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Having watched the end of Mai Otome
Apr. 6th, 2006 07:24 pm*blinks* Oh, of course. It makes perfect sense.
HiME/OTOME SPOILERS
At the end of HiME, the comet/Obsidian Prince/Miroku were dispersed. Not /banished/ but dispersed. From that point, rather than the tri-century sacrifice of twelve HiME, it would be the actions of all people, every day, that kept darkness and despair in check.
The despair/hatred/fear that the Prince/comet embodied was then everywhere... but nowhere so concentrated that /only/ the sacrifice of the Crystal Princess could stem it.
In Otome, Nagi says it himself. The Harmonium was built out of despair, fear and hatred. The same thing that stained the Pure White Diamond into the Ultimate Black Diamond. The darkness that was dispersed to be either defeated or succumbed to by humans was concentrated again in those two things. Not to the extent that the Prince concentrated it, but enough that the Otome who was possessed of/by both manifested Miroku as her elemental.
*thoughtful* You know, I think the one complaint I have about Otome is that they didn't change the storytelling style enough to suit the new medium. HiME was about mystical stuff. As such, the viewers were willing to suspend a lot of disbelief and accept a lot of un-tied-up mysteries.
But Otome is about just-people. It has to be, precisely because it comes after HiME, and that was the whole point of the first season. To make matters a human, rather than mystical thing.
But just-human stories require a bit more in the way of detail and explanations, otherwise the audience get jarred out of the story. For example, the moment when Natsuki tells Arika all their hope is riding on her. I had a moment of "wait, what? But this is Clueless Girl. Okay, hang on while I winch my disbelief up a few more turns..." But all it would have taken was a single sentence, Natsuki saying that Arika and Mashiro are the only Otome-Master pair who can reach each other right now, there's no choice, it has to be them. That would have smoothed everything nicely.
But they didn't do that. *sighs*
And there are some blanks that a thoughtful viewer can fill in for herself. For example, why does Mashiro order Arika, as her Master, to destroy Rena's body, when she's just finished making a big speech about how Otome need to think for themselves and not view themselves and only tools and weapons? Well, because this is Arika's mother we're talking about! Mashiro is offering to take the responsibility, the guilt, on herself and leave Arika's hands clean. You note that Arika seems to understand this, and thanks Mashiro for it before she refuses.
Some are simply the sort of background mysteries that are typical of the Mai stories. For example, why does the harmonium need a song, a conductor and a protector? And where is the protector, anyway? My personal theory is that this was a safeguard. The song, the Windbloom ruler, must authorize use of the harmonium, and the ruler's Otome must be willing to use it, to be the conductor. There /should/ have been a protector, such as Makoto perhaps; someone who knows the dangers of using the Harmonium and can/will stop the conductor before she's in danger of being consumed by the Harmonium. But the protector was not, of course, present, and so Nina was taken over. I'm actually fine with this kind of thing, because it is typical of Mai, and I kind of like putting the puzzle together.
Some mysteries, like how the hell the Black Valley /moves around/ are also typical of Mai. We never do find out what the hell is up when HiME-Mashiro's doll-body transforms into that ass-kicking babe form either. I'm not as happy with these gaps, but at least knew to expect one or two. How/why members of Aswad can call and use a Child is never answered either.
...though I suppose we can assume that Searrs and their spiritual brethren, being into the whole reproduction of mystical powers via technology, may have come up with those little ring-ball things used to call the Child. After all, Smith repeatedly says that "our ancestors" created the Otome, who are basically HiME without Child and with a contractually designated Most Important Person. Also very much in keeping with the globalization of what was once extremely concentrated. It also seems likely that the Administar was located in lunar orbit, right where the HiME star was seen approaching when it existed, as a rememberance/reference/imitation of the HiME.
At any rate, all in all I quite liked Otome, though the oversight of leaving the story-telling mode stuck on mystical mean it wasn't quite as great as HiME.
HiME/OTOME SPOILERS
At the end of HiME, the comet/Obsidian Prince/Miroku were dispersed. Not /banished/ but dispersed. From that point, rather than the tri-century sacrifice of twelve HiME, it would be the actions of all people, every day, that kept darkness and despair in check.
The despair/hatred/fear that the Prince/comet embodied was then everywhere... but nowhere so concentrated that /only/ the sacrifice of the Crystal Princess could stem it.
In Otome, Nagi says it himself. The Harmonium was built out of despair, fear and hatred. The same thing that stained the Pure White Diamond into the Ultimate Black Diamond. The darkness that was dispersed to be either defeated or succumbed to by humans was concentrated again in those two things. Not to the extent that the Prince concentrated it, but enough that the Otome who was possessed of/by both manifested Miroku as her elemental.
*thoughtful* You know, I think the one complaint I have about Otome is that they didn't change the storytelling style enough to suit the new medium. HiME was about mystical stuff. As such, the viewers were willing to suspend a lot of disbelief and accept a lot of un-tied-up mysteries.
But Otome is about just-people. It has to be, precisely because it comes after HiME, and that was the whole point of the first season. To make matters a human, rather than mystical thing.
But just-human stories require a bit more in the way of detail and explanations, otherwise the audience get jarred out of the story. For example, the moment when Natsuki tells Arika all their hope is riding on her. I had a moment of "wait, what? But this is Clueless Girl. Okay, hang on while I winch my disbelief up a few more turns..." But all it would have taken was a single sentence, Natsuki saying that Arika and Mashiro are the only Otome-Master pair who can reach each other right now, there's no choice, it has to be them. That would have smoothed everything nicely.
But they didn't do that. *sighs*
And there are some blanks that a thoughtful viewer can fill in for herself. For example, why does Mashiro order Arika, as her Master, to destroy Rena's body, when she's just finished making a big speech about how Otome need to think for themselves and not view themselves and only tools and weapons? Well, because this is Arika's mother we're talking about! Mashiro is offering to take the responsibility, the guilt, on herself and leave Arika's hands clean. You note that Arika seems to understand this, and thanks Mashiro for it before she refuses.
Some are simply the sort of background mysteries that are typical of the Mai stories. For example, why does the harmonium need a song, a conductor and a protector? And where is the protector, anyway? My personal theory is that this was a safeguard. The song, the Windbloom ruler, must authorize use of the harmonium, and the ruler's Otome must be willing to use it, to be the conductor. There /should/ have been a protector, such as Makoto perhaps; someone who knows the dangers of using the Harmonium and can/will stop the conductor before she's in danger of being consumed by the Harmonium. But the protector was not, of course, present, and so Nina was taken over. I'm actually fine with this kind of thing, because it is typical of Mai, and I kind of like putting the puzzle together.
Some mysteries, like how the hell the Black Valley /moves around/ are also typical of Mai. We never do find out what the hell is up when HiME-Mashiro's doll-body transforms into that ass-kicking babe form either. I'm not as happy with these gaps, but at least knew to expect one or two. How/why members of Aswad can call and use a Child is never answered either.
...though I suppose we can assume that Searrs and their spiritual brethren, being into the whole reproduction of mystical powers via technology, may have come up with those little ring-ball things used to call the Child. After all, Smith repeatedly says that "our ancestors" created the Otome, who are basically HiME without Child and with a contractually designated Most Important Person. Also very much in keeping with the globalization of what was once extremely concentrated. It also seems likely that the Administar was located in lunar orbit, right where the HiME star was seen approaching when it existed, as a rememberance/reference/imitation of the HiME.
At any rate, all in all I quite liked Otome, though the oversight of leaving the story-telling mode stuck on mystical mean it wasn't quite as great as HiME.
