Did We Learn Nothing From Cassandra???

Information is funny in the way it likes to change. Facts don't exist, reality is an illusion, all knowledge is flavoured first by the mind and then by the tongue. 

Despite thinking of herself as a 'director' Motoko must mean it in the Disney sense of the word. Her retelling of the story of Mahou Hachitama feels like it's a 4th hand account of an interesting idea, which is probably what it is. Motoko's tongue is like... rice. Extremely efficient (and cheap) but lacking in excitement.

Thankfully, my tongue is like Teriyaki sauce; great over rice.

So, for your viewing pleasure, Melo Moonwalker presents:

Mahou Hachitama: The girl who predicted a vague future.

Our story begins in a boarding school just north of Tokyo. A girls-only (:/) affair that was established as a place to hide the daughters of the 1 percenters from prying eyes. It's the kind of place that encourages a nearly lesbian friendship among students, the type that the director might have to deny if asked about it. 

The girls there have one thing they're taught about and that's how to be a good wife. That's what a daughter is to a societal elite you see, a pawn. Something to be sacrificed to the enemy to get closer to their king. 

One of the students gracing the inside of this school's gates is one Shizuko Abe, who you already know a little. Here's a little more for you to know; Shizuko is right at the top of this school's social hierarchy. Nothing to do with her beauty or her poise and all to do with her family name. Shizuko isn't the daughter of any single person but one of a political dynasty. Someone gave birth to her, sure, she was born, but she belongs to a name.

Let me ask you this. If you found out that your daughter's classmate was the child of the Prime Minister, what would you do? Take yourself out of your own shoes and place them in nouveau riche ones. Maybe you subtly suggest your daughter should try becoming friends with this Shizuko girl, invite her over to your home for dinner some day. Maybe you do so a little less subtly, I'm not you, I'm not cut out to be a bad parent of a nightmare to-be wife.

Now Shizuko, she hates this situation. She inherited a few too many of her father's genes and not enough of her mother's. Had she been born a man she'd have been called strong-willed but as is she's just stubborn. 

No one wants to be friends with me, they only want to be my friend.

Make-a-wish Hachitama.

Middle-class Mahou.

The 'no soft-power' slut.

Nicknames like these (and many more like them) sprung up instantly. Suddenly, the molehill had become the mountain, but not a pristine beautiful one like Shizuko. In contrast, she was more like Everest, isolated and littered with dead bodies.

Suddenly, Shizuko had a flaw by association.

Shizucchi, why do you still hang out with 'Hand-out Hachitama'? Haven't you heard? She's distinctly upper-middle class.

Remember that these girls are pawns and not queens. Against her wishes, Shizuko was ordered to disassociate from Hachitama. To protect the image, to protect the Abe name.

And then Hachitama found herself all alone. All alone in her room, all alone in the school, all alone in the entire world. Then she finds herself alone on the school roof and someone else finds her on the concrete below.

Just like that, Mahou Hachitama took her own life rather than face the prospect of being known as merely moderately well-off. It took her father another 4 years to buy a new BMW.