Usogui - Vol. 48 Ch. 521 - To That Place
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Messy hair leader is back! I love Baku and Leader's ridiculously flowing hair when it's not combed back.
Edit: Is Leader using "Boku" or "Watashi" now? I'm not sure if he's just going off what Yakou told him, or if the explanation made him actually remember what's going on.
Edit: Is Leader using "Boku" or "Watashi" now? I'm not sure if he's just going off what Yakou told him, or if the explanation made him actually remember what's going on.
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Page 3 is pretty heartbreaking with the focus on Oofuna, Nobuko, and Baku. Hal having to deal with losing these memories and connections he made is really tragic.
Him reviving as messy-hair Hal and the smiles they exchanged as they get ready for the next round though...awesome.
Him reviving as messy-hair Hal and the smiles they exchanged as they get ready for the next round though...awesome.
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Fucking finally man, I was waiting for him to say Baku-san this whole time. Can't lie, my heart goes hhnnnng that page.
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Ok, so I was thinking about the like "narrative reason" for Hal's memory loss this time and here are my dumb thoughts.
So, my original thoughts were like "didn't he already learn to control his memory loss in Air Poker? It feels like we are treading old ground/regressing on his development."
But thinking about it more,
In Air Poker, Hal faced the shadowy Hal and regained his memories for the purpose of being perfect (as he realized he needs them to be perfect). So Hal overcame the feeling of needing to start over if he fucks up, but in turn his obsession with perfection got worse. Honestly I feel like this game he had more pressure put on him, as instead of "becoming perfect," it's "staying perfect". And Hal's obsession with perfection (obviously) seems pretty unhealthy.
Hal even gave his speech about how "it's impossible for humans to be perfect, but I'm different because I'm an alien." But Hal too is unable to stay perfect and eventually he has to face that fact. So I feel like that is what is being communicated through this memory wipe (ok well it might be obvious based on some of the text, idk). And I'm assuming that by the end Hal will realize he doesn't need to be perfect (as that would seem like the natural course for that sort of character flaw). And the memory wipe may play a part in that realization too.
Anyway, the cube with all of Hal's friends/special memories, and the imagery of him crumbling is so tragically beautiful ;_;
And I wonder which memories this Hal has.... Good that he's not a husk of a man, like I considered would happen if he lost his memory, last chapter, lol.
So, my original thoughts were like "didn't he already learn to control his memory loss in Air Poker? It feels like we are treading old ground/regressing on his development."
But thinking about it more,
In Air Poker, Hal faced the shadowy Hal and regained his memories for the purpose of being perfect (as he realized he needs them to be perfect). So Hal overcame the feeling of needing to start over if he fucks up, but in turn his obsession with perfection got worse. Honestly I feel like this game he had more pressure put on him, as instead of "becoming perfect," it's "staying perfect". And Hal's obsession with perfection (obviously) seems pretty unhealthy.
Hal even gave his speech about how "it's impossible for humans to be perfect, but I'm different because I'm an alien." But Hal too is unable to stay perfect and eventually he has to face that fact. So I feel like that is what is being communicated through this memory wipe (ok well it might be obvious based on some of the text, idk). And I'm assuming that by the end Hal will realize he doesn't need to be perfect (as that would seem like the natural course for that sort of character flaw). And the memory wipe may play a part in that realization too.
Anyway, the cube with all of Hal's friends/special memories, and the imagery of him crumbling is so tragically beautiful ;_;
And I wonder which memories this Hal has.... Good that he's not a husk of a man, like I considered would happen if he lost his memory, last chapter, lol.
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At this point it's pretty clear that Baku knew about Leader's memory loss and that it occurs in intervals. This finally explains these earlier scenes:
Also, I thought it was kind of strange how Baku had insisted that StL had to be played as soon as the match with Lalo was over, I thought it wouldn't be disadvantageous for him to just wait until they were back in Japan and better rested to have the match, but this explains why he would want to have the match immediately.
Aside from that, I've been thinking for a while about the significance of the blood on Baku's suit in Souichi's mind. Since the suit is hanging with both jacket and pants together, the part that has some blood on it are likely to be the pants, since they are in the middle, which would mean that Baku stepped on some blood. Now if this is just Souichi's mind trying to give him a hint and not an actual memory, then this could be Souichi's way of figuring out that Baku was there in Eba's building at the time of (or before) his memory loss, which was already hinted in the Baku dream sequence earlier where he got chased by (probably) Eba. This all could've helped Souichi realize that Baku knows about Souichi's memory loss and the time interval in between, it's possible that the clock in the room that we keep seeing is also linked to this but we got a few hints that I think support my clock tampering hypothesis from earlier. One hint is here:
and here:
. Apart from this, I had my doubts about the time discrepancy hypothesis happening at 9 am since I assumed the game wouldn't last this long, but it seems that that was an unnecessary thought now. Anyways, as always, thank you very much for the batch and good work, Team Duwang.
Edit: replaced images with chapter urls, thanks to @Doomroar for pointing it out.
Also, I thought it was kind of strange how Baku had insisted that StL had to be played as soon as the match with Lalo was over, I thought it wouldn't be disadvantageous for him to just wait until they were back in Japan and better rested to have the match, but this explains why he would want to have the match immediately.
Aside from that, I've been thinking for a while about the significance of the blood on Baku's suit in Souichi's mind. Since the suit is hanging with both jacket and pants together, the part that has some blood on it are likely to be the pants, since they are in the middle, which would mean that Baku stepped on some blood. Now if this is just Souichi's mind trying to give him a hint and not an actual memory, then this could be Souichi's way of figuring out that Baku was there in Eba's building at the time of (or before) his memory loss, which was already hinted in the Baku dream sequence earlier where he got chased by (probably) Eba. This all could've helped Souichi realize that Baku knows about Souichi's memory loss and the time interval in between, it's possible that the clock in the room that we keep seeing is also linked to this but we got a few hints that I think support my clock tampering hypothesis from earlier. One hint is here:
https://mangadex.org/chapter/1041747/5 where it says "a small shadow which wasn't noticed by anyone has been illuminated". This makes me think that Kaji may have noticed a discrepancy between the wall clock and the speaking clock, given that we see the clock's pointer being shown again
https://mangadex.org/chapter/1042939/7where the line about the passing of time feeling different depending on the situation is repeated once again
Edit: replaced images with chapter urls, thanks to @Doomroar for pointing it out.
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@299792458 the images you put on the 1st spoiler didn't load.
@Ghetsis That's a good theory, i think the narrative reason for bringing Hal back is to let Baku meet his long lost friend one last time before one of them is gone for real, but i suspect this reunion wont last either.
Hal doesn't knows Nobuko or Oofuna, which means he already lost 1/3rd of the payment of Surpassing the Leader, since one of the consequences of losing the game is losing your connections, plus it means he will start playing mid game, i suspect that Hal must slowly climb back to being Souichi without really getting to be the perfect Leader just to keep himself back in the game and in equal footing of Baku.
@Ghetsis That's a good theory, i think the narrative reason for bringing Hal back is to let Baku meet his long lost friend one last time before one of them is gone for real, but i suspect this reunion wont last either.
Hal doesn't knows Nobuko or Oofuna, which means he already lost 1/3rd of the payment of Surpassing the Leader, since one of the consequences of losing the game is losing your connections, plus it means he will start playing mid game, i suspect that Hal must slowly climb back to being Souichi without really getting to be the perfect Leader just to keep himself back in the game and in equal footing of Baku.
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I reread the last few chapters to take some notes about the timeline of the whole game. And I noticed something in chapter 519 that is either a mistake, either a really confusing clue about time difference between clocks.
Page 5: Yakou announces that Leader will die for 2:34 (which seems like the correct value) - https://mangadex.org/chapter/1041747/5
Page 9: Suddendly, it is 2:32 instead of 2:34 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/1041747/9
Page 5: Yakou announces that Leader will die for 2:34 (which seems like the correct value) - https://mangadex.org/chapter/1041747/5
Page 9: Suddendly, it is 2:32 instead of 2:34 - https://mangadex.org/chapter/1041747/9
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@299792458
We'll be ending this batch at 524!
About the blood-stains, someone pointed out awhile back that it's actually appeared two times already. Once in Baku's dream (if I remember right), and once in the actual flash-back with Baku-Hal (which confirms that it's indeed real). But about the second time it appeared, the scene happened before Hal went to Eba's building. So the Fukurou-Eba gunfight didn't happen yet, so the blood wasn't from there. So either he got injured from something else, or maybe he got excited from something and the blood is from a nosebleed?
@Ghetsis
The theme of being obsessed with perfection is an interesting one within Kakerou. It also appeared within the Nowa family, with the grandson and son both showing clear obsessions with living up to the expectations of grandpa Nowa. (During the Mitowa vs Midara fight, and Drugged Shion vs Midara) And even though all the other referees like Yakou or the Judge aim for perfection, they aren't problematically obsessed with it. It feels like it's all a statement about how "aiming for perfection because of your own personal interest" is more stable than "aiming for perfection because others want you to". I think for Hal as well, we've never really heard him say he wants to be the leader of Kakerou, so I wonder if he's just forced to do it because of his family bloodline, and that he's just constantly struggling with his duty towards the position he was born into.
Come to think of it, there was one moment where Hal actually was going to abandon being the leader - when he met Baku in the flashback. It's pretty tragic that it didn't really pan out since he lost to Fukurou. But as you suggested, maybe this memory loss and gamble will finally resolve all that pressure that's placed on him.
We'll be ending this batch at 524!
About the blood-stains, someone pointed out awhile back that it's actually appeared two times already. Once in Baku's dream (if I remember right), and once in the actual flash-back with Baku-Hal (which confirms that it's indeed real). But about the second time it appeared, the scene happened before Hal went to Eba's building. So the Fukurou-Eba gunfight didn't happen yet, so the blood wasn't from there. So either he got injured from something else, or maybe he got excited from something and the blood is from a nosebleed?
@Ghetsis
The theme of being obsessed with perfection is an interesting one within Kakerou. It also appeared within the Nowa family, with the grandson and son both showing clear obsessions with living up to the expectations of grandpa Nowa. (During the Mitowa vs Midara fight, and Drugged Shion vs Midara) And even though all the other referees like Yakou or the Judge aim for perfection, they aren't problematically obsessed with it. It feels like it's all a statement about how "aiming for perfection because of your own personal interest" is more stable than "aiming for perfection because others want you to". I think for Hal as well, we've never really heard him say he wants to be the leader of Kakerou, so I wonder if he's just forced to do it because of his family bloodline, and that he's just constantly struggling with his duty towards the position he was born into.
Come to think of it, there was one moment where Hal actually was going to abandon being the leader - when he met Baku in the flashback. It's pretty tragic that it didn't really pan out since he lost to Fukurou. But as you suggested, maybe this memory loss and gamble will finally resolve all that pressure that's placed on him.
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If only a draw was possible.... It would be anticlimactic but I would like to see them both alive at the end.
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Oh wait, I only just now re-read last chapter with Yakou's brother. Was this what the "Leader's game that happens once a month" quote was about way back during Hangman? I remember thinking it was very bizarre that they would be having a StL game once a month with the massive amount of conditions necessary to play, but it makes a lot more sense if it was supposed to be foreshadowing to Leader losing his memory once a month.
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@BossCrab
It was implied to be about the rubik's cube solving thing that Leader had going on. But yeah, it was actually about the memory losses. Another lost-in-translation thing, similar to the original naming of StL as the Mansion Pass. Not surprising given that's probably how the English works out if you don't have the context.
It was implied to be about the rubik's cube solving thing that Leader had going on. But yeah, it was actually about the memory losses. Another lost-in-translation thing, similar to the original naming of StL as the Mansion Pass. Not surprising given that's probably how the English works out if you don't have the context.
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@catx3 Yes this was the second time, which makes it pretty clear it's very significant. However, the second time if I remember correctly was in Souichi's dream sequence now, no? Or is there a third time I'm forgetting? If there isn't then you can see how Souichi is having his flashback to the conversation, and then after young Hal leaves the house his "ghost" comes back to the house, and presumably enough time could've passed so that everything went down and then Baku came back with the bloodstained suit, although the timing would be pretty weird, it wouldn't be the first time in the series though. If that's not it then I'm still fairly confused about the meaning of the bloodstains. Great to hear the batch will be longer! Love you all.
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@299792458
First time was 321, when Baku egged Hal on to do what he wanted, second time was Leader's first death dream. So yeah, this is the third time the blood on the suit showed up. Technically Baku actually has blood on his pants in the same area right now due to that nosebleed, but that's unrelated.
First time was 321, when Baku egged Hal on to do what he wanted, second time was Leader's first death dream. So yeah, this is the third time the blood on the suit showed up. Technically Baku actually has blood on his pants in the same area right now due to that nosebleed, but that's unrelated.
