I don’t think you should go into this manga taking everything the author says at face value. I prefer to read it as a portrayal of the author’s complex relationship with his own reality, especially the anguish he feels when he tries to reconcile himself with it. It’s more of a cry for help than it is applicable to real life, I guess, but it’s detached from reality for a reason—heavy stuff can hard to think about and confront directly. In the end, it was easier for him to continue his escape with fallacious portrayals of human nature than it was to make any constructivepoints or observations. And that’s what most people end up falling to, anyway. If anyone has ever had a conclusive answer to the questions he dances around, they would have shared it with the class by now.

That is ultimately what made me appreciate The Music of Marie when I could’ve easily dismissed it just because I disagree with what one may mistake for being its message. The story, art, and writing are all simultaneously intricate and raw, just like their world as it is under Marie’s watch. Emotion does not escape through the cracks in its machinery to draw your attention away from them—it’s what powers the machine to begin with.