Blade of the Immortal Vol 20: Demon Lair

[meganbmoore]

Hmm…I thought Vol 20 was supposed to wrap up this arc. Or is that just the Japanese editions?

This has been an interesting arc for Rin. The thing about Rin is that she’s never going to be conventionally “badass.” Blade of the Immortal isn’t the kind of series where you go off in a cave/on a mountaintop/under a waterfall with a master for two weeks and come out five levels stronger, and it isn’t the kind of series where you’re born an amazingly awesome fighter. Unless you’re Makie. In which case, being naturally, amazingly gifted makes your life hell. Not to mention a bit on the whiny emo side. But unless you’re Makie, you have to fight and train and sweat and bleed for years to get good. And if you start out years behind everyone else, then you have to do something to compensate and catch up. If you’re Hyakurin, you do this with poisons, a distance weapon, and a lot of confidence. If you’re Rin, you do this by being smarter (and often crazier) than the person you’re fighting.

Rin without Manji (or, for that matter, Anotsu) is a very different creature than Rin with Manji. She is, very simply, better. In complete honesty, I think she’s just a sixteen-year-old girl (or is she seventeen now?) who knows that vengeance quests and a life on the run aren’t what she’s supposed to be doing, and who was raised with the expectation of having someone to take care of her. But we’ve seen Rin on her own before, and we’ve seen Rin having to take care of someone while being hunted (if largely against her will) but now we have Rin on her own (or at least, without her relative support system) having to be the leader, having to be the planner, and having to figure out how to save someone. And it’s very intersting to see the length she’ll go to to accomplish her goals, especially when almost anyone would label her crazy for it. Actually, people we’d normally label crazy do call her crazy.

But seriously, her cargo was gunpowder? And she’d figured out how to use her darts as flaming projectile weapons?

Doa asks if getting whipped a hundred times made Rin smarter. I think she meant to say “crazier.” Unless it’s normal for people to apologize and get flustered because they’re accidentally cutting off their hostage’s airways.

Personally, I think Masked Itto Ryu Guy Whose Name I’ve Forgotten bailed on her and Doa before she got ideas about how to use him. Actually, I’m pretty curious about what he’s up to. (Some people know. Spoil me and die.) I also like that he’s apparently on the forgetful side.

I have to say, I’ve never been into Manji/Rin as a potentially romantic pairing (though I have no objections to the series going there, if that’s what Samura’s eventual intention is) but I’m pretty sure their reunion made fans of the pairing happy. Made everyone happy, for that matter. I love how the reason he didn’t respond until after she’d taken Burando down was that he couldn’t believe that she’d changed that much while he was in prison. And then he was torn between being impressed that she made it through the entire prison with only one other girl to help her, and sighing because she didn’t have a plan beyond getting to him.

And did anyone else really enjoy the gender reversal of the girl fighting her way through a prison to rescue someone, and the guy using a poisoned hairpin to take someone down? Though I can’t help but think that, if it’s been in Manji’s body for that long, there’s the risk of Habaki getting more than just poison in the deal.

I’m not sure what it says about me or the series that I just assumed Isaku would still be alive and apparently immortal. I mean, let’s face it, unless you’re Rin’s parents, a random villain (and only sometimes) or Magatsu or Anotsu care about you (unless you’re Makie), you don’t seem to stay dead in this series. I did like his and Doa’s backstories a lot, too, and that they’re both of mixes heritage. But now I want to know how she ended up with the tattoo that she does have. And I am amused by her casual description of how the two of them basically took down the entire jail.

I also loved Hyakurin’s two cameos, and can’t help but wonder if Giichi looks so surly because she took his sake away, is out doing things while pregnant, or if he’s thinking “But now Manji and I might have to actually talk.”
 

Comments

[sureasdawn.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that I really hoped Isaku would stay dead? I was spoiled accidentally that he was still alive, but I didn't know how Doa was going to react. I was shocked she didn't immediately start a berserker rampage.

I liked seeing Rin go all crazy and being creative with her typically useless throwing knives, and I loved it when Manji wasn't sure if it was her because she seemed more grown up. Okay, I was totally fangirling. The hairpin thing was pretty cool, too.

Demon Lair II is due out in June or July I think.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I was surprised at how calmly Doa took it, too.

There was a lot to fangirl in this volume, I think.

[melanierain.livejournal.com]

Yay, insightful commentary! It always gladdens me to see BoI discussion. The fandom is unjustifiably small!

This has been an interesting arc for Rin. The thing about Rin is that she’s never going to be conventionally “badass.”

That's true, but she has toughened up a lot since the beginning. I think she improved by leaps and bounds after her ordeal in Kaga.

Not to mention a bit on the whiny emo side.

Oh, Makie. Why is it that the one time a female manga character gets to be canonically the best fighter in the series, she has to shrink from it and be horribly tortured? (I mean, sewing your hand? A bit melodramatic, no?)

Rin without Manji (or, for that matter, Anotsu) is a very different creature than Rin with Manji. She is, very simply, better.

I've never shipped Manji/Rin, because Manji veers a bit too close to "father figure" for my comfort level, even if the series seems to be pimping the pairing (and if Isaku/Doa seems to be a blatant parallel). I do like Rin better on her own, which is why the Kaga arc--even after she met up with Anotsu--was so much fun. She's done some pretty crazy and hardcore things--dislocating her own finger to escape from being tied up, scarring her belly to pretend she had a Caesarean section--but she's also getting better at strategizing and thinking ahead. I think Anotsu's changing reactions to her each time they meet reflect her growth, as Anotsu, of all people, is not easy to impress.

I also loved Hyakurin’s two cameos, and can’t help but wonder if Giichi looks so surly because she took his sake away, is out doing things while pregnant, or if he’s thinking “But now Manji and I might have to actually talk.”

I wish there were more Hyakurin; I love her (deservedly) bitter, cynical, jaded self more than anything. I have to wonder how much time had passed in the manga storyline, since one would think she'd be showing.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think the thing with Makie is deliberate. It's not a time that's kind to women who follow "the warrior's path" in the first place, and people tend to be naturally bitter towards someone who is better than them without even trying. So you make it a woman, and it's ten times worse. I think Makie is Samura's answer not only to fiction where this one person is amazingly better than everyone else and everyone thinks it's cool, but also to fiction that's set in a society that doesn't view women as equal where no one blinks at a woman being a better fighter. And so her natural gifts set in a place that won't accept them destroy her. In contrast, you have Rin and Hyakurin, women who usually wouldn't be much more than the damsel, but who fight ith all their might against that same society.

I agree about Anotsu's reactions to Rin. There's also the added element that she does still intend to kill him (technically) which is another reason for him to pay a different kind of attention to her than others would.

I've never really gotten a paternal vibe from Manji. More like he cast himself in the role of big brother because of her age, but wasn't opposed to changing the role when she got older. Still, I'd rather the series not go that direction, simply because I like a central, non-romantic, non-familial m/f relationship that's based on a close bond.

I'm guessing it's been about 3 months since Beasts. IIRC, we saw Hyakurin's arm still injured after Manji and Rin got back, and then Giichi took Manji to Habaki pretty quickly, hich was a couple months ago.

[melanierain.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree it's deliberate. Makie's burden is tripled by the fact that not only does she have to bear the resentment of those who can't bear the idea at someone being born better than they can ever hope to be, she has to face the prejudice of those who can't accept the idea that that person is a woman as well. On top of all that, she has to deal with being seen and treated as a weapon by the man she loves, at least in the first few volumes. So while I agree that it's deliberate and that Samura is using Makie to Make A Point about female warriors and society's expectations and blah de blah, it's hard to read, particularly when you contrast Makie with, say, Hyakurin, who laughed in the face of her rapists and torturers and is still sane in spite of all the incredible hardships she's endured.

All the venom seems to have gone out of Rin and Anotsu's relationship; they seemed oddly chummy in the Kaga episode, compared to his earlier contempt. I'm pretty sure he's going to bite it at the end of the series (just speculation on my part), but I'm also pretty sure that Rin will not be the one to do it. I'm also sensing a cognitive dissonance between Rin's professed hatred of useless bloodshed and her stated intention to kill Anotsu.

I will grant you that the Rin/Manji vibe was more brother/sister initially than anything else, but whatever it is, it smacks of incestuous weirdness. I all but covered my eyes when Rin stole a kiss after the Kaga arc. Eeeyurgh.

I really, really like the Hyakurin/Giichi pairing for some reason, even if it arguably comes off as a war-buddy camaraderie than anything else (Hyakurin mumbling "I love you" aside). They've both lost sons! They've been screwed over by Habaki! They drown their sorrows in sake! They can be fucked-up and bitter together!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think most would agree that, should they both survive (strangely, I put decent odds on that) Hyakurin and Giichi will stay together, either married or in some unofficial "as good as" capacity. If you look at earlier volumes, there actually do seem to be some hints on that front, all the way back to Giichi apparently not going to sleep until her nightmares are over back when they first met Manji and Rin.

I think Rin's psychological state in general, not just her stance on killing, is a major focus of the series.