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sword-dad-fukuzawa · 2 years

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META META META how about something with regards to the fact that misaki and aoi look so similar; i remember we were yelling about that at one time, when i was liveblogging my mars red breakdown to you XD

(Apologies in advance. This might not make a lot of sense.)

You know, after rewatching episode one, I think the similarities between Aoi and Misaki are meant to contrast Maeda and Shutaro.

Because Maeda and Misaki, right, are a tragedy. They’re a tragedy that reaches its climax in episode 1 and leaves you mildly confused as to who Misaki is, what’s going on with Maeda (god knows that man doesn’t show what he’s thinking or feeling) and why we’re supposed to care, other than that a very pretty woman who was only mostly crazy has just killed herself in broad daylight. But the interesting thing is--Misaki and Aoi, as foils for each other, is set up in that episode. These are two characters who have never met and yet it’s very obvious that they’re connected somehow.

(ep1, Aoi and Maeda. It’s fairly obvious that Maeda is Jokanaan from the start, but Aoi’s shadow overlaying Misaki’s image is very clear foreshadowing here.)

They’re both extremely kind people. They both look very similar. They’re both connected in some way to the two male leads of Mars Red.

And, interestingly--they’re both kind to Defrott.

After looking at the manga, it seems to me like they split Aoi into two characters for the anime--Aoi, whom Shutaro loves, and Misaki, whom Maeda loves. And I think it’s telling that Defrott loves them both in his “cannot bear to attach himself to humanity and companionship yet craves to be treated like a younger sibling” fashion.

God, Defrott. I could talk for hours about that guy. Anyway.

In sum: yes! Lots of similarities! Once you watch ep7 and you see the sort of person Misaki is (gentle, loving, quietly pining for her silly fiancee who is busy amputating his own arm/hunting vampires/overworking himself) you realize that not only does she look like Aoi, but they’re fundamentally the same sort of person.

But here’s the thing about the both of them. They’re both inherently tied to the central narrative of Mars Red by their relation to the two male leads, Maeda and Shutaro. So then you can look at those pairs in tandem and see how they’re meant to mirror each other.

For both of them, there’s a separation involving vampirism--Shutaro and Misaki--and a separation involving war--Shutaro again and Maeda. But their stories end differently, which I think is the whole point here.

Aoi lives. Shutaro lives. According to that one interview I keep referencing, they both find their way back to each other in the end. There’s hope there, for the younger characters.

And yet for Maeda and Misaki, everything is too little, too late. Maeda is too late to see Misaki perform Salome, even though according to Defrott, that was what she hoped for. He was too late to prevent her fatal accident. He’s too late to save her from madness and death. And it’s no surprise that Maeda, in the anime, suffers the exact same fate--he’s turned by Defrott in a mirror of what he did to Misaki, goes crazy, and dies in the same location that Misaki did.

(I would like to point out that in the manga, Aoi also gets put into a life or death situation that Shutaro just barely saves her from, as in the anime. But instead of it occurring in the ruins of Maeda’s military base, Shutaro saves her from falling debris--

in the theater that Misaki died in, in the anime. Just some more neat parallels demonstrating what Aoi situations were given to Misaki.)

But Shutaro is pointedly just in time. He saves Aoi from death (and she’s still wearing!! Misaki’s costume!! It’s painful, because it was the only thing that saved her from Maeda’s rampage!!), he kills Maeda before he himself is killed, and he reunites with Aoi in the end.

Their plotline is about contrasting hope with tragedy and time, being on time versus being too late. And man if it doesn’t fuck me up every time I see it.

#this is SO incoherent #my brain cannot process these two okay it just keeps vibrating in AHHHHH BELOVEDDDSSSS #lksndlksnfslkdfn anyway ty for the ramble opportunity #reyni :0 #mars red #misaki mars red #aoi mars red #maeda mars red #kurusu mars red

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