Christ. Well. Not sure where to even start with this. Um... Uozumi's bullshit finally makes some sense. He's still dumb and I don't like him as a person, but he's fine as a clumsy idiot who sincerely makes terrible decisions and really needs some impulse control. I can accept him as a character.
Botan... I think I get where she was coming from? She didn't care about being in a good relationship or being a good person or having a good future. More specifically, I don't think she even felt like any of that was truly attainable, with the kind of life she had. She sacrificed a lot for her family, and felt like she would have to keep on making those sacrifices indefinitely. Her affair with her boss wasn't great, but it was the only thing she had in her life where she didn't have to be all grown up and responsible for someone else. She could just relax and let herself be spoiled for a little while, in secret, disconnected from all the pressure outside. When Kashiwa and the others intervened (or, more frankly, when her twisted little sanctuary was inevitably crushed under the weight of reality) I don't think she felt heartbroken, exactly, or even particularly betrayed. I really got a sense of "Oh, so I can't even have this much? I've given up all my hopes and desires to support my family, but I'm not even allowed this dirty little fragment of relief for myself? What's the point of this, exactly? Of any of it?"
I get why she wanted to leave. When it just seems normal for life to be that heavy, it's really easy to start looking at things in an all-or-nothing sort of way. I hope she can reach some sort of reconciliation, with her sisters and with herself. They took her for granted, definitely, but I feel like a lot of the pressure came from her own desperate effort to take on all of the sacrifices herself, so the others wouldn't feel any of the burden left by their parents. Really noble, but just too much for a single person to endure unscathed, least of all someone so young.
Kashiwa, well. Kashiwa hits too close to home for me to say anything about what she's going through. Just... Yeah. Yeah...
last edited at Feb 12, 2015 6:35PM