Hi everyone,
Contrary to the above positive posts and feelings about this chapter, I personally found it a very lukewarm and superficial chapter. In my view, itâs the worst âsubstantiveâ chapter in all the chapters till now primarily because Ryushiki, through its characters explores the important musing of the meaning of life, yet never properly address the issue of âwhyâ.
Letâs just start with this quote:
"However, Iâve realized my mistake.
I was being absurd.
Oneâs own meaning of life? Or value?
If you have the time to worry about that,
_then thereâs so many other things in the world that you should be doing instead.
Like studying, exerising and laughing with friends at school."
What does it actually says? Well, simply put, the proposition is that you should study, exercise and laugh with friends (or basically do what is socially encouraged). It also suggests that thinking about your meaning of life is âabsurdâ.
Now, thatâs fine and all, but the biggest issue I have is that Izanami/Aya/Ryushiki does not put forward the âwhyâ.
Instead, throughout the entire chapter, Izanami keeps repeating to Aya to âclear her mind and just focus on runningâ.
Taken to the extreme, you can say that Izanami is suggesting Aya to âjust focus on studyingâ and âjust focus on laughing with your friendsâ. Donât think about anything else. This is one way to live your life, and I would say it probably is a good way because you are supposingly living each moment yet feel like you have several short term goals. But then again, you are assuming that there is inherent value is the things you study, or in laughing with your friends.
After going through schooling, you guys/girls can probably understand what I mean when I say that many things studied during schooling was not worth it, and instead that time could have been used to pursue other more interesting things that you care about. Also, âlaughing with friendsâ - for the sake of it because you want to live in the moment? Donât you feel hollow when you laugh but donât find the triggering event/joke humerous?
Anyways, Ryushiki elaborated a bit more in the marathon part:
I think I finally understand. The meaning of life.
âLiving because you donât want to die.â Thatâs enough of a meaning.
People, just by living, already have a wonderful meaning and worth in life.
And if you find yourself wanting more meaning to life⊠then you should try living each moment to its fullest.
Learn. Play. Laugh. Be angry. Cry. Anything is fine. Just live life with all your might.
To be able to put your heart into something, and do it until youâre literally too exhausted to continue.
That is the value of human life.
ââLiving because you donât want to die.â Thatâs enough of a meaningâ - for Aya. Thatâs right, for Aya. It would be presumptous to generalise that to the rest of the world.
âif you find yourself wanting more meaning to life⊠then you should try living each moment to its fullest.â but again Ryushiki left out the most important âwhyâ.
You may say the use of ârunningâ is just one example. But know this: running causes adrenaline to go through your body. There is something called a ârunnerâs highâ (triggered by endorphins), which makes athletes push themselves. That partly explains why Aya was feeling what she was feeling at the end of the marathon. In other words, there is inherent neural reward in this activity. Therefore, in my view, to use the concept of running to put forward the message of âliving each moment to its fullestâ is fallicious. That is because, itâs no different from taking an illicit drug, though it requires the personâs effort to initiate and maintain that process.
Personally, I donât mind Ryushiki putting forward propositions about what he consider is the meaning of life or what should satisfy that concept. In fact, I hope he does so because it help us all to think about it. What I really donât like is what he did here, by putting forward propositions without addressing âwhyâ. I donât think I can agree to the meaning of life of another person or be convinced of any important proposition unless I can understand the process of how they got to that proposition.
Let us just consider the last chapter of Higanbana 1 - the proposition being that bullying nourishes people (and sets the hierarchy due to uncertainty of ranking) and that is why they do it. In that chapter, the âwhyâ and the process to reaching that conclusion was fleshed out by the dialogue just before the youkai revealed herself. It is an anomaly that the message in this chapter was just put forward without any proper justification.
Also, in this chapter, Higanbana essentially overtly helps Aya in understanding the rostering system. Taken in conjunction with the ending dialogue of the âOne Day Girlâ chapter, I can no longer believe she is malevolent. Though whether she is inherently not malevolent or that she has changed after the past few chapters - I donât know.
Izanami is clearly portrayed as a benevolent youkai, but yet it is true that the upperclass student did disappear. Though whether the demise was through the belly digestive system or just a quick disappearance I donât know.
Anyways, Izanami is a liar. He said he would never run. But he did in the marathon part. Therefore, we can no longer be certain that he can provide a âquickâ disappearance to Aya as he claims.
).
