Touge Oni - Vol. 6 Ch. 24 - OXYMORON

[MangaDex]

 

[Meijin]

So grandmaster is an advanced philosophical zombie that forgets itself and carries out its programming. Interesting way to spin it. Now just have to worry about him being a future version of master.

 

[MilkDrinker]

Sennins: no sense of right and wrong

 

[BadmanBlues]

This manga really tingles my brain in all the right ways. I dream of one day making something this good.

So grandmaster is an advanced philosophical zombie that forgets itself and carries out its programming. Interesting way to spin it. Now just have to worry about him being a future version of master.

A philosophical zombie is a person that appears normal externally, but has no consciousness, or qualia, or any sort of experience of feeling or self awareness. A philosophical zombie is like a machine: if X stimulus then Y response. You might think of it like an AI that can pass the turing test, or a Chinese Room. It can match patterns but there's nothing there, no "mind" behind it.

I didn't see any indication he lacks conscious experience. The fact that he appears to dream is a good indicator he isn't, but of course the whole point of the thought exercise is that the philosophical zombie is indistinguishable from a person. I'll grant you that he doesn't experience much empathy.

 

[John_von_Shepard]

So the master and the Sennin is the same guys???

 

[alacaelum]

Something says that Azuma-no-miya is in trouble XD.

I am amazed how this story plays with the themes of knowledge and ascension and doesn't go the "flowers and sunshine" route, which isn't the true one.

The search for knowledge leads people to very uncomfortable roads, especially when followed with such zealousness, and transcending human "limitations" would have strange effects.

Nothing I saw here would be out of place in a soulsborne story.

So grandmaster is an advanced philosophical zombie that forgets itself and carries out its programming. Interesting way to spin it. Now just have to worry about him being a future version of master.

Didn't seem like that to me. The whole dissolving and reintegration results from whatever purpose Saiukou serves, probably a way to achieve transcendence.

If he really is a Daoist "monk", the way Dao's philosophy works, there are as many ways to achieve transcendence as there are people, so he found himself his own way and the tool he found to help him on that demands continuous and careful usage.

 

[cryum]

That kind of imperfect immortality, is he trying to make Ozuno into a Sennin because he himself cannot? Not gonna lie though, I'd still use that grass on myself.

His obsession with hitokotonushi might have something to do with her insistence on receiving this mantra even at her own peril. Maybe it's because the nature of the wishes she grants are fundamentally still grounded in reality, a reality that pushes kami out of existence.

 

[MilkDrinker]

Also wanna add, the sacred treasure reminds me of some theories explaining how dreaming works. Like it's this defrag function or a questionnaire of scenarios your unconscious mind asks itself to rebuild or reaffirm your personality while you sleep. A little similar to the artifact in this chapter

 

[Nunally]

Azuma no Miya sweat are colder than the coming winter 🤣

 

[mage_goo]

Do not forget.
Remember your heart.

kuboooooooooo
At first, I thought this sensei is just an avatar of some sort while he's chilling somewhere in the outer space, but I guess not.

And I guess he probably doesn't actually forget, but just a momentary lapse in memory due to just reintegrated? Kinda like how you sometimes forget what year is it just after waking up.
Either way, I think it's only been like, 1-2 weeks since they fight in the floating mountain, so if we assume that he forget Mio's face due to the reintegration, that means he already reintegrated at least once before he made Mio his disciple, so he needs to be reintegrated every week, I guess?
If he really doesn't have continuous memory, then that's too short, damn. Basically isshuukan friends: trancendence edition.

 

[Ironclad]

Sennins: no sense of right and wrong

The dialogue this chapter gave me a lot of perspective. Koizumi sees mortals like mayflies. He values gods, other sennin, and nature for their permanence. I thought he was a hypocrite before because he cared about his disciple, but that was only because he saw the potential in him to become a sennin as something inherent in him that made him stand out from the rest of humanity.

So grandmaster is an advanced philosophical zombie that forgets itself and carries out its programming. Interesting way to spin it. Now just have to worry about him being a future version of master.

Maybe he's like a vampire and when they live too long they go insane or develop memory loss so he has to "reset" himself.

 

[Konrad2]

Thanks for the translation.

 

[sssr]

Azuma no Miya sweat are colder than the coming winter 🤣

Well, he just got caught red-handed by his wife. The girl is Uno no Sarara, his niece and primary wife. She will become the Empress Regnant Jito after his death.

 

[episode]

Funny to me how people actually buys it when the author tried the ultimate common trope 'its actually the MC' just cs of some resemblance between ozuno and the sennin 😅

All while also plainly bringing both the monk (azuno-no-miya) and the sennin on the same panel side-by-side, with the same hairline, same eyebrow line, same jawline, same torso build, and more importantly same third eye albeit the cross which the sennin have.

Now with this chapter i came with new assumption that maybe the sennin is not trying to kill koto-sama, cs there's a possibility that this sennin is a future self of the monk from a timeline where koto-sama already died by then from the curse mankind gave her. If so then its clear to me now that this sennin actually tries to save koto-sama, reasoning:
1. Its clears the reason why the sennin try to meddle with mankind political affairs, trying to force his past self (the monk) on becoming the king. Why? Because koto-sama still alive in this timeline, and by making his past self a king now, he could make the king pass a decree to strictly worship koto-sama and forbidden people to have bad prejudice towards her powers. Which in turn would lessen or even lift the curse that mankind gave her.
2. Every calculating person ever will always prepare a backup plan, and that seems just right with the sennin intention to make ozuno a sennin greater than himself. And it comes along nicely albeit ozuno is still refusing to become one. As the sennin said, ozuno has great potential to become one and one that fits his backup plan if he ever does perish, that is to become a sennin that could continue his legacy on trying to save koto-sama. We all know how much length ozuno will take to try and save her, now imagine if he actually became a sennin and have a power equals that of a kami. Maybe then he could get his way around kami's treasures more easily and use their powers to try things out and save her.

 

[Nunally]

Well, he just got caught red-handed by his wife. The girl is Uno no Sarara, his niece and primary wife. She will become the Empress Regnant Jito after his death.

Thanks for the extra information.

The tease is justifiable, thats because if Miyo chose to be his wife, Azuma no Miya will failed to protect her and her life will cut short. So, let him face the wrath of his primary wife and be punished 😆

 

[sssr]

All while also plainly bringing both the monk (azuno-no-miya) and the sennin on the same panel side-by-side, with the same hairline, same eyebrow line, same jawline, same torso build, and more importantly same third eye albeit the cross which the sennin have.

The monk is Azuma-no-miya, the future emperor Tenmu - the second founder of the Japanese nation (after the mythical emperor Jinmu). He's a historical person, not a character from this manga. What is happening right now is that Ozuno and Miyo are being drawn into the real-life plot that would see the historical Azuma-no-Miya descend from his mountain exile, raise an army, and depose his brother (Sarara's dad) then ascend the throne. The monk will not become an immortal. His fate is already known.

Edit:
That was written poorly. Basically, the main and supporting characters in this manga are people and beings written into Japanese history and mythology, primarily in the Nihon Shoki, the official "founding myth" of Japan. This includes Azuma-no-Miya and the people of the court (historical people), the two sennin En-no-Ozuno and his master (semi-historical people), and of course the gods, the Oni village, and Zenki-Gouki, the paired oni disciples of Ozuno (mythical beings). In general the manga follows the Nihon Shoki very closely when plotting out the plotlines of its characters, so the real historical people will play out their real historical lives. The semi-historical ones also seem to follow what the Japanese "histories" say about them. The mythological beings are fair game, although their attributes do follow their original description in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.

That's why Azuma-no-Miya will play out his historical life, pass away as emperor Tenmu, and leave the empire in the hands of his empress Jito. The story of the two sennin will play out differently.

 

[BadmanBlues]

Good historical summary.

I've definitely gotten the sense that there's an authorial assumption that I should know a lot of japanese folklore and mythology, and these are clearly historical people (some of them, anyway). So I feel like there's layers of the story that I'm just missing out on - subversions of convention or riffs off of convention that go over my head. So thank you for providing this explanation, that was super awesome of you. Until now I had no idea what was "real" and what was the author's own fiction.

I'll check out the Nihon Shoki. Do you have any recommendations for good english versions? Particularly one that's annotated to hell and back. I want notes that will capture all the stuff that would otherwise be lost in translation, or I might otherwise miss because I'm a modern man from a totally different sociocultural perspective. I'm a history major dropout so I'm wild for this kinda shit.

 

[sssr]

I'll check out the Nihon Shoki. Do you have any recommendations for good english versions? Particularly one that's annotated to hell and back.

Ooof. I don't have a copy. I actually read the Nihon Shoki back in college and it's this really old book translated from Chinese and Japanese where the author annotates the translation by going back and forth between the languages making arguments about how some of the words and concepts in the Nihon Shoki should be understood in the context of their original Chinese meaning. That's why the Chinese translation of the Nihon Shoki was used in conjunction with the Japanese original, because the author presumes that the Chinese translator would have a better understanding of the text from how Chinese characters are used in it. In fact, I made a very similar style of argument in a post two chapters ago. However, this was an out-of-print academic book, so I don't know if there are good translations of the Nihon Shoki available to the public. Try Amazon?

 

[nonexistent696969]

wow, another mysteries about sennin

 

[danvolodar]

So the master and the Sennin is the same guys???

He could be his future version from one of the timelines, potentially? Not necessarily where his current instance is headed, which troubles him?