In the previous part of this analysis, I examined the impact of Melissa’s attack on Misa when she related her two losses, the absence and coldness of her father, and her second thoughts on her choice to join the military. Here’ I’ll discuss how Misa’s emotional and mental state impacts whatever plans her father may have had for her future.
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In the previous part of this analysis, I examined the circumstances of Sakiko’s death and how they, combined with the circumstances of Riber’s death, triggered a cascade of events that demolished Misa’s perception of her enrollment in the Far East Officers’ Academy. Here, I’ll discuss how the effects these events had on Misa impact whatever plans her father may have had for her future. This post will be one of the longest in this series, because it discusses one of the most pivotal parts of the narrative in White Reminiscences, where the foundations for the uneasy relationship Misa has with her father in SDFM.
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Both White Reminiscences and the TV series make it abundantly clear that Riber’s death was absolutely devastating for Misa and that she carried her grief over his death well into the series. In the previous part of this series, I mentioned that she couldn’t help noticing her father’s emotional absence during Riber’s loss. This, I think, contributes to the formation of a first “crack” in her perception of him and even her relationship with him. Takashi’s behavior during Sakiko’s last days and the period after her death does nothing to repair this harm. What makes the reader question the salvageability of his relationship with Misa, however, is what these events trigger in the academy.
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Ōnogi provides strong hints that Takashi had a positive opinion of Riber and that he, at the very least, didn’t object to the idea of a possible marriage between Misa and the young Fruhling. One could plausibly wonder if the idea of facilitating a marriage between Misa and Riber had the additional appeal of a formal Hayase-Fruhling connection. This, however, was not meant to be, as SDFM and White Reminiscences narrate.
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One’s true character, ideas, and values are revealed through not only their actions and words, but also by what they choose to condone and where they choose to remain silent and inactive – especially when they have the option and power to speak and act. The party scene in “White Sketch” is especially revealing here. It is during this party that Misa first meets Riber, as a matter of fact. While playing tag with other children, she bumps into Riber, causing him to spill his drink on his shirt. She’s immediately scolded by her father for her carelessness, but Riber then receives a barrage of abuse from his own father, Herbert (von) Fruhling, an old friend of Takashi Hayase’s. Herbert’s behavior and Takashi’s handling of it reveal a fair bit about their characters, despite Ōnogi’s best efforts to reframe their actions and words into something more benign.
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For a novel narrating a series of pivotal events in a teenage girl’s life, the absence of references to its protagonist’s social and family circle makes White Reminiscences seem like an anomaly. Among other things Ōnogi narrates in often overindulgent detail, we’re told that Misa attended Toyo Eiwa Elementary School and the first two years of Toyo Eiwa Junior High School. In these eight years (ten, if we also count the two years of kindergarten – if she attended one, which is very likely), she’s bound to have made friends from school and her neighborhood, with some being her best friends.
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The “spoilt girl” hypothesis developed in the previous installment of my analysis is further weakened by Takashi’s conduct while Misa is in military academy. During this time, her correspondence with Riber includes commentary on, among other things, in-universe events and subjects of a military, political, and geopolitical nature. Among them are a huge, top secret military project that eats up the UN government’s budget, the launching of the first Oberth-class space destroyer, and the assassination of Harlan J. Niven, the first Prime Minister of the UN Government.
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In the second part of this analysis, I set out to understand why Misa is portrayed as a young adolescent without any aspiration for her future. For the sake of completeness, I need to examine another possible explanation: that Misa is, in fact, merely a spoilt girl. It’s a convenient read, really: she was born into a household possessing power, privilege, connections, and money, and her parents could let her have and do anything she wanted. As a matter of fact, they proactively provided things unaffordable to the masses, such as a skiing trip to Nice (yes, there are ski resorts in the arrondissement of Nice; Ōnogi has Misa vaguely refer to Nice in a letter to Riber). What incentive, then, would she have to bother imagining a future where she’d be an autonomous person, earning her own life?
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The creative team has gone to considerable lengths to portray Takashi Hayase in as sympathetic a manner as possible; Chronicle attempts to retcon him as a single widower parent who raised Misa all alone after her mother’s death (DeAgostini Japan 2013), even though White Reminiscences contradicts this. Incidentally, Macross Perfect Memory’s write-up on Misa says her parents had divorced and that she was subsequently raised by her father (Minori Shobo 1983), but this would’ve been an unusual outcome in Japan, as it would most likely require her mother to agree to cede custody.
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Among the many alarming scenes I spotted while reading White Reminiscences, I flagged one as particularly puzzling, as it’s completely at odds with the hyper-competent, determined, workaholic officer we see in the TV series; in a conversation she has with Riber, he asks her what she wants to be when she grows up – a rather simple question for most children, who generally respond readily and, in most cases, enthusiastically and proudly. Any child growing up in a normal household has some sort of dream for their future: some want to become doctors, others want to become pilots, teachers, nurses, and so on.
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