Mikey needs help (and therapy but like who doesn’t) pt.2
WARNING FOR MEGA BIG TOKYO MANJI REVENGERS SPOILERS!!!
So in Part 1 we established that Mikey honestly needed an entire part/arc just about saving him because of his dark impulses and huge serial killer potential >>> aka yeeting Kisaki and disbanding Toman was not enough because now we need to save him from himself.
So, Mikey is dark, but why does Takemichi need to go back just to save him? Well in the first place, part of who Takemichi is is someone who wants to save everyone, and Mikey isn’t just anyone, but actually someone very important to Takemichi. We see their friendship development with cute and wholesome moments, we see how devastated Takemichi is when he witnesses Mikey’s death even after Mikey nearly murders him (going so far as to have flashbacks, placing his importance to Takemichi right up there with Hinata), and my dude literally says he thinks of Mikey’s smile when he contemplates how happy he is getting married in the good future (i.e. he really can’t be happy unless Mikey is too). A lot of people found this annoying, but I was actually quite moved because this is just who Takemichi is, and because he saw that Mikey was Drowning and wanted to be saved even when I the reader didn’t
I’ll be honest, when Mikey tells Takemichi to let go of his hand and let him die when he tries to commit suicide by jumping off a building, I was like “let him have his peace Takemichi”. Clearly no matter what Mikey will always turn dark, and he himself knows this, so let him end it. And then Takemichi screams at Mikey to ask for help, and this happens:
And I felt this scene like a slap to the face and a stab in the heart. I had accepted Mikey’s dark turn as inevitable just like Mikey had, which can be seen in the video he leaves Takemichi telling him not to try and save Mikey 12 years later in their future. This is important because this is after he hears about what he’s like in the future, so even before anything happens he’s already putting measures in place with the assumption he’ll turn dark.
And Mikey seems okay with that, doing things like separating himself from everyone else (we know that in the good future, no one has been in contact with Mikey for roughly a decade), and indeed he ends up in a different dangerous gang. He portrays this as his role and destiny to the point that he encourages the people around him to accept it too. Just like Draken, Mitsuya, and Chifuyu, I too kind of thought Takemichi would be better off leaving Mikey to do what he is ‘destined’ to, especially when Takemichi finally got the happiest ending after everything that happened.
But Mikey is not a bad person. Technically speaking, he hasn’t actually committed any of these atrocities, yet he goes as far as to prepare measures against falling to these dark impulses. The scene where he asks Takemichi to keep him in line is one big piece of evidence that he already knew about his dark impulses, but believed he could overcome them.
Once again, only after hearing of his various futures does he stop taking measures to help himself and start taking measures to save the people around him (i.e. through making that video to prevent Takemichi from coming after him, avoiding contact with all the people he cares about so they don’t get caught up in whatever he becomes, etc.).
And Takemichi is the only one who sees this, who recalls that scene. Really, all the pieces are there for us ourselves to understand Mikey, and really the chapters in the ‘good future’ leading up to the confrontation with Future Mikey set us up for the new arc, and show why it was always going to happen, right from the beginning.
So Mikey can be, and most importantly, unlike what we were all tricked into thinking, wants to be saved. The signs were all there from the beginning, so the recent developments aren’t random. If anything, the entire scene solidifies the fact that he wants to, and should be allowed to be saved, not only because his eyes are no longer ‘dead’ when he finally breaks down and asks for help, but also because he clearly wants to be helped so bad, he created a time leap connection with Takemichi, which we know from earlier no longer works with Naoto as he no longer has “an intense desire to change the future”.
Anyway I don’t think I said anything too groundbreaking, these are all facts the manga establishes itself. I just wanted to show the people upset why this arc is valid and kinda necessary. I mean, Mikey has always been such a crucial character, did you really think we were just going to leave him like that (•ˋ _ ˊ•)
