Alright back on my Amane defender kick because once we start getting into the swing of trial 3 that poor girl is going to get beat down asf
I might talk more about her in general story, but this post specifically is about her beef with Shidou (which is funny on paper I just had to say that)
TRIAL 3 SPOILERS BELOW BUT YOU GOTTA CATCH UP SMH
Alright I feel like a lot of people even Amane defenders kind of gloss over her Shidou murder. “She’s against medical care” and on the face of it yes that’s why she killed him, BUT I also think her psychology about the situation goes a lot deeper than just that.
I think I’ve talked about this in a past post, but ADHD so whatever.
So let’s establish some base boards. Amane is not only raised from birth in a cult, but she’s also absolutely going through religious psychosis as well as some sort of “prophet complex” (I say prophet because she’s leading her new sect of this religion, but she’s still a PART of that religion). I also think a lot of Amane antis try to point to her first trial voice drama to say “she didn’t kill her mother in self defense it was a religious motivator she knew what she was doing.” I do think that’s basically the most surface level take ever, but if you have that take sure. I also think when looking at the lyrics of purge march it does kind of shatter this level headed grateful follower persona Amane was trying to portray. In purge march she is very clearly angry saying things along the lines of “remember my cries, my repents, etc”. I think she was religiously motivated not in the sense her mom wasn’t following the religion, so she felt like she had to then punish her, but that she realized the hypocrisies in the religion and it broke her which then led to her murdering her mother. To kill her mother and then call it self defense would then be her having to admit her religion was used to hurt her and that she was upset at that fact. In trial 1 we can see she is still using her religion for comfort, so she’s not ready to confront the fact that she’s actually questioning her faith. I also think that’s why after being voted guilty in trial 1 we got purge march. Milgram effectively scared her back to her religion. I don’t think in trial 1 “magic” she’s hard core questioning her faith, but I do think the seeds were there. I could see a trial 1 innocent verdict starting her path towards possibly getting less intense about her religion with her repeated question of “can I still be a good girl?” And her giving care to the cat being affirmed, but I also think it could’ve made her think her religion is right. Either way I think an innocent verdict was the only way to keep her at bay.
Anyway all of that wraps back around to her IN milgram. Being voted guilty essentially sent her running back to her religion full speed, but I also think that an inno trial 1 would’ve helped her path to healing because after being voted guilty her immediate reaction was to believe in her religion even HARDER, but also see it as the “old” religion for lack of a better term as not harsh enough. Once she got an innocent verdict in trial 2 that essentially sealed her fate with her beliefs. An innocent verdict affirms a prisoners beliefs so when she presents purge march and her new mindset and gets affirmation for that she just sees that as “Oh I WAS correct the old version of my religion didn’t work but no religion also doesn’t work so I need to be the one to fix it.”
(Little side note I hate the milgram fandom acting like everything about the story is so out of our hands when the whole series is built on its audience interactivity, but that’s a different post)
So now we get to the elephant in the room Shidou. Alright. Just on the face of it Shidou is literally a living example of a sinner to Amane. Once she got the affirmation a more violent approach to her religion is the way to go of course shidou would’ve been her first target. I think if you just end the analysis there though that chops off a huge part of her mindset that’s really interesting.
Alright so we know for a fact that Amane is against medical care, she uses her religion as justification for her actions because a lot of her actions are actually not in service of her religion but she’s so brainwashed she can’t let that be true, and she’s also now been essentially told it’s her job to be the leader of this new “Amaneism”.
So yes she killed shidou because hes a sinner. But she also killed him because to her his death is closure, and almost penance. So let’s go through Amane’s crime. Amane was giving medical care to a cat and she was caught by somebody in the church who then told her mother. Once Amane got home she was punished for breaking the rules by getting tazed. Once she goes back to the cats spot and realizes that either her mother or somebody in the cult did something to that cat (most likely killed it). This is where Amane starts to break. In purge march we see her disconnect from reality in the umbrella transition which from there she goes back home and kills her mother.
So looking at all of this. In AMANE’S head medical care is the specific reason she ended up in milgram. Now I’d say it’s heavily implied and basically shown Amane killed her mother not for religious reasons, but because of the abuse she endured (which I talked about earlier), but in her head it was religious. Amane broke the rules of her religion specifically around medical care which then spurred her to murder. So to Amane giving somebody/thing medical care caused her to end up in milgram. And once in milgram she was subjected to things like the guilty verdict.
Now. We have Shidou. Yes shidou is the living embodiment of a primary sin of Amane’s religion, BUT more importantly to Amane he is a physical representation of why she is here. To Amane he’s not just someone who daily goes against her religion, he is a living showcase of Amane’s greatest shame and reason for even being in Milgram. Did Amane kill Shidou for sinning? Yes. That’s not up for debate. I would propose the theory however that while that may have been the superficial reason, she had to kill him not just because amaneism is more violent, but because now that she’s fully embraced this religion she has to let go of the part of herself or honestly to her what she sees as a weakness. For her killing Shidou is a rectifying of her past mistakes and maybe on an even deeper subconscious level a way for her to let out her anger about even being in Milgram
Some final thoughts below
One thing I really dislike about the milgram fandom and especially with Amane is that they don’t treat her as a kid. Actually on top of that they don’t treat her as a kid, or a victim of abuse, or a brainwashed cult member. Especially all of those things together.
Amane quite literally can not be a reliable narrator because of how much she’s gone through and because of the ages she’s gone through it. It’s the same in real life when kids are raised in Christianity and with their full hearts see a lot of things they do as sinful and cry over going to Hell.
To look at Amane go “I killed my victim because I had to impart justice on my victim in the name of my religion” and take that as 100% fact, exactly what she thinks, and think that there is no nuance or even more behind that statement is ludicrous.
You can apply this to basically all of the prisoners in some way. Mahiru says over and over she just had a normal relationship and just loved as anyone else did, but even in her first trial song is showing that she doesn’t fully believe that. And the prisoners aren’t just able to alter the videos to get a verdict they want it is a reflection of what’s going on inside their heads. Mahiru even says I’m not a great singer I hope it’s ok. Prisoners talk about Es and their thoughts on their crimes and the music videos with estimation implying they don’t know what Es saw.
Amane isn’t different. “Magic” would not be so conflicted if she truly had zero doubts or if she was 100% honest that her murder was solely religiously motivated. After her punishment montage in “Magic” she gets up with the spirals in her eye which is basically always short hand for brain washing or not being in control of ones actions. It’s actually baffling to me that other prisoners will get hordes of people clamoring to point out every reason why a prisoner is innocent, or guilty, or why you should look at what they’re saying differently, but when it’s Amane’s turn it’s crickets.
Amane’s age, trauma, and upbringing is INTEGRAL to her crime and CHARACTER. No Amane is not to be taken at face value. If you talk to a child in real life that’s gone through HALF of what Amane has gone through you wouldn’t immediately expect them to be of sound mind. Sometimes I get genuinely confused when I see people try to act like Amane isn’t extremely tragic and that she’s just some religious zealot who is pure evil and can never be listened to
I always start these posts thinking I’m just gonna have a quick 5 paragraph post and then I end up typing like it’s my dissertation so um anyways. thanks for reading LOL
(Yes I add all the hashtags I can think of don’t judge me)
