#misao keeps being a vessel for other people. first for soushi. now for both shouko and kanon? oeee?

[magnoliawaltz]

I've reread After All Alone, a short story Ubukata wrote for the Fafner manga version after I wrote this post. While it technically seems to take place after episode 15 of DA, in my interpretation it really is about The Beyond. It was released just before the last three episodes went to the cinemas. Just like BTL is set between HaE and Exodus but is making heavy allusions towards TBY.

In AAA Kazuki dreams of an ideal world, where everything that was previously "warped" is now "right". Shouko is not only alive but is a healthy girl who goes to school, practices sports and has cut her hair short. Now I'm thinking that detail was there to connect her to both Kanon and Misao. When thinking about the prospective romantic situation between Shouko and Kouyou, Maya says "a storm may be coming". Hey, isn't that the name of the episode where Misao fucking dies 😶 "Probably three different ones", she continues. Meaning three different.... lives?

He then remembers Shouko saying "it's like I come back from all around the world, while praying to be born correctly this time. Fantasizing about being shattered into small pieces and disappearing makes me feel relieved." Sick. Is this making a reference to both Malespero and Kazuki's situation at the end? Shouko is not a person anymore, but a vessel for metaphors, it seems.

Kazuki says something about a white machine being the "right shape, condensed". But then by TBY the white machine – Sein, is not his anymore, it's Miwa's. Miwa is the.... "correct version" of himself? Very plausible, considering that ending and the role she played. Is she also "Shouko"? Or are they also implying a White Alles after all that because Kazuki will be going to the island again to talk to Soushi. After the Black Sein limited edition moderoid was released anything is possible, really.

I guess what this short story also implies is that the right and correct version of events was already happening with new actors, but Kazuki can't see it, because despite also having changed a lot, he is stuck in the past.