First of all, I want to preface that save a few exceptions, I won’t focus much on things I disliked here. I’m aware this game has several flaws, and one of them is that the characters don’t have much depth and lack emotional logic or expression. This, alongside other factor, makes every relationship in the game feel undercooked, whether platonic or romantic. Simple characters, simple romances. But I’m also aware that this is, in part, George Kamitani’s writing style. I’ve learned to appreciate it. Coupled with the art style, his characters and relationships are strangely charming and quirky, whether you like them or not..
I always thought George Kamitani gave Sekigahara Ei too much spotlight in the game in comparison to any other character. From moments he looks nothing but a plot device to some decent writing there and there, Sekigahara appears in almost all routes frequently triggering their stories and moving their foward, then leaves some vague hints and disappears. You could even say he seems to be working more to Kamitani than Ida himself, most of the time what he's doing before amnesia makes no sense and it's kind of funny to me. I think the writer abused the fact he is able to move freely, have a lot of knowledge and have the mildest case of DD-426. But it was an interesting choice, considering that aside from Megumi who was a small child, 2188 Sekigahara was just in the Project Ark to watch the (rest of) world burn. He was just the assassin who messed up everything and caused the last humans to die. Being the most useless in 2188 to the most active in the present was a clever choice, whatever intentional or not.
To me 13 Sentinels is a symbolic, fate-driven narrative (sci-fi fairy tale?) were the 15 compatibles are being challenged on a way or another to prove they are better than their past selves, so they are completely ready to lead the restoration of humanity. This an example of a loop were everything went perfectly. We can see a lot of characters having a different way to show that while working under some of the game and their own routes's themes.
Sekigahara and Shinonome despite being already born more pure than their past selves, the effects of nurture x nature keeps going. With the Kaiju attack, bad things started to happen to them with potential to corrupt them and fate didn't shy away with these two, they had to go through the same situations their 2188 past selves did and they needed to resist all of that. While Shinonome didn't have much luck and could be a representation of a half-failure, she somehow overcame Ida, regreted her mistakes and tried to atone for them fighting in the final battle and not letting anyone else control her. I don't know if post-game she is living with atonement, I hope not.
As for Sekigahara, he got more lucky and completely changed his path, and proved he isn't an cold-blooded hitman. Since he was already in doubt of his own morality, Sekigahara is probably the character who had the most reasons to compare to his original version. Seeing he almost went thought the same path as him was for sure a shock. The way he was nurtured, his enviroment, before and during the game never alowed him to become like that, the people he met and helped, came back to him and helped him back. He got rewarded for his kindness. He seems to be asocial, stoic, realistic and too rational sometimes, some traits he might have got from his genes. Both seems to like to investigate his victims before getting the job done, which implies both were calculating people. I find his case of nature x nurture the most plausible in real life.
We get Amiguchi that already have an explanation in extra-materials. 2188 Ida is manipulative and a playboy. Ida is manipulative. Amiguchi is a playboy. Even if I think this is a bit too hilariously systematic and genes doesn't work like this to me. Amiguchi denies he is like Ida and challenges his past selves by hating them, symbolically through a punch. I guess Amiguchi naturally compared how he treated Takamiya and others girl with Ida, because somehow feared he was like him due to his playboy tendencies. But he saw how Ida manipulated them and ignored their needs, while he respected them. However, I don’t think the narrative succeeds in framing his playboy tendencies as harmless or as something that comes from boredom or validation. His interactions with Takamiya aren't charming or respectful to me. Isn't acting like that to her, even though she told him to stop, kind of manipulation? (Haha). Unfortunately I didn't vibe with this relationship, which weakens that contrast with Ida.
Ida is actually faithful and truly in love with Inaba, but he put his own selfish desires above her owns, treating her really bad. I wonder if the intention was Amiguchi, also serious about his love interest, regretting how he acted with Takamiya before and acting more honestly while facing Ida, with an earnest confession and saving her life? Because initially I thought the playboy part was something bad he had to fix but I finished the game totally confused. Anyway, similarly to Fuyusaka, Amiguchi proved he was different to his past self by having a different partner, but curiously Amiguchi's tastes changed (Inaba and Takamiya are very different) and Fuyusaka's remained similar to Morimura's (Juros and Sekigahara are similar). Amiguchi likes Inaba's voice, his music tastes seems genetic. In the Epilogue we can see he is still trapped in the "past", worrying and pitying Shinonome because of what Ida did to her. I hope he stops someday, Shinonome doesn't seem to like it too...
We can see Fuyusaka Iori having already gone her development since from the start of the game. Nurse Morimura is less cold-hearted than her original one in 2188. And now we can see Fuyusaka being completely cleased from any malice in Sector 4 in the hands other another family, possibly lovely parents, and with her best friend, the romantic and sweet Miwako. Which imply that Morimuras issues were caused mostly by the way they were nurtured. Fuyusaka was receiving memories and if I'm not mistaken only lacking the personality replacement. Her challenge was to keep true to herself and not to be affected by Nurse Morimura's failure that left her hopeless and not let her feelings for Juro to affect her owns. And she passed the test. She never abandoned her choice to fight and her activation scene where she says something like (my translation from japanese) "I'm going to trust my current self" and "Mom, Dad, Miwa-chan...If I have the right to protect everyone, then I..am a Invencible High School Girl, these days they even ride giant robots!" symbolizes it. She stayed true to her ideals, beliefs and continued to follow her heart which lead her to the final battle. Her theme is challenge her past selves through "love" and she chooses to love and care for Nurse Morimura instead of hating her. Not sure if she even understood she is a clone of her teacher, but as for comparing herself to Morimura, well why would she? Unless she shared traits with her or if she was in doubt of her own morality I see no reasons to, our sense of identity is very strong by nature. It was more a case for we the players trace parallels and see how they carve different paths in life.
Takamiya "challenged" her past self who wasn't a very good mother in 2188. She grew up next to Natsuno, loved her like a friend (or more like a mother?) and approved her relationship. She seemed to act like a mother to others girls too, maybe the way 2188 Yuki was nurtured supressed her excessively motherly side? Or fate thought Takamiya really needed to be "punished" and turned her into a super mother? Or maybe the way she wanted to protect her daughter wasn't considerate enough and now she learned how to do that? Well, 2188 Miura was a bit strange so I can understand.
Okino who in 2188 was lazy and more sentimental, grew up with the opposite priorities, putting work above his sentiments. But we can see how he cares for Takatoshi in his own way, like teasing and sharing the results of his researches (the final twist reveal was particularly romantic to me, as well as Okino opening up about their chances to win being zero). I guess fate wanted to put this one to work and fix the shit his past self did, but since he wasn't a bad person he deserved another chance with Takatoshi. I thought interesting how they way they got together seemed natural, without influence of their past selves, even though they share similar "jobs" they have different personalities. (I have much more things to say about these two, but they are so popular in Japan and I already read analyses similar to my interpretations. I'm burnout...)
Sekigahara's story is hardest to grasp with the non-linear gameplay and I kind of enjoyed piecing it together. Felt like I was playing the game as intented, a puzzle narrative. He is the type of character where the charm comes from how the story and its elements impacts him and how he reacts to them, he indeed doesn't have much characterization and isn't the most charismatic person ever, although being just a normal child going through a tough situation that escalated beyond his control could be the intention. Watching his scenes in chronological order is the only way to go. Per example, you will notice every time he visits Fuyusaka, something important happened to him before that scene and his psychological state is different (progressively worse). At least this is how I interpreted.
Well here are some stuff I interpreted from him (this is all my opinion of course):
Sekigahara grew up already not very good at socializing, whatever the reasons his parents were never at home which made him became more attached to Shinonome. Based on extra-material, he "secretly admired Shinonome" and was heartbroken when she started dating Gouto. One of the reason Shinonome dated him was because she wanted him to open up to others, which implies that girl was his entire world to the point he develop a crush, but never had the courage to confess. He choice to move on and just wish for her happiness. I presume she was his first friend, first family, first love, first everything
If I'm not mistaken, Kamitani said Shinonome fell in love with Ida because she always wanted to solve her issues alone, but only Ida recognized that on her and offered support to her saying she could always rely on him. I presume Shinonome, internally, kind of needed validation or craved someone to "take care of her" not that much of literal, but something like this. I'm telling this story because I presume Sekigahara, despite being only one year younger, was more immature than her and passive, and never gave Shinonome back what she gave to him, relying on Shinonome really like an older sister and only following her blindly, kind of an emotional labor. I think Shinonome, on a way or another, was kind of tired of that dynamic and wanted him to be more free, making his choices, making friends and falling for other people, get out of comfort zone and having courage to take actions....Kind of facing the unknown...And Fuyusaka is like that. Sincere and true to her own feelings, she lives facing reality.
This is just my thing but Morimuras and Fuyusaka seems to be a bit crazy when they make a decision? While the Morimuras are shaped by rationality, they do seem to live following their irrational brains, making determined and impulsive actions, and seem unstoppable, like becoming obsessed with the Project Ark and selling nanomachines to the black-market despite being an old genius. Nurse deleting "her" logs and everything with it after finding out her OG in 2188 extermined humanity and later being persistent with the Aegis Plan. Fuyusaka just took that to her own life style, anything her heart wants she goes for it, whatever is seeing a cat she never saw, confessing to a mysterious boy or fighting a battle she have no clue about allies, how to plot or anything. She seems to be drawn to things that seems different or mysterious, she even likes a weird flavor of crepe (banana with mayonnaise?). I do think Sekigahara is meant to give a balance to that craziness.
About Fuyusaka. Her's route was the only one that presented Ashitaba City to us and how life in there was really the same as an actual city. It was really important to me, who need immersion in stories. Her story shows how AI are exactly like actual humans and Miwako represented that 2 million (how much was that? looks a lot?) habitants they were fighting to protect. From the school to the nighty city, studying (or sleeping), going out with friends, eating and living her youth days at maximum. This is what she fought to protect. I like how I was able to immerse in the eyes of someone living confused between dream and reality. An interesting thing I noticed was that Fuyusaka despite being so simple-minded when come to take actions based in her heart, she seems a bit skeptical when comes to believe stuff like Aliens, her dreams being real, memory injection and high technology.
Through Fuyusaka we can infer Sekigahara seems to have also realized what he needed to change when pushed to extremes failures and tons of misery porn (Ryoko being sucessfully manipulated and straining their relationship, Ryoko's memories issues making her trying to kill him and he can't even says it was her the culprit, Ryoko losing memories, working with Ida and MIB chasing him all the time, betraying his friend, accepting being a killer and "getting rid of anyone who could get in the way", destroying an entire world, his own headaches, a future amnesia or risk of becoming a husk and lastly knowing he was a clone of an actual hitman). I would say even though he was going through his development and taking his own action and decisions, he did that in a wrong way. Decisions come with risks, you need to know its consequences and you need to take responsabilities over them. Sekigahara regreted the shits he had done and keeping fleeing from it, of course, he had failure before why try again? Meeting and starting to care for the innocent Fuyusaka and seeing her love for her hometown, family and her friends was a second chance for him. Despite knowing things could go wrong because she also memories of Morimura and saw Sector 3, despite being told her whole life was a lie, she would die, she still wanted to fight. He said he, Shinonome and Morimura weren't goint to fight, only then after the Morimura talk we get to see Fuyusaka being contamined by the cynicism of these people. Morimura and Sekigahara are both individuals who gave up, become pessimist and turned into "cowards" after failures. But Morimura kept like that till death, while Ei embranced his second chance and overcome it.
The Sekigahara in the Park Scene with Morimura is after he found out his plan got leaked, Miura knew what he was doing along with everyone else. It's when he stoped working for Ida and become incredible vulnerable and self-loathing. He left the park even worse when he found out he couldn't even run away anymore. We see Sekigahara being startled at Fuyusaka desire to fight, after Shinonome lost her memories and he contact 426, we see him giving his Sentinel to Fuyusaka and saying how it was better at hands, indirectly praising her determination and courage. Even though he knew Sentinels were usable again he still didn't want to fight. In my opinion I never thought only seeing a video of him being a "ex-hitman" was enough to put up this child to hope for a future, so I interpret that that determined girl he met inspired him to face things directly. Fuyusaka also showed awareness of her impulsive nature and the dangers she will face by acting like that, her heart is just...unstoppable...? Sekigahara lacked the courage to fight, but had the tools. Fuyusaka lacked the tools, but had courage to fight. Fuyusaka gave him the courage to fight, Sekigahara gave her the tools. There are scenes implying one the "themes" in that romance is choices. Ei had two when he found Morimura=Fuyusaka, try to stop the Aegis, kill them and do all the wrongs thigns or choice not do the stop aegis plan. Once Fuyusaka confesses to him and the park scene, the later become to Ei "giving a shot with Fuyusaka and face the battle together to survive the end the world. An unknown future".
Based on his story's final conclusion about deciding to fight for a future with Fuyusaka, I interpreted him as coming to his same conclusion before and after amnesia, he choose Fuyusaka path twice. I think pre-amnesia Sekigahara wanted his post-amnesia self to decide by himself what to do, the only clue he left to him about Fuyusaka was her ID, I do think he hoped his new self to choice her again. Due to fictional powers of love after amnesia, like Ryoko with Shu, he mentions having strange feelings looking at her picture but try to think of it as her being so dangerious he kind of memorized her. He starts to like her again, then he finally recovers all of his memories, his new feelings for her adds with the old ones and he ultimately choices her, putting his past behind. He praises her sincocerity with her own feelings upon seeing her fighting and goes to join the final battle. I do believe the night Fuyusaka confessed to him was very important to him and one the reasons he backed up his memories and never rejected her directly, hope never completely left him.
Their romance story is not much a romance, but a inspiring story about being true to yourself, don't let past dictate your present, moving foward and living with the thrills of trying new things and with hopes it would work, but also knowing it could fail. The future is unknown. The unknown is mysterious, scary and captivating, but requires courage to face it. You need to have courage to face things you are afraid of. Ah, I keep forgetting the killer/target thing. They reforced these themes by defying their fates. The same woman who reinforced him being assassin who messed up everything, now is the one that by being nurtured by the right enviroment showed him a good path.
His actual personality is hard to grasp. Through scenes like with izumi's death or Natsuno's disappearance maybe he is a bit too realistic by nature or just being cynical because of his failures making him lose hopes, we don't get much context its kind of undercooked. We know he probably wasn't much like that, he seemed more confident they would won the battle in Sector 2.
To me he is the type that looks cold outside, but is pretty clear he is one of the most sensitive, calm and kind-hearted boys. Like some japanese people says he is just bad at wording things (tone or word choices), which I agree. Many pinpoint how rude he was with Takamiya when she offered help (it was really dumb to for Ida alone, you idiot! Luckily you have badass plot armor). He seems to treat gentle people much better than the rude or louds ones, which implies his tastes and his own personality. But I do think sometimes the swings between cold and soft are too "wild" making his character a bit artificial though. Nobody changes so much based on the others kindness (haha). In my opinion, his interactions with Shinonome are overall the best in terms of looking both natural and relaxed. Then Fuyusaka, but he's still struggling with showing romantic feelings with words. With other characters he looked too guarded or just plot dump. With Miura AI he looked unnaturally friendly and polite (I'm sorry for the negative around them again). Now with Okino and Hijiyama, I actually think he have potential to grow closer and I don't know why, especially Okino.
I confess I had some second hand embarrassment from some of his edgy actions, like invading Kurabe's house, that log Ida showed him being all smug or the excessive cryptographic messages he recorded to himself, he was trying hard to look as cool as Schwarzenegger, and to extend his route. We can see some really silly side of him, like blushing at Fuyusaka and Okino (Kiriko) or pulling out a gun in front of cop. Honestly, I think he's unintentionally funny, there's something really funny about him to me. He looks like a parody of a cool guy, like he accidentaly ended up looking like that. I personally don't like him very much in Destruction Mode, his appeal came from the Story Mode. When I realized he was more of a "loser" and not that cool at all is when he started to call my attention. Think about someone who looks so smooth and badass with his secret mission, only find out all the people who shouldn't know (Morimura, Gouto, 426, Miura AI) are aware of that because he is so bad at lying. You could say his inability to lie adds charms to him and made him more clumsy and essentially honest. He is really socially awkward.
From what I got he is much more immature than he looks like, he can be petty if pushed at extremes, like with Shinonome obsession with Ida making her ignore him. He looks like a brat with Shinonome and Gouto, like an annoying overprotective little brother. In Sector 3, we saw him being a bit rude to Shinonome, who is trying to kill him, he even kind of left her alone to take care of his business which was a bit funny to me, like "She is not okay alone! Take her with you! Don't you want to protect her?! Hahaha". Sekigahara's writing is a bit inconsistent just for plot convenience, but I guess sometimes he lost his patience with Shinonome. They probably had that type of conversation multiple times, it was probably exhausting.
He has kind of awkward dry humor in that flashback with Miura AI. But the more I thought about that friendship, the worse it felt. I think the idea was Sekigahara trying to make friends, but this one represent a failure? They don’t feel that compatible to me, both are serious, duty-focused and analytical. So they end up clashing more than connecting. It feels like they’re always going in opposite directions. Surely friends have miscommunications and disagreements, but in this case and with such limited screen time it didn't work for me.
I never saw what made them actually get close, so the jump from 友達（friends) to 親友（close friends）didn’t feel earned. With a guy like Sekigahara I kinda need to feel someone actually broke through his walls. Miura is earnest and all but his politeness and seriousness makes him feel cold and not really warm enough to pull in someone emotionally closed-off like him or me (maybe I’m projecting). Sometimes Miura even comes off as a bit selfish or slightly manipulative, like he’s using the friendship for his own purposes (like with the logs). He has all this knowledge and agency, but doesn’t actually do anything for Sekigahara, only helps other people. That’s why the dynamic feels off to me. It almost feels like a hardened guy paired with an “infantilized” AI, when it should feel more balanced, like a real person in there, maybe more of an older-brother figure. I think it would’ve worked better if Miura chose on his own to show the 2188 logs, like giving Sekigahara a needed reality check, instead of waiting until he begged for it. As it is, it feels like he just ends up enabling Sekigahara’s flaws.
The memory wipe especially bothered me. Sekigahara is already going through hell, being chased by MIB just to trick Miura, and he just erases his memories and leaves him there, lonely and lost. It almost felt comical. And the whole plot with the logs didn’t land for me either, since they weren’t even useful for the actual simulation plot in the end. He was really focused in uncover secrets and saving a world that means nothing to him logically. Overall it just made me feel bad for Sekigahara more than anything. And it showed how of a good guy he is, he can't betray good people.
Sekigahara seems to be able to show a sweet or emotional side only when extreme situation forces him (Shinonome's manipulations, her amnesia and eventual "death") or if people pushes it (asking him directly), romantic affections seems to be worse to him, he only call Fuyusaka by her name in pinch situations in Destruction Mode and only shows love/affection through actions. Either Shinonome was clueless or Sekigahara was really good at hiding his crush from her when he was younger, kind of contradictory for someone so bad at lying.
About Shinonome, I never understood her's bandages, I feel like they are mostly symbolic to empathize her poor situation. Why was she the only one who got hurt in Sector 2? Also her memories issues make no sense and in the end of the game, she even remembered that 2188 log even though she had total amnesia. It was treated very much like a plot device, right? (haha). Like how Sekigahara conveniently recovered memories with only new information (I felt upset there was no Shinonome in his story). I like her because of her design and uncanny cute aura, and how she maintained her habit of wanting to solve everything by herself. But her writing is really all over the place and I wonder who took care of her or where did she lived? There is no way that girl was able to study or even eat alone. This kills my immersion, but well, this the wrong game to ask for grounded character writing.
I do believe it wasn't Sekigahara who told Shinonome about Ida, but based on her skills somehow she apparently was fighting to atone her sins and not for Ida anymore. Maybe it was Gouto? Morimura? Anyway, in the end Shinonome's personality remained a mystery. In Destruction Mode, she seemed robotic and full of Sentinel/Deimos dump exposition dialogues. Which makes sense.. But during the game, we also see she was unnecessarily rude too, which I don't understand. But also we can see some sweet side of her, she seems so happy and docile to Kurabe (thinking he's Izumi). I guess she have the same mood swings Sekigahara have. Based in my logic, I do believe Shinonome before Ida was a much more kind, assertive and gentle girl for Sekigahara ended up admiring her that much. Makes sense in my brain, he doesn't seem attracted to talkative, loud or rude people. I do believe her new personality is sweet again. After her amnesia, I think he decided to let her live her new life by herself and decided to watch her from a far. I hope they can bond again.
Some details:
I had fun writing this to practice my English, I never thought I would see myself analyzing fictional teens (haha). Initially it was just about Sekigahara and Shinonome, since their stories are so confusing and full of holes, but become impossible to not talk about Fuyusaka too. I love reading subtext, I was surprised about how much meat I was able to find digging them, since I consider this game past the mysteries lacking in depth. Everything is underdeveloped and lacks emotional weight and logic.
The relationship between Sekigahara and Fuyusaka is presented with lots of sincerity and strong 青春（せいしゅん） tone. Both the characters and the narrative display a consistent self-awareness, taking emotional developments seriously while still being a big romcom. Fuyusaka is suprised by her own feelings, wonders if people will laugh at her, and she knows she is crazy and impulsive. Sekigahara acknowledges that too, asks if it's a joke, laughs, seems to be having fun with the whole thing.
He just says whatever is on his mind: “Oh, see? I’m a scumbag,” “This place is going to be destroyed,” “Don’t you want to come with me?” “Your family is fake.” And Fuyusaka listens to all of it and responds in her own way. Meanwhile, during Sekigahara’s story, he’s pretending to have memories while also being sus of her, which makes their conversations hilariously awkward. In my opinion, they’re both socially awkward and honestly kind of bad at romance, but that’s exactly what makes it work.
I think sometimes romances try so hard to be romances that they kind of lose this authenticity. Characters don’t feel fully honest, their flaws get toned down and conflicts are avoided just to keep certain dynamics or tropes. Any awkwardness or bullshit was embraced here and I like it. They’re chaotic, kind of silly, unpredictable, and everything feels very spontaneous. And I love chaos. That child lives her life so freely and does whatever her heart wants.
Felt they were really talking to each other and not at each other. It was cute seeing Fuyusaka whispering to him "That Morimura Secret", like they have created their own little secret world together in the middle of everything. Aside from that, they really embodied a lot of themes from the game in a tangible and engaging way: memories, identity, past mistakes, redemption, nurture x nature, hope and cynicism, and others.
By the way I prefer the japanese sub, english changed the characters too much for me as well as the localization...I don't liked the changes, sorry for the bluntness.
Source: Developers Talks in "13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Official Script Double Strand" and this interview and this one too.