#shintaka

+ additional shintaka doodle

Shinji: Nope. I’m going to wait until I’m on my deathbed, get in the last word and then die immediately.

Yutaka: That’s your plan for dealing with this?

When bae is somewhat dumb, but that’s ok, you love them anyway.

Shinji Mimura to Yutaka Seto:

First, I want to talk about things from a narrative standpoint. In Battle Royale, most characters have some kind of arc they go through, despite how short a time we see them for. Mitsuru gets to realize that Kazuo didn’t have any feelings. Yoshimi gets to realize Yoji ‘loves’ her before she’s killed. Takako gets to see Hiroki before she dies. Hiroki gets to confess his feelings to Kayoko before he dies. Sho gets to realize that Kazuo has outsmarted him and intentionally killed him.

I say all of this to say that Battle Royale does a really good job of providing us with resolution of character feelings. However, I’d argue that Shinji is an exception.

After meeting up with Yutaka, they talk about Yutaka’s crush on Izumi. And Yutaka swears to avenge her. That leads to this moment: “I don’t care if I die. There’s nothing else I can do for her now.”  -Yutaka What’s it like to feel that way about a girl?   -Shinji’s thoughts

So, we have a question from Shinji introduced early on: What is it like to love a girl so much you’d die for her?

The boys continue talking and we get a little resolution. We get Yutaka explaining why he likes Izumi, which gives us this: Oh. As he listened to Yutaka rattle on, Shinji felt like a part of him understood completely. Though Yutaka’s explanations weren’t really explaining anything, Shinji thought, I get it. Hey Uncle, I think I’m actually starting to get it.

But here, Shinji is only STARTING to get it. He doesn’t get it yet. As a reader, this makes me think that by the end of this novel, Shinji is going to get it. And I make the argument that he does. It’s just not with a girl, it’s with Yutaka.

After they get shot, Shinji has no choice but to turn and run. While he does, he thinks this: Well look at you. So you’ve decided to play the game. Then come and get me. Yutaka can’t move now; but I can. You can finish him off later. Come get me. Please come get me.

Here we see Shinji begging for Kazuo to go after him and not Yutaka. At this point Shinji believes Yutaka is alive (he later mentions them both being too injured to climb the mountain). This is the moment where Shinji is really understanding the kind of love he previously asked about. What is it like to love someone so much you’d die for them? Even if it’s a suicide mission?

He already does love someone like that. It’s Yutaka. That’s why he wants Kazuo to focused on him, even if it means he has less time to do anything. He loves Yutaka and is willing to die for him.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think Koushin Takami intended this to be my reading of the novel. However, I also believe that he wrote what he wrote (so the whole ‘the author is dead’ interpretation). I also think he kind of knew he needed some kind of resolution for this, which is why he included Shinji’s line change in Angel’s Border, where Shinji’s last thought is of Chisato. It simply makes more sense narratively for Shinji to find that love in the end, based on how every other character arc has been handled.

However, I think a better narrative fix would be pretty simple to do. There is this moment in the book where Shinji believes Kazuo is dead and he gets up to go to Yutaka. He looks over to where Yutaka is lying-

And then Kazuo shows up before he can think about what it means.

What I think would be great there is if we got just a half thought. A realization that Yutaka is dead. A moment where Shinji realizes that he is about to lose it. THEN Kazuo shows up, because it makes this line better: Shinji felt like he should be laughing. Those blood soaked lips of his might even have been smiling.

When Shinji sees Kazuo is alive, I like to think there’s a part of him that’s glad. He knows at this point that he’s dying. He doesn’t have a lot of time left. And he doesn’t want to spend that little bit of time left without Yutaka. He doesn’t want to spend his final moments grieving his death. So, it’s funny that Kazuo somehow managed to survive, but it’s also good because it means Shinji doesn’t have to fully acknowledge that Yutaka is dead.

And if I got to make a final change, I’d look at Shinji’s last line to Ikumi. It says: He thought, Ikumi, fall in love and be happy. Big bro won’t be finding true love now. Big bro wo-

I think it would be 10x more powerful from a view of Shinji being in love with Yutaka, therefore better completing his arc. Think something like, He thought, Ikumi, fall in love and be happy. Big bro realized he was in love too late. Big bro re- I think something like that would fully complete his arc. Because even if Yutaka doesn’t hear his confession, we as the readers do.