Kamen Rider OOO: Endpoint Analysis, Part 3

[akinoame]

Eiji Hino is our main character, played by Shu Watanabe with Seiji Takaiwa as OOO and Yugo Fujii as his Greeed form. Technically, I've already written up his analysis. Eight pages of it. I began the OOO Challenge in order to write a passable personality profile for Eiji for a game, and while I could easily copy and paste what I did there, here? Well, I'm the kind of person who's never satisfied with my best effort from yesterday.

At first glance, he seems to be simply a good man, part of the archetype I call a "Kobayashi Red," after the lead (red) Riders and many of the Red Sentai and corresponding Power Rangers in Yasuko Kobayashi's works—kind but sometimes clumsy or awkward, prioritizing the lives of others over completing the mission that everyone else sees, often naive and shaken by the truths of the wars they find themselves thrust into, but with virtues and beliefs that ultimately prevail and inspire others. This is exactly the kind of hero needed for the fledgling Neo-Heisei Era—an unambiguously good character to act as a proper role model, much in the same way Yusuke Godai was in Kuuga, the beginning of the Heisei Era. But instead of following the traditional path of a Kobayashi Red, we have one who seems to have been taken right from the middle of his storyline, where idealism has already clashed with an ugly truth. We begin with a spacey world-traveler who lives off of spare change and his underwear, staring in confusion at the police as he wakes up in the middle of a crime scene. We develop a deeply complex young man with psychological trauma, who cannot put the same value for his own life as he does for others', who proves to be far sharper than anyone would give him credit for and downright dangerous at times.

Put simply, we got a lot more than we paid for.

Eiji was born into a family of politicians—both of his parents were in politics, and Date references siblings that apparently are too. Nothing is ever gone into detail, especially any further mention of these siblings, but I have a feeling it's meant to be a reference to another show Kobayashi worked on—the live-action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which expanded more on Rei Hino's manga background of resentment toward her politician father, whom she felt had neglected her dying mother. The surname "Hino" even has the same kanji for Eiji's as it did for Rei's. If this sounds like foreshadowing, we'll come back to it in a bit. The revelation about Eiji's parentage is one of those elements that I think wasn't originally planned, since there's no foreshadowing toward it, but in retrospect, it fits well. Eiji is personable, but he's got a manipulative streak, and he's very clever. He knows how to play Ankh especially to get him to do something that he wants, whether it's threatening to throw away the OOO Driver if Ankh doesn't play by his rules, or if it's accepting a deal offered by Date before Ankh has the chance to reject it, since he knows that Ankh needs the Cell Medals Date's offering and Eiji himself wants the information Ankh has to pay in return. He can read Ankh pretty well and figure out what he means when he's not saying something—picking up that he knows where a Yummy's nest is and thus complaining so Ankh doesn't get suspicious, or rejecting the suggestion that Ankh may have created a Yummy because he's noticed that Ankh's revival has been incomplete and that Ankh's more likely to interfere if he wants to find information. He knows that people underestimate him, and he uses that to his advantage, both when he slips a candroid on Date while pretending to ask him for romantic advice, and in that epic moment in the movie when he carefully considers his deal with Bell and makes himself believe everyone in the town is his family, thus destroying Gara's plans. These are the actions we'd expect from a politician's son, so the late revelation makes perfect sense.

However, the only family member Eiji ever talks about is his grandfather, whom Movie Wars Megamax reveals died sometime before the series began. Grandpa Hino (or presumably Hino, anyway) was a world-traveler who inspired Eiji to begin his own voyages with the sage advice that "A man never knows when he'll die, so he should always have clean underwear for tomorrow." This quirky advice led Eiji to live off of just that—his underwear, the loose change in his pockets, and the kindness of strangers—and travel the world.

But the world is not kind, especially to idealists. In high school, he got it into his head to create an international charity for children, and following graduation, he decided to pursue this dream. In true Kobayashi fashion, you have to piece together his history from fragments revealed both by his own admission and by others, and this is what we end up with: He traveled to a war-torn region somewhere in Africa (likely either Chad or Sudan, although Somalia is also possible) and tried to fund a school. He met a little girl, one of the students there, and she was his first and most important friend in the village. But the money he'd raised for the villagers instead ended up in the hands of greedy people profiting from the war—everything he'd done to try to help people was instead being used to hurt them. He spent weeks trying to help, since the villagers had been so kind to him, but they ran out of food—either through famine or through supplies being cut off. Bombings began, right where the little girl apparently lived. Weak from hunger and exhaustion, Eiji could do nothing to save her as rockets exploded around her, taking out a building that landed on her. The image of her crying as the rockets approach, his bruised hands powerlessly reaching out for her, is his most persistent memory and probably the entire theme of OOO wrapped up in one terrible sight. To add insult to injury, Eiji was ransomed out of Africa soon after the bombing, his parents' people taking him out of a hospital before he was physically or psychologically ready to go. He only made it a few steps outside before he dropped to his knees, crying, and his attendants were completely unhelpful, picking him up and insisting he would be home soon—completely ignoring that he didn't want to be taken away and that a huge source of his pain was his sense of powerlessness. His family also continued to profit from his trauma, spreading the story of his attempt to save the village (but of course, neglecting the part where the money he'd raised had been funneled into the war) and winning votes.

At some unspecified point after, Eiji cut off all contact with his family and set off on his own. He was still kind and helpful, as he had been before the war, but he had changed in ways that he didn't realize. I've thrown around the term "PTSD" a lot, and to prove that I'm not saying it lightly, here's how his personality changes and the criteria compare:

First, of course, is the traumatic stressor: surviving a war. He witnessed it firsthand, he suffered from it, and he unintentionally contributed to it—all of it leading to a small child that he cared about being killed in front of him, with him unable to help.

He suffers re-experiencing symptoms, including emotional flashbacks (as throughout episodes 9 and 10) and intrusive memories (several episodes). Episodes 9 and 10 are the best episodes for the diagnosis, when a Yummy's parent is setting bombs throughout the city. The bombing constantly reminds him of the war, to the point that he's actually able to save Hina and several bystanders by remembering a crucial detail about sequential explosions. The events leave him on-edge all episode, and when he finds out that Maki let this happen, he only barely restrains himself from punching his head off his neck—indeed, his strict control over himself is another factor I'll discuss in a bit.

The next set of symptoms is dubbed the "avoidance" criteria. Eiji avoids mentioning the war whenever possible, but he also avoids travel altogether—something that worries Chiyoko. He makes excuses for why he doesn't take another trip, and he's completely lacking the energy that other travelers have.

The DSM, the American standard for psychological diagnosis, has a category that doesn't appear to be required in the ICD, the international standard. This is "negative cognitive and mood alterations." First off, Eiji has difficulty focusing on one thing at a time, especially when he's upset, and episode 9 highlights it when he's on the verge of a panic attack over the first two bombs, but his attention shifts to Ankh's candroid and to Maki. It has the side-effect of calming him down for the moment, but he also hyper-focuses on things when he's left alone. This is part of the mood issues: He clearly blames himself for being unable to save the girl (whose name is never mentioned in-series; apparently the novel says it might be "Alfreed," but I've ranted about inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the novels anyway, and it's hard to tell when Kobayashi didn't write it anyway), but it's obvious to the audience that there's nothing he could have done to save her. He takes way too much on himself, which I'll get into more in a bit, and he shows characteristics of depression, which honestly could be co-morbid: lack of interest in things he used to love (such as travel), a foreshortened future—that is, he doesn't take interest in planning for tomorrow—and a sense of "emptiness," and it takes effort on the part of others to keep him connected to them.

Arousal symptoms, from both manuals, include the varying lack of concentration and hyper-focus, but the DSM includes "recklessness or self-destructive behavior," which he has in spades.

It's actually harder to get diagnosed with PTSD with the DSM than the ICD, but Eiji hits every single mark hard. So...PTSD. Very painfully obviously. And while the show doesn't call it for what it is, Eiji's development is about getting through and past his issues.

Eiji's two biggest issues regarding his PTSD go hand-in-hand: his lack of desire and his prioritizing others before himself. Back to what I said about Babylon 5, the question "what do you want?" doesn't refer to simple material wants, but your heart's desire—the same thing OOO asks. In fact, when G'Kar in B5 answers that what he wants most is to see his people's enemy crushed and destroyed the same way his people had been, Mr. Morden is still disappointed because there is nothing beyond that revenge; as G'Kar puts it, "As long as my homeworld's safety is guaranteed, I don't know that it matters."

Eiji constantly says that he wants to reach out his hand to help anyone. And that's it—that's his desire—the power, the ability, to reach out and help people. To never be powerless to save anyone again. But he's afraid to want it, after his trauma, because he'd wanted to do that before and lost so much. But then he met Ankh, who saw him stupidly risk his life to protect him and Shingo, and thus gave him OOO—the power to reach out and help. But the fact that he's afraid to truly want it makes him an easy host for the purple Medals, which contain a desire for nothingness and the void—a Thanatos, as I said, to Eiji's wavering life instinct. These Medals give him incredible power, but at great cost—he loses control, he loses his senses, and he slowly loses his humanity and transitions into a Greeed.

Because he's lost that dream and desire, the drive to help people is no longer what he wants—i.e., desire—but who he is, a part of his identity that he cannot separate from, and he fails to care about his own safety and wellbeing as much as he cares about those of others. He uses combos because they're stronger, even though they cause enormous strain on his body. He continues to hold onto the purple Medals because they will help him win, regardless of the changes they put his body through. And I think this is part of an issue hidden within his issues: his fear of loss of control.

Sure, PuToTyra and the purple Medals in general give him a chance to lose control, but it's never outright said what that means. It's shown in the beginning of episode 33 that he remembers everything he does as PuToTyra, but he cannot consciously stop himself. It's as if his emotions and instincts take over entirely and run away from him. After all, in his anger and grief at Ankh's assimilation in 42, he taps deeper into his own power and becomes strong enough to destroy Core Medals. And remember that in "Time Judged All," he mentions that everyone is "losing their freedom" (TVN), which seems like a strange thing to focus on especially when Ankh is saying that he (or they—ambiguous pronouns again) shouldn't worry about the hows or whys, so long as they get what they want. But for Eiji, freedom and control is part of it—he wants the power to save people, and he wants the freedom to do it his way, such as when he insists on helping other people first, collecting Medals for Ankh second. And remember that he had no control over his own story—his parents rewrote his history to make themselves look good, editing out the parts where Eiji messed up or where they had to bail him out. First, he couldn't save his friend, then he couldn't tell his story. Control is tied up in his trauma.

And this is where OOO comes in, and his out-of-control desire toward the end. He realizes that his desire is "the power to reach out my hand," and becoming OOO is what gave him that ability. But he mistakes "ability" for "power," and that's where he loses control. He takes it completely upon himself to do it, ignoring that others are trying to help him, because it has to be him. He's got the power, so he's got to use it. He's got to have control.

And if that power hurts him, then it's okay. Because he doesn't see himself as important as other people. He's forever hurting himself, and he fails to understand why his friends are so worried. He overuses combos to the point that even Ankh warns him not to overdo it, and it's only when Date puts his foot down because of the fear he'll lose control does he stop. But by that point, it's moot because the purple Medals come into play, and as it turns out, his lack of personal desire keeps him from losing control—in fact, it's his insistence on using a combo no matter what it does to him that attracts the five purple Medals to him, since they sense he does not care about himself and barely has anything to live for. He has plenty to fight for, but like Ren from Ryuki, he has nothing beyond that, nowhere to go. He has to find what will hold him steady.

Enter Ankh and Hina. If Eiji's background has left him stalled at "who are you," "what do you want," and "where are you going" because they've all become intertwined, Ankh and Hina answer the final two B5 questions of "why are you here" and "do you have something worth living for."

Ankh is the reason Eiji becomes OOO, and it all happens by such a strange series of accidents that it feels like destiny. Eiji is working a temp job as a security guard at the Kougami Foundation Art Museum when two other guards drug him so they can steal from the archives. But at the same time Eiji's sleeping, Ankh is awakening—breaking the seal on the Greeed. But during the grand fight and escape, Ankh drops one of his Core Medals in the break room, and that's what wakes Eiji up. Sleepy, he thinks it's his pay for the day and goes to change, and hanging up his uniform is what finally causes the wall to collapse, revealing him and his underwear to Shingo and the world. He proves to be no help to the investigation, and they let him go, and he meets Ankh and Hina because of the Taka Medal he picked up. While introductions do not go well, Uva's Yummy makes it worse, and Eiji finds that he can't just let the Yummy destroy Ankh. Despite not knowing him, despite Ankh not even being human, Eiji runs in to help and gets attacked. Shingo is critically injured responding to the scene, and in the midst of all of this, Eiji continues to try to help save the both of them. Because of this, Ankh gives him the belt and Medals, giving Eiji the power to reach out his hand to help anyone.

When Ankh possesses Shingo and Eiji learns that Hina is Shingo's younger sister, he tries to concoct a cover story that Shingo is on an undercover assignment and has to keep away from home for a little while. This cover story lasts all of a minute at most when Hina sees Ankh and his arm. And Eiji ends up having to carry her to Cous Coussier, planning to try to keep her in the dark. That also doesn't work out well, when she finds him injured and holding her brother's phone, so she helps him, making him explain everything. He admits to her that she probably can't depend on him, but he has to try to help or he'd never forgive himself—death itself is preferable to the regret. But the meeting with Hina gives him resolve to one day save Shingo from Ankh, even if it means that he has to defeat him himself.

This complicated relationship is the heart of their progress as characters, and in an era where Steven Universe and the ending of The Legend of Korra exist, it's impossible to deny that this reads like a love triangle, straight out of a shoujo or harem anime. Ankh is the tough guy option, Hina the sweet option, and Eiji in the middle, trying to figure out what to do about either one of them. The choices he makes always end up hurting the others, since Shingo is an awkward subject among all of them, and no matter what Eiji decides, it's unfair to everyone.

But for all this is an uncomfortable relationship among them, Ankh and Hina both help keep Eiji grounded in different ways. It starts with Ankh as the one who will catch Eiji when he falls—and I do mean literally. There are frequent moments of Eiji falling or almost falling, and it seems symbolic for reasons I'll get into with Ankh's section. Ankh is almost always the one to catch him—the hand Eiji's always reaching for. He's there by Eiji's side through battle, seeing firsthand what he's going through and helping keep him alive. But when it comes to the aftermath, it's Hina who's the one who patches him up after a fight or listens to his fears and pain. She's the one he confided in about his past, where Ankh almost seems to avoid facing Eiji's vulnerabilities. She's the first one he has to turn to when he's injured, and even though Date's medical expertise means he takes over, she's still there trying to help ease his pain, whether it's physical or emotional.

But his emotional pain, the lack of desire formed in him after the war, leads to the purple Core Medals and Greeedification. He goes completely catatonic when they first enter his body, and no amount of Ankh shaking and shouting at him can wake him up. When he does finally wake up in the hospital, he seems completely normal, although he does come to understand that there are Medals inside his body and nobody knows what they're doing to him. But in the first fight he gets into after being discharged from the hospital, he ignores Date's warnings to protect himself and charges headfirst to save a group of people trapped between two Pteranodon Yummies. Their attacks explode with him directly in the middle, and Date has to bandage his extensive injuries at Cous Coussier that night, explaining his backstory to everyone but Ankh, who watches over Eiji upstairs. The very next day, Eiji faces the Yummies again and finds himself in another situation similar to the war—a small child just barely out of his reach, with death approaching them both—but this time, he manages to save her and send her to Goto for safety. But the Yummies force him to de-henshin again, and when they attack him, he suddenly loses all conscious control over his body, mind, and powers, and he becomes PuToTyra.

The purple Medals embody the theme of Thanatos vs. Eros that takes over the final arc, and that conflict can be found in Eiji himself as well. While he's not actively suicidal, he doesn't exactly go out of his way to save himself; his own survival is extremely low on his list of priorities, and he acts as though he regards other people's lives as more valuable than his own. But for all PuToTyra is the power to destroy everything, the purple Medals react when Eiji's life is in danger, and they take over and save his life—as if they can't trust him to have the drive to live. In the midst of an instinct to destroy, there is an instinct to live that Eiji no longer seems to have.

As I said before, PuToTyra is just wild instinct and raw emotion, rampaging with no real direction and no way to stop himself. To be honest, there have been hints from the very first episodes that there is something dangerous about Eiji, and it's an old Kobayashi trope: the color purple. Originally coded as the color of strength in Kuuga, Ryuki quickly turned it into a danger warning that has persisted throughout Heisei and Neo-Heisei Kamen Rider, and you know that if you see a purple Rider, he is almost certainly going to be dangerous in some way: Ouja in Ryuki, Kaixa in 555, Sasword in Kabuto, Ryutaros in Den-O, Ryugen in Gaim, and Chase in Drive. Eiji's clothing choices feature purple in the first several episodes, and then as we get closer to the Lost Ankh arc, he starts to favor reds and oranges before going right back to the purple in the PuToTyra arc. If you know your Kobayashi, you see it coming well ahead of time.

PuToTyra's lack of control means that he basically fights like Asakura—with reckless, wild abandon, and everyone is a target. The battle doesn't end for him, and he quickly turns to attack allies as well as enemies. But as it turns out, he can't attack Hina—she's able to get through to him. And in that moment, her role as his emotional stability shifts. Now, she's the one whose hand takes his in the heat of the moment, her voice the only one he'll listen to, the only one who can bring him back from losing control without having to fight him. Ankh can't fare nearly as well, even though Eiji trusts him to find a way to bring him back after he transforms to save him from Lost Ankh; Ankh has to deactivate the Driver and once again, catches him when he falls, holding him as he loses consciousness.

You'd think, based on Hina's importance in breaking through the haze of his mind without him attacking her, that she would be the most influential stabilizing force. Instead, it turns out to be Ankh, and this is where it really starts to have romantic undertones. When Lost Ankh does finally assimilate Ankh, Eiji's depression becomes worse and he finds his body changing—he's losing his sense of taste, and he has flashes where his arm suddenly becomes a Greeed arm. He's afraid to show these moments to Hina and tries to keep away from her, but in battle, his grief and rage are out in full force. She manages to get through to him again, but when Ankh revives and betrays him, no one can reason with him and he starts emitting power and has to be held until he runs out of energy, just to stop him. He refuses to forgive Ankh for the pain he's put Hina through by taking Shingo away again, and every time they meet, his rage is out of control long before he henshins. It's like a really nasty breakup. And he worries far more about Shingo's Greeedification than his own, although when he's alone and finally has a lasting shift, he admits to himself that he's terrified. It doesn't stop him from using that power to battle Ankh, however, with their fight now a matter of Greeedification versus humanity. While Ankh tries to make him realize what a Greeed's existence is really like, Eiji tries to argue with him that humanity means he should appreciate life.

In the end, Ankh wins by forcing Eiji to answer what he wants, and Eiji's tearful realization that he wanted the power to reach out and help people, thanking Ankh for giving it to him. But Maki increases the number of Medals in his body, pushing him out of control completely and transforming him into a Greeed. Ankh manages to beat the sense out of him, to the point that Eiji can no longer remember that they fought or that he's mad at him—he tries to give Ankh his ice pop money just before Ankh has to protect him from Maki. Satonaka rescues him when he loses consciousness, and upon learning that he's remembered his desire, Kougami tries to convince him to give up the purple Medals so he can take in the Cell Medals and become a proper vessel. But Eiji no longer has control over his desire, and he insists that he has to use the purple Medals' power to stop Maki and that he's a deep enough vessel not to become a true Greeed instead.

But it's Ankh who snaps him out of it, simply by appearing, and it becomes clear that this is why Eiji's been like this. Hina can get him under control, but Ankh keeps him that way. For all of their fights, for all they disagree and bicker, they both deeply value their relationship, to the point that it's the stabilizing influence that pushes Eiji right back to where he should be, after he's tried to keep away from everyone else. Ankh is the one person he's not afraid of hurting, and maybe that's what makes the biggest difference.

But the damage has been done, and Eiji finds his vision fading as well. Reunited, he, Ankh, and Hina enjoy ice pops on the riverwalk one last time before the final battle, Eiji unaware that Ankh is dying. Though he and Ankh bicker, it's half-hearted, and the revelation that Ankh will "soon" give Shingo back makes Eiji too relieved to read between the lines. To him, it's the last weight off his shoulders, even though he knows that soon, he will no longer be human. But Hina takes their hands and holds them together that night, staying with them to witness them fighting Maki and the Medal vessel. Eiji proves his cleverness again by using the Cell Medals in his body to power-up PuToTyra's axe so he can defeat Maki, but when it fails, he gives into desperation again and taps into the Medals' power as deep as he can go, knowing he can never turn back after this. But Ankh stops him and tosses over his last three Medals, including his personal Core. It's up to the viewer whether or not Eiji sees the crack in Ankh's Medal, since his vision is going out again, but he understands what Ankh is giving up and agrees sadly. In his last transformation as TaJaDor, he sees Ankh fighting alongside him, protecting him from Maki's attacks. With Ankh as his guardian angel, he finally lets go of the purple Medals and uses them to destroy Maki, shattering the purple Medals...and completely breaking Ankh's Medal.

The explosion of the Medal vessel leaves Eiji unconscious as he plummets to the earth below, but Ankh appears again to wake him up. Believing there's no hope to save his own life, Eiji calmly talks to Ankh and asks how he could have satisfied his desire to live if he's died, but Ankh affirms that Eiji's belief that he was alive enough to die is more than enough for him. It gives Eiji some peace of mind, but he reaches for Ankh as he starts to disappear, only to hear Ankh telling him that Eiji shouldn't be reaching for his hand anymore. Eiji only manages to grasp half of Ankh's Medal; and as he shouts for him in grief, he hears Goto above him, reaching out to try to save him, while below, the others are reaching out and encouraging him to accept their help. Ankh's words finally make sense to him, and he realizes that it wasn't just because Ankh gave him power that he could reach out to others—if he let others reach out and help him, that was a form of power too. He lets Goto save him at long last, and his friends—his family—gather around him before he quietly admits that this doesn't mean he regrets ever reaching for Ankh.

Eiji returns to traveling the world afterwards, and the epilogue begins with a montage of photos from his journey, revealing him happier than he's been in a long time and constantly surrounded by other people. He keeps in contact with his friends back home and surprises them with a video chat during Chiyoko's party, hearing everyone's expressions of love toward him. They are his reason to keep on living, even while he has a new desire: to one day bring Ankh back. He carries Ankh's broken Medal with him throughout his journey, looking forward to a future where they'll be together again, unaware that Ankh is always with him, following where he cannot see. Because once you've reached out to someone, the impression you've left on them can never be erased, and Eiji will never be totally without Ankh any more than he will lose contact with his friends. It is his bonds with everyone that have helped him heal, and this particular bond will keep him going no matter where the road may lead.




The other side of the coin is Ankh, played by Ryosuke Miura, with Eitoku doing the hand puppetry and possibly suit acting for his Greeed form? I actually can't find that information for sure. In form, both angel and devil at the same time—demonic hand contrasting with angelic wings—he wavers between good and evil, outright warning from the beginning that he will one day betray Eiji if he finds reason to. In the end, I think he goes beyond good and evil and just finds his own side—what he wants, and what's worth living and dying for.

When Ankh is revived, he starts flying through his history at a rate Eiji can't keep up with, but later, you get the feeling he intentionally did it so he wouldn't have to go into detail on many things. 800 years ago, when Gara and the other alchemists created the Core Medals and the Greeed, Ankh secretly allied himself with the King against the other Greeed. He never explains why he decided to, but, ignoring the novel's assertion that he had a backstory similar to Eiji's, you get the feeling that Ankh was different from the start. After all, his Greeed form looks decidedly different from the others', in that there's color all over him and no part of his body seems to be armor that can come off and reveal a mummified form underneath. I've sometimes wondered if he was the youngest or oldest Greeed or if one alchemist—likely not Gara, though—gave him more attention than the rest to explain these differences, but no matter what, Ankh is special. And the King seemed to recognize that enough to work with him.

Ankh revealed his true alliance in the King's final battle with the Greeed. As the castle burned around them, the King stood in the chapel as the Greeed attacked him, confident that Ankh would protect him. Together, they defeated the other Greeed and took their Core Medals, but the King had already lost control of his mind from overuse of his powers. He ran Ankh through and stole at least five of his Cores, and as the betrayed Ankh reached helplessly for him, the King scanned all of the stolen Cores, losing complete control of his power as a vessel and turning to stone. The others were broken down into their component Medals and flew into the sealed tomb. Ankh was just outside the reach of the seal, but he reached out his right hand, confining his consciousness to a single Taka Core and detaching from the rest of his body, trying to take his Cores back. But he too was caught in the seal, just as the King's stone body broke apart and re-formed into a coffin full of Medals—not exactly the godlike vessel he'd sought to become. Ankh remained trapped there for 800 years, until somehow, the coffin cracked in the Kougami Art Museum, and he was able to release the seal and free the other Greeed, but not before taking a few of Uva's and Kazari's Cores.

As the rest of the Greeed battle the Ride Vendor platoon, Ankh tries to make his escape, but in the explosions, he loses one of his Taka Cores, hitting a sleeping Eiji in the face. He proceeds to follow him for the rest of the day, trying to get it back, and meeting Hina by accident when she frees him from underneath a vending machine after Eiji ended up tilting it onto him while both tried to get the Medal out. He proceeds to scare the crap out of the both of them, loses his Core again to Eiji, and chases him right into the middle of a Yummy attack. The Yummy, pissed on Uva's behalf about the stolen Medals, starts to attack him, but Eiji can't bear to let Ankh fight alone and mostly defenseless. His recklessness to charge into danger to save people he doesn't even know convinces Ankh that he will be easy to manipulate as OOO, so he bonds the seal to Eiji and gives him the Medals to transform. He also takes over Shingo's body to make up for the loss of his own, but both decisions have consequences when it turns out that Eiji is far too clever and stubborn to easily be controlled and that Hina isn't about to give up her brother without a fight.

Ankh quickly proves to be Eiji's foil—suspicious and selfish, in contrast to trusting and selfless. He's pragmatic and quick to attack when he thinks it will benefit him, or at least prevent him from having to deal with a problem down the line. He fails to make any friends outside of Eiji and Hina, and even then, he would never outright admit that they are close to him. These actions, combined with his backstory, lead me to conclude that he too has PTSD, but turned outward against the world, where Eiji's PTSD is turned inward on himself. Following the ICD-10, he has a traumatic stressor—his betrayal—and when he comes across anything that reminds him of it, he's clearly agitated. While he doesn't experience the memories that Eiji does, he seems to have flashbacks where he feels as though he's re-living the betrayal, and he behaves in a way to protect himself before it happens again. This is his promise to betray Eiji, the current OOO, when he no longer finds him useful. This is his insistence on putting himself first, no matter what Eiji or Hina say. This is his fear of Eiji losing control and his nightmares. This is every decision he makes in the final arc. He's obviously avoidant and needs a lot of figurative and literal arm-pulling before he discusses his past or feelings in any way. And he is hyper-vigilant and suspicious, he's constantly responding to the sound of Cell Medals even when there's no Yummy around (i.e., exaggerated startle response), and extremely prone to outbursts of anger and overall irritability. That's PTSD—not the way we're accustomed to seeing it, like with Eiji, but perfectly along the criteria all the same. This is why his confrontation with Eiji in the second verse of "Time Judged All" is so important. He and Eiji are seeing themselves in one another, and neither is willing to admit it because they don't want to become what the other is. Eiji doesn't want to be as cynical and misanthropic as Ankh, and Ankh doesn't want to become as hollow as Eiji is. He's afraid to show his vulnerability and confusion, and he's fought for other people's desires before, and this is where it brought him. He can't become Eiji. But they are fighting the same darkness—not just the world around them, but the darkness within themselves.

In fitting with his PTSD and history with the King, Ankh has a lot of insecurities. To begin with, he has serious intimacy issues, where he acts like he's pushing people away when he really doesn't seem to know how to express his feelings—his emotional maturity level is extremely low. He pushes Eiji and Hina away even when he wants them around—the best example I can think of is after his birthday party, when Hina gives him a gift and explains she wants him, not her brother, to have it. He laughs it off at first and starts to walk away, but just as she starts to feel disappointed, he takes it and heads upstairs to open it. And the entire reason he comes back is because he can't reconcile his feelings for them with his goal to become the Medal vessel—he wants one more than the other, and it's more than he can understand. But more on that later.

He tries to avoid discussion of emotion whenever possible. He's never around when anyone discusses Eiji's past, to the point that he casually asks why Eiji's so afraid of possible casualties from the mad bomber in episode 10. But he goes after Eiji anyway, insisting it's only because Eiji's useful to him, avoiding the subject as Hina brings up that he could never understand Eiji's trauma. Likewise, when Eiji escapes to the attic while Date explains his past in 32, Ankh can only uncomfortably ask him if he's okay, making rude jokes when he's finally convinced Eiji really is going to be all right. And avoidance especially comes into play with Shingo, who's an uncomfortable subject for everybody. Ankh needs him. Hina wants him back. Eiji's basically the one stuck making the choice which one of them gets him, and no matter what choice he or the others make, it's unfair to all of them. Eiji has a tendency to favor Hina's side, and this especially hurts Ankh—as I said, the whole thing is basically a love triangle between them, and Ankh behaves like an unrequited lover.

But to get a better understanding of his insecurities, let's look at his nightmare from episode 39 again. He senses a Yummy and immediately tries to wake Eiji, but fails—fear that Eiji is going to let him down. As he pulls the blankets off of him, he finds Shingo has replaced Eiji, surrounded by red feathers and with a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth—insecurity and fear over Shingo, whom he knows was close to death at the time he possessed him. Throughout the series, Ankh depersonalizes Shingo, referring to him only as "this body," and refusing to acknowledge that he has a name, a personality, a history, and a family who loves him. But here, Ankh has to face Shingo's death, as a reflection of his growing fear of mortality—Shingo is wearing his clothes and covered in his feathers. By this point, Shingo is strong enough to survive without Ankh, but if anything happens to Shingo (as it does in this episode), then Ankh is more vulnerable than ever. He then backs into Eiji, whose eyes are purple—i.e., he is out-of-control because of the Medals—and who smiles as he declares that he's taking Ankh's Medals: His personality seems intact, but he's behaving in a way he normally wouldn't. This leads me to believe that this is how the King had behaved toward the end—the director's cut of the movie, after all, reveals his paranoia that led to him killing Gara. Intelligent, but mad from desire. Eiji also grabs his arm and stops him from fighting back against Lost Ankh, insisting that he's "not the Ankh that OOO should be working with," and he holds him down as Lost Ankh takes his hand to take him back, ignoring Ankh's pain and fear. The imagery we constantly see of hands reaching out, of holding hands, is twisted into something terrifying. Something that should be comforting is dangerous—Ankh is afraid of close relationships because everyone he should be close to has betrayed him, whether it's the other Greeed or the King. And Ankh expects Eiji to repeat his predecessor's sins and betray him too.

And yet, for all of his abandonment issues regarding Eiji, Ankh is still always the one saving him. There is a moment in Babylon 5, toward the beginning of John Sheridan's relationship with Ambassador Delenn, when he jokes that he's afraid that he's going to lose his balance and fall off a slanted bed while he sleeps. Delenn teases him as she takes his hand and says, "I will watch and catch you if you should fall." This line returns when a dying Sheridan must answer Lorien's question to determine whether or not he will live: "Do you have anything worth living for?" He's worried that he'll fall into death, but he remembers Delenn's words and answers that she's what he's living for. Similarly, Ankh is catching Eiji before he falls into his own darkness, which will almost certainly lead to his death. He saves him before his own recklessness and lack of concern with his own life will kill him, and he saves him from the emptiness that has been inside him since he went through the war, giving him something worth living for again. He keeps him sane, whether it's by giving him agency in the face of danger and potential tragedy, or if it's by keeping him from giving into the purple Medals and the madness their desire for nothingness instill in him.

Alongside his relationship with Eiji is his relationship with Hina. They begin antagonistically, with him even outright attacking her because he thinks having someone still connected to Shingo will be more trouble for him down the line. Though Eiji tries to keep them away from each other, Hina proves she can take care of herself, and Ankh isn't exactly happy with the arrangement, with how much she manhandles him when he's giving her a hard time. When she's kidnapped and Eiji prioritizes her rescue over retrieving Ankh's Kujaku Medal, Ankh utterly fails at getting him to understand that he's not going to protect her or Shingo if Eiji gets his fool ass killed. Eiji finally reaches a compromise with him, and Ankh promises to protect Hina so long as Eiji buys him ice pops everyday for a year. Ha, joke's on you—Hina only gets kidnapped twice, way less than how many ice pops Ankh can eat in a year. Eiji gets himself in far more trouble. After he saves her life, Hina gives him the Medal case as a gift, and while he never thanks her, it's clear he appreciates the usefulness of the present. But when his Medal is in the middle of a Kazari plot again in episode 20, he wastes no time betraying Eiji and taking it back, only to have Hina rip it out of his hand and go running off to try to save Eiji herself. He fails to get it back from her, but he trusts it with her during the battle, after she sees that his betrayal of Eiji was partially motivated by fear for himself—he had been injured just before Eiji had been. He then learns that Eiji had actually betrayed his trust first, by refusing to tell him about his Condor Medal at Kougami's, but Hina points out that they're even and makes a deal similar to Eiji's—he'll get his Medal back if he saves Eiji. While he does agree, Ankh is devastated to watch Eiji fly using his Medals, and the moment Eiji transforms back, he snatches the Medals and absorbs them, only to be even more shaken by his revival failing.

Ankh soon has to deal with his body's separate revival as Lost Ankh, and it's his vulnerability on display again and pushing him closer to Eiji and Hina than he really feels comfortable with. In fitting with his defense mechanisms of depersonalizing whomever is threatening to him, he refuses to call Lost Ankh his body or anything that admits they are one. Instead, he insists that Eiji call him his imposter, since his fears are pricking at the back of his mind, asking just who will turn out to be strong enough to be the "real" Ankh in the end—again, in his dream, he saw Eiji telling him that he wasn't the one that OOO should have been with. With Shingo recovering, it puts him in another awkward position—Hina had only allowed him to stay with her brother because he would die without Ankh. Now that he had mostly healed, there was no reason for Ankh to stay. Ankh himself tries to keep away before Hina or Eiji can betray him, but he needs a body in order to survive against the other Greeed, and he's determined to make Eiji understand that. Still, Eiji asks Hina what she wanted to do, and to Ankh's surprise, she says that it's okay for him to stay. But as Shingo's birthday approaches, Hina asks Eiji what he would have done if she'd said no, and Ankh secretly listens in, heartbroken at the question and Eiji's silence. Eiji begins to worry more about the danger Shingo is being dragged into, and after an injury is taking too long for Ankh to heal without Hina's first aid, he and Eiji break into another argument about it. They only stop when Hina reminds them that she already said she was okay with it, but she still wants to know Eiji's answer. The answer Ankh had feared all along is exactly what he gets—Eiji would have made him leave if Hina had said so, although Eiji later admits that he was relieved she hadn't asked him to, since he wanted Ankh to have every advantage possible against Lost Ankh. But Lost Ankh does come for him, and the second Eiji senses a problem, he and Hina rush upstairs to help. Hina's the one to run up to him and grab his arm while Eiji anchors them to the door, but even her strength isn't enough to save Ankh. Still, he does the one thing he had only done before with Eiji and entrusts one of his Medals to her so that there's a faint chance of bringing him back.

But bringing him back means that Eiji has to destroy three of their Medals, and Ankh can't maintain his body without them. He takes over Shingo once more and attacks them. The betrayal is more than Eiji can forgive, and in every confrontation from there, Eiji looks at him with hatred. Hina, however, still has a look of pity in her eyes when she sees him, even if she hates what he's done. But as always, his betrayal comes out of fear, and in this case, he's scared and angry because he can never fully revive. So he seeks out Maki and offers to become the Medal vessel, even if he knows that it means he will lose control. He's just so afraid of being split apart into his component Medals again that he will take that chance if it means he has a better body, and he will put Shingo through Greeedification so that he can make up for what he's lost. At the same time, however, he's been gaining something he doesn't quite understand.

For all of his threats and reminders to Eiji and Hina that unlike them, he's not human, sometimes he himself seems to forget that fact. The senses that Shingo's body allows him to experience are far sharper than he had as a Greeed, and he particularly enjoys tasting food...if ice pops count as food. In truth, no matter how much he says he wants his own body back, stronger so he can never be split apart into Medals again, he doesn't want to give up the senses that he has while bonded to a human. He insists that he's using Shingo to compensate for the three Medals Eiji destroyed, but he uses him as the Medal vessel, with himself at the wheel. This allows him to keep his senses, where Eiji is losing his from his Greeedification. In fact, when he sees how far gone Eiji is during their last fight, he screams at him that if he does want to give up and become a Greeed, he should at least act like one and stop wandering around without a desire.

But the fact that he is bonded with Shingo completely alienates him from the rest of the Greeed and makes him forget that he too is a Greeed. After Kazari's Medal breaks and Maki gives him the rest, Ankh admits his surprise at Kazari's death. Maki, however, argues that life and death only exist for creatures like humans, rather than the artificial lifeforms the Greeed are. This shakes Ankh terribly—for once, he's on the receiving end of the dehumanization and depersonalization, and he has to face the fact that he is just a mass of Medals with a consciousness. And that this is exactly what his fellow Greeed are, except they're greedier than he is. When Mezool points out that he seems dissatisfied, even though he's able to fully experience the senses that they lack and the emotions they can only experience by devouring humans, he begins to disassociate from his Greeed nature and truly loathe it. It's bad enough that he actually gives up all of the rest of the Medals and lets Mezool and Gamel completely revive, just because he hates the Greeed so much. But when Mezool dies, it depresses him more, to the point that he comes home.

His visit to Cous Coussier is beautiful, entering the empty, darkened restaurant to eat an ice pop alone and reflecting on the light and people that had always been there surrounding him. He realizes that Eiji, Hina, and Chiyoko had always been there for him, had always tried to include him, but he never lowered his guard and joined in, always holding back and watching with contempt. He looks at his own reflection and tells himself that as a Greeed, he could never understand what it was like to experience that, to feel like maybe, it was enough and he didn't need to want more. And now it's gone, and it's his own damn fault. Hina comes in and cautiously asks if he's coming home, giving him the chance Eiji won't anymore. But he knows he can't stay. He can't explain why he came back because he himself doesn't fully understand, but he asks her if he can keep her brother's body. There's still so much he wants to experience, but with a human body that can fully appreciate it, and he knows this choice has to be hers. But she has to tell him no, and the two of them are barely holding back tears as Chiyoko comes in, begging Ankh to find Eiji and tell him they both can come back home, no matter what it was that happened between them. But he knows there's no way for the both of them to live there anymore, and he leaves for the last time to fight Eiji.

He finds the OOO Driver on the beach, Eiji searching for it nearby. The moment Eiji sees him, he glares at Ankh with hatred and demands the belt back. But in the time Ankh's been gone, Eiji has changed tremendously. He no longer has the patience to talk to him when he knows there's another Greeed attacking, and worse, his left arm has transformed into a Greeed one—a counterpoint to Ankh's right. And because Eiji's determined to destroy the Core Medals and the Greeed completely, Ankh knows he has to destroy him in turn. He tells himself it's to get what he wants, but the more they fight, the more they force each other to reveal their true desires. Eiji's thrown a little bit when Ankh admits he wants to live, to fully taste everything there is in the world and experience it in the way a Greeed can't. His crisis of realizing that he's not truly alive fuels him to push Eiji harder, force him to see that no matter what his body is becoming, he will never understand a Greeed's horrible, insatiable desire for everything because he just doesn't want anything. Ankh beats him and demands answers from him until Eiji finally breaks down into tears and admits that he's really become the opposite of a Greeed—that because of his trauma, he gave up on his heart's desire. That what he really wanted was the power to reach out his hand and help everyone. But that it was Ankh who gave it to him by choosing him as OOO. And he finally thanks him.

The thank you is the last thing Ankh ever expected to hear, and it shakes him as Maki forces Eiji to lose control with two other Medals. He tries to remind himself that he needs to defeat Eiji if he's going to gain a true life, but he can't deliver a finishing blow because he's so confused by Eiji's gratitude. Ankh knows he's responsible for ruining Eiji's life right now, for leading him toward this existence as a Greeed. But in that moment, Eiji had seemed so happy, as if the pain had been worth it. Ankh regrets it, but in his mind are all the times he offered his help to Eiji, and it's starting to lead him to an answer. He finally tells Eiji that it's fine if he wants power, but he can't let himself lose control like this, and he hits him hard enough to deactivate his henshin and take back his Taka Core, leaving Eiji delirious on the shore. He doesn't have enough awareness left to remember why Ankh's there, or that they've spent the past month trying to kill each other. The way Eiji just offers him his ice pop money, just like the way he'd thanked him, is enough to shake Ankh into attacking Maki before he can harm Eiji. But it's not enough to make him stay, and he makes his way out to the woods to ask himself what he's doing and why. He no longer knows where he's going. But Maki isn't happy with his betrayal, or the fact that he's become so human. It makes him unsuitable as an out-of-control vessel, so he steals back the Medals from him and cracks his Core. Still, though, as he bleeds Cell Medals, Ankh realizes what it is that's been bothering him all this time—he was happy. The desire he shouldn't have been able to satisfy had long since been fulfilled. And it was thanks to Eiji and Hina.

He's content to die there in the woods, but Hina finds him and tries to talk again. She's worried when she sees all of the Cell Medals around him, but he insists that he didn't let her brother get hurt. However, to his surprise, she replies that her concern is about him, not Shingo. He tries to stagger away, but she rushes to his side and asks him what's wrong. He admits what happened to his Medal and that when it breaks, both it and he will disappear. She asks if this means he'll die, and he almost laughs at her belief—that this "pile of Medals" has enough of a life to die. But with this newfound realization that he's alive, he returns to Eiji, Hina following closely behind.

Hina becomes his secret-keeper, and he has her promise not to tell Eiji that he's dying, out of fear that he'll hold back in the final battle. Despite everything that had gone on between them, she's become one of the most important people in his life, someone who is part of his desire. He tries to pretend like everything's fine, picking on Eiji, but neither of them have their hearts in it, the realizations of what they might be tomorrow morning weighing on them. And so Hina takes their hands, keeping them there just one more night. He doesn't complain anymore—not about the sentiment, not about her strength—because they both know that she's not strong enough to hold them together forever, the way they all want.

Ankh fights in Greeed form alongside Eiji in the final battle, with Hina remaining behind as a witness. Eiji very nearly defeats Maki by depleting the Cell Medals he'd been vessel to, but vessel-Uva revives him. With no energy left, Eiji taps as deeply as he can into the purple Medals' power, beginning a permanent transformation into a Greeed. And that's when Ankh knows it's time. He can't let Eiji experience what he knows is painful. He gives up his remaining Cores, releasing Shingo, and his spirit embodies TaJaDor—calling out the Medals, fighting beside Eiji, and strengthening and protecting him. He shields Eiji one last time to prevent him from giving up his kill shot with the ejected purple Medals, then adds his own fire to the attack to ensure that it's strong enough to overcome Maki's counterattack and destroy him for good. But it's his last stand, and as the Medals fly into the void, his Core breaks in half. Half of it falls down to the earth, giving him one last chance to silently thank Hina by appearing in the one form she'd always associate with him—his human form, smiling before he disappears into the broken Core. The other half follows Eiji, taking on the form of his Greeed hand and smacking him awake as he falls from the explosion. He admits that even though he's died, it's proven he was alive, and that's all he ever wanted. He finally tells Eiji that he was indeed the right choice as OOO, but as Eiji reaches out for him, he tells him that his isn't the hand Eiji needs to reach for anymore, before disappearing and leaving Eiji with half a Medal.

As Eiji travels in the epilogue, he keeps both halves of Ankh's Core, promising himself to one day bring him back. But little does he know that Ankh is always there with him, following as a spirit, just outside the reach of Eiji's perception. He will always be there because this is what and who is important to him, and they will never again be apart. His name itself means "life," and life is what he had, if only because he had someone holding his hand.




Hina Izumi, played by Riho Takada, is one of the characters that was the hardest for me to understand, especially during my Ryuki reviews. In contrast to Yui, she didn't seem to have as much agency until the last arc. See, by the same time that Hina was only beginning to trust Eiji, Shinji had already earned Yui's confidence, at least as far as his determination to protect people from monsters and figure out what was going on with her brother. And she had already started her own investigation into the mystery as well, even if it did end up with her getting kidnapped repeatedly. In fact, for all the times she was kidnapped and all the other things that happened to her, she was always doing something—she wanted to stop Ren and Shinji from fighting, so she began to investigate her brother's experiments; she put the clues together and confronted Ren about his connection to it; she ran afoul of the man who would become Alternative; she developed a photo of her family's old house and repeatedly went to confront her brother there, no matter how much pain the repressed memories put her through. Hina wasn't as active, and it frustrated me because she had one thing Yui didn't have: super-strength. Not even Odin himself could stop Yui from smashing her brother's mirrors—his razor-sharp feathers were only enough to piss her off. But Hina's first response was always to scream and run. Maybe part of it is that Ayano Sugiyama was a much more assertive actress than Riho Takada. She knew how to be tough as nails and how to be gentle. She played well off of her costars. But she was also older, the same age as 19-year-old Yui. Hina was either 18 or 19, but Riho was 16. Like Ayano, she had to play a girl who started off rather reserved and worried about her older brother, but Hina's sense of loss was much more recent than Yui's. Yui had been a young child when her parents died and her brother was adopted, and she'd recovered well while being raised by her aunt. Hina lost her parents sometime between a year and three years before the show began, and she'd been taken in by her brother. He was all she had left, and he was very suddenly gone in the first episode. But while she does take time to warm up in terms of acting, she does play very naturally off of Ryosuke Miura, whether he plays Shingo or Ankh. He brings out the emotion in her, and she's clearly comfortable arguing with him or playing sibling fluff; in turn, she helps him play much more naturally as Shingo during his brief return, when it's clear Ryosuke's fighting all of Ankh's reactions and expressions.

But again, the thing that really made me appreciate Hina more was Babylon 5, specifically the character Delenn. As a Minbari, she had considerably greater strength than a human; however, as a member of her race's religious caste, she preferred to find a way to make peace. It didn't mean that she didn't take part in battle—she became the leader of the Rangers and led them into war—but she considered her great work to be peace. And when a plague struck the Markab aliens and Babylon 5's population quarantined themselves in a single sector in the hopes of surviving, Delenn and her attaché volunteered to seal themselves with them, knowing that the people there would be dying and suffering. Despite knowing that the plague had jumped species and she ran a very real risk of infection and death, she insisted on being there to offer comfort, because "I didn't know that similarity [between species] was required for the exercise of compassion."

And that's when it hit me. Compassion is Hina's greatest strength. She's embarrassed about her physical strength, stopping in shock in episode 6 when a classmate sees her pull open the elevator doors and calls her a monster. She keeps it a secret from everyone except her brother, only revealing it to Eiji and Ankh to prove she can hold her own against the assbird. So when you're strong as an ox but afraid to reveal it, especially because you have a tendency to slip up and break things or hurt people because you don't know your own strength, you're not really going to be putting much thought into fighting. And if you have great physical strength that can't be used to protect people, what, then, do you do?

That question is essentially her character arc—less "who are you" or "what do you want" than "why are you here?" She spends the first several episodes pretty depressed—maybe not as bad off as Eiji is, but in a serious funk because of her brother's disappearance and the revelation that he's been possessed and is otherwise dying. This is during the first 6 episodes, so it's a good month and then some that she's going through all this. She's not quite sure what to do. Sure, Ankh possessed her brother, but he's keeping Shingo alive. And Eiji may have lied to her about it, but he did so in order to protect her from the painful truth. And her brother is alive, but he can't be with her. She can't grieve, and she can't really be angry. Her emotions are conflicted and unresolved. All she can do is stay with them and try to do what little she can to bring her brother back.

It's easier for her to form a bond with Eiji. He's the one who rescues her after Ankh attempts to kill her. And when she finds him beat-up after his first encounter with Kazari, she carries him back to Cous Coussier for treatment and gets him to explain everything. And while she's shocked at the idea of him filling in there while she takes her exams, she warms up to the idea of him staying there and convinces him, arguing that it helps her keep a closer eye on her brother. When the bombings happen and she notices how close to panic Eiji is, she learns his history and becomes his confidante. It makes her realize that he's not the way he is in spite of his tragedy, but because of it, and that gives her an entirely new appreciation for him and more worry over what he's putting himself through.

At the same time, she begins to see a new side to Ankh when he agrees to Eiji's deal about saving her. When he protects her while Eiji fights one of Gamel's Yummies, she suddenly thanks him and decides to get the both of them presents after Christmas as thanks. She gives Eiji a handmade scarf, but Ankh gets a case to carry the Medals. He ignores her at first, and she almost thinks twice about giving it to him, but she finally leaves it in his room, knowing that she really did need to thank him, even if he was going to be rude in response. But when Ankh betrays Eiji to Kazari in order to reclaim his Kujaku Core, she steals the Medal from him and goes in search of Eiji herself. Ankh catches up to her quickly and restrains her the whole night, trying to get her to give it up, but she leaves him in a stalemate, refusing to budge. By morning, he sets her free and tells her to keep his Medal safe while he goes to face the Yummy alongside Eiji. Though she argues Eiji has no reason to help him after what Ankh's done, Ankh argues to her that Eiji's the kind of person who can't leave this fight alone. And it's then that she realizes that Ankh is injured and acting out of fear—his betrayal of Eiji was a desperate attempt to buy himself some time to recover, and the quickest way to heal the damage was to use his Medal. Still, he's letting her hold onto it while risking himself in the path of danger alongside an injured Eiji. Satonaka helps protect them both, revealing that Eiji had secretly trusted Kougami with another of Ankh's Medals, but Hina heads off the fight before it can begin, arguing that because Eiji had been dishonest too, Ankh's even with him now. Above Eiji's protests, she promises to return Ankh's Medal so long as he lets Eiji borrow it to defeat the Yummy. He agrees to this deal as well, but when his revival fails, she's left just as confused and worried as Eiji as she follows him home.

It's difficult to tell whether or not Kobayashi intended for a romance to develop between Hina and either Eiji or Ankh, but I will say that the other writers most certainly ship them and throw in ship tease as much as they can. The net movies for Let's Go Kamen Riders feature a segment where Eiji is asking Hina's father (in this case, General Shadow, who is a surprisingly responsible parent) for her hand in marriage, and one of the net movies for Wonderful features "Shingo" (actually Ankh in a wig) on a date with her for her birthday. Because...I don't even want to know. At least she says she knew the whole time (mostly because Eiji and Ankh are terrible at this). Episode 999 has Date trolling Hina about playing Eiji's girlfriend in the movie, with her reacting violently to his pestering, and one of the Super Hero Taisen net movies has Eiji admit that he has a "platonic" relationship with her, all the while the Go-Busters accuse him of cheating on her with the Pink Sentai. As far as Kobayashi herself goes, she has Hina shoot down Chiyoko's theory that Eiji doesn't initially want to work at Cous Coussier because one or the other might have a crush, but that's in episode 8. In 24, Hina starts to blush when Eiji asks her about love, but she's immediately disappointed when she realizes he's as high as a kite on the love-drug and asking about the Yummy parent of the week. And of course, there's the movie and her way of placing herself in Eiji's imaginary family. So...yeah. It doesn't have to be said outright. She's fallen in love with him. And there's definitely what looks like a love triangle going on between her, Eiji, and Ankh, with Eiji as the only one unaware of it. Especially when it comes down to the argument over Ankh keeping Shingo's body. After losing her dream and struggling with her brother momentarily regaining consciousness, Hina is hospitalized from the psychological stress, all while Ankh decides he's going to take Shingo no matter what anyone says. Eiji insists it's Hina's choice, and when she wakes up, he asks what she wants. She agrees to let Ankh stay, but later, she asks Eiji if he really would have supported her if she'd said no. He admits that yes, he would have forced Ankh to leave. And this answer not only devastates Ankh, but it breaks Hina's heart too. Eiji tends to take her side, but it's not necessarily what she wants. It takes time for her to realize that what she really wants is for all of them to be happy, and nobody is with this kind of arrangement. And her slow acceptance of Ankh for who and what he is, and the way that she's really the one to bring him home—if the series were aimed at girls, they would be the ending romance. She and Ankh seem to be falling for one another as well.

To continue my discussion of Freudian theory, what we have here is a perfect case of id, ego, and superego—the instinct, the reality, and the morality. Just as Eiji struggles to balance both his rampaging instinct as PuToTyra and his rampaging morality otherwise, Hina is caught between Ankh and Eiji. Ankh is id, instinct and desire, acting in pursuit of his own goals. Eiji is superego, foregoing his own desires in order to do the right thing because he needs to avoid the pain of regret. Hina can't accept just one of them. Reality requires her to be both selfish and selfless, and their choices toward the extremes make it nearly impossible for her to bear. This is where she matches up to Yui, in my opinion. Yui was caught in the middle of a massive war among 13 people for their own desires, but all of them being manipulated by one man and his desire. Hers never factored into it, and ultimately, she had to make them listen. Hina has to figure out how to use her own desire without picking sides, the way Eiji and Ankh do.

The purple Medals and the full revelation of Eiji's backstory make Hina realize that for all he's reached out to help others, he desperately needs for someone to reach out and help him too. When he loses control as PuToTyra, she does the one thing no one else can do—she recklessly runs in there and stands in front of him, shielding Date from a devastating attack while pleading with Eiji, insisting that she may not understand the pain he's been suffering with, but she can at least try to help him and comfort him. It stops him, and he reverts to normal, and she stays with him while he deals with the physical pain from the combo.

But after Ankh is taken and Eiji's Greeedification intensifies, Hina resolves to prevent Eiji from fighting again before he loses any more of his humanity. In episode 42, she confronts him and holds him so he won't run off to battle, telling him that he's not God and he shouldn't be expected to grant anyone's prayer. It's a selfish moment, where she ignores the pain of the civilians caught in the battle and Eiji's own need to save them. But it works because she's struggling with the same damn problem the boys are—the balance between giving and taking. Eiji gives until there's nothing left. Ankh is used to taking until nothing's left, and he certainly does that the very next episode, running roughshod over his friends and taking over Shingo once more. Hina doesn't know what to do, only that she has to stop Eiji before he becomes nothing but the void and a Greeed.

And that's where Shingo admits that they're both being selfish and using Eiji to their own ends. Hina tries to insist that she isn't, but she has to admit that yes, she wants Ankh back. Even when Eiji took steps to ensure that she could be happy with her brother again, she still wanted Ankh back for a vague reason she couldn't define. It's the same reason she'd let him have her brother's birthday party and body—because even if she can't decide if she loves or hates him, she has a strong bond with Ankh, and she appreciates him. He is part of her family, the one she's finally built after losing everyone.

But she uses her family. She used her brother as an emotional crutch after her parents died, and she had to learn how to stand on her own. She used Ankh partially as a replacement for Shingo, and partially for the complex relationship neither of them really understands. And she uses Eiji to satisfy her desires, even if she doesn't intend to. She'll say that she doesn't want him to fight, but how then can she face Eiji and say that she wants Ankh or her brother back? When she understands her own selfishness, she decides that it's time she tries to figure out what little she can do to reach out and help Eiji. If he's camping out again and catching his own dinner, she can bring him a meal. If he can't taste, she can add additional flavor to his food and describe the ingredients for him. She can continue to bandage his wounds and try to help him rediscover his desire. She can be that person he needs support from, since he won't ask for it himself.

But at the same time, Ankh needs it too. For all she hates his choices and how much pain he's put her and Eiji through, she can't summon the loathing for him that Eiji does. She stands up to him and refuses to surrender the LaToraTah Medals even when he threatens to attack her, but despite that, she still looks on him with pity when she realizes he's been hurt just as much as they were by Kazari's attack. And when he comes back to Cous Coussier, she still asks him with the vague hope that maybe he's sorry and wants to come home. But that's not what he's asking for—he still wants to taste and experience things he can't as a Greeed, so he asks if he can keep her brother's body. It's the first time he's ever asked, seeking her blessing, and without Eiji forcing the issue. But it's a choice she was never supposed to make, and she has to tell him no, the both of them fighting tears the whole time. She keeps it together while Chiyoko pleads with him to come back with Eiji, but when he leaves, warning that if anyone comes back, it's only going to be one of them, she finally breaks down—a year's worth of pain and sorrow finally bringing her to tears.

Chiyoko comforts her, and Hina finally reveals everything to her—about her brother, about Ankh, and about Eiji. Chiyoko takes it well, but she admits that there's still one thing she finds hard to believe—Hina's belief that she can only choose one of the people she loves. She tells Hina that she has to hold onto all of them, to reach out and take them, because only she can want that much. And Hina realizes that is indeed what she wants—she wants Ankh just as badly as she wants her brother, and she wants Eiji just as much too. She worries that she's only making it harder on Eiji again, since he's the one who has to fight for her desires, but if he, Ankh, and Shingo are all precious to her, it's now up to her to do what she can to hold them together.

She takes one of Eiji's candroids and uses it to find Ankh, who's collapsed in the forest with Cell Medals all around him. Realizing he must be injured, she asks if he's okay, and he insists that his borrowed body isn't hurt. But she specifies that she meant him, not her brother, and he staggers to his feet, telling her that she'll have Shingo back soon, since he no longer needs him. Still, his unexpected generosity and his sudden weakness scare her, and she asks him what happened. He reveals that the Core Medal containing his personality is breaking, and he doesn't have much time left. When it breaks, both it and he will disappear. She asks if this means that he's dying, and he reacts in surprise before smiling over the absurd and beautiful confirmation that "a mere pile of Medals" can in fact die. With that, he sets off to go find Eiji, knowing he's only gotten himself in trouble again, and Hina follows.

Ankh's return stabilizes Eiji, and together, the three of them spend one final night together on the riverwalk. While Eiji's out of earshot, buying ice pops for them, Ankh makes Hina promise not to tell him about his cracked Medal, knowing that he has to be right alongside him in the next battle and afraid that Eiji will hold back if he knows the truth. Painful as it is, Hina keeps the secret, even as Eiji asks what made Ankh come back. They only answer that he's decided to give Shingo back soon. A relieved Eiji says that it was the only thing he'd still been worried about, and Hina realizes in horror that he's still not trying to save himself from his Greeedification. He's still there, eating ice pops he can't taste, pretending he's not losing his vision and his humanity, sadly and distantly saying that everything's all figured out now. And Ankh is dying. Despite her promises not to think of what other people would do for her, Hina silently asks her brother what she should do, since she doesn't know how to hold them all together. So she does the only thing she can and takes their hands, holding them together for just one night—Eiji, herself, Ankh.

The morning of the battle, she watches as Eiji and Ankh fight against Maki and the Medal vessel. They go where she cannot reach, her bond with them the only strength she can offer. When she sees the vessel explode, she runs in search of them. She knows she's in the right place when she finds Ankh, standing silently before her in human form, a rare, grateful smile on his face. And then he disappears into half his Core, which lands among flowers. She picks it up and holds it close, thanking him for everything. But Eiji is still falling, clutching his own half of Ankh's Medal, and Hina joins the others in reaching up for him while Goto safely brings him to the ground. And after the crowd disperses, Hina remains a few feet away from Eiji, the both of them holding the Medal halves and staring into the sky, quietly mourning Ankh.

In the months that follow, Hina returns to school, despite her insistence back in episode 36 that she would quit in order to take care of her brother. But her dream of being a designer has returned, as has Shingo, who still drives her to school and passes along messages from Chiyoko. At their party at Cous Coussier, Chiyoko surprises everyone with a video call from Eiji, who is once again on a journey. Though Hina misses him, she's no longer depressed—she's happy to see Eiji following his own path. And she's entrusted him with the other half of Ankh's Medal, in the hopes that maybe, he'll be able to find a way to bring Ankh back. In a strange way, her journey brings her to a more optimistic point of view from where Eiji began—instead of being caught up in the pain that she can't do more, she's happier knowing that she can reach out and do a little bit, and that this little bit does make a big difference in people's lives. Her deep connections with Eiji and Ankh have given her the strength to stand on her own and make her own desires become reality. And she's become the strength to hold together people even when they can't hold themselves together.

"The world should end. Right now, it can end with a portion of its beauty intact. It must be done before it turns ugly."

"Desire creates new civilizations. Takes us to unknown worlds. They guide us to new heights! They evolve us! Take a look at OOO's power. Thanks to desire, he now has the power to save the world!"

"The power I wanted...the ability to reach my hand anywhere... If I do this, then I've got it. But I don't regret grabbing your hand either. I don't regret it at all."

While Ryuki is my first Rider series and will always have a special place in my heart, I have to admit that OOO is superior. While outwardly not as dark as the 13 Riders fighting to the death, there is an inner struggle between darkness and light within the characters that's far more complex than even Ryuki portrayed, one that seems to be reflecting the writer as well. It comes on the heels of a very successful Sentai series, Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, and together, they may well be the peak of Yasuko Kobayashi's career, for better or worse.

The worldbuilding is far more mature and complex than anything Kobayashi's ever written before. While I love Ryuki, I did have to complain that we didn't really learn all that much about the Mirror World and how exactly it had come about—merely that it was somehow created by the Kanzaki siblings' imagination. Just what exactly the wish was and how that had come about and why 13 people fighting was necessary were never explained, nor was how their imaginary monsters became real and just why Yui's borrowed life had an expiration date. And Den-O, while fun, left a lot of unanswered questions about where the Imagin had come from and why they were all somehow connected to Kai (let alone where he'd come from or any real meat to Hana's timeline). But OOO has a defined universe and history. It's not perfect, but it's better than she's ever done before. The powers have an origin—an alchemical creation 800 years ago for a power-mad King. The Greeed were created apparently by accident in the King's quest to rule the world. He didn't care who he hurt in the process, and he was done in by his own greed and lust for power. The original OOO was anything but a hero, but the current OOO can be.

Judging by this, you'd expect that like the King, Eiji would have to try to bring together all of the Medals at once, but do it correctly, as a force for good. After all, it's tradition. For a long time in the Heisei Era, beginning with Blade's King Form, there have been ultimate or penultimate forms and weapons that combine all of the previous power sets. Kabuto had the Perfect Zecter to utilize all the others' Zecters, Den-O had Climax and Super Climax Forms, Kiva had DoGaBaKi, and Decade had Complete. It especially became prominent in the Neo-Heisei Era when W gained Cyclone-Joker Xtreme (and Gold Xtreme) with the ability to combine all their other Memories in their weapon. Fourze has Cosmic States as its ultimate form and Fusion States with both Meteor and Nadeshiko in the Movie Wars, just in case that wasn't broken enough. Wizard has All Dragon and Infinity Styles, which also has a couple of Dragon versions too. If things weren't already pretty broken by now, Gaim's Kiwami Arms has all of the powers of the other Lock Seeds and powers over Helheim itself by the end. Drive comes off pretty damn restrained when it includes Type Formula, which is based off Cosmic States but only using a cannon to access the other Shift Cars. Unless Ghost decides to eschew tradition—doubted, given that I'm writing this as Dad Damashii has been introduced with the ability to combine with other Eyecons and Takeru seeks to connect the souls of all the luminaries—then OOO is the only Rider in the past ten years without a form or weapon that combines all previous ones. Yes, Birth gets all of the attachments, but they're not really form changes. The series overall seeks to upend expectations, be it the character expectations we begin with for Eiji and Shingo, or power sets and the idea of ultimate power. OOO explicitly warns that it's deadly to combine the Medals' power haphazardly. The Medal vessel is a formidable power, but it's nearly impossible to control. The King indeed becomes a vessel, but not in the way he intended—dead and stone, merely containing the Medals rather than using them. Eiji's barely holding onto his sanity, and that's as a human Greeed, one who is volunteering to become the Cell Medal vessel. Despite Kougami's hopes, it's clear Eiji would never survive becoming the Core Medal vessel and would likely suffer a fate similar to that of his predecessor.

The show has a surprising amount of seriousness about the consequences of loss and the nature of desire, and the characters are deeply complex. The casting is spot-on, particularly for our male leads. While everyone starts off a little shaky in the beginning, they quickly grow into their roles and define them perfectly. I'd thought that the best actors in a Kobayashi Rider series were Takeru Satoh of Den-O and Satoshi Matsuda of Ryuki, but Shu Watanabe and Ryosuke Miura are clearly just as good, if not better in some ways. I've said that it seems like Eiji was originally written to be an older character, probably closer to 25, but the 18-year-old Shu Watanabe was cast instead, leaving a few odd moments where they seem to forget he's only just out of high school. But his age proves to be an asset, making Eiji's PTSD and depressive recklessness all the more heartbreaking because it's coming from someone so young, who should be much more optimistic about his future. And Ryosuke Miura is fantastic as Ankh, managing amazing subtlety in his expression even while playing a very expressive character. For someone who glowers and preens all the time, it's alarming how well he can show restraint, in the moments where Ankh's eyes are filled with tears and both actor and character are trying hard to pretend that's not the case. It's no surprise that these guys have both gone on to do some movies—Attack on Titan and Rurouni Kenshin. They'd be fantastic in anything they do.

Which is perfect because the series has some very subtle but heavy themes, and they are more than able to carry that weight. Obviously, the main theme is "reaching your hand as far as it can go to help someone." There's also the theme of trauma and overcoming it. There's desire—that it doesn't have to be a bad thing, but what matters is what you do with it. There's the idea that you need to be able to save yourself before you can save other people, and by extension, you need to save one person before you can ever save the world. There's the imagery of falling, whether from great heights or into your own despair. There's psychoanalytic theory. There are the constant images of holding hands.

But the most subtle theme of them all is the Seven Deadly Sins, in the main characters and the victims of the week. Obviously, we see greed all the time—it's hard not to when the villains are even called Greeed. And its related sins of gluttony and lust are also visible—gluttony is evident with the overeater in episodes 3 and 4, but it also means overindulgence and overconsumption, which the Greeed do when they fully revive. Lust is typically portrayed as sexual or romantic desire, but its traditional definition is uncontrolled desire, which is omnipresent in OOO. The lust we're used to seeing is also prevalent with Rie Shiratori in episodes 17 and 18, whose crush on her sensei led to her desire to destroy his wedding; with Yumi Sakura, who hadn't thought about her appearance until she realized she wanted to impress Date; and with Eiji's stalker from high school, Yuichi Kitamura, and the lengths he went to in order to get Eiji to depend on him. Wrath, pride, and envy are in several major characters. Uva and Ankh, of course, are constantly angry and full of spite, but PuToTyra is uncontrollably violent. Ankh is very proud, proud enough that he can't admit to himself that maybe he wants something different than what he'd originally thought—something so small and stupid and human that he no longer knows what he is anymore. Goto's greatest sin is his pride, and his character arc is his quest to overcome it, but it comes with a large helping of envy, particularly for Eiji and Date and the power they have. But that's only six. The seventh sin and hardest to define, sloth, is purely Eiji's.

Sloth is typically viewed as excessive laziness, but its Latin translation is "acedia," a word that was a different deadly sin in antiquity and gives a much better view of what we should be thinking of in terms of sloth. Acedia is spiritual listlessness—the failure to do what you should—and who does this describe better than Eiji? He is listless because of his trauma and no longer cares for himself in the way that he should. He doesn't plan for tomorrow because he has a hard time grasping the concept that he will be here tomorrow—his whole thing about his underwear is proof of that. It's not he shouldn't overthink things tomorrow and have the courage to face it; it's that he might not even survive to tomorrow, so what's the point in preparing anything beyond clean drawers? But Eiji also punishes himself for this sin, with his trauma stemming primarily from his failure to save that little girl. His issue was that he was starving and weak—a physical issue—but he treats it as if it were a psychological failing. So he ensures that he never makes that mistake again, and when he starts to understand that it was a physical failing, he begins to fixate on power. And when he describes the state of his body during the war, he uses the term "boro boro," which Ankh uses later to describe the sensation of his Medals being scattered and fallen apart—Eiji already thinks of himself in similar terms, although the rest of the Greeed tend to use "bara bara" to describe the "falling apart" sensation. The two are connected in this concept, and yet the way they mean it is different. Ankh knows his is a physical problem, and he seeks to overcome it. Eiji treats it as spiritual and fails to move past it. Eventually, the coin is flipped and they find themselves on the opposite side, but Eiji's acedia keeps him stuck while Ankh, Hina, and all the rest make him realize that his life is worth saving and that he can't reach his full potential without letting other people help him.

With all of this going on, it's amazing to believe that this is happening in the middle of an idealistic era, simplified as it tries to appeal to a younger audience than Kamen Riders past. The Neo-Heisei Riders cannot have their personal ambitions standing in the way of doing the right thing. It's said that Kobayashi had very different ideas in mind for OOO than what we got, that it would be even darker than it turned out to be. That Eiji would be more cynical, possibly older. That Date would be killed. That Maki would die early so Ankh would become the villain. But that the producers got in the way and had her rewrite it to their tastes. I don't know how much of that to believe—I've said before that other fandoms have made me highly suspicious of fans supposedly in the know who pass along this information. I can only follow what it said by the cast and crew themselves and what I can read between the lines in the show.

And what I can see is that this show burnt her out. I say this because of the first two quotes above, where Maki and Kougami debate the fate of the world. Maki's argument is that there is no greater height we can attain, that everything we accomplish from here on will only result in failure and ugliness, and thus, it is better to end things while there will still be fond memories of them. It's damn near impossible not to read this as Kobayashi considering retirement. Consider her career to that point: head writer of Gingaman, Timeranger, Ryuki, Sailor Moon, Den-O, and Shinkenger, along with multiple anime. Then consider her career afterwards—Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters. While there's no way she could possibly know what would come in her next Sentai series, it's clear she knew she would never have another Shinkenger or OOO, with great production and great response.

However, I've always felt that Kougami has been her mouthpiece in the series, espousing the virtues of desire. Every one of her Rider series has had the main character realize in the end what his heart's desire is and why he needs to fight for it: Shinji discovers he has a wish to close the Mirror World and end the Rider War, no matter what burden it will place on the other Riders; Ryotaro realizes that he just wants to fight alongside Momotaros and the other Imagin and they have become the most important thing in all of time to him. But neither of them had a character arc revolving around trying to find their desire, but Kougami—and Kobayashi by extension—impresses on Eiji the need to want something. That it's not what you want that makes you a good or bad person, but what you do with what you want. That's why even though Eiji starts to lose control of himself, he's still able to pull himself back together—his desire for power isn't necessarily corruptive, but he needs others' help to keep him grounded. And Ankh's desire to have a better body isn't necessarily right if he's going to hurt others to get it—when he realizes that he wants to stay with Eiji and Hina much more than he wants a complete body, then he decides that he's okay with dying if only because he's lived alongside them.

Therefore, Kougami's philosophy has to win out—that no matter what comes next, it's worth continuing the journey. Go-Busters may be a weak series, but it proves to have just as much heart as anything else she's done, and she keeps to her vision through to the end.. And ToQger proves she's more confident after her failure and can free herself to be more experimental, eschew some of her usual tropes, and try something new without giving a giant robot penis what anyone else thinks.

If this truly is the end of Yasuko Kobayashi's contribution to the Kamen Rider franchise, then I can think of no higher note to finish on. But even if she does return and falter, just as she does in her next two Sentai, that doesn't take away the greatness of what she already created. Like Ankh said, I can't think of anything more satisfying. And like Eiji, I don't regret this journey at all.

Comments

[wei_jiangling]

So first of all, hi, it took a week for the fact that you said you actually use your personal dreamwidth journal for something to sink in and I finally looked. Second, I think I've been glued to this page for something like an hour and oh my god I'm in a fandom with someone who loves character analysis as much as I do. Excuse me while I sit here being excited. It's combining with the fact that I haven't had a show I wanted so much to analyze to death in a while, either. (Which is hilarious, because I went into this expecting nothing but ridiculous and then the depth snuck up on me. This is what I get when friends hand me things I know nothing about because roleplay made me curious.)

As far as the analysis, I'm having trouble coming up with anything to say other than "yes," mostly because there was a ton there and I'm not succeeding in picking out specifics right now. I like the parallel to id, ego, and superego, which is incredibly fitting and something I hadn't thought about before.

Also DW chronology has me doing this backwards, so I'll go check out parts 1 & 2 later.