WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Tokyo 24th Ward Episode 11, "Additive Color Mixture," now streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
The battle for the 24th ward's future heats up as Akagi Ran's DoRed organization wages war on the ward government to tear down the all-seeing KANAE system and restore peace and freedom to the streets. Meanwhile, Aoi Shuta's own circle of friends is divided over these politics, with Koki trying to reform the ward government from the inside and Shuta being undecided.
After Kunai's death in an earlier episode, a deep rift formed between the bookish Koki and the rebel Ran, but whatever their differences, the RBG boys are best friends deep down, and they also share a common bond with the deceased Suido Asumi. Now, Shuta and Koki have one final mission, and they and Ran must talk things out before they can move forward.
As of Episode 11 of Tokyo 24th Ward, Koki has his mission to reform the ward government from the inside and pacify the KANAE system without destroying it, while Tsuzusagawa, the former Carneades, offers Shuta a new trolley dilemma concerning Asumi's role in the KANAE system. In some shape or form, Asumi is "alive" inside the KANAE system's complex programming, and Shuta must decide whether to expose KANAE's secrets and have it destroyed or help Koki put Asumi back to "sleep" and otherwise keep the system running as intended. Shuta cannot decide this on his own, and tellingly, he believes it's not even his right to choose. He's stuck.
As a good-hearted shonen hero, Shuta cannot bring himself to take other people's lives, ruin their happiness or interfere with their lives, and he feels concerned that whatever he does, he will destroy whatever is left of Suido Asumi and possibly "kill" her in the process. Shuta cannot bear the thought of doing harm to his old friend, even if she is in a bizarre transhumanist state, so he consults his good friend Mari before summoning his friends Koki and Ran to talk it out. The RBG friends must set aside their differences and think things out together.
Shuta, Koki and Ran meet up on a baseball diamond, far away from the ward's ongoing battle, and talk things out. The topic of Asumi is a painful and personal one for all three friends, and the discussion quickly turns heated, especially when an anguished Koki throws the first of many punches directly at Shuta. These three boys need to vent their frustrations and process their grief somehow, and until now, they've done relatively little of that; they've been busy with other affairs such as Kunai's untimely death.
It's tragic to watch the three friends repeatedly assault one another and shout accusations, but given the stakes and tense climate of the ward, perhaps this is overdue. Shuta, Koki and Ran all have a lot on their minds, and this brutal group therapy session, juvenile as it may appear, could be what's best for them. There are many ways to process grief and express oneself, after all, although Tokyo 24th Ward isn't necessarily condoning violence in the process.
Fortunately, Shuta, Koki and Ran don't aim to seriously injure one another, even if the fists fly freely. Instead, these three friends face a common problem, and they all have different personal stakes, opinions and priorities in this messy situation. Ran and Koki still differ on how to handle KANAE, while Shuta faces accusations of behaving selfishly where Asumi is concerned. However, as the meeting continues, the punches taper off and the boys fully open up about their grief. After one last mutual punch, the friends all fall onto the ground, and symbolically, they fall toward rather than away from one another.
Sure enough, they come to an agreement to face this new trolley dilemma together and pool their resources to find a solution that works for everyone. Shuta and his friends failed to find a compromise during the GourFes disaster, but they have learned a lot since then, and where saving Asumi is concerned, they might find the ultimate compromise after all and create the perfect future. Together, they can do anything.
