#Jesus . Ok lol . Listen to Harumaki gohan music

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Dinner Bell the Mafuyu song ever …

Starting off — “warmth” is a word Mafuyu uses a lot in the story, the physical feeling she associates with love, though she doesn’t quite know that it’s love yet. However, as a child, she still understood and could experience emotions, and in memories, she associates the positive ones, again, with warmth. In the events Mirage of Lights and Guiding a Lost Child to What Lies Beyond (+ the cards associated with them), she has memories of her childhood and feelings associated with warmth/cold, specifically in relation to her mother. Mafuyu wants to go back to the way she was a child; she wants to understand what she’s lost sight of now but had when she was little.

No big analysis or connections for this one, just Hey Haha That’s So My Favorite Character Lyrics HEY!!!! Deep down, Mafuyu wishes that her parents would love her for herself, and not her accomplishments. She doesn’t want to be their good girl, their smart girl, their prodigy doctor-in-training daughter who they can brag about — she doesn’t want to need to be special to be loved. She just wants to be loved like everyone else.

(Left: Dinner Bell, right: Tricologe)

I just found these similarities really interesting. I think Tricologe is a song that Kanade wrote to be from the perspective of someone who is both like her (self sacrificial, the outside “savior”) and another person who is like Mafuyu (trapped in a life that is slowly “killing” her, the imprisoned “saved”); and these lyrics are clearly about the latter — Mafuyu even sings them in the group cover of the song. I think that both songs, “eating” refers to the state of…being, though that’s somewhat vaguely put. More specifically, eating something you don’t want to means being a self that is not truly you — Mafuyu is “fed” the unwanted expectations other people put on her, which she then mindlessly accepts and tries to fulfill. Similarly, the protagonist of Dinner Bell has “things [they don’t] want to eat” — I think this is a similar setup to Mafuyu if the previous lyrics about being “special” are any indication of their relationship with their family. I believe that the protagonist has run away from home in some capacity because of a bad familial life, and even though they still crave love and acceptance that can only be given if they live up to their family’s wishes, they know that this will “kill” them if they keep going with that. Conversely, Mafuyu already became “a corpse” due to her accepting her parent’s expectations of her and focusing her whole life on living up to them.

いい子 (good child/girl) THE ULTIMATE MAFUYU REFERENCE! Also — “The rule mom … set / I lost it by the roadside”:

Both of these cards (arguably both “by the roadside” but either way close enough) are moments where Mafuyu’s illusion/high opinion of her mother shift. First, Mizuki telling her that it’s okay to run away sometimes: Mafuyu realizes she’s not obligated to put up with this, she can put herself first — something her parents have taught her, where her consciously or not, is bad and selfish. Second, (IMO) when the image of her mother truly shatters — it’s revealed to her that that her mother doesn’t care about Mafuyu the way she’s has convinced herself she does.

Alright so I probably should have put this earlier but this is primarily a Mafuyu analysis not a Dinner Bell one so you’ll just have to deal with me here. I believe the “dinner bell” in this song represents being loved and wanted by someone, and the singer so deeply desires that — to be called to enjoy a meal because they are wanted there, to be surrounded by warmth and to be loved enough to be called back home. Mafuyu craves unconditional love and acceptance from her parents, but she only gets love on the basis of her performance in school, as well as her performance as a Person, as a “good girl”. She so desperately wants to be called by the dinner bell - to be wanted no matter if she strays from her family’s wishes, to be loved even if she’s not always with them, following them and their plans for her. She…doesn’t get that. Not from her parents, that is.

In the event Mirage of lights, Mafuyu gets sick (with a fever, woah haha that was in the song) and stays at Kanade’s house to recover. She has memories of a similar experience when she was a child, when her mother took care of her, and she makes the same request both times — to not be left alone.

Both times, the caretaker in the situation stays with her and holds her hand. But Mafuyu’s grown up now and she doesn’t get that kind of kindness and care from her parents — her mom doesn’t even notice she’s not doing well and she has to go to school sick, sacrificing the time she wants to spend on her own tasks to help other people. Her parents, especially her mom, have somewhat stopped seeing her as a Whole Person — instead, she’s their perfect little girl, a straight-A student who helps everyone around her and has a bright future. Anything outside of that is foreign to them. Mafuyu probably won’t ever get what she wants — unconditional love — from her parents. But she will get it from her friends, her true family. And that’s more than enough, I think.