katikat | 30 Days Relationship Challenge #23

Shion & Nezumi, No. 6

These two... these two push all my buttons! Shion is so much like Charles and Nezumi so much like Erik that they make me ridiculously happy. And don't let anybody tell you that this anime isn't shounen-ai/Bl/whatever-the-fandom-calls-the-genre-now! This is a gay anime. Shion and Nezumi ARE in love. They kiss, a full-on lip-lock, not just a peck on the cheek.

So, Shion is a genius boy living a privileged life in a futuristic city. Nezumi is an escapee from a correction facility. Shion saves Nezumi and enables his escape - but for that he's stripped of all his privilege, he loses his scholarship, simply everything and ends up becoming a glorified repairman. Then he gets infected with a disease that's spreading throughout the city, turning people into into hollowed husks, just cocoons for giant insects. He's sent to a correction facility - very same correction facility from where Nezumi escaped many years before - to be eliminated. But Nezumi, who lives outside the city and has joined a terrorist group - and never stopped watching over Shion - kidnaps him... Thus a beautiful love story begins.

Shion is so incredibly kind-hearted, just like Charles in XMFC. Despite everything, he has never stopped believing in people, in their good hearts and good intentions. Even in the slums outside the city, living together with Nezumi in his hole, he surrounds himself with children and people in need, he brings them all together and convinces them that killing is not the right way.

Nezumi just wants to destroy the city and die in its ruins. It's been his plan since he escaped into the slums. But then Shion comes along and suddenly, Nezumi has someone else to look after and care for. Shion becomes the center of his universe. You see it in the episode where the disease starts catching up with Shion, slowly killing him. Nezumi is so desperate, so terribly scared that he will lose Shion. And when Shion is shot and dies in Nezumi's arms... Everything loses its meaning for Nezumi.

The ending again reminded me of XMFC. Shion stays to take care of the children and Nezumi leaves to make peace with his own demons - but with a kiss and a promise to come back. So, so lovely...