If there is one central theme to Off To The Races it’s that there is power to perspective. Everyone sees the events of the story, and each other, through their own eyes. Whether or not what they’re seeing matches up to reality is left up to interpretation.
- Masami
- Was Masami justified in leaving her family or was she just selfish?
- In her own eyes Masami was justified in leaving because her husband was emotionally distant towards her, physically and emotionally abusive towards Sho, and involved in work that frequently made him cross paths with dangerous people like the yakuza. She therefore had no choice but to leave and make arrangements for Sho to join her later.
- However, she had known for years that Touichirou had been abusive towards Sho. She had always written it off as him disciplining his son and even told Sho not to anger his father so he wouldn’t get punished. She never had a problem with her husband until he said something cruel to her during sex. That was the thing to send her into a near catatonic depression and make her begin to think of ending things.
- And on the subject of ending things, Masami only began to think of ending things when she started sleeping with Fukuda. Her husband’s, as far as she knows, trusted employee. She knows that she’s putting Fukuda in danger not just by sleeping with him but also by asking him to help her escape. Was she a trapped and cornered woman doing what she had to do to survive? Or was she just a selfish woman who only thought of herself and left her marriage when it became painful for her directly to be with her husband.
- And why didn’t she try and work it out Touichirou instead of jumping right to leaving?
- She’d known him for years but she, somehow, never understood that she had to be very direct with him. She always spoke to him in vague generalities about how she felt and expected him to be able to understand that she was profoundly unhappy. Did she even want to be with him in the first place? In the midquel Mother Masami describes her courtship with Touichirou as having been swept off her feet. He came into her life, paid her more attention than any man had ever before, and then they had unprotected sex and Sho was on the way. Did she ever even love Touichirou? Or was she just caught up in the honey moon phase of their relationship?
- Suzuki Touichirou
- Is Touichirou the way he is because of his his abusive childhood or is he just a jerk?
- In the prequel
series it’s revealed that Touichirou’s parents weren’t the best people to have been trusted to have a child. He’s left kernels of truth about his childhood before starting with the fact that he couldn’t remember a lot of it. He had been making an effort not to remember it for years and it only comes out when Mob starts asking about it. His mother was clearly unstable and his father was distant at best and physically abusive at worst. In an offhand remark Fukuda talks about watching Touichirou’s father break his arm during a kendo sparring match and Touichirou reveals that his father would make him practice kendo with no armor on as punishments for everything from losing a match, not winning by enough point, to even not winning quickly enough. Is this why he’s so hard on Sho? And so distant from him? - Or is he simply suffering from some kind of disorder? And if so then…what?
- He checks the boxes for autism spectrum disorder as can be seen with his taste and texture issues with food, finding it hard to understand what others are thinking or feeling, getting very anxious about social situations, finding it hard to make friends and preferring to be on his own because he doesn’t know all the social rules, constantly seeming blunt, rude, and not interested in others when he’s actually making an effort to socialize, finding it hard to say how he feels, taking things very literally, and having the same routine every day and getting very anxious if it changes such as when he can’t get his day started unless Mob makes him the same breakfast that she makes him every morning.
- He also shows signs of borderline personality disorder. He has an extreme fear of abandonment that can be seen in how clingy he is with Mob to the point of treating her like a grown woman at the age of ten and giving her complete power in their household and in Claw. He also has very unstable and intense relationships with people as can be most clearly seen with Fukuda. He can call him his best friend in one moment and then think of him as little more than another employee in the next. He constantly feels empty unless he’s with Mob or someone else who builds him up. His view of himself flips between thinking that he’s the rightful ruler of the world and thinking of himself as being less than nothing for making even a simple mistake. There are also his intense mood swings, moments of inappropriate violence and anger, as well as his general recklessness when it comes to violence and unsafe sex.
- Or is he just a Spoiled Brat all grown up with way too much power and a God complex?
- What are his real feelings towards Fukuda? He’s outright called Fukuda his best friend on numerous occasions but treats him, in many ways, like any other Claw employee pre-Masami leaving induced breakdown. Post breakdown he slowly allows himself to get closer and closer and closer to his supposed best friend. What are his real feelings towards Fukuda? Are they truly best friends? Does Touichirou only consider him a friend when he needs something? Or does he even have possible romantic feelings for Fukuda even?
- Which brings us to the kiss. Was Suzuki really trying to make a point when he tongue kissed Fukuda? Or is that just something that he tells himself because he won’t admit that he has sexual feelings towards other men? Are his feelings for Fukuda friendly, romantic, or sexual? Is it a combination of the three? Suzuki has kissed him before, and it’s implied that they went further as they got older, so why hasn’t Touichirou done anything to figure out his feelings? Is that the real reason why he’s so against Sho being gay? Because he’s been repressing his own bi sexuality and feelings for his best friend for the past thirty years?
- Fukuda
- Why did Fukuda even stick with someone like Suzuki Touichirou for over thirty years?
- They met in middle school and became fast friends due to each of them being the only esper that the other person had met. Fukuda speaks fondly about the adventures that they spent together as well as their lazy days and adolescent foibles…but in the same breath he can also talk about how frustrating Touichirou can be and how he’s wanted out for years. If he’s wanted out for so long then why hasn’t he tried to leave?
- Did he really originally think that Claw was just a game that Touichirou wouldn’t let go of? And by the time he realized that, no, his best friend was serious about taking over the world it was too late? Or did he always want a piece of the pie. He talks about not being able to let Claw crash and burn because he has no work history, qualifications, and won’t be able to survive in the outside world….but he’s also upset when Mob is promoted above him and becomes his direct superior. If he hates Claw so much then why does he care if someone ranks above him in it’s power structure?
- And why is he so possessive of Touichirou if he claims to not even like him?
- Is it because they’ve been together for over three decades and Touichirou is the closest thing that he has to a friend? Or does he think that Touichirou owes him something for sticking by his side for all of these years? Or does he have possible romantic feelings for Touichirou that he doesn’t want to express?
- And why even sleep with his wife in the first place?
- Why did Fukuda sleep with Masami in the first place? Were they in love like Fukuda seems to believe or did he take advantage of an emotionally unstable depressed woman at the lowest point in her life? And why won’t he get over her? Is he truly that in love with her or does he just need to believe that he was in order not to face up to the objective truth that he had an affair with his best friend’s wife while her children were in the house listening from their beds?
- While we’re talking about the kids…
- Why does Fukuda hate Mob so much? Does he really see her as the second coming of Touichirou, a version of him that’s capable of Machiavellian manipulation? Or is he so consumed with guilt for how he failed her that he has to hate her so he doesn’t have to face up to the fact that if he had never helped Masami walk out on her family none of the events that made Mob into who she would have happened?
- Mob
- Is she really just a sweet little girl who only wants the best for her friends and family? We can see in her own internal monologue that she just wants everyone to be happy all the time and she wants all of her friends to get along with each other and her…but in an effort to make everyone happy she just does what she thinks will make her happy. Which leads us to….
- Or is she a spoiled, bossy, child who treats her friends like dolls and lives through them to make up for the life that she knows that she’ll never have? Her first thought when Shimazaki confesses that he has feelings for Minegishi is how great it will be that her friend will have a boyfriend….because that will be like her having a boyfriend. She tends to live vicariously through her friends and when they don’t do what she wants she tries to push them towards what she sees as the right path. She’s very insistent that Minegishi and Shimazaki get together so they can get married and have kids despite Minegishi being perfectly clear that they don’t want either of those things. She also adds Hatori and Serizawa to the house like dolls without even thinking of consulting her friends. She has an obsession with dolls, often plays with them, uses her brother as a dress up doll, and even laments the fact that Mukai won’t let her dress her up and play with her how she wants. However, she is a child barely in the double digits so….
- Or is she just a little girl doing her best to keep her and her brother together through tough times? Fukuda sees Mob as being nothing more than a short adult…and most of the other people in her life see her the same way just with less barely contained hostility. She is, though, a child. A child with more responsibility than she should have developmentally at her age. She a wife to her father, a mother to her brother, a peer to a group of adults, the boss of said adults, the vice president of Claw, and later on a life coach to a former shut in….all before she’s even a teenager. Are her moments of immaturity and poor choices due to her age and the fact that a child her age should not have had anything even close to the amount of power she has? Is it really so wrong that a little girl acts her chronological and biological age?
- Sho
- Does Sho suffer from the same personality disorder that his father has? He has texture and taste issues with food just like his father, the same explosive anger, the same unstable sense of self, and the same obsessive tendencies. Is this a personality disorder of some kind or just the way he’s been shaped by his father’s abuse over the years?
- And is his crush on Shimazaki a further reaction to the way he has been treated? Shimazaki treats him like an equal, seeks out his company, and constantly builds him up. Sho’s had a growing and obsessive crush on him since the age of eight…and only him. He knows four other men as well as he knows Shimazaki but Shimazaki is the only one he’s had a crush on. Is this because Shimazaki is the only one who acts as something of a father figure to him? Or is it just because Shimazaki is an attractive, fun loving, man with a taste for chaos?
- Minegishi
- Does Minegishi actually love Shimazaki or are they just going along with something they felt pressured into? Or all of their relationship problems the result of poorly processed trauma?
- Is Minegishi the calmest, most adult like person in the group or are they just too apathetic to get involved in the never ending drama cycle?
- Minegishi has said before that they see themselves in Mob. Do they feel this way because they used to be a little girl without anyone to understand her? Because of the emotional abuse Mob suffers? Or because they want to see themselves in Mob because they see themselves as being a terrible person.
- Did Minegishi kiss Serizawa because they were high and horny or were they genuinely attracted to him?
- Shibata
- Is he really a good natured himbo who wants nothing more than to care for his friends and make them happy or is he extremely co-dependent towards anyone who accepts him?
