Kaika Apartment - Vol. 4 Ch. 20 - Eli, Eli
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This chapter is beautiful, almost dream-like even.
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Hoooly CHAD my girl Yachiyo RULES
anyway the way she rescued Shizuko was really sweet. Kaika found family....
As for this girl Tohko, what the fuck is up with her actually? She has some bizarre delusion of being immune to disease, is it a god complex? Narcissism?
The part where she said that her mother's death was also good fortune to her, when it clearly wasn't, makes it seem like she's incapable of accepting that anything bad could ever happen to her. So she just lives in delulu-mode that no matter what happens, she's winning at life.
But then she's also manipulating people into being reliant on her. And it seems like she targets women(?) perhaps as a replacement for her mother??
Yachiyo suggested that she's unaware of it herself, and is doing it subconsciously, but I'm not sure.... I think she needs to be needed by others, and perhaps doesn't comprehend the moral issue of mindbreaking people into loving/worshipping/needing her.
In any case, I don't think LOCKING YOUR DAUGHTER UP IN A ROOM with a literal CHAINED DOOR is the way to handle this shit Mr. Psychologist, wtf, there must be a better way. If he doesn't teach her to become a better person, she's just going to break out of there when she becomes an adult and run off to start a cult LMAO, and she'd probably be really good at it too.
Thanks for the chapter!
EDIT:
I thought about it some more, and I think the part where Yachiyo says "but that's how she lives her life" about Shizuko, is the key to understanding Tohko's character.
Shizuko is traumatised and suffering, but accepts her past and every day works towards improving a little bit.
Tohko is traumatised but denies it and lies to herself that everything is fine, everything has always been fine since she was born, because she's special and bad things can't happen to her.
But when she's confronted by Yachiyo about the difference between Shizuko and herself, instead of reflecting on it, she just thinks "damn I fucked up, I should have manipulated her differently". Simultaneously she also understands that she does not know how to help someone when they're crying. So maybe she's aware that she has issues with empathy.
She targets vulnerable women like Shizuko, by subtly triggering their traumas and offering herself as salvation, making them dependent on her, to validate her belief of being superiour to others, but also to make up for not being able to comfort her dying mother, which might be where her true trauma lies; the only thing she can do is comfort people, she can't FIX their issues, couldn't fix her mother's illness, and now she's left behind as a young girl with a number of screws loose, who is also being isolated by her insane father, instead of being allowed to interact with people who might be able to challenge her delusional mentality (like Yachiyo).
I feel really sorry for her.
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Tohko's a fascinating character, and I suspect there are layers of historical and religious references in this chapter which I'm missing (I'm not that familiar with the history of Christianity in Japan). From what little I know (and googled), Tohko seems to base her beliefs on early Japanese Christian groups (around the 1500s I believe) who were devoted particularly to Mary because she was viewed as a motherly, compassionate figure especially during a time of war, famine, disease, etc. I'm guessing that's why Tohko rejected "the lord" but privately prayed to Mary.
Also found it interesting how Tohko's life seemingly parallels Mary - she's "immaculate" in that she's supposedly unblemished mentally and physically from the world. She seems to have an almost miraculous amount of luck (not just the "I'm immune to disease" thing, but even in little things - she knew to carry an umbrella outside even though everyone else was caught off-guard by the sudden rain). She had devoted followers who pretty much revered her. She was isolated from others, like how Japan isolated itself from the outside world for over two centuries, one main reason being to stem the spread of Christianity in Japan. Even her bonnet gives the appearance of a halo in many panels.
And yet, as was pointed out by @aaaaa8, she's fixated on soothing her followers' (victim's?) symptoms but not fixing their underlying problems. Last chapter, she told Shizuko that forgiveness comes from oneself, yet she says that in a chapel where it's taught that forgiveness comes from an external power. Not to mention she tries to force Shizuko to forgive herself using "the voice" in this chapter rather than to let Shizuko come to forgive herself using her own strength. I'm not sure she's even aware that her messages were contradictory, she was focused on trying to soothe Shizuko rather than to actually help her recover from trauma.
When her mother died, I think she viewed it as a positive either because her suffering ended, and/or she was able to comfort her somewhat before death. Either way, again she was focused on soothing superficial symptoms rather than worrying about the underlying problem (that she was, y'know, dying). I kind of wonder if that's another parallel to Christianity in Japan. It didn't solve the very real problems Japanese people were having at the time, it only gave them some comforting figure to cling to, but it led to disaster - in Japan's case, mass executions and torture. I dunno, I might be overthinking this and now I have a headache.
Also found it interesting how Tohko's life seemingly parallels Mary - she's "immaculate" in that she's supposedly unblemished mentally and physically from the world. She seems to have an almost miraculous amount of luck (not just the "I'm immune to disease" thing, but even in little things - she knew to carry an umbrella outside even though everyone else was caught off-guard by the sudden rain). She had devoted followers who pretty much revered her. She was isolated from others, like how Japan isolated itself from the outside world for over two centuries, one main reason being to stem the spread of Christianity in Japan. Even her bonnet gives the appearance of a halo in many panels.
And yet, as was pointed out by @aaaaa8, she's fixated on soothing her followers' (victim's?) symptoms but not fixing their underlying problems. Last chapter, she told Shizuko that forgiveness comes from oneself, yet she says that in a chapel where it's taught that forgiveness comes from an external power. Not to mention she tries to force Shizuko to forgive herself using "the voice" in this chapter rather than to let Shizuko come to forgive herself using her own strength. I'm not sure she's even aware that her messages were contradictory, she was focused on trying to soothe Shizuko rather than to actually help her recover from trauma.
When her mother died, I think she viewed it as a positive either because her suffering ended, and/or she was able to comfort her somewhat before death. Either way, again she was focused on soothing superficial symptoms rather than worrying about the underlying problem (that she was, y'know, dying). I kind of wonder if that's another parallel to Christianity in Japan. It didn't solve the very real problems Japanese people were having at the time, it only gave them some comforting figure to cling to, but it led to disaster - in Japan's case, mass executions and torture. I dunno, I might be overthinking this and now I have a headache.
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I don't think you're overthinking it, Ameishi has done societal critique before in this manga, as well as in her old oneshots. I think the details like her bonnet looking like a halo are definitely deliberate and important.
I think what you're saying makes sense. Ultimately a religion which centers kindness and unconditional forgiveness after death (well, depends on which flavour of christianity we're talking about haha) will absolutely draw vulnerable people into it. It's an easy way for people to comfort themselves without having to actually address their problems. "God/Jesus/the confession booth priest will forgive me so everything's totally ok!!!! (As long as I keep coming to church, my entire emptional regulation has been outsourced and if I stop showing up I'll implode) everything's ok!!!!"
^that sort of attitude, I'm sure we all know someone like that.
I'm not saying this as a critique of religion as a whole btw, I hope nobody takes it the wrong way!
But even today, it's not uncommon that people who are otherwise casually atheist will turn to christianity when in grief, religion is an effective way of soothing some people's injured hearts without actually solving your true problems. Cults take advantage of this effect too.
That isn't to say that religious organisation can't ever help people in a tangible way, churches sometimes raise donations for people in need or took in orphans in ye olde days, muslims have that Zakat thing where they regularly give money to the poor, etc. If you're on the receiving end of those donations, then organised religion can actually totally save your ass, which is nice. It's like uhhh. Socialism. Kind of.
But what Tohko is doing here is not that, she's taking advantage of people, benefiting herself while refusing to engage with anyone's pain, whether others' or her own.
In the previous chapter she brings Shizuko to the church and tells her
And Shizuko's response is "no, there's no way that it could be alright," to which Tohko makes a displeased-looking face.
What Tohko gave Shizuko here is a platitude, and it seems to be the only thing she can give people at all, because it's the only thing she herself HAS.
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