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Mai-HiME 3-5
Jul. 16th, 2005 12:47 amEpisode 3: One of the things I find most interesting about Mai is that she's simultaneously very maternal (witness her mothering of Takumi, and the way she instantly adopts the care and feeding of Mikoto) and very much a feisty teenage girl. In episode 5, it's clear that she's under a great deal of pressure to take care of Takumi. She works hard and passes up opportunities to socialize with people she longs to have as friends, and it's hard from her (Tate's recognition of this is one of his redeeming features, as on the whole, he's a spineless dweeb). Yet for all that she's struggling to live up to the role she's created for herself, she seeks out Mikoto to look after her, after meeting her only once in bizarre and confusing circumstances. This is while Mai is still actively avoiding the violent weirdness around her, I might add.
>_> Further commentary on Mai's character development terminated, lest it stray into massive spoiler territory.
Episode 4: Pantsu thievery! It should have been so bad, but it was so good.
It's worth noting that while the ecchi humor in the previous episodes was all throwaway material, Natsuki's embarrassing incident in this one is actually followed up on, and serves the plot (and directly affects her relationship with Mai and Mikoto). I wonder if it just took them a couple of tries to hit their stride on it? A guy falling on a girl's boobs could and does happen in any ecchi romantic comedy, ad nauseum. But the scene immediately following the skirt-blowing incident--Mai and Natsuki in the bathroom--feels considerably less hackneyed to me.
Episode 5: My god, practically the only thing that isn't foreshadowed in this show is the first scene in the first episode, and that's just because it comes before everything else. I'm so impressed by how carefully each scene is planned, how subtly exposited. You never have to guess why someone is doing something, or going somewhere; there's always some minor comment or quick establishing shot to explain things. They must have had a giant chart with a line for each character and a timeline, so they could keep track of where everybody was at any given moment. You just don't find this much attention to detail very often. And it's not like they club you over the head with it, either; I'm only noticing it now because I already know what happens, and I can see how well the progression of events holds together.
>_> Further commentary on Mai's character development terminated, lest it stray into massive spoiler territory.
Episode 4: Pantsu thievery! It should have been so bad, but it was so good.
It's worth noting that while the ecchi humor in the previous episodes was all throwaway material, Natsuki's embarrassing incident in this one is actually followed up on, and serves the plot (and directly affects her relationship with Mai and Mikoto). I wonder if it just took them a couple of tries to hit their stride on it? A guy falling on a girl's boobs could and does happen in any ecchi romantic comedy, ad nauseum. But the scene immediately following the skirt-blowing incident--Mai and Natsuki in the bathroom--feels considerably less hackneyed to me.
Episode 5: My god, practically the only thing that isn't foreshadowed in this show is the first scene in the first episode, and that's just because it comes before everything else. I'm so impressed by how carefully each scene is planned, how subtly exposited. You never have to guess why someone is doing something, or going somewhere; there's always some minor comment or quick establishing shot to explain things. They must have had a giant chart with a line for each character and a timeline, so they could keep track of where everybody was at any given moment. You just don't find this much attention to detail very often. And it's not like they club you over the head with it, either; I'm only noticing it now because I already know what happens, and I can see how well the progression of events holds together.