#flying aces

Lots of people have noted that Kris is in their Light World form in this scene, but the Japanese version also has the Aces and the Man himself speak in the hiragana-heavy style of the Light World rather than the kanji-heavy style of the Dark World.

There is another mysterious character who speaks in the Light World style, however.

--The sender of this Valentine from the 2024 Winter Newsletter. Even if you can't read Japanese, you can probably notice how the bottom two paragraphs (where the letter begins) don't contain characters of the same complexity as those above (the narration).

The Man and the letter writer also both speak in a masculine tone, ending sentences like these in -ka na and referring to themselves as watashi and the listener as kimi.

Both the Man and the letter writer also address the listener with commands ending in -nasai, which is a firm yet gentle kind of command that has a quite parental or caregiving tone to it.

Overall, the Man and the letter writer (who, based on these lines, could very likely be the same person) come across as warm and friendly toward the listener, whom they address as a child.

There is actually one more speaker whose speech patterns also resemble those of the Man behind the tree.

These unused lines can be found in the code for Chapter 1:

Is that a cut on your face, or part of your eye? The gash weaves down as if you cry. The pain itself is reason why.

These lines do not actually appear together in the code, but they have long been theorized to go together based on the fact that they rhyme. The Japanese version of the code seems to back this up, as these lines have actually been translated so that they rhyme there as well!

キミの顔…　それは傷かい？　 それとも　目なのかい？ パックリ割れた　切り傷が　 まるで　涙のあとみたい。 理由は　その　痛み自体。 kimi no kao... sore wa kizu kai? sore to mo me na no kai? pakkuri wareta kirikizu ga maru de namida no ato mitai. riyuu wa sono itami jitai. Translated to English: "Your face... is that a wound? Or is it your eye?" "The cut, split wide open, looks almost like a tear streak." "The reason is that pain itself."

These lines use the Dark World style of speech, but the speaker addresses the listener as kimi and ends their questions with the friendly and highly masculine particle -kai, which is something the Man also does throughout his speech in Ch 3:

Ok say hello to this biggie get him out of my CASTLE TOWN!

Ok hes genuinely so sillay omg this might be ONE OF the most efforted drawings i did heh

Richthofen scored his first confirmed victory when he engaged Second Lieutenant Lionel Morris and his observer Tom Rees in the skies over Cambrai, France, on 17 September 1916. His autobiography states, "I honoured the fallen enemy by placing a stone on his beautiful grave." He contacted a jeweller in Berlin and ordered a silver cup engraved with the date and the type of enemy aircraft. He continued to celebrate each of his victories in the same manner until he had 60 cups, by which time the dwindling supply of silver in blockaded Germany meant that silver cups could no longer be supplied. Richthofen discontinued his orders at this stage, rather than accept cups made from base metal.

This is such rich characterization, a collection of silver cups, disgust at the idea that he can't have more cups because of a little thing like the war he's fighting in? It's so great.