Marry Me, Misato!

released on Jan 01, 2005

You are the hero, whose only love is Misato decides to marry her. But it's obvious - she is an anime character, how can you marry her then? However, your love is so strong... And you have a plan...


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[April Fools 2023]

”I’m in love. I’m floating, I’m happy… Ahh, the world is so beautiful.”
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On the surface, you may be inclined to write off 2005’s masterpiece Marry Me, Misato! as nothing but a cute love story, strewn with the longing desires of a boy way out of his league on his journey to marry Misato. This read is certainly the easy one, but it's understandable that the reader may come to a conclusion such as that. The deliberately faceless protagonist makes it a natural instinct for the reader to slip into their shoes, and their journey is a selfless one. He yearns not to satisfy his own desires through matrimony, but to fulfill the needs of his one true love. However, this read would be missing the trees for the forest, as I believe something far more poignant lies within the text.

At the heart of Marry Me, Misato! lies a greek tragedy for the ages. The tale of a love that can never be. A tale of a boy throwing everything away in pursuit of a mistress who remains ambivalent toward his existence right up to the very end. And perhaps most tragic of all, a tale that rings far too close to our mortal realm to be fairly maligned as anything resembling “fiction”.

Whether we admit it or not, far too many of us have found ourselves longing for love from beyond a computer screen that we should not, nay, CANNOT pursue. Whether that be someone from within our realm who we wish to lay, or a fictional character that exists only within the confines of hand-drawn animated cells, flashing 24 times before our eyes with every passing second of our attention. We know deep down this lust is sinful, yet we pursue regardless. This is not an emotion that has gone unnoticed by the author, as illustrated towards the end of the adventure wherein the protagonist has a rare moment of lucidity: “I thought I was happy, but I am devastated. All my plans to marry Misato were in vain.” There’s a clear understanding of the psychological impact this type of longing can do to a person - should they push themselves to such extremes anyway - yet in a moment framed initially as newfound positive twist of fate, the boy shifts course for one final time and devises a new plan to get just what he desires. What may be seen as a moment of grand victory after a minor trip on the curb can only be described with context as tragic. Despite the courteous feather capping off the adventure in the tasteful arial-fonted “THE END” blazen on screen after our hero's revelation, this this just as shallow as the blank screen that lay beyond the text. This is not a resolution, it’s simply the first loop of a newfound never-ending story, and one with no true conclusion for this boy if his final statement is anything to go by.

As stated previously, it's easy to slip into a trance with Marry Me, Misato! and the narrative it lays out (Who DOESN’T want to marry Misato, after all) but admitting to such hypnosis simply proves its thesis to be correct. There is no clear end in sight for such an adventure: all that lies beyond is a desert of blistering pain and betrayal from the one you think you hold closest to your heart. It may seem fruitful now to chase that woman in red with the soft blue hair dancing in the starlight-draped park, but calling it a wasteful venture would be generous. There’s more beyond the curved pixels on your screen resembling a woman, and unless you pull that plug, you’ll never face that grim reflection on the other side. There’s plenty of things to love in this world, plenty of fish in the sea, but none of them are Misato. None of them can be Misato.
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“I love you, Misato!”