#onbusuman

[s30620]

Chapter 124: Ombusman

Rin's mind is so powerful the vampire cat boy she imagined is one of the best things I've seen I have no notes thank you Rin.

According to Seiko, Rin is being haunted by an ombusman. Traditionally, that yokai is called the konaki-jiji (crying old man), which takes up the appearance of an old man or baby. It lures people to pick it up, then becomes a heavy stone that crushes its victim to death. No idea where ombusman comes from though. The name for this yokai in the Japanese version is オンブスマン (onbusuman), which may be a combination of "onbu" (piggyback), "busu" (ugly), and man, but who knows lol.

The Ombusman is Mai's spirit that got transformed, but it can also be seen as the manifestation of the pressures Rin feels in her life. The responsibility of taking care of her family at such a young age, wanting to pursue a dream with her friends but not being able to, and what gets revealed in the next chapter..... She has gone through a lot.

[thenixkat]

I think its wild how the Onbusuman's abilities got blatantly retconned into being gravity powers instead of drawing weight from local spirits to crush shit just to make Rin just what they needed to save everyone towards the end of the Danmara arc.

Like, its so fucking obvious how shit gets made to fit the plot that the mangaka wants to write instead of flowing naturally from the shit that was already presented to the reader.

Its what I fucking mean when I say the good guys in Dandadan have Batman levels of plot armor and that the series isn't interested in having actual stakes.

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[do not add undescribed images to my post]

[thenixkat]

I will say that I don't particularly think that Evil Eye is a being that can be convinced of 'Murder is Bad'.

Like, there's some evidence that it is aware of forms of play that don't involve murder and finds them enjoyable as well. And that it's capable of sympathizing with others.

But that its just a bit of an immature, selfish, and malicious being (as befitting the nature of the type of spirit is it). It only wants to do what it wants to do especially since it now has a physical body, and what it wants is murder for multiple reasons (fun and vengeance).

And we have no idea under what circumstances would cause it to mature if we look at the rest of the young formerly human spirits in the series in comparison. (Evil Eye and Brella boy not maturing at all tho Evil Eye is at least 200 yrs old and Brella Boy might be a decade or less while the Onbusuman is around the same age as Brella Boy but matured into an adolescent as a spirit during her exorcism) And Evil Eye maturing would not necessarily mean it'd become a safer being to be around.

Its possible that Evil Eye could someday be taught that 'There are things that are more fun than Murder and automatically choosing Murder cuts off these Options for Fun'. Not that murder is or should be off the table as an option.