©Ino Asano/Shogakukan/DeDeDeDe Committee
In this week’s episode, we learn Ouran’s full backstory, completely redefining her character in the process.
So far, the show has been coy about the connections between the current story and the elementary school story. This week, it got a straightforward explanation: These are two completely separate timelines—two parallel worlds. The trick, however, is that although the Kadodes are different, they are the same Ouran. Or simply put, Ouran is a slider.
Ouran, after experiencing the tragic death of Kadod “doraemon” timeline, decided to abandon that world and come to another timeline, where she had a second chance to save Kadodd. However, in doing so, she traded the world we see now for a world in which the Mothership never came to Earth. What’s more, Oran knows this – knows that the best way to save Kadodd is to make sure they don’t encounter the aliens in the first place. In fact, every death in the show – whether alien or human – stems from Ouran choosing to slip into this world.
But this is only the first level of Ouran’s incident. She had to forcibly change her personality in order to take actions that were completely different from her original timeline. Ouran channeled the fear, sadness, guilt, and pain caused by Kadod’s death into determination. This doesn’t mean she’s no longer shy or awkward, but it does mean she’s motivated to feel empowered through it.
This all brings us to Kadod’s central memory of Ouran – a girl she barely knew who suddenly stood up to her classroom bullies and saved her from a life of loneliness. Of course, with all the new information we have, the scenario becomes completely different. Ulan declares herself the true villain of her class – not just to take away their anger at Codad, but because she is the true villain of her world. (She had a chance to stop the aliens, but not for Kadodd.)
But even when she makes a statement—awkwardly telling off two sets of bullies in the class—we can still see Ouran’s tearful eyes and drooling mouth. What we see now is not an expression of excitement, but an expression of incredible embarrassment, but determination to stay strong for Kaddod’s sake. When you realize that Ouran is still constantly fighting against her shy nature to keep Kadodo safe and happy, it completely changes the interpretation of every other instance of this face in the series.
Doubly interesting is that despite not knowing her backstory, everyone else knows there’s something different about Ouran. In this episode, we see Futaba confessing her activities to Ouran – how she was involved in the assassination plot. She even gave the handmade gun to Ouran for safekeeping. But this naturally raises the question, why did Futaba confess all this to Ouran? Isn’t she just that crazy girl obsessed with games and conspiracy theories? They weren’t even close friends or anything.
It’s clear that Futaba saw, at least on a subconscious level, the fervent determination within Ouran – saw that Ouran remained true to herself and her goals. Nothing Futaba did would panic Ouran. She is right. The only thing Futaba didn’t expect was that Ouran would have the courage to do what she couldn’t do and ditch the gun altogether. It makes sense – having deadly weapons around Kadod (not to mention the disruption it might cause to their daily lives after an assassination) would never satisfy Ouran. Unfortunately, the others arrived before she had a chance to discard it.
The final layer of the episode comes from the framing device, surrounding Oppa’s insecurities. The biggest remaining mystery about Ouran is how much she remembers of the original timeline. Does she have clear memories, or is she just subconsciously reacting to them? Since Oba is in love with Ouran, he’s worried that she remembers the original reality in its entirety – so she knows to abandon the current timeline and start from another one without any. However, despite seeing her memories, Oba doesn’t seem to understand her – or maybe it’s just that his fear of abandonment overwhelms what he should know.
In fact, Ouran’s entire self is built around one thing: Kadode. Frankly, she doesn’t care about people she’s not directly related to. As long as Kadod was alive and reasonably happy, she could watch the world burn. The impending apocalypse isn’t enough to make her abandon everyone. (The secret of this, of course, is that the only “everyone” in her mind at this point is Kadodd and Oba – the people she promised not to abandon her.)
Finally, this episode aims to show the poetic relationship between our two heroines: Kadod wants to be the hero who saves the world. Ouran wants to be the villain who saves someone. However, while Kadode’s dream ended in tragedy, Ouran’s dream may still succeed – even if billions of people die in the process.
grade:
Random thoughts:
• Kadode is a girl who seeks faith. When her idea is proven wrong, she is ruined. In the new timeline, Ouran makes herself Codad’s “Absolute” – the one person Codad can always trust. Ulan has not failed yet.
• Hiroshi also appears to be using the machine to track Ouran. This would explain why he suddenly went from pretty boy to pessimistic internet troll after the aliens arrived – not to mention his overprotectiveness towards Ouran.
• Ouran is saddened by Kiho’s death, not only because they were friends, but because she knows that, in a way, it was her fault.
• I can’t help but wonder what happened to Ouran’s original body. Was it destroyed? Was it just left behind? Or was a copy of her consciousness simply sent, and Ouran was forced to live out the rest of her life in a world without Kadod?
Dead Dead Demon’s Dededed Currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
