Ateya no Tsubaki - Vol. 6 Ch. 49 - The Mountain of God (part 11)

[MangaDex]

 

[1412]

So... can anyone summarize what the X actually happened in this arc?

 

[Rial]

What abt kikyo? Someone suicide?

 

[Thelegendarytaeyamada]

What abt kikyo? Someone suicide?

I think we won't find out about it very soon...

 

[Thelegendarytaeyamada]

So... can anyone summarize what the X actually happened in this arc?

Really? I think the sequence of events is rather straightforward. A bit more difficult is to understand why Shumei sterminated his whole family (except for Akane of course).

 

[77BLc9JwJGpLVARkamJx]

Really? I think the sequence of events is rather straightforward. A bit more difficult is to understand why Shumei sterminated his whole family (except for Akane of course).

I guess he was just disappointed that the other adults in his family didnt do anything (he probably expecting them to at least lose a limb or dead fighting off the villagers) to stop the rape and the god they worship is strict and shit so its like being blasphemous to it maybe? So he was just enacting punishment by the god + angry. And not to mention he fits the yokai description, so maybe thats too to spice up the story.

 

[EchoGirl]

i love how her butt is still emphasized among the seriousness. Wonder how hard it was to take care of dogs back in the day, idk if kibble has been invented yet versus given them like raw meat mixed with rice or so

 

[Bel-Shug]

What abt kikyo? Someone suicide?

I think Kikyo is related to Hosen's past that will be explained in one of future arc, just like what the translator mentioned in the notes at last page.

So... can anyone summarize what the X actually happened in this arc?

This is my take:
Even from long time ago, the villager were already terribly envious and hate those mountain folks for lots of unreasonable reasons.
One day, one of villager met Akane (The youngest and favorite boy of the mountain family) with her beautiful mom.
Well... on one unfortunate day, Akane naively told him that that day all of the mountain family men will not be at home and the villager decide to hide behind mask and came to their house to rape the beautiful mom.
Next day, when all of the mountain men arrived home, they saw a fresh rape scene right in front of their God shrine.
The beautiful mom now is crazy beyond repair, nude, and her woman blood is everywhere after gang banged all night.

The problem? God hate women and even worse women blood, especially the impure blood related to sexual activity.
Now their house shrine are tainted greatly and God is really really angry.
To express God displeasure directly, the God waited until the men arrived before snapping the shrine shimenawa and called lots of white heron (one of the symbol/servant of their God) to check what will they do now?

Thanks God, Akane's dad remember that their God actually really really love death.
So yeah... Dad decided to appease their God by doing the obvious.
In any case without God protection, there are no future for any of their family member.
While doing the deed, he pray for only one thing.
For God to protect Akane from the cruel world.

Thankfully it seems the Dad pray is granted, since Akane managed to lived healthy and safe so far, even when he was alone as child.
Meanwhile it seems God periodically take offering (No, not the food) from the villager that come nearby the mountain.
The villagers stupidly think it was curse from mountain folks.

Well fast forward, Akane meet Yae and Akane seems to wish for Yae safety.
One day because she is gone, Akane decide to go to find our protagonist to help finding her.
They came back and the villager knowing Akane still alive, they decide to exterminate mountain folks.
Well they managed to kill Akane and now there are no more mountain folks left.

Now that Akane is dead and there are no one else left that worship God, God probably decide to use God power to wipe everything that is filthy.
Only Yae, Akane corpse and our two protagonist stay untouched.

However no one but the reader and God know all of this.
Tsubaki probably know most of fact but she's not going to share it all.
Hosen and Akane know some of fact but some of it are wrong.
Yae simply doesn't remember anything since the moment she's missing.

 

[Levankua]

A really interesting, albeit long arc. The mountain finally got its vengeance. I totally get what you mean about prefering seinin. I also think the lower amount of pressure to create the next dbz or conan etc gives authors more room to tell tighter knit planned out stories without having to survive an axe or fast turnaround. I still love shonen materials to death but I find the stories that get cut short too soon very frustrating esp if the author doesn't get another series afterwards.

 

[Thelegendarytaeyamada]

I guess he was just disappointed that the other adults in his family didnt do anything (he probably expecting them to at least lose a limb or dead fighting off the villagers) to stop the rape and the god they worship is strict and shit so its like being blasphemous to it maybe? So he was just enacting punishment by the god + angry. And not to mention he fits the yokai description, so maybe thats too to spice up the story.

I thought something similar too, and I think at least poor grampa was more than ready to kill a dozens of dumb viilagers, if Shumei asked to... I guess in the end Shumei thought the whole family was tainted by the poor woman's blood, and that was so shameful for him, that he decided to wipe his family, not to offend the god anymore. I imagine, but this is a just a theory, that if his wife was violated by the river, he would have reacted in a very different way. In other words he killed his family because according to him they had all become "impure" in front of the god.
It's also possible that he knew he didn't stand a chance against all the villagers (we don't know how many of them were there), and he also knew that if he started to kill them, they would retaliate against his family, and kill Akane too. He thought Akane could live by himself, and in fact he did, but he was left broken in the process. Only Yae was able to save him, but when she disappeared he was desperate once again.

 

[Thelegendarytaeyamada]

A really interesting, albeit long arc. The mountain finally got its vengeance. I totally get what you mean about prefering seinin. I also think the lower amount of pressure to create the next dbz or conan etc gives authors more room to tell tighter knit planned out stories without having to survive an axe or fast turnaround. I still love shonen materials to death but I find the stories that get cut short too soon very frustrating esp if the author doesn't get another series afterwards.

Well yeah, that's another problem: I've read various shounen manga that were axed too soon, and it was really a shame, because I wanted to read at least a couple of more volumes. I always thought that the ideal length for shounen manga is about 40 volumes, and for seinen about 10/20, depending on the story of course. Nowadays successful shounen manga go on forever: I can understand why, after all as long as people buy those manga, why even stop? Publishers and mangaka certainly won't stop, unless the mangaka get really fed up with their own manga, of course. It was different in the past, though, very long manga were the exceptions, probably because readers were also different back then.

 

[Exarch-of-Sechrima]

What abt kikyo? Someone suicide?

Kikyo/Kikyou was the woman from the Komainu Arc, from chapters 4-7. She was a teacher at a temple school who befriended Housen by buying one of his cat paintings (the one he recognizes in this chapter). She and Housen developed feelings for each other, but the priest of the temple assaulted her, causing her to reject him because she felt she was soiled. After she killed the priest and a few other people, she committed suicide by jumping into the river, though no body was discovered. Housen clearly still regrets not being able to save her.