yanny took this compromising screenshot so i just had to doodle it bahaha! it looks like raoul’s leaning into naoyuu’s shoulder and rediavia’s just.... concernjudgingTM
Second summer ship rant. Spoilers ahead as always (yes, I know the anime season is over for summer 2015, but people still might not have watched it).
I’m just going to skip the description of each character because one of them goes through some heavy character development that I don’t want to ruin with just a short paragraph.
Why I ship them
I have to admit - I wasn’t a big shipper of them at the beginning. I definitely LIKED them as a couple, but it wasn’t something big. For the main reason in that I thought the pairing was going to be obvious, and it was progressing very subtly without anything big happening. They were going to inevitably get closer by working together, learn about each other’s past, help either one or both through a big conflict/struggle emotionally, and then get even closer because of that and get together. That was the path I saw them taking and that was EXACTLY what happened.
So why am I this big on them now?
THAT LAST SCENE IN THE LAST EPISODE. Excuse me, let me take a moment to just cry bittersweet tears.
Ok, back. That last scene absolutely KILLED me. As I pointed above, SPOILERS AHEAD, in the very last scene of this anime series, Yuu wakes up as not Yuu anymore in a sense. What I mean is that he’s completely lost all his memories. I honestly wasn’t sure if he knew what his name was anymore. And Nao was right there beside him, probably waiting for him to wake up for a while. The shock of the matter that he’s lost his memories was hurtful...but she accepted it with relatively amazing Nao-ness as in her mind she had known SOMETHING was going to happen to him, regardless of how large or small. Memory loss happened to be what happened. Complete amnesia might be a better phrase. She had previously responded to his confession (when he still had all his memories) that she will give him a final answer when he returns home after the mission he placed upon himself. And here she was, waiting, ready to give her final answer, and the first thing he did when he saw her was ask “Who are you?”.
Ouch. But we’ve seen this before - in movies, in books, in real life even. Disasters happen and one person in the couple forgot everything and anything and the other one still remained faithful and loving until he or she got the other to once again fall in love. So I was happy, but not surprised, when Nao responded with “I am your lover”. And of course he’s relatively surprised. But no, this is where everything just began to get emotional. He responded with “Even if I don’t remember you at all?” and she spoke “That hurt a lot more than I was expecting”.
“I’m sorry, did I make you feel sad?”
It was excellent voice acting here. But something about the way he asked her that just made the scene so much more raw and vulnerable. Yuu started out as a confident jerk, I’ll just say that. But here he was, no sense of who he is, and he was so concerned that he had hurt a girl he doesn’t recognize or remember at all. And I couldn’t help but tie that into humanity itself - yes, we’ve done some terrible things. But strip us to the core, without our histories, our friends, our families, everything that built up our life and leave just us as individuals, pure and undetailed...we are inherently caring creatures. Love naturally comes to us before hatred does. And Yuu, being stripped to his core, acting so caring and kind to a stranger was beautiful and heartbreaking.
And the rollercoaster continued when Nao realized that her translation cards not only helped him keep the slightest sense that he is actually human but had actually bought him home. He had forgotten everything except the promise to her. He didn’t even remember WHO he made the promise to. Just the promise. And it did bring him back home.
She starts to cry in relief, in joy, in I’m sure too many emotions to describe (because darn it, I began to cry there myself). And he once again, very concerned, asked if he had made her sad again. When she responded it was the opposite, he admitted “I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but please don’t cry” and reached over, taking her hand. And it was right then and there, I knew everything was going to be ok.
He didn’t remember anything. She remembered it all. But it didn’t matter, because in this new beginning for the both of them, he was still there. And it was going to be ok.
...That’s all I can say about this ship. Sorry for the essay.
