Talk:Izumi Akazawa/@comment-94.191.188.126-20140801204850/@comment-397235-20140802054042

By the end of the anime she very badly wants to hurt Mei, but I think it has less to do with Izumi thinking she's the extra and more to do with her thinking Mei killed her best friend, which is arguably a justifiable reason to be murderously angry.

There's a lot of stress to her job, but part of that's also self-inflicted because Izumi's not willing to delegate any of her responsibility. She could've left Takako or Tomohiko in charge of things while she was sick and they could've explained things to Kouichi, but because Izumi tried to do it all herself things snowball and she just never manages to get ahead of things.

She does reach out to Kouichi a few times over the course of the series, and judging by how many friends she has (and how many people keep insisting she's actually not a bad person) I'm inclined to believe her behavior in 98 isn't like her at all. She's a genuinely compassionate person and this manifests itself from time to time: she comforts Aya after Kubodera killed himself, and she's the only person who tried to help Takako when she broke down.

On the other hand, she couldn't quite accept the consequences of her failures, which is what first led her making Kouichi nonexistent, since that was easier than admitting the Countermeasures had failed, and she was very willing to blame Mei for everything that had happened (even though, if anything, it's Kouichi's fault for not listening to all the people, including Mei, who told him to leave her alone). That alone makes her less than likeable, though I think a part of that is stress, and taking responsibility for mistakes that have killed a lot of your classmates and several of your friends is very difficult to do.

On the other other hand, the manga Izumi is far darker and less sympathetic, since she's paranoid and isolated, but never makes an effort to get help from her class after Yukari's death. I have no idea how she decided Mei was the extra, either. Oddly, she survives, which irritates me because I honestly don't think she deserved to.

Then there's the film Izumi, who is sadistic and abusive toward everyone else (she stabs Takako in the throat when Takako stands up to her and says she won't help her kill anyone, for example), then attacks Mei for no apparent reason. At least she died here. I think she had it coming this time.