I just read “Kojiki” for class and I still can’t figure out the meaning behind the title of chapter 137, “Izanagi”. Well, unless it’s a not-so-subtle allusion to how Izanagi couldn’t accept the death of Izanami, his sister and co-creator of the world, and went to the underworld to retrieve her. I guess that this could both be an allusion to the revived corpses of Furuta’s zombie army or to Kuroiwa senior’s supposed death(?) and how it could possibly tie to his childhood trauma of losing Mikito, especially now that he seemed to be opening up to him.
That, or maybe the allusion is more subtle. When Izanagi visits the underworld, Izanami tells him that she can’t go back because she already ate the food of the underwold, but that she could try to convince its lord to let her go, if only he promises not to look at her. Predictably, he does, and sees her for the real monster that she is, and runs away terrified, while she furiously chases him. Now, I’m not really sure how this could tie with the current happenings of TG, but if I may hazard a guess, I’d say that this could be a reference to his soon-to-be(?) reunion with Shirazu in his zombie form. Ever since Shirazu’s death, he’s been determined to bring his corpse back (the comparison is a bit stretched here, I know), because of what he said about how funerals are for the people who were left behind to move on, but then, the moment he’s actually faced with Shirazu’s corpse, he is horrified by the revelation that having his (revived) corpse back doesn’t give him any closure, but actually makes his grief even worse because he’s faced with the reality that he couldn’t save him from such a horrible fate, the zombification?
This way, even if Shirazu doesn’t reappear immediately, the connection to him would still be there thanks to this panel:
Which, in turn, is a obvious reference to Kaneki’s words to Urie when Shirazu died:
Which only goes to show how little Urie’s grown as a character, and how he’s still putting people on pedestals and blaming himself instead of the system that made him an orphan in the first place.
hamliet 