[Shin Densetsu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I don't think Toujo intentionally made friends just to kill them. I think he legitimately cared for his allies, he just had a really skewed understanding of his mentor's motto, due in no small part to him being pretty mentally unstable. He just took the "a hero sacrifices those he cares about" part too literally, seeing it as a requirement for heroism rather than a component of it. I always think that one of the more darkly humorous parts of these episodes is when Imperor helps him out and says something along the lines of "hey, we're friends, right?" You can practically hear the switch in Toujo's head flick over to the "gotta kill you" setting.

In a lot of ways I think Toujo is probably the most tragic character in Ryuki and certainly the most psychologically fascinating. He means well, he just has such a totally wrong outlook on the world that he just keeps doing bad things that he thinks are for the greater good.

It's true that Toujo legitimately cared for Kagawa and perhaps Nakamura. After he killed Kagawa it was pretty obvious that something was wrong with him mentally.

At some point he stopped trying to do everything right and wanted to just do whatever it took to be a hero. I saw his death as a karmic death; he spent a few episodes taking lives to be a hero, and ironically it was giving his own life that ended up being the most heroic action of all. I didn't see it as redemption for him so much as it teaching him a lesson. Also with the karma, I saw it as punishment as well, like "oh now you're a hero but...you're also...DEAD".