Thread by @PikkuProgram

Kagurabachi Chapter 61 review & analysis thread: 🧵

#Kagurabachi
#カグラバチ

Twitter Blue's over, threads can finally be in legible bite-sized bits and I can now cover more things in my video review.. Is that a win? Or a loss. Who knows, time will tell: Anyways, on to the chapter!

Chihiro actually gets to rest? A WHOLE 2 DAYS? HE ISNT PUT INTO LIFE-CHANGING CONFLICT? Ah, Hokazono bless you. A cafe, and the confirmation that Chihiro will infact hold these new scars for the rest of serialization, how cool!

If you were to give me money based on just how many times this series has used food as a symbolic device to display all different types of communication, be it bonding, character-building or in this & Hiyuki's case, strategizing.. I'd have a million dollars.

Being the new master of the Masumi has some thematic connotation; Put it like this. They WERE meant to be tools for someone's disposal, yet 90% of their dialogue this chapter is fully emotion-based. That means they're gaining autonomy.. Gaining, personality.

The leader of the Masumi depicts how they act and in what way they portray themselves. Samura wanted them to act like humanbeings, while Chihiro wants NOTHING from them, which further emphasises the earlier command that they were to follow ("lets annoy the hell out of eachother")

Now, here's what I hinted at last week right? He hasn't wielded the blade since. And if he hasn't wielded it, can we really be certain that its even contracted? Furthermore, what if the CONTRACTION happens with the ("first time") the blade's name is chanted? We have proof of this

Obviously, if he's not contracted (yet) then the question is, will we see his original sorcery? Does it still exist? Did it come back when the contract broke? Or is it forever gone due to the contract being made in the first place. I'm.. sensing something cool happening soon.

And for a scenic-setpiece, this dialogue basically confirms that once they do rematch, it will be by Chihiro's command, that of wielding the Enchanted Blade. I can imagine just how epic a sequence like that can look, and I'll be sure to QRT this tweet with it, when we get there.

And again, in form of accident that I can't ever truly predict, its becoming less & less likely that blondbeard is the traitor, due to his very obvious negative demeanor against literally EVERYBODY. It feels like he's putting up an aggressive front, to hide his fragile true self

This line further implies confirmation of Uruha's death while giving this really twisted angle into how Samura views the death of these bearers, as a form of ("care").. Now, we already kind of knew this, but the more you think about it, the more sickening that thought process is.

Viewing himself as a "retributionist" that "lifts curses" from those shackled by them: In a sense, he's taking matters into his own hands, for he thinks this is "for the greater good"... An example is Uruha's death, another one here is Samura's daughter. RIPPING AWAY her identity

The juxtaposition behind using such words as "freedom" and "liberty" while literally talking about getting rid of who she is essentially is; removing a core part of her, making her be ... not even HALF of what she should be. How is that freedom? It's ... "blind" to think it is..

Adding onto further owl re-contextualization, Samura has been without "control" over her daughter for years. Not having ("sight") on her must've hurt, made him anxious, and worried. And so the first thing he does after getting Tobimune back being the owl, just.. makes sense.

I love this line in specific, because lets just think about how tongue-in-cheek it is:

"USING A RELATIVE AS HOSTAGE..!?"
("Don't worry, we'd never do that")

This subtle nod at Kyoura's madness is so fucking nice, love a good lil' dialogue flashback like this.

Remember, the Kamunabi are essentially the government. Government, Legislation; Government, finance; Government; Healthcare. Healthcare, medical records. We're being briefed this information, because in these medical records lie some UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS... About who? 🤷‍♂️

It's interesting that in the case of most Hishaku incidents, the topic is usually murder, and or the set-up of which. But here, we're not trying to kill Samura's daughter. Instead, its UNDO THE SPELL CAST ON HER, and kidnap. Again, leverage. If she's dead, no leverage to be had.

The undoing of the spell in specific is fascinating, because we know they broke the Shinuchi ("SEAL").. But this is something way weaker, atleast in comparison. So do the Hishaku have a ... person, whose expertise it is to break seals? If so, is this the intro to that?

If we're talking narrative sense, the chapter obviously introduces Kuguri (whose name means plum, FYI) and the nameless girlie whose clearly different from the one in Chapter 2. Kuguri has a blade with him, can we assume he's the next blade wielder? So it WOULDN'T be him.

Good to note, and this was to be expected from the way Hishaku introductions have gone so far, but they're clearly in TEAMS. Hiruhiko & Jeanist, Yura & Tree Hishaku, Kuguri & Emo Girl. That's 6/10, we're missing 2 teams across Japan, works like a charm.

Now, Kyoto is a very specific place. For starters, our main man Subaru holds his sushi-shop somewhere around these corners. Funny, as the introductory page to Kuguri is infront of a fish-isle.. So what does that tell us about the blade he's carrying? Well, its obviously Subaru's.

Look at something else here though: Maple. Leaves. Kagurabachi is SUPER intentional about visual display, in fact you haven't seen these leaves anywhere apart from one specific sequence of events. Samura vs. Uruha. What these leaves represent? White-Lotus Iai.

And I mean.. this really tracks right? Samura puts his daughter in a school where he grew up, esp. in terms of who he became as a person (due to the Iai school).. Does this also confirm Uruha as Kyoto-originated? If so, dope. And that ALSO then means so too, is Subaru? Crikey.

Wowza, this is definitely something. Listen, Sojou's effect on the series is undeniable. His thematics echo far throughout the series, probably even to its finale. But OUTRIGHT LIKE THIS? God, Takeru loves that guy and YOU KNOW IT. WHICH IS WHY I'M SO EXCITED FOR THE SWORD SA-

How can you not make Kagurabachi a gambling allegory when the act of not wielding a blade designated to you is called "rehab".. Like, ARE WE SERIOUS HERE? HE'S FOLDING ORIGAMI, HE'S SO DEPRESSED. POOR HIM. GIVE HIM HIS BLADE. LET THE ADDICT GAMBLE IF THATS WHAT MAKES HIM HAPPY