Asakomi

January 9, 2006

Suzuka 25

Filed under: Suzuka — Ren @ 9:34 am

Honoka’s character really has come a long way. We all know this. But I think this fact was further emphasized when she got out of the bathtub and went to call Yamato. However, instead of calling and potentially setting herself up to be hurt/disappointed, she calmly admitted that he’s going for Suzuka now, and hung up the phone.

Later on though is one of the best scenes in anime/life. I call it the “long time in coming super mega reality check” scene.

There are two key lines in this scene that absolutely riveted me.

1.) Spoken by Honoka to Suzuka: “You always lie and run away from important issues.”

Amen! Way to call her on it. Finally someone had the guts to just come right out and say it to her. And I couldn’t be happier that the person who did it was Honoka. Not only is it a tiny way for Honoka to get back at Suzuka a bit by causing her some pain, but it’s a perfectly honest, perfectly necessary truth that desperately needed to be spoken.

2.) Spoken by Suzuka to Honoka: “What I do doesn’t influence anything.”

Oh ho ho, and here we see one of the major reasons why Suzuka doesn’t think before she acts/speaks. A sense of powerlessness. Despite her high and mighty attitude, and all her athletic talent, underneath we have a girl who doesn’t feel important at all. Who doesn’t feel that her words or actions have the ability to change the world around her. After all, her feelings didn’t keep Kazuki from dying now did they? And they certainly won’t keep something bad from happening to Yamato, or between her and Yamato.

This simple sentence does much to help us understand the woman that is Suzuka Asahina. In her sports career, academic life, and personal life she strives for perfect control because she feels that life is so utterly out of control. Is this a natural and understandable reaction to emotional pain? Absolutely. Is it justification for some of the cruel things she has said and done? Absolutely not. But can we really judge her when at the root of it all she is simply a human being in incredible pain, like many of us? Of course not. What’s key, now that Suzuka is a tad more self aware, is what she does with this knowledge.

Man this episode was just full of character revelations. But I’m simply going to focus on those two points because I’m dying to see the final episode.

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