Spy X Family Volume 15 Omake Chapter Translation

Let's talk about Nene and how she find power in other people.

Nene gets overwhelmed easily and is very insecure, not just about her body but about her power, and smarts too.

When she thought Hanako may like her she wasn't sure about her judgement, but when Aoi who never even met hanako said 'oh yeah, he likes you~' she became far more confident.

Aoi must have been her reassurance for most of Nene's school life, so much so that when Aoi tells her "he might confess to you in the confession tree <3" Nene acts like that's the truth and spend the rest of the chapter giggily waiting for it.

She is right that Hanako have a crush on her, but when he start hiding behind excuses, she believes it right away. She never consider that his excuses and his feelings can both be true, she trust what he says more than her own judgement

When she started getting involved with the supernatural she start getting more and more doubts about herself. Her issues growing from the simple 'do they find me cute? can i get a boyfriend?' to questions about what is right and how much power she have.

She have a crisis when she learns Hanako used to be a living student, with a real life, who killed a real person. She become so helpless by this realization that she can't look at him in the eye.

Reality is so overwhelming, that she keep running away from Hanako.

There is no "Hanako is my friend anyways! His life doesn't matter what matter is the now!! Let's gooo!!" self talk in the garden. She want to hide. To give up.

Kou is the one that come to her side and reassure Nene that her feelings are valid, that not knowing what to is alright. That there is nothing wrong with being overwhelmed and doing all you can do, even when 'all you can do' isn't much.

They find strenght in each other.

Throught the entire manga Kou is there to cheer Nene up or to back up her plans. They are in this together.

Break the fake world? Rescue Hanako? Go to the Red House cause a kid is crying?? That's a Nene and Kou plan. That's their team effort. They got each other's back! They can do it!

Even when the idea isn't that good, Kou constantly cheer her, rewarding Nene for trying instead of giving up.

Most of the time Hanako is with Kou cheering her up, albeit not as upfront, being his indirect and 'haha just kidding i would die if i was vulnerable!' self.

Regardless, Nene got support through every step of this new and scary supernatural world!

Or at least... most of the time. Let's go over the instances where times were tough and Nene didn't have Kou and Hanako by her side. The times when she become her most vulnerable and insecure. She ceases to be "Your overwhelming grass type and beloved heroine Yashiro Nene!" and becomes Nene, the insecure high school girl.

When she learned about her death she was lost and confused, she didn't try to imply she could conquer death, she couldn't do anythnig, so she asked for guidance.

When she was given no real answer, just cryptic orders to stay in her caje forever cause hanako will 'solve everything', Nene was even more lost. And she was alone. No one to talk to in her time of need, no one to cheer her up.

We have no panels of her trying to break her window of wiggle between her caje bars because she isn't determined, she was devastated. So she cried and cried and tried to comfort herself

ONLY AFTER who knows how many doodles and time to process her feelings does her hopelessness turn into anger for Hanako and determination to change her situation.

She only fully enter "I will fight this! I can do it!! I won't do what Hanako want!!" mode after Mei visits her with a friendly dispossition and comforts her, giving her sweets to soothe her heart and give her energy.

Nene say her tears are false here, a mere ploy to make Mei lower her guard!! But it is rotted in real sadness.

The fire she gained after doodling her friends in the real world only spread into an inferno of determination when she is told she is deeply loved, that Hanako would sacrifice everything for her sake. That love is why this was made in the first place.

This world want to protect her, not kill her. Her hapiness is cheerished. And she isn't happy. She haven't loss the real world yet, she can still change things.

She was already determined to change things, but she doubles down on it, she gain more confidence and becomes bolder. She will kick and scream and try her best to win! Is amazing. She is sweating but she know what she is doing is right so she will do it!!

Throught the manga, as the time passes she start to stand up for herself more, she tries harder, she takes any opportunity she can to do something and believe in herself. She stop seeking superficial attention to feel worth.

Take her play of Oz for exemple, she want to be dorothy, the big role that is worthy of a beautiful dress and all the spotlight! Despite all her development and traumas she still cares that she was given a unimpressed role, that she 'isn't worthy' of the main role

But instead of being unable to focus on anything else except how bad her role is and how uncute it makes her, as the Nene from the start of the manga would, she get the strenght to move pass it and have fun, keeping her head high because she won't be alone.

Hanako will be there for her.

Hanako is one of her biggest strenghts, and when he is gone she is hit hard.

Her first instinct is to seek someone to talk too.

And when she can't, she falls. There is nothing she can do, her friends are already dead, and just like her own death, she doesn't know how to solve it.

Even when she feels better, going out to the arcade instead of being trapped alone in her room, the moment she remembers that she can't talk to her friends, that they are gone, she relapses again, sapped of all of her strenght.

She is 15, she can't handle this.

Her major sorces of comfort is still her close friends, which is normal, but she does gain strenght from other people.

Enters Teru and Akane.

Akane is one of the characters that push her to act when things are at their most hopeless, but unlike Kou and Aoi he isn't her cheerleader, he never coddles her. If she ask for reassurance that she is beautiful, or useful, or doing the right thing, he will either not give her that or straight up say "I dissagree".

Akane is not a source of hope for Nene, his belief in her is not nearly as strong as Kous or Hanako or Aoi's belief in her. Just as Nene's believe in herself isn't very strong in hopeless situations.

He never sugarcoats tragedy, in fact he consistently drag her back to how bleak things are. Ignore the arcade, don't distract yourself: Face reality.

He is open about his misery.

It mostly feel like he is processing his own feelings when he rants to Nene, but the end message is clear "I hate this, i want to try to change it. You want to, don't you?" which is exactly how Nene feels.

They are hopeless but they're not alone in this hopelessness. Despite Nene never working up with Akane during the rescue arc. This served as a reality check, which serves to process her feelings better.

Reality does sucks, there is no clear solution, she is unhappy, she does want to change things, she hates crying and being helpless while her friends are dead/suffering. So she eat a sugary sweet to comfort herself and she chin up.

Akane never says "you can do it, you are stronger than you think!" he sucks at comforting, I love him but oh god he sucks. But the message he gives her is till important "You have to do it." "You have to try anyways or you'll stay helpless."

Teru is the savior, Nene already idolized him from the start, but he is the one that showed them a way to rescue Aoi too. He is amazing. He can do the impossible!

Now let's jump to the new timeline.

Kou, her buddy, her biggest cheerleader, doesn't know her. It hit hards and she was so so happy to have him back!!

But just as quickly as she gets to see her buddy, Kou is gone, this is just a shell trying to lure her to death, the real one is dead at the bottom of a wheel.

She doesn't have the time to process that, because Hanako, her big source of comfort, doesn't exist. Amane, who she had watched be brutally slashed by Teru, have been possessed and wants to kill her and all her friends instead of protecting her.

Teru, this invincible guy (Nene wasn't present when No.6 took Teru down, so for her he is unbeatable) that made saving Aoi possible, is the first one down.

Everyone is doing what they can, so Nene does too, she want to help her friends, she can't let them be in danger! While Aoi takes charge, she doesn't allow herself to be too shocked and focus on destroying the tentacle attacking Akane.

But she is still terrified.

The last thing she want to do is to be alone. But she have too. Once more, Akane doesn't sugarcoat the situation, he says "This reality, it sucks, and if you want to change it, you have to act! Go!"

But this time he is left behind too. Nene is completely and utterly alone.

She has the weight of the world on her shoulders as she run through the city for who knows how long, but she is terrified and she doesn't have Akane to be terrified with her, just the weight of his words and the faint hope that they'll meet her in the big clock to keep her going.

She is doing something so so big, she need to talk to someone first, she need strenght. She need people.

So she seek them. And no one answers.

She crumbles, she becomes small. There is no heroine to be seem, just a teen girl in shambles after losing every. single. person that used to give her strenght.

That's why Tsuchigomori was needed.

Let her cry. Let her process the situation with a comforting sweet to gather the strenght to do what she must.

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[ intro ]

hello! i'm myo (⁠=⁠^⁠･⁠ｪ⁠･⁠^⁠=) she/her, 21 y/o and chilean; i'm your resident vegan lesbian atheist etc etc i love mysteries, science and things that make me think

here i talk about series, animanga and maybe in the future books i like and mostly skk i love skk they are my soul or something like that

my favourite series are: one piece, bungou stray dogs, fullmetal alchemist, jibaku shonen hanako-kun, natsume's book of friends, the apothecary diaries, shoushimin, kageki shoujo, spyxfamily, tsubasa reservoir chronicles, xxxholic, the guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all, colette decides to die, sasaki and miyano, honey lemon soda, yona of the dawn, yume no hashibashi, frieren: journey's end, detective conan... gravity falls, steven universe, the owl house

thanks for reading ig...

like falling asleep

i love when my children are doomed by the narrative

yugi "no matter the tl dies" amane and kamui "and the illusion of free choice"

Double meanings in furigana in Mission 1 and Twilight's idea of self

Inspired by this post by @yumeka-sxf.

I've been rereading the manga with @xxscarletxrosexx and @mossshrooms (join us here at ep 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), which means a collective effort of extreme close reading. For my part, I try to bring the original jp version and the translated tw version into the discussion, and guess what? Endo has been sneaking many details into furigana, and I think these details set the tone of Twilight as a character.

Marked alongside with kanji, furigana is normally used as the phonetic notation of the kanji. However, especially in mangas, at times furigana are used to show the true meaning/ double meaning of the characters' words instead of showing the pronunciation of the kanji.

It all starts when, for the first time, Twilight thinks about his codename Tasogare, or rather, the other meaning of Tasogare. The furigana/pronunciation notation is normal here, but the kanji or the word is not Twilight. It is "who is this".

Now, the word, or the kanji, for Twilight (Tasogare) is 黄昏. The word Twilight 黃昏 is said to be derived from the phrase "who is this 誰そ彼" - as it's getting dark at twilight, it's difficult to recognise faces. It's fitting, because disguise is his specialty. Even without disguise, spies should "become" the role they play during their missions:

In English, the line is simply translated into "I abandoned my identity when I became Twilight." I suppose a more literal translation could be: "I abandoned my name and my face [to become] this 'whoever that is'." He will become whoever the mission requires him to be. His codename thus becomes part of his reasonings why he has to carry out his mission.

There is an irony in identifying himself as "who is this", or "whoever this is", because that indicates a lack of self-identification, especially when this scene happens right after he suppresses his emotions to undertake such an unreasonable, almost impossible, task. Why is that so? Because he's been emphasising on the fact that he has abandoned the sense of self since day 1 he became a spy. The sense of self is symbolised by his face, his name (the train scene as shown before), his ID card, and his "desire and determination" 執着 to get married and to live in ordinary bliss (the late night alleyway scene as shown below).

This is the first time he identifies himself as Tasogare, and at the same time he creates a distance from this identity, Twilight, as he skips right to 誰そ彼 ("who is this") instead of calling himself 黃昏 (Twilight). There seemingly is an identity - Twilight 黃昏, but without the sense of self - "who is this" 誰そ彼.

In the next scene in which he identifies himself as Tasogare, another double meaning appears:

This time it's slightly more straightforward. The furigana of 黃昏 is not "tasogare たそがれ" - it is "ore オレ", meaning "I".

A mental loop is thus created with the help of the double-meanings largely indicated by furigana - I am a spy. -> A spy is whoever the mission requires him to be (in short, "who is this"). -> "Who is this" is Twilight. -> Twilight is me.

And that is why this panel, also shared by yumeko, is important.

When he says 子ども (children), in furigana it reads as じぷん/自分 (self). He breaks the mental loop as Anya reminds him of himself as a child. Himself before becoming a spy. His goals when he decided to become a spy. We see a glimpse of [redacted], the self he thought he had already thrown away together with his name, his face, and his hopes and dreams.

This resurfacing of his sense of "self" seemingly sparks new flames of passion towards his work as a spy, which would slowly lead him to rediscover what his "mission" really is. However, his internal conflicts would also start brewing. He talked about having thrown away his desire and determination to get married and start a family along with his self in order to become a spy. He has been rediscovering this long lost/repressed self, including these hopes and desires.

In no way I'm trying to fault the translator(s) - I think the English translating team has been doing a good job in localisation in a limited time. Inevitably, there will be, as scarlet likes to say, cultural discount, especially due to Japan's high context culture. Endo is a diligent author, and this also shows in his word choices. It is surprising to see that many details he has included right from the start, and it does show that he goes back to them from time to time.

PS. There are two more details about "Agent Twilight". When the higher-ups are having a meeting to see whom they could assign the mission to, Westalis is still Westalis in katakana.

In the newspaper which Twilight reads on the train, the furigana for Westalis is "our country" わがくに. The English translation for the whole sentence is "Thanks to you, the minister has survived another day, to the great benefit of Westalis." At the end of the day, no matter how much they emphasise on their intention in "keeping peace", this is still an information warfare, and Westalis has to be benefited from his work. "Our side" has to win. (Duh.)

Twilight, however, did not even react to this. There is an irony in how they call him 黄昏くん, just for him to respond (internally) with switching the codename 黄昏 to 誰そ彼 when he caves in and accepts the mission for the sake of "peace" and "the people's lives". There is a subtle sense of disagreement or even disobedience hidden under the act of compliance right from Chapter 1.

Anyway, happy sxf update this Sunday. If you are interested, join us to reread the manga. ...Bye. (Runs in the inability to end posts.)

pretty mentally unstable momma

We don't need Yugi's flashback because their story has been told for a long time. (an analysis) Part 1.

We don't know much about the twins, but I think that's enough because their personal story parallels all the characters in this manga. And we already know it. In this analysis, I will analyze the relationships of Kou with Mitsuba, the fourth secret, Hakubo with Sumire, and Aoi with Akane, because their arcs interpret one big arc of the twins.

1. Kou and Mitsuba. That boy was still that boy.

The main problem for Kou is the "real" Mitsuba. His entire arc is reduced to trying to bring back "that" boy, while Mitsuba's problem is wanting to live as a living person. Kou feels responsible for Mitsuba and wants to help him with his own hands, not someone else's.

He believes that he can make everyone happy, alone. It's really important to him, he's really dedicated to saving Mitsuba. So much so that he won't listen to anyone, even Mitsuba himself - he's so stubborn.

Just like Amane.

The problem is that Kou separates the two Mitsubas, he's completely confused about "who's the real one" and spends his time trying to figure it out instead of cherishing the time he spends with Mitsuba more often.

"You wanted to be my friend, right?" "You wanted to bring back the me you lost, please stay by my side..."

Mitsuba wants that understanding from Kou. "Admit it already, it's impossible, I can't become a _normal_ person, because no one can do that."

Mitsuba knows he's not the same anymore, but he still wants understanding. No one can turn back time, so why not just accept it? Kou is adamant.

And the famous "do you want me to die so we can understand each other better" page.

And then Mitsuba calls Kou an idiot because you can't say things like that. You have to value your life.

So how does this relate to Yugi?

Amane has trouble deciding whether the "new" Tsukasa who came back is the real one, while Tsukasa just wanted some simple human warmth.

Amane thinks he's responsible, thinks he can fix everything on his own, he never listens to anyone, and is very stubborn. It's believed that he tried to fix the big clock to turn back time and bring back the "real" Tsukasa. That's why he doesn't value the time he spends with his brother, because it's not the same. He's fixated on the idea of two Tsukases and a real brother.

"You wanted to bring back the me you lost back then (that birthday), please stay by my side..."

Tsukasa just wanted to spend time with his brother. Deep down, he was waiting for the joy of meeting and understanding from Amane. No one can return Amane to a real living brother, it's all too complicated and even the machinations over time did not solve the problem. And perhaps Amane could have thought that if they both died, it would somehow bring them closer together. Tsukasa is very angry with Amane's actions, because he gave his life in exchange for his brother's health, and he destroyed it so easily, without appreciating it.

2. The Fourth mystery and Mei Shijima.

I won't say much here, and maybe not very deep things, but nevertheless.

"Killing Shijima Mei is all I want." Yes, we have an obvious parallel with killing her twin with a knife, but the reasons for the fourth secret... "I wanted to protect the real you."

Shijima believes that this will bring Mei good. And despite the fact that she tried to kill Mei from the dream world, she still asks her not to leave, even though she is not "real" in the full sense, because it is too painful.

Also, the Fourth hates this fake world. It is too perfect in it, in a way that does not exist in reality.

How does this relate to Yugi?

Amane in the pp arc is parallel to Shijima, Nene just catches their similarity.

Radical problem solving, believing that they alone know what's best, doing horrible things "for your own good." Amane probably killed Tsukasa for similar reasons, believing that somehow it would be better this way. Amane also accepts the current Tsukasa as a fake, but even so, he doesn't want all the yorishiro to be destroyed, he doesn't want his brother to disappear, because losing him again is too painful.

Hanako hates the world of the perfect picture, everything is too easy and wonderful in it, as it was not in his real life, where he had to endure a lot.

3. Hakubo and Sumire. Mystery and yorishiro.

Sumire first appeared before us as proof that yorishiro can be in human form and her story is very parallel to Tsukasa. She had to spend many years locked away in the boundary of the mystery, in the form of the same place where she met her death.

She has not met Hakubo since that day. She hoped that he would come to her, but this did not happen, although Sumire strongly maintained some hope for her own importance to him - "after all, yorishiro becomes what the school mystery cherishes most."

She is tired of her existence, she has no particular purpose and she does not mind disappearing if it will help someone, if she will be useful at least in this way.

Nene asks Sumire what is so good about Hakubo? After all, he is unbearable, and Sumire probably fell in love with him because there was simply no one else. No one was as close to her. It is funny to hear this from Nene, but more on that later.

Sumire was also sacrificed to the hole demon in exchange for a wish, and later became a yorishiro, which is mechanically very reminiscent of Tsukasa. She also has a control complex due to the fact that she could not influence anything in her life.

She would also really like to be mourned and remembered - that is, at least some sympathy in her direction.

Hakubo, on the other hand, had problems expressing his will, and this is the main point of his personal history.

He suffers from the fact that he could have acted differently towards Sumire, these thoughts have haunted him since that day. He understands that he did not value the time spent with her during her life, he was cold in everyday life and he did not save her from death. The guilt for her death lies heavily on him.

"If I lived another life, I would have done things differently." He only grinds this thought in his head, and Sumire sits alone in the boundary, without the support of a loved one nearby.

How does this relate to Yugi?

I will continue this thought in the next post, since the image limit has ended 🙌🏻

Parts 2 and 3

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We don't need Yugi's flashback because their story has been told for a long time. (an analysis) Part 2.

3. Hakubo and Sumire. Mystery and yorishiro continue. How does this relate to Yugi? Tsukasa is also a sacrifice to the demon hole in exchan

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We don't need Yugi's flashback because their story has been told for a long time. (an analysis) Part 3.

4. Aoi and Akane, continue. Aoi is very similar to Hanako in her secretive, insecure and stubborn character. She is a cheerful introvert, i

The worst, the absolute worst older brother

the walk home