Cruel Angel Theses

This, my friends, is how the ideal blogosphere should be (all links open in a new window). An epic show, bloggers inspired to write about it, bloggers writing said inspired posts that are so inspirational, they inspire other bloggers to write posts that are even more inspired than ever, so much that they up the ante on the anticipation factor every week. As it is, despite my 100~ odd posts that I still need to read, posts I still need to write, and a backlog still looming, I can’t resist stopping the presses for kimikiss. It’s that good.

To kick things off, if I may an analogy: assuming that relationships are like battles of the physical variety, then Honey and Clover was a sniping one. It had the occasional epic stand-off and various impasses, feints, and manoeuvres that made it all the more exciting, as self-respecting snipers are wont to do when they go at it. It was hard-hitting, like a shot from an AWP generally does on a human body — being on the receiving edge of one one too many times during CounterStrike, I should know. For all purposes it was powerful, even if it took a long time to resolve.

kimikiss, on the other hand, has been visceral. It started off like any other skirmish before degenerating into an outright war, and the stakes are getting higher as time passes, like the four Gundam Meisters being held up for half a day or so in their mechs. While H&C had lofty ambitions that worked and wasn’t contrived or anything, I do think that the two sets of triangles were “safer” in the sense that they were pre-defined in their boundaries. You didn’t see Morita suddenly deciding to take that hand-holding consoling with Yamada to another level, or Mayama suddenly giving Hagu the once-over. All that crossover possibility was sealed off pretty nicely.

and you thought Mahou Shoujo Kyou was bad enough

And so it was a convenient battle fought over a distance, given how the cast wasn’t just that involved in each other’s lives, being in university and all. They fought their little battles of the heart over miles, whether physical, like in the Morita-Hagu-Takemoto one, or mental, as would be the Rika-Mayama-Yamada-Nomiya one. They ran away, and avoided each other as much as they could, taking shelter in their natural surroundings and hoping that the one pursuing wouldn’t see them. They even remained on a last-name basis for the most part, so much so that despite my habit of referring to first names for a character it still feels unnatural to refer to Morita as “Shinobu”, or Mayama as “Takumi”.

In comparison, kimikiss is an outright brawl, a mixed martial arts championship, a fighting tournament like those of shounen yore. The direction taken with it is directly inverse to what H&C was — a long-range affair — and its effects are felt like ripples on a pond. Unlike H&C, the degree of involvement that the characters have with each other is way deeper, and everything, from face time to a shared childhood to their first-name basis — all of it can only hurt the more when you see them going through their doomed motions of love.

I’ve always thought that my parents’ generation was a blessed one. The problem with teenagers and young adults like yours truly in the 21st century is that we believe in this farcical thing called “best friends with the opposite sex”, which never existed back in Mom and Dad’s time. Spending time with a girl if you’re a guy and vice versa with no intention of looking at her in a romantic way inevitably has the effect of the relationship breaking somewhere along the line, whether due to a one-sided love, an unrequited mess of sorts, or conflicting feelings, if either one or both the parties in mention get attached to someone else along the way.

It’s the last item that I’d like to draw your attention to, as it’s this very set of feelings that both Asuka and Mao are currently in possession of. The gradual awakening of the heart and the process of wanting to go from platonic to romantic, is something I’m undeniably biased against. I realised in a short moment of reflection that I’m probably very supportive of Kouichi x Yuumi and Kazuki x Eriko not because they make particularly good couples or anything, but because I’m inherently biased, having been on the receiving end of the unpleasant burn that comes when you realise that the person you’re interested in doesn’t really see you as more than just a friend.

(I remember being told once regarding a post of mine that connected the anime in question to how it related to me personally, that it was “too emo”. If you’re one of those pseudo-internet macho wannabe alpha-male types who think that my posts shouldn’t be overtly personal, then you can stop reading at this point.)

I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s been rather cathartic for me in that I’ve been reliving a particularly dark part of my love life in watching kimikiss. Who thought that anime could be so therapeutic? On one hand there’s my favourite “ideal couple” in Kouichi x Yuumi and their chemistry, aside from being true to life, reeks of deja vu as I’ve definitely been there before — on the other hand, there’s Asuka and Mao’s dilemma that I’ve experienced previously of being ignored in favour of someone else, or just not regarded as lover material in general, and I can certainly identify with that.

Interestingly, Mao and Asuka are on different sides of the coin when it comes to wanting to be more than just a friend — no matter how you look at it, they’re both the third wheels in the relationship, yet despite their similar predicament it’s amazing to see how greatly they differ in their approach. Mao represents the fatalist all lucked out on love, the one in denial that wishes the couple happiness before sinking into a deep funk in her bedroom to cry it out all alone. Conversely, Asuka represents the fighter, the one that believes that all’s fair in love and war and who’s going to go down fighting, even if it’s going to cost her.

I can see her hating on the starfish already

I’ll take an educated guess at this point — considering Kasai’s work before this, my guess is that there definitely will be a confrontation, but the couples will stay the same. If we’re going to talk realistic, then consider this: the most suitable couple doesn’t necessarily have to be the “best”. Assuming that you know plenty of couples in real life, the question I ask you here is how many of them necessarily get together with someone considered to be the best match for them? Despite being acquainted with plenty myself, I’d have to say that a majority of those I know always come off as mismatched when compared to the other choices around them — they could have chosen someone “better”, someone more suited to their personality, but they didn’t, and why so?

Love simply doesn’t work that way. I have a close friend that I’ve known for ages, and he’s been together with this girl since we left high school 5 years ago. I won’t go into the details for obvious reasons, but his girlfriend is someone that his parents will never approve of, and he’s never brought her back home or introduced her to them as a result. He’s good looking, and he could have any girl he wanted, yet for all his ability to go out there and get a girl that his parents would approve of, he doesn’t. Despite my laughable attempts to introduce other girls, albeit jokingly, to him, he remains very much faithful to his girl despite their being mismatched from an outsider’s perspective. But that’s love for you.

Notice that H&C never really had much change in the status quo at the end of it all — Yamada x Nomiya aside, the others generally stayed within their existing relationship boundaries. A lot of energy was spent trying to make new ones, to be sure, but H&C was never about couples getting together per se as it was how their attempts at relationships helped them grow stronger as a result. I believe that this could very well be the path that kimikiss takes, which can only mean that supporters of Yuumi and Eriko will ultimately be victorious, if everything goes according to plan.

I’m quite aware of the Achilles Heel in this theory, though. H&C was a josei story, with an idealised, realistic setting that used the love triangle as a commentary on the big bad world out there, and how frustratingly complex relationships could be even when you’re grown up and left the teenage angst behind; kimikiss, on the other hand, remains steadfastly seinen, and while I’m not claiming a huge disparity in the methods of both genres, kimikiss is more romantic than realistic; the impossibly convenient triangles of Kasai’s making are there for him to wring the most drama and heartbreak out of, and the focus would be undeniably different.

In my opinion, what would make for a more satisfying end wouldn’t be how perfect the final couples look together, but what they mean to each other — while I’m sure the romantics among us believe that Eriko and Yuumi are somehow less deserving or worthy of their guys because of how inferior they are when compared to Mao and Asuka, they’re ultimately closer to them, Yuumi more so than Eriko. It wouldn’t do to have the final pairings be decided by virtue of how technically suited the couple is — it would undo everything that this show’s stood for and worked so hard to build up credibly.

I’ll gladly concede Asuka to Kazuki, of course, but only if she puts up a good fight. Ditto Mao, although from what I can make of it at this point in time she’s got her work cut out for her; her chances of getting Kouichi at this point in time are much lower than Asuka’s, if only because she’s got a responsibility in the form of Kai. For these two to get their guys due to some twist of deus ex machina proportions just doesn’t seem like a realistic possibility at this point, and despite how sadistic this sounds, it’s rather comforting to know that whoever loses, we all win.