The Twintailed Sword Master: Analysis of Inaba Tsukuyo from Armed Girls’ Machiavellianism

Inaba Tsukuyo is a prodigiously cool character that is also a blind swordsperson in Silver Link’s Armed Girls’ Machiavellianism – throughout the series, we see occasional shots of her cleaning chalkboard erasers, carving a wooden bunny, and sauntering through the school. Fascinatingly, this series portrays Inaba as a fascinatingly complex character, defined as much by her blindness as by her twintails.

Face obscured from vision, emphasis drawn by blurring towards her hand, she tightly clasps the handle, looking away from the frame (above). Surely, Inaba is a professional sword user! In this academy, she is a member of the Five Swords, who guide academic discipline. To such an esteemed group, a troublemaking student entering the school, one named Nomura Fudou in fact, is indeed rather disappointing (side). As a wise and fierce warrior, she makes snarky comments, eyes shut. Sometimes Inaba opens her eyes, but never in an “appropriate” manner. Her behavior is admittedly rather “peculiar.”

Given that visual cues are heavily used in “normal” human communication, this behavior is improper – from a clinical perspective, one would assume that it arises from an inability to perceive such cues. Blindness, in other words. However, such an assumption binds her to that blindness, rather than recognizing it as part of her identity. It is based on medical conditions being intrinsic to the individual. If you have not learned anything from me, know that disability is at least in part a social phenomenon created by a society’s institutional barriers. “Normal” and “appropriate” are socially constructed terms, hence the quotation marks.

Then how does one know that she is blind? Not through being explicitly outed, which matters in context of the above paragraph. During a monologue, Inaba reveals that she cannot differentiate moths from butterflies because their flapping sounds the same. This leads to Nomura’s curiosity. “Wait, are you…” Nomura asks/“Blind, what of it” Inaba interrupts. Through this act, Machiavellianism provides Inaba the agency to describe her condition to Nomura without systemic coercion, allowing the blindness to be her own as indicated by her question “what of it” – this allows for the condition to be part of her identity, without swallowing the other components whole. Being “blind”, when foisted upon someone, subverts perception of their humanity.

So, blind people are people too. Blog post is likely done at this point, right?

But there are institutional barriers that stand in the way of blind people; such barriers encourage altered behavior for exploration of one’s environment, which is essential for anyone but especially a master sword wielder. The rest of this post will tackle how Inaba’s response to the barriers in her way confers special advantages without denigrating discrimination against persons with disabilities. The basic strategy employed is the integration of all sensory input except for visual cues; her system relies much more heavily on auditory inputs than for the “normal” person.

Throughout much of Machiavellianism, Inaba serves as the narrator of many duels, given her extensive knowledge of blades, all while making her way through the academy. Her impressive hearing helps in both regards, likely aided by the use of bells on her head, which provide a center point for all sounds to be observed. Without the visual cues, she is still able to respond to her environment and make her way through. However, this likely has to do with the static nature of the academy – outside of classroom hours, there would not be much of a need to respond to the environment given that it does not change. That is why her lack of vision may not provide as much of a barrier to traveling. 

On the other hand, during battle, Inaba could stay rooted in one place and move only slightly to fight her opponents (above) – this fits with her particular sword style based on diagonal slashes.  Indeed, throughout the fights in which Inaba partakes, most are fought on well-defined and familiar terrain, with the combatants focused on parrying blows. In this regard, the “blind” swordsman trope may make sense, as one makes use of hearing to keep ahead of one’s foe.

Even with her refined hearing, she still stumbles due to her blindness. When Nomura encounters Inaba by the fountain, he learns that he is guilty of three transgressions (left). The most insidious transgression was of course not meeting Inaba the night before (“the summons”), leading to her getting a cold. Lacking vision made it difficult to ascertain Nomura’s presence, even with her impeccable hearing.

At the same time, the ability to traverse a familiar environment is not necessarily a social skill. Often, facial expressions, gestures, and body language – which even Inaba appears to make use of – are predicated on a visual cue, and cannot be fully ascertained from tone. Given the average person’s tendency to monotone speaking (myself included), it may be difficult to fully understand social interaction without vision. Not being a blind person, these are but conjectures. But Inaba is scarcely shown in a social situation throughout the show, instead acting as a narrator.

Somewhere in Episode 10, Inaba asks Nono (pink-hair, below) if they are friends as they are faced by a tremendous foe; a few seconds later, after some unease, Nono insists that they are friends. Inaba haughtily wears this statement like a kimono in the defense of her friend, despite the awkwardness of the situation. This behavior suggests that Inaba is uneasy with the process of making friendships. After Nomura tells her that friendship naturally happens rather than being desired explicitly, she appears shocked. Though being blind, intuitively speaking, should not get in the way of friendship, it does appear to present unique challenges for social situations.

But this is a happy tale, one where everyone realizes their value to each other. Despite all these challenges, Inaba is both an imperfect human being and a great character. In support of these four attributes, she agrees to become Nomura’s sword sensei to correct his apparently sloppy style (below). Inaba Tsukuyo is truly a master sword wielder, worth of all our of respect.