When Reiner told Gabi and the rest of his family about the 104th, he described Mikasa as someone who’s blindly loyal to Eren: a boy “whose head is filled only with revenge.”
He didn’t refer to Mikasa (or Eren) by name, and I doubt Gabi knows the name of the solider who saved her anyway, but I find it rather poignant that Gabi was first “introduced” to Mikasa as someone who’s blindly loyal to a child’s need for revenge no matter what. Given the chance to prove Reiner’s words true, Mikasa instead saves Gabi, of all people, from a child’s revenge—instinctively, immediately, and without hesitation.
A really cracky idea I had for a while, but the big reveal of ch179 made it slightly more likely, at least in my opinion, so I’m sharing.
First of all, it’s been a while since we had anything about Ume in the story, when she used to get a little focus before (both in flashbacks and present timeline) because she’s obviously very important to Sugimoto’s character arc.
I rambled previously that maybe it was because Sugimoto’s own motivations in the story went from 100% “gold where?!” to Asirpa slowly getting priority, because she and Sugimoto got extremely close and there was the whole matter of her dad at Abashiri, before they got separated by Kiro and Ogata and the plot took a turn towards Karafuto.
Anyway, despite that, I’d still be extremely surprised if Umeko turned out to be irrelevant until the epilogue or something, especially since nothing guarantees that anyone will ever get even a tiny portion of that gold…
…and one way or another Sugimoto has to eventually feel better about himself, which is something that cannot be achieved only thanks to Asirpa in my opinion (same for other characters, like Ogata for example, the point is that Asirpa can catalyze a change but eventually they will have to confront their past anyway).
Moving onto the theory itself, it’s going all the way back to vol4 and this scene that we get of Umeko and her mom discussing her getting married again:
Initially, my personal take on why Sensei would even show us something like that was that it emphasized on the parallels with “Ezo owls” mentioned in the same chapter, implying that even though Toraji is dead and Sugimoto went to find gold for her sake, Umeko had to go on with her life and couldn’t wait and stay a widow forever.
However since I also always hoped that Umeko would one day be present in the plot in person (instead of remaining a warm memory and motivation for Sugimoto), later I started considering that maybe the man in question her mother mentioned was Tsurumi.
After all, when you see Tanigaki’s or even Tsukishima’s flashback, it is shown that Tsurumi goes to great deals to find out about people he has an interest in or who might be useful or a threat to him. With Tsukishima for example, Tsurumi went to investigate about his past, his father and the girl he loved in order to later manipulate him and turn him into a devoted follower of his:
So the same could be applied here for Umeko if we’re considering that, logically, Tsurumi might have done some research about “Sugimoto the Immortal” at some point, since he proved to be quite a thorn in his plans until fairly recently.
Sugimoto is quite famous amongst war veterans in the first place, so I’m sure Tsurumi easily knew where to look to find out where he came from and, from there, by asking around and putting a few facts together, he could have found out about Toraji and Umeko.
That was the initial crack theory, with the whole “getting married again” for Umeko being maybe one way to get her to Hokkaido and use her later as leverage against Sugimoto (similarly to how he slowly turned Tsukishima into his right hand man, or even how he told Inkarmat about Tanigaki’s past in order for her to initially use him).
The reason I’m saying ch179 made this idea more likely is because of the parts I highlighted: I have no idea if Tsurumi can be considered wealthy but that doesn’t matter since he could have just lied. However he’s indeed charming, very eloquent (iirc Ogata even mentioned that he always knew how to appeal to younger soldiers) and also most likely in his 40s.
Finally, as for the “his wife and child passed away” part…
…well, with ch179, we now know that this is true (of course being a spy this part of Tsurumi’s life could be something he never told anyone, only using it to be introduced to Umeko as a widower, but from a narrative point of view this could be a hint Sensei meant for us readers once ch179 would be out, kinda like all the foreshadowing about Kiro in restrospect).
Besides, Sugimoto remembered Toraji being worried about “no one wanting to marry a widow with bad eyes and a kid”, therefore asking him to take care of her, so is it really a coincidence that a random widower turned out to be interested?
I know it’s a crack theory, because the most likely explanation for this scene in vol 4
for now
remains that Sensei wanted to show that Umeko wasn’t going to wait for Saichi forever (understandably).
Still, Tsurumi who was dead last in the run after the 24 tattoos took the first place back after Abashiri: as such that makes him the most likely to be the most ruthless when it comes to using Asirpa and so the most likely to be Sugimoto’s main enemy again.
How fitting when they’re missing brain bits buddies, right?
That’s why Tsurumi having a little leverage against Sugimoto would be clever and interesting.
There, this crack theory doesn’t have to convince anyone but I’m personally super fond of it. So far the cast is great and diverse, so
I really enjoy how compelling Noda-sensei’s writing is (it’s really a strong point of this series) because (spoilers for ch177, I checked the Chinese version) you can just feel what he’s going to set up for the Karafuto arc and how shit is gonna go so down as a result.
Like, that incoming Asirpa/Sofia foil around Wilk’s character? It’s going to be so good because I bet whatever you want that Wilk and Sofia had a thing
(Kiro even said that Sofia should know more about Wilk than himself did) and, seeing ch177, I guess at least Sofia might have wanted a family with him (?)
but then she was arrested and Wilk & Kiro scrammed to Hokkaido.
And now Sofia will meet Wilk’s daughter that he had with his Ainu wife: Asirpa. Who is the only one who can, in theory, find the gold everyone is after.
The second thing is, this thrill is even more intense considering that the initial plan years ago was most likely for Kiro and Wilk to get the Ainu gold and return to Karafuto, except that “Wilk changed” (most likely thanks to being a father, so thanks to Asirpa), leaving Kiro to be a in a bind because he didn’t (and maybe that led to him framing Wilk for those Ainu men’s massacre).
=> Probably double backstabbing for Sofia I’d say (if they really had a thing and she hoped for a family) so I personally don’t envision her liking Asirpa so much.
The final thing is that Asirpa doesn’t know the truth about her father and believes that he really killed the Ainu men to steal their gold, in order to fight for the cause Kiro is still strongly advocating for. So whatever Kiro and Sofia will tell her about her father, she will just have to take as such, because she has no way to know.
However, one person knows the truth and is catching up: Sugimoto.
He took a bullet in the head because Asirpa trusts him more than anyone and Ogata guessed (rightly so) that Wilk had started telling him stuff he shouldn’t have, but he’s catching up (hang in there in the meantime, Shiraishi!).
I don’t know if Sensei is planning the big moments of this arc to be a Christmas gift, but damn, this whole arc is slowly building up to several amazing confrontations. I can’t wait to find out even more!!
Hmhmhm, reading ch179, since it turned out that Sofia voluntarily stayed behind and got arrested after Wilk and Kiro left, maybe she will not be made to foil Asirpa but Kiro after all?
I’m really moved by how close she and Wilk used to be and she seems very sad about his death even if it’s been years since they last saw each other
so actually I doubt she’ll be happy to find out (thanks to Sugimoto and co who will catch up one day) that Kiro asked Ogata to put a bullet in Wilk’s head…?
I guess maybe it all comes down to the way Kiro will present how the whole thing with Wilk went down? If he lies to her, then Sugimoto bringing answers later could make her turn against Kiro… On the other hand, if over the years the revolutionary part within her became more important than everything else (like it still is the case with Kiro), then she could still turn out to be Asirpa’s foil.
I don’t know which idea I like more, but I loved how the flashback presented Sofia. She appeared way more ruthless initially, but the flashback makes me think that she may have more in common with Wilk than with Kiro. IDK, I just love how children play into this for the three of them:
Sofia couldn’t forgive herself for thinking she possibly killed Tsurumi’s baby, so she decided to give up on her happiness “as a woman” (aka a life with Wilk) and spend her life fighting as a revolutionary
and now she’s about to meet another child, Wilk’s, who is stuck in insane circumstances because she’s the only one who can supposedly solve the mystery around the gold
Wilk went on to Hokkaido to find out about the Ainu gold, but everything went wrong and he didn’t turn on the Ainu men and their gold as expected, for something that I believe has to do with having had Asirpa, amongst other still unknown reasons
As for Kiro, he ended up marrying an Ainu woman too but having Ainu sons made him even more dead set on the idea that he had to fight for the freedom of minor ethnicities, no matter the cost.
This is escalating slowly but surely, I can’t wait for when it is going to unravel.
midnight-in-town 