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birdmenmanga · 16 days ago

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(takes a drag of my cigarette) if you think about it, in some ways, kaihen is a mahoyome-like in the sense that their premise evokes many of the same tropes. Protagonist who goes through a pseudo-isekai event through a near death experience (Chise's suicide attempt and the kaihen for the prince), where they're taken to a "new world" where they can start a new life, and they're immediately typecast into a "relationship role" with the deuteragonist (Chise becomes Elias's "bride" and the prince because Zemu's "apprentice" [which in itself is meant to evoke a parent-child relationship-- see the pieta on Chapter 1's Sunday Cover])

I'd even go so far as to say that the authors are interested in exploring the same types of of ideas; namely, how the idea of the "family" is a flawed one. however, I think their approaches toward exploring these ideas are extremely different, and I don't just mean in terms of aesthetics (Western folk magic vs Oriental fantasy)

btw picture of the prince and chise just for shits and giggles

Kore Yamazaki takes a very identity-first stance towards relationships. What does it mean to be someone's "bride"? Someone's "teacher"? A friend? A lover?

The answer, in The Ancient Magus Bride, typically lies inside you. I'm your bride because I want to stay with you; the terms of our relationship are defined by us, etc.

It's no surprise that Yamazaki goes through the pain of likening Chise and Elias's relationship to not only husband and wife, but mother and son, father and daughter, teacher and student, etc. Chise and Elias's relationship subverts the premise of the series by turning out not quite to be bride and groom, but a myriad of other things as well, akin to a queerplatonic relationship.

On the other hand, Yellow Tanabe takes the opposite stance. Your place in society, the role you're cast as, is something you are coerced into from the outside, something you have no say in. They tell me I'm a prince, so that's what I am. Zemu's a wizard, the prince is a boy with high tolerance for mana, can I make it any more obvious?

Everyone in the castle, consciously or subconsciously, has already cast the prince into the role of Zemu's apprentice. And indeed, circumstances of the world force him to fold to these pressures and take up that mantle.

To be totally clear, both of these things are true at once. A lesbian couple could be holding hands in the street, and THEY can be content in the knowledge that they're lovers, but this doesn't stop salespeople on the street from assuming they're friends, and it doesn't stop their coworkers and family members from asking when they're finally going to settle down with a nice man. The world imposes itself onto you no matter what; all you can do is choose how much you want to push back against it.

(And actually, this is exactly how Raichi looks at the prince's relationship with Roue! To Raichi, it should be Roue who is beholden to the prince, not the other way around, and his commitment to her baffles Raichi.)

This, I think, highlights some of the pitfalls of political discourse on this site (oops, I'll bring the essay back to my mangas lol), where the experiences of the individual start to supercede broader analysis of class trends.

MY parents were great to me! So I dunno what's the deal with your abusive family, must be some weird edge case consequence of completely personal choices and not a systematic thing which enables abuse to happen in these environments!

So similar to this, Chise and Elias can have their queerplatonic thing, and it's nice that they're in a place where they can kind of exist outside of the pressures of society, but for characters like the prince, and indeed most people at large, it's simply not an option. He isn't tied down by ideas of bride and groom or master and apprentice that he simply needs to unlearn; he is actively being pushed into this role, with all the disadvantages that it entails.

For this reason I hold a great preference for the College Arc of mahoyome. I think the Seven Shields, for instance, is a very tangible burden on the St. George twins and Rian that you can't just reconceptualize via queering your relationship with your family members. It captures the more material aspects of "the family" much better than the more spiritual abstractions of the first arc/season.

Though Kaihen's narrative puts a lot of emphasis on Zemu's kindness, and he's very consistently depicted as the platonic "good boss" who will protect the inhabitants of his castle against all dangers, when it comes to the prince, much of their relationship is marked by Zemu exerting power over the prince, whether by limiting the prince's ability to learn about the world or his own conditions, by marking him with a magic seal that can disable the prince's magic, or monitoring the prince without his permission.

In many ways, Elias is depicted in a very similar way to Zemu. Yes, he's kind; after all, he took Chise in; but there's something about him that just isn't quite right. Something that gets you a little on edge. And I think it's very easy to explain this in a Watsonian way by saying "yeah! because he's NOT human!! it's the unknown that's disconcerting!" but I think it goes further than that. It isn't just that he isn't human; it's that "inhuman" is shorthand for something greater than human. Maybe it's not Elias who isn't human; maybe it's you who isn't human, because you're something even less than that (#myPuppy). I argue this discomfort stems from the power imbalance baked into their relationship.

Indeed, both Zemu and Elias hold a lot of power over the prince and Chise respectively. They're both centuries old patriarchs of their household, with a lot of experience and knowledge about magic that Chise and the prince simply don't have. They're both also stupidly wealthy lmaooo and also stupidly powerful, at least within their domain.

Kaihen hasn't gone on long enough for this to happen yet, but we can see with mahoyome that as soon as Elias's interests starts shifting (I want to lift the dragon's curse so Chise doesn't die, and I will achieve this at any cost) he doesn't hesitate to abuse his control over Chise to his advantage. Who cares about what Chise thinks! I can just take what I want, do what I need, by force. Sleepytime, Chise!

In fact, I think one of the hardest lessons that Elias needed to learn throughout the course of the series is the fact that interpersonal relationships aren't just signed contracts or purchases, but rather something that he needs to actively put effort into maintaining... which I think is a pretty important piece of life advice.

Chise and Elias had a pretty gentle start to their relationship, because Elias wasn't motivated to abuse his immense power at all. The challenge that comes later on is becoming aware of the power imbalance that exists, and to hold back even when he's feeling jealous or anxious.

Again, this is a very identity-first solution to the quandary posed by the series: you, personally, have to figure out how to deal with this situation. It's tonally very fitting with what she built up over her series!

But because Kaihen has fundamentally presented the problem of "the flawed family" differently, I think its solution will be different too.

There are many different axes of oppression that the prince and Zemu exist on, with the prince at a clear disadvantage in almost every way. Zemu is the one with the ownership of the castle; he can kick the prince out at any time, if he so desires. The prince must work for Zemu and low key I don't think he's even getting paid for his labor LMAOOO. And this goes further into their class differences-- Zemu's a wizard, which is quite clearly the bourgeois class in the kaihen universe, and while the prince used to be a prince he's literally just mopping floors now. #proletarianization. Another is age-- the prince is surmised to be about 12-15, while Zemu is decades, if not centuries old. From the perspective of magic, Zemu is far more experienced, despite the prince (possibly?) having more mana due to his two Underworld eyes. You could even make a case about the prince being disabled- using his divine eyes renders him in a state where he often cannot consent to what's done with his body, and Zemu's already made decisions about his body for him.

However, many of these axes of oppression are largely constructed by society. By dismantling these systems of oppression and changing the material conditions, it will allow Zemu and the prince to stand on equal terms. So while Chise and Elias are very clearly headed towards immortality together, I genuinely believe that Zemu will lose his wizard status during this dismantling process, and return to being a regular human alongside the prince.

idk if that's a good conclusion because I've already expressed it elsewhere but this is my analysis! #myAnalysis

anyways if you are a fan of either series I really recommend you check out the other!!

my 5 minute pitch for The Ancient Magus Bride/mahoutsukai no yome/mahoyome is that uhhh it's great for people who are suicidal? I think it makes you want to kill yourself less. oh also monsterfuckers would enjoy this i think. I think the character development in this series is really good though I wish they would talk abt Joseph and Alice more LMAO uhh it's like liberal cottagecore bait where they start off with the typical countryside escapism but then instead of doing that forever she actually keeps going with the character development and suddenly you're learning about the history of Wales because bro you live here now you should like. know about the oppression that people here have faced. highly recommend

my 5 minute pitch for kaihen wizards is uhhh there's a beautiful bourgeois man there who is a woman sometimes (I guess this is also true of Elias now that I think about it) and I think the character designs go crazy. The characters are such good foils to each other it makes me bark like a dog. also tanabe is funny again because she's not cutting all her jokes to advance the plot. and also (THERE'S ONLY 26 CHAPTERS OUT I COULD BE LYING TO YOU) I think theres going to be a socialist revolution. I really really think so. I can show you my beautiful corkboard and my piece of paper that says "PhD in Yellow Tanabe manga" that I wrote with a marker. if you read this I'll kiss you on the mouth

anyways if you are vaguely intrigued here is info about how to read them. I really hate what comic growl is doing to mahoyome (cutting a chapter into like 4 parts?? I'm killing someone) but the main discord keeps a pretty good record of the chapters after the College arc. Kai-Hen Wizards on the other hand is available on the Viz app and also here in my beautiful google drive where I screenshot every single page before it gets locked behind a paywall go read it yippeee

#kaihen no mahoutsukai #kaihen wizards #mahoutsukai no yome #mahoyome #the ancient magus bride #just thinking thoughts...#stray kaihen thoughts #[REDACTED] NEEDS to be the joseph to the prince's chise. I need it. all the way down to the eyeball swap. they NEED it

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