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drawing on magma :-)

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Yomi no Tsugai (or Daemons of the Shadow Realm, as we anglophones are doomed to officially call it) has just been announced for a TV anime adaptation. This fact is very exciting to its large Japanese fanbase and all 12 people who read it overseas. Despite a pedigree that really should carry some weight over here (English-speakers enjoyed Fullmetal Alchemist as much as everyone else did) it seems like it's not really finding an audience in the English-speaking fan scene, and I have been looking. Most notably, there's been a real dearth of meta writing. It's still relatively early days for the series, admittedly - 43 chapters in, and narratively around what I'd call the start of the second act - but that's still quite a lot of manga already. I think it's enough to at least start talking about its themes.

Now, I know that by talking about theme so early, I risk being completely wrong. Everything I'm about to say might stop mattering with the very next chapter. Or perhaps I'm right about the themes, but they won't be executed well. I kind of doubt both, though. The themes of Hiromu Arakawa's most similar work, Fullmetal Alchemist, were clearly evident from the get-go and paid off very carefully. I'd hand that woman a blank cheque any day of the week. And if I'm wrong, well, I at least hope I will have inspired more people to be interested in this series. It's my favourite new thing in a long while.

So, what is Yomi no Tsugai about?

I won't spend a lot of time here talking about the plot of YnT. If you haven't yet read it - well, you should, but the basic gist is that protagonist Yuru and his twin sister Asa are, through a fluke of their birth, capable of gaining - by dying - powers that act as trump cards within the magic system of the world (which is a bit like Pokemon if every pokemon was two pokemon that represent a fundamental conceptual opposition). Unfortunately, that means that everyone they've ever met is trying to kill them, and Yakuza shenanigans ensue. It's very good, you should read it.

But what is YnT about, really? That's a bit less obvious.

Let's start with Fullmetal Alchemist (since I strongly suspect that any YnT reader is already familiar with Fullmetal Alchemist, and if they're not, they have a busy week ahead of them). Fullmetal Alchemist wears its theme on its sleeve. It's this:

As befits its alchemical inspiration, Fullmetal Alchemist is about what it means to be human - to be finite, limited, and subject to forces greater than yourself. The story comes back to this theme again and again, as various characters try to defy their limits and come up short. The value of human life is called into question again and again in the series. The inciting incident is Ed and Al's failure to recognize the value of human life in pursuit of their ambitions. And eventually, Ed finds peace by accepting his limits. The villain cannot accept his limits and basically... defeats himself by trying to exceed them. It's a story about coming to terms with your humanity, and that theme is woven deeply into every aspect of the story.

I think Yomi no Tsugai is playing to the thematic rafters in the same way. It's also going for a theme just as universal. However, its conflict is less internal than Fullmetal Alchemist's. Most of what troubles Yuru and Asa are the aforementioned people trying to kill them. The philosophical core of the series is also more external to our two leads - the different factions of the series are defined by different philosophical stances, and everyone involved is quite happy to verbally explain why they think they're right. The conundrum facing Yuru and Asa is over who to trust, and who to ally with. This is a sharp contrast from Fullmetal, where the villains are self-consciously inhuman and not particularly interested in justifying their actions to humans. I don't mean this as a dig at Fullmetal at all, but I'd say that YnT's tone is overall a bit more adult than Fullmetal. The protagonists are a little older, a lot more mature (at least on the surface), and a lot more conflicted over what the right path forward is.

If Fullmetal Alchemist is about what it means to be a human, Yomi no Tsugai is about what it means to treat another person as a human. What it means to respect their autonomy, to think of them as having a perspective, and (to borrow a phrase) treat them like an end in themselves, rather than a means to an end. That's right, we've gone from alchemy to Immanuel fucking Kant.

Yuru and Asa's lives are both defined by violations of their autonomy as people. Asa is kept in a literal cage once, a metaphorical cage once, and a more abstract cage of low self-esteem afterward. Yuru thinks he's free, but he too is hemmed in by the deception of his Truman-Show-does-Medieval-Times village and its gang of roving murderers. Asa is treated like an object, and Yuru is treated like an animal. All they want is to live like normal human teenagers.

In contrast, all of the major factions want to use the twins and their powers for various ends. The twins even have a little sit-down with a bunch of the Kagemoris in Chapter 10 where they all explain their different stances on the issue of how Yuru and Asa should be used. We already know that Higashi Village wants to use the twins to conquer the world, and Nishino village wants... well, they seem to want heads for some reason, but there are other options! The Kagemoris mostly represent more philosophically live moderate options.

Gonzo wants to lock the twins away, destroy Higashi Village, and end the whole thing:

Asuma instead wants to use them to instill a sort of benevolent dictatorship:

And it's at this point that Yuru gives a straightforward presentation of our main theme:

No person is intrinsically a source of conflict. It's the act of using someone as a means to an end that creates conflict. The only right way to treat Yuru and Asa is as free humans with a perspective of their own, capable of making their own choices.

Hana makes the same point later:

Treating Yuru and Asa as means to an end - no matter how noble the end - is wrong. That's our core theme.

So, let's build this out a bit. Because it wouldn't be much of a theme if it only applied to Yuru and Asa, right? The whole point here is that you can't make exceptions in how you treat people for people you think of as sufficiently exceptional. People are people.

One thing I have not yet discussed is what makes Yuru and Asa special. What property they have that makes them such a ripe target for exploitation. The power to claim Break and Seal.

Break and Seal are, if you'll forgive the metaphor, the administrator commands in the operating system of the world. The whole way the power system works here is based on contracts forged between tsugai and humans. The contracts are mutually beneficial and voluntary - not unlike contracts between humans. But Break and Seal impinge upon the voluntary nature of these contracts.

With Break, any contract can be severed, no matter what the will of the contracters says. And with Seal, the tsugai are literally objectified - turned back into inert relics. Usually, tsugai are only set loose when they fail their master and their master dies - that is, when they fail to uphold their part of the contract. Tsugai usually only turn back into their relic form when both human and tsugai agree to do so.

Break and Seal override both the terms of the contract and the consent of the parties involved. They don't treat the tsugai as people. And as the great scholar Bunbun so eloquently says, that's wrong.

Tsugai seem to be able to live basically forever, but they are only actually alive when they're in a contract. In their relic form, they are objects. In their stray form, they're like animals, stuck aimlessly wandering whatever place they're in. There's an interesting parallel here to how Asa was objectified and Yuru was treated like an animal by the village. Wonder if that will be relevant later...

There's more I want to say - for instance, about the fascinating role of death within the series - but I'll leave it there for now. This is already too long. I'll be back for more later!

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Stray YnT thought. Heavy spoilers up to Chapter 42, and beyond if my theory is right:

Despite the fact that the story has deliberately left open whether the twins' parents are alive or dead, I always assumed they were alive on broadly Doylist grounds. If a story is leaving it unclear whether someone very relevant to the story is alive or dead, they're probably alive, and you'll be seeing them again at some point. It's just economical storytelling. You don't create that tension unless you can pay it off, and 'yeah sorry they actually are dead' is one of the least interesting ways to pay it off. I assumed that Ivan was claiming to have killed them either a) because they had fooled him and faked their death or b) as a lie to trip Yuru up. Especially after the story returned its focus to Asa's intuition that they're not dead right afterward. It's a little bit inelegant to create tension by having a character straight-up lie to the audience, but I'll let it slide.

But now we know a little bit more about how Nishino Village operates. And there's another option. An option that would make what Ivan said true without compromising the narrative structural features that make me think they're alive. Like always in this story, you're invited to consider two opposites (parents dead or parents alive), but the truth is a secret third thing.

Those west coast guys sure love their recycling, don't they?

And didn't Right notice something interesting in one of the incubation pots?

And didn't Ivan specifically say he cut their heads off?

And didn't the goons who raided the Kagemori compound specifically note that they needed Asa's head?

I've got a bad feeling about this.

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just read ynt chapter 43 oh my god .is this the start of arakawa killing off some of the major characters of the story .... AHH

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middle school izuku :(

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trying really hard not to think about izuku midoriya boy you are so important to me. happy birthday i have nothing to give to you

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A puppet with human heart

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Me: Yeah YUTS is done, I'm happy with the ending and I'm not planning on continuing it.

Me, six years later, wearing a clown nose:

WOMP WOMP

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WAHHHHH MY FAMILY T_______T

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🦋🔪

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YURU IN THE DAEMONS OF THE SHADOW REALM ANIME TRAILER I FELL TO MY KNEES THIS LOOKS SO FUCKING PEAK .BETTER THAN FMA IF I DARESAY OSUFHDHEJSURGEHEUEH

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hello,

i have some friends in the ftmblr community who'd love to buy a print of your trans Edward elric art and I was wondering if you sell them anywhere?

thanks!

AH OMG WHAT THATS SO SWEET ;__; ?!?!?! i didnt have plans to make prints of them or anything but maybe i can set up a preorder if theres enough interest? feel free to message me and we can work it out lol. thank you sm that means a lot to me!!!!!!!!

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the way you draw Ed is so ridiculously beautiful bro

love your art!!!

THANK YOUUUUU he is so pretty i love him T_T would love to draw him more if i had the time

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the breakfast club but make it the dekusquad ✨✨✨

💖my commission info💖

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went to a local used bookstore and found a copy of ynt untouched in its wrapping for $7... easiest purchase ever.... a shame whoever gave this up didn't touch it at all though they're missing out on peak

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May I ask which program - if at all - you are using? Your art is amazing! I don’t know where to start when it comes to learning digital art.

Thank you!!!

hi! I use procreate for iPad :-) tysm !