The reason Hatori turns into a seahorse instead of a dragon is explained in the manga by a conversion between him & Shigure when he questions how why the other is so sure the curse is close to breaking & Shigure responds with the time factor (the curse is apoximetly hundreds of years old at this point so it makes sense that it be getting weaker over time) & the fact that some of the current animal forms are rather wasted down versions of the original animals (ie. Ox to cow, ram to lamb & rooster to sparrow). The reason the watered down version of the dragon was a seahorse is because in Japanese mythology Dragons aren’t connected to fire (like in the west) but are actually connected to water (think Haku from Spirited away) to the point that there’s a myth about seahorses actually being baby dragons. Some fans have even pointed out that there’s a part of the brain called the hippocampus which is responsible for converting everyday stimuli (AKA short term memory) into long term memories & hippocampus is also the name of genus given to seahorses. The small curved shape of the hippocampus in a human’s brain even resembles the small curved tail of a seahorse.
I want to watch this as soon as it opens to my patreon tier but I know it will leave me an emotional wreck so I will wait till after work to watch the reaction
The reason Hatori turns into a seahorse instead of a dragon is explained in the manga by a conversion between him & Shigure when he questions how why the other is so sure the curse is close to breaking & Shigure responds with the time factor (the curse is apoximetly hundreds of years old at this point so it makes sense that it be getting weaker over time) & the fact that some of the current animal forms are rather wasted down versions of the original animals (ie. Ox to cow, ram to lamb & rooster to sparrow). The reason the watered down version of the dragon was a seahorse is because in Japanese mythology Dragons aren’t connected to fire (like in the west) but are actually connected to water (think Haku from Spirited away) to the point that there’s a myth about seahorses actually being baby dragons. Some fans have even pointed out that there’s a part of the brain called the hippocampus which is responsible for converting everyday stimuli (AKA short term memory) into long term memories & hippocampus is also the name of genus given to seahorses. The small curved shape of the hippocampus in a human’s brain even resembles the small curved tail of a seahorse.
This episode right here was peak writing for me
I want to watch this as soon as it opens to my patreon tier but I know it will leave me an emotional wreck so I will wait till after work to watch the reaction