#Ep 290 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bnhaobservation · 10 months

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can you tell us details about the Himura family?

That's a difficult question as there are very few info on the Himura family through the story.

The first time we hear something about them is in chap 31 and all we have is Shouto saying Enji used his wealth and fame to get Shouto's mother's family to agree to let him marry her in a Quirk marriage...

...as his mother had a ice Quirk, the implication being that, since she had an ice Quirk, at least one of her parents should have an ice Quirk as well since children inherit their Quirk from their parents.

There's something else we know, which is that, by the time Shouto gets burned, his maternal grandmother is alive and not living with them, as his mother phones her to ask her for help...

...and calls her Okā-san (お母さん), which is the standard way to say mother in normal families (people from upper class families might use, for example, the much more respectful Okā-sama (お母様)).

Still, for a long while, beyond the incident during which she accidentally burned Shouto, we won't know anything about Shouto's mom, not even her given name, and the "Ultra Archive" book won't be of any help either.

We'll have to wait till chap 187 to learn she's called Rei...

...as well as learn Natsuo's name and age.

The "Ultra Analysis" book also hardly offer any info.

But still... no info about the Himura. In chap 290 Touya will claim his father forced Rei to marry him

We jump to chap 301 in which we see Enji taking part to what is supposed to be a Miai (見合い) with Rei, as the anime confirms.

'Ichiō, miai to iu katachi o totte wa iruga, koreha “kosei” kon’ 一応、見合いという形をとってはいるが、これは"個性"婚 “Just in case, although it was made to look like an arranged marriage meeting, this was a "Quirk” marriage.” [Ep 130]

Here we finally learn that Rei's family name is Himura.

The guy talking is, as confirmed by the anime, the family head (当主tōshu), who could be Rei's father or grandfather. In the manga we hardly see him but in the anime we do.

He doesn't seem so old he's her grandfather so I'll assume he's her father instead... but take it with a huge grain of salt as Horikoshi might have had different plans for that guy.

The guy is absolutely delighted to give Rei to Enji.

'Himura mo katsute wa meika to yoba reta yuisho aru iegara ni gozaimasu ko ― top Hero-sama no hanryo to shimashite wa jūbun ni tsuriai ga toreru mono to' 「氷叢もかつては名家と呼ばれた由緒ある家柄にございます故―トップヒーロー様の伴侶としましては充分に釣り合いがとれるものと。。。」 ``The Himuras also come from a distinguished family with a prestigious lineage, so I think she would be a perfect match as the Top Hero-sama's companion…''

So we learn that the Himura are a 'Meika' (名家) which can be translated as noble/distinguished family with a 'yuisho aru iegara' (由緒ある家柄) which can be translated with a prestigious/with a long history social standing/lineage.

In the anime Endeavor also confirms this, adding also how they now were having economical troubles.

'Katsute wa meika datta Himura-ke mo ima wa aoikitoiki…’ かつては名家だった氷叢家も今は青息吐息… “The Himura family, which was once a prestigious family, was now in deep distress…” [Ep 130]

The house we see in the episode might be the Himura's one...

... though this isn't mandatory as Miai can also take place in other locations. But since there's no intermediary, it seems more likely Enji either discovered from the Quirk Registry (introduced in chap 8) about their Quirk or was told about them and just went to visit them.

Theoretically they might have been the ones who proposed to sell Rei to him, but since he's generally always blamed for 'winning Rei over', I'll assume he's the one who approached them.

Just to be clear, in Japanese Miai it's perfectly okay to investigate the potential partner (they often actually check more than one potential partner), so Enji knowing about Rei's family isn't as weird as it might seem here in the west.

According to Rei and to Enji, Rei could have refused the marriage, so it's not like the family forced her to go at it against her will.

This still seems to clash with what young Touya says:

Touya calls his grandmother Obā-chan (おばあちゃん), which is an affectionate way to call your grandmother (he might have used the more respectful Obā-san (おばあさん), and his view on them is sympathetic (they were really poor so they had to sell his mother off) so it can be that he has a good relationship with his grandmother.

As for the bit about Rei having no choice despite Enji and Rei claiming Rei had a choice... likely, what the whole means could be that even if Rei wasn't blackmailed into marriage or told their parents would kick her out of the house if she weren't to marry or something like that... due to family obligations she had to agree (more on the topic later on).

We won't hear about the Himura again until chap 387 in which Geten will reveal to belong to the Himura family as well as a bit of their backstory.

So what we can do of all this info?

The Himura started as 'Shōya' (庄屋), "village heads". Basically a Shōya was a person who, during the Edo period (1603-1868), was in charge of the village affairs under the direction of the magistrate and worked as the leader of the village. The term was used predominantly in the Kansai regions (other regions used other names), so we can assume the Himura were originally from that region.

To be more exact, the office of Shōya was generally established between 1688 and 1704.

To get a better idea of how rich Shōya could be, even though they technically were considered peasants, many of them were financially better off than samurai, or even top class Daimyo, lived in large mansions, owned large tracts of farmland , and were also intellectuals representing the village due to their work involved in document creation . The families that served as Shoya during the Edo period were often from prestigious families or previously were powerful vassals of warlords of the Sengoku period (1467-1638).

Their duties included tax collection, general village administration, management of public natural resources (such as mountain, field, river and ocean) of a village, as well as negotiating with the territorial lord as the representative of the villagers. The most powerful od them, administered between a dozen to several dozen villages, and ruled an extremely large territory. Some of them were given the privilege to bear a surname and to wear a katana and were treated like members of the samurai class. Their duties also included the communication of laws and the coordination of lawsuits.

Just so you know, Japanese surnames were not really born until 1875. Before, the Japanese mainly carried the name of their clan. Before this date, only people of high rank such as nobles and samurai had a surname. The common people used, in case of need, the name of their place of birth, for example, their village.

Now... Himura is writte with the kanji for "ice" (氷 'hi') and "gathering, collection" (叢 'mura')... but the interesting part is that 'mura', written with this kanji 村 means "village".

So it's possible originally they were the people from the Hi village, and then they took the word Himura, changed the kanji so as to make it sound less common people and turned it into their surname... either by becoming important enough to gain the right to a surname or much later, in 1875 (I tend to think they gained the right to their surname but that's just me).

Now... Geten talks of a 'Nōchi kaikaku' (農地改革) which means "agricoltural revolution" or "Land reform".

Although this can refer to various land reforms, generally speaking, in Japan, when you talk of such thing, you talk of the reform of the agricultural land ownership system carried out by the Japanese government in 1947 under the direction of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.

The purpose was to reduce the wide gap between absentee landlords who owned agricultural land but did not farm it themselves, and tenant farmers who rented the land in exchange for giving the landlord a high proportion of the crop. The land reform laws were intended to limit the amount of farm land one household could own to about the amount of land that one family could farm themselves, without outside labor. The government forced absentee landlords to sell all their land to the government. Farmers were allowed to own a small amount of farm land that they could rent out to others, and had to sell any excess to the government. The government then sold this land, usually to the tenant who had been farming it. The result greatly improved the living conditions of farmers.

Why Geten says the Himura mantained their wealth and pride creating branch families?

Likely the Himura owned more than the land allowed by the reform... but my guess is that, in order to continue controlling it, they decided to split their family in many branch families and share the land among them so that the control would still remain in their hands even if they would technically comply with the law.

I'm speculating, I don't know if this is how they handled the whole thing but it seems the most logical assumption.

Demo chōjō ga okiru to tomoni kasokudo-teki ni reiraku shite itta でも超常が起きると共に加速度的に零落していった But as the exceptional happened, things started falling down at an accelerating rate.

Chi ga mazaru no wo kirattanda 血が混ざるのを嫌ったんだ They hated mixing their blood.

The way Geten claims it was the advent of the extraordinary which speeded up their downfall as they didn't want to dilute their blood seems to imply only when they turned out with having an ice Quirk, they decided to marry between branch families so as not to dilute their blood... but it can be something that was present prior to it and merely became worse after it.

During feudal Japan clans traditionally encouraged cousin relationships to perpetuate family dynasties, and the Himura split their family on paper to keep control of their land... so it can be the Himura always married between themselves.

It's hard to say.

How distant had to be those distant relatives the Himura married each other off?

By law, in order to marry among them they had to be at least second cousins or more distantly related (4th degree or higher).

Anyway Geten blames the Himura downfall to the thinning of their numbers.

Honestly though, I tend to think it's more like they were bad investors/administrators and so they lost their own capitals.

I mean, whatever you think about their marriage policies, they shouldn't affect the money they had.

Geten also says the Himura family came to an end when the main family started selling themselves.

What does this mean?

The family is carried on by a male heir. Likely Rei's family had no male children and, since Rei didn't marry a Himura, the family couldn't continue.

Well, to be honest, in theory it could have continued if Enji had agreed to take Rei's name (yes, the husband can take the wife's surname in Japan) but, of course, Enji wouldn't have agreed... also the Himura could have adopted someone (it's something that's often done exactly so that the family wouldn't end)... but since they were very focused on blood, they wouldn't have likely done it.

Probably the main family kind of kept the organization of the other families because Geten said with its end, the branch families are scattered and he ended up being picked up by Re-Destro.

Geten, we know, was something I would call a 'Quirk supremacist'. He believed those with the strongest Quirk should rule.

This might fit with how, in his story, he paints the Himura as refusing to marry outside the family because they didn't want to mix blood after the advent of the extraordinary.

The saddest part of all this though, is that it looks like the Himura continued to organize their children's marriages. Rei's options were apparently a distant cousin or Enji. She was likely never expected to marry out of love, her family would have always decided for her.

Maybe all she could decide was actually that, if to marry a cousin or marry Enji, which would give a new meaning to why she said her options were limited.

Doylistically speaking, the whole Himura plot feels like Horikoshi's way to explain why Enji's kids have more predisposition for ice than for fire to the point even Touya reveals to have a minor ice Quirk...

...as well as a way for Horikoshi to lessen the fact Enji plaied with genetics by distracting us with the fact the Himura family is basically breeding pure blood ice Quirk users by likely 5 generations, Rei being an exception to the rule as she wasn't used to breed more ice Quirk users.

Don't take me wrong, narratively it's not a bad idea per se... but it's the long story of a family that comes really late in the story, hits the Todoroki only tangentially (they've strong ice factor due to it) and involves directly no characters we know of, Rei's parents basically being non-characters and Geten having an already perfectly funtional backstory as a victim of Re-Destro ideology.

So Geten's chat felt more like an info dump, and while I love everything about the Todoroki... I wish this revelation had been placed in a more harmonic way through the story.

Same with Enji's father's revelation though, it can be that originally the Dark Hero arc was meant to be longer and this revelation was meant to find space/foreshadowing inside it and then instead it got aborted and this was all Horikoshi could salvage.

We'll never know.

Thank you for your ask!

#Ask #Todoroki Rei #Geten #Todoroki Enji

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