Existential Deconstruction of Sovereign Character Identity in Koyoharu Gotouge’s Visual Narrative: From the Heterotopia of Yoshiwara to the Manifesto of the Shiraume

Abstract

The subject of this research is a comprehensive existential-semiotic deconstruction of the sovereign identity and ontological being of the popular character Ume in Koyoharu Gotouge's Japanese graphic novel "Demon Slayer". The author thoroughly examines such critical aspects as the specific century-long existence of the literary heroine within the specialized space of high sociocultural density and her subsequent attainment of absolute sovereign autonomy contrary to the explicit pragmatic intent of the work's author. Special attention is paid to the systematic analysis of the fictional character's unique existential experience, the process of forming her free choice within the metaphysical space of Limbo, and her functioning as an emancipated conceptual subject of contemporary mass culture. The methodological framework of the study relies on an operational synergy of Jacques Lacan’s structural psychoanalysis and John Austin’s speech act theory. This analytical instrumentation is integrated into the context of Umberto Eco’s semiotics, G.W.F. Hegel’s dialectics, Gilles Deleuze’s conceptual character philosophy, and Nikolai Berdyaev’s metaphysics of freedom. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the excessive historical context of Yoshiwara during the Kasei, Meiji, and Taisho eras is conceptualized for the first time as a hyper-dense substrate determining the structural autonomy of a character. The original theoretical construct of the "Century-Old Observer" is proposed here. The main conclusions reveal a profound metatextual error of the work's demiurge through the prism of Hegel's "cunning of reason" and prove the heroine's transformation into a metaphysical being — Shiraume. This phenomenon turns Ume into the epicenter of an existential catastrophe, initiating text destruction within Eco's semiotic paradigm.