Subaru Minato

Minato Subaru is a character from the visual novel Fullmetal Daemon: Muramasa. She is the mother of Minato Kageaki and Minato Hikaru, and the husband of Akitaka Kikuchi.

To give some background about the setting, Subaru Minato lives in a dystopian Japan (known here as Yamato), where the nation is ruled by the tyrannical Rokuhara Shogunate, lead by 4 generals (named Yusa Dosshin, Chachamaru Ashikage, Shishuku Ohtori, and Raicho Imagawa) and a shogun who don't care much for their people, and where acts of tyranny by Rokuhara are common. At the same time however, a group known as GHQ (an extension of the Britannia Empire, where the two big empires in the world currently are the Britannian Empire and the Russian Empire) is also vying for power to control Yamato through indirectly influencing the civilian population to believe that GHQ's control over Yamato would be better than Rokuhara's, such that the people would view it justified when GHQ declares war on Rokuhara.

Also, battles take place in machines called "tsurugi" which are basically robot mecha that are piloted from the inside cockpit by people calledv "musha". They are much smaller than your average mecha though and a bit more humanoid, being like 3 times the size of an average person. Basically like a really huge suit of armor. Sentient tsurugis refer to their pilots as "Mido".

Subaru is technically the head of the Minato family, a once great family in Yamato which is now on the verge of fizzling out. Subaru's part of a sub-branch of the clan, established to keep the "evil" tsurugis Muramasa and Ginseigo locked away. The head of this branch of the family is always female, and always has a husband from outside the clan.

Technically she is supervised by the Minato clan head, who she frequently butts heads with for his very traditionalist and outdated views, and how he believes that violence is a necessary tool to stop the bandits, and that killing them is justified. She typically calls him “Gramps”.

The four of them (Kageaki, Hikaru, Kikuchi, and Subaru) lived fairly peaceful and normal lives (though, Kikuchi wasn’t around very much because he had to frequently travel for work), but that all changed when Hikaru once drank water that was poisoned by lead, thus causing her to go into a coma-like state where she’d have seizures and the like.

To get help for Hikaru, Kageaki managed to convince the Patriarch to call for a doctor, but only if Kageaki could drive out the bandits terrorizing the town himself. Kageaki managed to do it with his mothers teachings as he got through to the bandits’ leader Mizuhi. A doctor was able to successfully treat Hikaru, so she seemed to be recovering. Though, Hikaru would then accidentally touch the Ginseigo tsurugi, which seemed to have corrupted her mind (or at least, been the final straw), as from then on Hikaru started acting strange.

While Kageaki got through to Mizuhi, she failed to convince her subordinates to stop raiding the village, so they turned on her and then set their sights on attacking the village. This is when Hikaru activated her tsurugi, after defeating Subaru who tried to stop her.

It seems Hikaru ended up killing all the bandits but one, who made his way to the Minato residence to kill Kageaki and his mother. Kageaki was forced to bind with another tsurugi, Muramasa, and successfully killed this bandit. However, what he didn’t know was that under the law of balance, his tsurugi always required one kill by malice to be balanced by one kill of someone deemed good, so Kageaki was forced to kill Subaru right after. Though, Subaru actually let this kill happen, believing its her price to pay for failing to stop Hikaru.

She had a loving relationship with Hikaru and Kageaki, though out of the two she was probably closer to Kageaki, as it seems Hikaru and Subaru got into conflict sometimes even before Hikaru went crazy. For both of them, she tried to teach them her ideals of not killing anyone.

As for her relationship with her husband Kikuchi, we don’t hear much of it, but what is clear is that they loved each other.

As for Subaru’s actual personality and stuff, she’s a fairly laid-back (at least, she acts that way) woman with a strong will in the warrior’s way. She’s fairly intelligent, laid-back, chill, and somewhat polite (at least if you yourself aren’t a bad person, I assume), is someone who typically tries to shoulder most of the burdens herself (for example, she tried to hide the fact she was losing weight due to stress over Hikaru from Kageaki), and is a master in swordsmanship, specifically the school of Yoshino-Onrryu Kassen Reiho. She’s also likes smoking as well. While she does speak usually in a casual way, it’s not overly so.

While she does appear to have a laid-back personality, her beliefs are anything but. She’s a pretty rigid pacifist, believing that no matter what, you should never kill. This quote just very cleanly explains everything, so I’ll drop it here:

“You mustn’t kill anyone. Not a single person, you hear? Not for any reason. Do you think killing your enemy will end the fight? It won’t. Kill your enemy… and the fight goes on forever. If you get killed out there, I’ll murder every single person who had a hand in your death. I won’t let a single one live. Count on it. So if you kill someone, who’s to say their friends or family won’t make the same promise? If they come for revenge, will you kill them, too? Then their loved ones might be next. So say we engage them as well. We kill and die and kill and die, even if, after all that killing, peace returns, will it truly have been worth it? The sword is a tool that saves lives, not one that ends them. You must extinguish not their lives, but their malice. It’s easy enough to say, sure, but I don’t need you to tell me how hard a path that is to walk. To tame the barbarian king Meng Huo, Kongming defeated him seven times, captured him seven times, and spared him seven times. You will have to do no less. That is the only way to break your enemy’s sword-the sword in his heart, not the sword in his hand. The latter is easy; but that’s just force, not true might. Force just sets the stage for the next battle, and the next. Only the enlightened use of might can bring an end of violence.” But of course, anybody can clearly see the odds of a peaceful resolution without killing are astronomically low. But it’s the only way. The only way to end the conflict. Once the killing begins, it’s an endless spiral. The dead never stop crying for blood. If one doesn’t want to go down that road, then no matter how hard it may be, one can’t kill anyone.

Basically, she believes killing is wrong as it will always just lead to more bloodshed, and instead you must always strive to slay not your enemy’s bodies, but rather their desire to fight, even if it means sparing them countless times.

While it isn’t stated explicitly, its implied that another reason she believes in never killing anyone is because you can’t simply judge someone to be good or evil. Because, as she mentions, even the evil people have loved ones. To them, the person you killed was good. Even if you viewed them as wholly evil, there existed some people who viewed them as good, and thus they cannot be wholly evil. And so, by killing, you “become” someone else’s evil, as they will curse your name. And then, the bloodshed will continue, with them believing they’ve righteously avenging someone by killing you. Thus, when you kill someone, you kill both good and evil; not just avenging whatever evil deeds they’ve done, but also invalidating any good they’ve done. Thus, there’s no way to kill evil without also killing good. So if you want to avoid this, you must never kill. This part I’m honestly not too sure if Subaru supports this idea as does Kageaki, but with how Kageaki comes to this realization through remembering Subaru’s teachings at the end of the Hero Route, I feel like it makes a lot of sense for her to also hold this view.

She also believes that the purpose of might, power, and violence should not be to kill your enemy, but to protect and save lives instead. Weapons are not (or rather, should not) be a symbol of bloodshed, but of preventing it through presenting your will in a way to reach a common understanding with your enemy. This will later contrast with Hikaru, who believes that the sword is simply a tool to end lives, and that might makes right.

Finally, she sometimes has a gag where she acts like a petulant womanchild, or rather she acts like she’s the child of her children rather than the other way around. Or she’ll say something outrageous, like after punching Kageaki for not believing in himself, after she gives her speech, when he collapses from a concussion, she says something like “Huh……Huh? Why is blood pouring from your head? And how’d your neck get that funny bend in it? You look like you were attacked by a gorilla or something……………….GAHHHH! Gods have mercy! Wake up, boy! I’M TOO PRETTY TO GO TO JAIL!!!” Again though, such things only happen in comedic moments.

Oh right, here’s a physical description of her:

Hair: Long, dark blue (or black with a bluish tint) hair tied into a high ponytail with a large white ribbon. Some strands of hair frame her face, and the hair looks shiny and smooth.

Eyes: Bright, striking blue eyes with a reflective, expressive quality typical of anime-style art.

Skin tone: Fair complexion with soft shading.

Outfit: She wears a traditional white garment, likely a kimono or martial arts uniform, with a red collar visible near the neck.