Is Mamimi stupid or just eccentric?

[Anime Guy]

Mamimi, no doubt, acts kinda strange. The things she says, the things she does. It's just different. My question to you being, is Mamimi stupid and naive or is she smart and eccentric? I think she's smart but eccentric but I thought this would be a good area of discussion. So, discuss.

[Eddy 2]

boo bah boo bah miami is a sheep. Yes sir yes sir full robots full.

she's gonna explode!

[Tienshin]

boo bah boo bah miami is a sheep. Yes sir yes sir full robots full.

she's gonna explode!
I was with you for a moment and then my reading comprehension unit failed. So, um, care to try again?

And for the record, I think Mamimi is very eccentric but also unfullfilled emotionally...first Naotas' bro leaves her and then Naota begins to leave her via Haruko and then... Aha! She leaves him! Pre-emptive dumperation! But then again, she really needs a guy her own age anyway.

[True Noir]

I was with you for a moment and then my reading comprehension unit failed. So, um, care to try again?

And for the record, I think Mamimi is very eccentric but also unfullfilled emotionally...first Naotas' bro leaves her and then Naota begins to leave her via Haruko and then... Aha! She leaves him! Pre-emptive dumperation! But then again, she really needs a guy her own age anyway.

I agree. She is very eccentric. She s very emotional. and that's why she is like my favorite characte in the show. Also sometimes i want to be just like her.

[Eddie G.]

I don't think she's rich enough to be eccentric, she's crazy. I love her though.

[Anime Guy]

I don't think she's rich enough to be eccentric, she's crazy. I love her though.

Do you even know what eccentric means?

[Eddie G.]

Have you ever heard of the old joke that rich people are not crazy they're eccentric? It was just a joke I was making about that old joke man. No worries though.

Anyway I thinks she's eccentric. However aparantly she is stupid because the director said so.

P.S. Ecentic is an adjetive that describes someone who does not act in ways that society labels usual behavior in a usually whimsical manner

[SSJPabs]

I have a soft spot for bimbos.

I vote stupid because the director said so. That name though! That threatens to turn to mush in my mouth, Mamimi. Didn't you have a Mamimi avatar at one point, Angelfire?

[Romanesque]

Mamimi, no doubt, acts kinda strange. The things she says, the things she does. It's just different. My question to you being, is Mamimi stupid and naive or is she smart and eccentric? I think she's smart but eccentric but I thought this would be a good area of discussion. So, discuss.

Naive and eccentric, but at neither extreme of smart or stupid.

Mamimi is stupid. It's in the director's commentary on the DVD.

From what I've heard, I'm not inclined to agree with many of the director's evaluations of the characters...

--Romey

[Roger Smith]

Mamimi is not stupid its the classic Guide by her Emotions girls
and Bimbo is Number 1 Mexican Bread :D

[SirLemming]

Mamimi is some sort of burnout -- whether it's an emotional thing or a drug thing or both. She doesn't seem to have any grip on reality and she doesn't seem to care. She's desperate for attention, so she somehow convinces herself that Naota is his older brother, who she's going out with (if I understand correctly). And she smokes cigarettes. And she's an arsonist. Yep, definitely troubled. I don't think either eccentric or stupid covers it.

[DianaGohan]

From what I've heard, I'm not inclined to agree with many of the director's evaluations of the characters...

Rule of Success 32: You're characters have become so popular your audiance as more to say about them (positvley) then you do.

And about the title question. I wouldn't say she's stupid. Maybe a bit crazy, maybe a bit eccentric, but not stupid. Besides, if she's "stupid" then so are half the characters on FLCL, no doubt.

[tigerrunner]

I really can't tell if she's stupid of eccentric. But, if the director said she's stupid, then I guess she is (or is supposed to be)

I don't think she's crazy, either. Just in an extreme case of denial. She obviously loved Naota's brother a lot, and couldn't handle it when he left, so she decided to hit on his brother (okay, maybe that's a bit crazy). She didn't get over it until the end of the series, after Naota left her, and, I'm guessing to prove her point even more, she left town. Then again, who knows, maybe she just went to look for Naota's brother again.

[SSJPabs]

I think Roger Smith might have hit the nail on the head.

Mamimi has stopped trying to think, and just goes with what she feels (I guess that's why she can 'overflow') and since the emotions of teenage girls can often be unpredictable (boys too but Maimi's a XX) it could help explain her erratic behavior as well as her flitting about from Naota to Canti and her emotional outbursts at various points in the series.

In the voice-over at the end, it says Mamimi left town and became a successful photographer.

...and now I'm going to go party like Mamimi (like I just don't care!)

[RogueMartian]

I remember the ending saying that she left because she wanted to be a photographer. I don't remember it saying anything about becoming "successful"

Oh well. I could be wrong.

I think Mamimi has deliberately made herself dumb. She doesn't want to think about all the depressing things that have happened to her.

[SpaceCowboy]

In my view, she's hurt emotionally by being dumped by Naota's brother and being frowned upon by everyone for the way she is. I would say she's immature and a bit troubled, but not stupid.

[Komadoki]

Shes stupid. She hangs out with a kid a lot younger than her cuz she misses his bro...and she'll explode but thats not the point. She really needs to put down the matches and ciggarettes. Though I have an obbsession of kitchen matches, her thing with fire goes way too far. And that thing where she thought the robot was the fire god. Really uncool. So I summarize her as.....

CRACKED OUT ON ANTIDEPRESSENT PILLS!!!

I have spoken
KOM

[CaptainRed]

I was with you for a moment and then my reading comprehension unit failed. So, um, care to try again?

And for the record, I think Mamimi is very eccentric but also unfullfilled emotionally...first Naotas' bro leaves her and then Naota begins to leave her via Haruko and then... Aha! She leaves him! Pre-emptive dumperation! But then again, she really needs a guy her own age anyway.

I hold that she is neither eccentric nor stupid, just very underdeveloped emotionally. She is naturally very clingy... and has only become worse through years of bullying at school. She also requires clinginess in other people(thus much of her attachment to Naota early on). I don't think the reason she leaves Naota is that he starts to leave her first, though — she only thinks he starts to leave her first. He begins to assert his own personality and wants and abilities, and she pre-emptive dumperates him before he has the chance to.(There's a question... would Naota have dumped Mamimi had she not done so first?)

Mamimi is stupid. It's in the director's commentary on the DVD.

From what I've heard, I'm not inclined to agree with many of the director's evaluations of the characters...

Once a work is released, the director loses his dictatorial powers as to the content. At best all he can claim is a fifty percent stake in the content, and the longer the work is out there the less claim he has.(Thus, legions of unhappy Star Wars fans) Besides, creative people can never be absolutely certain they know all that resides in their creations... and they certainly can't be sure that what they meant to include is all that was included.

*honks hugs and whatever else*
Cappy Red

[True Noir]

Guys that don't understand girls or women will definately not understand Mamimi.At least thats what i think.

[SSJPabs]

At the risk of starting a fight here, I'm going to come out and say that CaptainRed is wrong wrong wrong.

While viewers can interpret the work in any way they choose, ultimately what the characters are is in the hands of the director/creator. If he directs Mamimi as dumb then she is dumb. If he directs her as eccentric and emotionally challenged then she is. She can be other things but not to the exclusion of what the director wanted. That trumps all else because that's how it was made and is such an intregral part of the process. At some point an absolute value has to be established or the characters remain nebulous. That's untenable because the characters have to have some framework or they can't properly exist in the context of a story. The characters and in this case, Mamimi can't be all things to all people.

The longer the work is out there? Nope sorry. That doesn't change because the work itself doesn't change.

Angelfire, do you mean understand girls, or women? Different things here.

It could be a moot point. Maybe the directors DOESN'T say she's dumb.
To Star Wars Fans: Hehe!

[Sisto Kid]

Mamimi is DEFINITELY 63 Crayons. (i.e., one crayon short of a full box, yada, yada, oops...oh, well) But on to the stupidity question:

Think about the difference between stupidity and ignorance...
Ignorance is when you do something wrong because you don't know that it is. Stupidity is when you know something is wrong and you do it anyway.

Anyhoo, it seems that Mamimi has no real guidance or support system except for Naota and to some degree, Canti. So I would think that she's more ignorant than stupid.

Strictly MHO.

[Mibbitmaker]

I generally agree with SSJPabs, but, in a way, the truth is somewhere between SSJ and CaptainRed. There are things in a creative work a creator doesn't intend, but said creator usually discovers it him/herself as the work is being made. The 'character-has-a-mind-of-his/her-own' syndrome. I've seen it in my own (unpublished) comic work. One character was just incidental to a joke and became an important character to the overall story.

I'm not sure how or if this would apply to the director of FLCL. Possibly, Mamimi is stupid, but since FLCL is eccentric, she comes off more eccentric to most here (myself included).

[Eddy 2]

I think she's a hyper intelligent sheep in a costume, thats why she was eating hay in epiosde4.

Plus she nearly exploded.

[Invader_Spooch]

Shes stupid. She hangs out with a kid a lot younger than her cuz she misses his bro...and she'll explode but thats not the point. She really needs to put down the matches and ciggarettes. Though I have an obbsession of kitchen matches, her thing with fire goes way too far. And that thing where she thought the robot was the fire god. Really uncool. So I summarize her as.....

CRACKED OUT ON ANTIDEPRESSENT PILLS!!!

I have spoken
KOM

..........dear god I hate this forum.

[Anime Guy]

I think she's a hyper intelligent sheep in a costume, thats why she was eating hay in epiosde4.

Riiiiight.

Plus she nearly exploded.

I think she was just having a really intense period.

[Eddy]

Mamimi's no genious. But she's not an idiot. I suppose she would just fall under eccentric. Seems about right, I guess.

[CaptainRed]

At the risk of starting a fight here, I'm going to come out and say that CaptainRed is wrong wrong wrong.

Me? Wrong?? Blasphemy!

While viewers can interpret the work in any way they choose, ultimately what the characters are is in the hands of the director/creator.

That doesn't work. The creator of a work of fiction(be it a written, crafted or performance piece) cannot be present every time his work is consumed. The meaning of a work is a central part of that work — it cannot be contained in a separate package. Sequels may alter their predecessors, ultimately each work must be able to stand alone.

If he directs Mamimi as dumb then she is dumb. If he directs her as eccentric and emotionally challenged then she is. She can be other things but not to the exclusion of what the director wanted.

If I draw a tree with four legs, a nose and a tail, and no leaves, will my intention still take priority over all other interpretations?

If the director successfully directs her as dumb, then she is dumb. Likewise with any other direction. Ultimately this is a question of how well the director communicates. He doesn't get a free pass if he's bad at it.

That trumps all else because that's how it was made and is such an intregral part of the process. At some point an absolute value has to be established or the characters remain nebulous.

We don't have to come to a concensus about this. You can have your interpretation, I can have mine, and Yankle Schmendrik over there can have a different one that makes him hate the series. There is very little that we all see exactly alike, and there is no need for us to see this that way either.

That's untenable because the characters have to have some framework or they can't properly exist in the context of a story. The characters and in this case, Mamimi can't be all things to all people.

There is a framework. Our opinions stated here do not alter anything that happened physically. We debate only the reasoning behind that which happened physically.

The longer the work is out there? Nope sorry. That doesn't change because the work itself doesn't change.

When you release a work to the public, you give up your absolute control. The people who consume your work have a right to their own expectations about what goes on its universe. Violate their trust at your own peril. Yes, you still technically hold the power to screw with your creation any way you want, but don't come crying to me when they start creating their own canon of your work.

The longer a work is out there, the more cemented its form is in the consumers' eyes, and the more people are going to balk at alterations.

Or...

"Monkey Sensei prefers the red one you know. No matter what he says now we can't do anything about it."

To Star Wars Fans: Hehe!

The force is cold with this one. >;¬b

I generally agree with SSJPabs, but, in a way, the truth is somewhere between SSJ and CaptainRed. There are things in a creative work a creator doesn't intend, but said creator usually discovers it him/herself as the work is being made. The 'character-has-a-mind-of-his/her-own' syndrome. I've seen it in my own (unpublished) comic work. One character was just incidental to a joke and became an important character to the overall story.

Ditto on that discovery. Once I also found something... that dances close to innuendo in one of my stories that I didn't put in. Can I deny that it's there? No. All I can say is that it was unintentional. It's impact on the story's reception is the same, however.

I'm not sure how or if this would apply to the director of FLCL. Possibly, Mamimi is stupid, but since FLCL is eccentric, she comes off more eccentric to most here (myself included).

It might be that he defines stupid slightly differently. Or it could be that stupidity, eccentricity, and emotional immaturity all work within their own philosophies to explain her actions.

*honks hugs and whatever else*
Cappy "What fight? Red