Mietemasu yo! Aizawa-san - Ch. 35 - Job's Coffin

[NilnisNilneef]

My quick takes on reading the chapter were that Tear saw Aizawa being spiritually, not physically, shredded, that the hunter in the street was the shredder looking for Aizawa's escaped soul, and that there's not one but multiple murderously hostile supernatural parties with their hands in this mess. Glad to see several others have similar thoughts on these mysteries. Hopefully Karasuma can give us some more concrete answers when we return to the present.

 

[Shtoops]

Ok I'm a bit unsure if Tear actually saw Honomi's body literally torn to shreds, or if that was ghost related. If it wasnt an apparition, and she was indeed torn apart, how did she end up back together? I'm a tad lost on that... I need to reread this from the beginning...

 

[Andigo]

Very good theorizing from all.

Supernatural parties involved:

• Whatever killed Nagi - seems more likely to be supernatural but could be a killer at the agency.
• Nagi - High grit codependent ghast, wants Honami extra dead, hovers over band
  • Maybe not a killer, just the worst guardian spirit - this chapter made explicitly clear that her band-mates were sure to remember her. So unless she is deaf, her likely motive for murder is cut.
  • Maybe is a killer but she's still short on motives for malevolence. I don't want to gloss over any process lobotomizes ghosts to be destructive.
• Honami - Knew Michi while she was cursed, clearly a dead body so coma-revival optimism also died this chapter (not completely but it's convoluted)
  • The fact she is shown without agency in her life thus far doesn't mean much - She has a strong personality. If she made big choices not following anyone's lead it would have been while she was cursed and getting to know Michi.
• Michi with memories - Probably not evil; possibly still lying to herself about how and when her spirit sight improved.
  • I have a hard time believing she forgot that much proactiveness, at most recent Michi is catching up.
    • So Honami probably took the lead for getting closer, which will be adorable to see
• MiniMichi - Spokesthing for the school MAstar spells, animated barrier to memories
  • Possible hard drive cloud drive of the memories. Definitely symbolizes part of Michi's spirit that was spent or temporarily bound
• Killer gore-casting specter - Someone or something t. The issue is if this is synonymous with Nagi, a curse Nagi now passes on, or an independent monster.
  • Probably what killed Honami. But not necessarily. If you were a poltergeist looking for a soul, and getting frustrated, deconstructing the body to check inside or hidden charms isn't irrational.

If I didn't know the manga is not wrapping up, it'd be easy to treat Nagi as a murderer. Instead it's still plausible she may want to "save" Honami from a Fate Worse Than Death (by her definition). On the other hand that would mean Nagi is caught or shouldn't have been able to avoid that fate. Something as simple as the normal angry ghost mutations and loss of sense of self could be seen this way. Aizawa is the most whole and stable ghost we know of; thank Michi and maybe indirectly Karasuma for that.

There's also the contagious curse route where by being killed Nagi became a fundamentally malevolent ghost that can't rest until killing its successor. It works for drama but I think it'd add anything fresh when emotional volatility is already part of ghosts in the setting.

We don't have definitive evidence or suspects. But Michi's memories and more time with the idols (calendar cancelled) have a lot more threads. We haven't seen a flashback flirting.

And it's about time for Michi to title drop, after getting confident it's not setting off a bomb (but is getting a girlfriend). The time spent is worth it, but the switch-up for the comedy makes more sense if Michi can talk to her crush.

 

[MsW0lf]

So, I’ve found some of the speculations kind of silly. Michi somehow demonstrating heretofore unseen magical powers enabling her to know Aizawa was being killed, teleport into and out of the green room, not lifting a finger to save her but being able to physically reconstitute her corpse within the time between Tear initially opening the door and then opening it again. Whilst not being seen by her. Occam’s razor just doesn’t buy it.

But then what @wwwein got me thinking. Michi and Honami wouldn’t have been able to create a ritual that separated her from her body before death or anything like that. But a safety net? Now that seems within the realm of possibility of this world‘s magical system. The school is covered in Michi’s sigils. What if the pair made a ritual that, in the possibility that Aizawa was spiritually attacked and killed, her ghost would be pulled from her body and be caught by the school? It would explain why Aizawa’s spirit only shows the occasional sign of trauma. A side effect would definitely be that she is then bound to the school and can never leave because the spell to pull her back is still in place. And a side effect may be the pair’s memories of each other. The price they needed to pay for her safety.

 

[rmrs]

It's sometimes hard to appreciate how much our understanding of the manga is built on the swampy soil of subtext & speculation.

I like to think of myself as fairly wordulous, but man, fuck me, do you have a way with words. Thanks for the detailed commentary - sometimes I look forward to reading your chapter post more than the chapter...

 

[mimuro]

I feel like I have to re-read this manga from start to finish every time a new chapter came out because I always forgot wtf was the main plot supposed to be

 

[Beltaro]

The conformation that Aizawa didn’t die at the festival is something I really wasn’t expecting. I’m excited to see how the festival will get recontextualized in the future!

It is possible the night of the festival was still the night Honami died. Obon is around the 14th and her death was officially announced August 20th. School wouldn't start for another week and then DeLphi returned a week after - less than a month. But then clearly Honami wasn't at the festival that night which makes it even more confusing when Michi was visited by something there and Sayaka heard crying up the mountain. For now the festival is a puzzle piece looking for anything to attach to. Was it a simple date, or was there a more serious reason Michi was taking to a spiritual hotspot that night?

I don’t think the person searching on page 23 is Michi: it’s Nagi. She has the same hazy pupils, and the second panel has a hazy silhouette mostly associated with ghosts. Nagi wanted Honami to be with her in death, but her ghost turned up at the school not the concert hall. If Nagi knew Honami had died she would be desperate to claim her soul for herself setting off all of the attacks on the school when she finally found her, but found the building protected.

I cut it from my post but I did first pitch it as 70% Michi, 25% Nagi, 5% curveball. This chapter does have an inordinate number of odd details that either overwhelmingly point in one direction or there's much more to the story we're missing. Maybe it's a fakeout after the mention Honami was meeting a friend that night. Ghost Nagi has already been shown frantic to find Honami. And if it is Nagi, she could have been looking for Honami's escaped soul. But then it's possible she's not the one who killed Honami either. Now there's a wild theory: imagine if Michi actually met Honami through seeing Nagi's ghost around her and Nagi was working together with Michi before losing her memories. Only after losing that connection did Nagi become deranged like Honami did during Masaki's arc.

Wait so who sealed michi's memories away again? I forgot. Was it the spiritualist?

We don't know yet. Michi losing her memories and Honami losing her voice have barely been touched on despite being crucial to keeping the mystery going. Karasuma seemingly recognized Mini Michi and knew Michi lost her memories in ch13, yet didn't recognize the AAA/AM mark when Sayaka showed it to her. I don't get the impression Karasuma was very involved with Honami's death and binding so maybe memory loss was simply a price Michi paid for pushing too far. Karasuma is of course unusually attached to Michi and wants to make up for failing her before, but that could have to do with Michi's mom.

Mini Michi is another strong culprit since her main goal is keeping Michi out of this mess and she's present whenever Michi seems to have lost her memories again. We know Mini Michi isn't a ghost but some kind of guardian. It's another debate whether she's some kind of sentient fragment of what Michi's lost or if she was protecting her even before Honami died.

 

[galaxia9]

Is Karasuma a saviour or a devil? Frankly, I'm fine either way.

I took Tear seeing the gory scene as purely mental. Aizawa's body was always fine but she had some laten physic sense and saw the results of a spiritually burutal death at first before rationalising it away when no one else saw the same.

 

[Amogh24]

Page 27 gives a feeling that not only was nagi erased from the group pre release, but eventually also from their minds. Almost like her soul itself was devoured by the monster

 

[Hikineet]

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[MathMols]

For every new chapter, 1 question is answered but 10 new ones show up

 

[onedumninja]

We don't know yet. Michi losing her memories and Honami losing her voice have barely been touched on despite being crucial to keeping the mystery going. Karasuma seemingly recognized Mini Michi and knew Michi lost her memories in ch13, yet didn't recognize the AAA/AM mark when Sayaka showed it to her. I don't get the impression Karasuma was very involved with Honami's death and binding so maybe memory loss was simply a price Michi paid for pushing too far. Karasuma is of course unusually attached to Michi and wants to make up for failing her before, but that could have to do with Michi's mom.

Mini Michi is another strong culprit since her main goal is keeping Michi out of this mess and she's present whenever Michi seems to have lost her memories again. We know Mini Michi isn't a ghost but some kind of guardian. It's another debate whether she's some kind of sentient fragment of what Michi's lost or if she was protecting her even before Honami died.

So mini-chi knows that michi is in danger if she gets too deeply involved but does mini-chi know why specifically. Is she afraid nagi's spirit will try to kill michi if michi catches its attention? Like is mini-chi aware of nagi's evil spirit existing? And does she know it was nagi's evil spirit that murdered honami?

I'm curious to know what exactly the exorcist and mini-chi know. Do they know the nagi's spirit is a violent killer and needs to be dealt with. Does the exorcist know whether tear-san is cursed (everyone around her either dies and her idol groups always have problems.

Do any of them know whether the tail member of delphinus ended up the same as nagi? A killer ghost. Could her ghost have killed nagi? Did this all start with whatever is haunting tear-san?

That entity killed her parents and then latched onto her? And now it kills or poisons everyone around her one by one?

So many questions and so damn interesting.