Yami no Matsuei: Fallen
-Rushthatspeaks, joudama, et al

Rushthatspeasks: I think Muraki's an angel.

Silver-white is the classic anime and Shinto color-coding for angelic power; note that Muraki wasn't as bleached in childhood, nor did he have the weird thing with his eye-- the weird thing that is exactly like what happened to Hijiri's eye in the second story arc ("The Devil's Trill") when he had the compact with the demon, except that Hijiri's was the left eye, and Muraki's is the right. (although, in manga canon, Muraki's eyes is explained as being a mechanical replacement for the eye he lost when Tsuzuki knocked his eye out in the "King of Swords" arc, which did not happen in the anime, although the liner notes of the 4th Japanese DVD [Muraki in Five Keypoints] state the eye is mechanical, although not how he got it.) Angelic abilities also explain the magical powers, for which no other explanation is given.

Although Muraki's right eye's origins may be different in the manga and the anime, in the anime Muraki decidedly has the eye from the instant he turns up, and it looks exactly like Hijiri's, whose eye marks something of supernatural origin. It stands to reason, however, that Muraki would have enough skill to make a mechanical eye that would be indistinguishable from the real one... so many of Muraki's mind games are based on being trustworthy as a medical practitioner that a scary-looking deformity wuld counter that, and so if he had a choice, he wouldn't chose it...unless Muraki *wanted* to be marked as something to be frightened of, which I think he did. He hides his eye, and yet, he loves to show it.

Muraki, in a strange way, is crying out to be treated like a demon--to be treated as the evil monster even he feels himself to be. Sometimes, it's like he's trying to convince himself. Remember when he's with his friend, and he's more or less telling his friend to give up on him, because he's not programmed to feel anything? And he also told Tsuzuki, point blank, "We are the descendants of the darkness"--putting himself in the same level as someone, Tsuzuki, whom he already knew to be not human/to be demonic.

Angels have to know, after all, that they are not so far from demons as even they would like to believe.

He made himself what he is, because he felt he had to be like Saki, his half-brother, in order to defeat Saki. And in some ways, he may have done it better--after all, Hisoka said that when he touched Muraki's mind, all he found there was a darkness such as he had never seen before and could not understand.

The classic position of angels in both the Shinto and Buddhist cosmologies, and to some extent in the Christian as well, is that of an inexorable, unmerciful force for which intelligence is merely a tool, used by the greater universe as an expression of the universe's function of forcing everything in it to be more truly what it is and to understand itself. Angels will use any means to accomplish this and may or may not be aware that they are working for 'good', or even what the concept of 'good' is-- those value judgements don't apply to them.

So Muraki's purpose is to make Tsuzuki aware that he is, by nature, essentially demonic, and Muraki also forms the perfect opposite to Tsuzuki; they are the beneficent demon and ther malevolent angel.

Interesting to note that Muraki is a Christian... And since Muraki is Christian, we should also look at Muraki through the lens of what an angel is in the Judeo-Christian lexicon. They are not the cute little cherubs we think of when we think of angels. Remember the war in Heaven? Angels armed with "terrible weapons"? And the fact that God sent an angel to kill the first born sons of Egypt.

An angel is the messenger/agent of God. And God, if you really look at the Old Testament (and hell, even the new--He did leave His son to die a slow, painful, torturous death), is not a very nice guy. Angels exist to do the will of God--or rather, to do the *dirty work* that God doesn't want to bloody his hands with. Angels fought the war in Heaven, and were fairly vicious about it. Also, the was the race of nephelim, created when angels slept with (or raped) human women (which was the theory in Hellblazer as to how it was that Gabriel "announced" to Mary that she would deliver the Christ child). So, you have beings created for bloodshed and who obviously feel lust (or else there would have been no nephelim that God felt the need to destroy during the Flood.) Does an angel sound like a very *nice* kind of person to you? A being bearing "terrible weapons" created to do God's will--but the will that God didn't want to do Himself? Angels are, in some ways, necessary evils, and they are blessed by God because they do the evil that is sanctioned by God, and so do good because it is God's will, and God's will, by Judeo-Christian definition, can only be that which is good.

Angels also have no free will, and there is evidence to suggest that Muraki feels he has no free will of his own.

And that way of looking at angels seems to fit Muraki creepily well. After all, Muraki is doing good--seeking to find a way to give humans immortality--to free us from suffering and pain.

And yet.

To quote South Park of all things: "Without evil there would be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes."

So we have Muraki, always in white, the Angelic doctor who kills to find the secrets to immortality and, ultimately, save lives; and we have Tsuzuki, always in black, the demonic Shinigami, who seeks to keep the balance of life and death, and whom suffers every single death that he witnesses. And also, in the opening credits, when the Noh figure shows up, it's a red-haired demon (the red hair marking it as such), and it cuts immediately to a close-up of Tsuzuki's eyes (which mark him as not being human) as he summons Suzaku (intersting that the shikigami he calls the most is the god of fire, and fire is a symbol of hell and demons).

And if you take the idea that demons are angels who fell--or rather, that Lucifer was cast out not for opposing God but for loving God too much (so much that he wouldn't bow to humans because he thought that would be putting humans before God, even if it was only for that split second) and who more or less exist to take the blame for the evil in the world that God doesn't want to claim, then it makes sense for Tsuzuki to be the demonic half--the angel commits the sin, yet blames the demon for the sin having to be commited ("Tsuzuki-san! To break you, I will lay a mountain of corpses at your feet!")

Returning now to the angelic factor in regards to Muraki and his brother, Saki within the Shinto/Buddhist cosmology--the brother undoubtedly died without knowing what the true structure of the universe was, and so has been reincarnated as something awful, and Muraki is actually being really nice to him by bringing him back and giving him a chance to learn what a rat he actually is, so that the next time he reincarnates it will be as something much closer to enlightenment. From a Christian perspective, Muraki's brother has undoubtedly sinned against God and Muraki is his own personal version of Hell or at least the vengeance of the lord.

The angel bearing terrible weapons, the demon beloved of the gods (it was Enma, the King of the Underworld, who interveined to save Tsuzuki in the Devil's Trill arc, and Tsuzuki's shikigami are actually in love with him, even though he doesn't really realize it. In the manga, in human form, Suzaki told Tsuzuki, "Watashi wa anata wo ai shiteru." He, in his loveable clueless way, said, "Boku mo, minna ga suki da!" I like all of you, too.) and fighting for redemption.

But if Muraki is an angel, what kind of angel is he?

One thing I've always wondered is why the chick in the Kyoto arc was so afraid of the shinigami, when it was obviously Muraki that called the demon dog that ate her friend, and the shinigami that protected her.

The two girls in the Kyoto arc don't fit the previously established pattern within Yami no Matsuei. The theory that Muraki, as an angel, shows people their true natures works well for Maria Wong and her step-mother and all the people he kills on the ship, and astonishingly well for Tsubaki-hime, but it just doesn't seem to with Mariko and the other Kyoto-chick (whose name also starts with an M. The Kyoto girl was afraid because Muraki said her friend died because she had seen the Shinigami. Why she believed the psycho with the monsters over the people trying to protect her is another question entirely. But disregarding this question for now and going on the theory that Muraki is an angel who shows people's true natures, Muraki was trying to show Tsuzuki that he was evil/demonic and causing the death/pain of others, and this could be best illustrated by using someone who was completely normal until Tsuzuki appeared.

And there is another way of explaining this, in keeping with the idea of Muraki being an angel. If he is an angel, the question must be raised--what kind of angel is he? I originally thought that he was an angel of death (because he killed so many people, yet that seemed counter to him being someone seeking life in the long run, and for whom was set up to be the opposite of Tsuzuki, the shinigami.) but I find this to be incorrect.

Muraki isn't an Angel of Death, he's an Angel of Vengeance.

Which makes way more sense, and also explains his obsession with persecuting Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki, during his life, did something so terrible that he feels he will never be forgiven for it (and which , as far as I know, the manga has never said what it was he did, only that a lot of people were killed, and Tsuzuki was very young when it happened).

Muraki creates creatures of vengeance.

Looking at Maria and her mother--Maria had the life sucked out of her by her mother, and Muraki turned her into a vampire. Maria had most wanted her mother to love her, and she turned into what her mother was, something sucking the life out of others.

And then, there's Tsubaki-hime. Muraki was the one who created her--he caused her to split into two personalities, one of which was the Eileen, who saught to avenge her own death.

Even that clueless innocent chick in the Kyoto arc. He was creating her to be an agent of venegeance as well, to avenge the death of her best friend. It just took her awhile to fully become it. And she went after Tsuzuki, whom Muraki had planted in her head was the one she should seek vengeance against. And Tsuzuki wanted it in some way, since he feels guilty for every death he can't prevent.

And you can't forget the one avenging creature he, in some ways, created the best.

Hisoka.

Watch the Kyoto arc again. See Hisoka's face the second Watari holds up the strands of hair and they realize who it belongs to. I call that look "Insta-hate," because that's what it is. Muraki has created the instrument of his own destrution (and I think it will be Hisoka who ultimate destroys him) in creating a Demon of Vengeance who seeks vengeance against the Angel. Muraki created the very thing that he is, so that it will one day destroy him.

Murki being an Angel of Vengeance explains part of why he's looking for the secret to immortality. After all, if the people you're punishing die, you have no more vengeance, and he has no more reason for being. After all, the Furies only stopped punishing you after you die. And Muraki is setting himself up against the ones the govern death, because by dying, his rightful prey is taken away from him.

Or was, until he found Tsuzuki--a demon seeking to be punished (or forgiven) for his sins who can never die. Any wonder Muraki so fixated on him?

And what does keeping his brother's head in a jar have to do with getting Tsuzuki to see his demon-ness? Keeping Saki's head in a jar could be a reminder to Muraki of his own demonic impulses (or what he perceives as such), and trying to make Tsuzuki see he's a demon could be transferance--Muraki wants to believe himself a demon, not an angel, and so making the demon whom he identifies with ("Tsuzuki--we are the descendants of darkness") see what that he is a demon will therefore make Muraki a demon.

An angel who longs to fall, but can't, because by embracing his darkness, he embraces his angelic nature--in both the Shinto/Buddhist and Judeo-Christian lexicons, an inexorable, unmerciful force that fulfills it single fucntion. A creature designed for doing the evil dirty work really can't fall if he embraces that, can he? So Muraki's, in some weird way, in a horrible vicious circle, isn't he?

Pleased to meet you/Hoped you guessed my name

* This title is taken from the movie "Fallen," even though it has nothing to do whatsoever with the movie. I just like the imagery that the name invokes, with all it's Judeo-Christian symbolism. And it's that symbolism that fits. Plus, the Japanese title of the movie is "Akuma wo awareku no uta"--"A Song of Sympathy for the Devil." And that does fit this essay.

Because we do so love our demons.