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awjeezohman · 7 years

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WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YAMAMOTO CHIE

Hey so http://www.sakana-comic.com/ by Mad Rupert (@mynameismad) is a really fantastic comic strip and I was rereading it tonight and accidentally went temporarily insane. I came out of my bout of psychosis to find I’d written a, I shit you not, two thousand word essay about what’s going on with Chie Yamamoto. Chie is one of the main supporting characters and is interesting and mysterious and so naturally I wrote a heavily cited, vaguely academic, very dumb essay on my theory about what exactly is up with her. I sent it to a friend and they said I should post it to social media to “get the recognition [I] deserve” so, without further ado:

This is my theory about WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YAMAMOTO CHIE

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PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE

First I want to show that anything at all is in fact going on with one Ms. Chie Yamamoto. I find this to be fairly self-evident upon a reread of the comic but I understand the burden of proof rests upon my shoulders.

I provide five pieces of evidence. The first: Chie's Chapter IX feature (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/chapter-9). Note the phrase "Keeps everybody guessing." The second: Chie's character bio (http://www.sakana-comic.com/cast). She not only "Keeps [people] guessing" but also "...is deeply mysterious, and is never caught off guard." The third: I talked to Mad Rupert at SPX 2017, and she said something weird was going on with Chie. She didn't say what, but she said it was something. I admit the evidence so far has been fairly Word-of-God; if you were a person who embraced Death of the Author strictly, it would not be very convincing. As such, I present the fourth and fifth pieces of evidence: in strip 139 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/139), Chie hesitates for a panel when describing her dog-training job. In the next panel she says, "Companionship, of course!" with a smile, but the sweat drops flying off her face imply she is somehow nervous--perhaps she is lying, or omitting pieces of the truth. In strip 322 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/322) Taro catches Chie at the stall and asks, suspicious, "Why were you behind the register?" to which she replies, grinning and surrounded by sparkles, her speech bubble's tail winding back and forth, "I dropped something." Upon further questioning, she calmly elaborates, "My cellphone fell out of my pocket and slid underneath [the register]." Taro remains suspicious. In the following panels she is delighted by a distracting loud noise coming from the back of the stall and rushes off to check it out. Chie's reaction and the portrayal of said reaction lead me to believe that she is lying here as well.

These pieces of evidence are small by themselves. But their synthesis indicates that something, indeed, is going on with Chie.

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THESIS

Sakana, as described by the author, is a sli-li-rom-com. But it is not a slice of life of some innocent, sanitized place. There may not be supervillains or eldritch monsters in the world surrounding the Tsukiji fish market but there is violence, abuse, and organized crime. However, besides a single police officer in strip 169 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/169) and several mentions of "market security" (e.g. http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/286) there is little police presence. Yet... what if it were hiding in plain sight? What if the underground forces of crime and deviance were combated by law enforcement that was equally secretive?

I present the theory that Chie Yamamoto is not merely a dog trainer, but, in fact, an officer of the law. She trains dogs not for mere companionship but to be canine weapons--K9 units to protect and serve at her side.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF YAMAMOTO CHIE

I should clarify that Japanese names put the surname before the given name. E.g. Shotaro Kaneda, Kageyama Shigeo, etc. So in Japan, Chie's full name would go Yamamoto Chie, whereas in the US you'd say Chie Yamamoto. I'm suddenly realizing that this makes me sound like a huge weeb so I'm gonna stop.

Chie has shown herself to be very resourceful, especially in regards to subterfuge and conflict. That may not by itself show that she is a trained policewoman or government agent, but it does lend support to my theory.

This characteristic does not show up much in the first volume, where she is essentially a background character. But in the second volume, when the audience and Jiro himself get to know her a little better, she shows her hand. The strips 260 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/260) and 262 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/262) serve up some good examples. She sends her friend to distract Yuudai so she can talk to Jiro without being bothered. She couches a social situation in terms of a firefight, and responds to Jiro's "Is this a date or a war??" by treating him as naive for even assuming they were two different things: "Oh, Jiro! You're so cute." Upon being told that Jiro can't talk with her because "Yuudai would kill [him]!" she takes it literally and implies she could take Yuudai in a fight: "Takana? Please, he weighs less than I do!"

If I may be allowed a digression: the first four panels of strip 261 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/261) give vitality to my crusty, seaweed-covered soul.

Anyway! In strip 330 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/330) she calmly, confidently stands up to the very intimidating Taro. When Taro objects to Mori coming along on the second date, he says, "She caused enough trouble last time!" to which she responds, smiling, "And you didn't?" Strips 287 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/287), 288 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/288), and 291 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/291), where Chie encounters Arata, also provide supporting evidence. She gives Arata an evil, evil eye when he tries to manipulate her into badmouthing the shop--clearly recognizing him for what he is and not standing for it. She's not only confident but forceful in her own manipulation, going so far as to threaten to call the manager not on Arata but on the boys in the shop. Finally, in what is possibly the most honest admission that she knows her way around a weapon or two, she responds to Jiro's thanks, "No prob! I'm VERY good at spotting trouble-makers." The capitalized word in my quotation is instead enlarged in the actual text.

I think I've presented fairly well why Chie's behavior does not contradict, and in fact supports, the idea that she is some sort of government agent or policewoman. I will now take a bit of a detour into things going on in the fish market. Be assured it will dovetail nicely with this discussion.

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CRIME AT THE TSUKIJI FISH MARKET

As I've stated, the fish market where Chie and Jiro work is a hive of scum and villainy. Well, maybe that's going a little far, especially considering it’s a real place and I don’t want to give it a bad name. But, at least in the world of the comic, there's some shady stuff going on. Shigeru brings it up multiple times. In strip 99 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/099), he says to Taro, "I been seein' sum shady lookin' guys round 'ere lately [sic]." Then in strip 214 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/214), he says to Taro, "You ain't noticed all th'thugs snoopin' 'round th'market lately [sic]?" At that point, he's talking about Genji Sakana and how he thinks Genji's been caught up in something bad. And as we found out between those comics, in strip 191 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/191), Genji owes a bunch of money to a very scary man who wants his father's fish stall because "Tsukiji's one of the largest markets in the world! Merch from every corner of the globe going in and out every day... A businessman like [him] could use a hub like that." Not only is organized crime present in the fish market, it is also angling to expand its operations there.

Is this not something that would warrant attention by law enforcement? Surely they would have some awareness of the global nature of the goods flowing through the market. With that awareness comes the need for police presence to catch any illicit goods hidden between all the seafood. Of course, if you're looking to stop crime organized enough to trade illegal goods on a global scale, you can't really nip it in the bud. The bud has long since bloomed. Instead you have to eliminate the high- and mid-level members of the organization from their positions of authority. So it might make sense to install law enforcement covertly rather than overtly. Perhaps it would be best to have the installed individuals bide their time, investigate and survey and gather information so as to make the most extensive case against the criminal organization--or even to find the organization in the first place.

I hope the reader has begun to pick up on what I am suggesting.

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CHIE'S ROLE

I want to go back to something I presented in preliminary evidence. In strip 322, Taro catches Chie behind the register. He is suspicious but she feigns innocence. I recognize that this could be another instance of her spying on Jiro and Yuudai's conversations, like the flashback in strip 461 (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/461). But I also think it's possible that the antics of Jiro and Yuudai are not the only thing she's keeping an eye on. I think she knows that some sketchy guys have been hanging around Ren Sakana's sushi stall. I think in her role as an agent of peace and justice she has decided to check out what's going on at the register, just ever so briefly, to make sure nothing is obviously shady.

I should elaborate more on exactly what I believe Chie does and her relationship to the other characters. I especially want to emphasize this: Chie is not a sociopath, and her job and relationships at the market are not purely utilitarian. She has worked at the market for two years (http://www.sakana-comic.com/comic/124). I'm not sure on the exact timeline of Chie's career, whether (in the world of this theory) she became involved with law enforcement before or after she started working at the market, or where she is in the organizational structure--whether she's with the police or some national investigative group like the United States's FBI. I don't think she's very senior in any organization, which would explain why she's working two jobs and spending her time investigating a fish market rather than something more interesting and/or easy. But I also think (and know, because I talked to Mad Rupert about this, too) that she genuinely likes Jiro and is invested in her relationships with Sango, Yuudai, etc. She spends her days selling seafood, working the register, talking with her friends and boyfriend, and occasionally making notes of goings-on in the market. Yes, I believe she is keeping things hidden, but only because it is required of her. She doesn't necessarily feel comfortable doing so.

I believe there is also a degree of discomfort in her mind about dating Jiro, knowing she may end up contributing to the arrest of people close to him. If anything, that angle represents the biggest flaw in my theory: Chie hasn't shown more hesitance about dating Jiro. Maybe she was behind the register merely because she was spying on Jiro and Yuudai, and she isn't aware of any criminal activity particular to the Sakanas. Maybe she likes Jiro enough to date him despite how he or someone he knows might be implicated, and she's checking the register not out of duty or suspicion, but out of desperate hope that everything is on the up-and-up and she won't have to do anything untoward to anyone in Jiro's circle. Maybe she's actually on the opposite side of the cops/robbers divide and she's either involved with the people harrassing Genji or a different group of criminals, neither of whom would be as concerned about playing favorites as law enforcement would be. I dunno! I think that given Chie's personality and genuine good intentions for the wellbeing of people around her, it's more likely that she would be on the side of law enforcement. But at this point I'm blathering.

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CONCLUSION

I believe Chie Yamamoto is secretly a K9 trainer and undercover cop and that she uses her access to the Tsukiji Fish Market to gather evidence against a criminal organization attempting to use the market to trade illegal goods on a global scale. I believe the relationships she forms at the market, including her budding romance with Jiro, are real, but I believe she is keeping secrets. I believe she knows more than she lets on about deescalation, manipulation, subterfuge, and conflict of all sorts--because she was educated about those things at the academy. I believe Chie can fight and knows her way around knives, batons, guns, her own fists, etc.

And really that's why I feel this theory is important. It suggests a future moment when Chie is confronted by one of Nishimura's goons and just takes them DOWN. Like, she sweeps the leg, pulls a gun out of her jeans, flashes a badge, and tells them they have the right to remain silent.

And then, like, right after, Chie and Jiro KISS and it's amazing and then Taisei and Yuudai ALSO KISS and everyone kisses someone else and it's great.

#sakana #sakana comic #webcomics #comics #chie yamamoto

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