This week, Mami tried to take her anger out on Chizuru, but Chizuru fights back! We also got a magnificent spread to put the whole Paradise arc in context, and now, with Chizuru and Kazuya alone for the first time since she left him at the chapel, we can finally look forward to Chizuru’s answer. Let’s take a look.
The plan has flown the coop and is halfway to South America
When in doubt, play the Reverse card.
Mami confronts Chizuru here. She bitches Chizuru out, levels accusations, and finally resolves to call Chizuru’s agency. Let’s think about that for a moment. Mami says she’s calling Diamond… without making a threat? Without trying to get something in exchange? This is no longer part of a plan. This is a gut reaction on her part, impulsive and in the moment. There is nothing more for her to try to extract.
Let’s go all the way back to Mami approaching Chizuru. She tries to get Chizuru on board with needing to be saved from Kazuya (183). This sets the stage for the entirety of Mami’s plan A: get Chizuru to betray Kazuya.
But Chizuru makes clear from the get-go that she is not buying what Mami is selling. She rejects Mami’s stalker framing (195), but Mami simply resolves to keep pushing the issue, culminating in their confrontation in 216, in which Chizuru firmly rejects Mami’s scheme, and Mami would ultimately go to her plan B: drop the phone and hope for the best.
But now, Mami doesn’t even have a plan. She is simply reacting. Her whole scheme has gone to pieces, and the prospect that Chizuru and Kazuya could really love each other has her completely on tilt. She is a flailing bat, desperate to prey on others’ suffering because her real hunger for joy can never be fed. She threatens to call Diamond because it will make Chizuru suffer. That’s all she has left. Chizuru calls her out on that. It’s clear what Mami is doing, and it won’t bring her happiness–it will just distract her from her dissatisfaction and frustration. She’s been exposed.
So much projection going on here I could open a cinemaplex
Just who were you talking to, Chizuru?
Mami’s schemes reflect how she sees other relationships only in the terms of the one that ended badly for her: they aren’t real or deep, and one party will betray the other when the time comes. In other words, she’s projecting her own pain onto Kazuya and Chizuru to fuel her justification for interfering in their relationship.
Chizuru’s counter that what Mami’s doing is weird is effective because it cuts to the heart of the matter: this isn’t about trying to protect Kazuya. This is about Mami’s own feelings. Chizuru can’t know, however, what Mami’s feelings actually are, so she sees those feelings, too, through a lens of her own making: “It’s not too late to reexamine how you truly feel.” Just in case you didn’t get that, Chizuru thinks back precisely on those words later.
Now what for Chizuru?
What Kazuya really wants from Chizuru (148).
The real moment of truth has finally arrived: Chizuru and Kazuya, alone, where they can unpack what’s happened since the chapel and the new lie that has been spun. Even now, it seems that Chizuru is uncertain of something, whether that be what she wants their relationship to be going forward or what Kazuya would decide to do. However, note that like last week, Chizuru refuses to explain herself to Mami: she seems to understand clearly that the answer is something she cannot speak of. She indulged herself, gave in to her desires, and broke the code of being a rental girlfriend, but she doesn’t appear to be fully on board with that yet direction just yet.
Chizuru’s defining tension is the conflict between her practical and selfless side and the part of her that is a selfish dreamer. This goes all the way back to her deciding to become an actress in the first place. It is impractical and full of risk, but it possesses her, and she doesn’t take it lightly. Being in a relationship with Kazuya would force her to make the same choice again, and it remains a difficult one for her. Time after time Chizuru has asked Kazuya about Ruka and Mami, sometimes even asking about both of them in the same conversation (138). She cedes ground when she thinks Kazuya may have made a choice to be with someone else, as in both times Ruka bluffed her about having slept with Kazuya. Some of this has to do with her attachment issues, but she rationalizes this as putting his desires first (187).
So I expect there is a decent chance Chizuru will fall back on that pattern again. She may apologize for the kiss, as it was too far to sell his lie. She may say that he can still be happy with Ruka or Mami, who clearly still feels something for him. She might even apologize for having hurt him at the chapel and claim that those two would never do so. She will not talk about her feelings.
It would then fall to Kazuya to recognize what Chizuru isn’t saying. It would fall upon him to ask her to put herself first once again, as he asked her to do by Sayuri’s deathbed. If she wants nothing to do with him, he will go away and try to be all right. But if there’s any part of her, even the tiniest bit, that wants to be with him, he would hope she would give him a chance.
And like Kazuya, I too hope Chizuru will make a decision based on her feelings and not what she thinks would be better for Kazuya. If there is a lesson for Chizuru to learn, it’s not about telling other people lies. It’s about being true to herself.
Final thoughts
- That spread!
- What is Kibe doing?
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