VN Talk: Rose in the Embers - Part 5: Tsukumo

It's been about two months, but I think I'm ready to resume! I'm still not over my shingles nerve damage, but with medication it's manageable, and the acne from last week has cleared up (so grateful). So now that that's out of the way, on to the next and possibly best route of Rose in the Embers!

I didn't have any particular expectations of Tsukumo's route, not because I disliked him, but because he was so hard to get a read on in the prologue. Though he's the one who helps the MC find the inn with her job, and he warns her about the potentially false nature of the people who live in the capital, he doesn't quite come off as someone you can immediately trust. Part of it is due to the cryptic way he chooses to warn her, telling her about fiends wearing masks, instead of a more straightforward "Don't take things at face value around here," but also in that he just seems rather distant instead of welcoming.

But the reviews for his route were good, so I gave him a shot, and I have to agree, his route is good. I had no reason to believe the story would go where it did and as well as it did. It's not without flaws (just a couple things I'd want to nitpick about), but for a three hour experience, it was a memorable ride and will stick with me long after the game is over.

So what is it about Tsukumo's route that makes it so unusual?

Well, it tackles what it's like to be biracial when one of a person's ethnicities is unwelcome, and it does a surprisingly good job. I say this because Japanese media has had biracial characters before, but particularly in anime and manga, a character is biracial more or less to make them more exotic compared to the rest of the cast. It's an extension of the kid that studied overseas trope. A biracial character will likely be blond and fluently speak both Japanese and the language of the non-Japanese parent. Since these characters usually exist in modern day and are typically half-white, racism is usually limited to them being unhappy with the exotic label, if they are unhappy with it at all.

Tsukumo exists in a different time though. In Taisho Japan, they're in frequent conflict with Russia, and Tsukumo is half-Japanese, half-Russian, which is a much different bag of worms. While there are foreigners in Japan at this time, it's still a very homogenous country, especially outside the capital. Adding to that, Tsukumo was raised in Japan and doesn't really know anything about his mother's country. He is culturally Japanese given that this is the only country he's known, but that doesn't stop him from wondering if he should consider himself Japanese, Russian, both, or neither; and I just don't see that kind of introspection with other biracial characters coming out of Japan.

His route starts a little differently from others in that the scene at the inn is wrapped up quickly with the MC passing out and then waking up on the carriage ride back to Tsukumo's place, which is a little village outside the capital. He likes the old house he's taken residence in. Even though it's falling apart, he finds it charming and possibly filled with various spirits like the kind he writes about in his stories.

Since he has no interest in keeping a maid, he instead arranges for the MC to work for his neighbor, Fumidai, who runs a sundry shop in the village. Fumidai is elderly and needs to take on an employee to help with the work.

I found I really liked this aspect of the story because it takes the MC out of her servant role and lets her do the kind of hard work she wants to do without feeling like she has to obey or she'll lose her job. Fumidai is kind to her, and she gets to make friends with the rest of the village. You can see this being a kind of life that she'd be happy with, especially as she tries to get to know the enigmatic Tsukumo.

Though he discourages her from coming to see him, they can't help meeting at the shop where he picks up his supply of pickled vegetables, and he's otherwise friendly to her. Fumidai can tell there's chemistry between the two and it's funny seeing the old lady try to set them up by encouraging the MC to deliver some vegetables to him after he hasn't been by for a few days. It feels very much like small town busybodyness when Fumidai and the neighbors talk about how he'll never get married with his house looking like it does.

And though Tsukumo doesn't like her visiting his house, especially at night, he ends up allowing her in his vegetable garden where she tries to help him out, and it's so nice to see an MC with a clear competence in a field her love interest is failing at. Moreover, Tsukumo is completely fine with taking her advice. The MC worked her family's farm prior to coming to the city, so she knows exactly what's wrong with the vegetables and how to fix them; and she's delighted to both be back in her element and to hang around Tsukumo.

This sets up the idyllic life that needs to be wrecked for the story's conflict.

We hear early on that there's a serial killer on the loose and he's rumored to be a foreigner with pale hair and pale eyes. Most of the villagers have clearly never seen a foreigner before, and Fumidai thinks they must be barbarians because they killed her husband in a military conflict and supposedly burned his body so there would be nothing left to bury.

When a heavy storm rolls in, the MC runs out (at night) to try making a net to protect Tsukumo's ailing garden, but she's met by someone who looks like Tsukumo, but with pale hair and without his glasses. She thinks she's seeing the serial killer, until he speaks and it's clearly Tsukumo. Presumably unnerved by it, she heads home without speaking to him. (This is one of the route's few failings. After that cliffhanger, the next chapter just picks up at the shop the next day and doesn't mention what happened after he spoke to her.)

Tsukumo (with dark hair again) tells her not to talk about what she saw and becomes distant, prompting a surprise visit from Kyosuke, who info dumps Tsukumo's backstory so the MC understands what's going on.

Tsukumo dyes his hair black and wears glasses that distort the look of his eyes so he can pass for being full Japanese, but the dye washes out after a while so he needs to keep redoing it. He left his village and came to the capital for a fresh start where no one would know him. The only reason Kyosuke is in on the secret is because the first time they met was in the foreign quarter of Tokyo and Kyosuke was puzzled why what initially appeared to be a Japanese man was hanging out there.

I also really liked that Kyosuke, prior to revealing Tsukumo's heritage, reminds the MC that a person's nationality and their appearance are two different things. When the MC sees Tsukumo again she comes to realize that she isn't bothered by the fact he looks different, but someone else is, because Tsukumo is soon arrested for the recent murders, and the only reason he is, is because he happens to be part-Russian so he matches the description of the killer.

The MC gets to see Tsukumo's neighbors turn against him, even the old lady Fumidai. As the police think she's delusional for defending him, she can see how people can be fiends wearing a friendly mask. One of the shop customers offers to help her up after Tsukumo is hauled away, and she realizes that by accepting the offered hand she could wear the same mask as the rest of them and be accepted back into the group, but she chooses the hard road instead and runs away. Though she doesn't have a plan or a place to go, it felt powerful because she has nowhere else to go.

The lead-up to the finale is a little more contrived. She happens to bump into Kyosuke, and he in turn brings the rest of the guys in on Tsukumo's secret, and all of them mutually agree this arrest is a farce. Not a one of them is bothered that Tsukumo turns out to be half-Russian, and they pull in favors here and there to help the MC get more information, or even see him (and Takahisa being on the jury is just a little too convenient).

In a nutshell, Tsukumo hasn't bothered trying to defend himself to the police, because he's so used to people not believing him once they find out about his heritage, but this comes at the cost of looking guilty. It's only when the MC visits and lets him know that his friends still stand with him that he begins to realize that there are more people who care about him no matter what he looks like, and maybe he should say something.

So he explains himself at his trial and after some excellent guilt tripping by the MC, Fumidai (who's there as a witness) realizes that this isn't right and she was blaming Tsukumo for her husband's death. She retracts her testimony and moreover, provides an alibi for Tsukumo on the night of one of the killings, which she only realized after he was arrested.

The endings branch in an interesting fashion. In Favored Bold, Tsukumo is released and his hair is dyed black again. On his way home with the MC he says it's easier to keep it this way and as with other Favored Bold endings, there's no sense of a rocky future going forward. But in Fortune's Fools, he's released and his hair is its natural silver color. Kyosuke is surprised that Tsukumo would want to go back to his house given everything that's happened there, but Tsukumo says that the happy everyday occurrences that happened between him and the villagers were not a lie, and a man like him might encounter hostility wherever he goes, so leaving wouldn't necessarily solve anything.

While I didn't like that the narrative drags out his confession to the MC in the Fortune's Fools ending, I did like the reason given for the road being harder. Instead of the class difference in other routes, Tsukumo warns her that she knows how much trouble his heritage can give him. Does she really want to get involved with someone whose life could be upended by someone pointing a convenient finger at the nearest "foreigner?" Of course the answer is yes, this is a romance game, but more than the class difference, this feels like the hardest barrier for a pair of lovebirds in Rose in the Embers, and thus I really enjoyed its inclusion.