I thought it had been foreshadowed for a while now that both Ringo and Kanba were gonna make the sacrifices (I'd thought Ringo would die saving Shouma)
Of course, it totally was! The Galactic Railroad homage was clearly advertised! (I also thought Ringo was going to bite it.) But I guess, like I said to zoesque above, I feel like Ikuhara is talking out of both sides of his mouth, because the conjunction between the Galactic Railroad homage / "sacrifice YAY" business and what I see the show saying about family, about living together, about the value of sharing your life with someone--which in my book is not the same as dying for someone!--that's where I feel like there's a disconnect. I guess sharing a life can mean sacrifice, but it's aggravating to me that 2 out of the 3 kids don't get to take what they've learned and do anything with that knowledge in life. They just move on to the afterlife or w/e.
The reboot was needed primarily to stop terrorist attack part deux (which was all Kanba's fault in the first place).
...Yanno, I got so caught up in the personal aspects that this part--stopping Kanba's attack--was lost in the shuffle ahaha. Of course you're right.
The siblings themselves for the entire series consider the family to be "fake." They lie to each other constantly and fake their feelings in order to live in the house together.
Yeah, the anime didn't demonstrate this to me to an extent that I understood the situation as being unbearable for them. There's a certain amount of lying and faking of feelings that goes on in every family, or at least most families, which is tempered/counterbalanced by mutual love and support obv, and tbh it looked to me like the trio were in the normal range (at least until Kanba decided to become a terrorist). And as you say, the point at the end is that they were, right--they really were a real family!--they just didn't understand it as such.
So the finale was, to me, showing the Takakuras becoming a real family for the first time.
I can definitely see this--at least in the sense that they're perceiving themselves as a family for the first time, or perceiving their love for each other--but that's why it's so frustrating to me that the boys have to die ahaha. Like, just as this revelation occurs--just as they finally really truly perceive/rediscover this unconditional love that they actually had for each other all along even though it got lost somehow along the way--then they die? The family ends just as it became real? I mean okay, that's where the ~heartbreak~ is supposed to come from, the part that's supposed to make the audience weepy--but it doesn't make me feel weepy, it just pisses me off. XD;
I guess where I see the link is "unconditional love of a family." Which the show chose to use the Galactic Railroad self-sacrifice as its way of illustrating it.
Living together and sharing a life together with someone does not necessarily add up to loving someone unconditionally. A shared life is something that can be beautiful in and of itself (and for the Takakuras it was!), but it's still "only the shape of a family" if everyone involved is placing conditions on their affection. "You have to act the way I say, or I won't be your family anymore!" isn't a loving family, it's being selfish and controlling. You had Kanba who was obsessed with playing the role of overprotective big brother to the extent of not caring whether Shouma or Himari actually wanted to live or die themselves, refusing to grant them a choice. Shouma letting the family dissolve because he thought his personal morals were more important than Kanba or Himari. Himari choosing to walk away from Shouma and save Kanba because Masako told her WHEN HE BLOWS TOKYO SKY-HIGH IT WILL BE ALL YOUR FAULT, and then trying to play on his feelings for her to manipulate him into ending the plot (except oops, he didn't care about her feelings at all!)...
So my interpretation was: no, they weren't a family all along, they were just a shape. They weren't a family who loved and accepted each other unconditionally until the finale, when all three finally were able to stop trying to control each other and go, "You can make your own choices, and I will love you anyway, even if it's not what I want."
I mean I see the frustration that the family ends right when it becomes real, but on my part "UNSELFISHNESS AND LOVE AND AUTONOMY FOR EVERYBODY!" is the main thing I ended up taking away? And it's the autonomy that was what I found affecting more than anything else. Kanba returning the memory to Shouma and allowing him to make his own informed decision on whether to sacrifice himself or not, even though that was the last thing Kanba wanted, even though Kanba wouldn't change his mind about the attack and Shouma had said he'd never forgive him... The self-sacrifice isn't that interesting to me on its own aside from it being the show's barometer of how the love is unconditional, it's how none of it could have ever even happened in the first place if Kanba hadn't finally offered Shouma a choice.
Of course, it totally was! The Galactic Railroad homage was clearly advertised! (I also thought Ringo was going to bite it.) But I guess, like I said to zoesque above, I feel like Ikuhara is talking out of both sides of his mouth, because the conjunction between the Galactic Railroad homage / "sacrifice YAY" business and what I see the show saying about family, about living together, about the value of sharing your life with someone--which in my book is not the same as dying for someone!--that's where I feel like there's a disconnect. I guess sharing a life can mean sacrifice, but it's aggravating to me that 2 out of the 3 kids don't get to take what they've learned and do anything with that knowledge in life. They just move on to the afterlife or w/e.
The reboot was needed primarily to stop terrorist attack part deux (which was all Kanba's fault in the first place).
...Yanno, I got so caught up in the personal aspects that this part--stopping Kanba's attack--was lost in the shuffle ahaha. Of course you're right.
The siblings themselves for the entire series consider the family to be "fake." They lie to each other constantly and fake their feelings in order to live in the house together.
Yeah, the anime didn't demonstrate this to me to an extent that I understood the situation as being unbearable for them. There's a certain amount of lying and faking of feelings that goes on in every family, or at least most families, which is tempered/counterbalanced by mutual love and support obv, and tbh it looked to me like the trio were in the normal range (at least until Kanba decided to become a terrorist). And as you say, the point at the end is that they were, right--they really were a real family!--they just didn't understand it as such.
So the finale was, to me, showing the Takakuras becoming a real family for the first time.
I can definitely see this--at least in the sense that they're perceiving themselves as a family for the first time, or perceiving their love for each other--but that's why it's so frustrating to me that the boys have to die ahaha. Like, just as this revelation occurs--just as they finally really truly perceive/rediscover this unconditional love that they actually had for each other all along even though it got lost somehow along the way--then they die? The family ends just as it became real? I mean okay, that's where the ~heartbreak~ is supposed to come from, the part that's supposed to make the audience weepy--but it doesn't make me feel weepy, it just pisses me off. XD;
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Living together and sharing a life together with someone does not necessarily add up to loving someone unconditionally. A shared life is something that can be beautiful in and of itself (and for the Takakuras it was!), but it's still "only the shape of a family" if everyone involved is placing conditions on their affection. "You have to act the way I say, or I won't be your family anymore!" isn't a loving family, it's being selfish and controlling. You had Kanba who was obsessed with playing the role of overprotective big brother to the extent of not caring whether Shouma or Himari actually wanted to live or die themselves, refusing to grant them a choice. Shouma letting the family dissolve because he thought his personal morals were more important than Kanba or Himari. Himari choosing to walk away from Shouma and save Kanba because Masako told her WHEN HE BLOWS TOKYO SKY-HIGH IT WILL BE ALL YOUR FAULT, and then trying to play on his feelings for her to manipulate him into ending the plot (except oops, he didn't care about her feelings at all!)...
So my interpretation was: no, they weren't a family all along, they were just a shape. They weren't a family who loved and accepted each other unconditionally until the finale, when all three finally were able to stop trying to control each other and go, "You can make your own choices, and I will love you anyway, even if it's not what I want."
I mean I see the frustration that the family ends right when it becomes real, but on my part "UNSELFISHNESS AND LOVE AND AUTONOMY FOR EVERYBODY!" is the main thing I ended up taking away? And it's the autonomy that was what I found affecting more than anything else. Kanba returning the memory to Shouma and allowing him to make his own informed decision on whether to sacrifice himself or not, even though that was the last thing Kanba wanted, even though Kanba wouldn't change his mind about the attack and Shouma had said he'd never forgive him... The self-sacrifice isn't that interesting to me on its own aside from it being the show's barometer of how the love is unconditional, it's how none of it could have ever even happened in the first place if Kanba hadn't finally offered Shouma a choice.
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