Powerfully Happy

We are hardwired to long for happiness. But is happiness something that wells up from within us or is it sourced externally, and if so, what are its terms? More to the point, who sets those terms, and what does the answer say about our ability to engineer our own happiness?

Such are the questions I found myself asking as I watched the first season of Takehiro Kubota’s anime series My Happy Marriage. While I first thought it to be the romantic schlock that is now its own subgenre of anime, what changed my mind was the way that the question of happiness consistently framed the overtures between the show’s main characters. This question was brought into sharper relief by the show’s supernatural elements, talents ranging from casting spells and channeling fire to the reading of dreams. The application of these powers, the claims of ownership by those that possess them, and the mediation of those claims via the institution of marriage, is what keeps the question of happiness, and whether it is a function of power, alive throughout the series. From a theological lens, this raises the further question as to whether the diametrically opposed pursuits of happiness—Augustine’s self-serving libido dominandi or “lust for domination” on the one hand, and Paul’s self-giving kenosis for the beloved on the other hand—make any difference in refracting and contouring this exercise of power?

The protagonist of the show is Miyo Saimori, the daughter of her late mother Sumi and Shinichi, the patriarch of the Saimori family. What strikes the viewer in the first episode is the gaping emotional void within Miyo, set in train by her mother’s death and marked by a cherry blossom tree in the family garden. Following her death, Shinichi remarries another woman named Kanoko with whom he has another daughter named Kaya. Eager to secure their place in the Saimori family, as well as marginalize those in the old family structure, both Kanoko and Kaya take every opportunity to denigrate the memory of Sumi and abuse Miyo both emotionally and physically, reducing her to a mere housemaid.

What becomes evident from the first episode is how deeply Miyo’s family life is cloven by asymmetries of power and how relations between family members are forged because of those asymmetries. At one level, this is hardly surprising, for as Graham Ward notes, “every relation (and power can only be powerful with respect to relations) is a power relation insofar as it involves the distribution of differences, and some of those differentials (perhaps many) involve inequalities.”^[1] Indeed, as Christians we know that even the Trinity itself, as well as the relations of love between the divine persons, is marked by an asymmetry rather than simple egalitarianism. These asymmetries are not antithetical to the Trinitarian relations of one person in the Godhead giving oneself in love to another, for it is rather the very differences that make self-giving possible. What is striking in My Happy Marriage is how much of the show depicts desire as a function of these distributions of power. Differences in power, drawn in such stark lines throughout the series, make up the flows of desire, attraction, love, and happiness. Even more remarkable is the way power and happiness endure throughout the season, regardless of whether the happiness sought is libidinal or kenotic.

Libidinal happiness, the distorted happiness that comes from one’s domination of another, is precisely what drives Kanoko and Kaya. More specifically, they equate happiness with establishing their privileged status within the new family structure, and use every thought, word and action to exert power over and destroy vestiges of the previous marriage. What accentuates the distributions of power is the fact that all this occurs under the abetting eye of the Saimori patriarch. Libidinal power is exerted on persons (more specifically Miyo) through an unprovoked tirade of insults and strikes. This power is also exerted on things, the most vivid demonstration of which is the family cutting down the cherry blossom tree planted after Sumi’s death, the neglected stump the only visible remainder, and a clear reminder of who dominated whom.

Kenotic power flows from those who renounce an apparent happiness when they know where true happiness lies: in renouncing the ease of being a mere recipient of desire in favor of the labor of becoming a co-agent of love.

The plot twist—and what further drives Kanoko’s and Kaya’s abuse—is that Miyo, unlike Kaya, lacks a supernatural power (known as a “gift”) to see spirits. Possessing this power is a badge of honor in the Saimori family, while its lack further justifies the familial mistreatment. Amidst the torrent of abuse, Miyo has one (albeit fleeting) refuge, her childhood friend, Kouji Tatsuishi, the gifted scion of the Tatsuishi clan. Growing up together, Kouji falls in love with Miyo. Only Kouji has a kind word or deed for Miyo, and nothing would make Miyo happier than to marry him. That is, until two marriages are arranged.

By the Saimori patriarch’s order (and that of the patriarchs of two other families, the Tatsuishis and the Kodas), Kouji is to marry not Miyo, but her cruel and “gifted” half-sister, Kaya. Their happiness does not factor into this arrangement. What matters is how pleased the patriarchs of the mercenary Saimori and Tatsuishi clans are with it, since the pairing strategically cements the prestige of the two households. Miyo, lacking any gift or familial standing, is a mere token to be flicked around. Once again for strategic purposes, Shinichi flicks Miyo off to be engaged to Lord Kiyoka Koda, the son of a powerful clan of gift users. Power constitutes the currency for this transaction, both in the way the parties are mere obedient subjects to the engagement, and in the way the pairing is done to secure a connection with the powerful, though less strategically significant, clan.

From the moment Miyo moves into the Koda house, the viewer becomes painfully aware of the power disparity between the timid Miyo and Kiyoka who, at least initially, comes across as cold, distant and looming large over Miyo. The latter frequently accentuates her smallness by constant self-deprecation, all whilst referring to her fiancé as “my lord.” However, Kiyoka’s aloof exterior gradually flakes away, revealing a kind-heartedness equal and sometimes exceeding that of Kouji. Kiyoka gradually finds Miyo to be unlike other girls and commits himself to ensuring Miyo’s happiness. As we shall see, however, this selfless commitment to her happiness is intimately tied to his capacities as the most powerful gift user in the series.

Indeed, Kiyoka’s dedication sets in train two notable points in which happiness and power play out in both Augustinian and Pauline ways. The receptacle for both types of power is none other than Miyo herself.

Initiating the power flow of the Augustinian type is Kaya, who displays her irritation at Kouji’s “nice guy” demeanor. Having laid eyes on the beautifully proportioned and gallant fiancé of Miyo, Kaya becomes convinced that her happiness only resides in stealing Kiyoka from Miyo. This desire sets in train a concerted effort to break off Miyo’s engagement, involving kidnapping and torturing her to force a renunciation of the engagement, once again abetted by the Saimori and Tatsuishi patriarchs.

Kaya’s act of Augustinian domination elicits two differing Pauline responses from both Kiyoka and Kouji respectively. Kiyoka sets off to rescue Miyo from the Saimori’s clutches, only to be blocked by Kouji’s father Minoru, the powerful Tatsuishi patriarch who discovers that Miyo comes from a powerful bloodline of gift users and thus covets Miyo to further the Tatsuishi’s ambitions. Fascinatingly, even though this means giving up his original dream of marrying Miyo, Kouji still lays aside his chance to lay claim to her, only because he knows that it would be against Miyo’s own desire for Kiyoka. Even with the power to seek his own happiness firmly in his hands, Kouji nonetheless renounces it and lays it down.

Meanwhile, Kiyoka similarly puts his own life on the line for Miyo’s sake, though this kenotic act is manifest through his own dazzling display of pyrokinetic power, one that forces the otherwise formidable Minoru to his knees and sets the Saimori mansion ablaze. As with Kouji, it is precisely the possession of power that enables its renunciation. Unlike Kouji, however, even though the telos of the domination has moved away from the self to the other, the external shell of power nonetheless remains. The viewer is struck by the way that flows of power, even coercive power, continue to pulsate even when expended for the good of another.

Amid these breathtaking and violent displays, one might be forgiven for thinking that Miyo is a mere passive recipient of another’s exercises of power. We are soon disavowed of this impression, and indeed, the careful viewer will notice subtle ways in which Miyo exercises her own kenotic form of power and does so precisely from her position of apparent powerlessness.

Miyo’s exercise of power shines through in a subtle, bittersweet moment that can easily be missed. Following Miyo’s rescue, Kouji finds himself in a position where he could rekindle the romance with Miyo that had been cruelly cut short by the strategic machinations of their respective clans. He asks Miyo if she recalls a memory from their childhood, one that suggests the rescue he wanted to effect and the romance he wants to restore. It is a memory that Miyo shares. Even in the evoking of a memory, the viewer can still detect flows and disparities of power, which are folded within Kouji’s intentions to be Miyo’s protector once again. However, in Kouji’s waiting for Miyo’s response, the latter beautifully inverts the power relation with the former, as Kouji’s own happiness is suddenly put into Miyo’s hands and can be activated with a simple “I remember.” Furthermore, kenotic power flows from those who renounce an apparent happiness when they know where true happiness lies: in renouncing the ease of being a mere recipient of desire in favor of the labor of becoming a co-agent of love. Though Kouji can make Miyo happy, she nonetheless knows her true happiness lies by Kiyoka’s side and working towards his happiness. Miyo’s renunciation of power, both over Kouji and over herself is manifest in a single move, when she tells Kouji that she has no recollection of the shared memory. Initially, this comes across to the viewer as an act of meekness, voiding her chance to grasp at a modicum of happiness (an act which would have put her on the same level as Kanoko and Kaya). However, what Miyo’s renunciation does is intentionally create space for a much fuller source joy to mightily enter.

For the Christian viewer, what makes My Happy Marriage stand out is the way it teases out both Augustinian and Pauline pursuits of love and the corresponding exercises of power impelling those who seek happiness in both self-seeking or self-emptying ways. The poignant takeaway is that, on this side of death, we may not escape these flows of power, even as we try to orient them to self-denying ends.

^[1] Graham Ward, Christ and Culture (Cambridge: Blackwell, 2005), 87.

Matthew John Paul Tan is Dean of Studies at Vianney College, the seminary of the diocese of Wagga Wagga in Australia. He also serves as Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia. He is the author of two books, his most recent being Redeeming Flesh: The Way of the Cross with Zombie Jesus (Cascade 2016). He also blogs at Awkward Asian Theologian and is co-host of the podcast Awkward Asian Theologians.