Voyage!

They both live their lives defined by rejection, not acceptance. Obanai was first imprisoned by his family, then blamed by the sole living family member for the deaths of the rest of his family, because he was born as a sacrifice, because he was supposed to be eaten. Mitsuri’s arranged marriage rejected her because of her body, her strength, her hair. 

Both of them have been rejected all of their lives for features they were born with, Obanai was born to be a sacrifice, and born into a family that fed other people to a demon, and also planned on feeding him and he blames himself for being born that way. Mitsuri blamed herself for other people’s rejections, it was because she was so strange, it was because she had such a monstrous body. 

Their response to this is to try to hide themselves, their physical features, their deformities. They believe in a body like this, they could never be accepted as normal and because of that they have to do something to make up for it. Because they were born as abnormal, they can’t fix themselves in this lifetime, but they try to anyways. 

Instead of being themselves, they both want to be “normal”. Except they also both believe it’s impossible for either of them to live a normal life, Mitsuri because of her strength, and Obanai because he can’t be forgiven for the family he was born into. 

They’re both seeking love and acceptance for who they are, while at the same time they’re self sabotaging, neither of them really believes they deserve such a thing. That’s why they try to earn love by fighting. Mitsuri believes if she fights with the demon hunters she’ll prove she’s worthy of love, and Obanai believes that if he defeats demons he can at least make up for what he’s done in the past.

They can’t ever feel good inside about themselves, so they seek validation from outside. They try to do good deeds, they try to fight, to prove that they arebetter than they think they are. However, that’s a flawed premise to begin with for both of them, because love isn’t earned, it’s given. 

Mitsuri wants to be loved, and Obanai loves Mitsuri and wants to confess his feelings to her. It seems like a match made in heaven, no only that, but they already love each other for who they are, Obanai loves Mitsuri’s strong body, and Mitsuri sees through all of Obanai’s toxic facade and the mask he wears and believes he’s a good person. 

They already love each other, neither of them has to prove anything to the other. However, at the same time they can’t speak of their feelings. Why? It’s because deep down, both of them are too insecure to believe they deserve that love. They’re actually, too similiar. 

That’s why MItsuri and Obanai always add the caveat, I have to do this first, I can only love you in this world. 

Both of them kind of believe they can’t achieve love in this lifetime, and that’s what’s so tragic about it. Obanai has the wrong idea about Mitsuri to begin with, she wants to love him as he is in this lifetime, he doesn’t have to die to prove himself. 

And Obanai never once viewed Mitsuri as weak, or helpless, he just wanted to protect her because he believed she was more precious than himself. They’re so similiar in their flaws, that it causes a misunderstanding where they both keep throwing themselves into conflict to try to prove themselves and earn each other’s love when... neither of them loved each other for being strong or fighting demons. 

Mitsuri was always a normal girl, and always a strong girl in Obanai’s eyes. He fell in love with that person.

And Mitsuri always believed from the beginning that Obanai was a strong person, she always wanted to be around him despite what Obanai’s self loathing would lead him to believe that he’s not worthy to be around the people he loves. They were already in love, and they could have been their for each other in thi life, but it was too late by that point. 

Also, to add onto the anons point about how they couldn’t accept their pasts even though it made them who they were, and were the reasons they met they’re mostly right. As I’ve said this whole post, their self loathing makes it impossible for both characters to reconcile who they are now with who they were. It’s a shared flaw both of them have. They both try so hard to be a different person than who they were born as, they try to meet up in a different lifetime, ignoring the fact that this is the lifetime where they met. If they had not been born in this life, they never would have met, and never would have fallen in love. They both in a way contradict the theme of the series “you were born to be happy” because they’re both so self-defeating they don’t think they can be happy in this life, or ever happy with themselves.