Usogui - Vol. 25 Ch. 269 - The End And The Start
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I think on page 14, it should be prize instead of price.
So Souichi is Tatsuki's son, unless I'm seriously misunderstanding that scene. Which means they both knew of Eba somehow. My guess is something crazy like Eba is also a son of Tatsuki, but I'm not sure if an inheritance battle over Kakerou makes sense. Maybe only if Eba was believed dead this whole time and just now came back. I doubt it's something like that though.
So Souichi is Tatsuki's son, unless I'm seriously misunderstanding that scene. Which means they both knew of Eba somehow. My guess is something crazy like Eba is also a son of Tatsuki, but I'm not sure if an inheritance battle over Kakerou makes sense. Maybe only if Eba was believed dead this whole time and just now came back. I doubt it's something like that though.
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@dummyaccount12345 @veshv
Took some time, but here are my thoughts on the lip-biting, or more specifically Yakou’s relationship with Baku in the series so far. Way longer than I wanted it to be, but I’ve been really wanting to write about this ever since the grenade scene with Baku and Yakou.
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@Lithe
My guess is maybe Souichi resigned from his post or assigned leadership to Tatsuki, so that they would have to revive him? But it seems a bit more extreme than that, based on Nowa's reaction.
Took some time, but here are my thoughts on the lip-biting, or more specifically Yakou’s relationship with Baku in the series so far. Way longer than I wanted it to be, but I’ve been really wanting to write about this ever since the grenade scene with Baku and Yakou.
Throughout the series, we've seen that Yakou has a strong liking towards Baku. In particular, during the earlier gambles where Yakou refereed, he would frequently assist Baku as long as it was within the rules. Examples being: picking up the wire tap pen (in the abandoned building gamble), prolonging the ranking battle against Mekama in leader's presence (in the terrorist gamble).
But it's always been a situation where Yakou is doing the act purely out of his own will; Baku never asked him to do any of it. Oddly enough, Baku also never seemed to give any physical or verbal acknowledge towards Yakou's assistance in any way at all.
A big change happens in the car ride before the Empire Tower gamble, where Baku directly called Yakou for a ride to the tower. In the car ride, Yakou ends up getting angry and threatens to kill Baku. And rightfully so, since so far, Baku has been taking Yakou's help for granted in every single gamble,
plus his allies (Kaji/Kyara/Karl) even casually stayed at his cafe to hide from the police from the funeral division, and finally he calls him up to transport him to the venue even though Yakou has no real obligation as a referee to do so.
Baku calling Yakou here makes it seem like he assumed that Yakou will always and continue to help him as an ally, since Yakou has helped him time and time before. But that’s something that Baku went and decided on his own, without any real input or agreement from Yakou. To put it bluntly, it was quite rude and disrespectful of Baku to just assume this.
Although Yakou, out of his respect and admiration for Baku and his gambling ability, wants to help Baku, that alone isn’t enough for him. At the same time, he also wants to be acknowledged and respected by Baku. That's why he got angry at how he was being treated and decided to test Baku with a threat.
The purpose of the threat was to clearly measure how much respect and thought Baku had towards him, because their relationship thus far has been extremely one-sided and ambiguous. If Baku didn’t have anything prepared, Yakou would’ve killed him, because at that moment Yakou would have lost his respect for Baku for not being able to anticipate the result of his own actions.
“Don’t tell me… you simply took me as a kind grandpa who brews delicious coffee.” - Yakou
Baku answers by using the grenades to show that he does indeed respect Yakou as a person, and anticipated and understood his uneasy thoughts. He even goes the extra mile to (pretend to) risk his life, so that he could establish a relationship as equals or allies, so that he could finally for the first time, make a proper request to Yakou (to take the No.0 spot).
But why did Baku choose this timing to clearly ally with Yakou? Why wait – why not do it earlier? And why did he purposefully provoke Yakou? It doesn’t become clear until we learn that the #0 referee is coming to the Tower gamble, and that Yakou now must execute on his freshly made promise to Baku.
To put it simply, the most likely reason is morale. Yakou’s resolve to aid Baku is at its peak, now that he has just been acknowledged, accepted as an ally, and assigned an important request to become #0. I imagine that all of Yakou’s pent up anger (which was orchestrated by Baku) was also rebounded into further resolve for Yakou, after Baku answered it with his grenade gamble. In other words, Baku has been intentionally keeping their relation ambiguous, manipulating Yakou’s thoughts all this time, in order to save the tension and morale for the most crucial moment, the #0 ranking battle.
The final move Baku plays is the lip bite, which of course he uses at a critical time during the ranking battle, when he sees that Yakou is about to lose. This is a really devilish move by Baku, since it’s fundamentally different from the lip bite he did for Kyara. The lip bite for Kyara was more of a non-verbal apology since Kyara willingly took on unreasonable pain for Baku. But the lip bite for Yakou was purely to motivate Yakou, by forcing him to remember the peroxide gamble, and Baku’s relation with Kyara. I believe that Yakou was somewhat envious of their relation, especially the respect that Baku showed towards Kyara’s help (of which Baku never showed Yakou until recently!).
Interestingly, Yakou also helped out Baku during that gamble by ignoring the peroxide hitting Kyara even though he noticed it. That moment probably helped Baku understand Yakou’s thoughts and feelings towards himself. And as a result of that, many years later when Yakou became his exclusive referee, he would use that as a basis to manipulate Yakou’s thoughts so that he would be able to take on the ranking battle in his strongest mental state.
It’s to be expected of Baku, as he always makes use of any resource and opportunity to win. Even if it’s the ranking battle, which normally isn’t a gamble that a 3rd party should be able to influence, he tried to maximize his chances by even manipulating his own exclusive referee. But that’s one of Baku’s charms, and why Yakou and many other characters are captivated by him in the first place.
But it's always been a situation where Yakou is doing the act purely out of his own will; Baku never asked him to do any of it. Oddly enough, Baku also never seemed to give any physical or verbal acknowledge towards Yakou's assistance in any way at all.
A big change happens in the car ride before the Empire Tower gamble, where Baku directly called Yakou for a ride to the tower. In the car ride, Yakou ends up getting angry and threatens to kill Baku. And rightfully so, since so far, Baku has been taking Yakou's help for granted in every single gamble,
plus his allies (Kaji/Kyara/Karl) even casually stayed at his cafe to hide from the police from the funeral division, and finally he calls him up to transport him to the venue even though Yakou has no real obligation as a referee to do so.
Baku calling Yakou here makes it seem like he assumed that Yakou will always and continue to help him as an ally, since Yakou has helped him time and time before. But that’s something that Baku went and decided on his own, without any real input or agreement from Yakou. To put it bluntly, it was quite rude and disrespectful of Baku to just assume this.
Although Yakou, out of his respect and admiration for Baku and his gambling ability, wants to help Baku, that alone isn’t enough for him. At the same time, he also wants to be acknowledged and respected by Baku. That's why he got angry at how he was being treated and decided to test Baku with a threat.
The purpose of the threat was to clearly measure how much respect and thought Baku had towards him, because their relationship thus far has been extremely one-sided and ambiguous. If Baku didn’t have anything prepared, Yakou would’ve killed him, because at that moment Yakou would have lost his respect for Baku for not being able to anticipate the result of his own actions.
“Don’t tell me… you simply took me as a kind grandpa who brews delicious coffee.” - Yakou
Baku answers by using the grenades to show that he does indeed respect Yakou as a person, and anticipated and understood his uneasy thoughts. He even goes the extra mile to (pretend to) risk his life, so that he could establish a relationship as equals or allies, so that he could finally for the first time, make a proper request to Yakou (to take the No.0 spot).
But why did Baku choose this timing to clearly ally with Yakou? Why wait – why not do it earlier? And why did he purposefully provoke Yakou? It doesn’t become clear until we learn that the #0 referee is coming to the Tower gamble, and that Yakou now must execute on his freshly made promise to Baku.
To put it simply, the most likely reason is morale. Yakou’s resolve to aid Baku is at its peak, now that he has just been acknowledged, accepted as an ally, and assigned an important request to become #0. I imagine that all of Yakou’s pent up anger (which was orchestrated by Baku) was also rebounded into further resolve for Yakou, after Baku answered it with his grenade gamble. In other words, Baku has been intentionally keeping their relation ambiguous, manipulating Yakou’s thoughts all this time, in order to save the tension and morale for the most crucial moment, the #0 ranking battle.
The final move Baku plays is the lip bite, which of course he uses at a critical time during the ranking battle, when he sees that Yakou is about to lose. This is a really devilish move by Baku, since it’s fundamentally different from the lip bite he did for Kyara. The lip bite for Kyara was more of a non-verbal apology since Kyara willingly took on unreasonable pain for Baku. But the lip bite for Yakou was purely to motivate Yakou, by forcing him to remember the peroxide gamble, and Baku’s relation with Kyara. I believe that Yakou was somewhat envious of their relation, especially the respect that Baku showed towards Kyara’s help (of which Baku never showed Yakou until recently!).
Interestingly, Yakou also helped out Baku during that gamble by ignoring the peroxide hitting Kyara even though he noticed it. That moment probably helped Baku understand Yakou’s thoughts and feelings towards himself. And as a result of that, many years later when Yakou became his exclusive referee, he would use that as a basis to manipulate Yakou’s thoughts so that he would be able to take on the ranking battle in his strongest mental state.
It’s to be expected of Baku, as he always makes use of any resource and opportunity to win. Even if it’s the ranking battle, which normally isn’t a gamble that a 3rd party should be able to influence, he tried to maximize his chances by even manipulating his own exclusive referee. But that’s one of Baku’s charms, and why Yakou and many other characters are captivated by him in the first place.
---
@Lithe
My guess is maybe Souichi resigned from his post or assigned leadership to Tatsuki, so that they would have to revive him? But it seems a bit more extreme than that, based on Nowa's reaction.
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Holy fuck, that's absolutely metal.
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@catx3 nice post. Was it ever stated how Baku knew that Suteguma would accompany the one L-file mook he called to initiate the game? Was that Ranko's doing?
Then it would make sense that he definitely knew that ref#0 was gonna be there since he must have known that Suteguma was coming and that Suteguma had ref0 due to Caracal's video.
Then it would make sense that he definitely knew that ref#0 was gonna be there since he must have known that Suteguma was coming and that Suteguma had ref0 due to Caracal's video.
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@catx3
That was a good read, I agree with a lot of the things that you wrote.
It did remind me of an important detail/question as well: Why was Yakou the exclusive referee of Baku? Up until the hangman gamble, Kaji was the Kakerou member, so Yakou was his exclusive referee. Why then, is Yakou being treated as Baku's exclusive referee now? Additionally, who is Kaji's referee at this point if it's not Yakou? Would it be Nowa or Midara instead?
As far as why Yakou is Baku's referee, I think it's possible that membership wasn't truly reset in Baku's case, so once Baku actually got membership back after the Hangman gamble, Yakou was shifted over to his exclusive, while Kaji either had Nowa or no referee until the Labyrinth(and probably continues to be in that situation with Kadokura dead). Alternatively Kaji transferred his exclusive referee to Baku by throwing a Kakerou game or something like that.
Any clarifications on that regard?
That was a good read, I agree with a lot of the things that you wrote.
It did remind me of an important detail/question as well: Why was Yakou the exclusive referee of Baku? Up until the hangman gamble, Kaji was the Kakerou member, so Yakou was his exclusive referee. Why then, is Yakou being treated as Baku's exclusive referee now? Additionally, who is Kaji's referee at this point if it's not Yakou? Would it be Nowa or Midara instead?
As far as why Yakou is Baku's referee, I think it's possible that membership wasn't truly reset in Baku's case, so once Baku actually got membership back after the Hangman gamble, Yakou was shifted over to his exclusive, while Kaji either had Nowa or no referee until the Labyrinth(and probably continues to be in that situation with Kadokura dead). Alternatively Kaji transferred his exclusive referee to Baku by throwing a Kakerou game or something like that.
Any clarifications on that regard?
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@Veshv Exclusive referees are simply the first referee a player encounters (in a match, I assume), regardless of whether or not they were a member at the time. Since Baku's membership was lost and reset (presumably) after losing at surpassing the leader, Baku's exclusive referee is the same as Kaji's, Yakou, since he's the first referee they met (despite them both not being members at the time). This is why Suteguma's exclusive referee was not Tatsuki, since that wasn't his first Kakerou match, but his second (hence why Tatsuki showed up anyway, since his exclusive referee was busy in another match).
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@299792458
Does that mean multiple people can have the same exclusive?
Does that mean multiple people can have the same exclusive?
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@Lithe
It wasn't ever explicitly stated. I found that part weird as well, I think it being Ranko's handiwork makes sense. There's no evidence, but I'd like to believe that Baku may have also intentionally leaked or baited the information to their group, in order to lure Suteguma/the referee in.
@Veshv
Just to add on to what 299792458 said, these are where it's mentioned.
1)Kushinada and Baku met(mentions that Yakou and Nowa are Baku's exclusive referees, and the membership history being reset)
2)Kyara first met Baku (he explained that it's the first referee you meet, regardless of being a member).
I agree that Yakou is indeed both Baku's and Kaji's exclusive referee. So it might even be possible that there's a third or even a fourth person with a #0 referee then.
It wasn't ever explicitly stated. I found that part weird as well, I think it being Ranko's handiwork makes sense. There's no evidence, but I'd like to believe that Baku may have also intentionally leaked or baited the information to their group, in order to lure Suteguma/the referee in.
@Veshv
Just to add on to what 299792458 said, these are where it's mentioned.
1)Kushinada and Baku met(mentions that Yakou and Nowa are Baku's exclusive referees, and the membership history being reset)
2)Kyara first met Baku (he explained that it's the first referee you meet, regardless of being a member).
I agree that Yakou is indeed both Baku's and Kaji's exclusive referee. So it might even be possible that there's a third or even a fourth person with a #0 referee then.
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@299792458 oh yeah speaking of, Baku did look serious when answering that he didn't predict #0 would show up, I legitimately forgot the details about who was whose exclusive.
Was Eba delivering the news that Tatsuki had lost? Author plays a bit with the chronological series of events sometimes.
Was Eba delivering the news that Tatsuki had lost? Author plays a bit with the chronological series of events sometimes.
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The fight and Yakou's mini character arc were so good! Tatsuki's death(well, there is still a chance that he can be revived) hit me so hard ;_; Especially since his last memories are of his son. Souichi's words are pretty ironic though because Tatsuki would not have been in this fight if Souichi hadn't reverted the number system back.
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