Capitalism ho! Let's Read Kengan Asura
- Thread starter Manic Dogma
- Start date
- Discussion Manga
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Y'know how Kengan Asura sometimes has the audience shout weird stuff during the fights?
"Please attack already", asks the disgruntled but shockingly polite audience of bloodsport.
Honestly, I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out that that's not what's being said. I've read this manga through like three times now.
Anyway, my actual commentary today is entirely about this.
Akoya won this fight.
Ignoring that the fight hasn't finished yet, and that Akoya is blatantly cheating through Hiyama, think of what this all means. Cosmo went into this fight with exactly one plan, and that was to jerk Akoya around until the guy thought he had enough of an advantage so that Cosmo could use the Zone again. It's a good strategy, it won him the fight against Adam, but it is also the exact same strategy he used against Adam. It depicts Cosmo as something of a one-trick pony: he's found his big special move and twice now he's relied on it and only it to win.
And that is exactly what Akoya caught on to. On his own, he realized what Cosmo's big strat was, worked out how to counter it, and worked on countering it down to the wire. Even if he had Hiyama's help, Akoya had to train himself to a split-second reaction so he could invalidate Cosmo's only strategy and wreck the kid. And if Hiyama hadn't been interfered with, that would have been it. Akoya would be the winner at the end of this chapter. Even without her, Akoya was still able to stop Cosmo's Zone from taking him down, even if he couldn't counter it like he wanted. That arm shoved under Cosmo's leg, that was all Akoya.
One of these guys is the clearly superior fighter, and it's not Cosmo by a mile. Akoya may be a horrible creature, but he is, no doubt about it, the better, more experienced and more dedicated fighter.
And the coolest part is that's going to be relevant to the rest of this fight.
Monday's going to be great.
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- Location
- USA
I think Cosmo's coach has made a completely reasonable mistake here, that is going to go bad in a big way. You see a person in the stands, sending orders, a fighter executing, you think the boss is in charge. Course you do, you are a CEO! These fighters are just our puppets.
But we know from round one that Akoya is absolutely the leader in their particular dynamic. If Hiyama forfeits Akoya's match he'll comprehensively murder her. I don't think she would, even without that threat, but I just bring it up to point out the level of 'we don't know what we are messing with' that Cosmo's camp is currently exhibiting. Their boy is in there with the devil himself. Screw throwing in a towel, the only thing someone in the stands can throw in to stop this match is a grenade.
But we know from round one that Akoya is absolutely the leader in their particular dynamic. If Hiyama forfeits Akoya's match he'll comprehensively murder her. I don't think she would, even without that threat, but I just bring it up to point out the level of 'we don't know what we are messing with' that Cosmo's camp is currently exhibiting. Their boy is in there with the devil himself. Screw throwing in a towel, the only thing someone in the stands can throw in to stop this match is a grenade.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
God, I hate Akoya so much. Fantastic heel, just reading his fights makes me angry. Perfect opponent for the character who is the most "protagonist-like" fighter outside of Ohma himself.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Akoya is wonderfully written in just how horrible and hateable he is. He is truly a terrible and despicable creature, and somehow we still enjoy watching him, not in spite but because of that.
WilyMachineKing1
Executive Manager of Limbus Company
- Location
- Reno Nevada
And it begins.... Cosmo is about to fall into hell with a first class ticket.
Opaline Dreams
Virenina's handler
- Location
- Tei Ura
- Pronouns
- Any
It's okay. It's fine. He loves it
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hiyama's gimmick is very silly, but there are a lot of things that Hiyama feeding Akoya some kind of data does for the story. It connects her to Akoya's fighting style in a way that intensifies their shitty abusive/codependent/something relationship, it provides an explanation for why Hiyama's "failure" is connected to Akoya going into Basic Bastard Murder Mode, it introduces minor surgical modifications to make Hanafusa's existence marginally less absurd, etc.
I wish the author had thought of a less silly gimmick, though. Honestly, the same idea connected to vague homeostatic or psychological BS instead of breathing would probably be an improvement. "People naturally fall into rhythms" or something.
I like this kind of corporate politicking, leveraging the Kengan Association's rules to influence backdoor politicking to influence the individual match that we're worried about. It's a good use of the series premise.
On one hand, Akoya being a barely-restrained rabid pig means that Hiyama has a legitimate excuse if she does what Nishihonji asks and Akoya keeps going as normal.
On the other hand, Nishihonji seems unlikely to take "Sorry, I can't control my fighter-slash-ambiguous-partner" for an answer.
Luckily(?) for Hiyama, the fighter has pretty much absolute authority over whether they surrender or not. Unluckily for Hiyama, that means she can't really do anything about Nishihonji's threat.
Chapter 123 - Abyss
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
We begin on a classic villain moment. Akoya is stood in the center of the ring, Cosmo's thighs cinching tight around his neck as the larger man howls one word at the uncaring concrete. Preposterous! Preposterous, preposterous, preposterous, preposterous, preposterous! Up somewhere past the stands, Nishihonji continues to put pressure on an anxiously silent Hiyama, telling her to forfeit the match. Adam stands quietly off to the side, but in his head he has his own opinions on the situation. For one, even mr Aggro Testosterone himself is kind of in awe at how fucking mad Nishihonji is, but also he's the one wondering if any of this even has a point. For a moment one could almost wonder if he's about to preach restraint.
But nah.
Imagine a python with the speed and reflexes of a viper. That's Cosmo, and god damn, look at him go. Master of the ground he may be, but even when hoisted into the air he can slither around your neck.
Back up past the stands, Hiyama reacts in a strange way. Desperate and trembling she lunges for Nishihonji, screaming at him to give it back. Adam catches her mid-lunge, because he's a professional fighter and she's a five foot nothing business executive, telling her to give it up and…calling her a Zashiki Warashi?
[googling noises]
Okay, apparently they're a kind of Yokai spirit said to live in people's pantries and shit, which prank the house's owners and grant good fortune if spotted. Notably, they also always look like young kids, the oldest examples in stories and folktales topping out at the mid-teens. So he's basically making fun of her height, which is kind of rude. And honestly this whole page has kinda weird, abuse-ey vibes given Hiyama's genuine visible terror. Of course, we know it's not quite that simple, but the casual contempt directed at her is uncomfortable nonetheless. Especially at the end when she's shaking like a leaf, begging Nishihonji and insisting she can still help Akoya. Lady's fearing for her life, is the vibe I get.
And then Akoya says her name. Audible, through the little doodad. He's grimacing like he's shitting a brick, eyes shadowed as he strains to keep Cosmo's arm off his arteries. Difficult, from his position of poor leverage. He asks her if she remembers what he said after their first match. Dizzy, the world swimming around her, Hiyama spends a moment not sure what he means until it hits her like the man's own fist.
"Don't let it happen again, Hiyama." Those were his exact words. We get a great panel recreating the panel he said it in, scratchier and darker, the entryway to the arena vanishing into light and the corridor blurry and indistinct. Leaving Hiyama the most distinct thing in a panel consumed by the tenebrous goliath Akoya is in her memory.
Dude's seriously losing it. If he ever had it, I mean.
There's a shower of blood. With finger strength that Sayaka claims would put Rihito to shame (why you gotta kick a guy while he's down) Akoya digs his fingers into Cosmo's arms and begins to tear skin and flesh. Yowling like a startled cat, Cosmo leaps back from Akoya and releases his hold. His arms are ragged, but after a brief check he can still move them, the tendons are fine. It probably really fucking hurts though, he's losing even more blood, and he's been forced to give up the winning position he went to all that trouble to find. And then, almost before he realises, Akoya's big toe is hurtling toward his eyes.
Cosmo dodges it, but somethings already changed on both ends of the match. Blood vessels standing out in his eyes, Cosmo boggles at the attempted blinding and Akoya seizes on the moment's hesitation. Lunging in for a tackle. He catches Cosmo's leg, and this could be it. Cosmo desperately hammers at Akoya's back with his elbow and the back of his head, visibly juddering his neck, but he can't make the man let go in time. But there's no mount that follows, no grapple, throw or lock. No, Akoya's gone beyond that.
He sinks his fucking teeth into Cosmo's thigh, like a rabid dog.
Cosmo screams at the top of his lungs, and even this bloodthirsty audience reacts in shock and horror, some thinking back over Akoya's previous matches. He's never fought like this before. And as they're concerned and unsettled, Adam's getting seriously mad, punching the walkway wall with enough force to crater it and send cracks coursing through to the other side. What the fuck is he doing, he asks. Even Nishihonji is wondering what happened, sweating anxiously. Then Hiyama begins to speak.
Adam really is the perfect guy to have available for this, isn't he?
Now, of course, we knew all this. Akoya's backstory chapter was about him engaging in vigilante justice and rambling about his notion of justice. Hiyama goes on though, talking about what initially motivated him. At least as she understands it. He holds, or held, an ideal of a world without evil. And his efforts to pursue that apparently went well at first, though the fact that there's quotation marks around the word "activism" in her little speech speaks to the actual underlying truths she isn't ready to acknowledge. She says, and apparently believes, that as he was fighting evil he changed bit by bit, and became possessed by killer instincts. Since then, he's fought on her instruction in the Kengan Matches mostly so those instincts don't consume him completely. Adam calls her Akoya's brakes, and Nishohonji goes for a slightly more poetic reference to Nietzche. Akoya Seishu has gazed too long into the abyss, he says.
…
Okay, so here's the thing. I just, in that last paragraph, talked about all this in terms of it all being cope on the part of Hiyama. While those quotation marks were certainly there, there's ultimately no actual, textual discussion of the fact that Hiyama is fundamentally an unreliable narrator with a clear vested and unhealthy interest in placing Akoya on a pedestal. On the one hand, the way Kengan Asura has been written so far, making Akoya someone who was genuinely trying to make the world a better place and ultimately fell into depravity as a result of spending so long killing does seem like something the writer behind it would find wicked cool. On the other hand, the manga otherwise has such clear and open contempt for Akoya that this would sort of clash with how he's previously been written. The man's a monster and his philosophy is clearly a joke, surely at this point it'd be ridiculous to suggest he wasn't always using it to post-hoc justify his bloodlust. Is this what the previous comparisons between him and the tournament's assassins and killers was getting at? Is he supposed to be cool in the same way as them? I don't think so, but that's a possible reading of at least Muteba's moment of musing on him. If this moment is meant to be read genuinely, then that's got a lot of friction with how sympathetically Adam's condemnation of Akoya has been framed. Just this chapter he referenced Dirty Harry Syndrome, for fuck's sake. Is this all just one momentary fancy because Sandro liked the way it sounded? Is this supposed to still read as him being awful, and the implicit absolution an accident?
I'm genuinely not sure. Just by raising the idea the manga has muddied the waters in a way it wouldn't in the hands of an author I had more faith in. Or who made any themes like that more textually obvious, since nuance and implication are pretty advanced writing tools. Either way, the Akoya of the present is not a good person, for all Hiyama tries to dig for a silver lining to his behaviour.
As is made abundantly clear by what he does next.
Inhumanity.
It's visceral and gory. Akoya literally tears a bloody gobbet out of Cosmo's thigh with his teeth. The boy shrieks, his blood gushes, and the commentators wonder if it ruptured an artery. As much confusion as the previous pages have inspired in me, this moment is still sudden and shocking. The closest thing to this we've seen so far was Meguro biting off a bit of Muteba in their match, and that was much more of a passing thing done by a man already framed as utterly divorced from reality. This is much more deliberate, more vicious. And, of course, Meguro didn't then pause to fucking chew the meat as a threat display.
Sayaka is aghast, and Jerry's about to puke. I honestly don't blame them.
Akoya spits out the mouthful of twink and matter-of-factly informs Cosmo that he's bleeding severely, and that he should staunch it. His goal isn't to kill Cosmo, but to teach him what Justice is. Adam swears, because of course he does, and Nishihonji gets halfway through trying to advise Cosmo (despite being way too far up for the boy to hear) until he's cut off by something. Distance or no distance, he realises it's unlikely Cosmo would have heard him anyway. Not through the fight or flight response.
Abject. Mortal. Terror.
Cosmo has been struck before, suffered intense pain in the course of matches. We've seen it, in fact, in this tournament. Buy why would he ever have experienced anything like this? This isn't a sporting trial by combat anymore, he's fighting for his goddamn life against a wild animal. Noone's ever prepared for that. And fuck me, if the art doesn't sell the emotion for a million quid. Cosmo is hunched over, curled into himself, his face tugged tight into a distorted rictus and body shivering like he's stood in the tundra.
Cosmo's mental is in fucking tatters. Akoya's gambit has worked, he's preyed on the cracks in the development of the tournament's youngest contestant, the gaps that training and experience haven't yet sealed over. In a way, this is probably what Wakatsuki was talking about during Sekibayashi's first match. The kind of situation where true conviction can prop you up, support you when the pressure begins to really bear down and everything seems too much.
Cosmo started this chapter in a winning position, now it's all fallen apart. Can he make a comeback? You'll find out soon.
See you all next time.
But nah.
Imagine a python with the speed and reflexes of a viper. That's Cosmo, and god damn, look at him go. Master of the ground he may be, but even when hoisted into the air he can slither around your neck.
Back up past the stands, Hiyama reacts in a strange way. Desperate and trembling she lunges for Nishihonji, screaming at him to give it back. Adam catches her mid-lunge, because he's a professional fighter and she's a five foot nothing business executive, telling her to give it up and…calling her a Zashiki Warashi?
[googling noises]
Okay, apparently they're a kind of Yokai spirit said to live in people's pantries and shit, which prank the house's owners and grant good fortune if spotted. Notably, they also always look like young kids, the oldest examples in stories and folktales topping out at the mid-teens. So he's basically making fun of her height, which is kind of rude. And honestly this whole page has kinda weird, abuse-ey vibes given Hiyama's genuine visible terror. Of course, we know it's not quite that simple, but the casual contempt directed at her is uncomfortable nonetheless. Especially at the end when she's shaking like a leaf, begging Nishihonji and insisting she can still help Akoya. Lady's fearing for her life, is the vibe I get.
And then Akoya says her name. Audible, through the little doodad. He's grimacing like he's shitting a brick, eyes shadowed as he strains to keep Cosmo's arm off his arteries. Difficult, from his position of poor leverage. He asks her if she remembers what he said after their first match. Dizzy, the world swimming around her, Hiyama spends a moment not sure what he means until it hits her like the man's own fist.
"Don't let it happen again, Hiyama." Those were his exact words. We get a great panel recreating the panel he said it in, scratchier and darker, the entryway to the arena vanishing into light and the corridor blurry and indistinct. Leaving Hiyama the most distinct thing in a panel consumed by the tenebrous goliath Akoya is in her memory.
Dude's seriously losing it. If he ever had it, I mean.
There's a shower of blood. With finger strength that Sayaka claims would put Rihito to shame (why you gotta kick a guy while he's down) Akoya digs his fingers into Cosmo's arms and begins to tear skin and flesh. Yowling like a startled cat, Cosmo leaps back from Akoya and releases his hold. His arms are ragged, but after a brief check he can still move them, the tendons are fine. It probably really fucking hurts though, he's losing even more blood, and he's been forced to give up the winning position he went to all that trouble to find. And then, almost before he realises, Akoya's big toe is hurtling toward his eyes.
Cosmo dodges it, but somethings already changed on both ends of the match. Blood vessels standing out in his eyes, Cosmo boggles at the attempted blinding and Akoya seizes on the moment's hesitation. Lunging in for a tackle. He catches Cosmo's leg, and this could be it. Cosmo desperately hammers at Akoya's back with his elbow and the back of his head, visibly juddering his neck, but he can't make the man let go in time. But there's no mount that follows, no grapple, throw or lock. No, Akoya's gone beyond that.
He sinks his fucking teeth into Cosmo's thigh, like a rabid dog.
Cosmo screams at the top of his lungs, and even this bloodthirsty audience reacts in shock and horror, some thinking back over Akoya's previous matches. He's never fought like this before. And as they're concerned and unsettled, Adam's getting seriously mad, punching the walkway wall with enough force to crater it and send cracks coursing through to the other side. What the fuck is he doing, he asks. Even Nishihonji is wondering what happened, sweating anxiously. Then Hiyama begins to speak.
Adam really is the perfect guy to have available for this, isn't he?
Now, of course, we knew all this. Akoya's backstory chapter was about him engaging in vigilante justice and rambling about his notion of justice. Hiyama goes on though, talking about what initially motivated him. At least as she understands it. He holds, or held, an ideal of a world without evil. And his efforts to pursue that apparently went well at first, though the fact that there's quotation marks around the word "activism" in her little speech speaks to the actual underlying truths she isn't ready to acknowledge. She says, and apparently believes, that as he was fighting evil he changed bit by bit, and became possessed by killer instincts. Since then, he's fought on her instruction in the Kengan Matches mostly so those instincts don't consume him completely. Adam calls her Akoya's brakes, and Nishohonji goes for a slightly more poetic reference to Nietzche. Akoya Seishu has gazed too long into the abyss, he says.
…
Okay, so here's the thing. I just, in that last paragraph, talked about all this in terms of it all being cope on the part of Hiyama. While those quotation marks were certainly there, there's ultimately no actual, textual discussion of the fact that Hiyama is fundamentally an unreliable narrator with a clear vested and unhealthy interest in placing Akoya on a pedestal. On the one hand, the way Kengan Asura has been written so far, making Akoya someone who was genuinely trying to make the world a better place and ultimately fell into depravity as a result of spending so long killing does seem like something the writer behind it would find wicked cool. On the other hand, the manga otherwise has such clear and open contempt for Akoya that this would sort of clash with how he's previously been written. The man's a monster and his philosophy is clearly a joke, surely at this point it'd be ridiculous to suggest he wasn't always using it to post-hoc justify his bloodlust. Is this what the previous comparisons between him and the tournament's assassins and killers was getting at? Is he supposed to be cool in the same way as them? I don't think so, but that's a possible reading of at least Muteba's moment of musing on him. If this moment is meant to be read genuinely, then that's got a lot of friction with how sympathetically Adam's condemnation of Akoya has been framed. Just this chapter he referenced Dirty Harry Syndrome, for fuck's sake. Is this all just one momentary fancy because Sandro liked the way it sounded? Is this supposed to still read as him being awful, and the implicit absolution an accident?
I'm genuinely not sure. Just by raising the idea the manga has muddied the waters in a way it wouldn't in the hands of an author I had more faith in. Or who made any themes like that more textually obvious, since nuance and implication are pretty advanced writing tools. Either way, the Akoya of the present is not a good person, for all Hiyama tries to dig for a silver lining to his behaviour.
As is made abundantly clear by what he does next.
Inhumanity.
It's visceral and gory. Akoya literally tears a bloody gobbet out of Cosmo's thigh with his teeth. The boy shrieks, his blood gushes, and the commentators wonder if it ruptured an artery. As much confusion as the previous pages have inspired in me, this moment is still sudden and shocking. The closest thing to this we've seen so far was Meguro biting off a bit of Muteba in their match, and that was much more of a passing thing done by a man already framed as utterly divorced from reality. This is much more deliberate, more vicious. And, of course, Meguro didn't then pause to fucking chew the meat as a threat display.
Sayaka is aghast, and Jerry's about to puke. I honestly don't blame them.
Akoya spits out the mouthful of twink and matter-of-factly informs Cosmo that he's bleeding severely, and that he should staunch it. His goal isn't to kill Cosmo, but to teach him what Justice is. Adam swears, because of course he does, and Nishihonji gets halfway through trying to advise Cosmo (despite being way too far up for the boy to hear) until he's cut off by something. Distance or no distance, he realises it's unlikely Cosmo would have heard him anyway. Not through the fight or flight response.
Abject. Mortal. Terror.
Cosmo has been struck before, suffered intense pain in the course of matches. We've seen it, in fact, in this tournament. Buy why would he ever have experienced anything like this? This isn't a sporting trial by combat anymore, he's fighting for his goddamn life against a wild animal. Noone's ever prepared for that. And fuck me, if the art doesn't sell the emotion for a million quid. Cosmo is hunched over, curled into himself, his face tugged tight into a distorted rictus and body shivering like he's stood in the tundra.
Cosmo's mental is in fucking tatters. Akoya's gambit has worked, he's preyed on the cracks in the development of the tournament's youngest contestant, the gaps that training and experience haven't yet sealed over. In a way, this is probably what Wakatsuki was talking about during Sekibayashi's first match. The kind of situation where true conviction can prop you up, support you when the pressure begins to really bear down and everything seems too much.
Cosmo started this chapter in a winning position, now it's all fallen apart. Can he make a comeback? You'll find out soon.
See you all next time.
- Location
- boundless optimism
Hero Cop In Mortal Danger Unlocks Hidden Super Mode
Hero Cop Bravely Improves Physical Stats By Turning Off His Body Cam, Unlocking Acorn Reflexes
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I have nothing but respect for Sandro for this chapter. I'd seen brutality like this before in manga, everyone has. This is the stuff of shonen manga trying to make a bad guy seem like the worst, or of edgy stories trying to show you how terrible and depraved everything is. It's usually overdone and overblown and barely leaves a mark, because it's either done in isolation as a moment of the writer pointing and telling you someone is bad, or as part of an established, somewhat silly, tone.
Kengan Asura was the first time I'd ever seen something like this played straight both for what it is and for the actual effect it has. Watching Akoya tear off flesh with his teeth and chew it with the specifi intention of terrifying Cosmo, and then that working, sending Cosmo into a panic, is probably the most realistic way I've ever seen something so edgy take place in a manga, and precisely because of that it ceases being edgy. The story isn't parading this around to show how R-rated it is, it's not delighting in showing you the carnage; it's doing this for a point and spending no more time on that point than is necessary. It's a type of precision and moderation that I personally seldom see in manga, let alone this type of story. And goddamn is it effective.
Also if any of you were thinking that Akoya was already the worst, yeah, sorry, no lol
He's not done either.
Kengan Asura was the first time I'd ever seen something like this played straight both for what it is and for the actual effect it has. Watching Akoya tear off flesh with his teeth and chew it with the specifi intention of terrifying Cosmo, and then that working, sending Cosmo into a panic, is probably the most realistic way I've ever seen something so edgy take place in a manga, and precisely because of that it ceases being edgy. The story isn't parading this around to show how R-rated it is, it's not delighting in showing you the carnage; it's doing this for a point and spending no more time on that point than is necessary. It's a type of precision and moderation that I personally seldom see in manga, let alone this type of story. And goddamn is it effective.
Also if any of you were thinking that Akoya was already the worst, yeah, sorry, no lol
He's not done either.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It's Cosmo's haircut, it looks too much like an acorn, Akoya thinks he's in danger now
Gears
I now make shiity tanks for C&C Generals.
"Why cops aquiring a taste for human flesh is a good thing, actually, and how it helps with the homeless problem."
NYT pitchbot at some point in the future.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sometimes a man looks into the abyss and the abyss goes "skill issue."
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
I feel both can be true, honestly. No matter what Akoya was like, the Akoya we know is a crazed, absolutist serial killer, and can't be treated as anything else. This is a big part of Kengan Asura's philosophy, that the path you take is worthy of respect no matter your ability to achieve it, see Kaneda, but losing your way will leave you at best a pitiable wreck, see Haruo. Haruo only gets sympathy when he starts wanting to improve, until then, he's just considered kind of a freak, same with Akoya. He might have been better once upon a time, but in the here and now he's just a monster.
Also, Meguro's shtick is that he was born insane, and putting the optics firmly aside, I feel like Sandro recognises that's not how people work, generally speaking. It was just his character gimmick, that he never had a tragic backstory that made him like this, which is something considered unusual even by the unrepentant killers of the tournament. So he let Akoya have something approaching a period of rationality in the past because, hey, it's not like the manga's philosophically against badass vigilante justice, it's just against a cop doing it.
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- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Considering the rest of the manga, I would be shocked if there wasn't at least a little "Sandro thought it sounded cool" in the mix. Which is unfortunate, because making all the fighters kinda cool muddies political waters which are unavoidable in all but the most fantastical (or squeaky-clean) tournament arcs.
- Location
- USA
This reminds me a lot of Kenshin, to be honest, with the cannibalism and the murder cop (though they were different guys in that show). Regardless, I'd say anime, in general (psycho pass, etc), has immense regard for the cop who breaks the rules to get the job done, hard man making hard choices, etc. Light in Death Note is basically motivated by this, and the manga spends like half its length basically presenting this as a reasonable reaction to the entirely fictional (to the point of being the plot of Shaft) problem of 'defense attorneys too stronk, no way to get justice, if only our system could be a bit more carceral)
The reason I bring that stuff up is mostly just to say that defending Dirty Harry has a long and storied tradition in anime/manga, and wouldn't raise an eyebrow in polite manga author circles. Long way to say I think the author is basically not an irony guy, and Akoya is supposed to be read as presented. It's all the fault of that dang abyss, team, can't nobody tell when it gonna gaze into ya.
The reason I bring that stuff up is mostly just to say that defending Dirty Harry has a long and storied tradition in anime/manga, and wouldn't raise an eyebrow in polite manga author circles. Long way to say I think the author is basically not an irony guy, and Akoya is supposed to be read as presented. It's all the fault of that dang abyss, team, can't nobody tell when it gonna gaze into ya.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
> "long and storied tradition"
> cites one series that started in 2003 and one that started in 2012
I'm not saying that Japanese media doesn't have a history of idolizing authoritarian violence. I just don't think it's much more exceptional than American media's history of the same, or Japanese media's history of opposing authoritarian violence, or etc etc. It's absurd to argue that Kengan Asura is probably pro-Akoya just because of Death Note and Psycho-Pass.
- Location
- USA
I'm not saying that KA is pro Akoya, he is obviously the antagonist in this scene. I'm saying that the basic notion in manga of the heroic cop is a mighty one, and that the author spends a non trivial number of panels when compared to the backstory of other chars to clue the audience in to the fact that this isn't one of those heroic murderer cops. This one has been corrupted by, you know, corrupting forces. That's necessary precisely because Akoya's basic schtick wasn't guaranteed to draw disapproval.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
"And that is Justice."
"You didn't actually say anything, you just bit into your opponent like a wild animal!"
"Justice."
"Stop saying 'Justice'!"
Like, there was a period of good, normal vigilante justice before The Crazy set in?
"You didn't actually say anything, you just bit into your opponent like a wild animal!"
"Justice."
"Stop saying 'Justice'!"
So wait, did the manga say Akoya began engaging in vigilante justice, and then later lost his way?
Like, there was a period of good, normal vigilante justice before The Crazy set in?
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- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Brightflame
Lord of the Dance
- Location
- Inkopolis
Every Akoya scene really just makes me feel bad for Hiyama more than anything. Being an anime-only watcher, they never did go to deep into how the two met, but all the signs are pointing it wasn't anything good that resulted in her getting attached to the personification of police brutality, while also retaining enough of a moral compass to prevent him from going on a rampage during the tournament via cheating. She also seems disliked by the wider fandom for reasons I don't really know why.
...Never thought I would say that about any CEO, fictional or otherwise.
Their whole dynamic just...makes me angry.
...Never thought I would say that about any CEO, fictional or otherwise.
Their whole dynamic just...makes me angry.
Manic Dogma
This, I can't deny.
- Location
- The far side of tired
- Pronouns
- Whatever
I don't cover it, because the Extra chapter it happens in is smack dab in the middle of a double-chapter update but we do get to see how they met and what the deal is. Gonna put it in a spoiler.
Six years before the manga's start, Hiyama became CEO of her company after her father passed away. An inexperienced teen at the time, she was obviously pretty overwhelmed and leaned heavily on her cousin, and the vice-president of the company. He taught her the ropes, made sure she was okay, helped her close out deals, all that shit. Things apparently got romantic, because the next page we see them together with Hiyama in a little nightgown and he's also half-dressed.
Unfortunately he also has a garotte around her throat.
He was the one who had her father killed, and also killed his own father, the previous Vice President. All part of a plan to seize the company. That's when Akoya stepped in and snapped his neck. The chapter is framed as part of Hiyama talking to a therapist, and where we learn that the two of them know for a fact Akoya's killed innocent people during his crusade. Neither of them care.
Fun fact, Akoya intends to kill her eventually too, since she's related to the evil cousin. She's fine with this. Shit's fucked.
Unfortunately he also has a garotte around her throat.
He was the one who had her father killed, and also killed his own father, the previous Vice President. All part of a plan to seize the company. That's when Akoya stepped in and snapped his neck. The chapter is framed as part of Hiyama talking to a therapist, and where we learn that the two of them know for a fact Akoya's killed innocent people during his crusade. Neither of them care.
Fun fact, Akoya intends to kill her eventually too, since she's related to the evil cousin. She's fine with this. Shit's fucked.
Brightflame
Lord of the Dance
- Location
- Inkopolis
...Jesus Christ, this nutjob is going try to exterminate the whole damn human race if that's enough to make people evil in his eyes.
His moral compass is a goddamn roulette wheel.
- Location
- Leeds
The romance thing worried me because I thought she was quite a bit younger than she the wiki says (28). Glad to know that scantily clad under age stuff isn't going on in the extra panels.... Just good old creepy Kure girls stuff in the main line.