#Umitsubame

[tanuki-kimono]

Moody sea scenery for this antique summer kimono, depicting umitsubame (storm petrels) over raging waves. By the sandy shore on hem, bloom nadeshiko (pinks) and kikyo (Chinese bellflower).

[sanguinosa-blog]

The formation of the Palestinian state is a starting point.

On the 12th, the United Nations held an emergency special session and adopted a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. 153 countries, more than three-quarters, voted in favor, while 10 countries including the United States and Israel opposed, and 23 countries abstained. International backlash against the United States, supporting Israel and backing the massacre, is increasing.

◇ Israel is likely to lose support from the international community.

The genocide by the Israeli military against Palestinians has devastated the northern region, and the attacks have shifted to the southern region. Of the 2.2 million Gaza residents, 1.8 million evacuated according to the Israeli military's "evacuate to the south" instructions, but now those evacuation locations are under attack, with hundreds of locations being bombed daily.

On the 13th of this month, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that the death toll since the start of the fighting on October 7th was 18,412, and the number of injured was over 50,000. The Israeli military began a "water siege" operation on the 12th, pouring seawater into underground tunnels to kill Hamas leaders, and the brutality of the Israeli military is going beyond the norm.

Even US President Biden, who vetoed the resolution calling for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council on the 8th and defended the Gaza massacre as an exercise of self-defense, criticized, saying, "The Netanyahu government must change."

◇ The "two-state solution" proposal is being discussed once again.

In 1947, a year before the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution dividing the region into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs. However, in 1948, after Israel declared independence, five Arab League countries declared war, leading to the First Arab-Israeli War. As a result, Israel won and established a state, and many Palestinians were expelled as refugees.

The Labor Party once pointed out, "If the Arabs had accepted the 'Palestine' state proposal at that time, the history of Palestine might have been different. The subsequent struggle between Arabs and Jews in the Palestinian region has become barren, grim, and a quagmire with no prospect of resolution until now" ('Kaitsubame' No. 1157, October 2, 2011).

Amidst such circumstances, the international momentum for the "two-state solution" has increased since the shock of the October 7th military attack and Israel's Gaza offensive. Wang Yi, a member of the Central Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party, who was previously passive about the Palestinian issue, stated after the UN Security Council meeting on November 19th, "The 'two-state solution' is the only way to solve the Palestinian issue," and proposed the early convening of a large-scale international peace conference with authority and effectiveness (China declared its participation in the power struggle in the Middle East under the pretext of promoting peace). On November 27th, the "two-state solution" was agreed upon at the Arab-EU Foreign Ministers' meeting.

The international momentum for the "two-state solution" that has grown in the wake of the October 7th attack has led to proposals from various countries, including China, the United States, and bourgeois nations, to create an international institution or something similar for the formation of the Palestinian state, and there is no objection to the active participation of Palestinians. "Two-state solution is impossible," says the one-state solution advocate (Iran, Pape). "Reconstruction of relations under the principles of correct democracy" and "Victory in the liberation struggle means creating a democratic state that includes all the people living in that land" ('Ten Myths About Israel'). Israel has begun a war of aggression to oppress and control Palestine. Beautifying democracy is nothing more than following bourgeois states.

◇ Israel and the United States, refusing peace, must take responsibility!

"(The Netanyahu government) does not want anything like approaching the 'two-state solution'" (Biden), and the Netanyahu government has consistently taken a position of refusal. However, support for Netanyahu in Israel is low (28% on November 11th), and he is instigating a war for war, even encouraging the war for the destruction of Hamas, to maintain power. The Israeli military announced that it would take several months to destroy Hamas.

One of the factors that made the resolution of the Palestinian issue difficult was the "Vision for Peace" proposed by Trump in 2020, which advocated a "realistic two-state solution." Based on the current situation (Israel occupying 61% of the total and only 39% of the area under Palestinian autonomy, which is also fragmented), the proposal suggested a "two-state solution" for the benefit of Israel. Taking advantage of the proposal, Netanyahu has expanded settlements in the occupied West Bank, suppressed Palestinians, and under the protection of the Netanyahu government, 700,000 people have been advancing the Israelization of Palestine in 150 settlements, violating Israel's domestic law.

The U.S. has supported Israel economically and militarily as the frontline against the Arabs. Israel does not allow less than 39% of the Palestinian Autonomous Region to be under the control of the autonomous government, and it controls everything, including infrastructure, economy, and movement. The U.S. has nurtured and assisted Israel in becoming a militaristic state that oppresses and dominates Palestine.

If the United States seriously considers the "two-state solution," it must immediately stop military support for Israel and withdraw Israeli troops and Jewish settlers from the West Bank Autonomous Region. Only when the United States refrains from exercising its veto power at the Security Council and takes the first step toward "sanctions" against Israel, will the construction of the Palestinian state make significant progress.

The Netanyahu government, which justifies the extermination of Palestinians for "its own security," is trying to turn Gaza into "Auschwitz." The accomplice United States must take responsibility for Netanyahu's "great crime."

◇The formation of the Palestinian state is the starting point of the workers' struggle.

The misfortune of Palestine lies in the corrupt Abbas government of the autonomous region, which manipulates aid to various countries for its own benefit, and has become a corrupt regime tainted with corruption and decadence (demand for Abbas's resignation was 75% in a December 20 survey). The political opposition to this has been represented by the struggle of religious political organizations, such as the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), rooted in the teachings of Islam. The urgent task for the people of Palestine is the construction of a Marxist political organization that fundamentally criticizes the ideological positions of nationalism and Islamic movements.

For the workers, the "two-state solution" is neither the goal nor the endpoint but the starting point of the struggle. With the formation of a democratic state in Palestine as a starting point, the working class of Palestine, within the framework of the "nation-state," initiates a struggle to elevate themselves to the ruling class—namely, the struggle of the working class, with the liberation of labor as its objective, begins.

The formation of the Palestinian state will bring conditions for the Palestinian workers and Israeli workers to overthrow their respective governments based on a common position of internationalism and to unite in solidarity for the liberation of labor.

The task for the Israeli working class, which has undergone capitalist development, is the overthrow of capital's dominance and the liberation of labor. This struggle is also a fight to overthrow the Netanyahu government, which oppresses and economically usurps Palestine, and its coalition with religious Zionism and extreme right-wing parties advocating Jewish supremacism.

The fusion of Israeli and Arab workers will be realized within the context of the workers' world revolution that transcends "ethnicity" and the nation-state.

Workers Party aiming for the liberation of labor. from ”Umitsubame” No.1465 24/12/2023 https://www.facebook.com/SappDasKapital/posts/pfbid02UvDADEeDtMF8N4o97AY1yRcX15xR7qx65Apz5cxpvxdmkUVdDF646mejWWeduFT3l

[j-fashion-wearer-otd]

Today's J-fashion wearer is Umitsubame Sunka from Cipher Academy! She wears kogyaru!

[freusan]

THE GYARU!!

[therosecrest]

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.49 thoughts

[What is a "Yout?"]

(Contents: character design, author philosophy, Toshusai analysis)

ONE YEAR DOWN, BABY, THREE TO GO!!! It's been pretty touch and go, and probably will continue to be, but the longer it goes the more likely Cipher Academy is to build up a strong enough following to keep going, so fingers crossed that the volumes keep selling well!

This week's chapter opens with a beautiful color page showing off everyone's color schemes (except the teachers' for some reason) and a quick review of the major codes we've seen so far. Most of the hair colors are pretty standard, Koshibai and Umitsubame notwithstanding, but the biggest surprise for me has to be Dekiai, who I would have bet money was blue, but nope! She's pink! I guess water can be any color if you dye it, I just figured the idea would be for her to look like a melted Kogoe. Maybe they went with pink to obscure that a bit more or because they looked too similar in color?

Speaking of Dekiai, the jury for Toshusai's trial being several Dekiais with different pigtails and beauty marks was a really fun touch, I especially liked the one whose hair popped when she felt scandalized. The fact that the prosecution is named Hakuai and clearly doesn't have any shading suggests that she's all white, so I wonder if perhaps each Dekiai was a different color with a unique name. I'm also curious if they're all just the one Dekiai playing multiple parts, or if they're each their own unique AI. I'm inclined to believe the former, but who knows

Another cute detail, when the Dekiais call for a guilty verdict, their beauty marks turn into spades. Looks like someone read Homestuck

Onto the meat of the chapter, this is really the type of philosophy that Nisio Isin loves to talk about, huh? There was an entire chapter in Medaka Box about how there are no easy or right answers when it comes to ethics, and it could be argued that that was one of the major themes of Medaka Box as a whole. This chapter's suggestion that the concept of a person is a societal construct is certainly novel, and while it does go out of its way to paint Toshusai as the good guy in this scenario, it's also clear that we're not meant to necessarily feel good about it. Her actions freed slaves and toppled an oppressive government: objectively good! Her actions did also create child soldiers and result in half a million deaths: objectively bad. Reducing whether this was a good thing or not to the number of lives "created" and lost leaves...a bad taste in the mouth, I feel. Like, did Toshusai intentionally give weapons to the kids with the intention of creating an uprising? It doesn't sound like it, it sounds like she was asked to create a weapon a child could use, and then it happened to end up in the hands of children who needed liberation

Intention and consequence are only linked via action and otherwise have no bearing on each other; whatever Toshusai wanted to happen when she made the Gun Eye is irrelevant, the fact of the matter is that people died because of a weapon she created, at least that's how she sees it. Even if she did liberate slaves, it's not like she's a revolutionary who carefully planned out how to save them, she was a child who made a toy that was lethal. A weapon's purpose is to kill, a sentiment that I've surprisingly seen crop up a lot in Jump lately, and Toshusai knows that the only outcome that was ever going to come of making the Gun Eyes was that people would die

Of course, how Toshusai sees herself and how everyone else in the story sees her is only part of the equation - the rest is how the fans see her. Is she a liberator or a death dealer? Which is more important, the right to freedom or the right to security? I have my opinions on the matter, but I can't claim that my opinion is the objective correct one or that other readers will feel the same

I'm still endeared to Toshusai and I still like her as a major lead; she did something that helped people, but through a method that she resents, both because there might have been a way to bring about a peaceful resolution and because even if there wasn't, the presence of that method now means that more people are in danger in the long run. Even if the child revolution was a net gain of life and personhood, the Gun Eyes still exist and are still put in the hands of children, and probably not to overthrow their oppressors. Toshusai means to fix that mistake and prevent any further deaths by any means necessary, and that's a goal I can respect

[freusan]

this gyaru is bouncing!

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.50 thoughts

[Iroha's Last Reward]

(Contents: Oboro analysis, Iroha analysis)

Nisio keeps bringing up Waon Wasurenagusa, I'm so sure she's going to turn out to be a real person one of these days

Anyway, I clocked that this was the Prisoner's Dilemma pretty much instantly since I spent so much time playing Virtue's Last Reward back in the day, and I'm willing to bet a lot of other folks did too

What I didn't see coming was the reversal of the usual parameters: the conceit of the Prisoner's Dilemma is that you can either rat out your partner or keep quiet, but this is a false binary, and ignores the possibility of one participant shouldering the blame alone. In VLR, they only give you the two buttons, Ally or Betray, but reality rarely forces such strict ultimatums

Oboro taking the third option is a great character moment for her, especially considering that her introduction gives the impression that she's the ruthless type with all her talk of killing and revenge and such. We've seen that she's actually surprisingly sweet, having a habit of conspicuously hiding her face when she laughs because of how hard jokes affect her, and we could conclude that she and Umitsubame were probably pretty good friends because of how frequently they were seen together, so it's not unreasonable for her to be the type to sacrifice herself for her friends, it's just a huge contrast with her presentation

I'm sad that Oboro's being taken out of the running like this, but her sacrifice and the dangerous implications therein definitely raise the stakes for Iroha to reach the end. Before it felt like he could just take his time (aside from the potential detriment of keeping the glasses on too long), but now he's not just fighting for himself, he's fighting to save someone else, so even if he has the option to take a break (a mechanic I'm expecting to see down the line) he won't be able to bring himself to take it

I also like this subtle evolution of Iroha's character - Rikukeito taught Iroha that a code's creator can be read without their presence, so Iroha being able to predict Oboro's decision without reading her expression shows that he's taken that lesson to heart and isn't relying only on what he can see anymore. How this will come into play later, especially against people whose personalities he doesn't know, is hard to predict, but I'm confident that Iroha will only continue to get stronger and seem more like a literal telepath the further we go

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.39 thoughts

[Handing Out Sad Backstories Like Candy]

...So Yugata's parents killed Nutaba's, right?

We don't know when Nutaba's parents died, but Yugata's perpetrated a "fatal scandal," meaning that their actions weren't just a threat to national security, they actually resulted in someone's death, and we just learned the bare bones of Nutaba's past in the same chapter, suggesting that there is likely a connection between the two

While we're on the subject, Yugata's parents were apparently planning to "subvert the government," suggesting that they were plotting a coup. Knowing Nisio Isin, the plot of said coup was likely pretty broad and complex, a conspiracy deeply intertwined with the lives of our cast. Perhaps certain terrorist groups were enlisted to cause some damage, or political cartoonists spread propaganda to bolster or overshadow certain incidents? If we end up learning that Iroha is either somehow a major puzzle piece or an indirect victim of all of these circumstances, you won't catch me being surprised

I'm really glad that we're getting a little more insight into Yugata's character, and considering how much of a role she's played so far, I'm starting to get the feeling that she's either Nisio's favorite or the stealth protagonist of the series. The "Dark Hero who couldn't become the Main Character" as it were. She was probably the most major recurring element of the first arc (being the source and solution for Iroha's trauma), a persistent mystery (which we're only just now beginning to really solve), and her lack of involvement in the previous arc was a deliberate point of concern for the plot that was clearly meant to lead into her involvement in this one. She's getting a shocking amount of focus, but due to how her character is written, she wouldn't really be a good fit for the main character role: she's too passive, too subservient, and too high-leveled, so she has to be a support role that the main character takes particular interest in in order to get the kind of focus that would allow her comparable development to what Iroha does

It almost makes me think that she's meant to be Iroha's primary love interest, but I maintain that this is meant to be a harem series, especially when you consider that Anonymity easily has the shippier interactions and Iroha's been the thirstiest for Yosaimura so far

I have to imagine that one of them is the one that he wants to convince to join the mission since they're the most skilled members of the class outside of the ones that are already recruited. I anticipate that one or both of them will join up in the end (hopefully Anonymity), but if neither of them is the one he's targetting, I think it might be Karigane. With her love of mysteries and puzzle-solving (and their brief but strongly friendly interaction), she seems like a good pick for a mission like this

Oboro seems like a shoe-in from the Pending group since she was the first Glasses Wearer to be introduced outside of Iroha. Her initial antagonism felt like it was meant to signify she was more important than she ended up being in the following 30 chapters, so I'd like to see her make a stronger contribution. If Oboro joins, there's a good chance that Umitsubame will too, mostly so that their joint backstories can be elaborated on (I doubt Umitsubame just agreed to be Oboro's glasses holder on a whim)

After that...I don't know, honestly. Everyone else has been so undeveloped that I could easily see any of them being explicitly ignored or given the opportunity to shine. I'm personally most interested in either Yorokawa or Mamushihishimeki, but Mokumokuren seems like one of the more interesting personalities to follow. It's really hard to say, so I'll save any further speculation for when we know who's actually on the list

Pivoting back to Yugata, her relationship with Toshusai really seems to have had a drastic impact on both of their personalities. Toshusai insisting that Yugata be her maidservant in lieu of their inability to be friends feels pretty similar to Toshusai trying to indenture Iroha in chapter one. I'm wondering if perhaps Toshusai was just kind of messed up by that moment and doesn't really have a good concept of what friends even are anymore. I could easily see her making Iroha into a gofer, but...I think she really just wanted to be his friend and didn't know how to ask like a normal person. Maybe she thought she was too scary to get a normal answer, maybe she was just trying to strongarm him into getting rid of the Glasses Weapon and wanted to scare him straight, who knows?

Yugata's personality in particular was really mangled by her past, though. Let's jump back to chapter 11, the end of the lipogram battle.

"How long will people keep killing each other?"

"I couldn't find the words to answer your question."

"Please stop calling me Tayutan. We're not little kids anymore, young miss"

Yugata's parents' actions seem to have nearly sparked a war, so given the proximity of these moments, this question from Iroha being the moment that she decided she was too chummy with Toshusai, it seems that the lipogram battle was just as traumatizing for her as it was to Iroha. Reminded of her parents and the war she just barely managed to stop, she also remembered that she had sworn to distance herself from her friends so as not to betray them again. "Tayutan" is a mark of shame, proof that she couldn't stay true to her own word, that she had cheated and allowed herself to stay close to and potentially endanger those she wanted to protect at arm's length

Or at least, that's how it looks from here. I think there's a lot more going on than just that, but we're only going to get a better understanding of it once we've dug deeper in, so we'll just have to wait for that

The thing I'm really looking forward to beyond understanding Yugata, though, is seeing how she moves forward once she forgives herself and allows herself to live the life she wants. Will she smile more? Will she call Toshusai "Kyorarin"? Will she give Iroha a nickname? Will she cut her hair???

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.25 thoughts

[Terms of Engagement]

...Oh, “Code Emperor” as in like...a metaphor for the Emperor of Japan. Not the Emperor of all Codes. Presumably the Academy General is the Shogun?

I love Iroha showing up to the meeting with Oboro’s glasses. It’s so glaringly obvious that he’s wearing a Glasses Weapon, especially with how poorly it fits his aesthetic. I don’t remember if I talked about it when learned they belonged to Oboro, but of course Umitsubame is the one who wears them normally; they fit her aesthetic and can fly under the radar, whereas on literally anyone else, ESPECIALLY Oboro, they stick out like a sore thumb, and Iroha is no exception. I do wonder why he couldn’t just take his usual glasses back from Toshusai. Maybe it’s a pride thing? Or maybe they thought the CLPs wouldn’t recognize this one?

Toshusai shows a bit of her cute side this chapter too, saying that Iroha is meeting the CLPs face-to-face only to correct herself with “butt-to-butt.” It’s fun to see her flubbing her penalty game that she’s been keeping up with for a decade, showing that she isn’t flawless and perfectly prepared with these things. She realized she had a missed opportunity, and she corrected it. A nice little subtle moment that really helps continue to endear her to us

Toshusai borrowing Kogoe’s “can’t say that too loudly” catchphrase was also cute, while also being potent with her mentioning that there are people among the CLPs that she doesn’t want to interact with. I’m not sure if she was just teasing Kogoe or if it’s actually meant to be a secret, but either way it’s interesting that Toshusai is going out of her way to avoid someone. I figured her as the type to always take a direct confrontation over a roundabout or clandestine operation like spying through a Glasses Weapon, but that was just the vibe I got from her, not something that’s ever been particularly established

Jumping ahead a bit, there were actually two people she wanted to avoid among the CLPs: Rikukeito, who seems to be a chuunibyo (with a dragonfly theme based on her wings and the fact that her given name is Tonbo), simply because she can’t stand her personality; and Kubinashi because of whatever incident happened between her and Toshusai’s clique. While Kubinashi isn’t the reason that Toshusai skipped out on the meeting, she does admit that “the four or us don’t want to see her face.” As it stands, Toshusai’s clique is only three people, so that creates a mystery to the fourth. Could she mean Nohime? Or was there another member of her clique who was lost along the way? Are they dead? Disgraced? Are they Kubinashi in a “from a certain point of view”-type of semantic twist??

With how much build-up Kubinashi is getting, I’m shocked that she’s Iroha’s first opponent, I would have expected her to be the final boss of this round. I don’t remember if I said it already, but she gives me the impression of Oudo from Medaka Box, introducing the threat of the Flask Plan to the audience and becoming the arc antagonist. Maybe she’ll find a way to make a comeback through some loophole or something, but as it stands I guess she’s just meant to make the stakes immediately personal

Since she was the first one we actually saw and the first to speak, I get the feeling that Zakuroguchi is the most important, so I’ll be expecting her in the final round. However, since she’s going up against Hakanage, the one with the hidden face, I could see it going either way, but right now Zakuroguchi feels more likely

With only three pairs to this tournament, I’m guessing the final round is going to be a three-way battle, like how the CLP election was a four-way battle. Having met Yonakiuguisu already, she also feels like she’s meant to be more notable than Rikukeito, but all of this feels a little too predictable so far. There’s no way this is going to go nearly as smoothly as I’m expecting, and that’s probably going to be thanks to the five-man cells. For the sake of getting to see multiple characters and not being stuck with just five, I’m willing to bet that the make-up of the teams will be variable; maybe Iroha, Toshusai, Yugata, Omomuro and Nohime against Kubinashi, then Iroha, Anonymity, Yosaimura, Oboro and Kasuri against Zakuroguchi? Probably not that cut and dry either, but something to that effect. The contestants on the other teams will likely end up causing some kind of trouble, which will circumvent the tournament structure entirely and create a new conflict, if I had to make a wild guess

Kogoe cheats during the match-up assignment round, going against Iroha’s wishes and not considering that it might get him disqualified. We’ve known it for a while, but this is a clear demonstration that Kogoe and Iroha do not share their values, which will surely becoming the core of their conflict down the line

Fortunately, Iroha’s time in Class A has taught him how to get out of situations like this, specifically recreating Anonymity’s introductory panel to explain away that using his glasses at this juncture before the battles is not the same as cheating during the battles. In a sense, this was foreshadowed by Iroha twisting Anonymity’s logic on her during the CLP election as well, so him behaving this way doesn’t come out of nowhere either

I do like the idea of Iroha incorporating the traits of his friends; it reminds me of Gon from HxH, who never had any preconceptions or prejudices about anyone’s moral standing, and was willing to learn anything from anyone with an open mind, even tricks for theft or murder. The only thing that ever bothered Gon was when someone threatened or hurt those he cared about, not those who broke the law or lived in a way he disagreed with. Iroha is starting to feel similar, though it seems like he’s willing to put aside his differences with people he disagrees with than ignoring those differences in the first place. Both of them feel like the type who can become friends with anyone and will learn lessons wherever they can. If Iroha really is a Gon-esque character, then Kogoe’s worry about the stability of Iroha’s emotions is definitely warranted, as any HxH fan knows just how dangerous Gon can be when put in the right (or wrong) situation. His smiley disposition despite the life he’s lived suggests that he’s still hiding something darker, and I won’t be surprised if and when we see it (aside from the surprise of what it is, I guess)

The fact that each class has a different focus carries some interesting implications. Information scrambling (probably the encoding process), undercover operations, dying message decoding, special missions, indiscriminate decoding, and...telepathy??? Are there actual psychics here? Or are they just researching telepathy? I’m very interested in Class C’s battle, as I feel like a good amount of worldbuilding can be accomplished there. Anyway, each class having its own focus suggests that these will come up during the battles, influencing the types of codes being used and the approach to solve them. I’m greatly looking forward to it!

As a final note, I’m sad to see that CA is in the back of the magazine again. Considering that Fabricant 100 also got a color page that moved it to the middle this week, I’m thinking that my theory that Jump is trying to bolster less popular series may have been on point, as they’re not only doing it for the one by Nisio Isin. I hope it works, and I hope it alters the cancellation system for the better. Only time will tell!

See y’all next week!

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.14 thoughts

[I’d Have Chosen Group C, for Cranberries]

Like with my recent Undead Unluck review, I’m going to try to make this a bit more freeform and avoid simply summarizing the events of the chapter and focus more on my actual reactions

That said, I anticipate this being harder to do with Cipher Academy because of the puzzles, but we’ll see how this goes

So once again, this is a puzzle I might have been able to solve if I’d tried: I looked at it and assumed that it relied on the rules of shogi, which I don’t know, but I had the thought “what if I just tried to solve it like chess?” After all, all of the pieces lineup, so I figured they could be moved the same, but I wasn’t confident, so I just didn’t make an attempt. I’m also just...not great at chess problems, so there’s that, but the point is that, once again, I just need to follow my instincts and see where they lead me

It’s really nice to see Kasuri’s pretty rapid development as a character, going from solving things quickly and not speaking up to outright trying to beat Toshusai to the punch. Their little rivalry is really fun, and helps to flesh out the dynamic of the classroom. I’m hoping that this will end up being similar to Assassination Classroom where we get to know basically everyone and little groups with their own unique interactions gradually become more evident, which already seems to be the case with the Toshusai and Nohime factions

Kasuri is also really strongly in the running for best girl against Yugata for me; her petty rivalry with Toshusai, her cutesy friendship with Iroha, it’s great. Picking group “B” for “Best Friend” in hopes that Iroha will choose the same group as her was just precious, which made it all the sadder when Umitsubame deliberately filled the last slot in the team to keep them apart

The moment I saw that lineup, though, I knew exactly what Iroha was going to decide: only group D had characters that Iroha hasn’t interacted with, so for the sake of introducing more of the class to the audience, it was the only logical answer. On that note, two of the members of this team are specifically students who were stated to be independents among the factions in chapter 12 when Iroha was confronting Nohime, which suggests that this is a group who doesn’t already have a ton of cohesion among them

Since this is a classroom assignment, Iroha chose not to use his AR weapon, which is to be expected, but it’s nice to see that he’s gained a neat little trick: Ice Cold Reading: Air! By peering through his fingers as if they were glasses, Iroha psychologically enters into a level of focus comparable to if he had the glasses on, presumably helping him to isolate the pieces of information that could be hints

Looking at the puzzle again, I think this is another situation where my proximity to the answer worked against me, just like with the United States puzzle: because I’m already familiar with the aesthetic of chess being 8x8 but NOT with shogi being 9x9, nothing looked off to me about the board, so I wouldn’t have been able to identify that as a hint. Again, as I said, I might have been able to logic it out by just moving the pieces as if they were chess pieces as my gut told me to, but I don’t think I would have been able to logic out that one of the enemy pieces is supposed to betray the king

It’s really fitting that the preliminary puzzle for this round involves a backstabbing, because the round itself is basically a real life game of Among Us! Or Werewolf, Mafia, whatever other social deduction game you want to compare it to. Either way, it seems to me that the teams themselves are a moot point, because betrayal is going to be baked into the game, either on the part of the person playing the murderer or the ones trying to find the murderer

Moving back to the team, easily my favorite part of this chapter has to be Iroha justifying his choice, saying that he’s trying to get to know them (good!) so that they’ll vote for him during the selection (bad!). He’s just trying to be honest and upfront, and in his mind he’s definitely just being friendly, but good lord was that so easily misconstrued. I think that might be the major recurring theme of Iroha’s character: misunderstanding. When he tried to fight Nohime fairly by not taking advantage of her known weakness, she deliberately chose to interpret his choice as chivalrous rather than insulting, but noted that she easily could have done the latter. Here, though what he’s really saying is that he wants to be friends, obviously all this team is going to hear is “I’m using you.” I’m pretty sure there are other examples of this across the story so far, but I don’t have time to hunt them down right now. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it going forward!

Team D’s reactions to Iroha’s thoughtless statement are also really fascinating, not because all of the least assuming members of the class just got serious, but because of the physical actions they took. Koshibai adjusted her sunglasses, implying that they’re her AR weapon, but Karigane took hers off, giving the impression that either they aren’t her weapon or she’s somehow more of a threat without them. Meanwhile, Mamushihishimeki put on her headphones, which I completely missed prior to this point; I previously assumed that her AR weapon was hidden under her bandana, but now I’m positive that it’s her headphones and she uses a sound-based AR weapon. Then there’s Mokumokuren, giving the same faint, sweet smile she always does, just angled down to give it a sinister air, but even that’s not the important part: her bear’s eyes glowed, giving the impression the thing is sentient! This could just be a gag, but since we already know about Kogoe’s AI partner, CG, I’m willing to bet Mokumokuren’s teddy bear is actually a robot! That’d be a really fun twist on the AR weapon formula, and would really go to show how far this concept can be pushed

Back to the murder, the “victim” is the fictional 20th member of class 1-A, Waon Wasurenagusa. Immediately I clocked that this was either going to be a hint to the puzzle or a joke, I started investigating, and until we learn more about the puzzle itself, I’m going to assume it’s the latter: Wasurenagusa means forget-me-not, a type of flower, which based on the name, is typically a symbol for remembrance of the dead, making the name ironic for the hypothetical dead girl. How Waon plays into it, I have no idea; evidently it can mean “Japanese reading” of kanji, meaning pronouncing Chinese characters in the Japanese style, so perhaps it’s saying to read Wasurenagusa in a different style? That’s not something I’m capable of though, and even if I could, I probably wouldn’t know what to do with it, so I’m leaving it for now

I also really love Iroha having the realization that Wasurenagusa doesn’t exist for two reasons: one, it serves as a method of explaining to the audience that this scenario is completely made-up so we don’t need to worry about it (though honestly I’m still a bit dubious) and two, it implies that there was a moment where Iroha legitimately thought that someone got killed. What a sweet boy he is

Everyone needing to play the role not just of killer, spy, etc., but also of each other adds a really fun wrinkle to this particular game, because it allows everyone to basically have special abilities while also obscuring how much of their actions are due to being in character or being bad at being in character. I do wonder how these abilities are going to factor into the game, and how different they’ll be for everyone. Whatever the case, it’s definitely going to shed some light on how varied the AR weapons can be

It’s also really interesting that it’s explicitly stated that some of the information on the cards is false, because it means that we can’t trust what we’re reading on Oboro’s card. It says that Iroha was right that Oboro was a POW (which I think we can assume he guessed because of the eye mark on her head), but for all we know, Kogoe just wrote that because she made the same guess as Iroha. Alternatively, Kogoe could just as easily have told the truth about everything except for Oboro liking stewed pork face skin, and there’s no way for us to know at present 

This also calls into question Iroha’s card, which we haven’t seen much of yet, but since it’s the one present for the statement that some information is false, we have to conclude one of a few things: a) the public information could be wrong, b) the not-yet-public information that fittingly hasn’t been shown to us is lying and will give us a red herring to Iroha’s backstory, or c) the IN-GAME private information could be misleading, meaning that it’s possible that multiple players are either the killer or the spy. Option b seems like the most likely, though, especially since we got so much information about Iroha during the lipogram battle, which is undoubtedly meant to be our metric for what’s true and not in the card’s profile

The final interesting bit of information on these cards is the Morg value; I’m not sure if this is how much Morg the player owns or how much they’re worth, but right away we might be able to see an inconsistency; Nohime claimed she would invest 100 million Morg into Iroha, but according to this card, his Morg value is a billion, leagues higher than Oboro’s 170 million. This will definitely be a factor in the game somehow,  and I’m willing to bet it’ll be used to help determine who the killer is

The fact that Iroha’s profile states that he killed Wasurenagusa because of an upperclassman is interesting, since there are literally no upperclassmen at Cipher Academy at this moment. Obviously this is all part of the fiction, but it feels like such a deliberate detail that, again, I’m willing to bet it’ll come into play somehow

I don’t really see how the team set up is necessary here yet, since it seems like the whole class would have to be competing with each other, but we don’t know the rules yet, so there’s not really any need to worry about it at the moment probably. I’m hoping this basically becomes a Liar Game or Death Note style psychological battle, I bet that’s the kind of thing that’ll get the haters more on board

I see a lot of negativity in the comments for this series, and while I wholeheartedly think that Nisio Isin has more than enough star power to make it through, it is disheartening to see so many people constantly calling for the axe for a series that I’m having so much fun with. I don’t think it should be necessary for more “traditional” battle styles to be implemented for people to get on board, but if it helps, it helps, and I definitely don’t see Nisio Isin compromising to fit the mold. Medaka Box pretended to, but it really didn’t ultimately, and I could definitely see that being the case here as well

Phew! Made it through, and I don’t think I said anything more about the events of the chapter than were necessary to explain my reactions...I think. I don’t know! You tell me, all two of you who read these! This format was pretty well received for Undead Unluck, but maybe a more synoptic format works better for this series than a freeform one? It was definitely harder here, I think partially because Undead Unluck has been going for years and I have a strong idea of the themes already while Cipher Academy has only been going a couple of months and there’s so much information we can’t possibly know yet

Comparatively, we haven’t even gotten to the point where Andy was revealed to be harboring Victor as his true personality yet, much less the point where we learned the world was on a time loop! The lack of history for this series makes it hard to appreciate a lot of the nuances because they’re literally only just now being established, whereas Undead Unluck is currently in the middle of paying off a lot of its setups, but that’s really the whole point of me doing these reviews. I want to try to ingrain as much of the setup in my mind as possible so that when they payoff comes around, I’ll understand most if not all of it

Jujutsu Kaisen often goes over my head because I’m not paying a ton of attention to it; rereading everything up to the Culling Game arc I was able to appreciate it a lot more because I’d already read everything at least once, but now I feel just as disconnected from the Culling Game as I did the rest of the series before. Once it’s done and I reread it, I’ll likely appreciate it again, but for now it’s just noise. That’s the scenario I’m actively avoiding with Cipher Academy; I don’t want Nisio Isin’s work to be noise, I want it to be music, and I can tell, we haven’t even made it to the first chorus yet, but it’s coming, and if the beat so far is any indication, I’m going to rock out to it

Did that metaphor make any sense at all?

[tokiro07]

GOD DAMMIT, I WAITED TILL THE LAST MINUTE TO DO THE CIPHER ACADEMY REVIEW AGAIN

CH. 13 THOUGHTS:

[That Damn Smile]

Iroha, Nohime and the rest go to the music room for the puzzle battle. At first, it doesn’t seem like it would be necessary for Iroha to actually play the musical piece he wrote, as if Nohime knows musical notation then she should be able to figure it out just from the bars Iroha wrote. However...

Nohime reveals that she is actually going blind, and realizes that Iroha deliberately set up a musical puzzle so that she wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. I was trying to allude to that possibility in last week’s review, but looking back at what I wrote, I never actually said that, I just wrote that she wasn’t simply drawn with her eyes closed and was actually keeping them closed. The way I wrote it implies that I thought she was only hiding AR contacts and not that she was losing her vision, but I promise I really did pick up on the possibility of her being blind. Please believe me, it really just slipped my mind because of how late I was writing...I’m probably going to miss something similar this week too...

Nohime opens her eyes and reveals that she does in fact have an AR weapon! But to exceed my expectations, they aren’t contacts like I thought: they’re full on artificial eyes!!! It’s surprisingly easy to overlook Kogoe’s comments, but she comes right out and says it. She also says that artificial eyes are tough on the user, which makes sense; if Iroha basically knocked himself out with the glasses, what kind of effect would REPLACEMENT EYES have???

She claims that she once “looked directly at a dazzling code,” which implies that she had to solve a puzzle that involved a dangerously bright light, possibly even looking directly at the sun if I had to guess. I suppose it could just be a misdirect, as Nisio is wont to do, but I have a hard time believing that a code was just so beautiful that it blasted out her retinas

Nohime questions why Iroha chose to be considerate of her after accusing her of trampling on others, and in regular fashion, Iroha rejects the notion that he would stray from his morals for something petty like revenge. That’s fairly typical for a shonen protagonist, and more or less what we’ve come to expect from Iroha up to this point

What’s NOT what we’ve come to expect is that horrific smile that we see from Nohime immediately after. That’s a really hard expression to read; does she like that reaction? Is she laughing at him? Kasuri, Umitsubame and even Yorokawa, Nohime’s “houseguest” is shocked by that smile; this must not be something she shows off too often (though I bet we’re going to be seeing a lot of it going forward)

Nohime says she misjudged Iroha, apparently expecting him to let himself be controlled by his emotions. That’s not an unreasonable impression considering that he stormed up to her and started yelling at her basically out of nowhere, but his ability to stay true to his morals seems to have impressed her, so she resolves to approach his puzzle in earnest...

Only for Toshusai to come in for the save!!! 

Interestingly, Kasuri specifically seems to take umbrage with Toshusai’s arrival, both because she’s interrupting a code battle and because she’s showing up late. Even now, Kasuri’s being competitive about how much faster she is than Toshusai. I guess that’s going to become a recurring theme with these two

Toshusai confronts Iroha for getting involved in her conflict; “a gentleman got angry over a poor girl whose dignity was compromised.” The way she words it implies that she’s offended by the idea that she needs a man to come to her rescue, but Iroha refutes this saying that he was angry that someone disrespected his friend

In a sweet moment, this calms Toshusai down, and she humbly thanks Iroha for finally acknowledging her as a friend. Not that she ever did a good job of implying that’s something she wanted with how prickly she is in general. I definitely believe it, I just didn’t get the impression she valued that sort of thing. Yugata’s expression seems to imply there’s something much deeper going on here, but I don’t want to get bogged down in speculating on that here

Toshusai apologizes for the actions of her friend, but Nohime shifts the blame onto Toshusai for staying true to a punishment game from when they were in kindergarten

...Yeah, that’s about what I expected, honestly. Of course it was a misdirect, and of course Toshusai is so serious of a person that she upheld what’s effectively a children’s prank for ten+ years. A “tight-ass” indeed

Iroha is horribly embarrassed for the scene that he caused over his misunderstanding, but honestly I think that Yugata deliberately orchestrated this scene. Everything Yugata says and does just screams that she’s hiding something huge, so I bet she’s manipulating Iroha, Nohime, possibly even extending out as far as Kogoe, for some grander purpose. Whether she’ll become the ultimate antagonist or just the one to establish the ceiling, her machinations will be revealed sooner or later

Nohime claims that she was just playing along to prevent a factional dispute within the class and that she wouldn’t have enforced her punishment game, though Toshusai seems to have her doubts. Nohime continues with the puzzle for its own sake and reveals that the trick was that the notes are arranged to resemble braille! It’s not even using musical notation as a filter, it’s LITERALLY ARRANGED INTO ENGLISH BRAILLE LETTERS!!! I COULD HAVE ACTUALLY SOLVED THIS ONE IF I’D EVEN TRIED!!!

IT’S LIKE I SAID THE OTHER DAY, CHASE YOUR THOUGHTS!!! TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!!! YOU REALIZED SHE WAS GOING BLIND, THAT WAS THE HINT!!! AAAHHH!!!

Anyway

“You apologize to Kyora for us;” the answer to the code was basically meant to force Nohime to apologize whether Iroha won or not, which again is the kind of thing I expect from Nisio Isin: as with Kumagawa, winning isn’t always as important as making sure the other person loses. I also think it’s really funny that Iroha meant to write “ass” and just mistranslated “asu” into English as “us”, especially because I caught the pun pretty much immediately. Even better that Nohime appreciates the pun thinking that it was another example of Iroha being considerate

Nohime confirms that her reaction earlier was because she was impressed, though she does note that Iroha’s intentions with being considerate of her disability could have been interpreted as underestimating her. Then she grabs him by the head and proclaims that she likes him and will be investing 100 million morg into him

...Is that a lot? It’s said with such grandiosity that I have to assume it is, but god damn if crypto values don’t sound like absolute nonsense to me. Also, her posing really gives the impression that this a deal with the devil kind of scenario; she makes this declaration while holding onto him with both hands and positioned above him in the frame. giving the feeling that from her position, she now owns Iroha. I don’t know if that’s the intention, but I don’t see this being a wholly positive scenario going forward. She even makes that wicked smile again right after, this CAN’T be a good thing!

Omamuro acknowledges that this turn of events will have long-reaching ramifications, as this is the biggest investment Nohime has made since Kogoe. Speaking of, the schism between Nohime and Toshusai was apparently Nohime poaching Kogoe from KAP, though how severely that move impacted their friendship remains to be explored

Meanwhile, Yugata’s looking mighty suspicious while Omamuro’s freaking out. She definitely planned for this, you can’t tell me otherwise

We cut to Nikueda working on a new puzzle with Kogoe’s help; it’s really fun that Kogoe refers to Nikueda as Shibori-chan, implying that she either knows her very personally or doesn’t view her as a teacher but as a friend (or her lesser). That’s a new dimension for Kogoe, but it feels really in line with what we’ve seen of her in the past

The puzzle that Kogoe designed is a murder mystery: Murder at Cipher Academy! Those little silhouettes are fantastic, I can actually tell who’s who, that’s good character design! Also, there’s one extra person on that cover, who seems to be the victim since they have a halo, presumably so none of the classmates have to be left out of the problem-solving

Also also, I couldn’t tell at first until I zoomed in, but the logo at the bottom of the book is a heavily stylized writing of Kogoe! I don’t know if there’s another puzzle layered into that, but it’s a really cute detail in and of itself

I’m really excited for this section, I haven’t read a Nisio Isin mystery since the LA BB Murder Cases. I really should read Pretty Boys Detective Club at some point

Once again, I’ve stayed up way later than I would have liked, but at least I got this done and won’t have to wait long at all to see how this next puzzle shapes up

I’d say see y’all in the morning, but clearly I won’t be writing the next review until 2 AM next week either...so see you in a week!!!

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.31 thoughts

[Iroha vs. Yugata: Revengeance]

Spoke too soon last week: THERE'S the Nisio Isin I know!

I've been talking this whole time about how the other CLPs would somehow get into the fray, thinking specifically about how in Medaka Box the two suitors that didn't fight during the Jet Black Bride Arc eventually came back as the main fighters of the Unknown Shiranui Arc, so I just assumed that Nisio would have the eliminated ones become a combined threat later. Instead, this magnificent bastard made sure he could have his cake and eat it too by having them form alliances with each other so he wouldn't have to compromise

I wouldn't be surprised if all of the groups end up forming one big alliance to eliminate Class A, but at that point it might defeat the purpose of the tournament entirely, so maybe Nisio won't go that far. Maybe

I do admit I'm a little disappointed that we won't get to see more of the extended cast getting development, but it occurs to me that classroom casts don't actually tend to go beyond maybe ten of their group (approximately half). My Hero Academia tries to give everyone a good scene now and then, but the ones that really matter are Midoriya, Bakugou, Uraraka, Iida and Todoroki, with the likes of Kirishima and Yaoyorozu as the second-stringers. Likewise, the six we have now for the Two-Front War are easily the most important of our cast, while Kasuri, Oboro and Umitsubame are major supporters rather than the heavy hitters. Given enough time, we could see more development for everyone, but if we're skipping straight to the final confrontation of this arc, then the big guns are a must

Let it be known that I'm not complaining at all: I knew we'd be seeing more of Nohime, Yosaimura and, of course, Anonymity somewhere in this arc, I just expected it would be split up between two fights and not one. This definitely streamlines things, though, and again allows us to focus on the most interesting cast rather than spreading the story thin over a gaggle of side characters who were probably only ever meant to be side characters

Onto the chapter itself, I've started to notice that Iroha isn't talking about effort anymore, and instead is very focused on friendship lately. It might be because he's been so heavily involved with resident Friendship Character Toshusai's group lately, but looking back, Iroha's end goal for this arc is to have Baumkuchen with the other classes. To me, this indicates that Iroha completed his Effort arc in the prologue and has moved onto his Friendship arc, and will likely begin a Victory arc once this conflict is over (probably when "the next World War" begins). It could also shift back and forth between which one gets focus each arc, but regardless, now that Iroha is on good terms with everyone, right now is the perfect time for his focus to be on strengthening the relationships he has and forming new ones

We're still just getting teased about Yugata and Toshusai's relationship, so I'm not really going to discuss Yugata's part in this chapter. We still don't know why she's so cagey about Toshusai, and I'm honestly not sure why she was pushing away Iroha, but those are all things that I think will become clearer once we see more of her in the coming battle, otherwise there'd be no point in making a scene about recruiting her

Before I finish up, I'd like to make a prediction: I think that Class E is going to end up joining Class A's side. Not only did Yosaimura suggest that an alliance was still technically possible, but Class E was very clearly spying on Iroha and Yugata's battle

Some other readers have already pointed it out, but at the beginning of the battle, there was a brief panel of Yugata looking under the table, and later there was a close-up of several characters' eyes. Despite the fact that only five characters were present, there was a sixth eye, with a very notable lock of hair and the image of crosshairs in her iris: for those who haven't caught on yet, this perfectly describes Class E's Hagoromo, their agent who hides under furniture to gather information

I do feel a bit ashamed that I didn't notice it myself, but I'd like to think that I would have upon reread had I not seen other readers discussing it beforehand...guess we'll never know

Hagoromo's presence here, subtle as it may be, strongly indicates that Class E is going to be a persistent player in events going forward. I suppose they could join the opposing team, but Class A just fought them, so I think it would be redundant to fight them again, but having them join Class A would be a more functional plot point for this clearly Friendship-based storyline

I don't imagine that'll happen in tomorrow's chapter, that seems a bit fast, but this match will probably be at least...ten chapters, if I had to guess; a couple matches will be one chapter, while others will be two, and the final will probably be three or more. Class E's involvement will probably be in the final round, likely when all of the CLPs are facing off specifically. Granted, Nisio's known for doing these things in whatever order he wants and best serves his purposes, so for all I know, this will all be resolved in three chapters, with all of the other classes ganging up on Iroha at once and Kubinashi will swoop in practically at the beginning

I'm honestly really glad that this has evolved into basically a battle royale, and I'm glad that all of the best girls are in one place, I super can't wait to see how this all plays out

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch.27 thoughts

[Sister Complex? I Find Her Quite Simple]

Me, getting stupider by the week: “Huh, Nutaba has bandages and amnesia? She’s just like Naze from Medaka Box! Though with that cutesy design, I’m sure the similarities end there”

So Nutaba is Toshusai’s secret step-sister, huh? That certainly explains why they were hanging out despite their apparent lack of association. And that design! A grenade pin hairpin to match with Toshusai’s bullet clip hair clips! How cute! But not as cute as my Anon~

Here’s my Class A top 4 cutest members: Anonymity, Anonymity, Anonymity, Anonymity

I kid. It’s Anonymity, Umitsubame, Iroha, Nutaba. Subject to change as we learn more about the class. Hell, it changed three times over the course of me writing this, I’m clearly not married to this lineup

I really loved this chapter for a handful of reasons. First and foremost, Hanagoromo’s introduction gag actually made me laugh out loud. I love when Nisio plays with lettering like that, to the point that I was almost disappointed that she didn’t stay upside down the whole time, though Iroha noting it was a great punchline

Secondly, I greatly enjoyed that this was the first code battle that was literally a code battle. While every other one has been a puzzle to be solved, this was the first one to literally have the three parties that would be involved in an actual war scenario: the messenger, the receiver, and the interceptor. That’s what makes this not so much a Wedding Game scenario, but an actual test of one’s ability to encode and decode. That’s also why there are four rounds: just as Nutaba did in practice, the messenger has four rounds to establish a pattern, using the first few rounds as a code in and of themselves meant to communicate the final true answer to the receivers and a false answer to the interceptor. I do feel clever that I clocked the intention during the explanation of the rules, though I definitely didn’t see how they were going to win the game itself. The solution was exactly the kind of clever semantic trick that I love to see in psychological games like this, it made me feel like I was reading Liar Game again! I should really finish that series at some point

Unrelated note, I was trying to remember the term Tower of Hanoi a couple of nights ago before bed, so it was extremely funny to me to see that was one of the answers to Nutaba’s questions. The scenario only holds any meaning to me, but it was endearing nonetheless

This chapter was also just very Nisio Isin. The sudden reveal of a secret sibling that had very little foreshadowing (Naze), a character revealing that they’ve been acting in secret the entire time (Fukurou), the villain rearranging the battle order for their own benefit (a la Kumagawa), and of course the extremely blunt and rushed reveal of what Kubinashi did to Toshusai and the others (too many examples to count). From any other author, Kubinashi’s exposition that she and Yukako were spies and leaked info from KAP would feel really sloppy, but it honestly feels more like a gag than anything else. That said, there are two new manga coming to Jump soon, so...it could be a troubling sign. I won’t take it as one, though, cus like I said, Nisio Isin is just like that, so we’ll worry about it later. It also helps that Kubinashi is the one making these blunt expositions, since as we just established, she’s an information leaker, letting out information that seems like it shouldn’t come out now or at all is what she does best!

This chapter did make me realize something, though. I think I was wrong about Yosaimura being a Victory character. Iroha keeps referencing Yosaimura being a force for bringing people together, like the Baumkuchen party and comparing this party game to something Yosaimura would suggest, which all points to Yosaimura being a Friendship character. However, during Leaky Poker, you may recall that I wavered a little between Victory and Effort for her before finally landing on Victory, and I’ve finally realized why I did that. It’s because Yosaimura isn’t Friendship, Effort or Victory: she’s all three! Iroha really seems to look up to and respect Yosaimura, and I think it’s because she’s meant to be the Shonen ideal, someone who brings people together to put in an honest effort to earn a clear and legitimate victory. Iroha wants to put effort in to become more like Yosaimura, and needs Toshusai’s Friendship and Anonymity’s ruthless desire for Victory to one day do so, or at least that’s how it seems at the moment

I’m really excited to see Kubinashi perform, and I’m even more excited to see what logical trick she pulls to be in the final fight of this battle as well, since it would be a bit of a letdown to have the final battle be against someone we haven’t met before. It’s kind of like how in the Election Battle in Medaka Box, Kumagawa fixed it so he’d be in the first, third and final battles despite the fact that he was only supposed to fight once. Now that’s how you get mileage out of a villain, and with Kubinashi being a problem between fights like Kumagawa was back then, I have no doubt that she’s not going to stop at winning the next round. Can’t wait to see how she does it!

See y’all next week!

[tokiro07]

Cipher Academy ch. 8 thoughts

[Just Dance, It’ll be Okay]

So somehow I missed the last page during last week’s review. It’s not a big deal, all I really missed out on was that, beyond just standing out for being a weirdo, Iroha is now in the sights of the entire class because he’s proven that he’s capable and a viable threat, and that Kogoe has issued a summons to Iroha

I’ve also realized that I’ve been getting really bogged down in the details of the puzzles, so going forward, I’m going to make an active effort to not dwell too much on them unless there’s something I think is really fun and clever I want to discuss or if it’s directly relevant to the story

So Iroha solves Q.10, another puzzle meant to convey a class number, and finds Kogoe in class 3-D, another uninhabited class. There, Kogoe is once again chowing down on corndogs, which are clearly her favorite food, or at least I hope so considering that she’s literally got four of them in her hands. I think I’d be sick halfway down the second one, especially with how much mayo she’s putting on them

Kogoe points out that Iroha figured this one out a lot quicker than before, and Iroha notes that he was inspired by “those two speed queens,” referring to Toshusai and Kasuri’s quick thinking and movement. He says it as if Kogoe would know what he’s talking about, but context clues suggest that he shouldn’t know that Kogoe is watching him through his glasses, so maybe he was just saying it offhand or figures that Kogoe is already familiar with the other members of his class?

Kogoe points out in a One-Point Lesson that despite being a 2-star question, Umitsubame probably would have a harder time figuring out the answer to Q.10 because she wouldn’t have the background information that she’d be looking for a specific classroom like Iroha had done previously. Because Iroha already knew the gist of the solution, Iroha only had to look for the logic that would be needed to draw that conclusion rather than needing to look for the answer wholesale. Not to say Umitsubame couldn’t have done it, just that Iroha was predisposed to do so. I wonder if that would have made this a 3-star question then?

To prove a point about Iroha’s growing skill, Kogoe gives the sticks from her corn dogs to Iroha with Q.11, prompting him to create five squares with four sticks. This is a take on a classic puzzle where one would take a set of squares made up of matchsticks and change the number of squares only by rearranging, not removing any of the sticks. As pointed out in the One-Point Lesson, the solution that Iroha presents isn’t the only solution, but rather one that points out Iroha’s sensibilities. That said, I don’t personally like the logic of this puzzle because it requires that one mentally fill in the blanks for the squares rather than literally making them. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but someone pedantic enough could definitely make the argument that it doesn’t work with the materials present

Now that 2-stars are so simple for Iroha, Kogoe decides that Iroha is ready for “actual combat,” which is to say solving real-world ciphers rather than simulated ones, not that Iroha is going to fight anyone. Iroha is grateful that Kogoe hasn’t given up on him, despite the fact that she had moved on to Oboro. This is actually a misunderstanding on Iroha’s part, though, as Kogoe didn’t jump to Oboro after being rejected by Iroha, but rather went to Iroha after Oboro and all of the other girls because she’s spreading her tech to as many students as possible to presumably hedge her bets. No wonder Toshusai called her a flirt. Iroha does realize he wasn’t the first, at least, but I wonder how he’ll respond when he learns Kogoe’s motivations. I doubt he’ll be as hurt as Toshusai, but I can definitely see a rift forming between them

Kogoe pulls out her handmade smartphone, revealing to us that the students of Cipher Academy aren’t allowed to have electronics. Ostensibly Kogoe is allowed to as long as she makes them herself as a stipulation of Class M, but they’re staying pretty vague. Nisio Isin is keeping a tight lid on Class M so far, just like he did with Class 13 in Medaka Box, so I’m waiting for the drop. For now I’m expecting it around chapter 20 like last time, but I also won’t claim to be able to predict Nisio’s mind. If I’m right though, you heard it here first

Kogoe shows Iroha what is clearly a tiktok of a soldier dancing, which she explains is a perfectly harmless video in and of itself save for the fact that the video itself is very heavily protected, implying that it carries information that would be dangerous to whatever nation it pertains to

To illustrate that the dance itself is the cipher, Kogoe compares it to the Sherlock Holmes story, The Dancing Men, to which Iroha replies the only work of Doyle’s he’s read is The Lost World, a non-Sherlock story. Kogoe notes that Doyle would be happy to hear that, which I immediately clocked as a clever nod to Doyle’s disdain for Sherlock Holmes. I was honestly disappointed to find that the One-Point Lesson explains that joke, as it meant it was less impressive for me to have known it on my own. Harumph. Funny that Kogoe calls Doyle a tsundere for Sherlock, though

Iroha decides that the best way to understand the code in the dance is to do the dance himself, comparing it to the methods of Kathryn Dance (not a dancer, but I’m willing to bet Nisio referenced her on purpose), which surprises Kogoe because it means that Iroha does in fact read mystery novels, just for some reason going with the much more obscure Jeffrey Deaver than the quintessential Arthur Conan Doyle. I am absolutely sure that Nisio Isin has read both and this whole thing is just a flex, but I love that he’s teasing his own characters for his tastes

We cut to Toshusai and her girls, and Toshusai has deduced that Kogoe is introducing Iroha to actual combat, a curriculum reserved for third-years. Interesting that she’d say that, considering that Kogoe brought Iroha to a third-year class, which implies that this is a deliberate choice on Kogoe’s part. I wonder if that was meant to be a hint in and of itself? It certainly would have made solving the puzzle easier for someone who didn’t have experience from a previous puzzle

Toshusai respects Iroha’s decision on the basis that she lost her code battle with Iroha and Omomuro only managed to tie against him. Omomuro objects, claiming that Iroha had cheated in their encounters, to which Toshusai replies “it would be nice if disqualification happened in real wars.” This is...a surprisingly chilling take. We have the concept of war crimes for a reason, to help limit the effects of war on civilians, but one country’s soldiers committing war crimes doesn’t make them “lose the war.” The ability to hold a country accountable for war crimes can only really be achieved once that country has lost a war and their ability to resist depleted. It’s a cruel and uncomfortable truth, and complaining that one side cheated won’t change the outcome of a real war, so Toshusai won’t waste time doing so here. Instead, she decides to sit back and see how it helps Iroha develop, confident that if things go poorly, she’ll be able to employ Yugata, who has thus far been built up as something of a secret weapon

Like I said before, the drop is coming, and I’m absolutely certain that Yugata is going to be involved. Whether she’ll be an inciting incident like Unzen, a major enemy like Kumagawa or something else entirely, I have no idea, but I’m staying wary of her

Also very cute that Toshusai calls her Tayu-tan. That’s gap moe, kind of like her saying butt instead of ass when referring to Iroha

We cut back to Iroha doing the various dances, dressing himself up for the appropriate sections, one of the moves apparently being a reference to the Indian film RRR, which is apparently about a revolution, so I’m willing to bet that’s going to be a relevant detail. Maybe I should try to watch it sometime...I think it’s on Netflix?

Apparently it’s surprising that Iroha saw it since, as a boarding school, students aren’t able to leave Cipher Academy without permission. Kogoe points out that this sort of thing, limitations on entertainment, is a strong reason to want to stop wars. It may seem childish, but honestly in terms of symbolism it makes sense: war robs people of their humanity, and what’s more human than being able to enjoy the arts? Removing one’s ability to have fun is a way to dehumanize them, so embracing and regaining that ability is the true mark that a war is over, or at least will likely be used as such in this story

Iroha asks Kogoe why she specifically says “stop” instead of “end” when referring to war, to which Kogoe responds that “ending” a war means causing someone to lose the war, resulting in countless deaths. Stopping a war, meanwhile, means bringing the combat to a halt where it stands, preventing further deaths. This distinction sounds very noble, but the exact wording is suspicious; if a war has been stopped and the soldiers are halted, then that means the war can be resumed as well and pick up right where it left off. This is almost definitely what Kogoe would want as a warmonger, since it would be more profitable to resume a stopped war than to end one war and start another one later

That said, Kogoe’s goal is ostensibly to be able to stop wars without fighting at all, having everything resolved through codes, so I wonder, is Kogoe’s methodology really that bad? If all wars are reduced to being fought with pen and paper rather than guns and bombs, won’t that mean that all war is inherently bloodless? Sure, the idea of one country losing and being subdued by another is just as tragic as it ever is, but it would definitely be preferable for a loss to be purely political rather than in terms of casualties. At the same time, though, that thinking of “less bad wars” is probably faulty, and likely an issue that will be presented later on

Kogoe suggests that Iroha use the glasses to solve the cipher, as while Iroha’s morality is an endearing trait, this is a real combat situation and people could die, so there’s no sense in worrying about winning shamefully. This surprisingly ties back to Toshusai’s statement about disqualification; if there’s nothing that can disqualify someone from a war, then in a literal sense there’s no such thing as cheating, but if there’s no such thing as cheating, then what’s stopping someone from justifying any underhanded method in battle? In this scenario, is the use of the glasses tantamount to a war crime, at least metaphorically speaking? While we the reader may be meant to think that Iroha is being silly not using his advantages, it’s entirely possible that this is a subtle hint that certain things shouldn’t be acceptable just because they’ll make things quicker or easier

Fortunately, Iroha realizes what he’s looking at quite quickly; the dance moves represent the subsections of the Japanese syllabary based on their Roman alphabet equivalents, as hinted by the international dance moves including two Japanese dances (being Para Para and Noh). Iroha realizes that, much like in previous puzzles, there is a connection between this and the one immediately preceding it, leading him to think that Kogoe already knows the answer. He looks pretty miffed about it, but Kogoe insists it was just a coincidence

While Kogoe had already noted earlier that Iroha had grown a lot so quickly, she’s actually taken aback by how much more he’s grown than she had initially realized. Still, she would like him to use her glasses, I imagine because there will be certain puzzles that just won’t be able to be solved without them, but also possibly because the glasses need to be used to improve as well, though that’s just a guess for now

Iroha says he’ll be happy to be able to stop a violent conflict, even if he can’t stop an entire war, and flashes just the cutest little smile, clearly charming Kogoe. I still haven’t decided whether I think they’d be a cute ship or anything, but I always enjoy watching someone pine, so I’m all in for Kogoe falling head over heels for Iroha

Iroha then reveals that the reason why he was able to recreate the dance moves is because he was a cheerleader in middle school with a knack for copying movements, which oddly reminds me of Akune from Medaka Box who could also copy techniques he witnessed. It seems like an odd detail to drop, I’m going to keep an eye out for how this kind of ability will aid him in the future

My favorite detail here, though, is that Kogoe notes that she picked this puzzle specifically for the fact that it might prompt Iroha to dance, in reference to the fact that she missed him dancing during the code battle with Omomuro because she could only see from his perspective

Finally, the chapter ends with the revelation that the dancer isn’t communicating some kind of military strategy, but instead is sending out an SOS. How Iroha came to that conclusion we won’t know until next chapter (tomorrow...sorry I took so long to do this one...), but man, what a cliffhanger! Who is this person? What country are they in? What do they need saving from? Undoubtedly this will prompt Iroha to stop another conflict, but how will Iroha be able to help?

More importantly, whatever this conflict is, could it perhaps introduce a major recurring faction who will be a key player going forward? Considering what we know so far, I’m willing to predict that Kick Attack Planning is heavily involved, whether they’re going to be overarching villains or a one-time obstacle

I recently stated in one of my Undead Unluck posts that Cipher Academy isn’t grabbing me in the same way as other series that I love, but honestly that’s why I’m doing these reviews: they’re giving me the opportunity to really dig deep into this series on the ground floor so that when things do develop further, I’ll be able to appreciate it that much better than I would if I was just passively absorbing it week to week, and it’s ideas like this that really get me excited between chapters

I guess that’s the advantage to not having time to do the review until the last minute: not only is there more space between me reading and rereading, now I don’t have to wait as long for the resolution! See y’all tomorrow (hopefully)!!!