some koko & inupi thoughts

or sanzu-sanzu-and friends / personal commentary

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koko + inupi’s backstories are actually one of the saddest and most memorable in tokyo revengers for me. ok hold up yes lots of things are sad in tr ahahaha so of course. but also personally i’m a sucker for intertwining backstories and character arcs*, and so give the knife a sad twist and watch me milk that Sad Shit to the bone.

thinking of how koko was unable to fulfill two things he’d promised (as a child): being with akane eventually and protecting her.

the scene where he kissed inui i think was him ultimately coming to terms with the fact that he’d never be able to attain the first one. i think he did intend for that kiss to be exactly for the person that he liked, and with akane dead, kissing inupi was probably the closest thing he’d be able to do to fulfilling that promise, which means never. in a way, i see it as an act of him Getting Over akane, like a step towards it: he knew it was inupi, his friend, right in front of him (he even says inupi’s name) , and his breakdown right after was him finally faced with the fact that that’s it, there won’t be an actual akane that he’ll ever be with, sort of him shedding his final tears for a love he’ll never have. and i mean metaphorical tears, not really literal; if he ever did cry still at night afterwards like sure that was still possible haha but i mean you know, that whole event for me marked his acceptance of akane’s death.

which is why in this panel, i felt like he really is outraged when inupi implies that he still hasn’t moved on from akane.

because i think he already had (or at least was going there, so this might’ve opened some not-so-old wounds), and that also this accusation comes with the implication that this whole time, koko sees nothing more than ‘akane’ in inupi. i feel like inupi has had it in his head that koko has only helped him and stuck to his side for so long because koko was obsessed with inupi’s sister whom (inupi thought) koko still sees in him. which just the thought of it breaks my heart for inupi if so, because imagine living your life thinking that the one person closest to you only cares for you because they see someone else and not you. of course there was also the fact that koko originally intended to save akane that night and not him…like i can’t even imagine the level of survivor’s guilt.

but i think it wasn’t just inupi doing the misinterpreting of motivations here. i think at some point, koko believed that everyone including inupi to some degree only wanted him for his genius money-making. and it could be that koko had let himself be ‘used’ by inupi as like, atonement for not being able to save akane in the first place. the whole thing…is about two friends in this convoluted misunderstanding of loyalties.

i do think that koko did care significantly for inupi and that’s why he’d stuck together with him, even offering him a place in tenjiku like it’s black dragons all over again (oh, the good old days). plus remember when he only agreed to joining tenjiku cus he wanted mucho to stop hurting inupi (and hanagaki)? and they do stick together as grownups in other future timelines even. which is also why i think koko was able to finally accept inupi’s decision to stay within toman/toman’s circle and didn’t force him to stay on the same path as him because he knew that that’s not really what inupi deeply wanted.

inupi, i think, was ultimately looking for a place where he can belong, like you know the whole toman credo of one for all all for one type of thing, the whole…familiar/familial circle of safety and closeness. (i know this sounds very cheesy HAHA but i hope you get the picture.) it’s why i think he’d grown obsessed with bringing back black dragons—and longed for shinichiro’s wholesome era—like it’s the one thing he had going on for him. which, in a way, it was.

and koko must’ve understood this. inupi finding his place in toman and their whole separation must’ve been bittersweet because it’s both of them finally forging their own paths without being dependent on one another, but at the same time it’s them no longer being by each other’s side, because inupi has found a place where he can belong while koko’s already in too deep in the money/street life business.

i say bittersweet because of course inupi’s ideal circle did involve koko, too. maybe even partly cus he felt he had to give back to koko somehow for sticking with him thru thick and thin. i’m personally sad about their friendship ‘ending’ but i also think that their separation showed mutual respect and understanding for one another and in a manga filled with so much heartbreak imma take my semblance of peace where i can, haha.

i do have some bones to pick though with the whole thing i mean sure it isn’t perfect, like for one the usual Where are the parents? (well, kokonoi’s at least—was this ever addressed?) i mean how was koko…able to do All That and get away with it and why’d he suddenly feel like an adult with all the money dealings and shit (i assumed he’s like 14-15 at this point?). but then again i guess that was also maybe the point: all these kids in these circumstances and their absent (sometimes dead) parents and the whole mess they brew and get involved in. in the end, they’re really all just children—i think that’s something fans who criticize these characters often forget.

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all in all, this makes koko and inupi one of my favorite pairs in tr because of how dynamic their story is and how their backstories are able to flesh each character out even more. koko breaking down after he kisses inui was one of my favorite moments in tr because it showed a totally different side of koko that i didn’t expect and like it just painted his whole character and interactions with inupi in a whole new light for me. probably my liking for this single event hinges on the reading that that was a moving on point for koko tho, but then again, it’s my personal interpretation. :)

of course i can’t talk about koko and inupi without including my favorite tr cover of all time:

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*just an aside but one example of these linked character arcs that i absolutely loved was sakusa kiyoomi and komori motoya’s in haikyuu. they’re both very minor characters and they were mostly explored in only a single chapter haha—ch. 394–but they both stayed with me for a long time because of how furudate was able to like, paint these characters whole in almost a single stroke. i think that was some genius character writing right there.

ps. wow for the first time there’s zero mention of sanzu haha i—whoops, there you go