[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

Yes, and I think we can both agree he wasn't being honest about his desire to protect his home prior to that scene in twenty three, don't you?

Okay, I may have misread your sentence there yesterday.

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

The scene with Kamazin (sp?) is a good counter argument, but his reactions in the scene with Yasaburo still seem to suggest Yasaburo might have a point. The storming off was an overly dramatic reaction that did little to help his case. And its worth noting the way the wind went out of Alto's sails completely as soon as Yasaburo told Alto he had essentially proved his (Yasaburo's) point.

Sorry, not buying it. Alto has issues with his family. But those issues are with them trying to stuff him into a box which fits their expectations, not with him either being only an actor who wears a mask (Yasaburo) or somebody who never finishes anything he starts (Michael).

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

Yasaburo may be wrong in trying to force Alto to go back to Kabuki, but does necessarily make everything he says wrong?

Yes, yes it does.

Originally Posted by Darthtabby

I see three things Alto is running away from: his Kabuki past (and acting in general to a degree), dealing with Ranka and Sheryl's feelings for him, and admitting his real reasons for wanting to protect his home.

Now you are interpreting every character motivation of his, be it defiance against the expectations of others, be it trying to not hurt either of the girls and be it subliminating the desire to protect Frontier as "running away". Sure, I can twist every character motivation to comform to a certain theme I want to prove, too, but that doesn't make it correct. Of the three, only the last could really be construed as "running away", and that isn't one of the things he ever gets called out on by either Yasaburo nor Michael nor anybody else!

The point I was making a few posts ago was that the blogger did not get Alto at all and just swallowed Yasaburo's and Michael's arguments hook, line and sinker. I think I have proven quite extensively that they were wrong in their assertions. Yes, Alto has issues and you can always construe that as someone "running away" from some inner truth. But they are not the issues he gets called out on by others in the series, which is significant, since it shows that people were vastly misreading him even in-universe. The general out-of-universe view of the character just seemed to follow the same misconceptions as those other characters in-universe had (Michael notably changed his opinion later on, although he still misread Alto somewhat in regards to the two girls).