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The Big Scene (Heavenly Delusion / Tengoku Daimakyo Analysis + Spoilers)
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The Big Scene (Heavenly Delusion / Tengoku Daimakyo Analysis + Spoilers)

Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Abuse

The theories and impressions written here are works of personal analysis and interpretation. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.

The 32-34 series of chapters, “Robin Inazaki 1-3” in Tengoku Daimakyo have reached almost parody-creepypasta levels in spoiler-filled comment sections all across the world wide misinformation superhighway. The chapters are paired together with the explosive finale to the Facility arc, all happening in Volume 6 - they’re meant to be pivotal endings and new beginnings to both storylines.

The chapters were initially published on Christmas to great controversy even in Japan, inviting countless readers to criticize and bash the arc. But why would the author publish such risky, risque, explicit scenes "out of nowhere" in a fun sci-fi adventure romp series that definitely has no related themes of sexuality or identity going on elsewhere in the story? After painfully poring over the scenes themselves countless times, I decided to do this write-up.

To properly analyze the controversial Robin Inazaki arc, we must understand Kiruko's character first, because despite what many current fans of media think, not everything in a story is always solely about the “plot”, including in Tengoku. Just like the story trains us to pay attention to small key panels or throwaway lines and even gags to uncover the mystery of the Hiruko or the Calamity, one also has to do the same with figuring out the mystery of Kiruko’s own character.

Examples of Insecure Attachment Behavior

With that out of the way, let's begin.

Hero Complex

Kiruko's entire reason for existing is to be a "Bodyguard" - literally their career for the last 5 years, and what they tried to be when they were Haruki. To be a bodyguard is to be Useful in a transactional, secure way. To Kiruko, being loved is transactional. As an orphan, Haruki was clearly looking for guidance, and seems to have attached himself to Robin psychologically. As a father figure, as a big brother, as a gang leader, as a friend. And he didn't want to start fighting to protect others or his sister, but specifically to impress Robin alone, to get his attention and respect and love. The only way to get Robin’s love is to be a useful strong protector. If he proves that he’s useful enough times, he gets rewards in the form of gifts, like the jacket, which is how he’s been trained to understand how love is supposed to work - as exchanges and transactions. A promise between men, even.

As Kiruko, she quotes him routinely over and over in every arc preceding the Robin chapters, imitating how he fights at the arcade, telling Maru all the bits of advice she picked up from him. In a way, she thinks about Robin more than she ever thinks of or even mentions Kiriko. She even copies how he dresses, by asking for his signature jacket. Her entire concept of self-worth is tied up with pleasing Robin, and has little real self-esteem or identity outside of pleasing him. She fundamentally believes she is useless without his approval. Is this just a simple Aniki Admiration situation? What other older sibling does Haruki have that he has strong feelings for? I guess we’ll get to that later.

Haruki and Kiruko idolize Robin obsessively, and like all delusions in this series, they are meant to be shattered.

However, things rarely turn out the way she hopes as she tries to be cooly independent - when the situation turns dire, Kiruko desperately screams out for help. This destroys her whole reason for existing, her entire identity. Robin never asks for help. If she can't be like Robin, who can she be? If she has to be protected, if she can’t be useful to someone, why should she even exist at all? What use is a man who can't fight and protect others? What use is a boy who cries so heavily and needs to be saved? Where does this complex even come from? What happened during Haruki, Kiriko, and Robin's time growing up together? We only get a brief flashback of their life together, and not even a single scene with all of them in the same room.

After Maru confesses again after the assault, promising to "Protect her", Kiruko throws his words back and says her whole existence is worthless if she has to be protected. She's "The Bodyguard", after all. This is similar to her previous ambiguous soft "rejection" on the boat - where she simply says "I'm a guy", without actually responding to Maru or telling him she simply doesn't like him flatly and objectively. Keeping people at arm's length is her specialty as a bodyguard, after all. Hesitation of intimacy.

To make a quick aside, the author Masakazu Ishiguro’s debut manga was a one-shot he wrote after being on the precipice of graduating college - would he pursue a normal career, or try to become a mangaka? So he made “Hero” in a week and submitted it to a magazine - and won. The plot is about when a standard superhero, who’s actually an immature teenage boy, starts to have an identity crisis and feel worthless and useless after the local evil villain group disbands as they go on to try and get normal jobs as regular everyday citizens. After throwing a tantrum, one of the villains tries to cheer him up, and eventually they both enter college together.

The idea that one will never be needed by others unless they have some objective “purpose” as a “protector” or other such career or practical identity, is a strong potential throughline between “Hero” and Kiruko. In the end, Hero finds love in another person who simply loves them as their normal everyday self despite their own insecurities, even if they’re not saving the world anymore or having some grand purpose.

To return back to Kiruko, her story she tells Maru on the boat is not a purely objective flashback as with the Facility scenes, but something she tells him as a show of trust and bonding, and also a story to hopefully scare him away at the same time ("KEEP OUT", the specifically non-locked Locked Door says flat in the middle of the page), and also testing his dedication and resolve as insecure people always do (she does the same when asking Maru about Mikura, if he “falls in love easily”). Or similarly, remember the scene in the hotel, where she says “I used to be a boy, so I’ll let you touch me if you truly accept that weird part of me…”. This is not a rejection, but a conditional invitation that she’s probably not even aware she’s making.

The point of all this is to hammer down the basic obvious point that just because a character says something in Tengoku Daimakyo, doesn’t mean it’s the truth, or the whole truth, or even their own truth. Just like Juiichi’s storytime flashback, he conveniently left out major details he wanted to keep hidden such as his true revenge plot, even though everything else was accurate (as far as he was aware). Or the Director saying there are “Monsters outside” - figuratively yes, physically no (well…). Kiruko had forgotten she used to cry heavily as a child (perhaps causing the desire to be a strong protector as a reaction), as one example. For all intensive porpoises, Kiruko doesn’t know herself very well. She also insists she only "looked up to Robin" and didn't like him romantically to Maru, however…

The Kiss That Wasn't

A controversial point here is that Kiruko not only viewed Robin as a masculine idol figure to try and imitate and get the respect of, but also as a romantic figure. It's unknown when or where these romantic feelings started - were they always there even as Haruki but got confused by gender biases, or did they only start becoming as such after becoming Kiruko influenced by Kiriko's residual feelings for Robin - but nevertheless, they're there and very apparent. If she loved one older sibling, it's not too much of a stretch to love the other. If Haruki was originally a girl all along, many readers might suspect she was a "bro-con" in a similar way for Robin as Haruki is with Kiriko, with how overtly romantic she talks about him and reacts.

In what is my opinion the most pivotal and yet also overlooked scene in Chapter 32, Robin whispers seductively right into Kiruko's ear, calling her "Haruki" repeatedly, holding her shoulder softly with a loose grip, instantly switching up his aggressive behavior from before. We then get a rare, once-in-a-series possible shot of Haruki's inner consciousness, still as male Haruki, crying with an ambiguous look of what seems like relief. Kiruko then appears to be lost in thought, muttering Robin's name, then suddenly turns to him expecting to be kissed and embraced (as matched with the previous Tarao/Tokio attempted and rejected kiss), but he turns away and says "No" as he's covered in menacing shadow, beyond her reach. The promise of love, rejected.

Not only is Kirukos behavior here telling, but Robin's is too. He was deliberately baiting Kiruko/Haruki into reacting like this in order to emotionally reject and hurt her, as if he knew she would try to turn towards him expecting a kiss - almost as if he's done something like this before, or expects this reaction from Haruki.

Perhaps this is some of Kiriko, a likely former lover of Robin, coming out and taking over Kiruko's identity already and transforming her former platonic admiration feelings into some kind of confused romantic ones instead. One of Ishiguro’s intentions for Kiruko’s character as stated in the guidebook was exploring how a change of gender could alter one’s social relationships with the people in their lives. Or maybe there's a hidden part of Haruki's past she doesn't remember, where he was sexually abused in similar ways. Or maybe Haruki’s mentally unhealthy clinginess to ‘family’ members caused him to mix admiration and romance together into one. Regardless, this is the moment Kiruko's spirit truly breaks. Robin forces her again to look in the mirror and dissociate as he says he has "something to take care of" with Kiriko. In other words, a full rejection of her mind and body as Kiruko. Even her new chosen female name isn't acknowledged, even though it's the name the receptionists told Robin to set up the meeting, so he definitely knows about it. Robin doesn't want Haruki, or Kiruko - he just wants Kiriko's body. Not even Kiruko’s body, but someone entirely different. Maybe if she could only become someone else, then maybe…

Some fans were so shocked by the event that they made theories that Robin was brain swapped for years, but of course this is pretty clearly spelled out by the story that Robin was totally unaware of brain swapping technology, and didn’t even know Dr. Sawatori could do such things back when he was aware of him in Asakusa. He only found out when Kiruko told him. It literally was just Robin, himself, in the flesh, doing these horrific things. That’s the point.

Escape

Although Kiruko was first bound by metal handcuffs, at some undetermined time over the 2-3 days of the assault, they were replaced with easily removed ropes instead, which she pulls apart the instant she sees Maru arrive. So, why didn't she attempt to escape prior?

From the author Ishiguro's own words,

SOREMACHI FANSITE

"As for chapter 33 of Tengoku Daimakyou, I wrote the story wanting readers to think 'Why didn’t Kiruko run when able to?', so I would be happy if readers try to think about Kiruko’s feelings."  -Masakazu Ishiguro

One might postulate about various practical concerns for why she might not have escaped - there are armed guards, she's not physically capable, etc., but the author points out that it's primarily about her feelings. Wanting to just simply obey can at least make Kiruko feel useful to the man she once respected and loved. An abused child may resort to being treated more like a pet, an object, or even a psycho-sexual science experiment, if they think they can at least get some form of love out of it from their otherwise cold and abusive parents or lover. Anything is sometimes better than nothing to desperate victims. To be useful and follow orders from your superior is one of the primary life goals of a bodyguard, after all.

Mercy

Probably the biggest source of criticism over the scene from readers comes from Kiruko begging Maru to not kill Robin as he’s brutally beat into the concrete. If a villain does something so evil as raping our hero, something worse than even genocide (The Rumbling...), they should be punished accordingly by being murdered. That's why fictional stories exist! To impart proper moral lessons about crime and punishment when it rarely ever happens in the real world, to show how fiction can be better than reality! To teach people how to act in real life!

Most of these complaints are given by childish readers who want a simple "Rape Revenge" story, where sexual assault only happens to give a masculine hero figure just-cause to freely murder someone in a thrilling fulfilling action scenario (think zombie media), usually rescuing a damsel princess as an quest item object prize. While a very good series and scene overall, the Eclipse rape of Casca in Berserk is an infamous example that all such seinen scenes inevitably get compared to. Griffith starts assaulting Casca as Guts is pinned down and forced to watch, as he screams out Griffith's name in a bloodthirsty roar. So, what was Casca feelings during that infamous scene? What was her perspective? She doesn't really matter here, does she? Not any more than a prop for a revenge story - even if the message may ultimately be that Revenge Is Wrong. Some readers even resent her for possibly "enjoying" it, betraying the reader's - Guts' - own romantic feelings for Casca, the androgynous tomboy.

Tengoku, however, places the "POV" squarely in the mind and eyes of the victim themselves, even seeing inside her consciousness. To force readers into the perspective and body of the "Female MC", even as an androgynous tomboy, they feel a sense of betrayal from the author. They start immediately trying to identify with Maru instead, as he aimlessly wanders outside for days wondering what to do, frustrating them immediately. They want to Beat Up The Villain and Kill Him.

But Kiruko says No.

How many abused children or partners of abusive loved ones are able to simply kill their abusers? How many lifetimes does it take for most abuse victims to even admit they were abused in the first place, or that they didn’t deserve to be treated that way? Even if they hate their abuser with a burning rage, they also feel guilt for hating someone they're "supposed to love", ashamed that they could be "such a bad child/partner", and so on. The emotional manipulation of familial abuse is what sets it apart from abuse from total strangers, and it’s the key reason why it’s so prevalent and almost impossible to escape from. Most victims are trapped in their abusers' prisons, either materially and financially, or mentally and emotionally. Abuse isn’t a fun cartoon or action plot quest - abuse terrorizes and transforms the mind itself to try and train them to love their abuse, making their hearts believe it’s the only way to receive love.

The Robin Inazaki arc is sandwiched in between the Juuichi and Helm revenge stories for a reason. Both side characters get their revenge by murdering their abusers / betrayers in the end, even though neither were people they had any emotional connection with. Still, their revenge took over their lives, it’s all they lived for or cared about, just like how Kiruko only ever cared about finding Robin again. But like the rest of the series has shown, from even the Innlady battery scene at the very beginning, Kiruko and Maru are more moral than most, and more sentimental than many (Kiruko cries almost every chapter). Kiruko cannot bring herself to want to murder her abuser or bring her companion to murder him either. This is only natural for most human beings, who do not have a willing capacity to kill.

Maru having an untapped lust for fighting and being ferociously strong might come into play as a potential hazard for their relationship later - perhaps while Maru is also feeling torn over his penchant for killing man-eaters. Then again some readers also say “Why didn’t they just kill the ice ice baby?” so I wonder if most people just think everything is like a sociopathic min-max videogame.

Mirrors

Potentially the most shocking and disturbing part of the assault is Robin's deliberate and pointed attempt to psychologically torture Kiruko, as opposed to using physical violence. Robin turns her to a mirror, and in a dazed shock, she can't see “herself”, whoever that even is now - she can only see "Sis".

It's the type of scene you don't see in many published manga - or published fiction in general. Probably only in something like Oshimi Shuzo's works, or niche genre fiction erotica. The gender bending twist as well as the "cheating" angle adds a lot of controversial bait to the mix, as Kiruko dissociates into the mirror as Haruki again, to "watch Kiriko's body" from the reflection. It’s layered, like an onion. This is a targeted attack on her Hero Complex to protect others but being too weak to do so, and likely also Robin bragging about how he slept with Kiriko while Haruki was in the same room back when they were growing up (more to come later).

It's also targeted sexual emasculation, with clear power plays of an adult, masculine, aggressive, heavily muscled male showboating how much more powerful he is, over the weaker, younger, over-emotional, potentially bi-sexual and gender-mixed-up “boy” who’s become a woman, treating her as a sexual experiment. This is sadly a more common real-life sexual abuse scenario than some may realize. Some of the worst cases of abuse are those who are not easily classified into simple boxes, and who thus more easily fall through the cracks of society’s protection.

This isn't of course the first time we see Kiruko with mirrors in a sexual manner - one of her major introductory scenes in Volume 1 is all about sexually admiring herself - or Kiriko's self - in the mirror, setting the tone for an undercurrent theme of intimate atypical sexuality, identity, and self-reflection in the midst of a sci-fi mystery story. Even in the hospital after the surgery, she discovered her new reality by looking into a mirror, whispering “Sis…”. Someone who can't trust or be intimate with others will have to find some outlet for intimacy, even if it's staring at a mirror at themselves and their own past life memories (sister), not to other people or the future (Maru). If nobody can love you due to your own trust issues and self-depreciation, maybe you can at least tend to your own body in private.

She stops referring to herself as Haruki after the assault as well, tearing up her old photo of her old boy self with Robin - the two concepts are inextricably linked. There is no "Haruki" without "Robin" in Kiruko's mind, for Robin also represented the idea of recapturing and reliving the past, his masculine hero idol. If only she could find Robin, then somehow everything would be just like it was 5 years ago! Even though she…has a very different body, a very different life, Kiriko’s dead, everyone she knew at Asakusa is long gone, and Robin probably has moved on too. What was she going to do, join his rogue Reconstruction crew? Be his secretary servant? It was always a sad pipe dream from the start.

Note also where Robin's hand is held in an usual way in their iconic photograph together, hovering over Haruki's chest where Kiruko's future breasts will be. Perhaps foreshadowing, or backshadowing - Haruki's identity was tied together with some kind of deeper sexually-tinged abusive complex relating to Robin, and she's making roads to try and separate from him - but not completely, just yet. She's still wearing his jacket, after all.

But instead of just looking at the surface level of the glass, who is Kiruko actually "mirroring"? Why did she start wearing Robin's jacket and obsessing so much to impress him? How much of her psychological complexes is about trying to mask and imitate others to compensate for what she feels are her own extreme inadequacies? Self-reflection is a one way street, and other people need to interfere every so often to interrupt and crash the feedback loop.

To sum up, Kiruko uses mirrors three pivotal times in the series so far:

  1. After waking up in the hospital, saying "Sis…"
  2. In the innhouse, where she tries to kiss her or rather Sis’s reflection
  3. When Robin forces her to look in one, and she only sees "Sis…"

Will Kiruko someday be able to look into a mirror, and not be able to see her sister anymore, but finally recognize her own reflection as Kiruko herself, just as Maru does? Not Kiriko, not Haruki, but Kiruko? Will it be tragic for her, joyful, or bittersweet that she can’t see her sister again, but finally can accept and love herself? Will she ever own her own body, or is it just a borrowed rental for life?

Kiriko

Following the assault, Kiruko gets lost in thought and suddenly recollects some of what she assumes is Kiriko's residual memories "from her body". The image she sees is of Haruki sleeping, with the text "Haruki always sleeps really well, so..." leaving most fans to assume Kiriko and Robin were having sex in the same room while Haruki was sleeping. In episode 3, an anime-only scene was dropped of two people holding hands on a bed - suggesting a similar implication. Robin's taunting using the mirror suitably fits this angle as well. It still could be something else, however.

She then seems to consider, and LOVE the idea, that she might actually be becoming Kiriko, as if her sister's memories will eventually overtake Haruki/Kiruko's own identity itself. As she mostly loses Robin as a figure to imitate, she switches to another older sibling figure to mirror - Kiriko herself. It would essentially become a way for her to bring her sister back from the dead, by becoming her idolized big sister entirely. Perhaps this is what Robin's so-called psychological "experiment" was for? Will Kiruko eventually have a choice to sacrifice "herself" for the sake of bringing her sister back, considering her own extreme low self-worth? What will Maru think about that, someone who already claimed he wouldn’t love Kiriko? Is Kiruko trying to embody her former big sister and be with Maru, to live out Haruki's former fantasy of being with his older sister in a sad desperate role-reversal?

After the “kiss” scene,

Kiriko’s scenes in the manga are few and far between - compared to Robin, she has very little presence. Kiruko rarely ever even mentions her to Robin. How much of Haruki’s “siscon”ism was simply the bias of being a boy fixated on his older sister in the same confused ambiguous way she has for Robin? If she was a girl, would people think differently? Did things get flipped during the brain switch, where before she loved Kiriko and wanted to become Robin, and now she loved Robin and wants to become Kiriko? Did Haruki subconsciously know of Robin and Kiriko's relationship, and thus attempt to try to become either like Robin to be in his place with Kiriko, or to become Kiriko so she can be in her place together in a relationship with Robin? How much of her seemingly current stability up to chapter 55 is based on this idea that she can become Kiriko and bring “everything back to normal”? Or to dig even deeper, is Robin himself a metaphor for being a man and masculinity, and Kiriko for being a woman and femininity?

And can Maru be the ship that breaks the circle?

Maru

After the assault, her image of Maru becomes slightly distorted, almost idolizing him as some pure angelic figure - just like it was with Robin, and possibly even concerning Kiriko - and hating herself all the more. She also tries passing him off to Helm "for his own good", failing miserably. He's simply too dedicated to her. As he said on the riverside, Maru loves Kiruko completely and unconditionally - not as Haruki, or Kiriko, but her unique new self, whoever that is.

Kiruko can't understand unconditional love, however. She always has to provide a service, or be useful, or have a "mission", to justify being with someone, even Maru ("Finding Heaven" "Being a Bodyguard"). As she said herself, “If I have to be protected, why should I even exist!?”. If her abilities are threatened (loses her gun, etc), what will happen to her? So while she rejects Maru's proposal to protect her, she still grows closer and closer to him regardless.

While they've flirted throughout the series, it was more as teasing gestures here and there (cram school), while after volume 6, they're more directly affectionate and even physical, which was always only from Maru's side before. It's a minor shift, but a shift nonetheless. She's still very insecure and 'testing the waters', and is still too ashamed to say or do anything too directly, or else risk rejection. Even the slightest expression is enough to make her apologize or feel rejected. Her attachment is still insecure and full of anxiety.

For Kiruko, Maru has officially become her new "focus" in life as of recent chapters, as a new mission for her Bodyguard lifestyle - hopefully, this will work out for the best for the both of them, as developments always do in Tengoku Daimakyo! I'm sure nothing can possiblie go wrong. What are Shiro and Mimihime up to these days again?

Note how her “confession” of focus changed from Chapter 4, from attempting to kiss her sister’s image in the mirror, to in Chapter 53 confessing to Maru. From past, to present/future. From self-reflection, to outward outreach. Is this healthy relationship and psychological progress for our heroine? Maybe it’s 2 steps forward, and… after all, she’s still too embarrassed to say anything out loud to anyone else yet still, or actually properly communicate her feelings to him. Haruki was also ruled by the “Hell of Patience”, and likely never told Kiriko his true feelings, while Kiriko thought he wasn’t the best at dealing with relationships. She rarely opens up about her feelings, she hates showing vulnerability, she cannot really control her emotions properly, and her sense of identity is shaky at best. That’s our Kiruko! That’s why we love her! (Also she looks badass)

Also note again that both times Kiruko “rejects” Maru, they’re both soft or false rejections - on the boat, she simply says “I’m a guy” and expects Maru to just give up on her and “find someone better” (self-depreciating), but never clearly tells him she’s not interested herself. The second time is by the riverside, where Maru’s confession to “protect” her is rejected, but not specifically the full confession itself. Maybe the third time will be the final charm, as the increasingly less immature Maru finally stumbles through his next confession the proper way.

Roles

Just what IS Kiruko? We just don’t know. Is she a boy, a girl, is she Haruki, Kiriko, or Kiruko? Is she a bodyguard, or someone who needs to be protected, too? Is Maru a little brother figure or a boyfriend? Is he the protector or protectee? Was Kiriko a big sister, Haruki’s crush, a feminine role model, or even his mother figure who raised him? Is Robin a big brother figure, a father figure, a masculine role model, a romantic rival for Kiriko, or a romantic target? What of the furtive hermaphrodites, so easily forgotten? Are Hiruko monsters, aliens, or humans? Is Tengoku Daimakyo a sci-fi mystery thriller, an adventure slice of life, or a genderbending romantic comedy? Where’s the line drawn between admiration, desire, and love? Can anyone or anything be classified so simply and easily? To answer, or not answer, these questions, we should refer again to the author:

SOREMACHI FANSITE

“In order to write realistic characters, I think you need observation, experience, and analysis of oneself. You should try not to make characters say unnatural lines when trying to progress the story. To come up with natural dialogues, thinking about what kind of dialogues you have with your family and friends is good. People are complex and you can’t attach labels to people such as “tsundere” or “younger sister”. I wanted to express this in my manga.” -Masakazu Ishiguro

The Mystery

Why should anyone care so much about Kiruko’s weird personal issues? Isn’t the real mystery plot about the big meteor thing? To explain further, Japanese mystery genres can be loosely grouped into two different varieties, or eras - “Honkaku” (Orthodox) or classic who-dun-it mysteries popular before World War 2, and later “Shakai-ha” (Social) types which focus much more on society and characters, with the mystery being more of a footnote, like a cop crime procedural where there is no real deduction at play but a social message. There are also “Henkaku” (Unorthodox), which cover more intense meta mind-bending logic puzzles. Towards the 1980s, a new school attempting to combine different styles appeared, “Shinkaku/Shin-Honkaku” (New Orthodox), having intense puzzle games meant to appeal to diehard mystery fans, and also deeper psychological and social exploration at the same time, attempting to balance the two on the edge of a knife, trying not to make either one fall. Where does Tengoku Daimakyo lie?

On another note, being a huge mystery fan, the author of Tengoku Daimakyo has stated a major inspiration of the story comes from the famous 90 year old Japanese mystery novel, “Dogra Magra”, a name which shows up as an influence for many Japanese media creators. You can read a short summary here, but it seems like it’s the type of story that’s impossible to summarize: 

https://www.themodernnovel.org/asia/other-asia/japan/kyusaku-yumeno/dogra-magra/

It is a detective novel (sort of) but also about what can best be described as psychological aberration. One of the main characters (who may be dead when the novel starts) maintains that everyone, without exception, is somewhat mentally deranged. We meet our unnamed narrator. I say unnamed as, at the beginning, even he does not know his own name and the medical staff will not tell him because they want him to discover it for himself. In fact, we later learn that his name is Ichiro Kure or rather might be, if he is indeed Ichiro Kure, which he might not be. He is in a cell in a mental institution and has just woken up. He has no idea why he is there or, as I said, who he is.

It seems that Dr. Masaki has come up with a technique which would allow someone to completely change the psyche of another person, so that they could effectively be controlled. Wakabayashi tries various means to prompt Kure to remember who he is, including dressing him up in a student uniform, taking him to see the young woman next door, and taking him to Dr. Masaki’s office, where he hopes Kure may recognise various items. The next part of the novel is where we learn some of Dr. Masaki’s views. These include the idea that everyone is insane, that the idea that thoughts come from the brain is nonsense (they come from every cell in our body), and that all humans are basically wild beasts.

This is an absolutely brilliant novel. Half the time, you have no idea of what is going on or if the person speaking is who s/he says s/he is, made even more complicated because that person may himself or herself be unaware of his or her true identity.

Why did it happen? (or, "what the fuck did I just read")

Why did Ishiguro sensei put in this random extremely disturbing arc in the middle of such a fun-loving adventure story, where everyone has happy endings and nobody ever gets betrayed? Is he just like, some fucked up guy? Is he like every other edgy seinen author who throws in scenes like this without even thinking twice?

The fact that our main hero/ine is a "boy-turned-girl" gender-changed character, in her sister’s body she had confused taboo sexual feelings towards, being sexually abused in this specific way by her former male idol, with some kind of strange homoromantic? feelings towards "another man", or maybe even androphilic feelings towards a man as a woman, or something ambiguously in between as often happens in real life - being dehumanized, repeatedly called her former male name, humiliated and called weak specifically as a male - is something that could only happen to a character like Kiruko, and not a "conventionally female" Main Character. This is why many readers who aren't familiar with these specific experiences simply cannot wrap their heads around it, because they lack perspective. This is one possible reason why so many readers find the arc “distasteful”, because it's weird and kind of 'gay', or something. Why couldn't the abhorrent sexual abuse have been a bit more like, mainstream and, like, normal? Why did it have to throw in that weird identity gender sibling mirror stuff and not just like, some weird sex toys like normal? Something the readers don’t have to feel ashamed or embarrassed over telling their friends about, since that’s what truly determines if something is good writing or not? Something they don’t have to feel like a pervert over for reading and maybe even finding disturbingly captivating in a literary sense?

The idea that a victim could have loving feelings towards their abuser, or beg someone not to murder what is basically their father, is too abhorrent for most to even question, even though that kind of love tends to be what keeps victims in a victimized state for so many years through emotional manipulation - like children who love their abusive parents, or partners that love their abusive partners. Or pets that love their abusive owners.

The other criticism is that it wasn't followed up properly in later chapters, but what example of SA are they comparing this with? Something in real life, or something from another story? Should she have been Casca'd and been brain wiped for 30 years? Is there a "right" way to recover from being abused? Or, maybe there's no right way in "real life", but in "fiction", it should only be depicted a single way in order to promote a particular safe moral message for all the would-be abusers in the audience? What safe moral guidelines for psychological help exist in post-apocalyptic 2039? Is it realistic for the story, or “responsible” for a modern day message?

Four long eventful Facility-focused chapters after the event, the very first time we finally see our duo again has Kiruko immediately riding a broken bicycle which collapses under her, while refusing Maru's help or support. She stubbornly puts on a brave face, before secretly calling herself “trash” later that night. This is also how many people deal with escaping from abuse, not just with constant tears or histrionics or overdramatic PTSD episodes. But terrible, awful, no good coping mechanisms. She doesn't need help. She doesn't need to be protected. She's not good enough to be protected, since to Kiruko, for some reason, to be protected is to be loved, and for her to be loved simply makes no sense at all if she hasn’t earned the right yet. Maybe she can just find another target to protect as a bodyguard…like Maru.

The bike is a metaphor for Robin, by the way.

Why did Robin have to do all that, though? Well, could anything Robin have done achieved the same effect of even remotely shattering her idolization of Robin? A purely violent attack? Maybe revealing his experiments to her? Imprisoning her? Strapping her to train tracks while twirling his mustache? No, of course not - she might've rationalized other acts in any number of different ways, because Robin was her god and idol her entire life. It needed to be targeted, direct, and also play on the gender/sexuality themes already inherent in Kiruko's entire characterization, so it had to be sexual. While critics complain about the Robin arc, and say it was "unnecessary" and "gratuitous", they rarely shed the same shade on Juiichi's or Helm's arcs detailing extreme abuse and systematic slavery of children. The unique flavor of the Robin arc is what people find distasteful - they would be fine with it if it was more "conventional" and “vanilla”, maybe if he acted more like a Fist of the North Star or Mad Max goon and got heroically killed in the end, or didn't play on specific gender and sex and sexuality themes conventional readers find strange and unusual, weird and bizarre, just as they find Kiruko herself deep down - maybe wishing she could just be a ‘normal’ ‘real’ female main character instead of whatever taboo mix of traits she actually is. But Strange is the name of the game in Tengoku Daimakyo, and Robin arc was a wake up call to both Kiruko and readers together.

To make the main character of your story, who the audience is supposed to sympathize with and cheer on, to have such an unusual taboo sexuality, to have a complicated identity and gender, to have layered and damaged psychology, to make many many mistakes through their struggles, might possibly be meant to help us sympathize with such people in the real world and not simply tear it up and handwave it all away as “ah, it’s just some fetish trash”.

Dangling Plot Threads

Everywhere Robin’s been, he’s been performing experiments - in Asakusa, in the settlement Dr. Usami was at, and now at Ibaraki facility. Missing people, rumors of human experimentation (spreading rumors on Sakota or Usami for what he was doing instead), follow him wherever he goes. Complaints about how "there was no follow-up" make little sense, considering people would say the same thing about other plot events that took 30-40-50 chapters to fully materialize. His Reconstruction ties, his Hiruko + Human combination experiments, are all things that can tie Kiruko’s personal drama back into the main plot materially, even though it’s already relevant thematically. Kiriko’s mysterious murder is also a lingering thread that will likely tie many things together.

Just what “experiment” was Robin trying to do to Kiruko? Was this entire memory-recollection phenomena something Robin was deliberately trying to invoke in her, to poke and prod and torture her, in order to learn something about how Hiruko and Humans can combine but not “lose their minds” as the human subject in the locked room at the end of chapter 34 did? If Kiruko can become both “Haruki + Kiriko”, then maybe humans can become “Human + Hiruko” without losing themselves, being consumed, or becoming monsters.

There are many more questions: Did he really have a relationship with Kiriko? Who was Robin’s sister and will we get a Robin flashback arc? Did he abuse Haruki as well when they were younger? Is Kiruko and Maru's ship going to sail, or crash and burn under her own unhealthy coping mechanisms? Is Kiriko a Hiruko? Why is Kiruko’s damn hair RED? What’s the secret to immortality? Who’s going to perform brain swaps now? What was Mikura’s life as a brain-swapped adult like, compared to Kiruko’s? Are the owls what they seem? Who shot Mr. Burns? Why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food? Will Kiruko ever get her revenge, from her own hands?

As Kiruko travels over to her old orphanage in Osaka soon, I'm sure we'll get more answers - and more questions, as well, as always.

See you, bye bye!