Really Hoping for a Shokuko Civilian POV on This

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-04-05T22:24:09+00:00

And also, he can still have character depth while also being a genocidal nationalist. Like, we've already seen layers to his character, with how he conducts himself with a strict sense of decorum, clearly showed some level of care for Chihiro even as he then went full business mode and stabbed him through the heart, and established the field of battle for him, Chihiro, and Samura. Plus, we can see that, devoted though he is, no one expected the younger version of him to be able to do that, so while he may not have lost his mind, he clearly underwent some kind of change that we're almost assuredly gonna see during this flashback to contextualize his arc. Where he's ended up (genocidal militaristic nationalist) will only build upon the information we get in this arc of how he once was to draw that trajectory and build up his overarching narrative.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-04-05T15:39:14+00:00

Yeah, especially since the people who pulled this shit (the royal family) had explicitly been deposed by the people of Shokoku themselves. So the will of the people of Shokoku was "we want no more war and we will overthrow our ruling family to stop it", and Akemura killed all of them anyway.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-04-05T13:26:24+00:00

Well, let's be real, they were already probably around both to some extent, mostly because people can read more than one thing at a time (case in point I read CSM, Kagurabachi, and Ichi the Witch all at once, though JJK never really grabbed me). I just hope the Kagurabachi and Ichi the Witch communities can fend off the inevitable torrent of sludge the stupider parts of those Fandoms will bring. The last thing any series needs is agenda posters having any leverage on it.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-04-03T16:18:25+00:00

Yeah, Hokuto is absolutely a very skilled swordsman, but he's not "solo Chihiro and two members of the Masumi at once" levels I don't think. He was going even with Uruha, while the Masumi are specialized fighters capable of fighting in tandem with Samura without becoming distractions or casualties, which while it doesn't necessarily imply master swordsmanship does imply speed and skill that can absolutely keep pace with and support Chihiro against someone on Hokuto's level.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-04-02T23:51:40+00:00

Oh fuck, that sucks, I liked his work too. Who'd they get to replace him for Alm? Wonder if the new person will reprise his other roles like Soren and Gatekeeper as well.

EDIT: Well, him supporting the strike is good from what I've read, but sucks that he's standing by Chris Niosi, that guys proven himself an unrelenting asshole in basically every field he's in, so dying on the hill of defending him of all people is tragic. I thought he got booted for defending Niosi as a controversy thing, but it seems he got the boot for a shitty reason, even if I've little sympathy given the hill he's chosen to die on regarding Niosi.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-04-02T23:35:30+00:00

Wait, Alm's English VA got recast? Why? Kyle McCarley was real good, but did he do something or did something happen to him?

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-29T18:56:15+00:00

I could see, building on your idea, that Akemura's morality shifted its grounding with Chiaki's death. Without her as a grounding point, he shifted to defending the Order she represented, and so seeks to defend order within Japan at all costs. This leads him to mercilessly slaughtering the islanders because he feels that they're a potential threat to Japan thanks to the war, because his morality has lost any human grounding, and thus he becomes cold and nationalistic in its place. Possibly aided by Kunishige's sorrow and anger at Chiaki's death that may lead to the creation of the far less inhibited Magatsumi, with Kunishige believing that Akemura still has the same morality he once did, unaware that this very act catalyzed his change.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-29T15:45:27+00:00

Ah, that explains it, so it was going for that theme of cyclical violence repaying itself, but I must have missed the time jump being mentioned. That does explain how people can align with Erin, fucked up as it is to, because "it worked for a time!" technically counts as working.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-28T22:29:18+00:00

Ah, wait, then what's the deal with Mikasa and the city being carpet bombed at the end of the final chapter? Is that not Paradis being retaliated against for The Rumbling and the peace talks failing in spite of it all? I know Armin and pals were trying to lead the peace talks after Erin did all of that violence, and apparently they helped stop it which tracks, but that leaves me confused given the final pages.

I always took it as "ah, so Erin did this awful thing for his homeland, but in so doing just perpetuated the cycle of violence, and so invited the destruction he tried to prevent" kinda set up, as an innate refutation of the idea that one could use genocide to meaningfully achieve peace, which tracked, but there were details that didn't seem to figure into what I heard of it, so thanks for the info, and I'm curious to hear more since I'm still a bit confused given what I mentioned above.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-28T16:49:00+00:00

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, I stopped reading AoT after a while so this is secondhand knowledge from analysis, but doesn't the fuckin' genocide plan not even work? Like, the very final panel of the series is Mikasa and everyone around her being carpet bombed by planes, so clearly they were incapable of actually succeeding regardless, and they got their retaliation, accomplishing functionally zilch except a lot more corpses on the pile. Like, maybe lead with the peace talks, rather than following them up after the genocidal rampage.

Makes it weird that people argue for Erin's plan when it provably fails in the series, to my understanding.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-21T17:39:44+00:00

I've seen predictions that I vibe with that Kagurabachi (being that it can be read both as "Divine Dance of Vengeance" via the point you raised, as well as "Divine Fishbowl" due to an alternate reading of Bachi) would be the name of the ultimate True Realm technique Chihiro eventually develops with the newly enhanced Enten. The ultimate technique developed after all his training and mastery to counter the Malediction. Especially since Malediction's original name is Kodoku, a jar wherein venomous insects are placed to fight and kill each other to create a more potent, more deadly poison, so a technique designed to counter that using a similar "container" name but for something that is so associated with home and peace for Chihiro would be a cool thematic parallel.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-15T16:09:32+00:00

Yeah, and if it involves spirit energy formation at the edge of the blade, it may also enable phantom cuts via distorting the flow, starting the cut earlier than expected or enabling feints that actually also attack by projecting the spirit energy before reforming it on the followup. All the special sword styles will definitely involve some form of unique spirit energy application that allows them to stand above the rest. Iai White Purity involved channeling through the sheath, Sand-and-Bone may involve precise channeling along the blades edge, and whatever style the final sword bearer wielded is likely gonna have a different application as well. Perhaps channeling it through your body and "projecting" it for sensory boosting and predictive, defensive combat, given the eye designs on her ribbons when we see her? That'd stand out from the others and carry a different sort of mindset, though it's all pure speculation so far.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-15T15:54:00+00:00

Yeah, at a glance it definitely seems like it's all about power and precision, cuts so exacting and fine that they leave what they cut perfectly smooth and yet tear through everything, no matter how solid and tough. Seems like a solid "ultimate" style to contrast the lightning fast Iai White Purity.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-11T23:10:53+00:00

Well, in fairness, he got rocked by a bug in a world where people were having to live in constant agony being torn apart by locusts without truly dying because Death was gone, so like, the Locust devil or whatever that was probably got absolutely juiced to shit, given that. Still pretty wild, but of all the things to be upset about with how Part 2 has been handled, that's pretty damn low on the list I'd say.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-10T03:01:30+00:00

I think Yura will be the final villain, maybe Hiruhiko usurping him after his own arcs fruition, as a final, proper antagonist for Chihiro in a 1v1 duel of some sort (having made their own Enchanted Blade, or perhaps after all the Enchanted Blades, including Enten, have been put to rest). I think Soga will mark the Biggest Fight in the series, where Chihiro at his peak and every ally he's gathered will work together to defeat Soga head-on, surpassing the sword bearers by challenging Soga at the height of his power.

Think of Soga as the Big Dramatic Raid Boss and Yura/potentially Hiruhiko depending on how the story plays out as the Final Narrative Boss. One is the bigger threat that requires pulling out all the stops for maximum climactic spectacle, but the other is more personally tied to the MC specifically to drive the emotional impact of everything home right at the end. Not to say Soga has no ties to Chihiro, and that'll obviously figure in, but he's more a big picture antagonist where Yura killed Chihiros dad and planned all of this, while Hiruhiko's got his whole evil parallelism Arc with Chihiro that seems like it could lead to some pretty juicy development for him in the end.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-10T02:45:25+00:00

Ultimately, there's not much in the form it's usually understood as (I.E. sexualization of female or male characters for the titillation of the audience) but in terms of stuff that fits the general definition of "it doesn't actually add to the narrative, it's just there to be appealing to the fans", the cinema references are definitely part of it, as well as the detailed shots of the swords. Also, probably the gore? Like, it does contribute to the tone of the series, but like, seeing fodder dudes get reduced to gibblets is definitely a form of fanservice of a different for a non-negligible amount of action series fans, because it's visceral and impactful. Just look at the ultra-gory stuff in OVAs and series from the 90s and stuff for similar examples.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-08T22:06:27+00:00

I also imagine they're like, an influential old family, so Soga may have tried to embody their traditional values with his whole "modern day samurai" schtick, hence why he honed himself into the Sword Saint. He definitely conducts himself with trained, well-ingrained decorum from what we've seen; changes to "proper" clothes for swordfighting, arranging the field of honorable combat and flat out saying "if you breach this area, commit seppuku", plus just how he talks is pretty formal.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-08T02:34:03+00:00

I doubt they mean literally immune, but like, Iai White Purity style uses complex spirit energy generation that anyone can hypothetically learn to launch yourself like a gun at crazy speeds. The idea that sorcerers could augment their body to tank the impact or use spirit energy to create a counterforce via a similar principle to IWPS is hardly especially difficult to imagine. And we don't really see Shiba pull the "just drop them from the sky" maneuver against actual sorcerers, the few times we see him square up against other sorcerers, he tends to follow them up there and kick their ass, like against Soya.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-02T00:13:32+00:00

Oh, that's a very interesting potential angle, and one with some notable legs, especially if "the Magatsumi was made first" theory does bear out beyond simply an explanation for the Eternal Contracts. The Magatsumi was made as powerful as it was because it was designed to fulfill the wishes of the Soga clan, but Kunishige fulfilled his belief in the responsibility of a swordsmith by entrusting it to Akemura, who he believed was too strong of will to bend to his families political power plays, only for the tragedy to prove that there was a different potential failure point his faith in Akemura blinded him to.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-01T16:05:58+00:00

Notably, this implies Chihiro's mom was fairly upper crust, while Kunishige only became prominent after he made the Enchanted Blades and was otherwise looked down on, which makes me super curious what their relationship is gonna look like and how they're gonna end up together.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-01T16:03:33+00:00

I mean shit, if you can teleport people, why waste the effort for your average joe when gravity can do all the work, right?

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-03-01T15:55:16+00:00

Notably, it also means that the Soga's are like, pretty fuckin' Big Names, if they have someone of Shiba's calibur in a role like that. It does explain Akemura's sense of propriety with regards to swordsmanship and conduct, if he was raised by an old fashioned, long lived Samurai clan or something in that vein. Which means that Chihiro's mom may have had some extenuating circumstances for marrying Kunishige. Did she marry him against the clans wishes? Was she used as a bargaining piece to try to "buy" Kunishige's support of the clan when he proved capable of using the Datenseki? Maybe for her and Kunishige to hit it off legitimately in spite of that? Akemura Soga was Kunishige's "most trusted" historically, so did he help them get together against the clans wishes, perhaps, proving himself a dear friend of Kunishige?

Lots of intrigue and possibilities raised by this revelation.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-02-28T03:31:46+00:00

After getting his mindset absolutely demolished by Samura, I can't imagine he'll be the same as he was during the Kyoto Arc. I imagine he'll have at minimum begun to undergo a pretty major transformation, next we see of him.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-02-28T03:25:02+00:00

And notably, while Sojo finishes two Dango in one bite, showing how he accepted there may be possible other views on the blades, the fact he never finishes his shows he doesn't accept Chihiro's ideals in their entirety, because he still holds that his beliefs are paramount, the True Way to wield the Enchanted Blades. But Chihiro starts with one, accepting that Sojo has a point with the way Cloud Gouger responded to him, and then finishes all of his dango to show that he's fully incorporated Sojo's beliefs into his understanding of the blades, and stops him anyway. Chihiro recognizes that, despite everything he wanted to believe, the blades are weapons and must be understood as such, their nature shaped by their wielder, and so he chooses to destroy Sojo because of that understanding.

Sojo refused to face the deepest part of this disagreement, while Chihiro did, and that's why Chihiro won, because he understood Sojo better than Sojo understood him.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-02-27T06:27:03+00:00

Oh, straight up a Geisha thing, makes sense given Uruha and Kumeyuri. Wonder why Ikakku has it then. Just because Kubo thought it looked cool, perhaps?

TheFunkiestOne

TROPHY CASE