so my friends and i have been going through the visual novels for like, over a year now. it's kind of baffling that there isn't more akasaka hate in this fandom. he's like, the biggest blemish on the entire story and nobody talks about it or how horribly obnoxious it is.

he's so cool and doesn't afraid of everything, oh akasaka!!!! he went from rookie cop to undercover counter terrorist operative who can solo a room full of people with his onepunch man skills.

i didn't really have that much of a problem with him when i watched the anime the first time or even when we were going through himatsubushi since before matsuribayashi he served a purpose despite being a nothing character, but like. i think beyond being a supercool mega cop, it's specifically infuriating the way episode 8 is set up as the chapter where

everyone comes together to fight against takano's conviction, and that by being an active participant, hanyuu doesn't have to resign herself to being a helpless spectator desperately clinging onto this brief respite from eternal loneliness. but instead of hanyuu being the ace in the hole akasaka shows up and decides to be useful after failing rika at every

opportunity even after she asked him for help god knows how many times. she acknowledged that he failed her in minagoroshi (after promising to be there and taking a spa trip while the entire plot was happening) but then she forgets it completely so she's back to seeing akasaka as a superhero (for some reason).

and to make it worse like!! shion was also present at the end of minagoroshi fighting alongside everyone (she was there the whole time actually) but in matsuribayashi SHE ONLY SHOWS UP IN THE LAST CHAPTER (which is like, the last quarter bc it's so huge, but still it pisses me off how they brushed her aside so hard!!!)

the best part of gousotsu was when satoko brutally murdered this man

to be fair, akasaka showing up to save her is entirely dependant on whether or not his wife and daughter are alive: if its a fragment where he failed to take rika's warning seriously, they die, and he spirals into depression for the rest of time

if he did, then being able to prevent his wife's death is what motivates him to train his ass off so that he can be in a position to actually help rika on the year she fortold her own death

hes not a perfect guy but to someone like rika, his appearance is considered a "miracle" because its a 1/10 chance of occurring in a given fragment so she can't help but gravitate her hopes toward him

and she can't hate him in fragments where he didn't take her warning seriously because like... if some random child in a town you're visiting for work suddenly started telling you spooky shit, what the fuck even is the right way to handle that, so while she can be disappointed she isn't mad when he chooses to disregard it

up until minagoroshi/matsuribayashi, she has never really been able to trust any adults, so seeing akasaka, an adult who actually took her warning seriously come back and thank her and promise to protect her? yeah, of course shes going to latch hard onto him rather than any other adult in the series

its why its so heart breaking and traumatic for her in meguri that the one adult she has always regarded as the most trustworthy by this point had ended up becoming just another threat to her life

Honestly I understand why it would make the characters happy to get support but Oishi, Irie, and Akasaka all suddenly being helpful did really leave a bad taste in my mouth. I am a bad fan but I honestly feel like Tsumihoroboshi was basically a fine ending that focused on what I actually cared about

Akasaka the least of those three adults since at least he wasn't actively being sketchy

in irie's defense... takano keeps murdering him before he can be useful in most arcs lmao. oishi however has no excuse and exists to show that acab for the most part which is why even in gousotsumeguri rika doesn't really consider the idea of relying on him too much

yeah with Irie it is more like His General Grossness but like. in theory in terms of preventing the murders, Irie's intentions were good

I think aka/iri/oishi's involvement is more about advancing Rika's development and rewarding her for her belief over anything else so I'm fine with it in that regard

matsuribayashi & to an extent minagoroshi are about rika working towards dismantling her own witchhood via recognising everyone else's humanity in a way she hasn't allowed herself to do in decades, because they have been just pieces on a gameboard from her pov for so long

and that means her having to recognise that the thoughts, feelings, opinions and strengths of people who might not be fully reliable or who even might be reprehensible in certain scenarios have weight and merit and she can't just dismiss them because of her learned arrogance as a witch

that's the read that resonates most with me anyway

she does mention in her internal monologue that she hates irie, ooishi, takano (prior to matsuribayashi), and the sonozakis because of all the many ways they've failed her and the many things they've done in pursuit of their own goals at the expense of her and her friends. she's pretty dismissive of tomitake. the only adult she puts her trust in is akasaka

because she has a crush on him that literally everyone comments on and goes haha can't believe akasaka has another wife in hinamizawa, or has all the games club members talk about how jealous they are that she has akasaka all to herself. her having a crush is fine, it's very insufferable how it's treated.

i prefer irie and ooishi because despite being generally bad people, their intentions are always consistent with a desire to do something. in minagoroshi, ooishi and kumagai both tried to help rika before being killed, and irie did his best to help satoko. like putting aside the Bit, which gets emphasized even more in the anime and manga, irie is important

to the overall story and themes in a lot of ways that akasaka just isn't.

i also think that rika should really hold it against him because he FORGOT that she told him that she would die in four years, even after warning him of his wife dying and that prediction coming true, he goes and becomes the punisher and then does absolutely nothing about it.

i would be honestly completely fine with akasaka being present in the final chapter if he was ever treated like what he is (another adult who has absolutely failed rika at every opportunity, a cop who is well meaning but also a cop, a guy) over what he's treated as (the punisher, super cool super sexy james bond man, the only one worthy of trust)

phainein: i do absolutely agree about rika's witch persona being a roadblock that she needs to disentangle in mina and matsu. that's one of the beats that's really really good. like... there's a specific interaction with hanyuu where hanyuu absolutely reads her for filth about how she treats satoko

hanyuu says "man, poor satoko. she sees you as a friend but i guess you just see her as a pet to have fun with, so perpetually below you and unworthy of trust. that's fine, we don't have to include her, we'll keep it to your friends only."

which. yeah. is a consistent aspect of their relationship that rika absolutely needed to be called out on

wailords: i agree with this and understand this, but with one caveat. he promised to protect her in minagoroshi and then proceeded to not.

rika can't hold it too much against him but she's also mad and disappointed and disillusioned with this guy she hasn't seen for decades who she'd hoped could help her but turned out just as useless as everyone else, but she tries to be understanding anyway.

if i remember correctly tho, rika told him she was going to die on watanagashi/after it, and akasaka was supposed to be back on the day of watanagashi after his trip with his wife... but then the situation with satoko's uncle happens two weeks before the festival

that's true, but akasaka does return on the day of watanagashi and then immediately leaves right after

truly the epitome of

youre right i just checked the manga, tho lmao

she does tell him hes useless, but as well as the acknowledgement again that a miracle cant be achieved just with one person, she needs everyone, and putting all of her hopes on just akasaka had been the wrong idea

hes a human person with flaws and frankly, him having fucked up in minagoroshi here because he was spending some vacation time with his wife instead of guarding Rika 24/7 is like the least sinful flaw in comparison to Irie's weird comments about Satoko or Ooishi's paranoia inducing aggressiveness

yeah exactly, which is why matsu is kind of a letdown because even beyond everyone working together there's an emphasis on akasaka being Extra Cool and competent, rather than an equally useless adult to the rest of them trying his best this time

yeah matsuribayashi is definitely sort of a mixed feelings bag, its why theres another arc that is essentially a retelling of matsuri, an arc whose name escapes me atm, is often the one most people consider to be more canon because its not a perfect happy ending

the weird satoko maid dress jokes are one thing, they're not at all relevant to the story so i'm fine with ignoring those. irie's biggest problem is that he and takano aren't actually that similar. irie vivisected the culprit for the first murder and was going to do it to satoko too, and he allowed tokyo to run rampant in his clinic behind his back

different* not similar.

ooishi is just straight up a bad cop who uses kids as bait, and rena calls him out on this.

hanyuu does in fact disappear in the confrontation with takano, among other things that are rearranged in that particular arc

my problem with akasaka is less "he's a bad person" because i don't really give a shit about that and he's ultimately fairly well meaning. it's just the way the story treats him. in the visual novels, i haven

haven't read the manga version of that arcs.

i'll have to look that up wailords:

also about irie: it was takano's idea to dissect the culprit of the first murder, he said no, she proceeds to blackmail him

its also her idea to suggest doing the same to satoko, but he quickly shoots that down too and does everything he can to find an alternative path because at this point he knows she might try to do it herself

(which, she does, to rika's own mother later on behind irie's back)

in the visual novel she talks about his history with lobotomies to sort of goad him into it but he admits later that as soon as the culprit was on the operating table, his hesitance gave way to excitement

and that, like takano said, he enjoyed vivisecting him

he just felt bad about it before and after, and he's not sure that makes him better or worse.

takano is the worst person to believe on that tho lmao given that shes the villain

i mean

we know about the lobotomies and the rest is all irie's internal monologue

rika has to talk him out of vivisecting satoko with the underlying implication that he has done it before in other loops and that's part of why she hates him

huh interesting

that's not in the visual novel

theres also this bit where he actually considered fleeing with satoko but knew full well that theyd probably kill him if he did that, and rika stating why she trusts irie

.........................wild

granted its been fucking forever since i last played matsuribayashi's vn so i cant remember off hand how of whats in the manga is also there or was changed for the manga release

it seems the manga made irie a generally less morally dubious person, whereas in the visual novel it's a deliberate balance between at heart him being a person who wants to help people and wants to do good and yet he lobotomized countless people and can't bring himself to admit he was wrong for it

and rika's plea is similar because she understands that he wants to be a good person and says that she trusts him to make the right decision (manipulative), but he laments in his own head that they were already planning to go through with it.

no consideration of running away with her at all.

yeah he does consider the thought that the operation is gonna happen anyway, its just a matter of if its gonna be him, the person who has the least likely chance of killing satoko in the process

or if its gonna be takano who will attempt it herself if irie refuses and he gets disposed of for doing so

i don't think you can vivisect someone's brain for research and keep them alive in the process

we do see what happened to the man who got vivisected in the manga, apparently he lived for at least a few weeks

wild

but obviously it wasnt a good quality of living, as irie notes that even if satoko survives she is probably going to be confined to abhospital bed the rest of her life after

yeah i've been reading through matsuribayashi's vn with my friends over the last couple weeks so it's very fresh in my mind

*a hospital

the manga ends up making irie more sympathetic regardless, essentially drawing a line that even though in hindsight, his and takano's motivations are actually pretty similar, he still gives a shit about people other than his parents

which is true of the vn too but it

takano is willing to kill people with little guilt to prove her adopted father's research, irie is not able to do such a thing without feeling guilt even if his research could be used to prove that his own father was a good man who was simply mentally ill

it's less of a hard line and he's not really willing to accept that that makes him a better person

part of what makes him able to accept takano's guilt in matsu is that he starts thinking about what she's going through and what she would do as a result, and he empathizes with her

i will say that it does point out in the manga that yeah, he used to perform lobotomies relatively guilt free when it was still considered legal, then his particular brand of doctoring became illegal after the ethics of it became questionable and thus he stopped doing it, and takano does use that as part of her blackmailing

thats also in the vn but takano doesn't actively blackmail him about it

emotionally? yes absolutely.

claiming hes just saying no because of it being against the law where as if it was still legal he would have probably not hesitated

yeah i should clarify that it is emotional blackmail mostly, but hes also not stupid, he knows walking out that door still kills this man and potentially puts a bullet in him too because of her mountain dogs

ah yeah, there's no consideration of the physical threat in the vn

like he doesn't consider the idea that if he said no it would happen anyway

and after this he has to be very careful because he cant just, you know, call the police or tell the government because all the funding for his clinic goes away without takano, and then there will be no one treating people like satoko in that village

yeah in the vn treating people is something he likes to do but his priority is definitely his research, in the hopes of curing hinamizawa syndrome and that being worth whatever means he has to use to get it.

yeah. he cares about satoko and everyone but he also really needs takano's influence to be able to have any foothold in researching the cure for hinamizawa syndrome

but lmao he ends up getting murdered in nearly all fragments anyway because hes the first person who would realize quickest that tomitake had been murdered with an injection so he was going to be screwed by takano's actions either way until matsuri