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?

[chapter 5]

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?

Yes.

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.

In Uji Shūi Monogatari:

「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.

Not even for a moment.

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.

"…당신이 가진 것 중…"

"지령에 의하지 않은 게 하나라도 있나?"

"음… 네 말을 듣고 곰곰이 떠올려보니, 딸."

"정말 없는 것 같네, 그런 건."

"…あんたが持ってるものの中で。"

"指令に拠らないものが、一つでもあるのか？"

"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。"

"本当に無いみたいだ、そんなものは。"

“…Among all that you possess…”

“Is there even one thing not dictated by the Prescripts?”

“Hmm… after thinking it over, my daughter.”

This was written before part 2 of Canto IX. AND VERY LONG (almost 7k words), brace yourself. (somewhat with Silent Hill F ref)

Note: 🐱(me) 🦐 (my friend who help me writte this)

As you know, Jigokuhen is the shortest of the thirteen works that PM chose as references for the sinners lineup. Because it’s so brief, people tend to skim through it rather than truly read it.

This piece is one where we go into the details of the bell.

The context is that, in that scene, there’s a detail tied to the red thread from Jigokuhen: it is the red cord used to fasten the golden bell onto Saruhide—an item that was originally given to her by the young lady, the daughter she served.

while 🦐was writing analysis about our husband's Great Trichiliocosm E.G.O. (Ryoshu, we call her as our husband), and 🦐 came across the detail about the red thread in the original book, 🦐casually asked🐱

🦐 "Hey, why did Hinako give the bell to her older sister?"

娘は御姫様から頂戴した黄金の鈴を、美しい真紅の紐に下げて、それを猿の頭へ懸けてやりますし、猿は又どんな事がございましても、滅多に娘の身のまはりを離れません。

“The girl hangs the golden bell she received from the young princess on a beautiful deep-crimson cord, and places it over the monkey’s head; and the monkey, no matter what happens, almost never leaves the girl’s side.”

Coincidentally, around that time 🦐had just dragged herself through the first ending of Silent Hill f (while🐱 was watching) , and it stirred a memory there was also a detail about giving a bell. That made 🦐 wonder what it actually meant.

And this is the answer 🦐got from🐱:

“That’s called a bell charm, basically a type of good-luck talisman. There are three kinds of wearable charms: omamori, suzu, and ema. Hinako’s a teenager, so giving something like that makes sense.”

🦐 “What does being a teenager have to do with choosing a bell, though—?”

🐱 “It’s because teenagers back then liked wearing that kind of thing. It’s small, cute, and it makes a clear, ringing sound. That chiming is also meant to ward off evil spirits.”

🐱 “Basically, osuzu bells were pretty popular with younger people. Omamori pouches feel old and traditional, and ema are too big. A bell is more compact, and since it’s always making a sound, it gives this sense of not being alone. It’s like saying, ‘Keep this with you and think of me whenever you feel lonely.’ ”

🐱 “That’s why they chose something that makes a sound instead of a silent charm. In the past, there was this quietly romantic idea: ‘When you hear this sound, think of me—take it as me being by your side.’”

(Just a small sound cutting through silence, carrying presence where the body cannot be. is what🐱 meant)

at that moment I went full galaxy brain.

🦐 had this gut reaction, like, “Whoa, the bell-giving scene is actually really meaningful and sweet,” and then, slowly, something started to click her.

What if the scene where the bell is given to the monkey in Jigokuhen carries the same kind of meaning?

And from what was supposed to be just a casual question, something to spin into maybe a 2,000-word piece about bells 🦐ended up digging out an entire layer of meaning from other details I’d brushed past before, written off as mere exaggeration by an unreliable narrator.

And just like that, this essay grew longer.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. The Bell

A. A protective charm to ward off evil spirits

B. Easing loneliness

II. The Supernatural Element

A. From being possessed by a fox to becoming a god

B. Is it truly a deity?

C. The Two Myōō (Wisdom Kings): Horikawa and Yoshihide

III. Weaving All of This into Limbus Company

A. The Five Fingers – the Five Great Wisdom Kings

B. The Father of the Index – Fudō Myōō

C. Dihui Star and Horikawa

D. Dihui Star / Yoshihide and Fuku / Akutagawa

IV. Section 4

V. Section 5

I. The Bell

A. A protective charm to ward off evil

The bell that Yoshihide’s daughter hangs on the monkey was a gift bestowed by the young lady she served. At that point in time, the matter of the monkey and the girl had not yet developed into something openly known, so it cannot be dismissed as a bell meant merely for a pet. It must be the same kind of object as the one Hinako gives to her elder sister.

Now imagine this: you are given, by your mistress, a golden bell—precious as hell, and doubled as a protective talisman. Who would you pass it on to?

– The father who has always doted on you, indulged you, loved you.

– Or some random monkey you happened to save.

Even though Yoshihide is described as eccentric, arrogant, and broadly detested, the narrator explicitly tells us that while he is miserly, he never begrudges money when it comes to his daughter. Over and over again, the text drives home phrases that revolve around “loving his child.” Paired with that, the girl herself is described as deeply filial.

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。先刻申し上げました通り、娘も至つて気のやさしい、親思ひの女でございましたが、あの男の子煩悩は、決してそれにも劣りますまい。

“What I mean to say is this: Yoshihide cherished that sole daughter of his, that young maiden, as though he were quite out of his mind. As I mentioned earlier, the daughter herself was an exceedingly gentle woman, deeply mindful of her parent; yet that man’s infatuation, his obsession with his child was in no way inferior even to that.”

Given how much karmic filth Yoshihide accumulates through his work, it would frankly make more sense for this “filial” daughter to give the bell to him. I mean—come on. With that kind of life, he’s basically guaranteed to get haunted or possessed by some demon or yokai sooner or later.

But she does not.

That choice can be explained in two ways, either one of them, or both at once:

The daughter does not love her father that much. Not that she feels nothing for him, but not to the exalted degree people praise her for. She fulfills her duties as a daughter, and her good reputation inflates that image in the eyes of outsiders.

She believes the bell would only get in his way. Yoshihide delights in extracting beauty from what people call ugly demons and monsters included. Moreover, he can only paint what he sees, even if that sight comes from dreams. If a chiming bell drives evil spirits away from him, then how is he supposed to paint demons at all?

Whatever the reason, she chooses to give it to the monkey—the creature she saves because she “feels as though her father must be suffering punishment.”

When the lord praises her as “filial” upon hearing that reasoning, it adds yet another layer of anthropomorphism to the monkey. As if the monkey is Yoshihide. And this exchange of positions truly does take place.

From the moment the gift tied with the red cord is handed over, the monkey gradually becomes Yoshihide, while the real Yoshihide comes to be called Saruhide (“Monkey Hide.”)

Season 7’s title places emphasis on The Red Thread. Seen through that lens, the only bond formed by that thread is between the daughter and the monkey. The man called her father has no such connection.

That bond is so strong that the monkey charges into death alongside her, what one might, if feeling sentimental, call “not parted even by death.” It dies while being called Yoshihide.

Meanwhile, the one who chooses to paint, at all costs, a vision of hell born from his daughter’s suffering rather than rushing to die with her in that moment is whispered about behind people’s backs as Saruhide.

Now, circling back to Canto VIII, to the detail where Ryōshū lets slip information about her “old men”—something later confirmed in Canto IX.

One could explain it simply as a reference to Ryūnosuke being taken in by the Akutagawa side of the family, resulting in two father figures. But if you inhale just a bit more metaphorical grass, then all this talk of humanizing the monkey analyses calling it the “good” part of Yoshihide starts to look less like invention.

In The Hell Screen, there was more than one father to begin with. That said, if you ask me, the monkey looks less like an embodiment of a man past fifty and more like a child.

You know what I mean.

B. Easing loneliness

The idea that hearing the bell eases loneliness does not apply to the monkey it applies to the daughter.

Yes. I’m saying the daughter is the one who feels lonely. And I have proof for that proof that the English translation quietly drops, and because later translations lean on it, they end up losing the same nuance.

All the textual “evidence” of Yoshihide’s supposed love for his child sounds convincing at first. But once you place it beside what the monkey actually does, you start to see that this love is mostly surface-deep.

After the red-threaded bell is given to the monkey:

As a protective charm: the monkey stops being bullied; people gradually grow fond of it.

As relief from loneliness: the monkey never leaves the girl’s side, and when she falls ill, it stays there, keeping watch.

Meanwhile, Yoshihide whenever he paints doesn’t even spare his daughter a glance. Beyond cementing his place in the eternal hall of Terrible Parents of the Year, this detail directly undermines the claim that “Yoshihide loved his child.”

Even the narrator remarks on how strange it is that a man famed for doting on his daughter would fail to so much as look at her while working.

A parent who claims to love their child, yet buries themselves in work and leaves that child alone there’s nothing rare or extraordinary about that. It happens all the time.

Love spoken aloud is cheap. Love that stays, listens, keeps watching you through sickness that’s the one that rings.

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。

“For the next five or six months, Yoshihide scarcely even visited the lord’s residence, devoting himself entirely to the paintings on the folding screen. That a man so exceedingly doting on his child should, the moment he set himself to painting, lose even the desire to look upon his daughter’s face—does that not strike one as strange?”

[...]

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。

“That being the case, once he took up the brush, he would forget everything else but the completion of the painting itself. He shut himself up in a single room day and night, and rarely ever saw the light of day. — And when he was painting the Hell Screen in particular, this state of total absorption was said to be especially severe.”

What’s more, when the girl fell ill, it is only the monkey that is mentioned as staying by her side and showing distress. Where, at that crucial moment, was Yoshihide—the man famed for his love of his child? This is then reinforced later by the passage stating that he paints without even looking at her face, creating a stark contrast: the monkey’s closeness and care set against Yoshihide’s ‘strange’ distance.

From this detail, you can recognize that Yoshihide possesses what I would call a ‘painter-slave mode.’ It is akin to an extreme state of focus, where one task consumes the mind so completely that everything else ceases to exist.

Once again, I offer Yoshihide a raised middle finger for allowing that painter-slave mode to overwhelm what little humanity he had left. As a father, he is a failure.

Now, returning to the main point: in the scene where she rescues the monkey, when asked about its name, the author describes the girl’s reply to the young lord as follows:

娘はもう一度かう繰返しましたがやがて寂しさうにほほ笑みますと、

「それに良秀と申しますと、父が御折檻を受けますやうで、どうも唯見ては居られませぬ。」

“The girl repeated herself once more, but then, smiling with a look of loneliness, she said:

‘And when I hear the name Yoshihide, it feels as though my father himself is being punished somehow, I simply cannot bear to stand by and watch.’”

In this section, the English translation:

And then, smiling sadly, she added, 'His name is Yoshihide, after all. I can't just stand by and watch “my father” being punished.'

The Vietnamese translation is almost identical:

Cô gái nhắc lại điều đó thêm một lần nữa rồi mỉm cười buồn, nói dứt khoát:

"Con vật này tên là Yoshihide nên nhìn nó tiểu nữ cảm thấy như cha mình phải chịu tội vậy."

The common point between the English and Vietnamese versions is that both describe the girl at that moment as “smiling sadly.”

From there, one might imagine her as a Snow White or Cinderella-like figure, feeling sorrow upon witnessing an animal being abused...which would also seem to fit the image commonly painted of her.

However, the original text describes this detail in a different direction.

The word used to describe the girl’s “sad smile” is in fact 寂しさ (sabishisa), which means loneliness. In its full sense, the passage describes her as smiling with a loneliness held within.

What deserves attention here, beyond Akutagawa’s choice of the word 寂しさ (sabishisa), is that he places this description precisely at the moment Yoshihide is mentioned.

When the girl reaches out to save the monkey, her emotion is described as “pity” (可哀). But when she explains her reasoning when Yoshihide’s name comes up the word used shifts to “loneliness” (寂しさ).

If you only read the current context of that passage, you really wouldn't know why the girl is “lonely”; only after reaching part 7 of the story does the reason gradually become clear.

II. The Supernatural Element

A. From being possessed by a fox to becoming a deity

Since we’re already talking about the supernatural elements involving foxes—Wait. Hold on. There are foxes in Silent Hill f too. What the hell.

On one side, there’s a marriage between a fox god and a human; on the other, fox possession. Oh shit—

Previously, when we wrote a post dissecting breadcrumbs back in Canto VIII, I took a jab at Yoshihide at one point. Someone reblogged it and said,

“Maybe Yoshihide went mad, rather than truly feeling joy at watching his daughter burn to death.”

Alright. I’ll debunk that now, even if it’s a bit late.

In the passage quoted above, roughly the beginning of Chapter 7 there is mention of Yoshihide’s so-called “painter-slave mode,” something observers described as him being possessed by a fox.

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。 

According to what his apprentice mentioned earlier, it seems that once that man gets down to work, he becomes as if possessed by a fox. In fact, people used to say that the only reason Yoshihide was able to make such a name for himself in art was that he had made a solemn vow to the great god of fortune; what proved it was that if you peeked in on him when he was painting, you could always see shadowy fox spirits swarming all around him.

In the passage describing Yoshihide as he watches his daughter being swallowed by the flames, the narrative again employs supernatural imagery to portray him this time in a heightened form.

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。

“And what is more uncanny is that it was not merely that the man gazed upon the death throes of his only daughter with something like delight. At that moment, there was about Yoshihide a strange severity, for some reason no longer human—resembling the wrath of a Lion King seen in a dream. Because of this, even the countless night birds that had been startled by the sudden outbreak of fire, crying and fluttering about in panic, seemed unable to approach the area around Yoshihide’s knotted cap. Perhaps even to the eyes of those unthinking birds, there appeared above that man’s head an incomprehensible majesty, hanging there like a halo.”

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。が、その中でたつた、御縁の上の大殿様だけは、まるで別人かと思はれる程、御顔の色も青ざめて、口元に泡を御ためになりながら、紫の指貫の膝を両手にしつかり御つかみになつて、丁度喉の渇いた獣のやうに喘ぎつゞけていらつしやいました。･･････

“If even the birds were so affected, then how much more so were we, the attendants. All of us, suppressing our breath, our very insides trembling, found ourselves filled with a strange joy of rapture; we stared at Yoshihide without looking away, as though beholding a Buddha who had just attained enlightenment. The flames of the carriage roaring across the entire sky, and Yoshihide standing transfixed, his soul seized by them—what solemn grandeur, what exultation it was. And yet, amid all this, only the lord—bound to her by obligation—seemed as if he were a different person altogether: his face drained of color, foam gathering at his lips, his hands gripping tightly at the knees of his purple trousers, gasping unceasingly, like a beast parched with thirst.”

Seeing Yoshihide not break down in anguish or collapse into hysterical grief, but instead appear almost godlike, is what makes the Lord turn pale and foam at the mouth. After all, the reason the lord chose Yoshihide’s daughter to be burned was because he wanted Yoshihide to suffer he wanted to witness that suffering. You can clearly sense the lord’s twisted excitement in the way he speaks about burning Yoshihide’s daughter, can’t you?

But no, Yoshihide enters his painter-slave mode. This makes him radiate a sacred, divine presence in the eyes of others, because there is simply no way a normal human being could react like that. One could call it “art triumphing over power.” But at what cost?

It could be said that the narrator and the characters exaggerate somewhat when describing Yoshihide in this way.

Yet through my own reading, you can see that Yoshihide is, at heart, merely entering an extreme state of concentration in which everything else ceases to matter to him. Because the spectacle is so utterly horrifying, the expression he wears makes it impossible for others to regard him as human anymore turning him into a sacred being, one the narrator even calls “a Buddha at the moment of awakening.”

Even so, the reactions of the servants and the reaction of the lord form two fascinating extremes, which I will return to later. Returning to the scene of Yoshihide gazing into the pillar of fire this cannot be dismissed as madness followed by reckless action.

This supernatural element had already been foreshadowed earlier, and its repetition here serves to confirm that Yoshihide is in the same state he was in when he could not even bring himself to look at his daughter while she was still alive only far more intense.

Stripping away the layers of supernatural personification, Yoshihide is simply a man who places art above love. In the end, he does regret it, regret that comes too late.

The moment that marks Yoshihide being completely “devoured by the divine” occurs after the monkey leaps into the flames alongside the girl. If the monkey is taken to represent Yoshihide’s human core, then had that human core truly prevailed, Yoshihide himself would likely have rushed into the fire with his daughter, just as the monkey did.

(Actually, there is another reason, which I will mention later, in the section related to “Wisdom Kings”).

In that case, public condemnation would have fallen on the lord for arbitrarily burning an innocent young woman whom everyone sympathized with, rather than on Yoshihide whose continued painting left people too shocked to focus on the lord’s decision, eventually reframing it as a punishment inflicted upon Yoshihide, as though the lord were some sagacious judge.

Incidentally, this motif of possession is taken from the original Uji Shūi Monogatari. (宇治拾遺物語) People were stunned and asked Ryōshū how he could possibly react in such a way after witnessing something so horrific and can you guess how he replied?

「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 a spirit or demon possibly possess me? For many years I had clumsily painted the flames of Fudō Myō-ō. Now that I have seen it with my own eyes, I have finally grasped how fire truly burns. This is pure profit to me. If one makes a living in this world through the path of Buddhist painting, then by painting the Buddhas well alone, one could easily build hundreds or even thousands of houses. You, on the other hand, lacking any particular talent, are the ones who begrudge things.”

Saying this, he stood there and laughed scornfully.

Note: 不動明王 Fudō Myō-ō aka "The Immovable"/"Immovable Lord" (Acala or Achala)

Neither Yoshihide nor Ebusshi Ryōshū believed in possession by evil spirits. Yet everyone around them thought both were possessed.

B. Is it truly a deity?

As you may have noticed, I use the term “divinity” rather than “deity.” or “god”

And true to the nature of an unreliable narrator, the storyteller gives us two pieces of information that directly clash with each other.

The narrator recounts rumors he has heard regarding Yoshihide’s rise to fame and success: that it was because he had sworn an oath to a certain 大神 (ōgami / okami, “Great Deity”), and that whenever he painted, fox spirits would gather around him.

The only deity I know who is served by foxes (kitsune) is Inari. And those foxes are called zenko, not yōko.

霊狐 (yōko) are yōkai—monstrous spirits.

So if we put it bluntly, this old man is not being protected by any benevolent deity at all; he is being possessed by yōkai (妖怪).

And honestly, oaths sworn to gods rarely end well anyway. One usually prays for a god’s protection one does not lightly swear vows to them, right?

Because an oath is a heavy thing, not something to be spoken carelessly, much less in the presence of a deity.

If this line of interpretation feels unfamiliar, you can think of it like Faust making a pact with Mephistopheles.

By the time we reach the scene where Yoshihide witnesses his daughter burning to death, the narrator raises the stakes further. Yoshihide is no longer merely possessed he has become a wrathful deity, a dharmapāla.

By combining the two descriptions “majestic like a lion king in a fury” and “a Buddha at the moment of awakening” I finally understood that Akutagawa is describing a wrathful guardian deity. And conveniently, one such figure is explicitly mentioned in the story.

In fact, in Uji Shūi Monogatari, the tale of Ebussō Ryōshū also refers to this very being.

Fudō Myōō—the wrathful manifestation of Dainichi Nyorai (Vairocana).

At this point, even if the bell had truly been given to Yoshihide, it would have been useless. A bell may drive away yōkai, but it can do nothing against a god. Seen this way, one might even wonder: if the daughter had given the bell to her father from the start, might he still have remained human at that crucial moment?

Because the girl gave the bell to the monkey, Yoshihide himself moved unchecked from being possessed to being wholly “devoured by divinity.” The monkey, which people interpret as Yoshihide’s humanity, his better self, bears the protective bell given by the girl, and thus was never something that could be possessed in the first place.

In short, there was no saving him. At first, Yoshihide was still a man possessed by fox spirits, there was still a way back. But in the end, he became a wrathful god, leaving people staring in wide-eyed awe, filled with a “strange rapture,” as though they were beholding the Buddha himself.

All except one person, whose reaction was entirely different. The lord Horikawa.

C. The Two Wisdom Kings (明王): Horikawa and Yoshihide

Horikawa was originally revered by the people as a reincarnation of a god or Buddha. It was said that before his birth, Daiitoku Myōō (大威徳明王 aka the god of death “Destroyer of Death” or "Conqueror of Death") appeared in his mother’s dream.

噂に聞きますと、あの方の御誕生になる前には、大威徳明王の御姿が御母君の夢枕にお立ちになつたとか申す事でございますが、兎に角御生れつきから、並々の人間とは御違ひになつてゐたやうでございます。

I heard it said that before His birth, Daiitoku Myōō appeared in His mother's dream. In any case, it seems He was different from ordinary men from the moment He was born.

The people appeared to regard him as Daiitoku Myōō reborn, to the extent that when an old woman was injured by one of his oxen, she expressed gratitude rather than resentment. This is because depictions of Daiitoku Myōō often show him riding a white ox.

Now to the other side.

The link between Yoshihide and Fudō Myōō is shown in the passage where the narrator criticizes Yoshihide for daring to paint Fudō Myōō using a base model taken from a disreputable man.

さやうな男でございますから、吉祥天を描く時は、卑しい傀儡の顔を写しましたり、不動明王を描く時は、無頼の放免の姿を像りましたり、いろくの勿体ない真似を致しましたが、それでも当人を詰りますと「良秀の描いた神仏が、その良秀に冥罰を当てられるとは、異な事を聞くものぢや」と空嘯いてゐるではございませんか。

Such a man he was, when he painted Kichijōten, he depicted her with the face of a lowly prostitute; when he painted Fudō Myōō, he portrayed him as a vagabond outlaw. He committed all manner of irreverent acts. Yet, when confronted, he would scoff, “That gods or Buddhas painted by Yoshihide should bring divine punishment upon Yoshihide himself—what a strange tale that would be!”

And in Uji Shūi Monogatari:

その後にや、良秀 がよぢり不動とて、今に人々めであへり。

Since this is written in classical language to the point that even modern Japanese readers I struggle with it a lot, here is the modernized version:

そのことがあって以来のことだろうか、「良秀のよぢり不動」と言って、今でも人々が称賛しあっている。

Basically it mean

“Perhaps it is for that reason that, ever since that incident, people have continued to praise Ryōshū’s ‘Fierce Fudō’ down to the present day.”

The context is that this Buddhist painter is working on an image of Fudō Myōō. And as you may know (or have just looked up), depictions of Fudō Myōō are always accompanied by flames. When a house fire breaks out, as we already know, the painter does not care that his home—and his wife and children—have just burned to ashes. What he cares about is that he had been painting the flames poorly, and only now, upon seeing real fire, can he paint them correctly.

The ending of this thirteenth-century tale leaves the reader with an uneasy aftertaste: we do not know what becomes of the painter afterward, but we do know that the painting he created—at the cost of his own family—goes on to be praised by later generations.

Perhaps this is why Akutagawa wrote the ending of Jigokuhen the way he did. If one must sacrifice goodness in order to choose beauty, then that choice is not acceptable.

All right—I’ve wandered off topic. Let’s return.

At its core, both Horikawa and Yoshihide are each associated with a Wisdom King, regardless of the narrative path taken.

In the English version, Daiitoku Myōō is translated as “the Guardian Deity of the West.” That… isn’t wrong. But it can easily be mistaken for one of the Four Heavenly Kings.

The Arrangement of the Five Great Wisdom Kings

Center — Fudō Myōō

The Kyōryō-rinjin (embodiment of the divine command) of Dainichi Nyorai.

East — Gōzanze Myōō

The Kyōryō-rinjin of Ashuku Nyorai (Akṣobhya).

South — Gundari Myōō

The Kyōryō-rinjin of Hōshō Nyorai (Ratnasambhava).

West — Daiitoku Myōō

The Kyōryō-rinjin of Amida Nyorai (Amitābha).

North — Kongō Yasha Myōō (Tōmitsu tradition)

The Kyōryō-rinjin of Fukūjōju Nyorai (Amoghasiddhi),

or Ushusama Myōō (Taimitsu tradition).

Simply by reading the directional placement of the Five Wisdom Kings, you can probably notice that Fudō Myōō is set apart from the other four.

He stands at the very center.

So I looked further, and on a random Buddhist website called tuongphattrangia.com, it states the following:

Bản tôn của Ngài Bất Động Minh Vương có địa vị tôn quý quan trọng bậc nhất trong Ngũ Đại Minh Vương. (...). Địa vị của Ngài có thể sánh ngang với Bồ Tát Quán Thế Âm và Bồ Tát Địa Tạng và trở thành 3 chủ tôn của tượng Phật dân gian.

The principal icon of Fudō Myōō holds the most exalted and crucial position among the Five Great Wisdom Kings. (…). His status can be considered equal to that of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, forming the three principal revered figures of folk Buddhist statuary.

And if you like, this is what was written in English wikipedia:

In East Asian esoteric Buddhism, Acala is classed among the Wisdom Kings (Vidyārāja) and is preeminent among the five Wisdom Kings of the Womb Realm. Accordingly, he occupies an important hierarchical position in the Mandala of the Two Realms.

Even if you do not trust that source, Fudō Myōō still occupies the center—the central position, the place that inevitably draws the viewer’s gaze.

At the very moment when people submit to the divine pressure emanating from Yoshihide, feeling as though they are witnessing the “Buddha opening his eyes,” Horikawa regarded as a god or Buddha reborn, aligned with Daiitoku Myōō sees something else entirely.

He sees the ugly painter he despises, the painter who has always stood beneath him on the ladder of power, becoming something that surpasses even himself. All eyes are fixed on Yoshihide, on Fudō Myōō, on the central position that naturally commands attention.

How could he not feel bitterness? How could he not feel revulsion?

Those violent emotions erupt, and we remember how he turned pale, foamed at the mouth, and breathed like a beast.

Here is a fact that is anything but pleasant.

The sword in Fudō Myōō’s right hand fully symbolizes the power to cut down Greed, Anger, and Ignorance, the three poisons that corrupt wisdom. The rope in his left hand binds all those who abuse their strength and act with arrogance. The raging flames behind him incinerate every form of defilement.

The two ritual implements of Fudō Myōō are a sword (often called the sacred sword, or Kurikara) and a noose or rope (pāśa). Yoshihide hangs himself a final, irreversible link to Fudō Myōō.

III. How those stuff can be refer in Limbus Company

I don't know what to say about the bell because PM seems to prefer choosing the rope to spotlight, even though the teaser also faintly echoes the sound of the bell.

So let's talk about the rest. Starting with the Five Wisdom Kings.

A. Five Finger - Five Wisdom Kings

We do not view it from Yoshihide's perspective, but instead look at it from the outside (specifically from above), then the position of each person will correspond to the following Wisdom Kings:

North, Matthias, the Middle: "The Devourer of Demons" Vajrayakṣa - Kongōyasha Myōō

South, Maestro ???, the Ring: "The Dispenser of Heavenly Nectar" Kuṇḍali - Gundari Myōō

East, Valentina, the Thumb: "The Conqueror of The Three Planes" Trailokyavijaya - Gōzanze Myōō

West, Rien, the Index: "The Defeater of Death" Yamāntaka - Daiitoku Myōō 

Removing the Pinky from this photo leaves exactly five people in the frame. And the person in the center, Yoshihide, is obviously “The Immovable One” Acala - Fudō Myōō.

To be honest, I deliberately chose the viewing angle so that the Index Father would be Yamāntaka, because of the Jigokuhen and how the PM deliberately emphasized how important this character is to Yoshihide from the teaser to Part 1 of Canto IX.

If you're wondering what the Pinky aka Dihui Star is, it's simple: the former Immovable One. In the original work, we have two characters named 良秀. And both are associated with the Immovable One in some way.

Speaking of which, I thought of another possibility.

Kudos to @ryoshudoodles for giving us the idea by writing that long post.

B. Index Father - the Immovable One

If you look back at the picture where everyone is gathered around Yoshihide, just look at it from the angle it was drawn, isn't Mr. Index right in the middle of the picture? The center position of the Immovable One?

Jigokuhen is already short, and the story about ebusshi Ryōshū  is even shorter (you have no idea how much I struggled with 13th-century classical prose). But because it's short, we don't have much information about it, yet at the same time, we know some other important information.

And the same goes for the Index Father.

This guy. THIS FUCKING GUY is the Rashomon effect. Because you can't FUCKING tell what he wants, needs, does, or thinks. Like Ryōshū  said, he is an empty shell.

He is Chaos, and not even Moses, a genius detective and strategist that can see and point someone's innermost thoughts and feelings can get a read on him.

(quotes from ryoshudoodles)

An empty shell? Or let me suggest this...What do you think of the word “vessel”?

In the section about the fantasy element, I explained that people saw Yoshihide as a possessed person/a divine entity because they couldn't understand or imagine that a human being could act that way. So they blame fantasy elements, which are also elements they believe cannot be explained or understood.

It's similar to how people believe ebusshi Ryōshū was possessed.

Now let's return to the world of City, where more crazy things can happen. What I mean is that he, the Index Father, is a vessel for something.

It could be a vessel for a “deity” like Yoshihide in Jigokuhen, for example, a vessel for the Immovable One. Quoted from the Caṇḍa­mahā­roṣaṇa Sutra describing the Immovable One:

His right hand is terrifying with a sword in it,

His left is holding a noose;

He is making a threatening gesture with his Index Finger,

And bites his lower lip with his fangs.

C. Dihui Star and Horikawa

After Ryōshū  cuts her tongue she spits it out, and she laughs, in Dante's words "The triumphant laughter of one who had just seized the victory of one's life." Ryōshū  stands there, dumbfounded and confused, dropping the sword. 

This is the ultimate suffering the Dihui blade wanted to inflict. This is the lord of Horikawa laughing from the balcony, foaming at the mouth. 

So what do I think of her? 

Like I said, I think she is our lord. I think at some point she was probably like Ryōshū , the pride of the house of spiders. That is, until something left her unable to perform that role and she was forced into raising a child that she did not want. 

Unable to turn her blade towards those that forced something upon her, she turns it towards a younger Yoshihide. And she knows that one day Yoshihide will turn that same blade towards her own child. It never stops. And unsheathing the odachi was the first step towards making it happen. 

(quotes from ryoshudoodles)

This fellow enthusiast connects the plot point of Dihui Star in 9-18 with the scene where Horikawa laughs when Yoshihide asks him to burn the carriage with a woman inside, and she also said that Dihui Star is Horikawa.

Let us delve deeper into this direction.

Before reaching the scene where Horikawa laughs hysterically upon hearing Yoshihide's request, we must first understand why Horikawa ordered the old man to paint the Hell Screen.

It was not a premeditated plan for punishment, but simply a way to distract Yoshihide.

As we all know, Yoshihide had a painting obsession that was so intense that people rumored he was possessed to explain it, and when he was in that state, he didn't even care about his own daughter.

According to the narrator, when painting the screen, he was more intensely focused than ever, and in any case, painting a complete picture of hell required much more effort than painting a Buddhist deity one of the other subjects Yoshihide had painted.

Why did Horikawa want to distract Yoshihide? Distract him from what?

From his daughter, of course.

The narrator denied any connection between the order to paint the screen and the girl, but this effort was insignificant when he admitted that the order to paint the screen came after the girl incident.

Previously, Yoshihide had repeatedly asked for his daughter to be dismissed from serving the lord, but Horikawa openly disapproved of this, and it happened so often (4, 5 times) that he grew cold and resentful of Yoshihide. This eventually led to the order to paint the screen.

While Yoshihide was busy painting, Horikawa kept visiting the girl without being bothered by her old father anymore.

When Yoshihide came to report that the painting was almost finished, Horikawa, whose goal was to keep Yoshihide buried in his work for as long as possible, reacted to the report with little enthusiasm. 

「それは目出度い。予も満足ぢや。」

しかしかう仰有る大殿様の御声には、何故か妙に力の無い、張合のぬけた所がございました。

“That is most fortunate. I am satisfied.”

Yet in the voice of His Lordship as he spoke thus, there was something strangely weak, a certain lack of vigor.

But as soon as Yoshihide admitted that he was stuck on a section he couldn't draw, Horikawa became strangely cheerful.

「なに、描けぬ所がある?」

「さやうでございまする。私は総じて、見たものでなければ描けませぬ。よし描けても、得心が参りませぬ。それでは描けぬも同じ事でございませぬか。」

これを御聞きになると、大殿様の御顔には、嘲るやうな御微笑が浮びました。

“What? There are things you cannot draw?”

“Indeed, my lord. I can only draw what I have seen. Even if I could draw it, I would not be satisfied. Would that not be the same as not being able to draw it at all?”

Upon hearing this, a mocking smile appeared on the lord's face.

Yoshihide, that arrogant old man who always acted like he was the world's greatest painter, now admitted to him that he couldn't paint a thing. How could he not laugh?

He had already begun to dislike the old man, so it was understandable that he reacted that way when he heard the old man complaining about his art block.

Horikawa continued to ask, wanting to paint a scene of hell, one must have seen hell, right? He guessed that Yoshihide had never seen prisoners or prison guards, so he couldn't paint it, but Yoshihide said he had seen them, which surprised Horikawa. Losing patience, he asked Yoshihide what he couldn't paint.

When Yoshihide began describing the woman in the carriage, Horikawa became interested and urged him to continue.

When Yoshihide uttered that horrific request, Horikawa's face darkened for a moment.

He himself hadn't expected Yoshihide to have the nerve to ask him to do something so outrageous in the name of art. After all, on his artistic journey, Yoshihide had never sacrificed a single life, no matter how much he tormented his apprentices.

大殿様は御顔を暗くなすつたと思ふと、突然けたたましく御笑ひになりました。さうしてその御笑ひ声に息をつまらせながら、仰有いますには、

「おゝ、万事その方が申す通りに致して遣はさう。出来る出来ぬの詮議は無益の沙汰ぢや。」

The lord's face darkened, I thought, when suddenly he burst into loud laughter. And then, gasping for breath amidst that laughter, he declared:

“Well… I shall have everything done just as you say. Debating what can or cannot be done is a futile exercise.”

That moment also marked the instant Yoshihide gave Horikawa the means to punish the old painter in the most brutal and convenient way possible, without needing any further justification. Because the old man himself had asked him to do so.

Now back to the scene of Dihui Star laughing.

그것도 더할 나위 없이 만족스럽다는 듯한 승리자의 웃음이었다.

それもこの上なく満足げな、勝者の笑いだった。

It was the smile of a victor, one that seemed utterly satisfied.

I'm not sure if Dihui Star laughed because Yoshihide drew her sword or because Yoshihide cut her tongue. But basically, fellow enthusiast @ryoshudoodles is quite right when comparing this scene to when Horikawa heard Yoshihide's request, the victor's laugh, sounding extremely satisfied.

As Yoshihide said, Dihua Star wanted her to suffer, just as Horikawa wanted to punish Yoshihide. So her action of drawing her sword and cutting her tongue was probably similar to the original Yoshihide asking Horikawa to burn the carriage. She gave the other person the most convenient means to torment herself.

The subsequent reactions of the two Yoshihides were also something else. Yoshihide Limbus became confused, as if she were lost.

숨을 몰아쉬던 료슈가 자신의 검을 놓친다.

혼란스러운… 마치 길을 잃은 듯한 표정으로 료슈는 한참 동안 그자의 허덕임을 바라본다.

息を荒げていた良秀が、自分の刀を取り落とす。

混乱した…まるで道を失ったかのような表情で良秀はしばらくの間、その人の喘鳴を眺めていた。

Ryōshū , gasping for breath, drops her sword.

Confused… with a look as if lost, Ryōshū watches the person's labored breathing for a long while.

Yoshihide turned pale with fear after hearing Horikawa describe in detail the scene the old man wanted the lord to create. He realized that the artistic inspiration he had imagined would be nothing more than a brutal act.

大殿様の御言葉を聞きますと、良秀は急に色を失つて喘ぐやうに唯、唇ばかり動して居りましたが、やがて体中の筋が緩んだやうに、べたりと畳へ両手をつくと、

「難有い仕合でございまする。」と、聞えるか聞えないかわからない程低い声で、丁寧に御礼を申し上げました。これは大方自分の考へてゐた目ろみの恐ろしさが、大殿様の御言葉につれてありくと目の前へ浮んで来たからでございませうか。私は一生の中に唯一度、この時だけは良秀が、気の毒な人間に思はれました。

Upon hearing His Lordship's words, Yoshihide suddenly lost all color and gasped, moving only his lips. Then, as if every muscle in his body had gone slack, he collapsed onto the tatami mats, pressing both hands flat against them.

“It is a most fortunate turn of events,” he murmured in a voice so low it was barely audible, offering his most respectful thanks. This was likely because the dread he had imagined was now vividly brought to life before his eyes by the Lord's words. For the only time in my life, at that moment, I felt pity for Yoshihide.

It's like when we read fanfics with tags like violence and “graping”, and it seems appealing, so we keep reading. But when it actually happens in real life, you find it truly disgusting.

And this old man is only now realizing that. “Those who have never tasted war will think war is sweet,” I vaguely remember hearing a phrase like that.

As I said before, until he asked Horikawa, he had never sacrificed anyone for the sake of art (he had tortured people, but never to the point of killing them). He saw the fire and painted the Fudo of Twisting Flames, but he hadn't seen people die in that sea of flames.

He painted a scene of a person being tormented by a monstrous bird, but in reality, the model attacked by the owl was still alive and well. 

Or, to put it more simply, a gore artist can still want to vomit when seeing real gore.

Applying this to Yoshihide of Limbus is difficult, because in the world she lives in, these horrific things happen frequently, and advanced technology allows people to kill each other freely and still survive (if they have enough money).

And so her expression is one of confusion. Perhaps she doesn't understand what's happening either, doesn't understand why she's acting this way, or doesn't understand why Dihui Star can laugh like that?

I give up on this one. Writing all this out has burned me out, so you figure it out yourself.

D. Dihui Star/Yoshihide and Fuku/Akutagawa

I'm currently cooking a list of all the facts and similarities between Ryoshu and her "father", Akutagawa, but you know my habits—I still haven't finished cooking it yet.

Instead of continuing with the comparison between Dihui and Horikawa, I see the relationship between Dihui and Yoshihide as akin to what might have been between Mrs. Fuku and Akutagawa.

Specifically, regarding the situation of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's biological mother, Mrs. Fuku, after giving birth to him. Well, I have a reason to use the term “biological mother” instead of just “mother,” which will be explained after you read the quote below.

生後7か月ごろに母フクが精神に異常をきたしたため[* 1]、東京市本所区小泉町（現：東京都墨田区両国）にある母の実家の芥川家に預けられ、伯母のフキに養育される。11歳のときに母が亡くなる。翌年に伯父・芥川道章（フクの実兄）の養子となり、芥川姓を名乗ることになった。旧家の士族である芥川家は江戸時代、代々徳川家に仕えた奥坊主（御用部屋坊主）の家である。家中が芸術・演芸を愛好し、江戸の文人的趣味が残っていた。

Around the age of seven months, his mother Fuku suffered a mental breakdown[* 1], and he was placed in the care of his maternal grandmother's family, the Akutagawa household, in Koizumi-cho, Honjo Ward, Tokyo City (present-day Ryogoku, Sumida Ward, Tokyo). He was raised by his aunt Fuki. His mother died when he was eleven years old. The following year, he became the adopted son of his uncle, Akutagawa Michiaki (Fuku's older brother), and took the Akutagawa surname. The Akutagawa family, an old samurai lineage, had served the Tokugawa shogunate for generations as goyōbukuro bōzu during the Edo period. The household cherished the arts and performing arts, retaining the literary tastes of Edo.

In the English Wikipedia, this detail is linked to the page “postpartum depression.” If you ask me how you can call it postpartum depression if it has already passed seven months, I will quote from a study by the Department of Psychology and Educational Services, University of Leuven.

The Department of Clinical Psychology, Education, and Health, University College London (UCL) here, though I doubt anyone wants to read it:

Studies in community samples suggest that 27% to 48% (median = 31.3%) of mothers with PPD still met criteria for major depression at 3 to 4 months postpartum (n = 4 studies); 30% to 62% (median = 35.5%) at 6 months (n = 6 studies); 25% to 31% (median = 28%) at 9 months (n = 2 studies); 6% to 39% (median = 23.1%) at 12 months (n = 4 studies); 18% at 18 months (n = 1 study); 13% to 46% (median = 31%) at 2 years (n = 4 studies); and 17% to 62% (median = 38.5%) at 3 years (n = 2 studies). Overall, these findings suggest that at any time point between 4 months and 3 years postpartum, about 30% of mothers diagnosed with PPD still meet criteria for depression.

There are no specific records detailing what Mrs. Fuku suffered from; it is only generally noted as “mental illness,” and many sources suggest it was schizophrenia.

The cause of this could also be attributed to the profound grief of losing her eldest daughter, but I have not been able to verify this information. The only thing that can be confirmed is that Mrs. Fuku became mentally ill seven months after giving birth to Akutagawa (a period that could still be suspected as postpartum depression).

To put it in teaser-like terms, from the moment Akutagawa was born, Mrs. Fuku's life was completely turned upside down in a negative direction.

네가 생기고서부터 내 인생은 줄곧 불행했다. 알고있니?

お前が生まれてから、私の人生はずっと不幸だった。分かっているか?

My life has been nothing but an unending stream of misery ever since you happened. Did you know that?

Dihui Star probably wanted Yoshihide to remember clearly that her existence was a misfortune for her “mother.” And at the same time, perhaps she wanted her to remember the agonizing pain of knowing that her existence brought misfortune to the person she loved. Or, to put it another way, perhaps she wanted to sow self-hatred in Yoshihide, or at least make her live in agony.

A prime example of how crazy you can go when you realize you are the source of someone else's misery is Canto VI. Although their methods differed, both Catherine and Heathcliff came to the same conclusion: to erase their very existence from all times and spaces, as well as from other mirror worlds whose fates they were not even sure they had seen to the end. 

As for Akutagawa, in his final years he suffered from mental symptoms and seemed to fear that he too would go mad like his mother.

While researching this, I came across a study on Akutagawa's 44, “Suicides of elite Japanese writers: The case of Ryunosuke Akutagawa” on ResearchGate, written by Sachi Sri Kantha, Ph.D.Editor Emeritus at Gifu University:

Multiple reasons have been suggested for Akutagawa’s suicide. First was that he suffered from hallucinations of inheriting the schizophrenia traits of his biological mother. 

Second, the financial burdens left by his brother-in-law’s suicide, in January 1927, left Akutagawa in a desperate situation. 

Third, a medically pertinent possibility was insomnia, for which Akutagawa had been tinkering with prescribed sleep inducing medicine, Veronal, and potassium cyanide. Fourth, according to Healy, 12 mental collapse of his novelist friend Koji Uno (1891–1961) in May 1927 might have precipitated the suicide.

Additionally, it also mentions Akutagawa when he met his mother:

In his 1926 reminiscence Death Register, Akutagawa had described the health of his biological mother Fuku, as follows:

‘My mother was a madwoman. I never did feel close to her, as a son should feel toward his mother. Hair held in place by a comb, she would sit alone all day puffing on a long, skinny pipe in the house of my birth family in Tokyo’s Shiba Ward… I never had the experience of a mother’s care. I do seem to recall that one time, when my adoptive mother made a point of taking me upstairs to see her, she suddenly conked me on the head with her pipe. In general, though, she was a quiet lunatic… My mother died in the autumn of my eleventh year, not so much from illness, I think, as from simply wasting away. I have a fairly clear memory of the events surrounding her death.’

Okayyyy

Shiomi Yoru (塩見ヨル) currently i had no ideas about her name

and during battle her title is Index Nursefather despite being the Pinky Nursefather and possessing the Pinky Trait. in EN version

her passive is interesting, isn't it.

Anyone who read Hell's Screen would probably notice the references they putting here, although I was too focus on fighting with her at those moment so I haven't see her changing "phase" to see the other 3 passive. But probably we will see her again on part 3?

They all named Afterimage Entanglement (while their Datafiles named shortly as Time Entangle)

The Snake 4th - Poison

The Owl 3rd - Bleed

The Hell Demon 2nd - Bind

The Carriage on fire 1st - Burn

And Last, all four of them

her panic mode: Affection and Resentment

I could fuck this post off if the only information I had was some random story special passive and sitting around sniffing Ryōshū 9 times a day like someone who hasn't touched grass in 9 years.

But no, my brain is just going to go back to that specific line from that specific Canto and start drumming. And if my hands don't type this post out, my brain will make me regret it for the rest of my life every time I see a random Ryōshū theory post by saying "You could have written a wilder theory than this" every time I go to bed.

Brief table of contents:

I/ Proving the theory

II/ Storytelling techniques that PM can use to torture you extremely effectively

a) Unreliable narrator

b) Breadcrumbs

c) Rashomon effect

d) How this combo tortures your brain neurons

I/ Proving the theory

Canto IV, Episode 55, 4-54

When I first read this part, I felt like she was exploded just like the moment she heard Aeng-du say that her Oodachi was on par with Kurokumo's pile of rust (although that's not what she meant). Or in LoR terms, like scratching Xiao's reverse scale, it was sensitive you know.

If she simply treasured her memories, I'm pretty sure the other from the gang "hot-tempered" like Heathcliff did, too, and he didn't flinch as much as she did, to put it bluntly, she was the only one who objected.

What Alfonso wanted to clear up was what Limbus knew about the Singularity of the K Corp, and I don't think the memory of this was important to Ryōshū. Artistic inspiration? The number of words she ejaculated when she encountered the Pallidified Thing in Canto V was more than the round zero when she saw the Tearful Thing.

If we say that Ryōshū absolutely hates someone messing with her memories, then we have to ask what the motivation for this hatred is. While we don't need a reason to dislike someone erasing data from our brains, the difference here is the "emotional level" expressed. It's pretty certain that everyone who knows is afraid of Great Lake to some extent, but to the point where Ishmael is a mental patient who only lacks a mental hospital, then surely she have experienced Great Lake and gone through an extremely haunting experience that left a psychological trauma can produce such a peak emotional display.

Applying the above, we can deduce that Ryōshū must have had a memorable experience of having her memory touched.

Everything would have stopped here if Canto IV was the only clue. And then PM, in a moment of genius, decided to insert the next clue into a combat passive in a stage at the end of Canto whose number, if divided by 2, would become Canto IV.

Two-years. Through three Cantos. While everyone was still high on Lei Heng's 6 red coins.

Because I was fooled by EN so many times, I lost faith, until I verified that it was not lying this time through some of my friend who is Korean native, then this article finally saw the light of day. Even if you used machine translate for the Korean and Japanese lines, it will be like "memories of being slashed", but obviously I will trust a Korean person more than a machine translation.

Memories are slashed into many pieces. The verb used is quite strong.

It's not like deleting. Memories, if slashed, will make them lose their connection and become unclear, even scattered everywhere and messy. And the only one who suffers is the reader. Or in the game, it's the whole group of Sinners on the bus because thanks to someone's resonance ability, they can broadcast it live for everyone to see.

II/ PM storytelling techniques that can be used to torture you extremely effectively

Instead of asking myself "So what was the reason and purpose of interfering with Ryōshū's memories?", I will tell you what PM can cook using Ryōshū's "multilated memory" as a tool. If it is really something and not because I sucked too much weed.

That is, unlike usual, I do not guess what PM will cook, but I guess what method they will use to cook it. Through this, I will, somehow, know what the upcoming dish will taste like even though I do not know what it will be.

a) Unreliable narrator

This is how "Hell Screen" is told. Among the 12 works Limbus selected, Wuthering Heights and Jigokuhen chose a narrator to guide the reader through the story from a third-party perspective.

The difference here is that Nelly of Wuthering Heights does not try to seduce the reader into believing in a subjective truth, or rather, does not puzzle and deceive the reader like the lord's servant in Jigokuhen.

However, Akutagawa also seems to have no intention of making the narrator seem any more trustworthy because we can easily recognize his "suspicious words" and his efforts to seduce the reader are like a blatant lie created to meet KPI. As a result, there is not a single moment when the reader can be led by the narrator.

An unreliable narrator becomes dangerous when they gain the reader's trust. Take Humbert in Lolita for example. Unlike the servant's half-hearted efforts, Humbert uses all his flowery words and poetic writing to make the reader believe that the story between him and Dolores is a legitimate love story. And if the reader is not careful, they will easily stumble into the pinkized truth he paints.

b) Breadcrumbs

Break an important piece of information into small pieces and then hide them in paragraphs and dialogues. Readers who want to understand the essence of the problem must pay close attention, pick up each piece of information and put it together, to truly understand the essence of the matter.

In the case of a game like Limbus, it is not only in the story but everywhere, including the gameplay.

People often call it the art of foreshadowing. However, using foreshadow is not what I want to say, because foreshadow is like scattering hints about Don Quixote's notable characteristics (breadcrumbs) and then leading to the future event of revealing Don Quixote as a Bloodfiend. Foreshadowing leaves clues to tell the reader that a certain event/truth will happen.

Instead of announcing an event/truth in advance, important information is broken into bread crumbs and scattered everywhere, every-fucking-where. The reader has to play detective, constantly picking up these pieces of information and then having to sit and assemble them into complete information. It gets even worse if the reader is missing just one detail, or assembling it incorrectly, and they will misunderstand the truth in a disastrous way.

You can easily find many works that apply bread crumbs, but the cruelty to the reader that impressed me so much (or scared me) through a gentle lament from someone I often follow is probably Fate/Stay Night Visual Novel. The information about Sakura's fear of self-harm is mentioned 8 times, and if you miss even one piece, it can lead to a misunderstanding of the character's personality and the nature of the fear. Unless I'm wearing dozens of helmets and mentally preparing to pick up bread crumbs, I don't think my gaming and chill session needs any more complexity.

c) Rashomon Effect

When I thought the two things above are more than enough to destroy the reading ability of most people in the fandom, guess what I just found.

It is like an upgraded version of the unreliable narrator. What are you trying to think of maybe even more terrible than an unreliable narrator? Why don't we issue the number of narrators?

And so we have the Rashomon (羅生門) effect.

5 seconds Explanation: The Rashomon effect originated from the film adaptation of director Kurosawa Akira in 1950, it was adapted from Akutagawa's short story In a Grove (Yabu no Naka), not the short story of the same name Rashōmon in1915. This adaptation only takes the name and frame story from Rashōmon 1915.

By recounting an event, the case of murdering and "graping" in bamboo forest, the reader experienced the subjective truth through the 4 perspectives of an incident. Each person is because of their own selfishness, so the truth through them was distorted: the bandit was not as talented as he said, the wife was not completely innocent, the Samurai lied about his own death to keep the honor, the woodcutter hid in the case details because he did not want to be involved.

The Rashomon effect emphasizes that in many cases, the "truth" is not a simple concept, but a collection of subjective perspectives, sometimes contradictory, about the same event.

d) How to combo this holy torture

By resonance, Dante can see the past of a sinner. It could be a complete monologue (like Gregor describing his life after the war) or a glimpse of a moment (like Ishmael when she saw the whale).

And what is more wonderful when the remaining 11 of them can see it too.

In this way, people will see the past of a certain sinner through the perspective of that sinner. But in the case of Ryōshū, her memory is not complete.

We have the following cases.

Case 1: Unreliable narrator - Ryōshū, optional to upgrade the effect of Rashomon and spread a little bread crumbs

Ryōshū assorted the pieces of bread and created a story that she thought was right, whether she was aware or not. And because people will read the story through her perspective, they will be caught up and believe in the narrator's guidance.

By the end of the story, everyone will realize the unreliable nature of the narrator they trusted and there will be a plot twist. It can go two ways:

Thought it was very bad and could not be saved, but it was actually not that bad.

Thought it could be saved, but in fact it was beyond saving.

I don't know how to use words to describe it, but there are so many types of plots that can bring out the same feeling as above that it's impossible to describe it accurately. For example,

If we look at it from a moral perspective: Direction 1 is to think that Ryōshū is evil and wicked but it turns out that she is not that bad, it can turn 180 degrees and make her a good person (which means to kick in za balls of the original work but Canto VIII dared to do so so what is this level). Direction 2 builds an image of Ryōshū that is not that bad, she can be like a victim but then it turns out that she is the culprit and is even worse than what people have known about her.

If we look at it from a hope perspective: Direction 1 builds a story that is as bad as hell but gives you a light at the end of the tunnel, direction 2 builds a story that is the same as direction 1 but will cover up the damn light because there is nothing worse than giving people hope and then extinguishing it.

Add in the Rashomon effect, and people are given additional perspectives and must search for the truth through clues from those perspectives. Or simply choose the truth they want to believe.

Or they - the Sinners and the players - give the middle finger to the pre-packaged truths and hunt for breadcrumbs from the perspectives provided. Then we come to case 2.

Case 2: Play the detective game with the Rashomon effect + bread crumbs

People can only see memories at different times and they will pick up these pieces and assemble them. Applying the effect of Rashomon, each sinner will be affected by their selfish bias and assembles the pieces of bread into the facts "they think is right". This may be due to their relationship with Ryōshū or to protect their own point of view about Ryōshū.

For example, sinners like Sinclair, Don Qixtote, Yi Sang (and perhaps Hong Lu) will pair the bread crumbs into "beneficial" to Ryōshū based on moral scale. For example, "she has good reason to do this", "that's inevitable", "A regrettable adversity"…etc.

As for people like Meursault, Faust, which is probably both Ishmael and Outis will pair the pieces of bread into the most similar truth to what they know and see Ryōshū show, a "most objective" truth they can pair. Their truth may be affected if there is another clue from a third party.

Because I don't wanna be a nice person today.

1. “Unreliable narrator” is not wrong, but it really being overuses.

"Hey so. Did you pick up on the fact that the narrator was unreliable" "I'm not saying I disagree with you, I'm saying I think you didn't realize the narrator of hell screen was deeply unreliable so you may have severely misunderstood several point."

And so do you.

Yes, the narrator in Hell Screen can be read as biased. But here’s the problem, keep using “unreliable narrator” as a shield to dismiss anything negative about Yoshihide.

But that’s sloppy reading my whole fucking post.

People call him an unreliable narrator mostly because everything he says is tied to Horikawa. But Horikawa isn’t someone who can just casually kill the girl whenever he feels like it.

Remember after he did it, people were confused, questioning as to why he would do such a thing. But because there was Yoshihide, most ended up accepting that the daughter’s death was on him.

During the final chapter of Jigokuhen

大殿様が車を御焼きになつた事は、誰の口からともなく世上へ洩れましたが、それに就いては随分いろいろな批判を致すものも居つたやうでございます。 先第一に何故大殿様が良秀の娘を御焼き殺しなすつたか、これは、かなはぬ恋の恨みからなすつたのだと云ふ噂が、番多うございました。 が、大殿様の思召しは、全く車を焼き人を殺してまでも、屏風の画を描かうとする絵師根性の曲なのを懲らす御心算だつたのに相違ございません。現に私は、大殿様が御口づからさう仰有るのを伺つた事さへございます

TL: “The matter of the Great Lord having the carriage burned somehow spread out into the world, though no one knows from whose mouth it came; and regarding it, there seemed to be quite a number of people offering various criticisms. At first, for the reason why the Lord had Yoshihide’s daughter burned to death, there were many rumors saying that he did it out of resentment from an unrequited love. However, there can be no doubt that His Lordship’s intention was entirely to chastise that twisted painter’s nature, the one so obsessed with painting that he would burn a carriage and even have a person killed for the sake of completing a screen. As a matter of fact, I myself have even heard His Lordship say so with his own lips.”

And if you’re going keep to lean on “unreliable narrator” to doubt everything, then we might as well not believe the monkey story about Yoshihide either and say the entire Hell Screen was just something the narrator made up. Even the part you were saying, too.

"That the lord was essentially holding his daughter hostage and killed her because she rejected him, and that the reason Yoshihide worked so hard for the lord was because he thought the lord would eventually let his daughter go if he did enough? I feel like it would be valid for Yoshihide to resist the lord considering that guy tried to rape his daughter"

Akutagawa didn’t write the narrator to be that opaque. Most scenes the narrator personally witnesses are basically valid.

It’s only the rumors he hears or his own opinions that are a bit sussy. And yeah, you know Yoshihide could do a lot of things, but not stop obsessing over painting and neglecting his child.

And fundamentally, when I say “not rebellion,” it’s because the word rebel sounds way too grand like Yoshihide stood up against someone of Horikawa’s status and power. What he did was more like trying to please someone in order to gain favor.

That’s not “rebelling” (in this case is fight against the Prescripts or against Horikawa).

I did not say shit like I want Yoshihide to fight against the Lord, do not putting words in my mouth.

"Like, the things the narrator says are meant to be taken with a massive grain of salt. Did you want Yoshihide to fight the lord, who has immense power over him? If he did anything too rash, the lord would've been able to execute him, and his daughter would be trapped with the lord forever." "They couldn't say no to the lord, hoping to earn his favor enough to save his daughter was literally all he could do."

and I literally state THAT right here, in this part

If you guys keep bringing up “unreliable narrator” over and over, then you might as well throw out Matthias’s part in Intervallo 9.5-1 too since Yoshihide buying gifts for his daughter is also told by the narrator, so it’s not 100% real, right?

2. state “The lord held the daughter hostage / tried to rape her” — speculation treated as fact

If you think again, during feudal society do you think someone as big as Horikawa even need to run away just because he wanted to spent a night with a female servant, you need to understand what happen during feudal society in East Asian in general.

It seems people often assume the man that day was Horikawa, since the girl refused to identify him and the story does drop hints that he had met her a few times. But even if we assume Horikawa really did force himself on her—then couldn’t he have just taken her as a wife? A man with that kind of power wouldn’t need to hold back for anyone, right?

So why would he go as far as burning Yoshihide’s daughter to death out of spite? And then call her a “lowly maid who committed a fault”? Maybe the “fault” he refers to is that she failed to preserve her chastity?

But thinking about it again, would someone with that level of authority really be that offended over such a weak act of resistance from a female servant?

Even if that were the case, wouldn’t that be a bit extreme? And if he really were that easily offended, then why didn’t he just have Yoshihide executed outright? Why keep him around just to listen to him keep begging for his daughter’s release?

And honestly, the perpetrator doesn’t need to be someone powerful for the daughter to refuse to identify him. In that era, even victims of sexual harassment wouldn’t necessarily want to point out who did it, because of shame, and because it wouldn’t help them anyway.

Even in our time, victim-blaming still exists, and people tend to blame women more, right? So let's imagine how it would be in a feudal society that values chastity and purity above all else for women. It would be even worse. Pointing out the perpetrator would basically be the same as admitting what happened. So refusing to identify him can be seen as a form of denial, as an attempt to hide it.

To remind you, we even have the term "Seppuku" in Japan

And for female

Do you think a woman in that era, after being assaulted, would openly admit it without shame or suicide ? Of course not.

それからあの良秀が、目前で娘を焼き殺されながら、それでも屏風の画を描きたいと云ふその木石のやうな心もちがやはり何かとあげつらはれたやうでございます。 中にはあの男を罵つて、画の為には親子の情愛も忘れてしまふ、人面獣心の曲者だなどと申すものもございました。 あの横川の僧都様などは、かう云ふ考へに味方をなすつた御一人で 「如何に一芸一能に秀でやうとも、人として五常を弁へねば、地獄に堕ちる外はない」 などと、 よく仰有つたものでございます。

TL: “And as for that Yoshihide—though his daughter was burned to death right before his eyes, he still wished to continue painting the screen—such a heart, like that of wood or stone, also seems to have been much talked about and criticized in various ways. Among them were those who cursed the man, saying that for the sake of painting he would even forget the bond between parent and child, a villain with a human face but the heart of a beast. Even the Reverend Prelate of Yokawa was one who sided with this view, often saying things like: ‘No matter how much one may excel in a single art or skill, if one does not understand the Five Virtues as a human being, there is nothing for him but to fall into hell.’

The whole fucking point of Hell Screen is to criticize Yoshihide for sacrificing goodness in pursuit of beauty. If Yoshihide were actually a good father like you people say, then the entire story would be meaningless.

Idk who is the one not understand the Hell Screen and having reading problem here when my analysis in the previous was point out their , symbolic roles and thematic parallels and you just shifted to moral defense case for Yoshihide

I just don't think you understood hell screen. You understand Yoshihide was not the bad guy or a bad father, unpleasant and obsessive with his art as he was?

I don't understand you, at all. If you was reading all of my previous post, I state out a bunch of times that he is indeed a bad father figure. In both stories.

What i analysising the nursefather and Yoshihide, their representation in Callisto , Matthias and Rien and their inherited traits of Yoshihide shattering around, what he represents, how his love functions and why that kind of love fails, his love for his daughter DID exists, but is hollow and unable to act, prioritize and ultimately destructive.

Even in SAIKAI, it sing

Protection alone is not enough

Providing cannot fill an empty cup thirsting for love

(...)

But now I know that sacrifice is the easy path

And what Yoshihide do during it? He watches his daughter burn in awe to finishes the painting. That is not the behavior of a man whose love overrides everything. That’s a man whose art comes first, even at the point of no return and lose all Five Virtues

link to read the previous post I talk about this before already so i wont make this any longer

also previous post I talk about the daughter, and her mother before the next analysis drop and you should read it

And In case you haven't read Uji Shūi Monogatari, which is where the name "Ryoshu" came from

some part of this post was wrote before Part 2 and 3 of Canto 9

Basically, it wasn’t within the set of viable options I’d mapped out at the start, so when I heard it, my reaction was basically:

“Araya? you mean Araya Souren?”

That was my first guess.

Araya Souren (阿頼耶識), the antagonist of Kara no Kyoukai. Other than the name, I had no real impression of the guy, since I still haven’t actually watched Kara no Kyoukai.

According to the wiki, it goes like this:

“Souren is a Buddhist monk originating from Tamil Buddhism who lived for roughly 300 years. He witnessed countless deaths, which drove him to seek the reason behind human mortality. He was expelled from the order by his master after seeing the Origin of people.”

But while scrolling through the wiki, one thing hit me square in the face:

The title of the work, Boundary of Emptiness (空の境界, Kara no Kyoukai), reflects Araya's character role as he symbolizes the paradoxical spiral, that which divides the inside from the outside and the most important event in the story.

A paradoxical spiral, huh.

Back in part 1, when I tried looking up what the hell a “paradoxical spiral” even was, it kept jumpscaring me with Kara no Kyoukai. And now here it is again

Kara no Kyoukai.

Probably not a coincidence.

After searching in Type Moon wiki, I remembered that in the Nasuverse there's something called Counter Force (抑止力, Yokushi-ryoku?, "Deterrent Force") is a safety device formed by a Planet to defend itself against extinction and is synonymous with the planet it represents. And one of the two Counter Force has a name that sounds incredibly familiar: Gaia and Alaya.

Gaia is the will of the Earth, the planet's intrinsic wish to survive and prosper.

Alaya, on the other hand, is the collective unconscious will of mankind to avoid extinction.

From what my underdeveloped brain long since retired from FGO—still remembers, Alaya is a subset of Gaia.

But humanity has developed to the point that it’s effectively separated itself from the world (to put it bluntly: squeezing the planet dry at this rate of environmental destruction), so the result is two Counter Forces. One safeguards the world, the other safeguards humanity—and sometimes they punch each other in the face.

Gaia’s name is obvious enough, but Alaya? Even after digging back through the Type-Moon wiki, I still had no damn clue what it was referencing.

Thankfully, someone fed me the answer. The eighth consciousness: ālayavijñāna (阿頼耶識, arayashiki).

Oh for fuck’s sake.

I hate the fact that I simp for this handsome woman, and that almost every scrap of her lore drags in some Buddhist concept that I have to spend half my youth trying to understand.

I started typing this post after rereading Fate/Kaleid Prisma Illya 3rei, because my gut was telling me there’s something deeply connected between Pandora and Alaya and that I was about to cook up a theory that wasn’t just high-on-copium, but outright unhinged, on the level of the actual truth about Pandora in Fate/Kaleid.

Alaya is a subconscious storehouse—a repository consciousness that contains all experiences, memories, and karmic seeds (wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral) that we create.

This is a complex concept: the deepest storehouse of the mind, containing the entirety of the past, the present, and serving as the determining factor of the future (reincarnation) of every sentient being.

In terms of the six realms, rebirth into the three good paths or the three evil paths depends on how many wholesome versus unwholesome seeds exist within one’s Alaya consciousness.

But for our purposes, all we really need to know is that it’s a storage vault.

Now I finally understand why the Counter Force of humanity in the Nasuverse is called Alaya. A repository that contains all experiences, memories, karmic seeds, the past, the present, and the factors that determine the future of all humanity of course that’s Alaya.

Honestly, if we go by what Yi Sang said about how parents naming their children is an act of placing their hopes for the child’s role and position into the name, then the name that Ryoshu chose for the child she truly loved is… not very human at all. It’s something that was never meant for a human being in the first place.

And Duihui Star never stops reminding us of this either—she doesn’t even regard Araya as human, calling the girl “that thing.”

A repository containing the experiences, memories, karmic seeds, past, and present of many people.

not the Ryoshu from Uji Shui Monogatari, not the daughter, not Horikawa or Kandatan from the Spider Thread, but rather the Author himself and his works instead

Her icon is a cigarette instead of anything related to art, nor even spider (talking about the default LCB sinner Ryoshu, pls dont bring her ego/IDs in) and Akutagawa is being famous as a chain-heavy smoker

Both Yoshihide (from Hell's Screen) and Ryoshu (from Uji Shui Monogatari) IS seriously not a loveing father/husband as MOST people often mistaken him to be (which i tried to talk about so many times on my previous post) while Akutagawa did love his family despite the fact he did having some affair like 2 times but he still doing everything for his family and said those affair was regrettable

Warning: Even though I try to be as objective as possible, I’m still pissed while writing this. You’ve been warned.

If you like the ID “Drifting Blade of Hongyuan Ryōshū,” stay away for your own peace of mind.

I know that anything involving Ryōshū will never result in a healthy relationship, but somehow yesterday I went on a full-on diss-track about this ID—and my rational side still had the energy to sit down and analyze and justify Project Moon’s decision.

Hongyuan Ryōshū, also known as the “inverted version” of Edgar Family Chief Butler Ryōshū. I’ll explain why later.

First of all, these are the only two IDs where Ryōshū doesn’t smoke. According to her own words in Intervallo Princess Maker 2.0 (Spring Cultivation), she doesn’t smoke in front of children.

Which means she sees Heathcliff and Hong Lu as children in those worlds, because she took care of them. And after being in that caretaker role for so long, she got used to not smoking—to the point that even when those two grew up, she never went back to cigarettes.

That’s enough context. Let’s get straight to the point.

If Chief Butler Ryōshū is a “what-if” scenario of Ryōshū in Nelly’s role, then Hongyuan Ryōshū is a chaotic hot-pot that’s neither Lin Daiyu nor Night Drifter, with lore that feels like reheated scraps from Wu Branch Adept Yi Sang.

Yesterday I talked about Chekhov’s gun, and how Project Moon violated that principle by stuffing Night Drifter elements into the ID’s design without ever explaining them, neither in lore nor gameplay.

And now I’ll contradict myself to defend it: the gun has been fired and that “shot” is the entire lore of this Hongyuan Ryōshū ID.

Night Drifter:

Failed to protect the one he wanted to protect (his daughter).

Became the mentor of someone from the Jia family, Jia Xichun.

Works as a mercenary for anyone who pays, basically a beggar-clan aesthetic slapped on.

Lin Daiyu:

Comes from a minor family, dependent on the Xue family to survive.

Protects others, also takes on violent work but in a more “refined” way—leans toward protection. “Loyalty” exists in her vocabulary.

Her coping mechanism is remaining loyal to the Xue family until death.

Hongyuan Ryōshū:

Failed to protect her lord.

Became the mentor of her lord, Jia Baoyu (also from the Jia family).

“That tramp from some inconsequential family who curried favor with Da guan yuan a few years back, serving as a bodyguard even though you're not from any of the Four Great Houses.”

Initially a protector; after losing her lord, leans toward mercenary work but still poetic about it. Gameplay-wise, half tank, half DPS. Her lord is dead, yet she remains absurdly loyal.

Her coping mechanism is throwing herself into mercenary work for anyone with the same goal until she dies, all for revenge.

Since Project Moon labeled this ID as “Daiyu Ryoshu” in the datamine, and both design and kit scream Lin Daiyu, let’s talk about how they are not alike at all.

1. Lin Daiyu never left District H.

→ Hongyuan Ryōshū travels with Baoyu across the city, searching for answers for the first round of the succession war.

2. Daiyu is Baoyu’s childhood cousin/friend.

→ Hongyuan Ryōshū is just a bodyguard who served him for a few years before he died.

3. Daiyu’s relationship with Baoyu is familial and emotional, strained after the Kong family massacre, but ultimately reconciled by the end of Canto VIII.

→ Hongyuan Ryōshū and Jia Baoyu are strictly master-servant. Even after reading all voicelines and story upgrades, there’s nothing suggesting friendship.

Instead, Ryōshū slowly develops a kind of admiration for Baoyu’s “progressive” ideology his vision of a better District H and later regrets not training him more harshly.

So if you don’t break things down like this, and just read the story, do you actually get the impression of the character it’s supposed to be based on?

Or does it feel like:

“This is basically just a completely different character wearing Lin Daiyu’s name and appearance”?

Even the similarities I listed—if you examine them closely—don’t actually match at all.

The Night Drifter’s daughter died due to systemic failure (Reconstruction Day), essentially an “accident.” Hongyuan Ryōshū's lord was murdered by the current Hongyuan family head. Completely different causes. The old man has no clear target for revenge, only self-blame.

Mercenary work is common across the entire City, there is nothing unique about this job.

The old man takes any job for money and drinks it away. Hongyuan Ryōshū is selective and driven by revenge not aimless like him.

Lin Daiyu appears loyal to Xue Baochai, but it’s self-convincing, rooted in obligation and pessimism. She’s still just a fragile young girl drowning in sorrow.

→ Hongyuan Ryōshū’s loyalty is real, and it’s what drives her self-destructive path.

In my words, this ID feels like:

“Wu Branch Yi Sang wearing Lin Daiyu’s skin.”

Loyalty and ideological influence from their lord

Traveling with their lord to seek answers

Failing to protect their lord

Constantly referencing their lord in voicelines

Memories fading but still clinging to them

Inheriting the lord’s ideals after death

Self-destructive tendencies

Even their gameplay roles are both tanks. But at least in Heislop’s team, Wu Branch had synergy. What is this Ryōshū supposed to do when she already has a strong ID, and what the team actually lacks are Meursault and Ishmael as Heishou's last members.

Why does she exist? Who asked for this? Did Lin Daiyu even ask for this?

It feels like Project Moon really wanted to force Ryōshū into this ID. So to justify it, they twisted Lin Daiyu from a lover into a “bro” with Jia Baoyu in Canto 8, then mashed together Butler Ryōshū with Wu Branch Yi Sang elements—and somehow produced this mess.

Butler Ryōshū works because it’s a “what-if” of Nelly—a coherent reinterpretation.

This one? Feels like a random character slapped with a skin, carrying a story that makes you ask:

“If you’re doing this, then what’s even the point of a mirror world?”