/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Do you consider Rosa evil or is she just clueless about how to fix Maria's behavior and resorts to beat her?

Maria clearly has issues related to autism or something similar. Heck, just rereading EP1 I realised how much she just parrots what others say (which is also common, often seen as a sign of stunted/delayed language development), the whole “Uu”-thing (aside its emotional significance from EP4, she uses it just too much for it to be a conscious decision, it seems more like a habit… or a stereotype behavior), her inability to make friends (and somewhat: the lack of care on her side), the strong fixation on magic/witches (with all those rules like “magical defense bestowed upon ye by Scorpion” [get over… … away from here?]). Although I guess a case could be made that her behavior might be closer to the Asperger-syndrome than having the ‘full’ autism.

Psychotherapy in Japan is, from what I know (which is little) a touchy subject, even today. Considering we’re in the middle of the 80s, it was probably even worse. So in a way it is not surprising that no one in her environment really addressed it, since it was just such a taboo topic. So Rosa has got a point: with this behavior she will have tremendous problems in society. And if this is really autism, the chance of it just “going away” is pretty slim. Though beating and deceiving her daughter is a pretty bad way to ‘fix’ this.