Suddenly remembered how when Buddy Daddies first came out a lot of ppl hated Misaki's guts and thought she was just as bad as Miri's bio dad, I think things have calmed down but back then it really rubed me the wrong way.
Iâll be honest, I really liked her. Like yes, sending such a young child away on her own with absolutely no supervision was horribly irresponsible. But I just loved how flawed and realistically human she was and I honestly want to see more of this type of character in media. Especially in anime, maybe I just havenât seen a lot but I feel like we often see either parents who are super loving and caring or awfully abusive, we donât see a lot of parents that are just trapped in a life they donât want and tired of holding a facade (it looks like Misaki never abused Miri or even showed her unhappiness around her even though she was on the verge of snapping any minute).
Idk maybe I just sympathised with her because I neither want nor like children and I know Iâd hate my life and resent the kid if I was ever forced or coerced into the role of a caretaker, but apparently it was too much asking to have some nuance. It blows my mind that so many ppl thought a trapped, unhappy, desperate abuse victim was on the same level as a human trafficker. Iâve seen some ppl bring up abortion or adoption and I know they had good intentions but afaik the situation isn't as simple in Japan.
Iâve also seen a lot of ppl comment that they wanted Misaki to âwork on her issues so that she and Miri could be together againâ and all I ask is: why? Why is that necessary? Why is there such a pervasive idea that children are always better off with their mothers? I sincerely think a happy ending would've been for her to get help and get better but NOT get the kid back and I was rlly hoping the writers would go that route, it would've been very refreshing. I wanted the message to be âNot everyone is fit to be a parent and especially not every woman is fit to be a caretaker and thereâs more than one type of familyâ.
And I'm sad that she was killed off but I see why they made the choices they made and they make a lot of sense given the context of the story. I personally donât have any complaints about the writing but I think Misaki deserved better. Iâm sad she died but I understand why it happened, I suppose with her arc going that route it wouldnât have made sense for her to survive in a show where nobodyâs safe from violent criminals who are willing to murder women and children to get them out of their way. Still, I donât think she needed a big change of heart, I think she was already a great character as she was (it also rubbed me the wrong way that some people started viewing her as a good person only once she started making an effort to do things right but I digress).
Iâll be honest, Iâm not a huge fan of the âunwilling parent learns to love their kid and learns to be a good parent so that they can finally be a happy familyâ narrative. It just doesnât sit right with me, maybe Iâm reading too much into it but the message I get from these kind of stories is that anyone can be a good parent/caretaker with enough help and resources and in the right place mentally and emotionally (ESPECIALLY because thatâs an argument people use in real life for why they think everyone should have kids, or hell, even as an anti abortion argument; like thatâs not an exaggeration, Iâve seen them saying pretty much the exact same thing), when the sad reality is that sometimes kids are just unwanted. I sincerely wish the show had acknowledged that some people just donât want to be parents even when they already are, I know itâs not pretty but these things need to be talked about in fiction.
I also think it wouldâve fit the story perfectly: we wouldâve had an example of horrible abusive parents (Reiâs father), amazing loving parents (Rei and Kazuki themselves) and parents who do their best but would still rather be doing anything else (Misaki herself). Maybe Iâm biased, I donât know, but Iâm really starved for this kind of content. As a friend of mine as well as a few other people have said, we need more situations like in Matilda, where the bio parents admit they arenât fit for the role and happily sign away their parental rights.
(Granted that if Misaki hadnât popped back into Miriâs life she wouldnât have died like that, as she got targeted precisely because she was with Miri, thatâs why I say I understand why the writers made the choices they made).
I also wish they hadnât given her cancer if they were going to kill her off anyway, give the poor woman a break lol.
#not-eli's-art #eli-rambles #text #buddy-daddies #misaki-unasaka