Discover Top Posts Tagged with #mizuha

镜花水月 (一)

// To Subsist on Mirages - (I) EP3: “Mizuha”

I've begun to notice a an emerging sentiment in the fandom: people are saying shit along the lines of "It's the HAYASE BLOODLINE CURSE!" or "Hayase descendants are twisted!" as a reaction/response to Mizuha's actions in episode 3.

My problem with this narrative is that it's very reductive. Mizuha’s character arc is gonna be one of the backbones of Season 3’s themes, so it's a huge loss for fans of TYE if the best explanation anyone could give about Mizuha’s motivations and actions are “Hayase bloodline lol.” So instead of focusing on whether we should start forming a Mizuha Defense Squad or rally all your pitchforks, or whether Mizuha is the closest reincarnation of Hayase to date—

Let’s first understand Mizuha’s mind. Aren’t we always curious about what goes on behind the minds of both people we like and people who irk us? Don’t we like a little dissection of a complicated character, so we can argue better among ourselves, be it for or against her?

This is what I’m setting out to do in this series of essays. This one focus only on materials we can excavate in EP3.

Welcome, to 镜花水月。🪶

🎴"The flower in the mirror; the moon on the water"

The idiom, 镜花水月, originated from Buddhism: the things we perceive as real are often mere illusions. The flower is merely a reflection in the mirror; the moon isn't actually on the water. And yet, we won't recognize them as illusions… so long as we remain too deluded to truly see.

If I had to choose a word to represent Mizuha, it would be "mirage."

She subsists on mirages. She herself is a mirage. She constructs an illusion of herself to everyone, including herself.

[🪡🪶🪡]

🌑 The Mirage of the Pursuit of Perfection

In her monologue, we get to listen to Mizuha talk about the things she has: achievements, trophies, and various certificates proving her mastery. Everything’s still working as it should; she still hasn't failed in any of her pursuits. She masters things "better and faster" than everyone else around her. These things have never posed any challenge to her, and so she treats them more as a means to continuously prove her status as a perfect person.

For what does she need this constant proof? Is it out of vanity? Is it out of hubris, of arrogance? Those are certainly plausible, but I personally disagree. Mizuha, for now, has shown no indication of enjoying her achievements at all. She doesn't flaunt it to people. She also doesn't seem interested in holding on to her dominance.

Take "naginata training" for example. In EP1, we learned that she had quit that club because, in her words, she had already mastered all there is to it. If Mizuha's goal was vanity or hubris (i.e., Hayase's mindset), then she would still have chosen to STAY in that club, because then she would remain as “the absolute ceiling.” Hell, she would even go out and join even MORE naginata challenges.

But that's not what she did. She quit as soon as she got her trophy in the bag.

In the same monologue, we also learn about the things Mizuha wants: a perfect friend and a perfect mother (where the hell is her father in this picture? Bro is treated like bloatware for some reason ).

Now, I suspect this is the part where a lot of us start to come away thinking she is seriously full of herself. For her "perfect friend", she has this to say about potential candidates:

When it comes to her mom, she has this other thing that she coveted: eternal youth, Then, knowing that she can't stay young forever, she decides that she should kill herself at the very old age of seventeen. The peak of youth.

I'm sure this is the part where everyone watching loses all doubt and calls Mizuha's self-titled "bad personality" what it really is: narcissism. She holds such a high opinion of herself. She sees herself as such an embodiment of perfection that anyone else must be perfect to be allowed her proximity.

And yet, in the same episode, we see both "what Mizuha has" and "what Mizuha wants" completely affronted.

She is supposed to be perfect due to her genius skill mastery, and yet despite all of her achievements, her mother doesn't see her as perfect after all. What she has doesn’t make her perfect.

Second, she hasn’t even obtained what she wanted at all. Her mother and friends fall short of her ideal completely. Even more damningly, the "friend" whose opinions and impressions matter the most is utterly unmatched to Mizuha's achievements. Hanna is, quite frankly, Mizuha's inferior.

Yes, Mizuha tolerates these imperfections in her life, but she also explicitly referred to them as "her complexes." Why?

Because she knows she does NOT completely detest these imperfections as much as she should—and that clashes with the narrative she has told herself as "the perfect being."

Now, you might argue that she doesn't "hate" imperfections because, well, these losers make her perfection even more obvious. These inferiors must have helped sustained her feeling of superiority. She certainly paints that picture when she classifies her friends merely as "my social safety net.”

But I disagree completely.

At one point, Izumi demands they move to a new place. If Mizuha is who she says she is, this move would have been a great opportunity for her to finally leave these imperfect friends and find new people who could fit her ideal of perfection better. A social safety net is only needed when you're still bound by that society, so if Mizuha could get out of that school, she would have no need for this net anymore.

And yet, she admits to feeling "illogical emotions." She feels regret. She retreats to her room to sew a little feather hairband for Hanna.

In another instance, when she asks Hanna, "Will you cry if I die?", Mizuha admits that her heart skipped when Hanna didn't immediately answer her with anything affirmative.

It is a mirage. Behind her mirage of perfection pursuit, the truth is that she genuinely cares a lot about what an imperfect friend thought of her. This goes beyond putting up an appearance for the sake of blending into her social setting, or tolerating imperfections for the sake of not feeling lonely and left out, or even using them as mere safety nets and superiority props.

The same can also be seen in her devotion to her imperfect mother. The mother who has "wrinkles" and is actively aging. The mother who is not at all as accomplished as Mizuha herself. And these are not even then most damning parts of her imperfection: within three episodes, this woman had exhibited very little warmth and love for her daughter.

Izumi is controlling of what Mizuha does with her free time, talents, and even who she chooses to associate with. She only listens to Mizuha if what she's about to say aligns with what Izumi already wants, otherwise Izumi scowls at her until Mizuha caves. In the manga, she even brutishly yanks her, as though yanking the agency out of her.

Chapter 119.

And yet, Mizuha explicitly states in her monologue that she would do anything for her. If what Izumi wants from her is ceaseless perfection, then she will remain that way.

Girl is so devoted to perfection for her mother 's sake that, because she believes youth is an important component to it (especially because it's something her imperfect mother doesn't have), she wants to die after she turns seventeen. I repeat: she THINKS she will peak at the ripe old age of seventeen—the retirement age for a girl born in the worst medieval time when there were three deadly plagues running concurrently. This is how devoted she is to her mother.

This returns us to my first central thesis: Mizuha's stubborn belief in her own perfection, as well as her dogged pursuit of it, has always been a mirage. It's an illusionary self-made narrative, a personal fable, a script detailing her identity that she wrote for herself and stuck to.

Every teenager and former-teenager knows that this is the time when we began creating our identity. This is the one Mizuha, aged fourteen, decided was hers.

[🪡🪶🪡]

🌑 The Mirage of Superiority

Is Mizuha a narcissist?

HELL YES. She's very, very much a narcissist, even with her nuances and complexities (In fact, I'll argue it's because of her complexities).

But she isn't born one. She’s not born as one because of her "Hayase bloodline." She's not one because she "looks the most like Hayase" (even though every single one of these descendants looks like her, man. It's canonical Same Face Syndrome). She’s not one because she “feels” like Hayase.

My second central thesis is that Mizuha's narcissism has nothing to do with being "a Hayase rebirth" at all. She was made into one by a web of interdependent factors.

We touched on the lengths Mizuha would go for her mom, but we didn't look into what compels her to go this far. It isn't stated explicitly, but it’s completely observable: her mother's love for her daughter is nearly, completely conditional.

Izumi has a lot of expectations, both apparent (like her demanding Mizuha to continue taking up all kinds of classes and competitions until she's earned a certificate) and subtle (like her glaring at Mizuha until she says things Izumi wants to hear). Mizuha may not say it explicitly, but it’s one can easily deduce that the only way she can earn Izumi's care and love is if she continues to be Izumi's trophy.

Izumi herself is a narcissist with a penchant for unrealistic expectations (it's a common narcissistic trait). Then, because her daughter exhibited peculiar genius in doing absolutely everything, Izumi imposed those expectations on her daughter, perhaps even living vicariously through Mizuha's achievements. Her love, affection, and care for Mizuha is therefore independent on the condition that Mizuha continues to satisfy her expectations.

It's emotional abuse, at the very least. But adding to that complexity is Mizuha embracing this condition as well!

Why? Because everyone else in her life, so far, had affirmed that mirage of perfection! Everyone else is constantly amazed at what she could do, rather than what she thinks.

Humans don't create their identity in a vacuum—they are shaped by the complex interplay between genes/nature and environment/nurture. An individual's personal fable is, ironically, not so much about themself but a microcosm of the social network they are a member of. Mizuha is no different; she is naturally gifted, and that influences the way her mother and the people around her treat her, which influences how Mizuha sees herself and who she believes she is (which influences her mother etc. again, and on and on the cycle goes). As I said: she is made a narcissist.

Narcissism, in this vein, is a social contagion. Rather than it being an "inherited disorder from my ancestress," Mizuha's narcissism is socially developed… just like her depression.

Yes, Mizuha is depressed as well. It might not be the kind that is immediately recognizable in mainstream pop culture—after all, there was no outward sign of chronic lethargy, prolonged pessimism, low spirits, etc. But look closely.

What Mizuha expresses here isn't just angsty, edgy "teen-speak." It is genuine suicidal ideation—she wants to die because she thinks that seventeen will be the last moment of "perfection.”

What happens when she turns eighteen? Or even older? She believes she will go downhill from there… because the mirage of perfection will become harder and harder to maintain. And if she cannot remain that mirage—if she cannot remain who she believes she is—then she has failed at that one requirement to justify her existence and her eligibility to be loved and cared for.

In other words: Mizuha's depression is directly tied to her socially-enabled narcissism. The former is the latter's direct, inseparable consequence. Much like narcissism, depression can also be a social contagion. Narcissism is a mirage—of superiority and achievement—both creating and masking the depth of one's existential fatigue (depression).

Believe it or not, the examination of these two social contagions has already been incisively carried out by a 21st century (yes, he's still alive) philosopher, Han Byung-Chul, in his seminal books The Burnout Society (2015) and The Agony of Eros (2017) (among others). Mizuha's depressive suicidal ideation, per Han's framework, is utterly rational. A life devoted to chasing "positivity"—achievements, glory, accomplishments—actually made Mizuha a willing participant of her own exploitation. The agony of this self-dehumanization are then swept to the far recesses of the mind… behind more mirages.

So… What happens when something breaks out of the mirage?

[🪡🪶🪡]

🌑 The Mirage of Control

Those who are more knowledgeable about psychology or mental disorders might have already noticed some similarities between Mizuha's mirages and dissociation. That's exactly what I noticed the first time I watched EP3.

Mizuha regularly dissociates herself from the feelings she experiences. She does it even in her monologue. Then, there's the time she had parfait with her best friend. Hanna, contented with her day of hanging out with Mizuha, concludes, "Ah, it's so peaceful, huh?"

Mizuha's response? She bursts into tears—and appears to be utterly baffled by it.

Behavior like this—suddenly sobbing at moments that shouldn't warrant it, while being absolutely confounded because "you didn't feel sad” (or any emotion resembling it)—is a sign of habitual, long-standing dissociation. Your own understanding of your "self," the psychological narrative and cognitive processes you believe is yours, has consistently and systematically excluded other processes and experiences despite their arousal and existence. That creates a dissociation between "you" as you believe who you are, and “everything else” which you don't claim.

Sidenote: I've observed much of this from watching a friend I grew up with. They dissociate under acute stress in seconds—automatically, and often, unknowingly to themself. The result can be very disquieting to the very few who managed to notice it, and frustrating to the same very few who are trying to help them.

Dissociation is the key to Mizuha's psychology. It's the scaffolding behind all her mirages. Think about Mizuha's attitude toward her "imperfect friends in our earlier discussion. She addresses genuine feelings she has for Hanna, and yet she calls them "illogical" after talking shit about "people who experience regret." She's dissociating herself from something she genuinely feels strongly, right there and then.

It's a mirage of control. Mizuha believes and presents herself as this well-put-together, perfect being by dissociating from everything she deems imperfect about herself. She wouldn't have been able to survive a decade and more of this consistent, persistent, and insistent self-exploitation without faltering in her mirage of perfection (i.e. burnouts, physical self-abuse, etc.) if she didn't rely on dissociation.

Indeed, that's how that friend manages to remain completely functional and put-together when everyone else in their family suffered from serious mental disorders and trauma. It's both impressive and a little unsettling.

However, the danger of dissociation is that by discarding certain things to achieve an illusion of perfect control, you are essentially giving away your actual control. And this is where we talk about the plot reveal at the end of EP3: Mizuha's matricide.

Mizuha has suffered from her biggest dissociative episode yet. Her memory blanks, and she retained none of the emotional arousals one would have experienced when committing a murder (especially for the first time). It was only after she saw her bloodied hand and the knife her fingers strangely, stubbornly clung when she started to behave appropriately.

It’s a whodunit. Did Mizuha kill her mom?

Simple good observations and deduction alone would tell you "nah."

Have you noticed Mizuha's dominant hand?

I indulge in sewing. In my experience, people often hold the needle with their dominant hand.

Now, compare that to the hand she uses to hold the knife.

That's right. It was someone else. Someone inside her. Since we also know Mizuha's actually a descendant of Hayase, it's not hard to deduce that this was the Left Hand Nokker's doing.

The Nokkers, as a narrative device, have had changing functions and allegories throughout this series. So while I don't know what they, as a whole, are supposed to represent for this particular era, in Mizuha's case, I think the Left Hand Nokker functions as a manifestation of Mizuha's dissociation. An Other you've created by denying certain things you've experienced, felt, and thought.

But I'll be remiss if I believe the Left Hand Nokker is merely "Mizuha's Other Side," because even back in Season 2, the Left Hand had a personality dependent of its host. This means it's not even completely Mizuha—it's an alien entity who takes on parts of the “Mizuha” she dissociated from to become another personality that can, will, and does override her body. Mizuha's mirage of control is so illusionary that she doesn't even have control over her own body.

Mizuha is already losing internal control, but that's not the only type of control she lost in this episode.

[🪡🪶🪡]

🌑 The Mirage of Agency

To most of her peers, no one could have possibly made Mizuha do anything.

She's the best; bet she's also the teachers' pet. She learns new skills instantly. She is so in-charge that her peers imagine her as "a slut," perpetually starting new relationships with anyone she fancies. She doesn't have to struggle for choices, be it in relationships, skills, or academics.

But it's a mirage—and one not even Mizuha believes in it. For one, she has been experiencing an acute lack of motivation. She gets good at things so quickly that she is deprived of any joy in learning.

In the absence of joy, she gravitates toward a true source of happiness: the Occult Club, where Hanna is. She even believes that maybe her mom would let her skip her (already mastered) class on the weekend to hang out with them.

But Izumi denies her every request, thought, and desire that didn't align with her own. Time and again, Mizuha has had to sacrifice what she truly thinks and dissociates to maintain that mirage of perfection—to please her mother.

Nonetheless, because she wanted to hang out with her friends instead of going to classes, she upsets her mother enough to become "imperfect.” To add to that pain is Izumi's completely one-sided decision to move the family away, forcing Mizuha to part with Hanna.

Mizuha is at a loss. She has no external control of her life at all.

That is why Mizuha committed "a modest rebellion." It's a fourteen-year-old's attempt to wrest some kind of agency over her life by doing the one thing her mother forbids her to do: meeting her grandfather.

But it was never really going to blossom into something more; at least she didn't think so. Until her grandfather reveals her true lineage.

She reads up about it. Then, from thin air, a mysterious figure materializes to retrieve her and return her to Izumi.

From this point onward, Mizuha's life has changed.

She first receives the coveted response from Hanna that she had wanted:

Her mother apologizes to her, acknowledges her feelings on the matter, and cancels the move.

She even gives her "my favorite hairband from when I was a kid." A hug. Love and warmth, unprompted. Unconditional.

Mizuha suddenly has everything she wanted. Her feelings and opinions are acknowledged and responded to. A brand new purpose in life (more on that later). A best friend who really cares for her—close enough to match her own feelings for her.

For a while, she no longer needs to dissociate. Her life is suddenly on the right track. Improving. From that modest rebellion, Mizuha appears to have reclaimed her agency.

In the end, however, it is but a mirage. The kindness and care Izumi shows are nothing more than a deception to keep Mizuha close. It's an act of manipulation, exploiting the trust Mizuha has for her mother, all in the service of Izumi's own brand of narcissism. Mizuha will always be Mommy’s precious trophy; without her, how can Izumi know happiness and purpose?

Mizuha has that one brief moment of being a person… and then she loses it. At the mall, she dissociates again to maintain her perfect bubbliness. Then, she cracks and accidentally bursts into tears.

We now have most of the pieces of Mizuha's psychology assembled together. It's time to examine the moment that made so many believe she was the Second Coming of Hayase.

[🪡🪶🪡]

🌑 The Mirage of Perfect Transcendence

Put yourself in her shoes. A girl, deprived of her agency, has started noticing herself failing at her singular purpose of "perfection." Then, suddenly, her grandfather reveals the truth of her origin.

A noble lineage. A legendary ancestor. A bloodline connection to a godlike, immortal monster she's destined to meet, protect, and associate with.

For the first time, there's a grander, higher reason as to why she was born so close to perfection! It wasn't for her mother's singular satisfaction—it was more!

This renews her motivation. It's a relief to the depression developed from her existential fatigue and failure to be perfect. Her ingrained narcissism and ego—which had been stung by setbacks and saddled with multiplying teenage complexes—respond enthusiastically to this confirmation of her superiority and her reason to exist.

This is why I do NOT think Mizuha's so-called "awakened obsession" with Fushi has much to do with "Hayase's will" or her "blood." First, that's not how genetics or epigenetics work. Second, even if one argues that in this world, it's the Fye that matters—the Beholder says, as early as Hisame's appearance, that Fye simply changes when it is in a new body.

Chapter 56.

What about "Hayase's twisted will?" I.e., the Left Hand Nokker? Doesn’t it play a role? No, because it was still dormant! It had made no appearance. It hadn't even started controlling Mizuha at that point yet.

Mizuha—every other descendant, including Kahaku—is obsessed with Fushi out of her own unique reasoning and psychology. The signs may look superficially similar, but the actual workings behind this obsession are not. It’s like how a thousand things can cause the same generic symptom of "a headache," but "a brain tumor" is not the same as "worsened eyesight."

Hayase's "will" is a figure-of-speech at best, while her Fye is completely transformed at every rebirth. Even the Left Hand doesn't behave like Hayase. The real shadow Hayase casts over her descendants is the doctrine passed down to her cult members, who become enforcers subjecting them to a specific role through indoctrination. Her sin is in enabling religious abuse and generational trauma.

Mizuha might not have been shaped by the Guardians as extensively as Kahaku and the others, but her life and personality up to this point have enabled her obsession.

No longer is Mizuha confined to mundane "perfection," where she proves her flawlessness to her imperfect mother and satisfies herself with mundane achievements.

Fushi’s existence has opened up a path for transcendental perfection.

Almost as though to prove this budding new belief, Fushi comes to retrieve her.

She has to be special.

No. She is special, therefore she is perfect.

This is the high point of Mizuha's life. As long as Fushi is within her reach, Mizuha's ego can forgive herself for falling short of her previous standards. Imperfect friends? Not bad. Imperfect mom? Not bad. Imperfect Mizuha? Not bad. At the end of the day, as long as she has Fushi around, she will always be transcendentally perfect.

Do you see it now? Fushi has become Mizuha's trophy.

Fushi is the anchor that pacifies Mizuha when her narcissism tortures her, just like Mizuha is Izumi's anchor. Mizuha sees Fushi as the antidote to all of the woes and complexes in her life, much like how Izumi is implied to see Mizuha this way.

Rather than seeing Hayase, I actually see Izumi in her.

This is also why Mizuha behaves the way she does after she runs away from her house. She is terrified. She is panicking. Reality is unrecognizable. Her internal control is gone. She had somehow killed someone, and dissociation can no longer help her. After all, she could not even REMEMBER doing this in the first place.

Then, in that desperation for an antidote, her trophy and grand purpose appears. Like a god answering her prayer (and hers alone,) Fushi manifests from thin air and expresses concern and a willingness to grant her wish.

All is safe. The mirages are back to where they are. Fushi is here. She can be perfect again.

Mizuha then utters a genuine wish heavily distorted by layers and layers of mirage:

[🪡🪶🪡]

🎴 To Peer Through the Water…

As everyone (fresh with images of turtle eggs) knows, the anime itself has recently released episode 6. My stupidly busy schedule did nothing to help me produce this essay sooner than I originally planned, but the bigger factor behind this essay's delay is the sheer layers of psychological meat and nuances packed in a single episode. If you read this far, you should know that you've just read a 4k word essay, all about one single character.

(Congratulations! Reading is a bit of a flex these days, man. Own it.)

So, imagine my startled confusion when I see so many people dismissing Mizuha. The Hayase thing is one, but I've also seen people who write her off because she's "manipulative" and "full of red flags." She’s an unlikeable, problematic bitch, so there’s no merit in her character.

Now, I wouldn't fault people for steering clear of people who make them uncomfortable or hurt them in real life, but I wonder if I'm showing my age by stressing, unequivocally, that fiction is meant to be a safe space for us to interrogate the darker, messier, and sometimes even unpalatable sides of humanity. A fictional character cannot hurt a real person—and that is why we are free to explore them.

Mizuha is one such character. People like her exist. I know them; I've grown up with them. I don't even like her at first precisely because she reminded me of them. But for some reason (and to my chagrin), I can understand her psyche. Then, after dissecting her, I've even come to appreciate Mizuha for being so fleshed-out and lifelike. I think that's valuable.

Right now, many media platforms are doing a terrible job at regulating open discussion for the darker aspect of our human conditions. I'm not talking about limiting harmful speech—I'm talking about senseless censorship on words like "suicide" to "unalive" and "rape" to "🍇," rendering what are supposed to be serious topics to sound ironically juvenile and disrespectful. I'm talking about people condemning characters and equating their behavior to what the story/author is supposedly promoting, without trying to understand the greater themes and author's own stance before the decision to condemn.

Problematic fiction exists. Problematic Author exists. Problematic Self-Inserts also exist. This is not about them.

If we turn away interesting, messier characters and stories because of "red flags," we are giving up our capacity to wisely discern and separate what is genuinely problematic and what is not. Just like how Mizuha's dissociation to maintain a mirage of control has, ironically, stripped her off actual control.

Media literacy has always been a skill, but increasingly, we are losing the space to polish it. So if we shun the material that allows us to exercise it, what would we have left?

---

There will be more essays coming in this series. I'll probably bundle several together for some and leave this sort of "one episode spotlight" for the really meaty Mizuha-centric chapters.

And then, I plan to cap off this series with an analysis under Han Byung-Chul's framework. I’m really excited, but first… I need to find the time to read some books and make notes. My reading speed is famously slow…

Please look forward to that!

In the meantime, let me know what y'all think. Have you caught other parts about Mizuha's psyche that you would like to add? Reblog this and add your thoughts, or send it through my askbox, or say it in the comments!

Thanks for reading my ramble!

Dedicated to @bestbonnist, the "Kahaku expert" who really digs Mizuha's character before it was cool.

#mizuha

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#mizuha