Inspired by posselovebot’s analysis (<- spoilers for the TDD and BB & MTC manga involved). Note for this post the baseline knowledge I am expecting for this post is you’ve watched Rhyme Anima episode 2, but I am also including some factoids from other parts of the franchise, so in that sense it’s a middle ground between this post and this one. (No big spoilers in this post, though.)

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I’m not the hugest fan of the Buster Bros and I admit normally I would send this stuff to Tumblr, rather than WordPress, due to its more speculative nature. However, since I did offhandedly mention I am a 2nd child in the Kimetsu no Yaiba collab I did a while back and that experience is critical to the way I approached this post, I figured it’s more appropriate for here instead (and probably more timely too, since now even free members of certain streaming services have had a chance to watch episode 2). Note that my position as a Jakurai fan means while I do have some insight into the brothers, it’s going to inevitably end up different to someone who is a fan of BB.

First siblings tend to be the responsible, I-must-get-everything-right-for-the-sake-of-my-siblings types, even if people who aren’t related to the family don’t see the first sibling in that way. Older siblings tend to get responsibility heaped on to them whether they like it or not, hence this, but this can also cause them to gain resentment from their younger siblings. In this sense, I can kind of understand Ichiro…but also not.

Middle siblings have elements of both older and younger siblings – they can seem spoilt like only siblings, but they do care about their younger siblings. They just…don’t have the best way of expressing it until push comes to shove. Or maybe they just don’t show it at all and end up all tsundere-like. This last part is how I read Jiro and Saburo’s interactions when they butt heads over Ichiro. I’m pretty hands-off with my own family because that’s the way I’d like to be treated, but then that makes them think I’m just lazy and dodging responsibilities…

Generally, the younger the child in the generation, the less responsibility is expected of them and so the less they have to mature. Saburo can come off as a bit spoilt because of this, but it can also be attributed to his intelligence, relative to other kids his age. Also, youngest children get hand-me-downs in the worst state if said hand-me-downs stay relevant over time – Saburo’s red cord comes from Ichiro’s time in TDD and Ichiro probably thought nothing of it when he gave it to Saburo, but the fact Saburo has a hand-me-down while Jiro doesn’t seem to have any is probably what gives him an edge in the fight to prove themselves a “worthy brother to Ichiro”.

Notably, Ichiro, Jiro and Saburo’s names are the easiest to memorise since their names are so common in Japanese (compare this against, say, Ramuda, whose name is an unconventional reading of the characters for “random number” that does not exist as a name in real life). However, they’re one of the hardest divisions to differentiate between because you can’t figure out who’s who from hair colour – you might be able to memorise which of the Buster Bros has which eye colour (their non-green ones, obviously), but that’s about as far as you can get. It took me a bit to realise Jiro was the jock and Saburo was the smart one when I was getting started in the HypMic fandom…which is probably why I don’t like them as much as Jakurai…(Maybe this warrants an entire post on why I like Jakurai…? I did almost get away with making an entire PowerPoint/video in Japanese on why I like the guy, after all…)

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You have to remember this, though: siblings are not each other. They are each their own people, with their own preferences and interests, and Hypnosis Mic does a good job of differentiating the brothers based on these factors. (Considering BB is the face of the series, more so than the other divisions…they kinda had to. I’ll admit that.)

To be honest with you guys, I was planning on finishing the Appare-Ranman post I’ve been working on for a while. However, I find it’s much easier to work on a post about something I’m currently watching and I only have time for my spring/summer seasonals in the middle of the week, which is also when these posts are meant to come out…so I had to fill the gap with something else instead and I just happened to want to write this post.

Random sidebar: Also, this is a bit of an odd post for me, not just because it really belongs on Tumblr…Normally I would be inspired by the anime itself or social media interactions with my fellow bloggers. posselovebot isn’t a blogger, but rather a random person I met on a HypMic Discord (under their alias of “Ramuda’s left nut”) who leaves some…pretty wild wiki messages…

So, who’s your favourite division?