Maybe he did it just For the Evulz, after all he is a borderline Complete Monster.
edited 3rd Oct '10 12:23:43 AM by LSSJ2Gohan
A trve man never dies, even when he's killed!
I'll buy that, except the borderline part. Or maybe its like when Thanos first used the Cosmic Cube : Mar-vell said, what point is there in becoming God if you have no audience? Mainly I asked because I've missed things before, and I thought maybe another reader picked it up. Also, the series, though I love it, has a few things that don't work for me, like the supposed time-frame of the birth of Kakuzawa's second son, who is also Lucy's half-brother.
edited 3rd Oct '10 12:44:55 AM by Gojirob
I say borderline because even after proving to be a Hitler, Josef Stalin and Kira combination, he still was not willing to truly sacrifice Anna for his twisted goals (as proved at the Manga's very end).
As for Kaede's Brother, he seems to be born in the time Kurama was searching for Lucy/Kaede.
edited 7th Oct '10 10:47:56 PM by LSSJ2Gohan
A trve man never dies, even when he's killed!
I getcha, and I know what the manga said about Anna's fate. But that keeping her Human form available strikes me personally as a method of control, though Fatherly affection may have helped there. As to the timeframe on Kaede's brother I got the impression that Kurama and Kakuzawa Junior only found out there was a Queen Diclonius just shortly before her capture. That means Kaede's Mom was only found right around or just after this, and that the Kid Kakuzawa presented to Lucy could not have been more than three, and looked older than that— almost coming up to his very tall Dad's waist, and non-Silpelits age normally. For myself, I've chosen to say in a fix-fic that Kakuzawa the elder may have known about Lucy well before his son and Kurama did, but for the series itself, its fairly explicable.
You know, I'm also starting to think that Kakuzawa knew about Kaede's mother before Kurama got infected and was faking it all to better manipulate Kurama.
As for Anna: Kakuzawa himself said "I'm not that cruel of a father", so I also believe he truly didn't wanted to sacrifice her, I guess Utopia Justifies the Means was slightly too much for Kakuzawa.
PS: I've been reading your fics, and I must say they're pretty damn good (Even though i greatly dislike the manga's final pairings Bando/Mayu, Kurama/Nana and Yuka/Kouta). Also, I would like to see how you take the final reunion of Kouta and Kaede/Nyuu after ten years of (t)he(i)r death(s).
edited 4th Oct '10 9:52:52 AM by LSSJ2Gohan
A trve man never dies, even when he's killed!
Thanks! Without spoiling, here's a peek at how I see things :
1 - Anna - While I would never dismiss the author's own decisions (when there is one author, as opposed to ST, SW, Marvel or DC, etc.) I can't help but feel that Kakuzawa's legit last-connection-to-Humanity desire not to hurt her ties together in this instance for his innate desire to control anything and everything, should she turn against him, which ironically, was the opposite problem—she was too loyal to tell him the truth about their heritage. The Red Skull once had a similar moment back in the JM De Matteis run on Cap.
2 - Relationship 1 Yuka/Kouta - She really does love him, though I see someone—probably Mayu—slapping some sense into her about these tantrums and doubt-fests before they hook up. Which, I've realized of late, has to be relatively soon, to fit the age of [[spoiler:Nyuu The Second. As for Kouta, he does love her and his heart is wounded from what he had to do and what he has now remembered.
3 - Relationship 2 Nana/Kurama - In a way its the saddest thing imaginable, and has an element of adoptive squick. But past that is a tenderness and an even greater desperation. To almost any other man Nana could turn to save Kouta, she is either a danger, a lab experiment or a curiosity. Maybe for my stories, she'll get a Marty Stu (technical term, not my intent in this case), but they're harder to see in this instance. Kurama for his part cares for this girl and owes her a lot—and emotionally, she may be in better shape than him. Their pairing is not a given, but they will be there for each other as Queen Nana makes a very harsh choice.
Relationship 3 - Mayu/Bando - More than any other, theirs is a theme of redemptive love. Bando realized, Kirk-like, he didn't want to face dying alone, and Mayu has gambled all of her remaining trust and wide-eyed wonder in this seeming thug. She had people who were not what they seemed in her mother and stepfather, people who were exactly what they seemed in Kouta and Yuka, though that took her a while to see, and finally in Bando, she has someone who she is hoping is more than what he seemed. Again, without spoiling my plans, its the fact that this can't last that will drive things, but not in a bad way.
Finally, before I even get to that point, I'd have to come to my own decision on who the hell the twins were and where they came from. Nothing convoluted. I just want it clear in my own head.
To those reading the thread : sorry to off-track this with a self-advert.
Back on the series itself : I have a bit of a problem with the supposed timeframe of the Diclonius War that follows Lucy's death. Little Nyuu is supposed to be nearly the same age Kouta was when he met Kaede when we meet her, but the time-frame for a near-miss extinction war doesn't quite add up for me, even in the bloody-but-short category, especially when you add in a birth-ban that in certain quarters, could not have gone over too well.
BTW, these problems and nits I keep bringing up take nothing away from my awe and enjoyment of the series.
Agreed, even though in some respects I liked the Anime ending more. (Possibly for the Kaede/Kouta kissing scene and Kurama's death). Still, the Manga is a beautiful story that deserves to be read at full.
A trve man never dies, even when he's killed!
This is SOT : But I keep loving the scene in both versions wherein Kouta is sick in bed and Nyu brings him everything in the book except the water he asked for. Now, I'm wondering if the Avatar:TLA creators are closet EL fans, because the exact same thing happened with the sick Sokka and Katara via Momo in The Blue Spirit.
Again, spoilers for the second half of the series.
I've read and read and read, and just can't get a handle on this question : Why did Chief/Director Kakuzawa *want* Kurama to know of his plans to infect the world with the Diclonius virus, and actively want him to defy him by saving Nana and going to find Mariko? I've thought maybe it was to get Kurama out of the facility when he launched, but the man had kajillions of armed guards to keep Kurama from stopping the launch of the phony satellite, which I don't think even was launched from the island HQ. I get most of his shtick: Cruel SOB, multiple plans going, decoy to achieve a goal. But I just can't see how manipulating Kurama accomplishes jack in this instance.