Fukigen na Mononokean, chapter 2: The ant
helloooo welcome back to my commented reading of fukimono glad to see you here
my plan was to come back sooner because i'm going on vacation next week (going to the beach for the first time in five years yayyyy) so i wanted to read a bit more before leaving buuut life happens i guess
so here i am today, let's see what chapter 2 has to offer and i'll continue when i get back to the city (booo)
loving that smirk from ashiya! good job son!
chapter 2 begins as the same time ashiya's school life begins, because finally he is able to go to class! and he is so happy... back at high school i'd probably pretend to be sick a few more days just to skip school
and we see nara for the first time!! she's the best, period. i love her and i love her bouquets
pfff this queen seriously
this chapter has made me think a lot about my high school days, for example my homeroom teacher should feel thankful my mum didn't punch her on the face for making my life miserable so yeah my homeroom teacher won't be receiving any bouquets on my watch
well and his classmates were so disappointed that ashiya wasn't a girl pfff hanae-chan <3
but we don't care about high school boys being dissapointed, we care about ashiya finding out abeno is his classmate! and he sits just behind him! and at the same time I HAVE FOUND OUT something that has made me feel SO dumb... let me explain
now for a self-humiliation lecture... this exchange here tells us that abeno knew that ashiya was his classmate before this morning. ok we get that. the thing is i hadn't connected the dots till now... and now i have realized that their first encounter was intentional on abeno's part? which seems so obvious now but i hadn't realized until this point i swear. and when i commented the previous chapter i talked about fate and blablabla when it was just abeno putting up and ad at the infirmary because we knew that this ASHIYA guy in his class was spending his life there :_____ so yeah obviously it wasn't a coincidence that there was an ad at the infirmary and abeno was expecting that specific call
and i call myself a fan. i'm simply stupid, sorry. but it's okay, nunca te acostarΓ‘s sin aprender algo nuevo (bilingual bonus)
i find hilarious how ashiya grumbles but still follows abeno's orders. their dynamic is already there and this chapter starts to settle it
abeno has stated that he can't open the door to the underwold more thant twice a day, so they should ignore any youkai they see unless they are hired to exorcise them, but ashiya ends in trouble anyway
this chapter (and next one) of course is about the little screes and they are super cute although they seem to be a threat for now. the individual stories about the youkai are so beautiful and so touching, they're another part of the manga that i love. i'm here for the main story but i would also be here if fukimono was just an episodic "the youkai of the week" type of manga. but we'll get to this in the next chapter
because the focus of chapter 2 is actually the (brand new) relationship between ashiya and abeno and, more importantly, their respective roles on youkai management (which equals to their roles in the manga). chapter 1 was good first contact, we could get a first grasp of their personalities and how they could work together. but chapter 2 establishes abeno as this isolated boy who has found a home in youkai and is not used to outsiders entering his world. meanwhile, ashiya doesn't know anything about youkai yet and he is scared of them. but at the same time, he is always keen to help. the moment he sees the little scree he thinks abeno should send him to the underworld because that where he belongs. he tries to hold back, but he ends lending a hand to the girl the little scree attaches to.
and last but not least, he decides to join abeno to find the youkai's nest. he's terrified but he can't let abeno go alone, especially when he caused the whole fuss tbh. and by doing that, he also builds a bridge between him and abeno. they're not so different after all
ashiya is one of my favorite characters in fiction. i love abeno too, in fact at first i prefered him over ashiya because i just like abeno's character type. but i remember that over time ashiya grew so much on me. he's so beautifully written and developed
the chapter ends with this massive youkai, the head of the little ones they want to find. we'll meet him in chapter 3
ok guys my fan just died as i was writting "chapter 3" in the previous sentence :_____ i can't deal with this temperature anymore i really need my beach days
so in summary, important chapter for our boys' bonding! next chapter will be great, we'll get emotional over youkai and that stuff we love about fukimono, right?
again thank you for reading, i'm not that active on tumblr yet (i'm getting used to it again) and there isn't a fukimono fandom per se, so reaching to someone is already a gift, see you in some days!
