#seiko osabe

[angelnumber27]

from Blood on the Tracks by Shūzō Oshimi

[lilium-dragomir]

[femcel-berserk]

Blood On The Tracks, Shuzo Oshimi

[fusudesu]

[wowitsverycool]

[animangacreators]

ANIMANGACREATORS BOOK CLUB EIGHT: CHI NO WADACHI

a quiet family, an overbearing love, and a single moment that changes everything...our members have voted for chi no wadachi by shuuzou oshimi for amc’s next book club!

book club info:

check the #events-announcements channel on discord for each week's assigned chapters

we'll be meeting weekly on saturdays at 4 pm cst beginning on january 31 2026 in the #⁠book-club channel where we'll chat about everything we've read so far

if you can't make the live discussion, you can drop your thoughts in the ⁠#book-club channel at any time which still counts as participating

if you participate in at least half of the meetings, staff will award you a badge on the members page once the book club is completed

if you have any questions, please check our faq page or message staff on discord. see you at book club!

[memory-echo]

To Leave or not to Live

There’s been a lot of confusion over the latest chapters. After Seiko falls down the stairs, Seiichi takes it upon himself to take care of her. The question on the tip of everyone’s tongue is ‘why’. Why does he go through all the trouble of taking care of Seiko, given their history...?

If this is to be taken literally, this is as good as a DNR. It's not like she signs a document or anything, and it's not even like "she’s right in the head" to make this kind of decision for herself, but if you take this seriously, she's not very keen on living. Not surprising, since she was never very keen on living, anyway.

For context sake: the year before, Seiko told Seiichi all about her crappy childhood and he realized the truism that hurt people hurt people, and left. He continued to pay for her rent, but they didn't contact each other for over a year, and he started to live his life in a much more positive manner. All good, so far. Then she falls off the stairs and he's sucked back into the madness.

So, why is he taking care of his mother, after she told him that she didn’t want him to do anything? Does he think he can build a more positive relationship with her? 

I’ve read comments of people who think this line is menacing. It could easily go both ways: it could be “there's no way out for you, but don't worry, I won't let you die alone” or it could be “so, you want to die? I will force you to live, then”, but I don't think it's either of those.

Rather, both interpretations or possibilities are predicated on a lie. The fact is that Seiko just isn't there anymore; she's just a bag of bones. If Seiichi wants to start a new positive relationship, it's too late for that. If he wants some kind of revenge for what she did to him, she's not there to feel guilty or remorseful or anything, really, her brain isn't there at all. I don't know what he's trying to do, but whatever it is, he's just wasting his time and money.

I think this has nothing to do with revenge. When he hears about her accident, he imagines that it's karma for trying to kill his cousin. It has nothing to do with the fact that she abused him for 13 years. Also, what kind of revenge includes this? 

Wasting money on rent, spending resources on food and adult diapers doesn't seem like revenge to me. One could argue that it's the exact same situation as it was in the past: Seiko had complete power over her son and now the tables have turned. But you know what the difference is? Seiko used her husband's money to keep control over her son, she used his resources to show how dissatisfied she was about her life. There was no self-sacrifice, though, it wasn't her money, which makes it very Machiavellian of her to use her husband's resources to hurt him.

Seiichi is using his hard-gained salary (which I can't imagine is very high) to take care of a person he could easily abandon in her own apartment or smash her skull in while she was taking a bath... That would’ve been the end of all his problems!

Instead, he does this.

Changing diapers and imagining her as a toddler (that was an interesting imagery, by the way). Is he trying to correct the original wound that was inflicted onto her by her own parents?! Again, that's not going to work. For all we know she's too demented to even be aware that the person taking care of her is her son. Even if he gives her first class treatment, she doesn't know who he is. If there is some remnant of consciousness she said she didn't want to live, so...

In a way, he has been taking care of his mother his entire life since he was parentified by Ichiro. That was the problem in the first place, that he always felt responsible for his mother's misery, so this really isn't a change of pace for him. When he was a kid, he wasn't changing diapers, but he was lying to the police about the attempted murder, which, by the way, she seemed to have secretly wanted him to confess the truth, if you go by her expression...

In the end, the story repeats itself: she never loved him or wanted him, and all Seiichi ever wanted was his mother's love, which he’ll never get.

[star-fiend]

A Trail of Blood, chapter 53, "Promise"