Rie Kirigaya in the manga
Rie Kirigaya is Jubei’s wife, Miwako’s mother and Satoko’s stepmother. She resents the attention Satoko receives and sees her as an obstacle to her own daughter’s marriage prospects.
She commissions Satoko’s abduction through Mitsueda. Her hostility helps set the story in motion, but Jubei turns her scheme toward his own marriage plans. Her relationship with Satoko is shaped by resentment and exclusion; her ambitions for Miwako also keep the sisters in competition.
She tries to advance one daughter through the destruction of another.
Rie treats the daughters’ prospects as a competition for attention, marriage and rank. Her action shows how a family’s marriage logic can turn women against one another.
Chapter references identify the scenes behind each argument. “Our reading” is an interpretation, rather than a statement of the author’s confirmed intent.
Status turns cruelty into a strategy
Chapters 1–4 & 47–48
Rie commissions Satoko’s abduction with the aim of ruining her marriage prospects and improving Miwako’s. The later explanation reveals Jubei’s separate use of the situation for his own marriage scheme.
Her plan depends on the expectation that violence against a young woman can reduce that woman’s social value. The cruelty belongs to Rie; the assumptions that make it a plausible strategy extend beyond her.
She therefore participates in the same competitive structure that constrains the daughters. It is possible to see that structure clearly while holding her responsible for deciding to harm Satoko. Her maternal preference does not soften the means she chooses.
