I wonder when it started... Which anime can be named as a divide? Which can be considered as a trendsetter? I haven't watched enough to be able to judge about that, but this is a
fact: long before shoujo anime and manga began to center on timid,
fragile girls with no resolve to confess to someone they like or to tell
someone they dislike to fuck off, helpless at the mercy of any guy who
would want to use them, the usual type of heroine was just like Kotoko, and the typical shoujo romance was like 'Itazura'.
An ideal family of the 90s. He is a successful representative of a
respected profession - a high-ranking manager, or a doctor, or a lawyer,
or a king of a small country in a fantasy world, or something else
requiring good brains, good education and good amount of time to spend
at the workplace every day. She is a devoted wife, waiting for him to
come home, tired. She can be a full-time housewife, or an 'office lady', or work part-time. It doesn't really matter since
his income would be sufficient in any case. She is the first one to
fall in love. He lets her love him. She is the one to confess, in some
cases - multiple times. He mutters something like 'I will only say it
once, so listen closely. I love you', or says it only in extreme circumstances, preferably out of the blue to enhance the impression.
She is the Huxley type, he is the Gabin type, or an ENFp and an ISTp, speaking in Myers-Briggs terms.
'She will be running around him, fluttering her eyelashes, smiling at
him and giving him every possible sign of ethical attentions. Still, she
will see no reaction. Which, in its turn, will make her even more
excited'.
That's not my description, that's a part of a popular article (in Russian) on these two types.
'He doesn't know how to put into words what he feels, not that he
doesn't want to, he just doesn't understand his own feelings very well.
But Huxley (ENFp) doesn't need that. Her intuition helps her to
understand everything, she can even understand his feelings before he
does'.
Again, these are not my words.
Unfortunately, here comes the problem. While the mentioned traits are
common for most Huxley-girl-Gabin-guy couples, it does make a difference
how exactly these two live their life. The archetype itself is not bad, but a character can be. I am not an anime fan who can only like a character he/she can relate
to. I can name several heroines of the same type who earned my respect, being
brave, selfless, educated and professional, or striving to be
so. Kotoko, unfortunately, doesn't belong to this list. I can name a few Gabin characters I found attractive, but I couldn't care less about Naoki. The attempts to show that she can be cool at times, too, were so rare
and unimpressive that they didn't influence the story much. The attempts to show that he can be tender and loving were so short that... Huh?
Such stories are called 'heart-warming' and earn high rates. Meanwhile,
able women with good grades at school or university, firm goals for
their futures and successful careers, are branded as one-dimensional
tsundere and scored out.
While the beginning was tolerable and even funny, the more into the series, the more I got pissed off with the heroine and the story progress. Or maybe I should say - the absence of it.
The story starts and ends in nothing. As if we didn't suspect that she'd get married and have a baby.
She is clumsy in the beginning - well, okay, we saw it coming.
And after many years she is still the same.
And everybody around her kinda understands that.
Her only ability is to 'try hard', and that's what she does, motivated by only one thing.
Studying for the sake of being a reliable professional, improving oneself, achieving new horizons... Not really.
I wonder, does her practice change the fact that she wanted to become a nurse only because she wanted to be together with her husband, and not because she was interested in medicine or wanted to help people?
Well, I may admit there was one thing the Heroine was good at - finding
possibilities and offering them to other people, such as prompting her
boyfriend to become a doctor, but again, it wasn't very much stressed on, so it didn't pass as a big advantage.
Her main quality is that she is pretty confident that she will succeed.
According to this series, the main qualifications for becoming happy are:
The problem is that everything goes smoothly for her simply because she tries hard. But people don't see it as a problem.
And that's enough, right?
My god, she didn't only fail to learn English and understand what a Hawaiian policeman asked her, she didn't understand anything...
Have you ever heard of pregnancy tests? I checked Wikipedia, they had been available in the market for almost 20 years when this manga was published! And more importantly, why do you ever pose it as a question?!
Of course she gathers a nice reverse harem around her. Moreover, the other guys are ready to give her their everything. One is always near her and ready to help, even if it means to dig up her father buried under the ruins of their collapsed house.
And guess just what he will say to her. Surprise-surprise.
The other is so nice that even the Hero's mother admits he is good.
But she prefers her harsh-spoken first crush.
He insults her, ignores her, mocks her, no matter how much time passes, but she's okay.
So she starts doubting him, he says something that is supposed to be romantic, like 'don't cause me much trouble', and she is again head over heels in love with him. Many problems and worries of the characters were solved by an effective method known to the science from ancient times - a slap in the face.
By the end, the story was so full of sweet scenes of happy families that I was really longing for a salty marinated cucumber. But nobody actually changed or made any noticeable progress. That's exactly why the same actors can play in a live-action movie even though the story spans more than 10 years.
And try to guess what kind of relationship they have with their daughter...
You know, I thought it strange when Chibiusa came to the present Earth and stated that Mamoru would be hers and not Usagi's, but I guess this is a usual thing in Japan and a trend in shoujo...
In fact, much more than the Heroine, I was happy to see supporting characters happy in the end. At least they have been really funny throughout the series...
but still, I regret these 4 days spend with this story. After a serious, sometimes heartbreaking stories I always want something light and with a taste of happiness, but this I will say: such stories make me even more depressed than serious ones. They always have that side to them that makes me want to run away and pretend I didn't see anything. They promote the idea of the earthly, simple happiness of everyday life with your family and nothing special happening, just 'trying hard' at a work you don't particularly like, keeping the house, raising children... and if it's all the future holds for a human, I refuse.
I might as well add something about art, music and voice acting, but there isn't anything I could particularly praise. Hirakawa was trying so hard to make his character cool that I was afraid he would start reading one of his audio-doramas for adult girls the next moment.
Oh, maybe just one thing I made sure! It seems that one needs to be raised in Osaka to speak realistic Osaka-ben. Shuuhei Sakaguchi was a nice one.
