Secret lore chapter!?
- Masaki made it to the final auditions for De:Lphinus
- There was some other unintroduced girl there who didn't make it
- Back in chapter 18 Tear referenced some unexplained incident with a panel that looked like a pool of blood
- There's a random ghost haunting De:Lphinus that calls Aizawa "Hona-chan" but wants her dead
- Masaki dropped out of middle school potentially around the time she failed the De:Lphinus auditions
- Masaki and Aizawa surely knew each other, between Masaki calling her "Honami-chan" and the startled look Aizawa gives her on page 23
Masaki is a little toxic and manipulative in all the ways baby lamb Michi is blind to. She's clearly propping herself up in front of Michi by putting Honda down, though Honda's not that mad about it? Only time she lost it was when she thought Masaki was making light of Aizawa's death. But Honda clearly has some self-esteem issues Masaki's happily fostering.
What that tells me is they were likely once better friends and their relationship has been in a slow awkward decline, Masaki soothing herself by taking her frustrations out on someone who puts up with her. She really rubs it in that she's the dominant one, she's the prettier one, she's the one who got closer to being an idol. And those cold looks she gives out of Honda's sight on 14 and 16, when Honda's showing some vulnerability.
I don't think this is the type of manga to have irredeemable characters. Their relationship is messed up but also extremely natural. I'm sure we've all experienced a friendship that turned bitter but kept going out of obligation and a subconscious longing for those better days. I'm sure we've all been in Michi's position too of not being sure how seriously to take the bickering between two people you're just getting to know. And there's still flashes of warmth between them, surrounding the emotional abuse.
If I'm being charitable, part of Masaki getting off on using Honda like a punching bag is desperation to look good for someone new. We know she's running from something, even if she looks like she's got it together. Her fixation on Michi is weird to Honda, though it doesn't seem like she knew pre-amnesia Michi? But her comment on Michi's newly long hair is suspect. And obviously her stalking Michi at the end is taking it to new levels.
Normally I'd attribute Masaki's eyes to some yandere creative licensing, but considering there's an eye pattern going on...
Michi, Sayaka, and Neo have permanently fuzzy irises signifying their ability to see ghosts. Masaki's eyes aren't permanently like this, but on page 22 her pupil is all scrambled. To speculate, she's looking at Michi's back here. The AAA mark is on the back of Michi's neck. So it could have to do with that. There's also a mildly suspicious panel on page 10: Michi wonders if she's the only one that sees the ghost on Ange in detached narration over a panel of Masaki. Might be implying something, might be page constraints.
This chapter also doesn't really account for all the suspense last chapter, like warning Masaki might get weird, but we're getting there.
- Honda remains an angel. But I didn't think she'd be flirting with Michi as much as Masaki was.
- Honda prefers to not be called Reona, which Masaki refuses to do, but that strikes me as a childhood friend thing and not maliciousness.
- Dorothy skipped the usual chapter release art for 20 but we get Masaki in color now.
- Today's Aizawa's birthday.
You might have noticed the image quality is pretty bad recently. Around chapter 18 the magazine became noticeably blurrier and the web chapters dropped in resolution from 1920 to 1600. To make things worse, my rips of this latest issue do this wacky thing where every image's resolution is randomized?? I don't know. I upscaled them back to 1920 for some consistency and applied sharpening filters but it's not great. Maybe it's less noticeable on phones.
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