“The world is dull when I’m not with you” — What VIVID BAD Squad means to Aoyagi Toya
Lyrics in title quoted from HAVEN by NILFRUITS, translated by Tackmyn Y.
I think it’s been discussed at length many times how crucial Akito and Toya are for each other, but rarely is the impact of VBS as a whole on the members discussed. And you can hardly blame the fandom for that — VBS’ story is very explicitly written to focus on the two “partnerships”, so there’s much more material to explore for BAD DOGS and Vivids. But VBS is something very important for Toya’s development, and it’s important to Toya himself too, and so I’m here today to talk about that.
What I think we need to understand first and foremost is just the situation Toya was in before meeting Akito. He loved the beauty of piano, but that passion was quickly quashed when harumichi forced him to practice over and over until he reached perfection, and he no longer could find enjoyment in the one thing he cared about. So, he broke himself out of his shitty life of classical and turned to street music instead. (Honourable mention to Tsukasa for giving Toya the encouragement he needed to run away!)
But he didn’t start out truly loving street music the way the rest of VBS did. He threw himself into it because he knew it was something Harumichi would hate, he sang just to rebel, just to prove a point. He wanted to reject every aspect of his past miserable self more than he actually cared about singing.
And Akito changed that. Akito walked up to him, and asked him if they could sing together. It was through bad dogs that Toya started to love street music for what it was, and genuinely started singing out of passion, genuinely wanted to help Akito reach that dream of surpassing rad weekend. Maybe he began to believe in that dream too.
But no matter how hard he tried to run away, old habits were hard to break. Harumichi had drilled into him over and over the importance of the intent behind a piece of music, that without the right mindset, anything played was not good enough. That he himself was not good enough. Could never be good enough.
And so he felt like he didn’t belong by Akito’s side, but he never got the courage to voice it, or maybe he didn’t even realise that self-doubt until it surfaced in the main story. And what was the catalyst for these emotions bursting out?
Meeting Kohane. Seeing the way Akito talked about her.
And when that self-loathing came in at full force, he left. Because what was he thinking? How could he have ever deserved a place alongside people that sang for their dream and nothing else?
But as counterintuitive as it might seem, Toya needed that falling out. That doubt would’ve never resolved on its own. If Akito hadn’t grabbed him by the collar and screamed in his face that he was needed, that Akito chose him no matter what, his feelings would’ve festered, buried deep in his heart. So in a way, Kohane was the catalyst for Akito and Toya’s issues resolving.
And after Toya joins VBS, they continue to help his relationship with music heal. In Nocturne, it’s discussing with his teammates that helped him realise he still had hangups about Harumichi that needed confronting so his singing could become more free.
It’s because of VBS that Toya was able to move on from his past, and now his music isn’t forced to be perfect, nor is it driven by frustration and shame, it just is.
The thing that he had loved above all, the thing that had kept being tainted by his past, the thing that had accompanied him all his life. He finally gets to enjoy music for the sake of music, nothing else in the way, and that is the best possible thing that could’ve happened to him. VBS is what changed his life, expanded it from the confines of his room to this unfathomably wide and beautiful world.
And in return, he loves VBS so, so much. In SDSC, he feels bad for having his teammates patiently guide him through his first camping experience and looks for any way he can contribute too. And the desire to be able to help his teammates is so intense that in Chapter 7, he temporarily forgets about his acrophobia and climbs up a tree (though he does recall his fear once he reaches the top and struggles to get back down, which was very cute, but the way).
Then there’s WOAO, where, again, Toya wants to be of help in some way, but can’t quite find the direction his music should go in. Then he realises — he wants to stand side by side with his teammates. He wants to be able to lend them a supporting hand the same way they have to him, to catch up to their rapid improvement. So he expresses that love and admiration through what he knows best, and turns it into a song.
And of course, we have Take the Best Shot!, where Toya was struggling to smile naturally for a photoshoot, and the thing that got him to smile without realising was thinking about VBS.
VBS is the sun that caressed his cheek and drove away the shadows of the past. VBS is his everything. VBS is his miracle.
In conclusion, COLOPALE GIVE US MORE TOKOHA BONDING DAMMIT WE HAVE AKITOYA (every single event) WE HAVE ANTOYA (wtwg, bsound) WHY NOT COMPLETE THE SQUARE cough, I mean, Toya’s bond with VBS really is something beautiful, and he cares about them so much it makes me want to cry, so I thought I’d ramble about it here. Hope you were able to enjoy and learn a little more about Toya!
