Sumeragi Subaru ・ 皇昴流 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
limerences) wrote2013-03-02 09:09 am
limerences) wrote2013-03-02 09:09 am
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Meta Part 1: Subaru in Tokyo Babylon
This is going to be an attempt at a catch-all meta post, because I think about Subaru way too much and it's pretty easy to misunderstand what CLAMP was trying to do with his character and relationship to Seishirou, so hopefully at least parts of this will make sense, and if not, well, I'll just sound even more insane than before.
This initial discussion in particular is prompted by an article on Manga Bookshelf about Tokyo Babylon that I happened to stumble across yesterday, as well as several late-night discussions with Allie, who plays the most incredible Seishirou/desecrates ever and never ceases to amaze me with her own interpretations of the characters and their relationships to one another.
Manga Bookshelf sticks almost exclusively to what happens in Tokyo Babylon, and while I'm iffy on some of the things they discuss (it's pretty clear they're not entirely sure how to really interpret Seishirou), by far my favorite parts about it are the things they have to say on Subaru. It was such an "aha" moment because it was like someone was saying with actual words that make sense the foundation of Subaru as a character. Most of what they write about Subaru I feel is spot on, but I'm just going to quote the most poignant for my discussion:
"One personal philosophy that is stated over and over again in this series (expressed by both Subaru and Hokuto at various times) is that no person can ever truly understand another person’s pain. Most often this idea is used to explain a lack of judgement made regarding other people’s choices and decisions and a respect for their uniquely painful circumstances. But while this philosophy seems on the surface to be a grand acknowledgement of individuality, Subaru takes it so much to heart that he not only refuses to make his mark on anyone else, he also resists becoming a fully realized individual himself, as though even that might be an affront to others. He lets other people dictate his movements, his feelings, his personal appearance—he is deliberately a non-entity. And while someone else as spiritually powerful as he is might do these things deliberately to facilitate deception, Subaru does this to avoid being an influence on anyone else.
Reading it again, the word here for me is "resists." The concept that Subaru is a non-entity is essential for understanding his foundation as a character, but the idea that he is actively that way is what's really important because it demonstrates that he never started out as an entirely sound person.
So many people assume that Subaru was more or less a "normal" teenager that was manipulated by an unfeeling, even "evil" character and eventually warped because of the pain that he had to endure. The problem is that Subaru was never normal or a character that was meant to be identified with in the first place, at least not in the beginning. We're not really meant to understand or empathize with him because, frankly, there isn't much to him. Subaru lacks any sort of real definition as a character in his own right, and yet that is entirely the point and exactly what CLAMP meant to do with him right from chapter one. We can't fully empathize with Subaru, but in turn we watch him be sympathetic toward the people he comes across and helps throughout the story.
It's important I think to make the distinction here between empathy and sympathy, because while they sound the same and are often interchanged, it's essential especially in the context of Tokyo Babylon to know the difference:
Empathy - Understanding what someone else is feeling because you have experienced it yourself.
Sympathy - Acknowledging a person's emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance.
(You can also look at this page for more concrete examples.)
Subaru intentionally doesn't empathize because as mentioned in the quote from Manga Bookshelf above, one of the running themes of Tokyo Babylon is recognizing that everyone's pain is unique. It's arguably impossible for Subaru to actually empathize with the people he meets because he has yet to experience any kind of significantly painful experiences for himself. Subaru actually lacks the ability to empathize with people in addition to the fact that he deliberately avoids attempting to do so.
However it's important to realize that he doesn't do this for the outright desire to be non-entity. His motivation for allowing himself to become an amorphous character is purely out of the desire to make other people happy. It is entirely, completely selfless, which is one of the biggest contrasts between him and Seishirou - but (a lot) more on that later.
Again: this is in no way "normal" behavior. Subaru essentially suppresses and sublimates every single strong personal expression that might influence another person outside their own nature because he doesn't want to assert himself in any way that could affect their desires and happiness. He doesn't believe that it is his place to stand in the way of that happiness, no matter who it is. Yet this also stems from an incredible lack of self-worth. Subaru is all too ready to sacrifice any part of himself for mere strangers to further their ability to be happy because he holds little to no value of himself, and as a result it is entirely unfathomable that anyone would want to do the same for him.
The beauty of Tokyo Babylon's story is Subaru's transformation.
Little by little, as the manga progresses we begin to see him move from being this non-entity to a more recognizable individual of his own until he reaches a fully realized "person-hood" with outward emotions and desires of his own. Of course these emotions and desires have always been present, just suppressed so fully and for so long that he doesn't even realize that he's doing it. But eventually we start to see some cracks.
For me personally, the first significant time we see Subaru deviate from this behavior of self-sacrifice and subverting his own desires is in volume four. This is an extremely and deliberately pivotal point in the series because it is the middle volume and demonstrates that CLAMP knew exactly what they were going to do with this series from volume one. The first three volumes establish the three main characters and their relationships with each other as we understand it to have been for a while. The stores in volume four is when things begin to change, and the following stories show the distinct development of those relationships and Subaru's character as a direct contrast to what we have already seen until we finally arrive at the climax at the end of volume six and into volume seven.
In the first story of book four, Subaru calls back the spirit of a little girl who was murdered to help ease the suffering and sorrow of her mother. He hopes that the girl's spirit will ask her mother to be forgiving, but is shocked when she instead cries for her mother to punish the man who murdered her.
However, instead of encouraging the mother to continue with revenge, as her daughter's spirit is, Subaru deliberately lies to her, instead asking her to forgive and try to be happy. Here he intentionally asserts his own will and opinion on the situation to affect the outcome because he believes that it is in the mother's best interest. Instead of merely being a means to an end, an interpreter, he deliberately manipulates the situation to achieve his own, personal, desired outcome.
It's clear afterward that Subaru struggles with what he's done so much that Seishirou has to remind him that lying and having good intentions is a normal behavior (the irony being that it's entirely abnormal for Seishirou).
This development continues through to the second story in which we actually see Subaru become angry at another person for the first time. Interestingly enough, it is explicitly about the philosophy of not being able to truly understand another person's pain. Admittedly it's hard for me to say why exactly this might be so - is it because Subaru himself has so long held this as his own personal belief, a residual anger at himself for his actions in the previous story, or something else entirely? Perhaps it is that he can sense that this woman is actually being disingenuous with her motivations, or because that her misguided beliefs are actually causing more pain than happiness.
Whatever the exact reason for why it does rouse outright anger in Subaru, we get the sense that Subaru still might not have had the will to do anything directly about the threat the woman poses because Seishirou shows up to take care of it himself as though he wanted to be sure what needed to be done was done. Of course, Subaru would never actually kill anyone. Later on in the first annex story, Seishirou comments on how rare it is to see Subaru angry.
Volume five is, I think, my personal favorite, because while we get stronger hints of Subaru's individuality in volume four, in five we actually find out more about what Subaru thinks of himself and also express his own personal desires, whereas before much of what was said about his future dreams was referenced by Hokuto or Seishirou. It's also when we see Subaru finding and forming interpersonal connections on his own outside of Hokuto and Seishirou and outside of the necessity of his onmyouji duties.
More importantly, though, Subaru continues to grow into "person-hood" as he begins to speak more strongly about his own thoughts and opinions. We see a more consistent, wider range of emotion that feels more real. In the first story he displays, happiness, worry, fear, sadness, and anger, whereas in most of the previous volumes we might see one or two of these things. There's also a more concrete sense of how deeply and personally he is affected by the people he meets in this volume as well.
The final full arc of course is the most powerful story and the most difficult to read. Here Subaru continues to demonstrate his selflessness by coming to the decision to actually donate one of his own kidneys to the sick boy Yuuya. Subaru is profoundly affected not only by the suffering of someone so young, but by that of his mother who has already had to endure the loss of one child, possibly because of her own choice. While it's no surprise at all that Subaru wants to do something, the decision to be an organ donor is simultaneously one of the most extreme selfless things he could do, and yet the most selfish thing he does up until this point.
To shed a little more light on this, it helps to understand the attitude in Japan toward organ transplants and why it would be incredibly significant for someone like Subaru, who is an onmyouji by trade and therefore highly trained in a variety of spiritual practices of both Shintoism and Buddhism to decide to be an organ donor.
"Japan is a wealthy, medically advanced nation that struggles with the issue of organ donation. Japan is the industrialized nation with the lowest rates of organ donation in the world. Japan’s Shinto religion honors all things from nature, and tampering with death through organ recovery and donation goes against the natural order of Japanese culture and beliefs. Other traditional beliefs against organ donation in Japan include the superstitions associated with touching a dead body, that the body belongs to the ancestors, that death only happens when the heart stops, and that the soul does not leave the body after death. Also, charity, or helping others, is usually limited to within the family unit, and the tradition of helping strangers is also less respected than in the West. As a result, living donation among family members has been very successful in Japan.
The first heart transplant was performed by Dr. Wada in Japan in 1968. However, due to the subsequent death of the recipient and ethical concerns associated with the transplant, the public image of organ transplantation in Japan turned negative. In 1997, the first organ donation law passed allowing for organ transplantation, but it contained strict rules that continued to limit donation. For example, the law did not allow children to donate organs, nor did it clearly define death. As a result, thousands of Japanese have died of organ failure that could have been treated by transplantation. A handful of Japanese have raised money to go abroad to receive organ transplants in Western countries. In 2010, over 12,000 people were waiting for organs in Japan, and they have extraordinary long wait times. In 2009, there were only 6 brain dead donors. That same year, a new law was passed to define brain death as death, and in 2010, there were about 30 brain dead donors. The first successful lung transplant on a CF patient in Japan was performed on Christmas Day, 2010."
(Article here, bolding mine.)
This article from August 31st, 2010 in Yomiuri online paints a little clearer picture of the actual transplant rates within Japan.
The point is, the fact that Subaru, who is religiously trained, would willingly give up a piece of his own body to a complete stranger is incredibly profound, especially for that time period in Japan when the manga was published (1990-3). So while his decision to donate his kidney is an incredibly selfless thing to do, the fact that he makes that decision despite the resistance he knows he will get from his sister and grandmother, also makes it his most selfish one so far. Even though Seishirou assures him that Hokuto and their grandmother will be happy with his decision, Subaru had already decided that it was something he was going to do assuming that they would be against it is significant.
It's also within these few pages that we get a little more subtle foreshadowing into what will happen to Subaru and Seishirou in the future.
Of course it's immediately after this that we get our catalyst with Seishirou's own sacrifice of a piece of himself to protect Subaru, which then sends him into a fit of hysteria that surprises even Hokuto. We could call Subaru hypocritical for being so willing to let Yuuya's mother injure him, for putting himself in harms way for other people so frequently and yet becoming so upset when anyone does the same for him. But the thing to remember is that Subaru holds himself in very low esteem and has very little to no self-worth.
The largest source of his anxiety about what happens to Seishirou stems not just from the fact that Seishirou was hurt, but that Seishirou had to be hurt because of Subaru. Even though it's clear to the reader that Seishirou does it of his own accord, to Subaru it's the fact that Seishirou even felt the need to intervene, to be inconvenienced and hurt because of him that he's terrified Seishirou will be angry with him, or even hate him. The worry that someone he cares about will have animosity toward him is what hurts him the most, and the idea that someone could actually value him as someone worth protecting is so completely foreign to him that he doesn't even consider it. Because again - as far as he's concerned, he has little value.
Of course Seishirou realizes that Subaru won't - or possibly can't accept that that's what happened, and so masterfully manipulates and phrases what happened into a way that Subaru can accept his forgiveness. Essentially he asserts that what he did had nothing to do with Subaru at all, that it was his own choice and he "just happened" to get between the two of them. These pages I think also give us an interesting hint of Seishirou's true personality and just how possessive he actually is of Subaru.
Here though of course is where Subaru's feelings for Seishirou begin to come more fully into light. Throughout the course of the entire series we are shown several moments between them, mostly in a teasing light. Every now and then, though, we get a small sense of real affection for Seishirou from Subaru, beyond just being friends. In the latter half Subaru wonders more often if Seishirou is connected to the Sakurazukamori, and usually dismisses the idea because he is always so kind. And while Subaru would probably be affected on a significant level if someone were to put themselves in harm's way for him, it still would not have been at the same depth as his reaction to Seishirou.
Hokuto, who is frequently shown over the course of the manga to have better insight into Subaru's heart than Subaru himself, says it outright to Seishirou that it's because it was Seishirou who was hurt that Subaru reacted so strongly. She has a much better insight into people's true nature than Subaru does, and at this point to me it seems pretty clear that she actually does know exactly who Seishirou is, but she still encourages those feelings in Subaru because she wants him to be happy.
It's also Hokuto who points out the change in Subaru, for by this point we're seeing him in his more realized self, and I think she puts it the best way: "It was refreshing to see my younger brother as a person...with real feelings." Just a few pages later Subaru himself declares that "There's no such thing as 'everyone,' all of us are individuals," and it appears that he includes himself in that - an individual with his own desires and emotions.
As the story ramps up to the climax, Hokuto asks Subaru what he thinks of Seishirou, and to ask himself who it was that went through the biggest change. Now, finally, we see Subaru starting to piece things together for himself, to think about his own reactions and why they were really of that magnitude, and what does he really understand about himself.
What follows is another interesting contrast in Subaru's character, perhaps even one that somewhat foreshadows a more drastic change in him that is coming. While we've seen examples of Subaru being assertive to help someone, very rarely does he intentionally cause harm. The stance he takes with the kids bullying a man and his seeing-eye dog I think is probably the the most intentionally threatening we ever see him. It's an almost "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" moment, and it doesn't ever have the chance to resurface again until we see him again in X - but by then nearly his entire nature has changed.
I could go on to talk about the sweetness in this side story, but mostly what we see is just an extension of Subaru's kindness and thoughtfulness for others as it focuses directly on Seishirou. However it does, from my point of view, have a bit more depth of emotion than many other similar stories thus far in the manga - again because it's Seishirou that he's thinking about. In a sense you could say that this is the start of the intense fixation that he develops for Seishirou because he's only now beginning to realize what his own feelings for him actually are.
The key difference between Subaru's relationship with Seishirou and everyone else, at this point, is that Subaru actually cares about what Seishirou thinks of him. That, in essence, is what makes Seishirou special to him and why he was overcome with such an emotional reaction and anxiety when Seishirou was hurt. Here Subaru acknowledges just what those reactions and that desire means, and as a result, becomes a full, real entity himself.
Of course, it's the exact same moment that Seishirou reveals himself.
Tokyo Babylon would not be half as compelling of a story if love had redeemed Seishirou. That Subaru realizes why he reacted the way he did is because he is terrified of Seishirou hating him is the same moment that that fear comes true is the the most important part of the whole story (of course, as it is the climax). If Seishirou had revealed himself, but then apparently was able to return those feelings, it wouldn't be much of a love story, frankly. In fact, it'd be rather cookie-cutter and expected. Lots of people struggle to understand Seishirou's motivations - what's the point in putting in all of that time and energy, what's the point of losing an eye if he's going to declare the whole thing a failure anyway?
You're not supposed to understand it, because you're not supposed to understand Seishirou. CLAMP deliberately left out any kind of information or insight into "who he really is" because there isn't really much to him, period. As Allie puts it, he's a "textbook sociopath," and if you want to really get a sense for why he does what he does, you should go read her meta on him, because she says it far better than I ever could and it is spot on.
But now we've come to the part where Subaru is completely and utterly torn down, suffers an incredible amount of both emotional and physical abuse from the person he just realizes he's in love with, and here's where we're supposed to empathize with him. As he destroys his heart, Seishirou reminds Subaru that things like this happen every day in Tokyo. "People betray people." While Subaru has been a witness to this, he has never experienced it for himself. Now that he has, though, it's possible for us as readers to empathize with the pain of betrayal or losing the love of someone you care about. That's when he becomes a truly relate-able character.
While I'll make a discussion of Seishirou another day, I do want to make a note that I think he could have continued with killing Subaru even after Subaru's grandmother broke into his illusion. He's definitely more powerful than her, and if murdering Subaru at that exact moment had really been his goal, he would've carried it out. As it is, it was a convenient enough excuse for him to not do it right then, but I digress.
Subaru falls into a state of catatonia, and what really strikes me about it is that nothing Hokuto says will bring him out of it. She blames herself because she clearly knew before it happened who Seishirou was, but didn't outright warn or stop Subaru. Here we see just how similar she is to Subaru, whereas for most of the manga their differences are waved like a bright red flag in our faces. She makes the decision to offer herself to Seishirou in the hope that perhaps, someday, Subaru could be happy again. Ultimately, she makes a far greater sacrifice than Subaru ever did despite how selfless he is. Only her death brings him out of his heart, which of course just adds to the tragedy of the story itself. Without her death, again, it would be a pretty mediocre affair. So even though it's painful, it's a necessary catalyst to propel Subaru forward again.
When Subaru first wakes he declares that he wants revenge. But truthfully I think that as a motivation is incredibly short lived. Both events - Seishirou's betrayal and Hokuto's sacrifice - serve to only solidify him as an individual even more. But Subaru has only ever formed two real attachments to other people in his life, and now one was dead, and the other supposedly wants nothing to do with him. The switch to want to be killed by Seishirou is driven by grief for Hokuto and the desire to see Seishirou one more time. His greatest fears had been that Seishirou would hate him, that he'd never see him again, and while Seishirou himself says that he doesn't hate Subaru (though neither does he love him), that's enough to have a small amount of hope. Hope that someday he can be reunited with the people he's ever loved - first Seishirou, and then Hokuto, once he's killed and joins her beneath the sakura tree.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2: Subaru in X, because I haven't even gotten around to talking about why he is the way he is as I play him, ahahahaha.
This initial discussion in particular is prompted by an article on Manga Bookshelf about Tokyo Babylon that I happened to stumble across yesterday, as well as several late-night discussions with Allie, who plays the most incredible Seishirou/
desecrates ever and never ceases to amaze me with her own interpretations of the characters and their relationships to one another.Manga Bookshelf sticks almost exclusively to what happens in Tokyo Babylon, and while I'm iffy on some of the things they discuss (it's pretty clear they're not entirely sure how to really interpret Seishirou), by far my favorite parts about it are the things they have to say on Subaru. It was such an "aha" moment because it was like someone was saying with actual words that make sense the foundation of Subaru as a character. Most of what they write about Subaru I feel is spot on, but I'm just going to quote the most poignant for my discussion:
"One personal philosophy that is stated over and over again in this series (expressed by both Subaru and Hokuto at various times) is that no person can ever truly understand another person’s pain. Most often this idea is used to explain a lack of judgement made regarding other people’s choices and decisions and a respect for their uniquely painful circumstances. But while this philosophy seems on the surface to be a grand acknowledgement of individuality, Subaru takes it so much to heart that he not only refuses to make his mark on anyone else, he also resists becoming a fully realized individual himself, as though even that might be an affront to others. He lets other people dictate his movements, his feelings, his personal appearance—he is deliberately a non-entity. And while someone else as spiritually powerful as he is might do these things deliberately to facilitate deception, Subaru does this to avoid being an influence on anyone else.
Reading it again, the word here for me is "resists." The concept that Subaru is a non-entity is essential for understanding his foundation as a character, but the idea that he is actively that way is what's really important because it demonstrates that he never started out as an entirely sound person.
So many people assume that Subaru was more or less a "normal" teenager that was manipulated by an unfeeling, even "evil" character and eventually warped because of the pain that he had to endure. The problem is that Subaru was never normal or a character that was meant to be identified with in the first place, at least not in the beginning. We're not really meant to understand or empathize with him because, frankly, there isn't much to him. Subaru lacks any sort of real definition as a character in his own right, and yet that is entirely the point and exactly what CLAMP meant to do with him right from chapter one. We can't fully empathize with Subaru, but in turn we watch him be sympathetic toward the people he comes across and helps throughout the story.
It's important I think to make the distinction here between empathy and sympathy, because while they sound the same and are often interchanged, it's essential especially in the context of Tokyo Babylon to know the difference:
Empathy - Understanding what someone else is feeling because you have experienced it yourself.
Sympathy - Acknowledging a person's emotional hardships and providing comfort and assurance.
(You can also look at this page for more concrete examples.)
Subaru intentionally doesn't empathize because as mentioned in the quote from Manga Bookshelf above, one of the running themes of Tokyo Babylon is recognizing that everyone's pain is unique. It's arguably impossible for Subaru to actually empathize with the people he meets because he has yet to experience any kind of significantly painful experiences for himself. Subaru actually lacks the ability to empathize with people in addition to the fact that he deliberately avoids attempting to do so.
However it's important to realize that he doesn't do this for the outright desire to be non-entity. His motivation for allowing himself to become an amorphous character is purely out of the desire to make other people happy. It is entirely, completely selfless, which is one of the biggest contrasts between him and Seishirou - but (a lot) more on that later.
Again: this is in no way "normal" behavior. Subaru essentially suppresses and sublimates every single strong personal expression that might influence another person outside their own nature because he doesn't want to assert himself in any way that could affect their desires and happiness. He doesn't believe that it is his place to stand in the way of that happiness, no matter who it is. Yet this also stems from an incredible lack of self-worth. Subaru is all too ready to sacrifice any part of himself for mere strangers to further their ability to be happy because he holds little to no value of himself, and as a result it is entirely unfathomable that anyone would want to do the same for him.
The beauty of Tokyo Babylon's story is Subaru's transformation.
Little by little, as the manga progresses we begin to see him move from being this non-entity to a more recognizable individual of his own until he reaches a fully realized "person-hood" with outward emotions and desires of his own. Of course these emotions and desires have always been present, just suppressed so fully and for so long that he doesn't even realize that he's doing it. But eventually we start to see some cracks.
For me personally, the first significant time we see Subaru deviate from this behavior of self-sacrifice and subverting his own desires is in volume four. This is an extremely and deliberately pivotal point in the series because it is the middle volume and demonstrates that CLAMP knew exactly what they were going to do with this series from volume one. The first three volumes establish the three main characters and their relationships with each other as we understand it to have been for a while. The stores in volume four is when things begin to change, and the following stories show the distinct development of those relationships and Subaru's character as a direct contrast to what we have already seen until we finally arrive at the climax at the end of volume six and into volume seven.
In the first story of book four, Subaru calls back the spirit of a little girl who was murdered to help ease the suffering and sorrow of her mother. He hopes that the girl's spirit will ask her mother to be forgiving, but is shocked when she instead cries for her mother to punish the man who murdered her.
However, instead of encouraging the mother to continue with revenge, as her daughter's spirit is, Subaru deliberately lies to her, instead asking her to forgive and try to be happy. Here he intentionally asserts his own will and opinion on the situation to affect the outcome because he believes that it is in the mother's best interest. Instead of merely being a means to an end, an interpreter, he deliberately manipulates the situation to achieve his own, personal, desired outcome.
It's clear afterward that Subaru struggles with what he's done so much that Seishirou has to remind him that lying and having good intentions is a normal behavior (the irony being that it's entirely abnormal for Seishirou).
This development continues through to the second story in which we actually see Subaru become angry at another person for the first time. Interestingly enough, it is explicitly about the philosophy of not being able to truly understand another person's pain. Admittedly it's hard for me to say why exactly this might be so - is it because Subaru himself has so long held this as his own personal belief, a residual anger at himself for his actions in the previous story, or something else entirely? Perhaps it is that he can sense that this woman is actually being disingenuous with her motivations, or because that her misguided beliefs are actually causing more pain than happiness.
Whatever the exact reason for why it does rouse outright anger in Subaru, we get the sense that Subaru still might not have had the will to do anything directly about the threat the woman poses because Seishirou shows up to take care of it himself as though he wanted to be sure what needed to be done was done. Of course, Subaru would never actually kill anyone. Later on in the first annex story, Seishirou comments on how rare it is to see Subaru angry.
Volume five is, I think, my personal favorite, because while we get stronger hints of Subaru's individuality in volume four, in five we actually find out more about what Subaru thinks of himself and also express his own personal desires, whereas before much of what was said about his future dreams was referenced by Hokuto or Seishirou. It's also when we see Subaru finding and forming interpersonal connections on his own outside of Hokuto and Seishirou and outside of the necessity of his onmyouji duties.
More importantly, though, Subaru continues to grow into "person-hood" as he begins to speak more strongly about his own thoughts and opinions. We see a more consistent, wider range of emotion that feels more real. In the first story he displays, happiness, worry, fear, sadness, and anger, whereas in most of the previous volumes we might see one or two of these things. There's also a more concrete sense of how deeply and personally he is affected by the people he meets in this volume as well.
The final full arc of course is the most powerful story and the most difficult to read. Here Subaru continues to demonstrate his selflessness by coming to the decision to actually donate one of his own kidneys to the sick boy Yuuya. Subaru is profoundly affected not only by the suffering of someone so young, but by that of his mother who has already had to endure the loss of one child, possibly because of her own choice. While it's no surprise at all that Subaru wants to do something, the decision to be an organ donor is simultaneously one of the most extreme selfless things he could do, and yet the most selfish thing he does up until this point.
To shed a little more light on this, it helps to understand the attitude in Japan toward organ transplants and why it would be incredibly significant for someone like Subaru, who is an onmyouji by trade and therefore highly trained in a variety of spiritual practices of both Shintoism and Buddhism to decide to be an organ donor.
"Japan is a wealthy, medically advanced nation that struggles with the issue of organ donation. Japan is the industrialized nation with the lowest rates of organ donation in the world. Japan’s Shinto religion honors all things from nature, and tampering with death through organ recovery and donation goes against the natural order of Japanese culture and beliefs. Other traditional beliefs against organ donation in Japan include the superstitions associated with touching a dead body, that the body belongs to the ancestors, that death only happens when the heart stops, and that the soul does not leave the body after death. Also, charity, or helping others, is usually limited to within the family unit, and the tradition of helping strangers is also less respected than in the West. As a result, living donation among family members has been very successful in Japan.
The first heart transplant was performed by Dr. Wada in Japan in 1968. However, due to the subsequent death of the recipient and ethical concerns associated with the transplant, the public image of organ transplantation in Japan turned negative. In 1997, the first organ donation law passed allowing for organ transplantation, but it contained strict rules that continued to limit donation. For example, the law did not allow children to donate organs, nor did it clearly define death. As a result, thousands of Japanese have died of organ failure that could have been treated by transplantation. A handful of Japanese have raised money to go abroad to receive organ transplants in Western countries. In 2010, over 12,000 people were waiting for organs in Japan, and they have extraordinary long wait times. In 2009, there were only 6 brain dead donors. That same year, a new law was passed to define brain death as death, and in 2010, there were about 30 brain dead donors. The first successful lung transplant on a CF patient in Japan was performed on Christmas Day, 2010."
(Article here, bolding mine.)
This article from August 31st, 2010 in Yomiuri online paints a little clearer picture of the actual transplant rates within Japan.
The point is, the fact that Subaru, who is religiously trained, would willingly give up a piece of his own body to a complete stranger is incredibly profound, especially for that time period in Japan when the manga was published (1990-3). So while his decision to donate his kidney is an incredibly selfless thing to do, the fact that he makes that decision despite the resistance he knows he will get from his sister and grandmother, also makes it his most selfish one so far. Even though Seishirou assures him that Hokuto and their grandmother will be happy with his decision, Subaru had already decided that it was something he was going to do assuming that they would be against it is significant.
It's also within these few pages that we get a little more subtle foreshadowing into what will happen to Subaru and Seishirou in the future.
Of course it's immediately after this that we get our catalyst with Seishirou's own sacrifice of a piece of himself to protect Subaru, which then sends him into a fit of hysteria that surprises even Hokuto. We could call Subaru hypocritical for being so willing to let Yuuya's mother injure him, for putting himself in harms way for other people so frequently and yet becoming so upset when anyone does the same for him. But the thing to remember is that Subaru holds himself in very low esteem and has very little to no self-worth.
The largest source of his anxiety about what happens to Seishirou stems not just from the fact that Seishirou was hurt, but that Seishirou had to be hurt because of Subaru. Even though it's clear to the reader that Seishirou does it of his own accord, to Subaru it's the fact that Seishirou even felt the need to intervene, to be inconvenienced and hurt because of him that he's terrified Seishirou will be angry with him, or even hate him. The worry that someone he cares about will have animosity toward him is what hurts him the most, and the idea that someone could actually value him as someone worth protecting is so completely foreign to him that he doesn't even consider it. Because again - as far as he's concerned, he has little value.
Of course Seishirou realizes that Subaru won't - or possibly can't accept that that's what happened, and so masterfully manipulates and phrases what happened into a way that Subaru can accept his forgiveness. Essentially he asserts that what he did had nothing to do with Subaru at all, that it was his own choice and he "just happened" to get between the two of them. These pages I think also give us an interesting hint of Seishirou's true personality and just how possessive he actually is of Subaru.
Here though of course is where Subaru's feelings for Seishirou begin to come more fully into light. Throughout the course of the entire series we are shown several moments between them, mostly in a teasing light. Every now and then, though, we get a small sense of real affection for Seishirou from Subaru, beyond just being friends. In the latter half Subaru wonders more often if Seishirou is connected to the Sakurazukamori, and usually dismisses the idea because he is always so kind. And while Subaru would probably be affected on a significant level if someone were to put themselves in harm's way for him, it still would not have been at the same depth as his reaction to Seishirou.
Hokuto, who is frequently shown over the course of the manga to have better insight into Subaru's heart than Subaru himself, says it outright to Seishirou that it's because it was Seishirou who was hurt that Subaru reacted so strongly. She has a much better insight into people's true nature than Subaru does, and at this point to me it seems pretty clear that she actually does know exactly who Seishirou is, but she still encourages those feelings in Subaru because she wants him to be happy.
It's also Hokuto who points out the change in Subaru, for by this point we're seeing him in his more realized self, and I think she puts it the best way: "It was refreshing to see my younger brother as a person...with real feelings." Just a few pages later Subaru himself declares that "There's no such thing as 'everyone,' all of us are individuals," and it appears that he includes himself in that - an individual with his own desires and emotions.
As the story ramps up to the climax, Hokuto asks Subaru what he thinks of Seishirou, and to ask himself who it was that went through the biggest change. Now, finally, we see Subaru starting to piece things together for himself, to think about his own reactions and why they were really of that magnitude, and what does he really understand about himself.
What follows is another interesting contrast in Subaru's character, perhaps even one that somewhat foreshadows a more drastic change in him that is coming. While we've seen examples of Subaru being assertive to help someone, very rarely does he intentionally cause harm. The stance he takes with the kids bullying a man and his seeing-eye dog I think is probably the the most intentionally threatening we ever see him. It's an almost "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" moment, and it doesn't ever have the chance to resurface again until we see him again in X - but by then nearly his entire nature has changed.
I could go on to talk about the sweetness in this side story, but mostly what we see is just an extension of Subaru's kindness and thoughtfulness for others as it focuses directly on Seishirou. However it does, from my point of view, have a bit more depth of emotion than many other similar stories thus far in the manga - again because it's Seishirou that he's thinking about. In a sense you could say that this is the start of the intense fixation that he develops for Seishirou because he's only now beginning to realize what his own feelings for him actually are.
The key difference between Subaru's relationship with Seishirou and everyone else, at this point, is that Subaru actually cares about what Seishirou thinks of him. That, in essence, is what makes Seishirou special to him and why he was overcome with such an emotional reaction and anxiety when Seishirou was hurt. Here Subaru acknowledges just what those reactions and that desire means, and as a result, becomes a full, real entity himself.
Of course, it's the exact same moment that Seishirou reveals himself.
Tokyo Babylon would not be half as compelling of a story if love had redeemed Seishirou. That Subaru realizes why he reacted the way he did is because he is terrified of Seishirou hating him is the same moment that that fear comes true is the the most important part of the whole story (of course, as it is the climax). If Seishirou had revealed himself, but then apparently was able to return those feelings, it wouldn't be much of a love story, frankly. In fact, it'd be rather cookie-cutter and expected. Lots of people struggle to understand Seishirou's motivations - what's the point in putting in all of that time and energy, what's the point of losing an eye if he's going to declare the whole thing a failure anyway?
You're not supposed to understand it, because you're not supposed to understand Seishirou. CLAMP deliberately left out any kind of information or insight into "who he really is" because there isn't really much to him, period. As Allie puts it, he's a "textbook sociopath," and if you want to really get a sense for why he does what he does, you should go read her meta on him, because she says it far better than I ever could and it is spot on.
But now we've come to the part where Subaru is completely and utterly torn down, suffers an incredible amount of both emotional and physical abuse from the person he just realizes he's in love with, and here's where we're supposed to empathize with him. As he destroys his heart, Seishirou reminds Subaru that things like this happen every day in Tokyo. "People betray people." While Subaru has been a witness to this, he has never experienced it for himself. Now that he has, though, it's possible for us as readers to empathize with the pain of betrayal or losing the love of someone you care about. That's when he becomes a truly relate-able character.
While I'll make a discussion of Seishirou another day, I do want to make a note that I think he could have continued with killing Subaru even after Subaru's grandmother broke into his illusion. He's definitely more powerful than her, and if murdering Subaru at that exact moment had really been his goal, he would've carried it out. As it is, it was a convenient enough excuse for him to not do it right then, but I digress.
Subaru falls into a state of catatonia, and what really strikes me about it is that nothing Hokuto says will bring him out of it. She blames herself because she clearly knew before it happened who Seishirou was, but didn't outright warn or stop Subaru. Here we see just how similar she is to Subaru, whereas for most of the manga their differences are waved like a bright red flag in our faces. She makes the decision to offer herself to Seishirou in the hope that perhaps, someday, Subaru could be happy again. Ultimately, she makes a far greater sacrifice than Subaru ever did despite how selfless he is. Only her death brings him out of his heart, which of course just adds to the tragedy of the story itself. Without her death, again, it would be a pretty mediocre affair. So even though it's painful, it's a necessary catalyst to propel Subaru forward again.
When Subaru first wakes he declares that he wants revenge. But truthfully I think that as a motivation is incredibly short lived. Both events - Seishirou's betrayal and Hokuto's sacrifice - serve to only solidify him as an individual even more. But Subaru has only ever formed two real attachments to other people in his life, and now one was dead, and the other supposedly wants nothing to do with him. The switch to want to be killed by Seishirou is driven by grief for Hokuto and the desire to see Seishirou one more time. His greatest fears had been that Seishirou would hate him, that he'd never see him again, and while Seishirou himself says that he doesn't hate Subaru (though neither does he love him), that's enough to have a small amount of hope. Hope that someday he can be reunited with the people he's ever loved - first Seishirou, and then Hokuto, once he's killed and joins her beneath the sakura tree.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2: Subaru in X, because I haven't even gotten around to talking about why he is the way he is as I play him, ahahahaha.