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Mar 19, 2020 5:26 PM
#1

Offline
Jun 2016
3391
THIS IS A MANGA ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS ANYTHING BEYOND THIS CHAPTER.
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In the past I thought that Fukumoto often writes against the idea of money as an end goal. We see this in Ten, in Akagi, in Buraiden Gai, in Kaiji, in Kurosawa. It made for an interesting character in Hiroyuki who was explicitly introduced playing mahjong to make money for university. Eventually he tapped into something that stuck with him ever since. But, he rejected it. The pragmatic Hiroyuki, lacking the eccentricity and guts of a man like Ten, and the purity of a demon like Akagi, believed he would struggle if he followed his heart despite thinking about it to this day. This doesn’t feel so different from the kid we first met in the mahjong parlor that Ten was called to. I see this as completely logical that he’d follow this path, to choose comfort and certainty. But through rejecting the struggle of following mahjong, he’s met a fate of slowly dying, of constant listlessness and apathy, a state that is oh so common in Fukumoto’s works. Something quite humanizing, a default state of sorts which we ought to break out of as humans.

Funny enough, with Hiroyuki rejecting mahjong but growing into the man we see now, I feel aesthetically he’d fit right in with Ten and Akagi. Before, his design was, I’d assume, intentionally unassuming. He felt like a kid who got swept up into a world that he was an outsider in. Now, with his stubble, his glasses, his suits, he feels more striking, as if he could play in the east west battle without a second glance..

And for Akagi, I was just speaking about how elusive he felt. He’s proven to us that as elusive as he is in life, he is in death. He comes and goes like an enigma and that only draws people to him. He’s gone unless he’s about to show up at his own funeral, and I find that quite exciting. For his character and for the structure of the narrative. Narratively, the time skips create this feeling that these moments we’re seeing are far in between, and they are the flow of fate picking up Hiroyuki and taking him for a journey before leaving him back to his own devices. This is no exception, with the atmospheric and beautiful panels of the temple, and the actualization that Akagi just vanished from this world. It’s certainly not a plot direction that I would call expected!! It's super cool, I especially liked that Kanamitsu picked up the phone, I wonder if Fukumoto wanted a monk to be a part of the team for this reason in particular.
Dec 22, 2020 10:35 AM
#2

Offline
Mar 2017
852
Woah. First we get the mother of all time skips, and then this. I actually teared up a little, which sounds super silly, but I have read the entire Akagi manga right before this so I was kinda attached to the guy haha. I think Akagi just being dead, without us knowing the details, would be great. He is a mysterious character after all. But that said, I am looking forward to find out more about what happened, what the others are doing, and what Hiroyuki will do in his life!

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It’s time to ditch the text file.
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