The 500 yen piece in Akudama Drive Does Something To Me.
Because it’s literally $3.50. And yet, Ordinary Person is compelled to return it to a guy who tells her dropped change is bad luck. She doesn’t hand over the 500 yen piece and just get a replacement one when she doesn’t have the physical currency to pay for her takoyaki. She gets arrested for swindling the takoyaki stand out of $3.50.
Her entire arc is because she was such a weirdly moral person that she couldn’t spend someone else’s coin, even when he denied it, and even with the consequences of being arrested.
Her entire arc is because one man had a traumatic experience with picking up dropped money once in his childhood and has created his own mythos around how a loved one’s death is his fault. He is at fault for the loss of his home and his safety and the loss of his hand; and he thinks she is at fault for her descent into akudama status, because he warned her.
But Swindler puts a spin on the coin. She had to play on his sympathies to get him to take all of her money - except the coin - for her previous job. And he tells her that it wasn’t enough, probably because he is aware the moment he throws in with her to help these kids is yet another moment leading to a future he can’t escape. Where he will die to do what she’s asked of him. And now, the coin is a chance to rewrite his past. Dropped change got them both to here - and instead of it being a negative, Swindler turns it into a positive.
Her eyes have been opened. She can never have a normal life. But what is a normal life, if it’s built on the dehumanization of children? On the criminalization of anyone who the authorities decide is out of line?
This 500 yen piece has made her life the absolute worst. But this life is real. She is doing something of importance with it. She isn’t just going home and collapsing on her bed. She has a goal, a purpose, and her perception of herself and her space has been altered because of this experience. It changed her life. It’s leading to her death. She accepts it.
And $3.50 is such a small amount to take on a suicide mission for. It’s such a small amount that it is no more than a token. A talisman. An object telling Courier he belongs. That, yes, this particular coin ruined this one woman’s life in every possible way imaginable - but she sees the benefit of that tilt o whirl of an experience. She sees the benefit in taking something that is painful and seeing the benefits anyway.
$3.50 is such a small amount to take on a suicide mission for, but Courier is faced with certain death or allowing this chameleon of a woman to change his own myth about his life; allowing her to rewrite his own understanding of himself. $3.50 is the small, insignificant amount of money that connects these two characters. It’s the amount that changes someone’s perception of the world from nihilistic to a belief life can get better.
Courier passes the coin - the torch - to the kids when he hits the end of his line. He passes on the ability to make their own fate, the way Swindler made her own and gave him the chance to truly make his.
Courier takes the job in the finale because it is the language he understands. And he passes along the payment when he is finally able, with the knowledge he is dying, to do what he chooses to do without payment being the impetus for action. He chooses to finish the job on his own terms, no matter the cost. And the talisman, practically worthless, is passed on to the next set of people who need the chance and the permission to full throatedly go after their own desires.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Brother looks at the coin before proclaiming he and his sister will escape. It’s no longer a sign of bad luck or an obligation to others; a debt to be repaid or payment for a job. It’s the reminder of the sacrifices that came before, yes; but it’s also a reminder of how one can choose how they live. How they die. What they choose to believe in and pursue. Brother and Sister are the biggest akudama there are; because they have chosen to remake themselves in the images they decide upon. And the coin, the one chaining Courier to his beliefs about himself and Swindler to Courier, is no longer something dragging its holder down but an object encouraging its holder to look ahead.
