Totsugi Okureta Kitsune ga Yome ni Kuru Hanashi - Ch. 94 - Kongomaru
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This comment is pure self indulgence, feel free to skip if you already 'get' Mogami. Otherwise, I've been getting a lot of 'I just don't understand what Mogami is doing' or 'Why doesn't Mogami fix everything, she’s a goddess?' comments and this chapter certainly isn't going to help with her seemingly all over the place. But she knows what she's doing. I think! Everything here is my opinion, feel free to tell me why I'm stupid!
First, she is hugely savvy and understands humans - certainly way better than most other Kami-sama and even most humans. She is the smartest and most complicated character in this manga. She very obviously has some goal in mind with Goro and Kogane and is doing whatever it takes to get there even if it's painful in the short run.
Second, Zanma-sensei is very familiar with how business works (for good and bad), and what Mogami is doing this time is pure corporate negotiation tactics. She is not the goddess of the larger Tokyo area (or anywhere near it), so she can't make direct demands of the Kami-sama for the area nearby where Goro lives. Pretend she's a CEO from a corporation in Okayama and that other Kami-sama is CEO of another corporation, though they're both in the same conglomerate of all the Japanese gods. Or pretend they're governors or mayors, but this manga is obsessed with corporate stuff.
What she did here is stick and carrot, 'making friends', then carrot and stick. In the last chapter she called up and the 'secretary' was obviously frazzled once they know who she was because bad stuff just went down in their ‘corporate’ territory. And while Mogami is from another 'company' she's got some pull as a CEO (and they're in the same conglomerate), and the secretary has to respect that. So Mogami was a bit 'tsk tsk' - but then turned it into neutral discussion for page 1-4 which got the secretary to feel they're in this together and admit some organizational failures. Then on page 5 Mogami explicitly says she's 'not out to blame anyone' (which is a lie), but this relaxes the secretary, and then page 6 Mogami slips in a request (set up the barrier) and then hits them with 'Oh hey, I didn't see any of your divine messengers who were supposed to be patrolling.'
At that point the secretary is rattled and admits some corporate failings (which would normally be unthinkable), so Mogami thanks them and then 'I sure am glad I did not have to bring the hammer down' (also to chase off the pickup guy, LOL). She then explicitly tells the secretary to give her thanks to the other Kami-sama, which means everything discussed here will come to light. So she will get what she wanted all along, which is for the other 'CEO' to kick the ass of his lazy 'employees' to do their jobs and patrol Goro and Kogane's area. That (and the presumably expensive big barrier) was the entire point of this call! But she knew that if she just called and asked directly she'd get the usual corporate runaround of 'oh we'll certainly take a look at that kthxbye!'
So there you go. Basically I <3 Mogami and don’t want people thinking she’s being totally random or crazy. But she is quite the manipulator, and I sure hope she’s ultimately on the side of good (fox wives). Again, this is all my opinion, but sadly I’ve seen these tactics before. Thank you for indulging me in this wall of text!
Second, Zanma-sensei is very familiar with how business works (for good and bad), and what Mogami is doing this time is pure corporate negotiation tactics. She is not the goddess of the larger Tokyo area (or anywhere near it), so she can't make direct demands of the Kami-sama for the area nearby where Goro lives. Pretend she's a CEO from a corporation in Okayama and that other Kami-sama is CEO of another corporation, though they're both in the same conglomerate of all the Japanese gods. Or pretend they're governors or mayors, but this manga is obsessed with corporate stuff.
What she did here is stick and carrot, 'making friends', then carrot and stick. In the last chapter she called up and the 'secretary' was obviously frazzled once they know who she was because bad stuff just went down in their ‘corporate’ territory. And while Mogami is from another 'company' she's got some pull as a CEO (and they're in the same conglomerate), and the secretary has to respect that. So Mogami was a bit 'tsk tsk' - but then turned it into neutral discussion for page 1-4 which got the secretary to feel they're in this together and admit some organizational failures. Then on page 5 Mogami explicitly says she's 'not out to blame anyone' (which is a lie), but this relaxes the secretary, and then page 6 Mogami slips in a request (set up the barrier) and then hits them with 'Oh hey, I didn't see any of your divine messengers who were supposed to be patrolling.'
At that point the secretary is rattled and admits some corporate failings (which would normally be unthinkable), so Mogami thanks them and then 'I sure am glad I did not have to bring the hammer down' (also to chase off the pickup guy, LOL). She then explicitly tells the secretary to give her thanks to the other Kami-sama, which means everything discussed here will come to light. So she will get what she wanted all along, which is for the other 'CEO' to kick the ass of his lazy 'employees' to do their jobs and patrol Goro and Kogane's area. That (and the presumably expensive big barrier) was the entire point of this call! But she knew that if she just called and asked directly she'd get the usual corporate runaround of 'oh we'll certainly take a look at that kthxbye!'
So there you go. Basically I <3 Mogami and don’t want people thinking she’s being totally random or crazy. But she is quite the manipulator, and I sure hope she’s ultimately on the side of good (fox wives). Again, this is all my opinion, but sadly I’ve seen these tactics before. Thank you for indulging me in this wall of text!
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So the crux of the problem here was that there are no gods or messengers doing their jobs in this area? And Mogami had to subtly threaten the nearest god to get their shit together. Interesting.
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In my opinion, this is all because I think the gods and the divine don't really want to be in the realm of mankind. We saw from the glasses messenger fox that some divine beings don't really want to help what they see as 'inferior,' though we do see from Ukano that she's kinder and lenient (though still secretive). Plus, they'd want to be secret anyway; if some god shows up popularizing themselves, the world's gonna know, and every religion would shatter.
edit: and the SHEER amount of complaints any god would get. G-d himself would/must be managing a whole entire company just for prayers... I just don't think gods want to be public; if they did, people would just be flocking to them.
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Oh, one thing which I forgot to mention in my WallOfText ™️ - I think Mogami purposely let the whole thing with the furutsubaki and Kanasaka happen so she would have the leverage to a) propose a new land god for this area at Kannazuki, b) get the other kami-sama / divine messengers in the area to do their job.
Other people in giant bureaucracies won't agree to do things until there's a crisis so she needed to let it happen, which is why she said she couldn't help. She said she some precautions in place when she was talking on the phone with AraAra-okamisama, and she warned them, but if she just stopped it herself then there'd be no leverage to get things done. The warning did actually help a lot, because that got them to do the Goro-GPS and the large scale concealment barrier system.
Other people in giant bureaucracies won't agree to do things until there's a crisis so she needed to let it happen, which is why she said she couldn't help. She said she some precautions in place when she was talking on the phone with AraAra-okamisama, and she warned them, but if she just stopped it herself then there'd be no leverage to get things done. The warning did actually help a lot, because that got them to do the Goro-GPS and the large scale concealment barrier system.
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There are few things in the universe more annoying than having to deal with the results of a colleague's incompetence.
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This is why Mogami-sama couldn't help. There was no legitimate restriction, not even Kannazuki. She couldn't cover for the failures of another if she wanted to be able to introduce change. Good eye, sarusa!
The land needs a new god, and the gods use corporate salaryman tactics to administer their regions? So, Goro... Nah, I'm overthinking it, right?
Really appreciated Zanma-sensei setting the table to show us the way forward from here. I'm very excited to see what comes next. It's also worth noting that the foxes Kongo village became important at work and, as always, that lead to unintended negative consequences.
Mogami-sama doesn't have to hide her fangs from me. Maybe I'm becoming like Goro. Thanks as always to sarusa and thumper.
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I bet her business cards are really impressive.
Thanks for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter!
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She's a god, so she would have foreseen a little crisis like this would only bring Kogane and Goro closer together. Nothing lost there, either. They have all seen that Goro actually isn't the kind of guy who would want to know nothing or have nothing to do with the supernatural, even if he accepted Kogane otherwise. Instead he has been trying to learn what he can and has willingly met all the spirit people he could. What is this but a little bit more of it? Dude even got a chance to flex his muscles, figuratively, in front of Kogane when he stepped forth to give the glasses messenger a lecture. Such little things can be useful for a relationship.
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I don't think she 100% knew what would happen. In an ominous end of volume bit three (?) books ago IIRC she said that this would be 'a test' for them and 'it's up to Goro-kun now' . But I think she saw the possibilities for everything you said and then the Bad Ends (tracing the threads of fate is definitely a Kami-sama power). So she pushed them in believing they'd get through it.
Most of the fail states would mean Kogane and Goro weren't as strong together as she thought so her (much longer term) plan was a bust anyhow. Basically I see Mogami as generally helping them and wants them to succeed but completely benevolent is out of character for her (or any Kami-sama).
I have a theory for her long term plot but that would be super spoiler even as a guess.
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Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my god, it even has a watermark!
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Is it bad that I am glad kogane has a bit of the scar remaining? Showing the experience was still traumatic and goro is still loving regardless.
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"However, as long as that land has no GUARDIAN, it will increasingly attract bad karma and become a magnet for misfortune."
This goes along well with my theory....
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