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Dec 11, 2021

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 1)

So I’ve already written a lengthy essay about Natsume and Mikan’s relationship in the anime. It had to be split into six parts so I could post it on Tumblr with images in tow. I was distressed about this because my Natsume analysis was already JUST as long, and I had only reached the Reo Arc. Yeah, so if you thought my anime essay was long, tedious, or annoying, this one will be a thousand times worse.

Possible trigger warning for this meta here (for the whole thing), because I'll be talking in depth about child abuse, bullying, depression, and suicidal ideation.

My Natsume NM analysis is LONG and ongoing (as in I'm still writing it) and it'll take me another month to finish it if I continue at the rate I'm doing it now, analyzing about a volume a day. I've asked a little and people seem to be okay with the idea of me posting in intervals, probably once a day. Thus, I'm going to be updating the tag on an almost daily basis, ideally.

As a result, I don't think I'll put a table of contents here. There will simply be too many parts and it would be way too long and annoying to put on one post. It would take forever to scroll past to get to the actual analysis parts, so I'll just include next and previous links at the bottom like last time and leave it at that. I will also have all of the parts under the tag "let's talk about natsumikan: natsume" on my blog if you want to find all these posts, and if you want to see the anime ones too it'll be all under "let's talk about natsumikan" or "ga meta: nm". Really, just check the tags under this post and you'll see plenty you can use to navigate for my annoying thoughts.

ANYWAY, I decided to divide my analysis into three parts, because they made the most sense to me that way: the anime, Natsume, and then Mikan. I split it this way because I always thought the manga and anime were quite different, with the anime doing very different things with their characters and their relationships as a whole, so it deserved an analysis independent of the manga, where I can discuss the changes and how they affected NatsuMikan in particular. I could do one huge essay for manga!NatsuMikan in the same vein as the anime one, where I discuss both perspectives and experiences interchangeably, but it would simply be too long and it would get rather messy. It’s easier and more cohesive to divide the manga analysis into two very important parts: discussing Natsume’s perspective first and then Mikan’s.

So why Natsume first? Mikan is the primary character in the story, and her point of view is the most instrumental. After all, it’s through her that we learn almost everything we do. We only learn Natsume’s backstory when Ruka tells it to Mikan; we learn Yuka’s backstory when Mikan does; we find out about Hotaru’s brother only when Mikan does. Mikan’s big grand discoveries are our own, and in that way she really is Alice in Wonderland, discovering everything around her for the first time.

That being said, there are plenty of things we don’t learn from Mikan. When we first find out for sure that Natsume has the life shortening alice, it’s almost a hundred chapters before Mikan gets confirmation, when Tsubasa and Natsume discuss it. We know that Natsume loves Mikan for a while before she gets any inkling about it. Why is this?

Because Natsume’s perspective, when we are lucky enough to get it, is much more straightforward. He doesn’t really discover or learn things, he simply copes with things that are already ruining his life. Especially when it comes to NatsuMikan, Natsume’s perspective is most reliable because we know everything from him already. We can tell when he falls in love with her, we can tell when he plans to give her his alice stone (almost a full year before they do the exchange), and we can tell which scenes are loaded with romantic intent even if Mikan can’t see it. Mikan’s role in the story is to discover, Natsume’s is to give us secrets that we have to keep from the rest of the cast.

And it’s because of this difference that Natsume is first. Because he’s much easier to analyze. He already knows he loves Mikan. We already know he loves Mikan. There’s no discovery. The only journey here is how his feelings get stronger and more intense. After all, most fanfiction keeps a pretty consistent view on Natsume’s feelings, even in AUs. It’s clear, even if most readers aren’t sitting around analyzing him. Mikan’s feelings are trickier, because she’s not really aware of them either. I save the hardest analysis for last, and even though Natsume acts mysterious, the real mystery here is Mikan.

Natsume

Natsume at the very start is so cold, it's surprising that he has the fire alice...

Sadly, we’ll have to put off the actual story analysis for a little, because before we can talk about Natsume and Mikan, we have to talk a little bit about Natsume.

Natsume is ten years old at his introduction. In my opinion, he is the most tragic character I’ve ever encountered in my twenty-some years of consuming media. (I cannot think hard about him for more than a minute without starting to cry and that’s not really an exaggeration.) Naturally, that isn’t an objective fact, and some might disagree with me, but one thing I can say for sure is that his tragedies have made him a very interesting character.

I say this because sometimes people see Natsume as nothing more than an asshole, and not as a deeply traumatized child who has been forced to act like an adult for most of his life. So many of the cruel things he does are things he is forced into doing, and understanding this, and why he distances himself from the people he loves the most, is crucial to understanding him and what exactly it is about Mikan that he is so drawn to.

From birth, Natsume was plagued with the knowledge that he would die earlier than his sister. It was never a secret for him that he had the life-shortening alice. His mother talked to him about it, but under no circumstances is that knowledge easy to deal with. It is always a struggle and a burden to know that your life has a time limit on it. He was also a bit older than his sister when his mother was murdered, and thus is a little better at comprehending the act for what it was. Even when his father discusses the event with Ruka, he downplays it as his wife dying in an accident. Natsume argues that it probably wasn’t an accident. Furthermore, he is very conscious about what his family is running away from, while Aoi is way more in the dark about their situation. They send Aoi away from the door when Alice scouts come by, while eight-year-old Natsume stays to confront them.

He is already acting like a mini-adult by the time Ruka meets him. He’s had very few friends, if any, and is just as lonely as Ruka, and his inherent differences from the kids around him play into that. Not only is he an Alice, but he has struggles in his life almost nobody could comprehend.

Yet despite his maturity for an eight-year-old, he still acts like a kid too. He teases his friend, argues with his sister, jumps from windows, plays, and even smiles sometimes. For all his maturity, he’s still a little boy. He has no choice but to have knowledge about his situation, about his alice and the school his family is desperately avoiding, but his dad isn’t forbidding him from fun and friendships. He’s encouraged to make friends and be as much of a kid as he can in his situation.

The trouble is when he’s forced to transfer to Alice Academy despite all his family’s efforts. He makes a selfless choice for his sister’s sake, a decision no child should be forced to make. All in the span of less than twenty-four hours, Natsume chooses to sacrifice himself for his sister, pushes his only friend away to protect him, and gets in the car to drive to what has for his whole life been the worst possible scenario. He knows his life will be hell there. He knows that the school has been eyeing him for his powerful alice his whole life. He knows he will suffer beyond imagination and comprehension and he chooses it anyway, because it will--in his mind--keep his sister safe.

How to make me start ugly sobbing without any words ^^^

He chooses not to say goodbye to his father, and Ruka doesn’t really understand why at first until he turns around and sees that Natsume is crying already. His father knows that his son is being sent to Hell, and for Natsume it’s the next adult thing he has to do to tell the driver to speed up so that he doesn’t see his father again and break down like a child would. Natsume thinks of himself as an adult now, in almost every way but bodily.

And then there is Ruka, who Natsume would never have anticipated would follow him to the ends of the earth and to the furthest reaches of hell. After all, Ruka has been avoiding the school his whole life too. He knows it’s no normal school, or fun sunshiney place. He knows that it will be horrible, but he decides to go anyway, because he doesn’t want to be alone anymore and because he doesn’t want Natsume to be alone anymore either. Ruka came along so that Natsume could have some semblance of happiness and joy despite all the abuse.

Then Ruka is turned into a weapon. Natsume does not blame Ruka for this, but there’s a new wall between them. Natsume cannot escape his hell, not even with Ruka, because Ruka is yet another thing Natsume would sacrifice himself for. The more I think about it the more I want to write an essay about Natsume and Ruka’s friendship, because they’re my second favorite relationship in the story and my favorite fictional friendship of all time, so I’ll save some analysis on them for the future.

By the time the first chapter happens, Natsume has been forcibly separated from his family, has had no choice but to act like an adult despite being only ten, has gone on life-or-death missions for his evil school, and has put his body through the wringer in the process. When he reveals to Tsubasa how sick he is, he says he’s been in that shape for a year. Natsume is already anticipating his death and is aware that he doesn’t have a chance of lasting even close to how long his mother did.

I bring all this up because what Natsume has been through and how miserable and hopeless he is when he first meets Mikan, even with his best friend by his side, is the foundation for how quickly and intensely he falls for her. Analyzing the hows and whys of their relationship would be incomplete if I didn’t mention who exactly he is by the time he meets her.

To be entirely honest, the essay I've written about the first few chapters might look like this too. They might seem unromantic, and that's okay. NatsuMikan need to be introduced as their own characters before and throughout being actually paired together. So if it seems like I'm focusing too much on Natsume on his own, or later Mikan on her own, it's because their individual struggles are crucial to understanding behaviors and attitudes.

Chapter One

Am I really doing this? Am I really going to go through this whole manga chapter by chapter? Am I really convinced that there’s enough NatsuMikan content in nearly every chapter to warrant this kind of behavior?

Yes, I am! When I said it would be long, I MEANT it! We are going oFF!

Natsume is awake and present for exactly five pages in this chapter and I’m gonna analyze all I can think of!

He first appears via melodramatic explosion, standing confidently on the gate, attempting escape.

This alone serves several purposes: one, so that we can see that this school has some potential darkness. Kids are trying to run away, after all, meaning they can’t just leave on their own and meaning there’s something to run away from. Mikan might not think too much of this at first, but it’s a warning to us. After all, despite all of Higuchi Tachibana’s talk of this originally being a school comedy, it never was one, not as long as Natsume was a character. Conversely, for Mikan, this meeting is yet another reason on a list of reasons that this school is a freakshow, playing more into the school comedy aspect. Alice Academy is nothing like a normal school. Here, students run away via explosions and teachers talk with hearts in their speech bubbles. Natsume is testament to the bizarre, just another quirk in a school with infinite quirks.

Another purpose is to introduce Natsume as dangerous. Even before Mikan formally meets him, he demonstrates that his alice is powerful and life-threatening, but the irony of it is that later his alice only really seems dangerous to him. But beyond that, right now all we know of Natsume is that he is--presumably--the “bad boy” of the school, even if it’s reductive to categorize him like that.

And the most important purpose for the sake of this analysis, and from the perspective of knowing the whole story already (because it’s more fun this way, adding context), is that Natsume is doing this all out of uncharacteristic naivete and childishness.

We later find out, despite Misaki-sensei’s explanations, that Natsume wasn’t trying to escape for good, just for a short time to prove that he could, so that he could get his hands on a letter from his father. He knows that he won’t get it, and that the middle schoolers are just bullying him, but he’s willing to risk it for even the smallest chance that he could hear from his father again. He is not planning on being gone for long, as his escape isn’t real.

Natsume is childish here, because he’s willing to get himself into trouble for the chance of something he knows he won’t get, and even more, because later we find out that Ruka proposed they escape for a little while anyway. They’re both in a morose, unrealistic mood at this point, willing to face potentially horrifying consequences for a few hours of being careless and not having to worry about the academy and its demands. I don’t mean childish as a bad thing, especially not when it’s about Natsume, who should be childish.

Tragically his and Ruka’s entire plan is in shambles immediately, because Narumi has been waiting for him outside. Natsume’s caught, whipped, and laying on the ground when he first sees Mikan. There’s a moment of uncertainty when we think maybe he’ll use his alice on her to make a run for it, but Narumi stomps on his hand to stop him.

The Honeysuckle scans are so pretty, clear, and nice. I'd like to use them as my pic sources and might change all of them in the future as new chapters come out.

He is then threatened to not use his alice or Narumi would use his own, and so Natsume doesn’t, but Narumi uses his anyway and Natsume passes out, as all people inexperienced with romance do (I wonder what effect his alice would have on Natsume later in the story, who is so deeply entrenched in romance that it becomes one of his key motivations).

In all this time, we only see Natsume say one thing, to call Narumi a pervert, and all the information we get about this kid is from Narumi, who calls him a genius and tells Mikan what his alice is. Despite the limited knowledge we have about him now, though, his purpose is served: Mikan is fully freaked out.

Chapter Two

Immediately, Narumi leaves Mikan alone with Natsume at the main headquarters and she’s finally given the chance to panic about her new situation and--to put it frankly--the violence she just witnessed.

My biggest issue with Gakuen Alice as a work in general and Natsume in particular is how cavalier it is with child abuse. I’m not trying to vilify Narumi, but Mikan was perfectly right to be put off by his treatment of Natsume, and I personally am not much reassured by Misaki’s explanations that it was in Natsume’s best interests to be hit. For any victim of child abuse, that line sounds familiar. Yes, Natsume would probably have faced worse if his plan went further, and, yes, Natsume’s berserk button is impossible to switch off, but it still rubs me the wrong way. After all, Narumi was quite cheerful about the whole thing, and maybe that’s what stands out to me more than anything. “Did I hurt your pretty face?” and similar comments said to the child who is frequently beaten by adults at the school don’t seem like good word choices, to put it mildly.

Of course, Narumi has been playing a part this whole time to win over the academy’s trust so that he can enact change from inside, but this has been done at the expense of the students’ trust, especially Natsume’s.

It’s understandable that Natsume has such severe distrust and disdain towards every adult at the school, because they are all either complicit or directly involved in physically abusing him.

Moving on, Misaki makes a bold claim about Natsume that is inconsistent with what we know, having finished the story. Natsume is actually not a repeat offender of trying to escape. Natsume is being held in place by threats against Ruka and his family. Despite his dalliance with naivete this one time, he knows better than to risk his loved one’s safety for irresponsible desires like running away. He has more reason than anyone to want to leave the school, but he knows he can’t and there’s no way he ever would, chronic martyr that he is.

Realistically, this was probably nothing more than just a dumb comment from before Higuchi Tachibana got all the characters fully shored up, just a tiny mistake or plot hole.

When it comes to inconsistencies in media, I like to either disregard them or try to explain them in-universe, and I think I can explain this one this time. Misaki-sensei does not seem like he is fully involved with the higher ups in the academy. He doesn’t seem to have the ESP’s ear, like Narumi does on many occasions. He is just the biology teacher, and doesn’t know the ins and outs of Natsume’s troublemaking. After all, Natsume seems to ditch more classes than he attends, so maybe in Misaki’s mind, the kid is off trying to run away when he should be in bio.

In fact, when he moves on to discuss Natsume’s cat mask, in the manga it is Misaki who tells Mikan to be wary of “black cats”, warning her to stay away. It’s established that the mask is supposed to tamper alices, to “punish” dangerous children by de-powering them for a time until the mask is removed. But Misaki clarifies that the mask is useless on Natsume, whose alice is so strong, he could overpower even the mask. The mask is yet another example of physical abuse, actually, because it’s later revealed that it sends electric shocks, giving Natsume a persistent headache and keeping him in pain and in line.

So instead of trying to guide potentially dangerous students into better controlling their powers and emotions, you ostracize them and use them as child soldiers? Yeah, that makes sense.

It’s also, as Misaki puts it, a “red flag” to denote a dangerous child. Stay away is the message you’re supposed to get from the mask, ostracizing “dangerous” children from their peers and essentially “othering” them. More maliciously is that the mask is Natsume’s mission uniform. That is the face that the academy’s enemies see, so much so that he is simply known as the “Black Cat” in those circles, and as Reo later says, a nickname spoken in fear and awe. After all, it’s supposed to be used for alice restriction and punishment, and that’s what he wears when he’s supposed to be at his most powerful. It’s almost as though the academy is extra cruel for no reason other than for the pizazz.

The chat Misaki has with Mikan is pretty informative, and she acts as discoverer for us, finding out all these facts about Natsume and the academy, much of which we’ll get into when we explore her perspective, but for now, one of the most important things to take away from the conversation is Misaki’s comment that once Natsume is set off, he is impossible to calm down. This is foreshadowing, as Natsume will be set off within the first volume, the first arc, and it’s a crucial part of Mikan’s full introduction to him.

It’s also an interesting and consistent part of his character, and throughout the story it’s established that there are buttons you simply don’t press unless you want to get barbecued. For a boy who’s been forced into early adulthood and employs way more restraint and responsibility than a child ever should, it’s interesting to see him shed all maturity and reason whenever he’s set off.

Misaki leaves to the greenhouse, urging Mikan to press the emergency button if Natsume were to wake up.

And now is perhaps as good a time as any to properly meet Natsume, who wakes up and flings Mikan on to the couch.

A meet-cute! Or... nevermind...

So, to be entirely honest this next scene is supposed to be funny. Mikan is flung onto the couch and under attack by this dangerous black cat boy and at first it’s kinda scary! Then Ruka comes and it just becomes a little bullying episode! He takes her underwear off, how hilarious! There’s honestly not much more substance to the scene than that, as disappointing as that might be. Higuchi Tachibana herself merely explains it by establishing that he’s a pervert, and that’s all we have to run with for analysis. All it’s for is to make Natsume and Mikan enemies.

All that needed to be done to establish that though is an unpleasant encounter, and it could've been replaced with any other action and resulted in the same animosity. It is what it is though, and I can't change it so...

Moving on, the threat of possible discipline for his escape is eliminated once an ally (Ruka, who brings him security), and more pressing threats than Mikan (teachers) arrive, so he is able to run away and seek refuge from Class B, where he and Ruka pretend like nothing happened. Their escape attempt did not pan out at all, Natsume is not getting that letter, not that he ever was, and all they can do now is sit in their chaotic classroom.

Chapter Three

We see Natsume again when Mikan makes her Class B debut, perhaps an hour or so later. Mikan reacts to their second meeting with anger and high emotion--as is to be expected--and is only made angrier by Natsume and Ruka’s complete apathy.

The next thing we learn about Natsume, sadly, is that Natsume is considered something like a boss in Class B, and Mikan shouldn’t be expecting any support from a group that idolizes Natsume so much.

The rest of Class B rallies to bully Mikan, while Natsume sits there expressionless. It’s interesting to imagine this scene through his perspective, tricky as it might be, to imagine that there is a divide he is constantly living, between life-or-death missions and the reliable chaos of his homeroom class. Despite being the boss, despite being “Natsume-san”, he is really not emotionally invested in any of these antics. If anything, it’s just a way to pass the time.

They stopped paying attention at some point.

He doesn’t even say much throughout the confrontations, choosing instead to watch his classmates torture her on his behalf. It really only gets interesting to him when he discovers that Mikan was given a condition for her entry: she has to be accepted by Class B in order to officially enroll.

In your first read-through, you might find such a clause to be ridiculous, but since there’s so many bizarre happenings at this school, you might take it in stride as just another weird thing in a weird place. Reading again, or being Natsume, you’d know better: there was never a clause to begin with. That was a lie from Narumi, just one in a series of manipulations he makes to stir trouble in the academy like he promised Yuka.

The truth is that Mikan has an alice, but Narumi wants to see one last exhibit of proof, and even more he wants to see what happens when hers comes head to head with Natsume’s alice. He makes it clear that he knew Natsume would challenge Mikan, which he does, and that the challenge would allow Mikan to discover her alice, which it does. Narumi immediately pairs them together, and narratively speaking they’re already set up together. He calls Mikan Natsume’s “key”, and the reader should file that information away and see what he means by that.

Natsume knows the condition is a ruse. You’re either an alice, or you’re not, and there’s no way the school would take the chance to miss capturing another magical child to keep. All these games for one girl stand out, and the fact that Natsume couldn’t use his alice on her is even more reason for these events to be out of the ordinary, so he has no choice but to pay attention and get involved.

With that, Natsume sends Mikan on a mission to the Northern Woods with her friends as guides, knowing full well that the forest is off limits to students and that it harbors some dangers that may help prompt Mikan into using her alice.

Even Ruka is confused by all the effort Natsume is going to for this new kid, and Natsume brushes the confusion off.

Natsume and Ruka like playing cards with Usagi-chan!

Chapter Four

Mikan, Hotaru and Iinchou have a conversation about Natsume while on their mission, and several things are brought up--namely that he has a grudge against the school, has only one friend, and that he is rumored to be a murderer.

This makes a few things clear for us, but prompts new questions as well.

First, we see more proof that Natsume hates the academy, but more than anything it’s a reiteration of what Misaki said: that he causes trouble and has an incredibly powerful alice. We still aren’t sure of what the reason for his hatred might be, but we can see it’s potent.

Secondly, he has only one friend. That calls to question the horde of apologists and fans he has in Class B, and what he would classify them as, if they’re not his friends. He doesn’t talk to them, or really hang out with them. They hang around him, and this seems to have been consistent throughout his childhood. Even back when he first met Ruka, he had developed a following at that school too, including boys trying to emulate him and girls with crushes on him. Natsume has a magnetic presence, boosted by his powerful alice and general disregard for rules. But despite always being surrounded by people, he only has one friend, Ruka, who truly understands him and that he views as trustworthy.

Third, he’s rumored to be a murderer. Narratively, we already know Natsume is dangerous, on account of his alice and his troublemaking, but to be a murderer is on a whole other level. What this sort of rumor means for Natsume, knowing the true story behind why he had to come to the academy and what that rumor is based on, is the question worth asking here. How does it feel giving up everything just to have people fear you and spread horrible gossip about you? And all the while, you’re just a child? People either entirely adore or abhor Natsume with very little room in between, and he’s well aware of the effect he has. It’s probably the reason he only has one friend despite all the admirers: Ruka is the only one who knows what Natsume really did, who understands Natsume the way nobody else does, and who doesn’t admire him without reason.

This is their wanted poster.

My point bringing all this up is that in Chapter Four we’re given the information that Natsume is absurdly lonely. He’s misunderstood by admirers and enemies alike and yet has very little chance to sit with his own thoughts because he’s always surrounded by people, or being sent on missions. The only thing Natsume can count on, and the only thing at this whole school that Natsume cares about is Ruka.

And then Natsume finds out that Ruka is heading in the direction of the Northern Woods.

Conclusion

Natsume is introduced as a character, but using Mikan's perspective for this analysis would be tricky and counter-productive. It's easier instead to use all the knowledge we have of him from the whole story so the meta can be more thorough. The first few chapters and his backstory help establish Natsume as a traumatized, miserable, and cold child with only friend he can trust. We learn why he hates the teachers and the academy. Overall, he seems like a tough egg to crack. He is only going to get tougher in the next few chapters, and that's not at all romantic but we're getting there. This is all a set up!

Stay tuned for the next segment (which I'll post soon) about the next couple chapters. I wanted to go volume by volume but I'm running out of room for pics and the next chapter is kinda heavy in content so unfortunately I don't get my way. Thanks for reading!

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#need to reread ga now

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