Tokyo 24 Ward “Additive Colour Mixture” Review
Tokyo 24 Ward “Additive Colour Mixture” is the eleventh episode of the Tokyo 24 Ward anime. Following the decision Shu is given in episode 10 he, naturally, hesitates. But eventually a final decision is made after a lot of dilly dallying. The RGB group need to get back together on the same page again in order for it to happen.
Shu’s Choice
The majority of this episode surrounds Shu’s impossible choice. Wondering how selfish it is or how selfless his selfishness would be, he agonises over it, especially after it’s revealed he blames himself over Asumi’s death and that’s why he’s done no choice making so far. Whilst his predicament is understandable it’s kinda hypocritical, he shares his problems with Mari, which in itself seems like a selfish choice to make. It won’t be seen that way but it seems odd that someone so obsessed with protecting someone who’s dead is now agonising over just letting her rest and moving on.
The entire episode shows everyone’s choices as lacking any kind of sense. Shu wants to save her as he believes that’s what she’d want and Ran wants to destroy the KANAE system entirely and save Asumi the pain. Both of them admit that their choices are generally born from wanting to just forget Asumi and move on because it’s easier to deal with the pain that way but they end up making a choice that prevents them from ever doing that. If the goal was genuinely to just move on then everyone would be on board with erasing Asumi’s conscience. Just seems that no-one here knows what they actually want or feel. Which is actually a wonderful thing. These are impossible choices and they’re reacting to them exactly as a normal human being would. If they all just made a decision easy peasy it’d feel false and robotic.
The ending of the show actually throws another curveball. Asumi is seen begging for Shu not to go there to see her. Why? Who knows but I’ll admit I’m extremely excited to find out! Is it dangerous? Or does she just not want him to suffer as she has? Which, in turn will make his decision for him.
