Maou meta

[ciircee]

Let it be known that I am not on par with Becky when it comes to recapping what I've watched. If you want actual good recaps you'll want to go to beckerbell or blood_opal or aatash. What follows is really just what I've been thinking about Maou.

Which means there are spoilers for the whole smash (thus far) under the cut.

First off: Are we meant to feel more strongly for Naruse than we do Naoto? Because my impression, so far, is that most of us are rooting for Naruse to get a happy ending. I think part of this is driven by the fact that we see 'softer' emotions from Naruse than we do Naoto. Let me explain: When Naoto is upset he runs and yells. When Naruse is upset he cries and/or hugs Shiori. (Okay, okay, so he only hugged her one time…big deal.) My point being that Naruse—despite the manipulations he's pulling off—comes across as more vulnerable than Naoto does. He just seems so much sadder. It doesn't help that Ohno twigs the mommy instincts anyhow, show.

Which reminds me—Naruse's losses are shown as just that: people he's lost, the life he lost. Naoto's losses are tied up with solving the mystery and exploring Naoto's feelings of guilt. So even though I feel for Naoto…yeah, I still want Naruse to have a happy ending with him and Shiori being the tiniest, cutest, most rain-soaked/umbrella sharing OTP ever.

But with only two or three more episodes left I don't know how they could pull that off. Now, technically, Naruse hasn't killed anybody. He hasn't even really incited anybody to murder, either, so you can't get him on conspiracy OR on proxy. You could argue that his packages are inductive…except each package has to be taken as a set and, again, each individual is responsible for their own actions. If either party had made a different choice....and that's the sticking point. Each person had a clear choice and nobody was TOLD to kill anybody. Legally, Naruse could get off or get a really light sentence. Which I imagine was a part of his plan, actually; another 'see how YOU like it' moment set up just in case he got caught. (When I grow up and get revenge on people, I want to be just like Naruse. *__*)

So, YES, Naruse could possibly be legally in the clear. The problem is all emotional. How does he live with himself for what he's done? How do the others live with him? Emotionally he's standing to lose everything he's got and didn't realize he had. And could he lie about being Maou?

Because there IS possibly the option to let Yamano take the blame. Yamano IS to blame for the last set of cards, if Souda (who has cute hair) and Kasai take each other out (and it LOOKS like Souda's picture is crossed out in the preview for 9) it would be more because of Yamano than Naruse. If they catch Yamano with the cards and he somehow dies before the cops can get him to say it was all Naruse, Naruse could be home free. He could say he dumped Tomoo to become Ryou because Ryou still had a family and why should he AND 'nee-san be without family, huh? And 'nee-san could take Ryou back AS TOMOO. He could shed Naruse and go back to being who he was/was meant to be.

The show does make some parallels between Naoto and Naruse and being somebody else. Manaka Tomoo becomes Naruse and it is as Naruse that he begins to plot the downfall of those bastards who skipped out on justice. Naruse, the original, was a runaway who had no apparent interest in going back to his family. His sister tells our Ryou something about him doing his best to live her brother's life.

This is very like Naoto telling Shiori that he thought God would forgive him if he made sure that the world hadn't lost the person Hideo was. He talked about how Hideo was a truly good person, who lived sincerely, and if he could do that, be that, it would be like Hideo hadn't died. In essence—he quits being Naoto to be Hideo. And we see from the first episode that maybe he's trying a little too hard to stop the bad guys (lol, way to dangle that dude off the roof, honey).

The main difference is…

I think Hideo's death made Naoto realize something. That THIS time it was an accident but that it could have just as easily NOT been an accident…especially if he and his friends had continued on the path they were on. He realized that even though the stabbing was an accident that it WAS his fault. He'd scared Hideo so badly, so often, that Hideo fainted because Hideo DIDN'T KNOW that Naoto wasn't going to stab him. And he ended up dead. I think that's why Naoto tells his father he wants to be punished. Because he had, for the first time, seen what he'd done and what he could be capable of doing and it scared the shit out of him and he didn't WANT to become that. He didn't want to be that anymore.

Watching Sora's mother and Shiori…Naruse might be feeling something similar. He sees, truly, what he is doing and who he is hurting. He's realizing that what he's doing isn't making things right. He sees the hurt he's spreading and it's the same hurt he's trying to heal inside of himself. Again, it leaves the possibility open for him turning his life around but at this point, well, he's done a LOT of damage. Who's going to want to stick with him, huh? You can say what you want to justify what he did but there isn't any getting around the fact that he did some pretty evil stuff, really.

*flails* I WANT A HAPPY ENDING.


Random stuff that I thought about: I know why Naruse let Souda live and killed Yousuke. Souda is a jerkweed. Souda is still the awful guy he was in school. Yousuke was turning his life around and going to make something of it. He was saying, directly, 'this is what you did—you took all that promise and what lived on was scum'.

This is why he hasn't taken out Naoto-papa yet. He wants him to give himself a heart attack because of his son, like his mother.

Which, actually, explains Ikehata a little. 'This is what it's like to have the truth snatched away from you. This is what it is when the person who could tell the truth DOESN'T'.

I wonder if we're going to get a moment of 'how do you like it when the person who did this to you doesn't say that they're sorry in a meaningful way'. DDD: NARUSE, I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY.

Also: I like Noriyoshi aka Aniki. I think he keeps giving Kasai a chance to be straight with him to say 'dude, I'm in love with your wife and we're both sort of cheating you here'. I…you know I want to think that he wants to straighten stuff out. He wants to be TOLD the truth, not force them into it. It's really the best way to go, right? Personally, I think Kasai is going to take out Souda and possibly himself, too. Then Mari gets to live with what her choices did. I'd say she could off herself except I don't want Aniki to be unhappy.

And I kind of want Naruse to save Naoto's dad and break the cycle of death and dishonesty. Yes, it is all about him having his happy ending. Shiori could touch him and realize he's really sorry, right?

Mostly I want Yamano to die. He's become the bully at this point. Is he getting revenge for Hideo or himself? Naruse is showing Naoto what he's done by taking Hideo out of the world (however accidentally it might have been). Yamano…doesn't have that going on. Yamano is just being a dick.

I'm tempted to check out Mawang and see how that ended except I don't know that it'd help. I hope that Naoto realizes he doesn't have to keep being responsible for stopping all the bad things in the world. I hope Naruse becomes 'the angelic lawyer' and spends the rest of his life trying make up for what he's done. (I hope he and Shiori have, like, a dozen tiny, cute, psychic babies. ♥ ) I hope that Naruse and Naoto work together to make stuff better. I hope Nino comes back for the last episode. (What? Naruse could apologize for being a weed to him or something, right?)

Sadly, I think Naruse is going to end up dead (maybe while saving somebody). I don't know that I could go Naoto/Shiori.

I think I'm fairly incoherent, but that's what I get for writing this in between bedtimes and laundry.

Oh! And I made an icon.

Come on, you know you thought it too.