i saw this image and immediately felt so excited, but also so relieved.
you see– the thing about dysfunctional family mediators/providers is that media tends to portray them as “too mature” for comfort objects. in media, i see them rarely go for toys (or any comforting object in general), and they seem to have a detachment with anything that, frankly, isn’t things like books/studies/cooking/cleaning.
while it’s understandable, it’s off-putting to me, as someone who was a dysfunctional family mediator/provider. i, too, went through most of my life believing these kinds of things were immature and believed that deriving comfort and friendship from them was my hollow attempt at living life as a child, which i’ve never been able to do.
this, clearly, is false and it took me a long time to learn it. comfort objects are important and helpful for people of all ages, and the fact that so many adults are scorned from having them saddens me deeply.
i also, growing up with that bad mentality, went through years where i wouldn’t do childish things anymore, like watch cartoons, play pretend by myself with dolls (though i still loved my dolls; never threw them out ofc), but that faded away after i was in a terrible place, and childish things were the only escape that i had.
i came back to them. i loved them. i love my dolls dearly, and being near them was (and still is) incredibly important to me. it’s grounding to feel/hold them and it’s calming to see them.
this is why i’m so happy to see a character similar to me that has dolls, especially a male character. it’s so comforting and the hns team has no idea how much it meant to me to see images of maki around dolls.
for reference, i say images because this image is also so important to me.
maki being the type to derive comfort from dolls is incredibly important and such good representation for kids, teens, and adults to see!
i really hope that they show more of maki’s doll, or, at least, show it canonly a few times in the show.
from what we’ve seen maki say to club members and what we’ve seen maki’s dad do to him, we can justifiably assume that maki’s dad only hits him with his body parts: hands, legs, etc., and since maki has told off members for using weapons, we can assume his dad probably taught him that it’s cowardly to fight with anything but your own body. to back this up– maki didn’t flinch or anything when his dad picked up the racket and held it, but he did flinch when his dad balled his hand into a fist.
i was always taught to fight with my own power, too, so this is pretty relatable. it’s interesting to see, considering a lot of abusive anime media features hitting kids with beer bottles or household items– which i know isn’t bad representation. it does happen a lot, but many abusive dads are the types that pride themselves on using their own strength (even if it’s on someone weaker, they still take pride in it), and i feel like that isn’t represented enough.
