(☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing takes place in an alternate universe in which habitable colonies have been established in space. The anime is chiefly about a war between the people living in space and the people living on Earth. The main characters of the anime are the five teenage Gundam pilots—Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei (their names are intentional number puns). They are initially formidable players in the war, yet grow increasingly disoriented as the shifting status quo leads them to question what they are fighting for. Episode 25: “Quatre VS Heero” marks the half-way point of the series. I chose this episode for the waywardmixes  challenge (Round 16: One Episode) due to its mixture of tragic and triumphant scenes.

“The Piano Teacher” features a professor Erika Kohut’s attempt to regain control of her life while living under her overbearing mother’s thumb through establishing a master/slave relationship with Walter Klemmer, her young suitor. After hearing responses of fascinated disgust from friends who have watched this film for their “Madness In Literature” module, I decided to watch it for myself out of a passion for dissecting perversion. The central psychological mystery of the film is the root of the titular piano teacher’s madness and while it may seem that the answer is evident in the sexualized acts the protagonist performs for her self-pleasure, I believe that the film’s progression of perversion is more than a shock tactic and instead serves to problematize the protagonist’s unnatural innocence.