PinkuBentoBox

So, after my fourteen-episode Mai-HiME marathon on Sunday, what do you think I did Monday evening when I got home from classes and work? If your guess involves me sitting down and blasting through the final eight episodes of the series, then congratulations. You’ve earned a cookie. Honestly, the last time I can recall going through a series this fast was Zeta Gundam, downing the last four DVDs in one single sitting one evening a ways back. Mai-HiME was just that addicting, and was one of the few shows I’ve seen lately that remained a thoroughly enjoyable ride from start to finish. So what do we have with this final batch of episodes? Well, we have the series getting darker than ever, tension increasing exponentially with each successive installment up to the climax, and then…the ending. The ending that everyone talks about, few positively. So let’s get on with it, shall we?

In my last blog entry for episodes 11-18, I made a bunch of wild, extravagant (okay, maybe not that much) predictions on what would happen in the last part of the series. And I don’t wanna call Mai-HiME predictable, but I am kind of surprised as just how much I managed to guess properly. As I guessed would happen, Akira lost her HiME, resulting in the death of Takumi, which of course really screwed Mai up in a huge way. Nao’s loss was one-sided and indignant, which came with the revelation that her hospitalised mother from whom she was taken as a child was her cherished person, resulted in a good deal of sympathy for her. Midori sacrificed her Child in the pursuit of the greater good ( i.e. “JUSTICE!”), though it would’ve been nice if they’d shown more of her feeling the loss of her cherished person afterwards (or even during, when making the decision). And suspicious Raww le Klueze-voiced Reito turned out to be Lord Kokuyou, with Nagi as his mischievous servant. But then these were all pretty obvious given the types of characters involved and the way the series’ writing style was leaning, being as suddenly brutal and unforgiving as it was in its later half. There was also a prediction made way back when I first started the series that Shizuru and Haruka’s opposing management styles would result in a clash between them, which somewhat proved true when Haruka cornered Shizuru over her absence from school and sexual misadventures with Natsuki, only to have it result in Shizuru completely destroying Yukino’s Child and, as a result, killing Haruka. And I can’t quite explain why—seeing as I never really saw them as much more than an amusing diversion—but Haruka’s death really got to me.

What actually surprised me though, was just how eerily accurate some of my other predictions were. Tate and Reito did indeed come to a final showdown, as I guessed would happen after only a single show of tension between them earlier on. Shame, though, that said confrontation was part of what made the ending kinda crappy; woulda been nice if they had just had some nasty fistfight in the rain, where supercharged Reito-turned-Kokuyou wails on Tate when he tries to defend Mai with those awesome kendo skills he was supposed to have. And speaking of Tate, my prediction of how Shiho would fare as a HiME, as well. I mean, guessing that Shiho would lose and Tate’d die is about like Takumi–you knew it’d happen because of how much it would torture Mai emotionally. But to accurately guess that he’d die while he & Mai at least attempted to confess their love for one another surprised me. And then perhaps the most shocking one was how well I predicted Natsuki and Shizuru’s end. They both went out at the same time, and it was in the next to last episode; the only part I didn’t really take into account is that they were fighting each other, which I’ll get into in a bit.

Episodes 19 & 20

But with that being how much I actually managed to correctly guess, how much of it ended up being a complete surprise, or otherwise divergent from my expectations? Well, quite a bit, really. Fumi really did turn out to be the final HiME, which I still find to be something of a cop-out. However, the added twist that Mashiro was the former winner of the Ikusahime who trapped herself in the body of Fumi’s Child (or however that went) was pretty intriguing. Not to mention Mashiro’s Child form was actually pretty hot. Yukariko turned out to not be as easy a kill as I’d thought, though that doesn’t save her entire end from being…well, as boring as she was. I just couldn’t feel anything for her or her ambitious, abusive, rapist art teacher boyfriend. And his attempts to usurp Kokuyou’s throne could’ve stood a bit more development, while I’m at it. Aside from messing with Yukino and forcing Yukariko to essentially start this whole mess with her little white rape lie, it accomplished nothing in contributing to the plot. Miyu’s return was an interesting option, and while I liked seeing her return, I was still somewhat confused by the fact that Kokuyou and Nagi proceeded to make such a big deal out of her return as if she were some vital threat. Normally the repaired HiME-hunting android of a broken organisation isn’t going to be of much concern to a demonic lord, so I would’ve liked to have seen more of Kokuyou’s rationale behind being concerned about her presence. And going back to my predictions for a bit, of all of them I’d say my theory on Mikoto was the furthest off. The almost exact opposite, in fact. Turns out she wasn’t the first of the main three HiME to go, but rather turned out to have one of the most god-moding Children of them all, as well as being the main villain’s personal right hand. Given how she seemed to be a mostly gag type of character up until the later episodes, this turn of events was a genuinely shocking one, I have to admit.

And on that note, there’s something about Mikoto that baffles me. Was she, or was she not, a genuine HiME just like Mai and the others? When the end of the series roles around, all eleven pillars in the underground chamber are erected, and yet Mikoto’s Child has not been killed. Rather, her Child is just then being revealed to us in full, going to town on Kagutsuchi. Reito/Kokuyou mentions something about Alyssa being “artificially created, but a HiME all the same,” so did Alyssa somehow take Mikoto’s place in the Ikusahime? Or perhaps Alyssa was fated for the role all along. It would certainly be strange, I’d think, for one of the HiME to actually be the sister of Lord Kokuyou himself. And there’s also the jewel worn by Mikoto and Reito. None of the other HiME have them; only those two, and the one around Mikoto’s neck seems to actively control her behaviour to suit Kokuyou’s will. It’s all very strange, and something worth looking into. Hell, the very nature of the jewels itself is worth a second look. It seems that Reito himself wasn’t Lord Kokuyou per se, but rather that the jewel possessed him into becoming such. Same with Mikoto, who shows virtually none of the ferocity the jewel commands her to show under normal circumstances.

Episodes 21 & 22

Of course, at the center of things was our lead protagonist, Mai. But how exactly did she stack up in the series’ finale? In a word, generically. Likably, but generically. There wasn’t a whole lot to her character in these episodes that made her really stand out all that much. Of course, the same could be said of her throughout the series, but here it reached the point where I was starting to forget she was even there. With all that was going on surrounding Natsuki and Mikoto and Shizuru, Tate, Mashiro, Reito, et al, Mai simply got lost in the fold for me. Though, spending most of her time staggering around depressed and flip-flopping between backing her friends and vying for the Ikusahime to win the power Kokuyou promised would, I guess, leave her without much to do to stay in the spotlight, but they still could’ve found some way to keep her interesting. Some way thet didn’t involve making her into a total bitch, like she was to Mikoto when Yukino attacked her. I still have a hard time seeing how it’s justified to call your best friend a burden for saving your ass, but oh well. I mean, yeah, later when Mikoto was instrumental in Takumi’s death I can see Mai saying something like that, but she went a little too far on the beach. Speaking of Takumi’s death, it’s strange, but I couldn’t really feel for Mai as much as I probably should’ve there. Seemed to me that Takumi’s death came a little too suddenly and without enough dramatic momentum or buildup. It just…happened. And then Mai flipped out and tried to kill Mikoto. I sympathized more with her over Tate’s death, which had much more buildup to it, in my opinion.

And on the subject of love, we turn to the part of these episodes that I was most interested in: the strange relationship of Natsuki and Shizuru. I had heard going into this series that these two became involved romantically with one another, and was keenly interested in witnessing it for myself. I mean c’mon, you’ve got one of my big weaknesses—shoujo-ai—with two interesting and wholly likable characters at the center. And damn, was this ever a strange one. I didn’t quite expect it to turn out like this, I have to admit. Despite how it appears, I don’t really think Shizuru meant to go all creepy pervert on Natsuki when caring for her. I think Shizuru genuinely loved Natsuki, so much so that having to keep her distance up until that point due to both Natsuki’s secretive nature and Shizuru’s apparent uncertainties about her own sexuality prompted her to act subconsciously out of stress more than anything. And then having Haruka rather forcefully out her and have Natsuki of all people hear about the shameful things she’d been doing simply made her snap. And from that point, it was easy for Nagi to manipulate her (tangent: yet another place where I’m seeing potential parallels between Nagi and Norse mythology’s Loki…the manipulative trickster and all). It wasn’t so much her “default” mode to be the creepy, obsessive sex fiend, but rather a condition Nagi and Kokuyou schemed to drive her to in order to fit their own schemes. Remember just how composed Shizuru was throughout the series, and yet she broke down this easily over Natsuki. A pretty ingenious—if not equally sick—plan on the villains’ parts, I’d say. And on Natsuki’s end, I honestly think she felt very similar feelings towards Shizuru, but constantly tried to deny them both to herself and to Shizuru in order to keep her out of the Ikusahime (likely not knowing that Shizuru herself was a HiME). Given how the two of them acted at the end of the series, I’d like to think that being free of the whole HiME thing finally allowed Natsuki to reciprocate Shizuru’s affections properly, but then that might just be the hopeless shoujo-ai fanboy in me hoping for a happy ending.

As an aside, I honestly can’t see Natsuki’s mother not loving her based on the flashbacks we were shown. Rather, I see it more as her mother trying to sell her to the pharmaceutical company as a means of getting her away from the prying hands of Searrs, or perhaps being forced to sell her against her will (hence trying to drive off into the night with her, as we saw). Shame that was never explained more fully.

Episodes 23 & 24

And speaking of happy endings, we finally come to Mai-HiME’s rather controversial conclusion. I’ve heard a lot of people complain about Mai-HiME’s ending, ranging from calling it disappointing to saying it was series-ruiningly awful. I wouldn’t go nearly as far as that, though. Really, I think Negs summed it up perfectly in a conversation I had with him soon after finishing the series, when he said that the concept for the ending was fine, it’s just that the execution was glaringly flawed. The ideas presented in the ending were all perfectly valid, with the potential to be ideally pulled off, they just lacked something. Tension and actual drama, mostly. For being the final, climactic confrontatin, Mai’s battle against Mikoto and Reito wasn’t exactly very attention grabbing or edge-of-your-seat exciting. It felt bland, especially with Tate coming in to save the day with his silver, horse-headed sword of power or whatever. Really, it just felt like the average moe action-adventure series ending, with the characters going through the motions as if they too were bored with it.

There’s also the matter of having the HiME and their cherished people revive by Mashiro’s hand. This is actually what I hear most people complain about, though I personally didn’t see much of a problem with it. The way they handled it, I thought, was quite acceptable, and was one of the better-executed moments of the ending. There at the end, the writers seemed to make it appear as though Nagi was some “reaper” of sorts, maintaining the pillars that were raised by the loss of the various HiME’s cherished ones. Having Miyu pop in and blow the whole place the fuck up would give the impression of freeing these people from whatever bound them to the pillars, thus giving Mashiro the opportunity to undo all the damage she clearly wished she could’ve stopped sooner. Worked fine to me, and it also gave Mashiro a role in the ending, as well as gave Miyu a purpose, period. Perhaps this part would explain the concern Reito and Nagi showed over Miyu’s reappearance, knowing she had the ability to perform such a feat? Of course, they could’ve done something better with the HiME after their cherished ones (and in some cases, they themselves) were revived. The united charge against the HiME Star made for some great comedic dialogue, but that same dialogue, plus the absolute ease with which they destroyed the damned thing, just sapped even more tension and drama out of the ending as a whole.

Episodes 25 & 26

Then came the picnic scene, which I thought was just way too happy for its own good. Kokuyou is defeated and suddenly it’s as if nothing had ever happened, albeit with everyone as best friends now. Considering how most of these characters just had their lives and livelihoods either successfully or very nearly destroyed, one would think there’d be a transitional period from “oshit we’re fucked” to “and they lived happily ever after.” Why not show that transitional period instead of the happy-fun picnic and graduation? Give the Mai/Reito/Tate/Shiho love square some resolution, show Natsuki & Shizuru coming to terms now with their admitted feelings for each other, Nao coping with being reunited with her estranged mother, Akira & Takumi leaving for America with his fate still uncertain instead of post-surgery when all’s well, Miyu & Alyssa drifting off to places unknown, Fuuka Academy’s reconstruction well underway, just some all-around sense of an uncertain future that the characters must now bravely face head-on. Save the super-happy picnic scene for DVD omake.

Ending aside however, Mai-HiME was an all-around fantastic series. Tightly-written, well-paced, with some incredibly likable characters and a plot that provided a lot more unexpected suprirses than I initially thought it would. It’s a very deceptive series in that regard; you go into it expecting generic moe, and instead get smacked around by some top-notch dramatic writing and character development. Fuck, even the characters make light of that moe facade in the episode previews! It’s pretty clear where the more talented members of Sunrise’s payroll went during much of Gundam SEED Destiny’s production, as this series contains much of the sheer quality of writing that the other so desperately needed. Definitely one of 2004’s better offerings, and yes, I am still kicking myself for waiting this long to finally sit down and watch it.