Rereading the series, and here’s a good example of why I wonder about the timeline.
From chapter 23 (uploads don’t seem to work on mobile Firefox)
The clear implication there, as it has been since the beginning, is that the events in Heaven and Maru and Kiruko’s journey are going on at the same time, and that he’s the one who’s coming soon. But later it’s strongly implied that Maru is Tokio’s son, and that the one who looks like him that he’s supposed to administer the medicine to is the twin from whom he was separated. Also, there are a lot of events still to come at Heaven, and later outside after the walls come down. Enough time has been shown to have passed for the youngest generation of students to become adults, and even for the daughter of two of the students to grow up into the innkeeper that Maru and Kiruko meet.
But still, it’s presented as if both of the stories are happening at the same time.
Granted, that could just be an author mind game, and there’s no implication that the timeline really is that disjointed - rather it’s just sometimes made to look that way. But still…
Edit to add - I’m starting to figure it out.
It is sort of a mind game, but a well constructed and legitimate one.
The timeline is more or less ordinary - the skewed thing is Mimihime’s experience of time. I think she is, to borrow a term from Slaughterhouse Five, “timeloose.” She doesn’t just see the future - in some sense, she experiences it, and then she can just as easily switch to experiencing some bit of the past (like tripping over a younger version of Tokio that of course nobody else can see).
And I’m reasonably certain that not just the page I linked, but all of the bits that the first time through led me to think that the timeline was screwed up were things seen from Mimihime’s POV. It’s not the overall timeline that’s confused - it’s just her experience of it.
And I had noticed the first time through that while we get to see details of the lives of many of the other characters after the walls of Heaven come down, we see almost nothing more of Mimihime. I was a bit disappointed then, because I like her character, but it strikes me now that that was likely very deliberate, because she still has a key role to play.
Rereading the series, and here’s a good example of why I wonder about the timeline.
From chapter 23 (uploads don’t seem to work on mobile Firefox)
The clear implication there, as it has been since the beginning, is that the events in Heaven and Maru and Kiruko’s journey are going on at the same time, and that he’s the one who’s coming soon. But later it’s strongly implied that Maru is Tokio’s son, and that the one who looks like him that he’s supposed to administer the medicine to is the twin from whom he was separated. Also, there are a lot of events still to come at Heaven, and later outside after the walls come down. Enough time has been shown to have passed for the youngest generation of students to become adults, and even for the daughter of two of the students to grow up into the innkeeper that Maru and Kiruko meet.
But still, it’s presented as if both of the stories are happening at the same time.
Granted, that could just be an author mind game, and there’s no implication that the timeline really is that disjointed - rather it’s just sometimes made to look that way. But still…
Edit to add - I’m starting to figure it out.
It is sort of a mind game, but a well constructed and legitimate one.
The timeline is more or less ordinary - the skewed thing is Mimihime’s experience of time. I think she is, to borrow a term from Slaughterhouse Five, “timeloose.” She doesn’t just see the future - in some sense, she experiences it, and then she can just as easily switch to experiencing some bit of the past (like tripping over a younger version of Tokio that of course nobody else can see).
And I’m reasonably certain that not just the page I linked, but all of the bits that the first time through led me to think that the timeline was screwed up were things seen from Mimihime’s POV. It’s not the overall timeline that’s confused - it’s just her experience of it.
And I had noticed the first time through that while we get to see details of the lives of many of the other characters after the walls of Heaven come down, we see almost nothing more of Mimihime. I was a bit disappointed then, because I like her character, but it strikes me now that that was likely very deliberate, because she still has a key role to play.