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EP. REVIEW: O Maidens in Your Savage Season


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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:02 pm Reply with quote
kinghumanity wrote:
So I watched episode 10 twice and still can't understand:

Why does Hongo want to sleep with Milo sensei so badly?


She doesn't. She has a crush on him of sorts, but she wants to leave a mark on him by making him flustered by her sexuality, because she now sees that she has lost to the other teacher for affections. Her real plan was to freak him out by putting his hand up her skirt, so that he backs out because he clearly does not want to do it with his student, while he was also playing chicken with her.
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q_3



Joined: 02 Sep 2015
Posts: 129
PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 10:52 am Reply with quote
It's the sunk cost fallacy only with sex.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2599
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Thu Sep 12, 2019 12:43 pm Reply with quote
q_3 wrote:
It's the sunk cost fallacy only with sex.


I wish I'd thought of putting it that way!
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Clematis



Joined: 16 Feb 2017
Posts: 66
PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:52 am Reply with quote
Really liking the new dynamic between Hongo and Milo sensei. And the fact Hongo is actually developing real feelings for him, now that he can relax and be himself around her. Even if it is a futile things to do....for the time being.
Also, atta Niina for smashing that pervy creep's glasses into his face. God that felt good. Creepo.
Btw, is it even legal to limit students freedom at school the way the teachers are attempting to? It looked almost comical to me, even if they were fully serious.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:30 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
slapping him across the face

That was no slap, that was a full-fisted punch right in the nose hairs. And a well-deserved one.



I'm sorry, but Hongo is every bit as much of a creeper as creepy cram school kid. I don't foresee her being redeemed in my eyes before this is over.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:46 pm Reply with quote
Clematis wrote:
is it even legal to limit students freedom at school the way the teachers are attempting to? It looked almost comical to me, even if they were fully serious.

Can teachers do such things in Japan, without interactions with the parents? Japan always plays loose with adults and parents in anime. It makes it hard sometimes to see what is reality, what is Japan, and what is anime only.


Last edited by TarsTarkas on Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:48 pm; edited 1 time in total
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:47 pm Reply with quote
The shaming moved from just the pregnant Jujo, to also Rika and her boyfriend, apparently spotted near the love hotels, and may get expelled just for that. Not even if they did anything as Milo can attest, but making an example out of them anyway, even though she has been the biggest prude for a while. I can sure attest to the uniform debate, my country has them to and you are told how what you do while wearing them can reflect on the school, where you could get in trouble for out of school. But there is a sense of overreach, a systematic stigma of sexuality for a culture that has literally bunch together hotels for people to sleep together, because there is some level of sexual repression.

Liked the touch in episode 11's review on sex ed, not only because I was talking about it earlier, but I think that it has become pretty clear that despite not even said it kind of feels like it is something you can relate to a lot of this.

Even though Rebecca said that Kazusa is a good kid, still needs to be said that she was kind of in the wrong in the episode when she was practically trying to pressure Izumi into something he was not yet comfortable with. Not just when she told Momo that only boys and girls are right to sleep together, because that is clearly something that is taught, and doesn't even seem to enter Kazusa's mind, clearly an issue with how homosexuality is taught, if even cultural acceptance.

Does seem that there is not enough time to wrap everything up in a single episode, which is why I would be interested that more anime can do what O Maidens did in terms of issues in childhood, maybe specifically on something like the homosexuality issue that Momo only seems to becoming aware of this late. Sure there are the Bloom Into Yous, but O Maidens feels closer to Wandering Son, which I am aware that Mari Okada also wrote the anime version of. Let along all the other things like teenage pregnancy brought up as a topic, or other sorts of misunderstandings. Maybe even the other things that seem only hinted on Milo Sensei's side, where it seems like the easiest thing in the world that he date the teacher he likes, especially when the sexuality issues with youth should not affect him, yet he got mixed up in all the nonsense.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Sat Sep 14, 2019 8:19 pm Reply with quote
It's episode 11 and after reading all the comments from the past few episodes, it's time to finally say it:

Any resemblance between reality and Okada's story is tenuous at best and most likely self serving for the story over everything else. I mostly gave up on any sort of "naturalism" in this story when Hongo was on top of Milo but when she pulled out his penis, he had no erection at all. There's self control and then there's.... no. I don't accept it to that level. But that's old business. And what's new business? That ending? No, I have NO comment on it beyond what I just said.

Has Kazusa ever expressed her emotions towards Izumi or is she just expecting him to know what she wants and desires?

Quote:
Even if she and Izumi don't last, I feel like she's going to come out okay, because when push comes to shove, she does tend to do what's right.
Kazusa's problem is that she keeps allowing others to make choices for her. And, be honest, what's the better reaction: Niina stimulating Izumi to the point of arousal or the idea of having sex with Kazusa getting no reaction from him at all? "I want to do it right, I want to respect you." They've been friends for years and he's seen her at her worst/best already so it's time to get your feet wet or just leave the beach entirely. As I've said, I don't doubt that he loves her but I'm just not feeling any kind of lust or desire.

As for Momo, her friends are too hetero for her to fully come to terms with her life.... though I did get the feeling that Kazusa knew of Momo's preferences when they were on the slide together so her response to Momo's question of "gun to the head"... or "last one on Earth" here? That brings up the question of procreation though and it clouds the issue.... seems really out of character.

One episode left and it'll be a full adaptation... That seems like a waste. Not here but for the source material. "Maidens in their Savage Season".... it was a pun!?
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Panayiotis



Joined: 02 Aug 2017
Posts: 80
PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 1:56 am Reply with quote
The twist is definitively unexpected, but I think that it is in the Darling in the Franxx school of nonsensical end of season twists. I know that I'm supposed to be impressed with strength of their friendship to do this, but kidnapping and threatening to harm your hostage if your demands are not met is not just something zany thing that rebellious teens do as a joke, it is actually an act of terrorism and not only should they be expelled, they should be sent to jail as well.

There is also the problem that I don't think that their friendship is actually all that strong. Kazusa is the only one who talks about her problems at all, and even she only talks to Momo. And speaking of Momo, nobody seems to care about her problems at all as Nina does not want to even talk to her after the last phone call and Kazusa fails to notice that her best friends is distressed.

Even though the twist came from nowhere, the ending is not hard to guess. The plan somehow works and Sonezaki comes back and Izumi will chose Kazusa and the girls will tell us how good friends they are and Momo will end up as the classic tragic anime lesbian.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 3:05 am Reply with quote
@ Panayiotis
What do you want them to do? Just ask the administration not to do what they are trying? They already overhead that the administration doesn't even care if Rika did nothing wrong, there is a slight perception that they may have and they think that they can use it to their advantage of "keeping the peace". Essentially sacrificing someone innocent for the so called greater good.

I am not saying that kidnapping and threatening is the way to go about it, Milo is innocent in the situation and also wanted to solve it well. But these kids are given no voice. As much as someone says that protests are best handled in pacifist manner, of one side showing the moral high ground, truth is that you can see many cases in history where people have had to do something drastic to show a conviction in bring in progressive change. Hostage is no good, but it is not like these girls are actually going to hurt him, but truth is that there is no way anyone is going to listen to them over what is considered the moral decision anyway of people who think they are stopping the bad life decisions of teen pregnancy.

The preferable outcome would be that they can do something to garner all the support from other students against the banning of non-platonic relationships. Maybe even get enough media attention that it becomes worse for them to follow through on their policies. How these teenagers would decide to act, I can't say as I am not a teenage girl in the middle of puberty and receiving mixed messages of what they should be becoming familiar with, that they are naturally feeling, and what they are told is dirty. Seems extreme, but so were things like the women suffrage movement, being seen as obscene and overly obstructive. Not saying that it is exactly the same thing, but these teens have the right to call for change to the system, and they don't want their friend to be a victim to it.

Sympathy towards the youth who want people to listen to them, being able to show the guts that could impact their entire lives, which could give the other students to also have the guts to stand up so that they are not a small enough group that could be targeted. Thinking back to my own days, the best I can think of was a movement that had enough steam that high schoolers, who could not vote, were able to show our approval of a candidate that we thought would be better for the future we wanted as a more progressive choice. Indeed I am quite sure that said politician helped my country get through the GFC without a recession. Now days students are trying to show how serious they are about subjects like climate change, trying to get those in power to understand the fear the youth have for the future. And although I have seen a good amount of things like student strikes and protest marches, there is only so much attention they can get for their plight while playing by the rules and not being disruptive enough. Because adults don't listen to teenagers.
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Panayiotis



Joined: 02 Aug 2017
Posts: 80
PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 4:30 am Reply with quote
@ DuskyPredator
The boring real life answer would be to threaten legal action. There is no way that expelling a student for breaking ex post facto rule to set an example is legal, but I realize that would not make exiting television. You could also at least try to get public attention with protests, before you jump to terrorism.

The problem with the hostage plot is that there is no way that it should end good for them. Even if this somehow causes the adults to see the light and unexpel Sonezaki, there is no way that they can let the 4 students who assaulted, kidnapped and held hostage a more or less innocent teacher to just walk away. This would work in a episode of the Simpsons, where I know to set my suspension of disbelief way higher, but I don't think that this was the tone that the show was in.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:07 am Reply with quote
Judging by what I've heard of actual Japanese schools, including from a former co-worker who had graduated from one, it doesn't sound at all implausible that they would try to crack down on all forms of romance and dating without much pushback from the parents. In fact it's mentioned that the school had already had a rule against "inappropriate conduct between the sexes", which is likely what they could already have used against Sonezaki and Amagi without the subsequent expansion of the ban. Schools in Japan apparently believe they're acting in loco parentis not just while the students are at school, but at all times. There seems to be quite a lot of debate in Japan right now about to what extent that's appropriate, following several badly mishandled and highly publicized cases of bullying and parental abuse. There was also a lot of debate about certain schools going beyond prohibiting hair dying by specifically mandating students to have "black hair", thus forcing naturally lighter-haired students to dye their hair; a student who developed a bad allergy to the dye sued the school, and there finally seems to be movement in a more reasonable direction. Still, as a baseline of an old school administrator's view of the students' right to privacy what has been shown in the show seems believable.

The flipside of the outsize influence schools have on their students lives is that it creates the possibility of the hostage situation being resolved without getting the police involved, as long as the details don't leak out to third parties. A recent arc in Watamote had a teacher explicitly telling her students that the only reason they were being punished instead of just let off with a warning was the fact that a person from outside the school had video evidence of their wrongdoing (and even then they were given a form of in-school detention which doesn't go on their school record as a suspension). A tall order in the case of this show, given both the attitudes of the administrators and the high likelihood of the neighbors already having figured out what's happening, but a possibility nonetheless.
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Clematis



Joined: 16 Feb 2017
Posts: 66
PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:15 am Reply with quote
@Panayiotis, you're either very optimistic or delusional if you think girls their age would even consider legal action as an option. Possibly because they wouldn't even know it exists, or that it could be utilized in such scenarios. Their vision is engulfed by the gross injustice that is going on, and they unfortunately opted for the simplest and, in their eyes, likely the only effective solution, given their knowledge that the school intended to use their friends as scapegoats irregardless of their own teacher explaining the situation and accepting responsibility.

@Animegomaniac, I'm not sure where or what you were watching, but all she did was unzip his pants, and, realizing there was no reaction, suffered yet another blow to her already considerably low self-esteem. So much should be obvious from her reaction and cries of pain and frustration that come immediately after.


Last edited by Clematis on Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:19 am; edited 1 time in total
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Hal14



Joined: 01 Apr 2018
Posts: 653
Location: Heart of africa
PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:18 am Reply with quote
vonPeterhof wrote:
Judging by what I've heard of actual Japanese schools, including from a former co-worker who had graduated from one, it doesn't sound at all implausible that they would try to crack down on all forms of romance and dating without much pushback from the parents.


I went to a christian university which expelled a couple for having sex, so I don't have any issue believing a japanese high school could do this. What strains my belief though, is how cartoonish the two teachers enforcing the rule are. If they had mustaches, they would twirl them. So it makes what should be the ultimate conflict of the series very hard to take seriously.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:27 am Reply with quote
HAL14 wrote:
What strains my belief though, is how cartoonish the two teachers enforcing the rule are. If they had mustaches, they would twirl them. So it makes what should be the ultimate conflict of the series very hard to take seriously.
Eh, the "villainous vice-principal" trope is so entrenched in school-based fiction I just roll my eyes and move on most of the time. It's a bit more curious to me that the principal appears to be trying to position himself as the more reasonable figure, but instead just comes across as an ineffectual wimp.
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