Right, now that I've seen 11, I'm going to have to say that my understanding of Alto hasn't changed much at all.
Going back to this...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irisiel
Alto, on the other hand, feels more like someone who just STOPPED acting in the beginning of the series.
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This is why he becomes so annoyed when Yasaburo calls his current persona cliché acting; Alto isn't acting, this is who Alto is, or what he's found so far that he is.
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I have to disagree with the idea that he "STOPPED acting in the beginning of the series", because he is acting with regards to at least a couple of points, one of them being the 'I don't care' front he put on, after his initial shock at hearing that his father had collapsed.
Perhaps I shouldn't call it 'acting', because in a sense, it's part of who he is. Looking back at what Kawamori said in that commentary about "becoming a role", I'd argue that how we see Alto behave - e.g. how he wears his uniform, how he sits, how he reacts to certain provocations etc - could be what he
decided to do at some point to contrast with how he looks, because he hates being mistaken for a girl. His behaviour may be part of him, but it's also something that he consciously decided to do (because that was not how he was brought up to behave).
So I'd hazard a guess that one reason Alto can't outrightly deny Yasaburo's accusation in episode 11 is because he HAS consciously approached some things in his life as he would a role, and thus really doesn't know, as Kawamori once said, "how far his true feelings go".
Spoiler for source of quote:
Kawamori noted this in an interview whilst the series was screening (quote posted on the Japanese wikipediia, original interview
here):
「どこまで本心なのか、本人も分からなくなっている、というキャラクター」
"He's a character who doesn't know how far his true feelings go." (Feelings about EVERYTHING, btw, not just his relationships with the two girls.)
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And this would be why I don't try to read Alto just from what he says, or even take what he says at face value. If he doesn't even know how far his true feelings go, then he can't express them accurately. At least at this point in the series - not entirely sure yet if I'll keep thinking this way as we approach the end.