Chapter 75
On one hand it's nice these shorter chapters are maintaining the quality art and wonderful pacing, and it's easier on Kondo-sensei's long term health. On the other hand, I miss the longer chapters, have we been spoiled? Or is this related to the advertisement for a new assistant some months back?
For this chpater, I'm going to have to explain at least some of the translation this time.
God Incarnate
To be more exact, the title this time is
Arahitogami/現人神, a Shinto term used for humans who are also "gods". Most traditional instance is historically Japanese Emperor, though in the past the high priest of the
Suwa Grand Shrine was also considered to be one.
Yes I know, it's an absurd belief.
Loved as Vessels for Gods
As if we needed more reminders that Tai Sui was sandbagging during his battle with Yayoi, but what a spectacle!
This is a bit lost in translation, but Tai Sui's remark at the start of the chapter is that the
Kamiyo (
神代) Clan is aptly named because their members are suiting as vessels/
Yorishiro (依り
代) for gods/
Kami (
神) because of their incomparable capacity to
intake external energy (流入量). It's what makes them special, even for members who lack good spiritual senses (like Yayoi) or vast spiritual energy reserves (like Keitarou).
(Or if it's easier, Keitarou has a super-large battery/storage, while Ai has a stronger energy converter)
In particular, the name
Kamiyo Ai/神代 愛依 (with the 愛/
a meaning "love") is "crowned" with naught but bold Kanji, as you can interpret the whole thing as
"
vessel bestowed with
godly love/favour"/
神の寵
愛を賜る
依り
代.
Coincidence or not, her name expresses her nature.
...which only makes it more infuriating her evil grandpa made off with her brother over to the Replaced
Power of Stars
Comet - the term 孛星, meaning "bushy/sparkling star", is an old Chinese term for comets, and were thoroughly tracked in Ancient Chinese astrology as
important omens of disasters.
Alkaid - not wrong since it's observing the same star in the Big Dipper/Northern Dipper, the term 破軍 refers to its more ancient Chinese name, the Star of Po Jun/破軍星.
In
Ziwei Doushu/紫微斗數/"purple star astrology", Po Jun is the Ruinous Star, its associations include "military leaders/waste/destruction". 破軍 literally means "army break"
Offence and Defence
As I'm typing this section, it occurred to me that... Dark Gathering's battle system has suddenly become very, very scalable, but in a different way from simple power inflation.
I had theorised in the past that battles against the Replaced would be a 2-phase affair:
- Take on the possessed human with their spiritualist skills and arena setup and drive them out of the body
- Defeat the evil spirit with their unleashed ghost powers.
But this encounter has thoroughly shown that we have to be prepared to face both phases at once, especially because a Replaced can produce their own Bunrei for delegated tasks. Now you can have the "human" and the spirit on the field together for simultaneous offence and defence.
What's scarier is that the spirit can even learn the techniques of the possessed human and
enact them themselves. This time we dealt with Onmyoudo defence techniques, so the "caster can only make one hand sign for a specific kind of defence" rule from the Tai Sui battle gets applied again here, and so Yayoi's side have to again prepare multiple attack vectors to bypass each defence.
(Like in this chapter, when Risu-tan warded off Yayoi's Hariti's Finger spiritual slash, Yayoi worked around this using her physical holy-wine soaked rope. And when Tai Sui's star attack got repelled by the main Cursed Buddha via substitutes, he switched tack to a reflection spell that bounced back its incoming binding spell)
At this rate, for future Replaced battles we can expect the same level of dynamism as the Tai Sui battle with the merry-go-round of offence-and-defence, sword-and-shield back-and-forth with curses and sorcery (which ironically makes this 呪術廻戦/"Jujutsu Kaisen" in the full literal sense). Except, we can't count on having multiple Graduates on hand every time nor rely on them to handle everything, so instead our 4 "trainers" will have to be more supportive too. Which makes the format Pokémon Legends-ish, I guess?
Coming from Gash Bell and World Trigger, I've been happy with the modest teamwork dynamics of our ghostbusters as-is, but if we're now possibly adding positional warfare between our "trainers" and Bunrei minions, oh boy we could really start dreaming for those glorious heights...
But wait, there's even more: what if the next Replaced doesn't use Onmyoudo techniques, and instead techniques from another school of magic and mysticism? Ones that even Yayoi and Tai Sui would need longer to analyse? Suddenly, securing an alliance with the Supervisors of the different regions and specialties sounds very appealing depending on what Replaced they will encounter.
Aoi
The fact he shows himself means that the Replaced is finished off for good, thus his observation is concluded. The long-awaited conversation that needs to happen can begin.
To emphasise again, Aoi cut off Ai's fingers because if Tai Sui siphons this pocket space of all its energies and causes it to collapse, it risks sending the entire bullet train and its passengers into a dimensional chasm. We obviously can't let that happen.
But there's no way Ai will permanently lose her fingers, so if Tai Sui's Shiniku doesn't regenerate them, Aoi would do it himself. I'm sure it's within his capacity.
Don't get me wrong, even if Aoi does manage to save all of the Replaced's victims to the point of resurrection, I'm sure we and Yayoi aren't supposed to like the guy. This man is going to be the closest thing to a Pokémon Rival, and the unfriendly kind too.
Still, I think the ultimate result is he'll endorse the continuation of Yayoi's ghost hunts, as long as she's properly supervised. Better to have her help than without.
.
