Fujisaki Kouto - Tumblr Posts

I HATE THIS MANGA I’M ABOUT TO START EATING BRICKS LIKE A FUCKING CHIPMUNK

Am I allowed to join your Father Simp Club?

Extremely late answer but everyone and anyone is allowed to join my Father Simp Club, we are always accepting new members. Acquire some taste and join us if u haven't already

Father as Village Orphan or Father as Fujisaki? Which do you like more?

Father as Village Orphan!

Obviously I've spent many years analyzing Father as Fujisaki so Father as he currently is in the manga is fascinating to me but I have a soft spot for these kinds of villain origin stories, where the audience watches the villain grow from an innocent child into an increasingly jaded adult and, eventually, the villain we know them as.

Plus, Baby Father is the cutest kid in the Noragami. There, I said it. Baby Yato enthusiasts, know whence you came from :PP

Chapter 97-2 Thoughts (Part 1)

(Part 1 here) (Part 2)

After 6 years and 20 days - aka 72 months, or 2212 days - of me waiting for Father backstory, the wait is finally over.

Holy shit, what a ride it has been.

Not only that, December 5th (or 6th, in Japan) was Noragami's 11th anniversary as well. I just wanted to say thank you, sensei, for all of these wonderful years and all of your hard work. Noragami means so much to me, as it has been not only a source comfort but also the work that made me realize what I was truly passionate about in life. Happy 11 years! I will stick around until the very end!

Without further ado, let's get into it. 

I believe someone already pointed out the litter on the above panel here so I won't talk too much about (I do like the interpretation of this being a symbol of pollution). What I do want to talk about, though, are these stacked stones by the shore of the bottom of the island.

First: there are barnacles (?) growing on the rocks, suggesting that this part of the island might be underwater during high tide.

Second: the stacked stones themselves. I'm not sure if this applies to the deceased generally but what I do know for sure is that the stacking of stones in this manner is heavily associated with deceased children in Buddhism - specifically, children who died before their parents, including aborted or miscarried fetuses or stillborn children (all considered mizuko).

Because these children have not yet accumulated enough karma (good or bad), they cannot cross the bridge to the afterlife and must stack stones on the shores of the Sai no Kawara. These souls are protected from demons who will try to knock down the stones by the Bodhisattva Jizo, popular protector of children in Japan.

Sai no Kawara does actually also have a physical representation in Japan, on Sado Island. Stacked stones on the left.

Stacked stones are also associated with Mt. Osore, aka the "fear mountain", in the very northern tip of Honshu, Japan's main island - like the Sado Sai no Kawara, it's associated heavily with dead children and there's lots of Jizo statues scattered around. But Mt. Osore is also VERY heavily associated with the Buddhist afterlife - Buddhist hell specifically, due to the mountain's barren volcanic landscape and pungent sulfur smell. It's also the site of a Buddhist temple (currently Soto Zen), Bodai-ji, which was founded in the 9th century.

I feel a little (side eyes) (squints) about this detail, as I actually talked about the Sai no Kawara (mistakenly wrote Sanzu River, though, that was my bad) in my "What's the Deal with Nora?" post in 2019, in which I correctly theorized that Nora was the soul of a stillborn/miscarried/aborted child (mizuko).

The part of the theory that HASN'T been confirmed, however, is the part where I bring up the possibility of Nora actually being Father's biological unborn daughter with Miss Pockmarks.

I did lose faith in this theory since that time BUT. Since I do not think Father died as a child when he was thrown off the cliff (more on that later), those stacked stones would not be for him.

The jury is definitely still out on that theory because that detail is VERY sus. 

That earthquake was definitely caused by Ookuninushi so we know where we are timeline-wise right now: Father is about to bonk the execution squad's shinki while Take and Ebisu explore the island. 

I'M TELLING Y'ALL. This place is off the wall CURSED. I said it in a previous chapter thoughts when we last saw Tamatsuki and I'll say it again: when a place is hidden in a blind spot like this, it is never a good thing, will never be a good thing, and Ebisu & Take should be SUPER careful. Especially considering that Satou (the grave-keeper) does confirm later on that this island is a representation of the Mask-Maker's bottomless rage, and only those who are lost may find it. Bad signs all around.

First thing for this panel: where are these masks coming from? Does Father bring them there? Do the people who worship here find them? How did they get here?? Especially considering that only a few masks seem to be older (the ones with facial details reminiscent of Noh masks) but most of them actually seem to be the modern versions of the masks. Maybe the older ones are from the time when the last Ebisu visited the island? 

Second thing for that panel:

"That person was blind and deaf... he couldn't see you, couldn't hear you, and was loathe to speak."

Unless disabilities of the body such as blindness and deafness do not affect spirits, I can't see how this could be. He's clearly neither blind nor deaf (mute maybe, as children are known to sometimes become mute after witnessing something traumatizing) in the flashbacks with the monk and in the Sakura flashbacks. I'm leaning toward possible mistranslation on that one.

I did read the raws, though, and idk what to make of it myself. It's super confusing, but I guess it is true that we have not seen any disabled shinki in the series yet so perhaps disability does not transfer over after death after all.

If Father was indeed deaf and blind, he likely became that way after falling from that cliff. 

Also: "Dark, cold, suffocating, ravenous feelings"? That does bring some uhh... water and drowning imagery to mind... 

My knee-jerk reaction to this was that, because Satou is the 73rd gravekeeper, this position was something that was passed down through the family and that the person (people?) Father saved must've been their ancestors, who started worshiping him after he had saved them.

But looking at the woman's tearful reaction, it seems like he actually did save them personally? As @nyappytown​ said, this seems to confirm that Father has been targeting people who "the law has failed to judge."

This goes waaaaay back to the Yomi arc, in which Yato  kills two murderers whom "the law has failed to judge" as well: the murderer of a child who was given a light sentence due to the murder being his first offense (Chapter 27) and then a murderer who was actually never caught in the first place and has claimed several victims, the next being his son (Chapter 28). (Which also makes me wonder: did Father himself kill the culprit of the Tamatsuki family, or did Yato...?)

Yato himself said that the reason he does that kind of work because is "your Heavenly justice is full of cracks" (Chapter 31) which aaaaaall comes back around in this arc, with Hagusa's net and again in this chapter, which we'll get to in a second.

"Don't treat me like I'm a god. They never actually punish evildoers, after all." Which is literally why Yato is saying that they need gods like him in the first place in Chapter 31.

The ironic thing is that Hagusa's Righteous Net (Goodness Net in official translation) is a reference to Heaven's Net - we've seen that Hagusa's net is full of holes also, creating more chaos when it aims to correct wrongdoing and protect those who are overlooked.

  (Official translation again because I feel it is a bit more clear dialogue-wise than fast-moon's)

"Hagusa learned that [Heaven is] wrong. What he hasn't learned... is that humanity isn't much better."

And that is the heart of Father's "cull the herd", I think.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Father is sending Yato out to kill only  bad people purely for vigilante justice. That's clearly not the case. He himself said that if this is the world both gods and humans wanted, then he wants to "shake things up."

Heaven itself and the humans both share the blame in his eyes, so both are worthy of being culled. (Although, it is interesting to note that both of the criminals Yato killed in the Yomi arc involved children, both an actual child-killer and a would-be killer. Looking very nervously at the next few pages of the chapter rn.) If I remember correctly, most of the people we've seen be killed by Yato in the Sakura flashbacks and that one flashback with the shrines were near religious places or were praying?

BEFORE I GET INTO THE FLASHBACK:

Look at him. Look at my little meow meow. He is just a little creature. He cannot change this. He's so tiny. I will wrap him in a blanket and protect him from all the evil in this world. I'm about to become a Boomer Remover.

Anyway. 

Father is an orphan CONFIRMED (parents killed in natural disaster CONFIRMED), raised by Buddhist monk(s) CONFIRMED, dead paternal figure CONFIRMED. Wow. This chapter was an absolute win for me.

(Also was he lying under that carcass all that time? Jfc. Save him)

The raws described the monk as a hijiri (聖).

"Missionary" is a good translation for it as far as choice of English vocabulary goes but it doesn't quite convey everything: hijiri were, essentially, the opposite to temple priests and monks. They lived secluded lives in the mountains or traveled, preaching about Buddhism to the common people (as opposed to those involved with temples, who were heavily involved with the Heian court and affairs of state instead). Some sources also say they served as healers and diviners but I need to read more to confirm. I do think that he was likely a Pure Land monk, however, as "going to meet the Buddha" would line up very well with Pure Land Buddhism. 

To put it simply, Pure Land Buddhism was based on the belief that through great faith in the Amida Buddha, you would be reborn in his Pure Land, where achieving enlightenment was much easier than on the earthly plane. It was popular among the common people as it skipped the complicated beliefs and practices of other branches of Buddhism, such as Shingon and Tendai.

Practitioners of Pure Land are famous for repeatedly chanting "Namu Amida Butsu" (I take refuge in the Amida Buddha), and we do see the monk chanting up on the top of the cliff. I wouldn't be surprised.

Also, it's interesting to note that the architecture of some Shinto shrines is actually based on Pure Land temple architecture. Kasuga-taisha, a shrine dedicated to Takemikazuchi, is one such shrine. 

This scene has got me thinking about all the times we've seen a child and a parent figure share a meal in this series, especially when thinking about what Arahabaki says in Chapter 76.

Children don’t know the difference betweeen right and wrong. And some of 'em still hope fer parents and a home. So I don’t generally make ‘em into my shinki... but I’m always tellin’ the kids.. if they can look after themselves and help out without askin’ for nothin’ they ain’t got, they can stay. But I wanna take in as many kids as I can, and give ‘em somethin’ good to eat.

"Some of em still hope fer parents, and a home." (Not me thinking about how Baby Father is an orphan without a home right now... Oh god it hurts)

Eating is as much an action necessary for survival as it is a bonding activity. It's both a sign that a child is being taken care of as Arahabaki highlights by saying that, and a sign of a child's dependence on their parent. 

Let's see... we've got this scene, Yato and Yukine (Ch 4, although Hiyori is treating them here)... 

Nana and Bishamon (Ch 60)... 

And finally, Father, Mizuchi, and Yato. Twice, actually, because there is this scene from Chapter 78 and we also see food set out for Yato in Chapter 28 (the fact that Yato is eating alone, however, is a sure sign of distance). 

When Yukine imagines his "perfect" family life, he pictures them all around the dinner table (Ch 86).

Interestingly enough, Haruki and Tajima seem to be the only family pair that isn't seen eating together - only Tajima is eating, in front of Yukine, in Chapter 95.

Hell, even after Father says the only home Hagusa will ever have is with him (official trans.), the first thing he does after he wakes up is offer him food. That feels pretty significant in context. (Trashjima #1 worst Noragami dad confirmed, seriously)

Which brings me to my next point!

Father's outburst in Chapter 95. I talked a little about it in my Chapter 95 thoughts when it came out and... yeah, it seems like my tinfoil hat was right on the money.

So yeah, on one hand, I can see where Father is coming from. Not like he was #1   Dad in the world (obviously) but he did spend over a millennia providing for Yato and, in his mind, protecting him and caring for him. Emotions are running high, I imagine he feels quite slighted.

On an even more tin foil hat-y note: this makes me wonder about   Father's own material situation when he was younger. Heian period Japan wasn't exactly kind to people who weren't nobility. It would make sense why Father would place providing materially as pretty high on the "why the hell are you being ungrateful" list.

The common impression of this scene was that those are the bare necessities and that to act like giving Yato those things was great parenting is narcissistic. Which, yeah, those are the bare necessities but I feel like that's the wrong angle to look at this with.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying Father was a good parent because it is 100% clear and obvious that he was not and is not.  

However. 

To say that those are the bare necessities IS true, yes, but it is also a very modern lens to look at this with. As demonstrated by Father himself, food and a home was something that hung in the precipice constantly.

And in a time where the common people led lives with the threat of starvation over their head during bad harvests or the threat of losing their homes in natural disasters or fires, the fact that you had a home and food at all, that you were taken care of in that sense, is absolutely a privilege. It was a sign that the child was taken care of. It was something to be indeed grateful for.

The fact that Father provided him a home - which he himself did not have - and food - something the monk did for him as well - was absolutely a sign that Father was, in his mind, taking care of Yato. As one would his own child.

(bangs pots and pans) FATHER CARED FOR YATO GODDAMMIT

How ironic indeed that a grown-up Father should look so much like the man who threw him off a cliff - victims becoming the abusers, something something... (cries)

"In anger we sometimes forget that which we should not. We must always remember that which is important...!”

Also, I want to point out Father's clothes progression. Baby Father is seen wearing all white (or light-colored) clothes, then black koromo with white sleeves, and finally a koromo with black sleeves, the white peeking out only at the bottom and collars (Sakura flashbacks).

If that is meant to be a visual representation of Father's journey as a person... absolutely brilliant. 

Miss Adachitoka did it again.

In the same vein, Baby Yato is seen wearing all white save for a black tie around his waist, while Mizuchi is wearing a grey one ("someone who doesn't know right from wrong"). Argh. Insanity hours. 

With that being said, the fact that Adachitoka's choice of first Father backstory flashback was of Father as a child - and not just a child, but a vulnerable orphan - feels VERY significant indeed.

Even I, the biggest Father sympathizer in the fandom, was expecting the first flashback to be of an adult or a teenage Father, with me bending over backwards picking apart hints about his Tragic Life. But that image of him is something we associate with the Sakura flashbacks - inherently negative associations.

Adachitoka absolutely goes straight for the "portray them as a child" when they want to punch you emotionally and shift your views of the character. They did it with Ebisu, Takemikazuchi, Yato, and they are absolutely doing it with Father right now.  Children are innocent and vulnerable, dependent on the adults in their lives. And we just saw a holy man throw himself and a child Father off a cliff.

I think chose the perfect timing for my bit about Father's role as victim in Chapter 97-1 thoughts.

Father (humanity) as the powerless victim, gods as the perpetrators; in the same breath, Yato (gods) as the powerless victim, Father (humanity) as the perpetrator.  Father's role as the perpetrator of violence should absolutely not be forgotten, but neither should his role as a victim of Heaven's  cycle of violence. What Father does out of anger absolutely makes the cycle go round, but the anger itself is a testament to pain that shouldn't be ignored, because it comes out something much bigger - and it's not as simple as "someone he loved died."

Also I wanna point out the motion blur going from the swirling, crashing waters into a high shot of the sky as Father faces Amaterasu. AUGHHHHH. So good.

"Truly... this world is hell..."

(Continued in Part 2)

Chapter 97-2 Thoughts (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1.)

I'm surprised at how these pages were not mentioned by anyone on the TL at ALL, considering how we got the revelation that Amaterasu's eyes are the sun and she sees almost EVERYTHING, apparently. "You don't care, do you, Amaterasu?!" "Evil deeds may never escape your eyes..."

The fact that "evil deeds may never escape [her] eyes" but Father accuses her of not caring implies that Amaterasu DOES see all this fucked up shit going on and apparently does nothing about it at all?? Again going back to the notion that Heaven does not punish evildoers, like Hagusa himself said, and that Heaven's justice has serious holes. This point is really getting hammered in.

I wonder if Amaterasu saw him being yeeted off the cliff. I wonder if she saw him come back from Yomi and has just been playing dumb. WHAT'S THE TEA, SPILL IT FATHER. EXPOSE HER ASS!!

All this time we were saying feral Father would happen in the Yato vs. Father fight but THIS is feral Father!!!

"It's been to your own good fortune that you've failed to catch me all this time..."

This may be controversial but this fight feels extremely cathartic, at least for me. This fight is for Father what Yato's fight with Father was for him; it's finally confronting those whose thumb he's been living under, out of the shadows, directly.

And it. is. INCREDIBLE. Go feral, you awful little man. Expose their ass. I know he's got ALL the dirt and we're now going to see the true extent of how fucked up Heaven as a system is.

I am ready. Drop them truth bombs.

"It seems you've been forgotten, Hagusa. You'll just have to meet up with her and jog her memory. I'm sure you'd love to ask her what was going through her mind when she abandoned you and why she didn't save you..."

I wonder WHO will be jogging whose memory here...?!! :DDD

From the Chapter 97-1 Thoughts:

Is it possible - considering Father's constant monologuing about abandonment (himself being a creature abandoned by the Heavens, like he said in 76) and the act of saving/being saved - that Father not only feels bitter that his loved one could not/would not be saved, but also that he was not  saved from his fate by the gods?

🗣️ PROJECTION THEORY NEVER MISSES, BABY 🗣️

I love me some... mcparallels..... (tries not to start bawling like a baby) 

It's almost 2 AM so I think that will be it for now!

Thanks for coming to my longest ever chapters thought if you've made it this far.

ADDENDUM: I did finish writing this at 2 AM and I forgot to clarify why I think Father survived the fall.

Two reasons: one, we see him looking older in the Yomi flashbacks, which is when he is confirmed to have died and come back from the dead, which means he cannot have died there. Also, where’s Pockmarks??

Two, Father was deified in fear of his wrath. A child would definitely NOT be deified in fear of their wrath - if anyone knew about his death, they’d erect a memorial, maybe, but fears of retaliation due to the wrath of a deceased person was firmly in the realm of adults who have been wronged somehow.

By hardest mode fix-it I meant that both Yato and Hiiro would most likely never exist without that boy becoming Father. Some other characters might not either. Baby Father living long happy life would also eradicate 90% of plot, but I just want baby boi to have good things! I knew Father's backstory will wreck me - that's Noragami to you - but never once I thought it will be like this! A brilliant subversion and beautifully executed plot twist that feels like a heavy gut punch.

AH, that makes total sense. I agree this would definitely be a hard mode fix-it since, as you said, it would eradicate 90% of the plot.

BUT I ALSO WANT BABY BOY TO HAVE GOOD THINGS. Come off anon so we can talk about it (sob)

I am once again begging Adachitoka to let him have ONE fleeting moment of happiness in the series. He was just a kid. Please at least give him some genuine happiness before he becomes "Father." I've been preparing for the backstory for 6 years but I STILL wasn't ready for how these 3 pages would destroy me.

Every time I remember his little smile I start writhing in agony

happy new year, here’s some colors i never posted

[Pg 1]

Since a long time ago, the ways of this world haven't changed. To believe in something is so foolish... Life is so trivial. If you are weak, you will get crushed. If you lose, you die. If you win, you live on. 

[Pg 2]

Even the beasts and the insects, the plants and the flowers all struggle against each other to survive. I just hate the way things are.

[Pg 3]

Such is our ugly way of life. But... someone is watching. "Why is that?" - that's what I thought...

Hiiro and Amaterasu is like baby on baby violence, Yukine is having mental breakdown after mental breakdown, and Baby Father internalised his self-defence as "sin" and decided to be the meanest fish in the pond. But at least Yato is "the necessary one", even if I'm not sure whether he would like to be that or not. (...If you have some comforting/soothing Hiiro fic recs, could you spare some?) Also, do you think Amaterasu can remove names that were written by Kotonoha?

Yeah, if one of the babies in question had a significant and unfair advantage over the other! I know we probably don't have the full story yet but I am currently a little bit pissed at Amaterasu for her dismissive attitude so I cannot see her as baby, I gotta get through wanting to squish her like a bug first LOL.

Well, nothing new about Yukine there, he's been having one long continuous breakdown for the last (checks chapter release schedule) year worth of chapters?

Baby Father internalised his self-defence as "sin" and decided to be the meanest fish in the pond

Ooh, can you elaborate on Baby Father internalizing self-defense as "sin"? I don't think I've picked up on that reading. Man, Father's behavior still reminds me so much of early manga Yukine... like, yeah, he absolutely decided to be the meanest fish in the pond. Be on the defensive all the time to protect yourself, get them before they can ever get you. Trauma is a bitch.

Unfortunately, I don't have any Hiiro fics to recommend, sorry! I'm not much of a fic reader, except when the brain rot gets really bad. I usually just check the Fujisaki Kouto tag for fics and call it a day lol/

As for the Koto no Ha names... I would say no? Perhaps the names are also in the "realm" of Izanami where the sun doesn't reach so she has no control over it. I really hope so, because otherwise... Yukine, Father, AND Nora are all toast.

Father, please pull through and kick Amaterasu's ass lol...

These first pages in the new chapter have confirmed that Father would totally try to do human transmutation. I've always wondered if Adachitoka were also of those mangakas who were greatly inspired by Fullnetal Alchemist and then went and did their own glorious black-and-white worlds!

Okay, confession time: I've never really watched all of FMA, I'm literally on like... Episode 14. So I don't know that much about human transmutations and its significance in the series and stuff but yeah, sounds like him indeed.

It wouldn't be far-fetched if they were indeed inspired by FMA! I mean, it's considered an incredibly successful and popular manga, highly praised in the manga world.

"Even though he cheated death, the Mask-Maker's luck eventually ran out. He is only human, after all.

However... He was legitimately able to come back to life."

love how noragami is praised like "wow! the manga examines trauma & abuse and how it fundamentally shapes and affects people throughout their entire lives in such a profound way!”

a chunk of the fandom proceeds to entirely miss the point. 🤨🤨

rlly makes u think 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

On Father’s “I’d even sleep among monks” line

Quick TW: this post contains sensitive content so please proceed with caution.

So, while reading the raws for this chapter, I found this line of Father’s quite particular.

坊主と寝た事もあります。

What piqued my - and some others’ - attention was the と 寝た, which translates roughly with “sleeping with a monk”, rather than just sleeping among monks. There is a subtle suggestiveness surrounding this line - it’s very vague probably for this reason.

This verb, “to sleep”, of course means to literally sleep but it can also mean to sleep as in to have int/ercourse with someone. What makes this line even more suggestive is Izanami’s reaction - the あらあら, an expression of surprise similar to saying something like “oh my!” - and Father’s preceding and proceeding lines: “I even stole and killed”, then the line about sleeping with a monk(s), then “Whatever it took to survive.”

However, my Japanese ability is still pre-fluency (far from fluency, actually LOL) so while this line sounded odd, I wasn’t sure. However, a very kind Japanese-speaking user who wishes to remain anonymous reached out to me with some context:

I went to read the raws and I think unfortunately he does mean sleeping in the other way... the と in front of 寝た is used in instances for se/xual relations with other people. If he was sleeping amongst other monks would use 眠った (or 他の僧侶間で眠った). There were a lot of abuse going on around the era, and him being a young monk seemed dangerous. 

yeah, they used singular noun for monk, so it was more of a "There was a time where I even slept with a monk" 

and yeah, i don't want to say 100% that this is definitely true, but I do think the implication is there, and from experience from speaking with others it's more commonly used that way 

Oh and just to add on, if he were to use Neta (寝た) in a literal way, the end of the sentence would be "て寝た" too. So it really is the "と寝た" that's important

To repeat what I said on Twitter and elsewhere, this feels very significant, as in scraping the literal bottom of the barrel to survive.

Killing and stealing feels very much par on the course for what we know about Father but the implication of being so desperate as to sleep with a monk feels... the total opposite. Because that is a yawning power imbalance there. And Father has always been on the upper hand when it comes to power dynamics with pretty much any other personal relationship so this feels doubly staggering.

So yeah, some very important context, I feel like.

If you’re just going to sit there like some mountain or river, then you might as well admit you’re not even trying anymore!

Noragami 99-1

“The wounds of those parted by death can never heal”, huh........

Currently thinking about how Father said that cull the herd was "the only wish he's been able to wish in his entire life" and yet we see him as a child first and foremost wondering WHY the gods just watch human suffering, when they bear a human face and hands and eyes.

(grabs you by the shoulders)

Yato is the antithesis of Heaven's callousness and carelessness with human lives.

His internal drive has always to been to make people happy, he MOURNED the unnecessary deaths of people, he is not an embodiment of Father's superficial desire for destruction but a god who truly cares for humanity and their sorrows, exactly the kind of god that a young Father would have wanted to see!!!!!!

On Father and Yato

(Mostly about Father because y’all know how I roll.)

Been sitting on some thoughts about Father, Yato, and their relationship and respective childhoods for a long while now.

I didn’t draft this beforehand because I’m not really in the headspace for super structured meta at the moment but I wanted to share some Thoughts(TM) so please excuse the messiness. 🙏 First thoughts post of the year!

Date: 03/27/2022

Thoughts under the cut. ↓ 

Mandatory disclaimer: This post is not meant to “justify” nor “excuse” Father’s actions but explore the how and the why, blah blah blah, I’m sure everyone knows the drill by now. As Twitter user @/girlsgutsgiallo said, perhaps it's not about "agreeing” or “disagreeing” with a villain's actions but simply experiencing them for what they are, and what is beautiful about art is that we get to sympathize with and understand all kinds of people.

While thinking about Father’s childhood and having gone back to reread the Sakura arc, I realized that Father and Yato are intertwined by their roles as foils to each other more deeply than I previously thought.

Back in my early theorist days back in, like, 2016 - 2017, some of my early thoughts on the series included the notion that Father and Yato were, essentially, “two sides of the same coin” - that is, they were reflections of each other not only in their narrative roles as antagonist vs. protagonist but also as parent and child, and as people. One could have easily gone down the path of the other had they made different choices, but those radically different choices are ultimately what make them so radically different. This view has been put on the back burner since then, yet I am once again struck by his how similar yet dissimilar they are, both narratively and as people.

First of all: I definitely think that the monk was to Father as Sakura was to Yato - the first influential, formative caretaker/guardian figure outside of their family, and their familiar childhood world, and who fundamentally shaped their worldviews. In their role as makeshift guardians, they were complete opposites.

Sakura gave Yato stability, security, and taught him the beauty and value of life and the world around them, in stark contrast to how Father taught Yato to treat life beforehand.

But for Father, when he became dependent on the monk, the monk betrayed his trust and tried to kill him (no matter how “good” those intentions might have been, although one can argue about the morality of trying to commit double suicide with a child to “save” him). Compared to Sakura’s compassionate guidance, Father’s lesson from his would-be guardian was the complete opposite of Sakura’s to Yato: “life is cheap”, and is is a constant competition between living things - whoever is stronger will survive, and those who are weak will die. Even if he didn’t directly “teach” that to Baby Father, the truth remains that this was the takeaway Father had from the experience.

And who could blame him for thinking that way, honestly, given that he had to survive in a very hostile environment as a child?

Before anything else is said, I feel that the time period in which Father lived in must be contextualized:

When Satou began his story of the Mask-Maker, he stated that Father was an orphan who lived 1000 years ago, which would put us around 900~, or the middle of the Heian period. The majority of the population were poor rice farmers who were one or two failed harvests away from starvation - only an incredibly small percentage of people were nobility (like Sakura was) or lived in the capital of Heian-kyo.

Unfortunately, the tenth century is known to be the most poorly documented century in Japanese history. However - according to Heian Japan: Centers and Peripheries - based on records from the previous two centuries, it was likely that local or widespread famine was hitting the peasant population roughly every 3 years, sometimes more frequently. The courtiers in the capital, however, did not do much to document or remedy this.

“Written sources in the tenth century more often than not merely mention starvation, with little in the way of concrete policies to deal with the crises. In 908, provinces ‘declined,’ but the elite did nothing except pray and cancel ceremonies. Only the capital received any grain relief. Harvest failure was noted in 913, but courtiers’ only concern was how much tax product it would cost them. In 917, one of three widespread famines known for the tenth century struck: the court described numerous robber gangs but otherwise seemed most concerned for its own welfare. (One measure was to ensure that Retired Sovereign Yōzei have enough water to make wine!) Untoward weather conditions were common in the 920s, but again the court was restricted to worrying about collecting enough in grain taxes. The capital utilized its granaries when starvation struck in 931, but officials also called out the police to crack down on robbers.” (Page 312)

Such a society was an immensely hostile place, and especially so for a lone child - and it certainly is implied that Father was on his own after the cliff incident, when we see him with the items the monk left behind, his staff and a piece of fabric tied around his torso, probably used to carry small items.

Father recalled having to do everything he could to survive, even killing, stealing, and sleeping with monks (if you’ve read anything about chigo or nanshoku, the connotations of this are immensely uncomfortable) - that says quite a bit about the kind of environment he grew up in, as a child with no guardian and then an adult with no home. (I find it interesting that both he and Yato are characterized by a stubborn desire to survive no matter what it takes. Father traveling around and doing random odds and ends like repairing houses and bridges definitely reminds me of the delivery god work Yato does as well, just in a much earlier age.)

Bearing this in mind...

Father:

- Orphaned at a young age; relationship with parents unknown but home life must not have been too rough if Baby Father immediately trusted a stranger

- Home destroyed, remained a traveler for a while as far as we know

- Very likely had an unstable source of material means such as food and clothing, since he had to do “whatever it took to survive” and resorted to killing and stealing

- Immensely distrustful of people and their good intentions; regards humans as having an “ugly human nature” that manifests as karma ayakashi

Yato:

- Awful relationship with his parent; Father is physically and emotionally abusive, not to mention manipulative

- Has a home to go back to physically but does not want to due to Point #1

- Had an unstable source of material means such as good and clothing when away from Father but while in Father’s care, Yato notes that he knows that he’ll be taken care of physically (food, clothing, etc.)

- “That boy loved people.”

This goes right back around to them being mirrors of one another that I mentioned in the beginning (you could also compare Father’s usually calm and collected demeanor with Yato’s emotional one and how Yato usually keeps his problems to himself while Father projects his baggage onto everyone else), but also... looking at the compare/contrast here, I think Father cares way more about Yato than most people think he does. And I think that, in some capacity, he thinks he’s doing right by Yato - even when that’s undercut by his anger and manipulation of Yato for his own ends.

First: providing for him materially. This seems to be be a common theme with Father and Yato. There’s the example above, and also...

Very obvious empty dishes in the background.

Father cooking for them.

And of course, the infamous line from the Father vs. Yato fight (sorry I know I’ve talked about this one like 3 times already, it’s just so important!!):

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that having a roof over your head and food on your table were very hard-won things for Father, which is why they’re specifically pointed out by him here - Father is providing for Yato what he himself didn’t have, things that hung in the precipice for him.

Tying into this notion of providing what he didn’t have to Yato, Father’s caution to Baby Yato during the Sakura arc - “don’t talk to strangers - feels quite significant in light of this new backstory context as well. That piece of advice is something that a young Father could certainly have benefited from, before he almost got thrown off a cliff by a seemingly well-meaning stranger.

Which brings me to the question: was what happened to Sakura in the Sakura arc really just purely out of malice and because she was in the way of his plans, or perhaps Father was also trying to protect Yato in his own way? (I mean, while she didn’t try to kill Baby Yato, Sakura did leave him entirely defenseless and in pain at night and if Father didn’t find him, he’d probably have been eaten by ayakashi.)

Not saying that Father setting Sakura up for death and having Yato kill her was driven purely by a desire to protect him, because the whole ordeal was unnecessarily cruel - and Father certainly knew Sakura was getting in the way - but the below scene always gave me pause.

“I told you not to talk to strangers (because)...”

Father’s lesson to Yato here was that “all people have this ugliness inside them, even if they are beautiful or noble on the outside, and this is why I want you to cull the herd (and, implicitly, this is why you can’t trust people, because they’re all the same on the inside).” Father’s inherent distrust of people’s good will is fully shining through here, and is even further reinforced during the conversation he has with Hiyori in this very chapter, right before this flashback.

“And I want you stop stop getting mixed up with my boy just because of your lukewarm emotions.”

He even chides Yato for “letting his guard down around this one", with a suspicious eye zoom.

And again, as early as Chapter 27:

“Her feelings won’t last. People change. [...] But we won’t betray you. We will always be by your side.”

And this bit from Chapter 91:

And the notion that Yato will “learn his lesson” when he loses someone dear to him isn’t a new one - Father echoes something similar in regards to Yukine as well:

And again with Hiyori:

Also, the interesting thing about Father’s latest confrontation with Hiyori is that he establishes the belief that he isn’t hurting Yato, but Hiyori (and probably others as well) are the ones hurting him instead.

He even vocalized that he’s been “protecting” Yato all of his life, and will continue to do so.

And it reminds me of something that he said to Bishamon back in the Heaven arc, in which he says that thanks to her, Yato has gotten some “funny ideas”, which he sees as something that should be corrected (”he’ll realize his mistake”):

As we’ve seen recently, Father does actually believe that gods (and maybe people in general) cannot save anyone - he mocks them for their inability to save their shinki when they’re struck by Chiki in Chapter 97. It does seem, at least to me, that Father is trying to impart these views onto Yato - that you shouldn’t try to save people because you can’t, you shouldn’t trust people because their feelings are fickle and they all have an inherent ugliness within them - and it’s not solely out of malice, but because Father actually does believe all of this.

The scene below where Father explains his views on shrines and prayers portrays this very well, in my opinion - Yato not having a shrine is one way for Father to make sure he’s isolated, yes, but I have no doubt that Father actually does believe everything he’s said here, and thus his belief that Yato doesn’t need one of those “things only fools pray to.” (This is a point for an entirely separate post altogether but Kugaha says in one chapter that he believes Yato is “different from the [other gods]” - considering Kugaha is probably parroting Father, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Father also believes Yato is different from other gods.)

Not to be like “abusive parents, though they horribly mistreat their children, can still ultimately care for them” but, yeah. I think Father cares for Yato in his own fucked up, selfish way - if this line isn’t convincing enough of this notion:

“Huh? Well, yeah, you’re a pain in the ass, but you’re still my son. That’s what I wished for, after all.”

Father knows that Yato sold him out to Amaterasu and yet he’s still keeping it up with the “why are you running away from me, Yaboku?”, when Mizuchi - who was always loyal to him - immediately got the boot after becoming a potential danger and when Father realized that she didn’t really hate Heaven. And yet, with Yato...

It feels very significant to me that Father - who has recently been revealed to be an orphan whose home was destroyed - places such a heavy emphasis on being this parental figure and “playing family” with a god whom he calls his son and his own shinki. And I know that the omakes aren’t canon per se, exactly, but they are always in-character - and every single omake featuring Father has always involved Yato, constantly playing on Father wanting to spend time with him, or scolding him as a parent would.

There’s a lot more that can be said about this but you can cram only so much within a post in 2 sittings and I’m all out of brain juice so I think that will be it for now.

I will leave this post off with perhaps my favorite page that Really Makes You Think, ever: Father seething with rage at the Covenant and his gaze seems to be directed straight at Yato, who’s writhing in pain on the ground because of Yukine’s distress in the Box. Interesting paneling choice there, Adachitoka, when Amaterasu is right there.

I apologize again for the messiness but I hope this was interesting, at least. 🙏

Since I, too, was suffering from Kaya withdrawal, I'd like to recommend you a few things: watch a song Nothing Good from Centaurworld and, if you decide to not watch the show itself, Last Lullaby (which is very, very spoiler-y; one of the biggest twists). I haven't watched the whole show, but the tragedy of Mysterious Woman and the story of main antagonist got to me! It also introduced me to The Story of The Phantom by Goosebums (it's a song too!), it's funny but also pulls at heartstrings!

I saw this ask in the morning and I'm only getting around to it now because I've spent the entire day thinking about Elktaur and the Mysterious Woman, wtf did you do by recommending this to me, Anon 😭

Needless to say, thank you for giving me food in this Kaya drought, I think this will hold me over for a month or two. This is seriously some excellent stuff, 10/10, you hit it out of the park

I'm gonna put this under a cut LOL

(Centaurworld spoilers ahead btw)

I went into this by listening to "Nothing Good" (really good and a bop, btw), which left me a little confused because I have never heard of this show before so I had absolutely 0 context.

I decided to look up Centaurworld to see if I would be interested in watching the entire thing. I'm not really a huge fan of that brand of slapstick comedy so I decided to go ahead and listen to "The Last Lullaby" and

Well

I absolutely adore the Nowhere King/Elftaur. Elftaur's hatred of himself and the feeling of not belonging (esp. after becoming the Nowhere King, saying he belongs nowhere), longing to be somewhere else and be someone else to the extent that he split himself in half, believing himself unable to be loved by the Princess as he currently was... Oh man, really struck an emotional chord. Especially with how the MW affirmed that she would have loved him, whole, right before his death is OOOOOF, soooo excellent.

Which brings me to my next point: I love the Last Lullaby as an ending to his character arc (or, rather, their arc). This is what a model tragic villain arc and conclusion is, to me. The last act of acknowledgment of the villain's own pain and suffering as real and, while the pain caused by their actions - in this case, the pain the Nowhere King and the General caused the Princess and the people affected by the war - is given appropriate weight and makes it clear that destruction is too great to end in any outcome but death. But after a lifetime of suffering and hatred, death is a merciful end. I also love how someone of significance to the Elftaur is the one to kill him - with tragic villains like this, having some rando kill them feels empty, in my opinion. Emotional closure is the kind of closure that's needed.

"What a pity to behold Rest now, tormented soul Don't you know I would have loved you the way you were? Whole."

"When you leave, I will at last have peace..."

I really, really loathe endings in which this brand of villain is killed off without any sort of acknowledgment of their pain and some semblance of finally finding peace at the moment of their death. "Look what a shitty life this character had, now look at them die still embroiled in their hatred without any closure!" I really appreciate that Centaurworld did his character justice in this way, it’s soo rare to find. Thank you for recommending this to me!!

Elktaur's character and his insecurities about not being loveable actually gave me a few Father thoughts fueled by the Projection Theory and "I am a necessary evil" but I better hold my tongue, lest I make a clown of myself LOL. Either way, I really, really hope Adachitoka will handle his arc and its conclusion with as much grace 😔🙏

About "The Story of the Phantom"... I will be listening to this (and Last Lullaby) on repeat. It’s so catchy and fits them (Father/Kaya and MW/Elftaur) so well!

All his life, he'd been tormented, teased, and taunted But now his hunters would become the haunted The world that always made him feel unwanted would hear the toll The sounds of a tortured soul

Because she fell, and fell hard He was battered and scarred But she could see that inside, there was more Something alluring, she'd find In the sadness behind That terrifying mask he wore

Hook me up with that “beautiful and sincere woman falls in love with a monstrous (literally or imagined) sad angsty man” shit all day, every single day. Absolutely obsessed.

Either way, thank you again, this is some GOOD Father/Kaya fuel!!! Fingers crossed for more canon content in the next Noragami chapter hehe~~

Unfortunately I don't have account on any social media, I just kind of float anonymously around tumblr, haha. But if I ever become corporeal on here, you will know! All your thoughts about Kaya/Father + MW/Elktaur are so on point - that's exactly what I've been thinking about! Also when I was watching that one Story of Phantom-MW/Elktaur video for nth time, I started seeing Kaya/Father-Hiyori/Yato parallels, from Because she fell- to -That terrifying mask he wore. (1)

(2) It's a bit silly, to make parallels before we have any grasp on their actual dynamics, but oooh boi, does Kaya brainrot ever stop! Once Kaya will actually appear, it will become even bigger! I mean, can you imagine? She isn't in the manga yet, but I love her so much already. Adachitoka will most likely bring all character arcs to a satisfying end, not before making us all weep, of course. I believe in them! They probably had it all planned out years ago.

Oh no!! How tragic it is that you are a incorporeal Tumblr lurker 😭😭 Talking to a single person through anon feels like sending smoke signals, haha. But either way, I hope your time on my blog has been enjoyable! ;;

That one MW/Elktaur MV w/ “The Story of the Phantom” has seriously been on repeat since yesterday for me, it is so good (and they are so deliciously tragic). Those lines are exactly what made me think of Father/Kaya and Yatori as well!!

Because she fell, and fell hard He was battered and scarred But she could see that inside, there was more

Something alluring, she'd find In the sadness behind That terrifying mask he wore

I’m not much of a Yatori shipper usually (for some odd reason, even though they hit a lot of tropes I go crazy for?) but if you say Father/Kaya + Yatori parallels, I am there in .5 seconds. And if you feel it’s a bit silly to make parallels before we have any grasp on their actual dynamics, then I am the whole damn circus because I’ve been thinking of possible parallels since I laid my eyes on this page when it first came out.

If this doesn’t come up again in context of Father/Kaya, I will eat my own foot. “The despair of knowing they can’t live their lives together”?? Is there something you’d like to share with the class...???

Although I admit there is a certain image of Kaya I have made up in my little rat brain because I wrote a stupid amount of backstory and fic heavily involving her while we anticipate the coming of backstory, there is no possible way for me to not love her when she finally appears in canon... I’ve been faithfully waiting for 6 years (7 if we don’t make any progress by November) for her real appearance, goddammit. Seeing her through Izanami was, of course, nice because we finally got a clear view of her face but!!! Where is THE Kaya??? Let her out of the basement Adachitoka!!

Kaya brainrot never stops, Anon. The bulk of my creative endeavors this year boil down to Father/Kaya brainrot because they have me down that bad (also I’m starved for content, what am I supposed to do???).

Tbh, I admit that I’ve been harboring some anxieties regarding Father’s backstory going forward, but that might just be me psyching myself out. I, too, have believe that Adachitoka-sensei will deliver and make us all weep, as they’ve always done!!

Spoilers for Chapter 100 are just 3 days away so I’m keeping my fingers AND toes crossed for more backstory crumbs...

have i ever posted these here i can’t even remember