"Wardrobe Rat"? What a title. I'm not sure what I thought about that back when I first read this chapter, but to be fair I wasn't really paying too much attention to the titles back then. My curiosity about the Japanese language in particular came later, so I imagine I just glanced over the foreign title and rushed right into the content instead of considering what it meant. Like many anime and manga fans, I had the assumption that it was something cool and culturally significant that I wouldn't understand the references to anyway.
It was a period in my life when I assumed a lot of hidden meaning behind the stories I consumed, before I realized that most of the time... it's not that deep.
Middle manager energy.
A hazy gibbous moon is shown high over some wooded hills and swaying bamboo, followed by a couple of skeletons still mostly clothed lying around a firepit in a house. Sitting nearby contemplating the human bone he's munching is a giant rat with a box strapped on his back like a backpack. This great rat turns to reveal a massive third eye in the middle of its forehead at the sound of a voice behind him, accusing him of letting his underlings eat the flesh of his prey while he devours the bones. It's Hakudoushi, who has walked into the room, and identifies the massive rodent as Zushi Nezumi. Nah, son, that thing would only BARELY fit in a wardrobe.
Zushi Nezumi hums in confusion, calling Hakudoushi a brat and assuming that he's a survivor of the village he's apparently started picking clean.
Well, there goes our chapter's namesake. I guess he's not nearly as important as having a chapter named after him would suggest.
As Kohaku catches his chained sickle again, Hakudoushi comments on how used to this sort of thing Kohaku is in a mocking sort of way. He instructs Kohaku to retrieve the box from Zushi Nezumi's back and bring it with them. Kohaku obediently does what he's told, with a acquiescent statement, and while he's unstrapping the box from the rat, Hakudoushi warns him not to accidentally open it here or else he'll die. The skeletons are probably a pretty big indication of that.
Narrow sky transition panel! Inuyasha steps alone up to a big tree with a tangle of twisted roots, this time in the daylight.
Being melted from the inside by miasma is probably not an easy thing to recover from, to be fair.
The bulk of his group is waiting for him on a nearby track or road, sitting around on its margins. Sango comments on how Inuyasha is late, and Shippou asks Kagome if it wouldn't have been better for them to go as well. Kagome, her chin resting in her hands and looking a little despondent, says that Inuyasha wanted to talk to Kikyou alone. Shippou waves the sucker he's snacking on at her and asks why she's so "open minded", as if her being less accepting of Inuyasha going off to see Kikyou was going to stop the phenomenon. He complains about Inuyasha being a really troublesome guy, forever wagging his tail and sticking to his previous woman, repeating the saying "feed a dog for 3 days and it's forever grateful" as a somewhat ridiculous parallel to this very complex and emotionally fraught situation for Inuyasha.
Inuyasha himself responds to this by punting the little runt some distance while asking who got "raised", which I assume is an alternate translation of the saying above, possibly replacing and recontextualizing the "feed"? In any case, Kagome immediately asks Inuyasha what he and Kikyou talked about, and Inuyasha says haltingly that Kikyou wasn't there. Kagome takes this as a lie, and tells him that he doesn't have to do that, to which statement Inuyasha responds with some confusion. He even asks her why he would have to lie about it at all, calling her a moron.
She predictably retorts with a placid sit command.
What, it wasn't ABUNDANTLY clear before?
Sango and Shippou sympathize with Kagome, the latter opining about how one suffers when one is open-minded. Inuyasha understandably gets a little pissed at them - sure he's been ground into the dirt by a painful spell, but sure, lets shed a big fat tear for the girl continually using it against him because she can't regulate her own jealousy response.
Cue another narrow sky transition panel, which takes us to a village that appears abandoned at first panel, then overrun with a multitude of rats swarming over the bones of livestock and humans once we get a view of the ground. Another panel shows us the inside of a house, which, much like earlier in the chapter, contains a couple of human skeletons lying on the floor. Inuyasha's party has apparently started moving after their little EPISODE earlier, walking along, when Miroku placidly states that something's coming toward them. Despite his sense of smell that should have alerted him to this long before Miroku, Inuyasha utters a distracted hum in question.
A lone horse is galloping in their direction, on its back an old man and young boy, the former crying out for help from the strangers. Close on the horse's heels is a great moving mass. Inuyasha draws Tessaiga without further prompt, Kagome instead voicing the question about them being chased. It soon becomes apparent just what that mass following the horse is composed of.
NORMAL rats are bad enough!
Sango suddenly yells at Inuyasha not to cut these rats, Kagome calling her name in question at this odd advice. But Inuyasha's Tessaiga is already on its way down onto the tide of rats, even as he looks over his shoulder and utters a noise of confusion at Sango. The sword slices through a multitude of the little creatures and...
Manual mitosis.
Sango says she knew it, uttering the name Zushi Nezumi, at last informing the group that the rats only INCREASE by being cut. Miroku asks how you're supposed to exterminate these pests then, and she answers that they can succumb to a poisonous smoke, but a particular kind of herb is needed, implying that she doesn't have access to that at the moment. Miroku rips the beads from his right hand, declaring that this is the only way, and uses the Kazaana to vacuum up the rodents.
Once the cleanup is all over, they speak to the two survivors who were on the horse, who confirm that their village was attacked by the horde of rats as they huddle together in their grief and horror. The old man says that he and his grandson were lucky and had been on the other side of the mountain at the time of the infestation, but all the rest of the villagers weren't so lucky as them, trailing in stating their fate. No doubt it's "luck" too that they resemble so closely the old man and boy whose village was attacked by that moth youkai back in the 180's, though I consider that a distinctly bad kind.
Kagome turns to Sango, asking her about the term she used for the rats - Zushi Nezumi.
But she adds that this big rat should only attack enough for what it needs, and has never heard of a whole village being swarmed before. I guess the one at the beginning actually only attacked that one house.
Ominously, Inuyasha tells them that there are many more rats, that he can smell them from far away, and it seems to him that they're RAPIDLY increasing. Cut to a bare rocky incline, at the peak of which is set the box Kohaku collected at the beginning of the chapter, its little doors wide open and rats spilling from it in diverting streams down the hill. On an adjacent peak, Hakudoushi crouches and looks down on his handiwork from a safe distance, Kohaku standing behind him. Hakudoushi giggles evilly that they're all pouring out endlessly, to which Kohaku reacts with a pained and repulsed look.
As scene from one of these villages is shown us, where farmers turn at the noise of the skittering rats' approach, and stutter in disbelief at the horde of rodents they behold. A farmer swipes at the rats with his hoe, but as we've seen before, the result is just a knot of extra rats on the implement, which the farmer drops when he falls backward on the ground, rendered dumb by the counterintuitive explosion of creatures.
Hakudoushi expounds further about how the rats increase rapidly at every place they go, one scene showing skulls immersed in a whole river of them. Resting his head on the heel of his hand in a somewhat whimsical manner, Hakudoushi muses on how this whole country will soon be eaten by rats. Kohaku asks hesitantly, with a look of concern, if Hakudoushi thinks Kikyou will come out, and Hakudoushi appears to JUST remember that's what this whole exercise was about in the first place. Watching an ocean of rats devastate the countryside is just plain FUN for him. He asserts that Kikyou will HAVE to notice pretty soon whether she likes it or not, and he questions why she WOULDN'T come out in response. Kohaku hangs his head, thinking about what Hakudoushi is doing just to lure out Kikyou.
And for the lulz. Don't forget about the lulz, Kohaku!
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? While I am still sympathetic to Kagome's jealousy to some extent - fifteen-year-olds are not known for being in control of their emotions or the responses to the same - more than ever I feel really bad for Inuyasha. It IS somewhat suspicious that he would have taken so long that Sango commented on him being late, especially since the chapter gave no explanation for the time he took. Still, for everyone to assume that he's lying, side with Kagome to the point of condoning her physical abuse of Inuyasha, and all without considering WHY he would lie about something like that, is really frustrating. They all knew where he was going and why he was going there, so there would be no need for him to claim that Kikyou wasn't even there when he arrived. For anyone who has been in a situation like this, where even friends weren't giving them the benefit of the doubt, it's kind of maddening for this situation to be played off like a joke. Not gonna lie, I kind of hate it.
The other thing I'm not all that thrilled about is the level of devastation that is being escalated here. I understand the need for something very big to draw out the reluctant Kikyou, because nothing less than a massive emergency would make her act in her condition considering the risk involved. I also understand that Hakudoushi is very much enjoying the idea of this level destruction he gets to watch unfold. But all that under consideration, the population of the day and the logistics just would not sustain this much of a blow. After the chaos following the fall of Mt. Hakurei, villages being decimated and wiped out by youkai escaping it, I can't help but think about how there has to already be a massive dip in population. Something like an endless swarm of flesh-eating rats wouldn't be something human or animal populations could just bounce back from, and no matter the lack of records, it would be a matter of historical significance for centuries to come. Just a TAD difficult to suspend my disbelief on this note.
No surprise that Kohaku's already having to consciously participate in mass murder, either. Obviously we can't allow his decision to go unchallenged for a single second, lol.
No comments:
Post a Comment