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Originally Posted by Triple_R
I disagree with you. Kanba did pay a price, a very high price at that. His life, and almost every trace of his existence, has been wiped out. He not only dies, virtually nothing survives him. That's punishment enough, isn't it?
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And who say anything about punishment? What bothers me is the lack of self-reflection. He said he finally found true light, which isn't exactly true, since he was gifted by Shouma with light, but let's put that aside. My point is, ok, he found light, and now what? Now that he has light, does he finally realize how fucked up he has been and all the shit he has done? Does he reflect on this? No, no at all. Rather, he proceeds to uses his light to do what he wanted to all along, to save Himari, or rather, to die for Himari. Which isn't even a punishment, since it was what he wanted to do to begin with, though that's besides the point.
I think the sacrifice is cool. I think the lack of self-reflection and guilt from his part isn't cool at all. And it was needed, because love alone can not redeem you unless you realize how fucked up you have been and accept that redemption. This is shown with Yuri and Tabuki, which found redemption only when they finally realized how fucked up they have been, even though they had Momoka's love since a long time ago.
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Originally Posted by Triple_R
What problems do you see with what I wrote in my interpretation on the themes of this anime?
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No problem at all. In fact I think I agree with pretty much everything you said there. I just think the way it was portrayed wasn't all that well thought out, and the themes suffered for it.
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Originally Posted by Triple_R
Sanetoshi was proven wrong. There's inherent right and wrong in this world, in part because there's right and wrong in sacrificial love itself. It was that love that ultimately undid him and his plans.
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But the problem is that this was portrayed through a pretty cheap gimmick. Ikuhara shows us how happy post-sacrifice Ringo and Himari are, but the catch is that they don't have memories. It's a magical solution. After all, would they still be happy if they knew what Shouma and Kanba did? The answer to that is what validates the sacrifice, what gives it meaning. Yet, we don't have that answer. We only have magic tricks. And Ikuhara is trying sell us the idea that self-sacrifice is inherently good using that magic trick.