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Sep. 17th, 2013 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shifty_gardenerIn the interest of my Yuletide letter not being embarrassingly long, I'm putting extra crap I couldn't not write here.
So. Oresama. I usually don't ship teacher/student pairings (bc the age gap and power difference weirds me out) but I really, really think Mafuyu and Takaomi belong together. A large part of this is because, even like 90 chapters in, Takaomi is the only person that understands Mafuyu and sees her for who she is.
A big theme in this manga is the isolating nature of power. This isn’t an issue that shows up during action scenes, but rather one that pervades every scene of the manga. A lot of the humor in the series is based on small misunderstandings where two characters hear something and think of two completely different things (like when Hayasaka says “assembly”, imagining a school assembly, and Mafuyu imagines a biker gang gathering), and I’ve noticed these misunderstandings happen more often between people with different ranks. When Okegawa and Hayasaka hear of the dreadful and powerful Mafuyu when Maizono visits their school, one imagines a man-eating bear and the other, a guy with bulging muscles. Yui and Hayasaka seem like really different people, but they always understand one another perfectly. All of the banchou characters are isolated to some degree, and Mafuyu, as the strongest of all of them, doesn’t have anyone she can completely confide in or act naturally around. Except for Takaomi. He can tell what she is thinking before she says it and a lot of the manga reads like it’s them against the world.
The Takaomi | Mafuyu | everyone else boundary is pretty clear cut – when with lower ranking people, which is everyone, Mafuyu acts like a knight in shining armor, whether it’s as Natsuo, or a prince with Okegawa, or a charismatic guy to the President or when trying to go on a date with Kenkawa. On some level, Mafuyu is always trying to take care of everyone around her, something that the impersonal and charismatic prince role allows her to do. Takaomi is the only character she doesn’t do this for. In fact, Takaomi is the only character that can bring out her feminine side. I’m not saying that Mafuyu should be acting like a girl because she is a girl, but rather because she actually says she likes being treated like a girl from time to time (Volume 8) and because Mafuyu deserves to have someone look out and do nice things for her for a change. Also, people grow and change when they're taken out of their comfort zone, and Takaomi is the only person that can catalyze any sort of growth in Mafuyu because he's the only person that keeps her on her toes in the entire manga. Oresama Teacher is a reverse harem manga, and Takaomi is the only person not in the harem.
So, I don't ship Mafuyu/Okegawa because he has a super idealized view of Mafuyu (literally a prince on a horse) and she would never feel the same depth of feeling he feels for her, and I don't ship Mafuyu/Hayasaka because 1. in Volume 7 (?), after Mafuyu tells him she was expecting some sort of touching reunion between friends after Summer vacation, he tells her that he prefers people like Ninja because being friends with Mafuyu is a lot of pressure, so a romantic relationship does not seem to be in the cards and 2.Hayasaka/Yui OTP 5eva I think they're really good as friends.
I DO ship Mafuyu/Kengawa because it looks to me like he's been unrequitedly in love with her for a while (or he's just a really jealous friend. maaaaaybe.) and he tries to understand Mafuyu as much as she will let him, so those two crazy kids could probably make it work.
So. Oresama. I usually don't ship teacher/student pairings (bc the age gap and power difference weirds me out) but I really, really think Mafuyu and Takaomi belong together. A large part of this is because, even like 90 chapters in, Takaomi is the only person that understands Mafuyu and sees her for who she is.
A big theme in this manga is the isolating nature of power. This isn’t an issue that shows up during action scenes, but rather one that pervades every scene of the manga. A lot of the humor in the series is based on small misunderstandings where two characters hear something and think of two completely different things (like when Hayasaka says “assembly”, imagining a school assembly, and Mafuyu imagines a biker gang gathering), and I’ve noticed these misunderstandings happen more often between people with different ranks. When Okegawa and Hayasaka hear of the dreadful and powerful Mafuyu when Maizono visits their school, one imagines a man-eating bear and the other, a guy with bulging muscles. Yui and Hayasaka seem like really different people, but they always understand one another perfectly. All of the banchou characters are isolated to some degree, and Mafuyu, as the strongest of all of them, doesn’t have anyone she can completely confide in or act naturally around. Except for Takaomi. He can tell what she is thinking before she says it and a lot of the manga reads like it’s them against the world.
The Takaomi | Mafuyu | everyone else boundary is pretty clear cut – when with lower ranking people, which is everyone, Mafuyu acts like a knight in shining armor, whether it’s as Natsuo, or a prince with Okegawa, or a charismatic guy to the President or when trying to go on a date with Kenkawa. On some level, Mafuyu is always trying to take care of everyone around her, something that the impersonal and charismatic prince role allows her to do. Takaomi is the only character she doesn’t do this for. In fact, Takaomi is the only character that can bring out her feminine side. I’m not saying that Mafuyu should be acting like a girl because she is a girl, but rather because she actually says she likes being treated like a girl from time to time (Volume 8) and because Mafuyu deserves to have someone look out and do nice things for her for a change. Also, people grow and change when they're taken out of their comfort zone, and Takaomi is the only person that can catalyze any sort of growth in Mafuyu because he's the only person that keeps her on her toes in the entire manga. Oresama Teacher is a reverse harem manga, and Takaomi is the only person not in the harem.
So, I don't ship Mafuyu/Okegawa because he has a super idealized view of Mafuyu (literally a prince on a horse) and she would never feel the same depth of feeling he feels for her, and I don't ship Mafuyu/Hayasaka because 1. in Volume 7 (?), after Mafuyu tells him she was expecting some sort of touching reunion between friends after Summer vacation, he tells her that he prefers people like Ninja because being friends with Mafuyu is a lot of pressure, so a romantic relationship does not seem to be in the cards and 2.
I DO ship Mafuyu/Kengawa because it looks to me like he's been unrequitedly in love with her for a while (or he's just a really jealous friend. maaaaaybe.) and he tries to understand Mafuyu as much as she will let him, so those two crazy kids could probably make it work.
