why do I have the impression that the ones who actually misunderstand the ai no kusabi series are often the fans themselves?
So, I have a couple of things I’d like to say to clear some misunderstandings… (sorry for those who haven’t read the novels yet, there will be some spoilers).
Those are my personal opinion, so I don’t say everyone is going to agree, but try at least to respect it.
First thing I’d like to say about Iason and Riki’s relationship (it’s all in the novel, sorry)…
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A STOCKHOLM SYNDROM IN THIS SERIES! (finally said it…)
I believed everybody who has seen the 1992 OVA should have understood, but it seems it isn’t the case…
Riki isn’t in love with Iason when he becomes his Pet, nor when he had this fling with Mimea, nor when he tried to escape from Eos, nor when Iason forces him to come back in Tanagura. In fact, it is only once he has been moved to Apathia by Iason and works in the Black Market again that he realized his feelings (read the short story “Illusion Night” for more details), which he developed mainly during his final year in Eos. And during this final year, Iason’s attitude towards him radically changed. Because the other Blondies wanted to “punish” him for having twisted the pet laws, Iason thought about protecting Riki over anything else. So I believe that Riki finally understood Iason during this final year. His attempted murder seems to me as an eye-opener for Riki.
And there’s a bunch of things you have to know in order to understand Iason. First, the Blondies are androids whose brains are organic (in fact, Jupiter transplanted them human brains. Yes, yuck, I know.). So they’re neither completely robots nor humans, but something in-between. Knowing that, a lot of Blondies actually despise humans (read the novel!) and think they (Blondies) are above them (humans). When you read Iason and Riki’s first encounter, you can find hints about Iason’s scorn towards humans (and therefore, towards Riki). Iason gave him a pet coin before disappearing, thinking Riki would soon try to sell it on the black market. But no matter how many days went by, the coin never showed up. It was about this time that Iason began doing some research about Riki (whose name he didn’t know) and found out the latter was the slums’ strongest gang’s leader, which surprised him (he thought Riki was only a kid making a living by selling himself). Then, he decided to “test” him by asking Katze to hire him, which he did. After a “fateful” encounter between the Blondie and the slum mongrel, Iason brought him to Tanagura and made him his pet in order to crush his pride and arrogance.
However, he soon discovered those were only some kind of facade Riki made in order to protect himself and became even more interested in him. After taking him (accidentally) for the first time (Iason never thought about taking Riki as his lover but was aroused to an unexpected degree by Riki [read the novel!]) he started to crave this physical connection with Riki. Puzzled at first, he understood the nature of his feelings after Riki’s affair with Mimea, and that’s when he told Raoul he loved Riki. So, if we had to sum up all that, we’d say that Iason despised humans in order to convince himself he was better than them, but Riki was the first one that really interested him and, as he came to know him, made him discover all the feelings humans could experience, which kind of awoke his “human side” (and the most human of all feelings, love [yay, sounds a bit cliché, doesn’t it?). However, Iason was more than ever aware that he could never experience the depth of this feeling as humans did (and so, that he would never be able to become one with the one he loved). So, what did he do? He did the same thing that would have crossed anyone’s mind: he decided to try to anyway, using the only method he knew. He tried to maintain a bond between him and Riki by having sex with him. Telling Riki he loved him wasn’t the first thing he thought of, Blondies are not meant to fall in love after all, so they just pretty much know nothing about it. And of course, he used the fact that Riki was his Pet in order to keep him at his side, even if it meant he had to force him. And yes, basically Iason raped and abused Riki. The latter soon learnt to submit himself (even if he still sent fists flying when Iason tried to have his way with him) because he knew how scary Iason could be if his authority came to be challenged. But if you read the novel carefully, you would soon realize that sexual relationships aren’t quite viewed the same way most of us would regard it. Sex is first viewed as some kind of “tool” in the slums (you can use it to attract the favors and protection of someone more powerful than you) so it isn’t “such a big deal” for people raised in the slums. And although Riki only does it with his “pairing partner” (Guy), when he wants to repay Iason for not taking him to the police, he choses to sell himself to the Blondie, because his body is the only thing he has and he knows people in Midas would pay for a sexual intercourse (and also because he’s curious about Iason’s physical appearance [read the novel!]). He doesn’t try to read much into Iason’s behaviour, thinking it’s only a Blondie’s whim to have intercourse with his pet.
In fact, although Riki hasn’t lost his fighting spirit after three years as Iason’s pet, he has also learnt how powerful and how dangerous Iason really is. Dangerous because Riki knows that if the Blondie wanted to mess with his, or anybody’s life, he could easily do that given his position. But in Apathia, Riki starts to see for the first time the person Iason is (and not only his position), and sense the hardships he’s facing. So shortly, I think the Stockholm sydrom has just nothing to do with the series, which doesn’t show some captive falling in love with their tormentor, but rather two very different people discovering each other as their lives puts them in different situations.
“In the final analysis, emotionally bonding with an abuser is actually a strategy for survival for victims of abuse and intimidation.” [X]
Another thing we have to keep in mind in order to understand Riki’s way of thinking is that ALL the characters believe in something akin to “fate”. Or rather, they all believe some things in the world can’t be changed. So when Riki becomes Iason’s Pet, he soon starts to think of it as something that can’t be changed, so he decides to deal with it (= he doesn’t agree with that but understands he can’t change it). And when Iason starts to have sexual intercourse with him, he also thinks of it as something he can’t deny (but once again, this doesn’t mean he wants to do it), so he decides to let Iason have his way with him (it also means that Daryl won’t go down on him anymore and that he won’t have to be paired with another pet so I guess Riki prefers letting Iason do as he pleases rather than letting the other Blondies have a say in his [sexual] life). So when Iason has his way with him, Riki doesn’t see it as abuse, but rather as some kind of a deal. It may be surprising to say that but, in fact, Iason offered Riki some kind of privacy in exchange (nobody would dare meddle in Riki’s affair if it meant meddlelling in Iason’s affairs). Riki is perfectly aware he lives in captivity (both the first time Iason brought him to Eos and when he returns there after a year and a half in the slums), and of course doesn’t agree with it, but having realized he has nowhere else to go, he decides once again to deal with it and what the other Blondies or Pets may say about him.
His attempted murder can be seen as untimidation, but he didn’t turn to his abuser (which would be then the one who attempted to murder him) but to the person who could guarantee his safety, a bit of freedom by working in the Black Market and more privacy a pet could ever dream of. And that person is Iason.
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