Ayanokouji( Humanity's Dream And Nightmare)
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P/s: English is not my main vocabulary so please forgive me if I made a mistake.
Ayanokouji is one of the interesting character for the fictional character. He is genius, strong, quick thinking, has abnormal adaptability and others feat. He can be considered almost perfect because he have many talents and abilities that humanity(us) always dreamed of. But he also have some biggest flaw for human like his lack of emotion. If you guys already read the novel, you will have two different opinion about him between like or hate him. This is just my opinion, but I want to share what I understand about Ayanokouji Kiyotaka.
In volume 0, we finally know how gifted and flawed Ayanokouji actually is from his white room background. In white Room, there are 10 curriculum level and the 10th or Beta is the dimensions above in terms of difficulty. The White Room is a project that plans on nurturing children from infancy and turn them into geniuses with the best of education of the world in the hopes of making the best use of a person's potential, bringing in the best people of the world in their own respective field. It also aimed to make artificial geniuses who could act as politicians in the future and help Japan dominate in the world politics. Although this sound awesome, we already know how harsh the environment and treatment for the white room students. The most sad part is many people especially in the political world use this institute to throw away their illegal child like Amasawa Ichika to hide their existence from the world. Every curriculum can be considered too cruel or hard because the children have to learn and adapt quickly if they don't want to get beaten or expelled from the institute. Although this sound harsh, many students who were survived from their generation really become genius and talented person and has a mature way of thinking like adults. And Kiyotaka is the best in that facility. For ten or Beta curriculum, all of students from 4th generation can't survive or adapt in the curriculum and all of them have been expelled from the white room except for Kiyotaka. Kiyotaka have mastered post-graduate academics, multiple martial arts, advanced foreign languages, and cultural arts like the piano and calligraphy. He also acquired elite strategic thinking, combat weapon proficiency, and complete emotional detachment. But the beta curriculum is the hardest and the most inhuman curriculum in the white room. If someone from the 4th generation managed to survive and adapt, that person (Ayanokouji Kiyotaka) is no longer a human. Even Suzukaze(the creator of white room curriculum)admit that Kiyotaka is the anomaly but the most perfect person for white room education.
The sad part is Kiyotaka can be considered the monster from the moment he was born. His talent and abilities almost have no limits and he can still improve further than that. But, he has a biggest flaw for human which is lack of emotion. We already knew from volume 0 that Kiyotaka doesn't understand emotion and can be cruel toward people like his behavior when his father praise him or when he doesn't even care about Yuki who still traumatized from the white room. It's not because he is evil or like to do that but it's simply because of his inhuman personality. He can also be considered a robot because he lack amount of emotion than an average person. This can be considered advantage or weakness for Kiyotaka. This is why he didn't hesitate to use or manipulate the people around him because that's the core of his identity.
If the readers read the the volume 0 before the volume 1, they will be really confused because Ayanokouji seem like a normal and awkward teenager in the beginning of the series. That's why people really shocked when he show his 'everyone is tool' personality in the year 1 island exam. Then he become more cruel or manipulate person without hesitation. From this series, we already learned many students especially class leaders who use their brain or talents to win the exam even if they have to use dirty trick or manipulate people in the school. The Advance Nurturing High School is the school that one can't survive if they only follow the rules or score high in the test or exam. That's why many students being expelled because this school teach the students to become the people that always improve themselves and doesn't hesitate to broke the rule or expel their classmates if they want to become class A and graduate from this school. We also know the student like Nagumo who have the influence as the student council president managed to expel many of the students from his year and can control them if he want. That's why Ayanokouji Kiyotaka is the most suitable person for this school because of his personality and abilities. If Ayanokouji doesn't help his former class, I doubt they can survive by themselves and reach class A. And the funny thing is most of the students from Horikita's class still doesn't realize the students that they think only gloomy loner who is fast at running is the mastermind behind their success and the biggest threat for all the students in that school. I don't know when Horikita will finally admit and tell her pathetic classmate about Ayanokouji's achievement and power. Not only that, Ayanokouji also help many students in the other classes and make them improve like Ryueen, Sakayanagi, Ichinose and others. In short, Ayanokouji is the powerhouse. Even Hoshinomiya admit that Ayanokouji is joker and how unfair Chabashira class has him help them from the beginning. Koenji also reprimand Horikita their class didn't win because she thought their class become united but because of Ayanokouji. This is the main reason why readers doesn't like Ayanokouji because he's too smart and overpowered in COTE and how he always know about his enemy strategies and think many steps ahead of them.
This is the main reason why Ayanokouji is the dream and the nightmare for the humanity. Many of us want to become smart, strong and have much abilities to survive in this world or for our own sake. This is the dream that many people want to achieve but it's doesn't come without risk. For example, some people can become talented or genius in some aspect but it doesn't mean their life will always happy. Many genius or strong people always suffer from the burden of expectation and the jealousy from the people around them. We can't never forget there will be always the people who is better than us in many ways. Our emotion is also the biggest factor in our talent development. If we can't control our own emotion, then no matter how smart or strong we are, we will receive drawback from our own action. The same goes for people who doesn't care of discard the emotion. For example, a big company who doesn't care about their employer and discard them without hesitation. That company can bring a huge profit but the people will always afraid or suspicious to work with the company in the future. It's the same situation if we dealt with life or death incident. If we become too cruel or lack of emotion, we wouldn't care about the life of the person in front of us and we may discard or abandon them without any guilt. What makes us different from the cruel dictator or monster outside there?
COTE is the complicated series for me. It have many interesting stories but it also make me want to drop this series. I don't know what the author's plans for this series. I just hope this series end well and don't disappoint the readers with the conclusion.
Many people including me agree the main character, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka is the inconsistent character throughout the series. Even the author describe Ayanokouji is neither good or evil but between them. But I'm also think if we in Ayanokouji place, will we be different from him? He was born in the institute that use the kids like him as the experimental subject to create the artificial genius.He never received any love from his parent because they only view him as the tool(the same way of his view toward people) to get want they want. His father also called Kiyotaka as thing or property. Not only that, Kiyotaka is someone who is excel in many things but lack of emotion especially empathy or sympathy toward others. Kei once tell Kiyotaka that she thinks Kiyotaka is weird person because he always show the behavior of mature and genius person but sometimes he act like a child to some things the normal people always do. People may thought why Kiyotaka doesn't destroy the white room or kill his father if he wants freedom? The reason is Kiyotaka never view the white room as his misfortune. He accepts white room as his part of identity. In fact, if White Room destroyed or Ayanokouji Atsuomi gone, do you think the other people won't try to get Kiyotaka for themselves? Atsuomi enemies in politic always tried to steal Kiyotaka from him for their own benefit. In fact, Nanase already told Ichika(year 3 volume 4)that Shirogane faction(Atsuomi enemy) want to take Kiyotaka and her to save them from White Room and Atsuomi Ayanokouji. Well, that's totally ridiculous because the political world never be fair and nice like that. In fact, maybe they want to use Kiyotaka for their own white room project or make Kiyotaka to help them in rule the Japan. That's the reality for Ayanokouji Kiyotaka. No matter, how much talented he is, the people around the world will never leave him alone and they will always tried to exploit him for their own benefit. I doubt Ayanokouji will get a happy ending. Even if he become a better person and have more emotion like what we saw sometimes in the novel, I don't think his life will become better. That's all my opinion about Ayanokouji Kiyotaka. Sorry if some of you doesn't like what I wrote.