#ritsu is already the most likely to realize he's trapped in a narrative and would hate it

[waitineedaname]

what do u think ritsu would do if he got stuck in a time loop

oh he would go insane. like, immediately. you know how in a lot of time loop stories, there's a point where the character kind of loses it? it would take no time for ritsu to reach that point. like as soon as he realizes he's trapped, he will Freak The Fuck Out. he'll either throw himself really intensely into trying to figure out how to end the time loop, or he'll go completely off the deep end and start blowing shit up because it'll all be reset by the next day. potentially both.

of course, this is all presuming he's alone in the time loop. I think if he had someone else trapped in the time loop with him, he'd be less likely to lose his mind and instead would work really hard with them to break it. but if he's by himself in the time loop, he would not cope well

[yukisohmasmokesweed]

I recently watched 1x10 for the pod and realized just how much of a peek-behind-the-curtain episode this is for Shigure. The episode does a great job breaking down Shigure’s motivations, agenda, and objective as well as exploring some of his morality and self-perception in a really subtle and nuanced way. I wanted to break down what exactly was said in the episode and what the subtext is showing us about who Shigure is and what he wants: an obsessive man who puts his selfish desires first, always, all while trapping himself deeply within the very curse that he is trying to break.

Motivation: The Dream

Each zodiac’s curse manifests in different ways. For example, Yuki experiences the curse through the lens of social isolation and self-blame, Kyo through familial rejection and projected blame, Hatori through resignation and grief, Ritsu through extreme guilt, etc. Shigure’s manifests as obsession.

This dream was something special to all of them, but it soured over time. The anime implies for Hatori that it was because of Kana,

but I believe that was the last straw in a haystack of crushing oppression for Hatori (see: having the ability to erase memories and being expected to carry out the task no matter who it hurts by the family as a whole, Akito, and his father, who also had this power). As for Ayame, he does not fit in with the Sohma’s traditionalism and conservatism and he never attempted to do so, and as an adult he has done everything he can to divorce himself from the Sohma image—going into a non-traditional and arguably taboo field of work, moving away from the estate, and keeping secrets from the family, even his own brother. Kureno is a special case and Ritsu was too young to remember this. For Shigure though, he became obsessed with this feeling, and because he didn’t have the bad experiences Hatori had growing up or chafe too hard against the family culture like Ayame, it became a life-long obsession that, over time, shifted from chasing that “feeling” to chasing Akito as an individual.

A note about the Dog: The Year of the Dog’s defining trait is loyalty, but they are also notably stubborn. This doesn’t speak to the authorial intent (Takaya added the zodiac aspect to the story late in the game, after their characters was set), but I also think that Shigure being the Dog is a great indicator as to why, out of everyone, Shigure’s curse manifests as obsession, and why he’s in love with Akito despite Akito’s treatment of him, the other zodiacs, and other people as a whole.

Agenda: Emotional manipulation

Shigure believes that the curse has weakened over time. The dragon was apparently not always a seahorse, which implies that the magic is weakening, and this is the first time in a long time where all of the zodiacs have been alive at the same time. Due to this as well as their closeness in age and the agitation present between Akito and the zodiacs, Shigure thinks that this is the curse’s last hurrah before breaking.

Shigure wants to speed up the process by exacerbating what he believes to be an already unraveling curse by turning the zodiacs against Akito, showing them that their lives have meaning and potential outside of the curse, and influencing them to start questioning the narrative around the curse as a whole as well as the ones around each of their individual zodiacs.

The curse’s most obvious effect is the physical one, but the emotional component is arguably much more significant. This is why Shigure is agitating the zodiac’s emotions. He often says things he knows will hurt them, but instead of hurling insults like Akito, what he says challenges the zodiac’s beliefs about themselves, one another, the curse, and Sohma family as a whole. He is aiming for their internal lives and beliefs in a way that makes his meddling seem almost invisible; he manipulates through influence instead of force, orchestrating it so that the zodiacs feel as if they have come to a new conclusion on their own. Here is how 1x10 shows us that tactic:

Shigure is trying to push Kyo into realizing that his feelings for Yuki are more influenced by the Sohmas than he thinks they are (implication of the word “duty,” that it’s not something Kyo chose for himself), and that if he takes a step back from the situation that he might see that him and Yuki have more in common than he thinks (”afraid of getting to know him”).

However, this doesn’t work, and it’s directly because Shigure has known who he is and what he wants since childhood. He has never had to struggle with his own personhood, identity, isolation, and blame the way that Kyo has—not to say that he hasn’t at all, but not to the extent of the Cat. Shigure logically knows why Kyo hates Yuki, but he can’t put himself in Kyo’s shoes because their experience with the curse are too different; Shigure fully embraced the curse, falling into obsession over it and making the choice to permanently attach himself to Akito, and that decision is rewarded for the most part. Kyo, on the other hand, has spent his entire life being rejected and ostracized by his family as well as being scapegoated for things he had no control over. Kyo’s issues with blame and isolation are not something that Shigure can empathize with, leading him to get frustrated with Kyo’s stubbornness and pushing Kyo too hard before he’s ready. All in all it’s not bad advice, but Kyo’s issues run extremely deep, and Shigure got impatient. This scene is Shigure messing up, indelicately going to the heart of the matter because his timeline of events is moving slower than he bargained for, and he accidentally shows his hand because of it.

Objective: Akito

Shigure’s objective is to be on equal terms with Akito and pursue a real relationship with them. The only way to do this is to break the curse, freeing Shigure from Akito’s power and taking Akito’s command over him away, as well as undermining the importance of the other zodiacs in Akito’s life. 

The anime does a nice job portraying this to us subtextually by visually juxtaposing the relationships that are the main focus of this episode:

Tohru lowers herself to meet Kyo where he is, whereas Shigure positions himself physically above Akito. The former is a relationship built on equality and mutual trust, the latter one on an inherent and unavoidable power imbalance, resulting in jealousy, toxicity, and a constant struggle for power.

At first glance the shot of Shigure and Akito would imply that Shigure is the one with the power due to their positioning, but it is Akito who has the power. Akito doesn’t stand up to greet him, simply expecting Shigure to come to them and bend at the waist to accommodate their position. Shigure tries to assert his power here by being physically larger and looming, but Akito is so confident in theirs that they wordlessly watch as Shigure does the exact thing Akito wanted.

Morality: Always looking out for #1

Shigure’s goal is a selfish one, and he has leaned into that completely. He is gloatingly self-aware, which allows him to further his plans without any moral qualms in the way.

The inner circle of the Sohma family has a strong culture of pervasive cruelty. We see it over and over again—Kyo’s treatment by the people around him, Haru’s, Yuki’s, Hatori’s, Rin’s, etc etc. Cruelty is extremely normalized within the family, and you can see even in this fairly casual conversation that Shigure and Hatori take shots at one another (other scenes where this happens between them include 2x7, 2x25, off the top of my head). The line of what is deemed “acceptable” in a larger societal sense is much farther for the Sohma family, and this greatly influenced Shigure’s sense of morality and decency. He is intelligent enough to know that hurting others is wrong, but it’s what has been modeled for him his entire life and something he’s participated in before for various reasons. Hurting others is normal for him and of a small blip in his radar in the grand scheme of things.

Shigure’s morals are warped, but he is also extremely intelligent as well as in touch with his emotions. He is aware that if Tohru gets hurt that it will hurt him in turn, both because she is an outsider whose life he is playing with and because he can’t help but care about her (which is what makes her so good for his plans), but his end goal is overall more important to him than his or anyone else’s emotions in the moment.

Self-perception:

All the other zodiacs hold some level of resentment towards Akito and the curse, but Shigure doesn’t resent Akito. He resents the curse because it’s standing between him and a real relationship with Akito, but not Akito themselves. Since childhood, Shigure has been unapologetically obsessed with Akito, and the power of that obsession and the intensity of the bond has led Shigure to live a one-track life, disregarding the pain of people close to him to feed his own selfish desires, going so far as to willingly dirty Tohru, an outsider and a child, to enable his plans. The others live in misery that has been forced onto them; Shigure picked his poison and never plans on letting it go.

Conclusion: Shigure is a nasty little man

1x10 is an excellent look into Shigure’s inner life and ultimate goals. It very clearly shows us that he is motivated by a love that was initially the pure love of a child-turned-dark and desperate. His motivations are selfish, his actions hurtful and oftentimes callous, and his morality twisted by both the family culture and his own doing. This episode does an amazing job juxtaposing Shigure’s unique relationship with the curse against Kyo’s as two ends of the extreme: the former is trying to break the curse so he can have an individual, the latter desperate to be included in the curse so he can find acceptance from the group. Shigure is an underhanded character who very rarely says what he wants outright, but the subtext of this episode is full of great little moments to spell out what Shigure’s game is and how he plans on winning it.