Thinking about the incredible guilt Mine and Nagisa (their parents) must feel about needing to leave Yuru behind... ough you can only ever have one child free. Sometimes, late at night, do you wonder if this was choosing one over the other? Do you wonder if this was payback for not leaving sooner and having Asa imprisoned all those years? You can never have both of your children free.
Thoughts on 黄泉のツガイ | Yomi no Tsugai | Daemons of the Shadow Realm, Episode 7: Asa and Break (it was good :3)
This will be spoilery for the manga.
It's a pity Yuru, Mine, and/or Nagisa are not the ones to kill Yama (who sent the assassins after Yuru).
It's a very slight visual difference, and I think it's also the addition of voice acting, but there's something more... desperate and tender, I guess, about how Mine holds Yuru here in the anime:
Bones did a good job of closely adapting the panel, and maybe it's the color or the added detail on coloring or something, but the anime kind of increasingly emphasizes how terrified Mine was of losing Yuru and how much Mine cares for him. Both shots work. The manga is not inferior. But there's something in the anime scene besides voice acting and color that just make it nice in its own way. The way you can see Mine shaking after he fires the arrow probably helps, and that you can hear Yuru hyperventilating, as well, and how you can connect that to Mine's reaction rather than him just grabbing Yuru. Even the soft way Mine checks Yuru over in the way parents do with small children (rather than gazing at Yuru's face and patting his head, as in the manga). The added nature of seeing Mine pull Yuru close to his chest for comfort (rather than Yuru just suddenly leaning against him) is another element of it. Lots of little character movements that really make them come alive. The closeness is there in the manga, but it's even more emphasized in the anime, which is nice.
I think about the life all four of these people lost. Asa, trapped in a cell for much of her childhood. Even with visitation from her family, she still lost her freedom, and any trips she might have had with her parents and brother. And then her parents were disappeared for years. Mine and Nagisa have been without their son and now daughter for years. Yuru lost his parents, and his real sister. Just all these parts of their lives with their loved ones they missed out on. It's so sad. Here's Yuru, admittedly traumatized, still spending time with his father on an outing. Things Asa never got, and things Yuru lost after his parents fled.
I think the anime better communicated Yuru's visual shock in the way his eyes look. An argument could probably be made that not all shock looks the same. People process differently, even children. But I do think it's a bit clearer how Yuru is feeling here.
We have moments of Mine here and there (and a bit more before he and Nagisa got together), but the way the anime had him duck down to inspect Yuru's chest before Yamaha like he didn't notice before was oddly cute alkdjalj I know it's an act, but it's a funny one.
Kyoka just wants Yuru and Asa away from all this :( She owes a debt to Yamaha, but she cares, too.
This shot was cuter in the manga:
There's nothing wrong with the way the anime does it, and I even like having an alternate version where Mine and Nagisa are sitting more neatly together (they way they support each other is really sweet, especially when Nagisa had to take over once they were in civilization). Something with the perspective also makes it less the four of them hanging out together than parents watching their two children at play, which makes the private conversation make more sense. Generally it makes the whole thing more solemn and less, "Yeah everything's hunky-dory even though this little girl is trapped in a cell in the dark". Alternatively, the manga version makes it more a picture of a family before it was fully broken apart. It makes later moments more tragic, because this is the bond that was lost. They're still obviously a family in the anime version, but I don't know. It's a little thing that says a lot. Neither version is bad. But I prefer the manga one.
Also, Arakawa has this way of drawing children really cutely (it's also how she draws hands). There's this sort of tight roundness to it? Yuru comes off cuter in the manga, rather than like he's a boy being brave and posing like a baby shounen lead for his sister. The posing in the anime is clearly him trying to shrug things off and put on a brave face, but the loss of the cuteness is still a loss.
I forget if it's explained in the manga, but I imagine they had to move up their escape plan, hence why Yamaha was able to interfere and Yuru had to be left behind. Yama has to go and ruin everything. Thinking a lot about how they're lucky Nagisa caught on to Roei fast. That was probably the bigger reason they took time to leave, because they couldn't get out, even with Mine's hunting skills. At least Asa had fewer years in that cell.
I think someone did fanart for this at least once (and maybe more have since the episode dropped, I haven't checked the tags since before that), but I imagine with all the mirroring, since Asa lost her right eye, if Yuru gets Seal's power, he'll lose his left eye (which is probably also part of why we keep getting shots of his spooky night vision eyes). It would also fit how Left is Yuru's weakness and Right is Asa's weakness. I mean maybe this is reading into it too much, and obviously Asa still has an eye, she just covers it up I guess because it's disturbing to others. But it's a blind spot (especially with the patch on, unless she can see through it). Obviously Right and Left don't just fight people on their respective sides, and it's a power they have that negates their respective twin (as shown when Right negated Break) but well... It's there, anyway. Also it would fit with like... all daemon pairs contract with one person each, but Break and Seal are a pair that contracts with a set of twins who are sort of intertwined beings. In the end, they'll have one set of functional human eyes.
We don't know what a true Seal contractor looks like. Folks have suggested the Seal user who helped seal Long-Arm and Long-Leg is the current holder of Seal, but we don't know what they look like.
In Left's flashback, we only see a silhouette of a monk (who was not, seemingly, the person with Seal, unless it was two monks, one of whom was contracted with Seal). Minase and Yamaha, outside their age, look normal, so there's nothing there. And Yataro died before contracting Seal. So it'll be interesting to find out, someday.
I'm curious who made Right and Left. And why. And when. They're framed as being the opposite of the twins, and were presumably created to keep them in check. Were they ever used that way outside the one time Right fought Asa? The only other twins we know of thus far died from other causes: Yataro died trying to get Seal's power, and Asahi was shot to death by a human archer. Right and Left worked with at least one Seal user in the past, but was that a twin? Or someone else? What do Right and Left think of people who possess the power but aren't the special twins? They don't interact much with Yamaha in the narrative, but they didn't bother her during Shimei's time, and the one time they really interact with her, they're hostile to her, seemingly largely because they're protecting Yuru, not because of her ability.
I'm also still really curious why Break at least looks a bit like Asagiri and Yozakura. I wonder if there's any relation. The daemons tend to have such unique designs that seeing ones from different pairs share visual similarities is unusual. Humanoid daemons who can talk are relatively rare, and at times it seems tied to age, so maybe the similarity is because of that, but not all the humanoid daemons look similar (e.g., Break, Asagiri, and Yozakura all look rather different from the pug daemons, Long-Arm and Long-Leg, Oshira-sama, and Natsuki's daemons).
I also really love the theories about there still being a Seal user out there - not just Minase and Yamaha, but an actual contractor with Seal - which is why new twins cannot obtain Seal, but I honestly wouldn't blame Yataro for just choosing to die when it came to it. What a horrible thing for a child to have to deal with (standing on a road of skulls in the dark, hello???), especially with Shimei being Shimei.
I imagine coming back to life takes a bit (thinking of how long it took characters to revive in Highlander), so maybe it's just a coincidence, but I imagine it's pointed that Asa starts breaks her bonds when the assassins start talking about and particularly threatening to kill Yuru.
The translation here is also interesting. I don't know that this is precisely what it says in Japanese. But the manga translation of whatever is in the manga is, "The brother's all about the village. He'll make an obedient Seal wielder for us!" I personally find the phrasing really awkward (though I get what they're going for). The subs are clearer. Hopefully fans who are upset people who are not Yuru are not more upset about the Higashi villagers start thinking about just what these people have been planning for a very, very long time?
One day we'll get your backstory, Gabby. One day. Also, in the manga English translation, she says, "riffraff".
Blessed mothman returns ^^
I love him.
Hikaru is so cute :3 And his seiyu sounds adorable. I also love that Asuma calls him "Hagure-kun". And I know Hikaru is the older brother, but it sounds kind of funny for him to call Asuma, "Asuma-kun".
I just love Asuma smirking as he's successfully inserted himself into the drama happening alkdjalj I know there's nothing actually evil here (he's just pretending at best to throw off his uncle, doing his duty as one of Gonzo's sons, and he's likely just curious), but it is funny.
I get there's only so much room to stand, but I love that he sort of looks like he's in the middle of the twins, sticking close to them. Close to target. (In the following shot you can tell he's a few feet away from them all).
And we meet Gonzo (RIP). He's just a happy guy who would gladly murder Dera if Yuru weren't there. If nothing else, we can be grateful he got some years with all three of his sons, and he cared deeply for Iori.
Was a good episode, as usual :3 And next week we get more Him ^^
Looking forward to Episode 8: Suspicion and Conviction!
