notes on Mai-HiME

[branchandroot]

HiME: Mai--elemental: circlets--child: Kagutschi
Mikoto--elemental: sword (Miroku)--child: Miroku
Natsuki--elemental: guns--child: Duran
Nao--elemental: claw--child: Julia
Midori--elemental: axe--child: Gakutennou
Yukino--elemental: mirror--child: Diana
Yukariko--elemental: bow--child: Vlas
Shiho--elemental: flute/robe--child: Yatagarasu
Akira--elemental: spike thingy--child: Gennai
Akane--elemental: tonfa--child: Hari
Shizuru--elemental: naginata--child: Kiyohime
Fumi--elemental: scythe--child: ?

Alyssa--elemental: hair--child: Artemis

(kokuyougu? kokuyougan-obsidian; guu-place, Palace, Shrine)

fuukan-seal. The Land of Fuuka is spelled with the kanji for 'seal'; the name of the school is spelled with the kanji for, for instance, 'weathering'.

The link of Hime to Child does not seem random, rather it looks to have something to do with both the nature of the Hime and the particular 'omoi' that she carries. Kagutschi seems to go with the strongest Hime, Yatagarasu with the darkest, Miroku to whomever the Prince picks as his lever/puppet/fallback (not always the vessel's sister, or it would have gone to Mashiro last time, and she had Kagutschi).

Though there does seem to be some connection between Miroku and Kagutschi, since Miroku's presence-sign, the red eye, appears on that sword through Kagutschi's beak.

The early Child manifestation shots show a double of the Hime emerging, and, since Mai's double has a sword through it, it's pretty clear that this is the link to or precursor of the Child itself. Seeing as Mai's double is significantly larger than Natsuki's, it also looks as though this may be the manifestation of the 'omoi' that feeds the Child and determines its strength.

The fact that Natsuki can call Duran when her 'omoi' is not for anything living (her mother) indicates that the Most Important Person is not bound to the Child except through the link of the Hime herself. Those Hime marks seem to do a lot of work, being the thing that looks like it ties a significant part of the Hime herself to the Child, and also like the thing that allows for the MIPs to be converted into power-source/seal pillars.

Mashiro is not precisely alive. She is an avatar, the soul of the Crystal Hime, the last winner, the center and power source and "gate" of Fuuka, Meifu no Jou the queen of Hell, in what appears to be a doll. One that can't seem to move very much, which makes some sense. We don't even know what her real name was, since Kazahana Mashiro is the name and identity she borrowed from a girl killed in an accident, as Midori finds out. The fact that, when she finds out Mikoto is Reito's sister, she says 'not again' implies that she was the sister of the last vessel of the Prince. There is an implication, never spoken aloud, that one reason the Crystal Hime is expected to see the festival through to its conclusion, despite knowing first hand how cruel it is, is so that she can finally be replaced with the new winner and her soul can be released. As, indeed, it is in the end.

We never do see Fumi's Child, though it's clearly defeated judging by her near-comatose state in later eps. The fact that Mashiro is clearly evicted from her doll-body at the same time, and relegated back to the crystal until she is freed wholly by the reversal of the seal-pillars, has been taken to suggest the the doll was Fumi's Child--but it doesn't disintegrate; we see the doll later. It should not still be around if it was the Child. So I'm thinking Fumi's Child is just not shown. On the other hand, the Prince does say that the Crystal Hime stored her soul in the form of a Child and took a fake vessel, herself, somewhat as he does. So it also seems possible that the Crystal Hime merged her escaped soul with Fumi's Child and concealed them both in the doll-body, and when they are defeated the bond disintegrates into its component parts: Crystal Hime, doll, vanquished Child. This might explain her appearance, when she transforms, at which time she is a woman, but with some odd things like horns, and is holding a double bladed something with blue eyes on it that looks rather like a counter-Miroku.

The whole festival seems to have to do with the contact of this world with the next. Fuuka, Meifu, Valhalla--the underworld or the spirit world or the next world. Child and Orphan alike come from that world, as do Nagi and the Obsidian Prince; also, I think, the source of his power as well as that of the Hime, the star itself (at least, the star is the source of Miroku's power, as he winks out when the star is hit, and the Hime symbols evaporate in much the same red sparks). Each Child is drawn to a Hime, a human who is sensitive to the things of that other world, and the strength of those humans, their 'omoi' and its object, are taken, under the control of the strongest among them, to stabilize this contact. Thus the figure that the winner becomes the bride of the Prince--both sacrifice to him and control on him, so that the malice of this otherworld representative can be mediated by a thisworld representative who goes to the otherworld for 300 years. Until the next festival. Perhaps until her power is exhausted, and the Prince's influence is no longer restrained and moves toward thisworld unmediated again. The fact that she can, apparently, control Orphans rather the same way Nagi can (eg the confrontation with Alyssa and Miyu) implies that the Crystal Hime becomes a member of the otherworld while still alive. Likewise the fact that what she does, when she is released, looks to be merging Fuuka and Fuuka, bringing the worlds into congruence, allowing the dead to return and fight the Prince on his own ground; this could be part of what the Prince meant when he referred to her as the "gate" of Fuuka. It's an exceedingly classic formula. The re-reading, which allows the interference of technology (Alyssa and Miyu) to upset the script and free the Hime to act in a less fated and more willful way to break the cycle, is also a pretty classic shape for modern Japanese retellings of these legends.

It does cross a bit oddly with the other twist of legendry, again implied rather than stated, that Reito's love for Mai influences the Prince to change the story himself and seek a less metaphorical marriage with Mai. The fact that he thinks, for one second, Mai would agree to his agenda of total destruction indicates that he doesn't have the slightest understanding of thisworld people, but that, too, is pretty classic. Nagi displays some of that, too, with his total fatalism; he really does seem to like the girls, and Mai in particular, but that never stops him from setting up the festival to select the Prince's bride. It's destiny.


The whole thing with destiny and will and fate and intention reminds me a great deal of Escaflowne.

This is a show that must be watched twice. Once to find out what the hell is going on, and the second time to appreciate all the little details you can pick out that give clues and foreshadowing, if you know what the hell is going on.