My thoughts on the director comments:
There were always frames I couldn’t fully make sense of.
Let’s focus on two key moments, because Aqua’s behavior there doesn’t read as either guilt or love.
In ch78, while Akane cries, Aqua wipes her tears and kisses her.
If he were acting out of guilt, he wouldn’t feel like he deserves to touch her, let alone kiss her. A guilty man doesn’t see his kiss as some kind of “reward”.
But if this were purely love, he would at most hold her and let her cry (like he does when Ruby cries at the reveal).
Either way what he does is not what she needs or wants at that moment. She still cries when he kisses her.
Here’s a man who feels both guilt and love, yet even as he wants to wipe her tears, he doesn’t (around 4:30).
The scene is labeled as “you had interest in romantic love” (and it’s also the first time he recognized it) and “I want to protect you” typically read as romantic (another one) when there’s no actual danger. So I thought it was just romantic, But it still doesn’t fully fit. Aqua has romantic feelings for Akane, but there’s something more.
Because what it actually looks like is that Aqua is in panic mode. He’s trying to immediately shut down the possibility of Akane leaving and the relationship ending, rather than acting from a place of clear love or guilt.
In the anime, it feels a bit weirder. Aqua looks like he’s leaning on Akane even while kissing her, when in the manga he looks more stable. And compared to the first kiss, his back and shoulders are folded much more towards her( in the first kiss his back is completely straight), because he doesn’t wait for her to lean in as well and instead closes the distance himself. What’s the rush? Why not wait for her to react? The poor girl doesn’t even know if they’re actually dating after this…
[footnote: there’s a nice contrast, fake lights vs sky lights, in front of cameras vs completely secluded, and no space between them in the second kiss. And if you compare the scenes, you’ll see Aqua follows the same flow in both, but in the second he doesn’t wait for any sign that Akane is okay with it, unlike the first : puts his hand on her face → says something → kisses her]
[footnote2: I’m also waiting to see if the faint Milky Way between them will get stronger someday… maybe in the beach chapter…]
The second one is his reaction to Akane saying she’s happy in ch97 during the phone call.
If he were acting out of guilt and obligation, just trying to be a good boyfriend, that should make him happy, because it means he did a good job.
If he were acting purely out of love, hearing that he made the person he loves happy should make him happy as well.
But instead, It cracks something in him. And it makes him confesses to Akane that she’s actually his savior, and that he doesn’t want to let go of his days with her, so he leaves the decision of what to do to her.
It’s a strange trigger for that kind of reaction…
The director said Akane didn’t understand Aqua’s real motives. Akane thought he wanted to be a good boyfriend- so that’s not the truth.
He also mocks Aqua’s line “this time I want to protect Akane” calling it half-baked responsibility.
But the line itself sounds like the peak of responsibility, so it made me rethink it: What Aqua is actually doing here is assigning himself a role, like Akane’s knight or protector, but his real motives are different.
The director says Aqua is acting out of 義務感 inner duty (not giri 義理), but as I said, he’s clearly not acting out of guilt. So what makes him feel like he needs to “repay” Akane?
And of course, it’s all this:
Saving him, accepting him, staying with him. In the original, everything he says also uses くれて, which means “you did this for me.”
That’s why her saying she’s happy triggers him. It should reassure him that he’s being a good boyfriend, that he’s the one giving to her.
But it does the opposite. It forces him to face the contradiction, because he knows he’s not the one really supporting her, he’s the one relying on her.
And that’s why he breaks. He drops the mask and corrects her: you’re the one saving me.
the relationship isn’t something he’s providing, it’s something he’s depending on.
His real motive in this relationship wasn’t simply love or being her protector or a good boyfriend, it was to stay close to her.
[footnote: one mystery the anime didn’t solve for me is what Akane actually heard in that speech… but it seems like nothing]
And that’s what Akane misses. She thinks he only depended on her in that moment, but in reality, he’s been depending on her the entire time just to not fall back to his other duty to Ai.
Does that sound familiar? Can you think of another character who depended completely on their partner but still tried to frame it as mutual support to them?
Kamiki needs to pretend he supports Ai for the same reason Aqua needs to pretend he protects Akane, so they don’t feel like they’re just a charity case for the girls and are actually useless.
* I wrote more about the parallels between the 2 couples at the end.
Aqua’s Loop of Turning Gratitude into Debt:
Every time Aqua tries to do what’s “right” for Akane, he ends up feeling even more indebted to her.
Akane hugs him and says she’ll always be his ally → he thinks he has to push her away for her sake→ he shows her his worst side → Akane still accepts him and stays.
[footnote: imo Akane in this panel reflects Aqua’s darkness, not her own. She’s holding up a mirror to him.]
When Aqua thinks Akane doesn’t have romantic feelings for him, he decides the best thing he can do is let her go. But the same pattern repeats:
He tries to leave for her sake → she hugs him → he feels even more indebted to her for staying.
Aqua is stuck in a loop. He processes Akane’s love as something he has to “repay” to her:
Akane saves me → I feel grateful and need to repay her → I’ll be a good boyfriend → I’ll do things for her, like walking her home with an umbrella → being with her, when she grabs my arm under that umbrella, is what saves me.
From Akane’s Pov, Aqua looks like he’s on a mission here trying to be a good boyfriend. But from his side, he feels like she’s the one saving him.
*I don’t care that the translation is off, he says 少しずっと救われた
So Aqua isn’t free to act on his own desires to begin with. He’s driven by 義務感 (gimukan), a self-imposed sense of duty, like he has to repay what he owes her.
Because of that, the loop keeps going. He believes he has to repay her for saving him, but ends up feeling like he just owes her more, because simply being next to her is already enough to save him.
For Aqua, even though he acts out of this obligation, he still finds happiness in a life like this.
And that’s because Aqua is also in love with Akane (As we saw in 163, the problem wasn’t a lack of romantic love toward her). That’s why it’s her presence that makes him feel saved to begin with, and not anyone else’s.
Because as long as he can stay with her, the reason doesn’t matter to him.
Why he holds onto her tears as part of the days he doesn’t want to let go of, even when he did nothing and just looked at her, and when he was the one to wipe them away. Even when she shows him her vulnerable side, it only deepens his sense of gratitude and makes him want to keep holding on to those moments with her:
[footnote: reminder that he claims Ai never cried despite clearly seeing her cry, and Kana gets similar treatment in the anime]
[footnote2: I think I understand why the only frame with the bubble filter is the umbrella one. It’s only after the relationship started, when Aqua feels like he’s “repaying” her and gives something back to her, that his romantic feelings can come through, because in his mind he’s finally “earned” it. Before that, he sees himself as only receiving from her, so everything is filtered through that sense of debt.]
[footnote 3: the person who storyboarded the phone call scene and added these panels is the director]
Why, when she tells him he still deserves happiness, it’s what truly moves him:
*And the next thing that happens is him talking to Gorou, even though Gorou already found salvation in ch123 with knowing Sarina is living her dream to be an idol.
[footnote: if I had to guess why one star is white here after the twins reveal, I’d say it’s because the Gorou side has already found peace and let go of revenge (because Sarina is Ruby and an idol). The one being pulled toward revenge now is only Aqua.
But that’s also why they can never be equal in their current relationship. From Aqua’s perspective, they aren’t in the same position, they are the one who saves and the one who is saved. He tries to frame it as protector and protected, but even then, he keeps feeling that Akane is the one saving him, and he acts out of duty to repay her.
That’s why only Akane can decide for him whether he’s allowed to continue his happy life or return to revenge.
If it’s what his savior wants, he can turn it into a duty he must follow, something he has to do to repay her, instead of something he chooses for himself. Because if it comes from his own desire, the pull toward revenge will win.
It’s similar to how Suzaku used the “live!” command to his advantage.
Apparently, the meaning of this frame and the sequence that follows in the OP is that Ai’s wish on the DVD “woke Aqua up” and solidified his resolve to create the movie. Her wish is something he truly feels he must fulfill.
[footnote: Although I still don’t fully understand how Ai’s wish and Aqua’s original revenge plan go together… maybe he intended to “save” Kimiki with the movie first, and then kill him by surprise one day, the same way he did to Ai…]
[footnote2: Maybe Aqua didn’t know that Ai also wanted her kids to be happy and healthy, since it was only on Ruby’s DVD…]
And that’s why Aqua treats his relationship with Akane as a form of inner duty that he must carry, so that it keeps him from returning to revenge and to the duty he feels toward Ai and her wish.
That’s why, the moment he walks away from Akane and the relationship ends, that “duty” with his happy days ends, and the drive for revenge comes back immediately with his duty to Ai taking back its place.
[footnote: Aka is truly a genius, because he makes Aqua’s sense of duty overlap with his idea of love: constantly trying to make the other person happy.]
So because Aqua was trying to escape his duty to Ai and the pull of revenge, he had to replace it with another duty strong enough to keep him from facing the truth, all so he could hold on to some form of happiness.
Edit: And to the question of what makes Aqua act this way, what makes him think love is something he has to “repay” for to begin with? I’d say it’s Gorou’s otaku mind twisting Ai’s unconditional, motherly love in a way that kept it from reaching Aqua when he was a child. He didn’t even let her breastfeed him…
今度こそ- this time for sure…
And that’s the real power of his final declaration.
He understands that he can’t mix the two. First, he needs to stop feeling like he owes her, and only then can they have a relationship where they are equal.
He seems to take Akane cutting her hair as a sign she’s moved on and no longer has any interest in a relationship with him.
And with Aqua weird mindset, the only way he can make a decision out of his own desire is if he believes the relationship is no longer what Akane wants. That way, he can’t turn it into something he uses to repay her.
[Footnote: Ai struggled with lies and love, and Aqua struggled with duty and love, so it’s nice that at least before the end of their lives, both were able to express themselves purely out of love, without lies or duty.]
Unfortunately, Aqua’s will isn’t as strong as Gorou’s when it comes to protecting his own salvation…
*It would be better if he realized he doesn’t need to repay her at all.
Edit: A reminder that Aka already addressed the idea of being equals very clearly in Kaguya…
I don’t mind rethinking things or changing my view to better understand the story. I actually like that he said it, because I wouldn’t have reached that on my own.
My issue is that he knew people would take a delicate statement like this at face value and ignore everything the story shows. We already saw that with his “Kana is the sun” line to try to undermine Ruby being the light of the story, and here it’s even worse.
[He likely meant Kana as a source of inspiration. For Aqua, Akane, and Ruby.]
Same with the “Akane was selfish” comment. I even agree with it, but what’s the point of phrasing it like that? It doesn’t add anything, it just comes off in poor taste.
So he mocks Aqua and only criticizes Akane, while with Kana he pushes a whole “hate management” agenda to protect her from backlash.
I thought this season would help people accept the ending as it is, but instead it made even me not sure if it will change because of this obsession with “managing hate”.
It feels off. Staff can have favorites, but they usually keep things balanced. Here, the bias isn’t even hidden.
In the end, it just comes off as unprofessional. Why are you so focused on your favorite getting hate? And how can you try to “direct” it toward Shima when Aka wrote him the way he did?
I never even thought about writing about ONK before the manga ended, because it was nonstop bait presented as “evidence” that Kana would be x, y, z:
his old self, his “light”, Aka’s tweet, the promise, the concert (even after 161…), Gotanda’s words, the narrative, the Ai parallels…
You really had to be there to get it. It felt impossible to say anything, to the point people just ran to the AquaRuby church lol
And there’s always a new “clear evidence” only for it to end up being something like an insert song with lines like “a little pain will bring us a greater healing”. I’m not even going to explain how shameless this line is.
I’m just tired of it not being obvious that there’s more than one kind of love. And that romantic love doesn’t make you wish for the person you love to be an idol- someone who devotes herself to her fans.
And again. No, Aqua didn’t say anything to Mem that would make her think he has romantic feelings for Kana, when she knows he’s dating Akane. Her reaction says it all: she just smiles, apologizes, and everyone moves on with their lives.
Like I said, the English fandom gets thrown off by a few words. “On your side” is clearly 味方, not 傍に. But honestly I can’t explain everything.
But in the end, that’s your loss, because this scene shows Aqua’s specific trauma with Ai and the mindset he has when stabbing himself: feeling responsible for ruining his oshi’s idol career.
[footnote: Oh, and I’ve changed my mind. Aqua revealed Ai’s secret regardless of revenge, because Mem’s (“she became an idol for you” == you’re responsible) and Ruby’s (“it will affect her future activities”) words triggered that trauma again…]
I’m also tired of people romanticizing what Aqua says about Kana in 161.
I still think Aqua acts out of duty with Kana there, but it’s giri 義理, not gimukan 義務感. It’s not an internal, moral drive that he must do it, it’s a social obligation, He feels he should at least consider her feelings, because she has feelings for him and wants an answer. That’s why it’s so weak.
[footnote: I didn’t know what gimukan is, to be honest. I only knew giri, and since one of the biggest tropes is ninjo vs giri, I thought it was always binary.…]
When the promise chapter came out, I was sure Aqua would die. Aka set it up so Aqua could keep his promise and still die, but that Kana will have to break hers.
When chapter 150 came out, it was the final confirmation of the oshi theory, and that Aqua never saw his feeling for Kana as romantic.
And when he dropped her ball, it was clear he wasn’t going to her concert. That was the conclusion of a relationship framed as bad timing, but even when everything aligns (Gorou and Akane’s approval, Kana being honest), they still can’t be in sync.
But back then, it wasn’t the time to try and say any of this. Everyone already had their “evidence” that Kana would be the one to save Aqua.
* People did talk about the ball drop, though…
And honestly, it feels the same now. There’s still too much hope that things will turn out differently.
So I’ll take that as my cue to stop for now, and probably come back at season 4.
I do believe Aka when he said he wrote this manga for Mengo (someone with the skills of a mangaka…), and that Aqua is the character with the most complex psychology he’s created. So I don’t mind changing my mind, but I doubt the idea of the girls representing 3 different types of love will change.
Especially when chapter 150 makes it clear that Aqua’s feelings for Kana come from gap moe and gaze, a kind of love that isn’t even about personal connection.
And the foundation of Japanese romance is about closing the distance and getting in sync, and Aka already showed in Kaguya that he’s no exception.
Aqua says 救われた “I was saved”, the same kanji as in 救い “salvation”.
Akane uses 助けて, more like “help”.
They don’t use the same word.
Aqua sees Akane as someone who truly saved him in a deep way, while she only sees him as someone who helped her.
I don’t get why people think Akane sees Aqua as her savior, when she’s the one who talks about and wants equality between them to begin with.
It was actually fun to recontextualize their whole relationship with this new information, and to see the full parallel with Kamiki and Ai.
Even the insert song “The Way of Leaving” fits both. The issue was never Ai leaving, but the way she left while telling a lie that cemented Hikaru’s belief that his true self was unworthy of love.
Literally half the lyrics fit Ai:
“What was the love we had? I can’t give it a name”
“that was your kindness and your way of leaving”
Because for Ai, love is lies.
Just like for Akane, love is being useful.
And maybe for Aqua, love is repaying for kindness…
I think that’s mostly related to Aqua and Akane, but even the theme of repayment and equality shows up in the song!
“If you gave me something, how do I give it back”
“I’m not greedy, but I hope we’re equal”
[footnote: But maybe Ai hoped the separation would make Hikaru stronger, and that one day, when he’s independent, they could try again as equals…]
With this understanding, and how every piece falls into place, I’ve reached an even more extreme level of apathy toward how people interpret this story. And that says a lot, considering I already had no patience for anyone who thinks the ending is “inconsistent”/ “rushed” / “Aka got bored”😴