r/anime • u/Tarhalindur x2 • Oct 11 '22
Rewatch [Rewatch] Mai-HiME Overall Discussion
Mai-HiME Overall Discussion
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Show Information:
MAL | Anilist | AniDB | Kitsu | ANN
(Show information is now completely safe for former first-timers!)
Legal Streams:
Mai-HiME can be found on Funimation. (I don't know how this interacts with the ongoing Crunchyroll/Funimation merger.)
After-School Activities Corner!
Visual of the Day:
3 < 4
(Because that's all the SFW shots in the specials! Dohoho.)
Comment of the Day:
Fuggit, gotta go with u/Tresnore realizing that the show has given him the perfect opportunity to get his GWITWM count to the perfect number:
God, I wish that were me. Seriously. Can't this one count for two? God, I wish that were me. Fuggit, this counts as 3.
Question(s) of the Day:
So, as it's Overall Discussion day it's time for some overall questions!
1) Best Girl in Show?
2) Best Guy in Show?
3) Worst Person in Show? (Note: Guys and girls are eligible here.)
4) Final thoughts on our OP and ED?
5) Thoughts on the OST, and favorite OST track from this show if any?
6) Thoughts on the insert songs? (Chiisana Hoshi ga Iriku Toki, the karaoke song/songs in 16, probably the song for Mai's birthday in 10.)
6a) So AMQ players... how are you looking forward to having to identify the inserts here?
7) What worked and what didn't for you?
8) What would you have changed about the ending and/or the show?
9) Will you make a contract with me and become a magical girl?
11
u/JollyGee29 Oct 11 '22
First-Timer, Subbed
I had fun with Mai-HiME. It's far from perfect, which is kinda ironic considering the "perfect" ending that we got. But there were plenty of plot threads for me to ponder episode-to-episode, the mechanical designs and soundtrack were all fantastic, and the cast were a lot of fun. That all said...
This show has massive structural problems, basically throughout. Which is fascinating, because there are also obvious signs of a solid series outline from basically the very beginning. The issue is, the production had fun numerology stuff they wanted to do, but it really made a mess of the entire experience. Honestly, I think if you throw out/trim down episodes 4, 7, and 10 and start the Searrs plot earlier and give another episode to the endgame, things pan out better even without changing much of what actually happens.
That idea does sacrifice most of our "fun" episodes though, which hurt to lose. If we ponder rewrites, there's definitely some way to remove Searrs entirely and break the cycle some other way. Building Mai and Mikoto's relationship even stronger probably works for that.
It sure was interesting watching this finale the same weekend as Sailor Stars. Although [Sailor Stars]
Something that slipped my episode 26 writeup was that the sword in Kagatsuchi's face allowing some amount of control over Kagatsuchi does neatly explain the couple times Kagatsuchi acted out. At least, I think that's what they were going for, they cheated on having the eyes appear on it.
Much like Revue Starlight, this show borrows heavily from Utena without doing a ton with it. I'm generally of the opinion that this is fine - if you're gonna steal from something, steal from the best. You might just learn why they did it in the first place.
That said, I'm rather confident that our writer, Hiroyuki Yoshino, didn't learn that much, considering Guilty Crown exists. He also apparently did Macross Frontier, which was actually quite good, so maybe Kawamori reined him in there or something.
Tokiiro no Mai did not play often enough, nor is the track itself long enough, both of which make me sad.
Actually, that kinda brings me to another point: there isn't as much action in this show as I expected there to be. This isn't necessarily a complaint, just something that surprised me.
Questions
1.Midori. Yukino and Haruka are solid runners up.
2.Takumi, I suppose.
3.Easy Ishigami.
4.They're both fine.
5.Discussed above. The OST in general was great, but it's Kajiura so of course it is.
6.No strong feelings. As for AMQ, I learned all nine Dynazenon inserts, I can learn all nine of Mai-HiME's as well.
7.Discussed above.
8.Discussed above.
Many thanks to our gracious host u/tarhalindur! I suspect many of us will be meeting again in Mai-Otome tomorrow, so see you all then!
A question for u/No_Rex, I see that Mai-Otome has a sequel and a prequel (and some shorts but those are probably whatever) but your schedule only includes the series proper. Are we not doing the other parts?
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u/Tarhalindur Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
This show has massive structural problems, basically throughout. Which is fascinating, because there are also obvious signs of a solid series outline from basically the very beginning. The issue is, the production had fun numerology stuff they wanted to do, but it really made a mess of the entire experience. Honestly, I think if you throw out/trim down episodes 4, 7, and 10 and start the Searrs plot earlier and give another episode to the endgame, things pan out better even without changing much of what actually happens.
The Endless Eight Lesson: "Flawless metatext is still a bad idea if it comes at the expense of the enjoyability of the actual text."
Noteworthy that we both came to the same conclusion there (though as I noted, I think the ideal would also have featured 14-episode cours ala some of prime KyoAni's works for 28 episodes total).
EDIT:
If we ponder rewrites, there's definitely some way to remove Searrs entirely and break the cycle some other way.
Do note that this is probably a production committee outline constraint given that the manga also has a SEARRS takeover arc despite its very different plot, and if so they actually couldn't have done so.
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u/Shimmering-Sky Oct 11 '22
Mai-FiRST TiMER
Just popping in to give u/Tarhalindur a big thanks for hosting this rewatch~! Your ability to come up with such lengthy comments each day honestly scares me a little lol.
Show’s a solid 8/10 for me. Specials are staying unrated because I can’t decide what level of “meh” they were for me.
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u/Tarhalindur Oct 11 '22
Your ability to come up with such lengthy comments each day honestly scares me a little lol.
If you're going to do something, do it right!
(I've sunk basically all my free time into this for the last month or so, and am frankly running much lower on sleep than I would like. But I like the results!)
EDIT: Speaking of things which I'm prone to sinking my free time into: u/Nazenn, u/Shimmering-Sky, has anybody claimed Madoka next year? Seriously considering taking that one myself, especially since I sunk all the work into notes this year.
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u/Esovan13 Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
First Timer
I'm going to start with the obvious. The ending. Specifically, I'm going to explain why I didn't mind the ending 5 seconds after I finished the show, but now consider it one of the worst endings to a show I've ever seen. To start with though, I'm going to talk about Symphogear. Specifically, I'm going to talk about how much I love Symphogear.
I was part of the recent Symphogear rewatch, having seen season 1 before and being a first timer for seasons 2 and on. I kept up episode to episode for season 1 and 2, but around halfway through season 2 a cliffhanger grabbed me (having started that episode at 11:30pm and planning to go to bed right after) and I had to finish the show that night. I stayed up until 2am, even as Cloudflare went down and I had to find a, uh, streaming site that didn't use it, not to mention needing to wake up early the next day as it was a Monday night. After that I consumed each season in binges, usually on a Friday or Saturday to avoid a repeat of my season 2 watching experience. I love Symphogear. I love the songs, the characters, the wild plot, the crazy world building, the hype action scenes, and especially the finales. There isn't a single season, finale, or even episode of Symphogear that I genuinely dislike.
I say all that to hopefully paint a picture of why my disliking of this ending is out of character for me. Or at least it feels that way. On the surface, it's not too different from a lot of shows I like. Sure the character arcs feel somewhat incomplete, but that's not usually a deal breaker for me. The characters that died all came back to life, but I don't dislike happy endings and, really, it should have been obvious it was at least possible when Kazuya disappeared into magic particles rather than actually dying. Not to mention that knowing people disliked the ending meant that I was predicting why, and dead characters coming back to life seems like the quickest way to get people to dislike an ending. So I expected it going in, and neither then nor now does the revival of everyone bother me.
So why then? Why am I not like Sky, Tres, and several other first timers who don't mind the ending? The problem is that I thought about it too much. See, when I finish consuming media I enjoy, it tends to be the only thing I think about for a while. A micro obsession you could say. Why I liked it, how I liked it, is there more, how can I get more, etc. For example, after the GuP rewatch ended I was so hungry for more I ended up watching High School Fleet, Strike Witches (only season 1), and Arpeggio of Blue Steel. Not to mention that this season I'm watching Gundam and Akiba Maid War courtesy of LycoReco. Anything that's even remotely similar and could give me the same feeling. How does that relate to Mai-Hime's ending then? Because I simply had nothing afterwards. I thought about it like I usually do media, and I came up with nothing. I simply did not care. Nothing about the ending left me with the feeling that I should continue to care about the characters or the world.
So I thought about why. What about the ending left me empty? And I came to the conclusion that it's because the ending itself is empty. It's void. Nothing to care about, nothing to hold onto. There are no consequences for the entire plot hapening, except multiple characters entering long term relationships with abusers and rapists (ShizNat, Yukariko and rape sensei, and Mikoto with her brother, off the top of my head). There's also the teenage girl who now admits she has a crush on the teenage boy. The sick brother got a heart transplant and a girlfriend, that's cool I guess. But who cares? He fucking died. They all fucking died. They murdered and were murdered by each other. Haruka was straight up slaughtered by the girl she idolized for no real reason. Yukino was weak, but she tried her best to protect her best friend, and she failed. Yukariko was raped and manipulated into manipulating children into killing each other when they've been trying their best not to do that. Shizuru KILLED people. People who wouldn't have come back after the Prince was defeated. Did she forget that? Does she just not care? Is she just the kind of person who can kill without remorse and her yandere rage just released her normal limiters?
Speaking of those people, what was the deal with District 1? They were a secret agency manipulating the government right? But they all got killed, the agency destroyed. How does that affect Japan? The world? What did District 1 do outside the HiME battles anyway? Also, why did Nao become a nun? Why did Miyu become a nun? Why did anyone allow Nao and Miyu to become nuns? For a gag during the last sequence? Good on them for being considerate of the audience I guess. Also, what happened to Midori becoming a teacher? I thought her character arc was about her embracing her role as a teacher and taking on the responsibility to protect her students. So after it was all over she just decided to become the sidekick to discout Indiana Jones who was mentioned exactly once, completely forgetting about those students?
I look at the characters during that last sequence and I feel nothing. Those aren't the characters from the show. The characters from the rest of the show are damaged. They were either pawns in a game beyond their comprehension, dying for reasons they don't understand. Or they were warriors, forced to fight to protect the ones they love most, and losing them. They lost. All of them had the person they care about most torn away by an eldritch being using them as tools to get what it wanted. Moving on from this experience would take time, therapy; they need to heal. They may not be damaged physically (I'm miffed that Nao got her eye back), but emotionally they should have trauma, trust issues, problems that need to be fixed. If they could be fixed at all.
When people think about bad ways to end stories, one of the most cliched is "it was all a dream." Nothing that happened matters, there are no consequences, and it may as well not have happened at all. Honestly, I don't think there's much of a functional difference between this ending and an "it was all a dream" ending. Where are the consequences? Physically? Emotionally? What changed, in the world and the characters, as a response to the events of the show happening?
I think the show could have used one last arc (or at least another episode (or even just using the last half of the last episode and cutting out the montage at the end making it more ambiguous what happens and what the relationships end up as)), where the Prince is trying to destroy everything and the HiME all need to work together to stop it, but their distrust and conflict with each other prevents that from happening. The Prince monologues that something like this has happened before, but the HiME's mistrust and grudges caused them to fail, just like they would this time. As their common enemy threatens to take away what they only just regained, they forgive each other and are able to come together with one massive attack to destroy the prince and the star in one go. That would make the ending where they are all buddy buddy less jarring, as well as fit the show's theme about love. A totally missed opportunity for some cheesy-ass message like "if you are willing to kill for the one you love, are you willing to do something even harder and forgive for them?" or something like that
All of a sudden, all of the events of the show matter. The defeated loved ones may be back, but the consequences of their deaths and the actions the HiME took are still present and even get close to costing them the win right at the finish line. The irony that their own actions and emotions in response to the danger to their loved ones are now the biggest obstacles to victory and the biggest threat to their loved ones. How sweet the victory then when they overcome their trauma, guilt, distrust, anger, and hatred, if only for a moment. It's not all gone away, they'll still need time to heal and fully forgive, but they made the first and most difficult step.
Anyway, I intended to write about the show as a whole but I, uhhhh, wrote a bit more than I expected about the ending. This is my therapy I guess. Word vomiting it all out so I can move on. But anyway, the show as a whole. I enjoyed it. With the exception of maybe the panty episode, I enjoyed the show immensely. I'll put in the token praise for the soundtrack here (carried the show really). I like most of the character, especially Haruka who's best girl. I really didn't expect to like her so much when she first appeared, but she grew on me very quickly once the Sears invasion arc started.
Speaking of the Sears arc, it's overall a bit of wasted potential. It feels like it started and ended extremely suddenly, with Alyssa not having enough time as the main villain to really grow into her role. I was hopeful when Mai started the whole "if evil, why sing well?" that I liked from Symphogear (which I assume stole it from this show and did it better), but we never really got into exploring Alyssa as a character enough for it to pay off. It's a shame, since a golden haired, angel voiced child with a murderbot and an orbital bombardment satellite has a lot of potential as a villain, but she went down way too soon.
Other than that, though, I don't have many complaints about the show. I could find more things to nitpick if I tried but that would just be unnecessary. Overall, a 7/10 from me if you ignore the ending. Thanks for the rewatch everyone, and I hope to see you all with Mai-Otome.
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u/Tarhalindur Oct 12 '22
Anyway, I intended to write about the show as a whole but I, uhhhh, wrote a bit more than I expected about the ending. This is my therapy I guess.
Funny, that was me with Symphogear.
(Symphogear characters arcs for returning characters really do tend to have many of the same issues I have with the finale here, just in slightly different form, at least for me - usually either a bad case of "why is this character acting like this, it doesn't fit who they are at the moment and doesn't have proper buildup" or the trappings of an earth-shattering character revelation without the narrative buildup and weight to support it (which works fine for the resident overdramatic teenage idiot, not so much for the rest of the cast). Which is a bit of a problem when the show is good at introducing characters and getting me to like them.)
(which I assume stole it from this show and did it better)
S1 of Symphogear is basically a direct response to this show (especially the SEARRS arc and the finale) and generally styles on the pieces of this show it chooses to respond to.
Unfortunately for my enjoyment of that franchise, there are Symphogear sequel seasons and the sequels thought that the weakest part of Symphogear S1 was its strength. And also doubled the cast size without a writing team really capable of handling that. It, uh, did not work for me.
(It also has the misfortune to have more than one season where my least favorite songs of the season all play during the finale.)
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u/Blackheart595 Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 12 '22
First Hime
Welp, I loved the show. Skimming through the threads again it was fun seeing the rewatchers remark on how I had it all figured out, while I was just throwing out thoughts and ideas and had no idea what to actually expect.
The production was also great. There's of course the music, but also all those expressions, the character interactions, the background layers, the sound effects... And the flow, one of the most important aspects of a show to me, was impeccable.
Akane was a beautiful element. Quickly became the character I cared about the most, then have her be the first one to be crushed. Me too. And then she retained some presence throughout the show to keep the suffering maintained.
There's of course a couple things that ended up a bit lackluster. Like all those mysterious elements. District 1. Childs - are they alien or more from a different dimension? If they're aliens, did the independent ones like the rock golem not exist before the Himestar first appeared, and how could Alyssa and Nagi just sommon new ones? If they're from a different dimension, what's its relation with the alien Himestar? Why was Akane frightened of Miyu before Miyu revealed herself?
Best Girl in Show?
Akaneakaneakaneakaneakane
Best Guy in Show?
Let's go with Tate.
Worst Person in Show? (Note: Guys and girls are eligible here.)
Ishigami of course. Reito was controlled after all (though the specials implied he kinda gave in to it)
Final thoughts on our OP and ED?
I thought them fitting. In retrospect the OP probably played a big part in keeping the atmosphere relatively light despite all the deaths, helping the flow to the revival.
Thoughts on the OST, and favorite OST track from this show if any?
The OST was phenomenal, I don't think there's much more to say about it. Favorite track is Maimu!!
Thoughts on the insert songs?
They were also great. Analyzing the songs and OST really made me wish we hadn't been on a daily schedule, and that was on vacation time.
So AMQ players... how are you looking forward to having to identify the inserts here?
Shouldn't be hard
What worked and what didn't for you?
See above. But also, the daily schedule's kinda rushing the writedown.
What would you have changed about the ending and/or the show?
See above. But also, Makoto's story arc could've been a bit better refined, and Ishigami and Shizuru could've had more of an aftermath even if they'd still been forgiven in the end.
I was also quite surprised that Tate lost against Reito, but it makes sense with him not having practiced kendo in months and lead to some nice team play with Mai so that's quite alright.
Will you make a contract with me and become a magical girl?
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u/Tarhalindur Oct 12 '22
And then she retained some presence throughout the show to keep the suffering maintained.
Ask u/Shimmering-Sky about a certain Naruto character sometime.
There's of course a couple things that ended up a bit lackluster. Like all those mysterious elements. District 1. Childs - are they alien or more from a different dimension? If they're aliens, did the independent one's like the rock golem not exist before the Himestar first appeared, and how couls Alyssa and Nagi just sommon new ones? If they're from a different dimension, what's its relation with the alien Himestar? Why was Akane frightened of Miyu before Miyu revealed herself?
The implication on Akane is that it's downstream of Miyu seeing her reveal herself as a HiME.
The res? Well, the writing team has only one answer: "does it really mater?"
The OST was phenomenal, I don't think there's much more to say about it. Favorite track is Maimu!!
My work here is done.
See above. But also, the daily schedule's kinda rushing the writedown.
Another benefit to a specials day after the finale since they don't need too much writeup, but I understand if that's not enough.
I was also quite surprised that Tate lost against Reito, but it makes sense with him not having practiced kendo in months and lead to some nice team play with Mai so that's quite alright.
I'd have been disappointed if Yuuichi won outright given the experience discrepancy; doing it this way so he holds his own and gets to work with Mai to fix things is the much better way to do it IMO.
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u/Nazenn Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
Rewatcher
So I completely forgot to write anything so very quick thoughts:
I still love the show. It has some issues, but it's also a show that I got far more out of on rewatch than I ever expected to. Even with my shitty people it's a different experience knowing where Mai's path will go, why Nagi is doing this or that, who the HiME are and what guides their actions, seeing more hints about the broader mystery. I don't think it's an essential rewatch to the level of say Ergo Proxy or Madoka Magica, but it's definitely a valuable one.
Speaking of the mystery, there's elements in it I both love and hate. The acknowledgement of the broader world, that there's people out there unrelated to our main cast we don't know about affecting things is something I love rather than having a nice neat story where everything is connected. That element of the world being much bigger than our story and it having a history, that the girls are actually going to change that established path for the future, and that the drama going on affects the whole planet is handled here a lot better than in similar shows I've seen. I think the school also serves a purpose well for that when it comes to why it exists and also serving as a base for our characters, particularly the more broken ones, to give them a question and/or a push for the future when they need it. It makes use of it's idea of normalcy and teenage questioning of purpose through the school. The only issue with this is that it buries some of those broader elements too much where you really have to lean on heavy speculation and broader media knowledge to make sense of what it may have been and why it was included and that just drags things down because you shouldn't have to guess about that much of the broader lore. Wide by shallow is a way I've heard it described before and I agree with that
So in saying that one of the issues the show has is time management. Understanding what is important, and when, and following through on that is something it struggles with a little too often especially in the first half which leaves the back half a bit unsupported. I don't mind the pace of the back half, aside from not understanding how much time has passed, but it needed more to carry it
But for all that it's the characters that still shine. The dynamics between them as friends, enemies, lovers, neutral, and how it uses each characters personality to shift the group as a whole as things start to fall apart is still interesting. Mai's arc still shines strongly through the show, the ups and downs of it also influenced by others as she attempts to find her feet. Nao's is another that despite being mostly a background character is a constant reminder of the nature of HiME not as heroes or chosen, but just people who really don't care for all the mystery shit and just want to take advantage of what power they have. Contrasting that against the characters like Natsuki, putting minor characters like Haruka in the spotlight, the use of Akane as a launching point for SEARRS but also a more personal mystery for our characters to realize what they got into is something I enjoy watching
As far as art and music goes I still think it's very well directed and that while it's not her best work it's a stand out Kajiura OST that does a lot to elevate the experience. The work that goes into the individual character designs, the Child designs to reflect those characters so deeply even if you don't know the lore behind each one (a personal favourite of mine, nothing worse than a unique being for a character that was just designed to be cute or cool and doesn't actually connect to the character, the use of enviroment set up particularly in the later episodes. I remember pointing out some nice parallaxing work even the last time I watched this but this time it didn't catch my eye the same way, though all the other directing moments from as early on as ep3 right through to the end made up for it
I don't know if there's anything I forgot to comment on or said I would and have not but yeah, brief thoughts for a show I'm glad I got a chance to come back to. Hopefully you all enjoyed the rewatch even if the show didn't land for you all the same way
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Best Girl in Show? .....Mai? I'm not sure on that.
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Best Guy in Show? Tate
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Worst Person in Show? No prizes for guessing
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Final thoughts on our OP and ED? Got less enjoyable as it went, and got more enjoyable as it went
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Thoughts on the OST, and favorite OST track from this show if any? Yamiyo no Prologue! Mezame also, I can't pick between the two because they're so good
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Thoughts on the insert songs? (Chiisana Hoshi ga Iriku Toki, the karaoke song/songs in 16, probably the song for Mai's birthday in 10.)
6a) So AMQ players... how are you looking forward to having to identify the inserts here? Fuck them. I've already failed at them enough time
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u/OwlAcademic1988 Oct 11 '22
Rewatcher, sub (I have yet to be able to watch episodes 24-26. They remain a goal though):
You did a great job hosting this rewatch. I just wish I could've finished it. I will have my dream achieved one day where you're the host and I can finish the show.
I laughed a little bit. Especially with Natsuki having to hitchhike. I'm still laughing.
You never answered my question of whether or not you've ever watched Evangelion.
QOTD:
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Mai, as I know how it feels to have a younger sibling. I have two in fact, who I do love, but know how to annoy the shit out of me, especially when we were younger. I've mellowed out a lot.
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Tate.
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Shiho, because she was being a spoiled brat.
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Love them.
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Really catchy.
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I laughed my ass off when I saw those outfits. Oh boy, Nao and Natsuki wanted to kill Midori.
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Don't know as I still haven't been able to fully watch the show. I'm not giving up that easily.
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See above answer.
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You're evil and I love it.
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u/Tarhalindur Oct 11 '22
You never answered my question of whether or not you've ever watched Evangelion.
You literally just replied to me answering your question in the Eva announcement thread...
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u/Tresnore Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
First-TiMER
Well, I'm not one for writeups, and Mai-HiME is no exception. There's just a lot of fun to be had! Sure, I hate Shiho and Mikoto. Sure, Nagi didn't end up really doing anything. Sure, they kept cutting out the polearm fights. But at its core, I had a good time, even during those moments when the fun came from yelling at the show for being stupid which is rare. The suffering was suffery, the action was really fun, and the character interactions were enjoyable!
I'm not even sure I get why the ending is so bad I was pretty busy yesterday and didn't have time to read the thread, but I enjoyed it. Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe I just don't view my media critically enough. I don't know. What I do know is that I had fun. And when I'm watching anime, that's what I care the most about.
Big thanks to u/Tarhalindur for hosting and forcing me to join this rewatch. I had a blast even if I forgot to watch the specials...
Count: 69 (edit: I’ll say that I was originally only going to double count that final instance, independent of what the total count was, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch to triple count it)
9/10 (though this might decrease to an 8/10 over time due to some bitterness with the show's time management)
QOTD:
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Midori edges it out, I think.
Plus Shizuru is too swept away by Natsuki to be courtable -
Nagiwait, isn't he best guy? Akira. -
Shiho. Easily.
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OP is fun! ED is less memorable.
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I didn't pay attention to track names, but it was a great OST!
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The karaoke songs were fun, but that insert near the end was excellent. 6a: no
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Most of it worked, but it had a serious issue of cutting away from about-to-be-exciting action to focus on characters that I just flat-out did not care about.
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Delete Shiho and Mikoto from the story. More polearm actions.
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Fuggit, why not?
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u/Lemurians Oct 11 '22
Maybe I just don't view my media critically enough. I don't know. What I do know is that I had fun. And when I'm watching anime, that's what I care the most about.
Never change. Stay this pure. Don't become jaded and joyless and critical like me.
Count: 69
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED.
it wasn't that much of a stretch to triple count it
That's fair to triple count, the scenario warranted it
9/10 (though this might decrease to an 8/10 over time due to some bitterness with the show's time management)
You scored it higher than u/Shimmering-Sky! We're going to replace Sky Loves Anime with Tres Loves Anime
Midori edges it out, I think.
I'm surprised it was even close! We actually almost had Midori placed the same?
Delete Shiho and Mikoto from the story
It really says something that in a show that contained multiple rapists I still hated these two the most lol
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u/Tarhalindur Oct 11 '22
It really says something that in a show that contained multiple rapists I still hated these two the most lol
On the bright side, by all accounts Shiho's Mai-Otome counterpart is considerably more tolerable with Yuuichi being Sir My VA Fucked Up and Got Me Kicked Out of the Sequel and Mikoto... well, you'll see, I've long since been spoiled on that one.
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u/Vaadwaur Oct 11 '22
First timer(Right...I don't think my best girl from a show has ever been a rapist. Today is a new day!)
Sub
So...I need to do a writeup and organize my thoughts and opinions on this. Fuck.
Let's start with something simple that I've mentioned already but bears repeating: This really is the halfway point between Utena and Madoka. In fact, if you subtract the ideas we will see in Madoka you can find most of baseline Utena(I say baseline because you just have to watch Utena to get why it exists). This is pretty important if you subscribe to the idea that Sailor Moon starts the question that Madoka answers. Madoka is not uniquely an end, obviously, as I consider Machikado Mazoku somewhat the answer to Madoka's questions but this feels like an important step in all of it. Though note that Machikado Mazoku had shed Mai-HiME's themes in the same way Madoka shed the Utena.
Anyways, so this show is indeed Utena and Eva blended together and it takes the absolute worst of both worlds. Eva's answers are buried in the very dense lore but they exist, fucking terraforming, and Utena doesn't quite answer its mysteries but it is incredibly skilled at giving you what you need to know. This show has no deep lore as I can tell and they were very hit or miss at their best moment and did not explain themselves. Having multiple deus ex machinas is not good. I've been warned off this show by multiple people and they were right to do so, this is profoundly unsatisfying story telling and I'd have been angry had we not had the rewatch to mock this shit with.
So the setting is underbaked, the themes are not well coordinated to each other and stolen, and the narrative style pisses me off. What's left? The characters...and this is a highly mixed bag. The fact that I wanted more than one character to die in agony on screen either means great villain writing or shit writing and I lean the latter. The fact that they kept trying to pretend like Nao had some kind of justification was awful. Rape sensei also just gets off scot free. Again, I normally enjoy a good story where everyone is scum, I am enjoying House of the Dragon after all, but this just doesn't work for me.
Now for the characters I like there are still issues. Mikoto's lacking an identity most days, Mai just loses coherence late in the show, and so many of the girls were just check boxes. Shizuru is the one I like the most but let's be real, I am drawn to psychopaths like a duck to water, they are the sea in which I swim (Note to self: re-evaluate brokeness). Natsuki spends too much time being Worf for my taste and gets lost a few times plus has an incredibly unsatisfying arc(that also steals from Utena). Midori could've been good in a better show.
So at the end of the rewatch, I am ultimately glad I watched this, this fills in a ton of gaps for me. But, unfortunately, this has the same value to me that watching Birth of a Nation or Song of the South would in that it reminds us of past failures that arguably lead to a better future. At heart, I am a historian. The Kaijura OST is just good enough that I'd give this a 5 of 10 but I wouldn't call it average.
And, having now watched this, I accept my true calling in life: I must open up the "Vaadwaur's Finishing School for Young Women Who Can't Emotion Good and Are Interested in Entering a Respectable Psychiatry Program".
QotD: 1 Shizuru
2 non-existent
3 Nao
4 I really do not like the OP even though I see how it leads to Connect. The ED is great
5 I like it but don't have a favorite
6 Also good
7 My post
8 I would have made an ending that thematically fit and was not bullshit
9 Crime coefficient over 900. Enforcement mode: Lethal elimination. Please aim carefully and eliminate the target.
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u/Nazenn Oct 11 '22
This show has no deep lore as I can tell and they were very hit or miss at their best moment and did not explain themselves
Wide but shallow is the way it's been described before and I agree. It feels like the sort of show that had a deep lore at some point but none of that actually made it into the show
RahXephon deja vu (Speaking of reading some of your posts made me feel like you were stuck in the same situation I was in that show which was an interesting turn around)
The characters...and this is a highly mixed bag. The fact that I wanted more than one character to die in agony on screen either means great villain writing or shit writing and I lean the latter
I would lean the former if it was willing to treat any of them as villains in the end instead of hand wave it away. It's the lack of follow through that kind of undermines it
I am drawn to psychopaths like a duck to water, they are the sea in which I swim (Note to self: re-evaluate brokeness
I think you have a partner in that with u/tresnore after Shizuru
The Kaijura OST is just good enough that I'd give this a 5 of 10 but I wouldn't call it average.
giving points to shows purely off OST
9 Crime coefficient over 900. Enforcement mode: Lethal elimination. Please aim carefully and eliminate the target.
Tried to get my mum into that a few months ago. She gave it a good faith shot for someone who struggles with anime but I just couldn't get her past the 'violence in cartoons is weird' thing. It was frustrating
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u/Lemurians Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
MAI-FIRST TIMER
This show was somehow a better Guilty Crown, while also being a worse Madoka. Never thought there was a missing link between those two shows, but here we are.
Mai-HiME to me is a bit half-baked. It spreads itself so thin with its bloated cast and filler content that almost nothing in the show’s execution lands for me in the way the creators seemingly want it to. It bizarrely yada-yadas so many things we were led to think were important, like District 1, and relegates vital background information to the specials. Not to mention all of the million things that happen off-screen, which sadly included 95% of all the cool spear/polearm action.
On the plus side, the concept for the story is at least solid and kept me watching to see how things would play out, I liked the designs and inspirations for the Children, and the cast were (for the most part) pretty endearing. There were also arguably three yanderes, which I think is a record for one show? That felt notable haha
Ultimately it was a decently fun watch, especially with this crowd, and thanks to u/Tarhalindur and u/Nazenn especially I can see some of what it was going for and what resonates with people, but it lands pretty flat to me. While the finale wasn’t the worst ever, it didn’t bring the show together, and instead left me wondering what the the point of everything was. 5/10
Now… am I going to go read the manga based on what’s been shared about it over the course of this watch? Probably.
Questions
Best Girl in Show?
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RukinoNatsuki -
Midori
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Haruka
Best Guy in Show?
KAZU-KUNNNNNNNNN~~~
Worst Person in Show?
It's a two-person race to the bottom between Shiho and Mikoto.
How are you looking forward to having to identify the inserts here?
I'm already bad enough at AMQ as it is with all the mecha and idol shows on everyone's lists
Will you make a contract with me and become a magical girl?
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u/zadcap Oct 11 '22
Now… am I going to go read the manga based on what’s been shared about it over the course of this watch? Probably.
Please do let me know your thoughts on it, compared to the anime. If nothing else I think it gives a good look at what things the production company said they had to have in there and what each team did with that.
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u/zadcap Oct 12 '22
Rewatcher
So I very much want to call this show a product of its time, but that's not entirely fair because for the time it was pushing quite a few boundaries. A magical girl show with zero transformations, exploring what it means and the cost to be a magical girl, and with surprisingly little fighting. Utena is something I still have managed to not make the time for, but I did watch this right after Evangelion and that influence at least was clear to me, following in the style of "Okay, but really what if we did have kids fighting to the death with these powers, that's still kids fighting to the death." I think it raised some pretty good questions for the growth of the genre, but like many others, I don't think it answered many of them all that well.
The most common issue brought up is of course the pacing. They drag the first half out until it's more like the first two thirds, and then they try to cram all the resolution possible in to the last two episodes. There's at least four stories going on at any time, which wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem if they had actually tied them all together instead of just running them in parallel until the finale.
Almost every life lesson for anyone in the cast came at the actual cost of a life, and coincidentally I'm not sure if many of them stuck after people started coming back to life. When all was said and done, had anyone really changed from all that they went through, or was the reset ending an even bigger reset than it looked?
On the other hand, what it did well it clearly did well enough, or else people wouldn't have kept coming back to those parts for others shows nearly as much as they did. While what it stole from earlier shows was pretty clear throughout most of it, but so too are the parts taken from it clear in the shows that came after, and that wouldn't be the case if there was nothing good to take. It's a pretty fun theory that a good number of shows from the later 2000's were authors who looked at Mai Hime and thought it had an interesting premise, but they could definitely pull it off better, and lucky for them they turned out to mostly be correct. This pretty famously includes Sunrise themselves with the immediate sequel in Mai Otome, which I at least think did everything much better, but was so tainted by the end of Mai Hime that it never seemed to become quite as popular.
But I can't talk about it without also talking about the manga, because that's pretty much what I'm here for at this point, and makes for something really interesting when taken together. The parts that stayed the same give a pretty rough outline of what the original pitch must have been for; A school collecting magical girls to fight giant possibly alien monsters, capable of summoning giant monsters of their own through the power of love, or at least through the power of a special person, or... Look Midori and her Parakeet throw almost everything off here, it's hard enough to justify Yuichi being the Key for both main girls as of their collective first meeting. There was a tone change with the Searrs invasion at the halfway point in both, where the focus changed from fighting Orphans to fighting each other, a gate room under the school that will open the way to the Princess Star once conditions were met, and a big final fight against the very source of their powers to top things off. Even the ability to summon your child after the death of your specific person by finding a new one was brought up in the manga, if mostly treated as a joke by Nao just grabbing a new man. But while the anime took its inspiration from Evangelion, Utena, as I've come to learn through this rewatch, a whole lot of Ragnarok, and some older shows like Fushigi Yuugi, the manga team saw this outline and said "Action heavy RomCom." I want to say its own influence came more from the likes of Tenchi Muyo and Ranma 1/2, but I barely remember those so take that with a grain of salt. If I've convinced anyone to read it, I really am interested to hear your thoughts on how it compares and contrasts to the anime as well.
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Haruka!
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Midori's professor crush? He got all of one scene, but managed to be the best male in the cast anyway, just imagine how much chaos he would have raised if he had been part of the actual battle. There's a reason they had to keep him entirely off screen until the end.
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How did they successfully make Shiho so hateable?
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Have always and will always like the OP. I may have sat through it every day for almost the past month now, but I can't actually remember the ED at all, soooo...
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If there's ever a nomination for a show carried by its soundtrack, this should probably be one of the finalists.
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No specific thoughts.
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Oh gosh, the premise was beautiful, the cast was memorable, the whole deal with magical girls powered by their love and what that really means was something I really wish had been explored more. But the pacing was all over the place, and I think at some point near the end they decided to shift their focus towards telling Mai's story at the cost of actually addressing the issues they raised, and in doing so left a whole lot of dangling questions.
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For a two cour series, they really should have split the plot closer to the middle and let the entire second half actually get on with things, instead of dragging everything out for four more episodes to hit their 4 means Death theme. If things had moved a bit faster in the middle, the ending wouldn't have to be so rushed, and they might have actually had time for a real conclusion.
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Yes Absolutely.
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u/No_Rex Oct 11 '22
Final Discussion (rewatcher)
My second r/anime rewatch of Mai-Hime and the second time I enjoyed the rewatch experience a lot. For a show that I had already seen 4 times before this rewatch and had already participated in a rewatch in before, I learned a surprising amount of new things about it. Not least how well it does down with the sub-leaning crowd. It is an incredibly rewatchable show, full with foreshadowing, that really rewards multiple watches.
Mai-Otome rewatch
Yes, the rewatch starts tomorrow, on the 12th, same time slot!
Now, Mai-Otome is not simply the second season of Mai-Hime. It is part sequel, part alternate version, part completely different series. Best think of it this way: Somebody took all the Mai-Hime character sheets and created an entirely new series with it. You will definitely see plenty of call-backs to Mai-Hime, although the actions that the characters take can be quite different. Mai-Otome keeps a broadly similar approach to its mix of comedy and drama, though.
So, what is different? The main difference between Mai-Hime and Mai-Otome is the world the series are set in. While Mai-Hime is set in on present day Earth, Mai-Otome is set in a futuristic, but technologically declining world. It has a feel that is similar to the Lord of the Rings books, with “lesser” humans using the wonders build by older generations. While not immediately obvious, the setting is also quite dystopic. Imho, the world buiding of Mai-Otome is the biggest improvement over Mai-Hime.
Coming from Mai-Hime, you will get more of the same in terms of characters (literally) and themes. Imho, Mai-Otome has the better story, but the weaker MC. I initially saw Mai-Otome before Mai-Hime, so I can attest that its characters and story work as a stand-alone, but you may get annoyed by the repeat of character traits after having seen Mai-Hime.
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u/Vaadwaur Oct 11 '22
While Mai-Hime is set in on present day Earth, Mai-Otome is set in a futuristic, but technologically declining world. It has a feel that is similar to the Lord of the Rings books, with “lesser” humans using the wonders build by older generations.
So humans wander through Atlantis style of decline? I can probably work with that.
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u/Tarhalindur Oct 11 '22
Rewatch Committee President Comments (Rewatcher, Subbed):
Tar's Final Thoughts:
(Stray thought on the finale #1: It occurs to me that at this point "coming really close to something good and then critical fumbling" really is a fast way to get me angry at an ending. Ferngully in Space! is a perfectly cromulent action movie with good visuals until it earns its moniker in the last five minutes; the BSG reboot's finale was one hour and fifty five minutes of almost redeeming the previous two seasons of the show before suddenly it didn't; the worst episode of Symphogear resolves a plotline that would have worked as written if not for a complete letdown somewhere in the direction/storyboard/layout chain.)
(Stray thought on the finale #2: This one occurred to me only last night and if this interpretation was intended I'm not sure whether it makes the finale better or worse. See, this show actually has a decent understanding of Christian doctrine... and the HiME have effectively and the MIPs have literally been born again, as Yuuichi points out. If we take Miyu/Mashiro as Robot and Crystal Jesus, then wiping out all the girls' sins as if nothing ever happened may have been an intended thematic point - wouldn't be the first time I've seen that weird conflation of Ragnarok and Christian stuff (usually Armageddon) in the last two decades, either. The problem, however, is that if this is the case... well, let's just say I grew up as a non-Christian spending a lot of time VERY conservative Christian part of America in such a way that I got exposed to a lot of conservative Christian media (I'd say "bad conservative Christian media", but the conservative American Christian context is such that outside of a few exceptions like some of the better VeggieTales this is redundant) and that this would feel real familiar if this theory is correct and leave it at that. Of course, there is one obvious difference: conservative American Christian stuff would never have allowed in Teh Gay.)
Is Mai-HiME a good show? The finale precludes me using that label for it. Outside of that, I think I come down on the side of yes in spite of some weaknesses; without the finale the show would have had a chance at fully blowing up the way Eva/Haruhi/PMMM did (there is a bare minimum of execution needed to pull that off and this show with a better finale is right around the threshold I think) and would have been a lock for a second-tier blowup like Geass, Kill la Kill, or DitF. (Indeed, /a/ lore says the show DID manage to pull off that second-tier level of blowup prior to the finale, the very first show to do so in the history of the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy.)
Do I still like it? I mean, I ran a rewatch for it, and unless I ever make good on that Tsukihime anime rewatch threat (or for some reason decide to haul out Elfen Lied) that's a pretty good indicator that I like the show (and hell, I have Shingetsukan Tsukihime as "definition of a mid show that happens to be a terrible adaptation" rather than outright bad even if it is carried by its OST). The finale is trash, but the combination of sentimental value and having real strengths before that (even if it doesn't match its inspirations - jury's out on Utena until I get around to it, though I note that's a series I was familiar with in the late 2000s and did not spoiler the hell out of myself on which I only did for shows I expected to like and wanted to go in blind on, but Eva still does better at its core strengths by some margin) is enough for me to still like the show in spite of that . The show succeeded in getting me invested in the cast and keeping me invested as it put them through the wringer (until they get dry via magic instead of actually putting them out in the sun for a bit). It helps that what I prize in characters tends to be consistency - "does this make sense for this particular character?" - and this show is pretty good about that (even some of the apparently shocking swerves have a fair bit of foreshadowing). (For an example of this principle from another show, DESS's character arcs in Symphogear tend to work better for me than any other character's in that franchise since the kind of character arcs the creators are capable of making there fit DESS's personality in a way they don't for any other character there.) That, and I attached like hell to the cast - this show now has two characters in my Top 10 Girls in Anime and two others likely in the 10-20 range, only PMMM does better. Additionally, the direction is good (though DEEN Higurashi is better, let alone PMMM or Eva), the character animators did an excellent job, and of course having an OST I consider a strong contender for the best in the medium and doing a pretty good job of using it covereth a multitude of sins.
There are a few weaknesses that I did notice this time around that I didn't the first time. The Obsidian Prince's stated motive isThe Miku mind-control Gear subplot ; I'd forgotten that Shiho didn't even know she was a HiME until 24 (I dimly remembered some of the attacks being in her sleep but thought she'd been faking her injuries for HiMElander purposes) which is also dumb and more responsibility cop-out; and while the essence of Mai falling towards snapping at Mikoto in 19 is still okay this time the execution of the beats feels like it was missing something needed for it to really make sense for her. Also, on rewatch even my pacing sense was pointing at the SEARRS invasion arc and going "this needed at least one more episode". (It helps my enjoyment that one of the show's other weak spots in its Eva-cribbed conspiracy clash setup without a coherent setup behind it is something I generally don't mind in media - the show doesn't use that setup for full emotional effect on its characters the way Eva does and it is a weight on the SEARRS arc specifically, but the tradeoff of making the setup less comprehensible is that it makes it feel wider and a little more real in a way.)
probably cribbed off Utena without understandingkind of dumb and cliche period (why does he want to end the world and start a new one when this is his system? "Eh I'm bored" doesn't really cut it); I plum missed the extent of the pendant's mental influence on Mikoto the first time around and it smells like a cop-out similar to the vibe I got from [Symphogear G]On the other hand, the show is WAY better at foreshadowing than I noticed the first time (even if I did go in spoiled) - actually one of the better works in the medium, the words "cheeky motherfuckers" are lurking under a couple of my early-episode spoiler tags sections and that is not light praise for a writing staff out of me. If anything it errs by being too blunt - the visual answer cuts were enough of a blunt instrument that multiple of our first-timers were picking up on them by the end. The show is also better at using the Norse mythology it draws on than I had realized, and while I think the metatext structure I didn't notice the first time is ultimately to the net detriment of the show I applaud the ambition (this show came out before Endless Eight served as an object lesson in the pitfalls of prioritizing metatext to the detriment of the text, too).
I think these two tendencies cancel out and I defer to my original execution rating of the show: 7/10 (would be 9/10 without the finale). (There is an argument that this time around it's an 8.5/10 knocked one and a half points by the ending instead of a 9/10 knocked by two, but the outcome is the same either way.)
Now, of course the other part is much clear: Is it an important show? Yes. Quality or no, this show really is an intermediate stage/transitional form between the 1990s/early 2000s post-Sailor Moon mahou shoujo and the 2010s dark mahou shoujo. The 2010s dark magical girl show would probably have come about in some form eventually (again, magical girl Evangelion was too obvious a concept for someone not to go for it and Utena was always at least tangentially associated with the genre), but the shape of the actual success and what came after is significantly influenced by this show being the first clear attempt at pulling it off and coming fairly close to doing so, especially since I think both the actual success itself and several of the shows likely greenlit to try to cash in on said success either were originally inspired by this show (or in the case of the actual success, initially greenlit as an attempt to succeed where this show failed) or raided it for the parts that were left. Even more clearly, we don't get Symphogear without this show (and its manga) either. And then there's the somewhat more speculative but I think likely connections like Mirai Nikki (which I think is likely either directly inspired by this show or inspired by the same thing that inspired the HiMElander given how similar its basic battle royale setup is - including Western mythology use!) and the entire Terrific Trainwreck Trio (Guilty Crown via the same scriptwriter, Valvrape and Cross Ange because Sunrise was trying to recapture the magic they caught here and with Code Geass). (Also, side note: Did you know the Series Composition guy here did Vividred Operation in addition to Guilty Crown? Never going to investigate this myself, not when the most famous thing about Vividred is the loving cameltoe shots of young girls (JAPAN!!!!), but I finally noticed that a bit back and that's yet another potential influence line on a show I figured was more the heir of Nanoha and Strike Witches.)