#but too hung up over money and getting legitimately distraught over the fact that you cant make a digital thing truly unique

[themattress]

Rewatch: My Bride is a Mermaid Ep 23 - 24

Two episodes that are absolutely hilarious...and then sucker-punch you HARD with Feels.

Episode 23: The Man Without a Past

The episode opens up with a Masa Today, which launches us right into the main conflict: Masa is revealed to have no memories of his past beyond when he began working for the Seto Gang 10 years ago. At the same time, Akeno reveals that she is searching for her older brother, who disappeared 10 years ago while on government business to the Seto Inland Sea, and she wants to kill him for bringing shame upon the Shiranui family...and on a more personal level, for abandoning her. Yeah, anyone can see where this is going: Masa is Akeno’s brother who got amnesia after being struck in the head by a drunk Gozaburo. Desperate to save Masa’s life, Nagasumi and Gozaburo team up to stop him from recovering his memories, but their crazy attempts only end up causing that very thing to happen.

There is a lot that is funny in this episode: Gozaburo and Nagasumi actually needing to work together for a common goal, Sun constantly addressing Akeno as “Aki” which she never did before and never will again as though she just randomly decided she’d give Akeno a pet name for that day and that day only, Akeno briefly losing her memory and reverting back to her 4 year old state of mind, and the ultimate pay-off to Nagasumi’s homoerotic feelings for Masa with him pretending to be outright in love with him in order to keep his memories suppressed...a choice that he is seriously, hysterically regretting by the end of the episode.

But when Masa actually recovers his memories, the episode takes a shocking turn into true emotional sincerity. Masa has a mental encounter with his past self and expresses shame and disappointment in his whole existence being nothing but a lie, and he is willing to fade away to give the original persona his body back. His past self, however, makes him see all of the friends - family, really - that he made in the 10 years he’s been around, telling him that he can’t just disappear from their lives. And so it’s his past self that fades away, with parting words asking Masa to be there for his sister. Akeno, in 4 year old mode, is crying for her big brother and it’s legitimately heart-wrenching: for all her teenage self’s declarations of hatred and a desire for fatal vengeance, deep down all she really wants is to have him back. Masa goes over and hugs her tight, saying that even if he’s not the brother that she remembers, he wants to be the brother that she has now. And at the end, he even tells the guilt-stricken Gozaburo that he bears no grudges toward him for accidentally causing him amnesia, and that he loves him, Sun and the whole Seto Gang. It’s beautiful, and it actually got to me.

Can the show possibly top it? Yes. Yes, it can.

Episode 24: Farewell, My Friend

Kai Mikawa and Hideyoshi “Chimp” Sarutobi have consistently been two of the most unlikable characters on this show, but this episode pulls off one of the best redemptions for jerks that I have ever seen, up there with Eddy from Ed, Edd n’ Eddy and Lars from Steven Universe. And it must be noted that it’s the other episode in this anime that has no basis in the manga, which means this show’s writers must be applauded for pulling such a fantastic turnaround. 

It starts when Kai, in a typical narcissistic mindset, is trying to hide the fact that he was visiting a hospital because he’s developed a boil on his butt. While the rest of his classmates actually guess that this was the case, Chimp refuses to believe it because he’s grown to care for Kai as a true friend and doesn’t think he would keep information from him unless it was something serious. This leads to Chimp staking out the hospital and overhearing part of a conversation that makes it sound like Kai has something terminal. He confronts Kai about it and Kai, thinking Chimp knows the truth about his “ass acne”, swears him to secrecy, which Chimp takes as Kai being so noble that he doesn’t want everyone else distraught and worried over him. However, Chimp is unable to keep this promise as he has to tell his classmates what’s going on so that they won’t act antagonistic toward Kai even when he’s being a jerk. This info then spreads to the rest of the class, and to the teachers, and to the whole freaking town, with absolutely everyone pitching in to pamper Kai and celebrate his existence in order to make his “last days” the best possible for him. What a wacky misunderstanding, eh?

But even amidst the natural humor in this situation, legitimate character insight is being given to Kai. As an agoraphobic who grew up around a bunch of yes-men, Kai has developed the belief that nobody loves him naturally and that he can only get love through flaunting his money, his good looks, his material goods, etc.  And from this he developed an entitlement complex when he feels he isn’t being given his rightful due from others. So when everyone starts showering him with love and kindness, he can’t recognize it for what it truly is and instead thinks that everyone has just “come to their senses” and are treating him the way he “deserves” to be treated. Even when he learns of his “terminal illness” from a TV report, he can’t connect the dots between it, the way people have been treating him, and how they feel about him - he’s too consumed by the horror of believing himself to be dying. The fear turns to sadness, and then to anger and hatred toward one target: Nagasumi Michishio. Kai decides that if he’s dying, then he wants to take his rival whom he is so envious of with him.

A showdown at high noon ensues, with Kai even taking off his protective space helmet and suddenly having white hair for...reasons. But Nagasumi’s improved reflexes from all the time he’s spent dodging attacks across the series combined with the emotional breakdown Kai is having leads to Nagasumi being victorious. The scene transitions into a huge tear-jerker once Kai begins sobbing and admitting what his real problem is: he genuinely thinks he has no real friends and no-one that truly loves him, whereas Nagasumi does and he’s jealous of that, and the thought that he’s now going to die without that being rectified while Nagasumi gets to live a Happily Ever After with Sun is more than he can bear. “SOMEONE LOVE ME BEFORE I DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!” he screams up toward the sky, all onlookers choked up with pity.

With Sun and Nagasumi leading the way, all of Kai’s classmates gently protest his claims: they’re his friends and they love him, they wouldn’t have done all that they’ve done for him if that wasn’t the case. And Kai never needed to ask for love from them, or buy it from them, because otherwise that isn’t really love. Sun may not love him romantically, but she still loves him all the same, and so does his rival Nagasumi which is the whole reason why he even accepted his potentially fatal challenge. And then the episode delivers the biggest gut-punch when Chimp, fucking CHIMP, rushes to Kai’s side, crying his eyes out as he declares that he loves him more than anything in the world and that if he could he’d gladly take his place and die instead of him. In-universe, this is what fully breaks Nagasumi, who has to turn away as he begins sobbing uncontrollably (MAJOR props to Eric Vale and Anthony Bowling’s voice-acting; they sell their emotional lines in this episode and especially in this scene perfectly.)

Kai flashes back to the various times he’s hung out with his classmates and realizes that he was never alone, he never lacked love and friendship. He was just too self-absorbed to recognize what was right in front of him the whole time. As he lays down to die, he sums it up by saying “All of you have shown me how big your hearts can be...but me, all I did was show you how small mine was.” He apologizes to Chimp for taking him for granted, saying that he’s the best friend a guy could have, and then he thanks Sun and Nagasumi and tells them to be happy together. And then...he passes on. OK, not really, but the scene plays it totally straight and does it so well that for a moment you might actually forget that his terminal illness isn’t real and was just a misunderstanding. Naturally, this creates a huge mood whiplash when we suddenly get the final scene where the status quo reasserts itself at school, with everyone hilariously reacting to the fact that they went through all that emotional turmoil for nothing.

But as we’ll see in the two-part series finale, Kai and Chimp have come out of this experience somewhat changed: they aren’t the complete pricks they were before and even play a major heroic role, with Kai especially showing how much both Sun and Nagasumi mean to him. While Chimp on his own still isn’t a particularly good character, he is an excellent accessory to Kai, whom this anime has made one of the strongest characters in the cast over the course of just this single episode. Kai, you definitely have my love. (And Kai/Chimp OTP 4evah!)

#My Bride is a Mermaid #Opinion #Analysis