#ons 117

And I’m also excited that they’re continuing to address the core debate of whether one should let humans die. It’s interesting to see characters argue that life is not inherently better than death.

Hey! I intended to answer this early when you sent it as I saw the notif, but I was trying to avoid spoilers for another manga... not that that worked :) But anyways!

Yeah, honestly I didn't either. I thought either Yu or Ashera would get stopped before much could happen, but I guess I was wrong! Though, it doesn't seem like it will last much longer.

I also feel bad for Ashera. This chapter made his character grow on me a lot. As you say, he's really struggling, and I liked when he acknowledges that he's really made nothing but mistakes up to this point. I wouldn't necessarily agree with him, but it really shows that he's just doing his best. He's not perfect. He's willingly been The First's pawn, and it hurts to see him used and then thrown away like this, even if it does mean that he will now likely be aligning with Krul (and Guren and crew).

As for Yuu, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if he did want to save everyone because, as you said, he's a heroic shonen protag, but the story is really pushing us as the audience to believe that he's going to choose Mika over everyone else. Both are in line with his character. It all just becomes a question of how he'd do that. Other than some nonsense (deserved or otherwise) with his seraph abilities, saving everyone, Mika included, seems impossible. I guess only time will tell. Regardless of what he picks, I feel it's safe to say that it will have to involve Mika also being saved, bc yeah. As you point out logic and morals go out the window when it comes to Mika. I'm quite sure Yuu doesn't even have a plan at the moment and is just in 'they wanna take my Mika away. I won't let them' mode right now. He's a very "I'll wing it and I'm sure it will work out" kind of person. If he does have a plan then kudos to him I guess. I'd also be interested to see what that plan is.

Regardless, yeah. This all puts Ashera in an awkward spot, and I'm glad to see that he's done willingly being someone else's pawn and is trying to forge his own path to salvation.

The debate that life isn't inherently better than death has been a concept that's been floating around in OnS for a long time now and yeah. It's great to see it continue. Really, if anything, OnS seems to say that dying is easy; it's living that is hard. Specifically, living without those you care about, which plays into Krul's 'I'm fine as long as I have you Ashera'. Then again, really, OnS shows us that dying and living isn't what's terrible. Rather, it's not having the choice of whether you live or die. Dying without being able to live (aka being killed [look I'm trying to be poetic here]) and living without being able to die both suck. You don't truly understand that until you've experienced it for yourself. ... or maybe I'm just trying too hard to be deep...

Anyways, as a last note, something about The First being nailed down to a truck bed as the vampires drive around made me laugh harder than it should have. And that truck bed is massive??

I totally agree with what you said about Ashera. Up until now, I didn’t particularly care about his character, but now knowing his unique motivation as a demon, I def like him more. He is still similar to all the other demons though in the sense that we don’t know how much they really understand and agree with the First, even if they’re helping him.

And I think you expressed the life vs death theme really well! Seeing how the plot develops it further is one of the things that keep me coming back to the story. That and the juxtaposition of mystical higher beings driving around in the back of random trucks lmao (Whose driving? Ky Luc?? And did they leave Shinya and Kureto behind?!?)

Unfortunately, it kinda was, but it is what it is. I think people are misinterpreting a little? Idk. I try and avoid spoilers so I don't have context.

Ashera was rather plain outside of his relationship with Krul I'd say. Not a bad character by any means! He just didn't have much agency by nature of being a demon and forever stuck with Yuu. Since he's started to show his own motives he's definitely grown more interesting though and I'm glad about that. It's a bit of a shame that I highly doubt we'll get that for the other demons. As you say, since we don't really know their motives, they're also a bit plain. Sure they have some personality which is fun to see, but they're far from fleshed-out characters. Difficult to make everyone fleshed out though to be fair.

It's that and I genuinely enjoy how no one is strictly good or bad for me. It's fun to see.