Jinroh Game ~ Mad Land ~ 人狼ゲーム マッドランド

‘All around me are familiar faces…”

Wait, wrong song!

As I promised here is the other Jinroh Game movie I was talking about in the previous post. And just like the other one, this one is not just about the subtext, or even the fact that Super✩Girls’ Asakawa Nana, and our Live Action Nodoka (Saki) is in it!

No, there is something else that made this one stand out from the crowd and that was…sorry for the spoiler but you are reading this so I assume you wanna be spoiled…the unique thing about this movie is the fact that the main character dies! That has never happened in the previous movies!

But it is more than just her dying that makes this one that much special, no, it is the reason of her death! If you read the previous post you would already know the reason for her death! Like seriously, I have seen main characters die before but they usually do at the end when the story is over! Not here though! The last round of the game was played without Moe.

Ah yes, the characters. Our main is Moe played by Nana. The other girl is Ayano, played by Matsunaga Arisa and the red-flag girl Miki is played by Iida Yuma. I say red-flag because that sweater they wear is like a flag for being killed by one of our protags.

But why am I bringing up the red-flag girl in this one while I did not bring her up in the last one? Oh yeah, speaking of the last one’s red-flag girl, she was actually played by Sasou Yuki – the girl we know from that short drama with Harugon ‘ONIGIRI’.

Back to the point of why I am mentioning the red-flag girl here, I am because I felt for her this time. I have to confess that I was on the hating wagon for the first half of the movie but then her true self started to come out little by little and by the end I was actually feeling a great deal for her. The fact that despite Ayano hating her guts too, to the point of promising to kill her, which she did in the end, Ayano still did with some compassion. No seriously, seeing the caps out of context you would think something else was going on instead of what was really going on…that being that Ayano was knifing Miki in the bossom! Even the strangling part was heartfelt. Talk about…

‘Killing me softly with her hands…”

Damn it, I have to stop singing the wrong songs!

But where to start with Moe and Ayano! I guess I should start with the big cloud over the whole of their relationship. There is this scene on the rooftop as they plan what to do and Moe promising to protect Ayano for the millionth time, when something comes up that bothered me, is bothering me, and will continue to bother me forever! Ayano says something about them making sure that no one finds out about their true connection to which Moe concurs and I was left with this cloud of question marks in my mind!

Why does it remain still? Well, because we never get to learn what their true relationship is! Were they sisters? But why do they have different names? Were their parents divorced and they lived separately? If they reached the point of changing names then this happened a long time back so how do they know each other so well? And if they are sisters, we know Ayano is older than Moe so why is it that Moe is the one looking out for Ayano?! If they are sisters then why are they awkward in using each other’s first names!?!

I mean we don’t know the real relationship between the two so they might as well turn out to be sisters in the end and even then that doesn’t mean the end of the world. I mean Brulee and Sisterhood…

But let’s take the other option, which is that they are actually mysterious Lovers. I mean I don’t know about you but I don’t think being sisters is such a thing that you’d try so hard to keep from people who are going to die anyway. I don’t know why Moe using Ayano’s first name and vice-versa is such big deal if they are sisters. I have also not seen a series, movie where the younger sister is so protective of their older. I mean the only thing that comes close is Alice and Zoe from the current series Channel Zero Season 3. But even then they are not so extreme.

Meanwhile Moe, in a game where everyone is fighting to survive, she is only fighting to save Ayano! This is not even at all like the other movie where Hinata decided halfway after connecting with Ranko to help her win the game. No, from the very beginning Moe here was playing, scheming, staying up planning ways to make sure Ayano was the last girl standing!

And unlike before, Moe here chose how to die! She had the worst death actually but she had to do it that way so that Ayano could have an alibi to help her in the final game to win! It had to look like it was Ayano that had killed her. The knife she gave to Ayano during that tender bedroom moment (shoulder-lean) was blunted and would be used as evidence that it was the weapon used to kill Moe.

In order for it to be that, Moe had to have a death close to being beaten in the head with a blunt weapon. Since obviously Ayano couldn’t do it Moe had to do it herself. She used a TV remote to bash her head in then fell out a window like a GIRL IN LOVE!

Meanwhile poor Miki who had come to kill Moe stood there in shock wondering what the hell was going on! She knew nothing, the poor girl. It would of course come to bite her in the end when she tries to say that she was the one that killed Moe but her weapon doesn’t have a scratch on it!

Like imagine doing what Moe did for your love! I can’t even…

That’s right Ladies and Gentlemen, a main character killed themselves off for someone else! I have never seen that one before and as such this movie gets high points for it!

Then there is that last moment between them, well, between Ayano and a dead Moe, where she goes to see Moe before she left. She sees her scarf in Moe’s dead hands and tries to take it (probably to get rid of evidence that might be used against her were the police to find the body)  but as she tries to pull it away from the stiff hands, it doesn’t barge! The pulls and pulls but dead Moe is not letting go! She was holding onto that piece of Ayano even in death!

FEELS

Ayano finally cries for Moe, tears she had been holding back for all this time and then gets up and leaves.

Yes, I know these are all BAD ENDs but they are not actually that bad, am I right? As a wise person once said, we all die. the point is to leave something that will last forever!

Okay, that didn’t make the point I was trying to make but you get it. “Every good death is its own reward”. Sure Moe and Hinata dies but it is the reasons for their deaths that matter! And what death is more important than a death for someone you love to live?!

Ja

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