#ane hachiro

[irradiatedtea]

Coming back into the AnE fandom after 6 years is like a parent coming home after leaving the kids alone to find everything destroyed Anyway I’m still struggling with art but I loved Hachiros design a whole lot

[xanderscollection]

[almaadst]

At the beginning I wanted to thank my beloved @vongrell, who helped me find the right colors for this bastard and for her brushes that changed my life! I love you gurl! （´・｀ ）♡ I really wanted to draw Hachiro! His desing is amazing!  (*^^*)

Previous: WIP Rin and Yukio Kuro

[doctr-p]

I know there is a lot of discourse in the Aoex fandom right now in regards to the latest chapter, but I think we should all come together and appreciate these Hachiro themed chapter intermissions found in volume 17.

[midnight-in-town]

Rin has been my favorite AnE character since the beginning. Such a sweet guy, and an interesting take on the traditional Idiot Hero. I like Kato's take on several of the Shonen manga archetypes for that matter. What are some of your favorite reconstructions of familiar character types in AnE?

Hey Anon! To be honest, I can’t say I’m that aware of the usual shonen archetypes considering that I read seinen more. :) And I’m not a literary reference, so it’s kinda hard to use the right words too. 

That being said, Rin’s a fave too, with Mephisto, Shiro, Shura, Shiemi… and the rest of the cast. xDD So I’ll try to answer you. 

For Rin, I like how he doesn’t simply get stronger with each arc, but he grows up on many aspects at once. Sure, first he learnt to control his flames, then he learnt to focus his attacks, and then his sword was broken in ch98 destroying the seals over his power, but otherwise each arc gave Rin other things to focus on.

In fact, I like that it’s not just his nature as a demon that he has to deal with, but also the consequences of that with the people around him. Like, as the story begins, we see Rin as kind of a loner, because he tries to fit in but can’t. 

So having friends (and falling for Shiemi) was a really new experience for him, one he’s enjoying but that he still has to learn about sometimes:

And as he’s getting better with that, that’s when the one constant in his life so far…

shatters. Mostly though, I love Rin because he’s… so sweet, as you said. 

Initially, he was presented as your usual Shonen hero indeed, especially with his goal to defeat Satan after Shiro’s death, but slowly the whole story moves on from that. That goal of his is less and less mentioned (which is not typical of usual shonen heroes who tend to cling to their goals in my opinion) as Rin is simply going through life and now…

And in my opinion we went from “beating Satan’s ass” to…

…a slight difference I really enjoy, even I’m no fan of Satan (and I want to see him lose). 

Similarly for Yukio, who’s as much a main character as Rin is, his angst defies usual levels you have for characters of a similar type and what I love is that it’s really building up throughout the whole story: Shura showed signs of having noticed it before Toudou was introduced, we found out that he was already preoccupied back when Shiro was still alive (ch93), up till his own despair and pure self-loathing got the better of him.

And I really feel for him and his illustration of the “fallen angel” trope. I mean, I’m the first to say it’s easy to roll your eyes and hope that he’ll stop seeing everything in the darkest black, but it’s the slow unravelling to this state through so many arcs that makes it so impressive and seemingly impossible to solve at the moment. 

A lot will probably have to happen before he’ll manage to come back.

The thing is, we all knew Yukio was going to break down at some point. He got some sort of a recess with the Aomori arc, but before we eventually reached the anti hero/fallen angel level, we passed by attempted suicide and that gave a whole new tone to the manga (especially since it’s shonen) in my opinion.

I said before that there is a lot of cliché tropes about twins in manga that I don’t really like: the good twin/bad twin trope is one, but by showing us the extent of Yukio’s issues before he completely fell into the abyss, I find that Sensei is avoiding cliché once again. 

And both for Yukio and Rin, I like that romance took a more unexpected turn that one could have expected at first, at least in my opinion. :)

Moving onto Mephisto, I love the fact that he’s both literally The Chessmaster…

and incredibly powerful as Samael, but his behavior most of the time doesn’t reflect that. 

…Which is usually the case with the clown type (looking at UT in Kuroshitsuji, or Checkerface in KHR, same for the Clowns in TG even if it’s Seinen), so this part isn’t exactly surprising, but it’s more how his true nature was never exactly hidden and yet he can still completely surprise us on many things. 

That’s why I really enjoy the theory that he might be the big bad, as far as the twins are concerned, because knowing he’s on Assiah’s side, you tend to think that even if he’s an ass at least he’s on “our” side, when it might be more complicated than that. :) 

Plenty of others reasons to appreciate Mephy’s character though, as I shared here. :)

For Shura, it’s mostly a matter of contrast. She’s The Mentor, but she’s not particularly acting responsible otherwise (due to the thing with Hachiro), because her motivations are initially related to her own pet peeve (Shiro).

She’s also without a doubt the hottest girl of the whole series (not a big fan of Iblis and her three eyes personally) and yet her behavior once again doesn’t fit what you’d expect of this kind of characters in other shonen series, again just in my opinion. 

She’s not a dignified or proper lady, who bats an eyelash and everyone is wooed, or who behaves coldly/unaffected to others: she used to be a heavy drinker, she’s hardly ever serious, she loves getting on people’s nerves on purpose, etc.

Again, this is related to her issues with Hachiro (and Shiro), but I like that the fact she’s Hot™ (trademarked by Mephisto) doesn’t mean she can’t be powerful, or Rin’s mentor, or getting on people’s nerves, or insulting her superiors, etc. 

Just like I enjoy the fact that she can dress scantily (probably because she likes it) and that doesn’t mean she’s a hoe or only about fan service, as we could see Shiro lecture her on the subject, in ch78. 

Maybe I’m not explaining super well, but it’s really about Sensei not being too over the top with any character and that shows up in Shura as well: 

she’s Rin’s mentor but sometimes she’s at a loss with what to do; 

she’ll do anything to protect the twins but she still gets scared by Mephisto’s shenanigans; 

she’s older than the boys but she still needed their help with an issue even Shiro couldn’t help her with

after the Aomori arc, she started to act more mature in general because the twins are going to need her, etc.

Again, it’s really a thing for most of the cast, but I like it even more in Shura’s case, because, even with just the way she dresses as an example, she really could have been a shallow character but Sensei managed to weigh in everything properly.  

Now, as far as Shiro goes, I love how Sensei deconstructed his character through several flashbacks, slowly shedding his coat of “the perfect dad” he seemed to be after sacrificing himself to save Rin in ch1. 

Oh sure, he was a good parent, but not perfect as we can see with Yukio or even Shura and that is something that we needed to make clear, both for the plot but also for the twins’ sake. 

Speaking of the plot, I like that Shiro’s a walking mystery very plot-relevant and not just The Hero’s Father Figure Who Died Helplessly. It would have been very easy to make Shiro a symbol Rin was becoming stronger to get revenge for, but it’s about so much more than that.  

Because if Shiro is a symbol of anything, it’s about how the Order is full of bullshit and enslaving the pawns that are necessary to them…

…as Mephisto made sure we got right:

Even now that he’s dead, I have doubts about Shiro being free from whatever he’s supposed to owe the Order/Mephisto. So yeah, he’s so much more than the Dead Symbolic Hero or whatever trope he’s supposed to illustrate, in a very tragic way actually, and I love that!

And finally about Shiemi (because I really gotta stop somewhere), what can I say besides the fact that she’s a very surprising one. :D 

We’ve been getting many character arcs ever since the beginning and yet it was so unexpected to me when it turned out she was going to have her own and that it’d be so very main plot-relevant. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, since everyone in the main cast gets one, but I still definitely wasn’t envisioning anything at all like the theories about Shemihaza before we hit the current arc!

Other examples of why she’s kept on surprising me throughout the story: the first time we meet her, she’s this helpless and mourning girl who’s been possessed by a demon, then she gets used by Izumo upon trying to make friends. I’m sure you remember that girl. 

And yet she saved Paku and then everyone else in Neuhaus’ arc immediately after. Same in the Kyoto arc: she was as pissed and scared as everyone (not counting Izumo) about Rin’s origins, but she was the first who managed to admit how misguided she was when she realized how much he suffered about being different.

What I’m trying to say is that Shiemi constantly surprised me and also other characters in the story (for example), despite the fact that Sensei wrote plainly what her character was about very early on in the story:

So yeah actually she helped Paku, she helped Rin, she helped Izumo, she tried to help Yukio, she saved everyone from being burnt by Rin going Satan 2.0… And now she’s in trouble with the Vatican. 

In a way she’s more the typical Shonen Hero than Rin is, when she’s supposed to be the Main Girl, lmao. For example, everyone found out about who Rin was pretty quickly in the story, meanwhile…

…her own identity is more of a secret than Rin being Satan’s son or Mephisto being a high-level demon and something both characters and readers are getting angsty about. 

And, as I tried to explain above, Rin’s currently more involved with acknowledging where he comes from and bringing his brother back over having to save the world or denouncing that the Order is probably really no better than the Illuminati. 

Even his goal of defeating Satan, which is very Shonen-like, hasn’t been mentioned in a long time now. Meanwhile Shiemi’s character arc directly delves into how shady the Order is as an organization…

and this might indirectly lead us to her having to play a very important role with protecting everyone from Satan/the Illuminati (whether it’s by her will or not).

Of course, Rin’s own journey in the past is showing us many of the Order’s dirty secrets but the point is for Rin to learn about the past so that he can bring Yukio back (what he wants) and possibly defeat Lucifer (what Mephisto wants). When it comes to the state of the world with the opening of the artificial Gehenna gate, for now it’s not exactly Rin’s problem, but it might be more related to Shiemi’s arc if she’s truly related to Shemihaza (because of the Grigoris). 

It’s probably badly summarized, but that’s how I see it. xD As I said in the beginning, I’m really not good about precisely describing shonen archetypes, so this may not be making any point. I just like AnE because I find that Sensei does manage to avoid making her characters a bunch of stereotypes easy to read through, in a very realistic way. See below, with Lightning’s example:

Even Arthur, who’s presented as the most stereotypical dude in the whole cast in my opinion, might be hiding his game better than most of us can probably imagine.

That’s what I like the most when it comes to what you were asking about. :) Kato-sensei is an excellent writer because of this amongst other things. 

Sorry it took me a little while to answer you Anon, but I had a lot I wanted to write and it was actually very hard to explain. I hope this answered your question at least a little though. Have a nice weekend! ^3^

[ladyofgehenna]

{ okay Hachiro is my new favorite AnE character! Freaking love that fucking snake/dragon! He is so awesome! His design is amazing! I adore him! Is there anyone who knows a rp blog for him?! Because he's FUCKING amazing!}

[almaadst]

# I try not to kill myself while drawing this bastard Finished work!

[midnight-in-town]

It’s so nice to reread the series and come across this cover again, because I always wondered if the layout of Mephy’s little pawns on his right hand was meaningful or just random/for the aesthetic. 

However seeing the current arc, I’m almost sure that this was drawn like this on purpose, which makes it even better!

Look, look, first of all you’ve got Rin and Yukio facing each other and this could really be depicting how Yukio just left his brother and the Order to join the Illuminati, as well as the on-going conflict (mostly from Yukio’s perspective) that led to this decision. 

Mephy was totally expecting such an event after all, he even deliberately worked for it, finally pushing Yukio to his limits in ch94.

However, as it is, Rin remains on the Order (or more simply remains Mephy’s trump card) while Yukio moved on to join Lucifer and the Illuminati. 

Then Shiemi and Amaimon: starting with Shiemi on the cover of ch44, she’s on “Rin’s side”, as if supporting him, and then again it makes sense for several reasons.

Shiemi is the one (with Suguro) who warned Rin that something was really wrong with Yukio in the current arc. 

In fact, she used to be closer to Yukio (knowing him for a longer time and all), but his inner conflict ever since the Kyoto arc led him to slowly get estranged from her while Rin grew closer to Shiemi instead. 

This leads to why the current blossoming romance is Rin/Shiemi and not Yukio/Shiemi, despite Yukio and Shiemi having better odds at the beginning of the series (I want to expand on that but in another post about shipping in AnE in general once I’ve reread the whole series).

Another reason to “Shiemi being on Rin’s side” could be her own part of the current arc, since...

after finally admitting that she’s got feelings for him (and not Yukio, sorry my boy, long ago I was vouching for you guys), she’s taken by the Vatican for a matter that’s most likely related to Shemihaza. 

So Shiemi is in love with Rin and also remains on the Order’s side, even if this is probably not as willingly as it appeared to be in ch99.2. 

In fact, since she chose to drop becoming an exorcist after the talk with her mom and despite her initial wishes, it’s pretty clear that her character’s arc will have to address what she really wants for her future and, since we’ve established in different parts of the story that a part of the Order is rotten anyway, this will probably be related. 

This is where Amaimon jumps in and again, the current arc might explain why he’s lurking behind Shiemi on the cover of ch44. Yeah, sure, Shiemi was his bride that he chose randomly to force Rin to attack him in an early arc, but lately...

it doesn’t seem to be such a random narrative (or related to Rin/Shiemi) choice after all. 

The “Shiemi has a link to Shemihaza” theories have been going strong for a while now, with Shemihaza who was described to be “the emperor of creation”

while Amaimon is a Baal, but more precisely the King of Earth. 

However, while Shemihaza was said to be a part of the Order along with Armumahel and Azazel, Amaimon considered himself to be neutral, probably only being involved so far in Mephy’s schemes because he owes his current vessel to Mephy. 

And yet, this scene happened...

...which is giving me the feeling that either Shemihaza and Amaimon have a significant history or that Amaimon is pissed because maybe he shouldn’t have taken Shiemi in particular as his “bride” (I’d rather believe in the former though). 

Nonetheless, I think we can safely expect Amaimon to be involved in Shiemi’s personal arc, whatever the reason for his outburst and anger was, and since both are related to Nature, I’m also wondering if we might not finally get another mention of the Garden of Amahara (maybe it was created by Amaimon and Shemihaza?). :))

Moving on, that leaves only Shura’s pawn on the cover of ch44, who’s in an interesting position since she’s backing up Yukio but at the same time facing Mephy. No surprise but there again, I think it’s related to the current arc. 

First of all Mephy and Shura have this weird dynamic: she doesn’t trust him at all, but she plays by his rules when she knows it can’t be helped and he’s been edging her on down the road of becoming the #1 caretaker of the Okumura twins since 5ever. Please observe the development between ch34 and ch81:

What Mephy also did is that he made sure that the twins would be the ones who would solve the matter with Hachiro, which also helped Shura with moving on from Shiro...

...and which led to her saying something super important as a conclusion to her arc:

The reason it’s super relevant and interesting (and also the reason I believe it’s related to her position on the cover of ch44) is that Shura is also one of the few who can get Yukio to be 100% honest. 

Sure, that led to them bickering all the time and Yukio saying that he always hated her, buuuut thanks to the Aomori arc, we know that’s far from being true. 

Anyway, personally I had forgotten, but actually there was a time in AnE where Yukio was not full of angst (until he meets Todo), or so you could think because the truth is that he was just better at hiding everything behind his smiles, but anyway it never fooled Shura then...

and it’s still not fooling her. 

So, now that Yukio completely broke down about everything...

...maybe Mephisto will give her an opportunity to go after him, or she’ll simply choose to go by herself. For now all she knows is that he escaped, she doesn’t know about the Illuminati yet, but when she finds out... she might just drop the Order (since she said she didn’t care) and chase after him, especially since the Illuminati also took what was left of Hachiro. 

So she wouldn’t be on neither the Order’s side or the Illuminati’s: she’s on the twins’ side and she’s facing Mephy on the cover of ch44 because she knows he planned it all out and now she may have to go and try bringing Yukio back (whether Mephy offers his help/an opportunity or not though, we’ll see).

There you go! It’s all adding up, and obviously since it’s Mephy’s plan xD but I’m so happy Sensei went as far as to possibly plan it all out and leave little clues such as the cover of ch44. I just can’t wait to find out more. :D

Sorry for the long post, it’s really a blast to reread the series!