Welcome to the podcast of the secret girl and her cheerful friend! Opinions on this route were very divisive, and the analysis was a bit scattered since this route is SO DAMN CONFUSING! But none-the-less, we give it our best shot to dig deep and analyse this route, and we
In relation to Mai’s past causing her friendship with Sayuri, that’s definitely why they are friends. That’s also why Yuuichi is their friend too. Sayuri implies they all have very similar pasts. In a nutshell they’re all people who face their past without actually accepting it, and think little of themselves in relation to others. It’s always that they are the problem in a situation. This was highlighted with the “I’m a burden” choice made by Yuuichi, where he decided to raise himself up to the pedestal he places Mai and Sayuri on.
I do agree that they’d become friends anyway. Mai still has a nasty past, even without the hunting stuff. They both had that moment of presenting something to a family member, and then watched that person vanish.
Mai’s death being a follow up of the “because I love you” line is actually fitting with the spirits’ behavior. They got riled up when Yuuichi was around. They would constantly distract Mai with noises and then go for Yuuichi while Mai was gone. They focused Sayuri whenever she was around. These invisible threats never really attacked Mai. They never really hurt Mai. Mai hurt herself, and these spirits hurt Mai’s friends. She’s trying to keep people away from her, though I don’t think she knows that early on. I do think she had this partially figured out later on. By the end I don’t think she believes the demons are anything more than something she wished for.
About Mai’s control of the spirits, it’s mentioned that she’s in a fight with her emotions. That’s very true. The most time she spends having fun with Yuuichi and Sayuri, the closer she gets to them, the stronger and more present the spirits should become. For an example, during the ball scene we see the spirit appear in a large crowded light-up area, something we hadn’t see them do before, and it was during the big night where Yuuichi focused all his efforts on making Mai “cute.” They always appeared to break the positivity.
Also, I gotta ask, how do you feel this route compares to the anime adaptation? I’ve noticed a lot of anime-only watchers completely miss the branch between reality and dream.
I was just listening to the podcast recently and it did give me some thoughts about the two interpretations where during the ending could have been a dream or an alternate reality. The dream sequence almost did feel like the real deal because of the future setting where all of them could have been a happy life together but it made me think that Mai might have really died back there if it wasn’t for the last demon that inhabited her last emotion, which was the embodiment of hope. I wasn’t sure at first what to think about this route but I can say for sure that it did feel confusing with the pacing as well how it could have ended in a different manner.
I personally thought while Mai might have been aware what she was fighting against during the demon hunt, that she was really destroying parts of her emotions and by rejecting those powers that were a part of her mentioned was hurting her when she was waiting for Yuuichi those ten years. There could have been many other theories that might have been possible with the dream vs reality but I feel even more confused knowing what you guys thought how the ending felt that this could have been a dream in that everything was back to normal and they went through graduation without a problem.
The anime adaptation made the pacing almost the same but was not as lengthy compared to the route because though it was only as I recall happened between episodes 11-14 where her route had begun with the dream sequence interpreted quite different in that it was not forced where Yuuichi did meet the last demon in wanting to know how to save Mai and if there was something he could have done during their very first meeting ten years ago. It almost felt like a dream if Yuuichi and Mai were living together and her personality had changed over time and was coming back to the time where she used to smile and be happy with those around her. At the same time, the reality was that Mai really did kill herself and that Yuuichi decided that he would be her strength as well as accepting her powers and to not be afraid of them. The demon, embodied as hope, needed to hear that so she could grant that miracle of reviving her back to life as she would be able to not reject for who she was back then but could have a new beginning with Yuuichi and Sayuri in a different reality.
This was the best 30 second recap of all time.
