This is a roller coaster of emotions.
We are all used to seeing Otoya’s signature sunshine smile.
But with Episode 9, we are greeted with this:
I know. Truly devastating. Everything went down the hill so fast.
After this episode, I wondered: “Why would Eiichi go so far as to unravel his past self for the sake of their song?” And then it hit me:
I guess Otoya really needed to let go of his past self in order to move forward. He will be dragged down further if he keeps on hiding his pain forever. Eiichi did just that but I honestly think he went overboard. He is longing for love, and he found it with STARISH and Haruka and his other companions. Eiichi took that advantage and played with his emotions. If Eiichi’s intention was to make their song different, then that’s acceptable, but he still went overboard. If he took this opportunity to slowly destroy STARISH, then I can’t blame him. His personality sucks for the record, so I’m not really expecting something nice he’d do for once, though I must say he has a point when he said he can feel his pain and they’re the same. Eiichi was also suffering on a similar case, and they have to feel the same for the song so he did this stuff.
Also, people say that Otoya’s smile is like the sunshine, so it is compared to a sunflower. That’s when Eiichi burned down the sunflower painting, which symbolizes that Otoya needs to destroy his masked self in order to unleash his true emotions. I must say I like the imagery and symbolism of that.
Did Eiichi went overboard? Yes. Was it necessary? Definetely. Was Eiichi being a jerk for all of these? Depends on your perspective. In my opinion, he is indeed being a jerk because he is slowly destroying Otoya’s sunshine personality. But it has another purpose. As I said above, it’s for Otoya to let go his former self to move forward. Eiichi must did it harshly, but it’s necessary so they can make a song that is “soul-shaking”.
I can’t honestly bear to look on Otoya in that state. But I believe that everything will be fine next episode. As for you Eiichi... you can burn in hell. But thanks for “kinda” helping with the character development this week.
