@Guyincongnitous, yeah war is fucked up. ,,, literally its feudal japan what do you think they fought and killed people for? the right to vote? ppl fought bc rich landowners decided they wanted more land so u went and killed someone just like you who had a whole family just like you for that rich guy bc he owned yalls farm and u needed to eat. thats how war worked under the feudal system like,,,, u were a peasant, u got drafted, u killed a bunch of people and u went back to being a peasant so u could put food in ur belly.
this dude just cut out the middle man. the main reason hes killing off humans (which the mc is also literally alive to do, hes staying alive so he can kill like, specific people) is so he can protect the land he needs to fill his belly. where would he be without that land, on the streets killing for food bc he couldn't walk into the unemployment office! hes a tengu!
like, thats literally what im critiquing, the dichotomy your trying to construct doesn't exist bc in both cases the motivations (which are equally present and stated to be exactly the same!) are implicitly tied to the characters survival, one party is just constructed as being more alien and therefore less sympathetic. But if we look at what he does and says and why he does and says those things its like, yeah! this whole manga is about people like this doing things like this, the tengu isn't even exceptional in his inhumanity