What's up with Mayu, just a little crybaby

Nihongo means Japanese language. I work in Manhatten and there is a branch of the used book store Book Off which is a Japanese store that has a floor full of surplus Japanese manga with no shrink wrap. I saw vol. 12 there and leafed through it. If you are in NYC check it out. They are on 41 Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues.

Small stuff.

In kona's latest picture, I checked a table of katakana and an online dictionary. Next to Tina the katakana reads "ku ru", and kuru means "to come, to come to hand, to arrive, to approach". ?? Katakana is harder to interpret than hiragana. Next to Mayu my best guess is that the katakana reads "ze ku". Zekku means "become speechless."

Regarding that scene and kona's analysis, I am reminded of an old joke. De Sade and Sacher-masoch met in hell. Masoch cried out "Hit me! I love it." De Sade raised his fist, paused, then lowered it and said "I won't!" I think Tina chose, this time, to "cut" Mayu by deliberately leaving her out of the abuse.

I have the utmost respect for those who have the patience to puzzle out written Japanese, and I am willing to depend entirely on them for all translation. Kudos to you for being able to read those blurbs in the picture, which I am sure are done in a modern, stylized form not easily found in traditional references.

I am aware that manga panels often include written descriptions of the characters’ feelings or actions, in case they aren’t clear in the drawings. The ones you describe are probably accurate….Tina contemplates approaching Mayu; Mayu is speechless with foreboding.

I think you are right about Tina’s motives in not grabbing Mayu and just walking away; it made her madder to not be included than the abuse would have been!

In vol 10 Mayu keeps up her record as the person who least refers to other people by name.
She did add a fresh name to her repertoire though. Previously she has referred to herself, "Mayu", and to Kaoru "Hanabishi-sama." Now she has referred to "Saionji."

yea i cant recall her saying kaoru...but it may be respect because his family or maybe age diff

A factoid from another manga roused up an issue or question, or two, about Mayu. I read that legal (nightclub) age in Japan is 20. Mayu was 16 when we first saw her and now 1 year 4+ months later she is probably 17. Yet we saw her the previous Jan/Feb drinking wine to excess in a restaurant.

Second, we know that the other rich girl, Aoi, was contract-engaged at an early age. That is a subject of other manga too. We therefore have reason to suspect that Mayu has been contract-engaged, yet we haven't heard one word about the subject so far.

Mayu as an example:
We see Tina, Taeko and Mayu at school in Vol 11 Chapter 85, "A Thousand Years". In chapter 90 we see Kaoru arrive home and Mayu is the first to embrace him (or so she thinks). That is odd. Mayu is a college student. She does not live at this house. She has classes to attend. She has homework to do. And a few other chores. It is extraordinary that 1) she lucked out being there when Kaoru arrived, or 2) she has been spending lots of time there. And it is extraordinary that Aoi, Miyabi, Tina and Taeko tolerate Mayu being there so frequently. Particularly when Kaoru is not around. What kind of "friendship" or "tie" does Mayu have with the other girls?

Actually, I think we can fault Kou Fumizuki for pandering to harem-typing the manga. There are times when Mayu's presence at the house can only be explained by manga-harem-typing. And the over-the-top welcome everybody gave Kaoru when he got home is also harem-typing. Don't these girls have any self-respect, the least bit of decent self-restraint? Or is that something only female manga-kas think of?

The essence of good writing is management of conflict and tension. Without conflict, a work of fiction is just a recitation of a series of events. In a love story, the source of tension almost has to come from some form of triangular relationship.

I don't know that AYA was orignally conceived as a harem manga. Most popular mangas seem to change direction after the first few chapters, as if someone; possibly the publisher; starts to exert pressure on the mangaka to stretch what was originally a tidy plot into a long, messy series.

This continues until the artist/writer has exhausted every conceivable plot contrivance and public interest starts to wane. Then he/she/they are told to wrap it up quickly, and the story comes to an abrupt and usually unsatisfactory end. I have ranted before that I think this approach is a great failure; if the mangaka's work is successful, his/her/their name will be enough to sell the next series; i.e., Ken Akamatsu, CLAMP, etc.

I have a feeling that AYA was drawn into a harem theme because of the nature of the characters, as well as the desire to stretch the story. If there is going to be triangulation, it's not going to be Aoi, the steadfast, almost obsessive lover, that is tempted. It has to be Kaoru. I think Tina was originally going to be the only competition for his attention, with Taeko thrown in for fanservice. You can almost hear the meetings with the publisher: "This is a big hit. We can milk it for years. Start thinking up more girl characters to hit on Kaoru."

Aoi and Mayu
In volume 11 chapter 90 "Awaited" we saw Aoi do an emotion burn when she saw Kaoru come back with Tina. A chapter later Aoi said "I wish I had the guts to do some of the things Tina-san does."

I bet that Mayu will hear about Tina's field trip. I am certain that Mayu will also do an emotion burn. Of a different perhaps harsher sort because Mayu has a different tie with Tina than Aoi does. And I bet that Mayu's emotional burn is never shown in the manga pages of _Ai Yori Aoshi_. Or even noted in a footnote.

I can think of feedback and wish I could feedback to Kou Fumizuki. Sadly KF will not use my feedback, or yours. :(

Something new from Mayu to chew on.
Elsewhere we have remarked on Mayu giving Tina a good verbal dose of her disgust, in Vol 13 chapter 106-107, "Disgust" and "Cowardice". Later in chapter 107, while they are all playing a card game to distract Natsuki and Chizuru, Aoi notices that Tina is quiet and morose. She asks Tina. Rather than give a straight answer Tina engages in some beer-drinking exhibitionism. While Tina is doing that Mayu whispers "That cowardly lion needs to get a backbone or she'll lose the one place she can call home." Kaoru notices that Mayu spoke. No idea if Kaoru could make out her words. ...

I would very much like to unscrew the top of Mayu's head at that moment and try to understand her thoughts and what she meant by those whispered words.

I'm afraid Mayu's behavior is part of the reason I don't care as much for this volume. There was lots of room for character development when she was introduced, and as discussed earlier, there was even the possibility of a love/hate relationship with Tina. However, she is becoming more and more just a two-dimensional villain to torment Tina and heighten the melodrama.

I don’t buy her poor-little-rich-girl excuses; we all come to the party with baggage of some kind. She accuses Tina of escapism, but she herself wallows in her misery, banking her emotional fortune on the increasingly unlikely fantasy of Kaoru’s commitment to her. Maturing means getting past our difficulties and getting on with our lives. She's not maturing; in fact, she seems to be regressing.

I concede most of Kona's remarks about Mayu.
How do we describe Mayu? As I observe her in the manga: ...
1) She has a stuck up and presumptious attitude about some things; most notably about Kaoru. It is amazing how the other people in Ai Yori Aoshi put up with her when she is displaying that attitude.
2) She gets irritated easily and doesn't have a socially accepted way to vent her irritation. We see that in chapters 103, 106 and 107.
KF wanted to confront Tina with a big issue that she has been avoiding, and chose to have Mayu blow up at Tina, and make these accusations against Tina. So Mayu doesn't look good in most of her pages in vol 13.
And yet,

For all that she gets on surprisingly well with the others.
*) She and Chika have done things together.
*) She is on good terms with Aoi, Miyabi and Taeko
*) and we see three evidences in vol 13 that she somehow gets on with Tina ...
* 1) We first see them in ch 106 by themselves in Taeko's (?) room.
* 2) Tina evokes a scene of them playing a video game together sometime in the past.
* 3) At the end of ch 107 Mayu whispers that "[she] needs to get a backbone", as if Mayu thinks Tina ought to get a backbone. Which is somewhat empathetic towards Tina.
* *) And there is a prominent picture of a thoughtful Mayu expressing
".......
........"
as if she was reconsidering, perhaps regretting, all the harsh things she had recently said to Tina.

I see Mayu not claiming any "poor-little-rich-girl" excuses. She is currently stuck-up enough to think that everything she does is just fine. Which provides an opportunity in the next 4 volumes for her to get whupped up side the head and have to rethink things, just as has just happened to Tina.

Looking at the whole of vol 13, I think Mayu looked the worst in its first chapter, ch 103, "Focus". I will generously suppose that KF wanted Mayu to react badly to getting a telephone call from Tina, and the shorthand depictions he chose for it made Mayu look worse than she really is. I hope.

[BTW, I am not entirely convinced that Tina's dialog in that telephone conversation was Tina. I think KF should have drawn the other side of the conversation at the same time. He didn't have to publish it, but drawing it would have helped him come up with dialog we have come to associate with Tina.

I wrote June 7th:

I just thought of something. KF could have made this a bit deeper by establishing earlier that once a week or so Mayu talks on the telephone with Kaoru. And Kaoru, being decent, sometimes calls up Mayu. [I have a girlfriend like that.] So, in chapter 103 Mayu wouldn't have been quite so surprised to get a telephone call. She would have thought it was Kaoru. It being Tina instead would have irritated Mayu no end