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i don't know what's the best avenue to share headcanons, but i have so many about akira's functionally-dysfunctional family.
being generally well-off, living in a good suburban neighborhood, a modern house. perfect and impersonal. his father is a emotionally absent business man and his mother is a highly codependent nurse. he had brother, around seven years older than him, who died during college.
his brother took the brunt of the pressure from their parents, especially their mother, who was especially involved and controlling in most aspects of their lives. it really took a toll on him and his mental health was never very good, but he was so skilled at hiding it.
around his junior year in college, when akira was probably around 12-13, he died in a car accident that was the unfortunate result of too much alcohol and sleep aids. it was an "tragic accident." his parents refuse to see it as a suicide, or the result of self-destruction.
the pressure is now shifted onto akira, and he has to somehow live up to be the perfect son that his brother embodied. it's an impossible standard. akira gets arrested and convicted of assault and it's the final straw. the love has always been conditional.
i don't know how prep schools work in japan, but i like to think shujin has a tuition of some kind. it's elite, it has a reputation. it's the only school they can find that will take akira with his criminal record and it helps that his parents are paying for it.
akira's totally left to fend for himself in tokyo. "we're already paying for your school, why should we give you an allowance?" it's part of the punishment.
such a great portion of akira's adaptability, his willingness to help others, is because of the way he was taught not to impose. because his family was so deceptively normal and "functional," akira has zero awareness of how badly it's fucked him up.
everyone else's problems will always have more priority or severity than his own. he never shares much about himself. he wears masks. he wants to be of use to someone, anyone. even in counseling, he ends up helping his therapist more than his therapist helps him.
i also see the rift from his brother's death and akira's arrest being the breaking point in his parents already loveless marriage. it was always dispassionate, a marriage of convenience, an avenue to create the "perfect family."
his mother, in a very silent, passive-aggressive way, blames akira for it too. she never outright states it, but akira knows. why couldn't he have just been a good boy, like his brother. he was always a good student, such a polite and quiet kid, if not stubborn at times.
he's so disenchanted by society (afraid of rejection, yet met with it at every turn) that the rage, the injustice, becomes joker. he can't be what society wants him to be, what his family wants him to be, but he's not powerless anymore. he has control. autonomy.
anyway, akira's family is awful in ways he won't fully internalize until college. thank you for reading.
