Mai-HiME was a series so epic, I cannot even describe quite how brilliant it was. Not only did it have yuri, but it also had action, other romance, subtext, magic, comedy - anything, really! It was a fantastic series to watch, and I would easily watch this series over and over. So so so good.
Mai-HiME is a story about a girl called Mai who, with her brother Takumi, has won a scholarship to Fuka Academy, and is travelling over the ocean to get to it. However, Mai has always had the ability to see a red star in the sky, but has never known what it means. This is the HiME star, which only twelve girls in the world can see; and are all consequently brought together at Fuka Academy.
Mai is attacked on the ship after meeting Tate and Shiho - two other students who will also attend Fuka Academy - by an unknown person at the time, after rescuing a girl who had been floating in the water. The unknown person is actually Kuga Natsuki, or more commonly known as 'Natsuki', who later turns out to be a very main character of the series, along with the girl that Mai rescued called Mikoto - a younger girl who has a very obvious devotion to Mai. Mai-HiME includes a lot of other memorable characters, but these three (possibly along with Tate) are the main protagonists, and all of them have very interesting things going on in their lives.
Personally, I would say that Mai-HiME is more subtext than actual yuri, but there is definite, spoken yuri later in the series. Popular pairings in Mai-HiME (as far as yuri goes anyway) are Mikoto and Mai, Natsuki and Shizuru (the most popular & one involving actual romance), and at a stretch Yukino and Haruka, though this is one-sided from what I saw.
Mikoto loves Mai's cooking and Mai herself, whilst Mai cares about Mikoto a lot. Yukino is either in total adoration of Haruka or is in love with her, whilst Haruka in turn cares a lot about Yukino. But...here's the fun part, and without a doubt one of my favourite pairings EVER. I warn you now though, this review comes with a few spoilers about their relationship.
Spoiler Alert! You have been warned!
Shizuru and Natsuki - or more commonly known as 'ShizNat', are one of the most popular yuri pairings out there. Shizuru is the president of the school council at Fuka Academy, whilst Natsuki is the cool, reserved, dark girl that nobody really knows much about; except Shizuru. But as the episodes go on, it is more apparent of Shizuru's feelings towards Natsuki, and at one point when Natsuki is injured in battle, she takes Natsuki back to a house and takes care of her there. Oh, and also kisses her whilst she is unconscious.
Shizuru goes a little off the deep end later in the series, but she makes up for it by stopping being a creep after Natsuki & her battle. Natsuki loses the fight but kisses Shizuru, admitting that she does love Shizuru, but she cannot reciprocate the feelings that Shizuru has for her - but she is happy that Shizuru loved her. When a HiME's monster dies, so does the person dearest to that HiME - and Shizuru and Natsuki, both HiME's, were each other's dearest people. So in turn, that killed off two HiMEs, sadly - though the ending more than makes up for it. So don't give up hope in Episode 25, when this all kicks off!
As well as this goodness in Mai-HiME, the ShizNat pairing was so popular that they were also continued into the second series, Mai-Otome, where they are quite blatantly a couple together and have some nice moments. But even if you just watched for ShizNat, you would still love Mai-HiME for all of its storylines and for the fun, really. So overall, a damn good series!
Overall Rating = 9/10, just because I wanted more ShizNat moments.
What do you guys think?
No comments:
Post a Comment