First of all, TW: Suicide
I don't know why, don't know if it's just me, and I don't know if I'm projecting what I expected from Haru because of trailers, or I don't know if I'm reading too much into this in a more gloomy way than it's supposed to be, or maybe what I'm going to say is actually obvious as fuck, but something about Haru always made me feel like he was so fleeting.
This one scene didn't help at all to shake the feeling:
He looks like a memory somehow, almost fading in the light.
Throughout the story, Haru made me feel like he would just disappear everytime he was out of my sight. He felt like we could lose him at any moment, like he was so ephemeral and haunting.
And I think Unmei felt it too (Ren too, but he seems like he didn't fully comprehend the feeling at first, meanwhile Unmei understood immediatly), and that's why he chased after him at the station. It would also be why this simple-looking scene actually striked me on a deeper emotional level.
To me, Unmei felt like if he just let Haru go without saying anything more, he would never see him again. He would disappear — Or more precisely, he would commit.
I think Haru would have commited suicide at some point, if Unmei didn't chase after him and tell him to not give up. In my head, what Unmei told him felt more like "Stay alive. I know it seems hard, but I promise you the road and the people you will meet walking it are worth it."
At first, I thought I may be reading into this in a way too somber manner for an IE game, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds logical.
All this time, Otome thought his son committed suicide because of his inability to play soccer, and to a larger extent, because of Haru. So it sounds logic (and perhaps obvious as fuck, but listen it's my way to process the story I just finished) that Otome would want to make Haru suffer the same way he thinks his son suffered. Not only make him unable to play, but more importantly, as terrifying as it is, push him into committing suicide.
Thinking about this chills me, but it wouldn't be so surprising from a man twisted enough to hide a needle in what he pretends to be Mamoru's first gift to his son.
Thanks to Unmei chasing after Haru, tell him to not give up, Haru makes the promise to return — And to me that sounds like the promise of staying alive, and meet each other again.
Perhaps this sounds like a too dark reading of the story to some people, but in my eyes, I think it makes the meaning of the story even deeper, and it also shows how good the story-telling is: It's all in subtlety. It doesn't need to be said explicitly, because that's rarely how it happens in real life. Depression and suicide ideations are subtle. You might not notice what your comrade, your friend, your child, is going through, or how they're dealing it with it in their head.
Thankfully, Unmei did. Because he went through the same thing. He trusted that unsettling all-too familiar feeling that told him "I need to go back talk to him, or he will never return from the darkness."
Man, I wanna cry after writing those thoughts down. If this take is indeed not too-far off, Victory Road is truely a very emotional and well-written story.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
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