Ch. 37 Summary: Shiina visits Satomi’s house to apologize, and eats dinner with Satomi, her mother, and Bungo.

 Ch. 38 Summary: Shiina and Satomi each realize what the other has done with their dragon child.

Revelations

In Ch. 38, the apocalypse occurs. I mean this in the original Greek sense of the word, as a disclosure of knowledge. The reason I chose this word will become very clear in the ensuing chapters. Let’s do a a quick comparison of this chapter of Narutaru and in the Revelation of John. To be clear, I doubt Kitoh had this comparison in mine: I just think they follow a similar pattern.

All the nations of the Earth worship the Beast and serve Babylon. Likewise, Satomi begins to serve the committee on hot air balloons. Of course, serving Babylon is not a new course for Satomi: she was already serving Sudou, who I would argue is even more an embodiment of Babylon than the government itself.

God gives judgement for the saints and apostles against Babylon. Self-explanatory.

All people are judged according to their deeds. No secrets remain hidden.

Shiina serves as accuser, but she is also accused. Nothing remains hidden. All secrets are revealed. Truly an apocalyptic chapter.

Shiina and Satomi’s reactions to the accusations give some cause for hope, however. Shiina weeps as she accuses Satomi. And Satomi looks truly repentant.

Shiina listens to a call to hold back on her judgement from Takeo of all people. Yet Satomi is led away from her initial instincts of repentance by her misguided “love” for Sudou and the babel of Babylon.

Earlier, Takeo told Shiina that her role is to watch with her eyes open and not look away, no matter how painful it may be. Here we see Shiina placed in the same situation. It’s part of Shiina’s nature to want to know and refuse to look away, no matter how painful it may be, causing her to turn against her new friend.

Fast Friends

First of all, I need to check out the lesbian doujinshi.

Second, Shiina is quite good with people. She’s able to see she was wrong, apologize, and quickly make new friends. She immediately makes her way into the good graces of Satomi’s mother as well.

It’s interesting how Satomi’s mother’s opinion contrast what we’ve seen of Satomi so far. To her mother, she’s a gentle girl at heart.

From what we’ve seen so far, she’s a crazy murderer, as epitomized by the Ch. 38 title page.

And at the end of Ch. 38, once it’s revealed that Shiina killed her friend, Satomi swears to kill Shiina.

Is her mother wrong about Satomi? No, I suspect that in a way, her mother’s understanding of Satomi is correct. At heart, Satomi is a gentle girl. Yet she sees this as shameful and tries to oppose it, wishing with all her might to become a killer; someone worth of standing at Sudou’s side.

But look at Satomi’s face as she swears to kill Shiina. As I’ve mentioned many times before, Kitoh is a master of facial expression. And that does not look like the face of someone who is at all pleased with what she’s about to do.

When she’s praised by Sudou later…

This face. It looks like “This praise is everything I wanted. Yet why do I still feel so empty…?”

Then we see her put on a decidedly different face on the next page when she’s together with Satomi and friends. What does Satomi truly desire? Will she be able to overcome the expectations and confusions set in place by her own mind?

Further Thoughts

The reason Sudou shot the litterers in the chapter wasn’t because they littered. It was because they didn’t follow the rules. Now he claims he’s ready to receive his just punishment in breaking the rules and shooting them. Of course, his punishment is nothing approaching the level of theirs. The more I try to wrap my head around Sudou’s philosophy the more convinced I am he’s just a nutcase.

We also learn in this chapter that Sudou’s father is the prime minister. Perhaps this, along with some parental neglect, fuels his judgmental streak.

I’ve said this so many times, but Kitoh is a master of facial expression. Not a single word is necessary to understand what’s going on in this scene.

Lol this makes so much more sense the second time through.

So cute…!

The guy in charge of the committee on hot air balloons is a kid at heart just like Satomi and friends. Wanting to play with his new toy just because he has it, regardless of the consequences…