This review on Honzuki no gekokujou 2 Contains spoilers. If you have not seen the chapter, we recommend you do it and then go back to read the review.
Chapter 8 (22): Wilma and the Children’s Scriptures
Myne tells a story, the children cannot understand, “What is a pig? What is a wolf?” Myne decides to rethink things and make an illustrated book more suited to children and society. After much thought, he decides to make an illustrated book on the Holy Scriptures, he says this to the High Priest who accepts this idea. Wilma is key to this because she is the one who must draw, so Myne asks her to. Wilma makes such a good drawing that it looks bad when transferred to paper on the xylograph. So she asks her to make another design based on one that she made herself, Wilma accepts and gets to work on this. Meanwhile the High Priest’s doubts creep into his head and he talks to Myne about it, but he must keep thinking about it. Wilma manages to make the drawing and then goes to the workshop with Myne, because she decided to change, and she sees that her drawing is traced and she cries with happiness. A while later Turi binds the sheets together and Myne finally has her first book made by her.
Chapter opinion
There is only one disagreement, the title. The chapter seemed good to me, it will not be the most outstanding, but it is very good, it always fulfills this anime. But, as I said, my only disagreement is with the title, if the name of Wilma were taken away, it would have seemed more appropriate, because I did not feel that the chapter was so much about Wilma, they do not deal with it much, just a few appearances and the rest of the chapter was about Myne and wanting to make her picture book. From the title it seems that they were going to tell us about Wilma in all or much of the chapter, but I could not appreciate that Wilma stood out so much, so that would be the most counterproductive. But leaving that aside, the mouse always complies with the chapters.
Stories
The first thing we see is the mouse telling a story to the children, the story of the three little pigs, which is very well known to us, because we have notions about what a pig and a wolf are, we have all that in mind. But those orphaned children do not, because, in principle, they have not left the church and they stop there; second (this based on what I remember, so I can be wrong), because those animals do not seem to exist there, at least not as far as I remember. So Myne has two counterproductive points, the closure of the children and the one that cannot imagine what does not exist. You can imagine a unicorn, a minotaur, among others, because we have the base, since these “animals” are mergers of two animals or have only one addition. How can we describe a unicorn? Like a horse with a horn, we use things we know to describe it. Quite contrary to the children, whose imagination is restricted to their known world, so Myne must know which way to go for the book.
Holy Scripture for children
So Myne, after thinking, it occurs to her to make the Holy Scriptures the book for children. In our world we see that, there are illustrated books of the Bible, I personally learned to read like this, it is normal and therefore it seems that Myne devised this. So at the meeting with the High Priest, he authorized the book, because he kills two birds with one stone: they learn about the scriptures and they learn to read. So it is a great idea. But this will have certain consequences for Myne, because she will be in charge of adapting the writing for the children.
The process and reinvention
The xylograph is a Chinese invention, which also came to Japan and for which, apparently, they managed to make their type of art called ukime and (浮世 絵). I do not remember if the original girl was Japanese, but this method is still very understandable, because it was a method also used in medieval Europe (in recent centuries). In the same way we saw the whole process by which it is passed to be able to make an image using this method and if the result is not as expected, a point must be corrected. This point to correct is the type of drawing that Wilma does, since she makes good but very complicated drawings to be able to represent them using this. So Myne asks her to try that shape that she drew, but that Wilma herself would take care of improving, the result we already know, was a success. But all this has Wilma as its center …
A caged bird
We live locked in our fears, we live locked in by our fears, we live next to fear and it always haunts us. Fear of being run over, fear of illness, fear of loneliness, among other things. We let the fears accompany us without being interrupted so much, because a fear is not a trauma, which is what Wilma has. Myna already knows that Wilma does not go out because she is afraid of men, because of this she stays with the orphans, but neither are they able to make her overcome her trauma. A pull from one of these children, a simple action can bring to mind things past that we do not want to return. In trauma, the action is felt and a similar scene can bring that feeling back. Wilma is a very talented bird who, due to bad events, decided to take refuge in his cage.
Doubts about the gifted mouse
A gifted child is always curious, but creative ability is also always influenced by the environment in which he is raised and lives. This is why the fact that Myne is so good at thinking about such inventions is always questioning. This came to the mind of the High Priest, who tells him that there are things that do not fit with her. Myne replies that it is something that she has been told in the past and that she has been asked where she gets these ideas from, she only managed to say that she has very deep dreams of a world to which she cannot return. Here I wonder if Myne is still aware of her past life or if she only considers it a dream (at least seeing this I think that if Myne is with this doubt she would be confronting two ideas: the western and the eastern). In the end the High Priest says that he must keep thinking things over and the meeting ends, although we already know how this ends (first chapter).
The bird saw the sky and flew
The job Myne gives Wilma the job is the key. Perhaps to some it may seem that what happened with Wilma is something forced, and that is that if we do not understand certain things it may seem that way. First: Wilma no longer wanted to live with that fear, she is aware of her situation and therefore she knows that what is happening to her must end. Second: the monotony gets tiresome, that’s why the work Myne gives her takes her in a certain sense out of her comfort zone and makes her face something new. This I consider to be the main reason, knowing that you lose more than you earn by staying like this, in that situation. Third (which has to do with the second): the opportunities, no matter how minuscule it is and whenever they touch something that is to the liking of the person affected, are saving people, because in a certain way people seek and want those opportunities, they need a hand to get out of the hole. The locked bird used the key they gave him through a slit, at that moment he saw sunlight through the slit and used the key to get out and be able to fly.
And was it worth waiting so long? It was worth every blessed second
In the end Myne was able to make her first book. Two years have passed in his world, for us 22 chapters (about 10 hours approximately). After all this bustle Myne got it, suffered, cried, discovered her powers, had joys, earned money and much more (as we could see in the flashback), but it succeeded. This is demonstrated by her tears of joy and by smelling the ink (book lovers will understand this smell or the smell of a new book or an old book) she was able to remember her happiness. So yes, we can affirm that after the sacrifice the new daughter achieved her mission and with it the reason for her happiness.
The following week we will see another festival, we will see now what it will be about, I only hope that Myne does know this festival, because after two years she must already know the usual parties. A good chapter as always, although the moment when Myne finally has her book in her hands should have been more epic.
.
