This might sound like a rant but let me just say this.

This Myouren is pretty dickish. All of his bantering really didn't convince me to justify all of his doing in this story. All he's doing is talk arrogantly and is pretty much being a jerk. Kill Byakuren and the others? What is that supposed to do?
I can agree to what Explosion said in the earlier strips. Even if the reveal of their motives finally came, I don't think any normal excuse are going to cut it for all the things they've done to all the others. This already made me despise him here.

However, I don't hate this series I just want to express my dislike of some of the characterization. The art is great, the roughness on some parts compliments the actions nicely. The story is unique, I'm curious of what they really want but depending on what it really is, this is going to get ugly. The artist can go however he wants for the story but the problem is that if he's going to make a story like this, where the girls get beaten, at least make the characters likeable. I'm absolutely fine with Youki, Unzan is still pretty nice too, Rinnosuke is almost as bad as Myouren here, though a bit better, and this Myouren really gets on my nerves. The fact that most of the time they're the one who attacked first and that most of it are without a clear reason. Really, what did they do to deserve this?

I'm not going to drop this series. I'm sure this will leave a bad taste, however this is a good series and I'll see how it ends. For the next part, Byakuren and Miko will probably lose(off-screen is preferable) otherwise there's no point to make Myouren go "Super Buddhist" here, however it would be nice if that's not the case for a change because this is one of the few comics I've read that have Byakuren and Miko working together.

monhan said:
This might sound like a rant but let me just say this.

This Myouren is pretty dickish. All of his bantering really didn't convince me to justify all of his doing in this story. All he's doing is talk arrogantly and is pretty much being a jerk. Kill Byakuren and the others? What is that supposed to do?
I can agree to what Explosion said in the earlier strips. Even if the reveal of their motives finally came, I don't think any normal excuse are going to cut it for all the things they've done to all the others. This already made me despise him here.

However, I don't hate this series I just want to express my dislike of some of the characterization. The art is great, the roughness on some parts compliments the actions nicely. The story is unique, I'm curious of what they really want but depending on what it really is, this is going to get ugly. The artist can go however he wants for the story but the problem is that if he's going to make a story like this, where the girls get beaten, at least make the characters likeable. I'm absolutely fine with Youki, Unzan is still pretty nice too, Rinnosuke is almost as bad as Myouren here, though a bit better, and this Myouren really gets on my nerves. The fact that most of the time they're the one who attacked first and that most of it are without a clear reason. Really, what did they do to deserve this?

I'm not going to drop this series. I'm sure this will leave a bad taste, however this is a good series and I'll see how it ends. For the next part, Byakuren and Miko will probably lose(off-screen is preferable) otherwise there's no point to make Myouren go "Super Buddhist" here, however it would be nice if that's not the case for a change because this is one of the few comics I've read that have Byakuren and Miko working together.

I can see where you're coming from, the thing is, you're not seeing it from Myouren's point of view. He is an extremely devout Buddhist, and here he sees his sister has perverted Buddhist teachings, and allied with creatures that traditionally eat human beings, all so she could achieve everlasting life (granted, the Myouren Temple gang aren't like that, but he has no way of knowing that for certain; and Murasa used to regularly kill innocent people). That's got to be pretty upsetting to him.

All that and I am not actually convinced he really wants to kill her. He certainly hasn't killed any of her or Miko's crew. He just sealed them away temporarily. To me, he comes off more as a mentor who acts like he's going to kill the disciple to force said disciple to fight him all-out.

OmniGman said:

I can see where you're coming from, the thing is, you're not seeing it from Myouren's point of view. He is an extremely devout Buddhist, and here he sees his sister has perverted Buddhist teachings, and allied with creatures that traditionally eat human beings, all so she could achieve everlasting life (granted, the Myouren Temple gang aren't like that, but he has no way of knowing that for certain; and Murasa used to regularly kill innocent people). That's got to be pretty upsetting to him.

All that and I am not actually convinced he really wants to kill her. He certainly hasn't killed any of her or Miko's crew. He just sealed them away temporarily. To me, he comes off more as a mentor who acts like he's going to kill the disciple to force said disciple to fight him all-out.

Fair enough, I can agree with you. It's just that lately I don't really like people who stick to what people taught them as "good", effectively preventing them from giving any consideration for anything that isn't included in it. Not unlike what we call "Obey the law and norms" but let's not get there.

It is true that Byakuren's purpose for helping Youkai are eternal youth, but that changed a long time ago, you should know that already. She's pretty much interacted with beings that her religion taught as "evil", effectively going against it. However she built an understanding with them, felt compassion for them and saved those that everyone else deemed not worth saving. She already know that it'll prevent her from entering Nirvana but she did it anyway because she knew that they can be saved, it's just a matter of whether someone will guide them or not. I think what Byakuren does is the epitome of what a "good" person really is, way more than Myouren could ever be.

I might come off as biased or something similar, but it's pretty much because it somewhat relates to me. In my family, there's a tradition that says that the man is the most important. The women's needs and opinion are often ignored, even more so if it contradicts what the man wants. Of course, it doesn't mean that the man can do however he pleases, they should do things that the head of a family should do, but in reality, that's often not the case. They can say that it's tradition and whatnot to prove that it's right but what I see is just people who just want to make sure that their position is safe and that they'll stay in power. What's worse is that they think it's more important than what their religion says. Me and my father hated it and since I'm next in line to be the head, they wanted me to accept it. I refuse and ended up being secluded by my relatives. But enough with my stories, it's getting stupid. In the end, I guess this is one of the reason why I'm deeply affected when I see a woman getting hurt by a man.

I'll just hope that when the artist continues the story, he'll let the girls get some spotlights for once.