We Need To Talk About Mahiru
Mahiru's second Trial is out and oh my god she just jumped up on my faves list. I love analyzing the MVs from different perspectives so I thought I'd give my 2 cents on Mahiru's character.
My vote: INNOCENT
The first thing I really feel the need to bring up is that people tend to ignore that Mahiru is actually very intelligent. There's multiple kinds of intelligence, and while she might not be "traditionally" smart in the linguistic sense, she's incredibly emotionally intelligent. She's a master of empathy and mood making and is an incredibly charming talker to the point you don't realize she's completely controlling the conversation. That being said, I genuinely don't think she uses her intelligence for malicious gains.
One of the theories going around with her first MV was that she was overbearing to the point of being abusive, while being oblivious to her own toxicity. Now after rereading and rewatching, I'm inclined to disagree. Her love may be seen as overbearing to some but we have not seen any explicit bad behavior towards her boyfriend. (Contrast with someone like Muu, who was revealed to have bullied as much as she was bullied herself). In my unpopular opinion, I genuinely think Mahiru was in a "healthy" relationship, at least on the surface.
[TW for discussions of death, murder, and fictional depictions of suicide]
[Side Note: One of the sticking points people have while saying "Mahiru was toxic" is that "Mahiru's relationship only lasted 16 days" which is blatantly not true when you check the translations for MV1. Day 1 takes place during college finals (mid-March-ish in JPN), Day 7 explicitly takes place in the summer, and Day 15 is New Year's Day (January). Mahiru's affection towards her boyfriend lasted almost a year, and they dated for around 6 months-ish during that. The "16 Day Memorial" isn't about a period of 16 days, it's about 16 days over the course of their relationship where she was explicitly making moves towards her boyfriend.]
I need you to take a real hard look at how Mahiru talks about "love" and "being in love." More specifically, when she talks about the concept of "love," she often brings up the action of "loving/showing love" in her explanation. Never once have I heard her say "My boyfriend loved me." or "This is what my boyfriend did for me." The focus is all on her actions towards the boyfriend. And I genuinely think she was a sweet girlfriend! She loved trying his hobbies and cooking his favorite foods and going to his favorite spots. She was sweet, and kind, and playful, and maybe just a bit clingy. But she was never jealous or possessive.
Es: I see. So, you became a murderer as a result of some relationship conflicts? Jealousy… Grudges… Having your partner stolen from you… Those stories aren’t all that uncommon now are they?
Mahiru: You’re wrong. It wasn’t that. I…never even wanted to kill anyone in the first place!
She explicitly states that her crime was not based off of negative feelings towards her boyfriend, but she still takes responsibility for what happened. Compare that to Fuuta, who, despite his own feelings of guilt, continually verbally denied that he had anything to do with his victim's death. Mahiru not only takes explicit responsibility, but also pins her "love" as his cause of death, to the point where if she was voted guilty, she would never try to love anyone again. Without "loving" anyone, she has no reason to live.
"To not forgive me means to take the act of loving away from me. That’s the same as not being alive. It’s the same as not being able to drink water or breathe."
It's interesting the way she compares basic needs to "the act of loving". Not the concept of "love" itself, but the act of showing someone love. If she is not allowed to show someone love, to her it's like suffocating, like dying of thirst, or maybe...dying of starvation?
Mahiru in her second MV may be dirty and barefoot with torn clothes, but the one thing she is not is starving. You could argue that "perhaps it doesn't show," but when compared to her boyfriend...
She's incredibly healthy.
And of course she's healthy! Her lovely boyfriend's been feeding her those bites of cake! So is the cake "love" then? But if the cake is love, why is her boyfriend, the one whose being "smothered," the one starving?
Feeding the cake doesn't represent "love." Feeding the cake also doesn't represent "the act of loving." Feeding the cake represents the boyfriend letting Mahiru "love" him. Does that make sense?
The boyfriend lets himself be vulnerable, he feeds pieces of himself to Mahiru for her to "love." But yet, he himself is starving.
...Have you even noticed Mahiru hates talking about herself?
It's evident from her first interrogation. Es can barely get two words in before Mahiru interrupts them to ask them questions about themselves or to offer her own advice to problems she thinks Es may be having.
Es: Oh… yeah. Uh… I apologise for that.
Mahiru: Did you zone out just then? This job must be pretty difficult, so you might be mentally burned out from work. Herbal tea’s good for that, you know? Oh! Like ginkgo tea—they say it helps improve brain function.
Es: Oh, is that so? I’ll try a bit then… I mean, no! Enough about me.
Compared to one of the few times Es gets a question in:
Es: I don’t completely understand what you’re saying, but… Being in love and loving someone—are they really that important?
Mahiru: They are.
Es: Hm.
Mahiru: They are… More so than anything else.
When reflected back to her, her answered become short and vague. Her voice grows soft and shy. She avoids questions, especially questions about difficult topics, not because she doesn't understand the gravity of them (like Haruka) but because she does. Like I said at the top, she's incredibly emotionally intelligent. She was beaten nearly to death because Kotoko decided to be Es's "fang", and yet she still empathizes with them. She still makes a strong attempt to see their point of view, and even to encourage Es to keep working hard. Compared to the other attacked prisoner we've seen, Fuuta, who blames and grovels for forgiveness, these responses are like night and day.
But what do we know about Mahiru, really?
She's 22
She's a university student
She likes romantic novels, comic, and dramas
She loves love. [But she's not obsessed with being loved. Haruka is obsessed with being loved, Haruka wants to be loved and taken care of, Haruka killed out of jealousy and for attention because he didn't feel loved enough. We never get that from Mahiru.]
Everything else we know about Mahiru? Is for other people.
Her favorite hobbies? Whatever her partner is doing.
Her fashion sense? Whatever will catch her partner's eye.
Her favorite food? Well, as long her partner cooks it, anything's her favorite!
The only time we ever get a sense of her and her boyfriend possibly disagreeing on something is Day 14 in MV1. Mahiru wants to see a French film and begs her boyfriend to take her. This is odd, because just a few scenes ago, she was bragging about how their tastes in films perfectly line up. If their tastes are the same, why would she have to beg him to take her to see this one?
Mahiru, like Yuno, is hiding behind a facade. But unlike Yuno, Mahiru doesn't have a strong core underneath her mirroring. Yuno can drop her "nice girl" act and she still has strong opinions and feelings and acts accordingly. Mahiru, when you try to go behind her mask, clams up, redirects, searches for a way out.
So. Back to cake.
The boyfriend feeds pieces of himself to Mahiru. He makes himself vulnerable, he lets her in, lets her care for him, lets her "love" him.
But Mahiru? She never feeds him until the very end, and even then, her "cake" isn't anything edible.
She's not stupid. She knows she can't give him what he really wants: any sort of vulnerability.
Their relationship is one-sided, but not because Mahiru is toxic or the boyfriend is apathetic. Their relationship is one sided because that's how Mahiru wants it to be. She wants to be the perfect girlfriend, because, if we're being honest, Mahiru doesn't like herself very much.
Why else would she hate talking about herself? She clearly loves to chat.
She puts her all into everything...as long as it's for someone besides her.
She will outright ignore her own pain and suffering, her own emotions, because she doesn't want to make anyone else upset.
Mahiru: Sorry… for making you worry. I’m fine! It doesn’t hurt at all.
Es: It’s a horrible injury. There’s no way it doesn’t hurt.
Mahiru: It doesn’t!
So why did her boyfriend die?
Mahiru's very good at hiding her emotions. If she slipped up and her boyfriend realized and noticed how she refused to love herself, it could cause friction in their otherwise perfect relationship.
Maybe Mahiru was the one who wanted to die in the woods, and her boyfriend, starved for any sort of real connection to her, found her at the last moment? Maybe her mental health dragged his down with her.
Mahiru's incredibly complex and tragic and endlessly relatable. She only loves too much because she can't love herself. If she's truly unforgivable, and she keeps her promise to stay alone...what's stopping her from killing the only thing she hates most?
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