Amagami SS - Episode 23 Discussion / Poll

[Fandal]

Wow, this thread is turning into "Why politicians must lie to the public to get their approval and votes". Ayatsuji is a very interesting character since she shows how life is like for a leader. Lying is required because people get angry if you don't.

I remember a case where Gordon Brown (Prime Minister of the UK) accidentally left his mic on after a speech. After which, he talked about his true feeling about the public to a close confident. It turned into a media frenzy. I think the response to that comment was pretty similar to what Ayatsuji faced here.

Highly aggressive people don't really have the most "caring" personalities around. Well, for the most part, they do care but they don't have the time to put it into "nice" words that make people feel good except during specific public periods. They are in a hurry and need to get things done.

In a way, people say they want actions before words but in actuality, in the public world, like Ayatsuji has shown...they prefer words over actions.

All the actions (hard work) she did on the founding festival and making the class a success meant ziltch, nothing, nada, completely worthless to most the class. They only wanted her as a leader when she spoke nice things about them - even when they don't deserve it. In short, lie to them.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I'm not going to reply to every single point... Since you're rather heavily invested in the "two-faced" interpretation at this point, you're not leaving much room for middle ground. My argument hinges on the fact that neither "side" of Tsukasa is healthy, so if you disagree with that premise... well, there's not much to discuss. But a few things...

Naaaah, my position isn't THAT extreme. However, my point is that what Tsukasa needs right now is NOT balance. It's reaffirmation of her Inner personality, because it just collapsed. Comparison: A kid has just narrowly escaped a traffic accident and is crying its heart out. In this situation you don't tell it to watch left-right-left. You go to it, hug it and comfort it, until it calms down again. Important things first.

No, there is no contradiction. It's simply that you believe her ambitions and goals are unhealthy and also need to be put to death along with the facade; I don't believe that to be the case.

I reread what I wrote and I noticed that one can come to this conclusion. So let me remedy and clarify: I think she needs to let go of the extremeness of her goals. It's a matter of priority here: Until she has found a degree of stability and self-esteem in her life, she should stop trying to work herself into oblivion. First, she needs to give her Inner self some room to establish and develop. That will mean that she can NOT Facade herself to excellence, and she should ACCEPT that, at least for the time being. Compared to a healthy self, stuff like perfection records as festival committee chairwoman are SECONDARY.

Besides, someone brilliant can play dumb, but someone dumb cannot play brilliant. She is going to be highly successful in life in any case, since she is exceptionally capable. Once she has found her peace, she'll excel anyway. It's hard to avoid.

Then, if you prefer, it's that she trying to shut herself out as well. She's eliminated the diary, which was her one outlet/safe-house, so she's trying to bottle up her emotions even deeper to make it as if they don't exist. Of course, it's destined for an explosion, and that's why it's unhealthy.

And this is exactly why for now, resuscitating her Inner side is way more important than "balance". First, you fix the critical issues. Then the rest.

I don't think he fell in love with the "bad person", it's more like he accepted all sides to her and that "bad person" is a part of Tsukasa.

Let's not put undue emphasis on words like "good" or "bad" here. The "bad" Ayatsuji also encompasses the energetic, spunky aspect of her, her sharp tongue, her wit and her playfulness. It was the "bad" Ayatsuji who was sending him home at night, making a bento for him and giving him a very honest and touching confession. I didn't mean to say that he loved how she tonguelashed the bitches, he was clearly uneasy about it. But it's the fire and spirit which defined her that he came to love. NOT the teflon Facade.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I agree with your analysis; I haven't studied psychology formally, but this is basically what I was perceiving here.

I actually have, till bachelor level, as minor to computer science (what a combo, I know).

The main reason why I tried to avoid the Freudian id/ego/super-ego model is that it does not translate very well on Tsukasa - it added extra complexity to something which could be explained better with a inner/outer-personality model.

By definition, the Id is _not conscious_. It's the instinct, the nonrational aspect of us where pleasures and fears come from. So, in technical terms, you can NOT say that the Id is the "Inner" or "Bad" Ayatsuji. What you can say is that her Facade is her Ego which gives a very stringent representation of her Super-Ego. Did that definition help any? I don't think so.

The central problem, it seems to me, is that the superego and id were originally far too contrasting/extreme, and this was unhealthy.

Id and Super-Ego are by definition contrasting, they are opposing forces. You can't control the Id at all, and the Super-Ego is merely a representation of your "social values", our conscience. The Ego is the arbiter between those two opposing poles. In the beginning, Ayatsuji's Ego was aware of the Id, and was trying to cap it via diary while she rationalized that strongly emphasizing the Super-Ego enabled her to realize her dreams of excellence. In eps 2 and 3, she was sliding more into the middle: She gave her Id more room, particularly when with Junichi only. And at the very end, she adjusted her Ego to panic mode.

You see, this isn't really helping us understand much. Neither her desires (Id) nor her conscience and values (Super-Ego) really changed, only how her Ego (the rational part) deals with things.
And this Ego now believes that she must suppress the "obstinate girl" completely in order to keep her relationship with Junichi and to lead the festival to success. This misunderstanding must be cleared up. Fast.

[relentlessflame]

@Mentar:
I'm sort of a bit unsure why you had to disagree so strongly with me before if all we're really talking about are differences of definition and priority.

At the end of the day, we have one episode left to bring the story to a full conclusion. Perhaps it's easiest to break it down this way; this is all obviously IMO (I have no familiarity with the source):

BAD END: Tsukasa's honest personality is lost forever; she shows only her people-pleasing persona and Junichi can no longer love her.

NORMAL END: Junichi brings out Tsukasa's honest personality again, and she comes back full force. The Festival is a failure (to some degree) and she takes the fall/blame, but she finds comfort in Junichi and is slowly able to rebuild her social standing without the facade.

BEST END (?): Junichi convinces Tsukasa that he loves and accepts her honest personality, which allows her to drop the unhealthy facade and start "being herself" in a healthy way. They work together to rally the help they need to make the Festival a success, and find that they are stronger when they (and everyone) work together as a team.


Because I think they are gunning for the "best end", they will have to short-circuit the "rebuilding" time and forcefully bring her personality to a more-or-less healthy state -- and quickly. To do that, they will probably have to put the Festival in jeopardy again, since a completely conciliatory "nice guy" approach isn't likely to work either. Leadership requires a delicate balance. Or perhaps there's some other way to do it... but if either the festival fails, or the "real" Tsukasa fails to reassert herself, in some way it's a less-than-ideal end to the story. Both story threads are being played out in tandem here.

This is basically why my original argument centered on the fact that completely abandoning her goals and ambitions would not be for the best. I know your argument is that she'd be better off abandoning them since they're remnants of her facade, but I think the show will go for both the "obvious" victory as well as the "less-obvious-but-more-important" psychological one. We shall see.

[Key Board]

Junichi sabotaging the festival would be a very interesting plot twist xd

[Knightrunner]

It would be but I doubt it will happen. Besides if Tsukasa finds out she will be crushed.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

@Mentar:
I'm sort of a bit unsure why you had to disagree so strongly with me before if all we're really talking about are differences of definition and priority.

Because I felt - maybe incorrectly, only you can tell - that you were heading in the wrong direction. You wrote that Tsukasa needed to go and apologize to the bitches. And that due to mere pride, she refused to do that even though she really "knew" that she should. So, she had to accept what you called "balance" in order to get a grip on the current disaster.

And that is what I consider fundamentally wrong. She does not need to apologize to the bitches, she needs to stay her course of emancipating herself from the Facade, and Junichi needs to support that, until she has truly understood that her suppressed Inner personality is not insufficient, and in fact preferred by Junichi. I also maintain that this is the aspect of hers that he really fell in love with. They get along well during the Facade ep, but there wasn't much of an attraction. That developed when she started to drop the Facade towards Junichi.

BAD END: Tsukasa's honest personality is lost forever; she shows only her people-pleasing persona and Junichi can no longer love her.

NORMAL END: Junichi brings out Tsukasa's honest personality again, and she comes back full force. The Festival is a failure (to some degree) and she takes the fall/blame, but she finds comfort in Junichi and is slowly able to rebuild her social standing without the facade.

BEST END (?): Junichi convinces Tsukasa that he loves and accepts her honest personality, which allows her to drop the unhealthy facade and start "being herself" in a healthy way. They work together to rally the help they need to make the Festival a success, and find that they are stronger when they (and everyone) work together as a team.

I think that it's safe to predict that any resolution will happen AFTER the festival. In the night, during the bonfire. Until then, I fully expect her to maintain Facade-in-Force. (That, by the way, would use the template of the "Good End" of the game - not the "Best End"). And then we'll see where we get. At the moment, I'm not sure how Junichi is going to pull this off, since he doesn't understand Ayatsuji at all.

This is basically why my original argument centered on the fact that completely abandoning her goals and ambitions would not be for the best. I know your argument is that she'd be better off abandoning them since they're remnants of her facade, but I think the show will go for both the "obvious" victory as well as the "less-obvious-but-more-important" psychological one. We shall see.

Well, IMHO she should abandon her goals and ambitions at least for the time being, if they force her back on an unhealthy way. So, if her choice would be between a successful festival and maintaining her Inner personality, she should choose the latter. It's going to be fairly temporary anyway, because people like her tend to get on her feet again sooner or later. But FIRST she needs to find herself, understand that her Inner personality is accepted, too, and reduce her Facade to a level which allows her Inner to breathe freely. Anything else is secondary.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Mentar

Because I felt - maybe incorrectly, only you can tell - that you were heading in the wrong direction. You wrote that Tsukasa needed to go and apologize to the bitches. And that due to mere pride, she refused to do that even though she really "knew" that she should. So, she had to accept what you called "balance" in order to get a grip on the current disaster.

Because she needed to something to save the Festival from collapsing. Her strategy of "I can handle this by myself (with the help of the small team I have)" was going to fail. So if not apologizing to those girls to get the whole class's help again by proxy, then what? Again, this isn't about what's best for her psychologically, but what's best for her stated goal (wrong-minded though it may be) of being successful. Your argument is basically "screw the festival, never apologize to those ungrateful bitches, and learn to be yourself!" Which is... fine... but not a "flawless victory", let's say. I'm not necessarily disagreeing that what you propose would be better for her if you take that point on its own.

Originally Posted by Mentar

I think that it's safe to predict that any resolution will happen AFTER the festival. In the night, during the bonfire. Until then, I fully expect her to maintain Facade-in-Force. (That, by the way, would use the template of the "Good End" of the game - not the "Best End").

Well, yeah, that definitely would not be a "Best End" because it means that she would use the facade to save the festival (thus proving it still has merit) and then break out of it afterwards to be with Junichi. So it's a good ending, but not a great one. The resulting message is sort of mixed (be two-faced to get ahead, but be honest with those you love).

I don't know the original game at all, but I imagine that a much better ending would be to not trip this particular flag in the first place. (If he had simply said "I know you don't want this" rather than "I know you", it would have made a big difference and conveyed his point much more effectively. Again, he was trying to solve the problem of the festival, not the problem of her psyche.)


Anyway, we'll just have to wait for the next episode at this point.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Because she needed to something to save the Festival from collapsing. Her strategy of "I can handle this by myself (with the help of the small team I have)" was going to fail. So if not apologizing to those girls to get the whole class's help again by proxy, then what?

Yea, then what? The festival isn't gonna be a flawless triumph, they would have to leave some details unattended. Dup de doo. So what? ^_^;

Again, this isn't about what's best for her psychologically, but what's best for her stated goal (wrong-minded though it may be) of being successful.

Priorities. My position is and remains that if the Inner Ayatsuji needs to make compromises and be less "capable" as the Facade, SO BE IT.

Your argument is basically "screw the festival, never apologize to those ungrateful bitches, and learn to be yourself!" Which is... fine... but not a "flawless victory", let's say. I'm not necessarily disagreeing that what you propose would be better for her if you take that point on its own.

After the end of ep3, you're still gunning for a "flawless victory"? Admirable optimism ^_^; ... I saw a flaming train wreck headed for the cliff.

Well, yeah, that definitely would not be a "Best End" because it means that she would use the facade to save the festival (thus proving it still has merit) and then break out of it afterwards to be with Junichi. So it's a good ending, but not a great one. The resulting message is sort of mixed (be two-faced to get ahead, but be honest with those you love).

The festival is only a means to create stress. Whether it succeeds or not doesn't matter much. The question is if Junichi can get Ayatsuji to give her Inner personality a chance or not. And since this episode won't have a bad ending, he WILL succeed. But it's interesting to see how he will do it - and of course I'm curious if the analysis was correct or not.

I don't know the original game at all, but I imagine that a much better ending would be to not trip this particular flag in the first place.

[mod edit: Spoilers aren't allowed in episode threads, even behind spoiler tags. I wasn't asking to be spoiled... :/ ]

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Mentar

Yea, then what? The festival isn't gonna be a flawless triumph, they would have to leave some details unattended. Dup de doo. So what? ^_^;

No, again, that isn't the point... In that argument with Junichi, she wasn't even ready to face/admit the possibility of any sort of compromise. He also presented the option of cutting some events as well. Her pride was preventing her from making even small consolations, and that was what made Junichi upset with her. That's why I said to start with that she was being selfish/stubborn, and she needed to do something to grasp at some form of success.

Originally Posted by Mentar

Priorities. My position is and remains that if the Inner Ayatsuji needs to make compromises and be less "capable" as the Facade, SO BE IT.

Which is exactly what Junichi was telling her: that she needed to make some compromises. She either had to compromise on her pride a bit, or she needed to compromise on the scope of the project a bit, or something. She had to face the situation she was in, and at that moment her (apparent) attitude was "I can still make it; I'll just work even harder; I don't need to compromise a thing". That was unworkable, and is exactly what I was saying to begin with. The delusional Tsukasa isn't one that Junichi liked any more than the full-facade version.

Anyway, perhaps I missed the post where you admitted that you had spoiled yourself on the game's endings; with that knowledge in your head, it really throws this conversation into question for me. I'll just wait for the next episode and see what they do.

[frubam]

Nice episode, although Aya's flip mode against the 3 girls didn't have nearly as much impact as it did in the manga[Precious Diary]. The kiss was also less sensual too =0<. Other than that, a rather decent episode with making a way toward the end.

I'm guessing it'll never be explained, as the answer wasn't in the manga either, but I truly wonder what was in that notebook. Maybe it was her diary(hence, the manga's name) as to how she really feels about things, and that's why Aya didn't want anyone to know about it.

[ZODDGUTS]

The Romance development felt sudden and no it wasn't because it was a clue to Ayatsuji's how unbalanced she was lol. It was obviously because of time issues, that they had to rush the romance development, felt way too sudden.

[GundamZZ]

(Whisper)

Spoiler:

Flame, stop picking on Mentar.

Spoiler:

TSA didn't pay you.

Spoiler:

You should give him a hug, and invites him to enjoy anime together.

Spoiler:

If you don't like what Tsukasa does, you don't have to copy from her or her bullies.

Spoiler:

It's about enjoying the show. Not what should or ought to. Else, Junichi's adventure already ended with swimming team.

Spoiler:

Since five story, Junichi becomes a better and better person. He deserves the praise.

Spoiler:

The next episdoe already tells us what ending AIC chose.

Spoiler:

Unless, AIC does anothr stunt like Ai's route. They inserted another end in the last minute.
It's entertaining nevertheless.

[Mentar]

Naaah, relentlessflame and me usually get along very well

Here's something really sweet: The translation of Ayatsuji's full ED. Kudos to Honya, who did it!

Spoiler:

White snow flutters down on a holy night…

A blue illumination adorns the sidewalk.
I stand still all alone in the bustling crowd.

Smiles peek through, the couples cuddle together.
For me, right now everything is so dazzling that I can’t see.

I wonder will someone love me?
Realize that “I” was hiding deep behind a facade.
I wonder can I truly be free?
Please tell me.
Lost in the winter city,
The lonely angel cries.

I wonder how long I’ve confined my weakness.
I’m stuck losing sight of my true feelings.

The dreams from when I was a child, a nostalgic album.
I’ll tell tomorrow’s me about my precious memories.

I wonder will someone love me?
Accept that “I” change appearances like the moon.
I wonder can I truly be free?
Please tell me.
Unable to fly off into the winter sky,
The clumsy angel cries.

Will my wish come true someday?
Find out that “I” am unable to love things about myself.
Will my prayers reach that sky?
Please listen.
White snow flutters down on a holy night.

I wonder will someone love me?
Realize that “I” was hiding deep behind a facade.
I wonder can I truly be free?
Please tell me.
Lost in the winter city,
The lonely angel cries
…Gently.