an essay on homura takeru
logs onto tumblr for the first time in a year just so i can post this
a seriously long post ahead
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anyway this isnt a ~formal essay~ i’m sorry in advance but i’m just trying to dump all the stuff i’ve wanted to talk about for a long while because i really like takeru in vrains and the new ep reminded me that i still hadnt really wrote out my thoughts yet
(not formally anyway, just in stray tweets)
three points to this essay:
- explain takeru’s backstory and how it relates to the present - the way takeru dealt with his trauma and why it’s important - a little bit about soulburner
for archive purposes this essay was written after episode 59 aired and does not take anything past ep59 into account (because at the time of writing this it didnt exist yet)
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the way vrains has showed how different characters deal with childhood trauma is extremely interesting to me because every single character that we’ve seen involved in the lost incident so far has dealt with it in a different way, and it perfectly parallels how people respond to trauma in real life. i have a lot of thoughts on this matter bc it’s also personal to me but that really doesn’t matter right now. for today i just want to talk about homura takeru
i’m going to assume everyone reading this is familiar with the lost incident, but quick tl;dr anyway: six kids got kidnapped and held in solitary confinement for 6 months where the only thing they could do was duel. and how well they dueled determined if they ate or not
all of the kids involved in the lost incident came out of it differently: kusanagi jin never truly left the lost incident, as he’s still in a psychiatric hospital to this day due to it. spectre fully embraced what happened to him and decided to return for more after finding out the only thing holding him to the “outside world” (his mother tree) was gone, because the lost incident was the only time when he felt needed (eps35-37, playmaker vs spectre duel).
yuusaku underwent therapy and rehabilitation but never actually recovered. he still suffers ptsd from it to this day (ep19, playmaker vs akira zaizen), and had become (rightfully) angry at what happened to him, leading him to team up with kusanagi shoichi (kusanagi jin’s brother) to deliver justice/revenge.
takeru came out of the lost incident also traumatized, as he mentions he never dueled again (ep52).
takeru is something of a special case as we see in his backstory that not only did the lost incident traumatize him, but due to his disappearance, his parents died while looking for him. in a sense, takeru came out of the ordeal with not only the trauma of the lost incident, but also the trauma of losing his parents at a young age (6), both happening at around the same time
the way takeru dealt with these two traumas was to completely re-invent himself. he “sealed away” his memories of the lost incident and completely changed who he was in order to avoid having to actually deal with it. takeru says this himself that the time after the lost incident to the end of season 1 of vrains--that was not actually him, as in his true self
however, what most interests me about this exchange is the way kiku (the girl) responds to his declarations that he’s “not himself”
after the lost incident, takeru had to relocate and live with his grandparents in another town because his parents were dead and could no longer tend to him. that means that everyone in the town never actually met takeru--that is, who takeru was before the lost incident. everyone in town knew only the post-lost incident takeru
kiku’s responses to takeru’s declaration that he’s going to leave give us a lot of context as to who takeru invented himself to be and how long he held up this facade. kiku is obviously someone who is close to takeru, as she shows worry for him not attending school, and he entrusts her with taking care of his grandparents. he even tells her that he’s been faking it this whole time
however, even despite all this, takeru never once dropped his facade around her before this moment (this moment being takeru reading the news article about playmaker/blue angel/go and the knights of hanoi), which is why she shows such surprise to his declarations and doesn’t understand what’s going on.
but she supports him, because
this is the most important part of their interaction to me. it implies that kiku has never seen takeru so resolute and full of ambition before this, and it’s been a long 10 years since takeru moved to this town. 10 years of keeping up the facade of being someone else in order to deal with what happened
this scene also goes to show just how much the news article about playmaker, blue angel, and go onizuka fighting the knights of hanoi meant to him. he’s willing to completely undo 10 years of his facade because of it. here was someone else from the lost incident (yuusaku), who fought and confronted his trauma head-on. completely opposite of takeru who ran away from it
takeru could have, arguably, gone to den city to meet any one of them, but he chose yuusaku because they know what each other went through
the complete image change is also super interesting, because takeru looks much rougher and tougher, like a typical japanese delinquent, than what he looks like now. the opening for this season even has a still to highlight his persona
and kiku confirms in their aforementioned interaction that he actually doesn’t go to school a lot (she was super happy when takeru said he’d finally “go”). it completes his whole delinquent persona nicely
this image is a COMPLETE 180 from what we see him as now
tamer hair, glasses, and his blazer is even buttoned! yuusaku doesn’t button his or wear his shirt properly (the top button is open). takeru looks much more put together than what he used to be
even the body language of these two are different. the delinquent persona takeru looks aggressive and unfriendly but the takeru with yuusaku and kusanagi is much more open, much more happy
and it’s not like we haven’t seen this style of takeru before, because
he looks exactly as he did when he was younger, before the lost incident occurred
why choose this look? why of all the images he could have remade himself into, why did he go back to what he used to look like before the lost incident?
because he’s finally making up for lost time.
because takeru is finally being who he was supposed to be, or in better terms, who he actually is, not his delinquent persona
in a sense takeru is regaining all the years he missed from his life pretending to be someone he isnt. he felt truly and genuinely inspired by playmaker, go, & blue angel because they fought his oppressors and the people who caused him pain. they fought while he did nothing, and this inspired him. he was truly super happy to duel go until he realized that go had completely changed from what takeru saw him as (a hero)
but reading the article made him realize: i cant keep hiding forever. like playmaker, i have to face it head on, because otherwise it's never gonna leave me. he's still haunted by the lost incident & you can tell because of just how much the article meant to him. takeru reverted once he read the news. he needed to do something
flame & the ignis gave him something to fight for. teaming up with yuusaku gave him something to strive for. he left his town & went back to den city because he wanted to make a difference and confront his past, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now, after all these years of running
and it’s really major! you know why? because dueling is his trauma
and here he is, dueling again after all these years of never touching duel monsters. 10+ years. his drive to try dueling again despite it being his trauma is his first step to getting out of his bubble. & meeting flame in the link vrains helped him realize he could actually do something
takeru is really an amazing character to me, someone who broke free of his self-imposed prison and decided to finally stop running. confronting his trauma firsthand is something that takes a lot of courage to do, especially for someone like takeru who has spent more than half of his life pretending like it didnt happen. it’s harder to convince yourself to do something than it is to convince others
and despite all this, he’s here now. he’s fighting.
and he’s really... someone to be admired. it’s hard to put into words the reason why this character means so much to me. he’s very inspirational
there’s a lot more i could say about how different takeru’s personality is in real life compared to when he’s in link vrains as soulburner (he’s much more shy irl, but soulburner isnt) and how this all relates to who he is as a person who’s just starting to get back on his feet.
but that’s a lot of words that i can save for another essay
anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk
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