I learned a neat thing years ago in a Japanese short stories class, and now I have a burning desire to share it with the Blue Exorcist fandom, so!
There come times in every human’s life where we need to tell a close loved one everything we feel about them at once. Maybe it’s because one of you is dying or going away forever, or maybe it’s just because you really wanted them to know you care right now. Either way, it’s impossible to just sum up an important relationship in a few words.
But despite that–or maybe even BECAUSE it’s impossible to do–we have a default for what to say. A stand-in for all those feelings that can’t get said in the time we have.
Where I’m from, it’s “I love you.”
Right? Just think of corny movie scenes; it’s always like “If I don’t make it back, tell my wife I love her.”
And that makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s like…Thinking about you fills me with joy. I want nothing more than to just be with you. You have left a deep impression on my soul. My life is better because you were in it. “I love you.”
But there’s no reason it HAS to be worded that way, is there? The people you care about make you feel a lot of things and “I love you” is only one convenient way to say them. There are others.
In Japanese, the default If-I-Could-Only-Say-One-Thing-To-My-Loved-One thing isn’t “I love you.”
It’s “Thank you.”
And that makes sense too, doesn’t it? It’s like…You helped make me into what I am. You support me in all the hard times. You’ve done so much for me and I appreciate it so, so much. My life is better because you were in it. “Thank you.”
And like…I’d be crying at that scene from the chapter ANYWAY but I am crying EVEN MORE because I know that little tidbit.
Me: First of all, rude. Second of all, where did you even LEARN a word like あばずれ?? All you’ve ever done was read a pile of books and then sit in a sewer for two years.
How to dehumanize a baby, ft. Abel and The Way Japanese Numbers Work
So you know how in English, when we say how many of something there are, we usually just say [number] [thing]…but sometimes you need another word? Something like “five sheets of paper” instead of “five papers,” or “two sticks of gum” instead of “two gums.”
Japanese numbers are like that, but with everything.
You don’t just have five sheets of paper, you also have a couple sheets of blanket, 52 sheets of playing card, a sheet of cheese on your burger. The word for “sheet(s) of something” is 枚（まい）
You have five sticks of finger on each hand, which you use to hold a stick of pencil while you write, and there are many more sticks of hair on your head. The word for “stick(s) of something” is 本（ほん）
Words like ~枚 and ~本 are called countersorclassifiers, and there are a bunch of them depending on what type of thing you’re counting. So if you’re saying that there’s one of something, it could come out as all sorts of different words:
一枚（いちまい） one flat thing
一本（いっぽん） one long cylindrical thing
一人（ひとり）one person
一個（いっこ） one small roundish object
一匹（いっぴき） one small animal (cats, dogs, fish, rodents, bugs…)
一つ（ひとつ） one thing that doesn’t fit neatly into other categories
and many more!
I bring this up because of what Abel called poor unborn Yukio in the new Blue Exorcist chapter. When he was told that the doctors were trying to take Yuri away from the commotion surrounding her first (very demonic!) newborn twin so she could give birth to the second (less demonic!) one, he responded:
止めろ。腹の中にはまだ一匹残っている。 Stop them. She still has one more of those things left in there.
止めろ stop them! (imperative form of とめる “stop someone from doing something”)
腹（はら）belly, abdomen
～の中に（～のなかに） inside of ~
は makes 腹の中に “inside (her) abdomen” the topic of the sentence
まだ still, yet
一匹（いっぴき）one (small animal)
残っている (のこっている） is left, is remaining (from のこる “to remain/be left over”)
So he says there’s one more baby…but he didn’t use the counter for people, now did he? That would be 一人. He said 一匹, with the counter for smallish animals.
Really drives home the fact that he sees the twins as vermin to be exterminated, doesn’t it?
Come read this glorious panel with vocab/grammar notes under the cut. (Blue Exorcist spoilers, obvs)
So here we have Yukio literally daring the freaking King of Light to kill him, like… yeah I tricked you and blew up your airship, u mad bro?
どうせ僕は死ねない I can’t die anyhow.
どうせ at any rate, after all, no matter what
僕 (ぼく) I, me
は makes 僕 the topic of the sentence (he’s talking about himself and how he can’t die)
死ぬ (しぬ) die
Changing the -u on an u-verb to -eru means “to be able to verb”: 死ぬ–>死ねる (しねる) “can die”
~ない not, doesn’t: 死ねる–>死ねない (しねない) “can’t die”
万が一殺せるならどうぞ殺してくれ If, by some chance, you CAN kill me, please, be my guest.
万が一 (まんがいち) Literally something like “one in ten thousand.” It usually means something that’s unlikely, but we still need to plan for it. So… “Just in case,” “In the unlikely event that…” “If, god forbid, the worst should happen…” etc. He’s saying hey, I figure there’s like, a 0.01% chance it could work, but knock yourself out man.
殺す (ころす) kill
殺せる(ころせる) can kill (same form as 死ねる above)
なら if, if that’s the case
どうぞ Please, go ahead, feel free to… This is the same word you’d use to, say, tell someone the seat next to you is free and they are welcome to sit in it. But with, you know, murder.
殺して (ころして） the te-form of 殺す (kill) which is used to connect it to other verbs and phrases.
verbてくれ “verb for me.” It’s like an informal “verbてください” (please verb for me) if you know that form. くれ is from the verb くれる “give to me”–you’re doing the verb and then giving it to me as a gift. You wanna kill me? I’d love to see you try. Go ahead, make my day.
You know, sometimes it’s weird in anime when a teenager is just randomly able to take down an entire evil organization when perfectly functional adults have failed.
Other times, it makes perfect sense, because only a teenager could be so catastrophically reckless when they get truly Done with everything.
Good work, kiddo. I hope you don’t get any radiation sickness from this.
Satan: What’re you eating? (Yuri: Shiro! You can’t smoke in here!) Shiro: Hm? It’s a cigarette.
Shiro: It’s something for adults to enjoy. Like a drug that relieves stress. A little twerp like you wouldn’t understand… (Yuri: Shiro!) (Shiro: Yeah, yeah…)
Satan: You’re just blunting your cognitive ability, that’s all. It’s destroying tons of neurons in the parts of your brain behind your eyes and your brain isn’t functioning as well. It’s weakened your lungs a lot too. You must really want to die young. Go ahead, eat as much of it as you want.
Can someone please confirm me that “sultry” isn’t a compliment and Mephisto is actually insulting his sister? Google Translate has not given me a satisfying answer…..
I can confirm based on the Japanese version that he is very much insulting all of them, sometimes in ways that don’t fit neatly into speech bubbles if you want to capture the nuance in English:
Lucifer: 聖人気取り = “wannabe saint.” (noun気取り is someone who thinks they’re totally a noun when they’re not)
Iblis: エロブラコン = a compound between エロ (“erotic” probably referring to the way she dresses/acts) and ブラコン (which is short for…well…brother complex, i.e. a sister who…likes her brother in a…nonplatonic way, not sure if he’s dunking on her relationship with Lucifer or Egyn here)
Egyn: ブリッコザメ = a compound between ブリッコ (a person, usually a girl but probably gender-neutral here, who plays dumb/acts incompetent or weak to look cute) and サメ (shark)
Satan: 中二病限界 = the limit of how 中二病 a person can be, 中二病 being literally “8th grader syndrome” i.e. that very specific thing where someone thinks they’re hot sh*t and probably have hidden powers or something, when to everyone else they’re pure cringe
….Just realized he didn’t bring Astaroth into this, lol.
For the first time in ages, Blue Exorcist 121 has a title that isn’t all numbers and such! It’s called 無双（むそう/musou)! Let’s take a look at how a Japanese dictionary defines that word:
Peerless, a cut above the rest, invincible, unmatched by anyone
A garment where the inner and outer layers are made of the same kind of cloth
A sumo move where you sweep away the opponent’s thigh with your arm, knocking them off balance
Personally, I’ve pretty much only seen it used for definition 1, though I think the Viz title (”Of the Same Cloth”) does a pretty snappy job with definition 2.
…What’s that? You want to know how on earth the same word means “invincible” and “using the same cloth for both layers”?
Well, you see…that’s because of the LITERAL meaning of the word.
LITERALLY, like if you just look at the kanji it’s made of? It means…uh…well…it means…
Twinless.
And I am NOT sure how to feel about that one, Katoh.
…then you know I am 1000 shades of unwell right now.
While this scene is always emotional and one of my favorites in all of media, this was the first time “Call Me Later” came on while I was reading it. That was one of the most beautiful and moving experiences I have ever had in my 20~ years of reading manga.
Mephisto’s “Thats the Rin I know” followed by the pages added just for the volume which cuts to another example of Kato blocking Rin’s eye line…. while the next page is Rin’s resolve to “…watch everything that happens and make a decision.”
The placement of Lewin on the 110 illustration is PERFECTION.
I have been so excited to get to this illustration so I could fully analyze it with the context which it appears in…
When you place the illustrations alongside the page, the paneling of the page is identical to the way the illustration has been broken up due to the light from Rin’s heart.Rin, holding his head in both pieces, fighting with himself, his morality, and his humanity. Not only is Lightning positioned directly above Rin… he’s the one character along side Rin who falls under the split, with his facial expression being full of uncertainty and fear, and the eye showing is the half that corresponds with Rin’s demon half trying to manipulate him to gain control. Shiemi falls between Lightning and Rin on the right side and is un-ironically… the person who continually brings Rin back down when his nature gets the better of him.
And his eye is nearly identical to how Rin’s right eye shows up in the bottom panel.
