This is the first time any Love Hina work will be dealt with on this blog. Given my future plans, it will certainly not be the last.
Rather than exclusively discussing the episode that I will be writing
this week I would also like to devote some time to why I wrote it in the
first place.
The basic idea struck me because I was struck by the realisation that a lot of the early conflict in Love Hina comes from one place: The girls thinking Keitaro being there was an odd thing. The normality earrings counteracted that perfectly, and I felt that there was simultaneously tremendous comedic and tremendous perverted potential. As I am of the opinion that porn works best when it has a heaping dollop of comedy to drive the action, how could I resist?
My first instinct is to have the two girls discuss the boy they just met. Neither of them find his presence there remotely weird, and justify it to themselves without a second thought. I'm seeing a bit of teasing being thrown Naru's way about the looks he was giving her (which, again is a perfectly normal reaction so far as they are concerned).
Meanwhile, Keitaro winds up having to deal with the other residents. Keep in mind that "normal" doesn't mean "ignore". I figure this might be a good time for the earrings to come off, one way or the other. The question I have to ponder is what exactly the effect is when this occurs.
Does it undo the spell entirely? Do Naru and Mitsune suddenly go "...wait, there was a boy in there and he saw us in the..."?
Or:
Does that effect linger, but is no longer maintained? That is to say, his previous actions are no longer suspect but anything he does from then on is.
Or indeed any other possibility that you can think of, and suggest in the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts on the direction for this story.
Hmm. That seems reasonable to me in terms of taking off the earrings at this point, as well as them discussing him.
ReplyDeleteAs for how it will be when the earrings are off, it strikes me that things that were perceived as normal with it on will still seem normal in retrospect. As for whether it would be perceived as normal for that situation to repeat itself without him wearing the earrings, I guess that could go either way. If they freaked out about it the next time, then there's cognitive dissonance over why it was fine the first time but not the second. So I guess it depends on whether you want to play with that or not.
Did that make any sense? I hope so.
I definately think it will be a good idea to dump the earrings relatively soon. Things like the earrings almost always tend to eventually spoil a story due to increasingly uncontrollable changes.
ReplyDelete"Normal doesn't mean ignore" Okie Dokies! BOOM! BANG! CRASH! With Su chasing Keitaro through the halls with her mecha armies, because, well, that IS normal for her.
ReplyDeleteShould Keitaro lose the earrings the girls should never look back at their first meeting and think it to be strange. Period.
That said I think subsequent baths could fall either way with their reactions but the idea that they didn't care because the hot spring is still technically co-ed from its hotel days might be their reasoning. "Why should we care if he joins us in the bath? It's a co-ed bath, not a girls bath." being their general rationale.
Idea: Keitaro runs through the Inn and sees one of the girls undressing (say Motoko removing her sweaty gi after an intense round of training in the sun) and asks if it's normal for her to strip around the Inn making her a casual nudist.
Now if only there were a way to make little Su and Shinobu leave the loli side of the age spectrum.
It could be that the hot springs become an area that Kitsune and Naru (and maybe even the other girls if you want since the others might think it weird otherwise) just don't care if Keitaro sees them naked and vice-versa. Anywhere else and it's all NARU-PUNCH! (i.e. peeking through the hole in the ceiling/floor with Naru, etc.) but the springs are fair game in terms of looking, as once again, they rationalize it as being a mixed bath.
ReplyDelete