“Children are powerless”
Piercing“Children are powerless” is the sentence in which Kawashima Masayuki recognizes that abused children’s troubling behavior is an effect of their treatment, not a reason they deserve it. The thought overturns the adult judgment he has just imagined and connects his memories of children at the Home with his own childhood under abuse. It becomes both an expression of their helplessness and the starting point for his self-appointed resolve to avenge them.
The reversal in judgment
Kawashima first imagines the children as an adult might see them: as difficult, repellent, or impossible to love. He recognizes how readily their behavior could be used to justify indifference or favoritism. Then he corrects that imagined explanation. Parents do not abuse children because of such behavior; the behavior is among the results of abuse. The expression names the reversal directly, shifting attention from what children do to the conditions imposed on them.
Childhood, helplessness, and its aftermath
The realization is bound to Kawashima’s own childhood. He recalls that a child subjected to severe abuse by a parent cannot simply escape, and that dependence can persist even when the parent is the source of harm. Children may struggle to love a parent rather than hate that parent, turning hatred inward instead. In his account, love and violence become entangled, leaving kindness tense and intimate relationships vulnerable to hysteria. The claim therefore describes not only children’s immediate lack of power but also the lasting patterns that abuse can produce.
From recognition to resolve
The thought comes with an unexpected physical consequence: tears surprise Kawashima, and he drains his glass of whisky. His response moves beyond private recognition. Looking between his reflection and the Tokyo nightscape, he imagines himself as a representative of the children at the Home, and as a martyr armed with an ice pick. He summons their faces and repeatedly promises to kill their enemies. The expression’s moral insight is thus joined to a dangerous transformation: Kawashima understands the children’s helplessness, but casts himself as their avenger.
