Taishou Otome Fairytale really isn’t quite hitting the spot I wanted it to this season. I was very much just looking for a sleepy romance, and to be fair when Tamahiko and Yuzuki are given the opportunity just to be at home together that is more or less what we get, however it keeps getting interrupted by other things.
Things like Atsumi, our thief from episode 5.
Now it was quite apparent that they were going to give her some angsty back-story as to why she was stealing from Tamahiko, because Taishou Otome Fairytale is just that kind of story. however, after delivering it, having our protagonist spend time with Atsumi and her brothers and almost making her a likeable (ish) character, they then undermine it all by the stunt she pulls when she goes to Tamahiko’s house.
Honestly, there’s no coming back from that one. Atsumi is a nasty piece of work who is miserable with her own life and seems to enjoy making those she perceives as luckier or better off than her equally miserable. She needs to be able to laugh at them from above as they crumble to make herself feel better and to be honest that makes her pretty repulsive.
It also makes her a pretty believable character given I’m sure everyone has met someone like Atsumi in real life. The person who when you get a windfall of any sort just has to find a way to knock you down a couple of pegs.
Taishou Otome Fairytale may not have created a likeable character but they sure created a believable one.
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Where this will be a problem for Taishou Otome Fairytale is it seems kind of clear that this character is going to hang around and I really don’t like her. I don’t want to see her intruding on the slow creeping happiness of Tamahiko and Yuzuki and honestly her very existence on screen will probably be enough to sour any sequence she is in.
That they’ll probably continue to find ways to ‘heal’ her with the power of Yuzuki’s sweetness is beside the point. I don’t want her to hang around long enough for that. You know test audiences kill characters in movies all the time and if I was in the test audience for this anime, I’d happily see Atsumi suffer some tragedy off-screen and have her vanish from the story. Her brothers can come stay at the house with Yuzuki and Tamahiko and they’ll all live happily ever after.
Okay, rather than rewriting this anime or plotting the downfall of someone whose only real crime is being a nasty piece of work, let’s look at the positive from this episode.
Tamahiko acknowledges how important Yuzuki is to him.
Okay, not to Yuzuki. Taishou Otome Fairytale isn’t ready to skip that far ahead in this relationship yet. But while explaining why he needs the bookmark back to Atsumi, he talks about it being irreplaceable but the image he sees isn’t of the bookmark, it is of Yuzuki. I mean, come on, that is just too sweet.
For once Yuzuki comes across as the less honest one as she deals with her frustrations about the whole situation by destroying the bookmark on its return. And yes, it is justified, however this is probably the most callous thing Taishou Otome Fairytale has allowed this character to do yet. And the impact it has on the tone of the rest of the episode is enormous.
Fortunately, Yuzuki and Tamahiko do actually have a conversation before the end of the episode and while I won’t say everything is perfectly restored given even after gluing the bookmark back together the damage is still quite visible, I suspect Yuzuki and Tamahiko will both grow from what is essentially their first real fight.
So yeah, Taishou Otome Fairytale: More Tamahiko and Yuzuki moments, ditch Atsumi, and can we please see these two get a happy ending?
Images from: Taishou Otome Fairytale. Dir. J Hatori. SynergySP. 2021
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Karandi James
Technically, thief-girl also has the very real crime of stealing to her name, remember?
That aside, I absolutely agree, 100%, that Atsumi crossed a line. Even worse, she did so without any sort of outward compulsion. She stole because of her father, she held the bookmark ransom in exchange for helping her brothers, but she had no need to try and sabotage the happiness of this young man who had been nothing but good to her, and more than tolerant. It was the worst and most unforgivable thing she did, and there was nothing making her do it.
The only explanation I can possibly conceive of is envy (she *does* wear green, after all) combined with, perhaps, some twisted scheme where she hopes to drive away the fiance and somehow seduce for herself the boy who is both nice and rich. *If* it worked, by some depraved imitation of a miracle, she could set herself up for life, look after her brothers, and get all of them away from their father. Plenty of people would play dirty and get vicious for something like that, and she, cunning little creature that she is, had an entire night to consider her plan of attack.
I could definitely get over her stealing because while it wasn’t nice there was a real reason for it. Not returning the bookmark initially was more silly than anything. It really was that final step that pushed her over the line. Right now I’m really hoping something gives her a major wake-up call. Either way, I don’t think I’ll ever much like her as a character.