I’ve Seen People Debate On How Long The TBHK Story Has Been Happening, And When Certain Events Should’ve

So Damian wins the carnival prizes for her and Anya kills the bugs for him when they’re dating?

Double meanings in furigana in Mission 1 and Twilight's idea of self

Inspired by this post by @yumeka-sxf.

I've been rereading the manga with @xxscarletxrosexx and @mossshrooms (join us here at ep 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), which means a collective effort of extreme close reading. For my part, I try to bring the original jp version and the translated tw version into the discussion, and guess what? Endo has been sneaking many details into furigana, and I think these details set the tone of Twilight as a character.

Marked alongside with kanji, furigana is normally used as the phonetic notation of the kanji. However, especially in mangas, at times furigana are used to show the true meaning/ double meaning of the characters' words instead of showing the pronunciation of the kanji.

It all starts when, for the first time, Twilight thinks about his codename Tasogare, or rather, the other meaning of Tasogare. The furigana/pronunciation notation is normal here, but the kanji or the word is not Twilight. It is "who is this".

Now, the word, or the kanji, for Twilight (Tasogare) is 黄昏. The word Twilight 黃昏 is said to be derived from the phrase "who is this 誰そ彼" - as it's getting dark at twilight, it's difficult to recognise faces. It's fitting, because disguise is his specialty. Even without disguise, spies should "become" the role they play during their missions:

In English, the line is simply translated into "I abandoned my identity when I became Twilight." I suppose a more literal translation could be: "I abandoned my name and my face [to become] this 'whoever that is'." He will become whoever the mission requires him to be. His codename thus becomes part of his reasonings why he has to carry out his mission.

There is an irony in identifying himself as "who is this", or "whoever this is", because that indicates a lack of self-identification, especially when this scene happens right after he suppresses his emotions to undertake such an unreasonable, almost impossible, task. Why is that so? Because he's been emphasising on the fact that he has abandoned the sense of self since day 1 he became a spy. The sense of self is symbolised by his face, his name (the train scene as shown before), his ID card, and his "desire and determination" 執着 to get married and to live in ordinary bliss (the late night alleyway scene as shown below).

This is the first time he identifies himself as Tasogare, and at the same time he creates a distance from this identity, Twilight, as he skips right to 誰そ彼 ("who is this") instead of calling himself 黃昏 (Twilight). There seemingly is an identity - Twilight 黃昏, but without the sense of self - "who is this" 誰そ彼.

In the next scene in which he identifies himself as Tasogare, another double meaning appears:

This time it's slightly more straightforward. The furigana of 黃昏 is not "tasogare たそがれ" - it is "ore オレ", meaning "I".

A mental loop is thus created with the help of the double-meanings largely indicated by furigana - I am a spy. -> A spy is whoever the mission requires him to be (in short, "who is this"). -> "Who is this" is Twilight. -> Twilight is me.

And that is why this panel, also shared by yumeko, is important.

When he says 子ども (children), in furigana it reads as じぷん/自分 (self). He breaks the mental loop as Anya reminds him of himself as a child. Himself before becoming a spy. His goals when he decided to become a spy. We see a glimpse of [redacted], the self he thought he had already thrown away together with his name, his face, and his hopes and dreams.

This resurfacing of his sense of "self" seemingly sparks new flames of passion towards his work as a spy, which would slowly lead him to rediscover what his "mission" really is. However, his internal conflicts would also start brewing. He talked about having thrown away his desire and determination to get married and start a family along with his self in order to become a spy. He has been rediscovering this long lost/repressed self, including these hopes and desires.

In no way I'm trying to fault the translator(s) - I think the English translating team has been doing a good job in localisation in a limited time. Inevitably, there will be, as scarlet likes to say, cultural discount, especially due to Japan's high context culture. Endo is a diligent author, and this also shows in his word choices. It is surprising to see that many details he has included right from the start, and it does show that he goes back to them from time to time.

PS. There are two more details about "Agent Twilight". When the higher-ups are having a meeting to see whom they could assign the mission to, Westalis is still Westalis in katakana.

In the newspaper which Twilight reads on the train, the furigana for Westalis is "our country" わがくに. The English translation for the whole sentence is "Thanks to you, the minister has survived another day, to the great benefit of Westalis." At the end of the day, no matter how much they emphasise on their intention in "keeping peace", this is still an information warfare, and Westalis has to be benefited from his work. "Our side" has to win. (Duh.)

Twilight, however, did not even react to this. There is an irony in how they call him 黄昏くん, just for him to respond (internally) with switching the codename 黄昏 to 誰そ彼 when he caves in and accepts the mission for the sake of "peace" and "the people's lives". There is a subtle sense of disagreement or even disobedience hidden under the act of compliance right from Chapter 1.

Anyway, happy sxf update this Sunday. If you are interested, join us to reread the manga. ...Bye. (Runs in the inability to end posts.)

pretty mentally unstable momma

if in the new timeline in the manga there are no school mysteries then that means that the creation of the mysteries is related to the death of the twins? or is it to the pit god?

what i love about Maomao is that she is ALL for the girls like she doesn't judge or look down on the concubines she calls the courtesans she grew up with her sisters and when Lady Lihua looked like she was about to fucking deck Lady Shin she literally giggled and was proud that Lihua was standing up for herself like Maomao is the NUMBER ONE supporter of women and strong women shes a cheerleader for women and i will always love that about her

14 dazai from last year i forgot to post 🤧

IT'S DONE This was actually one of the very first ideas I wanted to draw for skk, because (as someone rightly pointed out in the tags) they are just so in synchro when they work together, I can't help but think that would translate for dancing as well

some warmth for atsushi because he has suffered enough

Hanako as a representation of abuse

This is an extensive post of how abuse afflicted Yugi Amane and even Hanako's behavior well into afterlife. Of course, emotional abuse is directly related to physical abuse, so I'll be talking about them together for the most part.

1. Behavioural Signs in Yugi Amane

We don't know why or who is behind this, and I won't particularly talk about it since it's not the focus anyway. We know his abuse started somewhere during his first year and was repeated until his suicide, july of his 2nd year. According to Tsuchigomori, he was badly injured every single day, so that's at least around a year worth of constant physical abuse.

However, it's important to note that it's very likely that before the physical abuse, emotional abuse was already consistently taking place, with multiple signs- He's isolated, experiences social withdrawal and has no friends, skips classes & school activities and has poor academic performance that contrasts his actual capabilities.

His emotional development is poor; He has difficulties expressing and understanding his own feelings, very likely a factor in the degradation of his and Tsukasa's relationship where Tsukasa can't understand Amane and Amane can't understand Tsukasa either due to lack of proper communication, and something that carries well over into the afterlife as Hanako.

The physical abuse worsened his already messed up mental state, and everything ultimately drove him into depression. He engages in behavior that puts his own safety in jeopardy (Like when he was way too close to falling over the window, both of his feet were at the very edge of the window frame), and while his love towards space stayed the same, he was overtaken by feelings of helplessness.

Even a rock could travel from the Moon to Earth, which gave him hope. It's important to highlight the word "even". He claims that if 'even' a rock can go this far, so can he, suggesting very low self-esteem. It's an object that carried him through many hardships because of this hope, but everything got so bad said hope just made him feel worse. At some point he started experiencing active suicidal ideation, marked by him giving away his treasured possession to Tsuchigomori in order to rid himself of this "hope", and declaring that he decided he wouldn't "go anywhere", a clear metaphor for deciding he would give up on his future and take his own life. He decided he cannot go anywhere near farther than a rock.

2. Behavioural signs in Hanako

As we mostly see his ghost self, we have a clearer vision of Hanako than we have of Amane. We can easily see his horribly low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. When we catch a glimpse of his perspective, we see how distorted his sense of self is.

He repeatedly claims that he isn't worth anything and that his existence itself is a punishment, and so refuses to disappear, considering that it would only be a release from the torment he deserves.

He hates himself down to his core, although this is a combined result of both depression via his experienced abuse and his PTSD of the murder-suicide. As Amane, he was capable of saying that it's fine if he's tormented this terribly, that even if there's no reason for it, he forgives it, massively contrasting Hanako who is incapable of forgiving himself, claiming that even if he had a super special reason for Tsukasa's murder, there's not a single justification that would warrant forgiveness. He's capable of forgiving anything that anyone does to him no matter how horrible, but not of forgiving himself.

As such, verbal abuse directed at him is taken positively by him, such as when Akane states that "reformed villains", refering to Hanako, make him sick, continuing to talk about how he can never take back what he did, essentially degrading him. He was given very harsh words that visibly hurt him, even implying that it triggered his PTSD for a moment, yet he could only claim that Akane is the type of person he likes most, as he was essentially validating and feeding into Hanako's already deeply negative view of himself.

This is also supported by his time in the Picture Perfect arc via his belief that he's undeserving of anything better for himself. Hanako said it himself in 71 that he wished he could've lived a normal life with Nene and Kou, and the Picture World reflected exactly that.

It's a world that was shaped exactly like he wanted, and that's exactly why he hated it. He knew what his reality was, and furthermore, he knows of his crimes and how he was the one who destroyed his own future, and so thinks he's undeserving of it.

He refuses to look at the stars for too long, because that reminds him of the hopes and dreams he gave up on in reality- He has no right to dare pick them up again, further highlighted by him refusing to go on the moon in the End of a Dream. His wish wasn't granted while alive, and now can't be granted after death.

In his helplessness, he is unable to reach for better circumstances for himself. After all, he's quick to adapt to whatever bad thing comes his way. "It's just how the world works", and he has to accept it.

However, we know how that doesn't apply to the people he cares about. He may have given up on everything, but he is unable to give up on the people he loves. No matter how much he suffers, no matter what he has to do, he wants the people he loves to find happiness.

No matter how much he tried to tell himself he isn't supposed to care, he desperately wants them to live the fulfilling lives he didn't have. And if he is the one that gives them the salvation they need, he finds the indulgence to want a small part of him to live through them, the indulgence to hate himself just a little bit less.

He actively attempts to hide his past from other people, being content with them only knowing basic information about it (that he's a murderer), mainly because he doesn't want to appear vulnerable or know how much of a horrible person (according to himself) he actually is.

When it comes to people he has a good relationship with like Nene, he's actually afraid of them finding out, and even months after promising he would tell Nene everything, he's still reluctant to do so due to overall difficulty with opening up- exposure to characters or topics that relate to his past more often than not results in reactions varying from heavy emotional distress, expressing aggression, anger, guilt and/or shame, to reliving traumatic events. Avoidance seems to be his main method of coping.

Hanako suffers from emotional dysregulation. He not only has high difficulties processing and expressing his feelings, but has difficulty picking up on others' emotions as well. For half a century he had been socially and emotionally neglected while also being incapable of ever maturing past the age of 13, much less healing from his past experiences. They rather worsened due to a supernatural lifestyle. When he first met Nene, he wasn't behaving appropriately at all due to this and their relationship went through many difficulties due to his lack of boundaries and poor emotional intelligence, and him communicating his true feelings is always a rare occasion.

Not only did he not take into account other people's feelings ("Yashiro will hate it, but it's ok, she'll move on someday and live her life", not taking into account and understanding others being possibly spiteful over his actions and direct their hate towards innocent parties), he doesn't even take into account his own ("Why? Good question. Why am I doing it?" and "Even though I was prepared to never see you again, I'm so happy to have you back. Weird, right? There must be something wrong with me"). However, due to Nene's influence, he seems to be a little more upfront with his feelings lately.

He's also incredibly self-reliant. Both events of Picture Perfect and the Severance were a result of Hanako doing everything by himself without consulting anyone. He decided by himself that he's the only one that should dirty his hands as he was already a sinner, that it's easier to dump everything on the one that's already guilty of similar crimes, because he didn't have any other solution in sight. It's important to note that he took the *entire* blame for the Severance- Even if all he did was feign ignorance to no. 6's actions.

Him being grounded in the miserable reality he finds himself in is both a strength (as he is quick to adapt to his conditions) and a major weakness- He'll only be able to see the most practical, yet unfortunate approaches.

In the Clock Keepers arc, he wanted to trust Kou when he said he would save Nene, but his attempt quickly turned to failure when he was not seeing any tries, let alone results. He was even upset at Kou when he considered that if he wanted the job done he should have just done it himself, knowing that his methods aren't ones someone would approve of. Methods that he doesn't approve of himself, but carried them out anyway in his despair.

In fact, Hanako did not break free from the shackles of abuse. He is a child that has been placed in a position of leadership filled with various responsibilities for fifty years. He is committed to his duties as a mystery after being promised salvation by 'God', believing that his sins would be forgiven, but he's essentially just being used.

He is, in present time, still repeatedly emotionally abused, manipulated and exploited to fulfill others' agenda. After all, control is at the heart of abuse, and his vulnerabilities will continue to just get taken advantage of as long as he's only capable of masking and avoiding them. However, Nene's influence upon him seems to make him capable of slightly improving himself, even if it's just very small steps at a time.

It is 2024 I am once again asking for a tsubasa reservoir chronicle anime remake