Higanbana 2nd Night Ch. 6: A Thistle of Vengeance

[Aspirety]

General discussion topic for Chapter 6: A Thistle of Vengeance of Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni: The Second Night. Please tag any references to later chapters or outside works with the [spoiler] tag, providing adequate context in parenthesis.
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[Aspirety]

What an interesting chapter! I found it suffers from a lot of the same problems we discussed in Utopia, but it also addresses some of the major concerns people had with how Utopia ended. This time, it was human actions that brought a resolution to the crisis.

The solution, while it may rile up controversy, was immensely satisfying for me. Maybe it sometimes is impossible to put an end to bullying through passive means. In the end, this is more or less an extension on what Yukari was doing in the beginning. Stop bullying through force, prevent it from ever having an opportunity to fester. In this case, Yukari became a tyrant, and used her power to engrave a fear of bullying in everybody.

This, agrees with my own beliefs quite a bit. As administrator of the community, I have a heavy responsibility to ensure nobody is oppressed, while I myself have more power to oppress than anybody. It’s almost like a paradox. It’s my responsibility to ensure that everyone is treated fairly, and to act with force against anyone who threatens that harmony. Sure, maybe that is still bullying, but I think the intent behind choosing to oppress is important to consider. Perhaps sometimes, a small oppression is required to stop a much greater oppression from taking hold. It seems Ryukishi, like me, believes in a “Necessary Evil”.

Talking less about the solution, Ryukishi choosing to focus on bullies who will always think of themselves as victims is VERY REAL TO ME RIGHT NOW and is something that I see everywhere. Those who have suffered will always invoke that suffering a right to various privileges, including the privilege to cause suffering to others. This is something I can’t easily accept. It’s not the kind of thing you can argue against once it’s invoked, but that doesn’t give people the right to invoke that card for the rest of their lives. At some point, you will oppress others by invoking your prior victimisation too often, and you will never even realise that you yourself are the one in the wrong. That too, is something I try to challenge when I see it happening.

Oh and yeah, Ryukishi just casually claimed that everyone in high positions in the world is a bully, that was a thing… Dunno if I agree with that, what do you think?

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

[Antra]

Ow, ow, ow. Ryukishi, warn me before you call me out like that.

This was an interesting chapter! You could call it Utopia: Round 2 and it would probably fit just as well. The fact that the conflict was resolved by human hands instead of Youkai hands made the ending a lot more satisfying than in Utopia, I think. With all the interesting discussion Round 1 got, I cannot wait till the podcast gets to this Chapter.

[TsukiyoAlex]

What the hell was that Yukari?! She’s so mean, so incredibly fearsome, she became the perfect human character HYAHAHAHAH!

Seriously now, I didn’t see an ending like that coming, AND IT WAS JUST PERFECT THIS WAY! I also believe in the “Necessary Evil”, as long as you don’t overdo it, humans really need someone to watch over them and keep them from behaving badly.

Why is it that Yukari doesn’t have an evil laugh face? That’s just too cruel, so I went on and gave it to her myself:

[Zosonte]

I quite liked this arc. It is essentially the answer arc to Utopia, and almost makes it seem like the Higanbana ex Machina from there was intentional. It tackles very philosophical subject matter which surprised me, as nothing quite like this has surfaced in Higanbana. Masaaki seeks vengeance on his bullies, and becomes a bully himself, tackling Nietzche’s concept of “He who fights monsters”, becoming that which he fought against and justifying it as justice. When exactly did he go too far, or was it too far to seek revenge in the first place? Many have been in that situation, and have we not thought about what it was like to turn the tables? The ultimate message is to dig two graves before seeking revenge, and I’m glad to hear it. Masaaki is a rise and fall like that which makes a character great and a story compelling for me, waiting until the inevitable moment I slip from the knife’s edge and lose sympathy.

Sumire and Azami reveal their plan of creating a cycle of violence to feed from, and Yukari sadly becomes a victim again. Instead of relying on Marie and Higanbana, however, Yukari decides to take it upon herself to break the cycle. More philosophical themes pop up, like Masaaki debating whether a tyrant is necessary to enforce peace or whether a part of human nature can be destroyed or reset. Again, I believe these questions are the highlight of the chapter. The ultimate self-sacrifice from Yukari to be the “joker” surprised me, but it was also quite satisfying. In a chapter of a philosophical tennis match on a gray and grey court, seeing an act of good in the midst of Sumire and Azami’s darkness was perfect.

[VyseGolbez]

So okay, let’s start with the positive things. I liked Azami a lot. It was a nice concept with the whole “Making the bullied child in a class into an even worse bully themselves.”

Going chronologically in the story, the next point would be Ryukishi’s offhand remark that all the powerful in the world are basically bullies themselves. I think this is certainly true for some of those, but not everyone. As I see it, you can climb the social ladder in at least two ways. You’re either making everyone who isn’t you seem terrible and look down on them, this would be the bullying approach, or you simply try to be the best for yourself, focussing on yourself, and building a reputation through being friendly or talented but not rubbing it in the face of those who aren’t.

But let’s get to the meat of this, the conclusion. When Ryukishi was building it up, I was thinking, like several of you as well, “Okay, now he’s going to present a human solution. He’s going to fix that thing he did wrongly back in Utopia.” And, to be perfectly honest, I hated his solution. It conflicts with core beliefs I hold myself, and as a result I feel it sends a message I don’t like. But let me break it down, what all my problems are. So first of, the solution is reached through Yukari eating that thistle. That in itself is already a problem because in effect it means that again, the solution was reached with the help of a youkai. But that’s admittedly only a small problem, and one I could live with on its own. No, my main gripe lies in that “Necessary Evil” of her establishing herself as a tyrannical leader threatening to bully anyone who decides to bully. See, while sure, it gets rid of bullying, the atmosphere in this class is not a nice one. In the end, it is a reign based on fear, and I simply believe that it is impossible to convince someone else of ideals, no matter how well intentioned or good they are, through fear. It is simply just another temporary solution that isn’t really a solution. And I was hoping Ryukishi would present a more long-term solution. In the end, this is still a story, so I wouldn’t even complain if he’d present a solution that isn’t feasiblle in nine cases out of ten (for that matter, the solution presented isn’t either, because it is unlikely that a bullied child makes such a one-eighty and then uses its newfound rage to not immediately bully their classmates but speak up against bullying). I mean, I get it, he makes a point that both teachers and parents are shit and that the solution must therefore come from the children themselves, at least how it currently is, but still, I was hoping for more. Ryukishi makes a point that the youkai don’t fully control the humans and are only whispering to them, trying to influence them. So he should be allowed to make the humans break that influence, through some sort of stimulant. I mean, he was building up Masaaki as feeling sorry for Yukari, so he could have been some sort of catalyst.
For that matter, this is an idea I got myself, so let’s take the situation of “Yukari ate that thistle, so the next day she is compelled to bully someone”. So, and this is a crazy idea, why not let her bully herself? Imagine the following scene: The other children are writing some rude things on her table, as they usually do by now. Yukari enters the classroom. She still has that different air about her that lets everyone go silent. But instead of going on a rampage through the classroom, she simply takes a pen herself, and writes something on her desk that is ten times worse than what everyone else wrote. And she does that with a demeanor that implies that it’s only natural and fun and the right thing to do. By parodying the bullies in that way, basically conciously taking the joke too far, all the bullies would be dumbfounded by that, and it would give opportunity to direct the scene in a direction that gets rid of that bullying without having to rely on fear. It takes a considerable amount of strength to withstand bullying. It takes even more strength to truly ridicule yourself while keeping composure. And I think Yukari is a character where that amount of strength would be believable.

The ending that Ryukishi chose to write gave me the impression that he doesn’t have enough faith in humanity to think that a solution that doesn’t rely on fear is possible.

So yeah, I firmly believe that there isn’t a necessary evil, and that if you want to push an ideal, the best way to do that is to live that ideal yourself and inspire others to follow your example.

---

I still think that Higanbana is an important piece of fiction, and it is one very much critiquing the current Japanese standards, and as such I find it very important that especially other Japanese people read this work. Because in the end, we as foreigners have next to no control over the situation in Japan in particular.

[HolyHawk]

This chapter was very intriguing and I really liked it as several significant ideas are explored. Although there was no real solution to bullying put forward by the author, which I don’t blame him because if it was such a simple issue, it would not be worth exploring.

"It’s not bullying! P-… Piss off…"
He didn’t want to accept the fact that he was being bullied.
… He knew he was being bullied, but he refused to admit it.
…
Yukari understood.
She understood thathe didn’t really mean what he had said.
But he helping hand she extended was unable to reach.
Yukari couldn’t lend a hand, unless Masaaki was willing to take it.

It’s amazing that the author considered the issue of the pride of the bullied. I don’t think anyone wants to acknowledge that they are or have been bullied (or that they fit the definition of a ‘weeb’ or never had a girlfriend etc). The reason is probably because the terms used are derogatory and is a label, which superficially captures what they may be in a stereotypical way. By using those labels (“I am being bullied”) with all its negative connotations and stereotypical image, your own self-worth is reduced. By distinguishing it or refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation, you are able to ‘think’ that the bullies didn’t actually truthfully hurted you. Further, no one wants to be openly ‘sympathised’ because in truth (unless you have an ulteriror motive of course), the sympathiser is really in a superiror position at those moments, while the person sympathised would have to accept that they are at a lower position (think of the hierarchical theme put forward in the Utopia chapter).

The idea that you can’t help someone who is not willing to take it also strikes home for me.

In this world there must always be retribution.
Punishment for those who are evil. And reward to those who are good.
… But the times have changed. Now there are villains known as bullies attending school,
and they run free, doing whatever they want, and enjoying their youth right up until they graduate with no punishment whatsoever.
Meanwhile, good-natured kids are thrown out into society still holding the trauma caused by those bullies.

This above quote is amazing. It captures exactly what I loathe about bullies. It’s probably partly jealousy. This quote is quite significant when you consider the quote below.

Everyone lowered their heads gloomily, trying to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible.
Just as Masaaki had once done himself.
On the other hand, Massaki’s life was like living on a bright sunny tropical island.
Every day was sunny and beautiful and happy.
_… _
Studying, exercising… he was good at everything.
Even the teachers loved him. Masaaki was living the ideal school life.

So, previously Masaaki, when he was bullied, he was constantly anxious about the actions of his bullies. Further, he had to entertain them when their bullies required him to do so under the pretense of ‘being friends’. Consequently, it is not surprising that he can’t focus on understanding the class materials, can’t find the motivation/confidence to exercise and do well in physical education, can’t find the leisure to make and maintain new friends. Now, however, being in a position of superirority, he has the leisure to do all the above things, which unsurprisingly results in an improvement in all those areas for him.
Therefore, there are great benefits to being a bully. Basically, there are many flow-on positive effects for it, but mainly confidence, which results in many other things. As the bully is reaping the benefits of bullying, the bullied is losing important things that should have the effect of making him/her succeeding/enjoying school life. Worst still, while in schooling, there are no effective penalty for bullying others unless the other person is stronger.

There was a point when Masaaki decides to bully indiscriminately (apart from Yukari). At first, I thought, his actions were no longer justifiable. But then after some reflection, I believe it is partly justifiable. Let us remember that there is active and passive bullying. Merely being a bystander and allowing bullying to happen is in my opinion, culpable, although less so than the actual bullies. That is why it should be the responsibility of the teacher to educate the students that being a bystander is culpable and should be punished. Though until this is taught, it’s difficult to blame the students on doing what is effectively self-protection…

There’s no one more bad-natured in this world than a perpetrator who refused to see himself as anything but a victim.

Being in a position of being able to use the label of ‘victim’ is sometimes very strong. It allows morally justifiable revenge/reparations. But we should always remember that Masaaki never chose to be bullied in the first place. Therefore, although he probably did over abuse his label of being a victim, I think I should emphasise he should have the right to use what he has after being forced into a position he did not want to be (being bullied).

… If any one of you bullies again, I will kill them.
… If you don’t want to be killed, live a modest life.
… I am the bully who devours other bullies… And I’m hungry… I really… really want to bully someone…
… So if you want to become my prey, show yourself now.

So, the proposed solution to bullying. Simply be stronger, have morals, and be prepared to use force.
Really, not too different from the law of the jungle… follow the morals of the person at the apex while they are in power.
Because, who would actually believe that these students would actually interneralise the morals of Yukari has to bullying when the basis of adherence comes from fear of her strength (the thistle probably gives physical/emotional strength)? Further, the reward from bullying is just too much to pass through when the deterrent is no longer there.

[MagusVerborum]

This is the first chapter I think where i wish I’d written up my thoughts here sooner because @VyseGolbez has stolen my thunder completely. I was very happy with the portrayal of Masaaki, and his change from the bullied to the bullier. i also thought that the way Yusaki was written was very believable, and what’s more we never get caught up in unnecessary problems, the core of the issue is right in front of us the entire time. Ryukishi once again shows his skill as a writer of characters.

However. I can’t possibly say that i agree with his conclusion, it’s as the Youkai Sumire says, it’s far easier for Izami to persuade Masaaki with honeyed words and a positive spin. The way that Yukari controls the classroom fear not only isn’t realistic, it wouldn’t work. No one singular person can prevent the hive mind of the classroom from beginning the cycle of abuse again, and because of Yukari’s extreme methods it will only lead to a greater price once that illusion of control is shattered (reminds me of Night 1 Chapter 3, actually).

From this chapter it would appear that Ryukishi doesn’t believe in the fundamental good of humans, that we are all animals driven by a base desire to eat sleep and bully. I think this is a load of bullshit. A tyrannical overlord who tells humans what to do and how to act is the worst of the lot, a person with power only has that power because they’ve been given it by those they rule over. That Ryukishi would even suggest this as a solution is deeply concerning to me.

(Higurashi spoiler) My favourite moral to come out of Higurashi comes from it’s ending, its ideas that no one is irredeemable and that working together can and will solve problems you couldn’t take on your own. This chapter’s proposition is a total 180 from that standpoint, I’m convinced this is just an argument he’s putting forward as a thought experiment rather than as an actual solution otherwise it seemingly invalidates a lot of what Higurashi stood for. The fact that Old Maid is referenced leads me to believe Ryukishi was thinking about this at the time but man I’m hoping for some clarification from him.

I will say i thought Sumire was much better this time around. She’s still just as hammy but she’s got her calm and composed sister to reel her in, used for comedy rather than drama. What a fantastic duo those two make <3

Ah yes, one more thing that jumped out at me. My absolute favourite scene was Masaaki’s near-suicide at the beginning of the chapter. i could absolutely see that animated, the higanbana swaying in the breeze, the cut between Higanbana and Masaaki during their back and forth, and then Marie comically pushing aside the tall flowers and bickering with Higanbana, a scowl on her face. One quote in particular stood out to me.

…Except, of course, the Higanbana.

As i mentioned on the last podcast the significance of choosing the Higanbana (or spiderlily) as the representative visual for the story is that it famously is planted in graves. The themes of hope from despair, positive things from negative, the balance of life and death, bullying and happiness, all of this is reflected in the pure, innocent and cruel Higanbana. Marie seems to be aware of this relationship and shakes Masaaki out of it by pointing out that his dream of peace through death is fantasy, nothing more. I find this very interesting that Marie, who arguably represents this relationship more than anyone else in the story, is the one shaking sense into Higanbana’s victim. It shows real growth from back when she tried to help Midori by face-punching the Youkai hunting her, and considering the spider-lilies are going to be blooming next chapter makes me wonder if this is a good or bad thing, or maybe both?

[Aspirety]

Lot of support for disagreeing with the message here. I was gonna wait for the podcast, but that won’t do.

Ryukishi’s use of Yukari in this chapter has an analogue in law enforcement. People will do the wrong thing. It doesn’t mean they’re inherently evil, but it’s very easy for anybody to be caught up in the cycle of bullying, or whatever other evil we want to focus on. The law exists as a deterrent, for people to fear the consequences of their actions. In this school, the law has very limited reach (especially regarding bullying) and there’s no deterrent for bullying someone. That’s why Yukari fulfilled the role of the judge, to impose repercussions for bullying, and make people fear those repercussions to set them on the right path. Usually the role would be fulfilled by teachers, but if the teachers aren’t going to do it then someone has to. It is necessary.

[MagusVerborum]

Ah but I’m this situation I don’t think this is law, this is vigilantism. Yukari only has power because of the magic thistle she’s been given by Youkai, not exactly a true substitute for a democratically chosen government. I understand that Ryukishi’s point is that the adults don’t care, either because they have heir own lives and wellbeing’s to worry abut or because it would be too much trouble to properly police the students but I do wonder if the teacher could simply give the class representative more power (which can be monitored for abuse) and the ability therefore to deal with bullies through this pyramid structure.

For an example on how giving untrained people sudden power is a bad idea I’d encourage everyone here to take a look at the Stanford Prison Experiment. Long story short a Professor Zimbardo created a mock prison and put some volunteer students I charge as guards and others as prisoners. The experiment was supposed to last for two weeks but was cancelled after just a few days due to the abusive environment that was created by the ‘guards’ treatment of their captives. Law enforcement works because people are trained and educated, letting them loose on the criminals without proper instruction leads to abuse of power. In the closed environment of a school or a prison is where abuse can continue unhindered by society.

[Aspirety]

Ｂｕｔ ｔｈａｔ’ｓ ｓｔｉｌｌ ｔｈｅ ｓａｍｅ ｔｈｉｎｇ！

The issue is that the teachers and administration didn’t care for the students, so the students needed their own way to break from the cycle of bullying, they needed to create their own system of accountability.

[VyseGolbez]

Interesting comparison with the law there. And yet, I still think there’s a difference. To make that difference apparent, let me ask you something: Do you just follow the law just because you don’t want to be punished? I personally sure hope not. I like to believe that a good amount of our morals come from a thought that we want to be a certain way, and not just because we don’t want to be punished.

(Higanbana Second Night Chapter 7 spoilers)Anyway, my perspective on this chapter changed from one small sentence in the After School segment. There Yukari’s behavior at the end was compared to a dictatorship. This means that we can probably assume that Ryukishi knows that the solution in this chapter is not exactly good (unless he views dictatorship as a good thing). Before I assumed that this solution is the best he could come up with and one he wanted the reader to accept. Now I have reason to believe that he purposefully chose the solution he did, and that he’s trying to say that because parents and teachers don’t care only such a terrible solution is possible.

[Karifean]

That part of this chapter was honestly especially interesting coming from having already read Rose Guns Days, which involves a lot of musing on what makes a good leader. Will be looking forward to what the two of you will say to that~

[Chaos_Alfa]

From what I have read it seems like the conclusions from Stanford Prison Experiment aren’t what is often though of. It seems lead investigator, Zimbardo had partially manipulated the participant to get the results he wanted. I recommend reading this artikel from The New Yorker about it to get a better understanding of how it went.

The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

[Ushiromiya_Battler]

Amazing chapter. Yukari just became my number one character. I see some people having a discussion here, and I honestly agree with Yukari’s solution. The bullying will seemingly never end (and in Ryukishi’s works none of the adults seem to give a f*ck), and if that evil has to be countered by a different form of evil, than I am all for it (especially if none of the other students are physically harmed but merely intimidated by Yukari). I appreciate the fact that Yukari was able to find her own solution and found a way to keep the class in check (at least for the moment).

Why is it that Yukari doesn’t have an evil laugh face? That’s just too cruel, so I went on and gave it to her myself:

This is perfect!!! OMG, why didn’t we get this??? I needed this, thank you!

[machelmore]

This chapter is such a microcosm of the entirety of Higanbana.

As is obvious, it shares similarities too, and is kind of a part two of, Utopia. Much like Utopia, it started off a little slow, but completely flipped the script in the last five minutes. I was definitely more engaged in the early parts of this chapter more so than Utopia, and the ending was just as shocking and satisfying, making this easily my favourite chapter so far.

I had a feeling that at some point we would be getting a chapter about perceived justification in bullying as revenge, or any type of bullying really, and that’s what we got with this chapter (even though I thought at first the chapter would be about the perceived shame in being bullied - there goes Ryukishi subverting my expectations again .) And naturally you’d expect an outright rejection of the very idea, that bullying in revenge makes you no better than the original bullies. But is Yukari’s tyrannical bullying not justified? I don’t want to answer that question myself, as I inherently hate the word “justice” since, as happens in this very chapter, it so often becomes an excuse to convince not only others, but yourself as well (not to mention I don’t believe in an objective justice, but that’s besides the point.) But I don’t think that question needs to be answered in the first place (you might even say it’s pointless .)

Now to get a bit real and heavy. I, fortunately I suppose, cannot relate to the stories of Higanbana, at least not in the way you’d expect. I can relate to some of the characters’ sometimes nihilistic outlooks, as I am myself a weird combination of nihilistic, an absurdist, and an atheistic existentialist (helpful table if you aren’t familiar with the terms.) But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I was referring to the fact that I was never bullied, and indeed, as ashamed as I am to admit it, I was a bully as a child.
At that age, for example, I never would have let my pencil case get tossed around like that. I would have walked up to the first person to grab it, kept walking towards them even after they threw it away, and ruthlessly kicked them in the gut. Even if it would have just made them mad and gotten me into a fight where I would have been inevitably outnumbered, it would be better than letting them do as they please. That would be the way I would perceive myself “losing”, not admitting that I was being bullied like the way Masaaki sees it. I’m not trying to push this way of thinking on to anyone else, even I don’t completely agree with it anymore, it’s just the way I saw it as a kid. But that’s just it, people with personalities like mine don’t get bullied in the first place. Of course I wouldn’t be able to fully relate to or understand Masaaki. I was a pretty well-off brat to be honest, I was extremely athletic and academic (much more so than I am now), I had a lot of confidence, and even during my inevitably most vulnerable first few years of primary school, my older brother was the biggest kid in the entire school, so I’m sure even if people wanted to bully me they’d probably have given up before they even started.

Before I get on with this next bit, I need to make it clear that I’m not trying to say anything myself, I’m just relaying what someone told me. A while ago, before I even started Higanbana, I was talking to my mother - who’s been a primary school teacher for over twenty years - about bullying. What she said was that in a way, it’s almost always the bullied kids “fault.” That the personality of the bullied kid is what decides whether they get bullied or not, and as a result it’s almost always pointless to move a bullied kid to a different class or even a different school, because it’s not about the bullies - it’s about them.

Assuming this is in fact true, it would, at least to me, gives special meaning to Yukari’s tyrannical bullying. She’s ripped the responsibility away from the bullied and is forcibly holding on to it herself as the bully, ready to dish it out again to whoever she thinks deserves it.

Now for some general thoughts on bullying. Up to a certain point, I was of the philosophy that it was somewhat necessary for kids to go through a phase of either bullying or getting bullied. For me at least, I think having to look back and regret it and feel guilt about it was necessary for my own emotional development. I do have a friend who was bullied, and he agreed with my thoughts, and said that it was necessary for him to go through a phase of getting bullied to become who he is now. Still, that’s only one case, and I’m not entirely sure that I have the right to talk about bullying, as one who bullied others. I don’t think I ever went too far with my bullying, but that’s from my perspective, and even then it’s under the assumption that some amount of bullying is inevitable or even necessary (and I might just not remember being more extreme.) I’m not sure what to think at this point really, but I do wonder if some kind of bullying - perhaps the kind Yukari presents - is a necessary evil.

[Hovlane]

So this was quite an interesting chapter, I’ve kind of been waiting for the return of Sumire since the 7th chapter of the first night and I’m glad we finally get to pick up this “story line” again. While I don’t have too much to say on what happened besides the fact that I fully disagree that a person who was bullied has the right to inflict any degree of harm on the people who are bullying them, except in the cases where that is the only way to stop the bullying. But as soon as the bullying stops the bullied should not go on a witch hunt to get some sort of revenge against their bullies.

Either way what I really wanted to make a post about was what Yukari decided to do at the end; basically become a tyrant of the classroom and force everyone to her standards to keep bullying out of the classroom. Basically I know that there is no way this will work. While I wish that this could possibly happen in the real world I know in my heart this would never work. Yukari with the position she is in has no real way to enforce the peace in the classroom besides the power the thistle has given her. As it was noted near the end as soon as the power goes away everyone in the classroom will turn against her. While some may think “But Yukari didn’t bully anyone” this is pretty false. She is enforcing her own ideals on others without letting them have any say in the matter. While the only ideal that she is actively enforcing is no bullying, everything else she believes in will also naturally be enforced just by her showing any amount of displeasure of what is going on. So eventually when the thistle’s power runs out Sumire will turn the entire class against her and resume the bullying.

The other part of this is while going through this chapter I was reminded by a little part in Code Geass that sounds very familiar. This is just philosophical stuff so no spoilers but basically, there comes a point where the question is posed saying “What do you do when you come across an evil that cannot be stopped by just means?” They give two possible answers to how one may overcome this evil, one being stain your hands with evil to overcome the greater evil or remain steadfastly just and allow the evil to remain. In both courses of action a person would have to leave some evil behind in the world, so which one will you take? Basically I remembered this because of Yukari’s actions through this chapter. At the beginning she always remains just in her approach to fighting bullying. However because she does not step up to bullying herself she cannot eradicate the bullying that occurs to others and it continues away from her sight where the bullies will not be bothered by her. At the end after taking the thistle she instead becomes the evil to eradicate the other evil of bullying, but now she is effectively ruling over all of her classmates even though she probably does not wish to.

(Code Geass Spoilers)Of course Yukari could do as Lelouch did in Code Geass and remove herself from the equation thus fully destroying the bullying in the classroom. However I do not believe that this is possible in this environment. The reason why Lelouch was able to create more or less a true utopia at the end of Code Geass was because he thoroughly beat those who would threaten to challenge the world he lived in and tore away all of their power with his own hands. With the environment Yukari is in, she simply cannot hope that this will happen. Right now the sole person everyone fears in the classroom is Yukari, but she lacks the resolve to truly put an end to the bullying by taking away the power from the bully leaders that would start bullying again right after she leaves, and this is without thinking of any Youkai coming and messing anything up. Basically all that I can see happening is that Yukari will eventually lose all of her temporary power and eventually become the person everyone bullies again.