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Perfect

Okay, so I just spent the past couple of days watching Sunrise’s classic pseudo-magical-girl half-hearted-yuri-paradise My-HiME anime. One lustrum has passed yet I found a long-forgotten waifu material that flew over my mind five years ago since I only just realized it now. She’s Natsuki fucking Kuga, that’s who! She has everything I consider as ideal waifu traits. Long black (blue?) hair, slender body, pair of ideal breasts that is not too humongous yet not as flat as English beer, sporty with attitude, slightly tsundere yet not Kugimiya Rie-level of overkill, and an overall aura of badassness. At the same time I realized this anime has a massive waste of ideal female traits and that also happens to be the same Natsuki fucking Kuga! Five years have passed and it’s just now I realized what has been haunting me in this half decade life of mine (at least concerning this series) and that night mare takes the form of lilies… metaphoric lilies… Yes, I’m talking about them LESBIAAAAAANSSSSS!!!

Pictured: Lesbians according to Japan

Now, I have to say that I don’t hate yuri (that’s lesbian in animumangonese). In fact, I love them! I love them so much it became my unhealthy obsession. Yuri is a wonderful thing! It’s the miracle of my pitiful torn by wars and chaos (thanks to the spicy food I ate for dinner last night). However just like Johnny Depp and public nudity, you can’t put good stuffs and apply them everywhere expecting the result to be perfection guaranteed. And the same applies to the yuri relationship involving aforementioned Natsuki Kuga.

Still perfect!

But before I ramble and lament to the uncaring god out there and Sunrise, I must give a brief explanation about Natsuki Kuga to those who just entered the world of otakudom or just woke up from vegetable state after 2007. She is the secondary heroine of My-HiME and she’s all kind badass. She drives motorcycle, she dons tight race suit, sometimes she doesn’t wear pantsu, she eats them mayonnaise, she’s a little reckless and she uses a pair of guns (pewpew!) as her weapon as well as a metal wolf. The last time a metal wolf was used, it was reserved only for the US president. In other words she’s some kind of high school girl version of… I don’t know, Natsuki Kruger maybe? She’s the perfect foil for Mai Tokiha, the main character, since Mai uses fire element and Natsuki uses ice element, Mai’s hair is orange and Natsuki’s hair is blue, Mai is emotional and Natsuki is calm and mysterious (yet she also can get emotional because she’s perfect like that), Mai’s breasts are humongous and Natsuki’s are perfect, and Mai dresses like abimbo and Natsuki dresses like a saint. My unbiased opinions on the two aside, they are perfect on to another assuming Mai is the secondary character and Natsuki hogs the entire spotlight. Throughout the story we see Natsuki’s ambition for revenge, her breaking down due to the harsh reality, and her struggle to regain her power. After much DRAMA and angst (and no-pantsu adventure), suddenly BAM! LESBIANS! The massive lily-scented threat came in the shape and form of Shizuru Fujino. She is the perfect ideal of Japanese yuri character. Calm, reserved, ladylike, and speaks in Kyoto dialect. She also has yandere tendency because when Natsuki appeared at first to reject her love, she broke down and unleash her tea-drinking Kyoto-dialect-speaking giant-bell-symbolic lily-like wrath. And it was not good… very not good. It’s ungood!

And now you’ve crossed the line, YOU FIEND!

What funny is, both Natsuki and Shizuru are both great characters. I have already showered Natsuki with my praises (which she bathes in while in bikini) but Shizuru by herself is also perfect. That psychopathic tendency and yandere traits are for me perfect and not to mention her calm demeanor. I can see perfectly why many claim her as their favorite character (even the cool guys at Sunrise). However the relationship between Shizuru and Natsuki is disastrous! The reason behind my verdict is down to two words: misplaced yuri.

Pictured: Something not misplaced

I know some of you NatsuShizu fanboys are screaming right now with pitch fork in one hand and fiery torch in mouth but my opinion is more absolute than Absolute Vodka (and also because opinion on internet… HAH! HAH, I SAY!) The revelation of NatsuShizu relationship for me feels like a hardcore rape… and it also looks like rape. Non-metaphoric rape is to be precise. Natsuki’s reluctance and the way Sunrise animated the scene (with kiss imagery that I afraid will fly to take my head away) are so bleak and creepy. It’s not Silent Hill creepy but closeted pervert creepy. There was totally NOTHING romantic about it. Yes, I know they have hinted Shizuru’s interest since the early episodes but it is nothing on the scale of the revelation. It’s just like saying ‘Hey, there’s the sea!’ and suddenly tsunami strikes. We all know tsunami strikes from the sea but we don’t expect looking at the sea we can know that such tragedy might happen… and not to mention that it’s a DISASTER! It is all kinds of wrong and it is all kinds of forced! In fact it reminds me of another yuri-fest that everybody adores yet I detest, Kannazuki no fucking Miko! I adore love between girl and girl (except if it involves a cup) but pseudo-rape is not my cup of tea. Even if in the end one of them realized her feeling I want my girls love free from forced feed of love! (On unrelated note, I just realized those four consecutive words that start with ‘f’ looks pretty aesthetic) I want them to bloom and nurture like beautiful lilies!

It just tastes much better

But being so full of force like a jedi knight is not my number 1 problem with NatsuShizu relationship. My main problem is the fact that they ignored the already established perfect and natural relationship between Mai and Natsuki. In the first half of the series, Mai and Natsuki, being foil of one another, have the perfect chemistry. You can see it with yuri goggles or nor mal friendship goggles and both still make sense! That shows how perfect their established relationship is. However with the entrance of Shizuru and Mai’s own version of DRAMA, their already established relationship suddenly vanished into thin air just like Shyamalan’s cinematic credibility! In the end we didn’t get to see the pair fight back to back or Mai’s breakdown when knowing Natsuki’s demise. It is something I long to see the most when marathoning the series and I just realized the reason why I felt disappointed when finished watching five years ago. I have grown accustomed and familiar with the antics and interactions between Mai and Natsuki and watching such perfect chemistry took a backseat burned buried massive flame of rage with untapped potential of a thousand suns from deep within my golden heart and silver soul!

This but replace came with RAGE and keep the yaranaika face in

That is why I was overjoyed when I stumbled upon My-HiME manga. The story is confusing and disjointed and the art is horrendous but I enjoyed for the sole fact that Natsuki develops based on how envisioned. I don’t expect her to fall in love with some pathetic sod of a character that is supposed to be the reader’s self-insert but anything is much better than the horror that is NatsuShizu in the anime. The manga still dropped several hints on Shizuru’s infatuation on Natsuki but it doesn’t go full retard by pulling forced love upon us. But what I like the most is the author kept the chemistry between Mai and Natsuki persists until the end of the story even putting at the honorable spot of the final showdown in the story’s climax. That is the reason why I prefer the asspull-filled manga to the anime.

Then again it’s made by the guy who brought us Extreme Breastfeeding Magic Element Warrior: The Manga

Once again, I don’t loathe NatsuShizu, in fact I love watching their bodacious yuri antics in My-Otome for a simple reason: it looks natural. Everything about the relationship between the two looks and feels better for me compared to the clusterfuck in HiME anime. Thus it cemented the fact that you need perfect set up and establishment method even for perfect things, such as yuri. Oh, and I’m also very well aware that NatsuShizu fanboys are quite… militant. I hope my post won’t resurrect the great forgotten evil that has been long sealed by our ancestors millenia ago.

AND I REFUSE TO GO DOWN EASILY!!!

Extra note: I just realized Natsuki kinda resembles Homura Akemi from Madoka Magica which unlike ShizuNatsu, I don’t have problem with her homusexuality (pun intended… homu) tendency with Madoka.

Her homuness never fails to amuse me