The Paradise Arc came to a close this week. It was, without a doubt, Miyajima’s most ambitious arc yet: the only named arc in the series to go more than 10 chapters (43, in fact, and 44 in total if you count Mami’s backstory). It was Miyajima’s Infinity War and Endgame, a massive collision of multiple plotlines all being brought to fruition over two days in Fukushima, but in the end, we see what it was really all about: Chizuru coming to grips with the fact that she has fallen in love with Kazuya and can no longer ignore her feelings.
Love's taken root, but is it bearing satisfying fruit?
And… that’s all it was. Chizuru was beaten over the head with a narrative baseball bat until she got it, put under so much pressure that she finally couldn’t ignore her true feelings, but in doing so, Miyajima overlooked or outright ignored the major themes of his series. Kazuya and Chizuru replaced one lie with another, not because it was something they felt they believed in but simply to defuse the situation they were in. Chizuru does not recognize any greater truth in her feelings to justify a small lie; she merely recognizes what was there all along. Mami’s weaponization of truth and lies to serve selfish and cynical ends isn’t called out or refuted in any meaningful way; instead, Chizuru asks her to reexamine her feelings. Chizuru continues to wall Kazuya out of her heart, and even though she recognizes what he means to her now, she failed to communicate with him about Mami or Ruka, and she maintains that attitude now.
Chizuru figuring out her feelings and that they can’t be ignored any longer is progress, but it is progress of the relationship first. In other elements, Chizuru not only failed to progress her own character but slid backwards in ways Miyajima doubtlessly failed to recognize.
Paradise was Chizuru’s pressure cooker
Everything since the cheer-up date has put Chizuru’s feelings for Kazuya under the microscope. Kazuya confessed to her on their lunch date (174), which Chizuru recognized even if it was interrupted, and she resolved that she “need[ed] to do something”. It becomes clear over subsequent chapters and throughout this arc that what Chizuru needed to do was figure out a way forward. She did not feel she could accept his feelings, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to refuse him. Hence she repeatedly fled and avoided his subsequent attempts to push the issue.
The trip to Hawaiians made her putting off and avoiding the issue all but impossible. Ruka was tagging along, having tried to bluff Chizuru about proof of sleeping with Kazuya. Mami had confronted Chizuru and done enough to suggest she had some scheme in mind that could expose them and end all of this badly. Chizuru also deeply cares for Kazuya’s family and finds the attention and love they give her hard to resist. Finally, Kazuya was determined to confess to her again, bring an end to the lies, and try to move forward. All of these competing plots put Chizuru in positions where she had to balance the proper path as a rental girlfriend and her heart’s desire, to be with Kazuya in spite of everything.
What cements her feelings is the kiss. She may have kissed Kazuya to protect him from the ire of his family and friends, but as we see in 231, it has a profound effect on her. She can’t stop thinking about it. She wants one that’s real.
If that’s all there was to it, that would be a fine story, but Miyajima sabotaged himself. Chizuru may have learned something about herself, but beyond that, she has learned nothing—taken no lessons away, not even from Sayuri’s deathbed, and speaks of protecting Kazuya’s interests one minute while selfishly hiding things from him the next. Chizuru’s epiphany is born of the immense pressure she was under. It is not a signal of growth as a person, and so, it fails to resonate more broadly. Outside of this particular story, what she discovers in 231 doesn’t matter at all.
A lie to deliver a precious truth - Chizuru’s actions fail to live up to Sayuri’s lessons
As Sayuri lies on her deathbed, Chizuru remembers one of her kernels of wisdom: that a pack of lies can be acceptable if they are meant to protect or deliver something that is true in spirit (150). Later, when Sayuri awakens for the last time, she tells Chizuru that it’s okay not to come clean about whatever lie she’s worried about. What matters is that she presses forward and faces up to difficult choices (151), and Sayuri has confidence that she does.
But Chizuru spends most of this arc positively dithering. Even when she thinks that she isn’t in love with Kazuya or that she has a greater responsibility to be a professional, she lets her emotions get the better of her. She goes on the trip anyway when she shouldn’t. She kisses him when she could stand pat. She avoids him over Ruka’s bluff with the condom rather than have a conversation, and she refuses to tell him about Mami’s schemes, ostensibly to protect his feelings but really because she can’t stand the thought of seeing him hurt.
Chizuru doesn’t press forward. She mulls and mulls and mulls. She doesn’t have a plan for their future, even for a future without him.
And when she lies, she doesn’t do so to protect a greater truth. The kiss is buying time. She isn’t saying, “It’s okay because we really do love each other, and the details don’t matter.” If she were, they would be together right now instead of Chizuru saying that it meant nothing and that she will clean up her mess first.
Chizuru spent the entire movie arc relying on Kazuya only to go back to walling him out
In the movie arc, Kazuya and Chizuru were a team. They worked together. Chizuru opened up to him, telling him about her grandfather (136), telling him how much fun the movie was (167), and weeping openly in front of him (164).
To be sure, Chizuru had her moments of frankness during this portion of the manga as well, such as how she admitted she would want to have a boyfriend (179), but for the most part, Chizuru spent the Paradise Arc walling Kazuya out. She brushed him off after Ruka’s bluff (188), and she never leveled with him about that until after she dealt with that herself. She fled from his confession attempts frequently and repeatedly, going so far as to go along with any excuse to avoid having a prolonged window alone (208) and asking about Mami without clueing him in (209). Ultimately, she would face Mami alone rather than rely on Kazuya’s help, exposing him to more potential harm than the hurt feelings she thought she was protecting him from.
But most crucially, now she promises to deal with her mess on her own (231) and that she won’t let him do the heavy lifting. This is a purposeful resolve to keep him shut out. It’s a step backward; for a girl who has spent so much of her adult life with no one to turn to, she has turned one of the few sources of support away. How is that satisfying to watch?
Mami was set up as the anti-Chizuru, yet both of them were cheapened
Mami had long been primed for us as the woman who lies for purely cynical, selfish reasons, in contrast to Chizuru and Kazuya, who at least have some reason to lie for the greater harmony of their famlies. Mami’s backstory chapter (215) didn’t change that; it made her cynicism known and concrete, even while giving us a glimpse of how she might get over it.
Though Mami is given a chance at finding real peace here, having been seen through by Chizuru (230) and realizing that her destructive behavior will yield nothing, what doesn’t fit here is a lack of symmetry. Chizuru doesn’t embrace a policy of good lies explicitly, nor does she come out on the side of love being a real and sincere thing. Instead, Mami is merely a threat, an opposing force that Chizuru thwarts without learning anything from, her need to realize her own feelings aside. There is no greater meaning here. In the end, Mami was just another tool to shape Chizuru to the point Chizuru could understand her real feelings. And that’s to say nothing of Ruka, who has always been such a tool.
This was supposed to be Miyajima’s greatest arc yet, and it just falls flat
Miyajima set this up to be epic. Parallels galore. Ch. 1 vs. 218. Kibe punches Kazuya again. Ruka tries to say she slept with Kazuya again. So many characters and plotlines thrown together for two days of chaos.
In the end, Chizuru realized her feelings, and Kazuya went through a whole pit of emotions trying to get to the point he could confess again. For what? For nothing. It doesn’t matter. Since chapter 50, Kazuya and Chizuru had built a relationship (not a romantic one, not overtly) based on growing closeness and trust, yet with Chizuru actively holding her feelings back and walling Kazuya out, they are further apart than ever. Perhaps this is entertaining soap opera antics, but romance it is not.
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