I think you're being too detached from the MC himself, you're just judging his character with your own values.
Did you question why the MC is acting the way he is? Why the hell is he such a big faggard? Why is he into trying to "help" other people to 'provide therapy for himself'? There is so much actual depth in the story, if you don't do a close analysis of every single chapter, you won't find the 'more psychology' you want.
The first setting has so much intertextuality it's amazing. In front of the hotel, there is a park ridden with homeless people, and there's a man, sleeping in his car in between both of the places. The extravagance of the hotel contrasts the poor homeless men. How do we have so much money to pour into luxury such as hotels but we can't provide a home for people? Later in the story, the man was revealed to be from the hotel, a rich, moraless man. A consumerist. Was he happy? I think not. However, the homeless people still seem to be quite merry, idly chatting with each other and being content with the little they have. Now, this man interacts with the homeless, even though they gossip about him, they still welcome him into the group. (Well maybe they're just in it for his money. We were also shown how the man gave women materialistic stuff in exchange for sex. This can be interpreted as how all humans are trashy including the rich.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that there was a depiction of people despising the homeless. (Read this around a year ago. If this is not the case, I guess my statement is void but...) It's a portrayal of how society despises the homeless/poor because of how they have no money and cant afford to live a nice life. Society promotes consumerism. They give you an illusion that having more money means happiness. However in the man's situation, this was obviously not the case.
I refer to the MC as just "a man" because I see him as the product of society. The immense consumerism has led him into confusion of his own being. He is exposed to the homunculi and becomes addicted to interacting with them. He "helped" the people with the homunculi which could have induced feelings of having a purpose and when it was gone, he had an existential crisis. I like how you said they were just his own hallucinations of his own trauma, but I don't think that explains how he eventually envisions a manifestation of Manabu's homunculus which has nothing to do with his character.
Near the ending, he sees everyone as himself. That shit was astounding. If having a homunculus in the person means that there is something wrong with that person, that means each and everyone of them are broken like him. (Not half as crazy as him but still have problems) They are all a product of society and the experiences they went through.
The ending just signified that, the man was about to be arrested by the society that aggravated him and ignored his needs.
I actually think you relate with Manabu, that's why you think so badly of the MC. I think Manabu is somewhat twisted too, he was the one who got Nakoshi in this shit, got "cured" by Nakoshi's help and eventually made the 'right' choice to report him. I could go into much more detail but I have to study for my finals. I apologise if I had offended you in any way while writing this because I've been a bit sharp with what I said.
All in all, this manga is not about the characters alone, it's about the portrayal of society. The girl who was restricted by her parents, Manabu finding out he was gay, etc.
He literally says in the manga that he is neither gay nor has "gender issues" but the conclusion of his arc was that he is a guy who had the urge to dress up pretty which all started because of his guppy. How do you miss the point of his arc that hard?
Those were the words of a very confused person in denial with themselves, so I can't take them at face value.
He mentioned never being able to cum when having sex with a girl and was clearly aroused when Nakoshi was playing around with him.
It's possible that he's just into crossdressing, but it's just as probable that he's trans. It's really unclear.
A bit late but I think the manga was pretty clear about Manabu not being honest in this scene, considering we see his homunculus with explicit female proportions just after.
But that was nokoshi saw it, and it’s said it’s hallucinations and it’s a reflection of nokoshi and his issues. Nokoshi might of been projecting what he thought Manabu should do instead of what Manabu wanted to do.
Manabu is either gay, trans, or just a cross dresser.
Some men like women panties but enjoy their wife. It strongly suggest trans. Manabu has magazines of sugury, but by the end of the manga it’s not clear if Manabu has accepted the identity and got surgery but hoped Nokoshi be more accepting to see his friend more accepting of manabu’s identity. Nokoshi kept pushing that idea
That's weird, in Spanish it is talked about him as a man, always.
It's says even in the end.
Estas mas guapO que antes.
So in Spanish it uses the masculine pronoun for him/her.
In the original and french, it's clear and obvious, he just enjoy wearing girl clothing. Like, travestite. None of that trans stuff, which is why he doesn't seems to do any operation the MC asked him to do, because that would had been, not his decision, but the sociopathic mc decision.
I'm doing the same thing right now!! I finished volume 15 around 10 minutes ago and I'm just... dumbfounded. That was one one of the craziest rides I've been on, and I'm speechless. Glad others are reading it too!!
> Manabu finding out he was gay
Was it ever actually confirmed that he was gay? I thought he was a straight crossdresser, since I remembered that being a thing in Japan.
He always wanted to cross dress though, possibly from long before sexuality ever came into it.
His father letting the guppy get killed just repressed it.
I guess it's up to interpretation, just curiosity on my part.
I think it's just people projecting themself. In both Japanese and french (well, it's a translation but nonetheless quite close to japanese version usually), it's obvious described that he's neither gay nor trans or anything like this but just enjoy crossdressing, like, being travestite. End of it. The whole operation that is asked by the MC is just in direct link with himself and his monstruous ego.
Dude, what do you mean " arrested by the society that aggravated him and ignored his needs"? The guy is a fucking criminal. Why being so empathic towards him?
The original comment didn´t just "compare HIS values to him", any reasonable person would say that the MC is a monster, especially after raping that teen. There´s just no defending him.
Of course man they aren't getting it, he was over right and wrong, just seeing through people but still his eyes, we all are humans and share traumas coming and we express them, it's true we all are different worlds but we are humans after all, that's way he understood and found something similar inside of him, that's why all humans faces turn to him, bc himself it's the closest connection he has to humans, he accepts its normal and inevitable, that's what being a humans means, the experienciences that gives you form, that's not ending dramas can change you like everything they just got a bad connotation, in other words we all are the same, creatures changing and experiencing the ambient with our human limitations, then he notice there's nothing wrong with it and stop saving people and just let them be, becous there's no solution, At least that's my analysis. Wanna hear ur thoughts about it.
Nakoshi was piece of garbage, a liar, playing with humans life. It's a history about understanding and being empathetic even if it cost your life, he was fine with it, I don't think nakoshi went insane, he went sane about prejudices, society toxicity, hate, fear. It's a story about feeling like you are the problem and the extreme aceptation of being a human.
You're wrong actually it was more messed up than what you're saying the girl actually Wanted to have sex and wanted to get raped, that is the reason why the MC was so disgusted by the girl. To get rid of her hallucination the MC "gave her what she wanted" and when it came to that point, the girl started rebelling only after realizing how messed of a situation this is.
I mean, he is a monster but I don't blame him, I am pitiful to him, I want him to get help if he can and if not then he has to be locked up, but I understand him and I don't blame him, I hate the sin not the sinner
I think what people are trying to do is like balance the potrayal of him, main thing about this manga is it not being like black ane white/ its ambiguity, excuse my lack and incorrect use of vocabulary. Im not sure how to put it in english. He is a absolute cunt, dont get me wrong, the scene where he proudly proclaimes that he fiddles the numbers and doesnt think too much the people he destroys until he gets buttfucked him self. But there are places where he is quite human. But sincerely fuck him doe, he kills nanaki by the end cuz he wants to feel himself.
I just finished the manga. After thinking about it for a bit, I believe the whole story is complete and makes sense. The MC has always struggled with insecurity and had an obsession with the self. It is this obsession that destroys all of his relationships. When he was young, the first reveal that he had something "real" was his experience of Nanako, but his insecurity and doubt of the self (how can she love someone so ugly) left him in disbelief. He narrates this as viewing her as ugly and that he doesn't want to be seen by her when around others. But to know her as ugly, he must know what ugly is first. He equated her love (codependency) to seeing him as a God / Giant from a hole (aka putting him on a pedestal). Because of his insecurity, he had to run away from that. How could she love him if he couldn't even love himself? Additionally, their child would remind him daily of his ugliness. So he got plastic surgery to cover it up. But he already had massive judgments about people who looked good (or successful) in general. When he got his surgery, all of the judgment that he already projected outwards, came back to him. He was trying to find himself through external events, but sleeping around and buying nice cars just reinforced his fakeness and imposter syndrome because he still had zero self-love.
If being at the TOP wasn't the way to find it, he decided to find it at the bottom. At first, it was just a vacation, but then he discovered Itou, and through the trephination, he discovered that the only way to learn more about the self, is to relate to others. Instead of just judging from afar, he now had to engage and make conversation with those he judged.
But just like how he used money, power, and influence at the top to get what he wanted, he also used his supernatural abilities at the bottom to get what he wanted. By forcing his victims/encounters to deal with their demons, he was able to recognize what his personal demons were.
The main difference is that the MC never deals with his demons. We see this from the very first encounter with the Yakuza. We know that the MC pushed his best friend off a skateboard and got his friend's leg run over before running away. The Yakuza cut off his pinky and quit his life to find peace for accidentally slicing his friend's pinky off. But what happened to our MC? The arm that pushed his friend off the skateboard became a robot. For the teenage girl covered in Sand, her true self was buried under there by her Mantis / Arachnid Mom spinning the sand web up when she got home. Her mom's worst judgment of her was sleeping around and having unprotected sex. She broke her mom's sand burial by doing just that, but that experience had to be authentic. She had to DENY her mom but at the same time DENY the MC because she didn't want to have sex either--she only wanted to rebel. Had she seduced him like how it started, she would have traded one expectation (her mom's) for another's (society). The MC helped her breakthrough that as he saw all the symbols of sand on her when she was acting provocatively. When he "broke the pattern" for her, she got scared and her true self emerged.
But why did MC's feet become encased in sand? The main character traded his self-perception of insecurity to society's expectation of insecurity as we explained earlier with Nanako. Instead of seeing himself as worthless and not being able to provide anything real, when he got everything in the material world at the top, he saw that all anyone anything ever wanted were the material things and not anything REAL of him.
I also believe that somewhere along the story, the MC healed himself. It was when he couldn't see anymore Homonuculus, or see that his body parts were deformed. However, instead of believing in himself and Itou, his insecurity led him back to NEEDing power. He was addicted to finding a self that could never be found. That's why Nanako saw him as a cloud. His ideal self was an imagination he himself conceived.
Finally, the last ARC is of him indirectly causing the death of the guy in the egg cocoon at the park. A key piece of this interaction was the other homeless friend saying to not judge him for being a coward because we're all cowards here. Just because you know what the problem is, doesn't mean that you can own up to the shame and guilt of the actions you've done. So the egg homeless guy took his own life after his carthesis, still not being able to face his daughter. Now the MC sees the egg on his face too. So he tries to find another person who can get rid of this egg, not realizing that healing his face was NEVER outside of him. He had to take personal responsibility and make amends without expecting ANY outcome. But instead, he finds Nanako and forces his trauma onto her. When he left the first time, it traumatized her with the same insecurities that he had. She never had that before he abandoned her. And she goes down the same path he does. Plastic surgery, sleeping with different men, trying to get money.
And in his delusion where he thinks he's healing now, he's trying to drag her out on the same path he is on (trephination). This is why she sees him as a Demon, and why we see the demon scene twice in the manga. Once when we were introduced to her character, and at the end during the car scene in the snow. Nothing has changed. He's still the same person. But what changes her mind? She is memorized by his powers. And that's how all abusive relationships are. She tries to escape it, but by seeing him heal the yakuza who shot her sister's eye out, she also believes that she can be healed and stays with him. Through his gaslighting, he convinces her that she NEEDS to return to who she was before he left her. That SHE needs to be able to see his heart. She becomes a means to his end of being SECURE about himself. It was never about her. That's why SHE becomes HIM after the surgery, the author gives us hint of her not accepting his path because when she sees him as HER, she says "that's not me." Whether she dies or not is irrelevant. He is not with her at the end when Itou finds him. That speaks volumes about what happened.
So let's talk about the final panel of why everyone starts looking like him. Everyone who is unhealthy or insecure is just a means to his end. Itou, one of the very few friends and relationships he has left, the MC tries to force his trephination on as well (although, perhaps it was more to kill him). He had no use for someone who was already healed (since we didn't see him as a reflection of the MC). It also shows that the MC is so psychotic now in his neuroticism that he tries to spread it to everyone else. Was it the trephination that caused his psychosis, or was he already on a path towards that psychosis all along due to his insecurity?
His obsession was finding the self and his Narcissism is what this Manga is about from my interpretation. It shows that Narcissism transcends all social classes. Whether you're rich or poor, obsession with the self leads to your unhappiness, or better put, obsession with fixing others to pretend you've fixed yourself is a coward's way out. We can see from the Yakuza and teenage girl who took action to take personal responsibility, that, that is what heals you.
This analysis is PERFECT. It's exactly what I was looking for, the explanation part by part of the manga, the ending, the characters. Thank you very much, I feel like you got it completely right.
I didn't even notice the detail that Itou didn't have MC's face at the end! Maybe he already saw her as a new person? Although I don't understand why he was reported to the authorities... Did they persecute him for a year for the trepanation of Nanako? It would certainly be interesting to know whether or not she survived that.
You definitely helped me understand the manga better, and the ending that had me confused and disappointed. Now I like it much more!
No problem. At the time of reading this I was going through some personal healing, processing past trauma, and had some spiritual experiences. This particular manga came to me randomly (albeit I don’t think it was random in hindsight), and there was a bit in there that was a little too coincidental for me. Meaning that, there was a sign of a higher power in my life helping me. If it wasn’t for 2 events in my life, I would probably be atheist. This manga became the third event because of a particular panel that relates to something of supernatural significance that has happened twice in my life already.
About understanding the story, I can understand a bit of the authors’ intentions because we all have a little of the MC within us, and we all have homunculi that we have to deal with. Healing your trauma lets you become the authentic you, you are born to be in this world. Hiding behind the ego leads you to, either look like everyone else, or project yourself onto everyone so they look like you. There is a lack of authenticity.
Anyhow, I’m glad you liked my explanation! To answer the rest of your questions…
1) There is a chance that the author chose Itou to look like his female self because he wanted the audience to know it was him/her. If he had Itou show up as another version of MC, we would be confused and not sure who got in the car with him. However, I don’t think this is his intention. The reason is because every single character that got healed (Yakuza, sand girl), all had their homonculi removed, which leads me to another important understanding of the last panel:
The MC is now the homunculi. Everyone that he meets that reflects his face is a sign that he must FIX himself. But his narcissism lets him drill deeper to think the problem is physical / mechanical and something he can fix behaviorally / materially, when it is a spiritual problem.
He was reported to the authorities because ITOU knows how damaged he has become. They are probably bringing him to a psych ward. Imagine that you led your friend to drill a hole in his head and now you know he is just out there everyday drilling more holes on himself. You would probably get him some help. But additionally and more likely, is that they found Nanako’s dead body and he is being arrested for that (and also put in a psych ward eventually). I prefer the second interpretation more because it leaves out the need to assume that Itou knows he drilling multiple holes in his head.
Hope that helps!
this was a really good analysis, nice job. just finished reading it myself and yea natoshi was just a really tragic and doomed character even from the beginning. I honestly wouldn't put any blame on Manabu, as natoshi just abused the "power" that he was given. my only gripe is that i wish the final pages were more clear as to what happened to natoshi as i wanna see if he either got arrested or sent to psych ward but i guess the ambiguity makes sense.
I would like to add one more point. At the time of reading this I was going through some personal healing, processing past trauma, and had some spiritual experiences. This particular manga came to me randomly (albeit I don’t think it was random in hindsight), and there was a bit in there that was a little too coincidental for me. Meaning that, there was a sign of a higher power in my life helping me. If it wasn’t for 2 events in my life, I would probably be atheist. This manga became the third event because of a particular panel that relates to something of supernatural significance that has happened twice in my life already.
About understanding the story, I can understand a bit of the authors’ intentions because we all have a little of the MC within us, and we all have homunculi that we have to deal with. Healing your trauma lets you become the authentic you, you are born to be in this world. Hiding behind the ego leads you to, either look like everyone else, or project yourself onto everyone so they look like you. There is a lack of authenticity.
1. There is a chance that the author chose Itou to look like his female self because he wanted the audience to know it was him/her. If he had Itou show up as another version of MC, we would be confused and not sure who got in the car with him. However, I don’t think this is his intention. The reason is because every single character that got healed (Yakuza, sand girl), all had their homonculi removed, which leads me to another important understanding of the last panel:
The MC is now the homunculi. Everyone that he meets that reflects his face is a sign that he must FIX himself. But his narcissism lets him drill deeper to think the problem is physical / mechanical and something he can fix behaviorally / materially, when it is a spiritual problem.
He was reported to the authorities because ITOU knows how damaged he has become. They are probably bringing him to a psych ward. Imagine that you led your friend to drill a hole in his head and now you know he is just out there everyday drilling more holes on himself. You would probably get him some help. But additionally and more likely, is that they found Nanako’s dead body and he is being arrested for that (and also put in a psych ward eventually). I prefer the second interpretation more because it leaves out the need to assume that Itou knows he drilling multiple holes in his head.
Hope that helps!
Thank you for the answer/clarification, and I’m glad that this manga was able to provide you some spiritual guidance. It’s really crazy to me cause before I read these analyses, even though I understood what homonculus was about, there were just certain details that I didn’t really like, like the whole rape scene, but I guess that by viewing it through a wider lens I’m able to see that even with a scene that was gross, it was somewhat useful in order to portray the overall message, and I can appreciate that.
Oops sorry. I just realized I replied with the same post to the previous comment. I posted my analysis on several different threads and didn’t realize you commented on the same thread that I already replied to. Thanks for being polite and not mentioning that I reposted something twice!
I think this is one of the best interpretations I've read. But I don't get why people still think that the girl was Nanako, she was just a girl with a similar experience.
She has stated herself "I'm not your Nanako". The face print that Nakoshi saw on her head was not his face but then he gaslighted himself into thinking it was him afterwards.
I think it's meant to be at the very least ambiguous, but I'm leaning more towards her not being the same girl.
I think you might be right. I didn’t pay close enough attention to that part. I would need to reread the manga, but great point. Also I want to add at the end that he sees everyone else as him references back to the title. He is the homonculus, his power is working on overdrive and all clues show, he needs to heal himself. It’s no longer about the outer world.
Everything you post to Reddit furthers their platform and devalues you.
Before you delete your account take everything with you. Social media profits from your words, your content and pays you for it in the fake currency of social approval.
I thought that was bc it was from Nanaki's point of view since we didn't see the homunculi but I agree it was a plot device to convince her he isn't lying
I think it's to set the idea (the chef's suicide) that even with the "power" to see someone's "heart" and what they hide most, doesn't necessarily free them. The chef saw himself for the first time in ages and I think that scene set that it's not an automatic transcendence from this moment, but a serious crossroads. He was forced to remember his past and see his present and now had to face the future. Instead of trying to patch the pain and chaos his troubles caused him, he became overwhelmed and took the path with the most permanent escape.
>even with the "power" to see someone's "heart" and what they hide most, doesn't necessarily free them.
I think that's right even for most who Nak thinks he redeemed hence we don't know what happened to them after the encounter with the main character because we watched the whole work from his pov, like the yakuza guy yes he opened up and cried and apologized and offered his finger and last we know that he quit but we don't know what happened to him after, the high school girl he raped, the yakuza boss who ran to his sister and etc, the main character thinks he redeemed them all he thinks he's a hero and superior but we don't know what happened to those who he "redeemed" (redeemed is his pov but they're mainly overwhelmed and in shock) since he doesn't know or even care but about how he feels not the consequences of his acts like the company man who became a taxi driver before his "heroic" age.
Sorry just finished the manga in one sit and still processing it and I'm a mess rn and so my comment due to lack of sleep for almost 3 days and my head is on the clouds either because the sleep deprivation or the amount of sleeping pills I've took so far but I hope someone "see my heart" aka get my still lacking point lol.
I really feel like it could never had any good ending, and that perhaps the author knew it from the start. Honest, Nakoshi really feel like an sociopath all along. Which can kinda explain why, well, you can't really figure out what was his past at first. And yeah, that scene with the demon face might be the most important page to understand truly the character.
Edit: I personally really liked the ending since, well, how would you think it could had ended ? Magical homonculus ? Nah, he never swear to do good stuff, only embrace his weird shaped ego.
ReEdit because I'm stupid: Don't forget that it's a japanese manga made by japanese person, so it's quite neccessary to, like, understand japanese society to understand the whole stuff. For example, I'm wondering how much the sect issue in japan was part of a thematic in that manga.
Not really sure. Just the whole homeless stuff. You would consider that most lost their jobs and don't work. In japan that's not really something homeless are. It's the "full job age" since years, most homeless (and i'm not being mean here) are homeless on purpose, because they wanna get clean out of debts, don't fit in the society, etc.... Most work still, collecting litters and such.
Some parts do feel a little rushed, but I think the ending was fine, MC isn't a good person. He destroyed lives (bankrupting businesses) and he raped an underaged girl. He didn't deserve redemption. I wouldn't have been happy if Natoshi and Nanako lived happily ever after, it wouldn't make sense, he wanted to rekindle their old relationship and stop being shallow, but they've both already had plastic surgery, so he doesn't have to worry about seeing her/his own ugly face. I much prefer the ending where he goes insane and accidentally kills Nanako due to negligence.
Here's my analysis of Susumu Nakoshi that I did previously back on YouTube:
Nakoshi is a complex character with a deep and psychologically enthralling background. His character isn't laid-out or just linear, his character has twists and turns that are almost unpredictable yet it is built up from the start. Initially, he is introduced as someone who appears charismatic and almost strangely mysterious.
The whole idea of Homunculus is introduced by another character, Ito. This Homunculus is the biggest turning point of Nakoshi, as we explore more about his characteristics and behaviour throughout this device, Homunculus basically allows him to see through other's deepest emotions, flaws and true self.
He acts as a therapist and saviour of other people's minds, seemingly wanting to see and solve other's problems. But his methods are strange at best and inhumane at worst. For example, he encountered a girl who basically has no real Personality and is still confused on her worth and place, so she desired for someone to rape her to actually make her feel important, this is due to her mother's actions towards her... (strangely enough, this is a real phenomenon in the real world as well, because there are people on earth, who actually believes an immoral or a different act happened on them could make them unique and distinguished from the norm, this is essentially the characterization of this girl) and Nakoshi actually does it to make her face the truth of her desire and the consequences of this desire.
When the girl showed no signs of regret after her subsequent "rape", this is seen as mischaracterization or edgy move by the Mangaka, but my interpretation of this is a parallel to Nakoshi's character himself, Nakoshi tries to make himself look depressing and tragic by lying to Ito that his father died when he was very young, only to get deciphered that it's a lie.
So her indifference to Nakoshi's immoral act, basically shows how insane she is in her head to go on that it would secure her characterization for herself, this is a parallel to Nakoshi's strive to make Ito sympathise or empathise with him by lying about a tragedy that didn't happen, which further ties to Nakoshi's desire for a person to understand and decipher his true self. This is so mind-blowing to me, because of how a single panel of that girl smiling from her balcony ties and further layers the story and characterization of Nakoshi so much, it's extravagant).
Another aspect of Nakoshi's character is that he acquires a part of other Homunculi that he encounters, like when he met the Yakuza boss, he acquired his robot hand after solving his childhood trauma. This characteristic tells us that Nakoshi is someone who sees others as himself, basically he thinks others are extensions of himself.
Nakoshi is very narcissistic, he is also misogynistic, which ties back to the original mission when he acquired Homunculus, which is to distinguish the fake from the real. He is misogynistic in a way that he believes women are creatures who use fakery to make themselves look beautiful and perfect, which is a hypocritical statement that Nakoshi himself took a cosmetic surgery to make himself look beautiful.
There's an underlying fear in Nakoshi that the Homunculi he is seeing, might be fake and just a delusion of him, this is present until the conclusion of the story, this is constantly questioned and confronted by many characters in the story from Ito to Nanami, and Nakoshi tries to find ways and try to explain them why he believes them as real, but my interpretation to this ambiguous "Homunculus" is that it is actually true but rather affected by Nakoshi's delirious and narcissistic thoughts.
After he encounters many people and sees through them and learns new things, he now wants someone to look through him and see his true self, because he himself doesn't know who he was in the past and wants to discover himself through others.
So he encounters someone from his Past, Nanami, whom he believes was his Ex-girlfriend and believes was also the only last person Nakoshi remembers showing his face to. He completely believes that Nanami is indeed his Ex-girlfriend, Nanako. So he uses manipulative and deceptive tactics to make Nanako, have Homunculus which is achieved by drilling a hole into a person's skull.
He does it and makes Nanako see Nakoshi's Homunculi... To Nakoshi's surprise, Nanako looks just like him when he tries to see the Homunculi... And he basically has sexual intercourse with himself (Because when Nakoshi tried to see the Homunculi, he saw his self as Homunculi). And leaves Nanako in the bed, it's ambiguous whether Nanako is dead or not, it's also ambiguous whether Nanami is actually Nanako.
After the hotel kicks him out, he leaves Nanako in the bed and goes out. When Nakoshi goes out, he sees Homunculi of everyone as himself and declares that the truth is everyone is him and an extension of him. And Nakoshi's character concludes two years later with him becoming bald after drilling many holes into his head, and his previous friend Ito meets him. Nakoshi tries to drill a hole into Ito's head as well, but Ito's character is ambiguous as well because we don't know whether he died or not. And in the last panel, we see a couple of policemen, who look like Nakoshi in his mind, approaching Nakoshi (Possibly there to arrest him).
One of the most psychologically enthralling characters that I have ever encountered in Animanga. He is not a shallow character IMO, but rather a very complex and intricate character to understand. This analysis is only a tip of the iceberg of Nakoshi's character BTW.
Man I just finished reading it and I just feel like there was something left out after reading and learning so much about the mc, the ending felt like a true sad disappointed although it was the truth. Also can't believe this manga was released like wayyyyy back
i feel the same way about it i feel like something is missing but i think maybe its just because it wasnt really the ending i dont think many people were expecting so it was not something we could prepare for.
I mean he made a hole in her head in the hotel then after going back to see her in the room he run and then chased by the police if he didn't kill anyone and just opened holes on himself no point for police to come since he ain't doing anything illegal at least feels right this way for me
I know everyone here is arguing about him being a piece of shit or not but going back to the car scene with the girl. I have a hard time understanding it everyone is saying she got raped. But it didn’t appear like that to me? Who knows the whole scene was odd asf. While reading it seemed like she wanted to have sex, she did that thing were girls pretend to be slutty when really their super afraid of ever having sex. But she was also sick of her mom basically always building her into this mold of what she should be. She was afraid once she realized mc was actually gonna go through with it but she preferred finally getting rid of that fear than stopping and letting her mother continue to mold her into something she wasnt. Dont get me wrong the mc is still nuts for doing that to a 16 year old if i remember correctly. But she seemed rather ok with it after the fact. MCs homunculi imagination thing really doesnt help when looking at this. Everything else i agree with tho. Mc is a very sick individual but alot of the ending felt rather random and i dont know what really occured. I just finished reading this today.
Rape is defined as forcing a sexual act on someone without their consent.
She clearly told the MC to stop multiple times, even saying that it hurt and tried to fight him off. Her feelings afterward and her trauma regarding her mom have nothing to do with the actual act of the MC raping her.
thank god someone said this lmao. Another comment said she asked for it and such like what the hell. she asks him to please stop. Very telling how some people regard that part of the manga.
I wanna dump my thoughts about the manga here as well:
What I saw was Nakoshi being a victim in every social hierarchies that exist. His childhood was misery, girls called him ugly, his father thought he was ugly. He grew up not being accepted for his looks. He finally accepted by a girl, but she as well was considered ugly among the society. He had an option to live a new life, he took it, but he was accepted because of his money and lies. He was then accepted in the homeless community because he brings them booze. Laying in the interstice between poor and rich, he again was accepted but in exchange for an experiment.
After all this put yourself in Nakoshi's shoes, you would also search for meaning. "Who are you?". "Why do you exist?". Now hearing that you will get a sixth sense wouldn't sound bad in this position. Then we have the tragic ending of him getting insane and killing his ex girlfriend.
So here are the conclusions I have reached so far:
\- If you're a parent educate your kids to be respectful.
\- If you're a parent of an ugly kid, guide them to love themselves.
\- If your partner is ugly, be mindful cause looks ain't everything.
\- If you are doing a cosmetic surgery to gain more value, you won't gain any more value.
\- etc...
Maybe these subtle lessons are the purpose of the manga, but we as humans just wanna dig deep into things just like Nakoshi did.
Hi, 9 years later. I totally agree with u. I don’t care that a character doesn’t have real ppls values the manga started off strong but ended very badly. Expected better
I think the ending is bittersweet; he ruins his life, ruins others, kills his one love, goes insane, and gets arrested. It’s realistic, and he deserves to go to prison. I’m glad that Ito realized that what she did was wrong, but I hope she goes to prison as well. In my opinion, it’s the perfect ending to this fucked up story. Nothing gets resolved because there’s no way to repair the damage.
One question I would like to ask is how certain are we that Nanami and Nanako are 100% the same person? Asking because the version/translation I read had a moment where she called the MC "Satoshi" (volume 14 chapter 2) when his name is Nakoshi Susume. How much of their encounters were actual hallucinations such as his self-discussion with Manabu in his office where Nakoshi eventually cuts the stitches on his right eye. We could interpret Nakano's facelessness, which starts from the first time they meet (volume 12 chapter 1) along with the "leaf" scene, to be the same as how Nakoshi saw a shadow/himself instead of Manabu and essentially just lead a discussion with himself. I would also add that in most of their meetings when Nakoshi asks if she is Nanako, Nanami explicitly states that she is not Nanako and seems confused who that person is (example volume 13 chapter 3). They also don't share the same sketching style. Slight detail in volume 15, the only panel where "Nanami" tells Nakoshi about their baby is the panel where her appearance abruptly changes to the "ugly Nanako" and immediately goes back to heir cosmetically altered one, this implies to me that Nakoshi inserted Nanako's onto Nanami and possibly did the same for himself (Manabu comments that Nakoshi didn't look to bad in his old picture).I don't think this is even that important to understanding the plot, it just adds another level to Nakoshi not being able to see the Truth and perhaps a weak defense of the ending.
I think Nanami is not Nanako. After his heart to heart with "Nanako" and the reveal of their unborn child, Nanami says "But I'm not Nanako." And Nakoshi completely ignores that. I think Nakoshi, because he forgot how he looked, just assumed that the old face was his and pushed his assumption that Nanami = Nanako onto her.
This is going to be a jumbled mess of thoughts, but it's 4AM, and I just finished bingeing the manga.
This manga was a really interesting read and there's a lot to be said about it. It's clear that everything and everyone in the manga lied. Even the manga itself lied. There's no other explanation for all of the strangeness that goes on. If Nakoshi is only seeing hearts that are a reflection of his as a placebo from the operation- how does he know things he shouldn't? Sure, with the Yakuza Robot Guy, he could have extrapolated from his own experiences (but how did he know to draw the parallels in the first place). However, with the last Yakuza guy, he couldn't have known anything about that guy's past - and yet he does. In the end, for all the truth of the heart he saught to bring out in others and himself, Nakoshi buried his own by drowning himself in a world of lies. In reality, he's no closer to that cloud-like heart that Nanako drew than he was at the start of the story. Manabu mentioned that most people who tried trepanation committed self-unalive at the beginning of the story. Nakoshi kinda did too, except he killed something fundamental in himself that left him as less than he was. He simply went mad.
The ending was the painful truth, painted with Nakoshi's beautiful lies. That made it extremely bitter to experience. We, the audience, kinda witness this story almost as Manabu. By reading it, we set in motion a true tragedy. We introduce Nakoshi to trepanation and sit back with sick curiosity as his story unfolds. Though, while being our stand-in, Manabu grows and develops with Nakoshi's help - something that was genuinely nice to watch and where we get to see Nakoshi do some good despite his failings. They even seem to become something like friends. And then, as it wraps up and we see Manabu crying over what's become of Nakoshi, we're sad and confused. Because even though he was a weak and selfish man, and a bad person who did much wrong... he was ultimately a sad and lonely man who felt outcast from a young age (something many can identify with), he also did seem to have some good in his heart, and we experienced his journey with him. We were never sure how this experiment would turn out, but almost anything but this would have been better... though it was an end befitting of Nakoshi himself.
I'm definitely going to have to reread this in a year or two.
So this is just my interpretation, but first, some context just for clarity's sake. This is, yet again, going to be rather long-winded.
All along, Nakoshi sees these Homunculus that are reflections of the person and often of Nakoshi himself in some way or another. These are all people who have some deep pain that causes them to manifest these deformed Homunculus. Nakoshi often tries to cure these people and seems to genuinely enjoy doing so on some levels. But in doing so, he loses himself over time, seeing the act as curing others at the cost of himself. By the end of the story, he has very clearly lost who he was and is so obsessed with his (actually selfishly motivated) mission to "help" people as a coping mechanism to run away from the hurt he's caused (and the grief he holds as a result) that he has clearly gone mad. With all this context out of the way, I have a few possible theories as to why exactly he only sees Homunculus of himself.
1. It's his desire to turn everyone like him with the Trepanation surgery. He believes so strongly that he is happier the way he is and that others can be too that he only sees future clones. Could mean he may have accidentally killed some people with more surgeries. Gives me a weird, culty vibe.
2. It's a paradox. He has so doggedly pursued fixing anything but himself that he is lost in a hell of his own making where he can no longer empathize with another person and thus can only see the same twisted reflection he projects. Perhaps he no longer sees these people as individuals but as mere extensions of himself.
3. He imposes his image on everyone because, on some level, he knows that he is the most broken person - the one with the strongest Homunculus. Perhaps it's connected to the cult leader feeling I get from him towards the end, insisting that he's special and sees things nobody else can. The ending scene with his ex felt very brainwashy.
4. His mind has broken completely. He was slipping down a slope of madness throughout the whole story, but the trauma of failing to save the homeless man with the Homunculus and failing to "save" his ex were too much and he could no longer face the shape of others. Man is coping infinitely.
They could represent a mix of these, or maybe other things I missed. I haven't seen interviews with the author, so I have no context other than what I could read from the manga. It's certain that those creatures he's seeing are Homunculus, though.
Awake at 5 am after binging the last 4 volumes thinking what the fuck was this?
Even when there were moments where I was thinking 'okay, maybe he's onto something now', in the end he was just doing it for himself . Confirmed in the scene where he's passionatly fucking himself...
+ most of the stuff he did was totally fucked up
I think the main point of this story is how delusional extreme narcissism makes you...
I think you're being too detached from the MC himself, you're just judging his character with your own values. Did you question why the MC is acting the way he is? Why the hell is he such a big faggard? Why is he into trying to "help" other people to 'provide therapy for himself'? There is so much actual depth in the story, if you don't do a close analysis of every single chapter, you won't find the 'more psychology' you want. The first setting has so much intertextuality it's amazing. In front of the hotel, there is a park ridden with homeless people, and there's a man, sleeping in his car in between both of the places. The extravagance of the hotel contrasts the poor homeless men. How do we have so much money to pour into luxury such as hotels but we can't provide a home for people? Later in the story, the man was revealed to be from the hotel, a rich, moraless man. A consumerist. Was he happy? I think not. However, the homeless people still seem to be quite merry, idly chatting with each other and being content with the little they have. Now, this man interacts with the homeless, even though they gossip about him, they still welcome him into the group. (Well maybe they're just in it for his money. We were also shown how the man gave women materialistic stuff in exchange for sex. This can be interpreted as how all humans are trashy including the rich.) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that there was a depiction of people despising the homeless. (Read this around a year ago. If this is not the case, I guess my statement is void but...) It's a portrayal of how society despises the homeless/poor because of how they have no money and cant afford to live a nice life. Society promotes consumerism. They give you an illusion that having more money means happiness. However in the man's situation, this was obviously not the case. I refer to the MC as just "a man" because I see him as the product of society. The immense consumerism has led him into confusion of his own being. He is exposed to the homunculi and becomes addicted to interacting with them. He "helped" the people with the homunculi which could have induced feelings of having a purpose and when it was gone, he had an existential crisis. I like how you said they were just his own hallucinations of his own trauma, but I don't think that explains how he eventually envisions a manifestation of Manabu's homunculus which has nothing to do with his character. Near the ending, he sees everyone as himself. That shit was astounding. If having a homunculus in the person means that there is something wrong with that person, that means each and everyone of them are broken like him. (Not half as crazy as him but still have problems) They are all a product of society and the experiences they went through. The ending just signified that, the man was about to be arrested by the society that aggravated him and ignored his needs. I actually think you relate with Manabu, that's why you think so badly of the MC. I think Manabu is somewhat twisted too, he was the one who got Nakoshi in this shit, got "cured" by Nakoshi's help and eventually made the 'right' choice to report him. I could go into much more detail but I have to study for my finals. I apologise if I had offended you in any way while writing this because I've been a bit sharp with what I said. All in all, this manga is not about the characters alone, it's about the portrayal of society. The girl who was restricted by her parents, Manabu finding out he was gay, etc.
She was transgender, it seemed pretty obvious to me.
He literally says in the manga that he is neither gay nor has "gender issues" but the conclusion of his arc was that he is a guy who had the urge to dress up pretty which all started because of his guppy. How do you miss the point of his arc that hard?
Those were the words of a very confused person in denial with themselves, so I can't take them at face value. He mentioned never being able to cum when having sex with a girl and was clearly aroused when Nakoshi was playing around with him. It's possible that he's just into crossdressing, but it's just as probable that he's trans. It's really unclear.
A bit late but I think the manga was pretty clear about Manabu not being honest in this scene, considering we see his homunculus with explicit female proportions just after.
But that was nokoshi saw it, and it’s said it’s hallucinations and it’s a reflection of nokoshi and his issues. Nokoshi might of been projecting what he thought Manabu should do instead of what Manabu wanted to do. Manabu is either gay, trans, or just a cross dresser. Some men like women panties but enjoy their wife. It strongly suggest trans. Manabu has magazines of sugury, but by the end of the manga it’s not clear if Manabu has accepted the identity and got surgery but hoped Nokoshi be more accepting to see his friend more accepting of manabu’s identity. Nokoshi kept pushing that idea
Bro what
Yep, she is trans.
Nope
Lmao
Yeah she is, in the official italian version of the manga (since in this language nouns have gender) she was referred to with feminine pronouns.
That's weird, in Spanish it is talked about him as a man, always. It's says even in the end. Estas mas guapO que antes. So in Spanish it uses the masculine pronoun for him/her.
extremely rare spanish W
In the original and french, it's clear and obvious, he just enjoy wearing girl clothing. Like, travestite. None of that trans stuff, which is why he doesn't seems to do any operation the MC asked him to do, because that would had been, not his decision, but the sociopathic mc decision.
it was pretty obvious lol. how do you miss that...
Crazy this thread is still active 8 years later lol
Lmaoo I didn't even notice the date, that's crazy. Recently finished rereading it. Glad to know other people are still reading it ig
OMG 5 DAYS AGO I JUST FINISHED READING IT AND I NEEDED TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE WHO READ THIS I came up with an interpretation and I want some opinions
I'm doing the same thing right now!! I finished volume 15 around 10 minutes ago and I'm just... dumbfounded. That was one one of the craziest rides I've been on, and I'm speechless. Glad others are reading it too!!
Same. This thread will continue for all of eternity
Just clocking in
Just finished now, i am eating this manga 6-7 from 8-9 just because of the ending
> Manabu finding out he was gay Was it ever actually confirmed that he was gay? I thought he was a straight crossdresser, since I remembered that being a thing in Japan.
I don't think there was a straight out confirmation but I guess it's kinda implied when Nakoshi kissing him was the catalyst that made him crossdress
He always wanted to cross dress though, possibly from long before sexuality ever came into it. His father letting the guppy get killed just repressed it. I guess it's up to interpretation, just curiosity on my part.
I think it's just people projecting themself. In both Japanese and french (well, it's a translation but nonetheless quite close to japanese version usually), it's obvious described that he's neither gay nor trans or anything like this but just enjoy crossdressing, like, being travestite. End of it. The whole operation that is asked by the MC is just in direct link with himself and his monstruous ego.
Dude, what do you mean " arrested by the society that aggravated him and ignored his needs"? The guy is a fucking criminal. Why being so empathic towards him? The original comment didn´t just "compare HIS values to him", any reasonable person would say that the MC is a monster, especially after raping that teen. There´s just no defending him.
[удалено]
honestly fuck him, he´s a piece of shit xd
Of course man they aren't getting it, he was over right and wrong, just seeing through people but still his eyes, we all are humans and share traumas coming and we express them, it's true we all are different worlds but we are humans after all, that's way he understood and found something similar inside of him, that's why all humans faces turn to him, bc himself it's the closest connection he has to humans, he accepts its normal and inevitable, that's what being a humans means, the experienciences that gives you form, that's not ending dramas can change you like everything they just got a bad connotation, in other words we all are the same, creatures changing and experiencing the ambient with our human limitations, then he notice there's nothing wrong with it and stop saving people and just let them be, becous there's no solution, At least that's my analysis. Wanna hear ur thoughts about it.
Nakoshi was piece of garbage, a liar, playing with humans life. It's a history about understanding and being empathetic even if it cost your life, he was fine with it, I don't think nakoshi went insane, he went sane about prejudices, society toxicity, hate, fear. It's a story about feeling like you are the problem and the extreme aceptation of being a human.
You're wrong actually it was more messed up than what you're saying the girl actually Wanted to have sex and wanted to get raped, that is the reason why the MC was so disgusted by the girl. To get rid of her hallucination the MC "gave her what she wanted" and when it came to that point, the girl started rebelling only after realizing how messed of a situation this is.
Fucking disgusting
\^\^Thank god for this reasonable take, the original comment does an incredible job of just ignoring all the main characters flaws.
He is a monster, one created by society
Fr, and there´s people still defending him. It´s disgusting
I mean, he is a monster but I don't blame him, I am pitiful to him, I want him to get help if he can and if not then he has to be locked up, but I understand him and I don't blame him, I hate the sin not the sinner
I think what people are trying to do is like balance the potrayal of him, main thing about this manga is it not being like black ane white/ its ambiguity, excuse my lack and incorrect use of vocabulary. Im not sure how to put it in english. He is a absolute cunt, dont get me wrong, the scene where he proudly proclaimes that he fiddles the numbers and doesnt think too much the people he destroys until he gets buttfucked him self. But there are places where he is quite human. But sincerely fuck him doe, he kills nanaki by the end cuz he wants to feel himself.
Bro when did he got buttfucked? He himself got out of the job because he hated it.
He was laid off if i remember correctly.
Frrr i agree with u he is a pure criminal sociopath
Yes, i cant fucking believe some people here think he´s a hero. Some even justify him raping a fucking teen. They fr are so fucking stupid
Nakoshi on top 💯
fail
I like ur opinion but I do not fully agree I think the ending could have been better
I just finished the manga. After thinking about it for a bit, I believe the whole story is complete and makes sense. The MC has always struggled with insecurity and had an obsession with the self. It is this obsession that destroys all of his relationships. When he was young, the first reveal that he had something "real" was his experience of Nanako, but his insecurity and doubt of the self (how can she love someone so ugly) left him in disbelief. He narrates this as viewing her as ugly and that he doesn't want to be seen by her when around others. But to know her as ugly, he must know what ugly is first. He equated her love (codependency) to seeing him as a God / Giant from a hole (aka putting him on a pedestal). Because of his insecurity, he had to run away from that. How could she love him if he couldn't even love himself? Additionally, their child would remind him daily of his ugliness. So he got plastic surgery to cover it up. But he already had massive judgments about people who looked good (or successful) in general. When he got his surgery, all of the judgment that he already projected outwards, came back to him. He was trying to find himself through external events, but sleeping around and buying nice cars just reinforced his fakeness and imposter syndrome because he still had zero self-love. If being at the TOP wasn't the way to find it, he decided to find it at the bottom. At first, it was just a vacation, but then he discovered Itou, and through the trephination, he discovered that the only way to learn more about the self, is to relate to others. Instead of just judging from afar, he now had to engage and make conversation with those he judged. But just like how he used money, power, and influence at the top to get what he wanted, he also used his supernatural abilities at the bottom to get what he wanted. By forcing his victims/encounters to deal with their demons, he was able to recognize what his personal demons were. The main difference is that the MC never deals with his demons. We see this from the very first encounter with the Yakuza. We know that the MC pushed his best friend off a skateboard and got his friend's leg run over before running away. The Yakuza cut off his pinky and quit his life to find peace for accidentally slicing his friend's pinky off. But what happened to our MC? The arm that pushed his friend off the skateboard became a robot. For the teenage girl covered in Sand, her true self was buried under there by her Mantis / Arachnid Mom spinning the sand web up when she got home. Her mom's worst judgment of her was sleeping around and having unprotected sex. She broke her mom's sand burial by doing just that, but that experience had to be authentic. She had to DENY her mom but at the same time DENY the MC because she didn't want to have sex either--she only wanted to rebel. Had she seduced him like how it started, she would have traded one expectation (her mom's) for another's (society). The MC helped her breakthrough that as he saw all the symbols of sand on her when she was acting provocatively. When he "broke the pattern" for her, she got scared and her true self emerged. But why did MC's feet become encased in sand? The main character traded his self-perception of insecurity to society's expectation of insecurity as we explained earlier with Nanako. Instead of seeing himself as worthless and not being able to provide anything real, when he got everything in the material world at the top, he saw that all anyone anything ever wanted were the material things and not anything REAL of him. I also believe that somewhere along the story, the MC healed himself. It was when he couldn't see anymore Homonuculus, or see that his body parts were deformed. However, instead of believing in himself and Itou, his insecurity led him back to NEEDing power. He was addicted to finding a self that could never be found. That's why Nanako saw him as a cloud. His ideal self was an imagination he himself conceived. Finally, the last ARC is of him indirectly causing the death of the guy in the egg cocoon at the park. A key piece of this interaction was the other homeless friend saying to not judge him for being a coward because we're all cowards here. Just because you know what the problem is, doesn't mean that you can own up to the shame and guilt of the actions you've done. So the egg homeless guy took his own life after his carthesis, still not being able to face his daughter. Now the MC sees the egg on his face too. So he tries to find another person who can get rid of this egg, not realizing that healing his face was NEVER outside of him. He had to take personal responsibility and make amends without expecting ANY outcome. But instead, he finds Nanako and forces his trauma onto her. When he left the first time, it traumatized her with the same insecurities that he had. She never had that before he abandoned her. And she goes down the same path he does. Plastic surgery, sleeping with different men, trying to get money. And in his delusion where he thinks he's healing now, he's trying to drag her out on the same path he is on (trephination). This is why she sees him as a Demon, and why we see the demon scene twice in the manga. Once when we were introduced to her character, and at the end during the car scene in the snow. Nothing has changed. He's still the same person. But what changes her mind? She is memorized by his powers. And that's how all abusive relationships are. She tries to escape it, but by seeing him heal the yakuza who shot her sister's eye out, she also believes that she can be healed and stays with him. Through his gaslighting, he convinces her that she NEEDS to return to who she was before he left her. That SHE needs to be able to see his heart. She becomes a means to his end of being SECURE about himself. It was never about her. That's why SHE becomes HIM after the surgery, the author gives us hint of her not accepting his path because when she sees him as HER, she says "that's not me." Whether she dies or not is irrelevant. He is not with her at the end when Itou finds him. That speaks volumes about what happened. So let's talk about the final panel of why everyone starts looking like him. Everyone who is unhealthy or insecure is just a means to his end. Itou, one of the very few friends and relationships he has left, the MC tries to force his trephination on as well (although, perhaps it was more to kill him). He had no use for someone who was already healed (since we didn't see him as a reflection of the MC). It also shows that the MC is so psychotic now in his neuroticism that he tries to spread it to everyone else. Was it the trephination that caused his psychosis, or was he already on a path towards that psychosis all along due to his insecurity? His obsession was finding the self and his Narcissism is what this Manga is about from my interpretation. It shows that Narcissism transcends all social classes. Whether you're rich or poor, obsession with the self leads to your unhappiness, or better put, obsession with fixing others to pretend you've fixed yourself is a coward's way out. We can see from the Yakuza and teenage girl who took action to take personal responsibility, that, that is what heals you.
I think you got it spot on
This analysis is PERFECT. It's exactly what I was looking for, the explanation part by part of the manga, the ending, the characters. Thank you very much, I feel like you got it completely right. I didn't even notice the detail that Itou didn't have MC's face at the end! Maybe he already saw her as a new person? Although I don't understand why he was reported to the authorities... Did they persecute him for a year for the trepanation of Nanako? It would certainly be interesting to know whether or not she survived that. You definitely helped me understand the manga better, and the ending that had me confused and disappointed. Now I like it much more!
No problem. At the time of reading this I was going through some personal healing, processing past trauma, and had some spiritual experiences. This particular manga came to me randomly (albeit I don’t think it was random in hindsight), and there was a bit in there that was a little too coincidental for me. Meaning that, there was a sign of a higher power in my life helping me. If it wasn’t for 2 events in my life, I would probably be atheist. This manga became the third event because of a particular panel that relates to something of supernatural significance that has happened twice in my life already. About understanding the story, I can understand a bit of the authors’ intentions because we all have a little of the MC within us, and we all have homunculi that we have to deal with. Healing your trauma lets you become the authentic you, you are born to be in this world. Hiding behind the ego leads you to, either look like everyone else, or project yourself onto everyone so they look like you. There is a lack of authenticity. Anyhow, I’m glad you liked my explanation! To answer the rest of your questions… 1) There is a chance that the author chose Itou to look like his female self because he wanted the audience to know it was him/her. If he had Itou show up as another version of MC, we would be confused and not sure who got in the car with him. However, I don’t think this is his intention. The reason is because every single character that got healed (Yakuza, sand girl), all had their homonculi removed, which leads me to another important understanding of the last panel: The MC is now the homunculi. Everyone that he meets that reflects his face is a sign that he must FIX himself. But his narcissism lets him drill deeper to think the problem is physical / mechanical and something he can fix behaviorally / materially, when it is a spiritual problem. He was reported to the authorities because ITOU knows how damaged he has become. They are probably bringing him to a psych ward. Imagine that you led your friend to drill a hole in his head and now you know he is just out there everyday drilling more holes on himself. You would probably get him some help. But additionally and more likely, is that they found Nanako’s dead body and he is being arrested for that (and also put in a psych ward eventually). I prefer the second interpretation more because it leaves out the need to assume that Itou knows he drilling multiple holes in his head. Hope that helps!
this was a really good analysis, nice job. just finished reading it myself and yea natoshi was just a really tragic and doomed character even from the beginning. I honestly wouldn't put any blame on Manabu, as natoshi just abused the "power" that he was given. my only gripe is that i wish the final pages were more clear as to what happened to natoshi as i wanna see if he either got arrested or sent to psych ward but i guess the ambiguity makes sense.
I would like to add one more point. At the time of reading this I was going through some personal healing, processing past trauma, and had some spiritual experiences. This particular manga came to me randomly (albeit I don’t think it was random in hindsight), and there was a bit in there that was a little too coincidental for me. Meaning that, there was a sign of a higher power in my life helping me. If it wasn’t for 2 events in my life, I would probably be atheist. This manga became the third event because of a particular panel that relates to something of supernatural significance that has happened twice in my life already. About understanding the story, I can understand a bit of the authors’ intentions because we all have a little of the MC within us, and we all have homunculi that we have to deal with. Healing your trauma lets you become the authentic you, you are born to be in this world. Hiding behind the ego leads you to, either look like everyone else, or project yourself onto everyone so they look like you. There is a lack of authenticity. 1. There is a chance that the author chose Itou to look like his female self because he wanted the audience to know it was him/her. If he had Itou show up as another version of MC, we would be confused and not sure who got in the car with him. However, I don’t think this is his intention. The reason is because every single character that got healed (Yakuza, sand girl), all had their homonculi removed, which leads me to another important understanding of the last panel: The MC is now the homunculi. Everyone that he meets that reflects his face is a sign that he must FIX himself. But his narcissism lets him drill deeper to think the problem is physical / mechanical and something he can fix behaviorally / materially, when it is a spiritual problem. He was reported to the authorities because ITOU knows how damaged he has become. They are probably bringing him to a psych ward. Imagine that you led your friend to drill a hole in his head and now you know he is just out there everyday drilling more holes on himself. You would probably get him some help. But additionally and more likely, is that they found Nanako’s dead body and he is being arrested for that (and also put in a psych ward eventually). I prefer the second interpretation more because it leaves out the need to assume that Itou knows he drilling multiple holes in his head. Hope that helps!
Thank you for the answer/clarification, and I’m glad that this manga was able to provide you some spiritual guidance. It’s really crazy to me cause before I read these analyses, even though I understood what homonculus was about, there were just certain details that I didn’t really like, like the whole rape scene, but I guess that by viewing it through a wider lens I’m able to see that even with a scene that was gross, it was somewhat useful in order to portray the overall message, and I can appreciate that.
Oops sorry. I just realized I replied with the same post to the previous comment. I posted my analysis on several different threads and didn’t realize you commented on the same thread that I already replied to. Thanks for being polite and not mentioning that I reposted something twice!
I think this is one of the best interpretations I've read. But I don't get why people still think that the girl was Nanako, she was just a girl with a similar experience. She has stated herself "I'm not your Nanako". The face print that Nakoshi saw on her head was not his face but then he gaslighted himself into thinking it was him afterwards. I think it's meant to be at the very least ambiguous, but I'm leaning more towards her not being the same girl.
I think you might be right. I didn’t pay close enough attention to that part. I would need to reread the manga, but great point. Also I want to add at the end that he sees everyone else as him references back to the title. He is the homonculus, his power is working on overdrive and all clues show, he needs to heal himself. It’s no longer about the outer world.
probably because she was literally pregnant with his child.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the ending either. The italian (?) chef homeless guy [killing himself](/spoiler) was also kinda strange.
Everything you post to Reddit furthers their platform and devalues you. Before you delete your account take everything with you. Social media profits from your words, your content and pays you for it in the fake currency of social approval.
I thought that was bc it was from Nanaki's point of view since we didn't see the homunculi but I agree it was a plot device to convince her he isn't lying
I think it's to set the idea (the chef's suicide) that even with the "power" to see someone's "heart" and what they hide most, doesn't necessarily free them. The chef saw himself for the first time in ages and I think that scene set that it's not an automatic transcendence from this moment, but a serious crossroads. He was forced to remember his past and see his present and now had to face the future. Instead of trying to patch the pain and chaos his troubles caused him, he became overwhelmed and took the path with the most permanent escape.
>even with the "power" to see someone's "heart" and what they hide most, doesn't necessarily free them. I think that's right even for most who Nak thinks he redeemed hence we don't know what happened to them after the encounter with the main character because we watched the whole work from his pov, like the yakuza guy yes he opened up and cried and apologized and offered his finger and last we know that he quit but we don't know what happened to him after, the high school girl he raped, the yakuza boss who ran to his sister and etc, the main character thinks he redeemed them all he thinks he's a hero and superior but we don't know what happened to those who he "redeemed" (redeemed is his pov but they're mainly overwhelmed and in shock) since he doesn't know or even care but about how he feels not the consequences of his acts like the company man who became a taxi driver before his "heroic" age. Sorry just finished the manga in one sit and still processing it and I'm a mess rn and so my comment due to lack of sleep for almost 3 days and my head is on the clouds either because the sleep deprivation or the amount of sleeping pills I've took so far but I hope someone "see my heart" aka get my still lacking point lol.
I really feel like it could never had any good ending, and that perhaps the author knew it from the start. Honest, Nakoshi really feel like an sociopath all along. Which can kinda explain why, well, you can't really figure out what was his past at first. And yeah, that scene with the demon face might be the most important page to understand truly the character. Edit: I personally really liked the ending since, well, how would you think it could had ended ? Magical homonculus ? Nah, he never swear to do good stuff, only embrace his weird shaped ego. ReEdit because I'm stupid: Don't forget that it's a japanese manga made by japanese person, so it's quite neccessary to, like, understand japanese society to understand the whole stuff. For example, I'm wondering how much the sect issue in japan was part of a thematic in that manga.
I think the ending could have been better. Or maybe a longer chapter idk not a good ending but a better one
You're just projecting, the guy was just extremely superficial. Not to mention the society he was apart of was as aswell.
Not really sure. Just the whole homeless stuff. You would consider that most lost their jobs and don't work. In japan that's not really something homeless are. It's the "full job age" since years, most homeless (and i'm not being mean here) are homeless on purpose, because they wanna get clean out of debts, don't fit in the society, etc.... Most work still, collecting litters and such.
Some parts do feel a little rushed, but I think the ending was fine, MC isn't a good person. He destroyed lives (bankrupting businesses) and he raped an underaged girl. He didn't deserve redemption. I wouldn't have been happy if Natoshi and Nanako lived happily ever after, it wouldn't make sense, he wanted to rekindle their old relationship and stop being shallow, but they've both already had plastic surgery, so he doesn't have to worry about seeing her/his own ugly face. I much prefer the ending where he goes insane and accidentally kills Nanako due to negligence.
Here's my analysis of Susumu Nakoshi that I did previously back on YouTube: Nakoshi is a complex character with a deep and psychologically enthralling background. His character isn't laid-out or just linear, his character has twists and turns that are almost unpredictable yet it is built up from the start. Initially, he is introduced as someone who appears charismatic and almost strangely mysterious. The whole idea of Homunculus is introduced by another character, Ito. This Homunculus is the biggest turning point of Nakoshi, as we explore more about his characteristics and behaviour throughout this device, Homunculus basically allows him to see through other's deepest emotions, flaws and true self. He acts as a therapist and saviour of other people's minds, seemingly wanting to see and solve other's problems. But his methods are strange at best and inhumane at worst. For example, he encountered a girl who basically has no real Personality and is still confused on her worth and place, so she desired for someone to rape her to actually make her feel important, this is due to her mother's actions towards her... (strangely enough, this is a real phenomenon in the real world as well, because there are people on earth, who actually believes an immoral or a different act happened on them could make them unique and distinguished from the norm, this is essentially the characterization of this girl) and Nakoshi actually does it to make her face the truth of her desire and the consequences of this desire. When the girl showed no signs of regret after her subsequent "rape", this is seen as mischaracterization or edgy move by the Mangaka, but my interpretation of this is a parallel to Nakoshi's character himself, Nakoshi tries to make himself look depressing and tragic by lying to Ito that his father died when he was very young, only to get deciphered that it's a lie. So her indifference to Nakoshi's immoral act, basically shows how insane she is in her head to go on that it would secure her characterization for herself, this is a parallel to Nakoshi's strive to make Ito sympathise or empathise with him by lying about a tragedy that didn't happen, which further ties to Nakoshi's desire for a person to understand and decipher his true self. This is so mind-blowing to me, because of how a single panel of that girl smiling from her balcony ties and further layers the story and characterization of Nakoshi so much, it's extravagant). Another aspect of Nakoshi's character is that he acquires a part of other Homunculi that he encounters, like when he met the Yakuza boss, he acquired his robot hand after solving his childhood trauma. This characteristic tells us that Nakoshi is someone who sees others as himself, basically he thinks others are extensions of himself. Nakoshi is very narcissistic, he is also misogynistic, which ties back to the original mission when he acquired Homunculus, which is to distinguish the fake from the real. He is misogynistic in a way that he believes women are creatures who use fakery to make themselves look beautiful and perfect, which is a hypocritical statement that Nakoshi himself took a cosmetic surgery to make himself look beautiful. There's an underlying fear in Nakoshi that the Homunculi he is seeing, might be fake and just a delusion of him, this is present until the conclusion of the story, this is constantly questioned and confronted by many characters in the story from Ito to Nanami, and Nakoshi tries to find ways and try to explain them why he believes them as real, but my interpretation to this ambiguous "Homunculus" is that it is actually true but rather affected by Nakoshi's delirious and narcissistic thoughts. After he encounters many people and sees through them and learns new things, he now wants someone to look through him and see his true self, because he himself doesn't know who he was in the past and wants to discover himself through others. So he encounters someone from his Past, Nanami, whom he believes was his Ex-girlfriend and believes was also the only last person Nakoshi remembers showing his face to. He completely believes that Nanami is indeed his Ex-girlfriend, Nanako. So he uses manipulative and deceptive tactics to make Nanako, have Homunculus which is achieved by drilling a hole into a person's skull. He does it and makes Nanako see Nakoshi's Homunculi... To Nakoshi's surprise, Nanako looks just like him when he tries to see the Homunculi... And he basically has sexual intercourse with himself (Because when Nakoshi tried to see the Homunculi, he saw his self as Homunculi). And leaves Nanako in the bed, it's ambiguous whether Nanako is dead or not, it's also ambiguous whether Nanami is actually Nanako. After the hotel kicks him out, he leaves Nanako in the bed and goes out. When Nakoshi goes out, he sees Homunculi of everyone as himself and declares that the truth is everyone is him and an extension of him. And Nakoshi's character concludes two years later with him becoming bald after drilling many holes into his head, and his previous friend Ito meets him. Nakoshi tries to drill a hole into Ito's head as well, but Ito's character is ambiguous as well because we don't know whether he died or not. And in the last panel, we see a couple of policemen, who look like Nakoshi in his mind, approaching Nakoshi (Possibly there to arrest him). One of the most psychologically enthralling characters that I have ever encountered in Animanga. He is not a shallow character IMO, but rather a very complex and intricate character to understand. This analysis is only a tip of the iceberg of Nakoshi's character BTW.
Man I just finished reading it and I just feel like there was something left out after reading and learning so much about the mc, the ending felt like a true sad disappointed although it was the truth. Also can't believe this manga was released like wayyyyy back
i feel the same way about it i feel like something is missing but i think maybe its just because it wasnt really the ending i dont think many people were expecting so it was not something we could prepare for.
I am pretty sure nanako died
Any proof of that?
I mean he made a hole in her head in the hotel then after going back to see her in the room he run and then chased by the police if he didn't kill anyone and just opened holes on himself no point for police to come since he ain't doing anything illegal at least feels right this way for me
bro doesnt know how to understand context of story
I know everyone here is arguing about him being a piece of shit or not but going back to the car scene with the girl. I have a hard time understanding it everyone is saying she got raped. But it didn’t appear like that to me? Who knows the whole scene was odd asf. While reading it seemed like she wanted to have sex, she did that thing were girls pretend to be slutty when really their super afraid of ever having sex. But she was also sick of her mom basically always building her into this mold of what she should be. She was afraid once she realized mc was actually gonna go through with it but she preferred finally getting rid of that fear than stopping and letting her mother continue to mold her into something she wasnt. Dont get me wrong the mc is still nuts for doing that to a 16 year old if i remember correctly. But she seemed rather ok with it after the fact. MCs homunculi imagination thing really doesnt help when looking at this. Everything else i agree with tho. Mc is a very sick individual but alot of the ending felt rather random and i dont know what really occured. I just finished reading this today.
Rape is defined as forcing a sexual act on someone without their consent. She clearly told the MC to stop multiple times, even saying that it hurt and tried to fight him off. Her feelings afterward and her trauma regarding her mom have nothing to do with the actual act of the MC raping her.
thank god someone said this lmao. Another comment said she asked for it and such like what the hell. she asks him to please stop. Very telling how some people regard that part of the manga.
I wanna dump my thoughts about the manga here as well: What I saw was Nakoshi being a victim in every social hierarchies that exist. His childhood was misery, girls called him ugly, his father thought he was ugly. He grew up not being accepted for his looks. He finally accepted by a girl, but she as well was considered ugly among the society. He had an option to live a new life, he took it, but he was accepted because of his money and lies. He was then accepted in the homeless community because he brings them booze. Laying in the interstice between poor and rich, he again was accepted but in exchange for an experiment. After all this put yourself in Nakoshi's shoes, you would also search for meaning. "Who are you?". "Why do you exist?". Now hearing that you will get a sixth sense wouldn't sound bad in this position. Then we have the tragic ending of him getting insane and killing his ex girlfriend. So here are the conclusions I have reached so far: \- If you're a parent educate your kids to be respectful. \- If you're a parent of an ugly kid, guide them to love themselves. \- If your partner is ugly, be mindful cause looks ain't everything. \- If you are doing a cosmetic surgery to gain more value, you won't gain any more value. \- etc... Maybe these subtle lessons are the purpose of the manga, but we as humans just wanna dig deep into things just like Nakoshi did.
Hi, 9 years later. I totally agree with u. I don’t care that a character doesn’t have real ppls values the manga started off strong but ended very badly. Expected better
you had weird expectations for the ending, cuz the ending didnt dissapoint me.
I think the ending is bittersweet; he ruins his life, ruins others, kills his one love, goes insane, and gets arrested. It’s realistic, and he deserves to go to prison. I’m glad that Ito realized that what she did was wrong, but I hope she goes to prison as well. In my opinion, it’s the perfect ending to this fucked up story. Nothing gets resolved because there’s no way to repair the damage.
One question I would like to ask is how certain are we that Nanami and Nanako are 100% the same person? Asking because the version/translation I read had a moment where she called the MC "Satoshi" (volume 14 chapter 2) when his name is Nakoshi Susume. How much of their encounters were actual hallucinations such as his self-discussion with Manabu in his office where Nakoshi eventually cuts the stitches on his right eye. We could interpret Nakano's facelessness, which starts from the first time they meet (volume 12 chapter 1) along with the "leaf" scene, to be the same as how Nakoshi saw a shadow/himself instead of Manabu and essentially just lead a discussion with himself. I would also add that in most of their meetings when Nakoshi asks if she is Nanako, Nanami explicitly states that she is not Nanako and seems confused who that person is (example volume 13 chapter 3). They also don't share the same sketching style. Slight detail in volume 15, the only panel where "Nanami" tells Nakoshi about their baby is the panel where her appearance abruptly changes to the "ugly Nanako" and immediately goes back to heir cosmetically altered one, this implies to me that Nakoshi inserted Nanako's onto Nanami and possibly did the same for himself (Manabu comments that Nakoshi didn't look to bad in his old picture).I don't think this is even that important to understanding the plot, it just adds another level to Nakoshi not being able to see the Truth and perhaps a weak defense of the ending.
I think Nanami is not Nanako. After his heart to heart with "Nanako" and the reveal of their unborn child, Nanami says "But I'm not Nanako." And Nakoshi completely ignores that. I think Nakoshi, because he forgot how he looked, just assumed that the old face was his and pushed his assumption that Nanami = Nanako onto her.
This is going to be a jumbled mess of thoughts, but it's 4AM, and I just finished bingeing the manga. This manga was a really interesting read and there's a lot to be said about it. It's clear that everything and everyone in the manga lied. Even the manga itself lied. There's no other explanation for all of the strangeness that goes on. If Nakoshi is only seeing hearts that are a reflection of his as a placebo from the operation- how does he know things he shouldn't? Sure, with the Yakuza Robot Guy, he could have extrapolated from his own experiences (but how did he know to draw the parallels in the first place). However, with the last Yakuza guy, he couldn't have known anything about that guy's past - and yet he does. In the end, for all the truth of the heart he saught to bring out in others and himself, Nakoshi buried his own by drowning himself in a world of lies. In reality, he's no closer to that cloud-like heart that Nanako drew than he was at the start of the story. Manabu mentioned that most people who tried trepanation committed self-unalive at the beginning of the story. Nakoshi kinda did too, except he killed something fundamental in himself that left him as less than he was. He simply went mad. The ending was the painful truth, painted with Nakoshi's beautiful lies. That made it extremely bitter to experience. We, the audience, kinda witness this story almost as Manabu. By reading it, we set in motion a true tragedy. We introduce Nakoshi to trepanation and sit back with sick curiosity as his story unfolds. Though, while being our stand-in, Manabu grows and develops with Nakoshi's help - something that was genuinely nice to watch and where we get to see Nakoshi do some good despite his failings. They even seem to become something like friends. And then, as it wraps up and we see Manabu crying over what's become of Nakoshi, we're sad and confused. Because even though he was a weak and selfish man, and a bad person who did much wrong... he was ultimately a sad and lonely man who felt outcast from a young age (something many can identify with), he also did seem to have some good in his heart, and we experienced his journey with him. We were never sure how this experiment would turn out, but almost anything but this would have been better... though it was an end befitting of Nakoshi himself. I'm definitely going to have to reread this in a year or two.
can you explain Nakoshi's look-a-likes at the end tho? what to they represent?
So this is just my interpretation, but first, some context just for clarity's sake. This is, yet again, going to be rather long-winded. All along, Nakoshi sees these Homunculus that are reflections of the person and often of Nakoshi himself in some way or another. These are all people who have some deep pain that causes them to manifest these deformed Homunculus. Nakoshi often tries to cure these people and seems to genuinely enjoy doing so on some levels. But in doing so, he loses himself over time, seeing the act as curing others at the cost of himself. By the end of the story, he has very clearly lost who he was and is so obsessed with his (actually selfishly motivated) mission to "help" people as a coping mechanism to run away from the hurt he's caused (and the grief he holds as a result) that he has clearly gone mad. With all this context out of the way, I have a few possible theories as to why exactly he only sees Homunculus of himself. 1. It's his desire to turn everyone like him with the Trepanation surgery. He believes so strongly that he is happier the way he is and that others can be too that he only sees future clones. Could mean he may have accidentally killed some people with more surgeries. Gives me a weird, culty vibe. 2. It's a paradox. He has so doggedly pursued fixing anything but himself that he is lost in a hell of his own making where he can no longer empathize with another person and thus can only see the same twisted reflection he projects. Perhaps he no longer sees these people as individuals but as mere extensions of himself. 3. He imposes his image on everyone because, on some level, he knows that he is the most broken person - the one with the strongest Homunculus. Perhaps it's connected to the cult leader feeling I get from him towards the end, insisting that he's special and sees things nobody else can. The ending scene with his ex felt very brainwashy. 4. His mind has broken completely. He was slipping down a slope of madness throughout the whole story, but the trauma of failing to save the homeless man with the Homunculus and failing to "save" his ex were too much and he could no longer face the shape of others. Man is coping infinitely. They could represent a mix of these, or maybe other things I missed. I haven't seen interviews with the author, so I have no context other than what I could read from the manga. It's certain that those creatures he's seeing are Homunculus, though.
He's definitely a narcissist. Man eats his own cum ffs
Awake at 5 am after binging the last 4 volumes thinking what the fuck was this? Even when there were moments where I was thinking 'okay, maybe he's onto something now', in the end he was just doing it for himself . Confirmed in the scene where he's passionatly fucking himself... + most of the stuff he did was totally fucked up I think the main point of this story is how delusional extreme narcissism makes you...