/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>46580067
it's a way of bringing it all to a conclusion, to settle the feelings battler never got the chance to so tohya can finally move on with his life by pouring all those thoughts and memories and ideas into writing, even if there was pain and suffering and fear in reimmersing himself in battler's mindset to the point of not being able to walk it'd still be worth it to finally be free of the spirit of a man with things left unfinished, to truly be his own man in the end instead of some unwelcome pretender in danger of being removed at any time
ange still needed to provide that final push though, the last duty battler required to move on being the knowledge that his sister was safe and happy, that she had lived a true full life despite the pain that his own death had caused her, and with the knowledge that she truly was he finally let tohya go and passed on to the golden land

>>46301510
i definitely thinks it works in that way as well, but it's mainly that ryukishi had INTENDED on them being together but changed his mind because some women in the office complained that irritates me the most
if it was on purpose from beginning to end that tohya remained alone in the aspect of romance then i'd be perfectly fine with it, as you say it provides its own message that romantic love isn't necessary to move forward sometimes and coincides with other examples like with kyrie and ange - it would be something i would actually like in a way
however, once ryukishi said that it was meant to happen but he was peer-pressured out of it, the problem became much more evident; it could no longer be taken as a purposeful message but instead a coincidental one enforced by a man flip-flopping on his decisions based on outside factors
instead, tohya now feels like a man burdened by his past not only in the watsonian perspective but also on the doylist one, he is unable to be his own man because others could not see him as his own man, and so he is permanently tied to battler and sayo on the whims of those within ryukishi's inner circle rather than because ryukishi wanted it to be so
i think tohya being with ikuko would've provided its own message, of a man locked in the past even with something pulling him towards the present, and would make ange's actions more meaningful, presenting tohya with an opportunity to finally, properly take grasp of what he has, instead of as it is now where he is now free to just figure out what he wants to do now, almost half a century after he was 'born'
as is, we are now left with something that makes tohya a rather pitiful entity indeed, alone with a woman he does not love, in a mansion and a body he can't help but feel trapped within, able to do nothing but write and write for decades on end until ange finds him, a story in itself to be sure but one that thanks to that knowledge is an extremely depressing one, enforced purely by those who could not 'see' even after the story tried again and again to make them 'see', which ryukishi should've ignored if he wished to follow his own advice but instead took on board and made tohya's life even more pitiful