Majo No Jouken: ep 1 thoughts and picspam
As I posted earlier, I started rewatching Majo No Jouken and it's even more excellent the second time around.
I have metaed extensively about MnJ when I first watched it, but I guess I have more to say, and yup, I have learned how to screencap in the two years since I have seen it first.
So I bring you caps and thoughts on ep 1 behind the cut.
(Caps from the opening scene are here)
You know what I am realizing this time around (and I can't believe it took me all this time), just as Hikaru has problems with his incredibly creeptastic mother, so much of Michi is shaped by her own relationship with her difficult, closed-off, authoritarian father. She is always a little girl, desperately seeking his approval with him. I wonder if that is part of the reason she so intensely connects with Hikaru? Even if she is in her mid-20s, she is still trapped by parental expectations and rules. And I think the only person she could truly fall for is someone who is the opposite of authoritarian - Hikaru might be more mature than Michi (and I think he is) but never in his wildest dreams would he think of bossing her. It's the one relationship where she is automatically viewed as a grown-up, not a fragile child in need of protection or correction.
And of course, it's both showcases the strength of her love for Hikaru that she, who desperately craves everyone's good opinion (as of to make up for not having her father's) goes both against her father and the world and doesn't care, as long as she can have Hikaru, and it also shows that for her with all the sacrifice and pain, the love is worth it: it frees her from emotional dependency on her cold father, frees her from being enternally trapped in childhood.
And another thing: I think she so desperately falls for Hikaru, so goes overboard, not caring about consequences because it must be the very first thing she's ever wanted for herself, ever coherently wanted, and the first thing she felt was worth fighting for. So many issues could be avoided if she just spoke up, so a part of me sympathizes with her family and her fiance. They can't read her mind. Michi is a heroine I have little in common with (I am the opposite of a pushover) but I can understand her so well...
Oddly, it's Michi who grows the most in the course of the story, and not Hikaru, even if he is younger, because she is the one who needs to grow up the most.
And as to Hikaru, what strikes me about him on this rewatch is yes, there is vulnerability, but in his quiet way, he is incredibly focused and strong, he just has nothing to be focused and strong for and he finds it in Michi. In a way, despite the oddness of this, Michi is a very healthy choice for him: she is someone 'safe': she is vulnerable and emotionally open (with him). She is incapable of games, she is not bossy or threatening. And seeing that he grew up with his controlling, monstrous, incesty mother, someone like Michi is good for him, especially since she combines with all the above qualities with being an older, attractive mother-figure (even if she isn't maternal, she does have this understanding quality) who is not biologically related to him. All the things with his mother can be worked out through Michi, if it makes sense: she makes being with someone, even if it's someone older, clean and healthy. I don't think a girl his age could 'compete' with his mother, either in a very concrete ways (as in fighting her) or by cleaning physical love or emotional dependency of this taint...
It's funny, because I completely understand societal objections to their pairing within the drama, but MnJ's strength is that even this early on, in ep 1, it convinces you they cannot be without each other.
Anyway, summary of ep 1 in caps.
Pretty pretty credits:
Miki comes home after a night out with her bf, and it's notable she is still sneaking home, still afraid of rebuke, as if she is 16. Also, she doesn't tell her Mom (or anyone) she is engaged. Hmmm.
She is such a kid in front of her cold, perpetually disappointed in her, father:
On the way to work...and she doesn't look sure in herself, just anxious.
Kinoshita, I think? One of Michi's students, who is always reading and ignoring everyone. I like her.
She gets picked on in the teacher's lounge too, but the old bat does have a very valid point.
She finds out she is getting a transfer student in her class which is trouble because that kid got kicked out for not attending class which...is Michi in any way qualified to handle a delinquent? No.
She walks to her class and she views it with dread, you can tell (There is literally nothing in her life that gives her joy).
It is also for impossible for her to maintain discipline among the students at all.
And her 'I am just one of you attitude' is sort of painful.
These fangirls know Takki is just around the corner :)
Then the Principal comes in and is all 'the kid is outside, why don't you go and fetch him.'
And...it's Hikaru in sakura petals. Sakura petals! Way to be subtle, drama.
And they meet again, and somehow she can be functional, automatically, when he is around. It's awesome.
(Man, he is gorgeous).
But still a little too young for you to be starin' that way, Missy!
MN is gorgeous.
She asks him. It's funny, because from the beginning they interact as equals.
This is kinda cute:
Haaaaa. Little do you know how much fun!
Awwww.
Seriously, she doesn't act like a figure of authority at all.
I love his look on seeing her drawings on the test. Yeah.
Ugh, painful.
Seriously, she has no control at all. I think it's pretty bad when your 17-yr old student feels bad for you.
She gets drunk with her friend. But she doesn't seem to engage there at all, either...
Drunk.
Her fiance, not unreasonably, told her folks about the engagement and they are upset she didn't tell them. I think she didn't want to make it real. You know, Michi might be sleepwalking through life but the people in her life don't seem to care either: they don't notice her disengagement, her unhappiness at all.
I really like this scene:
She tells him Michi only got hired despite her youth because of her Dad's influence.
Creepy kid threatens him for money and Michi notices:
Michi goes to meet Hikaru's creepy creepy mother to ask why Hikaru changed schools and Mom is basically 'I made a deal with your school that even if he gets in trouble, he can still graduate so he can inherit this hospital so I don't care about you. Also, you are pretty, that disturbs me.' There is a certain similarity in Michi and Mom's faces, don't you think? Only Michi is fragile and open and Mom is the opposite.
She is sort of trying to mold her kid into her husband clone, yikes.
She gives Mom Hikaru's cell and says she confiscated it in class (because she wants to keep her word about keeping quiet about his bike) and Mom is suspicious. OK, what kind of a weird parent is automatically suspicious like that?
He really doesn't want to go home.
He gets his injured arm looked at by Skeezy Doctor who is clearly envious of the fact that he will have a hospital some day.
His tutor. She is sort of insect-like.
So he spaces out. He is also trapped, isn't he? Nobody cares what he wants to do, his whole life is planned.
Dinner with her fiance and her family, claustrophobic as usual. (Also, notice even at that point she put Hikaru first...for one thing because this so valueless to her).
OK, this was a super-creeptastic scene which first made me go 'whoa, incest?' I mean, the whole vibe during that scene was so...off (and of course this is spoilery but future eps make it clearer and clearer). Ugh. Also, while it's OK to come into the bath and etc when your kid is 5, when your son is 17, eeeeeek!
Ha!
Once again, she cannot control her class at all.
The irony :)
She gets bullied, it was awful.
I loved that scene!
I love the way he treats her here. We find out a little later he's had experience with bullied, so maybe that's why he is so compassionate, in a rather grown-up way.
Of course, what does it say about both her maturity and her lack of worthwhile relationships that her support network is a 17-year old student?
And then he leaves so she follows :)
You know, it just occured to me. Hikaru is a very quiet person. Which is something she needs: it gives her space to talk, to express herself, to be listened to. Everyone else in her life is too busy pushing their own agenda, talking about themselves and their wishes and their lives and how she fits into that.
Playing hooky :)
It's such a weird equals vibe between them. I know I keep mentioning it, but it just strikes me so much, because it is so unusual how they are automatically like that.
Heeee. So adorable. I am going to the Special Hell, but I ship them so hard.
The scene on the beach is great.
And she finds out about his other school, how he was friends with this troublemaker kid in junior high, and his friend saved him from bullies, but when they got to high school people were ignoring the troublemaker and said he should ignore him too or nobody would want to hang out with him so he did. The kid dropped out of school and since then Hikaru didn't really want to talk to anyone or hang out or anything. (This explains why he wanted to be friends with Kinoshita).
He talks about his creeptastic mother, who calls him, so he throws the cellphone away because he says nobody else calls him anyway.
But she looks for it anyway...
GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH
Like the whole thing they will do later with the painting of God breathing life into Adam, the thing with the hands. It's funny, I never realized before why he associated that painting with her (later).
Home and stumbling (unseen) on his Mother and Skeezy Doc having sex.
I love this shot:
And this scene. She is really alive at the school for the first time.
She has to be at the meeting where her fiance's parents meet hers:
Meanwhile elsewhere, Hikaru told his former friend he won't be giving any more money to him:
And he apologizes for betraying him:
And we get the final scene of the episode.
And she leaves. She is ready to free herself, too.
I promise to reply to everyone asap :)