Talk:Izumi Akazawa/@comment-39.42.71.48-20140706212805/@comment-397235-20140708013257

Uh, see, my two least favorite writers of all time (okay, well, I think Max Brooks is worse than both of them, but hey), rear their ugly heads again...:)

I dunno. This is why I've always favored the late, great Robert Jordan's approach to writing: use as many PoVs as possible so you can understand why everyone is doing everything. That's why very, very few of his characters are completely unlikeable. The same holds true for his friend George RR Martin. Even characters you're conditioned to hate (such as Jaime Lannister, for instance) take on a completely new spin once the story starts being told from their perspective. I don't think anyone is knowingly evil. People do bad things, but as we all know, that well known road is paved with good intentions.

I think I'll accentuate the generational gap I assume we have here with a Walking Dead reference (the game, not that awful TV show everyone seems to love). The player character is being taken to jail by a somewhat talkative police officer who, after telling a story about another convicted murdered he'd taken to his new home, drops us off with this little nugget:

"People will often go mad when they believe their life is over."

The main difference between myself and people like Romero is I don't believe deep down everyone is ugly and selfish (well, that, and I'm not convinced Communism is the wave of the future, but let's not confuse the issue). People become what they are based on their circumstances.

Mei becomes shy and introverted because the one person in life she cared about more than anything else in the world is dead, and she knows on some level it's her fault.

Kouichi is feircely protective of her because he sees, in ways his classmates never have, what her life is really like, and can sympathize.

Naoya jokes and acts like an idiot because that's the only thing keeping him and his friends sane.

Izumi becomes increasingly angry and vindictive as her classmates die; she blames herself for failing each and every single time someone she knows is killed. All that's crushing down on her already, and then her best friend goes nuts, and before she can do anything to help her, apparently gets killed by the girl she already loathes, with the possible aid of the guy she has a crush on, which only serves to make her angrier.

Yumi loses her best friend and older brother on the same day, and no one seems to pay much attention to her after that; she's left alone to mull things over in her head, and her thoughts take her to a very dark place.

Takako's in much the same situation, coupled apparently with trying very, very hard to be strong for her friends, until one of them dies trying to do something for her, and she snaps; on top of that, she seems to have Izumi's same sense of duty about the whole thing, and Yuuya gives her an outlet to finally stop reacting to the curse and do something about it.

Tomohiko is an analytical person, and doesn't seem especially good at making friends (the only person he really associates with is Naoya, who he's known his entire life). He can't even tell the girl he works with very closely he has a crush on her, and then she dies, and he never lets on how he felt, and never lets it show how devastated he must've been. Then his only real friend in the world accuses all their shared memories of being a lie, then pushes him out a window. Tomohiko manages to put two and two together...then decides to start killing his classmates to fix it. He, to his credit, doesn't seem to enjoy it...right up until he runs into Kouichi, who he already blames for Yukari's death and is probably more than a little jealous of (Yukari liked to hit on him).

With all that in mind, I'd have a hard time saying any of them are especially bad people; they are what their circumstances have made them. Had things gone differently...

Also, Izumi didn't pick Mei to be the "one who does not exist." This is done by lot, apparently. Mei even mentions it could've just as easily been someone else being ignored, and she'd have gone along. Izumi's no more a monster than Mei's a saint; it's just the roles life has given them.

By the way, I love that we've had these long, deep literary discussions of a foreign TV show from two years ago for the past few days. And people look down on anime.

Scoffs.