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thoughtspresso · 9 months

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Aqua plans to die.

And his death will be necessary to take Kamiki down.

While the full details of Aqua’s revenge plan isn’t entirely clear to all of us yet, his intention to place himself in danger as he tries to take Kamiki down is a very clear, and very crucial part of the plot that he anticipates.

Before we can dive into how Aqua is going to achieve his revenge, we need to back up a little bit and understand who he is as a person, how he makes decisions, and what he personally wants.

What is Aqua’s Goal?

From a top-level view, Aqua has a singular emotional goal:

Aqua wishes to take responsibility for the deaths of his mothers.

Aqua/Gorou absolutely believes that after two lives of the same thing, that he was the common denominator. He was the fault his mothers both died, because he was useless and helpless. Had he never been conceived, and more crucially, if his mothers did not have to lie about his existence, they would have both stayed alive. If Gorou’s mom didn’t have to conceal the pregnancy from her parents, or did not have one at all, she would have lived a long life. He believes that perhaps his second chance at life was to save Ai, but he was paralyzed and helpless during her murder. He blames himself for Ai’s death too.

This is a driving force in Aqua’s character, and informs all of his decision making, even to the detriment of his own plans most times. It leads us to his supplementary goal:

Aqua wants to keep the people he loves safe.

Whether it was shielding Ruby from entertainment or making sure she’s in a safe agency with good group members, or Akane not going too far in enacting his revenge plot for him, or Kana from steering clear of a career-ending love scandal, Aqua’s key traumas has led him to feel compelled to take action and do whatever it takes to save people if he had the power to do so.

Here is a breakdown of Aqua’s plans, and some key questions we have to ask about each one.

1. Why make a movie called The 15-Year Lie? And what is “Ai’s true wish”?

I have reason to believe that Ai’s DVD for Aqua would have either been a message about wishing to be loved truly and be hated with full honesty for the person she really was, that she wanted her actual self to be revealed to people. In line with that, I think Aqua’s DVD included Gotanda’s original documentary for the B-Komachi dome event. Which is why Gotanda tried to defend Aqua's decision to reveal her secret in chapter 112, and why in chapter 108 Gotanda says about the script that “this is finally my time to fulfill that promise.”

2. What does he mean by “using Arima Kana”?

There were theories circulating that the person who texted Frill Shiranui could have been Aqua, trying to get her to encourage Ruby to play the role of Ai in the film. However, that couldn’t be any farther from the truth. As we know, Aqua was saying that Gotanda should “grow up” and understand that the most important thing for a movie is to succeed commercially first before we talk about artistic value.

If Aqua had full control over the situation, he would have just straight up casted Akane. After all, that was what he initially proposed, and even contacted her for it despite saying he’ll never have anything to do with her again. What he needed, more than anything, was for the film to succeed commercially. And with the headlining actress no longer (a) the most famous celebrity of their generation, or (b) the heralded genius of their generation, Aqua has no other options.

Except: Arima Kana.

I think the aspect of him using her or manipulating her is mainly to encourage her publicity activities. He’ll be encouraging her to do well in her work to garner more star power for the movie to really be a success, and for her to help his sister be the perfect lead for the show. He’s also going to bank on the idea that Kana will do things for him because she has a crush on him, which he only realized in Chapter 102 after Mem-cho points it out, that he can pursuade Kana to get out of the way of his revenge plot if necessary to keep her safe or place her in the spotlight to attract people’s attention for the movie.

While unlikely, he might even encourage her to stay on a little longer until Ruby gets to the Dome performance.

Or, and maybe this is my shipping delulu talking, but it can also be that he’ll try to just be around her frequently to garner media attention about their relationship. In this way, keeping her close without actually dating her could serve a dual purpose: get people talking about them and the movie, but also make sure that Kana stays safe and nobody makes a rumor of pairing her up with anybody else.

Lastly, also not super likely but another option could be to convince her to headline the show, and play Ai in Ruby’s stead.

3. Why does Kaburagi say that the film is bordering on illegal?

This is a truly crucial piece to unveiling Aqua’s plot. We know Kaburagi likes producing shows that include good-looking young people, and that seems to be his main strategy for raking in young audiences and cashing out.

So why would he have hesitated, even for a second, on a plan to cast the top talent of this young generation, on the biggest news Japan has been talking about, handed to him by a first-hand source--the son of Ai himself?

On all accounts, this would have been the perfect formula for a smash success. So why would Kaburagi say things like, “do you have enough evidence”, when everybody already knew about the University student stalker that murdered her? What was so controversial?

Unless, when they said Aqua will play the culprit, they didn’t mean the Ryosuke.

They meant he was playing Hikaru Kamiki.

Here’s what we know about the film, and what I think Aqua is trying to do:

1. Portray Kamiki in the worst possible way and destroy his reputation.

The 15-Year Lie will be a biopic about Ai’s life from when she was starting out as an idol. Ai will be portrayed as a poor girl abandoned by her parents, searching for the true meaning of love. We know that this framing will be part of Ai’s characterization because of the scenes where Ruby struggled the most:

In the search for love, they will show her falling for a young man and talented actor at Theatre Lalalai--that being Hikaru Kamiki. Once he gets Ai pregnant, he abandons her, and she runs off to the countryside to hide from the press. When Ai asked him to come visit her, Kamiki, in wanting to protect his career, attempted to send out a stalker. A few years later, seeing his kids wotagei on social media, he manages to find them again and kill Ai.

It is a complete and utter character assasination of Hikaru Kamiki, and while revealing Ai as a flawed person, draws for the sympathy of the viewers to love Ai for who she truly is. Which is exactly why Gotanda keeps insisting for Ruby to play the role, even when Aqua and Kaburagi have sensible recommendations for Akane and Frill.

At that moment, when Ai dies, Aqua will reveal his face, and openly declare that it was his father who orchestrated it all. Then he might even portray his father murdering Ryosuke himself, instead of the suicide that was reported in the media.

2. Aqua will use himself to bait his father out, and force Kamiki’s hand to kill Aqua.

The main reason why Aqua finds it necessary for the film to be a commercial success is because he needs the general public to be one hundred percent in agreement that Hikaru Kamiki is an evil man that deserves to be jailed. (Whether or not he reveals his name in the film, which he could but doesn’t need to.) This public lynching is his first control.

But here’s the thing: Kamiki didn’t directly murder Himekawa Airi and Hoshino Ai himself. At this point in time, Aqua is not aware of Katayose Yura’s murder either. And there is no evidence that connects Uehara Seijirou and Ryosuke’s suicides as murders by Kamiki’s hands.

And on top of all that, when these things happened, Kamiki was fully a minor.

Akane’s fears and interpretation was that Aqua would murder his own father because it’s the only form of revenge he could enact himself.

But she’s wrong, there’s one more thing Aqua could do: make Kamiki commit murder again. If he kills Aqua, there will now be a murder that the public agrees without a doubt was done by Kamiki himself.

He can go to jail once and for all, or he can also get stabbed by an angry fan--Aqua doesn’t care. All he cares about is that it’s a sure win, and it’s over forever. He launches his sister’s career into the spotlight, he keeps everybody safe, and he atones for the death of his mothers with his own life.

In summary: Aqua plans to get killed by his father, so that an actual murder has occurred for which he could be jailed or publicly ostracized or even killed.

And here’s why I think Aqua will fail:

Aqua’s assumptions about his father are incorrect.

He believes that Kamiki’s reason for killing Ai was because her pregnancy would ruin his reputation and career as a rising actor. That’s why Aqua tries to hit him there. And he believes defaming him might provoke him to get killed.

But I don’t think Kamiki cared about his reputation at all anymore. He left his career as an actor behind after Kindaichi kicked him out of Lalalai, and went on to graduate from Faculty of Science. He never went back in front of the spotlight, instead opening a talent agency around the exact time he believed his kids might be joining the industry.

I have reason to believe that Kamiki thinks murdering Airi and Ai was to protect his children or some other great act of justice against his rapist(s). And that even killing Katayose Yura was done because he didn’t want a liar like her to take the spotlight that was supposedly for his daughter Ruby.

I don’t think Kamiki will harm Aqua.

But I do think he will come forward and expose himself and his twisted justification, and he might even openly give interviews to the media.

Instead, I do believe Kamiki might pay attention to Kana’s honest acting--something he’s never seen before in a person, and try to get close to her somehow. And if Kamiki’s name is not revealed, and if the theories are true that Frill works for Kamiki’s agency, he might recruit Kana to join him.

All this is to say, get Kana out of this manga. Somebody, please save her.