Time for the second of the twenty nostalgic top 20. How much have my taste changes? Did the series stand the test of time or has it become dull and boring after such a long time. Or have I become dull and boring and can’t enjoy anime anymore?

Who knows, this series will take a bit longer to review (in actual hours) since it’s a classical 26 episode anime. Aaah, how I miss those days when anime series were either 12, 24, 26 or 50 episodes long and then it ended… unless it were a comedy one-offs or Dragon Ball.¹

Let’s begin!

舞-HiME

My-Hime was one of the series back in the day that were one of the odder in the bunch. I liked a few comedic animes’, that I certainly know I don’t like or can’t stand today. Series like Excel Saga and Rizelmine or Chobits are series that I detest today. Most of the things I liked back then had to do with supernatural events, powers, and very deep plots and serious to the point of depressing.

My-Hime was to begin with a Slice of Life² something I didn’t like and usually found boring. I had friends that watched Oran High School, Hana Yori Dango, GTO³ and many, many more. All of them were boring or stupid to me then, and some of them still are while some of them I’ve found are acceptable if the content is interesting. It can’t be totally without a plot or I’ll still lose interest.

Background

My-HiME (舞-HiME, Mai-HiME) is a Japanese anime series, created by Sunrise. Directed by Masakazu Obara and written by Hiroyuki Yoshino, it premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo from September 2004 to March 2005. The series focuses on the lives of HiMEs⁴ —girls with the capacity to materialize photons—gathered at Fuka Academy for secret purposes.

– Wikipedia⁵

It is a very catching story about Mai Tokiha and a few other girls at a special school that seem to be gathering the people able to use the HiME ability. It’s mainly revolving around Mai, but also some other girls like Mikoto and Natsuki that are portrayed as main characters as well.

The series was an original anime that was later adapted into manga to continue the story. And it also has a few spinoffs I didn’t know about back then and still haven’t seen, nor have any intentions too.

First Impressions

First three episodes started up in a pretty normal way for a Slice of Life anime with supernatural powers. I do believe this was my first slice of life that didn’t bore me out of my mind when I was younger. Even though I think I started with Chobits in Manga-format.

It is a dip down comparing to Karas if we look from the perspective of how much I like it now to how much I liked it back then. But then again it’s only the first few episodes so far when I write this.

One thing I saw that made me want to include another section to this review was quality. Because in Karas you couldn’t really see much quality change other than tones and very minor stuff mostly tied to technology. Most likely because a lot of Karas is made with 3D mixing with 2D since the animations are very advanced for an anime back then. But here I am instantly reminded of the anime of the 90s and one of their larges flaws, how everything is static and unmoving some times. So I will give some of my reflections on the subject of that too.

After finishing it now about three days later, I have gotten used to the fact of scenes not moving as much and that the background characters are either completely missing or standing completely still. In most of the modern anime today even the background chaff has more natural movements like extras in normal television also they are a bit unique and with some character. Here, if they aren’t a character with a name they most often are just a grey/black blur, or just static animations that are very similar to each other.

Characters

The characters in this story are mostly girls, with a few boys added in as either evil guys, supporting roles or romantic interests. It becomes obvious quite soon that the anime is meant for a more female audience and viewers in the prepubescent to adolescent age-range even though you could certainly like it if you are older as well but it is clearly that demographic they aimed for.

The main protagonist of the story is without a doubt Mai Tokiha⁶. She is portrayed as a good, hard working big sister that always tries to do the “right” thing and the “good” thing. Being responsible, and mature and trying to set the standard of what they want the audience to feel like a “good girl” that is always being challenged in several moral dilemmas. I however see her as a bit pretentious and not really mature but a stereotypical version of how you would portray that to further a stereotype. This though might just be me being a bit fed up with this repetitive character archetype that you can see and read about in many, many different mediums no matter where it originates. That being said, I still think she fits to the role and gives a more balanced perspective on the good and the bad that happens in Fuka Academy.

The two secondary characters that act kind of like secondary protagonists and assists to Mai is Natsuki Kuga and Mikoto Minagi. They have both a different kind of relationship with Mai and acts a bit like the externalization of her inner struggles of logic and passion, which the series is really about. Emotions swirling around and trying to the upper hand.

One of them is a small but powerful girl (Mikoto) swinging a huge sword around that seem to weigh almost as much, if not more, than herself and then you have the more finesse cool girl (Natsuki) that acts very tsundere

⁷ and probably is the first tsundere-character as far as I can remember in my anime history. Anyhow as a character Natsuki seems to act way older than she actually is, and seem to be the main plot device to drive the mystery forward in many ways. Adding thoughts and depth to things that the rest of the people in the anime seem to be oblivious about in actually a proper teenage fashion.

Mikoto on the other hand is the complete opposite: focusing on only food, friendship and she’s straight forward to a fault. She is also incredibly naïve and seems to represent the childlike joy in life, like declaring love for someone just because they are kind to her, not understanding the difference between romantic love and love between friends or love between brothers. She is emotionally hampered in ways that isn’t that unlikely but with the power she wields it’s actually very freighting to know that such a small and volatile girl has this power.

There are too many characters to describe them all in detail here, for certain there are more than in Karas here. Especially since it’s a slice of life series you get introduced to like twenty-ish people of different importance. You have some boys that have a relation or two with other girls as either brother or in some cases childhood friends with obvious one-sided love triangle drama going on. And even some non-heteronormative relationship being hinted at (both male and female relationships). But then there is the mysterious characters that seem to be a bit out of place and also the lack of certain figures that makes you

wonder if it is part of the story (and the mystery) or if they are just not shown due to the laziness of animators back then.⁸

So three special mentions I want to bring up: Nagi, the grownups/faculty and Alyssa Searrs.

Nagi, is probably up until almost the end my favorite character. He doesn’t seem to fit at all a no explanations are given about who he is or why he is there. Everybody just seems to accept his presence all the time. And it seems very odd at first, since some seem to know him at first name basis and others just get startled by him and then one scene later they just accept that he appears in weird situations where something more pressing and needing of their immediate attention is available instead. He is very mysterious, seem to be on nobody in particular’s side but also seem to know and steer a lot of the actions in the background.

Another enigma in the series are the grownups. At first, it seems like there is nobody older than seventeen present in the series. But soon you get a glimpse and introductions to some of the faculty members of the school. But in general the lack of teachers and grownups other than extras often outside of the school environment is very lacking. The students and the characters doesn’t react to this so it might be that they are present but only not having screen time. And those who are present seem almost like they are all implicit in the mysteries going on or in other ways not really responsible adults caring about mysteries that almost seem to put the entire school in jeopardy. And some of them seem to also indicate that the grownups are part of something shadier due to some early interactions with some students.

The last character is a grade-schooler that enter the series about halfway in, and the main reason for me to talk about her is that she sings a song, that is actually portraying some of the tragedies that are in the background in a very figurative way. And this song is very emotional and if you are deep into the series this song actually is quite moving. And I’ve had it on my playlist since the first time I saw this series. And this is the thing that I’ve had been my emotional connection to this series over the past fifteen years. And the mystery around her is also extremely intriguing and the entire pace of the story picks up a lot when she is put in the center of attention towards the middle of the series.

Story

The story is all in all pretty okay and a bit standard for a young adult story. Girl, with brother she takes care of due to parents not being alive and such, goes to a boarding school. Mysterious shit happens on the way, foreshadowing a larger mystery, and bang, we’re in action.

So the story overall is pretty classical even for the time when it was released. But it still has some twists and turns and has the viewer guessing at every turn and not always doing what you expect. There are some discrepancies that are sometimes neglected and sometimes they try to explain them in a way that they feel is good enough, but most of these are just story devices or exposition dumps.

The entire series is only 26 episodes as previously mentioned and it’s clearly divided I feel. In the beginning (about the first 6 episodes) it’s very jovial, some epic moments and tidbits here and there. But mostly it uses a kind of Sailor moon ensemble plots where they introduce the main players in a succession as small obvious plots here and there as you get to know the characters deeper and deeper.  But it’s also in this phase of the series that some of the things I dislike in anime is most present. Like how their jovial humor so often go into dirty and weird situations like chasing panties or walking around school naked and other stuff meant to be very “funny” and embarrassing but only made me sigh and roll my eyes.

One thing though that made me surprised was kind of the opposite of the thing above. In many series aimed at youths like this one, there are misunderstandings and drama that is made out of mostly nothing. And then it escalates to a cringing degree until the end where it all explodes and might be resolved otherwise it’s used as a comic effect. This I dislike in western series, and especially in books that seem to think that this is an interesting plot device. But in this series serious mistakes and assumptions that are very human and could happen in reality happens an instead of going the normal route, they solve in such an emotional and satisfying way and use it to show the humanity and emotions of the characters involved. Makes you respect the situation and I also believe helps youths to learn how to solve their issues and understand how a seemingly good thought can wound someone unintentionally.

Over all the series goes from being jovial and introductory to slowly delving deeper and deeper into philosophical ideas and moral concepts and turning it into a more serious tone and by the end the jovial tone is almost completely gone. There are many moments where you feel sad and frustrated just because that’s what the characters feel. And in the end everything seems like quite a mess that you aren’t even sure what you want to happen just due to the implications of every solution possible.

The story is resolved, and you get an ending that solves most of the questions they bring up. But not all of them, you are meant to continue to speculate what the result of everything will be in the end even after the series has ended.

But there are some glaring plot-holes that are never addressed. Like how come there is so little reaction to extreme events early in the series and where everyone actually comes from. The grownups are very absent during the series and there is a seemingly preadolescent kid running the school and nobody seems to question that the main power behind the school is not even old enough to be in a class in said school.

But all in all, it works.

Quality

I’ve addressed the quality somewhat. The quality of backgrounds, animations and overall everything is maybe decent for this time. But I still feel it is one of the greatest things that makes this series not have aged very well. There are several scenes where there are characters in the scene but as soon as their lines are over, they stand there without blinking while someone else is talking. No reactions no movement other than the “active” character in the scene. The background people are even worse off most of the times with barely any individuality or movement added at all. In many scenes there is just panning over a picture where maybe there are some petals moving or some minor detail in the wind.

This is without a doubt something I do not miss. I suspect this won’t be the first time I complain about this. I rewatched Hikaru no Go the previous summer, and there they also had this problem. But less so.  And I also belive that Hikaru is a lot older than My-Hime, which makes it less acceptable the level of neglect that the background animations get in this series.

Final Thoughts

So, it comes as no surprise to that this series is less regarded by me now than before. What does surprise me though is that I still think it has very good character development. Something I didn’t really feel the first time around and also very good emotional aspects in it.

Something I cannot get over is how extremely satisfying it is when characters resolve stupid mistakes and misunderstandings in such a reasonable way too. It is without a doubt a series that will make the more emotional of us shed a tear or two and really feel the characters pain and emotions at times.

All in all I would give this series 7 of 10, and it might have a chance to be kept at a current top 20, but I’m not sure. And still the emotional response I have to “It’s only a fairytale” is extremely powerful for me. So as a finish to this review I’ll add said song as being sung by me back in 2005, enjoy!

 

Who are those little girls in pain

Just trapped in castle of dark side of moon

Twelve of them shining bright in vain

Like flowers that blossom just once in years

They’re dancing in the shadow like whispers of love

Just dreaming a place where they are free as doves

They’ve never been allowed to love in this cursed cage

It’ s only the fairy tale they believe

They’re dancing in the shadow like whispers of love

Just dreaming a place where they are free as doves

They’ve never been allowed to love in this cursed cage

It’s only the fairy tale they believe

 

PS1. Here is the video with the original lyrics! https://youtu.be/XFqKHgd0eB0

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1. Of course this isn’t really true, but at least a lot of series that were released back then were actually ending the same season, more about this later ↩

2. A genre that if you watch Anime you are probably pretty used to, otherwise it’s about normal life like school or work and revolves just around the life of the main characters and sometimes has very mundane and simple elements to them ↩

3. Great Teacher Onizuka ↩

4. Highly-advanced Materialized Equipment ↩

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My-HiME ↩

6. Called Tokiha, in Japanese fashion ↩

7. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tsundere ↩

8. Actually I don’t really mean that they are lazy, most Japanese animation studios back then, as well as now are pretty small, and super overworked. So it’s incredible that such small amount of people, relative to the amount of work going into it, actually can produce this ↩