Mysteries & Speculation

[madetosin]

There's quite a lot about Yami no Matsuei that's a mystery, and a large portion of that centers around Muraki. This canon likes to be vague about it's details, and add in a character that's certifiably insane and prone to dramatics, and an anime that confuses the matter further by contradicting it's parent source and well...it leads to no definitive answer on a lot of stuff. I'd hesitate to put all this in an app, but leaving this here, even if it's mostly questions, will give you an idea at least of what I'm thinking when it comes this psycho.

• Saki - This is the most concrete of Muraki's backstory motivations and, let's be honest, it makes absolutely no sense, no thanks in part to canon confusion. At some point, when Muraki is a teenager, his family is forced to take in Saki because his mother has died. It's easy enough to buy that suddenly finding oneself with a sibling might have been difficult for any kid, especially if said sibling was the result of an affair. Here's where it gets tricky. The anime explicitly implies that Saki murdered Muraki's parents and was killed by the butler in the course of going after Muraki himself. However, the manga, which I'm relying on primarily, has Muraki name himself as his mother's killer and says only that Saki destroyed his family and hurt his his greatest love. It might be possible to say he blames himself for not stopping her death, but I rather doubt that fact, given the context. If we believe the manga, it's reasonable to assume that the introduction of such a relation into what was likely a fairly traditional Japanese family didn't exactly sit well with anybody, and probably drove his already unstable mother further around the bend. This leaves his death a complete mystery, though it may honestly be possible the butler did kill him, but perhaps in defense of Ukyou (that theory I've settled on as solid enough to be outlined in the app). Still, how his head ends up in a jar is even more confusing. Given this was far before Muraki himself had gone completely insane, how did his body survive that long? Did his family save it? Or, perhaps more likely, his grandfather? Or, given the earlier note in the Nagasaki arc about bodies buried in "yang" land, which is how Maria's body was preserved so nicely, was this the case with Saki as well? Could he have buried only partially in such a plot, preserving only his head? That's my pet theory on the subject anyway, but this one is up in the air.
• Feathers - These appear frequently in relation to Muraki, largely for allegorical reasons. After all, he's compared often to an angel, being all pale and clothed in white, and unassuming characters see him as a savior. He even sports a wing design in his character page in the back section of one of manga volumes. But what if it isn't completely allegorical? The anime actually has a character react to the feathers as if they were real, at one point, which is a minor point, really, because the anime has funny ideas. However, since Muraki is intentionally meant to be a contrast to Tsuzuki, who, Muraki claims has demon blood, then wouldn't it be another stroke of irony that Muraki really is part angel? This leads right to...
• Genetic experiments - In his speech in Volume 8, Muraki goes further to compare himself and Tsuzuki - "We're abominations. The products of genetic experiments that violated the laws of nature." He goes on to say that they were meant to be killers - Descendants of Darkness - echoing the series title. What kind of experiments could they be referring to? Bizarre mad science aside, cloning and genetics was rather still in their infancy at the time.. Theoretically anyway, given the mangaka's general failure at knowing how science works. Selective breeding is a bit more believable, given Tsuzuki's date of birth somewhere around the year 1900, and Muraki's own birth in 1964. And despite anime conventions, the series actually bothers to note that Tsuzuki's purple eyes and Muraki's appearance aren't normal. The fact that it's Muraki's mother he's said to inherit his looks from might indicate she was something like a prototype to his final design. Interestingly, Dr. Satomi seems to mark his mother as some kind of pure spirit, as if her instability was a hidden thing. However, perhaps psychosis - both hers and Muraki's - are a side effect of their heritage? It might seem to contradict the statement, given angels are considered to be agents of good, but it might be the dark side of his genetics is the mortal side. Clearly his forefathers were far from pure - given his father's infidelity and the fact that his grandfather was meddling enough with death to have the Ministry kill him.
• Fake eye - Muraki's eye doesn't get as much detail in the anime, but in the manga it's made clear that it's more than just a glass prosthetic. When he surprises Tsuzuki in the hold of the Queen Camellia, the shinigami knocks it out with a piece of glass, and we get see that not only is it mechanical, but it's literally attached to his optic nerves. So - reasonably (despite how little this actually makes sense) - it's definitely capable of sight. The dramatic flashes of light that the anime in particular likes to also makes me consider that he may also have specialized modes of sight installed, like infrared. That said, how did he lose it in the first place? A common theory is to attribute it to a fight with Saki, but in a flashback panel with his friend Oriya, who he's said to have gone to college with, his eye appears completely normal. That theory doesn't match the timeline. This means, then, that it happened later, possibly during or as part of his descent into madness. I'm personally a fan of the theory it was part of the source of his powers. But let's move that to another bullet point...
• Powers - So Muraki has crazy powers, but where'd they come from? Other than the energy vampirism, he acquired the others elsewhere, but says only that he turned to the powers of darkness. Which, gee canon, thanks for being vague, but that doesn't explain much. Still, given his control of demons, it seems reasonable that the powers are demonic in nature (there is further evidence in a Vol. 12 side story to support this). The Devil's Trill arc, which doesn't include Muraki, does center a story around a demonic pact being sealed inside a man's eye. Is it possible that he gained the contract and then ditched his own eye to loophole himself out of the contract? Maybe. He says the loss of the eye was an accident, but really, how much can we believe what he says?