体 as a pejorative for “person”


In a comic book I am reading, Inuyasha – 1st book – I found this sentence:

> 面倒だ、この体。 […]玉ごとを食ろうてやる。

The monster saying this is about to attack two other people that are in
possession of the bead. One of them is a lively normal human, the second one
has been dormant and considered virtually dead for a long time.

As I understand it, the monster wants to devour the two along with the bead,
that will give it some power. What is puzzling me is the use of 体. Even though
technically speaking every person has a body, I am not sure that I can use it
this way to refer to a living person.

My guesses are:

  * The monster considered the people unworthy of being referred to as living beings. In its eyes they are merely containers for the jewel.
  * The word 体 can be in some cases used for a living being and not only for corpses.
  * The monster is referring to the person that was almost dead for a long time. This seems unprobable to me, as the one holding the bead is the other person and the monster knows it.

And of course I may be completely wrong with all of these. This I’d like to
ask, what can the 体 actually mean here?

**Update:**

The power of the aforementioned jewel will help the monster throw away its
partially human body, effectively replacing it with a completely monster-like
one. In the panel, where it says the provided sentence, its face starts to
slightly shift to the non-human form already. This might hint that この体 refers
to the body of the monster itself, being a nuisance since it’s less powerful
without the bead.

What is still puzzling me though is the usage of 〜ごと. As I understand it, this
suffix makes the jewel only a part of some bigger lump of things to be
devoured. Maybe the monster is referring to the humans: “I’ll eat them along
with the jewel.”, but it’s not stated explicitly and this information is
conveyed by the 〜ごと itself?

**Another update:**

Uploading the panel with the described scene and sentence and some more panels
for the context. I skipped the unrelated panels and panels with other scenes,
since the situation is scattered through a few pages.

[![First
Page](https://i.stack.imgur.com/L4zWj.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/L4zWj.jpg)
[![Second
Page](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t9f4z.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t9f4z.jpg)
[![Third
Page](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7FZVa.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7FZVa.jpg)




体【からだ】 ("body") can refer to the body of a person/animal regardless of whether
it's alive or dead. It's not derogatory at all, and you can safely say 風呂で体を洗え
("Wash your body in the bathroom"), 体を鍛える ("to exercise one's body"), 体を大事にしてね
("Take care of yourself") and so on. The body of a dead person (corpse) is
often specifically called 死体.

Anyway, I feel the situation is close to your first bullet. The monster is
only interested in the jewel and the "annoying coating" that covers it.
Whether the person is alive or not is probably not very important to the
monster.

In real life, of course 面倒な人 ("troublesome/bothersome person") is used more
often. In this context, however, what is bothersome to the monster is the body
(skin, bone, muscle, etc) itself, not their personality.




体【からだ】 ("body") can refer to the body of a person/animal regardless of whether
it's alive or dead. It's not derogatory at all, and you can safely say 風呂で体を洗え
("Wash your body in the bathroom"), 体を鍛える ("to exercise one's body"), 体を大事にしてね
("Take care of yourself") and so on. The body of a dead person (corpse) is
often specifically called 死体.

Anyway, I feel the situation is close to your first bullet. The monster is
only interested in the jewel and the "annoying coating" that covers it.
Whether the person is alive or not is probably not very important to the
monster.

In real life, of course 面倒な人 ("troublesome/bothersome person") is used more
often. In this context, however, what is bothersome to the monster is the body
(skin, bone, muscle, etc) itself, not their personality.

