I have a bit of the compulsion to defend the mother of the twins. There could be a lot of speculation about her mindset, and what might have caused her dementia at an unusually young age. (Mrs. Sukóva's dementia is sad and difficult yet she appears old enough that it wouldn't be surprising for her to be befallen by the sickness.)
Anyhow, leaving any possible explanation why she wasn'r emotionally ready for the journey aside, from a purely pragmatic stand-point, the mother's name, any kind of official records she ever existed were erased. She's was made a non-person who doesn't exist within the terms of any state. Which already poses a big difficulty moving across Europe before the EU opened it's borders to member states. With the historical difficulty of her without passport, name, claim to identity, having been subject to state violence before, and forcibly removed from her children, trying to get into an Eastern Block country would've been extremely difficult.
Thematically, her not searching for her children for any reason is marked as much by state violence creating but also disrupting her family, as different state interest also turn the twins into orphans, separate, and reshape who they are. Not as an excuse that she's blameless (Bonaparta gave her a Madonna persona, and the narrative barely let's her exist as anything but a mother which plays very much into archetypes being used to overshadow the truth.) Mostly that I think ever since she was brought together with the father of the twins, so many governmental forces worked against even the most intimate parts of her. And she had to fight a terrible battle.
Last not but not least, I do think Johan needed to hear that he was loved, and received a name. Nina comes to the conclusion that in fact she can and will forgive Johan because she too was born nameless, and could've easily become him if she'd lived his life. Part of the reason why she could escape being the persona "Anna" was because even after being deeply traumatized early on, the Fortner parents gave her live and a new name. So she thrived under their care and with an identity that was build with it. In that sense, Kenzo gives Johan an assurance that helped Nina to receive and give back happiness and love to people around her.
Ok, I hope this doesn't sound confrontational. ^^' Mostly your reblog was intriguing in it's topics that I felt to add to it although I think OPs initial post was about Kenzo's mother and not about any topic in this ask. SonI didn't want to derive to much.
No, no, no! I'm a bigger defender of her! But well, she's become my main OC, and I'm writing a literal novel with some tweaks, so nevermind.
I completely agree with you on the reasons behind her behaviour and why she couldn't do much of anything against Bonaparta, not to say that with his obsession getting separated from her children could have been an extremely desperate attempt to shift his attention back to searching for her and away from the twins.
About Johan needing to hear he was loved, my problem here is that none of the characters, even less Tenma, has any clue of Johan's mental state or feelings towards her to bluntly say it with no regards of the impact (even if he's in a "coma"). Same with Nina's forgiveness, but that might have had a manipulative angle as they were in the middle of a massacre. Tenma cannot assume Johan is exactly like Nina and will react the same way, when they both have clear differences in mindset and trauma, especially when Johan self-imposed the responsibility of caring for his sister, so their mother's abandonment indeed had to have a stronger impact on him.
I mean, I understand it thematically but I feel this disregards the psychological implication that, what is basically the core of the twins story's that fateful date when Bonaparta found them, and on top of it at least Nina was there, knows their mother and was also a victim of her abandonement, so if there's someone half-capable of navigating such difficult topic with Johan is her, not Tenma.
In conclusion, IMO it was extremely poorly done to put it in a couple of scenes that last 10 minutes at most, when the series is over 70 episodes, the same amount of time Eva has to talk about her new job as a kitchen decorator. Vardemann mentioning that he's investigating Grimmer's past somehow (and without giving any details).
At least Another Monster explores more about the twins parents, I really liked those chapters
Thanks for the ask, agree keeping it as a separate post, and also we need to give Viera more attention!
