#chapter shimousa

i still cant believe they implied shirou might be a descendant of muramasa. 

agartha’s complete lack of humans with names and faces stood out especially because so much of the chapter wanted to be about men being oppressed and violated by female overlords. it revels in the cruel violence, constantly using it to strawman woman with power as scary monsters who need to be torn down so men can be safe from their madness and evil. the player is forced to sit through multiple scenes where men are killed or tortured onscreen in horrific ways. 

and yet none of those men have a name. not one of them gets to have a face or a personality. Not a single one of the slaves or Rider’s resistance members get to be people in any way the player could connect with.

For a brief second during the Chinese empire section, it seems like we might actually get something like that, as we see a slave try to convince one of his fellows to run away with him, get turned in, get sentenced to a torturous death, but ultimately despite losing a hand, he gets saved by our group and taken back to our base. and then he vanishes from the narrative. despite the fact that his pov as a former slave who lived in this world and faced death for trying to escape his oppression would add a lot of depth and emotion to the conflict, nope. he’s nothing. the moment he stops being useful for torture porn, the narrative has no need of him. Thats just the kind of trash Agartha is.

Coming back to Shimosa, this is why i found the almost instant addition of Onui and Tasuke (and Otama and Princess Kiyohime somewhat later on) so refreshing. After Agartha’s complete lack of npc’s, Shimosa shows why its great to have them. Onui and her little bro are not particularly deep characters. they exist to be cute kids the player should want to protect from all the danger they are facing. But they still add a human face to the conflict. you aren’t just fighting bc the baddies are bad, you are fighting because these assholes want to murder your cute kids! you are fighting to keep them alive so they can grow up happily. You appreciate Otama because she’s been putting up with this group’s nonsense despite what a pain in the ass it must be for her. You want to keep Princess Kiyohime from being assassinated because you just watched a whole scene where she dumps you for musashi and has a sleepover with her where they talk and bond.