Highlights
- Arata Usuba is an annoying and distasteful character who exudes uneasiness to those around him, including viewers.
- Based on Arata's appearance and behavior, it can be inferred that he is a confident and well-educated man who comes from a wealthy and respected family.
- Arata wears different faces depending on who he is interacting with, behaving as an obedient servant to the Emperor, a polite diplomat to Kiyoka, and a helpful person to Miyo. However, his true self is revealed when he feels comfortable, showing arrogance, disdain, and narcissism.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for My Happy Marriage Episode 10, “Summer Cherry Blossoms, and the Mistake”, now streaming on Netflix.
In this type of analysis/review article, we usually focus on any major theme or interesting event that happened in any particular episode. This time around, however, we want to focus on one particular character; Arata Usuba. He is a new supporting character who was introduced back in episode 6 of My Happy Marriage.
There are still lots of things that we don’t know about him. One thing for sure, however, is the fact that he is extremely annoying. From the moment we first see his face and hear him talk, he already exudes an air of annoyance and uneasiness to those around him, including us as a viewer. So let’s use this chance to dive deeper into a character known as Arata Usuba. What is it about him that makes this man so annoying and distasteful? What are some of his characteristics and behaviors that make him so vexing to see?
An Exercise On Show Don’t Tell
Character creation often begins with what we can see from the outside. After all, what you wear, how you talk, how you conduct yourself in front of others, and what you do for a living can tell a lot about who you are as a person.
Whenever he appears on-screen, Arata always wears a proper Western suit. A rather uncommon outfit for the Japanese people at the time. This suggests Arata came from a relatively wealthy background or at least he is financially stable. His mannerism exudes confidence and the fact that he is so well-spoken suggests that Arata is well-educated as well, which once again implies that he comes from a well-off family.
Furthermore, the fact that he can have a direct audience with the current Emperor and his role as the intermediary between the Government and the Anti-Grotesqueries unit suggests that he is a well-connected person and somewhat influential too.
So based on what we can see from the outside alone, we can surmise that Arata is a confident and well-educated man who comes from a wealthy and respected family who has a certain level of connections and influence on the Government. This type of character can either be a super serious person with a good heart or an extremely cunning and arrogant individual who only thinks about himself. As it turns out, he is the latter.
How He Behaves Around Others
How a character behaves around others, be it their peers, their subordinates, or their superiors, can reveal a lot about him. In the case of Arata Usuba, he wears different faces depending on who that person is, and when and where he meets that person.
When he meets the Emperor, he behaves like an utterly obedient servant who seems to be willing to do anything for his master. When he meets Kiyoka along with the other members of the Anti-Grotesqueries unit, he uses polite and somewhat diplomatic language and only discloses the necessary information while keeping most of his cards close to his chest.
However, when he gets the chance to talk to Kiyoka alone, his formal attitude seems to be dissolved bit by bit. He begins to use informal language and even dares to ask personal questions to Kiyoka, particularly regarding his love life. When he meets Miyo, he wears the face of a helpful person who’s concerned about her well-being. When he meets Kiyoka again after he meets Miyo, the way he talks becomes even more brazen than usual, with words of disdain and accusations continuously leaving his mouth.
In this episode, Kiyoka and Miyo come to Arata’s house, or rather the Usuba’s house, and talk to him and his grandfather. Here, knowing that he is safe in his own home, Arata’s tongue becomes even more shameless than before. He spews all kinds of accusations, condemnation, and countless hateful words towards Kiyoka. It seems that the more comfortable Arata feels, the more his true self crawls up to the surface, which is an arrogant, self-righteous, and narcissistic man who looks down on people and will do anything to get what he wants.
How He Thinks of Himself
The last piece of the puzzle is knowing how Arata actually thinks of himself. After all, somebody may act tough and confident on the outside, but inside, they can be fragile and full of anxiety. In real life, this piece of information is nearly impossible to obtain. But since this is a piece of fiction, we get to know Arata’s true feelings through his monologue. The words that he thinks and spews when nobody is around.
Arata sees himself as the savior of the land. Because in his mind, as part of the prestigious Usuba line, it is his duty and his pleasure to guide the nation into what he considers to be the best path. To do that, he has to secure Miyo, a Usuba who possesses a rare ability that can be used to further his cause. He doesn’t care about Miyo as a person, because if he did, he would’ve freed Miyo from years of abuse in Saimori’s house. But now that he knows how powerful she actually is, Miyo becomes an important asset to Arata.
Not only that, it is also imperative for him to prevent the infamous Kudou family from gaining even more power. Miyo and Kiyoka’s feelings for each other are of no concern to him. In his mind, be it blackmail, physical harm, or even deceptions, everything is fair game when it comes to pursuing his goal. So once he decides that splitting Kiyoka and Miyo apart is the fastest way to gain what he wants, he gladly spits all kinds of hateful words towards Kiyoka and plants seeds of doubt in Miyo’s heart. And as he predicted, it works like a charm. Arata is far from the evil overlord of the series, but he is without a doubt the most annoying mid-level boss that the hero has to squash in order to get to the last boss.
So how did Akumi Agitogi, the original writer of My Happy Marriage, create such an annoying character? Well, the answer is through meticulous planning. The devil is in the details. From what he wears, to his motivation, to how he executes his plans, everything has to be well-thought-out. If any of the aforementioned characteristics are missing, then Arata as a character wouldn’t have worked as well as he is. As it turns out, it took effort to be annoying.