damn, Komachi really went and said "at the risk of someone else being slightly inconvenienced, death is preferable"

Once again she reminds me in a lot of ways of Tokiko from Ryoko's last manga, though I'd rather wait until more's revealed before trying to draw comparisons. But if you read Walk to Death you probably get what I mean.

With more revealed, there seems to be even more comparisons one could make. Very much get what you mean and agree.

I kinda thought there was a yin and yang type of thing going on with Satsuki and the Pres, but after this chapter it kinda feels more like that describes Satsuki and Komachi more. Satsuki saving Komachi repeatedly is feeding into whatever issues Komachi seems to be having/causing and vice versa.

I'm locking in my prediction. Satsuki saving Komachi that first time is the catalyst for all the corpses, universe wants Komachi dead LiS style. The endgame is Satsuki will have to confront her "save everyone" worldview, she'll have to choose between sacrificing Komachi or risking everyone else. It's gonna be interesting to see what the author wants to say at the end, should Satsuki let go and accept death or is it better to keep raging against the dying of the light? So far her obsesssion with saving everyone has not been presented in the best light.

someone mentioned it so i reread chapter 1, and yeah, it pretty much explicitly states what's going on. funny, i'd kinda forgotten that

The concept that everyone is fated to die as a result of Satsuki's actions has been referenced 3 times: twice from Kai and once from Satsuki right at the start of the manga.

But they don't add up. Kai claims this started when Satsuki enrolled. Satsuki pins everything on the day she first saved Komachi, a year later. And I'm more willing to side with her, not only because she's speaking from the future.

We've seen Satsuki trace a clear chain of events after Michiru nearly burned Miho to death: Michiru's love took a twisted turn after she saw Satsuki attack Miho in the pool. Satsuki only got so aggressive with Miho because of the way she treated Komachi. Miho only relapsed into bullying Komachi because... Satsuki saved her that first time.

Continuing forward: Seo took advantage of Michiru's instability to trick her into killing Miho over some unstated history. Miho found out about it and now seems to be inciting a war trying to get Seo killed. Events keep rippling forward and this sense of mob justice is affecting more of the school.

I'm fairly sure there's a misdirection going on.
Satsuki's overwhelming guilt leaves her feeling responsible even for those minor connections. We know she's been obsessively saving people for years yet it's the first time with Komachi which is most important. Which leads me to believe fate isn't truly responsible for the ultimate tragedy; that's a direct result of Satsuki's own actions. There's no evidence of fate literally demanding a death for every life Satsuki saves, despite Kai's superstitions.

But it's undeniable there's an insane amount of deaths happening exclusively around her. There is a supernatural force at work here, just one that might not work like Kai thinks. After all Michiru's death didn't cause it to stop. Both meanings, metaphorical and literal, could simultaneously be true. And the answer probably isn't as simple as "let one person die to save everyone."

The question always comes back to Komachi's role. Why does Satsuki put her at the heart of it? Why not one step removed, blame saving Miho in the pool?

Well Komachi enrolled at the same time as Satsuki. She's happened to be present for many accidental deaths, including the choking boy and the girl in the library. And there's something deeply wrong with her that seems to get ignored because both sides paint her as nothing but an innocent victim.

(Once again it's impossible not to draw connections to Tokiko, which could be a great meta-misdirection on its own but I'm sure Komachi won't end up unsympathetic either.)

I don't think we're near the end yet but I do think we're at the start of Satsuki finally waking up a little to Komachi's danger. And maybe Sensei can start applying some more scientific method to the mechanisms of fate.

^
Exquisite comment! 100000000/10
I really like this analysis. Thank you!!

I'm fairly sure there's a misdirection going on.
Satsuki's overwhelming guilt leaves her feeling responsible even for those minor connections. We know she's been obsessively saving people for years yet it's the first time with Komachi which is most important. Which leads me to believe fate isn't truly responsible for the ultimate tragedy; that's a direct result of Satsuki's own actions. There's no evidence of fate literally demanding a death for every life Satsuki saves, despite Kai's superstitions.

this is a very good point, actually. to be specific about re-reading ch 1, the future-satsuki narrating it clearly seems to believe she doomed everyone by saving komachi, but as you say it's also clear she has been saving people for some time (it's how she became usotsuki after all!) presumably without breaking fate

I was proven correct, although it doesn't feel all that good because damn, poor Komachi. :(
I would suspect Komachi is something like a redemption for Tokiko. Tokiko was always portrayed with a sympathetic lens but the last word in Walk in Death is given to someone who fundamentally blames her for what happened, making that feel like the Word of God on the issue. That never sat right with me, because implicitly advocates abandoning a moral responsibility to help people by going "well if it's their fate then who are we to disagree". Now that we've got that exact same perspective being put in the mouth of the principle antagonist it feels even more to me like this is a relitigation of that framing.
My prediction: the narration from the end of the first chapter is not Satsuki at the end of the story but Satsuki before the climax of the story, in her darkest hour before she rallies, goes "actually fuck the class president and fuck fatalism," and forces a Good End to happen. And then Satsuki with live happily ever after with her 3 girlfriends (Komachi. Akira, and Miho) :)

last edited at Apr 21, 2023 2:32AM

@BLAMEY: An excellent analysis, thank you.

last edited at Apr 21, 2023 4:40AM

I feel like we are really close to the end of this arc, which makes me wonder if the final arc will involve Akira's dad or if we are going to have other arc before that?, Because everything in this arc now is leading for us to believe that Komachi is the main and final point of it, so I don't think the President and his friend will have a conclusion on this arc

I also wouldn't be surprised if the teacher dies this arc, it's too "convenient" for Satsuki to have a source of authority on her side, especially with how relatively easy he was won. And that would definitely be a turning point the pace couldn't return from. Prez has a history of killing teachers, too.
Actually speaking of that: it sure is a major hole in his argument for non intervention that he's deliberately used his premonitions to kill people at least twice. I bet Satsuki realizes that at some point.

Wait so why does Akira hates the teacher? she sure looked angry when Satsuki mentioned him (There is a vein in her face in that shot) did I missed something?

last edited at Apr 21, 2023 1:24PM

Wait so why does Akira hates the teacher? she sure looked angry when Satsuki mentioned him (There is a vein in her face in that shot) did I missed something?

I think it's a complicated "i'm happy that more ppl believe her but that also means that she'll rely on my less so i'm conflicted" kinda feeling

She's also fought with that teacher over her "bad behavior" in the past, Akira's introduction to the manga is her storming out of his class and kicking the door down on her way out.

Wait so why does Akira hates the teacher? she sure looked angry when Satsuki mentioned him (There is a vein in her face in that shot) did I missed something?

I think it's a complicated "i'm happy that more ppl believe her but that also means that she'll rely on my less so i'm conflicted" kinda feeling

Hmm yeah, I think eventually we would have an conflict between Satsuki and Akira

She's also fought with that teacher over her "bad behavior" in the past, Akira's introduction to the manga is her storming out of his class and kicking the door down on her way out.

But it's a bit weird because there was an entire plot about saving his life a while ago and Akira didn't showed an emotion like that

Wait so why does Akira hates the teacher? she sure looked angry when Satsuki mentioned him (There is a vein in her face in that shot) did I missed something?

I think it's a complicated "i'm happy that more ppl believe her but that also means that she'll rely on my less so i'm conflicted" kinda feeling

Hmm yeah, I think eventually we would have an conflict between Satsuki and Akira

She's also fought with that teacher over her "bad behavior" in the past, Akira's introduction to the manga is her storming out of his class and kicking the door down on her way out.

But it's a bit weird because there was an entire plot about saving his life a while ago and Akira didn't showed an emotion like that

She probably realizes that the teacher doesn't deserve to die, even if she doesn't like him.

Yep, that settles it, Komachi has the makings of a psychopath.

oh hell no komachi better not get shoved into some inheritance struggle later

Yep, that settles it, Komachi has the makings of a psychopath.

I don't think that's true. She's passively suicidal and doesn't understand people, but she's not evil. She isn't what the word "psychopath" implies, and I don't think she lacks empathy entirely.

Odd name change for he arc,but also Chekovs' pen for sure.

But who will be the one to carry out the stabbing?...

Yep, that settles it, Komachi has the makings of a psychopath.

I don't think that's true. She's passively suicidal and doesn't understand people, but she's not evil. She isn't what the word "psychopath" implies, and I don't think she lacks empathy entirely.

Yeah she's obviously not uncaring, just coming from a real dark place. She's far from a psychopath, her care for others is actually the only thing keeping her alive by the sounds of it, and she's repeatedly shown care for Satsuki, Akira, and the class president girl. But clearly whatever is eating her is getting worse and I think there is a clear hint what in this chapter: she thinks a child or teenager dying causes less suffering than an adult dying due to having "a family and a job". That's an extremely abnormal perspective because for most people it's obvious the grieving of parents is no less than any other relations... But it would be understandable coming from someone who personally has reason to think their parents wouldn't care if they died, right?

The suspense is being ratcheted up. Is this the first time Satsuki saw herself dead?

Also, a point of interest: Akira is jealous that Satsuki has confided in someone else.

I've probably brought up this crackpot theory before but bear with me.

Way back in chapter 27 an unidentified girl presumably asks Seo to go to the deathtrap Prez set up. Now more than likely that's Sayoko, but the ambiguity led to people wondering if it's maybe Komachi instead. The trouble is, this girl uses "Seo-san", Seo's family name. Seo's given name is Mizuka.

Why does this matter? Well Komachi has this habit of calling everyone by their given name. Satsuki-chan, Miho-chan, Sae-chan, etc. With one exception: Atou-san. Which got played off as a gag, but is that really all there is to it? It could be she makes some special distinction for both Akira and Seo. We've never seen Seo and Komachi interact before, but if I could play a little game of connect the dots:

Miho bullies Komachi but stopped 1 year ago. Seo was Miho's partner in crime and probably bullied Komachi too. Something happened between Miho and Seo that led to Seo wanting to kill Miho, and also seemingly may have given Seo suicidal tendencies. There's reasonable room to think this little devil-horn-hairclipped weirdo was involved. It could give us some backstory, and also answer if Komachi was ever accomplice to Prez's murders.

As a bonus connection, the girl Seo was bullying back in chapter 27, who looked at Komachi(?) with admiration, is now the girl Komachi catches bullying Seo. I'm actually more excited/afraid to see how this plays out than last chapter's cliffhanger.

Wait so why does Akira hates the teacher? she sure looked angry when Satsuki mentioned him (There is a vein in her face in that shot) did I missed something?

I think it's a complicated "i'm happy that more ppl believe her but that also means that she'll rely on my less so i'm conflicted" kinda feeling

Called it

The suspense is being ratcheted up. Is this the first time Satsuki saw herself dead?

Also, a point of interest: Akira is jealous that Satsuki has confided in someone else.

I think she also saw herself dead when she was investigating Seo's preminatory corpse, with the carbon monoxide in the supplies cupboard