#sca-di

Holy shit this was a mindfuck. A lot of questions I thought would be answered weren't and I'm OK with that, because of how much more this route emphasises the delusional aspect of denpa. It's impossible to truly parse what Takuji is experiencing, and what his followers are experiencing, used to great effect with the wholesome sweet Riruru h-scene turning nightmarish once it's revealed to be Zakuro's corpse, as well as the Ayana rape scene being complete delusion and Ayana swiftly returning to chastising Takuji. The symbolism and allusions to Lovecraft really build this feeling of depravity, with Takuji taking on a apostolic role. The irony being that this was a delusion born in response to a different, tragic delusion that Takuji knew nothing of.

There's something to be said about the thematic throughline of Tsui no Sora:

Yukito is a fairly conventional take, the introverted, stoic teen philosopher figuring out conclusions on life and getting the girl, albeit with a tragic ending where doesn't get to beat the big bad.

Kotomi's route is a more introverted, self-reflective take on events, with a focus on Kotomi's desire to be strong. However, the tender reunion with Yukito is deliberately cut, meaning the last moment we spend with her is watching her subjected to a gang rape by Yasuko and her cronies. Her perspective on strength ends with her in the weakest of positions. The bleak note sets the tone for...

Zakuro's route, a prelude of misery. Her suicide being the catalyst for the plot already makes this clear, except we're immediately subjected to a brutal rape scene where Ozawa's cruelty is treated as just routine for Zakuro. However his abrupt death and the letter from Usami sends her on a path of martyrdom. I'm not sure how Usami and Ayumi rruly found Zakuro and learned of what Ozawa was doing, but the magical girl story was likely a way for them to claw back agency in a world that sought out their defilement, only for Zakuro, simultaneously tainted by the "seed of evil" expressed through her misanthropic monologues and her desire to reclaim her agency quickly twists this into cult like devotion, with her forcing a terrified Usami and Ayumi into a suicide pact, which in turn...

Formed the foundation for Takuji's descent. His interaction with Zakuro and his own delusions and misanthropy send him on the warpath, committing increasingly heinous acts and building an actual cult in the bastardised image of Zakuro's, a cry for help lost in translation, received by the worst possible person to follow in her footsteps.

The story becomes more and more nihilistic, more and more rooted in despair. Human cruelty becomes more and more abound. Yasuko orchestrating the kidnapping and rape of Kotomi, Ayumi being raped by two schoolgirls and having said rape documented so they can sell it to a porn store, everything Ozawa was doing, and Zakuro and Takuji's delusions and degradations. It's an ouroborus of tragedy, trauma repeating itself for no reason, and the worst part are that many of the perpetrators like Ozawa, Takei, the schoolgirls, and the boys who defile Kotomi and Kiyokawa weren't even a part of that cycle. They entered the cycle of trauma of their own volition, simply from a desire to act upon their inner cruelty and exert power over others.

Yukito and Ayana being on the rooftop and looking down gives them the ability to see through the bullshit, with them being the primary philosophical viewpoints of Tsui no Sora, but they're still ultimately powerless to stop these tragedies or even notice them (see Yukito asking Zakuro if Ozawa was causing trouble and just not bothering to follow-up on an obvious lie).

Yukito's is a philosophical coming-of-age tale, Kotomi's is a love story and a tale of inner strength that is cruelly ripped away from her and unable to conclude on her terms as she leaves the story after having sex with Yukito, Zakuro's takes the dark ending of Kotomi's and makes it the beginning and leads us down a path of madness and despair where suicide is the only answer, and Takuji's uses that as a foundation for a twisted take Nietzsche's beliefs, perverting the coming-of-age narrative into a pornographic nightmare that once again sees freedom in suicide.

This is some deeply compelling stuff, at least to my brain as someone who carries similar venom towards the world that Zakuro and Takuji have. Tsui no Sora paints a frightening picture of humanity and its endless capacity for cruelty. My reading of this game is coloured by that perspective so I'll admit I struggled to truly see the hope in the misery, but that's such a widely discussed perspective in the arts as a whole that hopefully I can offer something with this bleaker outlook on the world.