goldenkamuyhunting:

midnight-in-town:

Because Noda Sensei wrote about the use of fortune-telling/divination plenty of time in the story so far and, so as not to judge the customs of Ainu people or other minor ethnicities from Karafuto who strongly believe(d) in this, he made it generally accurate when it came to following plot twists.

• Overall Inkarmat was more right than wrong (Kiroranke, Karafuto, Wilk didn’t kill those Ainu men even if he was Nopperabou), 
• her own prediction she got from Mifune Chizuko also turned out to be correct (Kiroranke, the man she was after, stabbed her), 
• Asirpa was indeed betrayed by one of the three men who used to follow her (by two, to be accurate, but you get the point)

Since most of what Inkarmat predicted is half divination/half investigation though, that’s why Sensei ended up introducing the additional idea that “fate can be changed”, meaning divination doesn’t have to be the only truth. 
However, where Sensei could have let Inkarmat be the fake she initially seemed to be (especially when Asirpa didn’t believe in this kind of things), she ended up being given a lot of credits.   

And that means that this reindeer’s shoulder blade from ch166… 

is supposedly a good indicator that someone within the group who (unknowingly) received this prediction will die.

The most expected/logical candidate initially is Shiraishi because it’s his decision to keep on following Asirpa that changed the prediction from “someone is following you” to “someone is going to die” but as it is, well that’s kinda too easy to think like that. xD 

Sensei could go for a double bluff (making us think it can’t be Shiraishi because #too easy, only to kill him anyway) but… meh. Besides, Shiraishi hasn’t really done anything wrong, okay he’s the Escape King, but he never killed anyone which is quite the difference with most of the cast, so killing him would be unfair. 

When it comes to Asirpa, she ain’t dying or I riot. Nah but for real, she’s got one hell of a plot armor, being (in theory) the only one who can work out the code her father hid amongst the 24 tattoos, which is why everyone wants her. 

Besides if she dies, Sugimoto will most likely annihilate the whole world and this wouldn’t help his character development or the story, so double nah.
Final point, but eventually she also has to go back to her village, to see her grandmother again, so that Tanigaki can be free from that self-imposed duty (and so that he can go back home too) => so, not Asirpa. 

Which leaves Kiro and Ogata, the two traitors. :))

And Kiro is the most likely candidate to die between the two, at least for me. 

Firstly, so far, Ogata was the one who was hinted to have a possible chance at redemption

between the two, mainly through the concept of “guilt” he pretended never to feel but that he must feel regardless, if just towards the memory of his brother. 

Besides, he does get along well with Asirpa and, while I agree that nothing guarantees Asirpa will forgive him for what he did (assuming she doesn’t already know), he might still really change, thanks to her/for her sake. 

We may not know why he wants the gold, but he left nothing behind when he went to Karafuto, so he could definitely change his mind about the gold and using Asirpa, which is a huge difference with Kiroranke.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Kiro sees Asirpa as only a mean to an end (he’s not Tsurumi), but he’s still ruthless. For example, Wilk was his old friend, they even assassinated the Russian Emperor together, but he still ordered his death.

Besides, I personally think it’s likely that Kiro is actually the one who assassinated those Ainu men which is something Wilk took the fall for…

just like he’s the one who stabbed Inkarmat. Hopefully Inkarmat will survive this, but Asirpa still believes her dad murdered some of her fellow Ainu people and she’s bound to find out it wasn’t the case once she sees Sugimoto again.

For Kiro to hide a truth like that is not an element vouching in his favor or his survival. In the first place, going back to Karafuto is a real step back for Kiro, because it’s like going back to the past and as we know now…

…that past holds a lot of complicated elements that we have to take in consideration for the future developments. 

Going back to Karafuto ties directly into Kiro’s motivations obviously, because fighting for the independence of minor ethnicities is all that he’s always been after and, as Sugimoto said to Wilk, sure it’s a just and noble cause, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of everything else. 

For example, just like Sugimoto was angry at Wilk for apparently trying to make Asirpa this Ainu “Joan of Arc” (because it’s selfish as @sentrakk​ explained here), Kiro shouldn’t have gone to Karafuto without a single look back at the family he left behind (how many months has it been since he saw his sons?). 

Again, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Kiro doesn’t care about his family.
On the contrary, having Ainu sons is giving him even more reasons to fight for the independence of Ainu people and other minor ethnicities, which is most likely why he’s even more ruthless now than he used to be and so why he even had Wilk killed.

But here’s the thing…

Kiro and Wilk were old friends, who fought and killed together, so for Kiro to have Wilk killed (just like maybe for him to frame Wilk for the murders), it must indeed have been because Wilk really changed when Kiro didn’t/couldn’t.

As for how/why Wilk changed…

…it’s thanks to Asirpa herself (just like it was the case for Sugimoto, Tanigaki, even Shiraishi and for Ogata next): Wilk’s plan and motivations regarding his daughter were definitely questionable, but at least it seems that he truly loved her and the Ainu people, to the point he wasn’t ready to keep going with the initial plan about the gold and that’s the major difference with Kiro. 

He and Wilk used to have common goals, they used to be the same, but where becoming a father apparently changed Wilk, having sons didn’t make Kiro change his way of life/way of thinking: he just can’t leave the cause he’s been fighting for his whole life behind just to be with them. 

And beyond the notion of this being “good or bad” (since the cause is indeed seen as just and noble), since Kiro couldn’t forgive/understand Wilk changing and had him (framed? and) killed for this reason, this difference between them is most likely what’s going to kill Kiro too at some point during this arc. 

Personally right now I have no idea as to who might kill him or lead him to his death, hopefully not Sugimoto (who’s set up to confront Ogata) or Tanigaki (even if Kiro stabbed Inkarmat, because he should know revenge isn’t for him). 

Maybe it’s going to be the Russians? Or maybe it will have to do with Shiraishi

one way or another, since it’s Shiraishi’s change of mind that led to this change of prediction in ch166.  

TL;DR just my opinion, but I’ll be very surprised if Kiroranke were to make it back to Hokkaido somehow (unless he has a change of heart about everything, since “fate can be changed”, but it sure doesn’t look like it right now). 

I hope you won’t mind if I’ll hijack your post but I really wanted to talk about all this and you gave me the perfect chance!

Afficher davantage

@goldenkamuyhunting I don’t mind, your inputs are always very interesting. :))

In regards to predictions, I agree and even mentioned that they’re not just divination and not 100% accurate (most of what Inkarmat was vouching for came from her own investigation indeed). 

However, while Sensei could have gone full “it isn’t real” through several examples in the story, maybe out of respect for such beliefs (especially considering Ainu people and other minorities strongly believe or believed in this) he still wrote the related events as fitting relatively well overall.

One example: okay Inkarmat didn’t die and I hope she survives, but she was still stabbed and her life was in danger. She also said she and Wilk wouldn’t meet again (because she thought she was going to die) and technically she saw him from afar but he died before they could be reunited and talk.

It’s a little play on words and events by Sensei, but overall it works for whoever (in and out of the narrative) believes in this.
If Asirpa doesn’t believe in it, then she doesn’t have to see it as a sign. However if Shiraishi (for example) is more receptive to it, his resulting actions could be influenced and so it is interesting to consider it. That’s all I meant to convey. 🙂

If anyone from the group dies anyway, it won’t be a consequence of the shoulder blade itself (especially since they don’t know about that “new” prediction), but rather of the events and people involved (“fate can be changed” indeed), which is why the rest of my post is built on theorizing that Kiro has a bigger death flag than everyone else. xD 

Also just saying but, from the way the scene was written/drawn and since Sensei showed us readers only the shoulder blade’s prediction changing, I have a hard time thinking it isn’t meant to at least be taken in consideration for possible foreshadowing, whether you believe it might really happen or not. 

Finally, personally I don’t think that this shoulder blade is saying anything besides “someone is going to die”, a change that was triggered (so to say) by Shiraishi’s sudden decision that watching after Asirpa was more important than saving his skin. I don’t buy the idea that there were two meanings in one but as with everything, it’s only my opinion and I can be wrong. :)) 

Thanks again for your addition!