PinkuBentoBox

Blogging about Mai-Otome once more. Two weeks in a row, something must be wrong. Basically this time Nagi and I were discussing it over IRC. Given that our comments are kind of all over the place, I thought it was probably best if we post separately. Unfortunately, wordpress isn’t designed with multiple people writing one entry in mind. Anyway, I’m personally really enjoying this series so far. I think one of the great things about it is that its predecessor proved that, unlike most anime, the predictible event is not always what transpires. They have a history of not taking the soft option, and that lends itself to far more in the way of debate, discussion and speculation. Once again, I’m not going to summarise the episode (people have done that already) but instead discuss and speculate.

It’s pretty clear that Arika’s pendant is extremely important for some reason. Currently it looks to me a lot like she’s the real princess and Mashiro isn’t, but it feels like we’re missing a crucial bit of information at the moment so coming to that conclusion might be rash. Arika says her mother was an Otome, and both Natsuki and Sergay pounce at that… they suspect they know who she is but aren’t sure. I’d be interested to know how her ‘Granny’ knew something like that, actually.

I have a suspicion that Arika was very important, so she was smuggled out of the castle during that raid and hidden until she was old enough to take the throne or something. Probably ‘granny’ was someone who had been arranged to pick up the baby downstream, but she’s died ahead of her time, and so Arika has set out on her own. She’s the kind who would do that. ‘Granny’ was someone that was obviously trustworthy, but that no one knew about, the Otome who sent her downriver, who I’m told was named Lena or something similar to that. Incidentally, last time I blogged this series, I mentioned the comment that she had lost her powers and was speculating what that meant. Upon further thinking, it’s pretty obvious - her master was the king (or the queen?) and they were both killed in that raid. No master = no powers.

I bet that it’s been a big coverup by the Otome that only a select few know about. I also suspect that Sergay was involved in it somehow and so he knows the truth, and thus was searching for the real heir. So the princess disappears downstream and they have a huge hunt for her, for obvious reasons but they can’t find her. Eventually they find a girl who is the right age and everything fits, but she’s missing the pendant which would have proven her lineage. Regardless, the Otome say that she’s the one, and she’s brought to the castle and raised as a spoiled brat. Meanwhile, Sergay is searching for the pendant which would have completely legitimised Mashiro and it turns up infront of him, on a girl who meets the right age and everything. This would also explain why Mashiro is such a bitch to Arika - she’s seen the pendant, and she knows there was some consternation over whether or not she is actually the princess.

I’ve been noticing a lot of hate directed towards Arika among a lot of fans, and I really don’t understand it. Certainly, she’s a different type of character to Mai, but this is a different show as well. I like Arika, and I really like the animator’s decision to use her hair in typical moe heroine fashion - they have a life of their own, further projecting her emotions outward and making them obvious. I think they’ll really use this well down the track when the dramabombs start hitting.

Speaking of dramabombs, I really hope Akane doesn’t get the shaft this time, she’s so genuinely nice and what happened to her in the first series was really unfair.

An interesting thing is that they use the word ‘Mai’ to refer to when an Otome fights. Static-subs have subbed this as ‘performance’ but I personally would have kept it as its more literal meaning, ‘dance’. The idea that something like life-or-death combat becomes an elegant, intricate dance when an Otome does it is appealing and is probably more towards what they were aiming for with the term.

A note about the ‘pillars’ mentioned by Natsuki and Shizuru in episode 1. Based off the OP, it’s clear that Haruka is another of these, and that Natsuki and Shizuru are as well. if you look closely at Arika’s costume towards the end of the OP you’ll notice that her costume is different than the standard coral’s costume. I have a suspicion that Arika will end up taking one of these places. Also, I suspect they’ll pull a setup where each of them is associated with some element, with Arika being Air, Natsuki being water (she wears blue and in Hime, her Child fired bolts of ice around), Shizuru being spirit / aether, Mai being fire and Haruka being Earth.

Shizuru, to me, seems to almost be more in command of the academy than Natsuki is at times. Though when I mentioned this to Nagi he pointed out it’s more likely, to use some horrible Yaoi Fangirl terminology, more a reflection of some kind of uke/seme relationship than anything else. I’m pretty sure that the two girls’ relationship is exactly as it was in the original series simply based off the teasing glance that Shizuru gives Natsuki before she blows in Arika’s ear and somehow makes her pass out. I’d also like to hear some opinions on that - does Shizuru have some kind of special ability to make people swoon (something related to her being awesome?) or was it just the animators being silly? I’m inclined towards the former, but the latter is likely given the tone of the series at the moment.

I like the way they’ve changed Tate’s character to make Sergay. He’s much less ‘generic male hero’ now, and consequently is a lot more dynamic and interesting. The fact that he’s a lot older also means there’ll be less (if any) chance for annoying romance involving him, except maybe with some of the older characters (Mai?). I’d really like to know what his relationship with Arika is, since he was clearly around when she was a baby, before the whole attack happened and she went missing. He’s from another country, after all. His relationship with Nina will be really interesting when they begin to develop it more. I expect he rescued her from some kind of terrible fate and so she feels indebted to him.

This episode introduced Tomoe, the green-haired coral-class girl in the OP. Something about her has unsettled me right from when I first saw her, and the fact that they’ve cast Rie Tanaka makes it worse. While she appears modest and so on, her eyes would indicate that it’s all a facade and she’s one of those characters that schemes and plots in the background. I have a strong suspicion she’ll turn on us and become evil later on. I hope this also involves her doing the Suigintou laugh.

The reintroduction of some of the other old characters was great. Shiho still retains her spiteful nature, but instead of it being irritating and vindictive, it’s used in a more comedic way, improving her character immensely. I can see myself coming to quite like her this time. That said, I didn’t really mind Shiho last series either. Nao is still as awesome as always, though they’ve changed her name to Juliet for some reason. She doesn’t seem to have the claws any more, though, so no more of that incredibly hot claw-licking thing. Yukariko I absolutely loathed last time (I hate Kikuko Inoue’s voice and can’t understand why it makes fanboys cream their pants when she opens her mouth) and I suspect I’ll hate her this time too. Chie is still 24-karat awesome, with a healthy added dose of lesbian this time. If any of the characters needs more screen time actually doing things, it’s Chie.

I found it odd that Nina was being raked over the coals because she decided to try and protect the princess. Regardless of whether she’s legally entitled to the rank, Mashiro is still the princess and I’d have thought it an Otome’s job to keep her safe. Instead, she gets thrown into a dungeon and then has to basically go on trial. Natsuki seems the only person not interested in punishing her severely. This whole ‘the council didn’t authorise it’ thing is going to be a problem later I suspect - it seems to me that the Otome can’t so much as pass wind without authorisation, and there are bound to be situations where they don’t have time to get that authorisation.

Incidentally, the council member with the eyepatch (the kendo club leader from Mai-Hime) says “when you consider the power an otome holds and what it’s meant for“, the clear implication being that Otome are intended for something other than protecting the nobility. If this isn’t a plot point later, I’ll eat my hat. Not that I have a hat.

What is Nagi’s relationship to Mashiro? I have a strong suspicion that we’ll find out that he’s in an arranged marriage with him, but that may not be the case. At any rate, I seriously doubt that he’ll be evil this time. Last time, he was sort of facilitating the conflict like some kind of evil midget headmaster, but I don’t see him doing that this time. It would be too obvious. I could see him fence-sitting, but I think he’ll be aligned with the ‘good guys’ though it won’t seem that way until towards the end. I see him as very likely to fit into an ‘misunderstood antagonist’ role. At any rate, he has some seriously good intelligence going on, to already know exactly what’s been going on even though he hasn’t been around. From the looks of things, he may even know that Arika has the pendant, he’s definately interested in her for some reason.