November 20, 2010
Kuragehime Ep5: A Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Yes, looks mean a lot especially as a first impression. As shallow as it sounds, it’s not surprising if some big shot corporate executive is going to listen more to to a fancy and stylish lady than to one who hasn’t looked like she’s bathed in weeks. You still need to make your statement the very moment you meet. It’s all about starting strong and ending strong, so looking like a hobo isn’t going to work no matter how brilliant your reasoning is.
It also helps to, you know, not freak the shit out when you haven’t even done or said anything yet. The Amars went their to protest and… well you’ve seen just how smoothly their grievances were aired.
"You call it madness, but I call it love" - I forgot who said this.
The apartment does look rather old and retro as Kuranosuke says. It leaks water everywhere and everything’s peeling off. Probably one of the reasons why the owner, after hearing of the redevelopment project, decided it was time to go with the flow and sell the property. This would obviously make everyone in the place homeless and, with very little resembling income and not wanting for the sisterhood to end with an eviction notice, are forced to attend a hearing on the matter and protest the plans.
The public meeting involves Shu, some powerful businessmen, concerned residents, shop owners and one very feisty/slutty corporate agent. I think we all know how this ended.
How they managed to survive this far is really just beyond me.
The reactions the Amars have to society at large every time are largely exaggerated and absurd, but for the most part I do think that’s precisely the point. It’s meant to be seen as an exaggerated psychological response to things that they deem to be feared and avoided, to highlight just how scarred they are from probable past trauma. It’s also meant to be absurd because it calls into question why they have such ridiculous, if not pointless, reactions to ridiculous things, and why they even share the same aversion to all the same things in the first place. Are these general aversions they have like an infectious disease or something?
I’m not one to judge them on why they became this way, but this episode more than those before it very much highlights just how debilitating this fear is. They came to the meeting wanting to air their side and try to sway support, but in the end they accomplished nothing but looking like fools in front of all the attendees. If there’s one immediate thing that’s going to be the first real hurdle in their attempt to defend their home and presumably their way of life,,they gotta find a way to fight for their cause without a preemptive retreat.
They came, were seen and were conquered
Drowning is self-loathing never helps.
I really don’t think Shu’s shallow or picky. He’s more like really, really dense. Always being termed a virgin by this point should have shown that he’s a workaholic career man with very little experience with women. He can’t recognize Tsukimi because he, for lack of a better term, doesn’t know how to really “look” at one. What I mean is that he doesn’t really know how to discern, recognize and familiarize himself with the opposite sex, something you only get from experience and not just by staying in your room looking at ledgers. Hell I don’t think he even looks at porn!
It’s easy to pile the hate on him for ignoring her but I don’t think it’s entirely his fault. He’s head over heels for her, and there’s no way in hell he’d just ignore her. He’s simply too inexperienced with women and the transformations they can make with good makeup and all to know how to look and how to recognize her. Perhaps it never occurred to him that a woman can both look rather gaudy and look like a goddess. You can, and in fact should, say the same about Tsukimi and the Amars.
Rally the troops!
With every episode it’s becoming easier to understand the inner workings of Tsukimi’s mind, while at the same time her character gets more complex with every psychotic break. She’s so easy to put herself down even in a misunderstanding, a classic reaction of people with really low self-esteem. I’m almost sure this isn’t the first time she’s done this when she felt “unseen” or “rejected”. Shu didn’t really reject or avoid her, but his ignorance caused her to once again believe that she’s living a fantasy of being beautiful stylish, only to believe that it was all pretentious. For a moment I thought that she had begun to see the beauty she can cultivate if she tried her best, but the episode showed just how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy her beliefs are.
A self fulfilling prophecy is a term many psychiatrists use to describe a belief people have about themselves that is not completely true or rather unreasonable, but they believe in it so much that they act almost instinctively to make it true, and thus this false belief ends up becoming true anyway. Tsukimi is living this vicious cycle. She believes in her ugliness and undesirability so much that she’s making herself manifest it physically by being something of an overall slob. She’s turning her own misguided ideas about herself into reality, even if it doesn’t have to be so. She’s not, any never was, ugly. She’s making herself ugly.
Shock and... awe?
It might sound shallow and superficial but it’s true: first impressions are important. If the Amars are going to succeed, they need to possess the courage. For this courage, they need to impress. To impress, they need to look the part. I’m actually extremely excited to see what they’d all look like after Kuranosuke’s gives them an epic makeover. Mayaya actually looks pretty good after her transformation. We already know Tsukimi looks like a real princess when given the chance, so I think everyone will surprise us post-makeover next week.
Also, am I the only one excited to seem what Banba looks like under that fro?
Medical Student vs. Anime 
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