Mai-HiME 11
Aug. 7th, 2005 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruseeNotes:
--Takumi and Akira are really, really adorable.
--The presumptive plot of the episode is a B-movie slasher-flick concept perfectly made to serve the story. It makes me think there must be something subversive about this show, if I could only figure out what.
--Somehow, I completely forgot that Nagi and Mashiro were in cahoots. So far, everything that they're talking about matches up to what the grand story arc turned out to be. Yay for coherent writing.
--Okay, so one of Mai-HiME's themes is "doing what you want" versus "doing what you have to do." Most people in Mai-HiME (Mikoto, Nao, Shizuru, Natsuki, and Midori, for example) don't seem to have any trouble following their desires, as Nagi repeatedly encourages the HiMEs to do. Mai, on the other hand, is unable to do what she wants (sing karaoke, bum around, date Tate) because she's obsessed with responsibility and doing what she thinks needs to be done (protect Takumi, take care of Mikoto, make sure everybody else in the world is safe and happy). Thus, she still can't figure out that she should be doing with her superpowers. It's very necessary for her to be so conflicted, I think, because she's insanely powerful. If she used her Element and her Child freely and without regard for damage, that'd be the end of the show, right there. (Or maybe it's that Mai can be so powerful, because she's Hamlet-like in her inability to find a path to follow.)
The only other person as obsessed with responsibility and propriety is Haruka. Which sort of endears Haruka to me, even if she is a puritanical tightass.
--Actually, Tate's hung up on propriety, too. In his case, it just sabotages his ability to have the kind of relationships he'd like to have with Mai and Shiho, though. 'Cause this show is about Mai, and Tate's just her love interest. ^____^ Is that still subversive?
--There is genuine love between Miyu and Alyssa. We don't get any easy villains. Uh, except maybe the priest. He's just creepy.
--They love the cheesy screaming. This show would be pure camp if it wasn't perfect in every way.
~EDIT~
This post now contains giant spoilers for all of Mai-HiME in the comments. Reading the comments on this post without having watched all 26 episodes will probably ruin the show for you. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T DO IT. This means you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mikkeneko.
--Takumi and Akira are really, really adorable.
--The presumptive plot of the episode is a B-movie slasher-flick concept perfectly made to serve the story. It makes me think there must be something subversive about this show, if I could only figure out what.
--Somehow, I completely forgot that Nagi and Mashiro were in cahoots. So far, everything that they're talking about matches up to what the grand story arc turned out to be. Yay for coherent writing.
--Okay, so one of Mai-HiME's themes is "doing what you want" versus "doing what you have to do." Most people in Mai-HiME (Mikoto, Nao, Shizuru, Natsuki, and Midori, for example) don't seem to have any trouble following their desires, as Nagi repeatedly encourages the HiMEs to do. Mai, on the other hand, is unable to do what she wants (sing karaoke, bum around, date Tate) because she's obsessed with responsibility and doing what she thinks needs to be done (protect Takumi, take care of Mikoto, make sure everybody else in the world is safe and happy). Thus, she still can't figure out that she should be doing with her superpowers. It's very necessary for her to be so conflicted, I think, because she's insanely powerful. If she used her Element and her Child freely and without regard for damage, that'd be the end of the show, right there. (Or maybe it's that Mai can be so powerful, because she's Hamlet-like in her inability to find a path to follow.)
The only other person as obsessed with responsibility and propriety is Haruka. Which sort of endears Haruka to me, even if she is a puritanical tightass.
--Actually, Tate's hung up on propriety, too. In his case, it just sabotages his ability to have the kind of relationships he'd like to have with Mai and Shiho, though. 'Cause this show is about Mai, and Tate's just her love interest. ^____^ Is that still subversive?
--There is genuine love between Miyu and Alyssa. We don't get any easy villains. Uh, except maybe the priest. He's just creepy.
--They love the cheesy screaming. This show would be pure camp if it wasn't perfect in every way.
~EDIT~
This post now contains giant spoilers for all of Mai-HiME in the comments. Reading the comments on this post without having watched all 26 episodes will probably ruin the show for you. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T DO IT. This means you,
mikkeneko.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: whoa, essay
on 2005-08-08 02:21 am (UTC)Mmm. Yes, Natsuki doesn't spontaneously fall in love with Shizuru--she examines her feelings and realizes that she loves Shizuru. You have a good point about acknowledging love as well as having it; I'll keep that in mind from now on.
I wonder if, in that bleak moment before things really blew up, when Mai was pitying herself for having "nothing," if she could have summoned Katsuguchi.
(Alas, there isn't really a fandom. Mai-HiME slipped under the radar of most of the female fandom--my only guess as to why is that there aren't many male characters, and some girls might be turned off by the slapstick boobs in the first episode--and was seen mostly by the male-dominated anime bloggers who watch and comment on shows of the moment, but don't write fanfiction or dwell on older work. There's a couple of nearly inactive LJ communities I'm in, but that's about it. I would really love for Mai-HiME--henceforth known as MH because I'm tired of typing that out--to get shown on Adult Swim, yes, even as a dub, because it might actually develop an English fandom that way. Probably won't happen, though.)
A cipher is a mystery or a zero. I was using it in the zero sense--that the obsessive talk about MIPs among the bloggers was a worthless oversimplification of the love=HiME power equation. Particularly since the MIP discussions operated on some assumed, absolute rules that I'm not sure the show supported--that a HiME could only have one MIP, that a HiME couldn't switch MIPs (thus the assumption that Takumi couldn't have ever been Mai's precious person because she still summoned Katsuguchi after he died, which is nonsensical to me), etc.
Mmm, good argument on dysfunction. I'm very antsy about assuming or interpreting social commentary, since my knowledge of Japanese society is superficial and secondhand at best. But this feels sound to me.
I found Mashiro quite dull, and didn't pay attention to her, which might be why I'm still not sure what her deal is. It's much easier to follow her conversations with Nagi now, though, because I have a framework for them.