Karekano – Yukino Miyazawa: Behind her Mask
I don’t know if it was so coincidental but I do think Karekano’s concept of personality facet based on Yukino is somewhat the same to that of Persona 4’s concept of shadow.
Kare Kano is probably one of my favorite old anime(s) around during my childhood, but I’d say I only liked it because of the comedy. Now that I’ve rewatched it, I don’t think Karekano is just qualified as a good anime just because of its comedy, but also because of its psychological concept. I also consider its depiction of relationship as one of the good ones.
One of the fundamental concepts in Karekano is this creation of fake facade because it somehow shows us why we prefer to wear that mask in front of other people, instead of behaving just as our true selves. It also shows us the consequences of projecting such artificial personality.
Well, Yukino basically does her thing in order to get praises from others, and all the attention she wants. Beneath that flawless and amiable personality of her is a crooked and stubborn student. Still, I do think Yukino is a great character. I honestly just can’t believe though that such person would desire so much praise and attention from others. Yep, I am referring to pressure. I salute her because given her many responsibilities and obligations in the school, she isn’t still crushed by this troublesome opponent. And yes, she is still craving for more attention and praise.
I really don’t know if her parents are at fault here because the only thing I can think of as the source of such thinking is that, her parents must be feeding her so much praises from her achievements. Then again, I see here in the anime (even in manga) that she is just a natural born hard worker — which is damn remarkable! I just can see her as an inspiration to look up for in favor of my next new semester.
I just can’t believe it myself that Yukino derives her own sense of pleasure when she is praised by everyone… Just where does this desire come from? What is her purpose? What is it that she gets from it besides from satisfaction? I guess the sense of her being an older sister also plays a role here. She must be thinking already of several ways on how she would be helping her family after she graduates. This is one of the traits I like from her. She is a practical person and she knows how to manage her own money. I was even surprised when I got to hear her talking about owning some corporate stocks! Either way, I just can’t see her family’s disposition as the sole reason why she is striving to be at the top.
I was contemplating on whether I should support her from keeping her old mask after meeting Arima, but I guess I was wrong, Yukino did knew at the very start that she was fooling herself — Why? Because she never really thought of having friends, not until Arima made her realize, which is why she really doesn’t know what to do when she encountered a problem regarding relationship with someone. You just can’t fake it.
Those who have watched the show knows that Yukino was finally able to get to know some real friends after she retired from being a “model”student of the school. She finally got rid of that bad habit of deceiving everyone. She was finally able to show her true facade to everyone. Nevertheless, she still didn’t abandon her aim to be at the top. If she could still achieve the top, and still get the attention of everybody, then wasn’t creating the former mask of herself just futile if it was just made to give her good impressions? Her true self, doesn’t actually care what other says about her — so what was it that really made her the push to project herself as a model student?
Yukino is such a schemer and with that brains of her, you’ll just end up falling straight under her trap. If she can easily manipulate others, then does she really need a “perfect” exterior as a facade? Whenever I try to think of it, it just seems to me as an icing over her egotistic nature.
Does Yukino really needs that model student mask in the very first place? I’d say no… because I think she can handle the rest and achieve being the highest without even stressing herself out by always being wary her mask might crack in front of other people… Then again, that will change the chain of events since it was thanks to her masked personality that she gets to meet Arima.
But wait, that makes the only function of the mask was for Arima to notice her… Oh well…
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image credits: pixiv user ｗｓ
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Hmm – I must comment on this because Miyazawa Yukino is one of my FCOAT. I’m glad you’ve said nothing bad about her – I’d hate to go through all that police trouble again -
I think Yukinon created her mask partly for the challenge and pleasure of it – the girl’s got TOO MUCH energy and focus – and also because she’s always secretly believed that she’s not a ‘real’ star but just an average person with lots of drive and ambition. I’m thinking of how she identifies with Tonami, saying “We both made a first-class product out of second-rate materials!” (rough quote from memory). She says that she’s the “Queen of Vanity” but that’s just her way of deprecating her motives and her accomplishment again. She’s confident in her skills, but afraid of what will happen if she ever stopped using them, even for a moment.
Until – well, you know it.
BTW, non-math types like me are skeered of your anti-spam quiz. Had to google the question to see what it meant -
hmm. what does FCOAT means? Anyway
I see now what you are trying to say because she did mentioned that she’s just a plain mediocre, but works real hard to achieve her goals. I don’t know what to say though regarding the depreciation of her skills over time.
Haha, sorry for the anti-spam quiz, and at any rate, thank you for still commenting
I’d wager that FCOAT = favorite character of all time.
I love Yukino because she has so much heart and is totally in love with life. Even when she is going on about doing everything she does purely so that she can earn the admiration of others, it’s difficult to hate her even a little bit because she has such an amazing lust for life and goes all the way with everything she does. Whatever her motives, such a person is worthy of admiration.
Yep, so totally agree. She clearly knows what she wants to do with her life, and I like that matured thinking of her. I also don’t care about her motive. I actually love her attitude and craftiness! I just can’t hate her, even if she plots and deceive people.
Yay for Yukinon love! And yes, Shinmaru wins his wager.
A recent character who reminds me a lot of Miyazawa Yukino is Kyoko Mogami of Skip Beat – same driving ambition, slightly twisted motives, tendency to obsess, panic and speed-talk when she’s in an emotional spin – and underneath all that, integrity, honesty, courage.
Wow! I was actually writing a draft about the two of them!!!
Although my post about them centers “living off from the opinion of others” — in Kyoko’s case, the issue of her being a member of “Love Me”. Haha, I was planning on posting it on the 13th.
I used to idolize Yukino a lot; it was a shameless girl!crush. I wanted to be like her in achievements and looks (so far as I got the same hairstyle as hers – but mine didn’t turn out as straight and perfect, lol) I think you made a nice analysis about her.
Tbh I never really understood the whole ‘mask’ thing. What really constitutes a real personality? What if a person’s real personality is having a fake personality? And what if two different personalities make up one whole person? Yukino is one of the people who’s making me hard to decide. (OMG That sounds so weird. Labo.)
Does Yukino really needs that model student mask in the very first place? I’d say no… because I think she can handle the rest and achieve being the highest without even stressing herself out by always being wary her mask might crack in front of other people…
IIRC the reason why she needed that is because without the mask, she could only have the academics. Would she still be able to manipulate if she didn’t appear as nice? I would have to disagree on her real self not caring about what others think because Yuki felt that she won’t be liked by everyone if she was real, and I think the real reason behind her mask was social acceptance, instead. If anything, she NEEDED the acceptance. Or at least, that’s what my impressions were while watching the anime? XD
I wanted to be like her in achievements >> me as well. I want to be as disciplined as her in studying haha.
Hahaha, you actually raised questions that perked me up. Haha, never thought of those questions before, but yeah I agree, I guess “personality” is not really a simple matter because, it is defined by the person him/herself.
Would she still be able to manipulate if she didn’t appear as nice? >> I think so, she’s clever enough to make others fall under her trap.
I’d say she cared once of what others might think of her, when it was Arima. She was only afraid of showing her true self towards Arima, because she never experienced how to love before, and she was afraid that she might get hurt, for the first time. But look, when Yukino slowly showed her true colors, she didn’t even mind the incident wherein the girls from her class decided to do silence treatment towards her.