Touge Oni - Vol. 9 Ch. 43 - Decisive Battle at Izushima

[MangaDex]

 

[Gunlord500]

Forgive the over enthusiasm, but WHAT A F_______CKING SICK CHAPTER!!!!!! Holy shit, I'd almost forgotten how good the battle scenes in the manga were, and THEN the callback to an old chapter with the monkeys I'd forgotten about! What a fight! Kenji Tsurubuchi is a MASTER!!!!! Thanks so much Ura Baiters!!!!!!!

 

[MOKALI]

I'm shaken by how good this story is..

 

[zanonyn]

Alcohol brewing confirmed to be the greatest mantra-kami-human power of all!!

But seriously, author is in the highest tiers, simply superb execution of this sequence all around. There have been a number of different sorts of ground hog loop sorts of scenarios in manga, but this one still manages to be really unique and awesome. Also nice to continue to see lots of wheels within wheels spinning, and that even those deemed below notice can find paths if they think and plan enough. And at the same time can still be wrong in some of their suppositions and projections of their own values/mantra onto something inHuman, which itself has been something the author has spun masterfully throughout the series.

Really excited to see how this gets wrapped up as we head into what has been teased and built-up to as one of the greatest secrets/mysteries.

 

[ipmanvsthemask]

Wifey's not gonna let go of her husband, even if she has to poison him for it.

 

[Trap_masters]

Alcohol, the greatest problem and solution to humanity

 

[MagnaDrake]

Ohhhhhhh now I get it.

 

[77BLc9JwJGpLVARkamJx]

Kek, I guess the good one can assimilate the bad dude if they want to keep him around. Or just keep his talking head.

 

[NilnisNilneef]

I thought Oni were originally racial-propagandistic representations of Ainu by the Yayoi (I think) people, the Asian mainland immigrants and their descendants, as their civilization spread through the archipelago. But a quick google isn't helping me figure out how I got that idea in my head.

 

[alacaelum]

The fights in this manga are always short... but you can see exactly why in each of them.

Tarume made a strategy based on past events, procured the substances needed, then concocted a wild "poison" to deal with him, she even accounted for the possibility that telling Ozuno could lead to Kozumi knowing.

Kozumi's Ashura form was cool too, using JJK Sukuna as an example, having double of each limb and organ, except legs, gives him such an advantage in fighting and spell casting.

But I have to say... didn't think calling him a ghoul would be so on point... and... his "immortality" is kinda creative.

There are so many elements in there... ascendence through enlightenment, accumulating divine treasures through repeated voyages in the flow of time, consuming his own alternate selves after he groomed them into stupidity, and there is the "solvent and adhesive" he used.

IIRC, it was mentioned before it being a sacred treasure, and I think it has something to do with the "origin of humanity as grass" in this story... don't know if he stole it from a kami, or achieved it through study, but he must have tapped into the "primordial soup" that makes humans and refined it into that "substance"... cool.

I love how this story took well-known tropes and cliches, mixed them with Japanese mythology in an interesting way, and still gave a sprinkle of originality that is left not explained... like the Amatsus' true forms being organs, and how it plays into the true form of the other kami, the little hints of how science and magic mix here.

Truly amazingly crafted storytelling.

 

[fight2live]

holy shit, Tarume, you da fuckin' MVP!!

moral of the story: alcohol IS poison

 

[lightblue0]

this is awesome

 

[gatonijua]

How is the official release of this one? Want to reread and I buy it but I seems like a complicated series to translate.

 

[Matau228]

I thought Oni were originally racial-propagandistic representations of Ainu by the Yayoi (I think) people, the Asian mainland immigrants and their descendants, as their civilization spread through the archipelago. But a quick google isn't helping me figure out how I got that idea in my head.

I believe there was one particular instance with Takeda Nobuhiro (not to be confused with Nobuhiro Takeda, the football player) whose 'feats' against the Ainu were re-written to be conquests over Oni in some capacity? I may be getting confused with his later Matasumae descendants, though.

Kind of like how there were children's stories written about Christopher 'Kit' Carson (while he was still alive) that portrayed his battles against Native Americans as a fight against almost-literal demons.

 

[Serenata]

That transformation was so damn good I almost shake his hand like "bro, when you're right you're right"

 

[Gunlord500]

How is the official release of this one? Want to reread and I buy it but I seems like a complicated series to translate.

Same, I'm always up for supporting the authors (I bought every volume of Musuko ga Kawaiikute even though I don't speak a word of Japanese).

 

[RealLotto]

Another year to wait fot the reveal yay~~~

 

[sssr]

I thought Oni were originally racial-propagandistic representations of Ainu by the Yayoi (I think) people, the Asian mainland immigrants and their descendants, as their civilization spread through the archipelago. But a quick google isn't helping me figure out how I got that idea in my head.

This is the modern Western interpretation of the Legend of Momotaro story and the more obvious references in the Shuten Doji myth cycle, which is almost certainly based on some sort of ethnic war around Kyoto. The latter is actually better-attested because the story of the oni of Mt. Oe could be cross-referenced to three local disturbances by the Emishi (teh ancestors of teh Ainu).

The problem is that, while both stories (and similar ones) may be disguised rewriting of real history where the Emishi and other indigenous groups were turned into the oni, the mythical creature itself predates these stories (and even their settings) by centuries. The earliest references to the oni actually came from mid-7th century tales that were written down in the early 8th century, and in those depictions the oni were just purely supernatural beings, usually depicted as human souls (and bodies) twisted by revenge or ethereal beings who commit acts of violence to avenge the spiteful in response to curses. You can see this earlier depiction in the kanji originally used for them: 鬼 (gui, pronounced ki in on'yomi). Since the kanji is borrowed from Chinese, the original oni must have seemed to the Japanese to be similar to the vengeful ghosts of Chinese tradition. However, the Chinese concept of ghost assumes a fully ethereal being, while in the Japanese conception, the ghost still had a physical body (which may or may not be the original human body). You can also still see this in the way the kijo (鬼女 - literally demon woman/female oni) is depicted, since this yokai got split from the oni clade really early. So, an original oni would have looked like a male kijo, basically. This is also why many early depictions of oni showed a man in noble court attire with a twisted face, mirroring the kijo who were depicted as a court lady with twisted face.

The modern oni (horned, sporting a club and wearing tiger loincloth) is an even more recent Tokugawa-era representation that is actually based on astrology. In Japanese astrology, the Demon Gate (鬼門 - gui men in Chinese, kimon in Japanese) where oni are said to come from is located between the constellations of the ox and the tiger, and its direction is called ushitora (ox-tiger). This direction is represented in the ox-horns and tiger loincloth of the "modern" oni. The club is borrowed from Buddhism's depiction of the asura.

Looking at the historical evidence, then, the oni didn't start out as a racist representation of the Emishi, or for that matter their Ainu descendants. Rather, it was a Japanese spiritual creature that originally resembled the Chinese gui, but was later borrowed around the 14th century to dehumanize the Emishi in legends and stories connected to their conquest and extermination by the Yamato court. Later as this history disappeared in the background during the sengoku and Tokugawa era, the oni regained its purely supernatural identity and we somehow ended up with cute horny girls sometimes in tiger-striped bikini.

Can I just mention that I really love the modern Netflix version of Lum? She da best!

 

[coyote_vdb]

Thanks for the translation.

 

[es_kan]

jesus christ, kozumi