#its one thing to be in cahoots with the tojo still from a distance but still ultimately doing what aoki wants

[todayisafridaynight]

I should be studying right now, but… do you ever think about how Arakawa didn't have to die?

Not even in the meta sense that it's RGG "tradition" to take faceclaims/father figures/antagonists out of the picture and that traditions should sometimes be broken, or that Aoki would've changed his mind, or that Ishioda or Tendo could've been stopped. But because Jo is the captain (and later second patriarch) of an organization specifically stated to specialize in faking deaths. A practice that originated in the Bubble Era years after Jo had already joined, and that Jo was no doubt intimately familiar with.

Like, isn't that why Arakawa was able to take that risk shooting Ichi? It just feels like things could've gone so much differently had Jo "accepted" Aoki's orders and "confronted" Arakawa with some kind of escape. Perhaps the Ijincho homeless camp would be off-limits, having drawn too much attention recently, but an assassin would surely know how to lay low for a while.

And maybe Aoki, Ishioda, and Tendo would've been undone by their own ambition anyway. And Arakawa could've kept his word and ran the security company with the pillars of the Tojo and Omi, while Jo could've been the chairman of the Tokyo Omi Alliance; light and shadow, opposite to their respective sons. And so many more yakuza wouldn't have been left with nowhere to go.

And hell, maybe none of it would've worked out in the end, maybe it would've all folded like a house of cards, but wasn't it worth a shot? Perhaps it was Yokoyama he who didn't think of it (or couldn't/didn't pursue it even if he did), perhaps it was Jo. But there's something so tragic about being so fundamentally opposed to lifting a finger in violence towards your co-parent and patriarch that you decline the opportunity to save him.

I wonder if the thought has ever occurred to Jo.

I wonder how much he regrets it.

UGH RIGHT IT'S SOOOO....

Like of COURSE I'm upset about Arakawa's death in that we lost a wonderful character and father figure in the franchise, but also it's cause it's just... for all the scheming Arakawa and Jo have been doing behind Aoki's back this entire time, Jo folded on this opportunity to get Arakawa out of Aoki's radar for good this time- or for at least the time being.

It's a testament to the humanity he convinced himself he threw away, and that's why it especially makes me want to scream. From our understanding, Jo is supposed to be very pragmatic and tries to deal with matters as efficiently as possible and generally seems emotionally detached from his work (of course we know that's not the case, but just from a surface-level perspective that's how it appears). So the one time Jo does show an ounce of humanity, it has the greatest consequence.