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I see you finished watching Koi Kaze. Did you enjoy it?

I understand your perspective and I agree that Aria might seem as a victim from the narration in the tenth episode. However, I also think that the episode also provided us with enough subtle hints that Aria is victim of herself and not her circumstances. Give the following text a read and let me know what you think.

Well, it seems we are disagreeing whether Aria ever loved Dai'ichiro or not. Now, I would like to set the ground rules for love as something more than just sex, which I think you would agree. So the question becomes whether Aria ever wanted anything more than sex with Dai'ichiro. We both agree that Aria, in the beginning, wanted Dai'ichiro to love her simply because she felt she was superior to other maids and that no man could never fall for her. But by the scene of Dai'ichiro's preplanned fencing fight, Aria had given up on Dai'ichiro. She even says that she has succumbed to the belief that no woman can ever hold Dai'ichiro's interest. At this point in time, Aria is a loser with a wounded pride, but has no feeling for Dai'ichiro. She has given up on Dai'ichiro.

Then, we have Rea's mother sparking Dai'ichiro's interest. After Rea's mother's death, when Aria nurses Dai'ichiro back to health, I am not sure whether Aria is doing out of love or just to prove to herself that she is no less than Rea's mother. She may have developed feeling for Dai'ichiro, seeing him weakened, or simply takes advantage of the situation to heal her wounded pride. That scene, in itself, does not prove anything. The scenes after, however, lead me to believe that it was the latter situation.

A few things lead me to later believe that Aria is acting and loving. First, Aria mentions to Chihiro that Dai'ichiro never treated her as a wife and when Chihiro inquires further, she responds that they never made love. That's a rather simplistic definition of a wife, isn't it? Second, she initially asks Dai'ichiro out for a vacation as their honeymoon for the two of them. Dai'ichiro, seemingly fatherly, declines and brings Rea along, which Aria scorns at. I'm not sure Aria ever wanted a vacation with Rea's involvement. The only reason she even is part of the picture is because Rea asks her to be in a picture and Dai'ichiro's around. To appease Dai'ichiro she was in the picture. Third, even before the photoshoot reveal, Aria never participates in the family, and claims to only watch from a distance. She sadly remarks that Dai'ichiro only married her so Rea would have a mother. Well, isn't that obvious!! Aria is married and has an amazingly cute two year old girl, and all she wants is sex from Dai'ichiro. If she does love Dai'ichiro, it definitely isn't love as we define it. All of this brings one to a single conclusion: Aria viewed Rea as a rival vying for Dai'ichiro's love ever since her marriage. Why would she view Rea as a rival, if she had loved Dai'ichiro while she nursed him back to health?

The clincher is Aria's reaction when the photoshoot is revealed. Aria cries and then gets furious. Crying I can understand, but furious, I can't unless she is angry that Dai'ichiro prefers Rea (or Rea's dead mother's image) over her as correctly predicted by the above rival hypothesis.

As for end scene between Aria and Chihiro, I am not sure Aria is just looking at Chihiro to comfort her or narrate her story to some outsider. She may have those in her mind, but at the forefront, she clearly wants Chihiro to physically comfort her. All this tells me that Aria is a shallow woman, not someone who loved Dai'ichiro. She may fallen in love with Dai'ichiro while nursing him, but evidence is scant. Though, she looked pretty sad to me and could have genuinely been in love with Dai'ichiro, it does not prove that she ever loved him. The evidence from before Dai'ichiro meeting with Rea's mother and after Aria's marriage seems to indicate to me that she wore a facade of a broken caring wife the entire time, while in reality, she was a heartless woman. The cry at the end does symbolize the breakdown of a facade, but I wonder which facade. In addition, since Aria had been narrating in a neutral tone, the sudden switch to a high pitch tone during her breakdown made her breakdown seem worthless. Ergo, my laughter.

Now, I can go into her view on zombies and her perspective of Rea (i.e. pent up sexual pressure, really?), but I think the above is more than enough evidence to show that Aria is a victim of herself. Because Aria narrates her own story, of course, she would portray herself as the victim. That might have been the impression she wanted to give to earn Chihiro's love (her definition of love, of course). But, at least to me, she had a hand in all her misgivings. I definitely do not believe that this problem is easy to fix. But I do think that if she had let go of her pride and distanced herself from Dai'ichiro, she would have had a much better life.

I'm wondering if you would be interested in talking about Aria in Sankarea 10. Given that you spent time critiquing my post, I am curious what your thoughts might be about Aria loving Dai'ichiro. My viewpoint is that the role of playing a wife is a game to Aria and when she realizes she has lost, she cries like a baby.

yo :-)