Who Extended Nanoka's Grandpa's Life? The Narrative Tricks in MAO
By Olivia Chan Yuen Yue
“Who extended Nanoka's Grandpa's life?”
It is one of the biggest mysteries in the manga. Before reading my analysis below, I recommend you to read my previous article "Reading MAO with Agatha Christie’s Rules" and have your own guess first.
It is my bold guess but I did not get it just by going with my gut. The answer is based on how detective stories are constructed with common narrative tricks. Please feel free to share your own conclusions and discussion, these are always ways to make this manga fun!
Again, there are spoilers of MAO for necessary explanatory reasons and my own guesswork but I don’t spoil any of Agatha Chrities's stories in the article, though I will mention some of her work.
Can we trust Mao - Can the cat demon really control lives?
In most shonen adventure manga, especially with time-travelling or another-world setting, the “rules” of the background setting, “mission” and “goal” are often told in the early chapters.
In chapter 8, Mao mentioned that he saw Haimaru had eaten the secret of longevity, the Taizanfukun, so the cat demon can control human’s lifespans. And that is the reason he needs to find the cat demon to end their bonding.
Nanoka then wondered if knowledge can be “downloaded” by eating, though Mao did not answer (because he didn’t understand what Nanoka meant by "download").
The ability to extend life seems to be one of the fundamental aspects of the story and one of the major “missions” and “goals”. But the mechanism of how this is done was never confirmed by other characters.
Shiraha gave different answers about these. In chapter 35, the Taizanfukun is an exchange of lives to achieve immortality. And in chapter 58, Shiraha’s research shows the cat was originally used to keep important texts from being devoured by mice. Additionally the cat demon (Mao Gui) was used to eat other people’s organs and steal their assets.
In chapter 56, Hakubi also mentioned that the ability of the cat demon is “beyond the five elements” but never mentioned its ability to control lives.
These aspects are contradicting the information told by Mao and it was actually questioned by Nanoka too.
However, readers (and Nanoka) tend to believe in Mao as he is the male lead who looks so calm, trustworthy (and handsome). Even the manga is named after him.
As it is how most shonen manga usually narrates, readers easily ignore Shiraha’s research and accept Mao’s statements as the “mission” and the “goal”. Perhaps Rumiko has played with the common narrative pattern of shonen manga and stereotypes.
Mao himself seemed to realize the myth of longevity is not only connected with the cat demon Byoki in chapter 132 and we will need more clues about the actual mechanism works.
Who extended grandpa Kiba’s life? My bold guess is... Mao
Following the belief of the cat demon’s ability to control life, readers (and Nanoka) are set to believe it was Byoki that lengthened Grandpa Kiba’s life in the early chapters of the manga.
In chapter 23, Nanoka questioned whether Grandpa was controlled by the cat demon.
But what are the motives for the cat demon to extend Grandpa Kiba’s life? After thinking about it, I found there was no reason for the cat demon to “protect” Nanoka by doing so:
- The cat demon needs to get Mao’s body before transferring itself to Nanoka's body. There is no need to “keep an eye” on Nanoka. And it did not keep an eye on Mao either.
- Even if Nanoka lost all her family members and lived in an orphanage, as long as her body is still here, this is of no difference to the cat demon.
Then who is the one who extended Grandpa’s life? I have a bold guess - It was done by Mao.
In chapter 118, Grandpa Kiba heard a voice commanding him to "...live for awhile longer yet. For the sake of protecting Nanoka...”
Who's voice is that?
Because of the nature of manga, we cannot hear the voice. It is another common narrative trick played in fiction - as we cannot actually see or hear so the natural presumption leads us in another direction. We naturally think that is the voice from the cat demon, Byoki. But it is not a must! It’s a trick that the author takes advantage of the manga format while at the same time still playing fair with readers.
Byoki, the cat demon, is the creature Mao is protecting Nanoka from. It is out of character and quite contradicting for the cat demon to ask Grandpa to “protect” Nanoka.
But why do I think that is Mao? Because he is the only character who is eager to protect Nanoka both physically and emotionally by keeping her only family member alive, while also possibly have the related skills to do so (Yes, Nanoka can grow live in an orphanage in modern Japan. It is possible that Mao, as an orphan himself, does not want her to lose her only living family member).
If my guess is correct, it leads to more questions:
- How did he do that? When did he acquire that skill?
- Is he also in the Reiwa era somewhere else or did he do it in the Taisho era?
- Does Uozumi know? Did she communicate with Mao?
Conclusion: An anime adaptation should not be produced too early
Reading MAO while attentive to only the aspects of adventure and romance leaves it as merely an average work to me. However, if you start gathering the clues and analyzing it consciously, MAO is much more than you expected! (or are they playing with the positioning and marketing and other narrative tricks? Wait... Can that be possible?)
There are so many narrative tricks and minor clues here and there, therefore an early animation adaptation may ruin or spoil these clues.
While some readers think Rumiko has forgotten about Shiraha like she forgot about Dr. Tofu, I do not think that is the same case. It is probably because Shiraha’s missions in the manga have been almost exclusively to bring us various clues (Though I still miss this cute boy!).
According to Agatha Christie’s methods, the earliest clues will be the most important to reveal the whole picture at the very end. It means we may still need a few years to confirm my guess. I hope there is world peace and we all live well to see the answer together. And of course, we should all hope Rumiko-sensei has good health to continue writing more masterpieces.
Olivia Chan Yuen Yue lives in Hong Kong and is a fan of both Rumiko Takahashi and Agatha Christie. You can read Olivia's thoughts on the marketing of MAO and Takahashi's adoption of Agatha Christie’s methodologies here. Also you can delve into more MAO hypotheses in Harley Acres' article.
