and also ☕ kg polycule. I don't know much about hundred line but they/that route intrigue me
I think Killing Game is one of my favorite routes because of how many underexplored character dynamics it has and I think it has a very solid theme: moving on from the past.
Takumi is a character who in many cases is perpetually stuck in a past that doesn’t exist. Karua, route zero Eito, projections of people who are not real onto people he now knows. And so for this route he’s paired with a lineup from people different from his usual love interests in both routes. Nozomi is a much more complicated and messy person than he realizes. Her mommy issues are something deep and pathological and she is much more concerned with working through those with Eva and Kahmyun than she is to imitating Takumi’s tradwife fantasy. And so he starts to form a connection with Tsubasa.
I’ve seen people argue that Tsubasa and Takumi have no chemistry and that they take away from the more interesting pairing of Takumi and Yugamu. And I can see that. But also, Tsubasa and Takumi to me represent that Takumi sort of realizes ‘Wow, I have a lot more in common with this girl whose down to earth and normal than Nozomi, who is a much different person than the ideal I projected onto her.’ I mean. Quite honestly it’s boy who thinks he’s normal x girl who is actually normal but if normalcy and stability is what Takumi wants he’s far more likely to find that with Tsubasa than with Nozomi.
Also to write off Takubasa as a purely heteronormative ship is to willfully ignore the elephant in the room: Tsubasa kissed Darumi on the lips.
Again, this is Takumi having to realize things are more complicated than he realizes. Darumi is much more than she presents herself on the surface. Shes self sacrificing, she’s hurting, she wants people to hate her. And Tsubasa sees through it. She doesn’t fully understand Darumi, but she makes a promise to try. And yeah, Darumi falls in love there. Even though she still loves Hiruko, she’s willing to move on! She’s willing to hope to be happy for the first time in her life after all the horrible shit she’s been through! Hiruko loved Darumi but she was clumsy. Just trying to make sure she didn’t die but not sure how to help her emotionally. And Tsubasa doesn’t quite know either but she makes the declaration she’ll try!
And Yugamu… I find it hilarious that Yugamu is probably the most normal and healthy Takumi love interests get in this game. Mr Horny Assassin is fixing the everyman. But yes. Yugamu at first is just fascinated by Takumi for the sake of his potential to murder but he also shows that he’s been raised to see people in a utilitarian way. As an assassin. But he wants connections. And it’s hard for him not to want to form them despite his training, and when he has to be the one to make sacrifices to people he loves like Kyoshika to try and end the killing game.
And it makes it hard for him to witness Takumi make that decision on his own.
So yeah, Takumi kills 6 innocent people to save Tsubasa from coming in last place. These are random Futuran people who he killed for the sake of being a savior. And ya know. That’s Takumis thing kind of. His big massive savior complex that tends to lead to some of his worst actions. And naturally he feels incredibly guilty about it, and all he can stand to do is suffer alone.
But the thing is he’s not alone. And Tsubasa manages to snap him out of it by saying he won’t be carrying that burden alone. Holing himself up in his room to play the tragic fallen knight won’t help anyone. She is also someone who loves him, so she will be sharing the guilt of what happened. And I like this, because again, it’s basically rejecting Takumis want to be the savior. Tsubasa got out of last place because of that. The blood is on her hands too. But instead of blaming him, she tells him that this is his reason not to be bumming around in bed sad. They share in this. So he should be willing to live his life if she is as well.
And of course, the main course, the part I’ve been holding off on, EITO! That little fucker.
Eito is basically here to complete the theme of change and moving on because he’s not willing to move on. The Takumi of his timeline spared his life, and that made him fall in love, but upon entering this timeline he realizes that Takumi didn’t do that here. He just killed him without a second thought and moved on. And Eito refused to have that, refused the idea that the moment he was spared was just a coin flip of destiny, so he decides to make it everyone’s problem. He did all this so Takumi would be a serial killer. Someone no better than him. If he could turn away and not care after murdering Eito then he would force him to have blood on his hands that he would care about.
I love killing game eitaku because What Is Wrong With Him, but yeah, the point is here that Eito is being fucking pathetic and awful because he’s also refusing to move on from the Takumi of another world. Takumi has grown a lot, and learned to move on from the versions of Nozomi and Eito who Did Not Exist, leaving Eito as the one who is stuck in the past for once. And as much as I would have LOVED to see the yaoi interrogation, his quick unceremonious death at the hands of Tsubasa here is fitting. While Takumi may linger on him, Eito is now very much a spectre of his past. And the thing he has learned in this route is that he cannot live in a perpetual past. He has people who love him, that aren’t delusions, so he starts his life with them.
(Though I do wonder what will happen when they get to the sattelite and realize their lives were fabricated. I think Darumi has the right to kill the people who programmed her backstory but we basically end on them taking off)
