Tuesday 13 April 2004

Aishiteru ze Baby

On this day I watched a fansub of Aishiteru (ze) Baby, an anime about a teen boy who has to take care of a 5 year old girl. This is the cutest anime I have ever seen! It is so totally flower and kitten and baby cute and pretty and soft!

It may not be horribly realistic. Then again, I guess that varies. In the anime, there is this harmless but irresponsible teen boy (Kippei) who flirts with all the girls and relaxes at school and gets away with everything because he is so handsome and charming. There is one of the girls however (Kokoro) who wants nothing to do with him. You can see where this is going, no doubt.

Anyway, he comes home and the family is totally somber. Turns out a relative has run away due to an acute depression and left them with her five year old daughter (Yuzu). Our young hero is given the responsibility of taking care of her, which everyone thinks will be good for him, but under the watchful eye of his sister and mother.

They are actually right. It is good for him. The little girl melts his heart and he starts to really care, even if it means he cannot fool around with the high school girls like he used to. He tries to not tell anyone, but there is one who finds out anyway. Yes, the girl who thought he was good for nothing. She still doubts his ability as a surrogate parent, and not without reason, but as the story progresses so do our characters.

The story is cute. The drawing style is super cute. Almost everything is cute and pretty. Yet it is not entirely idealized. There are problems, like preschool children teasing each other without mercy, or adults being suspicious of a young man being alone with a small girl. (It probably doesn't help that she soon makes plans to marry him.) Problems stand in line, but of course things work out eventually. Or at least they do in the first episodes. I am eagerly looking forward to them as they come. This anime jumped right into my heart.

Incidentally, the intro and end songs are both lullabies, of sorts.

***

Language note: My knowledge of the Japanese language is slowly and painfully growing, with slightly more learning than unlearning. Aishiteru means "I love you" but it is not something you should say to your classmate. "Ai" is a love that presupposes an existing relationship of some kind, usually family. "Koi" is romantic love, and it is important to know that these are different (although not always incompatible). But when you are yet in the process of establishing a relationship, you use "suki" (usually pronounced "ski" with the u barely audible if at all) which means like. ("Daisuki" is a stronger form of like, but seems surprisingly rare in this usage. I've only seen it used once about a person, I think, and then in a song.)

So you don't say "suki" to the baby because your relationship is necessarily a family one, and these are not a matter of choice. The only love possible here is the "ai". Remember the proverb? "Koi is always wanting, ai is always giving." A parent or older sibling's love for a small child is the archetype of ai. Thus, aishiteru baby!

Kokoro means "heart". I don't know yet whether it applies to the actual heart muscle but it seems to convey pretty much the other meanings of that word in English. This is not the first time I have seen it used as a girl's name. It is however so uncommon that you are bound to pay notice to the girl called that.

(Then again, this anime hardly aims for subtlety. It blatantly emphasizes scenes of special importance, either by changing the background to a pretty colored pattern or by streeeetching a scene out in time.)