#yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Chapter Twenty

And of course he starts the tormenting right away, deciding to have her follow him around the festival so she can carry his stuff. Because of Ruka’s kindness, Natsume was convinced to give her the afternoon off to spend with her besties Hotaru and Yuu, but for now, she is his gopher. 

I love these little panels because they're easily overlooked but do a great job of revealing the characters' basic personalities.

The technical area is amazing, and Mikan is quickly taken with it, oohing and ahhing over everything she sees. Mikan is still an alice newb, new to an exciting world that is pretty normal to the rest of them. Dancing vegetables and singing flowers are a nice touch to any Alice, but to Mikan they’re all magic. Part of what makes Mikan so entrancing is not just her cheerfulness, but the fact that she is Alice in Wonderland (I’ll eventually get tired of saying this, but for now it’s just delightful to me). She is naturally childish, on account of being a child, but she’s also seeing most of these things for the first time, and so everything is sparkly and new. Such excitement can easily be contagious.

But to some people it’s just irritating. 

Natsume the impatient jerk flings some biscuit in her mouth that makes her bawk like a chicken whenever she speaks. So Mikan is quiet for a while, dreading the biscuit. That is until she sees Hotaru’s attraction, a special all about her and her amazing robots. Mikan tries to rush to her but is just beaten down. The presentation commences and ends and Hotaru emerges from her creation, instantly surrounded by fans and sponsors. 

Mikan is struck with Hotaru’s dazzling future. The technical class is composed of artistic and creative types, people who clearly know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. They all have plans and goals and passions, and Mikan admires that. She assures herself that she too has goals for the future, but her goals are limited to better training her alice and seeing Jii-chan again, so she doesn’t feel that much better. She has no idea what she’d wanna do after graduating.

Whenever Mikan is different from others, she gets self-conscious, no matter what it is she's "lacking."

So she turns to her companions, just to check if maybe she isn’t alone. Sumire quickly responds that she’d want to use her alice for criminal investigations or government work (narc). Ruka has a dream, but he’s uninterested in sharing. But the point is that he has a dream, and that’s more than Mikan can say. 

Natsume is her last hope, but he’s not even paying attention!

I love to imagine Natsume and Mikan actually chatting in their teens, two losers who have no plans for what they're gonna do after graduating. And because she's not alone, it won't feel so scary not to know.

Okay, but honestly, I’m gonna derail here because although Mikan certainly isn’t thinking this, I am. Mikan and Natsume may be opposites in many ways, but they have more similarities than differences. All of the people around them have potential and clear futures, but they’re the two kids left in the lurch, though for different reasons. Natsume can’t imagine his future because he’s sure he doesn’t have much time left; Mikan can’t imagine her future because it’s a daunting prospect. But they’re both in the same boat of having nothing but blank pages ahead. I don’t only ship NatsuMikan because they’re marked by the academy and are partners, or because of the “fated pair” thing. It’s not all about Natsume’s ceaseless devotion. They have much in common, and that will end up being a driving force for Mikan’s journey falling in love with him. No, they don’t have a heart-to-heart here where they bond over being lost and future-less losers. But they still are, together and alike in this way. God, I love them.

Anyway, Mikan feels hopeless. They’re just kids but Alices are mature. They know everything about life, it seems, their futures paved out for them already. And Sumire points out that Ruka is a triple star too, just like Hotaru and Yuu, and Mikan is impressed once again. The people around her are so amazing, with so many talents and abilities, and apparently Ruka is too, just like her besties. (She is, in comparison, useless and unimpressive.)

But Ruka dismisses the accomplishment, saying that it had nothing to do with his actual ability, like it was for the other triples in their class. But before Ruka can say more, Natsume shows up again, interrupting rudely to complain about being hungry. 

This panel does a great job of establishing that Mikan is actually the weird one for finding this pie entrancing. Not only Natsume and Ruka but the student in the corner are very put off by Anna's bizarre creations. No, it doesn't look edible.

So they move on to the cafe where Anna is working with her senpai Miruku. Anna’s alice is not simply that she can cook or bake, but that whatever she cooks or bakes ends up being a little weird. Mikan, an excitable girl, loves that she’s about to eat something crazy, but the boys are less enthused. Anna brings over a delicious-looking pie unlike anything Mikan has ever seen and she gushes over the colors and textures. Mikan is ready to dig in, until Natsume dumps the pot of tea over the whole table. 

Natsume is an insufferable menace. All he ever does is ruin things, wherever he goes. 

Mikan is on her feet, already scolding him. When he bluntly states that the pie was terrible, he seems uninterested in the fact that he says it in front of Anna. Mikan demands he apologize to Anna, but he just walks away. Mikan watches him leave as she trembles with rage. This is a whole new low for him. He’s not just a jerk; he’s sadistic, somehow finding pleasure in hurting other people for no reason at all. Good for Anna that Miruku shows up to comfort her. Except that Miruku notices that the flour must have expired because there’s a rotten scoundrel in the filling. 

Miruku suggests that Natsume dumped the tea over the pie for this very reason, to keep them from eating the pie themselves.

Mikan and Ruka leave but Mikan is unsatisfied by that explanation. There must have been some other, normal way to keep them from eating the pie. But Ruka--the irritating Natsume apologist--pipes up that Natsume did that so they wouldn’t eat the pie. If Natsume had said something around all those customers, it would have reflected poorly on Anna and she could’ve ended up in trouble. Natsume did what he could to avoid that outcome.

You can't cancel Natsume without cancelling Ruka too. When are Natsume haters going to finally understand that Ruka is his bigGEST defender?

But that sounds like blatant apologism, so Mikan is skeptical, wondering if Natsume would really  think that much about other people. After all, what Mikan knows about Natsume is that he may have a sad life, but he’s still a jerk in almost every way. He’s given her very few reasons to believe that other people’s feelings are something he ever considers, let alone prioritizes in such a selfless way. We might know from his POV that even his instances of cruelty are often inspired by selflessness, but from Mikan’s eyes, nothing about his actions suggests a martyr complex or a compassionate person.

But Ruka insists that she’s wrong, that Natsume is actually kind. He’s mysterious, and has done many morally dubious things, but at the end of the day, he would do anything for his friends, and will always quietly help somebody, even if it means he gets hurt. 

Natsume is a mystery. He is a confusing mess, a puzzle with a million pieces and half of them are hidden. Nobody seems to be able to shed some insight into what makes him tick. But there is one person who knows him better than anybody: Ruka. And Ruka is telling her now that there’s more to Natsume than what she’s seen so far. 

And when she thinks back on what happened with Reo, she understands where he’s coming from too. Natsume was willing to take on Reo’s attention in order to distract him from singling out Mikan or Sumire. He was a hair’s breadth away from blowing himself up to help them get away. So she is starting to see what Ruka is talking about. This conversation is important, not just because it helps us as readers understand Natsume better, but because it helps Mikan get him better. Because of this chat, she will keep Ruka’s words in mind when she evaluates Natsume’s behavior in the future, looking deeper at his actions instead of just assuming the worst, which is what he wants.

The parallels exist but don't fall for the easy propaganda that Mikan and Ruka or Natsume and Hotaru are the same. It makes life (and relationships) super boring.

Mikan still calls Ruka out for his apologist behavior, for defending Natsume so desperately, which means he must love him a lot. Mikan connects Natsume with Hotaru, deducing that they have a lot in common. Hotaru is also cold on the surface, but kind when it matters. Especially after the events of the first chapter, Mikan has appreciated the more subtle parts of Hotaru’s personality. And she shows that off now, smiling and boasting her love. In that way, she and Ruka are similar too, being so devoted to their best friends. 

Ruka seems touched, so he finally opens up about what she had asked before, about his dream, which is to be a vet and live with Natsume, somewhere surrounded by animals but not by people, where they can live in peace unbothered. A misanthropic paradise.

Mikan beams. She’s still not happy about her lack of goals, but she can’t be dismayed by his dream because she can see it took him courage to open up about it. So she doesn’t make it about herself. Instead, she smiles and promises him that his dream will come true. Now that she’s calmed down and is in better spirits, and understands her class nemesis a little better, she’s ready to go find Natsume.

I don't like the whole "Mikan has a favorite person" nonsense because real people are capable are loving a lot of people. I don't ship Mikan and Ruka romantically but I will fight you to the death over the fact that she loves him so much, platonically.

Her friendship with Ruka is deeply important on several counts. On a NatsuMikan level, Ruka is the only person who is able to divulge information about Natsume, since the boy himself isn’t about to open up any time soon. Ruka is desperate to defend and protect Natsume, even just in regards to his reputation. More often than not, the important details that Mikan learns about Natsume she learns through Ruka making the choice to share them with her. 

But their relationship is deeper than that too. They’re united through their devotion to their friends and through their ability to see deeper into people’s personalities, able to analyze how their loved ones behave to see their motives and intentions, even if they try to hide them. Mikan and Ruka understand each other in a lot of key ways, and this is just the start of a friendship where they will help each other be stronger.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mikan realizes that she hasn’t visited Yuu yet! She manipulates Ruka into letting Natsume take them to the latent area. Again, she gets worked up about the amazing things surrounding her, and again is intimidated into silence by Natsume the jerk before she can run off to random attractions. So they head straight for the haunted mansion.

Reread GA and pay excruciating attention to small things because this is one of my favorite two panels in the whole arc. NatsuMikan are so similar! They get distracted by the same nonsense and have the same reaction! Cute Ruka is focused on his little map, but Natsume and Mikan's attention is easily diverted by Koko's attraction. It's the little things, you know?

Yuu lets them in ahead of the line. Mikan has a complicated relationship with ghosts, so she puts on airs--as she is prone to do--that she is totally fine. She instantly drops those airs when the doors slam. Suddenly it’s all too scary and the boys are leaving her behind, which is unacceptable. She latches onto Ruka--the nicer of the two. After all, Natsume is being very mean about her fear. He for sure wouldn’t let her cling to him. And she’s just had a nice, heartfelt chat with Ruka. He feels safer.

They’re finally chased by a crawling hag and all three of them book it through the maze, and cruel fate sees to it that Yuu passes out and breaks the electricity, leaving Natsume and Mikan stuck in a room, with Ruka chasing after his rabbit. 

Mikan is calling for help, but Natsume tells her it’s no use. So they should climb the wall next! But his ankle is twisted. Dang. Well, he could at least make a fire so it’s not so dark--but of course he sets an evil, scary fire. There really is no winning with this guy. 

Though Mikan feels guilty because she’s the reason his ankle is twisted, she still gets annoyed when he suggests breaking down the wall in order to escape. That’s also unacceptable, because the latent students worked hard on their attraction and it would be cruel to break it. Natsume’s not really coming off as nice right now, even though Ruka insisted he was capable of it. 

But he gives in. Which means they have to sit there. In the dark. Trapped alone. With the ghosts. 

Natsume "hugged" Mikan at the SA event. Mikan "hugs" Natsume at the haunted house. It's the little things. uwu

Mikan is very scared of every noise, so she clings to Natsume, the only person around to cling to. And that’s unfortunate because he is using her fear for his own entertainment. He refuses to hold her hand or comfort her and instead lies about seeing the faces on the wall move. She scolds him for being a jerk, which reminds her that he’s always a jerk, except that Ruka told her he’s not always a jerk.

So Mikan apologizes to him about Anna, because she had misunderstood his intentions. But Natsume doesn’t care and doesn’t even seem to know what she’s talking about, which hints that maybe Ruka is insane for being friends with this person. 

The text circled says, "Completely forgot about being scared." This chapter introduces two aspects of Mikan's feelings about Natsume: he makes her self-conscious, but he also helps her completely forget about her problems. This is consistent.

Mikan muses on her current unpleasant situation. Natsume is difficult to deal with and to talk to. He isn’t chatty. He isn’t nice. He ignores her most of the time and when he’s not ignoring her, he’s making fun of her. This is the first time she’s alone with him that isn’t a life-or-death situation, and it’s weird. She states clearly--in her mind--that she doesn’t hate Natsume anymore, but that she still doesn’t know how to talk to him, and that she feels self-conscious around him. 

Natsume is in fact one of the few people who makes Mikan feel self-conscious. She’s usually confident and bold, but with him, she gets insecure. I’ll talk more about this insecurity and expand on it later on, but it’s not a typical experience for her (with other people, that is), which is why it stands out. He’s different from other people. She’s stuck between wanting to be friends with him and understanding what Ruka sees in him and the facts that he’s clearly presenting her with. She doesn’t know what to think or how to act around him, so it makes her nervous. For now, it’s certainly his fault. Though she has tough skin and fights back just as hard whenever he insults her, there’s also the question of small talk. How is she supposed to talk if he just shoots down every conversation? 

Does Natsume even know how to have fun? Because, now that she thinks of it, Natsume doesn’t ever look like he’s having fun. He never laughs or even smiles. She realizes she’d never actually asked him about those rumors she’d heard. People are always talking about him, but she’s never heard anything directly from the horse’s mouth. 

While Mikan is sitting here, quietly, she’s figuring things out about him for herself and by herself. He’s not sharing anything. But she’s intuitive and emotionally intelligent enough to come to conclusions on her own. She figures that he’s probably not having fun because his mind is in a different place than the rest of them.

AND OH MY GOD GUYS DYGFHDSFGDHSF

Like I beat to death in my other essay, Natsume is a mystery to most people. He’s not close to people, but he’s surrounded by admirers and fans. Besides Ruka, nobody seems to get that Natsume’s demeanor is a mask. He’s not snarky and cold because he wants to be. And Mikan can see that. She’s been able to see it since the culture fest was first announced, that he’s lying when he says the festival is lame and pathetic. The festival is awesome, actually, and Natsume must agree, because who wouldn’t? But Natsume can’t participate the way the others can. And despite all the fun and excitement of the festival, he’s still not smiling. There must be something else going on, something getting in the way. She figures it out--that he’s lonely and miserable, trapped in turmoil. And she wants to help him, to make him happy for once. If his life is difficult, then he needs something to make him smile.

How else does one combat this sort of problem than with jokes?

Mikan wants to mold her relationship with Natsume into something she's more comfortable with, but eventually the nature of their relationship will develop into something that she gets comfortable with and that will even bring her comfort.

But he doesn’t laugh. Figures that the one second Mikan actually talks to him, he ruins things again. Now he’s a jerk again and they bicker until he kicks up her skirt. 

By the time they’re finally rescued, Mikan is attacking Natsume to punish him for what he did to her. The people who have found them are all shocked at what they see, but it takes Mikan a moment to register what exactly they think they saw. She quickly denies that they were doing anything other than fighting, but then stupid Natsume has to open his mouth again, accusing her of jumping him. 

Natsume smiles a little, amused by their bickering, but Mikan is no longer interested in making him laugh. 

This chapter is huge for Mikan’s musings on Natsume’s character. In the anime, Natsume demonstrates some of the selfless behavior Ruka told her about earlier. She has evidence now and can see that Ruka was right. However, in the manga, Natsume did not shield her with his body. He did not hide his twisted ankle. No, he was open about his injury and did nothing noble. He was just stuck there with her. Mikan doesn’t end the chapter having figured anything out for sure about Natsume. The thing is: Natsume is an enigma to her. He is simply incomprehensible and nothing he does ever makes any sense. 

The anime had less time to work out the characters and relationships. Natsume had to be established as selfless and kind both to the audience and to Mikan in a timely manner, which is why he's such a hero in this episode. But here, in the manga, Mikan looks really hard at his behavior because she wants to see what Ruka keeps assuring her is there. But there really isn't any outstanding evidence because Natsume doesn't want her to see it. If there was some beautiful, noble action here, then Mikan would be justified in pursuing this friendship and in getting to know him better. He'd be giving her a reason to like him. Manga!Natsume does not do this. Like I said in the first part of this Mikan essay, she falls in love with him against his will and despite his every flaw. Natsume was, for the most part, insufferable today. She will continue hanging out with him because she has to, because she can't help but feel like he's hiding something.

I just think they're neat.

But she wants to figure him out. And she’s working very hard at it, which is admirable, because he hasn’t really given her a reason to. Ruka told her that there’s kindness there, hidden under a veneer of cruelty. She is sure now that if she looks closer, eventually she will see it too. NatsuMikan wouldn’t work if she wasn’t willing to try, because he has already given up on his end.

And one more thing, we see a glimpse of one of my favorite aspects of NatsuMikan, and that’s Natsume’s tendency to distract Mikan from her problems. To be fair, he’s not really doing that here on purpose. But Mikan is so preoccupied with thinking about Natsume that she forgot entirely about being scared. By the time she’s finally rescued, she hasn’t been scared for a while. I’ll discuss this in more depth later, but for now I’ll reiterate that Natsume and Mikan have way more similarities than differences.

Chapter Twenty-Two

This chapter isn’t really about Mikan at all. I’ll discuss what I can, but it will be pretty limited. Y’all might know that I’m a big fan of Hotaru and Subaru’s sibling bond, and it’s one of my favorite parts of the manga. But this is a Mikan essay, specifically regarding NatsuMikan. I’ll analyze the parts that are about Mikan, but I’ll be brief. Know that this is killing me.

Mikan has her afternoon off and is excited to spend it with her besties and away from Natsume (on Mikan’s end, we haven’t fully vacated the enemies stage of enemies to lovers). But Hotaru is strangely distant for most of their time together. Mikan takes it personally. She’s been looking forward to this part of her day, so how come Hotaru isn’t having as much fun as she is? But Hotaru is distracted by something else.

The scans situation here is tragic. What matters is that Mikan starts the chapter by making Hotaru's distraction about her.

Their little outing is interrupted by an accident at an attraction. They watch the chaos as one of the Principal students--Subaru--arrives to use his healing and pain alices. Mikan is, as always, impressed by this mysterious person, but not nearly as much as Hotaru, who walks right up to him. She is not intimidated. She does not back down when his assistant tells her to. She just stares at him and he stares back.

And Mikan realizes that Hotaru has been keeping a secret from her: Subaru is her older brother. And she never thought to mention it? Mikan is supposed to be Hotaru’s best friend, but there’s parts of her that remain a stubborn mystery. To make matters worse, the Imai siblings don’t even act like siblings. They are cold and detached. They talk more like they’re at a business meeting than that they’re meeting their family member for the first time.

Mikan continues to make Hotaru's issue about her. And I continue to cry about the scans.

When the encounter ends, Mikan doesn’t complain about Hotaru not telling her. So far, she's been very betrayed that Hotaru would, first, be distracted for the short time they actually spend together during the festival, and second, that she would keep such a huge secret from her. She could very easily start complaining and whining. But that’s not important, because Hotaru is clearly upset. She is saddened by the fate of her brother, who has spent so much of his life in this institution that he’s forgotten his humanity. She wonders if she will become like that and Mikan quickly denies it. Hotaru is different! Just like Ruka is desperate to defend Natsume against anybody who says a bad word against him, Mikan will defend Hotaru, especially when the person underestimating her is Hotaru herself. How could Mikan continue to make this about herself when someone is going through something so hard?

The chapter ends happily, with Hotaru realizing she can’t lose her humanity when she has Yuu and especially Mikan by her side. 

Mikan wants to comfort Hotaru. She rarely sees Hotaru upset or unhappy. She can figure out for herself that Hotaru didn’t tell her about her brother because of those insecurities she was keeping to herself. She knows that what Hotaru needs now is comfort and she’s willing to give it. Even though she’d initially been hurt that Hotaru would hide something from her, she’s able not just to set the matter aside for later, but to completely dismiss it. She understands, so it doesn’t hurt anymore. What hurts now is that Hotaru is hurt. She’s emotionally intelligent enough to know that this moment isn’t about her, and she shouldn’t try to make it about her. It’s about Hotaru.

Maybe the reason why Mikan and Hotaru feels a little lackluster to me is because people never mention Yuu with them. I LOVE this trio to death but they get so little love as a group! But they all love each other... that keeps me going.

Mikan is such a sweet friend. I love her.

Conclusion

I'd add one more chapter but the next two chapters are a unit so... I'll just have to save that for tomorrow.

"Tomorrow?" you may ask. "But, Anya, you've been so flakkyyy." Yes, I have been. And that's because Mikan's essays are annoying to format. There's no (realistic) limit to how many images I can include in any post anymore which means that I'm including way more. They take me much longer than Natsume's did. And so I decided to change my posting schedule! I need to have a schedule because if I don't, I'll simply never post and that would be terrible. So instead of posting on weekdays, I'll post on the three day weekend, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. That way I have more time to write Mikan's essays (which are harder than Natsume's) as well as more time to format the longer posts.

Also it'll give you guys more time to read these monstrosities. I know they're long and tedious. I'm sorry.

Anyway, today we discussed the second part of the tri-part culture fest. There's one more left, which I will post tomorrow. We can look forward to a shocking development in Mikan's feelings in the next and final part of the culture fest. Very exciting! So stay tuned!