Another Change They Made To Levi's Ending That I Wanted To Talk About, And That I Loved, Was The Birds

Another change they made to Levi's ending that I wanted to talk about, and that I loved, was the birds flying over head, with him, Gabi and Falco watching them.

We see Levi look up at them, and I feel like it's the fulfillment of his own philosophy, his own belief in the sanctity and value of life. I feel like, with that final shot of him, looking up at those birds, at the sight of life thriving, despite the devastating destruction and loss of life they all experienced not so long before, it's like the narrative affirming that Levi was always right.

Throughout the story, Levi was diametrically opposed to Zeke in their beliefs and philosophy, Zeke representing the idea of life being meaningless and worthless, Levi representing the idea of life having intrinsic meaning and worth. And I feel like that final shot, with the birds, and with Levi looking up at them with maybe the most contented expression he's ever worn, is a confirmation of Levi's belief and what he represented within the story, that life matters, that life is worth living, that life is worth protecting and cherishing and fighting for, and a rejection of Zeke's belief, that life is meaningless and worthless and nothing but cruelty. Levi won against Zeke in more ways than one, then. Not just physically. He won against Zeke's nihilism and cruelty. His beauty won against Zeke's ugliness.

I think that's also part of what makes Levi's ending so powerful and satisfying. It feels right that Levi should win that battle. That compassion and kindness and empathy should defeat bitterness and hate and selfishness. Even if just for Levi's story, that holds true, it's enough to leave the rest of us with hope.

Because I think that's also what Levi represents within the story.

Hope.

He's the best that humanity has to offer.

As ugly as we all can be, as cruel and heartless and uncaring, there's always the exception, always the example of what a person can be beyond that cruelty and heartlessness, in spite of the cruelty and heartlessness. And in Attack on Titan, that person is Levi. He's that exception.

Levi is relatable to us, not because he's like us, necessarily, but because he's what we hope and strive to become. He's like a shining light in the darkness. He's that person who shows us we can be better, who shows us the way to being better.

In many ways, Levi is the beating heart and soul of Attack on Titan. He's that little bit of hope in the story, that maybe, some day, some how, we really will all find a way to live, showing greater compassion and kindness to one another. That's Levi. By being the best of us, he shows us we can be better too.

i know this only happened twice but it happened like 600 times in my heart

Senbonzakura Kageyoshi and its references to Noh, and the connection between Byakuya and Minamoto no Yoshitsune

It's a known fact that Byakuya's design is thematically based on the idea of noble samurais, and if there's one that perfectly fits the bill, it's Minamoto no Yoshitsune. The camellia, Noble Reason, the symbolism of Senbonzakura, and his poem, the Out of Bloom... But as I went down this rabbit hole, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi seems to refer to something more. And so the concept of Senbonzakura Kageyoshi and its many forms, the "scenes", being based on Noh, particularly the plays of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, was born.

The scenes of Senbonzakura Kageyoshi

What we do know about SK is that each form is a "scene". We've seen three so far in canon, excluding the base form which I consider as the "stage": Senkei 殲景, Gokei 吭景 and Shukei 終景.

If you translate each scene: Senkei is the Annihilation scene, Gokei literally means Throat scene, and Shukei is the End/Final scene.

(Older translations for Senkei was Slaughterscape, which frankly sounds way cooler than Annihilate lol)

What about Boukei?

For those who are not aware of BBs, Boukei 望景 is Byakuya's special form that was created in celebration of the game's 5th anniversary. It is Byakuya infused with Shukei, a form that transcends Bankai. He is the first to start this whole series of Bankai fusion characters.

Interestingly, Boukei was fantranslated to be "Hopescape". The thing is, 望 is a verb used to describe the act of looking far away or desiring for something unreachable. That's where the "hope" definition comes from. Both have the future and distant connotation; something far away that is yet to come. But if you add 景, that 望 becomes an adjective, and so the definition also transforms into a distant view, or panorama.

What about Ikka Senjinka?

Is Ikka Senjinka another "scene"? No, it was clearly released from Senkei. I figure as a secret technique of Senkei, it functions as a desperado mode.

Noh 101

Noh stories have two kinds: Genzai noh, those that are set in present times and follows a linear timeline; and Mugen noh, those that are more focused on dream states or hell, usually involving ghosts, but can also occur in present times but timeline is more murky.

As it is heavily protagonist-centric, a Noh program is based on the protagonist's character type: Waki noh (God), Ashura noh or Shura mono (Man/Warrior), Onna noh or Katsura mono (Woman), Kyouran mono (Madwoman/Crazed), and Demon/Ending (Kiri noh). I'll be interchanging between these terms, but it's basically it.

Gobandate is a full noh program that consists of all five stories, which would last an entire day: god and warrior in the morning, woman in the afternoon, crazed at dusk and then demon at night. Modern noh usually only show two though, as holding a gobandate is too exhausting for both performers and audience.

God noh are typically stories that celebrates life, blessings, and carries a noble atmosphere. You'd have a character who starts off as a man and then revealed to be a god.

Man/Warrior noh feature the protagonist with a goal to be accomplished, whether it's to right some wrongs or overcome some personal demons. In Mugen noh, which is my original basis for this meta, the Warrior is usually a ghost seeking redemption in his journey to hell.

Woman noh uses the beauty of a woman to tell the story of love and suffering. In contrast, the crazed noh, often times a madwoman, is what happens when the woman is driven to madness by whatever she had suffered through. In Mugen noh, they can be vengeful spirits.

Finally, we have the demon noh. Kiri noh literally means the End play. Afaik they mark the end because most protagonists are fated to reach hell, and demon noh commonly feature yokai and such characters. Compared to the others, it's the most intense, energetic and flashy one out of the five.

Almost all of these apply to Mugen noh. Genzai noh, not so much. I've seen it slotted as a Fourth Category. In a gobandate, that's where the Madwoman is.

There is another secret character, the Okina (Old man) but we won't touch on that anymore.

So which is which?

First off, I don't believe shikai 2.0 and Ikka Senjinka are the only techniques Byakuya took home with him from his training in the Royal Palace. He must have unlocked a new form of Bankai in his training, we just didn't see it because (1) Kubo had to fulfill the earlier foreshadowing of Ikka Senjinka first (from the first Senkei appearance, vs. Ichigo battle); (2) the whole point of his training in the Royal Palace is to elevate the degree of his power to a point that he doesn't need to use his Bankai in 1v1 battles.

Second, to be honest, I wanted to include Boukei because thematically it fits the God category. But it's non-canon so I have to exclude it. Who knows, maybe there truly is a mystery new Bankai form, and as the last one to be seen, it'll turn out to be the first scene in the gobandate.

I should note it's also completely unintentional that the scenes would lay out in reverse to the gobandate. So here we go~!

With the missing God scene, we'll jump straight to Shura.

Senkei is the warrior who could be telling his story of fighting some conflicts, both external (vs Renji) and internal (vs Ichigo). It is the vibrant display of a battle, a possible reference to two Yoshitsune noh, Yoshima and Shōzōn.

I like to think that the base form, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, is actually the Woman. It is simple and beautiful in its form, but as the connecting node of all of the forms, it can transition to anything. However, it's not necessarily a "scene", so this can be a placeholder.

Obviously Gokei as the throat that connects the head to the stomach, in its violence of churning its enemies into minced meat is the madwoman that connects the daylight programs of Man and Woman, to the evening program that is the Demon. The implosion of Gokei is the implosion of the crazed who finally lost her grip with reality and became a vengeful ghost.

Kiri noh being the literal end play that is bombastic, loud and fantastical, is perfect fit to Shukei, the Endscape, and its majestic wings and halo creates either an illusion of a white phoenix or a tengu, both symbolic representations of Byakuya.

In BBS, Byakuya's Spirit Society version is a tengu lord, that perhaps a nod to tengu being considered as reincarnated spirits of proud swordsmen. What is most interesting here is that there's one particular legend that says tengus taught Yoshitsune military arts, and that brings us to something that has been sitting in my mind for a long, long time.

Yoshitsune and Byakuya

Okay, quick history wiki rehash time.

Minamoto no Yoshitsune is a very popular samurai and commander, half-brother to the shogun Yoritomo. He's usually depicted in literature as a noble warrior, handsome, honorable and overall an astute leader. Sounds familiar? But wait, there's more!

His story is a bit tragic. Yoshitsune gained the emperor's favor, earning him his title of Kurō Hōgan, and this put him in a period typical power struggle with Yoritomo. Eventually, he sided against Yoritomo, and thus the assassination attempts begin. In the end, he sought refuge in an ally but was betrayed. Yoshitsune was forced to commit seppuku after his men, particularly his right-hand man, the giant warrior-monk Benkei was slaughtered by a rain of arrows.

(Benkei's story is also very interesting. Some Noh about Yoshitsune's story actually has him as the protagonist. See Ataka.)

There are a handful of Noh revolving around him, but among all of those, there are two that stand out: Yashima, a Mugen Shura noh about the ghost of Yoshitsune visiting a monk in his dreams to retell about his battle.

Shōzōn, a Genzai kirimono - about Shōzōn, an assassin sent by Yoritomo, and Yoshitsune's supposed nobility and purity in his treatment of Shōzōn after suspecting him to be an assassin.

Both plays are about the vibrant displays (sorry not sorry) of Yoshitsune's battles, and this leads us back to Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, the link between Yoshitsune and Byakuya.

Senbonzakura Kageyoshi initially drew me to Yoshitsune's story. The two scenes of Senkei and Shukei reference Yoshitsune as a historical figures and Yoshitsune as a legend, respectively. (You could say some stories about him is almost mythical because of his popularity.)

Senkei, the Shura that is the slaughter of Yoshitsune and his men, the pride of Benkei in his final stand against Yoritomo's assassin to protect Yoshitsune the tragedy that made him famous, and Shukei, the kirimono that depicts the rebirth of Yoshitsune in folklores and legends, what with the stories about tengus and ghosts.

Byakuya is not just connected superficially to Yoshitsune. There is a Japanese term, "sympathy for a tragic hero" that was derived from Yoshitsune's Kurō Hōgan title, and ultimately, that is what the culmination of Byakuya's story in Soul Society arc evoked from readers.

No, but in all seriousness the writing and art here is so effective at communicating the story is what is frankly not a lot of pages. The same thing happened in the Renji/Rukia flashback, but I think this one is maybe even more well done?

We’ve quickly established that Rukia is lonely. Getting adopted cut Renji out of her life, and she was already something of a fish out of water at the academy. She’s now living with a man who is emotionally inaccessible and also thinks of Rukia more as an obligation than as a person.

And then she meets Kaien. He’s charismatic. He’s handsome. He pays attention to her, I think probably because he is a good leader, and notices her loneliness, and wants her to feel a part of the squad. In many ways, he’s the guy that Aizen was pretending to be.

And so of course Rukia fell in love with him. She’s got enough sense to know it wouldn’t be proper, and so she sort of puts herself in denial over it– notice how she claims to have thought so highly of his wife, but doesn’t refer to her by name. We don’t even get any full shots of her face. I believe Rukia when she says she wanted to be just like her, but I’m thinking Rukia isn’t being truthful about why she felt that way.

Senbonzakura Kageyoshi and its references to Noh, and the connection between Byakuya and Minamoto no Yoshitsune

It's a known fact that Byakuya's design is thematically based on the idea of noble samurais, and if there's one that perfectly fits the bill, it's Minamoto no Yoshitsune. The camellia, Noble Reason, the symbolism of Senbonzakura, and his poem, the Out of Bloom... But as I went down this rabbit hole, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi seems to refer to something more. And so the concept of Senbonzakura Kageyoshi and its many forms, the "scenes", being based on Noh, particularly the plays of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, was born.

The scenes of Senbonzakura Kageyoshi

What we do know about SK is that each form is a "scene". We've seen three so far in canon, excluding the base form which I consider as the "stage": Senkei 殲景, Gokei 吭景 and Shukei 終景.

If you translate each scene: Senkei is the Annihilation scene, Gokei literally means Throat scene, and Shukei is the End/Final scene.

(Older translations for Senkei was Slaughterscape, which frankly sounds way cooler than Annihilate lol)

What about Boukei?

For those who are not aware of BBs, Boukei 望景 is Byakuya's special form that was created in celebration of the game's 5th anniversary. It is Byakuya infused with Shukei, a form that transcends Bankai. He is the first to start this whole series of Bankai fusion characters.

Interestingly, Boukei was fantranslated to be "Hopescape". The thing is, 望 is a verb used to describe the act of looking far away or desiring for something unreachable. That's where the "hope" definition comes from. Both have the future and distant connotation; something far away that is yet to come. But if you add 景, that 望 becomes an adjective, and so the definition also transforms into a distant view, or panorama.

What about Ikka Senjinka?

Is Ikka Senjinka another "scene"? No, it was clearly released from Senkei. I figure as a secret technique of Senkei, it functions as a desperado mode.

Noh 101

Noh stories have two kinds: Genzai noh, those that are set in present times and follows a linear timeline; and Mugen noh, those that are more focused on dream states or hell, usually involving ghosts, but can also occur in present times but timeline is more murky.

As it is heavily protagonist-centric, a Noh program is based on the protagonist's character type: Waki noh (God), Ashura noh or Shura mono (Man/Warrior), Onna noh or Katsura mono (Woman), Kyouran mono (Madwoman/Crazed), and Demon/Ending (Kiri noh). I'll be interchanging between these terms, but it's basically it.

Gobandate is a full noh program that consists of all five stories, which would last an entire day: god and warrior in the morning, woman in the afternoon, crazed at dusk and then demon at night. Modern noh usually only show two though, as holding a gobandate is too exhausting for both performers and audience.

God noh are typically stories that celebrates life, blessings, and carries a noble atmosphere. You'd have a character who starts off as a man and then revealed to be a god.

Man/Warrior noh feature the protagonist with a goal to be accomplished, whether it's to right some wrongs or overcome some personal demons. In Mugen noh, which is my original basis for this meta, the Warrior is usually a ghost seeking redemption in his journey to hell.

Woman noh uses the beauty of a woman to tell the story of love and suffering. In contrast, the crazed noh, often times a madwoman, is what happens when the woman is driven to madness by whatever she had suffered through. In Mugen noh, they can be vengeful spirits.

Finally, we have the demon noh. Kiri noh literally means the End play. Afaik they mark the end because most protagonists are fated to reach hell, and demon noh commonly feature yokai and such characters. Compared to the others, it's the most intense, energetic and flashy one out of the five.

Almost all of these apply to Mugen noh. Genzai noh, not so much. I've seen it slotted as a Fourth Category. In a gobandate, that's where the Madwoman is.

There is another secret character, the Okina (Old man) but we won't touch on that anymore.

So which is which?

First off, I don't believe shikai 2.0 and Ikka Senjinka are the only techniques Byakuya took home with him from his training in the Royal Palace. He must have unlocked a new form of Bankai in his training, we just didn't see it because (1) Kubo had to fulfill the earlier foreshadowing of Ikka Senjinka first (from the first Senkei appearance, vs. Ichigo battle); (2) the whole point of his training in the Royal Palace is to elevate the degree of his power to a point that he doesn't need to use his Bankai in 1v1 battles.

Second, to be honest, I wanted to include Boukei because thematically it fits the God category. But it's non-canon so I have to exclude it. Who knows, maybe there truly is a mystery new Bankai form, and as the last one to be seen, it'll turn out to be the first scene in the gobandate.

I should note it's also completely unintentional that the scenes would lay out in reverse to the gobandate. So here we go~!

With the missing God scene, we'll jump straight to Shura.

Senkei is the warrior who could be telling his story of fighting some conflicts, both external (vs Renji) and internal (vs Ichigo). It is the vibrant display of a battle, a possible reference to two Yoshitsune noh, Yoshima and Shōzōn.

I like to think that the base form, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, is actually the Woman. It is simple and beautiful in its form, but as the connecting node of all of the forms, it can transition to anything. However, it's not necessarily a "scene", so this can be a placeholder.

Obviously Gokei as the throat that connects the head to the stomach, in its violence of churning its enemies into minced meat is the madwoman that connects the daylight programs of Man and Woman, to the evening program that is the Demon. The implosion of Gokei is the implosion of the crazed who finally lost her grip with reality and became a vengeful ghost.

Kiri noh being the literal end play that is bombastic, loud and fantastical, is perfect fit to Shukei, the Endscape, and its majestic wings and halo creates either an illusion of a white phoenix or a tengu, both symbolic representations of Byakuya.

In BBS, Byakuya's Spirit Society version is a tengu lord, that perhaps a nod to tengu being considered as reincarnated spirits of proud swordsmen. What is most interesting here is that there's one particular legend that says tengus taught Yoshitsune military arts, and that brings us to something that has been sitting in my mind for a long, long time.

Yoshitsune and Byakuya

Okay, quick history wiki rehash time.

Minamoto no Yoshitsune is a very popular samurai and commander, half-brother to the shogun Yoritomo. He's usually depicted in literature as a noble warrior, handsome, honorable and overall an astute leader. Sounds familiar? But wait, there's more!

His story is a bit tragic. Yoshitsune gained the emperor's favor, earning him his title of Kurō Hōgan, and this put him in a period typical power struggle with Yoritomo. Eventually, he sided against Yoritomo, and thus the assassination attempts begin. In the end, he sought refuge in an ally but was betrayed. Yoshitsune was forced to commit seppuku after his men, particularly his right-hand man, the giant warrior-monk Benkei was slaughtered by a rain of arrows.

(Benkei's story is also very interesting. Some Noh about Yoshitsune's story actually has him as the protagonist. See Ataka.)

There are a handful of Noh revolving around him, but among all of those, there are two that stand out: Yashima, a Mugen Shura noh about the ghost of Yoshitsune visiting a monk in his dreams to retell about his battle.

Shōzōn, a Genzai kirimono - about Shōzōn, an assassin sent by Yoritomo, and Yoshitsune's supposed nobility and purity in his treatment of Shōzōn after suspecting him to be an assassin.

Both plays are about the vibrant displays (sorry not sorry) of Yoshitsune's battles, and this leads us back to Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, the link between Yoshitsune and Byakuya.

Senbonzakura Kageyoshi initially drew me to Yoshitsune's story. The two scenes of Senkei and Shukei reference Yoshitsune as a historical figures and Yoshitsune as a legend, respectively. (You could say some stories about him is almost mythical because of his popularity.)

Senkei, the Shura that is the slaughter of Yoshitsune and his men, the pride of Benkei in his final stand against Yoritomo's assassin to protect Yoshitsune the tragedy that made him famous, and Shukei, the kirimono that depicts the rebirth of Yoshitsune in folklores and legends, what with the stories about tengus and ghosts.

Byakuya is not just connected superficially to Yoshitsune. There is a Japanese term, "sympathy for a tragic hero" that was derived from Yoshitsune's Kurō Hōgan title, and ultimately, that is what the culmination of Byakuya's story in Soul Society arc evoked from readers.

❆ HAKKA NO TOGAME ❆