One Villainous Scene: Not Alright
[Feel I should start doing these types of posts at least once a month.]
In this case, the scene and character in question aren't "villainous" in the purest, most traditional sense of how you'd define that, but it comes off the heels of an antagonistic character acting in a very antagonistic way that makes him the closest thing to a villain this story has got despite him also being one of the six main characters. I'm of course referring to Atsumu Matsuyuki, AKA Yukiatsu, from the 11 episode anime Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
For context, Yukiatsu was...more than a little bothered by hearing that his childhood ex-friend Jinta "Jintan" Yadomi, who he'd long been envious and resentful of, was allegedly able to see and communicate with the ghost of their deceased childhood friend, Meiko "Menma" Honma. We'd also been shown that Yukiatsu might have some skeletons in (literally) his closet. Then a few days back, Poppo caught a glimpse of Menma in the woods near the six friends old Secret Base, meaning Jintan isn't so special in this regard. And then Yukiatsu said he'd communicated with Menma too, but the actual Menma protests that Yukiatsu is lying. Now, at the end of Episode 4 and the start of Episode 5, we get the truth: the "Menma" that Poppo saw earlier who has been stalking around the forest and casting doubt on Jintan's claims about Menma...is, in fact, Yukiatsu with shaved legs and wearing a wig and dress in order to ressemble his deceased childhood sweetheart. Who could've seen that coming?
And that brings us to this scene, the moment where Yukiatsu finally shows us who he really is. Jintan tries to keep calm as he asks his old friend "are you alright?" And Yukiatsu. Mcfreaking. SNAPS, thrusting Jintan to the ground and putting a stranglehold on his neck, furiously asking "Do I seem alright to you?" More disturbingly, he proceeds to ask, in total seriousness, "Do I look like her? 'Cause you can SEE Menma, isn't that right? Say it! Do I look like Menma? Yes or no?", all with a completely unhinged look on his face. Once he's no longer strangling Jintan and is just holding him up by his shirt, Yukiatsu begins to break down in tears as he finally expresses why he finds Jintan's claims about ghost Menma so impossible to believe - he is convinced that if Menma's spirit rose from the grave and came back to the Earth, the person she'd want to visit, interact with, haunt or even curse would be him. Because according to Yukiatsu, it was his actions and something he'd said to Menma on that last day all six friends were together that directly led to Menma's following death. In his own words, he killed Menma. For years, Yukiatsu was racked with guilt over this and had a secret yearning for Menma to return to him, to make him face some divine punishment for it which would also serve as closure for him. But no matter how hard he hoped for it, he's never been able to see Menma, not even in his dreams. He seems far more hung up on the late Menma than Jintan ever was or could ever be, so to him it makes no sense why it'd be Jintan and not him that Menma would opt to appear to. By now, he's a weeping wreck.
There are, however, two good reasons why Menma went to Jintan and not to Yukiatsu. One is plot-based and revealed later on (has to do with Jintan's dead mother), but the other is left implicit: Yukiatsu has never been truly hung up on Menma, but on himself in direct relation to Menma. Every sentence out of Yukiatsu's mouth during this breakdown just oozes with self-absorption, self-obsession, and entitlement. His mind cannot fathom, cannot comprehend a scenario in which he is not made the center of his deceased friend's attention, in which he is not considered by the girl herself to be the friend who'd made the greatest impact on her and was the most crucial figure in her life, even if in a negative way that reflects poorly on him. He does not want to process the possibility that after death, Menma has rejected him in favor of Jinta Yadomi, just as he'd feared she'd do in life when they were children. Jintan remembers Menma for who she was, valued who she was, cares even now for who she was and is. Yukiatsu has been and remains fixated on Menma for what she was to him; his would-be trophy GF. An extension of his sense of self.
It's my belief that Yukiatsu is a psychopath, or close enough to one, as he hits off many boxes of the psychopathy checklist. He'd loved Menma as dearly as he could ever love someone, and deeply regrets his percieved part in her death with the most remorse he's capable of, as he is still only human. But not only do his consistent thinking and behavior showcase an inability to empathize with others and put their own feelings and individual personhoods on a level equal to his own, his actions in later episodes serve to undermine the purity of his feelings that this scene brings to the forefront, partcularly when he cajoles Anaru into getting the five living friends to re-enact the last time they were all together, right in front of Menma who he for 100% certainty knows is in there with them watching it all, mainly as a way to hurt Jintan. Such cruelty comes all too easy to him, and even when re-connected with his oldest friends, he seems to process life itself through the filter of "how does or can this relate to me?"
Yet the writing never simply makes him out to be a complete lost cause either, and that's also showcased beautifully in this scene. As he continues to weep, Menma walks over to Jintan and softly tells him something, prompting Jintan to announce out loud what she's saying to him. At first, Yukiatsu is getting aghast that even now, Jintan would mock him by "pretending" to see and hear Menma while he and none of the others can, but when Jintan mentions "that pretty hair clip", something that was only between Yukiatsu and Menma that Jintan could not possibly know of unless he heard it directly from Menma herself, he stands in shock, his tears dry, and he just...walks away. Like he needs to get back home and rethink everything. Even at his most deranged, Yukiatsu's heart can be reached, and his mind made to see reason and clarity, even if he is still a creep about it all.
Aside from the presence of the ghostly Menma as a supernatural occurance, Anohana is typically a very grounded and very believable anime, so this plot turn of a crazed, cross-dressing Yukiatsu so easily could've thrown it off for me. But as I watched it dubbed, what really saves and sells this moment for me is Ray Chase. He is astonishing with his voice acting for Yukiatsu and he holds nothing back in the character's bouts of madness. This man is so mad talented and so committed to his voice acting roles that his take on Yukiatsu elevates the character into almost a horror villain, which fits when you know that Chase would later provide the voice for an actual horror villain! This character, and this scene especially, really do belong to him, and so they linger in my memory, haunting me like Menma herself.
