Nanaka from Myself;Yourself and Repressed Love

Well, I’m back to talking about this show. “But you said It was mediocre last post!” the reader may say/think/murmur. My rebuttal is that you can have interesting ideas even when the execution is botched. After all, I have to give Dogakobo some credit: they have made some rather fun shows the past few years. Myself;Yourself is unironically – which may itself present a great irony, if the reader enjoys such semantics – recommend as a romance, a decision I find odd. The perceived quality of a work of art can always be debated but I am going to completely set such issues aside. As I pointed out in my impressions on the show pilot, there is a very strange dynamic between Nanaka and Sana. I was wondering what sort of implications we can draw from their relationship. Myself;Yourself paints love as rather creepy in that Nanaka considers Sana highly while having a very cold and distant relationship with him. Usually, love is focused on as being warm and excellent, but as I said in another post, we tend to only care for a certain kind of fantastical love. Besides, how could love be creepy?

Episode 2 clarifies the events that begin Episode 1 – the flashback. Nanaka is the girl who plays violin for Sana at what seems to have been his farewell party. Sana left his town five years ago and is finally now returning, as evidenced by the first episode being named “Nostalgic Place. ” Clearly the two characters are especially close as children, dwarfing their relationship to the other three characters in the childhood friendship circle. Before leaving, as I already said, Sana gave Nanaka a bracelet. And back to the present. The purple-haired girl seemingly spies on Sana throughout the episode. Yet when Sana says “nice to meet you to her,” she slaps him violently and walks away with a cold and downtrodden expression.  These two actions are clearly contradictory, at least upon superficial viewing.  

Her undying love for him is clearly carried on, which makes her slapping him puzzling. Though such a term is both harsh and misogynistic, Nanaka is a “cold bitch” who is uncaring  when viewed in light of this latter action. Many media often transform complex women into “cold bitches” (c.b.) who expect people to magically understand their emotions without any assistance. That is why this term is fitting – because of its offensiveness, not in spite. This perception being in media is damaging. In a similar manner, Sana is left to wonder what he did wrong. But Nanaka is not simply a c.b. She flashes him the bracelet and Sana remembers barely; here her intent was to somehow show her undying love but also the disappointment that she felt. Even after five years, Nanaka appears to feel the same way about Sana, though he has forgotten his feelings for her. Such love is very creepy,  which is evidenced by her steadfastness. Even being a c.b. w.r.t. the frosty expressions she wears (as shown above), Nanaka is on some level completely incapable of expressing his true emotions; textbook tsundere.

The Ice Age – or Cold War, whichever is preferred – is characterized by her glaring when she catches Sana’s eye. Fiery or frosty with no inbetween. Sana sitting next to her during the class representative meeting the audiovisual room does not close this distance; she answers coldly to everything he says until their conversation is smothered in a blizzard. If Nanaka is truly in love with Sana, why does this outcome repeat itself again and again? The answer is rather simple if love is decoupled from a fantastical socialized image: repressing her emotions over these years has lead to a breakdown in her ability to talk to Sana while at the same time strengthening those emotions. Thus, Nanaka’s emotions aren’t simply c.b. but with Sana as a partial cause. Loving someone in such a manner is “creepy” in light of societal standards, which makes the pain worse in a negative feedback loop. Thus Nanaka has the most negative responses when her love is seemingly be trampled on – Sana forgetting her, or Sana with another girl. 

One complicating factor that seems to make the situation much more worse is Sana’s forgotten affection for her. He plays the song she wrote for him on violin on piano while Nanaka eavesdropped in episode 2, which is appropriately titled “Precious Melody.” His ability to half-remember suggests that a strong emotion is buried deep inside. Nanaka’s facial expression – which only the viewer can see – reveals that she is happy, something Sana never can see. Her inability to seem as something beyond a c.b. to Sana must also play a role in a negative feedback; the coldness is thus a way of saying that she fears that her love may never truly amount to anything. Such is the creepy love that is unacceptable, except to the person who feels that emotion. Despite this strong emotion, Nanaka feels bound to holding him back because she feels her emotions have become unworthy.

What I have seen in this show thus far matches my own personal experiences and knowledge: love is not considered to even exist in this form. Love features warmth or at least its semblance, not coldness and distance. But some like Nanaka may consider their own love to have become creepy and worthless, facilitating creating such a dysfunctional relationship. They cannot accept their feelings and cannot simply bestow upon the person who matters so very much to them with warm affection; or they believe their feelings cannot go somewhere, so they resort to this method.  What a painful existence such a person must feel, having their warm emotions gain a valence of frost and be forced to bear that imbalance. That contrast between the warmth of love and the coldness they feel in the presence of their love is thus seemingly insurmountable.