Some Warmth For Atsushi Because He Has Suffered Enough

Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 1

This is a post series I've been planning for a while and I've finally had the time to complete part 1! 😃 I may have mentioned here before that I got my B.A. in Japanese/East Asian Studies, and even though I'm not fluent, I know the linguistics of the language fairly well. So I thought it would be fun to examine the interesting aspects of the Japanese version of the SxF manga that aren't reflected in the English translation. It might also be an informative experience for those who don't know any Japanese to learn a bit about the language through SxF! I'll try not to get too technical with the linguistics and keep my explanations at a beginner's level.

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Part 1 - Twilight's "honne and tatemae"

One of the main themes in SxF is how many of the characters have secrets they want to hide, so they act a certain way in front of others in order to mask their true selves. Japanese has a word for this phenomena called 本音と建前 ("honne and tatemae").

I remember learning about the concept of "honne and tatemae" during my Japanese college studies – a quick google search will yield a lot of publications on the topic and its relation to Japanese culture in particular. While the idea of hiding one's true intentions behind a fake facade can exist anywhere and is not something unique to Japan, it is enough of an occurrence in Japanese culture that there are specific words for it. The Wiki article has a basic but good definition of honne and tatemae, to quote:

A person's honne may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one's honne. In many cases, tatemae leads to outright telling of lies in order to avoid exposing the true inward feelings.

Sounds very much like the characters in SxF, doesn't it? Twilight especially, because unlike other characters like Yor and Anya, who simply have secrets they need to keep but don't create fake personas for themselves, Twilight does – the cheerful, friendly Loid Forger is a different person from the cold, calculating Twilight after all. Also unlike Yor and Anya, who speak the same way consistently no matter who they're talking to, Twilight uses different speech levels depending on which persona he's using and who he's talking to.

There are many different levels of speech in Japanese, ranging from super formal to totally crude. These speech levels are distinguished mostly by the pronouns the speaker chooses to use for themselves and who they're speaking to, as well as how they choose to conjugate the words they use. For example, 座ってください (suwatte kudasai), 座って (suwatte,) and 座れ (suware) all mean "sit," as in, telling someone to sit down. But the tone being conveyed is different: the first one is polite, the second one is casual, and the last one could be seen as rude if you're not using it with a close friend/family member.

As Twilight, he uses casual speech with the masculine and less polite pronoun 俺 or オレ (ore). This is the speech he uses when talking to a fellow spy like Fiona, and for his own inner thoughts.

As Loid Forger, he uses the polite 敬語 (keigo) speech, which is basically comprised of using the -ます (-masu) conjugation for verbs and the "to be" verb です (desu). He also uses the pronoun ボク or 僕 (boku), which is the standard male pronoun and more polite than "ore." He uses keigo to address pretty much everyone who doesn't know his true identity. When talking to a higher-up like Sylvia, he'll still use "ore" but will use polite speech instead of casual speech.

Anya is an exception to this: with her, he uses his most casual speech, the same as he uses with Franky.

I discussed a bit about this in part 24 of my Twiyor analysis posts, but this could be because Anya is a little kid, so he doesn't feel the need to put on any airs with her (same with Bond, whom he also uses casual speech with).

An interesting side note is that, as a child, Twilight used the pronoun "boku" but then changed to "ore" as soon as he became an adult/soldier.

Another aspect of keigo, besides using the more polite forms of pronouns and verb conjugations, is putting the honorific さん (san) after people's names. Twilight does this all the time with Yor, as she does with him. However, he switches to casual speech and drops the "san" part in her name when addressing her in front of people who (supposedly) believe they're a real married couple, such as Yuri and Fiona – because it would be weird for a real couple who have been married for a year to address each other in such a formal way, especially the husband. In the below panel when Fiona visits them, he's calling her "Yor" instead of "Yor-san" and using casual speech instead of keigo.

Oddly in these situations, while he uses just "Yor" when addressing her directly, he still calls her "Yor-san" when talking about her. During Yuri's first visit for example, he calls her "Yor-san" when telling Yuri how much Anya loves her (talking to someone about her) but then calls her just "Yor" a few moments later when telling her that he'll clean up the spill (talking to her directly). It's strange to me that he wouldn't just consistently use "Yor" whether he's talking to her or about her in these situations...I'm honestly not sure if he does this intentionally or if he just slips up since he's so used to using "Yor-san" in her presence.

*UPDATE* Thank you to @dentedintheworld-blog for enlightening me with the below reply about this!

"In Japanese, when speaking to your spouse's family about your spouse, you address her/him by attaching "san" her/his name out of respect for her/his family. This is also to show her/his family that you respect your spouse. That's why Loid calls Yor with san when he talks about how much he loves Yor to Yuri."

That definitely makes sense for why Twilight switches between "Yor" and "Yor-san" in these situations.

Regardless, this is why the scene in chapter 86 is so significant – when Yor isn't present, there's no reason for him to refer to her as "Yor-san," especially in front of a fellow spy like Fiona who knows he (supposedly) shouldn't have any feelings for her. Yet, even after he just called Yuri by his full name "Yuri Briar" a moment before, he doesn't do the same for Yor and continues to call her "Yor-san" here, much to Fiona's dismay.

In the same chapter, it's also significant that he uses "ore" when addressing Yor directly in his thoughts. Even though he's not speaking out loud, I believe this is the first time he's speaking directly "to" her as Twilight and/or his true self and not as Loid Forger.

But despite all this, I think that both Loid Forger and Twilight are tatemae…they're both masks to hide the person he truly is. The person who fondly talked about his mother to Yor on the park bench, the person who genuinely expressed gratitude for her sacrifice when leaving the resort island, the person who refused to kill Yuri in a life-or-death struggle because he knew it would hurt her…that's his actual honne. But of course, the ongoing conflict of the series is that he has yet to realize this. He won't even show his honne to his closest friend, Franky. Seems like it mostly comes out in dribs and drabs during his interactions with Yor...no surprise there, lol. The man is certainly a work in progress. When he finally starts letting his "honne" show, I'm curious what form of speech he'll adopt.

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Continue to Part 2 ->

akutagawa giving rashoumon to atsushi to fight with but its animated like a magical girl transformation

mitsuba has taken me to places of my brain i don't like (thinking seriously about beast dazai and oda)

I’ve seen people debate on how long the TBHK story has been happening, and when certain events should’ve happened, so I’ve decided to make my own (unofficial) TBHK timeline!!!

This is gonna be a timeline of the main story, so things that happened before Nene entered the picture wont be included (for now at least!) Let me know if I made any mistakes or if there’s any additional information that I didn’t include in this post, I simply re-read the whole manga for maybe like the 15th time?? and tried to gather any and all hints from dialogue and backgrounds/calendars.

I don’t have an exact date to when the main story began, but it must’ve been late spring or so, due to the warm weather. Nene talked about how she picked up “feminine” hobbies such as gardening, sewing and cooking after the guy she started liking in middle school said he’s into feminine girls. She seemingly confessed to him right after starting her 1st year in high school as she said it took her 3 years to master these newfound hobbies and confess her love. Nene stated that it’d happened a month ago so it’s probably May. typically in Japan the new school year starts around April 5th, and as Nene confessed right at the beginning of the new year she met Hanako around ~May 5th if it was exactly one month ago when she got rejected.

In their next appearance, Nene said it had been a week since the two met. So it should be around ~May 12th if I’m correct.

Within the next month, Nene gets to Meet characters like Kou, Tsuchigomori, Yako and the broadcasting club, and also gets to see Hanakos more vulnerable side for the first time!

It should be early June by now, the fact that we see Sousuke taking pictures of Morning glories, which bloom between early Summer and Fall, solidifies this for me.

After chapters 18-20, it gets a little blurry though. No specific dates are really mentioned, and Nene stops commenting on how longs it’s been since she met Hanako, so the best I can do is make hardcore guesses in between the next time we get a confirmed date, July 7th when Hanako took Nene and Kou to the Tanabata Star festival.

Between these chapters, we got a proper introduction to the broadcasting club, got to meet the clock keepers + learn about Nenes lifespan, and witness Mitsuba take on the role of a school mystery number 3.

Nene mentioned it’d been three days since she encountered Mitsuba in the hell of mirrors, and invited Kou to the summer festival the next day. Hanako decided to take them to the Tanabata star festival instead, (Insert image I couldn’t fit in) July 7th which I’m assuming would’ve been the very next day, in which case the Hell of mirrors arc took place at around July 2nd. That’d still leave a whole month between For the clock keepers and tea party arc, (insert ANOTHER image I couldn’t fit in) so I can’t exactly pin down any specific dates or even weeks..

It gets even messier after picture perfect! Mitsuba’s welcoming party likely happened around a week after being taken in by the broadcasting club, so it’s early to mid July at this point.

Interestingly enough, it seemed time moved slower in the painting Nene and Kou were stuck in, as all of a sudden Finals came up! From what I’ve understood, finals usually come at the middle or end of July, lasting 3 days.

I’m gonna be going off the average Japanese schools standards when it comes to dates, since we don’t know much about Kamone academy. So if we’re going off by the average estimate, The school sleepover should’ve happened at the beginning of August.

Being just around Obon.

Weirdly enough, despite Nene and Hanako spending a night with Sumire, by the time the severance happened barely any time had passed in the real world. (Insert another damn imagine I wasn’t able to squeeze in.)

Teru takes Nene and Akane on a little outing after summer vacation properly began, calling it his first real day off in a while. So this could’ve been very well been a day or two right after the severance.

The day after, Nene and Kou meet Sousukes mother, who’s visiting her sons grave for Obon, which should’ve been celebrated between August 13-16th, as the main story for TBHK is set in 2015.

I’m guessing the entirety of the severance/rescue arc happens during Obon, as it’d make sense why Aoi was able to be saved despite having “died” according to Hanako, and why the supernaturals were able to return to the near shore so quickly, as the near and far shores were so blurred.

The second trimester begins at the start of September, so there were still about 2 weeks in between the Fireworks party-Night life chapters before school started again!

This is the present, with the preparations for the festival beginning immediately and the event lasting 2 days, we should be in the first week of September at the moment, both in the old and new timeline.

So some key points are;

• It’s been ~5 Months since Nene met Hanako.

• Nene has MAX 7 Months left to live, probably closer to 1-4.

• Mitsuba is ~3 months old!

• maybe we get to see everyone in winter uniforms!! that’d be cute. Not really important I just thought that sounded fun.

Aaannd that’s a wrap for now. I don’t plan on updating the timeline unless new information about dates comes up or if there’s any inconsistencies that I made, but thank you for reading my first Tumblr post!!! I plan on making more ramblings and personal analogies on here, repost some art too or shitpost in general. Feel free to mention any errors I made or ask questions in my inbox, I’m going to BED!!!!

Well, seems like something that was just a theory before has come very close to truth...

Because of this major revelation, I wanted to take a deep dive into what we know about Donovan so far and how hints throughout past chapters could indeed indicate that he can read minds. While we still don't have concrete proof for this other than Melinda's word, I don't believe there's anything that discredits this idea, either. In fact, many things throughout the series support it.

First we have Loid's encounter with Donovan way back in chapter 38. I always found it strange that we never got insight into Donovan's thoughts throughout that whole exchange. We always get to know what characters are thinking, even without Anya's mind-reading support. It's not an uncommon storytelling mechanic in general after all, especially for manga. Yet, Endo chose not to give us any insight into what Donovan was thinking. I figured this was simply to avoid spoiling anything about what his exact plans and motives are for future stories (also why Anya was absent for this). But now it seems like this could have also been to hide the fact that he can read minds. If he can read minds, certain things he said during that exchange take on a more ominous meaning. For example, what he said below about how people can never truly understand each other.

It's been a headcanon of mine that the reason why Anya, and perhaps Donovan, were given mind-reading powers, stemmed from the desire for world peace...the idea being that if people could read each other's minds - in other words, always know what others are thinking and feeling, sympathy and understanding would abound.

We learn later on that Donovan had ideas like this even as a kid when he made a similar comment during his debate competition speech. He said that it's impossible to know the true intentions of others so people will forever doubt each other, thus war is inevitable.

We also have the little detail in today's chapter that Donovan did not have the scars on his head during Melinda's flashback (of course, he didn't have them as a kid in chapter 99 either).

Now this is totally my theory, but if we take Melinda's words as the truth, without any misunderstanding, then sometime in Donovan's adult life after he married and had a child, he was experimented on and was given mind-reading powers, perhaps by force but most likely by choice. Now that he has these powers, his laments about people not being able to understand each other are no longer true, at least not for him. Perhaps the experiments done on Anya were preliminary tests that he put together to perfect the mind-reading implementation science before actually doing it to himself. Again, totally just speculation, but not out of the question.

Then we have Demetrius...we learned in chapter 93 that Anya has trouble reading his mind.

If we put that together with Melinda's comment in today's new chapter, that Demetris also took note of Donovan being able to read minds...

...then perhaps Demetrius conditioned himself to think in ways that would make it difficult for his mind to be read, specifically to thwart the "alien" that's impersonating his father. I mentioned last time that I don't think Donovan is actually an alien, and that this description is the only explanation Melinda could come up with to explain his mind-reading powers. If this is true though, it really does make the Desmond dinner scene all the more telling...that throughout all those panels without dialogue, Donovan was absorbing the deepest inner thoughts of his family members (and again, no insight into his own thoughts, just like in chapter 38).

But if the "Donovan can read minds" theory holds true, then the most disturbing idea of all is that Donovan knows that Twilight is a spy. He knows that he's the target of Twilight's mission, and that Twilight seeks to thwart him. Not only that, but depending on what he's read of Damian and Melinda's minds, he knows that they're fond of Anya and Yor, respectively - people who are close to Twilight. Mind-reading powers in the hands of a child are one thing, but in the hands of a shrewd and power political figure...I'm both excited and anxious to find out what Donovan's next move will be!

i hadn't at all consider this line of thinking, but i can see it work and i like how it ties that plot line with the more recent arcs. it's soo interesting

i'm definitely gonna be up thinking about this

thoughts on tbhk manga

just some days ago i read this series, so there are a lot of things that are on my mind especially after seeing other people theories and stuff, so here i'm gonna ramble a bit about them KDNDLDMF

1. so, i have seen a lot of theories of amane's injuries being bc of the clock. but i don't really think that makes sense timewise.

i assumed that the year amane is fixing the clock is 1968 and when we see him injured is 1969. in chapter 101 the announcement says that the first year middle school play and then comes this conversation,,,

so is their class that's doing the play. and since the festival is at the end of summer and they are in their first year (if they are from the class presenting the play) it must be 1968. and he had to have it moving before that years school festival ended,,, so it being the reason for his injuries is highly unlikely imo (well, except he is refering to the 1969 CF, that is an option, but isn't it weird?)

that takes us back to then who or what is actually harming him? i have 2 theories for that. the first one is that it was tsukasa, but it was to provoke amane..

we have seen tsukasa's reaction when he gets to know that his brother is going to kill him, so maybe since they both were close to 13, he has been trying to trigger amane to DO THE THING, trying to get to know that part of his brother, what would push his buttons enough for him to actually do that?

my other option is that it's the mother, afterall she was scared of tsukasa, maybe she started to take her fear on them and since amane is also suspicious, he would understand his mother and forgive her

i haven't seen this idea so idk what you guys think

2. what is it really that the clock-keepers changed? a lot of people speculate that they keep baby tsukasa in the house, but we are shown after n° 1 loops a clock with 1968 written on it, so is logical to assume that's the year they change something.

From that, if we take into account that's the year amane was fixing the clock, maybe he originally did change something when he traveled through time (even if tsukasa says that nothing came of it, implying he couldn't even fix the clock) and that's what n°1 changed, he made amane do something different in 1968 that made a change in the past, but then who told adult amane 4 y/o self about the change in time? his middle school self that traveled? the red house thing?

3. ALSO IN CHAPTER 101 there's this ghost? that talks to nene about an accident in the CF so WHAT ABOUT THAT? WHY NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THAT?

WHAT IF this accident is related to the time change somehow come on guyssss think with me

other thing that has been bothering me is that in the wikis (eng and esp) it says that the yugi twins birthday is in 1955, but in chapter 78 it says that in 1960 is their 4th birthday, so shouldn't they be born in 1956? i don't know if i'm just to dumb to fucking do math or what but wth

The last panel doesn’t really work. It was hilarious in my head.

Happy Halloween!

Picture perfect Amanene coloring (^o^)

other stuff i made for the soukoku roommate au