Annotated 22-15
We had to steer a middle course with Iwatani’s narrative here. “Hoo ha, the idiot thinks he’s a prophet, how droll, he’ll never see me coming!” would show hubris that’s more Taro’s bag than his. “Good thing his awesome predictive powers can only benefit me” would still be too naive. “He can foresee every move I make, he will end us all, so if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” would be too defeatist. And the bit about seers rarely “seeing” their own importance or lack thereof actually seems to have some psychological merit, so good on you, Iwatani.
Although, looking back at it, Iwatani may have made an additional mistake here. Taro’s fear of Brother Tom is pretty obvious, so maybe it would have been a good idea to reassure him that Iwatani would never, ever, under any circumstances, treat his child as “an acceptable short-term loss.” I don’t know if it would’ve made a difference to Iwatani’s eventual fate, but Taro is absorbing more of these little lessons than it looks like, especially the parts about “duh, of course betrayal” and “killing people is cool.” So instilling “we don’t betray family, ever” in his head would at least be worth a try.
Yeah for real, the last two speech bubbles made me think that at least the child still values life at this point and that Iwatani seriously just said “murder is ok lol” to his kid there… who then murders him. lol
Yep. I was thinking along similar lines.
That Taro still “values life” may be a stretch, but at least he seemed concerned if people dying was an acceptable part of one political strategy. Well, if the answer is yes…
Um, “He thinks you are weak”. Taro may not be far from sharing this view. And still thinking that subtlety is for wusses.
Also, Taro was very quick to advise his dad to betray the cultists. Following paternal example. So the lesson “betray your allies when convenient” was already internalized.
Yeah, but it seems to have been internalized as “betray your allies because you can”. Which is something very different.
See, I took it as Taro being evil and wanting to make sure people were still going to die.
Dad either misses that tone or tries to answer it indirectly with his whole murder is okay sometimes philosophy.
Panels two and three make me think that little Taro is already plotting. His dad is showing him a glimmer of vulnerability in panel two.
“But people will still die?”
“An acceptable short-term loss for future gains”
Sadly very close to how the UK and USA governments view the results of their inaction on the COVID-19 pandemic
“An acceptable loss for short term future gains” feels *WAY* too apropos (ahem, prescient) at this moment in history.