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So, Sisyphus uh. I wonder who Guwon is meant to be in the myth, and who the "hounds" are. Thanatos being imprisoned checks out with the dead unable to pass and all of the talk about hell and heaven too. Is Guwon meant to be Sisyphus? Death (salvation) refusing work and playing a little sociological experiment with a bunch of humans? A demon? An undead? Some other entity?
Not gonna lie, the story's been fumbling a little since the start of the leech arc. This arc was entirely too long in itself, way too many chapters for something that became more and more convulted with different storylines and random characters that did not find a resolution oftentimes. And now with no sort of reprise for readers to breathe and regroup, we ended up in the Custas and Dagda mess right away and get introduced to YET ANOTHER new important character out of nowhere. I have no idea what the hell is going on with Tarta at this point, there is just too much going on, he disappeared for a while and now truth bracelets...? What? Can't we all breathe here for a moment. I buy all the volumes asap when they come out in my country so I have reread the story multiple times in my own language too, but I'm still so lost right now. Wouldn't be surprised if people decided to drop it during this arc, it's honestly a lot!
on the contrary in my opinion
because the story arc— its very long yes, the longest so far— is a way to push coco and the characters to their limits with what they believe in, and shirahama did that really well i think!
Because the hopelessness and the angst-fest that happened shows just how cutthroat the world of magic is unregulated. Ofc theres magic that distorts reality and makes the unbelievable happen, but when it comes to magic for the body, hell there was an entire sequence shirahama drew on the give-and-take fundamentals of it. This way, our protags, and mainly Coco— and in my eyes (and probably Iguin’s too), since she was a normal person turned witch, she has the least attachment to the basic rules of the witching world, therefore making her most vulnerable to both the brimhats’ logic and the upright society of brimless witches— are face to face with the problems of forbidden magic… or not forbidden magic. Find a way around it, or succumb to it to fix the world. But if you relent yourself to the forbidden magic, how will you regulate it?
Inherently, it’s not evil. It’s evil in the hands of wrongdoers. So if indeed someone like Coco is faced with the harsh realities of magic and the extents of its utilization, how will she reverse it? Fix it? Ban magic entirely? She still needs to find a way to turn her mother back, and that itself is a metaphor imo! Her mother signifies Forbidden Magic and Coco’s arc and story in WHA is to find a way to get rid/fix/reverse this Forbidden Magic. It’s a mini summary all on its own of her goal and the entire story lmao (normal magic, or forbidden magic— it’s not a versus, it’s one or the other, or bothh mayhaps? find an equilibrium? because pitting them against each other is like pitting a branch against a sapling, two things fundamentally the same, just different walks of life)
The whole introducing a bunch of new characters too, I think it’s working for now. After all, the world is massive, and the people living in it are far and many. Considering the way forbidden magic was declared forbidden, I think at the very least 20% of the witch population would’ve become a brimhat… Because while there are the evil ones yeah, there’s also probably morally grey brimhats (tbf, i’m inclined to group Iguin as morally grey, but we haven’t seen much of him aside from being the catalyst/supplier to many of the conflicts that happen, and also being an ominous piece of shit to our protags lol) that wanted to use forbidden magic as a way to save themselves/others. We have yet to discover them, and maybe the new brimhat is gonna be explored that way too!
and as for the truth bracelet and tartah, yeah i agree that tartah has been missing and somewhat… like, dangled, for the lack of better words. He feels like Coco, in that he has a similar story arc going on, but I can’t exactly figure him out yet. The truth bracelet though, comes from the very first time they met custas— like around the start of silver night arc i think(?), when they promise him something and he puts the bracelet on them as proof of the promise(??).
TLDR: I think WHA is cool, and the silver night arc pushed our protags and antags to the limit to see what they resolve to do in the face of easily yet consequentially changeable forbidden magic.
PS: omfg sorry this got so long I like the manga alot, like alot, so i got a bit too excited to write about it
Totally get what you're saying and I agree to a certain degree to the main topics you're talking about, but I'll have to agree to disagree on the problems I still think the story now has concerning the rhythm of the narrative (convulted, unclear, messy) and the amount of characters introduced and getting discarded (where's the gay couple that helped the lil brimhat girl? Suddenly they were very important and now they are back to forgettable) is somewhat ridiculous. Tarta has Ben penalised in all of this and I believe we are now a bit shocked he would go like that to the brimhats when he, in first person! saw what terrible things they do to people (yay body horror bit let us not forget they use other people's body without consent in any ways).
I personally thought, with the king being a healer (where are the king and the prince ? Hello anyone??) and all the healers of the tower being introduced, Tarta would go and interact with them. He seems very interested in healing magic and herbs, that would make so much more sense to me. The king himself was such a powerful character and the talk about magic and medicine such a strong one too! Why is he not here involved in all the body transformations happening?
This is still my favourite manga and I will stick for the rest of the ride, actively buying the volumes and merch as they become available in my country, but for me the narrative quality as dropped significantly and I'm left wondering!
No worries about length! It's super interesting to chat about this, thank you!
oh my god i completely didn’t realize you had replied to this Help KHDKDHD
Nod nod, I get your points too! But definitely agree to disagree, because at least in my eyes, the characters were definitely left on cliffhangers, but it’s setting up for the future plot!
The gay couple’s amnesiac plot is definitely gonna come up again, especially with Coustas now apparently waking back up from the silvertree(?)(i forgot the name of the plant woops) curse!! I forgot whose plan it was but i know that one of the witches’ plans was to memory wipe Coustas, so that his “happiest memory” would be gone and he’d revert to normal, but since that didn’t happen, something else might— and i think the gay couple might return with that! Because both subplots dealt with memory, and both are somewhat connected by Inia (brimhat girl) too.
Tartah i will agree with, his choice confused me a little, but i think? He doesn’t want to abandon coustas again— and Inia might have said something to him, considering he was with her before Coco found them. So maybe itll be revealed later, but the arc has ended so we can only wait for a future chapter to reveal info ╮(￣▽￣)╭
As for the king and prince, wasn’t there a chapter(recently?) that showed his like…. whereabouts or something. I could be wrong, i just sort of vaguely remember something about his perspective, and him going like “I’ll have to do something…” (again, i could be wrong lol, i just dont remember it very well). The prince did have a budding plot with Tetia, and since weve been exploring the girls’ arcs one by one— and especially with the overarching plot so far, like you mentioned, the healers of the tower, the body magic, magic and royalty hand in hand as the prince talked abt with tetia, i think Tetia’s arc might sort of intertwine with the main plot. Its just my hunch, but it felt like the problems thatll be posed with tetia(representing a witch side) and the prince(representing humans) would be a pretty big plot point, or at least a metaphor for it.
and thank YOU for a thoughtful reply! I always like discussing different perspectives with people regarding mangas, so this was a pleasure to think abt and write!! hell i might even reread the entire series just to refresh my mind wwww (⌒▽⌒)