#*wrote

PART ONE

Their meeting.

Theway Asuna and Mito meet is very reminiscent of yuri manga, the trope here is how Asuna finds a secret side of Mito outside of school and they bond over that. In accordance to the yuri trope, they also keep their relationship secret (because, obviously, they are both girls).

There is also a kabedon, Mito’s pinning of Asuna against the (bus stop) wall, which is almost always seen as romantic.

PART TWO

The hug (when Mito does so after Asuna yells at her to leave her alone).

A little before the movie released in Japan, they ran a joint trailer of Progressive with… Marvel’s Eternals. By joint trailer I mean that clips of each movie were played side by side. Now, Eternals got some heat because it showed a sex scene between the two main characters. And what scene did they choose to put next to the Mito and Asuna hug? The scene that leads to the controversial one.

I joked about this a lot when I found out, but now I think it really was supposed to represent something more intimate than a hug (…maybe just a kiss). This is especially because what comes after is…

PART THREE

The handshake where Mito and Asuna say yoroshiku. Yoroshiku can mean a bazillion things BUT it is also used when people get married—as in, “I am in your care from now on [because we are family].” They have affirmed their love even in their darkest moments and now they are married, which brings us to…

PART FOUR

The honeymoon daze.

There is a lot of happiness, gift giving, and touching (not just physical, but their blades cross the same way Kirito and Asuna’s do to show their romance in the very first anime opening!) going on here. The fun and domestic montage makes it seem like they've already forgotten about death, that’s just how lost in love they are. Obviously, the movie reminds them because this is still an SAO movie, but it’s very obvious that Mito training Asuna is like her being the breadwinner. This culminates in her caveman husband gets sword for her wife moment

which leads to…

PART FIVE

Mito choosing the way out that she did when she saw Asuna dying. Her running away showed that she wasn't ready for the commitment of being family after all; when the going got tough, she went and ran…

NOT (really)!

In Memorable Song, the side story written by Reki for this movie, it is revealed that Mito wasn’t running away to save herself but rather running away to kill herself. She assumes the monsters will catch up to and kill her, and that once she is dead she will reunite with Asuna in the afterlife. Mito already assumes the worst, but her first attempt fails so she tries two more times and still fails to die. (Remember this faltering.)

Now let me refresh everyone on shinjuu. (Oh brother, Red, not this again!) Shinjuu is a Buddhist practice but more often Buddhist theatrical trope that is often translated to as lover’s suicide. When two star crossed lovers just cannot be, they choose to die together and/or kill each other (which guarantees them a spot in Heaven) and have their love story in the after life instead.

Shinjuu is portrayed in many different ways depending on the context of the play and the giri (perceived responsibilities) and ninjou (emotionally-charged desires) of the characters. In Shinjuu Tenno Amijima, shinjuu is, in fact, viewed as wrong and cowardly and a HORRIBLE IDEA (what most people think of Mito’s decision)… when family is in the mix. (A reminder that Mito and Asuna are now family because of their marriage.) This is because of the responsibility one has toward their family (Mito getting the sword for her wife) coming at odds with the insanity the throes of love may cause (Mito not wanting to see her wife die). I’m thinking that this is the shinjuumono (love suicide story) execution they went with for this movie, the subsequent bonus novel, and this yuri relationship overall. Mito isn't quite ready for the harder parts of the relationship, so she hastily chooses shinjuu without really taking Asuna’s feelings (that she might feel abandoned or not want Mito to do this) into account (like the protagonist of Shinjuu Tenno Amijima except Mito isn’t a misogynist, she’s just a bit tunnel visioned as shown in her backstory and her marriage proposal). She thinks she can absolve herself if she just reunites with Asuna in Heaven (again, shinjuu is a free ticket there). But the way she tries and fails three times is just like how the lovers in Shinjuu Tenno Amijima waver whether or not to actually commit shinjuu a bazillion times. Anyway, even though both of them are hurt, obviously Asuna is just a smidgen more hurt because she's confused about what just happened. And then Mito’s response is to mope about it over and over, just like the protagonist.

Obviously, in the end, shinjuu never happens and Aria isn’t a perfect one to one with Amijima. But the idea is still there and, because it is, it cements Aria as an actual yuri story since shinjuu is mostly a romantic trope. Rather than bait, Aria is coding since it’s still sort of difficult to show queer stories on a big platform. But Mito and Asuna really were in a romantic relationship. I am sure of this.

EXTRA: One of many things that annoy me about Aria (although I still enjoy the movie as a whole) is that Alice’s motif is present in HALF the songs of the movie! I don’t really fault the composer for this because it’s most definitely just because she has composed so much music (a part of a song from one of the Kara no Kyoukai movies became Yuuna’s motif, hilariously) but it does ruin the immersion for me because Alice is not in Aincrad. However, she does have one similarity with Mito—not consulting the other party when considering shinjuu (Hisui has opened that can of worms before, so I won’t say much more than that it wouldn’t work between Alice and Kirito)! I like to think her motif is present in Aria because of this, lol.