Content Warning: This post will contain overt discussion and imagery related to suicide and hanging. Discretion is advised.
Spoilers for the entirety of Milgram by Deco*27.
INTRODUCTION
"Saying I love you but doing what I did, I know I have no right, crossed and covered in sin."
Hello! Hiya! Welcome! I hope you're doing well! I'm glad you took the time to check out my niche little corner on the world wide web! :)
This is technically my first post on this blog, so I guess technically as of this writing, everybody would be a new reader. Congrats! I set up this domain years ago back in high school because I had ambitions of making this a hub for analyses and reviews of all sorts, but that clearly never went anywhere. This place just laid dormant for years until now when I decided to pump this out.
But enough about me; let's talk about why you're actually here: Prisoner #006 of Milgram—Mahiru Shiina.
At the time of this writing, we're in the midst of Trial 3 of Milgram, and as the full truth of everyone's "crimes" finally come to light, it feels like Mahiru has been written off by a sizable portion of the fanbase. To be fair, it's certainly understandable why. After all, Mahiru is currently, well, dead, and thus, can no longer be voted on, and with many fans feeling this is their last chance to save their favorites from an uncertain fate, they have bigger fish to fry. However, the main culprit of this overarching sense of apathy is the fact that many fans just find her "crime" underwhelming. Compared to the speculation many built up, this just didn't live up to par for many people, and the reveal that rats were literal was so absurd at face value that this in itself became a meme. Combine all of that with the fact many people found her arc in the actual Milgram prison itself to be undercooked before she was killed off, and it makes for a character who unfortunately gets the reputation of "potential woman."
And honestly, I think that's a real shame. I really like Mahiru as a character. Alongside Kazui and Amane, she's actually one of my favorites among the cast. I have a soft spot for good-natured sweetheart characters who are kind of a mess, and I find the inherent tragedy of her situation to be really compelling. And trust me, when I first read the case file and learned that the rats were literal, I too was pretty confused, but the more I sat on it and really thought about what Mr. Yamanaka and the team were going for, the more I grew to like it. The music videos started making more sense and became richer, and everything about the character just started clicking.
While there are certainly criticisms that can be levied towards Mahiru's way, the idea that this character is a total wash whose "crime" is cartoonish farce with no real substance is such a disservice to what is actually here. I feel like there's a lot more going on here than most people care to give credit for, and that's really the main motivation behind this article.
All cards on the table: if it wasn't already obvious, I am pretty sympathetic to Mahiru's plight, and if I were to personally vote, I would very much go for a "forgiven" verdict. I definitely will be taking on a more charitable tone towards her here, but convincing you that Mahiru is worthy of being voted one way or another is not the primary goal here. If you come out of this feeling better about Mahiru as a person, cool beans, and if you come of this still not liking her, a bit unfortunate, but such is the nature of Milgram. However you feel about her, I just want to show people that there's a lot of cool things going on here and that her "crime" at least all comes together in a really neat way.
Be warned: this will be a lengthy piece. If long reads aren't your thing, no worries. Thank you for taking time out of your day to check me out at all anyways, and I hope you have a great rest of your day/night.
For the rest of you, indulge me, please. Let's talk about the story of Mahiru and her boyfriend…hmm…calling him "Mahiru's boyfriend" every time I need to refer to him throughout this whole thing would get kind of cumbersome, no? I really wish we got to learn his actual name. Bit of a shame, but we have to call him something, right?
Some fans do call him Kareppi—a portmanteau of "kareshi," the Japanese word for "boyfriend," and "-ppi," a cutesy Japanese diminutive. I think it's cute, and I can totally see that being one of Mahiru's pet names for him, so "Kareppi" it is!
CULTURAL CONTEXT: MUKOYOSHI
Before we even get into everything else, let's take a brief detour and unpack some cultural context. At first glance, it's easy for international fans to take one look at that case file and go "well, that's just silly." The arranged marriage, the plot to run away, the evasion of the authorities—it sounds like the sort of melodramatic contrivance you would find in an idealized Renaissance period piece romance sitting in your local bookstore's bargain bin. While there is certainly is a dramatic flair to this story, it has a lot more grounding in reality once we take a closer look.
The report makes it pretty clear that the Shiina family was one of great wealth and status and that Mahiru in particular was "raised to be the very picture of a sheltered, privileged young woman from wealth." Mahiru had very limited contact with boys, a point further emphasized in Question 17 of her Trial 2 interrogation in which she reveals that she went to all-girls institutions for her secondary school years.
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8OfoCX3nk |
The Shiina family had a pretty clear vision for how they wanted Mahiru to grow up. They had to keep her "sheltered." Mahiru herself says this much in Question 5 of her Trial 2 interrogation.
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8OfoCX3nk |
If she spent too much time with boys, she might be tainted—the horror! And if they're insistent about keeping her "sheltered" to the point she can barely spend time with male peers, do you really think they're giving her the rundown on sexuality? Of course not! Mahiru has to stay pure for the man they chose for her to marry one day.
Mahiru is an only child, as we learn in Question 11 of her Trial 2 interrogation. With just the one daughter and no male heirs to "carry on their legacy," the Shinnas are out of luck. No successor to pass on their assets and wealth to. No son to take on the mantle and grow their influence in elite Japanese society. No man to ascend the Shiina name to new heights.
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8OfoCX3nk |
Enter the practice of "mukoyoshi." There are those who are more well-versed in Japanese culture that I will link to at the end of this post if you wish to learn about it more in depth, but in short, "mukoyoshi" translates to "adopted son-in-law," and it's cultural shorthand for the patriarchal practice of wealthy families seeking out sons of other wealthy families to marry their daughters so that they can adopt them and have a "proper male heir" to inherit their business and assets. It's not a very well-known phenomenon outside of Japan, but it's a truly well-oiled machine over there that many large companies use to ensure their continued survival.
Mahiru's marriage to the guy her parents picked out for her was more than just out-of-touch meddling; it was them objectifying her and reducing her to a tool to secure their social standing. This is more than her parents just "not understanding her," and something like this would most likely not be magically resolved in one conversation. It is very possible that running away was one of the only feasible options Mahiru and Kareppi had to escape the mounting social pressure.
While traditionally the Japanese police would not invest that many resources into searching for a couple of college kids who are legally adults with no signs of foul play, we are talking about powerful business elites here. These are people with enough money and influence to throw their weight around and get their way. The police getting a little financial incentive to prioritize Mahiru's disappearance is far from the craziest thing in the world. Never mind the fact that Mahiru's missing person poster would be distributed all over the country. Even after the initial frenzy died down, the possibility of being found out would always be lingering in the back of Mahiru and Karrepi's minds. Running away like this is a serious upset to the status quo, and going back home like nothing happened just really isn't an option here.
Now, all of this would be generally understood by most of the Japanese audience based on everything we were given. That said, I don't really fault anybody for not really getting it—"mukoyoshi" isn't exactly common international parlance, after all. However, I feel that a base understanding of what "mukoyoshi" is and how it broadly contextualizes the dynamics at play here is key to making sense of everything else here.
Also, another thing I think is worth touching upon briefly—it seems like a lot of people are under the impression that Mahiru and Kareppi immediately ran off to Aokigahara and that they spent months out in the wilderness. However, to cite the report again, they were moving from "place to place," and the breaking point "came a few months into their desperate escapade." They were forced to take "refuge in the mountains" because of "dwindling resources." Mahiru and Kareppi were getting by as wanderers with whatever money they saved up from Mahiru's remaining allowance and Kareppi's part-time job, and things only dialed up to 11 when the wallet dried up and they couldn't afford to stay anywhere else. How long they were in Aokigahara is never specified, but given neither of them have any real survival experience whatsoever, it was certainly not "months." They didn't go into this from the jump expecting to hack it in the woods; it was simply them making the best of a bad situation.
Alright, now that we got that preamble out of the way, let's get this show on the road!
TRIAL 1
AUDIO DRAMA - LOVE IS MINE
Es walks straight into the first interrogation with Mahiru in the voice drama "Love is Mine," and right off the bat, Mahiru is oddly laid back and playful for somebody who is ostensibly on trial for murder. When asked whether she killed someone, she doesn't deny it, but she does use pretty wishy-washy language such as "I guess I did," "I suppose so," and "I can't really deny that." Instead, she seems more interested in talking about the latest issue of Rain magazine, raving about soap operas and shoujo manga, and really overstepping her boundaries with the teenage warden.
However, there is one thing that Mahiru takes very seriously in this voice drama: what love means to her. A nuance not conveyed super well in the most widespread translation of "Love is Mine" is that Mahiru refers to herself in the third-person throughout most of the voice drama. This is actually a habit she shares with fellow prisoner Muu; it's a quirk most often seen in young children who still haven't fully grasped Japanese personal pronouns, but it's not uncommon for some young women to use it in more informal settings to convey a certain cutesy charm. However, there are two specific instances in which Mahiru switches to the more formal personal pronoun "watashi:"
and:
Mahiru spends most of the interrogation going off on these odd tangents, but when she says that love gives her life meaning and that there would be no point in continuing on without it, she's being deadly serious. It's why she's so hesitant to definitively say that her love "killed" Kareppi, only ever tepidly agreeing with qualifiers such as "I guess?" after Es says it first. She acknowledges that there is most likely a correlation between the last few months of their relationship and Kareppi's tragic decision to take his own life, but her romance with Kareppi is the very thing that ignites the vibrant zest she has for life. Taking that away means going back to a life that's dull and meaningless. It's to relegate her to a zombie who just exists to be a pawn for her family's machinations. She needs to love…and if her love somehow led the person she cares most about in the world down the path he did…that can't be true.
Mahiru going on and on about how Es needs to "fall in love" and how it will "change their life" isn't just her speaking nonsense. From her perspective, love saved her otherwise empty existence. It is her trying to show the warden what she believes to be the answer to life. Insensitive to aroace people out there? Yes. But this is her truth she bares in the deepest parts of her soul.
Music Video - This Is How To Be in Love With You
"This Is How To Be in Love With You" (what a mouthful) is one of the surprisingly denser music videos in Milgram's catalog, especially for such an otherwise pretty straightforward character. Although this ostensibly cheery J-Pop number would typically suggest a breezy experience, its choice to make its main visual motif that of this magazine/online blog fusion complete with multi-sentence text blurbs means that parsing all of it can be a little daunting, especially with the language barrier. Thankfully, Rochi-sama has provided a pretty comprehensive translation of all the text of all the text on their personal blog. You can find the full piece here, but these are the translations I will be referring to when breaking everything down.
"This Is How To Be in Love With You" is not just the title of the song, but also the title of this imaginary article conjured up by Mahiru's subconscious, detailing the early days of her relationship with Kareppi, before they opted to run away and everything went south. Each "day" is in chronological order, recounting a specific moment Mahiru considers important in her journey of realizing her feelings and getting closer to the young man. However, the timeline is not a continuous day-to-day retelling that only takes place over the course of a little over two weeks. Instead, this is a condensation of what is at least a handful of months if not most likely a year or two. In Day 3, we see Mahiru in a light cardigan with just a white undershirt beneath with a lot of stark green vegetation in the background illuminated by this subtle, sunny glow, suggesting it's late spring, early summer. However, in Day 15, Mahiru is in a kimono doing her New Year shrine visit, indicating we're in the dawn of January. I don't know about you, but if there are only twelve days between these two events in temperate Japan, I would just be terribly bummed about how we as society screwed the Earth that badly, so several months it is!
Speaking of photos in this article, wow, do they really pop! Part of it comes down to Mahiru's excellent fashion sense; she busts out a new, stylish outfit every day from all sorts of aesthetics from the whimsy of a frilly, floral print dress to the classy, mature look of a sleek black dress. Girl is absolutely killing it. But part of it also comes to the actual composition of the photos themselves; you have the cartoony Mahiru superimposed onto photographs of real-world locations, making for an interesting contrast. Now, "This Is How To Be In Love With You" is not the first Trial 1 song to utilize this technique—Haruka's "Weakness" and Yuno's "Umbilical" also have instances in which the cartoon characters are juxtaposed with real world backgrounds—and it's possible this was a decision primarily driven by budget as it's something we don't really see done in other music videos after this point. With that said, the choice here somewhat emphasizes how much more real and vivid everything felt to Mahiru as she fell in love while also feeling this sense of dreamlike joy.
However, before we even get into the article proper, the song opens up with us in Mahiru's mind palace, represented as this little living room with classy orange wallpaper with simple, antique-looking furniture, most notably the rotary phone. Mahiru is flipping through a book as blue feathers fall down all around her before she looks up, starts blushing, and her irises morph into these pink flames. Mahiru has laid eyes on Kareppi for the first time and has fallen for him hard.
Befitting that these visuals are paired with the main chorus:
♩ Do you really think you know what love is? ♩
♩ If you do, let's just overheat together ♩
♩ The things that I only want to say to you, and the things that I want from you ♩
♩ Is love ♩
All of this really demonstrates just how much her life changed the moment she laid eyes on this boy and how much she let this romance consume her. This is further accentuated by this portion of the song being in C-major, a musical key that really evokes feelings of joy and bliss.
As the song transitions into the verse, we see the writeup for Day 1 and then Day 2, and it's on Day 2 where we learn that Mahiru has only recently arrived in Tokyo for university:
Mahiru as of being sent to Milgram is twenty-two years old, which is typically when students are in their fourth year, so Mahiru using the term "recently" here suggests that at least these first two days take place a few years before the tragedy. Now, given these entries are more general and depict activities that could really happen at any time as opposed the rest of the "article" that recounts specific events, I think it's most likely Days 1 and 2 are just broad representations of what college life was like for Mahiru her first couple of years and that she didn't really meet Kareppi until say, her third year. Regardless of how we interpret the nebulous timeline, the most important part is that these are supposed to take place before the fated mixer.
All of this is important to establish because as we read in the report, Mahiru was born in Hyougo prefecture and most likely grew up there, a place that is approximately 425 kilometers (or 264 miles for my fellow pretentiously unique Yanks) away from where she's currently going to school. This is her first time away from home. A chance to live without her parents' constant strict rules. She can finally do little things for herself, like be a regular at a coffee shop. Freedom at last!
And yet, in spite of all that, Mahiru doesn't actually sound all that happy in the lyrics themselves:
♩ I guess we can just say that this feeling is happiness ♩
♩ I can't stop feeling like there's something missing ♩
She's doing everything she should as a young college student out on her own, but she still feels hollow inside. She's kind of just going through the motions. She might have moments of happiness, but she lacks that sense of true contentment. Mahiru ends her writeup for the day joking about maybe finding love, but she quickly brushes it off as an impossibility. Why bother when you know that you're just going to marry some random guy your parents picked out for you?
So, we move onto Day 3: the day of the social mixer. Exciting! An event where people of all genders get to coalesce? Scandalous! She would never be able to get away with this at home. She dresses up all nice, ready to mingle, but she ultimately ends up by herself, just reading a book. Yet another activity on her bucket list that ends up feeling dull…then it happens. She sees Kareppi, and per her own words in the lyrics,
♩ I can't help myself because I want to see your cute confused face, I'm sorry ♩
Mahiru is so moved by this moment that the still photograph comes to life for the only time in this song to provide backing vocals. As you can probably surmise, this is a less abstract version of the events we saw at the beginning of the song: the first time the young lovers met.
The song cuts back to Mahiru's mind palace, where we see Mahiru mesmerized by a light blue feather floating to the ground before she chases after it. Obviously, this is Mahiru metaphorically going after Kareppi shortly after their eyes locked, helping bridge the gap between Days 3 and 4. It's quite fitting that Mahiru's subconscious depicts Kareppi as a bunch of light blue feathers. Feathers, after all, are often symbols of freedom, and light blue is the complimentary color to the bright orange that Mahiru is often associated with in most official Milgram material. Mahiru finds not only the person she feels finally completes her after floating through life not feeling super attached to anything, but she finds a sense of freedom. Just look at the lyrics that play during this scene:
♩ If you don't hug me, even our hearts will start drifting apart ♩
♩ I pretended to be a good girl, but really, I don't want to say "I'm okay" ♩
Kareppi is not some stuffy dude she's obligated to marry because the Shinnas need "a strong male heir to continue." He's a normal boy that she fell for completely of her own volition. She, at the very least, gets to choose her own love at this very moment, and it's glorious. All the idealistic love stories she found refuge in growing up where two people find each other because of pure love and not out of some social obligation. She's sick of just being the "good girl" and saying "okay" to whatever the powers may be. Being with Kareppi lets her break out of her social obligations, even if it's just for a moment, and feel like, well, just a girl in love.
As we transition back to the chorus, it's worth noting that the chords used in this verse were in the key of F-major, a key that often conveys this optimistic willpower waiting to burst out. You can feel this tension throughout the verse as it starts with primarily a guitar strumming chords, and then more instruments are added before we go back to the chorus in C-major, where that tension finally explodes with full instrumentation as we once again embrace that joyful bliss. This musical back-and-forth of emotions building up in the verse before exploding in the chorus continues throughout the rest of the song and really communicates Mahiru just getting more and more eager to spend more time with Kareppi before she's just overwhelmed by this intoxicating love.
Going onto Day 4, Mahiru has another fateful encounter with Kareppi at the bakery, and she takes it as a sign from the universe that this relationship is meant to be:
"I ran into the person I’m interested in at the bread shop. This has to be fate, right? In the end I ended up buying the same bread as he got, but I maybe don’t need this much… > < I wasn’t thinking about the calories."
This segues nicely into Day 5, in which Mahiru learns that Kareppi is actually quite the hobbyist runner. She makes the classic rom-com lead blunder of saying she's also into running even though she doesn't have a single athletic bone in her body, and now the two of them are going on runs together.
"Today I started talking to him by chance, and he told me that his hobby is running. Without thinking I took a chance where I saw it and told him 'I’m interested too!' so now we’re going to go running together. Even though I’m really bad at exercise…… I’ve never run so much in my life. Totally exhausted."
This on its own seems like relatively harmless behavior. It's a little misleading, perhaps, but this does present a great opportunity for both of them to bond, and picking up more healthy habits never hurts. However, we got to Question 20 of her Trial 1 Interrogation questions, and this behavior takes on a more dysfunctional light:
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fgSjiviAws |
Thankfully, Kareppi doesn't smoke, so no harm, no foul there, but the fact that she would be so willing to throw herself into an unhealthy habit like that if it meant getting closer to the one she loves speaks to how deeply enmeshed her sense of self is in this romance. Her own physical health doesn't seem to matter if it means she can be this picture-perfect devoted girlfriend with a love story that rivals the best dramas.
Days 6 and 7 are up next, and so is the second half of the chorus, this time with lyrics. The sixth day shows us Mahiru's first day as a part-timer at a local flower shop. Mahiru isn't exactly one who wants for money given her background, but life is more exciting than ever now, so why not give it a shot? It also helps that a special someone walked by the window during her shift. Now there's even more of a reason to give this job her all. How perfect it is that she's carrying sunflowers of the pink, red, and white variety in her right hand and yellow marigold flowers in her left hand—flowers that all represent romance, passion, and optimism.
"I started a part-time job at the flower shop I’ve been really interested in. Would you believe it, the person I’m interested in walked past. I wonder if he’ll come in someday. I’m now even more excited about going in to work. Not just that, even. Every day is exciting."
Day 7 shows us Mahiru on her day off, indulging in the latest release of one of her favorite romance authors. Before, Mahiru liked the romance genre because it depicted an idealized lifestyle she thought she could never have, but now she appreciates it even more because she actually gets to live it.
As sweet as these two write-ups seem, let's go back and take a look at the lyrics that accompany them:
♩ Giving you love to the point of pulling you down ♩
♩ It's just because I still get worried, please forgive me ♩
♩ Even when I test you, even the times we do the breakup ritual, ♩
♩ Is because I love you ♩
And this is where more of those cracks start to seep their way to the surface. Kareppi is Mahiru's first love—her first taste of something she thought could only ever exist in fiction. And because of that, she seems to be unable to let go. It's a love where Mahiru herself admits she could get so overwhelming that there were times where Kareppi had no space to breathe. She justifies it as her being a worried, doting girlfriend—the sorts she probably finds in the very romances she idealizes so much. But it doesn't change the dysfunction of it all.
Now, the line "Even when I test you, even the times we do the breakup ritual" is interesting because many interpret it as an indication that Mahiru utilized the manipulative tactic of fake breakups that many naive youths do as a "loyalty test." And for the longest time, I too interpreted the line as such. But as I gave the thought further inspection, something about it felt off. While there are many allusions to Mahiru being possessive, obsessive, and overbearing, this is the only time breakups are ever alluded to. And given how Mahiru's whole motif is loving her boyfriend to the point of "suffocating him to death," something about her intentionally trying to put space between them or even implying she doesn't love him anymore felt unlike the rest of her character, even as one of her "relationship tests." No, instead I think this more likely suggests that Mahiru is so clingy and obsessed that even simply parting ways for a little bit feels like a full-on breakup and that Mahiru can get pretty demanding about monopolizing Kareppi's time.
This reading flows well into the nice verse of the song, whose first half takes us back to Mahiru's mind palace. Now, using the logic that the first mid-journal splice was supposed to take place between Days 3 and 4, it follows that this second mid-journal splice also takes place between Day 7 and Day 8, meaning Mahiru and Kareppi still aren't officially together yet. Despite that, we see Mahiru all over that rotary phone, calling him up before slamming it down in frustration, and based on the lyrics here:
♩ Ring ring, I'm calling you in the middle of the night ♩
♩ Forcing you to wake up, and I say "Good Morning!" ♩
♩ But I fall asleep before you, I really feel bad you know? ♩
It seems like she's calling Kareppi in the dead of night, leaving all sorts of messages on his phone, and getting upset that he doesn't seem to be responding. That's a little intense for any relationship, let alone one still at the stage where the relationship isn't even clearly defined yet.
Mahiru puts her head into a pillow she's holding, dejected that she has gotten no response, only for her to later be on the phone again. Her expression is more weepy compared to before. With these two scenes come these lyrics:
♩ We can both feel lonely sometimes, but wonder if you'll get angry soon ♩
♩ I'm going to start relying on you if you're kind to me, so please forgive me, thanks! ♩
The framing here makes me think that Kareppi actually picked up this time, and this is roughly what Mahiru said to him. She's relieved that her calls are finally being returned and is trying to apologize for blowing up his phone. Her singing "wonder if you'll get angry" soon does have me wondering if this isn't the first time the two had an incident like this, but the way she says that she'll keep "relying" on him if he continues to be kind stands out especially. This isn't the only time Kareppi's kindness and how much it means to Mahiru has been brought up. The case file report states "…he was such a kind soul. Because that's why she loved him so much." In Question 19 of her Trial 2 interrogation, she feels like the most apt way to describe his personality is "kind:"
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8OfoCX3nk |
Even in her admittedly poor taste joke back in the "Love is Mine" voice drama, she says Es "might die" if they're too kind to her, indicating that kindness is the trait she values most in a partner. Most people want their partners to be kind, of course, but it makes sense that Mahiru seems especially hyperfixated on this trait. Her family situation doesn't exactly beget parents who are super warm and friendly. And take a look at her response to Question 12 of her Trial 1 interrogation:
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fgSjiviAws |
Sure, she's social and bubbly now, but the fact that she describes "talking to other people" as a recent hobby suggests she kept to herself a lot growing up and that she probably didn't have a lot of close friends. Is Kareppi one of the first, if not the first person, who showed her a real sense of warmth and kindness that she felt like she was missing her whole life? Is this perhaps the reason she never wants to be without him ever again?
Moving to the second half of the verse, not only do we get Day 8, but we also get a new set of lyrics that continue building on the verse's narrative thread of poking at Mahiru's character flaws:
♩ We fought sometimes, I was happy to get hurt ♩
♩ Let's have matching pain, this sickness is pretty bad ♩
Arguments happen in relationships; weathering them is almost a rite of passage of sorts for couples. This girl's reaction to them, however…is odd. These aren't typically happy occurrences, and yet she was "happy to get hurt in them." It's an abnormal response unless your idea of what a relationship looks like is informed mostly by romance media, a genre in which big arguments are often followed up by even bigger, climatic reconciliations. Of course Mahiru would love them if she went into them expecting big emotional payout in the end where she and Kareppi would get even closer in the end. The "matching pain" they feel in the moment, the "sickness," it all just means they will love each other more at the end of the day.
Resuming our attention back to the visual components, Day 8 is so important that it gets not one, but two photo entries. It's the day Mahiru and Kareppi finally talk about their feelings and officially become an item.
"I’m waiting for him until his part-time job is over. It’s a bit cold at this time of night, but I don’t mind at all. After all, I have something I absolutely have to tell him."
"In the middle of the night at the park, we talked with each other for hours. While talking to him, though, it felt like no time had passed at all. You’re wondering what the result was……? That’s a secret. You can probably tell the answer just by looking at my face though, right?"
They have their first real date on Day 9. The first place they go together after Mahiru gets together with the guy who represents everything her parents are not is a bar. Not exactly an environment befitting of a "sheltered, privileged young woman from wealth" now, is it? Kareppi can't hold his liquor while Mahiru takes it all like a champ, which is kind of cute, but wow, is it an image her parents would find deplorable:
"It’s my first time going on a date to a bar, so my heart was pounding. I found out today that he’s actually not very good with alcohol. Or actually, maybe it’s just that I’m strong? He was super cute even while drinking himself unconscious!"
Paired with this entry are the following lyrics:
♩ This is a claim of responsibility ♩
♩ From the two of us with matching love ♩
Having Mahiru sing a "this is a claim of responsibility" while she drinks a beverage literally named "Corpse Revival" is a little obvious, don't you think?
Day 10 at first seems pretty unassuming, with Mahiru getting a bit of a touch up at the salon, even though she admits that Kareppi isn't the most observant when it comes to those sort of things. She does give a special shoutout to her beautician, citing her as her advisor in regards to all things love:
"Can’t go without my regular maintenance! ……he’s not the brightest, so hasn’t noticed though. The beautician I go to is actually my advisor when it comes to love too. She’s taught me so much……"
What's a hair appointment without the talks about life and such with the stylist? No, where things get really interesting is Mahiru's answer to Question 2 of her Trial 1 interrogation:
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fgSjiviAws |
There's nothing wrong with being friends with your hair stylist, of course, but I do find it interesting that she's the person Mahiru thinks of as that one close confidant she can talk to about anything. This just further highlights how lonely Mahiru really is to me. She doesn't have a fellow peer she's close with that can truly consider her "best friend." Perhaps another reason why she latches on to Kareppi as hard as she does here?
On Day 11, we're treated to an entry detailing Mahiru and Kareppi's date at Suga Shrine, the filming location of a movie they both really like. What movie she's referring to is never specified, but it must be a romance movie as Mahiru also notes that the two of them even have similar taste in movies. With just how much Mahiru loves romance movies, you can only imagine just how much more connected she feels to him.
"We went to one of the filming locations for a movie we both like! This sort of thing can only happen in Tokyo huh! It really must be fate that even our taste in movies lines up. I feel like a totally different person to before I met him……"
Day 12 is another big milestone for the couple, as it marks the first time Mahiru goes to Kareppi's house. Things are really moving along now:
"I was invited to his house for the first time. It was my first time going to a man’s house, I was so nervous I didn’t eat anything all day…… I don’t actually remember much!"
This takes us to the bridge leading to the final verse of the song, but before that, let's take another moment to look at the rest of the lyrics for this reprise of the chorus:
♩ Wanting to know everything about you, but wanting to die because it can't come true ♩
♩ It's all because of love ♩
♩ I suck at pretending to smile ♩
♩ But see! I feel great because of you ♩
♩ The nights that I don't want to say goodbye, me being embarrassed because it's you ♩
The song up to this point has been so much about the budding romance between Mahiru and Kareppi and the ostensible sweetness of it all that the reminder that Kareppi is dead and that a part of Mahiru longs for death because of it. The time she spent with Kareppi was the one time in her life that she felt like she didn't have to perform happiness because she was just genuinely happy, and now the person who showed her that true joy is possible in her seemingly bleak world is just…gone. It's quite the swerve, and the song moves past it to go back frolicking in Mahiru's obsessiveness, but how is it any different from how Mahiru was acting during the interrogation? Playing up this cutesy character who kept prattling on about love, only for the more melancholic side to bubble up for a brief moment before moving on like nothing happened.
We're once again in Mahiru's mind palace as we get into this bridge, and here we see Mahiru slowly grasping onto bars before it's revealed that what was originally presented as just a fancy wallpaper is actually a cage. She looks beyond its confines for a moment with this pensive look on her face. Why present this mid-journal splice right after she goes to Kareppi's house for the first time? Why only now is she cognizant of what the cage actually is? While Mahiru has always been aware that she was invetiably going to get married to some guy she didn't care about post-graduation, now that things are really moving along with Kareppi and she wants to be with him for the rest of her life, she's really starting to feel just how restrictive her role as a Shiina daughter really is. Before her emotions were so numbed that she could just float by without much thought, letting fiction compensate for how empty she truly felt. But now that this love is real and it seems to be actually going somewhere, she's waking up to just how she doesn't even have the agency to decide who she loves if she continues to just live by her parents' wishes. Now more than ever, she wants to stop being the "good girl" who is just "okay."
As the truncated verse starts again, Mahiru looks back, and her face contorts into this catlike expression before she pounces into the pile of blue feathers on the couch. Much like how a cat suffocates a bird with an almost playful glee, so does Mahiru do to Kareppi. However, in doing so, Mahiru recedes further into the cage, leaving both of them trapped. If Kareppi is meant to symbolize freedom and a path different from the one she was groomed into just because girls "can't carry the family legacy," why are they both still held captive? As much as Mahiru wants to believe she's getting her fairytale "happily ever after," the truth of the matter is that the wedding is still impending. As rebellious as the act of running away was, it was a decision still defined by the cage that was carefully curated for twenty-two years. Mahiru's family circumstances were always an unspoken presence that drove them to the extremes that eventually led to Kareppi's death.
Following this scene up with Day 13 as we head into the chorus for the last time only builds on the inner tension that's bubbling with Mahiru. Taking a bit of a break from the recent onslaught of couple activities, this entry has Mahiru attending a relative's wedding. She writes how as a little girl, she's always dreamed of getting married to the person she loves and how that's no longer "just" a dream.
The important nuance here is "person she loves." Mahiru knew since she was a kid that she was going to be married off, so a wedding was always in the cards for her. However, a wedding built on actual love? Maybe it is possible. So long as Kareppi is by her side, love can concur all. Her family wouldn't approve, but perhaps with a little ingenuity…hmm…
Day 14 is just a cute entry about Mahiru and Kareppi having a date at an outdoor cinema, but Day 15 stands out. Mahiru and Kareppi are starting the new year off right by, of course, heading to a shrine to pay their respects and wish for good fortune. What Mahiru wishes for in itself isn't surprising, but it's the way she words it:
"An outdoor cinema date with him under the stars. How stylish! A French film I like was screening that I really, really wanted to see, so I begged him to come too. A girl really is at her cutest when she’s in love."
"Please don't let anyone else get in our way." She's talking as if she's about to pull off something big. Something that's going to pit her and Kareppi against the world.
At last, we get to the final day in this "article:" Day 16. Here, we see that Mahiru has decided to surprise Kareppi with this huge meal featuring all his favorites:
There is a lot of food on the table here, and all of it is very elaborate. This is clearly a very decadent meal, almost set up as if this is the last time they expect to eat this well in a long time. Mahiru is wearing the same purple cardigan she's been wearing in all her mind palace segments in this song, and it's the same outfit we see all worn out later in her Trial 2 song "I Love You."
I think all of you have caught on by now to what I think these last handful of days have been building up to: the plot to run away. Mahiru will fight for her happy ending with Kareppi no matter what, even if it means going against everything she's known up to this point.
We go to Mahiru's mind palace one last time with a final reprise of the chorus. Mahiru is sleeping peacefully on the couch, but the atmosphere is dreary. The once vivid colors have been considerably washed out, and the feathers are just scattered all over the floor, completely still.
Mahiru rises from her slumber, confused and looking for something. As we see her look about, a single blue feather floats to the ground. Mahiru turns around, taking notice of this. Her face morphs into absolute horror.
Recall this excerpt from her case file:
…There was only her and him in this world. That was all she needed. They huddle together inside a cave, and fall asleep.
When Mahiru awakened, he was not lying next to her. Mahiru panicked, afraid that he had run away without her. She hurried out of the cave, and there, she found him dead, having hung himself from a large tree nearby.
What we just saw was an abstract recreation of that morning. Just as "This Is How To Be In Love With You" started with the first time Mahiru laid eyes on Kareppi, it ends with the final time she ever saw him.
TRIAL 2
AUDIO DRAMA - LOVE IS [UN]DEAD
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Talk about a tone switch up.
"Head lacerations. Bruising all over her body. Left anterior compression fracture. A sprained neck. Fractured ribs. Further fracturing to the left arm.
And furthermore… this may be outside of my profession, but her mental health is deteriorating as well," is how Shidou describes Mahiru's condition after Kotoko's assault on her in his Trial 2 voice drama "Aesculapius." Mahiru is in such a dire state that she needs a wheelchair to get around. She's so genuinely traumatized by what Kotoko did to her that Es gently touching her shoulder is enough to trigger an anxiety attack.
And yet all of this is apparently nothing to Es' rejecting her ideals with an "unforgiven" verdict and the subsequent mental torment of mysterious voices in her head doubting the sincerity of her love.
Mahiru comes into "Love is [Un]Dead" so defeated. You can hear it in her voice. Ms. Miho Okasaki does a great job as Mahiru in general, but here she just sounds so broken down and dispirited in a way that's genuinely hard to listen to at times. She barely even refers to herself in the third person here, only doing it once to make a crack at her own self-perceived lack of intelligence:
Otherwise, she sticks to the more straightforward personal pronoun "watashi." No more cutesy, goofball facade. Mahiru is just saying it as it is now.
Mahiru is now at a crossroads. On one hand, she's starting to openly grapple with the fact the way she showed her love may have contributed to Kareppi's suicide. On the other hand, she just can't entirely let go of her form of love.
Mahiru knows something is wrong. Healthy relationships just don't end the way they did for her and Kareppi. However, she legitimately seems unable to fully grasp what she did wrong. From her perspective, she was just doing what every other girlfriend does.
Everybody else is allowed to fall in love, but if she does it, it's wrong and ends in death. So, what? She has to go back to accepting a humdrum life where everything is decided for her and nothing really matters? To live the rest of her life essentially dead on the inside? It may be selfish, but this is the only way she knows how to truly feel alive. A world where she's not allowed to love is a world in which the line between life and death is meaningless.
Of course, the problem is not love in itself but rather the way she dysfunctionally expressed it. However, when your identity and your reasons to wake up in the morning are so deeply entrenched in love and romance, the mere prospect of taking them away feels like an attack on the self. And in an institution as draconian as Milgram where the most uncharitable interpretations of who you are as a person are constantly blasted into your mind with no reprieve, it really does something to the psyche. Mahiru not separating her toxic behaviors from her love itself despite knowing what it led to is very much a "one step forward, one step back" kind of move, but given her current state, realistically, what else was she going to do? She is the lover who doesn't know how to love, and that fills her with a deep self-loathing.
However, despite the physical and mental anguish she is currently undergoing, she doesn't hold any ill will towards anyone. Terrified and traumatized by Kotoko as she is, she just completely forgives Kotoko, accepting that the fang of justice did what she felt like she had to and that it couldn't be helped. She even still affectionately calls her "Kotoko-chan," and even still wishes her "happy birthday" (whatever that means in this temporal snarl of a setting) in her final Timeline conversation:
As much as she disagrees with many aspects of Es' judgment, she still respects them for making their call at the end of the day, and she encourages them to push through it all and keep working hard. Whatever judgment they make, she'll accept it for what it is.
Part of why she forgives Kotoko and Es is because she just strives to be a kind and accepting person like that. She affirms this much in Questions 6 and 18 of her Trial 2 interrogation questions in which she says she's not one to hold grudges and she doesn't like being resentful:
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8OfoCX3nk |
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| Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8OfoCX3nk |
But part of it is something a little deeper. Let's look at the wording she uses when talking about why she accepts what Kotoko and Es did without judgment. In regards to Kotoko, she says the following:
And in regards to Es:
Mahiru sees that Kotoko and Es are doing what they believe in even if it makes them social pariahs among everyone else and demonstrates a deep level of reverence for that sort of integrity. Now, I can't take full credit for this observation as it was ContributionShot7382's Reddit post that planted this seed in my head and honestly made me really think more deeply about Mahiru's motivations for everything she did in the first place, but does Mahiru see parts of herself in them? Mahiru had a relationship that her parents and the rest of high class society would have never accepted, and instead of buckling under the pressure, she rebelled and ran away. It doesn't matter that most people don't understand, so long as you stay true to what you believe in until the end. Es and Kotoko especially are opting to do what they believe in even if everyone else hates them for it, and with the exception of maybe Amane, there really isn't anyone else in the cast who understands that better than her.
Music Video - I Love You
Now, we get into one of my favorite songs in the entire Milgram project: "I Love You." The music video starts us off with the grisly sight of the bottom half Kareppi's hanged corpse dripping with water. As the camera pans up, we see a rundown, eerie merry-go-round in the background with an oppressive, purple sky looming behind it. The video then cuts to a panning shot of a disheveled Mahiru looking to the ground below, completely despondent. Paired with this is an off-key electronic bass that is accompanied by a windy-sounding synth and some percussion, all of which gives the musical timbre a thin and discordant character. The chords the bass is hitting are in a minor key this time, specifically C-minor, giving everything this overarching sense of tragedy, loss, and regret. The ride has come to an abrupt stop, and all we're left to sit in is Mahiru's overwhelming grief.
Alongside all of this are the first two stanzas of this verse:
♩ Clothes Food Shelter + Love and Miss you ♩
♩ “See you next week?” sounding in cadence ♩
♩ The meaning of life while guilty, I can’t even breathe anymore ♩
♩ My lethal weapon: “This is how to be in love with you” ♩
♩ It’s ok for everyone else but not for me ♩
♩ Unfair and stuck between in love and love ♩
♩ Kiss good-bye to this feeling cuz it’s too heavy? I can’t, no way no way no way ♩
Not only is Mahiru facing the reality of Kareppi's suicide and the fact he's not coming back, but like she was in the voice drama, she's also wrestling with the fact that the very thing that made her feel like a full person and not just a means to an end has been deemed wrong. Apparently, she's so bad at something seemingly innate for everybody else that she "killed" her boyfriend. Why can't she do this right? Why is it okay for everyone else and not for her?
Mahiru lets out a sigh of pure exhaustion and then wistfully walks up to a dilapidated, rotting couch. In front of this sofa sits a small wooden table, and as the camera cuts to a more focused shot of it, we see that on top of it lays a shattered tea set with occasional splashes of blood. The wooden floors of the merry-go-around this table sits on has sploshes of unkempt, overgrown moss all over the place. This sacred place that once represented all the good times Mahiru and Kareppi shared together is now in utter disarray. Where did it all go wrong? Was it always this way?
Mahiru continues to rap, giving us our final two stanzas of this first verse:
♩ Sigh... No appetite, I can’t sleep, my hair’s a mess ♩
♩ What am I supposed to do now? If you won’t tell me, I can’t be me ♩
♩ Clothes Food Shelter - Love and Miss you ♩
♩ This adorable, earnest, sincere ♥ ♩
♩ Is bleeding, wailing, this is the end ♩
♩ What you trampled is my, “This is how to be in love with you” ♩
Es and these mysterious voices keep telling her that how she conducted herself throughout her relationship with Kareppi really hurt him, and she can very clearly see that, but nobody is actually telling her what a healthy form of love looks like. Without any constructive feedback, it really does just feel like the world is stamping on her heart and saying everything she lives for is wrong at the darkest moment of her life where all she can do is sob and wail.
We now see that Mahiru is lying on the couch. Her eyes come to a close as she yearns for better times before they open. Suddenly, the tea set is magically repaired, and the table is as good as new, revealing its true glossy white finish. Even the merry-go-round seems to be back in service again as those moss-free wooden floorboards look shinier than ever. Not too much time is spent lingering on this display as we cut to somebody firing a party popper. The person holding it appears to be a young-looking guy, and while the fit leaves something to be desired, he has this warm expression on his face. For the first time, we see Kareppi's face. Despite him being a central figure in the narrative of "This Is How To Be In Love You," his actual physical presence was conspicuously scare, only getting a shot of his arm at most. In a song that tried to circumvent addressing the tragedy, his absence in retrospect makes a painful amount of sense. Trial 1 Mahiru was still somewhat in a state of denial about the true emotional impact of what happened, representing her love as an abstract pile of feathers is a way to continue distancing herself from that pain. She could just focus on how she felt when their relationship was still in its prime. However, now that Mahiru is starting to be emotionally honest about what actually went down, she can actually face the full person that Kareppi was.
The first thing Kareppi does after firing the party popper is gently caress Mahiru's head. Mahiru looks like she's about to burst into tears of joy. She's been whisked back to how things were before they reached the breaking point of their escape, and here Kareppi is, expressing the very same warmth and earnest kindness that made her so intensely attracted to him in the first place. She immediately wraps him in a hug. The sky is this bright pink and everything has this dreamlike visual filter to it. Life couldn't be better for Mahiru; love is quite literally in the air.
It's fitting that this is where the song takes a 180 in genre. Gone is the rap with an uncomfortable edge to its instrumentation; instead, we pivot to to this techno J-Pop song," with a little bit of chiptune mixed in to give it that amusement park flair. The instrumentation has such a joy to it with these harmonious synth instruments, and we even shifted to the key of C-major, which not only evokes that blissful joy we heard in the chorus of "This Is How To Be In Love With You," but as the parallel key to the C-minor key used in the previous verse, really emphasizes the duality of what Mahiru is feeling right now: the regret of how everything turned out yet the deep yearning to go back to exactly how things were.
Speaking of which, let's take a look at those lyrics for the first half of this chorus, shall we?
♩ This can’t go on, something’s got to give, I even love saying the words, “I love you” ♩
♩ My emotions are out of control, that’s inconvenient? I don’t care! ♩
♩ Tell me, oh tell me why, won’t you just accept me? ♩
Here we have Mahiru acknowledging that her love may very well be intense and obsessive. However, she just feels so deeply that putting a clamp on it feels like waiting for something to break. Why won't Es and the audience accept her for that?
Kareppi scoops up a small piece of cake and prepares to lovingly feed it to Mahiru. There is this adorable still of the young couple, and as the camera lingers on it, we see these animated kanji characters pop onto the screen as the corresponding lyrics are sung:
♩ 大大大だってすきすき ♩
♩ 大大大だってだいすき ♩
♩ 大大大だってすきすき ♩
The official localization translates this as the following:
♩ Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love ♩
♩ Mon-mon-monstrous, cuz I love you so much ♩
♩ Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love ♩
What's particularly noteworthy is the repetition of "大," or "dai" (pronounced most similarly to the English word "die") if we were to romanize it. This roughly translates to "big" or "grand," so between the character showing up on the screen several times and Mahiru singing it over and over again, it really sells how "grand" and overflowing Mahiru's love for Kareppi really is. A love so grand that it's almost "monstrous" in scale is certainly a creative way to convey that in English.
Mahiru finally gobbles up the piece of cake, and with that, we have the final line of the chorus:
♩ A monstrous dilemma!!! ♩
Or in the original Japanese:
♩ 大問題！！！♩
With one last repeat of the term "dai," Mahiru turns her attention back to the dilemma that defines the narrative tension of this song: wanting to go back to the rambunctious love she shared with Kareppi and coming to terms with the fact he's gone and the way she loved may have been really toxic in hindsight.
An electronic siren blares, leading into the bridge. The song takes on a more R&B flair here, with that electronic sax, the sweet synth, and those melodious voice samples filling the texture. Topping it all off is Mahiru scatting about. While that all goes on, we're presented with a white silhouette of the merry-go-round in full operation. Occasionally, however, the silhouette is filled images of the youths being happy and eating cake together, and in those moments, the entire merry-go-round starts to distort. It's as if Mahiru is trying to reach for those happy memories, but something about them is not quite clear. It brings to mind that one line in the case file:
These past few months together, what were his expressions like? She could not remember.
Is Mahiru going through her recollection, looking for signs something was off the whole time? Is the mere thought that she may have even made him uncomfortable in any way enough to undermine the soap opera romance she built of them in her head? Is that while the song momentary feels so downtrodden?
No matter. We go back into the next verse, and it's a rap again. However, this time, the tangy electronic bass is swapped out for a noticeably quieter deep bass, and the mood is pretty upbeat and cheery as the melody remains in C-major. Mahiru and Kareppi look at each other hand-in-hand before Mahiru takes the lead in a dance that has them spinning together like they themselves are the merry-go-round. With all this are the following lyrics:
♩ I don’t need anyone else, as long as I have you ♩
♩ I could do anything as long as you smiled, I actually believed that ♩
♩ The happiness we tightly bound up and suffocated, is no longer here ♩
♩ If I could see you again, I wonder, what would I say to you and how? ♩
Whereas the "you" in previous parts of the song referred to Es and the viewers, Mahiru is now speaking to her departed lover. She reflects on how she sincerely believed that she didn't need anything else in the world so long as she had Kareppi by her side. Of course she felt assured enough to leave the wealth and status of her birthright behind; so long as she had her sweetheart smiling right by her side, she would be the happiest girl in the world. Any struggle that came their way was just an opportunity for them to become even closer; it's how it worked in all the stories she read, after all. However, what seemed like happiness at the time may have actually been suffocating. Not only was it suffocating in the sense it was emotionally stifling, but it was physically suffocating in that they were literally languishing in the woods by the end of their journey. Mahiru's love was not enough in the end, and all she can do now is think about what she could even say to make it up to him.
Once again, that siren blares, and as Mahiru does a reprise of the first stanza, we get a visual of Mahiru and Kareppi actually riding the merry-go-round properly. Each on a separate horse, the two of them gleefully lock eyes with each other. The background then shifts from fantastical, dreamlike pink-hued carousel to the grisly dark purple-hued Aokigahara. The two of them now look unkempt and wearied. Kareppi still has a subtle smile, but his eyes reveal a more wearied expression as he glances at the ground below. Mahiru's expression, however, is completely unchanged. So lost in her own fantasy world, Mahiru cannot see what's directly in front of her: that Kareppi is increasingly unhappy and that the situation the two of them are in is incredibly bleak. No money, no food, and no real way to walk it back. What was once a daring act of young love has turned into nightmare, but Mahiru seems completely oblivious to it, to the detriment of both Kareppi and herself.
Now the siren blares again, and we get a reprise of this stanza:
♩ Clothes Food Shelter - Love and Miss you ♩
♩ This adorable, earnest, sincere ♥ ♩
♩ Is bleeding, wailing, this is the end ♩
♩ What you trampled is my, “This is how to be in love with you” ♩
Paired with this are Mahiru and Kareppi walking through the forest barefooted, their upper halves cut off by the frame. Kareppi stops dead in his tracks, which eventually prompts Mahiru to pause as well. Cut to a shot of Mahiru turning back and looking at Kareppi with a concerned expression, and that siren rings out yet again.
The song transitions back to the chorus, and thus, back to that techno J-Pop sound, though not quite yet at its full instrumentation. We see Kareppi from his backside on his knees trembling before we cut to his front side where we see him dragging his nails across the grass looking as if he's on the verge of death. Here, we get a reprise of an earlier stanza of the chorus, but now that this part of the song is addressed to Kareppi instead of the viewers, there is a slight difference:
♩ This can’t go on, something’s got to give, I even love saying the words, “I love you” ♩
♩ My emotions are out of control, that’s inconvenient? I don’t care! ♩
♩ Tell me, oh tell me why, are you not here anymore? ♩
Now that the song is back at full instrumentation, we got back to that dreamlike pink wonderland, only this time, Mahiru is the only one who's fully cleaned up while Kareppi still looks haggard and ragged. Seeing her boyfriend in such distress, Mahiru gets a brilliant idea: she's going to nurse him back to health with a nice, sweet dollop of cake. Just like Kareppi showed her so much love and kindness again and again from accepting her clingy possessiveness to understanding her family situation to even running away with her, now it's Mahiru's turn to give back in Kareppi's time of need. She gets cuts a piece of cake to feed him, but it's noticeably larger than the one Kareppi gave her earlier. Another siren sounds out, and with all that are the following lyrics:
♩ Saying I love you but doing what I did, I know I have no right, crossed and covered in sin ♩
♩ My love, it scored an own goal, destroyed my love and me with its weight ♩
♩ Tell me, oh tell me why, can’t I just do it right ♩
Mahiru may not completely understand what exact things she did wrong, but one thing is becoming clearer in her mind: somewhere along the way, she started prioritizing how this fantasy romance made her feel like a full person over what Kareppi actually needed. And in the end, they both suffered for it. Kareppi, obviously, was driven to suicide, but Mahiru has also come out of this experience hating herself, only able to somewhat soothe it by clinging onto whatever idealism she has left. If only she could just do it right like everybody else, maybe Kareppi would still be here. Instead, he's dead, and deep down, Mahiru feels like it's her fault and her fault alone.
How darkly ironic that following this we see a still of Mahiru serving this sweet treat to Kareppi. Those bubbly, orange kanji characters pop on screen again as the corresponding lyrics are sung, only to smash cut back to a still of Kareppi in the real world with a rat in his face and the characters taking on a more sketchy font with a purple, ghostly glow to them:
♩ 大大大だってすきすき ♩
♩ 大大大だってだいすき ♩
Which is again officially localized as:
♩ Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love ♩
♩ Mon-mon-monstrous, cuz I love you so much ♩
It's that "dai" character again. There seems to be a lot of emphasis put on that word specifically.
As we see the lyrics scroll on the top and bottom of the screen, the image glitches between the grim reality of Mahiru feeding Kareppi rats and the fantasy of her feeding him cake before reality ultimately wins out. Mahiru might think she's just doing the romantic act of feeding her lover by the hand, but the truth is that these are two youths with no resources or any real survival skills. Instead of acknowledging that, Mahiru is stuffing his face with rats and acting like everything will work out in the end because that's how it always does in the books and manga she reads. Much like how eating too many sweets at once can become overwhelming, so too can expressions of love. And as sweet as cake is, it's not nutritionally fulfilling when that's all you're eating, which is not too dissimilar to how Mahiru's big romantic gestures just aren't doing much for Kareppi when they are this out of their depth here and don't even have clean water to drink.
The scrolling text reads:
♩ 大大大だってすきすき ♩
which again corresponds to the localized lyrics:
♩ Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love ♩
and the text that pops when the video settles on the image of Mahiru feeding Kareppi rats reads:
♩ 大問題！！！ ♩
which corresponds to:
♩ A monstrous dilemma!!! ♩
Now the siren sounds out four times in quick succession. We cut back to the fantasy world, and there Mahiru is, with pink swirls in her eyes about to put the cake in Kareppi's mouth.
This chorus repeats one last time, however, with each line, the siren blares again. This siren has been a constant thread throughout the song after we had that first genre switch—the genre shift that represented Mahiru retreating to the past. It's as if this siren has been trying to wake Mahiru up this whole time and bring her back to the present.
Our merry-go-round is running at full power again in the dream pink fantasy world before morphing into the decaying one in that harsh purple backdrop we saw at the beginning of the song. We witness a closeup shot of a few horses pass by before the ride breaks down and comes to a stop on Kareppi's hanged corpse as one of the "horses." The chorus ends on that final "dai" as has been the case for the rest of the song, but this time it's localized simply as "DIE."
Mahiru's grand love has led to Kareppi to die.
TRIAL 3
Trial 3 for Mahiru unfortunately never comes as she succumbs to her injuries and ultimately passes away. It's not a one-to-one comparison, obviously, but try as Shidou might have to shown Amane parental affection, he was out of his depth with the poor kid, and love was not enough to save him. Yuno tries to do right by her best friend by filling in the big shoes her mentor left behind, but at the end of the day, Yuno is a teenager who got a crash course in a field many spend over a decade studying for. She was out of her depth, and love was not enough to save her dear friend in the end. Love was enough to save Mahiru, just like it wasn't enough to save Kareppi.
And so she goes. She uses her last words to implore Yuno to one day find love and then mourns Kareppi and the life she never got to have with him. She dies knowing that she really messed up with her relationship with Kareppi, but no real chance to make up for it and heal from it all.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Mahiru did not get as much focus or character progression as other prisoners did, that much is true. A Kotoko or Amane who are actively making stuff happen in the prison, she is not. And I do think it's there is some validity in criticizing how effect on other characters like Shidou, Yuno, and Amane seemed to supersede her ongoing inner struggles. But this increasingly more common narrative that was a wasted character with no substance? I just can't agree with that.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and different people will resonate with different things at the end of day, but I think Mahiru is a cool character with a cool story that explores some interesting themes. A girl who was raised to essentially be an offering gift in a cold, rigid patriarchal hierarchy who meets a kindhearted boy that shows her true love isn't just some restricted to fiction? And then she wraps herself around that guy like her life depends on it even if it stifles him because it's the only way she knows how to be free and alive in this world? And when she tries to rebel against her family and run away with him, she gets so wrapped up in the fantasy of it and feeling more alive than ever that she prioritizes that over the declining mental health of her boyfriend and ends up pushing him until he's finally over the edge? I think that's a genuinely striking story, and the music videos tell them in such an engaging way.
Yes, her story within the prison might be a little lacking, but her backstory and the nuances of her character all seem pretty comparable to most of the cast to me. I don't want to be too hasty in generalizing, but sometimes it does feel like people saw that Mahiru's story went in a very different direction compared to most popular fan speculations and kind of just gave up on it. Maybe it's the fact that people just don't really know about "mukoyoshi" and the whole setup feels far-fetched as a result. Maybe people do get caught up on how seemingly silly things get with forging for rats and mushrooms in the woods and think the whole thing is just an absurd contrivance. Maybe it's something else entirety. Whatever it is, I feel like they're missing out.
Mahiru has a lot to offer to Milgram, and I guess all I really want is for people to give her more of an honest shot.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
It wasn't super relevant to bring up in the section on "This Is How To Be in Love With You," but the photos of the building that Mahiru and that cute little dog are at while she waits for Kareppi to finish his shift are actually those of a 7-11. Kareppi works at 7-11. Put that in the fanfics.
Cute dogs will spice up any 7-11. This is kind of petty, but eh, screw it. Lots of people point out how the rats being literal ruins the metaphor and makes "I Love You" too literal. But even back before the report came out and I thought the rats were a metaphor, there was still all that imagery with the merry-go-round, and that is very much posited as the central metaphor given its weaved into the instrumentation. However, just to check, I downloaded the music video and counted how much of it unambiguously literal. Not including the credits, "I Love You" runs for barely 2 minutes and 39 seconds. Of that time, we spend uninterrupted 21.5 seconds in the real world with Mahiru and Kareppi walking in the forest before the latter falls to his knees. Then we cut back and forth between Mahiru's dreamscape and the real world several times, and we see the real world in three seperate instances for 3 seconds, 0.7 seconds, and 1.8 seconds. This makes for a total of 27 seconds in the real world, which is about 16.98% of the runtime. That's not even a fifth of the song. This is still very metaphorical.
It wasn't really tonally appropriate to make a comment this overt in the "I Love You" writeup, but damn, whoever's ringing the siren in that last third of "I Love You" has the impulse control of a trigger-happy Afropop D.J. Like, gyae! We get it; it's a party and we should be dancing—you don't have to milk it.
According to Question 17 of her Trial 1 interrogation, Mahiru thinks the animal that best represents her is the penguin! She really likes the way they care of their young as a couple. Keep that in mind when drawing up fursonas for the cast. I think it would be really cute to see Penguin Mahiru art, haha.
According to Question 10 of her Trial 2 interrogation, Mahiru's dream family consists of two children: an older girl and a younger boy. Might be some useful information for any AUs you're cooking up.
According to Question 14 of her Trial 2 interrogation, Mahiru majored in literature. Neat.
I do have to hand it to Mahiru; despite being among the wealthiest in the cast, you wouldn't really know it prior to her report coming out unless you were really looking for it. The signs were always there, but she wasn't screaming about it on the rooftop. Compare that to Muu, the other rich kid, who immediately outed herself barely two minutes into her first audio drama, "Crying B," while also making sure to let Es know that it makes everybody super jealous of her. As we into great depth about earlier, Mahiru has her reasons for wanting to distance herself from her family, but regardless, I just find the difference in attitude between the two really funny.
I really like this Timeline interaction between her and Shidou:
Given that Shidou in many ways got to live the life Mahiru aspires to have, I think more interactions between them would've been neat.
CLOSING NOTES
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| Official First Anniversary Art |
If you've read everything up to this point, thank you so much! I know asking you to read 10K+ words about the lovesick girl from the anime murder mystery music videos is a bit of a time sink, so I appreciate you just giving my work the time of day.
There are a few select people I would like to thank for helping out in one way or another throughout the process.
First of all, I would like to thank Reddit user u/Neidhardto. Had it not been for them encouraging me to give writing a full breakdown on Mahiru an honest shot in this thread here, I would probably never have written this. It would've just kind of been something I gave a passing thought before writing it off. A little encouragement goes a long way, I guess. Thank you for that little nudge; I hope this lived up to your standards.
Secondly, I would like to thank an acquaintance who goes by the online alias Earthisround12. If you've been around in Milgram fan spaces, you might have seen her around as she's a pretty regular fan artist and she was one of the key players in moving the wiki to Miraheze. She actually hooked me up with the stylized Milgram font for the headings, and I really appreciate it. You should check out her links below. She's very talented and deserves the attention:
Next, I would like to thank a close friend who goes by the online alias Glass Shards. She actually knows Japanese, so when I had a couple questions about some of the language's quirks, she helped me out. She's actually the reason I fell down the Milgram rabbit hole back in late 2023 and has put up with my many a ramble, so she's just a solid pal all around. She's got her own little niche on the internet with a variety of stuff, so you can check it out over here:
And finally, I would like to give special thanks to my younger sister. She's been there to help edit and revise my stuff for years now, and once again, she really showed up for me. She read this multiple times, scouring about making sure everything flowed well and that there were as little typos as possible. Thanks, sis! You're the best!
I guess this should be part where I hint at what's next for the blog or plug other stuff I've done on it, but this is the first post, and I don't really know what to do with it next. You're free to give it a follow if you somehow have a Blogger account, I guess, but I don't really have any solid plans for it moving forward, let alone anything Milgram specific if I've managed to pique your interest that much.
I put it on the sidebar if you're on desktop, but I do have a blogspot on The Amazing World of Gumball wiki where I've done similar sorts of analyses, including a massive retrospective on the original six seasons that I'm pretty proud of, so if you like my style and are interested in Gumball, please feel free to check that out, but sorry, I don't have any plans for this place at the moment.
But enough about that. What do you think? How do you feel about Mahiru? Like her? Dislike her? Has your opinion on her changed? You think I missed something? Do you just think I missed the mark entirely? So long as you're nice and respectful, I will do my best to respond to any comments, so please, feel free to drop something either below or on the Reddit and Tumblr posts I made linking to this. Let's get some further discussion going!
I'll link to some resources on mukoyoshi below like I said I would at the start, but other than that, I think that's everything! Thanks again for reading, and take care and stay safe. Bye! <3
Enrique Sonrio. Panay Magazine. The powerful Mukoyoshi succession model
LadyVirgilia. YouTube. The Truth About Haru Okumura (Character Analysis in Japanese Context).
Note: Although the section of the video I linked to does relate mukuyoshi to Persona 5, the analysis is relatively spoiler-free and is general enough that even if you only have passing knowledge of the game, you should be able to watch it just fine. With that said, if you are a Persona fan and want to learn more about the Japanese sociocultural context embedded into the games, LadyVirgilia is pretty much required viewing and I highly recommend her channel.
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| Source: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/389626161836 |
Hello! First of all, thank you for reading and commenting! I'm glad you think so highly of the piece! I really did my best to be as thorough as I could, so it's good that was able to come through in the final publication.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I don't entirely disagree that Mahiru got a bit of a raw deal within the prison itself. Even though Haruka and Shidou also died going into Trial 3, they were at least able to be a little more active between the suicide pact and attending to the injured respectively. Mahiru, on the other hand, ends up being a supporting character mostly to highlight the development of Shidou, Yuno, Amane, and Kotoko, and I do think that's a bit of a miss. I do think some criticisms there are warranted.
With all that said, I still can't say that I outright hate what they did or anything. Of course, as somebody who really likes the character, seeing her do more would be great, but it's not like there's nothing going on. Trial 2 does give her a lot of inner turmoil that I think is interesting to chew on in retrospect. It's far from perfect, I will admit. It's just true that she isn't afforded an opportunity to be as dynamic of a force as everybody else, and if that soils it for you, I don't blame you. She just has so much going on elsewhere that I think tossing the baby out of the bathwater is a little much here, and I also do think there is still value in more static characters who more so push other characters in different directions, but I guess that's a bit of a different discussion entirely, haha.