PuriPuriPuripa (1)
PuriPuriPuripa had been my favorite anime. At its heart, it was a story about magical girls standing up to drive back the villains. With its pretty art style and its adorable little mascots, it was exactly the kind of show every girl my age would fall in love with.
...And for reasons I still can't explain, it also belonged to the genre once loved by me — a fully grown adult man.
Uuurgh, it makes me sick.
Why on earth did my past self ever like this? And as an adult, no less. I just don't get it.
"Woow...."
But that wondering didn't last long. Today, somehow, I felt like I'd finally caught a glimpse of why I'd fallen for it in the first place.
This is... this is... this is wooow....
Wasn't there a saying that you see only as much of the world as you know? All sorts of hidden meanings had begun leaping out at me from the screen. The way Iris and Lilia traded glances as they steeled their resolve. The way their fingers slotted together, knuckle by knuckle. The way they laughed, haha and hoho, right there beside each other.
It added up to a picture entirely different from the one the official synopsis painted. That synopsis surely read something like a story of girls' friendship and magic triumphing over evil.
This? This is friendship?
I suppose this is what grown-ups call friendship?
Then why not go all the way and call it friendship hand-holding, friendship hugging, friendship walking-side-by-side while you're at it?!
...Because no matter how I looked at it, it was just too, too scandalous...!
Uuurrgh!
How did this thing ever get an all-ages rating? How is it airing on a children's channel...?
Lewd stuff isn't supposed to be allowed...!
Fingers interlaced like that. Hugging like that. Huh? They even hold each other close. They know each other's secret identities, yet pretend not to — and still walk close enough for their shoulders to brush.
"U... u...."
It was almost too embarrassing to watch. But was Arin going to be okay? For a little one like her, this sort of thing was obviously no good for her emotional development.
I stole a cautious glance to the side.
"Haaa...."
There sat Arin, staring at the screen with her mouth hanging open. Utterly absorbed. As always, she wore that vacant look that gave away nothing about what might or might not be going on behind her eyes.
So Arin doesn't feel embarrassed at all?
...Ah. Right. Of course — Arin doesn't know about the meanings hidden in here. She's just too young for that. She was taking the show entirely at face value, losing herself in nothing but the surface.
Which really drove home how wide the gap was between me, freshly Awakened, and her. And that meant, once again, that it was my job to look after poor, innocent Arin.
I turned my eyes back to the TV.
"Huh?"
Darkness was swirling across the screen.
"I am Angra Mainyu!"
"Eeek!"
"Look out, Iris!"
The mastermind of it all had finally shown himself. A being born of the world's First Evil, he began overwhelming the magical girls the moment he appeared, and Iris and Lilia found themselves driven back, step by step.
No way. Were they losing? They couldn't be, right? Justice wins. It always does.
The suspense had my heart climbing into my throat. No way... no, no way.
No! Justice always triumphs — that's just how it works!
I couldn't go doubting something so obvious. The heroines of PuriPuriPuripa had always crushed evil without breaking a sweat...!
"Kyaaaaah!!"
...And yet. After a few exchanges, Iris took a kick square to the stomach and went flying.
"Huh? Wh— No!"
"Uuuu... what do we dooo!!"
"Look out!! Iris!!"
A surge of jet-black energy came hurtling straight at her — and Lilia threw herself in front of Iris and cut it off.
"Ugh!!"
The barrage never let up. It felt as though one loosened muscle and the black tide would come flooding through. Lilia's legs, trembling as she strained to hold her barrier in place, slowly began to buckle. It was a hopeless sight — so precarious that the darkness looked ready to swallow her whole at any moment.
"Ugh! Come on, come on! Get away, Lilia!!"
"No! Iris. How could I ever leave you behind!!!"
"Kahaha! Then let the two of you be swallowed into the darkness together, nice and close...!!"
It was utter desperation. One more push, and it felt like everything would end right there. No — it truly felt like it was ending. Before I knew it, sweat had seeped into the hand I was gripping.
"Open... open your eyes, Iris!"
You have to open your eyes! Otherwise it ends right here! After everything you've worked for — you even made yourself play the villain, all to protect your friend to the very end!! And now, after coming all this way!!!!
"Hang in there, Lilia!"
At some point a new voice had joined mine, and when I turned, there was Arin, fist clenched tight, shouting at the screen.
"Iris!"
"Liliaaa!!"
We cheered with everything we had, wishing our voices could somehow reach them — because in PuriPuriPuripa, earnest wishes had always been power. We screamed until our throats went raw.
But for all that hope, the darkness in the end closed over the two of them. Silence washed across the screen. The camera lingered on nothing but the First Evil, smiling.
...So this was the feeling called despair. Why? Why...!
"No. No...!"
"Ah... uhh.... Noooo...."
It was over. All that filled me was a hollow futility, like the Grim Reaper's blade snapping clean in two, click, click.
"That's not right. There's no way this is how it ends."
"Hu... huaaah... Serin, whad do we doooo...."
"No. Just wait and see. It'll be okay. Yeah! It's fine. It's going to be okay...."
They'd spent all this time telling a story of hope, hadn't they? That's what magical girl stories are. Which meant there was absolutely no way they could lose. It wasn't as if this were some bleak, dreamless genre where a head suddenly gets bitten clean off mid-scene!!!
I squeezed the hand of the tearful Arin. I couldn't afford to be the one who fell apart. I was the grown-up here, more than she was.
"They can do it."
"R...really?"
Arin looked up at me.
"Believe in the bond they've built all this time...! I... I personally guarantee it."
"I dunno what a guarantee is, but I b'lieve you...!"
It couldn't end like this. There was no way it would. It mustn't end. Iris and Lilia still had so much left to do — there was still a bond between them waiting to be carried through.
Carrying that wish in my chest, I shouted.
"They can do iiit!!"
"Not over yet!! Hang in there!!!"
We threw ourselves into cheering, a pair of chirpy little chicks peeping at the top of our lungs.
Kuuuummm.
...But even beneath all that shouting, the dark sphere wrapped around the magical girls held on, and on, and on. The suspense was unbearable. They weren't really done for... were they? And Arin kept tugging at the edge of my mind, tears still pooled at the corners of her eyes. Yet there she was, gazing up with hope shining in her eyes, holding my hand with a resolve already made.
If there turned out to be no hope at all, then all I'd have done was torture her with it. And then I'd be obliged to look after Arin for the rest of my days — because I'd have carved a deep wound into that little heart.
Please. Please.
Just as I prayed with everything I had—
—light came flooding out from inside the dark sphere!
"Woaaah...!!"
"Uooooahhh!!"
Arin and I cheered. My chest felt fit to burst. Had they done it? Really, truly?
"How!! How did you do this!!!"
The primordial sin let out a scream. The darkness cleared, and there stood Iris and Lilia, hand in hand, facing the evil down — exactly the way Arin and I were holding hands right now.
Arin glanced down at our clasped fingers, then back up at the TV.
"Hup!"
And with that mighty little "Hup!", she thrust our joined hands out toward the screen.
Hope filled our eyes to the brim.
...The battle raged on — but it had taken on a shape entirely different from before. The evil could no longer muster so much as a scrap of strength; all it could do was take whatever came. And then, at the very last—
"Why!! Why am I losing!!! I am the very First Sin of this world!!!"
The evil flailed in one final struggle, and the earth quaked as if the world itself might come apart. But the two girls facing it down recited their lines slowly, in voices calm as still water.
"We pity you — you who know nothing of love."
Then the light welling up between them swirled this way and that, merged into one, and skewered the evil through its belly. And so it faded from existence. As light rained down through the darkness that had draped the world, the ending theme began to play — the girls' joined hands framed right at the center of it all.
"It's... over."
"Yeah. We did it, Serin."
A deep afterglow lingered in my heart. An emotion I couldn't begin to untangle came swelling up in my chest. And on top of all that—
...Th... th... th-th-that line at the very end.
Did I... did I hear that right...?
That was it, wasn't it. They said love. They actually said love?!
Eeek! What do I do! I love it, I love it so much!
Just as that giddy feeling had me ready to leap clean off the floor—
"Fufu. All done, you two?"
"Yeah! We loved it, Mommy!"
A soft, mature woman's voice drifted over — and my whole body went rigid, all on its own.
"Ah!"
The voice belonged to Arin's mother. Her mother had been right there the whole time, and I had gone and lost myself completely.
Uuurgh...! I can't be acting like this...!
This wasn't our house. It was Arin's.
As I mentioned before, this was an anime Arin loved too, so we often watched it together after kindergarten — sometimes at our place, sometimes at hers, trading back and forth. Today just happened to be an Arin's-house day, which meant her mother was with us.
"I... I'm sorry, ma'am...."
I all but crumpled in on myself. Sure, this kind of thing had happened plenty of times before, but for some reason, right now, awkward little coughs kept welling up out of nowhere. Was it because I'd Awakened and come to know my true age? Because I'd finally registered how unbecoming this behavior was for someone my age? My face burning hot, I wriggled and squirmed in place.
"Oh, don't apologize, it was a treat to watch. Serin, you really are just too cute~ I suppose that comes with being Hayang's daughter, hmm?"
"Uh... yes, ma'am. Ahaha."
Thankfully, Arin's mother simply smiled her warm smile, said her piece about cuteness, and left it at that. Ahh, the mortification. It was worse with her than with Mom, somehow — she carried herself with just a touch more maturity, which made being fussed over feel all the more like being a toddler. She and Mom were the same age, but her whole presence was calmer, more composed, and that probably made it worse still.
From what I'd gathered from Arin, her mother was an Awakener herself, as it happened. Maybe that was why the two moms seemed to get along so well. Or maybe it was because Arin and I were close. Honestly, it might well have been both.
"Serin! What's got you like that? You're always like this anyway! We're watching together next time too, right?"
Then I felt the grip on my hand tighten. When I turned my head, there was Arin, eyes sparkling, still holding on to me.
Come to think of it — I'd been holding hands with Arin this whole time.
Hehe. Did she depend on me that much? Some quiet, secret part of me felt absolutely wonderful. No — the whole situation itself was wonderful. Because I'd made Arin a promise. Because I'd sworn, come what may, that they could do it — and they had!
As expected of PuriPuriPuripa! A god-tier masterpiece for the ages!
"Of course! Next time we'll watch at my place!"
Truth be told, I liked watching with Arin better than watching alone. I'd been watching PuriPuriPuripa with her from the very start, after all. Sharing the beginning and the end of a story with someone — that was the kind of thing that struck deep at the heartstrings.
"Yay!!"
Overjoyed at my firm answer, Arin giggled and hopped up and down, hand still wrapped around mine.
The final episode was bound to be even more spectacular...! I could hardly wait!