Mikakunin de Shinkoukei – 05
This much Mashiro is good.
Clearly secrets don’t last long in Mikakunin. First there’s Mashiro letting slip that she and Hakuya are living with Kobeni. Then there’s Benio revealing the mutual past between Kobeni and Hakuya. Now, Shirayuki shows up and reveals the Mitsumine family’s secret.
Loli Mom Kita~
Shirayuki is pretty baller for a mother-in-law.
As is obvious, the big thing this episode is Shirayuki, Hakuya’s and Mashiro’s yukata-clad mother. Her easily distracted personality suggests where Mashiro inherited her mannerisms, and her small stature doesn’t bode well for the potential of Mashiro’s future growth. I’m also guessing the Mitsumine father has brown hair and purple eyes, if the children are any indication. But I digress. Shirayuki brings with her many answers, though things may not yet be as clear cut as we think. Chiefly, it is confirmed that the Mitsumines are not human. What exactly they are isn’t explicitly stated, but perhaps this is only appropriate as it seems they might not fully conform to any one names that humans have given them in times past. Though I don’t think Benio’s “fairy” guess is quite right. But anyway, we do see that the tales of Kobeni “playing” with Hakuya in the past are cleverly misleading, as the Hakuya back then took the form of a large, black dog. Yes, they weren’t two children playing, but rather a child and her pet playing, so to speak.
Daww
This actually makes their current relationship all the more sweet in my eyes. We already knew that Hakuya isn’t good at expressing himself with words and so resorts to actions. This we now know results from him taking the form of a dog in the past and living isolated from society (stronger emphasis on the latter). And we also knew his way of trying to comfort or cheer up Kobeni is to pat or rub her on the head, though this didn’t have much meaning to us other than to make her act cute and embarrassed. But now we know he does this because Kobeni did the same to him in his dog form when they were younger. And we all know that a little bit of rubbing and patting goes a long way to make any dog happy, so clearly Hakuya is just trying to return the favor from what he knows. But wow, it’s amazing how learning this little tidbit makes such a simple thing so much more endearing. I could just gush on and on about those two.
Supernatural Problems
I gotta fever… And the only prescription is cute anime.
The other big revelation is that Kobeni’s frequent fevers and weak constitution is a result of Hakuya giving her half of his “powers” to save her during their cliff accident. I like that the usual inexplicable health problems are now more or less explained away (here’s looking at you, Key AIDS), but understandably attributing it to supernatural powers is still a tad bit convenient. Anyway, the main concern is that obviously Kobeni’s body can’t handle housing even half of a Mitsumine’s powers, so one wonders if they’ll do anything to “extract” it in the near future (one also wonders how Hakuya managed to “split” his powers in the first place). Since said powers originate from Hakuya and the two are potentially getting married though, it’s easy to conclude that just perhaps this engagement might have something to do with this. Not to say that there aren’t any desirable qualities Kobeni possesses that might have made the Mitsumines and the Yonomori grandfather consider her as a suitable bride for Hakuya.
Unidentified Extras
Shirayuki can come across as rather convenient, but when I think about it, she doesn’t actually reveal too much about the show. The one thing she does make clear is that the Mitsumines aren’t human. And I suppose you could say she gave us a few more hints about Hakuya’s and Kobeni’s past in that way. But really, it’s nothing much more than what we already know. In fact, she leaves us with more questions than answers with her revelation that Hakuya gave Kobeni half of his powers. Does this make Kobeni sort of a demi-human now? And what exactly are these powers that would enable a human to survive falling off a cliff? I can understand the inhuman Mitsumines having a sturdier build than most humans, but how would they potentially transfer that trait to a human on the fly? Plus, it becomes even more confusing when we factor in these powers now having an adverse effect on Kobeni’s health after having saved her in the past.
Hakuya’s canine form.
About Sumairii
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
So THAT’s why little Kobeni has pink irises like Benio, but teenage Kobeni has purple irises of the same tint as Hakuya’s! 0_o
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
A link to manga author Cherry Arai’s blog:
http://cherry-c.sblo.jp/article/76187548.html
And animanga scan of Mikakunin:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4996430&postcount=254
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
The powers weren’t necessarily transferred during Kobeni’s fall from the cliff but when she lay badly injured at the bottom. There is her vague memory of something warm beside her. After that was done was when he went to get help. And I can see having half of his powers healing her then, but causing her to fall ill occasionally now. There are medicines that heal you when you’re sick but will have a detrimental effect upon your body if taken continuously. You could say that when she was injured the power he transferred to her was depleted in healing her, but now it’s not being used up, so it’s sometimes too much for her human body and those bouts of illness are the result. And during those bouts the power is once more reduced to a level her body can take until it builds up once more.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Exposition-Kaa-san pulled off her mission well, being cute and endearing and still mom-like. Maybe her purpose was to fill in Kobeni and Benio more than to fill in the audience with things we’d already been guessing, but that’s still an important function.
I really do like the way Kobeni and Hakuya are getting along better, tho. Having their relationship progress makes this a better show, instead of having to always hide everything, or having a lot of misunderstandings.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I hope they do more with Shiruyaki; she was the baller, indeed.
And she likes all my favorite sweets! Wonder if a skylion can fit into a youkai family? If that is what they turn out to be. I clearly heard the word, whereas Underwater choose to use “fairy”. Not pleased with that.
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
Hmm? No, Benio accused them of being Yousei, which is most generally translated as fairies, just as Underwater translated it. Shirayuki also said they’ve been called Mamono, Bakemono, Oni, and Mononoke.
Now, it’s entirely probable that they are something that would be referred to as Youkai, but no one has yet used the word in the episodes.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I was so sure I heard youkai, I cannot even claim some deafness on my part, as the hard k would have stood out. Time to break out the old hearing horn!
That being said, I’m quite pleased to be wrong, as yousei have some rich stories. And it really is one of the few words in the few words in the lexicon which actually is close to the word for faerie.
Full disclosure: tl;dr: I have a bit of a background in folklore/sociology and long ago had drummed into me that basically it is bad form to compare bits of folklore. You can start at some surface details being essential the same, but the deeper you get, the more pronounced the differences.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 167 comments
If they are youkai does that mean Kobeni is a half-youkai? Dragon Slayer, Vampire Hunter, Necromancer.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I went back and listened to the dialog, Mama is very much saying yousei and not youkai. But where youkai has received, as a word,much semantic drift. Yousei has some instances of referring to Western fae legends.
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
I don’t think Kobeni could become half-whatever just because of what Hakuya did to her. Her entire problem with being sick right now is because she’s human and the power is completely alien to her human body, after all. The power is in her and it’s affecting her, but that doesn’t make it hers, and it doesn’t change what she inherently is.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
That’s a very easy-going, carefree mother Mashiro and Hakuya have there. For an inspector, Shirayuki wasn’t what I expected since it’s someone with a huge secret, you’d think they’d be strict and harsh about keeping it. Benio can be kind of a ditz so it’s not all that troubling she took the reveal so easily.
So this probably means the Mitsumines powers aren’t limited to shape shifting. They can do a lot more. What’s on my mind is how come Kobeni’s grandfather didn’t react in a negative to them not being human instead of pairing his granddaughter up with one them. Naturally, one would expect the opposite.
POWUH: and Yaoi Fangirl~ with 2320 comments
Less Mashiro in this episode, which is definitely good. She was acting decent too actually, finally acting like a child after a while. It’s probably because of her mother, but that’s ok. She has a pretty cool mother too. I wouldn’t mind a mother like that. At least she’s not a religion fanatic
like mineLoving how the story progresses, as it actually touches the little details that were missed. And yaayyyy relationship development, this is slowly turning into my kind of hetero romance anime