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Originally Posted by Kurona

I actually really really liked the Takumi-feels-guilty-over-Kusaka stuff in this movie? It might not do the best job of selling the idea of Takumi being guilty over it, but... well, survivor's guilt is a thing! I 100% believe that even in the most positive ending of 555 where he's surrounded by friends, eventually a few years down the line as he just continued living life, those thoughts would enter his head. Getting away from someone like that is extremely difficult -- and that was always Kusaka's whole thing! He is a colossally, irrefutably awful person who still manages to get in your head, still manages to fill you with doubt. And I don't like the idea that this is what would immediately happen after 555 or even a year after, like a V-Cin or something; but as you said this is more than ten years later, so I'm able to buy into this a lot more! I think it's a very well rounded arc for him and that his stuff with Keisuke actually had me thinking at one point that I would absolutely love this if it was just some random 555/X crossover that happened to come out around now. Seeing Kusaka explode into dust two new times is the icing on top of that cake!

Thinking about this for a minute, I feel like this all would have worked much better if Masayuki Izumi hadn't passed away and could have reprised his role as Kiba. Kusaka trolling Takumi from beyond the grave 100% fits him, but the Takumi stuff would have been so much more in-character if he'd been regretting his failure to save Kiba instead.