longform analysis about noriyuki utsugi and minoru harada's relationship, as i see it. there's a lot of room for interpretation in their relationship, so of course these are my thoughts only.
contains spoilers for the full series.
word count: ~8,600
images are from this youtube translation, i got lazy so not everything has image support. if you see a random little tagline like 'ch 7' that means the evidence comes from there but i was too lazy to screengrab it yet (or ever, i don't know)
outline:
i. the completion of each other
ii. a deep and mutual understanding
iii. the emphasis of their cruelty
iv. the concealment of their kindness
v. family and cycles
vi. other allusions
vii. conclusion
part one: equality and lack there of
how minoru and utsugi are presented as equals in some manner (whether in reality, presentation, thoughts, or otherwise) and how they circumvent it
1a. utsugi-kun, did you fuck my wife?
'jealousy' is a big theme with these two: it comes up in utsugi's interactions with rai and hajime, as described by minoru, and similarly with utsugi replacing minoru in his own family.
the two's interpersonal relationships are the greatest source of their conflicts, as is clear with all their arguing and sniping at one another in the base game. there are two clear 'pairs' that become intertwined with one another: rai and minoru, and hajime and utsugi.
utsugi finally felt needed through his relationship with hajime, the only thing he’d ever wanted, and then it's slowly taken from him as hajime becomes less willing to depend on utsugi. utsugi had uprooted his entire life to follow hajime, and he considers hajime's life and happiness to be his sole goal in life.
minoru states in the base game that utsugi is jealous of him. this is supported by how in some way minoru seems to have occupied that supporting role as someone that hajime does depend on, in place of utsugi. but is this true?
it's hard to say that's the way utsugi sees it.
utsugi never mentions that he thinks hajime likes or depends on minoru more, or that he's jealous of minoru in his monologues. these plain descriptions of his inner thoughts are some of the only things about him that can be taken mostly at face value, he will only lie to himself if he benefits from being in denial. he mentions his various grievances with minoru (below), so why would jealousy never come up?
utsugi isn't jealous of minoru, that's why. minoru thinks utsugi is jealous because minoru wants them to have a symmetrical relationship, something easily explained.
utsugi has what i want (rai and haruki), and i have what utsugi wants (hajime). so naturally i am jealous of utsugi and utsugi must be jealous of me.
but this is the admission of hajime and minoru’s friendship in utsugi’s mind: perfectly plain and devoid of negative emotion.
utsugi doesn’t mind (or at least, it isn’t a major concern for him) that hajime and minoru are close. he genuinely likes minoru, and is distressed at the thought that he would hurt minoru by continuing to be around him.
this is his commentary around the time he learns both about the ‘factor of catastrophe’ surrounding their families, and the difficult time when haruki is born. learning of the factor makes utsugi decide minoru must leave, while haruki being born cements the fact that making minoru leave will be difficult.
instead, a lot of the grievances utsugi has with minoru in these thoughts is indicative that his greater problems with minoru were really
1) that his ideas and presence harms utsugi’s plans for hajime to believe he is a savior
2) grief that minoru insists on staying when utsugi’s plan for him is to go
3) anger that minoru is oblivious to the behind the scenes horror of the cult
but again, none of this is jealousy. utsugi’s apparent jealousy towards minoru is merely the product of minoru’s attempt to understand his abrupt change in behavior when he doesn’t have the full picture. and it is a projection of minoru’s own strife around utsugi’s position with haruki and rai.
utsugi is more of a father to haruki than minoru was, and minoru explicitly recognizes this a few times. utsugi helps haruki with homework, calls him a good boy, and they sit together and sip juice. in contrast, minoru can hardly talk to haruki without losing his temper after he learns of haruki’s experiment status.
his complicated feelings towards utsugi and haruki's relationship are clearly illustrated in his outburst in the train station, where he frantically tells haruki that he is his father, not hajime or utsugi. he still has a sense of ownership and duty to haruki, and wants the mantle of fatherhood. and yet his own fears and selfishness won out, burying those feelings.
the same unnatural setup can be observed in the complicated way rai, minoru, and utsugi’s relationship develops. rai makes multiple choices to the detriment of the family in order to stay on utsugi’s good side and appease him, and minoru himself is kept in the dark about haruki much, much longer than utsugi. this all creates a feeling of isolation from his own family, and utsugi manages to ‘replace’ him wholly in some ways, where both haruki and rai are placing higher importance on their relationship with utsugi than they do minoru. minoru notes in retrospect that he was more deeply in love with rai than she was with him, likely adding to this insecurity.
the isoi’s importance to minoru is underlined by the mundanity of his ambitions. he wants to be happy, he wants a family and friends, he wants for everyone to get along. there is no grand higher purpose for minoru. this desire for a mundane, happy family is possibly inspired by his original orphaning, where both parents blamed minoru in part for their issues before leaving his life entirely. notably, hajime also makes up most of utsugi’s ambitions and desires, further paralleling the two pairs.
and relating to minoru's upbring, there are also multiple points in the game where the concept of affairs and cheating comes up, strengthening the existing concept of jealousy and insecurities within marriage. most prominently, minoru questions if utsugi likes rai in the reference room scene of DLC.
to utsugi, to the viewer, to rai, this sounds like complete laughable nonsense. but minoru seems to ask it seriously, showing the depths to which he has started to question his importance to his family. it’s emphasized that he wasn’t merely asking this in jest when utsugi laughs in response and minoru seems confused by the reaction.
further references include that it comes up that both the harada and isoi families previously had incidents with their mothers cheating, shown as a symptom of the crumbling marriage. and again, minoru brings up an affair when affirming that haruki is his kid to hajime in a flashback scene in chapter 7 of the base game.
minoru’s feelings about rai and utsugi are never addressed as explicitly as minoru’s feelings about haruki and fatherhood, but this concept of infidelity has come up too many times to be mere coincidence. minoru probably, at least momentarily in times of insecurity or irrationality, considered the idea that rai and utsugi might have something between them.
when considering how obvious utsugi’s single-minded devotion to hajime is (and minoru knew this!), it is a rather insane leap of logic. but minoru doesn't tend to make smart decisions, especially under duress. many of his ill-fated decisions in game are led by his human fallibility. most prominently, he misses his window to escape with haruki and reiji in 1999 because he goes back to sleep after receiving the text to move up the plan.
he wasn't ignorant or blind to utsugi’s devotion to hajime, his own insecurity, jealousy, and confusion over utsugi’s sudden changes in attitude ended up creating impossible possibilities in his mind. he has been so completely replaced in importance to both his wife and his son, his family being the only thing he ever wanted, that he doesn't know how to cope with it.
both minoru and utsugi’s most important relationships are fraught with strife over the other person, and thus we can see how they are equal/replacing each other in some way. utsugi slots into the isoi family naturally as minoru’s relationships with his wife and son splinters. and while minoru shows hajime a simple way to live happily and without expectations, at the same time, utsugi is unsuccessful in his own pursuits to make hajime happy. utsugi has no jealousy over minoru’s relationship to hajime, and yet it is true that minoru ‘replaces’ utsugi in a just as important way as utsugi ‘replaces’ minoru.
1b. the one who knew everything, and the one who knew nothing
their positions of power and authority show equality in other ways: utsugi is clearly jealous of minoru’s apparent easy, unburdened existence, and minoru in turn wishes for the power and influence utsugi has.
utsugi's complex is shown best when utsugi responds to minoru in the reference room: describing his demeanor as ignorant and disrespectful. he's frustrated that minoru can continue living obliviously while utsugi is in pain, even as utsugi himself maintains this state by keeping minoru in the dark about many things. he perceives minoru’s life to be easy and guilt-free, in a contrast to his own life of willingly taking on more and more burdens.
at the same time, minoru is also feeling the stress and problems of the failing institute and his own crumbling family. it’s not inaccurate to call minoru ignorant, but utsugi exaggerates the depth to which minoru doesn’t understand the problems occuring. minoru eventually calls out the problems and failings he clearly sees, but he lacks the power to execute any real change. as an example, he calls for the removal of utsugi and the recognition of the crimes of the institute in the scene where utsugi orders him to leave, and no one takes him seriously, and things continue as normal.
minoru picks up on symptoms of the problem, but lacks the knowledge to get to the root. he sees utsugi acting out, hajime staying silent, and the increase in human experimentation. but he never indicates that he’s connected the dots on things like the reason why utsugi is acting out, why hajime is silent, and why human experimentation is ramping up.
utsugi is the one who holds the power and authority to act on solutions to minoru’s concerns. he also has all the information and understanding that minoru lacks on multiple people close to him, including hajime, utsugi himself, and his family. he stands as the archbishop of EHRI and the main executor of hajime’s will, so it is utsugi who is pushing EHRI chiefly along its dark path. minoru wants the ability to hold onto the people he treasures and save his life from ruin, but he lacks the conviction and action-taking of utsugi.
for the most part, hajime takes the role of a passive observer, minoru is an outsider with no clout, and all the other bishops answer to utsugi, who answers to the sponsors.
to further explore how this difference in status and authority shapes their dynamic, minoru’s status as an outsider establishes him as more equal to utsugi than anyone else in the game. the previously talked through jealousy and give-and-take relationship between them supports this, putting them on the equal level of both having things of value to each other.
it is revealed in DLC that utsugi never bought into hajime’s status as a savior. but even then he treats hajime with a carefulness and fragility that keeps their relationship from being one of mutual reliance and equal footing. he doesn't feel he can tell hajime of his struggles due to his devotion to being an infallible support for hajime. the support only flows one way, hajime being perceived as too delicate to take on utsugi’s problems.
hajime aside, most everyone else in path to empireo (excluding seodore, minoru, and some of the other sponsors/stakeholders) see utsugi as the highest position of power and authority. he builds a powerful persona, and gradually we see the other members of path to empireo call him ‘utsugi-sama’ more than ‘utsugi-kun,’ showing his complete evolution into someone who is no longer equal and approachable to the others. meanwhile, minoru never changes the honorific, and even wishes to drop it entirely, but utsugi insists on it due to his upbringing.
that minoru has neither bought into utsugi's leader persona (perhaps because he remembers how utsugi was when they first met: awkward, unconfident, reticent) nor become a worshipper that utsugi has direct power over, nor a sponsor with direct influence over utsugi means he sees things more clearly. he exists somewhere completely outside the power structure of EHRI, where he can see utsugi for who he is.
many of the other researchers we see (the enomotos, rai) don’t seem to quite be unaware of how utsugi is deteriorating, but they do seem to not have the mental capacity to do anything when their own problems are consuming them. rai in particular explicitly struggles with feeling the need to please utsugi, making it so she cannot portray her true self to utsugi or provoke him.
but minoru frequently provokes utsugi, and he is the only person who is comfortable demanding answers from him. it’s not a coincidence that they have multiple scenes where they come to physical blows, showing the depth to which there is no power barrier between them. they both possess psychic powers from the cells, but only use their bare, human hands on one another.
1c. love languages
they show an inversion of each other again in their ways of taking action and expressing themselves: utsugi’s motivations and care are impactful, but quite silent and unsaid; while minoru talks loudly without being able to back it up with action.
minoru calls out that utsugi cared for those around him when he could (when it didn’t conflict with hajime’s will) and with a little investigating, the viewer can also pick up on this notion.
one example is utsugi may have allowed or accepted noa’s blame for killing rai, when the clear culprits of rai’s death were always seodore and noa herself.
or that utsugi tried to create an exit for the isoi family both by proposing the plan of a second child and by using haruki to research reversing the cells influence, which has little other application.
rai dlc
utsugi only ties his own hands when caring for others would directly interfere with hajime’s wishes, which gives rise to things like haruki’s original existence as an experiment (as a note, hajime’s regret of this situation may have played into utsugi’s eventual willingness to reverse it.)
but even then, he does his best to play around the lines of his ultimate obligation to hajime and shows reluctance in carrying out harm. this is illustrated best by how, in one of his dlc monologues, he hoped haruki would have a negative reaction to the cells.
utg dlc
this would put path to empireo out a potential experiment, arguably hindering hajime’s ultimate dream. however, a negative reaction would keep utsugi from having to navigate the potential situation of a positive reaction, which would surely be difficult for the isoi family.
in most, if not all of these situations, utsugi's thoughts and actions are not seen as mercies by anyone involved. they’re difficult solutions that are hard to accept. utsugi never presents his help as mercy, nor does he ever asks for gratitude from the people he helps.
we can see utsugi’s affection for minoru persist until modern day, similarly completely unsaid but easily seen from his actions. utsugi holds onto minoru’s books for years and years, keeping them in a backroom without disposing of them. there is no reason for someone so logical and thorough as utsugi to not dispose of these books unless he has sentimental attachment to them.
ch 6
the room behind utsugi’s statue is also minoru’s old room from before he was married, and not only does utsugi preserve it, but he blocks it off so no one would enter it. it can be confirmed as minoru's room when hajime reads a note from minoru in the room in a flashback in the base game, as well as the shape and set-up being the same when it appears in minoru's dlc.
ch 6
the furniture in it is likely different from minoru’s room in the flashbacks because he took his furniture with him after he moved out with the isoi family, but it has not been repurposed.
utsugi also clearly remembers many things about minoru– his demeanor, how his sign feels, his appearance– and uses all these to easily identify reiji and haruki as his sons. when he’s blinded in his boss fight, he remembers how minoru’s sign ‘feels’ enough to believe that he is fighting him (when it is in actuality his sons.)
ch 8
with utsugi’s deteriorating mental state after 1999 as well as that year being his last meeting with minoru, it would’ve been natural for utsugi to forget minoru inadvertently or on purpose. but it seems like he makes a conscious effort to remember his friend after their split, betraying his lasting attachment.
to further compare minoru and utsugi’s actions, utsugi is extremely private and single-minded. he decides on things with little hesitation, and never ruminates on what could have been or what went wrong until everything is over and done. this is best illustrated in how we never see him breathe a negative word of hajime until they both lay dying.
utg dlc
he also insists on having no regrets, even when the only audience to his words is his own self. this is clearly contradicted when he shows clear distress and desire to start over multiple times, most clearly in his second fight with minoru in 1999 and in the reference room scene. but in asserting to himself that he has no regret, he can better stay focused on what really matters instead of wallowing in the past.
mnr dlc
minoru is the opposite, being someone who talks a lot about what is wrong and what he wants to do, but either can’t or won’t take action. he is unable to commit to the same decisive choices as utsugi.
in the case of can’t take action, his status as an outsider keeps him from enacting real change in EHRI, even as he points out its flaws repeatedly and loudly. he has no real power and thus his words are all he has.
in the case of won’t, it is shown best in the reference room scene with utsugi. minoru is angrily insistent that utsugi confide further in him and help him understand his situation and struggles, but he only maintains this sentiment up to a point. utsugi pushes back hard, feeling that minoru’s words are useless and would not help him. ironically, this proves true as minoru swiftly backs down from his previous words after utsugi starts choking him. it shows a clear line that minoru will give up on his convictions when pushed past.
mnr dlc
in contrast, utsugi lacks this same bottom line. he is subjected to many counts of violence and pain while fulfilling his promise to hajime, but doesn’t ever think of giving up on their promise. utsugi avoids lying to others in the beginning (possibly as a side effect from the pain of being accused of being a liar in his youth when he was telling the truth) and he prefers total silence over promising anything he cannot guarantee.
he becomes much more comfortable lying and acting as time goes on, but in the 70’s and 80’s his word is trustable. one solid example is how, in 1999 in the train station, he refuses to promise anyone’s safety to noa besides hajime’s, despite her pleas. as someone who tried to treat others well, it would make sense to lie to her to put her fears to rest, but utsugi refuses to make the same flimsy promises as minoru.
noa dlc
this difference in conviction is also what respectively saves and dooms them. it’s merely a possibility that if minoru had committed to taking action and causing change that he could have saved his friends and family at EHRI; however, it is unmistakable and undeniable that his ability to walk away is what actually saves his own self. utsugi similarly is capable/able of walking out, especially in 1999 when the organization is in shambles, but his intense conviction and loyalty to hajime holds him back and ultimately takes him to his ruin.
in a game very centrally about the power of ‘will’ this feels significant and should be a good thing, but under a different lens it can also be seen as a passive role. utsugi never tries to re-assess his and hajime’s wishes and change his path to fit a more accurate dream. he never has the courage to change or abandon his doomed love to pursue a new one, whereas you can say that minoru does find that courage, to great success in ultimately finding a new home and purpose with LDL.
part two: the one who understood me the best
while minoru and utsugi’s relationship is not free of the facades, misunderstandings, and miscommunications that color so many relationships in this series, there is a deep understanding between them. perhaps brought about by the clarity of existing as equals in so many capacities.
utsugi says that minoru understood him the most in the end, and even as their relationship was in tatters, minoru is the only character utsugi confides in of his own free will, in the reference room scene.
utg dlc
all other confessions of truth and struggles we get from utsugi are either done privately or inadvertently. he tells misumi about his true motives, but only because he hallucinated that there was no one there.
utsugi’s understanding of minoru in turn is a less clear cut subject, due to the fact that minoru is more of an open book in general, and more characters know of his pain. the position of understanding utsugi is a unique one, but multiple people empathize with minoru.
minoru speaks sardonically to cover up his stress and puts up a happy facade a lot of the time, but it’s still far from how deep utsugi has isolated himself. minoru at the least confides in multiple people and is more willing to talk about issues directly in order to draw out a solution.
their understanding of each other is not a perfect understanding, and this series shows well how difficult it is to achieve a perfect understanding while possessing all the natural baggage of communicating and existing. so these two inevitably misunderstand several key things about each other. their relationship is one of two people who understand each other the 'most', but this understanding still falls quite short of perfection.
utsugi himself seems to fall for minoru’s apparent happy/care-free facade, as discussed earlier. utsugi isn’t ignorant to the issues of the isoi family, considering how much he does behind the scenes to patch things up for them (getting rai to have a second kid and leave, wanting haruki to have a negative reaction are two solid ones, and there are more actions that can be debatably attributed to the same motive.) but he still doesn’t think minoru understands the gravity of his and utsugi’s situations. it’s true, in a sense, that minoru has deeply false impressions of/has been withheld information about characters like hajime, utsugi, and rai. but utsugi over-emphasizes minoru’s ignorance and carefreeness, since he is seeing it in direct contrast to his own heavy burdens.
these two only begin to approach the deep and near-perfect understanding of each other when they hit bottom together in 1999.
2a. their mutual suffering
minoru gives up any sort of facade after the events of 1999, he’s lost everything and desires nothing anymore, so there’s no need to pretend. utsugi sees this and even directly brings this change about with how cruelly and falsely he presents minoru with the trashbags (representing rai and reiji’s remains, but there was nothing in them.)
utg dlc
in my opinion, it can be read that utsugi’s cruelty here was a rather malicious attempt to finally bring minoru to ‘reality’ and see his oblivious facade drop (except, it wasn’t seen as a facade to utsugi) for his own reasons. these reasons are things like hating seeing him smiling all the time, wanting them to share in mutual misery, wanting him to understand the full situation, shielding him from the complicated truth of rai and OG reiji’s fate, any of them or multiple could work here.
the end result is the same, utsugi finally gets the satisfaction of seeing minoru taking something ‘seriously.’ and he finally understands that minoru too is capable of pain and regret.
their mutual understanding is high at this point; that both of them reach rock bottom at the same time is significant. they lose the people who are most important to them at the same time, and struggle with finding their new purpose and reason to live. minoru walks away, and utsugi continues with the same path as always. the consequences of this are clearly shown when minoru finds happiness and a new family but utsugi just falls deeper into his own lies and violence.
they fight twice in 1999: the first time is with fists, the most human and least lethal force they possess. they do injure each other (utsugi leaving sanemitsu’s famous and enduring head scar here) but it is a deeply human scene: both of them ineffectually lashing out in misery at someone who had little immediate causation of their pain.
the series has established that man-made things like guns and fists are ‘more human’ and ‘honorable’ (through jabuchi’s own ruminations on how he wanted to kill his coworkers and nina) whereas using empyrean abilities is ‘monstrous.’ minoru mentions this is the only time he sees utsugi use his fists, and that this is the most desperate and human he's ever seen utsugi.
ch 6
but we don’t see the full extent of utsugi’s regret and turmoil until the second fight.
utsugi’s motives for saving, confining, and later chasing and fighting minoru in 1999 feel ambiguous, the best clues we have are a set of lines right before the conclusion of their fight. utsugi laments the state minoru has ended up in, going on to doubt his own humanity and then lament the feelings minoru left him with.
mnr dlc
utsugi makes reference to still being human, and killing minoru while he still maintains that humanity. how i interpreted these was utsugi believing that he may lose control to the cells in the future, and wanting to kill minoru ‘as a human’ if he were to die regardless. notably, this again mirrors jabuchi’s plans, that there is honor and respect in being killed by human means. it also implies that he didn't think escape was an option for minoru, inevitably thinking he'll stay in the institute, alive or dead.
one of the most important points of the whole conflict is at the end when utsugi implies that— aside from hajime's happiness— there was one more thing he desired. he wasn't supposed to value his relationship with minoru to this extent, but he acknowledges that he did want it, even as they beat each other bloody.
mnr dlc (utg?)
not even utsugi's remaining affection can stand in the way of his yearning for mutual understanding, and his cruelty towards minoru is unreserved in 1999.
to bring this back to the main point, it shows further the ill effects of misunderstanding in their relationship. minoru’s inability to understand utsugi’s motivations sews rifts in their friendship and leads to their ultimate split, while utsugi’s misunderstanding of minoru enables him to knock minoru down to his lowest point in life, where even death is a preferred alternative.
to reiterate exactly what minoru misunderstands with utsugi, it is another thing that is laid out quite explicitly, as it leads to their falling out. minoru never puzzled out why utsugi was so insistent in the way he treated hajime as a ‘star’ and rather took it at face value that utsugi had no ulterior motive aside from religious mania.
utg dlc
in reality, it was an act utsugi put on for what he believed was hajime’s own benefit, but minoru couldn’t begin to comprehend that. his own viewpoint was that it benefits hajime to think of himself as human, and he thinks of this as an obvious conclusion. there is a fundamental disconnect in both how minoru understands utsugi’s mindset here, and also in how minoru understands and treats hajime, who minoru similarly doesn’t understand fully.
the other key misunderstanding is that it is dubious if minoru figures out the reason utsugi’s attitude towards him changed. his theories include things like utsugi was jealous of his friendship with hajime (untrue) or utsugi was upset at hajime’s poor state (partially true) or that utsugi liked rai romantically (wholly false).
it is my opinion that the (largest, but not only) reason utsugi distanced himself from minoru was because of the reveal of the existence of factors. he believed that furthering their relationship was ill-fated, as he was warned of on the phone by mari orie.
utg dlc
he also may have lost faith in the authenticity of their friendship, as shown by his thoughts in 1999, where he panics that they only feel positively towards each other because of the effect of factors.
utg dlc
minoru both knew about factors (unclear to me as to when exactly in the timeline he understands they affect reality and weren’t just something kazaru used for fiction) and that utsugi was researching them, but it seems doubtful to me that he put it together before he leaves path to empireo for good. later on, he may have belatedly understood what utsugi was researching.
2b. the understanding they reached in the end
another recurring concept within their relationship is the belated realizations they have. as covered earlier, 1999 is the point where they understand each other best and the last time they see each other. minoru ultimately sees utsugi’s memories by using the power of the pen, and finally understands the events that lead to this point.
it’s also of note that the only way minoru was able to understand utsugi totally was because of the power of the pen. he had to directly see utsugi’s memories, it was never possible for the truth to come directly from utsugi’s own mouth. only when treating utsugi as a character to be ‘read’ does minoru truly understand him.
directly after this understanding dawns, utsugi tells him to leave forever. things have proceeded beyond the point of intervention, and it seems that any action taken now cannot undo the massive upheaval that has already taken place.
this sad ending may feel like it points to saying that the furthering of their understanding was all for nothing, but it comes back into play sixteen years later.
their relationship had long fallen into complete nothingness, and yet minoru is the one utsugi trusts with his final wish, a final happiness for a man meeting a pathetic end. their understanding of each other did nothing to save their relationship in life, but it leaves minoru as the only one who can remember utsugi closest to how he was in reality.
hermit room
in turn, minoru is the key to how we, as the viewer, also get to understand utsugi beyond all his lies, acts, and facades. it’s heavily implied that minoru has a hand in constructing the narrative of the entire series, and especially of dlc, which is named after him.
to give some more evidence to that point, the main support is drawn from the 'truth only i know' book by code:dante (sanemitsu) that is readable after completing S+ in a new game. in the book he refers to a 'record,' reminiscent of 'the records of sanemitsu isoi' (the title of dlc) where the truth is told. and he says that if there is something only he knows, that he can tell that truth through fiction.
s+
further tying this book to utsugi and sanemitsu, there is the egregious addition that sanemitsu addresses the declaration to his beloved.
s+
where this can be traced back to them in specific is that ‘la vita nuova’/’a new life’ is the real dante alighieri’s book about his beloved, beatrice. and the only time it appears in base game is as the fallen book you can examine to get reiji to comment on sanemitsu’s lasting relationship with utsugi.
ch 9
thus the book about writing the truth is by code:dante, about his estranged beloved, beatrice, and dante and beatrice are only ever referenced in the game in relation to utsugi and sanemitsu’s relationship.
the 'truth' we learn in dlc is mostly exposed in utsugi's arc. we learn new things about all the characters, but none of them were concealing their true self to the extent that utsugi was. they all had other people who understood the truth about them, and only utsugi could say that sanemitsu was the only person who ever fully understood him.
utsugi also directly asks sanemitsu to write his story as a final parting wish, and indeed the way his story is initially told follows that last wish. he is an evil villain in the base game, easy to condemn and forget, and this irredeemable and unsympathetic person is how he wanted to be remembered.
utg dlc
in the forking paths scene, he says that it's alright to think of him as a villain and not acknowledge that he had human emotions too. the illusions in this scene likely come from haruki’s own hopes and fears, and this being the ‘correct’ utsugi establishes that at least haruki believed his act.
ch 8
dlc contradicts this completely by pulling back the curtain on what utsugi did behind the scene, so how can it still be said that sanemitsu honors his wish? there are plenty of people who played the base game but not dlc. the separation of these two stories ensures that some people will never get to see utsugi as sympathetic. sanemitsu couldn't stand to let the truth die with him, but he could leave enough breathing room so that utsugi's last wish would be fulfilled somewhere, with someone.
part three: unintentional cruelty, hidden kindness
3a. how do i hurt thee? let me count the ways
tying into both the failed good intentions of their actions and whether their will or lack thereof affected their relationship, there are multiple interesting ways in which they are unintentionally cruel to each other within the confines of their own relationship.
one of the strongest examples we see is that utsugi digs up minoru’s insecurities in the process of trying to help him. starting with kazaru’s suicide note, minoru has been impressed with the idea that his very existence was a mistake, and he should not have been born. utsugi pushes him away in the end, telling him the only thing he can do for utsugi is to disappear and leave.
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in a way, this is a kindness as it is an escape route from the sinking ship that is path to empireo. but simultaneously, it is one of the cruelest ways utsugi can show ‘goodwill.’ it compounds upon kazaru’s original idea, directly pointing to the conclusion that minoru’s very existence is what causes utsugi distress, and thus there are no possible actions minoru can take to help utsugi besides disappearing. it doesn’t feel like a positive or meaningful solution to utsugi’s problems due to minoru simultaneously being the problem when framed like this.
the previous sections already cover how much utsugi is intentionally cruel to minoru, from specifically digging up anything he can to hurt minoru in 1999 to intentionally sabotaging their relationship without discussion. but this 'solution' that utsugi offers minoru is unique in that it doesn't seem to be aware of how much it will hurt minoru.
moving onto minoru, i’ve discussed a few times already that minoru fails utsugi in the reference room scene, but it feels particularly cruel due to the uniqueness of the situation. it’s the first and only time utsugi directly reaches out for help, possibly ever, and he has nothing to show for it. minoru’s ultimate failure to deliver in that situation only heavily reinforces to utsugi the uselessness of depending on others.
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he remembers the excuse he gave to minoru in that room, and it’s the only excuse he can come up with to cover up the real reasons he never told minoru when they fight in 1999.
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utsugi wishes for reciprocity, that he should be able to offer value to anyone else in the way that he desires love and tenderness from others. it stems from his childhood, children naturally want love and attention from their parents and he was denied all familial love. his family largely regarded him as useless and thus unloveable, and this leads him to believe that if he is 'useful' to someone then they might love him back.
his grandpa is a key example of this, loving (but abusing) utsugi only because of his birthday, which made him useful to rangiri's delusions. this is the only love he receives as a child, and does much to shape his mindset.
utsugi’s final plea to minoru in the reference room is “if you’re willing to do everything for me-,” which feels reminiscent of what utsugi has already promised hajime (to stay by his side until they both die, it is all of his life, everything.) utsugi could promise everything to a stranger in distress on a whim, and he wishes (impossibly) that minoru could do the same for him.
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in a sense, the sentiment of ‘save me’ in that scene already indicates that utsugi has been previously failed by hajime. the original dialogue he shares with hajime (that he clearly remembers and references even many years later) includes the idea that hajime will save everyone, and utsugi will save hajime.
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since utsugi still feels he needs saving, it means hajime has not been able to deliver on his promise of saving everyone. the title of the scene being ‘the hand i failed to take’ show minoru as also clearly failing in this respect. in the end, no one can save utsugi.
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and yet, similarly to utsugi, minoru’s cruelty has good intentions. maybe there was no good way out of that situation, it certainly seems both that utsugi was unwilling to accept help and minoru unable to provide it. utsugi knows minoru can't help him, and he makes these grand demands of minoru as a way of self-sabotage: he already knows minoru will never be able to promise everything to him. minoru has a family, and utsugi will never be his first priority.
on another tragic note, utsugi directly pleads to minoru for a way out of his misery, but hasn’t minoru already been showing him the way out? if hajime accepted being human and wanted to live simply, there would be no need to continue the crimes and experiments. minoru pushes hajime towards humanity but utsugi directly opposes it, showing how unamenable utsugi is to minoru’s idea of helping.
both of them are people who could've helped each other, but didn't have the proper communication skills or ability at the time they crossed paths. in their struggle to save each other, they only hurt one another more, intentionally or unintentionally.
the base game hides almost all of the kind sides to their cruelty, they're barely even shown as friends. minoru's friendship innately humanizes utsugi, he's the only utsugi confesses his pain to, fights with, and takes out his stress and fears on. minoru witnesses all these emotions he buries with anyone else. they're emotions that make him sympathetic and wholly human, and thus something that cannot be learned about utsugi until dlc.
minoru also repeatedly (undeservedly) forgives utsugi for his unkindness. utsugi is responsible for a lot of pain in minoru's life: surrendering haruki to experiments, leading path to empireo down a dark path, violently pushing him out of both path to empireo and their own friendship, the list continues on for a long while. and while minoru does resent him at points for how much he's suffered at utsugi's hand, he never stops caring for utsugi.
he says things like he shouldn't have ever considered utsugi a friend, utsugi has gone mad, and they come to blows multiple times. but minoru always caves later, still showing concern for utsugi. after their big fight where minoru leaves path to empireo, he asks hajime about utsugi's condition on a visit back. in 1999, after they'd just grievously injured one another, he still laments that utsugi never depended on him.
ch 7
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the way sanemitsu talks about utsugi after they part is not described as happily, sanemitsu insults him to reiji and reiji is certain sanemitsu believed utsugi hated him. but he doesn't allow roses in his house, and reiji says that sanemitsu seems lonely when discussing utsugi.
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by all rights, sanemitsu should have no warm feelings left for utsugi. the way the narrative repeatedly highlights their pain underscores that, but neither of them can truly let the other go. sanemitsu holds onto the scars utsugi gave him, and utsugi holds onto sanemitsu’s books. even in their physical absence from one another, the memories persist.
3b. back to the beginning
with how much establishing i’ve done of only harsh things like cruelty, failures, jealousy, disappointment, it’s easy to think utsugi and minoru had a relationship that was only negative. but, the narrative guides us through their relationship in a rather complex timeline: we start with the middle and the consequences before we see the beginning and ending.
base game shows their relationship as something fraught with arguments, leading up to their first major falling out where minoru leaves path to empireo for the first time and begins to avoid utsugi. there is little shown here that indicates that they had a complicated relationship, it feels like they were simply two people who didn’t get along. the tidbits indicating more depth are generally missable dialogue and details.
this is somewhat due to all the flashbacks being shown through hajime’s perspective, so that we only see these two as they are around hajime and only while having conversations that concern hajime.
throughout dlc, this pattern repeats, and there is no great upheaval in the viewer’s understanding until minoru’s dlc episode. the episodes leading up continue to breadcrumb their true nature, with hints like sanemitsu disliking roses in his house, sanemitsu expressing that utsugi took responsibility for everything while drunk in reiji’s episode, utsugi compliments minoru in rai’s dlc, and they have a few exchanges that are more lighthearted in tone than the constant fighting in base game.
minoru’s dlc finally throws the curtain back entirely, where it is fully revealed that, once upon a time, they were true and proper friends. their first meeting is amicable and remarkably normal, utsugi talking to minoru about his reporting and behaving awkwardly about a compliment paid to him.
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we know utsugi values compliments highly, since he vows his life to hajime after hajime calls him kind and gentle (among other reasons.) so that minoru compliments utsugi on his sermon and speaking ability, something that truly belongs to him (in comparison to something like a birthday, which is random), is especially meaningful to utsugi.
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in the following scenes, we see them teasing each other and talking frankly about developments in their lives. utsugi sets up several arrangements for the isoi’s marriage and seems to seriously wish them well.
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their friendship couldn’t be more normal, save for utsugi carefully keeping his distance and drawing a line between them due to his obligation to hajime. he seems to like being around minoru, but deflects admitting any personal attachment when questioned, using hajime’s like of minoru instead. this foreshadows just how much he will put hajime above anyone else, even those he also likes, and how he has carefully sculpted his other relationships to fit within that hierarchy in advance.
of course, he ultimately fails in sectioning minoru out. there are a number of other characters (haruki, noa, etc.) that utsugi is kind to, but he doesn't form the same attachment to them that he does to minoru. in the end, when he's saying his goodbyes, the only people he mentions are minoru and hajime. hajime, as the person he loved; the world, as something he hated; and minoru as something between the two.
part five: generational yaoi
one of the most impactful things revealed about the relation between minoru and utsugi in dlc is that it spanned multiple generations. the actions of their grandparents caused so many shock waves that there is a belief (whether true or not) that the story now actively resists the interaction of the two families. i’ve already touched heavily on the idea of the factors of their families: they are certainly the largest reason utsugi abruptly changes, dooming the friendship between him and minoru. the series has lots of commentary on the hereditary way our family shapes us and cycles of behavior, and minoru and utsugi are no exception.
part 5a. carrying on the family legacy
both utsugi and minoru have intense family issues, coming to shun their family name and legacy in time. but they both inevitably carry it forward, regardless.
utsugi leaves his family’s company and doesn’t pursue pharmacy or business leadership in a strict sense, instead, he becomes a medical researcher and executive in path to empireo. ironically, while he could not come into his own as a confident leader under the guidance of his family, he naturally grows into that confidence after he leaves. he needed purpose and passion to grow into his full potential as a scientist and leader, something he lacked when his family neglected him.
similarly, minoru breaks from the family tradition of fiction writers to become a reporter. but even then, he shows in DLC that he is preparing to write novels. it fits with his character arc: reporters passively observe reality but writers actively create it, and he himself is starting to reclaim control and power in his own life. but still, it places him among the company of the many fiction writers of the harada line. sanemitsu certainly has some measure of control over the narrative and way it is told, shown by his position in system n.h., the group credited with the creation of this series of games. this places his actions as remarkably similar to mutei harada’s designs on manipulating characters and creating stages.
part 5b. the cycle
both minoru and utsugi are haunted by their childhoods, which build up to their issues that cause ruin in their interpersonal relationships. these are issues that are inflicted on them by their parents: utsugi’s parents reinforcing utsugi’s ideal of isolation and self-dependency, and minoru’s parents showing him how to run away from love and regret being born. and naturally, these beliefs were likely initially formed in turn by how mutei and rangiri treated the next generation.
they cannot escape the influence of their respective families in this fashion, and also in how they explicitly won’t let the other forget their lineage. minoru is not actually ‘minoru harada’ in the series for very long, he marries rai isoi early on to become ‘minoru isoi.’ but names are a social thing, and neither hajime nor utsugi let go of the harada surname. that both utsugi and minoru address each other by their family names instead of given names is important, they both stand as friends who could use more familiar terms of address and choose not to. their relationship is undeniably shaped by their family history though, and so these family names are inescapable.
their relationship is similarly cyclical, where they attempt to break out of their patterns and yet return to them in the end. minoru’s relationships are best shaped by his fear of gaining love and then losing it, thinking it better to not have loved in the first place. utsugi’s relationships are best shaped by inequality, where he is accustomed to loving someone more than he receives in turn.
their relationship starts out subverting these concepts, beginning with how utsugi is hesitant in closing the distance with minoru. minoru then quickly pushes to be closer, upsetting utsugi’s status quo and newly putting him in the position of not being the one who loves more. and the lack of a deep relationship to lose gives minoru confidence to keep arguing with and pursuing utsugi, even as their mundane friendship melts into animosity, something that should usually scare minoru off. utsugi was always a bit cold to minoru, so what warmth and kindness would minoru stand to lose by upsetting him?
but, in the end we see the relationship ultimately return to the forms they are most familiar with. minoru runs away in 1999, abandoning utsugi and certainly being saddled with the painful regret of lost love. utsugi remains behind, having settled back into his typical unequal relationships. he remembers and thinks of minoru even sixteen years later, while minoru has moved on and found a new family.
part six: other allusions
aside from the clear line to how they both represent their families, there's several other allusions baked into their relationship. one of the most significant being how they tie into the divine comedy.
minoru is born on the day of dante's death, and utsugi shares a birthday with the poet virgil. minoru both is and isn't dante, he fails earlier in life to fulfil to reach any kind of enlightenment (thus the death day being his birthday) but later on he becomes "code:dante." haruki is notably also representative of dante, the whole harada line having a close tie to the author.
utsugi is tied to virgil by his birth and also by his relation to both minoru and haruki. virgil is a mentor, a guide, and a friend. he is close and intimate with dante, assisting him on his journey through hell but unable to accompany him in heaven. utsugi similarly is a figment of sanemitsu's difficult past, a valued friend who cannot accompany him in the lighter, easier parts of his life.
the utsugi line isn't all associated with virgil in the same way the harada line ties to dante, noriyuki utsugi alone is the 'guide.'
their relationship is similarly foreshadowed in the similarities it holds to nina and jabuchi's relationship. there's much to say here, but to keep it basic: jabuchi and nina start out happy, jabuchi goes down a difficult path without telling nina, nina finds out the truth too late and cannot save jabuchi, but she decides to honors his memory by witnessing and remembering his death. it's a clear parallel to the way sanemitsu and utsugi's relationship develops, where similarly utsugi suffers silently and pushes minoru away, and the only thing minoru can do is honor his death. read more here: TODO
part seven: conclusion
overall, i think i touched on many things i wanted to say about these two, and i still have many more words… but this was already very long, i imagine. i hope you got something out of it. this is solely my interpretation, and i think there are room for many more.
one of the best things about the relationship between utsugi and minoru to me is that it is so ambiguous. love existed but it was not merely love, and hate existed but there was not merely hate. anything in-between those black and white values can be argued. minoru has the more clear-cut regret and affection, but still mocks and curses utsugi at times, showing the depth to which they hurt each other.
and still, they clearly love each other. they sacrifice, remember, and pray for one another. they were friends in the very beginning, and sanemitsu is the last person utsugi ever addresses, entrusting him with his final wish. in turn, sanemitsu never lets the wounds utsugi gave him heal.
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