*Warning - possible spoiler-ish-ness for parts of the manga, up to and including book 9. Nothing beyond that!*
1. Volume 4 of the manga, St Michel chapter. Who exactly is Tsuzuki referring to in this little snippet?
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This page isn't about questions raised by recent plotlines in the manga, because it's likely that Matsushita-sensei will enlighten us herself in due course. No, this is a list of questions whose answers we may never know, but hey, guesswork and a fertile imagination has inspired many a fanfic! ^_~ Anyone is welcome to contribute to this debate - just email me with a list of your answers, and I'll add them to this page. Suggestions for further "unsolved mysteries" (not recent ones) are also welcome!
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Tsuzuki: "I understand."
Tsuzuki: "...I too..."
Tsuzuki: I had a forbidden love...
Tsuzuki: "Remember that feeling..."
Tsuzuki: Now...way in the past------....
(He's just been listening to Mitani talk about forbidden (homosexual) love.)
Katsue: The obvious conclusion that I'm inclined to jump to is that this is about Tatsumi, as the next part of the manga deals (in part) with the break-up of Tsuzuki and Tatsumi's partnership. If this is the case, did Tatsumi *know* how Tsuzuki felt about him? (Maybe this is just my own interpretation, but I think it goes without saying that Tatsumi cares *a lot* about Tsuzuki!) Did those two ever have any kind of relationship in the past, however tentative, fraught or brief??
If he wasn't referring to Tatsumi, then who on earth *was* he talking about? Did he have some kind of "forbidden love" while he was still alive, be it a boy he knew or (excuse my warped mind) his sister??
Penny: : It's got to be Tatsumi. And Tatsumi knew all about it and handled it very badly because he's so, shall we say, adorably repressed.
2. When did Tatsumi die (and how)? How long ago was his partnership with Tsuzuki?
Katsue: My wild guesstimate of 52 years (in my fic BLUE) is probably way out - more realistically, given that Tsuzuki was still basically an emotional wreck when Tatsumi first knew him, I would guess at it being more like some time in the 1930s, fairly early on in Tsuzuki's time as a shinigami.
Penny: The one and only scene from that time in the manga (I think) occurs in volume #5, where Tatsumi flashes back to a distraught Tsuzuki covered in blood beside a child's bed. To me, the scene and its trappings look more modern than the 1930s, though I'm not exactly familiar with the history of Japanese interior decoration. I wonder when teddy bears reached Japan?
3. What happened to Tsuzuki's sister, Ruka?
Katsue: I'm convinced that there is some kind of mystery to be unravelled here! I tend to assume that she died prior to him, as he seemed to be completely alone in the world when he was in the hospital for those 8 years before he died. Was she killed trying to protect him or because she was the sister of the demon-boy with the purple eyes? Did she commit suicide? Did he kill her? (Unlikely, I'd have thought, but it would be another thing to account for his burden of guilt.) However she died (assuming she pre-deceased him), did he feel responsible for her death? If she didn't die before him, did she abandon him for some reason, or did the whole family abandon him, not giving her much choice in the matter? Or was it all much more mundane than this?
Penny: If he had specific issues about Ruka, he would probably have reacted differently to how he did on meeting book-Ruka in volume #5. I'm thinking the whole family disowned him when he went insane. If Ruka was as sweet-natured and accommodating of those around her as her brother, she would have had to go along with this for both economic and emotional reasons. She might have tried to visit him on the sly a few times, but if he was lying there unconscious and immobile, she probably gave up after a while.
4. Did Tatsumi actually physically kill his mother?
Katsue: It's clear that he felt an awful lot of responsibility for his mother, and guilt at not being able to make her happy, and he *says* that he killed her - does he mean that literally, did he do something that drove her to her death, or is he just guilt-tripping?
Penny: I don't think he did it. Tatsumi always felt powerless in the face of his mother's inaptitude and depression, and arriving at the belief that he killed her would provide a number of psychic benefits: a feeling of having taken control of the situation, relief at having finally been able to end his mother's sufferings, and an eternal justification for the deep guilt which child Tatsumi obviously felt about the continual failure of his best efforts to make her happy. This way, frustration at his helplessness became an overtly logical structure of guilt and responsibility - something far more palatable to Tatsumi's ordered mind, no matter how much pain it causes him.
5. Volume 9 of the manga, Masquerade chapter. What exactly is the connection between Tsuzuki and Hakushaku?
Katsue: Tsuzuki gets a nostalgic sense after talking to him, and Hakushaku's words seem to also suggest some kind of connection between the two of them, though what, I haven't got the faintest idea!! I think it's a bit more than Hakushaku just thinking Tsuzuki is a very special person and then both having a fondness for drink!!
Penny: Much as I like to think of Tsuzuki as a bondage sub, I do find it hard to believe that anyone would be nostalgic about sexual relations with Hakushaku. Perhaps they were partners at some point? Tsuzuki's supposed to have had a lot. Maybe at one point the entire shinigami corps refused to deal with him, and Hakushaku was the only one left? Unlike Tatsumi, he'd probably at least not have shouted at poor Tsu-chan...
6. Why do Tatsumi and Watari not have partners?
Katsue: As far as I know, EnmaCho consists of 18 shinigami who all have to work in pairs, one pair for each of the other nine Chos. So, theoretically, both of these two *should* have partners - it throws the logic out if they don't. But WHO ARE these mystery partners?
Penny: Tatsumi wants to work on his own because nobody else understands the importance of paperwork. Watari wants to work on his own because nobody else understands the joy of research. So they're technically partners but don't actually have to work together. They get away with this because one of them is Tatsumi, and who's going to argue with him?
7. How did Watari die?
Katsue: I have absolutely no clue about this, other than speculating that he accidentally blew himself up!
Penny: As Katsue pointed out to me the other day, Watari would have died during the Japanese punk era. That man would have loved pogo dancing. Red Alert on the lab radio, dangerous flammable potion in open test tube to the left, dangerous flammable potion in open test tube to the right, Watari-hair tendrils everywhere... BANG
8. What's with Watari's obssession with perfecting a sex-changing formula?
Katsue: Is it the scientific challenge that appeals to him, amongst other things? Of all the shinigami, Watari seems to be the one most noticeably fascinated by all things female, and also seems to be a tad clueless on that score. Is it a sexual fascination, the appeal of the unknown, a hidden desire to be a woman or even an urge to turn one of his fellow male shinigami into a woman? (If so, which one??!?)
Penny: This ambiguity has to be one of Matsushita Yoko's single biggest gifts to fanfic authors. Perhaps he's impotent, and thinks it would show less if he was female?
9. When and how did Muraki lose his right eye?
Katsue: Personally, my guess would be that someone attacked him in rage, fear or vengeance.
Penny: I think Muraki's grandpa was a fine upstanding pervert like his progeny, and had a thing for young men with empty eye sockets, either self-inflected or courtesy of himself. That would also account for why Tsuzuki interested him enough to get into the hospital free in the first place.
10. What exactly is Muraki - is he fully human? Why is it so hard to kill him?
Katsue: I think I'll leave it mainly up to Penny to answer this, as she is far more likely to do a good job of it. However, for what it's worth, here are my own observations. When young, Muraki drank poison to build up a tolerance to it, hence he would have a resistance that most humans wouldn't. He at the very least is some kind of magic user (his ability to summon demonic creatures and put a curse on Hisoka, amongst other things). It is possible that he, like Tsuzuki, is part-demon.
Penny: Well, I don't think anyone can do that good a job because the issue really is wide open. If Muraki comes back in the manga (which I fear may never happen but let's hope) this question will probably furnish a plotline.
Muraki can't be part-demon in exactly the same way as Tsuzuki is, or his wounds would regenerate as Tsuzuki's slashed wrists did even when he was alive. We also know a little about his mother and father, and while hardly model parents there is no indication they were supernatural.
On the other hand, circumstantial evidence supports his not being entirely human. His colouring is the most obvious example: he's not an albino, as they have red eyes. As his persecution of Hisoka has often been attributed to his perception of similarities between them, and the desire to simultaneously possess and obliterate his younger self, it would also make psychological sense of his even greater obsession with Tsuzuki if he were part demon.
In Theria's translation of volume 6 he tells Satomi that the commission of serial murder followed each time by ritual cleansing is "the program engraved into my DNA" - this implies that he was somehow damaged before birth, either by an impure heritage or by scientific interference (genetic experimentation by the senior Murakis?) But once again this isn't conclusive as, at least in the English version, he could equally well be referring to the insanity that runs in the family.
So I dunno, but I really hope Matsushita-sensei enlightens us one day.
11. What really *did* happen in the scene where someone who looks like Hijiri appears in Tsuzuki's mind, dissuading him from his feelings of worthlessness and therefore giving him the will to expel Saagatanasu?
Katsue: Initially, I just assumed it *was* Hijiri, although I couldn't work out how he managed to make contact with Tsuzuki when the various shinigami didn't seem able to. Had it actually been Hijiri, the explanation I like best comes from Morien Alexander in her fic Potion where she suggests that Hijiri was able to appear in Tsuzuki's mind because of being linked to Saagatanasu by the contract.
However, a recent discussion on the Yami no Matsuei mailing list brought up something that I'd missed when reading the manga. At one point, Saagatanasu says: "This voice...I remember it. I see...this was all your doing...!! EnMa!!!" and then "Hijiri" smirks. This would suggest that somehow Enma-Daioh has caused "Hijiri" to appear in Tsuzuki's mind. But how much is the apparition Hijiri and how much is it Enma-Daioh?
Penny: I'm persuaded by the mailing list's theory. Hijiri doesn't have magical powers, so the apparition is presumably entirely Enma-Daioh. There could be some kind of transfer of power when "Hijiri" puts his hands on Tsuzuki's back and Tsuzuki feels "Hijiri's" bum (yep, there's no other way to describe that panel!).
12. Same chapter as above (book 2, chapter 5). What happened on that night 79 years ago, and what is the connection between Tsuzuki and Konoe? (See snippet of dialogue below.)
Konoe: "You...didn't...You even looked into Tsuzuki's memories..."
Tsuzuki/Saagatanasu: "Yes, I saw it...more or less everything. That night 79 years ago, Tsuzuki's numerous
guilty crimes, even the connection between you and him, Konoe!!"
Katsue: Been doing the math here:
Tsuzuki lived from 1900-1926.
He was hospitalized with mental illness from 1918-1926.
Tsuzuki's age in this chapter is given as 97.
79 years ago therefore = 1918, the year in which he was hospitalized.
Given the above, my assumption would be that whatever happened on that night resulted in him being hospitalized for insanity. Whether or not he committed the unspecified crimes because he was already losing his mind, or that committing these crimes *caused* him to lose his mind is open to debate. It seems quite possible to me that these crimes were commited by his "demon" side, and were something that the human Tsuzuki would be horrified by. It's anyone's guess as to what exactly these crimes were, but I think it's highly likely he murdered at least one person. Haven't a clue what the connection with Konoe might be - ideas, anyone?
Penny: Katsue's clever. Believe Katsue.
The Konoe connection is completely ambiguous, but we do know Konoe has been a shinigami longer than Tsuzuki and could have been on active duty during Tsuzuki's lifetime. A part-demon going around committing murder is just the sort of case shinigami get assigned to. Was Konoe supposed to destroy demon Tsuzuki but ended up taking pity on his human soul and making a hash of the mission?
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