The Story- PART II CLICK HERE FOR PART I   Click this picture to see the full-page version.   Anotsu and Hisoka.  What's going to come of these two?  Who knows.  Anyway, here's the story.  Anotsu and Hisoka go for a walk, talking all the while. Somehow (probably from Ibane's mannerisms) Anotsu found out that the sword school master is not Hisoka's real father.  He asks Hisoka as much.  Hisoka tells him the story of her real father- her mother died when she was very young, and her father later got sick as well.  Her father and Master Ibane were close friends.  On his death bed, almost as kind of a joke, Hisoka's father asked Ibane to give her to the strongest man that he met.  Ibane took the request seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that he never looked for a wife for himself.  He spent every day of the rest of his life training himself and his students, making an environment that would produce strength- all to protect Hisoka and honor her father's dying request.     The next part is one of the reasons that I love this manga so much, and I'll tell you why in a minute:    Anyway, Anotsu tells her that his work is just starting with Itto-ryu.  Right now Itto-ryu is young, and without him to lead them Itto-ryu could die and dry up at any moment.  He thinks the idea of having a family is a wonderful idea, but he would want to give them a lot of his attention.  But right now, Itto-ryu requires all of his attention and he wouldn't be able to treat a family as well as he would want to.  He tells her that it seems like some forces are trying to hold the country together, while other forces are trying to tear it apart.  Hisoka asks, "And which are you?"  This makes Anotsu think for a minute.  He remembers the encounter in the woods with Rin.    Anotsu goes on for a while about himself and Itto-ryu, and then asks her what she thinks- he says that her father wants to give her to him, and he's not extremely opposed to the idea, but he may never be able to give her the attention that she deserves.  She says that she doesn't care (and explains why, which I'm still not entirely sure of translation-wise).  Anyway, she ends with this: ("If you really want to know what I think, and would grant me the request,") "I was thinking that I'd like you to take this life and make it a part of your own."   All is still for a moment.    (Anotsu): "Don't move."        "Let's go back.  The wind is getting colder".   WHAT WILL IT BE???    OK, now, back to the above.  You'll notice that I scanned almost an entire page above to show the part where Anotsu thinks about Rin.  Basically, this part blows my mind.  As part of Mugen no Jyuunin, it's a completely natural thing- Anotsu, who seemed like this badass bad guy before, is thinking about the bad things that he's done to get where he's going to.  He actually questions things that he's done before.
Now, normally this isn't such a big deal.  But this is JAPANESE MANGA.  In Japanese Manga, these things never happen.  The good guys seem to have no more personality than the clothes, weapons and hairstyles they have, and the antagonists all take the part of a "BOSS" who is defeated to get to the "Next BOSS", like some sort of Final Fantasy Parody.  The dialogue is contrived, and the only time we see a bad guy in the manga is when he is kicking ass, breaking things, discussing his evil plans, or raping someone.  That's the reason that I like MnJ so much- it's cultured manga.  It's not an instantaneously gratifying ass-kicking and power story.  It's a story of some normal to extraordinary people dealing with not only each other and the environment they're in, but themselves as well.
Anyway, this might be one of the reasons that not many Japanese people read it.  Hell, even back in America the Spice Girls and Mariah Carey sell more albums in a week than Rage Against the Machine or Bad Religion do in a year...
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