"The Purge March" by Amane Momose (MILGRAM)

"The Purge March" Cover

I'm still infested with the MILGRAM brainworms so I will be talking more about the 12-year old prisoner who is being held for murder. (Spoilers ahead, sorry).

Her second trial/music video, after she was found guilty by the viewers, has a much different aesthetic than her first one. No longer is it a cutesy video reminiscent of a children's show. It leans much more into heavy religious doctrine. The opening visuals are essentially an army of Amane, wearing a marching band outfit, wielding flags that depict the four figures of love within her cult.

The first few lines are her welcoming the people listening to her song, but then stating that there are still sinners and blasphemers who must be ignored for they will be the ones who are judged. She then explains doctrines within her cult.

"’Tis ordained, thou shall follow thine destiny

’Tis ordained, thou shall discard vulgarity

’Tis ordained, thou shall deliver unto those thou believest in

’Tis ordained, thou shall stay thine course, then perish"

She fully falls into religious psychosis. One of the Amane's is twirling a flag; she falls and drops it, so another Amane(the head one), with cold eyes and a harsh stare slams her baton into the ground, making rainfall, forcing the Amane on the ground to sink into the ground, being drowned by the rain and ground combined. She's punishing herself for a simple mistake, but after the screen goes dark, with Amane reaching for the sky, it cuts to reality. She's covered in water, breathing heavy as another person is standing over her holding the showerhead.

I believe this person is her mother, as there are questions Amane is asked outside of the music videos where she reveals that her father is out doing religious work, and has been gone for some time.

I also looked into the doctrine of the two cults that have formed this fictional cult that Amane and her family are apart of, the Unification Church and Happy Science. There is a lot more information on the beliefs of the Unification Church, and it is very reminiscent of the doctrine's that Amane describes in the first lines of her song, besides the welcoming message. A lot of it is basically humans must become as pure as possible in order to be closer to God, and it also preaches a lot about how because of Eve having a sexual relationship with Satan that the fall of man happened, and all men are born evil, and their children are born evil etc. So the church is offering that if those who wish to be evil, or live in a world of evil, they can join that cult in order to not be evil.

The pre-chorus is: "The “It can’t be helped”, from the scum who can’t be helped / That makes them doubtlessly, clearly, absolutely, unequivocally, beyond any doubt, GUILTY" This a 12-year-old. She's calling those who don't follow the doctrines of her cult scum, and that they are "guilty". Guilty of sinning in the eyes of their leader, or higher power. A 12-year-old is so devout, and is so deep in her religious psychosis.

I think that her verdict of Guilty from the first trial stripped away her childish beliefs that others don't have to follow such strict doctrines of her cult, and with that she became fully devout. The small glimpse of her having a bit of psychosis was visible in "Magic" with the bright yellow eyes surrounded by green, but in this video, its much more common to see her with that coloring in her eyes.

About halfway through the video, in reality, Amane is seen finding a hurt cat and wrapping a bandana around its leg. It then pans up to a man and daughter, the latter of which is holding a balloon with imagery that relates to their cult. The same two figures are seen at the door of an apartment, with a sticker that has the icon seen throughout both of Amane's videos. Amane then gets home, and is immediately met with her (presumably) mother, holding a taser. The song even incorporates the taser sound into the song, which is pretty neat, but it's so heart wrenching.

It then cuts back to where Amane found the cat, it's collar ripped in two, and the bandana is covered in blood, no cat to be found. She looks up into the rain, her face visibly bruised, frowning and her cheeks are tearstained; then reality shifts and her eyes go that bright yellow-green and she's back in her marching band outfit. It has close up shots of her twirling her baton, which increasingly gets bloodier and bloodier as she twirls it, until it cuts to her, in her marching band outfit, standing over a bed. It's in reality, and there is blood on the floor. The closing lines are:

"You’re sorry? I don’t care! Please, go ahead and die already / Remember MY cries, MY repents, MY words of “I’m sorry” that I said to you?"

This is more reason to why I believe that her murder was committed against her mother, because in her first song, "Magic" she would keep apologizing, and she would be punished regardless. It's possible her mother did something that went against the doctrines of their cult, or even that the abuse of her daughter went against their doctrine. There is a lot of implications that lead me to believe that it was her mother that was abusing her, as well as being the one that Amane murdered.

What makes this even worse is that the audience who voted on this round, voted her Innocent. They reinforced that she needs to listen and adopt her doctrine even more, making her delve even more into her religious psychosis. The people who voted have consistently told her that she needs to forget her own feelings and that she needs to follow the beliefs of her cult more devoutly.

She ends up killing another prisoner (number 5) who is a doctor, and is actively helping two of the other prisoners (3 and 6) who were beat up by another prisoner (number 12). By forcing Amane to abide more by the rules set in place by the cult, those who voted her innocent are responsible for a series of deaths, as prisoner 5 is killed by Amane, and prisoner 6 succumbs to her injuries because there was nobody to treat her.

It's such an interesting thought experiment because of how many moving parts there are to this character as well as MILGRAM as a whole. This will absolutely not be my last post about MILGRAM.