79. Mari Episode
79. Mari Episode
The Dina Knight Order was a little rowdy after Dina's episode ended.
No. They were incredibly rowdy.
So much so that internal strife broke out within the order.
- Riv had to die! It was unavoidable! But isn't he happy now!
- What nonsense! They say rolling around in a goblin den is better than the afterlife, and Riv should have lived!
The fire was stoked by a debate over Riv's death.
The two groups, for the record, did not claim that this ending itself was wrong. (Because anyone who did claim it was wrong was dealt with by the Raccoon Knight.)
The debate was solely about whether Riv's death should be seen as a happy ending or a sad ending.
Again—they were not saying the ending was wrong.
Nor was this a protest demanding the ending be changed.
It was strictly a debate, from a literary standpoint, about which category—happy ending or sad ending—Riv's death fell into.
This was, astonishingly, the first truly academic discussion ever since Magical Girl Magical Mari first aired!
I could not hold back tears as I watched a fandom engage in civil, cultured debate for the first time.
As I stood alone by the club room window, sniffling while gazing at the debate floor, Nikolai, who had been watching the debate beside me, raised a question.
"What's this? The Dina Order isn't having a seizure? I was worried they'd all have a collective mental corruption like last time."
"That's because this is an 'honorable death.'"
"An honorable death?"
Nikolai, who knew modern culture well but remained weak on this world's culture, asked me in return.
For his benefit, I went out of my way to explain this world's culture using Earth as a comparison.
"You know Greek and Roman mythology, right?"
"Pretty well, yeah?"
"Then let me ask you. Did most heroes get happy endings or sad endings?"
"Sad endings, right?"
"Then were the ancient literary works you know all happy endings, or sad endings?"
"Uh... sad endings, right?"
"That's the correct answer."
The people of this world were surprisingly accustomed to sad endings.
If anything, something like Riv's death doesn't even compare to the bleakness of ancient literature.
Take Heracles alone—he nearly died at birth, ran himself ragged across the whole world, killed his own family with his own hands, and ultimately committed suicide. A tragedy.
And because theology had kept the culture of this era rooted in ancient literature, people were accustomed to sad endings themselves.
That might raise a question.
Why did they have such violent seizures over the previous bleak scenes, yet not this time?
The answer lies in honor.
"The key is whether the protagonist's honor and will are preserved, even in a hopeless situation."
The Dina-Riv Arm Cut incident that first plunged people into shock and terror.
In that case, there was no honor for Dina or for Riv—only sheer brutality.
Then came the Arm Cut incident involving Isis and Ignos's subordinate.
In that case, there was no honor for Isis or her subordinate—only bleakness, which sent people into seizures.
But this time, Riv's ending was, all things considered, sufficiently honorable.
Riv had honor as a knight who protected his little sister, and Dina had her honor preserved because she grew mentally through her brother's death.
That was why even the Dina Knight Order had no complaints about the ending itself.
This was also why the debate taking place outside could remain a thoroughly civilized and dignified academic discussion.
They were calmly accepting Riv's honorable death and interpreting its meaning.
Having heard my explanation, Nikolai narrowed his eyes and then pointed toward the debate floor.
And there, as always, absolute pandemonium was unfolding.
"Your Honor the presiding judge! Render your verdict at once!"
"Is Riv's death a bad ending, or a happy ending?"
"Hoooeek!! Somebody untie me!"
At some point, Emilia had been tied to the high seat and was looking down upon the debate floor like a presiding judge.
Baffled by the sudden genre shift, I asked Nikolai.
"Why is Emilia up there?"
"I thought she'd been fixed lately... It's Ailey, Boss."
"That's not the point. Why is Ailey like that?"
"She got spotted by the protesters while walking from her lecture to the studio and was kidnapped."
"Good lord..."
At the protesters' behavior, now treating Ailey as basically half a prop, I pressed my hand to my forehead.
What did happy or sad endings matter enough for them to kidnap one of our staff members?
Unable to contain my surging sense of justice, I threw open the window and shouted.
"We're filming the next episode in ten minutes, so return her by then!!!"
"Allen?!"
Leaving Ailey's desperate cry behind me, I shut the window.
Nikolai, who had watched this entire process, asked me in disbelief.
"Weren't you going to rescue her?"
"And get myself caught too?"
Right now they seemed to be selectively kidnapping only the staff who could hand down a verdict—if I went over there, the only thing waiting for me was, "Yep, I got caught too," and The End.
So I merely found a negotiable line as an eminently rational civilized person!
Hearing my declaration, Nikolai sighed and chided me.
"Still, don't you feel bad for Ailey? Why not rescue her?"
"Then wanna go with me and try being a judge?"
As it happened, there was one vacant spot on each side of the presiding judge—if Nikolai and I served as associate judges, it'd even make a nice tableau.
At my question laden with that intent, Nikolai answered immediately.
"She's not getting hurt, so let's leave her."
Nodding with satisfaction at Nikolai's answer, we headed to the set for filming.
I heard later that Nikolai, unable to stand it any longer, officially declared the episode a good ending, but the debate was still raging after everyone dismissed him with, “What does the original author know?”
*
Riv passed on—he died!
But before anyone had time to mourn Riv's death, Dina was thrown onto the battlefield!
...was not how things went.
Mourning needed time, and an emotional aftertaste needed time before anyone could savor it.
If we jumped straight into the Mari episode right after the Dina episode, the viewers wouldn't be able to keep up with the tempo either.
So for the time being, the plan was to soothe their hearts and minds a bit with some slice-of-life comedy episodes.
This episode was about Riv trying to fix up and somehow make use of the skull train he'd slammed into the seashore.
The scene this time was: while the magical girls boarded the train and inspected various things, Dina—the magical girls' one and only engineer—was working on the train's circuits.
As I, in a semi-transparent state, peered into the mana-driven control panel, Diane—no, Dina—recited her prepared lines from below me.
"Brother. How is it?"
Normally this was the cue to answer that nothing was wrong, but a reflection on Riv's character suddenly came to mind.
Right now, Riv had transformed from a killing machine into an affectionate older brother.
As such an older brother, wouldn't tossing a joke at his little sister suit the scene better?
With that thought, I threw in an ad-lib not in the script.
"Hmm... Looks like it runs on mana."
Pfft!
We nearly got an NG from Nikolai's laughter in the distance where he was directing, but fortunately a gesture came back indicating the sound hadn't made it into the mic, so recording continued.
She could have been flustered by the unscripted ad-lib, but Dina adeptly played off it.
"Clever, aren't you."
Dina sighed and began repairing the train.
"Cut! That was good! Especially the ad-lib—nice!"
The scene ended with Nikolai's cut.
I gave Diane a fist bump for playing along with the banter so well, and she smiled and bumped her fist against mine.
Afterward, filming went smoothly.
Until now, the characters I'd acted were all rigid, action-only types like John or Riv, so there'd been no hook for ad-libs—but for the first time in my acting career, I'd been given a character with room for ad-libs.
Thanks to that, our back-and-forth clicked nicely, with me occasionally tossing out an ad-lib and Diane playing off it.
Soon the shoot progressed, and it was time to film the magical girls' mealtime scene.
Originally, it was a brief scene—only about three seconds on screen—meant to show that the magical girls had finished their work and enjoyed a nice dinner.
But during that brief scene, my mischievous streak surfaced.
My gaze landed on Isis, who was picking out only the garlic and asparagus from her steak.
"Are you setting aside the garlic and asparagus to eat later?"
"Huh? No, it's just that I can't eat them well."
"Eat them if you can manage."
"I don't wanna. You're Dina's brother, not my brother."
Isis adroitly played off it with a cheeky blep.
After this exchange, I briefly exchanged a glance with Nikolai.
Nikolai signaled that we could keep going, so I continued with the next ad-lib.
"Look at Mari and Dina. Those kids are eating just fine, aren't they?"
"That's why I said, never mind."
"That's why your chest is the smallest."
At those words, Dina proudly showed off her own chest.
Ceres belatedly played along with the ad-lib, hugging herself and covering her chest as though embarrassed.
Finally, Isis, who had been in the back-and-forth just now, was...
"Hey! You done talking?!"
She drew her sword.
This is acting, right?
Isis? No, was it Kylie right now?
Anyway, the scene where she swung her sword and I dodged the attack ended, and Nikolai's cut rang out.
Her sword stopped the moment the cut was called.
With a "good work," the filming crew immediately began prepping the next scene.
In the meantime, I apologized to Kylie.
Even if it was for the production, using an ad-lib to tease her had clearly been my fault.
Maybe she hadn't expected me to actually apologize—she briefly made a surprised face, then laughed and let it slide.
"Did you think I was really angry?"
"It was realistic enough to make me wonder."
"That's better than a hundred apologies."
"Thanks for playing along."
*
After that, Riv got into a verbal sparring match with Frank over the position of Dina's partner, and while looking at Isis's mascot, tossed out a squirrel joke, showing off their banter.
While Riv was blending into the magical girl team this way, we didn't forget to include direction that made the existing magical girls' friendship even stronger.
As the saying went, rain hardened the ground; after the civil war, the magical girls reaffirmed their friendship.
"Aah. I think my side where Mari hit me last time still hurts."
"That was because you deserved to get hit!"
We occasionally threw in some self-deprecating gags as well, and today's filming wrapped up by signaling that the three's friendship had grown firmer.
Only after deciding to reveal in interviews that the exchange had been my ad-lib did we begin preparing to leave.
"Good work, everyone!"
With everything done, the filming crew began heading home one by one.
I was about to head to the office to get my things as well when Celestia caught me.
"Got a minute?"
"What's up?"
"There's something I need to talk about."
"I was just on my way to the office, so let's go together."