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shizukateal · 3 years

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The Holy Quintet: The BEST DRESSED Magical Girl Team EVER. Part 2: Characters made of symbols and shapes.

Part 1 here.

Mami Tomoe

Mami Tomoe’s outfit is a work of genius that really humbles me as an aspiring character designer. Watching the perfection in its simplicity only boggles my mind trying to reverse engineer the thought process behind it. Even if they already had decided on the huntress theme before they finished her, how did Ume Aoki came up with cutting the sleeves like that? Or with the perfect skirt shape that allows the corset to show all of her curves while puffing at just the right height to not make the hipline transition awkward and giving the shape of a flower? How long did it take her to find this particular color scheme? Did she immediately know where to put the purple to balance the outfit without feeling artificial? How did she realize that the stripes on the socks would add the ideal touch to the whole setup? Or the perfect way to turn the soulgem into a hair accessory? I would have gone the easy way and put it in the chest ribbon like the amateur I am! Did she have doubts about it while she was figuring out the exact design of the boots?!

This outfit does everything. It’s sexy without being unnecessarily tasteless, it’s girly and fancy but battle-ready, it even passes the silhouette test, it’s nuanced, almost realistic. Even Mami’s hairstyle, which in a lesser design would look too childish, is perfect for her. Mami’s whole theme is that she’s a little girl desperately trying to convince herself that she’s an adult. Her low drill-tails are doll-like, which is to say a little girl’s idea of what a fancy adult woman looks like. The side-swept bangs also give a youthful roundness to her face while being elegant, and the way the hat and hairpin complements the whole thing is just * cheff’s kiss *.

Kyouko Sakura

Kyouko is a fire gal, and as such her shape is a triangle, so her outfit is a halter top coat that widens into the frilled overskirt. Her ponytail also feeds into this theme, with hair bits sticking wildly on the top like the fire sparks of a candle, and the ribbon is just scrappy but cute enough to compliment her personality. Haha, ponytail, get it? Like a horse? Or in her case a de-horned unicorn, ergo her spear. Her look also gives us the impression of an outlaw with her pirate/rider boots, long coat and gloves, fitting her lifestyle, and her soulgem is on her chest, indicating her more emotional nature. I think the boldest decision was to leave her hands ungloved, or at least I know I wouldn’t have done that, but that’s why I’m glad I wasn’t in Ume Aoki’s position when Madoka was in production. The white details on her undershirt and boots also put an elegant touch of complexity that completes the whole thing. What I’m trying to say here is that Kyoko has the ““easiest”” design of the other puellas, but it’s still top notch.

Sayaka Miki

Sayaka’s outfit is a balancing act, trying to keep it’s knight aesthetic clear without relying on heavy armor to do so and thus allowing Sayaka’s more romantic, femenine side to show, not to mention her water + music/mermaid theme. Her whole getup is very ingenious. Her short hair allows the cape to flow without seeming excessive and heavy or an inconvenience, her hairpin prevents the cut from being bland, but still keeping a somewhat tomboyish look, and her skirt has a distinct asymmetrical cut that, with its white outline, gives the idea of a wave. Her boots are short, comfy, practical, and their shade is just different enough that they avoid the look from feeling kinda boring within its color pallet, without straying away from it. I’m honestly amazed at how well they pulled of her belly-button soulgem as well, especially without taking away from the knight theme, hell they even used that in their favor! That is ingenuity. It was also a genius idea to hold the cape on a choker to make it all fit better with a sweetheart neckline.

Homura Akemi

As I mentioned before when I talked about Senjougahara, Homura is a rhombus, not just in her soul gem but in the rest of her body: she is pointy, slim, and long. She is the tallest and lankiest amongst the Holy Quintet, her outfit primarily highlighting her legs and her hair ending in jagged points. What impresses me the most about it is that the shirt is very weirdly cut for a concept as straightforward as “school uniform”, but it works. I can imagine a much easier version of it without the undersleeves or the collar. Speaking of which, the shape of them draws attention to her soul gem on her hand, which is placed there to symbolize how she’s the most “hands on” magical girl. Her time motif is present in her back ribbon, which looks like clock hands, same with Moemura’s braids, and in her shield, which is small and attached to her wrist and also is actually a sand clock. That shield is a really neat, concise, and smart way to tie up the entirety of her wish, huh? Speaking of Moemura, it’s really interesting to see the conflict between the two versions of this character in their differences. First we have the hair, of course, then the red glasses. I sense that there’s more to those than what I’m interpreting here, but the best I can do is conclude that aside that Homura tosses them out because they represent her weakness the fact that they’re red means they also represent her emotionality, which Madoka returns to her when she gives her her red ribbons (which also represent the string of fate, of course, and also confidence in oneself). But the part that interests me the most is her heels. Moemura doesn’t fit them, she trips on them constantly, but for Homura they are a symbol of her maturity and composure. Naturally, the first time we see Homura break down after narrowly killing Kyubey before they could do a contract with Madoka, she trips on them.

@leafbladie also pointed out to me that the reason it looks like a school uniform might be because school is the only place where she could make genuine human connections.

Madoka Kaname

Kyouko is a triangle, Homura is a rhombus, and Madoka is, fittingly, a Star, aka. a cluster of points shooting out from a center, which also blends well as a flower motif. Or to put it even more eloquently, she’s the flower from the ground that will eventually become the star in the sky. It’s in her skirt, gloves, socks and ponytails. And the rest of her? Is a deception in its simplicity. After all, this is what you expect from the leader of a magical girl team, right? Pink! Ribbons! Frills! Come on, you’ve seen this outfit before, it’s practically the same as Cure Peach’s! But Madoka is aiming for something more specific: she is both a fairy AND a witch, the two faces of the Magical Girl, creatures of fairytales often related to either nature or to the stars, and it works precisely because she uses that shape. Madoka is a balance of roundness and pointiness, it’s just that those points are softened by the pastel coloring. Her balance in ribbons and frills is excellent as well. I should probably write a separate post on how those 2 elements work in general, but suffice to say that we all know way too many magical girls that just put those things everywhere. Two on her ponytails to highlight them, one behind her neck, two on her hips to smooth the hipline transition, two behind her shoes. Huh, speaking of those, Madoka has surprisingly tall heels, right? Taller than Mami’s and only matched by Homura’s. Really tells you who the 2 most emotionally resilient members are in the team.

The last piece I’d like to highlight is her weapon, which I’m jealous of because I did that concept for an OC of mine and now if I do it everyone is going to think that I got it from her. But in any case, yeah combining a druidic staff into an also druidic bow whose arrows are also shooting star analogues is the perfect choice for this particular character, the Goddess of Magical Girls.

And this, everyone, has been my reasoning and analysis of the genius of the Holy Quintet’s character designs. Follow me if you want more magical girl outfit analysis.

#puella magi madoka magica #magical girl fashion #madoka kaname #kyoko sakura #homura akemi #sayaka miki #tomoe mami

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rovelae · 3 years

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Why Saiouma isn’t toxic

(CW: in-depth discussion of abuse, discussion of rape/noncon)

Disclaimer(s): This is an intellectual discussion, not a screaming match. If you’re here to argue with facts and evidence, I don’t mind debating with you. If you just want to throw a tantrum because I like something you don’t, I’m going to tell you to take a Xanax and go to bed.

I’m combining the terms “toxic” and “abusive”; though they aren’t technically the exact same, they’re similar enough for the purposes of this essay.

This essay isn’t meant to convince you to ship Saiou. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. But it’s not right to scream ‘abuse’ where none exists; it hurts fans and content creators, and it “diminishes the importance of that word and it reduces [it] to something volatile and stupid.”

To begin with, we have to identify what makes a relationship abusive. The way I define it, an abusive relationship involves manipulation, an inherent power imbalance, and/or physical or sexual abuse. Most of the hate-posts I’ve seen paint Kokichi as the abuser and Shuichi as the hapless victim, so that will be the focus of this essay.

1. Would Kokichi manipulate Shuichi for personal gain?

There’s no denying that Kokichi is a manipulative person. He’s a liar and he did some awful things in the game. No one’s saying he’s a morally white character. But it would be wrong to say he’s entirely evil, either.

I’ve already covered in this post why Kokichi can’t be said to lie for personal gain, but I’ll quote a bit of it here.

“The motivation [behind Kokichi’s lies] isn’t self-serving—he’s motivated by a desire to end a death game and stop anyone from having to go through what he and his friends have ever again. The smaller lies, though, like lying about his favorite foods? It would be annoying to be tricked like that, but it’s way too much of a stretch to label it psychological abuse.”

We know that Kokichi’s DICE organization has a moral taboo against murder. We know he hated the killing game, to the point where he orchestrated his own suicide in order to ruin it. And almost every time Kokichi lies in the class trials, it’s either for comedic relief or to push the cast toward finding the culprit.

“But Chapter 4!” you protest. “Kokichi manipulated Gonta into killing Miu!”

My response is threefold:

- Miu started it. Kokichi wouldn’t have done anything at all if his life wasn’t in danger and he wasn’t desperate.

- It’s wrong to think that Gonta is incapable of making his own decisions. Kokichi may have influenced him in that direction, but Gonta actively made the choice to kill Miu—his own avatar confirms it at the end of the trial. (See also: Impytricky’s “Gonta Gokuhara Character Analysis: When a Genius is Treated like a Child”)

- Kokichi felt terrible about what happened in Trial 4, to the point where he begged Monokuma to execute him along with Gonta. He didn’t need to do that, and it throws off his whole “I’m the mastermind” act just a few lines later, so we must assume he was being honest about that. It’s clear that he doesn’t enjoy hurting others.

If that’s still not enough for you, consider: desperation, and, by extension, the killing game, brings out the worst in people. We can’t accurately judge a person’s character if all we have to go off of is the worst parts of them. Would Leon have killed Sayaka outside of the killing game? Would Hifumi have agreed to help Celestia kill Taka? Would Gundham have killed Nekomaru?

So, would Kokichi manipulate Shuichi for personal gain? No. His whole character is motivated by a desire to help the others, and his lies are either manifestations of that motivation or harmless pranks meant to entertain.

2. Does the Saiouma ship have an inherent power imbalance?

Shuichi is, by his own admission, weak. Kokichi has a strong personality and likes to be in charge. That doesn’t mean that Kokichi doesn’t respect Shuichi and his opinions. In fact, each class trial is packed with evidence of Kokichi listening to Shuichi’s point of view and respecting his intelligence. For instance:

- Kokichi sided with Shuichi during scrum debates 2, 3, and 4

- Kokichi pointed out most of Shuichi’s lies during the trials (and back routes), but in most cases, didn’t fight him on it

- Shuichi is the only character identified as “trustworthy” by the white board in Kokichi’s room—i.e., Kokichi trusted him to at least be on the right track in the trials.

Kokichi is also shown to care about Shuichi’s feelings in the game, like when he told him he’d rather bring Kaede back to life in Chapter 3, because it would make Shuichi happy. To reiterate: he wants Shuichi to be happy even if it means they don’t end up together. That says a lot.

Additionally, I already mentioned that Shuichi is weak, but it’s important to realize that he isn’t so much of a pushover that he’s entirely incapable of standing up for himself. Look at his interactions with Miu, for example: he sharply told her that “I can wear a hat if I want” when she made fun of him for it, and in her FTEs, he refuses to eat the hygienically questionable food she made for him.

Shuichi’s kind of a simp and tends to get roped into things, yes. But he’s able to stand up for himself—especially after Chapter 6—to the point where he wouldn’t enter into a relationship unless he wanted to. If you think Kokichi would somehow be able to force Shuichi to be his boyfriend, you have no faith in Shuichi—and Chapter 6 proves you wrong.

So, is Saiouma inherently imbalanced? No. Kokichi respects Shuichi’s feelngs, intelligence, and opinions, and Shuichi’s a stronger character than he’s given credit for.

3. Would Kokichi physically or sexually abuse Shuichi?

One needs only to look at Kokichi’s Love Hotel event for the answer. While the Love Hotel isn’t canon to the game’s timeline, the characters are still in character— that is, Kokichi and Shuichi are acting as they normally act.

It’s important to note that Kokichi is the only character who backed off of Shuichi after Shuichi either appeared visibly uncomfortable or told them to stop. Kaede asked for Shuichi’s consent and was given it; Angie, Himiko, Kiyo, Miu, and Tsumugi all took advantage of Shuichi in some way or another; and the rest just didn’t have sexual connotations. Kokichi made advances on Shuichi, noticed that Shuichi was uncomfortable, and immediately backed off.

“But wait!” you cry. “Just because one character didn’t rape the other doesn’t mean they have a good relationship!”

Of course, and that’s important to realize, too. But recall that the purpose of this essay isn’t to convince you to ship Saiouma—it’s to prove that it isn’t abusive.

Keep in mind that this was Kokichi’s fantasy— he would have been able to do whatever he wanted to Shuichi with zero repercussions, and Shuichi probably wouldn’t even remember much when he woke up. And still, Kokichi chose to stop the moment he realized Shuichi wasn’t on board with what was happening. That says a lot.

And what about outside the game? We know from the Salmon Mode ending that Kokichi is desperate for someone to “figure him out.” He’d be very careful not to jeopardize his relationship with someone who genuinely wants to understand him.

And Shuichi does genuinely want to understand him:

So, would Kokichi physically or sexually abuse Shuichi? No. It’s just not in his character.

“But what if Kokichi was lying about EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE GAME?” you yell. “There’s no way we can trust anything he’s ever said ever!”

If every Danganronpa character was polite, kind, open, and honest, 100% of the time without fail, the game would be incredibly boring. If that’s the kind of media you’re into, I’d recommend something like Reader Rabbit or Winnie the Pooh. Danganronpa is a murder mystery, where characters hurt and betray and lie and actually kill each other. You can’t trust anyone; that’s the whole point.

So I advise you to go back through the game with an open mind and try, actually try, to use reading comprehension skills to understand the characters. Examine their motives, think about what they might be feeling when they make the decisions they do.

Danganronpa is not the kind of game to spoon-feed you easy-to-swallow characters. You have to pick them apart yourself.

As for everything Kokichi has ever said possibly being a lie? Maybe. Maybe every character is lying to you. But if you hate Kokichi just because he’s dishonest, then it follows that you have to hate Rantaro, Kaede, Shuichi, Kaito, Maki, Himiko, Kiyo, Miu, Tsumugi, Kirumi, and Kiibo—which, at that point, why are you even a fan of the game?

And if you deny everything Kokichi said just because you think it’s a lie…

In conclusion

You can dislike Saiouma because it’s not your thing, but it’s wrong to spread hate over abuse that doesn’t exist. Hating and attacking people for having a different opinion than you won't magically sway them to your side. If you can't articulate your points in a way that doesn't antagonize, you probably shouldn't be talking. People like what they like for a reason, and spitting on what they like won't make you any friends.

And throwing around weighted terms like “toxic” when you just don’t like something? That makes YOU the toxic one.

#Rov talks #a lot #Saiouma #abuse mention #rape mention #character analysis #I doubt that the people who *should* read this *will* read it #so this might be more of a vent I guess #Feel free to reblog/quote/repost with credit #References: users oumakokichi; impytricky; and chibigaia-art #The first two do great meta pieces #and the last spits more fax than an office

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

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Askplosion #11:

(note that I know I mentioned a “Voiced Askplosion” last time in the tags for anyone who put a 🎤 in their ask, meaning they wanted to hear me respond verbally to it, but I only got one and it wasn’t anything serious - just a tease from someone I know - so I either won’t be doing it at all or will be holding off)

Asks responding to previous posts:

ALYA NO!!!

(the idea of Sabrina avoiding not only Ms. Mendeleiev, but also Alya, is very amusing to me)

The fact that the special focuses on the love square instead of Sabrina and Delmar is a crime.

(also note that “Need some help?” is rhetorical in this context; Alya doesn’t care)

Highly recommended, honestly, otherwise it just turns into a big shame because there are shows I really like but with some content that I don’t like, and why torture myself with it when I can cut it out instead?

Just to give a rough idea, here’s my cut of “Desperada”; mind you, this is just my quick cut of it (basically a “beta” version where I just removed everything I disliked without much care for transitioning/having everything make sense; some of Marinette’s friends talking, the guitar scene, Aspik, etcetera), as I’m not comfortable handing over my “perfect” cut of it since it’s like my personal copy.

Yeah, that’s a super awkward scene. As much as I’d like to imagine that Adrien just doesn’t understand the “guy time” thing (which I still hate), the fact that they use the word “guy” specifically is--ugh.

I wasn’t aware of what he said in the French dub, so thanks! It’s really painful to see her throw so much love his way, openly and publicly and obviously, then be so humiliated for it, only for Adrien to feel nothing for her.

Say whatever you want about Chat Noir’s advances and how sAAAAAAD he is when she rejects him, but her rejections are just that; in private. There aren’t other heroes who are around and Chat is never really humiliated. Even in “Prime Queen,” Chat wasn’t the target - Ladybug was, and then Ladybug shifted it to Nadja - so Marinette is the one taking all the heat in love while Chat gets to sit on the sidelines (plus, then “Oblivio” happened and now people probably all thing they’re a thing).

Yeah! That’s the group I was thinking of!

Thank you!

I’m so sorry that happened. ;—;

I’m not aro but I am ace and I’ve gotten the whole, “oh it’s just because--” stuff before, so I know what it feels like to have people put on the pressure/invalidate you.

YES.

IT’S GORGEOUS.

I’m not really familiar with how holidays are celebrated outside of the bare basics of Christmas/New Year (which I am trying my hardest to forget lol), so I couldn’t say.

Sorry!

New Asks:

10/10 thought, would fantasize again.

Though would also accept MC Audrey just doing some “spring cleaning” of the whole staff in general. I have no idea how she’d replace Jeremy since he’s the company’s poster boy but most of the writers have to go at the very least and Jeremy should be given less power.

I think MC Audrey would appreciate how Kagami carries herself, though potential bonus if - while Tom and Sabine just openly trust whatever Marinette wants - Audrey does a bunch of digging to make sure Kagami is “worthy” of being with Marinette (she takes this all very seriously).

Double potential bonus if Kagami takes it just as seriously, so here’s Audrey and Kagami acting as if Kagami dating Marinette is like some sort of job interview.

Kagami handing over a “resume” of her accomplishments to Audrey. Audrey has already looked all of it up herself but appreciates the effort put in.

If the question in Miraculous is, “Do we really need a--” and the thing being introduced is something the staff came up with then the answer is usually “no.”

The movie will look pretty and that’s all I’ll expect. It’s just Jeremy’s take on Miraculous. Luka and Kagami probably won’t even be around so I’m not even interested.

I’ll watch it, but I’m also not interested lol.

Honestly, I’d rather turn into bubble froth.

oddly specific but... I mean, damn

I have no idea, and I try not to throw around words like “spite ship” because I know people could genuinely like the ship, though I will say that I went on AO3 and - unless I read from - the first Maribat fanfiction on there was posted after the airdate of “Chameleon.” I think it might’ve started with inspiration from “Marinette moves schools” ideas at the very least.

Non-Miraculous Asks responding to previous posts:

Oh, I understood, no worries! It was just funny for the split second it took me to figure it out.

My bad, that’s not how I meant to come off (especially since “magical girl shows” is a little broad; I mean, obviously I don’t think something like Cardcaptor Sakura is aiming for fanservice when Sakura’s--like... ten). I answered all those asks in the last askplosion in the same day so my brain was a little fried by the time I got to that ask.

I’m not even talking about Sailor Moon either; it’s just that I knew there are shows with fanservice and there are certain magical girl outfits where I kind of give the side-eye.

Absolutely zero problem with girls fighting in pretty outfits though. I fully admit that I’m a bit of a prude so sometimes I see fanservice where there might not be any. Super short skirts without shorts, for example, inherently throw me off (shout-out to Saint Tail - which I discovered while looking up “pretty magical girl outfits” - because the main character does have a skirt in “magical girl” form but also tights/boots and a cute hat, which is one of the more unique ones I’ve seen).

Non-Miraculous Asks:

Do you mean Sailor Moon Crystal? Yeah, the only reason I hesitate on Sailor Moon in general is because I’m not crazy about the transformed designs. It’s not really a matter of animation but more a design choice that takes me out of the experience.

I have seen all of Cardcaptor Sakura anime though, and then all of the Clear Card arc. I like the former, despise the latter, and I tried to keep up with the manga but once one of the big plot details were revealed, I officially dropped it.

As for Revolutionary Girl Utena, I looked it up a while ago and don’t remember what exactly turned me away. It might’ve been the darker tone though if what you say is accurate that it’s a darker take on a magical girl show.

Also, I may or may not have looked up the ending of at least Princess Tutu and I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s a great anime, but if there isn’t a happy ending then I give whatever anime a hard pass.

(note: yes, I realize the hilarity of saying that when I continue watching Miraculous)

(More Madoka Magica talk/salt below!)

Ohhh, it started a trend? I had no idea since I don’t actively keep up with every anime out there; descriptions need to really pull me in (the only current anime I’m keeping up with is Hanyou no Yashahime, Otherside Picnic, and Cells at Work (Season 2)).

The focus on specific--uh--body parts in magical girl transformations also reminds me that I think that’s usually what kills it for me, not because of the sexualization but because I expect transformations (especially ones that get repeated over and over) to be really dynamic with changing angles and such, which is harder to do when the camera is trying to draw focus to specific places.

Obviously you have to do it for some moments (I’ve always imagined Miraculous transformations like a potential sheep or another one for rabbit, then rabbit!Jean from Leave for Mendeleiev and fox!Juleka from LadyBugOut) because things will be weird if you focus on nothing, but I think there are ways to draw the eye without trying to sexualize.

Not having Ladybug-esque bodysuits is a good start. It reminds me too much of the Catwoman with just a bodysuit so it leaves nothing to the imagination.

How did I forget about that Sayaka scene? omg (though I dunno if the Bechdel Test is hard to pass if there aren’t really any endgame male love interests? are there rules about that? not saying a pass isn’t a pass but it feels like cheating)

It is nice when fans can respect the opinions of others without having to outright attack. I have had a few people come to me with, “I see your point/respect it even if I disagree,” instead of accusing me/others of--well, you get it.

Fandoms can be really messy, particularly as they get larger. I think there’s a certain balance between small fandoms that all know each other and a big fandom that’s out of control. Then there are things like “loud minority” and it’s just uggggh.

Anyway, back to the asks themselves, yeah, I’m not crazy about taking things that are just meant to be positive/cute/whatever and being like, “OKAY BUT WHAT IF IT WAS EDGY AND SAD.”

n o , p l z

Oh, I’ve never heard of that one!

Sayaka dying didn’t really do anything for me either. It’s hard to explain when I saw it so long ago, but it was just Sayaka’s attitude about the whole thing and it made it feel underwhelming. It was a shame too because I liked her and she had potential.

She was Madoka’s friend so I was just like, “Yeah, she’ll die soon.” Probably didn’t help since I knew what I knew about the show being “dark.”

Madoka/Sayaka is probably what I’d support the most out of all the potential shoujo ai ships. To my knowledge, none of them are really canon, though I remember a special song after the death Sayaka and Kyoko which I guess makes them the most canon and that did basically nothing for me since their relationship didn’t interest me (nor did I care for Kyoko as a character). The PSP game might have more intimate potential between the girls, but I never played them so I can’t make those claims (I only remember something about everyone potentially living and then a bad ending for Sayaka where part of her body was decayed when they didn’t get her soul gem back in time).

The tomboy argument makes me think back to a conversation with a friend of mine where we were discussing tomboys in anime and... we couldn’t really think of any? At least any that really qualify as “tomboy” for me.

Like, Misty from Pokemon, for example. I knoooooow everyone really likes Misty, but regardless of my opinion on her, it’s hard to see her as a tomboy.

I feel like they try to lean that way by making her super aggressive and violent (because... m E N) and I think Ash makes a comment once about her not being “like a girl,” but... I feel like that’s just how general “aggressive” female characters are written?

I mean, that’s tsundere female characters I’ve seen in general. Really loud (and not in a “gIrlS aRe sO lOuD aND ScReEcHY” way but like... the way anime gives them big heads while they scream at whatever male character they’re mad at), angry a lot, short fuse, etcetera.

But Misty is still crazy about clothes and dolls, she still gushes about cute things and romance, and both of those things seem pretty indicative of what “standard girl character” would be defined by, since they’re all “stereotypically girl thing” (I say stereotypically for obvious reasons since boys can like blah and girls can like blah and gender exclusivity is blah--). I get that she dresses differently, but that’s about it, and it comes off like, “she dresses differently and she’s ANGRY and VIOLENT, so she’s a tomboy,” which... yeah. They even gave her three beauty queen sisters with CURVES and BUSTS as if to say, “See?? These are GIRLS, not TOMBOYS.” (busty females can exist who are also tomboys, thank you have a nice day).

This becomes more complicated in magical girl anime since girly clothes are usually part of that so “tomboy” means that frills and skirts probably wouldn’t be a factor.

I mean, if you gave those sorts of outfits to me, I’d be like, “SCREW IT, I’M NOT A MAGICAL GIRL ANYMORE. IF LOOKING PRETTY IS REDUCED TO SKIRTS AND FRILLS, SOMEONE ELSE CAN SAVE THE WORLD.”

I’d also like to see some mixes between personalites and “tomboy” things. Like, non-stereotypical tomboy personalities doing tomboy things. Mix and match, y’know?

This was really rambly, but to answer the question... no, I wouldn’t count Sayaka as a tomboy.

All of this.

I think it also exemplifies the whole “dark and edgy magical girl show” thing because... ugh, how do I put this...

The “girls are overly emotional” thing is already bad, but then you realize that there not being any magical boys is also because that doesn’t hit the “shock value” threshold as much.

Y’know, because boys equal dark and edgy shows, so if there was even one magical boy it wouldn’t be as shocking when Mami gets her head chomped. They could’ve done, “emotional teenagers are the target because they’re in that vulnerable stage; smarter and more physically capable than children, but not as mature/stable as adults,” but having some boys in there for balance (it makes me feel weird saying that when I’m all for girl power shows with an all female cast, but in this show’s logic, it’s a different ball game) would make the show seem less bright and “girly” and thus lessen the shock value.

Does that make sense?

#((Aspies who also deal with Winter Blues or Seasonal Affective Disorder))#((how do you do iiiiiit))#((my usual methods aren't working and I'm constantly sluggiiiish))#category: trash #special: Miraculous New York #MC's Art #art: single picture #relationship: alya cesaire & sabrina raincomprix #category: salt #episode: Party Crasher #relationship: love square #relationship: adrien agreste & marinette dupain cheng #MC: Audrey Bourgeois #relationship: kagami tsurugi & marinette dupain cheng #character: marinette dupain cheng #other: non ml talk

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tarhalindur · 3 years

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Rebellion’s Biggest Outstanding Question

(Big fat PMMM+Rebellion spoilers under the cut, natch:)

Homura, at the end of Rebellion, believes that she is rebelling against Madoka’s will. But is she actually doing so? Or is she acting in accordance with it?

Let me explain.

I’ll start with the point I’m sold on either way (and have commented on at least twice before, including my explanation of Madoka’s other big mistake): Rebellion is directly downstream of Madoka making a single mistake immediately after her ascension in episode 12, a moment when she could not afford to make any mistake at all. Much like Madoka’s other big mistake in episode 10, this one is not obvious on the surface and only becomes clear when looking at the events through a symbolic lens.

Specifically, a Buddhist symbolic lens.

I’ll leave the full explanation there to this post, which lays out the Buddhist influence on base PMMM’s themes and imagery and on Madokami’s ascension better than I could. (Although its author is missing a few points. First, the shot of Madoka expanding to galaxy size is DIRECTLY out of ego death symbolism. Which makes sense, because there’s enough accounts to suggest that regardless of whether or not it has any deeper meaning beyond brain chemistry the people who’ve had it are describing a single class of subjective experience, and “one’s consciousness expanding to the size of the galaxy” seems to be a common feature of it - I’ve read at least one account of that kind of experience from, of all people, a random Protestant minister who claims to have had such an experience on a vision trip to the Amazon and only later realized that there was precedent for that kind of experience in Buddhist traditions, and he mentions that exact expansion as part of what he went through. Second, the flower on Madoka’s bow is a rose, not a willow... which makes sense, because “Guanyin/Kannon and the Virgin Mary are two aspects of the same goddess” has been a theory in certain parts for at least a century, and the rose has a traditional association with the latter goddess - there’s a reason they call it the rosary, after all. (I’ve seen speculation out of a few polytheist/less orthodox Christian circles I keep tabs on that Pistis Sophia is yet another aspect of the same goddess, too...) Third, note all the mandala symbolism floating around - most obviously Walpurgisnacht’s appearance and Kyubey’s exposition in episode 11.)

And that influence is important here, because part of the process of the escape from samsara is the breaking of all karmic ties to the world.

Except... Madoka does not do this. She leaves one karmic tie behind.

This one, to be precise:

Now, in theory it’s possible that the tainted miracle of Homura remembering Madoka has another root. But I have my doubts, and the biggest piece of evidence there is the OST: the track that plays when Homura meets Junko in the finale and offers to give up the ribbons is named Taenia Memoriae, aka “the ribbon of memories”. HMM,

(That Junko scene is in this regards the single most enigmatic scene of the main series finale to me. My instinct is that it’s drawing off of Christian mythos again, either canonical or Gnostic, but I can’t quite place what piece; I kind of want to compare it specifically to the Denial of Peter.)

Now, there’s two other pieces here that are worth noting.

1) While Homulilly is described as the Nutcracker Witch in Rebellion, Homulilly’s name and Witch card are first revealed in the PSP game, and there she goes by a rather different epithet: Witch of the Mortal World, nature is karma. Which is rather on the nose (the Mortal World [shigan] being another term for samsara), but then that’s probably by design - main series PMMM is not subtle at all when it wants to make a point. And it is this epithet, not the Nutcracker Witch, that the Doppel versions of Homulilly in MagiReco draw off of, which suggests the staff considered it important. (There’s a second distinction in the latter, because Moemura’s version of the Doppel implies that Homulilly’s nature was originally slightly different again - Witch of the Mortal World, nature is closed circuits - but I think for our purposes here this is a difference without true distinction, much like the Witch of the Near Shore pun for swimsuit!Moemura’s version of Homulilly.) And there’s echoes of this even in Rebellion: the Clara Dolls are of course referred to as the Children of the Mortal World, plus of course the obvious “Homulilly’s Rebellion barrier as the Mortal World” take. (Which, hmm. Hello second-order symbolism - Homura failing to “break out of the egg” as failure to escape the cycle of samsara.)

2) The red ribbons of course suggest a very specific form of karmic tie - the Red String of Fate. And you can be very, very sure that the staff intended that, too. To drag a certain piece of key animation back out from storage:

While it’s hard to tell at this size, it sure looks to my eyes like the two ends are specifically tied around the girls’ pinkies. You know, exactly where the proverbial Red String is said to be tied.

Or, to put it another way: AI YO.

Everything in Rebellion is downstream of this.

But all this is prologue. Now that we have established the mistake, we can address the actual outstanding question: Did Madoka intend to make that mistake? People have noted the applicability of Junko’s comments about intentionally making a big mistake when backed into a corner to Homura’s actions in Rebellion; do they also apply to the action Madoka took that led to that?

I am not sure. Both cases are consistent, and I’d put about even odds either way. But it’s the affirmative case I want to lay out here, to show that it does in fact exist:

- Let’s start with the one point someone else might bring up that I don’t really weight: Madoka’s final conversation with Homura in the flower bed. This one, I think, can mostly be discarded. We have word from both Kyubey and Sayaka that Madoka does not have her memories here; I can’t see both of them lying here. (Also remember that Kyubey seems to have restriction that is sometimes said to apply to demons, at least under certain circumstances: he cannot directly tell a lie. This is of course a very different thing from having to tell the truth, as episode 9 alone is enough to attest, but in this specific case it’s a boost to his credibility.) If there’s an actual argument here, it’s a second-order one; it is possible, especially given her divine abilities, that Madokami was running a Xanatos Gambit and counting on her amnesiac projection to unwittingly relay her true feelings. (In which case I would have to grab a certain infamous line from another well-known anime: “Just as planned”.)

- That one shot of Madokami’s gloved, scarred arm reaching down through the window to touch Homura. Operative word scarred. (And honestly, looking at one of the subs for that scene again Madoka’s comments there look potentially consistent with her actually supporting of or at least accepting Homura becoming a demon...)

- Mata Ashita, specifically the lyrics thereof. With the perspective of the full series, Madoka’s character song is fairly clearly from the perspective of Madokami, and it’s suggestive that she is not entirely happy with the results of her wish and ascension.

- The fact that Rebellion happened at all. There’s a complaint that I’ve seen regarding the mechanics of the Incubators’ plot in Rebellion: logically, by the wording of Madoka’s final wish the Incubators’ plan to use the Isolation Field to block the Law of Cycles should not work, since part of Madoka’s wish was to rewrite any rule or law that would prevent her from destroying Witches with her own hands, including the one the Incubators set up with their Isolation Field - doubly so if you take Madokami’s statement can see every world that ever existed or could ever exist and apply it to the Sealed Reality the experiment generates. Except... there is one way that argument fails, regardless of anything else: namely, if Madoka saw what the Incubators were doing and intentionally allowed their experiment to proceed. And at this point there is precedent for her doing something very similar; AIUI in her Magical Girl Story in MagiReco Madokami does something very similar wrt the MagiReco timeline, deliberately declining to destroy it despite its continued existence conflicting with the Law of Cycles.

(- Magia. This point of argument I’m not convinced of either, but let’s lay it out. (Honestly, even if I’m right I’m not sure how much of this was consciously intended, but creations can have a life of their own - especially creations where fucking natural disasters delay them so that they’re released on the most appropriate day possible!) There’s two pieces to this, one I’m more sure of than the other:

1) The visuals. Here’s the spot where I feel most solid about interpreting Magia: the ED visuals are clearly a reference to Madokami’s ascension. (The show loves hiding that sort of foreshadowing in plain sight, why would you be surprised?) Note the second half particularly, both Madoka’s hair lengthening and the starfield she’s running past. (I think the order of the four other girls in the first half is probably how long they held out without Witching out.) That leaves two issues, one more obvious to Western audiences and one less so. First, that enigmatic and ominous shot of Madoka in fetal position (appropriate - her request in 10 and then her wish in 12 can be rephrased as “don’t let me grow up”) in the eye of Mephisto. Second, there’s a point I’ve seen raised in analyses of Connect: in Japanese cinematography, motion from right to left indicates a correct course (unlike its Western equivalent, where the opposite applies)... and for the entirety of Magia Madoka is moving left-to-right.

2) The lyrics. This is the part I’m less sold on, but once again let’s lay out the affirmative. My line here derives from a hunch: Connect is famously from Homura’s perspective despite appearing to be from Madoka’s, perhaps the inverse is also true? I’m still not sure there, but especially if you’re considering the TV version it can work... provided the lyrics are specifically from Madokami’s perspective again. Grabbing the wiki version of the translation: “The light of love lit within your eyes will transcend time” sure fits better if we’re talking about Homura rather than about Madoka, likewise “with this power that can break even darkness” sure sounds like a better fit for Madokami to me. And in that case the most interesting stanza is the second: “Swallow down your hesitation. What is it that you wish for? With the direction of this greedy admiration, will there be a short-lived tomorrow?” The former two lines are quite consistent with Homura’s decision in Rebellion (and I note the visual of Homura biting down on her Soul Gem to break it!), and “tomorrow” is consistently a reference to the possibility of Homura and Madoka meeting again in other PMMM songs (Mata Ashita again, Colorful, Connect full version) - which is realized courtesy of a greedy admiration, no less. So. Magia’s full version might count, too - there’s lines there that are harder to square from a Madokami perspective (”if I can move forward without hesitation then it’s fine if my heart gets broken” especially), but “Someday, for the sake of someone else, you too will wish for great power; on the night love captures your heart, unknown words will be born” fits Homura’s fall better than Madoka’s wish, I think.)

- If Madoka’s mistake in 12 is intentional then it more closely mirrors her (unintentional) mistake in 10: she’s implicitly asking Homura to once again do something she can’t and stop her from/alleviate the effects of her making a mistake.

- At a Doylist level, if they go for a proper happy end (either in Walpurgis no Kaiten or in a hypothetical sequel to the same) I’m not sure there’s any way they can get there without using this interpretation. (In general, the two outcomes that make the most sense to me are “Akuhomu becomes the core of Walpurgisnacht, cue ending scene with Moemura making her wish” (the Logic Error ending, consistent with the Eternal Return of the Self; cue MagiReco as the way out) or an ending based on the answer to this question being yes - the easy version being a movie of everyone except Homura fighting to let Madoka rejoin the Law of Cycles only for her to surprise everyone with some sort of ending based on “actually, I was counting on her to do this from the start”.)

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potatotrash0 · 3 years

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Your DR magic AU, hand it over 🤲

Okay I have two other anons and I’m just gonna split the character ideas among the three asks. I don’t quite have a plot thought out, and most of these characters’ concepts have only existed in my head up until now...bare with me skdjksjfkd

Mm I talked about them briefly in Prom’s ask? But here’s a more in-depth thing of the THH fighting styles.

Makoto is a mage-type. (I used fighter, support, and mage to describe the various adventurer types it’s temporary just roll with it) Again, he can’t really hold magic for very long? He’s got a large mana reserve but it’s hard to activate and harder to control, so he’s currently working on mastering the little bullets. In the future, I imagine large barrages of bullets would sort of circle around him like they would in the barrel of a gun.

He probably got in accidentally? I’m not entirely sure about this, but I think there’s an entrance exam for Reserve Courses and he was probably forced in on Komaru’s behalf for some reason.

He was basically running the entire time until the very end when he panicked and suddenly the entire field was wiped clean from him waving his arm. HPA saw that, decided that he was worth training, and put him into the Main Course. He doesn’t feel very good about getting in that way, but HPA isn’t exactly empathetic like he is. Again this is like one of three ways I think he could’ve gotten in with the rest of the cast because I’m indecisive skdjsjf

Kyoko is another mage-type, in general the Main Gangs of each game have various themes. THH’s trio has a magic theme, they all use magic. She doesn’t use a weapon, though I’m thinking her gloves act as a limiter of sorts?

As a general rule, more mana means less control, and being half-demon gives her a lot of it. Her gloves help her regulate her mana output so that she doesn’t use too much of it when attacking and tire herself out. Later in the timeline, I imagine there might be a scene where she takes them off and fights off some enemies to buy the rest of the class time to escape something? She would get trapped in the process, but I think this would happen after she’s worked with Makoto for a while and she would trust him enough to believe he would come back for her if she didn’t return.

Oh this isn’t related to her fighting style but on the topic of her being half-demon, that’s mainly because I thought it was boring for everyone to be human and I’m a big sucker for fantasy species so yeah. She’s a cambion.

She has purple-tinted skin, horns that curl up and are fairly close to her head, a thin pointed tail, pointed ears, her pupils are slitted, she’s got carnivore-style teeth, her nails are longer and sharper by default. Whenever she uses the full extent of her magic, her scleras turn dark purple and her irises turn white. Oh yeah her scars came from an accident she had when she was young where her magic got out of control and burned her hands. Her mom’s the demon by the way, for no particular reason, I just thought that the Kirigiris would stay human in this and I don’t know anything about her mom’s side of the family.

I just realized I never said Makoto’s race skdjks he’s human!! He and Komaru just happen to be a special case and have a lot of mana. Most other humans in this AU aren’t so lucky. (cough hinata cough cough)

Byakuya, again, uses magic. He’s the only one who uses a weapon in the Trio, he uses a staff specially made by the Togami family. He also knows how to use a sword and a bow.

I haven’t put too much thought into him, but I know for a fact that his adventuring outfit would have a big sweeping cape later in the timeline. In the beginning though, he just has a stupid expensive suit. The cape comes in later as he, Kyoko, and Makoto start to group up more and more.

I’ve decided that adventurers in this AU group up just as often as they go solo, and while Byakuya would initially be solo, he would deem Makoto and Kyoko strong enough to work with whenever they’re taking on a difficult job.

Groups would change to have matching designs the longer they’re partnered up, and capes/cloaks happen to be the THH Trio’s Thing, as in all three of them would have a cape/cloak of some sort. Byakuya because he’s pretentious, Makoto because he thinks it looks cool, and Kyoko because she uses the cloak for practical reasons like storing things and keeping a low profile when needed. Oh and Byakuya’s bloodline is of royal elven descent, their business is selling spellbooks, runestones, potions, reagents, any magical item you could think of.

Sayaka is a half-siren mage! She mostly uses charm and illusionary magic, as well as healing so that she can support her allies. Later on, she might learn water magic so she can actually deal damage as well. I haven’t decided on her weapon of choice, perhaps she uses a lyre or casts spells from a book. I’m also debating having her learn hand-to-hand combat instead of water magic?

I just like the idea of someone coming up and trying to challenge her, thinking they’ll beat her easily, and barely getting a hit in before she kicks their legs out from under them and tosses them over her shoulder like they weigh nothing. She deserves to take out people twice her size and be menacing, as a treat for the amount of disrespect she gets in the fandom. And I want her to take Leon down a peg because he definitely acts a little like a cocky frat boy sometimes.

Speaking of Leon, we’ve got our first fighter-type!!! I could have him use a baseball bat but that’s boring so I’m thinking he might utilize items as well as a weapon? Bombs or grenades that look like a baseball and explode on impact, baseballs that ignite when thrown and act as fire balls. Alas, I don’t think about him much so this is all just me throwing ideas to see what sticks.

Whatever the case, the main thing I know would happen is that he frequently gets help from Kazuichi and Miu because he just cannot for the life of him stop breaking his equipment. He’s reckless and rushes into battle and now that he doesn’t have Kanon to stop him from setting stuff on fire all the time, he gets detention a lot. (And no she isn’t into him like in canon, I refuse to acknowledge that she ever was.)

Chihiro......they can’t fight djfjsjfjjf. They specialize in making tech and weapons, and in the beginning, would mainly use robots that they programmed to support their allies. Though, they do end up training with Mondo, Sakura, and Aoi to help them become better at combat, and eventually they join everyone else on the front lines as a ranged fighter/support type.

Also, the robots would kinda follow them around like pets. Cute little guys that can also shoot lasers. The robots are powered by mana crystals and each one has a different personality and magic type! Sometimes they follow around different people, the electric one took a liking to Mondo and you’ll see it floating around while he works out. They’re buds.

On the topic of Mondo, he’s another fighter-type! He’s more hand-to-hand combat. A controlled berserker, if you will. Probably started out fighting guys in his hometown and progressed to clearing out monsters when Daiya got concerned about his temper? Perhaps. Maybe. I do not think about Daiya I apologize.

Oh wait hold on. I’m looking at his character art and he’s got a hammer.........it’s decided he uses a warhammer, the biggest one they’ve got, and it’s probably a mana-based weapon. Specifically electric. He and that lil robot wipe the battlefield with their opponents >:D

Taka is probably a fighter-type? I can’t for the life of me find where I read this, but apparently he’s really good at self-defense so I imagine he does hand-to-hand combat as well as sword-fighting for the Noble Paladin Aesthetic.

Hifumi was originally a mage-type, but upon second thought, I’m making him a support-type who uses items and potions and stuff! I like the idea of him making fun little bottles and potions themed after his favorite animes and mangas..........he also definitely helped everyone design their adventurer outfits. He’s the only reason that Makoto’s outfit isn’t boring as hell.

Celeste is, of course, a mage-type. She’s Miss Lolita of course I have to make her an ethereal magic user alright also I love her and I love mages let me have this skfjdkjf. As for her weapon, my first thought was her having playing cards that she throws HxH style?

Or she could summon goons to fight for her, playing into the whole loyal servant dream she has. They would be vaguely themed after the cards, so there would be a jack, king, queen, and joker, all of different magic types depending on the suit of the card she throws. Electric for a spade, fire for a heart, ice for a diamond, something along those lines.

I’m also considering having her little...finger armor thing? I’m thinking of having that cross into her magic, where she attacks with claw-like things formed out of mana. Of course she could also just. Use the cards to cast spells directly skdjksjfkhf

Sakura is definitely a fighter-type. Again, hand-to-hand style, but I imagine she’s more controlled and strategic than Mondo. I can’t see her using a weapon, so I guess she’s like one of the only characters to fight exclusively with fists.

Mukuro’s a ranged fighter-type, but she can also do melee. She uses magic-based guns, ones that shoot mana infused bullets. They have a variety of effects depending on the type of bullet and magic. (I’m not a gun person so take this with a grain of salt.)

Bullets that break apart might be laced with electric magic so that they can shock a target from several points, or fire magic if she’s aiming to start a fire quickly. Exploding bullets are usually used with fire magic, but she might switch to ice if she wants to create a barrage of ice shards for...some reason, I don’t know. There’s more combinations I could probably make, but I’m. Not here to spend an hour researching guns. Not right now at least, who knows what I’ll want info on in the future.

Mmmmmm I’m starting to lose patience here so forgive me for the shorter explanations. I might throw in a fun fact about them for ✨ flavor ✨

Junko’s a fighter/mage-type! She uses a scythe and laces the blade with magic. She could combine it with fire magic to create a flaming scythe and go nuts with it, or she could just channel general mana and slam the blade into the ground to create a big crack in the ground.

There’s about an 80% chance she gets several weapons later in the timeline. Her scythe, a spear, possibly a gun. Monokuma probably exists, I like to think Junko ran into a smarter monster and tamed it and kept it as a slightly feral pet.

Also, yes, she’s still a big adrenaline junkie who gets off on despair. If you see her fighting things she knows are out of her league, mind your business.....actually, call someone to help before she gets herself killed. Please.

I haven’t decided what Aoi will be just yet? I’m veering towards fighter/mage-type, she could use water magic and maybe a leg-based fighting style. Possibly judo or taekwondo. I.....do not have any ideas for her. However I do know that she and Sakura would have a bunch of combo moves together dkfjkejfkdjjd

Toko is a mage-type! She probably uses a book to cast spells from. Or just uses her hands. She would fight ranged, I don’t think she’d want to be up in the action. Too much stress for her, y’know? I

As for Syo, she fight differently than Toko! She technically uses dual swords, but the swords can also connect to create a giant pair of scissors. Again, this is just sort of a fun character thing, but she gets to hate Byakuya in this AU. They have arguments and get on each other’s nerves a lot, but I think the rest of the class usually separates them before anything serious happens.

At some point after Toko befriends Komaru, I like to think that Syo gets a proper fight scene with Byakuya where she rips into him. I don’t think Toko would want to hurt anyone though, even him, so Syo would probably leave him with a few minor cuts at most.

Afterwards, I think Byakuya would quiet down with the insults with Naegi and Kyoko’s requests. (Well. Naegi asked him to try and be nicer because he was worried that they might fight again. Kyoko just bluntly told him that he needed to stop being a jerk and start considering everyone else’s feelings.)

Skfksjfkdh ah. I also like to think Komaru and Toko were initially partnered up by HPA for a job. They were assigned to deal with a couple of school kids wreaking havoc on a nearby city with some monsters they semi-tamed?

But after finishing the job, they decided to partner up permanently on their own. They probably have a few combo moves that Komaru came up with, Toko tweaked them to make them actually possible with their skill set and weapons.

Hiro is...possibly a mage/support-type? He’s probably a bit cowardly and freaks out when on the front lines, but he can use a crystal ball to attack from afar. I’m also considering giving him tarot cards so that he can toss them and attack from several points at once?

Or the ball could shatter at some point during the story and he could just roll with it and spread the shards out during battle to attack from several points at once. They could also be used to create a magic cage of sorts, like electric fence but only electricity.

Okay that’s everybody oh my god. I have plenty more stuff about this au, this isn’t even half of it trust me lmao. I’m sorry about this being so long I didn’t realize it’d be this wordy!!!!!

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honhonluigi · 3 years

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If I may add my two cents: Sayaka and Makoto apparently used to go to the same school, but never spoke. After an incident that involved Makoto rescuing a crane (I think, my memory is a bit fuzzy), she wanted to talk to him, but never got the chance. She also strongly implies that she has a crush on him. All of this is in her free time events.

How much of that was just her manipulating Makoto is up for debate, but I think if they hadn't been in that situation they could have genuinely bonded. Guess we'll never know.

No, definitely not. I played her free time events. I know what events you're talking about. I think it's all bullshit, and she's just getting closer to him to manipulate him.

First of all, she went to the same middle school but never talked to him. Never spoke a word. She said after she saw him rescue the crane that she "wanted to" but never found the time? Seriously? Bullshit. It takes two fucking seconds to say hi to somebody. She didn't ever take any interest in Makoto before the killing game, and she brought up the crane thing because it was the only thing about Makoto that she could remember, and she wanted to pretend to be interested in him. She wanted to pretend that she always liked him, when she never cared before.

Secondly, she never showed a drop of interest in him until the killing game happened. Even during their 'orientation' when they didn't know what was going on, she still didn't fucking talk to him. She didn't care. She didn't care about him and she wasn't in a rush to get to know him. She only paused for like, two seconds, and was like "oh, you look familiar, do I know you-- Wait, that's Makoto." That was it. She only started spending time with him and acting like his friend after the killing game rules were stated, when she knew she needed a scapegoat to get away with murder. Up until that time, she only said "oh, it's you" and then "never mind, (I don't actually want to talk to you)" and brushed Makoto off when they were first introduced. She was polite when he reminisced with her, but she didn't make any point of talking to him, trying to be his friend, or spending time with him before Monokuma said they needed to murder someone to get out of it.

And then she started laying it on impossibly thick, acting like she was in love with him from Day One. Saying things like "I need you to help me get out of here. Will you help me? Will you promise that you'll help me get out of here?" And "I need you to protect me. Do you promise that you'll protect me, no matter what?" How fucking suspicious do you think that is? Do you think that's her 'being friendly' with him? Are you kidding me? Whenever they talked, their conversations were only about Sayaka needing to get out of there as fast as possible, and begging Makoto to help and trust her. Suspicious as fuck. She never cared about being his friend. She never wanted to get to know him. She just wanted to frame him for murder. She didn't write Leon's name in blood because she cared about Makoto. Are you shitting me? She was going to frame him for murder anyway. She doesn't care if he died. She wrote Leon's name to make sure that he didn't get away with killing her. To get her revenge. She didn't have a 'last minute change of heart'. Kyoko only said that to cheer Makoto up, and Makoto admitted that much.

And the whole 'implying that she had a crush on him'. Where? Free Time Events don't count. At the end of free time events, everyone (including Toko) falls in love with Makoto. That's what FTEs are for. They exist for you to get close to and fall in love with the other character. They all end in a love confession, or at least it's 'implied that they have a crush on him', as you put it. That's why you get their underwear afterwards. Every single free time event in every single game with every single character ends in a crush. That doesn't mean anything.

It is implied that Makoto had a crush on her (though he ignores her to notice Kyoko way more, so he always liked Kyoko better anyway, even when she wasn't trying to get his attention like Sayaka was). Other than FTEs, where is it implied that Sayaka has a crush on him? Nowhere in the first chapter does she imply that. She only acts all innocent and helpless to him, so that he will protect her and do whatever she says. Like let her sleep in his room. Though he likes her, she is never implied to like him back. She just cozies up to him. And even if she did say that she liked him, she would still just be manipulating him.

Hello? She tried to frame him for murder??? That's not something you do to someone that you have a crush on or who you think is your best friend. Of all the people she could have picked, she chose Makoto. She could've picked a total stranger so that she wasn't betraying and actively harming her best friend in the end, but no. She picked him. She didn't care. She singled him out for murder because he was the easiest to manipulate, and she knew that. She did not have a crush on him, and she wasn't his friend. Why would you choose to frame your crush/best friend for murder over any of the other fuckheads in your class?

"If she wouldn't have died then they would've really bonded" Are you forgetting that she chose to frame him for murder? Seriously. She singled him out from everyone else to use as bait. She did not like him. She did not care about him. She was trying to kill him!!!! She only got close to him to manipulate him. Even if she would've lied about a crush, it would have just been to manipulate him farther. She even used the fucking 3-point-rule for making a guy like you: befriend them, inflate their ego, then make them feel sympathetic/protective of you. And touch them a lot, too. She purposefully touched Makoto in weird, awkward moments just so she could lure him in with physical contact.

Seriously, dude. I know all this shit already. I know all about her fucking free time events and everything that she does. I took this stuff into account when I made my opinions. You're not changing my mind or revealing anything. I already know that they went to the same middle school. I already know that she supposedly 'wanted to talk to him'. I already fucking know. You're not going to change my mind by revealing shit that I already know. You're not revealing anything. I don't make my opinions from nothing, and I don't have them for no reason. The things you listed are my evidence for why she doesn't like him and they wouldn't be friends in real life. You're implying that I didn't do her free time events and didn't know anything about them when the game literally forces you to do Sayaka's free time events. "Oh, you only have this opinion because you don't know about THIS, you poor fool!" No, I have my opinions for a reason. I already know that stuff. That stuff is why I formed these opinions.

And let me just make this as clear as possible: If Sayaka actually liked Makoto, then she was an obnoxious Mary Sue.

You don't want to argue this with me. You don't want to make me believe that. Because if you do, then you make Sayaka into the worst fucking possible kind of Mary Sue. You turn her into Chiaki 2.0, and I will hate her if you do that. If you're trying to make me think better of Sayaka by convincing me of this, then you're failing. You will make me despise her instead. I already said why, but I'll summarize again.

I like Sayaka. I really do. I genuinely like her character. And I love Makoto. But I fucking hate this ship. Because of what it means for both of the characters. If you're going to say that Sayaka really was in love with Makoto, then you're taking away everything that I like about her. She didn't manipulate him. She didn't use him. She only hung out with him because she actually just liked him that much!!! Fucking gross, my guy. That means that instead of being ambitious, manipulative, and cunning (which are all the things I admire and love in female characters), you make her into a whiny, stupid, weak, damsel-in-distress comphet Mary Sue love interest. Instead of being an enemy, or a wild card, or a complexity, she becomes nothing more than a boring, bland, nothing character of a Token Love Interest with absolutely nothing else to her. You turn her boring instead of interesting. You take away her agency and her self-reliance and her strength. Now she's just this crybaby weakling who can do nothing but beg another weakling to help her. Most importantly, you take away her flaws. Now that everything she did wrong-- all her lies, all her manipulation, and all her using Makoto-- is gone, then she has now flaws. She's perfect! She's perfect and she's sweet, pretty, kind, damsel-in-distress, a pop star, and she just somehow loooooves the bland plain Main Character, and-- She's a Mary Sue. If she loved Makoto, and she didn't lie to him, and she did nothing wrong, then she is a Mary Sue. You took her flaws. You took anything that made her interesting. Her using Makoto, lying, and doing bad things is what made me love her. It made her stronger. It made her interesting. If she actually loved Makoto, then it completely fucking ruins her character.

And it ruins Makoto's character too. It turns him into nothing more than a shallow fuck-boy who falls for dumb, boring bimbos. If Sayaka was manipulating him, then Makoto fell for her because he was naïve and being lied to. He didn't even stop to think that she might be lying to him. But if he fell for her and she was being honest? She wasn't using every typical tactic in the book to make him like her? Then Makoto was a shallow idiot who just fell for a boring, bland girl because she cried in front of him. Not to mention how forced it fucking is. If she's manipulating him, then there's a good reason to force them to interact. It moves the plot along. But if she just innocently is in love with him, then the only reason they throw them together so often is to force comphet shit. Not for foreshadowing, not for suspense, not for clues later. Just forced comphet. And that's another reason I can't ship them: they're so forced. They only interact because the game says to, and none of their interactions feel real or individual. It's just a typical anime main character crushing on a typical anime waifu-bait love interest. And this has a point if she's manipulating him: that she's throwing herself at him, acting like a typical lovestruck girl to try and make him like her and trust her. But if she's actually into him, it's just forced, purposeless, boring, and lame. It feels out of character for both of them to be together in the way that they were in Chapter 1. I genuinely cannot imagine Sayaka acting like that unless she's overacting to manipulate someone. That's not how she'd be in a relationship.

Makoto is so much better than that. Sayaka is so much better than that. They both deserve better.

The idea of Sayaka actually liking Makoto in the first game is disgusting to me. I don't want to see either of them in a relationship that fucking boring or forced. I don't want to see Sayaka turned into a Mary Sue. I really don't want to be forced to deal with another Chiaki. I don't want to see Sayaka stripped of all her flaws, strengths, intelligence, complexity, and agency and simply diminished into a boring, bland, stupid, weak, damsel-in-distress, typical waifu-bait, token comphet love interest. I don't want to see Makoto stripped of his good-will and naïve innocence, and instead diminished into a shallow douchebag idiot who falls for the first girl who touches him just based on her looks and nothing about her personality. (Because they never got to know each other. He knew nothing about her personality, nor she about him.) They both deserve so much better than this, as characters. It's a disgusting ship that damages both of their characters beyond repair.

That's what I was saying earlier. The fact that I believe that Sayaka was lying and manipulating Makoto is a compliment to her. That's what makes her character good for me. That's why I like her. And like I said earlier as well, if she wasn't doing that, and she was just a goody-goody the whole time, then she's a horrible boring Mary Sue and I hate her. That's why I need to feel that way in order to like Sayaka. People always try to convince me that she wasn't lying or using Makoto, as if that would make me see her in a more positive light. No, that would make me hate her. If I thought that she actually liked Makoto, I would despise her almost as much as I do Chiaki. Her having flaws is so important to me. Let her have flaws, please.

I hate that ship in the context of the first game. If you want to sit there and tell me that it was real, that's gross. That's horrible. That's a terrible ship. If you're going to sit there and tell me that the way Sayaka and Makoto interacted was real, and is their actual relationship, and would be how they would act in a ship, then I think it's disgusting. I despise that ship. Because of how forced and terrible it is, and because of how it destroys both of the characters. Seriously. You're not doing Sayaka any favors in my book by telling me that she was good the whole time. I hate the dynamic of their ship in the first game. It's boring. It's obnoxious. It's bland. It ruins them. It's not cute or endearing at all. If you're going to tell me that this dynamic is real, and is what a relationship would be like between the two of them, then damn-- I hate Sayaka and I hate Makoto too. That is such a shitty dynamic, and it turns them both into shitty unlikable characters.

Now, if you want to ship Sayaka and Makoto without that dynamic, then be my guest. I could see it being interesting where Sayaka is manipulating him for some reason, but ends up falling in love with him after a while, because he's just so nice. I don't know. I can see some potential there. But only if they're both in character, and not obnoxious. And that is not the way that their dynamic in the first game was. If you leave Sayaka as a manipulative conniver and leave Makoto as naïve and innocent, then I can see an interesting ship. But if you take what's in the first chapter between them and make it true? Then it's bad. Then it's forced. Then it's boring and obnoxious. Then both of them are supremely out of character, and you're saying that Sayaka is a Mary Sue and Makoto is a shallow dumbass. It's only interesting as a ship if Sayaka is the manipulative person that she seems to be. If you take the first chapter dynamic and act like that's real, then it's terrible. And it ruins them both. It's not cute. It's not sweet. It's not endearing. It's just obnoxious and bad.

I like the way Sayaka is when she's flawed. Like I said. That's the only way I can like her character. If she wasn't that way, I would hate her. If she was truly the way that she acts with Makoto in chapter one, I would hate her. If she truly liked him, then I would hate her. I need to believe that Sayaka was lying to him if I'm going to like her. And I didn't just 'choose to believe that' because I wanted to. I genuinely believe, based on their characters and the evidence we see in the games, that Sayaka is an ambitious and manipulative person. Again! That's a good thing! And I genuinely believe that she doesn't like Makoto. And I like that. That's better! Don't mistake me. I didn't just choose to believe this because I wanted to. I genuinely believe it, based on the canon of the games. If I didn't believe it, then I would hate Sayaka and Makoto instead. The game leaves it up to the player whether or not they choose to believe Sayaka manipulated Makoto or not. For my own enjoyment, I like to believe that Sayaka manipulated him. But also, I think there is monumental evidence in the game that she was manipulating and using him, and I think there is next to no evidence for her innocently crushing on him. Seriously. There is so much evidence for her manipulating him. I went into character mostly in this rant, but look back at the evidence I did outline. I genuinely believe this because there is evidence to it and it makes sense. And you can believe something else, because the game leaves it ambiguous on purpose, but that doesn't mean that my opinion isn't valid, or isn't coming from a real place. I chose to believe this because I saw the most evidence for it. I didn't just choose it because I 'wanted to'. If I believed Sayaka liked Makoto, I would simply hate her, and dislike Makoto as well. I would change my opinions if I genuinely believed that to be the case. I have my opinions because I genuinely believe it is not the case.

So, no, Sayaka did not have a crush on Makoto. She was never actually interested in being his friend. She was lying to him and manipulating him so she could frame him for murder. They would not have bonded if the situation had been different. I believe that, in a normal highschool setting, Sayaka would see Makoto as not good enough for her, and not interesting. She would either ignore him, or occasionally be his friend for the sake of using him. And if I believed that she actually liked Makoto and wasn't lying to him, then it would ruin both her and Makoto's character, and I would hate them both. Please stop trying to argue that Sayaka is a 'good person' so that I will like her more. It's not going to work. You're just going to make me hate her. I like her because she is allowed to be a bad person.

#don't diminish my girl Sayaka like this #don't take cleverness and ambition from my female characters #don't make them helpless and dumb #I'm begging you

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takerfoxx · 4 years

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Notes on Restless

A day overdue, but here it is! My thoughts on writing Restless.

Restless is, in many ways, the most important arc in the story, not because it is the most plot or character significant (though it definitely is very important to both), but because it was one of the first, if not the first story arc I planned out, and have been cooking up in the back of my mind and working toward ever since this story started. And, as indicated by the title, it is one big reference to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Restless, which is my favorite episode and also featured all of the main characters trapped in their little dream worlds.

What can I say; I like dream sequences!

In fact, and I know I have mentioned this a few times already, but it bears repeating the first chapter of this arc was literally the very first scene I thought up for this story, back when I was still in post-episode 9 depression and wanted nothing more for Kyoko and Oktavia to reunite somewhere and be happy together (well, the story definitely gives us the former, but, um, not really the latter, because I am still a sadist). If memory serves, my original vision had the two of them and Mami relaxing in a fantasy-world hot spring that had a bunch of big crystals everywhere (because I like crystals), only for them to be interrupted by the sound of something moving nearby, and, upon inspection, they would find the doll version of Charlotte watching them.

Obviously that scenario’s gone through a lot of fine-tuning, especially when it comes to Charlotte. And the crystals got moved to the end of the story after the hot spring had been removed, but hey, they still made the final cut. Regardless, I did settle on a finalized version some years ago, and the final cut came out more-or-less exactly as I envisioned, down to Mami and Charlotte going off alone for some, ah, quality time.

The only new addition was Jerky’s little scene and the Sayaka/Oktavia flirting sequence, and, well, that happened. I honestly don’t know if I’m even allowed to say much about it without getting into trouble with someone, even though I wrote it, but let’s just say the time has come to finally kick things into high gear on that end.

Okay, so onto the dreams!

Kyoko’s dream was of course the one I came up with first, and yet ended up being the shortest. I guess it’s because while she’s white-hot mess of issues, she’s at least a straightforward white-hot mess of issues, and honestly, it came out more-or-less how I initially planned years ago, with very little addition.

Now, Mephisto gave us a pretty clear breakdown of what the individual girls’ dreams meant thematically when she started torturing them directly, but it bears repeating that Kyoko’s dream was mainly dealing with her poor reaction to loss (the concept, not the meme), specifically the loss of Sayaka to Oktavia, and her stubborn and yet misguided quest to bring Sayaka back at any cost.

We start with a perfect repeat of her dream from waaaaaaaay back from chapter five, when she was first waking up from being drugged. I was originally just going to begin with the continuation, but it had been so long since that chapter that I just copied and pasted the original dream so we can have it in its entirety, which included the all-important image of Sayaka dissolving into silver fishes.

From there it’s mainly Kyoko’s singleminded quest to find Sayaka at any cost. And from there, we see her think that she’s found her time after time, only to be disappointed, from thinking that Madoka was Sayaka (and it’s a shame that they never interacted more beyond that single episode, as they had a good dynamic), to nearly catching the silver-fish Sayaka only to have her torn away, to finally finding the fake fish-faced conductor Sayaka, further establishing her inability to accept Oktavia as not being Sayaka. The hole that her father left in her heart and how deeply she misses him even with what he did does come up, but she abandons catching him once Kyubey makes it clear that doing so is impossible, as well as showing that while she still loves her father, part of her still does not forgive him and she truly believes that he went to Hell.

Also, was that the first time I’ve had Kyubey show up and have original dialogue? Because it might be!

Mephisto’s first appearance has her occupying the same role that she would in everyone’s dreams, that of a surly gatekeeper. She’s a bouncer in Kyoko’s dream, a ticket-taker/ride operator in Sayaka’s, a hostess in Mami’s, and a receptionist in Charlotte’s. And in each one, she lets the dreamer pass while making it clear that doing so is probably a bad idea. Her design was a lot of fun, though there truly is no significance to her rainbow dreadlocks, punk-rock aesthetic, or denim outfit, other than I liked the way they looked. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Annabelle Lee and the dockengauts have very short appearances in the nightclub, as despite all the pain they’ve put Kyoko through, she is still so singleminded in her pursuit that she considers them nothing more than obstacles to be overcome, which Annabelle Lee would probably be annoyed to hear.

As for Mami’s weird striptease, well, Kyoko is just now having to grapple with her own budding sexuality, and it stands to reason that Mami would have been an early crush for her. The “ending” though shows that while she’s more-or-less okay with Charlotte, she is still very aware of how Mami died.

Like Annabelle Lee, Elsa Maria would have the same role in everyone’s dream, the same role she had in Annabelle Lee’s feverish dream during the Help arc, that of the person who points the way to what the dreamer is seeking while still advising against it, which is always ignored. Though don’t read too much into her working with Mephisto in the end, as it’s not the real Elsa Maria and Mephisto is still the one in control.

And what better place for Kyoko, now Ophelia, to start her quest to find Sayaka for real than the same train station that she originally lost Sayaka in?

Anyway, while this chapter came out basically as originally envisioned, there are a couple things that I wish I had included, firstly a scene where Kyoko loses her necklace while being swept along by the current for Sayaka to find it later, and to have the sound of the crying child from the beginning to continue throughout the whole chapter, showing that she still hadn’t forgotten her quest to find her sister, as impossible as it might seem now.

Sayaka’s dream had largely to do with her and Oktavia’s issues with personal identity, and the dichotomy that Oktavia feels at all times, but translated through Sayaka’s eyes. In fact, bits and pieces of both their personalities are present through the circus (and given that Rumia’s dream took place in a circus in Imperfect Metamorphosis, it does just seem to be a recurring theme with me). The whole knight in shining armor for Sayaka is obvious, as is her sense of righteous justice as what Lily did. But her dynamics with the various characters that she comes across, her memories in general, her growing attraction to Kyoko, and her annoyance at being addressed incorrectly is all Oktavia.

It’s the two Kyoko encounters I want the highlight. The first at the shooting gallery shows that while Oktavia does love Kyoko, she is getting quite fed up with the constant nicknames in place of her actual name, while the second in the dunking tank shows her growing concern that Kyoko’s dogheaded persistence is only going to keep getting her hurt until there’s nothing left, as well as show her growing sexual attraction to Kyoko as she is progressively more stripped.

Mami and Charlotte’s brief appearance was in part to get them on the dream, and so show that that while Oktavia cares for them deeply, she’s not nearly as worried about them as she is Kyoko, hence why they’re here so briefly. Also, them pushing Ticky Nikki around in a stroller, aside from being Nikki’s only appearance this whole arc, was also a tip of the hat to the original Restless episode from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as Giles’s dream had him and his girlfriend pushing a stroller around through a carnival in the middle of a graveyard.

The Freakshow was a mixture of the traumatic monsters both Sayaka and Oktavia had to encounter, from the various witch familiars and to Gertrud, the first witch Sayaka ever saw, to the witch form of Charlotte, who traumatized Sayaka deeply, to Brooklyn, who briefly showed up earlier and was sort of Oktavia’s nemesis in The Heist and targeted her specifically, which left a mark.

And that whole business with Annabelle Lee “pouring” Kyoko into the tank was to lean more into dream logic, where deeply personal fears tend to be translated through nonsensical imagery. I’ve had plenty of dreams where I’d “lose” a close friend or family member because they got turned into a jar of dried corn or something and I’d just be so devastated and obsessed with turning said corn back into my loved one, and it’d be very serious and emotional, and it wouldn’t be until I had woken up that I’d realize, “Dude, dried corn?” Plus, her guilt about stabbing Annabelle Lee was a reference to Sayaka’s own increasing guilt when she realized that she wasn’t the shining hero she had wanted to be.

The clown dance is pretty self-explanatory, in that Sayaka spent so much time killing witches and treating them like monsters only to become a witch herself. Plus, given how quick her downfall was, it serves to reason that she would think of herself as a clown. Plus, I just like Lily as a character, and wanted any excuse to use her as much as possible.

The whole bit with the train station acting as the loading gate for the roller-coaster is also fairly obvious. That’s where Sayaka became Oktavia, hence the cart turning into the wheelchair, or the coaster track leading into Oktavia’s barrier. I’m honestly not too thrilled about the coaster going through Genocide City, because while having it make an appearance makes sense, since it’s literally Oktavia’s first memory, but if I recall, I had the hardest time settling on a location for the rollercoaster to ride through before heading into the castle. I tried Freehaven, the outside of the high school, and returning to the circus itself before just settling with Genocide City, which honestly was chosen mainly because the deadline was coming up and I had to go with something. I guess it works though.

There really isn’t much to say about the reversed Kyoko/Oktavia fight, as it’s literally just a perspective flip of their final battle. Incredibly important and significant as it embodies the entirety of Sayaka’s aspect as the “Monster” of her dream and hammered in her connection to Kyoko? Absolutely. Has much that I can explain that isn’t literally sitting right on the surface? Nope.

We do get Mephisto basically spelling out Sayaka’s contradictory identity in her final days though, in which she was the valiant knight she always wanted to be, she was the damsel in distress that Madoka and Kyoko tried and failed to rescue, and she was the monster holding that damsel captive. No doubt that part was inspired by the meme of the Dragonborn princess paladin who was hired to rescue herself from herself.

From there, the “Monster” is slain, and the cute mermaid Oktavia von Seckendorff is born, the only time during her own dream that she makes a full appearance. She then is treated to a montage of Sayaka’s memories, but of course, they mean nothing to her.

However, I would like to point out what amounted to the payoff of a joke I had set up literally years ago. Readers of all my stuff might remember that way back in Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire, another story that took place in a dream world, Kaguya Houraisan was split into two identical copies of herself, called Head and Body, who encountered Oktavia swimming around in a large aquarium, who in turn shot them a rude gesture and swam off. Here, we finally see the inverse of that scene, which is why a couple of previously unseen twin girls showed up with no explanation.

Next is where the dreams start to converge. Oktavia finds Kyoko’s necklace (which, again, I wish I had included in Kyoko’s dream. Maybe in time I’ll go back and edit it in) and meets the silver fish’s from Kyoko’s dream, absorbing them and turning fully into the princess and, as a result, Sayaka Miki finally returns in full.

Funny thing about that.

At this point, I didn’t know how much the whole Sayaka thing would play out, and originally she would just be Oktavia in a dress. But after having Sayaka’s memories intrude again and again, I thought, “Huh, wouldn’t it be fun if she just became Sayaka again for a short time? Have a weird inverse of the Oktavia situation?” and went ahead and did it.

This choice led to…major consequences.

Mami’s dream is next, and despite being the one that I literally had planned out the least ahead of time, ended up being the most fun to write. Naturally, her dream dreams with her immense guilt over having been Kyubey’s poster girl for so long, helping him ensnare several innocent girls into his scheme as well as kill them off herself when they became witches. Also, it served as a little nod to Candeloro’s job as a baker in WN. Anyway, the whole thing was heavily influenced by Sweeney Todd, in that victims are misled into doing something they think is innocent, only for them to be gruesomely murdered and sent off to be turned into food.

The world of candles is just something I thought would be neat imagery, so infer from it what you wish. However, it is interesting to note that Mami is the only one to have a dream that features Annabelle Lee as the persistent antagonist that she is, showing up over and over to antagonize her. There wasn’t an intended reason for this, but come to think of it, with Kyoko focused on her endgame, Oktavia just wanting her friends to be safe, and Charlotte obsessed with what was lost, Mami would be the one most living in the nowness of their situation, convinced that she is finally in Hell for her sins.

In the restaurant, Mami is indirectly guilt-tripped by Shizuku for essentially abandoning all of her responsibilities to help Kyoko, and is then given a choice: abandon her quest and stay with her loved ones, or continue on with her “duty” despite all warning signs, thereby sealing her own destruction. Charlotte even goes so far as to beg her directly to not go on, but Mami refuses, saying over and over again that she is, “On the clock,” signifying how being a magical girl essentially took over her entire life after her parents’ death, and how full she threw herself into it to shield herself from her own loneliness.

And from then on, her fate is sealed.

While descending the long staircase, the father of Mami’s occasionally mentioned former crush Ryu Hagane shows up to chastise her for throwing her life way in making her contract, and then Mami’s actual love Charlotte shows up on the big TV to remind Mami of what she was now throwing away, and curiously, when she brings out the doll version of herself, it’s not to remind her of how Charlotte kill Mami (though the worms coming out of the doll’s mouth shows that Mami still hasn’t forgotten), but to remind her of how Mami had tried to kill Charlotte upon their first meeting, as her own guilt is more powerful than even the trauma from having her own head bitten off. Annabelle Lee emerges again, and in the process, the staircase is destroyed. Mami’s choice was made. There is going back.

Sure enough, when she enters the classroom, the marionette corpse of Kazuko Saotome (a reference to how she was killed and eaten in the Oriko timeline, in addition to just being very creepy) spells out to Mami’s face what an idiot she was for trusting Kyubey, how many lives she had ruined by doing so, finishing with Homura showing up to basically say, “I told you so.”

Annabelle Lee attacks again, and Mami is sent into a montage of battles she has fought since their disastrous adventure begun, but with each of her assailants being replaced at the last second by one of her friends, showing that even after forgiveness, she still feels like she’s their murderer, as well as driving home the point that in all of her battles to defend herself over the course of this story, she was still just fighting and hurting other magical girls, and regardless of which side they were on, they were all still victims of the same scam.

Annabelle Lee is finally defeated and put down, but there is no victory, only horror at what Mami had done. She flees, but finally finds herself in the Hell she always felt that she deserved, pursued by the zombified corpses of all the monsters that had defeated her, from Lily, who had stolen her mind and made her commit atrocities, to the wild girls, whom she had slaughtered, to the Worm, whom had killed her in her arrogance.

She escapes, but that just leads her back to the bakery, signifying that no matter what, the second she had made that contract she had been doomed. It didn’t matter if she was leaping through the sky in an extravagant outfit, effortlessly defeating monsters with her magic, or if she was sinking into her own despair with a darkening soul gem, it was all the same. She was just food for the Incubators, to be chewed up and discarded, thrown into the mouth of the Worm and run down by the same vehicle that had killed her parents.

She then wakes up in the hospital, reliving a twisted version of when she had been recovered from the car wreck that had taken her parents, taking her back to her first sin that still haunted her: only saving her own life with her wish and letting her parents die. And thus, she is turned into the same monster she had spent the last few years fighting: the witch, Candeloro.

The whole bit in the hospital was a twisted version of what it must have been like for the original Mami to wake up in the hospital and learn that her parents had died. No doubt Mephisto’s dream doctors would have continued to further twist the knife had Ophelia and Sayaka not violently intervened (which gives us a rare case of blood instead of mist). And Candeloro is brought into the party, and with a Cyberpunk reference no less!

Charlotte’s dream comes last, and in my opinion, is the most multi-layered. The bulk is focused on how bitter she is at having her perfect life with her wife stolen away and how many people she resents for it, her own feelings of helplessness at being unable to prevent it, and also it addresses her own guilt at having killed Mami to begin with and how much she fears the return of the Worm that did it, but also she seems to be the only person that has some subconscious awareness of how Homura is timelooping them over and over again, forcing them to relive the same torturous sequence of events (probably has something to do with Homura being the one who killed her after she ate Mami).

In the first loop, Mami is taken by Annabelle Lee, and Charlotte is totally helpless to stop her. This is pretty obvious: Annabelle Lee has been a thorn in her side since day one. It was because of her that they were ambushed in Cloudbreak and forced into their horrible adventure. And more directly, it was because of Annabelle Lee that they fell into the Etherdale to begin with, leading to them all being enslaved by Lily and Charlotte and Mami being forced to commit atrocities.

Also, it’s hinted that the city that Charlotte is forced to march through is the same one Kyoko had been following her father through in her dream, indicating that their minds are already crossing over.

The second is a little more complicated. Yes, Charlotte and Kyoko are on better terms. Yes, they’re getting along. Yes, Kyoko apologized and they bonded. But if it weren’t for Kyoko, then none of this would have ever happened. If it weren’t for Kyoko, Charlotte wouldn’t have lost her home, wouldn’t have been targeted by Reibey, and wouldn’t have to suffer being pursued by dockengauts and valks, two creatures that she has an acute phobia of. So there is still some hard feelings there.

The third is when Charlotte is forced to confront something about herself, that no matter how many people she blames, her own actions still played a part as well. Now she is the one riding the Worm. She is the one who cost Mami her life. And in the hospital, it was her misguided wish that cost her her mother, whether she knows it or not, as well as why she became a witch in the first place.

Couple notes about the hospital: first, the cheese slices do signify how Charlotte threw her wish away for something as stupid as cheesecake, but are also another reference to the original Restless, in which a man carrying cheese slices shows up in each of the characters dreams, just to be weird.

Also, Charlotte’s magical girl outfit was in part inspired by a 4koma MamiLotte doujin from before The Rebellion Story, in which Charlotte becomes human again and crushes on Mami big time. And her outfit consists of a double-breasted coat and skirt. Also there were parts taken from the character notes from Walpurgisnacht, in which one of her familiars is an early draft of Human!Charlotte, before Nagisa had been designed, and she’s depicted holding a staff topped with the wrapped candy charm.

The final loop is where Charlotte fully becomes Nozomi (a name I think I just took from another fanfic that gave her that name) and finally defeats the Worm, this time ridden by Homura Akemi. After all, Homura Akemi is the one resetting things over and over again, forcing Charlotte to relive the same terrible events over and over. And as for that rooftop meeting…well, explaining that would be telling, so infer what you will.

The next chapter is mainly spent playing catch-up, gathering all the characters together and pushing toward the final battle with Mephisto. Here, things get less symbolic and more character based, so there’s a lot less to explain. Ophelia’s path of destruction through Sayaka’s carnival and Mami’s school are basically in line with lucid dreaming, in that once you know that you’re in a dream, everything just feels so much less solid, leading Ophelia to take down the ravaged versions of Brooklyn and Annabelle Lee with ease. Also, that scene with her talking to the dying Lily was an American Gods reference, which featured a similar scene.

So let’s talk about the big thing with this chapter. Let’s talk about Sayaka.

Originally the plan was to go straight from Charlotte’s dream to the fight with Mephisto, but then I realized what a bad idea that is. I mean, Sayaka was back! It’s something that’s been hinted and talked about all through the story’s run, but now it’s actually a thing. The original Sayaka Miki, the one that fell into despair and became a witch, is now back, and without having merged with Oktavia and gaining her memories. She’s thrown literally into the middle of things, during the gang’s weirdest adventure yet. And, it should be noted, her most recent memory is literally sitting with Kyoko in the train station, right before she became Oktavia. That is one hell of a bad day.

Obviously she reacts poorly, and who can blame her? And give her credit, she pulled herself together pretty quickly. However, she did pick up very quickly on Kyoko’s feelings for her. And why shouldn’t we just start saying it? It’s obvious to everyone! But obviously, as short as it was, Sayaka’s brief return will have major consequences that will play out over time.

Anyway, obviously everyone else has their own identity crisis. Mami turns fully into Candeloro, which provides a measure of relief from her own shame, while Kyoko as Ophelia is the rare witch that remembers everything while still sticking fully to her witch identity.

As for Charlotte, her case as Charzomi is easily the weirdest, with her constantly shifting back and forth between Charlotte and Nozomi, and her own memories fading in and out, forcing her to work extra hard to stay focused. It’s been suggested that this might serve as a metaphor for gender fluidity, and while this wasn’t the intention and thus I can’t speak to its accuracy, I can see and support the applicability. Still haven’t worked out what the long-term consequences of that will be, but I do want this to play into her future character development.

The walk up the tongue was mainly me realizing that the fighting was going to start soon, and Sayaka was going away right after, so I had one last opportunity to make the most out of her presence and I was determined not to waste it.

So we ticked off the boxes on everything we ought to address with her. She cleared the air with Charlotte over having to watch Mami get eaten. She finally got to hug Mami (well, Candeloro anyway) and got everything she wanted to say off her chest. And with Ophelia, she naturally wants to know more about exactly what Kyoko has been getting up to with Sayaka’s other self.

Sayaka again confronts Ophelia about how she feels about her (or, well, Oktavia, or maybe Sayaka? It’s weird), and naturally she is kind of freaked out by it. Remember, from her point of view, her relationship with Kyoko had been nothing but antagonistic. Whether Kyoko had been attacking her or trying to help her, Sayaka always resented her presence, so now suddenly being dropped into the middle of things and learning that her one-time rival now has a thing for her? Well, can you blame her for getting a little freaked out?

Also, it’s worth pointing out how the script had been flipped with everyone’s new identities. Now it’s Ophelia and Candeloro with the witch names, while Sayaka still thinks of them using their old names, causing them discomfort, but she has no problem calling Charzomi whatever because they had just met and she didn’t care.

And then we get to the fight, and of course it has to be a pro wrestling match. I’d also like to point out that there were a lot of songs I wanted to use for this chapter but was unsure of where to put each one. Originally the climb up the tongue was just going to have generic thrash metal playing the background, while Mephisto’s entrance theme was going to start with Mr. Sandman, only to transition into Bad Reputation (which is Ronda Rousey’s RL entrance theme), but then I was like, I should put Welcome to My Nightmare in there somewhere. And then I remembered that Cult of Personality is a thing, which is also CM Punk’s entrance theme, so I finally decided to move the first three songs to the tongue scene and have CoP as Mephisto’s entrance music.

And finally, we come to the last chapter. The magical girl fight scene was another one of those checklist things I wanted to have so long as I had Sayaka around. That way, I could actually build some real KyoSaya moments to make the KyoTavi angst all the more potent, as Sayaka realizes that she is developing an attraction to Kyoko as they fight side-by-side, letting me recreate that magical little moment from The Rebellion Story in which Sayaka basically confesses in the middle of the battle, complete with Charlotte ruining the mood.

I’ll admit, I kind of skimped out on Mephisto’s witch design and didn’t give it as much thought as I could have, but that part was never important. The important part was to recreate a classic witch fight and let the girls interact during it. I am proud of the Charlotte’s Web joke though.

What happens next is to establish that it doesn’t matter how hard they fight or how smart they are, they simply cannot beat Mephisto now. She’s taken complete control, enough to flick them through their various personas on a whim turning them into Puella Magi, then to human!witches (basically the Walpurgis Nights girls), then to full witches, then to the classic squad from the bulk of the story (bringing Oktavia back briefly), then to vanilla humans. It doesn’t matter. Mephisto has them, and can do whatever she wants.

From there, she separates them again and subjects them to a condensed version of their previous dreams, with the same themes but different imagery. Kyoko is subjected to a sermon about her poor responses to loss from her dead father, as he really lays into her over how much damage she had done. And I gotta admit, even I felt pretty bad just for writing that scene. Because I know torturing Kyoko is kind of this story’s MO, but damn.

Sayaka is a little more nuanced. Yes, the identity issues from her own dream are brought up, but it’s more focused on a new issues: mainly, now that Sayaka is back, she not only has to grapple with all the weirdness that she’s been thrust into, but also with essentially having been replaced. We see the vision of her friends getting along happily without her, the friends she had pushed away and alienated having moved on without her, Madoka basically having replaced her entirely with Homura. Of course this is not reflected in reality, as by this point in the world of the living they probably haven’t even found Sayaka’s body yet due to the time difference, but it is definitely that Sayaka would easily believe.

The next part is basically the whole reason for bringing Sayaka back in this manner. Mephisto then shows Sayaka a real memory that of Oktavia spending time with Kyoko, Mami, and Charlotte and being loved and accepted by them.

Sayaka’s character arc in the original series was driven by her letting her insecurities cause her to overcompensate and destroy herself, and Oktavia has largely been characterized as what Sayaka would be like if she didn’t have those insecurities. Sure, she’s had the shadow of the original Sayaka hanging over her, but for the most part this hasn’t seemed to bother her much, aside from getting annoyed at being called the wrong name, but it’s been taken for granted that sooner or later being thought of as Sayaka instead of herself by Kyoko was going to come to a head.

But here we have one of those happy unplanned gold veins, something I hadn’t planned on doing but am thrilled gets to happen now: we have Sayaka being forced to come to terms with living in Oktavia’s shadow.

Yes, they’re the same person. Yes, Oktavia is just Sayaka with her memory wiped and many of her self-destructive issues cleared away. But as WN demonstrated, it’s not as clear cut as that, and there is still some degree of separation between the two. And the infamously self-loathing Sayaka would most certainly be messed up by being confronted by a version of herself that people like and enjoy being around, that doesn’t feel the need to prove anything. And this is coming right off the heels of her realizing that she might have feelings for Kyoko after all (even if that is in part because of her empathetic connection to Oktavia), only to have it thrown in her face that it was Oktavia that Kyoko really loved, when she herself never did anything other than push Kyoko away. Granted, she had good reason for doing so, given that the first thing Kyoko did was try to kill her, but the point stands.

The Kyoko/Oktavia dynamic has always been messy due to Sayaka’s constant presence, but I kind of feel that that was unfair to Sayaka herself, as she deserves better than just being a memory, and I wanted her to have an actual voice in the whole deal, to be able to express her own feelings about it, even if it does complicate an already incredibly complicated situation.

Anyway, the next bit is pretty self-explanatory, with Mephisto further twisting the knife by replaying Sayaka’s last conversation with Madoka and really driving home what a wreck Sayaka had been at the time. Remember, from Sayaka’s point of view, that whole moment was only a few hours ago, at most!

Mami’s was very interesting, because the whole trial bit is self-explanatory, but it’s actually a reference to the bizarre trial that made up the final episode of the classic mindscrew TV show The Prisoner, which featured a jury wearing masks, the plaintiff sitting on an ornate chair on a raised platform, witnesses being pulled out of steam-filled holes, and an extended singalong of Dry Bones. Granted, I mainly knew about it because Reboot, one of my favorite shows, also referenced it in a dream episode of their own, but I liked that episode, and wanted to rip it off.

For the witnesses, we first get the expected faces from the show itself, but we also get a few new ones. Brooke Alexander was already named once before when Mami was reflecting on the various girls she had trained, Janice Goldberg was made up specifically for this scene, but we also get Michiru Kazusa, from the really weird spin-off manga Kazumi Magica, who was established as having a past with Mami. Kazumi Magica had its problems, but I did like a lot of the characters (i.e. The Twins), so this seemed like a good time to bring in another one.

Charlotte’s dream is the most straightforward, as it’s basically just her first dream condensed into a claw machine. What I wanted to put focus on was that Charlotte is the one character that knows who Mephisto is, as her role as the team scholar who does the most reading, she would actually have heard of the Ideal Witches, and thus would really understand just how much trouble they were all in.

And at the end of each segment, Mephisto gives each of them the same offer: submit willingly and be given a pleasant fantasy while Mephisto digests their souls, or continue to resist and get digested anyway, only in eternal torment. And her offer would give them each what they wanted the most. Kyoko wants her loved ones back, Sayaka wants to be loved and appreciated, Mami wants forgiveness, and Charlotte just wants to go home. And in light of what they were facing, can any of them be blamed for wanting to take Mephisto up on her offer?

Enter Jerky.

Jerky was a ton of fun to write for, and judging by the overwhelming positive response to his segments, bringing in the baby space raptor was a good idea. Like I’ve said before, his bits were one big love letter to Raptor Red, a novel by paleontologist Robert Bakker which tells of the life and times of a female Utahraptor from the Utahraptor’s point of view. And the nice thing about Jerky is that he’s smart enough to know the does and don’ts, but simple enough to be uncomplicated. He’s an animal. An exceptionally smart animal, but still an animal. He knows that he loves Kyoko and is loyal to her, he’s been made to understand that he can’t let Charlotte, Mami, and Oktavia see him, and he knows that Kyoko’s skin is softer than his and he needs to be careful, but beyond that he couldn’t care less of their various issues. It’s refreshingly simple.

As such, when confronted with a complete inexplicable threat such as Mephisto, something well beyond his ability to comprehend, he’s worried, he’s scared, he doesn’t know what to do, so he defaults to his predatory instincts.

When in doubt, start biting.

And it does the trick, because something that needs to be said is that while the Ideal Witches are powerful, they’re not omnipotent. Mephisto needed to lure the girls in and submerge them fully in her dream in order to control them the way that she did, but in the real world, she was vulnerable once she had manifested fully, allowing Kyoko to break free long enough to fire the final shot.

In the end, everyone escapes, but not unscathed. Kyoko especially had been scarred even further, in part from the dream of her father, but also from having to watch Sayaka basically die again, leading to her reaching what very well might be her breaking point. Mami’s slipping deeper into depression, having been forced to once again confront all the damage she unwittingly did as a magical girl, Charlotte is fully fed up with everything that had happened to them. And Oktavia? Well, now that it’s been shown that Sayaka Miki can and has come back, suddenly her own identity issues are going to become worse. She’s really going to have to grapple with Sayaka being an actual person with a legitimate claim to her body, especially since when Sayaka came back, she effectively traded places with Oktavia instead of merging with her. That’s gotta be scary.

At the very least, Kyoko did not reject Oktavia. In some way, she does understand that Oktavia is her own person, and she’s coming to respect that. But there are some deep wounds having to do with Oktavia’s creation, and they’re both going to have to come to terms with a great many things in the days to come.

And at the very end, it’s shown that Mephisto is weakened but still alive, and she’s pissed! We also learn that one of the girls did accept Mephisto’s offer before she was defeated, so that’s definitely going to come up later. And we meet the rest of the Ideal Witches. Obviously there is more to come with them, so I will say nothing further.

Anyway, I guess that’s it. Feel free to message me if you want anything explained further, or just make your own interpretations. Either is fine.

#resonance days #restless

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justselfloathingthings-blog · 5 years

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Bloom Into You Character Analysis- Touko Nanami.

Okay, Touko. This one should be a bit shorter than my previous one, but potentially messy since Touko and all her motivations can tend to blur together a bit. On the other hand I won’t be burdened with chronology which is nice.

For anyone curious, I did one of these on Sayaka earier, if you haven’t read it and want to take a gander. Warning- it’s far longer.

Pretty much a long combination of text and images to create my analysis, which is under the cut.

So, let’s talk about Mio first. The fact that Touko deeply admired her sister can go without question, given literally everything she did after she died. But kind of want to back up a second and discuss this little bit from Episode 3, when Touko is explaining the nature of her facade to Yuu.

When we typically talk about people being “overshadowed”, the person doing the overshadowing is the actor and the person being overshadowed is the agentless actee. But it’s the inverse here, Mio probably didn’t particularly want her sister to basically measure her worth in comparison to her own, especially when none of it was truly deserved and she was just a teenage girl who wanted to be praised, but she let it happen because she was just a little kid, kids often really admired their older siblings when they were really young, right?

But like literally everyone after her, she kind of didn’t get what the problem was. Let’s go back just a couple shots to how Touko thought of herself.

Okay, so you’ve got a pretty average, shy girl who wasn’t the most popular. She’s 9, that’s hardly the end of the world. The problem is that this is in direct contrast with Mio, who is basically known as being awesome and great at everything.

And while “testimony right after she died” isn’t exactly the most reliable of evidence, there’s reason to think that she was treated that way at home too.

Like, on some level, you’re going to begin to use your sister as a bit of a yardstick, and in Touko’s eyes she simply didn’t match up. And you can tell that this is something that genuinely plagues her, because she outright tells you (and Yuu).

You know, nothing. Average. Shy. Worthless. She needs to be somebody special, somebody that is her sister and Most Definitely Not Her. (We’ll get back to this later.)

She doesn’t want to be herself, and she doesn’t really want to get close to people. There’s two people that you could argue that she strictly does. And that’s Sayaka and Yuu. Yuu I’ll get to in a moment, because why she does it with Sayaka is a lot more simple.

Sayaka, especially pre-Episode 8, is somebody that due to her own issues tends to kind of lock herself in an emotional holding action with Touko and never really look back. Which means that Touko can feel comfortable in feeling that Sayaka doesn’t know the “real her”, and is in essence in love with a fake dramatus personae rather than the person that Touko hates, her conceptualization of herself. Or at the very least doesn’t pressure Touko to be that true self.

Of course Touko’s entire framework is kinda fucked, but we’ll get to that. Regardless, Sayaka is safe because she doesn’t challenge Touko’s boundaries or do anything that makes her feel uncomfortable; she lets Touko be who she is, and because that is an identity that Touko has decided is fake, that’s perfectly fine.

It feels like there should be more groundwork I need to do, but this is all that comes to mind at the moment, so let’s jump in.

Now, honestly, it’s probably best to not do a whole chronology here, because I’ll mostly be hitting on things that I covered above. I want to mostly discuss exactly what motivations her relationship with Yuu, and then jump to the final act of the story, because that’s where Touko’s character arc really gets rolling.

So, let’s talk about why Touko loves Yuu first. First I’m going to toss a line pretty innoucous in isolation at you, and then build on it. This is from Episode 7.

One thing Touko loves about Yuu is simply... how neutral she comes across. She’s somebody that Touko thinks is safe for a very different reason than Sayaka, whereas Sayaka has feelings but doesn’t cross pre-existent boundaries, Yuu simply can’t cross those pre-existent boundaries, because she doesn’t have any emotional connections to Touko and doesn’t care about her in any emotional sense. Like, let’s look at the moment which, judging by Touko’s wide-eyed reaction, might be the moment she started to really decide to connect with her and she specifically says that Yuu is “fine as she is”.

Like, Touko immediately goes on to talk about feeling “forced to love someone” and if she’s talking from experience, logically the person she has to have in mind is herself, even if she deflects to talking about romance. Yuu is, in Touko’s eyes, a safe person to love because she won’t love or try to connect with the “real” Touko. She can’t; that’s an emotion that Yuu is, in her eyes, completely incapable of feeling, given how she can’t even seem to understand it as a concept.

Like this is a constant refrain from her, that Yuu needs to “stay as she is” in Touko’s perception- indifferent, detached. Somebody who would never try to reach out, not because she’s scared, but because she simply has no interest to.

Of course, why would I try to argue this from inference when she outright says it multiple times?

Touko is honestly pretty honest if you know what you’re looking for.

It’s clear that she does love Yuu, but she feels that that love is dependent upon her indifference; that she loves Yuu strictly because she doesn’t care. That’s why you get this bit from Episode 6.

She thinks that she loves Yuu because of her apathy, and if she changed that, then there’d be nothing to love about her anymore, in Touko’s eyes. Of course Touko is terrible at this “people” thing, and at heart she herself basically knows this is nonsense. But it’s clearly Touko’s perspective, and one of the two main reasons that she feels like she can love Yuu. We’ll get to the other reason later.

Okay, so let’s try and go over the entire climax of the narrative now. Honestly I want to try my best to skim over the inciting incident a bit; not because it isn’t important but because there’s still a lot to cover and I’ve already spent a lot of space. But there is something really important to note here: what Touko is told is something she already knows. She knows that Mio wasn’t the amazing wunderkind Touko is, and Touko kind of admits this herself through action and word.

First there’s the fact that Touko went to such great lengths to hide all the records, the ones that Sayaka got to first and figured out that Mio wasn’t really as good as everyone said she was from. Now the logical inference is that she was hiding them from Yuu specifically, but that isn’t really what she says. The way she puts it, she kind of went to all these lengths to keep it a secret from everyone.

Of course, from what we’ve seen in 6 and prior, that seems really odd. Why bother? What’s even the point? At most they’d see that her sister was there and died. Well, Touko is just as smart as Sayaka is in many ways, and if she could figure out what Mio was doing from the available documents, it’s logical to assume that Touko could too. But we don’t need to infer that, Touko basically tells us.

I mean I’m relying on the subs being pretty precise here, but it fits well enough that I’ll roll with it. Like, I don’t think she meant to word it this way consciously, and she meant to say how it comes across when you watch Episode 6 for the first time, which is “I adopted the persona of my sister”. That’s what fits with everything else she says.

But I think at heart, Touko is saying exactly what she means. “I adopted the persona my sister adopted.” She knows that she isn’t really being Mio, but somebody completely different. But that’s something she refuses to admit to herself, because... well... then she kind of has to actually admit that she isn’t Mio at all, but somebody completely different. And that kinda terrifies her because then she’d have to admit that she’s actually kind of being herself and she hates herself too much to want to be that person. Like I think that really what hit wasn’t anything he said about Mio. It was what Mio’s classmate said about her.

Because if she isn’t similar to Mio... she can’t be her. She has to be being herself, and she can’t be herself because then she’d be somebody that she hates.

And so we get to the conflict essentially depicted in the play, but before that I want to touch on a line that is kind of interesting. It’s in the episode after Touko has the flashback nightmare regarding Mio’s death. Sayaka says

Now she talks about this being because she is constantly reliving Mio’s death, but this is still an interesting way to phrase that. But it’s the perfect way, because it’s completely correct. Touko isn’t dreaming of the past because she’s still living in that time, when she was a little girl who couldn’t do anything right and was boring and average and shy, She IS dreaming about herself, because she doesn’t see herself as the character on-screen, but the nine year old (est.) in the flashback who is horrible and pathetic and weak and bad.

Which is a good way to segue into the play.

So, like, the play kind of comes across as a depiction of what’s going on in the narrative, and it is, but solely from Touko’s point of view. You can see this both in the way that Koyomi is clearly framing the story around Touko, it’s the only person whose mentality she cares about while writing, and also in the way Touko immediately can tell the story is about her, and also is able to cast every single other character on the spot. Like, this is clearly something that deeply resonates from her perspective, and how finding a “new self” is how she can get her happy ending, distant from her current, horrible state of being.

In fact, she seems rather desperate to refuse to accept that who she is now is actually “her”. Like, look at the lines that cause her to start to really gets into it in 12.

The whole reason for all of this, the whole reason she needs to change and adopt some fake persona, the whole reason she has a breakdown in the first place, is that she refuses to accept that she is who she is. If she is who she is, then she isn’t some pathetic shy, average girl. She’s exactly the kind of person Mio pretended to be, only better. And that would require her to not be, in her eyes, a terrible person.

But the entire point of, arguably, the climax of the show, is Yuu thinking that that’s fine. We could look at her argument for changing the script, but I’m not sure we need to do that except for one portion at the end. Let’s look at what happened before that, in Yuu’s conversation with Touko.

This is kind of an interesting reframing of what Touko was saying, but completely accurate. The issue is that Touko doesn’t want to “be” someone, she wants to “become” someone, and there’s a pretty important distinction there. If you “becoming” someone, then you don’t have to think of you as... yourself. She saw herself as not following in Mio’s footsteps but turning into Mio, and no longer being “her”. And now that that’s not feasible, she needs to quickly find somebody else to turn into, because she can’t escape that 9 year old mindset that her sister was super awesome and she was horrible because she isn’t as cool as her sister.

She is, essentially, that nine year old that desperately convinced herself that she could stop being Touko Nanami, the girl who lacked any value, by pretending to be Mio. Of course, now that isn’t feasible, but because it would be hard to argue that the current self is of no worth, it’s one that needs to be abandoned and she needs to become someone else that she can convince isn’t herself.

Of course, as Yuu kind of points out, there’s a bit of a core problem with that.

Now you can, of course, just take this literally to mean the period of time within the show itself. And that is completely accurate, but you should probably take it farther. Because this play is from Touko’s perspective, and the logical conclusion to take is that the “amnesiac” is Touko as she perceives herself, the 9 year old girl. I’d say this is emphasized when Yuu notes that the “audience” only knows the girl on stage, which slots in perfectly with Touko noting that almost absolutely nobody but her even remembers what she was like as a child. Audience should probably be broadly extended to be... well, pretty much everyone.

So let’s extend this too. If we accept Touko’s rationale for making a choice, then it’s her life before Mio died that matters, not absolutely anything that came after it. But that means that to her literally everything after Mio died is of no value to Touko, because Touko didn’t learn, grow, or change at all during it. It was all things that happened to someone else, not her. And honestly her experiences with everybody, including her parents and including all her classmates and teachers and including Sayaka and including Yuu, are, to her, completely worthless. And that isn’t something Yuu thinks is true, and isn’t something she would accept.

And now we can wrap this up with some thoughts on Episode 13. We’re going to start pretty late, roughly through the episode, after the two get soaked.

It’s worth noting that prior to accepting Yuu’s invitation, Touko was feeling incredibly directionless and seemed to have absolutely no idea of what she wanted to do after the stage show was over. But suddenly she has all sorts of future plans, and they all involve being able to spend more time with Yuu.

And I think that’s in part because of the second reason she loves Yuu that I can finally hit on.

In part Yuu acts as an anchor for her. Yuu is somebody that she can grasp onto and feel is still “her”, that there is a “her” that exists beyond her memories, that there is some part of her that is truly real and everything isn’t some fabrication. It gives her a sense of stability and allows her to maintain some current sense of self, even as she simultaneously, in one of the most magnificent acts of cognitive dissonance, declares that that current sense of self is meaningless and fake.

This portion where Yuu improvs the beginning of the play also seems rather important.

I don’t necessarily want to put too much thought into the meaning behind most of the roles and their assignments; it clearly means something to Touko, but it’s dilluted under the form of metaphor to begin with, the overall structure of the play doesn’t fit really well with them being entirely representative, and just in general it feels like a fruitless approach, and I’ll touch on that more. However, I think Yuu’s role is actually a bit of an exception.

Yuu’s role is unique in that she’s somebody that comes in from the outside of Touko’s life. Unlike her loved ones, Yuu knows nothing about Touko before the “amnesia” (or before Mio’s death). The thing is that, again extrapolating to the context of the play... that’s essentially everyone. Like, Touko said herself that nobody remembers what she was like before she died, which is where the parallelism exists on that front.

The reason Yuu has few lines isn’t because Touko doesn’t care about the feelings of Yuu in specific, she makes it pretty clear that she doesn’t care about anyone’s. The reason Yuu has few lines is because Touko is trying to isolate the present and eventually cut it out of her life entirely, and instead focus on the New Person that she wants to be in the future.

I don’t think that the increase in the amount of lines Yuu has is necessarily due it being Yuu, because the point isn’t that it’s Yuu. The point is that this is a new person that came into Touko’s life, and if the choice is going to be based upon her present self, upon the person that has grown and changed over the last ~10 years, then the important person isn’t the people who tell her what she “was” like or even “should” be like, but the person that knows her for who she is.

Like, the direct examples are things that Yuu specifically knows about her- but it’s worth noting that the flower example at least is something Sayaka likely knows too. The point here isn’t that this is knowledge that Yuu uniquely has, but its knowledge that Yuu has because she, and they, know the Touko of now, and not the Touko that Touko feels like she must secretly, actually be.

This isn’t something Touko really... wants to accept of course, which naturally is a bit dispiriting to Yuu.

And then after saying that-

Yuu starts to walk away, and we get this.

It’s worth noting that Touko hates disappointing people, really. She does it (see her shutting Yuu down in Episode 6), but it’s because of strongly held beliefs she has, and she makes sure to explicitly frame it as something I’m sure she genuinely wants to do- hold the Stage Show in Mio’s memory. So when Yuu, of all people, is incredibly disappointed in her response, we get this shot, which is an analogue to one of Yuu’s internal monologues from episode 1. Let’s go over exactly what she said there again.

Like in some senses this imagery is related to her love life (especially in the context of what Akari and Koyomi are talking about), but at its core its an imagery of isolation brought about by self-loathing. Yuu is scared about what her friends would say if she talks about this because she hates herself as the “girl unable to love” (we’ll hit way more on that next time.) So there’s a division between them that she is unable to breach.

Touko’s case is a bit different. We have the same basic principle here- Touko hates herself and it causes a massive communication gap, but the dynamic here is a bit different. Akari and Koyomi are already actively away from her, going on about their own things while Yuu is isolated and alone. This isn’t something that Yuu really feels like she can do anything about, it is just the way things are.

Meanwhile, let’s look at how this works in Touko’s scene.

A couple important differences here. The first is that unlike Koyomi and Akari, Yuu doesn’t already occupy that far, distant away-spot. She’s approaching it. And instead of just sitting there and letting it happen, Touko is actively, literally, reaching out in a desperate hope to not let her get there because she needs Yuu, and in a way, she does need this present “self” that Yuu in pretty much every sense is continually linked to.

Now let’s remember how the scenes in each bit are resolved.

I think there’s three points to make here-

1. Yuu is the one to snap herself out of the self-loathing here. Touko has no agency whatsoever- she’s not even in the scene.

2. The conclusion Yuu draws is fundamentally wrong; Touko doesn’t want to go out with anyone because she is “incapable of love” like Yuu thinks she is, but because of all the pathologies that have emerged from her own self-loathing, and not feeling like that there’s anyone “safe” to go out with, even if she isn’t entirely honestly about that.

3. As implied by one, her snapping out of her little daze wasn’t prompted by any action by Touko, but a memory of her.

Let’s see how Touko’s scene ends.

So a few relative points

1. Unlike with Yuu’s scene, Yuu never reaches that isolated section that Akari and Koyomi occupied. She just... stops.

2. Yuu, here, is directly the person that calms Nanami down- she’s an active presence in the scene and really drives it; Touko doesn’t have to rely on what she thinks Yuu is like in order to calm her down, it’s the way Yuu actually is.

3. At heart Touko’s scene, though a visual parallel, is a bit different. She’s not worried about nobody being unable to understand her, she’s worried about nobody being able to connect with or understand her anymore, now that Yuu is clearly giving up on her and leaving her life. But Yuu cares about as Touko and as somebody that helped Yuu so much with her own problems and issues of self-loathing, Yuu is perfectly happy to give Touko time to get through her same.

So I guess a lot of the final scene I want to touch on when I get to my Yuu mega-essay, but there probably is something that should be worth noting in the last line.

Overall there was a potential referential point earlier on but I don’t think it’s clear enough to be exact. The thing I take away from this scene, though, is that their relationship at this point clearly does need to change, because both of them have changed, even if Touko especially didn’t want it to. And through the imagery you can tell that it’s late and the last stop; they functionally need to change, or they’re never going to get anywhere.

Okay, whew, that was Touko. Yuu’s post is going to be one I’ve been wanting to write but is also going to be a monstrosity, so who knows when I’m going to get it done. Same bat time, same bat channel, I suppose.

Cheers.

#touko appreciation society #bloom into you #touko nanami #character analysis

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