Maybe what determines a good friend is how well you can bounce ideas off of each other. Seishin and Ozaki work really well as a team, especially while trying to track down the disease (this didn't work, but they did work well as a team...and I mean that they organized it easily), but that's due to years and years of working together, so they probably know each other's style as well as their own. However, they never make psychological leaps like Sunako and Seishin do. Maybe Ozaki IS capable of introspection or helping out with problems, but Seishin doesn't give him a chance. Most likely though, he wouldn't recognize the scope of Seishin's problem and wave it off, "Man, don't stress about it when you have work to do."

Yay! Shinsekai Yori is so pretty. It's actually kind of an acquired taste, too...let me know how you like it! (That's okay! I don't really like spoilers, but with Shiki I have watched the anime and read the manga so it's not as if you're ruining the experience for me. You're fine talking like you've been talking before ^_^)

I like the idea that Seishin is like a 'walking corpse'--I think it kind of ties in to him being different on the outside and inside. Little by little, I think he would be killing off his outside. By suppressing his true feelings and forcing himself to behave a certain way that isn't him, he's actually killing off the person he actually is. It's very sad, isn't it? Every kid is told to 'just be yourself', but that's very hard as a child. As an adult, people usually have a stronger foundation and are more true to themselves. (One can argue against it that, as a society, everyone conforms, but in this instance I'm just saying that people don't violently suppress themselves like kids who are trying to be something they're not) But Seishin, for whatever reason, does not want to be his real self. Even around Ozaki, he's not his real self--on a superficial level, he's more friendly and normal, but he doesn't really offer his opinions or share his story. He does so with Sunako, though.

But Seishin could BE HIMSELF, couldn't he? Ozaki isn't defined by the expectations of his job; he defines what it means to be a village doctor. He says, THIS is how I will handle this job, THIS is how I feel I can serve the village best. But Seishin thinks that he can't serve the village as well unless he conforms. But he couuuuld D: He actually has it easier than Ozaki, doesn't he? His family isn't as demanding and he has a lot of people at the temple to back him up. But then again, being a monk as a job, if you ignore the people he's surrounded by, is pretty hard because while a doctor just has to be effective at treating patients and problem-solving, being a monk requires him to be a moral example for the other parishioners.

And if Seishin did decide to be himself, who is he, really? He's a lot harder to define than Ozaki. If he didn't suppress his real personality, I suppose he would be thoughtful, bookish, impractical, and somewhat serious, I suppose. That's still okay for a monk, though, in my opinion. It's not as if his real self goes against the virtues of his religion; all he'd have to do is just not talk about his own personal interpretation of God.

It's really hard to say about what kind of a person he'd be without his facade, since his private nature is such a big part of his personality.

I think maybe Seishin's potentials are also understated because he is not very sure of himself; he doesn't have very high self-esteem. Although that's just speculation, I'd say that's the case because he doesn't think that his writing deserves much credit; he shies away from taking action (as a result, Ozaki provides most of the action) and isn't sure if he can be confident in his own thoughts. His reservations are very childlike, so there's also a weird comparison between him and Sunako- she's outwardly a child, but is very much an adult inside, whereas Seishin, an adult, is emotionally childlike.

So at the end, when he kills Ohkawa, he's more action-oriented than ever. I think it could show how much he's 'grown up' with Sunako's help.

According to my personal interpretation of Ozaki, he wouldn't have second-thoughts about Sotoba. He's not very retrospective, and always works in the now, or toward the future. He wouldn't understand what good thinking about the past would do, what's done is done. But the way the series ended on a traumatic note, I think it would make sense if fallout of everything that's happened would come back to haunt the survivors. Unlike Seishin, Ozaki doesn't undergo any changes in his beliefs or personality--but if he did, that would show how much such an ordeal had an effect on him. It would actually say a lot about his character, to what degree he is affected by Sotoba.

I don't necessarily think that letting your emotions get the better of you is a kid thing--it's not as if once you're an adult and experienced enough of the world, you suddenly act only on logic (but that would be nice). I think that at the end Sunako is more human than she's ever been, and Seishin is as far from human as he's ever been. Different people get influenced by emotions in different ways...but I like the way that Sunako, who up to this point has commanded the battle coolly and efficiently, is suddenly taken over by her emotions, showing that she can lose her cool as much as the rest of us.

As a final thought, maybe when Sunako wanted to die, Seishin remembered his own attempted suicide and just told her what he thought he needed to hear when he went through it. All this time, he's been thinking about the reason behind his experience--and Sunako has helped him come to that conclusion. So, now he shares the conclusion with Sunako. But this also reiterates that he's very selfish. He likes the effect Sunako has on him, and he is pretty confident that he can make her willing to live again. And if that's the case, he too is aware of his effect on her.

I wish there was a scene of Seishin-Light washing Ozaki-L's feet...like somewhere by the temple. That would be cool.