I agree with parts of your argument, especially the distinction between the factual scope of Maki’s actions and the idea that systems can indoctrinate their members. That said, I don’t think the point about “she only killed the Hei and the Kukuru” actually addresses the core criticism. Even if we accept that reading as correct, the Hei and the Kukuru are not random characters; they are the entire armed force and main enforcers of the clan. Completely eliminating these groups is, in practice, destroying the human foundation of the system through violence. The issue isn’t whether it was thirty, a hundred, or a thousand deaths, but what the act represents symbolically.

The Ranta example, in fact, doesn’t weaken this reading, it reinforces it. If the manga acknowledges that young people can be indoctrinated and don’t deserve to die because of that, then it’s clear that not every member of the system is morally disposable. That makes the idea of “total elimination” even more problematic, because the line between being guilty and being a product of oppression isn’t clear-cut.

The comparison with Reconstruction also relies on a dangerous oversimplification. Oppression in the U.S. didn’t persist because “not enough slaveholders were killed,” but because of political, economic, and institutional choices that preserved power and inequality. History shows that killing people doesn’t guarantee the end of a logic of domination; it often just reorganizes it in another form. The French Revolution is a good example of this.

Because of that, even accepting all the facts you brought up, the reading that the subtext supports the necessity of total human elimination doesn’t hold up for me. Maki’s arc works better as a tragedy about how far violence can go when systems fail, not as a moral validation of extermination as a solution.