This week, Mami goes full mask off, pushed beyond the breaking point, but first, we learned a little more about what Kazuya and Chizuru did, and did not, say to Nagomi about the situation. We’ll also take a look at Kazuya and Chizuru’s states of mind through their discussions with Kuri and Ruka, and we’ll compare Ruka and Mami’s roles in the story, as this bathroom confrontation is an apt microcosm for their approaches and credibility as threats. Let’s dig into it.
Lo how the mighty have fallen.
The truth, the three-quarters truth, and nothing but partial truths?
We open this week with Nagomi having summed up the situation for Ruka and Kuri. Ironically, aside from Kazuya’s family, the one person who knew absolutely nothing about the situation–Kibe–isn’t present, and we can look forward to seeing what Kibe is really doing and how he’s dealing with the news.
What’s crucial to see here, as was suspected last week, is that the truth about Ruka, Mami, and Kuri is almost certainly not included in Kazuya and Chizuru’s coming clean. The fact that Mami is a threat most of all continues to hang over all of them… and she, too, is conspicuously absent, to appear later.
That was a goddamn kiss!
Duh!
Last week we were left wondering what exactly Kazuya thinks about Chizuru’s actions. This week, we got our answer. I’m actually going to go out on a limb here: I don’t think Kazuya is as certain as he makes himself sound to Kuri, that Chizuru was just doing it to protect him. It is logical for him to say that it’s not real and none of it was: he doesn’t know what Chizuru did, not for sure, and to say that it’s real when there’s a chance it wasn’t would be compounding the lies he’s already told.
But Kazuya does have doubts. He and Chizuru haven’t been able to get some private time and unpack the whole thing. That leaves space for everyone’s favorite thing, the ever-present romcom staple: a great misunderstanding!
At least Kazuya is taking seriously the possibility that there’s something real there.
Enter Ruka, guilt trip mistress
"Mama, what's NTR?"
It’s a bit sad how Ruka’s best argument for trying to get Chizuru to back down here is to guilt trip her. She knows Kazuya loves Chizuru and strongly suspects Chizuru feels the same way (even before the kiss). As she did before when she tried the condom bluff, Ruka brings up that Chizuru supported her and Kazuya being together before and tries to guilt Chizuru into backing down.
At first, it may seem uninspiring that Chizuru simply says, “I’m sorry,” to all this, but that’s not nearly enough to satisfy Ruka. She needs Chizuru to take rectifying action, and Chizuru is, seemingly, not going to do that. Chizuru may not be ready to push the relationship forward (admittedly to my surprise, considering how much I thought she had turned a corner last week), but she isn’t offering to make it right to Ruka, either. In the past, Chizuru would respect Kazuya and Ruka’s relationship from Kazuya’s end. She asked about it repeatedly, as when they were coming back from filming the final scene in Iiyama (138) and at the lunch date (171), but she’s never deigned to support that relationship on Ruka’s side, and she’s not starting now.
Mami’s lost it, and that’s what makes her the real antagonist
Mami looked about ready to blow a gasket the last two weeks, and this time, the head’s gone into the stratosphere. We don’t have a lot to digest with Mami’s actions here, but what’s interesting is to look at the contrast between her and Ruka. Ruka confronts Chizuru, too, but is ultimately unwilling to really push the issue, despite her overall attitude. There is a line that Ruka will not cross.
Mami, on the other hand, has given up all pretenses. All along she tried to say she wasn’t that invested in this affair, that she was just annoyed with Chizuru and Kazuya lying, and so on. We saw in her backstory chapter that she has deep-seated issues with affection, love, and trust, however, and coming between Chizuru and Kazuya was a way for her to feel good about herself and affirm her worldview. Now, Chizuru has brushed aside her assault, and Mami is on full tilt.
With Mami having reached breaking point, one wonders if Paradise has really been Mami’s arc all along and not even Chizuru or Kazuya’s. Though Chizuru took a step that is almost impossible to back down from (never say never with Miyajima), it is Mami who has transformed the most during this arc, smugly bringing together her master plan only to see it all fall apart. Contrast that against Ruka, whose point of maximum pressure was when she decided to back down and allow Kazuya and Chizuru to escape the situation in 225. Ruka faces nothing transformative here; even her decision to let Kazuya and Chizuru escape doesn’t represent a permanent change of heart. We only get lip service to her acknowledging how her selfish desires conflict with Kazuya’s wants and needs. Ruka’s storyline, if you can call it that, is pathetically thin, and it always has been.
Thank goodness for Mami, or else we really wouldn’t have much of an antagonist in this manga.
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