#please kotoko get undead alice if you do i swar i'll vote you innocent

[genderqueer-miharu]

Ok so for context, yesterday i made a post talking about Kingsleigh's Milgram covers but it then turned into a huge Kotoko analysis post, so i wanted to take that part and make it it's own post so this is what this post is for, a very disorganized analysis on Kotoko, kinglseigh's cover, Harrow and a more elaborated idea on why i think she should get Undead Alice as her cover this trial. You can read the og post if you want but it's really not necessary it's pretty much just me gushing about Kingsleigh's covers.

Anyways, with all that out of the way, here it is:

Cover

Harrow: Ok so remember how i mentioned two days ago that i wanted Kotoko to get Undead Alice as her cover this trial? Well this cover was the main reason i came to that conlusion. It honestly gave a very different perspective on her character and it showed me a side of her i didn't even consider. It's because of this cover that i realized what many lyrics in the song actually meant, i'll compare them:

"Now that I'm prowling through the haze and Crawling through this maze I Can't go back to who i was

Feeling myself fading Burdens i've taken Weigh me down but drive my soul to go on

The evil out there I'm sickened to the core Pick a poison that i've done before"

Original

"Becoming light-headed again, it all becomes crazy

The normalcy sought for, Fading away, Everytime death comes The soul moves forward

I hate all the evils in this world, I feel like I'm about to break The surrounding net covered with poison"

Cover

"Now when a soul is too far gone you do what you got to Put it out of misery

"I'll never do it again" "I didn't mean to do it!" Even when I catch them I just can't win"

Original

"Shall we replace the poor soul, and the miserable delusion

"I didn't mean to offend", "I won't do it again" How many wins in a row?"

Like comparing these lyrics i realized that "the normalcy sought for" and the "poor soul" Kotoko is talking about isn't refering to another person or the evils she's trying to get, they're refering to herself. She's lost herself and abandoned what the concept of justice meant for her in order to catch the people she's hunting, and the "pick a poison" line in the cover drives home the point of her using the bad things she's done before to complete her goal.

These lyrics really make the theme of her storyline being revenge even more clear. And the final bridge of the song as well

Cover

"When I was young HARROW HARROW Why can't I let it go? All of this weight, all of this hate If not for them what can hope for?

The moon is full HARROW HARROW I bare my fangs into a grin and I know how I can win"

Original

"Newly born "HARROW" "HARROW" It's ok to dislike, right? Losing it, losing it, What should I hope for

Goodnight "HARROW" "HARROW" Laugh and I can get to like myself"

The lyrics here made me realize that throughout the song she expresses her doubts with what she's doing. She's using the things the people she deems as "evil" have done in her favor to get what she wants. She believes this is the only thing she can do but doesn't want to admit to herself that she's the same as those people if she uses the same methods they have, so she covers it under the excuse of this being "justice" and tells herself that this is for the better of everyone and that she's actually helping all those poor weak victims who can't protect themselves. She can't admit that she's doing this out of a sense of self-satisfaction and to make herself feel better, so she uses "justice", a concept that she considers corrupt and dead, and uses it in her favor, to disguise what she's doing as being the "right" thing to do, which is represented by the wolf's skin seen at the beggining of Harrow coming back to life once Kotoko looks at the audience.

Kinda similar to how Mahiru fogave Kotoko for what she did by thinking: "Kotoko was doing what she believed in and what she thought was right for her so if i admit that what she did was wrong it'll be like admitting that what i believe in and what i was doing was also wrong", Kotoko probably thinks: "If i admit that what i'm doing is for myself and my own satisfaction and not for justice and to protect other people then it'll be like admitting that i'm the same as those people who do evil". She's killed and buried any doubts may have had with all her vigilante work because she doesn't want to deny herself, she won't allow to doubt herself anymore because if she does then everything she has dedicated a big part of her life will seem meaningless.

Which why i believe Undead Alice would fit her really well especially in this trial.

Especially as a follow up to Anti Beat, which imo touched more on Kotoko's doubts and frustrations with what she was doing, and Undead Alice could showcase her slowly convincing herself more and more that she's in the right and that she shouldn't doubt so much.

"Live by feeding on me, since you can't die even if you want to" Everyone except us is crazy, even though your echo can be heard by everyone

Every time I ask for ideas to hurt myself, I breathe in happiness and breath out poison The ideal junkie, doesn't it feel good that only the two of us are normal?"

She's using ideas and methods that she considers bad and corrupt under when other people use them but she's using them in her favor as well, and she can't admit that what she's doing is wrong, so these things are ok if she uses them against those who do evil. But even if she revives that dead wolf skin, it was still the same wolf to begin with.

"The disease that makes me want to hide to see you, an overflow of a LOW mood because I can't see you

They ended up becoming close, this is torture Starting to hate the butterflies, please die before I kill you"

"The instincts of being good, and the fat of being bad, They ended up becoming close, this is torture Superficial actions have become a habit, I'm dead before I kill myself"

These two lines could highlight her contradicting stances. Her need to deliver justice clashes with the methods she's using, so she kills all these doubts so that they don't weigh her down, which is also highlighted with the main bridge of the song

"It's ok to live for yourself, It's ok to cheat a little It's ok to break it, it's ok to be scared

Let's bury this cowardly love here, Let's stop and forget this

It's easier to hate But it's ok that you chain me down with your love"

It's ok if she uses underhanded methods to get what she wants, it's ok if she uses the same methods the people she's trying to hunt have used, she's doing it for a good cause after all right?

Right...but even with all of this and with how much i may dislike Kotoko, this next part of the song could especially highlight a part of her that she doesn't really show much

Undead Alice

"I thought we would be able to keep dreaming together, just like this But what did your smiling face look like again?

It's an illusion to think that everything will go back to how it was after saying bye bye

This is pretty painful, slice open the chest and crush the heart"

Harrow (Kingsleigh cover)

"Now that I'm prowling through the haze and Crawling through this maze I Can't go back to who i was

Feeling myself fading Burdens i've taken Weigh me down but drive my soul to go on"

Harrow

"Becoming light-headed again, it all becomes crazy

The normalcy sought for, Fading away, Everytime death comes The soul moves forward"

She's dedicated so much of herself to this hunt and her justice that it seems she's lost herself. Thinking about this more i am reminded of the Clock Over Orquestra collab comics. Which i think is important because that's the only time we ever see Kotoko smiling. For once when she's not thinking about her ideas of justice or her plans for revenge she's having fun, she's doing something she likes: excersising, and she's genuinely having a good time, and it just makes me think that...maybe this the side of herself Kotoko lost. She's killed and buried all her doubts about what she was doing, and using them to fuel her hunt. Her "normalcy" has faded away the moment she decided to revive that wolf. Now she can't go back to who she was, even if she misses how she was, she's killed that part, she's buried that other her, she's done all of this for her goals, and if she doesn't achieve them then all the she's discarded, all the time, her morals, her regret, her self, all of that...would've been for nothing.

Anywayyyyys it's kinda weird how long this got but um. Yeah. Please go kingsleigh's covers