Homunculus Nanako Theory (SPOILERS FOR WHOLE MANGA)

I agree, she even grabs his lips and then he cannot lie in that one scene. I recently finished Homunculus and I'm not sure what to think of the last arc really lol.

I just finished the manga and, after reading through many forum posts on various sites, I was also shocked to find that most people accepted that woman as Nanako. In reality, the book’s subtext clearly depicts that this is NOT the case — I would go so far as to say that this is not even a theory.

Once she tells Nakoshi that she is not Nanako and can’t see clouds for the final time, we see Nakoshi with a shocked expression as our view quickly fades to black. I believe this is a metaphor for Nakoshi’s mental state crumbling; after witnessing the suicide of a man who similarly believed he had nowhere to go, Nakoshi is desperate to find a place to call home and believes Nanako is his only path toward salvation in finding true love and his true self. He cannot accept that this woman is not Nanako, and the mere thought that he may never find her — the only person who may see his true self — is enough to break him.

Following the fade to black, Nakoshi assaults her, berates her, threatens her, and finally tells her to tell “that final, teensy little lie” to herself. As he says this, he appears demonic and it is clear that his mental state has finally reached the point of no return. It is beyond me how many people seemed to have just glossed over this scene… The lie that Nakoshi is requesting her to tell is that she is Nanako. There is no other possible interpretation of this line. It cements that not only is this woman not Nanako but that Nakoshi KNOWS it, at least deep down, and is willing to suppress that knowledge to attain a new false perception of happiness.

Finally, after the woman witnesses Nakoshi’s apparent miracle with the Yakuza and believes in his power to see inside hearts, she accepts that she can tell this little lie after all. The manga literally depicts her shaking and stuttering for a moment before she tells that lie, and Nakoshi reacts to it with a devilish grin and psychopathic look. Once again, I cannot understand how there would be other interpretations of these two scenes. It seems most people just completely read past them or forgot about them entirely.

I didn’t originally come to these forums to theorize and question whether that woman is Nanako, I wanted to theorize about their prior relationship and identities or the lack thereof. I theorize that the following is the most likely possibility:

Nakoshi and this woman never met each other before their plastic surgeries, they may have just shared a very similar experience with similar trauma (like with the other homunculi that Nakoshi closely encountered). It is not uncommon for an ugly man and an ugly woman to date, only for the ugly man to disappear following a pregnancy. This would explain why she referred to her former lover as Satoshi and why Satoshi’s face did not match the one in Nakoshi’s photo. This stance may also be supported by the nature of their conversation in the car just before the scenes previously discussed above. As Nakoshi and the woman speak to one another about their past relationship trauma and their stories align, it’s written in a way that seems as if they are not talking to one another, but rather to Nanako and Satoshi, two different people. They both refer to Nanako and Satoshi as “she” and “he” or by their names, rather than “you” in most instances. Even the woman refers to Nanako as she/her. The few times that one of them uses the pronoun “you,” it is primarily used as a comment on that person’s story. The conversation reads very similarly to Nakoshi’s conversations with other homunculi earlier in the manga; they are not truly talking to one another, but rather talking to themselves and their past trauma by using the other person with an incredibly similar experience as a vessel.

Before writing this comment, I had a few other possible explanations in mind that were more unsubstantiated and out there. For example, I thought of the possibility that Nakoshi had forgotten not only his face but also his real name. Even in such a case, I thought that the woman wasn’t Nanako, but rather another woman that Nakoshi was with besides Nanako. However, writing my thoughts like this helped me settle upon the conclusion I outlined above, particularly when I connected that their conversation was similar to Nakoshi’s with other homunculi. That realization brings it all together.

That woman was simply yet another person with a mirrored trauma to Nakoshi’s, like every other homunculus before her. They were both on opposite sides of abandoning / being abandoned by the only person they believed accepted them despite their looks. For Nakoshi, this formed feelings of regret, self-pity, and hollowness, while for the woman it cemented her feeling that men were shallow and could not see through to her heart. Their reasonings for surgery were mirrored too — Nakoshi got surgery to escape his situation after failing to realize what he did have while the woman got surgery to cope with her situation out of fear for what she didn’t have. Both dealt with this trauma by becoming compulsive liars in the aftermath. Ultimately, it became a tragic story where they are both willing to accept one final lie to give themselves false hope of finding someone who can see their true selves. You’re free to disagree, but this is my interpretation of the true nature of their relationship.