sailormean said:
ohhh man, i'm gonna have to think about this one and maybe re-read it when i have time before i score it (although the fact that it's re-readable probably says enough about it as at least a decently interesting manga)
it's been bugging me this entire manga and as big of an ikuhara fan as i am, i just like SENSED through little bits and pieces and (likely intentional) hints scattered throughout chapters, that this was going to not just be a half reality half dream fantasy but a full-blown, everything's-vague-and-a-metaphor Utena-esque type of ending. and for the most part, i was right, and i'm still unsure if that's what i wanted this story to be, but now that i'm thinking back on all the themes and meanings it really does make the most sense and i'm not sure why i wanted that typical everything gets solved and is normal and happy type of ending when it was so clear it wasn't gonna be that type of shoujo. it gave me that painful sort of feeling with the way it ended, an unresolved sadness i tend to feel about shows that stick with me for a while (and i'm sorry i keep on bringing ikuhara up but it's super similar to how i felt when i finished utena and penguindrum). there were certainly elements and plot lines that i don't think needed to be there at all for the sake of the true intentions of the story, but i really have to at least commend the writing for how carefully ahead of time twists were planned because the surprise factor paid off.
not at all expecting many of these specific twists to go the way that they did, especially the final reveal that mashiro's life at the school was all just a pre-birth purgatory-esque test type thing? maybe i'm missing some key parts of this, and maybe i'm supposed to be confused/ things were left open intentionally, but in my understanding all of the students (at least the ones who took part in the dream class) are all individual cases of having to make some type of choice or realization before birth, and i suppose that's why they forget their past experience in exchange for their birth, and vice versa as to why graduations caused other students to forget the 'alumni' since they're not in that world anymore. but really, mashiro's the only one who's decision makes sense, it's the ultimate sort of pre-birth stage where you're not male or female and somehow that fate is decided, and this is a fantasy imagining of that, i get that. but kureha and sou and the others? if the school setting is all a test and their memories are fake, what are their trials supposed to be? if kureha was never raped/ wasn't born yet to see her mother abused and hate men, why would those be her memories? and if sou wasn't born yet to a family that ended up neglecting him why would he conjure up a fake possessive sister to cope with something that hadn't really happened to him yet?
i guess my only theory that would make he other characters' lives and motives for being there that makes sense to me is this: somehow our fates and destinies are predetermined and whatever powers that be know them to be what will happen to the child in question. therefore this pre-life fetal purgatory whateverthehell test is created, with the future memories serving as a past that child thinks they already experienced, as a test to individuals who are known to have a rough part of life ahead of them, to see if they'd be able to deal with it and still live their lives happily/resolved. so essentially, to see if they're strong enough to be born. to be born in that world is to graduate, and everyone's past and darker/hidden problems are the same problems they would maybe experience in the future, so the whole point of the dream school is for students to be born with a strong enough will to survive life. for example the senpai/ president of the judo club, at the end of his journey when he graduated he came to accept that when he's born he's going to be pressured by his wealthy upbringing to behave a certain way and assimilate into this high society he doesn't feel he belongs in but must do to inherit his dad's company. the test was a countermeasure by this purgatorial world to see that, should he be born, he'd be strong enough to endure this without losing sight of his true self/personality dreams, and he clearly shows his realizations before he graduates.
and it makes sense that in mashiro's case, the memories are so few since s/he was described as a 'unique case' whose fate changed when her mother experienced the emergency c-section after the accidental fire and only one twin could be born, thus mashiro herself either decided to be born female, or simply realized that it was already destiny all along and she just had to accept it and let her male counterpart die/remain unborn or whatever happened there. since everyone else's fates weren't altered to mashiro's extent, their memories were full up to adolescence and their big decisions were usually of a personality or family related kind of theme. but mashiro didn't have those experiences, thus her big obstacle was her own existence and the gender she would have to live as, and being born as what was supposed to be a twin knowing you were born the day your sibling died and whether whatever twin survived was going to be strong enough to essentially live for the both of them. the more i think about it the more i appreciate this story and realize it was never half-assed to begin with, this was all beautifully done (..... IF i'm even analyzing this all as it's intended to be......). if we keep going off of this theory, then cases such as the girl who skipped three classes and disappeared are essentially why miscarriages happen in the real world - the child isn't 'strong' enough to be born, which is pretty fucking heartbreaking.i wonder how an abortion would look in this world, or a kid that's born with a mental or physical problem?
i guess now my only question is why, if this is a world for every other not yet born person with a difficult life ahead of them, why did the world and its inhabitants seem to crumble when mashiro was about to graduate? sou and kureha were just about ready to resolve their own problems and be born/reset so why would everything disappear with mashiro?? i'm gonna just assume that it's only like that from mashiro's point of view since we see a reborn sou on the train with all-female mashiro at the very end, so it must mean that he eventually made it to graduation too...
wow sorry that was longer than i'd expected and no one's likely to read it now that the manga's been long over, i basically analyzed my own questions for myself there. not sure if i'm completely off the mark but i don't think it matters with this type of genre of manga, where things are left so vague that it's practically inviting us to interpret its meaning on our own. definitely gonna consider re-reading this someday.
Wow after reading this I finally understand the ending exept for why the pre birth world crumbled after mashiro left , though if he was inside the dream the moment everything burned then being his point of view doesnt exactly explain it because he didnt see any of it. well who know?
