Ame’s parents bickered a lot. The mother seemingly retaliated by trashing one of the kid’s stuffed doll. Its sad, dark eyes looked up at her while the cold, bright “eyes” of the car waited to ferry Ame away. The doll would then take on a Rosebud-like significance the child. Even years later, we would see her use the doll as an online avatar. Maybe this is why reincarnation and transformation became so important to Ame. It would be too cruel to think that her doll simply died and left her forever. If it could reincarnate, on the other hand, then it is still out there somewhere, living a new, better life. Meanwhile, Ame’s father takes her to live with her grandmother. She seemed like a nice, gentle enough woman.
It would be easy to link those recordings of a mahou shoujo anime with the early development of KAngel. We also can’t forget the toys, which presumably belonged to her aunt. She wanted to become someone special — someone who had the power to save others. We would later see Ame sneak out at night and take a leap. She wanted to transform. But how would she have survived such a fall? Again, how much of what we’re seeing is real? What we know is that her mother would use this incident as an excuse to take Ame away from her grandmother. After all, how would the old woman let the kid out of her sight? We then immediately see Ame having to go to school on her own because her mother was passed out on drugs. So much for keeping an eye on the kid. Ame would get scolded for coming to school late even though it was her mother’s fault that she was late. She should be commended for getting to school at all, but as they say, no good deed goes unpunished. But what happened to the father? Did he disappear? Why did he have no say in the child’s upbringing all of a sudden? And how would Ame have turned out if she could’ve continued staying with her grandmother? What sense can we make of any of this?
At home, Ame could only sit and watch as her mother seduced countless men for money. What did the woman even do for a living? Spiders and their webs become a recurring motif. At school, her classmates got nastier and nastier. She would often see a boy being bullied by his classmates day after day with no end in sight. Meanwhile, the teachers continued to get on her case for being late. Adults are always there to yell at you, but when you need their help, they’re suddenly nowhere to be found. Maybe Ame was being bullied as well. At the very least, the other girls were not fans of hers. One day, one of the guys would take an interest in Ame. Again, we see a spider web. This only made the girls bully her even harder. With her mother as a role model, Ame probably thought she could only survive by leaning into her sex appeal. But while this did allow her to get back at those mean girls, did she have to repay the guy in sexual favors? So one step forward, two steps backward.
Ame would eventually tell the bullied boy to fight back. Maybe she wanted to do this herself, but she felt like she couldn’t. The boy was scared, but so was she. The boy didn’t think life would ever get better, and she often thought the same of her own life. But she went and gave him a hug. This would convince the boy to fight if not for himself, then at least for her. And so he did and seemingly emerged victorious. This was her first fan. She had an audience of one and she influenced him. He called her his angel, so KAngel was slowly materializing. She gave him a kiss even though she had no real feelings for him. Ame simply needed to fulfill his dreams. This way, she could tell him to go even further and take them all out.
When Ame got older, her mother disgustingly suggested selling herself in order to earn a bit of cash. We suddenly see a spider lily. If you’ve watched enough anime, then you know what the flower represents. This would be the last time we see or hear of her mother, because Ame snapped and attacked her. Maybe the suggestion offended her so much because she was already doing it, i.e. “You don’t even know what I’ve had to do to even make it this far.” We are seemingly led to believe Ame killed the woman. But how would she get away with it? And who would she even live with if she did? Either way, for KAngel to fully emerge, she would have to kill not just herself but any lingering attachment to her current life. We later find out that the bullied boy died trying to fight the rest of his tormentors, but as we already learned, death isn’t final. Death simply leads to a transformation… but for whom?
Finally, Ame goes to sleep and wakes up as KAngel.
After singing her latest song, KAngel warns her viewers that streamers and influencers will lie out of their teeth to garner any bit of sympathy. So what, if anything, that we saw was real? Maybe none of it. Maybe it was all bullshit to tell a good story, because tragedy is so compelling. After all, KAngel admits that they — and maybe this includes the anime viewers as well — are under her spell, so it doesn’t really matter whether or not she’s lying. We kept seeing a spider over and over again. You don’t normally think of the eight-legged creature when you think of something being reborn. So it’s not about rebirth. It’s about us being ensnared in KAngel’s sweet spell. She’s spinning a web, y’see — a web that is her origin story. Did anyone really die? Was she really being abused? Is it easier to overlook someone’s destructive tendencies if they have a tragic backstory? Or maybe we just want to feel like we’re saving this girl by idolizing her. It’s easier to have a savior complex if she has a troubled past. In the end, it’s all a distraction, and KAngel’s the performer. She ultimately tells her audience, which includes us, to give in and allow themselves to be wrapped up in the “sweet hallucination.”
KAngel gives us a knowing look. She promises to save her viewers on the other side of the screen. Just like she “saved” that classmate of hers, I suppose. Anime isn’t real, folks.
Stray thoughts & observations:
— Now here’s a relic from the past.
— Every good night’s sleep is a form of death.
— I don’t know what to think of the S&M magazine found in her father’s belongings. Did it play some part in her development? Was she deriving some joy out of the abuse she got? You wouldn’t think so. Or rather, you don’t want to think so. Maybe this is a sly hint at her dominance over us.
— There was also the novel Night on the Galactic Road in her father’s belongings. Did Ame read it? Did she buy into its themes of self-sacrifice? Does she sacrifice herself every night to transform into KAngel?
— Funny to see a widescreen TV while the flashbacks are played out in the old 4:3 ratio.
— Ame had one online friend she could confide in. What happened to him?
— Crunchyroll doesn’t sub the song that plays at the end, which is a shame. I would’ve liked to know what the lyrics are. Seems highly relevant, don’t you think?
— So when did the producer enter her life? I guess that’s another origin story for another day. And does this guy genuinely want to help her? Or is he just another user? I guess in the game, you can kinda play it both ways. You have all these different endings, and they all depend on how the player treats Ame.
