So, in my previous video, one of my
viewers made an interesting comment regarding Akane and how she portrays
Ai. How Ai's emotions affect Akane, I'd recommend you give it a read. It’s on the
screen right now, so you can pause if you want, but the point I want to focus on is how when
Akane acts as Ai, it seems like she actually becomes a conduit for Ai's personality and
emotions. We get to see the real Ai through Akane's initial portrayal and then through how Ai
affected Akane. And this happens because of the method Akane uses to act as Ai. That's the key.
If it sounds odd at the moment, don't worry; we need to break this down to make sense. It's
kind of hard to explain it in one sentence. You know how in chapter 96, after Akane watches
the videotapes of young Kamiki, and she figures out who he is and what he's done, she says…" The
emotions of Ai that revived in me…are stirred up". It's interesting that she says Ai's
emotions revived in her; notice how she also gets the starry eyes when she says
that. Implying that, Akane got into Ai's skin; she's immersing herself in Ai. Therefore,
she should understand her emotions. So, the idea I'm bringing up is that Ai has
been present in the story through Akane. Akane is an immersive acting genius. Not to
be confused with "Method Acting". I made that mistake myself, but upon further investigation…
she's not a method actress. Method acting draws on the actor's personal experiences to portray the
character they are acting. Which Akane doesn't do, especially not when it comes to Ai. Think about
it: is she using her personal experiences to get into Ai's role? No. She's actually using
the "Stanislavski’s System”. Which is mainly divided into “Given Circumstances” and “Magic If”.
Given Circumstances – is about understanding the world of the character an actor plays. Learning
as many facts about that character as possible, asking themselves questions like: Who am I?
What’s my history? My work? Relationships? Pretty much find out everything they
can about the character they’ll play. Magic If – is about understanding a character’s
given circumstances enough to understand what that character might do in any situation that arises.
And this is how Akane acts, not through method acting but through Stanislavski’s system.
Akane says it herself in chapter 43 when she has to play Sayahime. Because Sayahime
doesn’t have enough screen time in the manga, and there’s not much information about her,
Akane cannot analyse her enough to understand her character. She cannot apply Stanislavski’s System.
Funnily enough, Aqua is more of a method acting than Akane. Think about when he tries
to use emotional acting. He drew on his personal past experience to achieve
that. But that’s beside the point. Akane can portray a character so accurately that
it’s almost frightening. Through her research, she manages to fully immerse herself into whatever
character she’s researching, to the point where she literally becomes that character.
Kana says in chapter 29 that Akane does a deep examination and insight into the role
she’s playing, and has a natural instinct to perform the role with absolute perfection.
So far, we haven’t seen Akane miss anything in her analysis. We saw how diligent she
can be in chapter 28 when she researched Ai. Which is also the point when Ai, in a symbolic
way, returned to the manga. The notes for the cover page of chapter 29 also imply that.
“As a result of getting into character, it was as if she had become Hoshino Ai herself…”
And this is very interesting. The more we look at Akane from this point onwards, the
more she will start to resemble Ai. Chapter 29 focuses on showing and confirming how
much Akane became Ai—through Aqua almost mistaking her for Ai, through the narrator saying
that Akane possesses the same charm as Ai, and also the panelling here. Notice how Ai looks
at Akane, and later we see the same panel but with Ai instead of Akane. Aqua obeying Akane. Even Ruby
gets swept away by Akane and calls her…” mama”. This chapter is meant to show that Akane
is not only acting as Ai, but it’s like she became Ai herself. As Aqua confirms it in
the next chapter: “The way you acted like Ai, is as if I was seeing her in the flash”. Akane
explains how, through her profiling and research she knows pretty much everything about her.
That’s the point where Aqua decides to use her to find out his father’s identity. Because
she understood Ai so much, she would be able to pinpoint the men she liked, among other things.
Now, it would be a while until Akane immerses herself into Ai again. In the meantime, we get
to see Akane for who she is. A nice, cute, shy, girl with a huge passion for acting. Despite
some life struggles, she can be enthusiastic and confident at times, especially when she gets into
a character. That’s when stars seem to form in her eyes. When she immerses herself into a character,
they’re not always the same kind of stars; they seem to differ from character to character.
In chapter 51 is the second time when Ai’s emotions are revived in Akane. Aqua collapsed
due to his trauma, and while Akane was looking after him, he mentioned Ai’s name in his
sleep. That’s what revived Ai’s emotions and what caused Akane to begin a deduction.
Think about the Stanislavski’s System I’ve mentioned before. Given Circumstances is when
the actor, Akane, learns all the facts about the character, Ai, which I’ll show on the screen
right now. There are too many to read through, so just have a look yourselves. After she went
through the known facts, it comes – Magic If. To understand what the character would do in
any given situation. And what Akane does, is hug Aqua and tell him she’ll always be by
his side. Notice that she has starry eyes at this moment, meaning she’s still immersed in
Ai’s character, or at least, Ai’s emotions are taking over. Therefore, that’s how Ai
would respond if it was her instead of Akane. That’s the main point here. Because Akane
immersed herself in Ai, we actually see how Ai would react in this scene, not
Akane. Keep this in mind because this will explain her behaviour later down the line.
Now, this is when Akane’s persona and her act as Ai start to intertwine. The separation between
act and reality slowly begins to fade away. We know Akane likes Aqua and is grateful to
him for saving her life and career. We know they went on a few dates on and off since Low
Now to keep up the appearances. We also know that Akane kind of pussyfoots around, and isn’t
committed to supporting her words because she’s shy and doubtful in that regard. Unsure of how to
react, and unsure of what to do in certain cases. Let’s contrast these two similar scenes
to better understand what I mean. In chapter 51 Aqua collapses and
then hides away. In response, Akane doesn’t know what to do. She asks the
others if he’s all right, and only goes to check on him when somebody else tells her to. But
she still doesn’t know what to do. Give him water, maybe he should lay down a bit or maybe call
his family. When Gotanda takes him to his house, she sits by his bed, unsure of what her role is.
Now, let’s contrast this to chapter 52. Where we see that Akane cooks for Aqua,
offers to feed Aqua, and even blows onto his spoon to cool it down; she wants to
help Aqua, she wants to support him. She wants to see his previous acting. She knows
what to do. She no longer doubts her role. On the balcony, she confronts Aqua’s reason for
acting, and when she learns it…without hesitation, she shows her extreme support. Even Aqua is a
little uncomfortable when faced with her answer, but notice that Akane…is full of confidence. The
reason he wants to kill somebody isn’t relevant to Akane, if Aqua is a bad boy, that’s not relevant
to Akane, if he’s pressured by guilt then she’ll take off some of that pressure, but why?
How does Akane go from hesitant to absolute confidence in the span of a chapter? Which, is
probably a couple of hours in the manga timelines. You see how Akane has her sweat dripping
all the way through chapter 51? But in 52, again a couple of hours later, she’s so certain
of herself, she even teases Aqua in this panels. Where is this personality coming from? Well, of
course, it’s coming from Ai. Just look again at chapter 29. Look at how Akane behaves around Aqua,
and compare that to her behaviour in chapter 52. It's the same. When she realised who Ai was
to Aqua, her whole demeanour and personality changed to reflect Ai’s. We see how Ai
would react to Aqua. Think about it, what happened between chapter 51 and 52 that made
Akane go from this doubtful, confused person, to a powerful and confident person? From
someone who wasn’t sure about her relationship with Aqua, to someone who would kill for him?
Akane is using Ai’s personality to deal with Aqua, willingly or not. And it seems that whenever their
relationship touches on a sensible phase…Ai’s personality takes over Akane.
Think about chapter 71. Akane and Aqua go on a date, have a
bit of banter, talk about holidays, and we see Akane act normal. Until Aqua tells
her that they need to have a serious talk, a.k.a break up. Then her behaviour changes.
And, of course, her behaviour would change, they were about to break up, but that’s not what
I want to talk about. Look at Akane’s demeanour and attitude after they leave that café. The way
she walks with her hands behind, the way she talks with bittersweetness, the way she’s drawn in the
panels, she has the power. She has the control in these scenes. Not, in the manipulative type
of control, but in the you are drawn into her, to follow her, see what she says, what she
does, which carries into chapter 72. They, again, have a bit of banter, and then they get to
the real reason Akane doesn’t want to break up. She doesn’t want Aqua to bear his burden
alone. She doesn’t mind the break-up itself; she just doesn’t want Aqua to be alone. But
why? She says she doesn’t know what kind of relationship they have…but she does. She
knows Aqua has been deceiving and using her, and she accepts that. In chapter 78 when Aqua
literally told her that, she said she knew. She wasn’t fazed by finding out Aqua wants
to kill his father; she was rather shocked that he didn’t realise the loophole. But why?
Now, let’s quickly look at chapter 87 for a bit. What’s interesting here is that Akane
knows very well that Aqua likes Kana. Yet, she doesn’t mind that, as much as she doesn’t mind
to be used. As long as Aqua acts as her boyfriend, she doesn’t want more. She’s a bit annoyed that
he pushed Kana away for good, but if that’s what Aqua wants, then she accepts it. She knows Aqua
lies, but she says: “Slowly but surely, the lies turn into truth.” I wonder who said this before?
Ai was somebody who chose to lie, hoping those lies would turn into the truth, while Akane is
somebody who chose to accept the lies, hoping they would also turn into the truth. Knowing
that Ai’s personality influenced Akane, then of course she would accept Aqua’s lies and hope
they would become the truth, since Ai was doing the same thing while alive. Akane was hoping their
fake relationship would turn into the real thing, that Aqua’s lies will eventually become the truth.
And if we look at chapter 96, when Akane starts to figure out who Kamiki is, she says that Ai’s
emotions that revived in her are stirred up, and then the starry eyes appear again. And
because Akane immerses herself into Ai, she knows the reason why Ai didn’t reveal
him as her partner, and the reason Kamiki used someone else for murder. She knows
every answer because it has already been established that she knows everything about Ai.
Since Ai’s kids where the only people she loved and she’d do everything for them, that might
be reflected in Akane’s attachment towards Aqua. Hence why she went to the extreme
measures to go after Kamiki herself. To save Aqua from his burden. Something that isn’t
hard to believe that Ai herself would also do. It’s interesting how Akane doesn’t think about
herself when going after Kamiki. Not even her mother which, we saw how much she supported Akane
and how close they still are. No doubt she loves Aqua, but even risking her life without
considering her family or herself? I mean, the thought should at least cross her mind, right?
But if she’s influenced by Ai’s personality, then this obsession makes sense.
This means that Ai would also 100% do what Akane wanted to do for Aqua.
When Aqua catches her and the tracker is revealed, she says something odd…that she thought she had
an equal relationship with Aqua. But how so? I thought that the trade comes from the fact
that Aqua pretends to be her boyfriend, and she know that. But Aqua also knows it too. Think
about it. Akane knows that Aqua is using her, that he likes Kana not her, that he is
pretending to be a good boyfriend to her, that there’s an ulterior reason he chooses to
date Akane…so, what’s the trade? What makes this relationship equal? It’s not equal, she’s lying.
Even when she breaks down, she keeps on lying…trying to sway Aqua to her side. Not in a
manipulative way, but because she doesn’t want to lose him on the path he wants to take. The same
way Ai wouldn’t want him to go down that route. There’s an interesting scene in chapter 116
during the interpersonal audition. Frill says that the movie relies on whether or not Ai
forgives the man who killed her. On whether or not the actress who plays her understands Ai.
Akane says that she can answer that, and she’s right. She understands everything about Ai and
I believe she already knows whether Ai forgave Kamiki or not. And this is crucial information.
Shortly after the interpersonal audition ended, Akane stumbles upon Aqua and declares that
she will stop his plan. In my previous video I speculated about how she’d do that, how she’d
oppose Aqua, but I think I have my answer. Akane knows that Ai forgave Kamiki. She
understands everything about Ai, so, it’s only natural that she would understand her stance on
this matter. And so, if Ai indeed forgave Kamiki, then that’s the information that could oppose
Aqua’s plan. Imagine if Aqua learns that his mother forgave her killer, then what’s the point
of revenge? Why kill someone Ai already forgave? But let me know what do you think of this
conclusion. I know I’ve been kind of jumping from one topic to another, but I swear to God,
I get an idea and research it to turn it into a proper script, and while I’m doing that, I
discover some other interesting information, it gets stuck in my mind,
and I want to talk about it.
