Note: This is a combined review and analysis of Choujin X chapter 33.1 and 33.2. I will refer to it as chapter 33 henceforth in this article.
Choujin X chapter 33 can best be summed up as a lore dump. It puts a lot of things into perspective and helps us connect the dots as we move forward in the series.
Two of the biggest ongoing theories, or more like two big burning questions of the fandom, were clarified in Choujin X chapter 33. Mother was confirmed to be Sora Siruha, and Azuma was hinted to be the iron choujin.
I had previously written an article speculating on what Mother’s identity could be, and also about the skulls that we saw in the Omega Tower, and I’m happy to see both of those assumptions come true.
But, for as much as the latest chapter answered questions, it also introduced a lot of new plot points, which are wide open for discussion. The amount of retrospective analysis required has in no way gone down my fellow Choujin readers, that I can assure.
In my previous chapter review, I had talked about where Azuma was, and that speculation seems to have hit the spot. However, there was more to the story than just that.
When Tokio, Ely and Azuma ended up meeting the beast in the Tower, there were multiple ways the story could have gone. And I have to say, I never expected Ishida to give us all of that information in Choujin X chapter 33.
Stay with me as I break down the whole thing for you.
The rendezvous continues in Choujin x chapter 33:
Ok before we got all the lore dump, we had the chance to witness a minor scuffle between the two factions who had met.
Surprisingly, Azuma was the one to initiate it, as he recklessly went to attack Noh Mask. Well, the most impressive part about this outburst definitely was Azuma remaining in control, instead of going berserk.
And though Ely and Tokio followed Azuma’s lead, their opponents grabbed the upper hand in no time. Mother doth have big hands.
Remember how I said I wanted to see more of what happened in the fight between Azuma and Yubiko? Well, Ishida hasn’t revealed that bit yet, but Azuma being in control and going on the offensive, even in such a tricky situation only makes me more curious about that fight, and what might have happened when he went berserk.
That fight aside, the way Azuma reacted in Choujin X chapter 33 gives us a better idea about what kind of a personality he has.
I mean, if you are kidnapped by a group of mysterious people, who you believe to be evil, and if you have superpowers to sport, your first reaction would be to fight back. However, thoughts need to be put in about whether you’d actually be able to win the fight.
Now, I am not saying he is someone who rushes headfirst into a battle without a plan. It’s just that his way of weighing the options and coming to a conclusion seem rooted more in instincts than sound logic. He is someone who can be derailed easily, someone who can be easily influenced. A potential X.
For instance, take a look at how easily trusts Mother and her intentions of bestowing her powers on Tokio. Unlike Ely, who remained on her guard, Azuma was swayed easily. It makes me wonder what kind of a loose cannon he’ll turn out to be in the future, unless he improves on this front.
Coming back to the rendezvous, amidst the chaos of the scuffle, Noh Mask, once again, drops an interesting piece of information; the name of the serum that is made from Mother’s blood, Xember.
Realizing that he is related to Mother (or Sora Siruha if you may) does stun Tokio for a brief moment. But Ely, as usual, is there to shake him out of it.
And what happens next has to be the best part about Choujin X chapter 33, other than the lore dump.
The extraction:
Suspended in mid-air, all embarrassed and angry, Ely was finally rid of the weight she was carrying inside her for sometime.
That’s just my roundabout way of saying that Chandra is back. Not only did Mother realize that the smoke choujin was absorbed by Ely, but she also knew how to get him out.
As I had mentioned in a previous chapter review, taking off Chandra from the plot at this stage in the story put the narrative off in some way or the other. Sure, it did act as the surprise element, but it seemed as if the character still had a lot to offer to the plot.
Well, now we know that he is not gone, and it won’t probably be a cliched Naruto-Kurama like relationship (or Sukuna-Itadori, or Liebe-Asta).
This incident also raises a lot of questions; about Ely’s powers, about Mother’s powers and if the two are related in some way or the other.
Tokio and Azuma were made from Mother’s blood, and so it would have been understandable if they possessed such kind of people. But of all people, it’s Ely who seems to have gotten this very dangerous ability.
Soon after Chandra is extracted, we get to the actual information dump and the prophecies. And just like that, Mother revealed the reason why she sought the beast of prophecy. And Mother’s identity too is confirmed finally in the process.
Visions of the future, regrets from the past:
As Mother imparts what she has foreseen, we are taken back to a familiar scene of Yamato Mori in tatters; the very vision that Tokio had back in chapter 25.
And the other important bit we get to see here is Mother’s real form. Mother is indeed Sora Siruha.
Now, the grotesque design of the beast in the tower was amazing, however, I also found the character design of Sora to be equally interesting. The halo especially. I wonder if the halo has any symbolism. I’d like to hear your theories on it if you have any.
I guess this is also the right time to draw your attention to something else of importance.
Mother’s powers are a bit of everything we have seen till now. The part where she suspends Tokio, Ely and Azuma in mid-air seems to be related to Sandek’s ability. She has the power of foresight, and that of a beast, even Azuma’s ability, which is related to iron, is derived from her.
Not just that, the way she relays her vision to the three of them seems very similar to Sato’s psycho stare. It’s safe to say that Mother seems like a very powerful person. Is she the progenitor of choujins from Yamato Mori?
That, or Mother got her grotesque shape and all her powers by absorbing multiple choujins. Is that what’s going to happen to Ely if she keeps absorbing other choujins or humans? Food for thought.
Coming back to the visions, Sora details about the bleak future that she had foreseen.
Here are her exact words (from the official English version):
“This is the future that is yet to come. Behold the Dark Calamity. This is the shadow of the choujin who turned into chaos. This is the future I foresaw. He, the calamity..will scorch the land, reducing your family, friends, lovers and everything else with them to ash. Plagued by death, the land will overflow, with rot, its corpse acting as the breeding grounds for the pestilence ridden locusts that blot out the skies. It will begin here, in Yamato. Yamato will be the first to fall.”
Sora Siruha, Chapter 33
First things first, I don’t think the prophecies are as straightforward as they seem, and it might be a symbolic way of saying something else. Especially the part about the locusts.
That said, this clearly does point to the death and destruction that is going to happen in the future. To prove what she saw wasn’t just a dream, she reveals the incident which turned her into a choujin.
Turns out that Sora had a premonition of Queem’s attacks. But her pleas to her superiors fell on deaf ears and everyone ended up paying the price for that. However, the following part is what caught my attention.
Sora says she “RESURRECTED” as a choujin in the aftermath of Queem’s attack. This would confirm my suspicions about her having been infected by the War Choujin’s powers, and also explains the gigantic hands.
However, if that is when she actually awakened her powers, how did she get those prophetic dreams?
Well there are two possible explanations for this. The most agreed one being that Sora already had the aptitude to be a choujin, and that she was already awakening her powers, unbeknownst to her, before Queem’s ambush. The stress and trauma from the attack could have made her awaken completely.
But then, there’s also a possibility that the power of seeing visions is not really a choujin power. It might just be an ability that transcends choujin supercells. If that is the case, it would add a lot of intrigue to the plot. But I guess there’s only an outside chance of this happening.
Now, the bleak future is not the only thing that Sora/Mother/Zora foresaw. There’s also the one about the beast of prophecy, the beast that inherited her powers and saved the world from the dark calamity.
And this prophecy and its understanding rests mainly on the imagery.
Now, in this prophecy, Sora is fixated on the bird that had her wings and also the mark of the beast. However, she is completely ignoring the imagery that points to Ely (the smoking plane in the palm of the hand) and Azuma (the moon in the background).
Like I said before, the prophecies are symbolic. There is a high chance that someone, even Sora could be reading this wrong. So instead of the dream referring to just Tokio, it could be referring to all three of them.
This whole scenario reminds me of Melisandre and her prophecies from ASOIAF.
I believe the prophecies have a lot more going on about them, and I will be going in depth into those ideas in a separate post.
Intentions, motives and actions:
Let’s take a better look at Sora’s motivations, based on what she mentioned in Choujin X chapter 33.
Since she was no longer powerful enough to stop the calamity, Sora wanted to bestow her powers to the right successor, the beast of prophecy. And though both Azuma and Tokio were made from her blood, she chose the latter for the duty.
However, in the off-chance that she might not come upon the beast of prophecy, she was trying to forcefully impart her powers to normal humans and choujins in hopes that one of them might be able to fulfill her prophecy.
Ofcourse, Sora might be someone who doesn’t mind sacrificing a few in order to save many. But, then putting it together with how she ordered Noh Mask to kill off Azuma and Ely at the end of the chapter, I feel that she might be hiding her real intentions.
There’s a couple of other things from the chapter that made me think so.
While explaining how she ended up in the tower despite being the founder of Yamato Mori, Sora talks about the other individual who had the power of foresight. I am calling the dibs on this other person being Master Mado.
And if that is true, then Sora’s claim of Mado not having seen the dark calamity is suspicious. The latter did have a similar vision, as Sato and Sandek mention it in Choujin X chapter 26.
Once again, I point out that prophecies are symbolic and people could end up interpreting them in different ways. Though Mado might not have seen the Dark Calamity per se, she did see someone leaving Yamato “a scorched wasteland”, which is very similar to what Sora saw.
So, it makes me wonder if she is trying to hide something, or if her motives are as pure as that of a dove.
The second instance? That obviously has to be Sora trying to forcefully confer her powers to Tokio.
Tokio being Tokio, wasn’t ready in any way to make such a huge decision on the spot. He wanted to take it home and sleep on it, and maybe discuss it with others. This also could have been his way of trying to escape the predicament that he found himself in.
The cliched good guy books state that if Sora’s intentions were pure, then she would have let Tokio take his time, and come up with other ways to convince him. The fact that she went all dark and brutal once again makes me wonder what her end goals are.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe Sora’s intention really is to save Yamato Mori. All she has is a few screws loose, probably because she used raise far too much, or just because she is a choujin. And that makes her do things in her own weird way.
Or maybe, she is someone who goes to the extent of making some harsh choices for the greater good, like I mentioned before.
The worst part? Sora ordering the hit on Ely and Azuma might only have happened because Ely antagonized her. I know, this is a bit far-fetched, but still a possibility we cannot ignore. I mean this would mirror Chandra’s behavior. Going crazy one second, but then realizing what his end goals are and coming back to his senses.
So, considering all of what I detailed above, it is hard to say which side Sora leans on currently, but then, there REALLY is something really off about her whole behavior.
In the end, as the situation currently stands, Ely and Azuma are on perilous waters right now. There’s no way the three of them can stand up to Noh Mask and Sora. If Chandra is back to his senses, then he too will be under Mother’s command. That’s assuming there are no other choujins in the Tower who would oppose them.
However, I think Sato and the others are on their way and they are bound to show up soon. There are signs of a battle royale looming on the edge, but then we’ll have to wait and see.
There’s a part of me that feels things won’t be so straightforward. I mean this is the same author who created Tokyo Ghoul. There has been a subtle and unique brand of humor in Choujin X till now, but then it is high time that the protagonists go through some much needed bad times.
Well, what are your thoughts on how things will turn out in the future? Let me know them in the comments below! Till the next chapter drops, this is your friendly spirit signing off.