What do the Nursefathers represent? (Part 1/?)
Before you clicked on this, I warned, this would be a bit of a long post
This is a piece about what the fathers are linked to or reference (mainly related to Ryūnosuke Akutagawa), not a full A-to-Z character analysis—so don’t ask why it’s short or feels incomplete.
Instead of going in order, I’ll go by each one’s importance and what they represent.
Most of the male fathers are fragments of the original Yoshihide. The female ones aren’t, but I still managed to trace who two of them are. Bonus Araya, because you can’t talk about Yoru without mentioning her, and vice versa—and honestly, fake or not, she still played the role of a Nursefather throughout the entire Canto.
1. Yoshihide’s immersion in art — Callisto
良秀はそれから五六箇月の間、まるで御邸へも伺はないで、屏風の絵にばかりか、つて居りました。あれ程の子煩悩がいざ絵を描くと云ふ段になりますと、娘の顔を見る気もなくなると申すのでございますから、不思議なものではございませんか。
(...)
その位でございますから、いざ画筆を取るとなると、その絵を描き上げると云ふより外は、何も彼も忘れてしまふのでございませう。昼も夜も一間に閉ぢこもつたきりで、滅多に日の目も見た事はございません。――殊に地獄変の屏風を描いた時には、かう云ふ夢中になり方が、甚しかつたやうでございます。
From then on, for five or six months, Yoshihide did not visit the mansion at all and instead buried himself in painting the folding screen. Though he loved his child dearly, once he began to paint, he would not even care to look at his daughter’s face—strange, is it not?
(...)
And so, whenever he took up the brush, he forgot everything else until the painting was finished. Day and night, he shut himself inside a single room, rarely seeing the light of day… Especially when painting the Hell Screen, his obsession became even more intense.
Honestly, beyond sheer hyper-fixation, there isn’t much else to say.
It’s so obvious you might pretend to be surprised just to spare me from sounding like Captain Obvious. Yeah—Callisto belongs to The Ring, so of course he represents Yoshihide’s art.
But to be precise: Callisto represents Yoshihide’s neglect of everything except art, not the art itself.
And the Yoshihide aspect that Callisto embodies ends up flattening the depth of his relationship with Ryōshū—and the character as a whole.
He’s basically in the same camp as Matthias. The fact that both of them have pitiful screentime in Canto IX, and are the only two without a “pinky promise” with Ryōshū, only makes that shallowness more obvious.
약지의 아비도 바깥에 몸을 자주 드러내지도 않고, 자식과 부대끼진 않는지라 소생은 혹여 비슷한 처지일까 한 번 말을 걸어본 적이 있습니다만…
저치의 아비도 예술의 혼을 불태우는지라, 자기 작품에 집중하고 있다고 하더군요.
薬指の親方も外へお姿を頻りにお見せになることもなく、子方と絡むこともないゆえ、小生はもしや似た境遇かと一度言葉をかけてみたことがございましたが…。
あの愚か者の親方も芸術の魂を燃やしておられるゆえ、己が作品に没頭しておられると申しておりました。
Since the Ring Finger’s Nursefather rarely appears outside and does not interact much with his disciple, I once tried speaking to her, wondering if she might share the same circumstances as me…
However, the answer I received was that the Ring Finger’s Nursefather is simply consumed by a burning passion for art and is focused entirely on his own work.
To put it bluntly: Callisto has nothing but art. Art is everything to him. And representing that single-minded focus—shutting out all else—only makes his already scarce interactions with Ryōshū feel thinner than a slice of rare beef in a bowl of phở.
After Intervallo 9.5, you could argue: but Callisto does care about Yoshihide. Well, yes—he does care about Ryōshū… as his disciple.
Callisto cares deeply about educating Ryōshū. When she mentions wanting to attend school, his first response is that the five Nursefathers have already provided sufficient education. He even has to convince himself that social interaction and competition would benefit her growth before deciding to approach Rien about it.
With his reclusive devotion to art and his desire to mold Ryōshū as his successor, Callisto narrows his bond with her down to a single thread: art.
There is hardly any moment where he interacts with or treats Ryōshū without tying it back to art. Even when trying to comfort her after Matthias went on a beheading spree in the academy, out of countless possible ways to respond, Callisto still defaults to the art he is trying to pass down to Yoshihide.
Unlike in the game, Yoshihide did not treat his daughter as a disciple—and he was brutal toward his actual apprentices. His obsessive focus on painting created a distance between himself and his daughter wider than the circumference of the earth, leaving her so lonely that she befriended monkeys.
So you can see it this way: Callisto’s fixation on art prevents him from truly understanding Ryōshū’s emotions. He tries to create gifts through his art in her name— like Yoshihide buying ornaments and clothes for his daughter.
Because, in the mind of an adult, making a child happy is often reduced to something simple: just give them gifts.
2. The illusion of a loving father that people project onto the painter — Matthias
I think anyone with more than two brain cells can see that the way Matthias treats Yoshihide mirrors how the original Yoshihide would spare no expense for his child.
And once again, you might feel tempted to act surprised, just to avoid calling me Captain Obvious for the second time.
But hold on. This one isn’t as obvious as it seems, because I’ve seen people claim Matthias is the Lord Horikawa. You know, the “Horikawa” slot, tied to things like Sanzu-no-kawa and Sai-no-kawara.
A character can inspire many others, sure, but I can’t find a single defining trait that connects Horikawa and Matthias. Horikawa despised Yoshihide, while Matthias is portrayed as someone who seemingly would do anything for his beloved daughter.
と申しますのは、良秀が、あの一人娘の小女房をまるで気違 ひのやうに可愛がつてゐた事でございます(...). どこの御寺の勧進にも喜捨をした事のないあの男が、金銭には更に惜し気もなく、整へてやると云ふのでございますから、嘘のやうな気が致すではございませんか
What I mean is this: Yoshihide loved his only daughter to the point of madness. (...). A man who wouldn’t part with a single coin for temple offerings, yet would never hesitate to spend on hairpins and garments for his daughter—doesn’t that sound almost fabricated?
が、良秀の娘を可愛がるのは、唯可愛がるだけで、やがてよい聟をとらうなどと申す事は、夢にも考へて居りません。それ所か、あの娘へ悪く云ひ寄るものでもございましたら、反つて辻冠者ばらでも駆り集めて、暗打位は喰はせ兼ねない量見でございます。
And yet, Yoshihide’s love for his daughter was only a love left sitting there. Not even in his dreams did he consider finding her a decent husband. In fact, if anyone dared court her, he would gather thugs and have them beaten senseless in the dead of night.
Matthias is the polished shell of that rumored image—the “devoted father” people whisper about. A false impression that tricks the reader, only to betray them at the end. From the outside, both Matthias and Yoshihide look like fathers who love their daughters to madness—without realizing that these very men are the ones who wound their daughters the deepest.
So, do they love their children?
But it is a love that sits there—untouched, unmoving.
The narrator criticizes Yoshihide for never thinking about finding his daughter a husband, and even going so far as to assault anyone who approached her. Matthias follows the same path, only the setting shifts—to friendships, and to the incident at the art academy. Let me rewrite it:
And yet, Matthias’s love for his daughter was only a love left sitting there. Not even in his dreams did he consider letting her form friendships. In fact, he went to the academy himself—beheading teachers and tearing the arms off any child who dared approach his daughter.
Their actions carve deep, lasting damage. Ryōshū cannot form any friendships because everyone fears Matthias might come for their heads. And whether she harbors feelings for someone, or someone wishes to approach her, all must hesitate before that extreme father.
And so, both daughters become exactly what the world praises them as: Rare, delicate treasures.
Branches of gold and leaves of jade, admired from afar, marveled at by onlookers who praise the care of their keeper… never seeing the cage that care has built.
3. The Painter Possessed by a God — Rien
Akutagawa did not create Yoshihide and Jigokuhen out of nothing.
He drew inspiration from a short tale about a painter of the same name (though read differently) in Uji Shūi Monogatari (宇治拾遺物語). And Rien is the incarnation of that original figure—the same “divine Yoshihide” people glimpse in the fire.
There is a shared thread, repeated again and again with these two painters: people always assume either that they are possessed by some spirit or deity, or that they are no longer human at all, but have ascended into something divine.
In Jigokuhen (Hell Screen):
先刻申し上げました弟子の話では、何でもあの男は仕事にとりかへりますと、まるで狐でも憑いたやうになるらしうございます。いや実際当時の風評に、良秀が画道で名を成したのは、福徳の大神に祈誓をかけたからで、その証拠にはあの男が絵を描いてゐる所を、そつと物陰から覗いて見ると、必ず陰々として霊狐の姿が、一匹ならず前後左右に、群つてゐるのが見えるなどと申す者もございました。
As that disciple I mentioned earlier once said, whenever the man began his work, he would become as though possessed by a fox. In fact, rumor had it that Yoshihide rose to fame in painting because he had sworn an oath to a great deity of fortune. As proof, some claimed that if one secretly watched him paint from the shadows, one would see—not just one, but a whole pack of shadowy spirit foxes gathering all around him.
「どうしてもののけなどとりつくことがあろうか。長年（わたしは）不動明王の火炎を下手に描いていたのだ。今見ると、（火は）このように燃えるものだったと、会得したのだ。これこそもうけものよ。仏画の道を職業として世の中を生きてゆくには、仏様だけでもうまくお描き申しあげれば、百や千の家などすぐできるだろう。あなたたちこそ、これといった才能もお持ちでないから、物をおしみなさるのだ。」と言って、あざ笑って立っていた。
“How could I possibly be possessed? All these years I have painted Fudō Myōō amid flames, yet never truly saw fire. Now that I have seen it with my own eyes, I finally understand how it truly burns. This is a blessing. If one lives by the art of Buddhist painting, then so long as one can paint the Buddha well, even if hundreds or thousands of houses burn, they can be rebuilt. It is you lot, who lack talent, that cling so desperately to things,” he said, standing there with a sneer.
Put simply: Yoshihide behaves in ways so far removed from ordinary humanity that people feel compelled to invent some supernatural force to explain him. And Project Moon took that idea literally.
Thus, we get Rien—a wretched yet loyal servant to a god.
Yoshihide’s pursuit of ultimate truth, goodness, and beauty is described by outsiders as something heretical, something beyond human. Project Moon turns that metaphor into reality: Rien becomes a man utterly absorbed in carrying out divine commands—specifically those of Hermes—to the point that even the game names it outright: “Indulgence in Prescripts” (지령 탐닉 / 指令耽溺).
겉으로는 기꺼이 지령을 수행하는 듯 보이나, 그 이면에는 지령에 대한 원망 또한 엿보인다. 그러나 모든 고통과 쾌락을 지령이라는 가면을 쓰고 행할 수 있었기에, 그 본망은 지령에 대한 감사함으로 귀결된다.
表向きは喜んで指令を遂行しているように見えるが、その裏には指令への恨みもまた垣間見える。しかしあらゆる苦痛と快楽を「指令」という仮面を着けて行えたからこそ、その本望は指令への感謝へと帰結する。
On the surface, he appears to carry out the Prescripts willingly, yet beneath that, one can glimpse resentment toward them. However, because he was able to experience all pain and pleasure under the mask called “Prescripts,” his true desire ultimately resolves into gratitude toward them.
The English version softens it into “praying to a god of fortune,” but the original word 祈誓 is far heavier—it is closer to a vow, an oath.
Put that way, Yoshihide didn’t just pray—he swore himself to something. It starts to sound less like simple devotion, and more like a pact—something closer to Faust and Mephistopheles.
That choice of “oath” mirrors Rien’s loyalty. Project Moon never fully details his past, so you can read it as a transformation: Yoshihide’s vow to a deity becomes Rien’s absolute servitude to one.
Near the ending, just before the fight with Rien, we see a parallel to the climax of Jigokuhen. Yoshihide transforms, in the eyes of observers, from a possessed man into a vessel for something divine.
しかも不思議なのは、何もあの男が 一人娘の断末魔を嬉しさうに眺めてゐた、そればかりではございません。その時の良秀には、何故か人間とは思はれない、夢に見る獅子王の怒りに似た、怪しげな厳さがございました。でございますから不意の火の手に驚いて、啼き騒ぎながら飛びまはる数の知れない夜鳥でさへ、気のせるか良秀の揉烏帽子のまはりへは、近づかなかつたやうでございます。恐らくは無心の鳥の眼にも、あの男の頭の上に、円光の如く懸つてゐる、不可思議な威厳が見えたのでございませう。
What was most strange was not merely that Yoshihide gazed with delight upon his daughter’s dying agony, there was something else. At that moment, he bore a terrifying dignity, like the wrath of a lion king in a dream. No one could believe him human. Even the countless night birds, shrieking in panic at the sudden blaze, would not approach the crest of his cap. Perhaps even those witless birds could see the mysterious halo of authority hanging above his head.
鳥でさへさうでございます。まして私たちは仕丁までも、皆息をひそめながら、身の内も震へるばかり、異様な随喜の心に充ち満ちて、まるで開眼の仏でも見るやうに、眼も離さず、良秀を見つめました。空一面に鳴り渡る車の火と、それに魂を奪はれて、立ちすくんでゐる良秀と――何と云ふ荘厳、何と云ふ歓喜でございませう。
Even birds recoiled, how much more so we servants, who stood trembling, holding our breath, filled with a strange, reverent ecstasy, staring at him as though witnessing a Buddha’s awakening. The blazing carriage fire filled the sky, and Yoshihide stood transfixed before it, his soul stolen, what solemnity, what terrible joy.
Yoshihide’s immersion in art evolves to the point that others refuse to see him as human, his soul “stolen by the flames.” In its place stands something else: a wrathful guardian spirit, a dharmapāla.
Combine “the wrath of a lion king” with “the awakening Buddha,” and it becomes clear what Ryūnosuke Akutagawa was evoking: a wrathful deity.
And fittingly, that deity is named in both stories:
Fudō Myōō (不動明王) — the wrathful manifestation of Vairocana.
Rien mirrors this. He sinks so deeply into divine command that he becomes nothing but a shell just like his name.
Ryōshū calls him hollow; Moses cannot read him, because what she tries to read is not a person, but a vessel.
And both Yoshihide and Rien share the same flawed love: it exists but never enough to outweigh their obsession.
In truth, Yoshihide did not end his life immediately after his daughter’s death. He first completed his masterpiece, the Hell Screen, using the most precious thing he had as material. Only when that was done, when emptiness swallowed him whole, did he finally die. No art or no humanity, nothing left.
Rien is the same. He did not die after losing his first family. The god still had use for him leading him to the House of Spider, to forging Ryōshū into a “blade that severs all things.” He sacrifices Sora, orchestrates everything so Ryōshū burns what she holds most dear.
The blade is forged. And then nothing remains. Not even the Prescripts.
Some say Rien’s death is rebellion, a refusal to remain a pawn, like Yoshihide defying the lord. But that’s not quite true.
First, Yoshihide never truly defied the lord. He was too small for that. The closest he came was asking for his daughter’s release as a reward, not rebellion, but a plea granted under favor.
What Yoshihide should have resisted was not the lord, but his own obsession with art. Even the lord himself was powerless before it, enraged when Yoshihide ascended beyond him.
Second, Rien does not defy the Prescripts. Ironically, even his “defiance” fulfills them. He may reject them in the second phase, but the path still leads exactly where it was meant to.
It’s almost cruelly ironic. If you’ve seen even one ending of Library of Ruina, you’ll recognize it: Rien’s end echoes Roland’s revenge ending. The Prescripts have always been shaping him into that outcome.
His death is the final command. After forging Ryōshū, this is the last thing the god leaves him. What's next is silence.
Like Yoshihide, Rien’s “resistance” is incomplete, he begins to recite Roland’s poem, then stops midway. Neither obedience nor defiance. Something in between.
And in the end, whether Rien dies seeking freedom or because nothing remains, it was always the will of the god. Which leaves one question lingering, heavy as ash:
Is there such a thing as one’s own will? Or is it merely the will of something greater, wearing your face?
That same question drove Yan, another member of the Index, gone mad in Library of Ruina, giving us the song Children of the City.
"음… 네 말을 듣고 곰곰이 떠올려보니, 딸."
"ふむ…お前の言葉を聞いてじっくり思い返してみたんだ、娘。"
“…Among all that you possess…”
“Is there even one thing not dictated by the Prescripts?”
“Hmm… after thinking it over, my daughter.”
“It seems there truly is nothing like that.”
