Finally got around to watching this after coping with the constant whining.
An episode where Mirai’s whining is actually justified. In shock? I know.
Preview:
Summary:
A touching scene between Yuuki and Mirai, another tremor, and the toppling Tokyo Tower.
Thoughts:
I think this is the episode where everyone wanted to see. Yuuki tries to cheer Mirai up, Mirai keeps whining and such, and he finally breaks down. Give him a break, he’s only a kid! And he’s trying to help you! Geez. The worst thing to do is to get drawn apart during a major crisis. Not to be a link whore, but ghostlightning did a great job at explaining the whole situation.
In these times you have to sympathize with ALL the characters as Mirai is clearly suffering (ex. holding it in, abused, ignored), Yuuki only tries to help but deep inside misses his parents and never wished it happened…and Mari trying to be the best mother figure she can be through all the tough times. Mirai still bashes the innocent kid and he runs away, then you get one touching reunion as they finally break down and cry it all out.
To make it worse, Yuuki almost dies trying to protect Mirai after another tremor comes, ground starts trembling again and the Tokyo Tower topples and collapses. While I couldn’t be as analytical as ghostlightning, it would be much more painbearing and traumatizing to Mirai. I couldn’t imagine how she or this show would go on.
The show’s cast all need love and compassion in some way, but Mirai is the hardest to accept it because of this fact (quoted from ghostlightning):
Mirai ate from that cake, and I noted in episode o2 that she wasn’t ready to be treated like she was a good sister, as a good person; she now clearly shows (via symbolism) how she isn’t ready for the kind of love and familial togetherness represented by the round cake that wasn’t really meant for her, only given due to the generosity of Mirai; the cake she failed to digest.
I can’t imagine what will happen to Mirai if Mari and Yuuki weren’t around.
and Mirai still hard to accept the kindness from others maybe because she still hard to trust others
Thanks for the acknowledgment. Let me tell you though that it’s otou-san of Shameful Otaku Secret who first caught the symbolism for the cake. He mentioned this in his post on sympathizing with Mirai:
Awesome. I noted the cake, but not the symbolism. I did write a fair bit on the Onosawa family [->] I didn’t remark on the fragmentation in particular. In episode 02 Mirai sees the round birthday cake for Mari’s kid. The irony here is Mari’s family is fractured – by death no less (her husband died IIRC), and yet it seems full and complete with love. I love this shit.
Sorry, the link to otou-san’s post on WRL is http://ghostlightning.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/sympathy-for-the-devil-child-mirais-showing-a-bit-of-character
That’s where that quote comes from, and he really did a good job writing about our non-heroic, wet-blanket, lead character that Mari is moe for (in the sense that she wants to protect and support her; and by extension so do we).
@msdzero: It causes pain to even think of the scene…;_;
@ghostlightning Thanks for the link. It has so many deeper meanings I’m finding, thanks to you and otou-san. This is seriously awesome. I think Mari symbolizes us, quite in fact, and that we should all have that good samaritan personality towards Mirai. Good stuff. Symbolism, depth, and realism. Great anime.
[...] agrees with ghostlightning in large part that “Mirai’s whining is actually [...]