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everythingsinred · 1 year

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Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Mikan (pt. 9)

Mikan's feelings are officially romantic now which will make this essay much more fun. Hopefully you will think so too. Today we'll chat about how her new crush clashes with Natsume's sudden coldness, as well as further discuss her difficulty confronting him.

I use the TokyoPop versions that I own for these essays. After the 15th volume I'll be left to my own devices, but for now, TokyoPop is what I turn to. If there's differences in translation or something, then I'm sorry. It happens from time to time but I promise I'm not just making stuff up. There might be inconsistencies between versions, that's all.

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Chapter Twenty-Six

You might ask yourself "huh???" But, yes, we did just analyze 26 yesterday. But I was stupid back then. I left out a key detail and I have to talk about it or else I'll combust. It's not a huge thing on the surface, but it's important to me. I couldn't edit the post because by the time I'd realized my mistake, people had already read it! And I couldn't reblog with the new information because then it could be easily missed in the future. This is just the easiest way.

Who is "people," Mikan?

I have to talk about this, the specific way she says this. "Mikan, why is your face red?" And her explanation, even just internal, is "Well, he suddenly started being all serious and using people's actual name." An easily dismissed line, but it shouldn't be!

Obviously, she realizes that she's affected by the fact that he called her by her name. She knows that she's blushing and that it's because of him. But Mikan struggles a lot with actually admitting feelings for Natsume. This explanation is internal, which means she's just thinking it. Of course she'd never say to Anna or Nonoko out loud, "Oh, yeah, I'm blushing because of something Natsume said," But she also can't admit it to herself, either. She distances herself, instead saying, even in her own head, that he surprised her by "using people's actual name." It's not about her, specifically, it's about people.

But Mikan wouldn't be affected like this if he had said someone else's name. It's only because he said her name that she's blushing. She just can't actually admit it because if she did, then she'd have to ask herself why it matters that he said her name, and she doesn't want to do that.

Mikan's obliviousness about her feelings stem from multiple causes.

She has little to no romantic experience. She's never liked a boy before and she doesn't really understand why Natsume is different from her other friends.

Natsume is confusing. We will later see that Ruka, who is much more consistent and straight-forward is able to get his feelings across to Mikan with way more ease than Natsume. Natsume is wishy-washy, hot-and-cold, unpredictable and mysterious. It makes sense that Mikan wouldn't understand that many of his actions are motivated by romance because he does nothing to suggest it.

She doesn't want to think about it. I had mentioned previously that Higuchi Tachibana said once that Mikan was supposed to be a cheerful girl who forgot her issues quickly. Part of that is that she's easily distracted, another part is that she prefers to think positively about things. But she also sometimes simply refuses to think hard about confusing or unpleasant feelings.

Here, it's pretty clear that she doesn't want to think too hard about why Natsume made her blush. She's eager to forget about it. I think her feelings for him make her uncomfortable, so she distances herself from them. She can't come to understand how she feels if she refuses to contemplate the feelings in the first place. So she says that Natsume is using "people's name" to create a space between the event and her consequent feelings.

Well, she can try to ignore her feelings all she wants, but that won't stop them from growing.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For the Natsume essay, I could immediately start talking about dramatic things like sacrifice and protection as soon as his feelings changed. This essay will be a little slower of a burn. Mikan may have feelings for him, but she’s not entirely aware of that and won’t be for a while, so pretty, fanciful language has little place here at the moment.

It’s time for exams! So Mikan has bigger fish to fry than whatever weird two-syllable names occasionally come from Natsume’s mouth (because she doesn't actually want to think about it anyway). Mikan is stupid and usually doesn’t do well on tests, but Yuu informs her that if she gets the best grade, there’s a chance she could qualify for the Best Student Award, the award Hotaru had previously been coveting. It’s still up for grabs and the exams are going to be the deciding factor.

Since getting his letter from Narumi, Mikan is jazzed over even the smallest chance she’ll see her Jii-chan again, so she throws herself into studying, even though it isn’t exactly fruitful. She struggles a lot with most of the concepts she’s reviewing, so she gets teased by her friends, and the chaos leads her to run into Natsume. He doesn’t say anything, but Mikan, insecure as always and used to him being a jerk, is sure he is judging her harshest of all.

He didn't say that. He probably wasn't even thinking it. Mikan's just incredibly nervous and vulnerable around him, especially now.

Ruka tries to comfort her that Natsume wouldn’t be so cruel, ever the apologist, but she struggles to believe him. Mikan is still very affected by what Natsume said to her at the after-party. She’s more uncomfortable around him than ever because she still doesn’t understand what he was trying to say. He’s always been a conundrum, but he’s outdone himself this time. Additionally, the way he makes her feel is even more confusing, and she's insistent on not analyzing her feelings too closely. She doesn’t want to dwell on it, but she can’t look at him without thinking about it. She doesn’t linger on that topic forever, mainly because her bigger fish have yet to be fried. Maybe that's part of the reason (but the certainly not the only reason) that she focuses so much on studying: this way she doesn't have time to dwell on Natsume.

Because Mikan is determined. It doesn’t matter that her chances are low. It doesn’t matter that the odds are stacked against her. What matters is that she wants to try, so she does. Her incessant refusal to give up or slack off inspires the rest of the class, and by the time exams roll around, nearly everyone is in study mode. Even Natsume is helping some classmates out. Her tenacity is contagious. Class B gets slowly drawn closer together, especially because of Mikan’s insistence on the matter. In the anime, Mikan demonstrates selflessness by sacrificing her own study night to help Sumire out with the home ec exam. Though those moments are missing from the manga, there’s still an emphasis on the entire class getting along for once.

:) Height difference. :)

But ultimately Mikan doesn’t do well. In fact, she does terribly. She tries her hardest and she still fails. Hotaru jokes that the outcome had been obvious from the beginning, but what mattered was that she tried. I think it’s a lovely message to promote trying even in unlikely or difficult situations. Failing when you’ve put your all into something can’t really be a failure, because you still did all you could. Real failure is not even trying. Mikan might not have come even remotely close to qualifying for the Best Student Award, but she still succeeded in amping up her classmates, in connecting with them, in trying her hardest. Award or no, she still studied hard and learned things. That is enough for now. There’s always next year (*stifled screaming*).

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Who is Persona? Mikan isn’t familiar.

Turns out that not only did Mikan do more poorly than she’d like, she earned the lowest grade in class, even after all that studying. She’s feeling down on herself, and it doesn’t help that Natsume is randomly acting even meaner than usual for no good reason. Things are not going well for her.

Was she asking him if he wanted to play Othello with her? I'm gonna cry. It's a 2-player game ;-;

Then she meets Kaname, a charming and handsome middle schooler who is Tsubasa’s best friend and Mr. Bear’s creator. Mikan quickly gets attached to him because he is kind and she is starved for positive affection after being teased by Class B and treated coldly by Natsume. He reminds her of the ideal prince she and Hotaru put together--an image of the perfect boy who is beautiful, kind, delicate, and rich. Naturally, he should also be sickly, Hotaru adds. And that fits, because Kaname--in addition to being the perfect guy on paper--has the life-shortening alice.

I’m gonna ramble about something unimportant for a moment because in the panel where Mikan describes her and Hotaru’s “ideal prince,” Hotaru is the one drawing and listing out all his qualities while Mikan watches in awe. To be honest, I always kind of took that to be Hotaru’s high standard for an ideal man, an almost impossible standard for a normal person to meet. Mikan, who has never had a crush on a boy before and is entirely naive to romance and even the fantasy of it, simply sits and takes the information in. (After all, when Mikan does fall in love, the boy she loves has very little in common with the prince drawing.) Regardless of whether or not Mikan helped form the sketch Hotaru drew, though, that princely form is not based in reality.

But... Hotaru's description also fits Ruka... I'm just saying.

Not even Kaname fits it as perfectly as Mikan imagines.

In the anime, he might be close to perfect. The corresponding episode doesn’t imply that there’s much more to him beyond what Mikan sees at first glance: kind, sickly, handsome, popular. But the manga challenges this. He is all of those things, but he’s more than that too.

Mikan is not the only one to see Kaname as a perfect prince. He has a lot of fans, many of which have commissioned him for a stuffed animal at some point. He knows that he’s attractive and can use those assets to his advantage. His manipulation skills lead to Bear’s cabin being entirely modernized and remodeled by his devoted admirers. I guess my point here is that Kaname is just an example of how perfection can’t exist. He’s as close as it gets, and even he has facets to his personality that could be classified as flaws (like being manipulative, though I think people shouldn’t be punished for objectively funny character flaws).

This aspect of Kaname's personality is so underrated. He's so funny to me.

Tsubasa is a little different in the manga than in the corresponding anime episode as well. In the anime, he’s eaten up inside about Kaname’s alice shape. He struggles with Kaname’s insistence on using his alice, but reluctantly resigns himself to being helpless in the matter. Ultimately, it’s not his alice and not his call, and he can’t force Kaname to give up something that makes him happy. In the manga, Tsubasa is casual. He tells Mikan about Kaname’s alice shape and that he’s in and out of the hospital all the time. She worries about him, naturally, but the focus is more on Kaname than on Mikan’s struggling with the revelation about the fourth form or Tsubasa’s conflicted feelings watching his best friend die.

She gets angry at first, but the truth is that she's hurt! Poor Mikan!

At some point, while she’s concerned about Kaname in class, she makes eye contact with Natsume, who quickly and dismissively looks away. Mikan is initially pissed, because she hates being ignored and she doesn’t understand what his problem is. But then her expression saddens. After the Reo incident, Mikan had been carrying hope that she could stay true to Narumi’s advice and make friends with unlikeable people. She was successful with Sumire, and she’s currently making progress with Bear, but Natsume is still untouchable, almost as if she did something to gravely offend him. She’s hurt, because she catches glimpses of him that she likes and for some reason he refuses to let her see more. It’s not just that he has walls, it’s that the walls have spikes specifically designed to poke her in a way they don’t poke anybody else. It feels personal, and now that she likes him, it hurts even more.

In any case, Mikan and Hotaru--sent on a mission to trap a rumored spirit--stumble upon Bear bringing Kaname anonymous flowers, only to get caught. Kaname tells him that he worries about him, because he doesn’t let people in and might actually be all on his own once Kaname is gone.

(And of all of Kaname’s creations, Bear is the most his. While the other toys seem to be created for commissions, Bear was created for Kaname. All the stuffed toys love him, but Bear is the only one who seems to fully understand him. He is the only one who would bring Kaname his favorite flowers, the only one who worries about him the way he does. And of all the toys, Bear is the one Kaname seems to have the strongest connection with. Not relevant, but something that still makes me cry because their relationship is more than I could ever cope with.)

He finishes off by apologizing to Bear that they won’t always be together.

And Mikan takes that personally. We know from the omake about Mikan’s childhood that she has always felt a yearning for what she never had, that the yearning was strongly connected with the stars and with her complicated feelings about ghosts. She wonders if her parents felt the same way: concerned about her because they were apart, sorry that they couldn’t be together. It’s bittersweet, because Mikan lost out on a love she should have always had. But she never felt unloved, abandoned, left behind. Mikan is sure that her parents loved her, that they wished they could’ve stayed with her. That connection we’ve discussed before is exactly what gives her that certainty. She could feel her father’s presence in the omake and feels connections to the mysterious people brought up from time to time in regards to her nullification (“that woman” and the other person with the nullification alice).

"When I think that [my parents want to hug me from heaven] and look at the starry sky, my heart feels almost like it could break." Yeah, mine too, Mikan.

Over the chapter, Mikan has learned a sad sort of acceptance. Death is scary. But the sadness doesn’t just come from life ending; it’s about leaving behind the people you love. It’s inevitable, and it will always hurt, but that means making sure that the people you love know that they are loved. So she won’t help Kaname use up his alice and his lifespan. Instead, she will try to be friends with Bear, so that when Kaname inevitably can’t be around for him anymore, someone will be.

Even if she can’t stand Bear, she will try to befriend him anyway, because even Bear deserves to have somebody care about him. After all, she was able to overcome her dislike of Natsume, so she has some experience in this sort of thing. (And it’s important to note that her dislike of Natsume is past tense. Even if he is still acting like a jerk to her, she still likes him.)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I've chosen to be really kind and generous and include two more chapters of analysis here for you, even though it is the start of a new arc.

At this point in the Natsume essay, I had just reached 22k words. In this essay we’ve passed 35k. Mikan is the main character after all. In the earlier chapters, Natsume is hardly present, only to occasionally act as an antagonist before he’s firmly transitioned into a member of the lead cast after the Reo arc. And even then, he sometimes doesn't appear for a few chapters. Meanwhile, Mikan is present and central in nearly every chapter.

It's very sad but we won’t be talking about comparisons to the anime from now on. I've compared all I could for the time being. By now, we get it: anime!NatsuMikan is different from manga!NatsuMikan. Time to move on. Let’s get into the Z arc.

It’s November at Gakuen Alice. Fall is in full flush (keep in mind that seasons are important!) and something amazing has happened: Yuu won the best student award and as a result will be visiting his family in Fukuoka for a week. Everyone is excited for him, even if they are a bit jealous of his prizes. He’s especially excited to see his younger sister, who he has never met.

Mikan is a rarity, finding her alice and attending the school later than most of her classmates, who have been here for almost their whole lives. The academy steals childhoods and lives and families from these kids, though that’s not something Mikan is piecing together quite yet. Knowing your family shouldn’t be a privilege awarded to one smart child each year; it should be something these kids all take for granted. But Yuu has waited three years to meet his sister. The Alice kids are all nine/ten/eleven years old now, which means that most of them will either have to lose their alice or wait another decade before they can go home. Not all the kids are like Natsume or Mikan, being singled out in atrocious ways; but they are all abused and neglected, treated like commodities and experiments, ways to make profit and gather power, rather than being treated like children. Not all the kids are treated like child soldiers, but they are mistreated nonetheless, pitted against each other for privileges they should have anyway.

I mention this because we’ll be discussing the idea of “going home,” family, and potential loss of alice in this arc, a subject that is sensitive for each kid in Class B (not just the ones with the life-shortening alice).

That aside, Mikan is visibly happy for Yuu. All the kids are jealous, of course, because they all want to see their families, but none of them resent Yuu for winning. There’s genuine happiness for him, from everybody, but specifically Mikan. Watching a close friend win feels like a win for her too.

She and Hotaru look so genuinely happy for him. I'm gonna cry.

In any case, it’s been a week, so Class B is eagerly awaiting Yuu’s return to school, but other news is circulating around the academy too, particularly about a few “loss of alice” incidents in Japan. Because kids are starting to freak out about it, the staff are addressing their concerns and reassuring everyone that these incidents are only affecting adults outside the academy. These occurrences are odd because they have nothing to do with alice shapes, but the real cause is unclear.

The kids freak out more, but seem to be somewhat calmed by the fact that kids don’t seem to be affected.

They bring up the fact that losing your alice means you can go home, a sore spot for any Alice student. Losing an alice is the only way these kids will see their families again while they are still children. Kids who aren’t academically inclined, like Mikan or Koko, don’t have a good shot at winning the best student award, and other kids like Natsume would never be allowed to leave the school, even if he applied himself enough to win (though that’s not something they bring up). The only chance they have is by losing their alice, either due to the alice shape or these incidents. So even though it seems frightening to lose it, there’s also a clear silver lining.

Sumire, leader of the Alice-supremacy movement, is appalled by her classmates’ discussion. Nonoko chimes in to share that although she misses her family, her alice feels like a part of her, like something precious that she doesn’t want to part with. On top of that, leaving the school means leaving all the people she grew up with, most of whom she only recently started being friends with.

He's ignoring her and she's hurt about it, but he's still one of the most important people to her, still a person she doesn't want to lose.

This prompts Mikan to think of all the people she’s come to know and care for at the academy, and the one person she came here for in the first place. Losing these new (and renewed) bonds would be crushing and lonely. So they all start crying and freaking out again. This is why I had previously mentioned the school’s exploitation of the children and how it takes advantage of them by withholding from them things they are entitled to (like communication with their families). In a better school, this wouldn’t be a debate at all. They’d be able to see and talk to their parents and siblings whenever they wanted and wouldn’t want to lose a part of themselves and all the friends they’ve made in order to do it. But because Alice Academy is a monstrous institution, the children face this terrible catch-22 and have to decide for themselves which is worse: losing your friends or losing your family. It just shouldn’t even be a thing they have to discuss in the first place.

Class is about to start and Natsume just walks right out in the middle of their conversation, with Ruka running after him. Mikan is reminded of what Ruka told her, that Natsume doesn’t want his alice, that she could never understand how he feels. She can understand that, if that’s true, the conversation they were having doesn’t hit him the same way as it hits the others. She doesn’t understand all the nuances of his feelings, but she can see that he’s bothered, which only makes her concerned.

Oh no, he's definitely avoiding you. But it's nice, because you're so busy wondering why he's avoiding you that you're not thinking about why he makes you blush anymore! A victory!

Mikan is in the Special classroom, waiting for class to start, preoccupied with thoughts of her partner. But they’re not all about how bothered he must have been; they’re about how she’s bothered. Natsume seems to be avoiding her and she doesn’t know why. She doesn’t seem angry, just hurt, because she doesn’t know if she did something to hurt him. Mikan has just started to like him, after all, even though she isn’t yet aware of the complexity of her feelings. Having him shut the whole relationship down just as soon as her feelings started to turn around is emotional whiplash and it’s hard for her to understand any of her emotions if she can’t even understand what he’s trying to pull. Though she’s been upbeat and cheerful just like always, it’s obvious that this issue has been plaguing her for a while, something she only lets herself dwell on when she’s given a moment alone.

Which is why her spirits instantly rise when she meets the elusive SA class representative, Tono, who is creepy and uncomfortable to read but generally a good guy. He has the amplification alice, the opposite of Mikan’s, which creates a feeling of connection between them. He, like everyone who meets Mikan, is interested in the fact that she’s Natsume’s partner. Being his partner makes her famous because Natsume is famous, and if Natsume, who is special, got shackled to a partner, that must mean his partner is also special.

Tono asks about Natsume’s health, referencing rumors about him going to the hospital a lot recently. Mikan is instantly concerned again. He’s been avoiding her, so she has no idea what he’s up to, hospital or no, and so she wonders if hospitalization might be why he’s acting so weird. She again connects this news with Noda’s lesson on alice shapes, wondering if perhaps Natsume has the life-shortening alice like Kaname.

She thinks, “Not Natsume,” obviously disturbed by the idea that he could be like Kaname in this way. Of course nobody wants a classmate to die, but the fact that she thinks so much about him despite the fact that they aren’t really on awesome terms makes her concern a little more telling. It’s not just that she doesn’t want a classmate to have the fourth shape; it’s that she doesn’t want Natsume in particular to have it. “Not Natsume.” I'll talk more about this concept later.

The TokyoPop says "Not Natsume!" instead of "It can't be!" I like "Not Natsume!" better. It feels more specific. Because it's the same basic premise, and because I'll mention this sort of thing again later, I'm just going with "Not Natsume!"

She’s thought of him three times in relation to the fourth shape so far, exhibiting that stellar intuition she has. But she shakes the thought off, once again. It’s unpleasant, so she doesn’t want to think about it. She dismisses the thoughts as being residual from her encounters with Kaname and changes the subject to the issue of alice loss incidents.

Tono and the SA class discuss the issue for a bit, but because neither Tono nor Noda can say much without starting a panic, there’s no real information gained, other than that students are being kept on lockdown in the school to prevent alice loss incidents within the academy.

Chapter Thirty

The last chapter was chock-full of info-dumping and set-up for the arc. There was some touch on personal interactions as well, and Higuchi Tachibana is a master at plot threads like these. Especially early in the story, arcs are built, not just around plot points, but character and relationships. In Natsume’s essay, the fact that somebody was stealing alices was vital to his character, where his disdain for his own alice came head to head with his desire to protect his loved ones. There’s also the issue of Mikan’s mother, and his tortured love for Mikan, having no choice but to shut her out. Mikan has threads in this arc as well, things that will be central as we move forward. This arc in particular is incredibly well-thought out, with each central character getting their fair share of development.

Yuu is finally back, having brought back stories and souvenirs for everyone. We meet Pengy as well, Hotaru’s commissioned invention who missed her so much its owner sent it back. It’s established straight away that Mikan and Pengy are like souls, and they get along very well (this will be important).

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." -Emily Brontë

The mood of the day is ruined very quickly when we discover that Yuu’s alice isn’t working. The scary stories have come to claim a victim, and no reassurances about them being kids apply anymore. Yuu is a kid, and his alice seems to be gone. He is put into quarantine for a couple days and there’s no more fun and games. Nobody in Class B knows what’s going on and the teachers aren’t sharing. Mikan pleads with Narumi to let her see Yuu, just for a visit, since they’d established that whatever’s wrong with Yuu is not contagious. Narumi refuses, so Hotaru steps in, manipulating him through an invention of hers into leading them to Yuu.

Though Mikan is antsy about doing something like this, that might get them into trouble, Hotaru shuts her concerns down. Yuu is all by himself. He must be scared. Mikan was already worried about her friend, but seeing Hotaru display this care as well means the situation must be dire. Even Hotaru is worried, but even more than that: we (and Mikan) can see just how much Hotaru cares for Yuu, how much of an important friend he is to her.

They reunite with Yuu, who starts to cry, both touched that they’d come to see him and scared that he won’t ever see his friends again. Yuu, who is always concerned for others, is now scared for himself. A character who is so defined by his desire to help others and keep the peace being isolated by himself is a key to tragedy. No child should have to deal with being locked up in a room, quarantined on his own even though he isn’t even contagious, with nobody to talk to. It would be scary for anyone, let alone a little kid.

He's only little!!!! Let him out!!!!

So Mikan and Hotaru go back and start a campaign to fold paper cranes in the hopes that their prayers will make him better. Some sticklers start to berate Mikan for going to see him in the first place, accusing her of infecting the classroom and trying to spray her with disinfectant. Mikan is angered by their words, but it’s Sumire who punches one of the bullies. She is Alice-supremacist number one, but that means that they should all be cooperating.

It’s interesting how Sumire was introduced as a villain character, as nothing more than a bully with a superficial crush on Natsume. But once Mikan started to see the goodness in her, more and more instances of her as an ally started to occur. And it’s not as simple as seeing new traits that redeem her. Instead, the traits that made her so terrible at first (her stubbornness, control over the classroom, busybody nature, and Alice-supremacy) were developed as double-sided, as being beneficial too. Characters aren’t black and white. The things that make Sumire insufferable one moment make her kind the next. And part of Mikan’s journey in befriending Sumire is realizing that.

Yuu is finally released from his prison, even though his alice is still gone. There’s a moment of happiness at the reunion, at the hope that he might get his alice back just by going back to his normal routine. But Yuu goes on to detail the questions he was asked, and how he had encountered a woman while outside of the academy who might have the stealing alice and who might be part of Z. All the kids involved with the Reo incident freeze at the name. The loss of alice incidents seemed like scary aberrations before, just random and terrifying events that could take one of their classmates away. But now it’s more insidious, like there’s some conspiracy. Less random, more orchestrated.

Mikan might have gone back to her normal cheery self after the Reo incident, but she was still traumatized by the events, so the idea that it might not be entirely over scares her. It apparently bothers Natsume too, so he leaves the room and once again Ruka chases after him. But this time, Mikan decides to follow him too. She remembers that Natsume, the Black Cat, had been propositioned into joining Z, so maybe he knows something more than she does. Besides, they were both kidnapped together. Natsume is one of the few people who really understands what it was like, so maybe they can talk more about it.

She calls out to him, trying to start a conversation. But he just ignores her, like he’s been doing, so Mikan loses her patience. She’s been putting up with him acting like this for long enough. It’s time for some explanations. So she blows up, demanding to know what his problem is.

She never makes it personal with him. 'Tis too scary!

I find it so interesting that she says he’s been “ignoring people forever” or "disregarding everyone" instead of saying “ignoring me.” Mikan is visibly angry, but she doesn’t want him to know that she’s hurt too. By making it some general thing, instead of something personal, she can distance herself from the situation. He’s mistreating people, hurting people, not necessarily her. It was sudden and without reason, which only makes her more hurt.

But the thing is that he’s not ignoring people. If he were ignoring everyone, she might think there’s something wrong with him, that something is causing himself to turn away. But he’s not withdrawing from anybody (any more than usual) other than her. It seems pointed and intentional and all about her. And she doesn’t want to believe he has a problem with her, which is why she says “ignoring people.” It would be one thing if he had a problem with her and it pissed her off just like before, when they were enemies; it’s another if he doesn’t like her and is somehow also aware that the fact he doesn't like her hurts her feelings because she likes him now. Mikan is an outgoing girl who doesn’t fixate a lot on conflict, but Natsume is different. He’s an enigma and she doesn’t get him, even though she likes him now and she wants to. He keeps himself shut off from her, sure, but the interesting thing is that Mikan shuts herself off from him too. He makes her feel vulnerable, insecure, uncomfortable. She doesn't know why and doesn't really wanna know why. (Do you see why I absolutely had to cover 26 again?)

So she asks him, even though he’s been “ignoring people,” if there’s something he doesn’t like about her, and if there is, then he should just spit it out.

When he finally speaks to her for the first time in weeks, it’s to tell her that he hates everything about her. “Stay away from me.”

Then he just turns around and leaves, like it doesn’t matter.

Mikan freezes for a moment, and there’s two interesting panels of her reacting before she says anything: there’s her hearing the words, just her eyes pictured, shocked but not betraying any particular emotion; and then there’s her lower face, with no eyes, but the beginning of an internal thought, “You…?”

We had “Not Natsume,” before, a refusal to accept that Natsume in particular, not just a classmate, could have the fourth shape. And now we have “You…?” An unfinished thought. Now who knows what that means? It could mean anything! “You suck?” “You’re a jerk?” “You really hate me?” or maybe just “You?” Not just a classmate, but Natsume in particular, hates her?

She screams back after he’s already started leaving that she hates him too, just as much. For a moment, she acts like it’s just another fight, but we can see (and so can Ruka) that it’s more than that. She’s hurt, not just because somebody hates her--because he’s hated her before and it didn’t hurt--but because Natsume in particular still hates her, even though she stopped hating him a while ago, no matter what she says. That pain she was trying to avoid, by saying he was “ignoring people” and not just her, is in full force now. It is just about her. It’s not a misunderstanding; he hates her.

It's one thing when your crush doesn't reciprocate romantic feelings; it's a whole other thing when he tells you to your face that he hates literally everything about you and doesn't want you ever coming near him again.

A moment of silence passes, where we can see a very small panel of Mikan actually crying, before they’re all interrupted by an alarm sounding, signaling that all kids are on lockdown now because intruders from Z have snuck onto campus.

He made her cry!!! Evil!

Ohoho it is such nonsense that Natsume loves Mikan and that she only thinks she reciprocates because she feels guilt. I will destroy that premise, believe me.

Conclusion

Mikan's crush doesn't seem to change things overnight the way Natsume's does. The thing is that she's crushing on a boy who feels he has no choice but to distance himself from her to protect her. That sucks because her affection for him is pretty solid at this point. From her point of view, he's wishy-washy. He was so serious and different at the afterparty and now he's downright cruel. It feels inconsistent. Natsume is never nice, per se, but she's spent enough time with him to be able to discern between Chapter 2 evil!Natsume and Chapter 26 soft!Natsume.

Her feelings are already at crush level! She can't take it back at the drop of a hat! Especially because she doesn't even know she has a crush! It must hurt.

Our next post will discuss the aftermath of this encounter as well as Mikan's inward struggle with her emotions and the expectation that she should always be smiling.

I have been referencing the Z Arc for a long time so I'm sure it's a relief to finally get here. But don't be fooled! I'm still gonna ceaselessly reference future arcs forever until the essay ends. I'm a self-hype machine.

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