve ever known, killing you and everyone you’ve ever known, hundreds of years of residency over the animosity someone you never knew existed had held for you, and had held for you for generations…?
No.
You’re not suicidal.
You, the one reading this, may say, “yes I would ^~^” but we all know you’re virtue signaling or lying. Human instinct clings onto staying alive, and even clings desperately on trying to maintain stability. Out of instinct your body and mind would reorient itself, abandon all moral values and sympathies you have, and you would beat the shit out of them.
Like how someone so kind and understanding like Rudo managed to beat the shit out of the human traffickers. Because he wanted to live.
And now we circle back.
Urana, as a Japanese person whose nation is grouped in with the Western World, who is heavily inspired by the United States, has watched the United States tear itself apart out of guilt and self hatred for what it has done in the past and what its politicians have been doing.
But the pendulum always swings back, and it swings back hard.
I’ve said over and over that the Sphere likely represents the Western world, specifically Europe and its White-majority colonies.
These nations have been stewing in self hatred since the World Wars, mainly out of recognizing the devastation of their wealth and the power they project, so they’ve been understandably hellbent on reducing their power (minus one…🇺🇸), but now this has created hellish conditions for many European nations, who have been experiencing hard pendulum swings back into idolizing the wealth and their old projections of power.
And to wrap things up, this theme is going to obviously show up in Impasse, my fic. Many of the Sphereites in my fic are not great people, some are normal, regular, run-of-the-mill folks, but some like the character I will introduce at the end of chapter 6, are not.
They are nationalist, brutal, and someone can describe them as evil. But they’re brutal because they’re desperate to live and have become corrupted during their fight for survival.
If you’re new here, let me summarize this theory by going into the mechanisms of Gachiakuta’s power system.
Anima is thoughts/feelings/experiences. In psychology, philosophy, and religion, it is the inner self, ego, the soul. In Jungian psychology, it is the inner self that you project outwards.
Anima, because it can be thoughts, feelings, experience, in my eyes, is better understood to be life energy. It from there relates to memory, and memories can be altered (as we know because of the book from the watchman series). Humans produce anima by virtue of being alive, as being alive is what lets them think, feel, and experience.
Givers are called givers because they give anima to objects, or, they project anima (aligns with Jungian psychology) onto objects. Rudo’s ability is the epitome of this. It is objects that he can project onto, objects he sees himself in (the tossed out before they could show their full worth) that he weaponizes.
So essentially, anima flows like this:
Living thing ->(creates)-> thoughts ->(projects)-> object
I believe the watchman series works in reverse. I believe the watchman series has anima within them. So it flows in reverse:
Living thing <-(receives)<- thoughts <-(contains)<- Watchman Series
Receiver Theory, essentially, is the thought that what if it’s not only humans that produce anima? What if…by virtue of being alive, animals and plants produce anima, too?
Animals dream and experience. They are weaker, yes, but ultimately, they are alive. They have to think…though they are limited in capabilities.
But why do I think this question is important?
Because this manga’s theme is obviously entrenched in criticisms of mass consumption. Givers are “lifted up” narratively because they are people who are seen as the opposite to the wasteful Sphereites. And why is this wastefulness bad…? Because it pollutes the environment. And why is pollution and all that bad…?
Because the damages it brings to the environment.
Being a giver is a solution to mass consumption, because they care for the objects versus tossing them before you can get all your use out of them.
As it stands in the manga, life, in its pure, un-mutated form, has not been “lifted up” similarly…until just now. Until Mymo’s transformation.
Lots of discussion of climate change and pollution is “poisoned” by the understanding that life can always adapt. Like how life on the ground has adapted, with horses and the flora at the Tori forbidden zone.
But there needs to be something that honors life in its non-mutated state if we want to logically adhere to the theme of “pollution bad.”
So, something like the Apostles has to exist, something like receiving anima and it altering the human form in a negative way has to exist, in order to push the message to protect the Earth.
Altering life and making it adapt to hellish conditions is not what this manga is advocating for. That’s what Mymo represents.
Now we loop back to the foundations of the manga’s lore, specifically with the separation between the Ground and Sphere. I’ll pose two paths, the path my fic Impasse is going down (starred)*, and the path that makes the most sense narratively, based on the absolute hydrogen lore-bombs this arc has given me.
*Sphereites are a different race*
This is based on how Rudo is propositioned as a standard Sphereite despite it being possible that multiple factions know his origins. If they knew Rudo was a Surebrec, and Surebrecs are different from the rest of humanity, then studying Rudo would only tell you about the Surebrecs. But if Rudo is a standard Sphereite, studying him will reveal something about Sphereites. Why would a potential difference between people on the Ground and Sphere be alluded to multiple times?
Sphereites are paranoid about crime and know how people can have their forms degenerated, and keep the descendants of criminals away to maintain power and as a collective trauma response to some cataclysmic event, but they could be as equally capable of becoming Givers as everyone else on the Ground.
The Sphereites are maybe a group of people that descend from survivors of some event where people’s forms corrupted en masse, and now have spent generations segregating themselves from and executing criminals in fear of something similar occurring again. Criminals, as “degenerates,” may “pollute” the Sphere, so they push them away. This is based off the mumblings of the Apostles that Rudo hallucinated in episode 11 and how Mymo’s transformation is seen as “degeneration.”
*But what’s the point of dumping all the trash? Why did Canis say “I had to bury all the humans” if they were the humans and the people on the Ground were the degenerated Apostles? Why do they call themselves the Apostles…?*
Shrug.
The Sphereites could be dumping trash because they believed or believe the ground is populated by (transformed) Apostles…but this explanation doesn’t feel sufficient.
*Can’t it be both?*
Could be that people on the Ground were corrupting what became the Sphereites through pollution, crime, and what else, and they believed the only way they could escape was to create the Sphere, create the boundary, and bury them?
At least…that’s the direction my fic is going.
But anyway, I hope this explains more of my internal reasoning for this theory. Essentially, humans need life to function normally. Humans and animals can adapt to mass consumption and climate change…but should we surrender…? Should we surrender to climate change and mass consumption and lose the “pure” state of nature that would exist without climate change forcing it to adapt, lest it goes extinct if it can’t?
Yes, there’s other things to talk about (Tamsy), but I’m waiting on more things to be revealed before I pour out all my thoughts. So this is just a little Thought about how Mymo’s original form is being depicted.
I think this is a way to say “goodbye” to The Mymo, as it’s clear to me that Mymo won’t survive this arc. As well, after changing forms, Mymo has become less and less himself and more unhinged—and in the high pressure moment(s) he’s relying on an “imaginary version” (an ideal/himself at his best/the version of himself in the most control of himself and others) to ensure the success of his long term (rule the Ground) and short term goals (kill Rudo).
But the way Mymo is depicted shows that this ideal is warped, detached from how Mymo actually looks and is thinking. It’s beginning to fade as he loses himself more in his transformed, Godly state.
He’s destined to fail because the version of himself that got him in this position, the person and his vital instrument who was so close to success, was thrown away in favor of becoming a God.
It seems like the only thing that’s really changed is that Rudo can think of how to use an item when he weaponizes it. So instead of it simply enhancing and turning into a weapon and he has to think of how to use the item after it has already transformed, he can do that before he transforms the item through imagination.
Here’s a simpler way of putting it:
Item -> weaponize -> work with how the item transformed
Item -> think “I want to use the item in this specific way” -> weaponize
Basically, Rudo is “manipulating” the transformations in a specific “direction” that effects how they will look and be used when they are weapons.
This post is mainly going to be a loose connection of ideas that are downstream from the connection between vital energy, anima, and Jungian Philosophy. Anima is a term in Jungian psychology, so I believe that is a confirmed direct connection to the philosophy.
To note, I am not a psychologist; this will become clearer as I connect with my more familiar area of expertise, i.e., political theory.
The idea of a union of opposites isn't unique to Jungian psychology. Ying and Yang, "sacred marriages," Syzygy, Rebis, balance, Synthesis and Antithesis, all encompass this idea of the opposites coming together and creating a new whole.
But I bring this up because I believe this union of opposites is the intended resolution for the conflicts in the manga. So let me list the "opposites" that exist in the manga. Then, I will lead into the Jungian idea of "Enantiodromia," or when extremes become their opposites.
Above and Below
This one is the most obvious.
The Sphere and the Ground are diametrically opposed to one another. The Sphere pollutes the Ground, kills Groundlings, and the Raiders want to enact revenge for this. Besides wanting to bring down the Sphere, I believe Zodyl is using trashbeasts to weaponize irony against the Sphereites. Because it is items from the Sphere that fall and become trashbeasts, it would be perfect revenge against them to kill them with what they create.
This is where my connection to political theory enters. I think the Ground and the Sphere are meant to represent political polarization. Two opposed groups of people with different viewpoints of the world, and different views on how to fix the world. The Sphere, at least Canis, had to have believed that the Sphere had to "bury the humans" for some reason, and I think this feeling arises from hatred. To stop the Sphere from polluting the Earth, that will require us to uncover their motivations for separating from the Earth and "burying the humans," aka...a union of opposing forces.
This aligns with the (Hegelian) dialectical idea of "thesis and antithesis," and the resulting "synthesis," or when two opposing forces merge into one. A famous example is the French Revolution; the thesis is the monarchy, the antithesis is the revolution, and the synthesis is the resulting Constitutional Republic of France. But it doesn't end there...as the Emperor Napoleon is the eventual antithesis of the synthesis.
Love and Hate
I think the second ending is a good representation of this theme. If the "white crow" isn't a literal crow that is white, and is instead what the Ground calls doves (maybe doves went extinct), then besides Rudo being represented by a dove in the ending, he could be connected to Too Lily and the white crow at least thematically. Or through family or whatever else.
Doves are symbols of love, and crows in a group are called "murders." Crows are also "spooky" animals that are used when representing horror and the dead. They also like trash. This is another case of Urana using irony in her works, and her thematic use of irony almost always shows up as a person being the opposite of what your first impression of them is. Although Rudo sympathizes with trash, is rude, and has a temper, he is represented with a dove. Although Zodyl is calm, put together, hates trash because of his past, and, similar to Jabber, has strict ideas on the worth of people, he is represented by the crow.
But it goes deeper than this. Here's another irony that manifests as opposites relating. I think Canis' motivations and the creation of the Sphere were out of hatred for the rest of the world, and what is inside the Watchman Series is the manifestation of "missing something," which often results in anger. So, although Zodyl hates the Sphere and wants to enact revenge against it, the Sphere exists because it hates him and wants to enact revenge against the Ground. This contrast reveals something important: what Zodyl wants is ineffective and creates a cycle of revenge. If the Sphere is motivated by revenge also, and it was "justified" in its revenge, like Zodyl is "justified" in his revenge, then well...the Sphere can just enact revenge against Zodyl for trying to ruin their revenge. It's never-ending...which connects back to my example of the French Revolution, the resulting Constitutional Republic, and the resulting Emperor Napoleon.
Instead, love triumphs all.
Rudo never forgets his anger; he works towards changing the world by learning about the origins of the world, but he does not want to hurt innocent people. This is a union of opposites, a union between Rudo's love for life and his friends, and his hatred, his anger, towards how he was treated on the Sphere and the murder of Regto.
Discard and Preserve
Episode 16 clears up something ESSENTIAL in understanding the manga's themes, and I believe it is confirmation of what I've thought for a while.
Zodyl confirms that there are preserved species of life on the Sphere. In my post defending Receiver Theory, I discussed that I believe it would maintain the logic of the theme of protecting the Earth if the Sphere was created by people who wanted to preserve the Earth. Because the Sphere has non-mutated horses, they had to think these horses were valuable. But this is where Enantiodromia comes in.
I believe that in their extreme desire to maintain the original forms of life, the Sphereites sought to "bury the humans" in an act of revenge against the ground, which then turned them into their opposites. They believe in preserving the Earth, but their method of revenge was to bury the wasteful people of the Ground in trash...which turned them into wasteful people. Another irony, this time this irony is "fighting fire with fire." The Sphereites fought fire with fire, fought pollution with more pollution, and only created more fire. They only created more pollution...but had the means to escape it.
The union here will be preserving life and accepting the changed life. I've started to wonder if it may be possible for the Sphere to never return to the Earth, but for it to cease polluting the Earth. It would also likely work with the Ground to clean up the worst of the pollution, but accept that what's changed is what's changed. Life on the Ground may never return to what it was like before mass consumption. It's...realistic.
Well, those are the main ones. I have a few others, but those are more theoretical. I can't back those up as well, they are much more loose. I may post those ideas some other time.
Liberty and Authority mainly relates to how I believe the Sphere is representative of authoritarianism and its effects on art. There's more "art policing" in authoritarian regimes, and naturally, Sphereites would detest graffiti because it "dirties" the space. I also think their extreme reaction to crime could relate to Mymo and the ability to "receive" anima and how it physically transformed Mymo into essentially a living weapon. I go into that a bit in my post defending Receiver Theory.
There's also Christ and Antichrist, where I think Mymo and the previous ruler are antichrists. Then Rudo would supposed to represent Christ, which I don't think fits too well...I think Rudo more likely represents the Watcher Angel from Daniel. This page goes into what the Watchers are.
But that's all for today. Chapter 153 didn't reveal anything major (at least for me), since I already believed vital instruments could defeat Mymo, and I had some suspicion the Hell Guard knew of Rudo's ancestry. I think the next arc could be a "rescue arc" for Zanka, "Saving your comrade from their shitty home life/family" is an arc that's shown up in a lot of shonen. I like those arcs.
