The Gifted Communion make their move to take over the empire and reveal their shocking intentions!

Video Review

What Stands Out the Most?

With Miyo and Prince Takaihito hiding out at the Imperial Palace, Naoshi’s plans start to unfold and starts to unfold.. very much in his favor..

The Story Flipped the Script Alright..

From two straight episodes of slower paced episodes, to this one, that was indeed quite the contrast that many of us anime-only viewers were not expecting. As everyone was patiently waiting for the Gifted Communion to make their move, well.. they certainly timed everything to perfection. This will forever go down in the My Happy Marriage lore, as the “OH S**T” episode that includes: everyone backstabbing someone, lighting someone on fire, getting brain blasted, a heroic savior that becomes framed, etc.

Everything that can go wrong goes wrong for our MC, Miyo Saimori. However, the story has been priming us the entire season for this moment. Between the snow, the cherry blossoms and the foreshadowing of something devastating happening to Kiyoka, this is that moment that the villain, Naoshi Usui, gets ultimate control of the situation.

Miyo’s Hero’s Journey

Any guy with any kind of pulse is repulsed by characters that never try to rise to the occasion. In season 1, Miyo took Kaya and Konoko’s punishment as she was being saved by Kiyoka. By the season’s end, she overcame her “Saimori” trauma and saved her man with her own powers. While Miyo can still use her incomplete Dream-Sight powers in season 2, she still has to rely on Kiyoka to save her from being bedazzled. This is the episode where she attempts to save Kiyoka, but without her fully awakened Dream-Sight, she’s kind of not a hero.. It was Kiyoka that saved her again, only to get Cousin NTR’d once again..

To fully become the hero and unlock her powers, Miyo likely has to accept and get past mental barriers that are holding her back. Or else, she’s going to lose everything. This means that she will have to embark on this journey alone, becoming the main catalyst that saves Kiyoka and the empire.

Do You Believe in Naoshi Usui’s Premise?!

Naoshi’s motivations in creating the Gifted Communion have always been one where he wanted to create a revolution, not only for his version of peace and prosperity, but one that he feels like he was always meant to fulfill. This episode encapsulated the dread that it feels to be an Usuba that was born to live a path without no freedom, only for the purpose of his life to be taken away with Sumi being forced to marry into the Saimori family. It all culminates in him trying to expose the corruption of the Emperor while ushering in this new world by giving the common man: power, knowledge and “equality.” With Miyo’s fully awakened power to invade everyone’s minds, she has the sole power to make peace a reality.

This is the plight of the Usubas that someone like Arata understands fully well. He is a central character of My Happy Marriage that represents just that—representing all the citizens and their frustrations within the empire. He was bred to be something that isn’t of his own choosing. It’s a shackle of the Usuba family for the purpose of this “greater good.” The story plays with this idea that out of everyone, Arata makes the most sense to be on Naoshi’s side.

Where the villainy lies is the method. It will always be the method in which villains make a great point about what’s wrong with the world, only to obtain it by everything dystopian you can think of.

Fun Concepts

A Conflicting mind F**K

The entire Usuba family is a family with the abilities to bedazzle the mind. One of the fun things I enjoyed about this episode is playing with the dilemma of Miyo awakening her powers. For the entire season, the story is setting us up to cheer for Miyo to finally do just that, unlock her powers. Naoshi has made it a point that it is imperative that Miyo become that person that will bring in this new “peaceful” world. In order to do that, she needs to awaken her powers. Are we really cheering for something that the villain wants? That is a fun mind bedazzling moment that I didn’t think I would be conflicted over and one that is actually perfect for Miyo’s growth and is at the very crux of this entire arc.

How it all Connects to Miyo

It’s a fun conceptual idea of being scared to accept what you truly are. Everything in this arc connects to Miyo in some way on her journey. Even Kiyoka’s insecurities of not accepting his powers and rising to the occasion when Yoshito’s father was trying to pass the torch to him—this is a part of Miyo’s arc. Ultimately, she will need to control and understand herself and her powers before Naoshi forces it out of her.

How Naoshi will convince and/or control Miyo is one that naturally becomes clearer. If Naoshi eliminates the one person that Miyo loves most (Kiyoka), that trauma will force Miyo to unlock her powers—to create a peaceful world by mind control, ensuring that no one can be evil. To fully become the hero and unlock her powers, she likely has to accept what she doesn’t want to be, but the world needs her to be.

It’s battle over how to shape a better world between Miyo’s point-of-view versus Naoshi’s.

My Most Legitimate “No Jokes” Take of Season 2 that No One Will Read

If I had to put it bluntly, this arc is a communist uprising allegory. Naoshi sees corruption and starts an uprising by promising equality of power, knowledge and peace. We can literally see in this episode that power corrupts no matter what. The Minister of Education is literally securing a position of high power in Naoshi’s world by siding with Naoshi and killing the Minister of the Army. His secretary massacred a bunch of soldiers, choked out OUR FAVORITE SISTER in Hazuki, and turned into a literal demon, thus giving me the layup joke of “side effect of DEMON.” It’s a metaphor for what Naoshi is trying to place upon everyone. If you obtain the power that the Gifted Communion promises you, you literally turn into a demon..

Naoshi’s peace literally involves mind invasion—forcing you to act and be a certain way. It’s basically Madara in Naruto with his idealistic world by putting everyone to sleep by Infinite Tsukuyomi. Freedom comes with the price of human error. If that price for 100% peace is to turn everyone into literal robots or in Naoshi’s case, just brainwash everyone, then we are no longer humans with any kind of free will.

I will revisit this take when the arc is over, as it deserves the complete context of this arc when it is all said and done. This is why I love this arc and Naoshi as a villain. It hits home if you have even a basic understanding of the historical conflicts humanity has fought over for millennia. With the journey that Miyo is about to embark on, the arc’s themes and lessons will all come together in spectacular fashion.

Overall, the episode itself was a whirlwind of a lot less mind-tickling than I thought it would be. However, the episode ending on such excitement and dread, sparks a new mood in My Happy Marriage that we haven’t got to experience before. Without the help of Arata and Kiyoka, it becomes exciting to see what Miyo will do to try to save Kiyoka.

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