I already talked about Mushibugyo in detail, so there isn’t much left for me to say but it would feel amiss to not at least talk about it a little.
As great as Mushibugyo was in general, the thing I will remember most fondly though is the Insect Magistrate and her romance with Jinbei.
Characters with authority like The Insect Magistrate (Princess Naa) tend to come with a few tropes. In the olden days, you’d expect some burly, no nonsense individual.
Nowadays, you expect a tsundere loli who just happens to fall in love in with the Main Character and then proceeds to get in the way of the main romance.
I am sure love obsessed, loli, tsundere overlords were once a novel addition to anime but given their frequency, I am always glad when we get something different.
Naa is neither a loli, nor is she a tsundere and I wouldn’t call her love obsessed either. Sure, she loves Jinbei a lot but she is never aggressive and she never really gets jealous either.
She is a sweet, shy, timid little girl.
or maybe not.
Naa was a badass. I never expected the Insect Magistrate to be genuinely strong but she was. She kicked butt. Well, for the short amount of time we got to see her in action (a real shame we didn’t see more of her fighting prowess).
Even when Naa lost her powers, she still remained cool. She may have become physically weak but she wasn’t weak in spirit.
Perhaps, the most memorable thing about Naa though was the romance with Jinbei.
Sure, Jinbei never returned her feelings. Sure, there was no proper conclusion to their relationship. Sure, they didn’t get to kiss or hug (in a romantic fashion). But in a sea of quasi romantic anime (e.g. I am obsessed with X but Y and Z are also obsessed with X and my obsession is mostly because X is the main character), it is a breath of fresh air.
I am going to go and quote myself (from that previously linked End of Season post)
At first, she didn’t want to hurt him with her poison. Then, once her poison went away, she was still hindered by the difference in their positions. And yet, she still sought him out and did her best to make memories with him. She did her best to hold his head and to cherish his warmth because she knew it would not last.
When I watched Mushibugyo this year, I watched it the season after it had finished airing. I binge watched it over a few days. Part of the reason why I was so eager to finish it was because I was interested in the actual plot but the biggest reason was because I wanted to see more Nah x Jinbei.
PostScript
I should be publishing the 10th “12 Days of Anime” post today. That should put in perspective how late and far behind I am.
I had planned to catch up and fix this problem this weekend and while laziness did play a part (like usual), I do have a more legitimate excuse this time around.
On Saturday evening, around 9, the power went out at my house. It only came back at 5.20 PM or so today. I did get to spend a good amount of time on Sunday at an Uncle’s place and I could have worked on this there but you know how family gatherings go….
Toxic Muffin 