Candy and Prince on the Hill (Part 6)

You may also like...

14 Responses

  1. nora says:

    I wish there is an english translation of candy’s letter to anthony.

  2. Reeka says:

    It’s the first time I heard about this interview, thank you so much for sharing it, my friend! Grrrrr what was the host thinking? I’m not happy too with the host, but Igarashi definitely made my day!

    From some information I’ve gathered regarding Igarashi and her drawings, I had conclusion she is truly an Albert fan 🙂 . Correct me if I’m wrong, Ms Puddle, didn’t Igarashi at first draw a more obvious ending scene for manga that later changed by Mizuki with the more subtle one? What was it? Candy and Albert were in a embrace? And, there was a comic strip she drew for an advertisement with characters looking exactly like Candy and Albert, as husband and wife?

    I don’t read many mangas, but from some I’ve read, Igarashi’s art is still the best. Beautiful and detailed. Readers can see the emotion clearly from her drawings. In Candy Candy manga, we could witness how the characters had been growing up and transforming from a child to teen to young adult. Subtle, but when we revisit the earlier volumes, the changes are there. Candy, Annie, Archie, Stear, Eliza, and Neil are the more obvious ones. I truly admire Igarashi’s works.

    It’s not a surprise to me that Igarashi herself picked Albert among the three love interests. She must have put a lot of her energy at drawing his transformation and couldn’t help herself fall in love with this character. And she drew all of his states perfectly. Let it be the charming prince, the rebelious wanderer, the miserable amnesiac Albert, or the powerful slash the super hot patriarch, William Albert Ardley. 😀

    • Reeka says:

      Editing the last line. 🙄🙄🙄

      Be it the charming prince, … …

    • Ms Puddle says:

      Dear Reeka, how is it going? 🙂 I couldn’t have said it better myself about Igarashi’s masterpiece. Like you, I admire her drawings and how she portrayed the characters of Candy Candy, their emotions, etc.

      I helped translate parts of the interview for my friend, but I didn’t know what she had done to it until I received the links from Evelyn recently. 😆 If you haven’t done so, please click the first link in this post. You’ll see that Igarashi’s drawing of little Candy and POTH placed right in the middle of the stage for the interview. 😀 It’s very clear what the story was all about, right? 😛

      Some people claimed that Igarashi was a Terry fan, but I think she drew Albert even more handsome and detailed. In addition to what you have said about Albert’s different stages, there were at least a few full-sized pages in the manga that showed him with or without Candy. Yes, I was told that Igarashi actually drew the embrace for the manga ending, but Mizuki decided to remove it (which is really too bad IMHO). 😉

      • Evelyn says:

        Hello dear Reeka and Ms Puddle!! Yes like you Reeka, I was just surfing the net in search for clues that Igarashi is an “Albert fan” and I found this link! 🙂 Thanks Ms Puddle for sharing it!!! 😉 ❤

        Like you, Reeka, I have read throughout Spanish blogs that Igarashi is a Terry fan, specially from those whom have only seen the anime. Unfortunately, whoever drew the last few episodes of the anime, drew Albert not looking his best toward the end in my opinion. I don’t think Terry looked that great either! However, it is quite obvious that Igarashi put so much effort and love into drawing Albert in the manga, not to mention that she kept saying that Albert looks so much younger than he was! I too believe that Igarashi is an Albert fan.

        The million dollar question is why did Mizuki want to keep the ending so concealed but it follows DLL’s plot? Yes there was never a physical kiss on the lips or an obvious in-your-face admission of love between A&C in the manga. But there are subtle hints of their love and attraction for each other during their life together at the Magnolia house going forward mainly from Albert for Candy at the begining. That’s when things really kicked up for them as young adults. We clearly see Albert slowly falling for her silently. We see him tenderly caressing her hair, his inner thoughts saying “I wish I could make you happy” when she pretended to be asleep crying for Terry. This sentence is so important because Terry said the same thing when he finally snapped from his depression in Rockstown saying: how can I think of making Candy happy when I haven’t been able to make Susanna happy. (I’m paraphrasing). The sandwich scene and respective body language. Albert’s arm around Candy’s shoulders when they were grieving Stear’s death up on the tree. And again, after the forced engagement party, A&C staring at each other up on the tree. I couldn’t agree with you more, Ms Puddle when you say that Candy calls her POTH her prince and first love!! 🙂 If you remember in the manga, Candy told Albert when living at the Magnolia house that her first love was actually at the age of 6 with her POTH! She herself said “her first love” was this boy. Albert knew this and years later when Albert revealed to her that he was that first love, she was absolutely ecstatic about this revelation and ran toward his outstretched arms! Never one single forced hug but all natural. In CCFS, she keeps calling him her prince. In our Western culture in fairy tales, a girl’s prince is none other than her only love and future husband when there is a happy ending! You really just have to use your common sense to clearly see the obvious ending in this story. 😀

        • Ms Puddle says:

          Dear Evelyn, again, I’m very impressed with your comment. You have done an excellent job describing the obvious traits of their mutual attraction in the manga, which the anime version lacked (unfortunate but true). Totally agree with you about the poor drawings near the end of the anime, and to me everyone looked mediocre… perhaps except Pouppe the skunk 😆 😝

          Indeed Candy didn’t tell anyone about POTH except Albert, and Anthony only discovered it by chance. The point is, Albert was fully aware that POTH was Candy’s first love, and she still treasured the silver badge (thus the memory of their brief encounter). After his confession, which was a significant step that he took to advance their relationship, Candy kept calling him prince. Evelyn dear, what you said can’t be more true… Candy essentially accepted Albert as her love and future husband… 😍😘💏

  3. Hello, Ms Puddle. This is my first comment here in this blog, and I am very happy to join in. This topic is very interesting and gives much to think about and discuss. About Igarashi’s preference to Albert I also believe that she knew from the beginning that Mizuki intended Albert for Candy. They were collaborating in creating the story, so naturally they both knew the plot. Igarashi made her drawings according to Mizuki’s novel. Albert was there from the very first and he was always there, as the Prince on the hill, as Albert the vagabond, and as Uncle William, never seen but always affecting Candy’s life. It is clear that he is the male protagonist of the story. Mizuki said herself that she had created three different loves for Candy. Ephemeral faint first love for Anthony, ardent love for Terry and destined gentle love for Albert. I think “destined” is the key word in this sentence, which gives us the clear intention Mizuki had for her heroine. Whatever her life was, she was destined for Albert from the start, and that’s why she met him early on in the story. This short meeting turned out to be very significant despite her young age. We rarely recall so intensely something that happened when we were six years old, except when that something affects us to such an extent that we cannot forget about it. Candy met the boy on the hill for just a few minutes and yet this meeting was impressed in her memory. It was his strange costume that she had never seen before, his strange musical instrument, the way he talked to her, the famous line about being prettier when she smiled than when she cried, his handsome face which made her call him a prince, the fact that he made her forget her sorrow and cheer up again. All these can impress a little girl a great deal. Moreover, it was his badge that kept assuring her that she had really met him, otherwise she might believe after a time that she had dreamed or imagined it. Although Candy didn’t seem so imaginative as to create such an incident and learn to believe in that, if it wasn’t for the badge, she might think after a time that this was only a childhood dream, especially when she hadn’t had any clue afterwards about who that boy was. The badge was a proof that she had really met him and not imagined about him. To remember someone you have met just once when you were six up to adolescence without meeting him ever again means that someone holds a special place in your heart. She was first attracted to Anthony because he looked like the Prince, regardless of how she felt about him later. She was attracted to Terry later because he reminded her of Anthony, and consequently of the Prince again. Whatever she felt about Anthony and Terry, the Prince had always been in the background, even subconsciously.
    Back to Igarashi and her point of view, I think that she made her intentions clear by drawing Albert as she did during the amnesia. When we knew him as the vagabond who saved and befriended Candy, all this hair, beard and the dark glasses concealed his real appearance, and never reminded in the least that handsome boy Candy had met on the hill. No one could have guessed who he really was, even when he later met Candy in London without the beard but still with dark hair and glasses. He is still Candy’s best friend and protector, her big brother but there is no clue to his true identity, not for Candy nor for the readers. It is only when he appears in the hospital as an amnesiac man that we see him different. His hair is blond, the glasses are gone and he is handsomer than ever. That means that Mizuki had no reason any more to conceal him as what he really is, a handsome and attractive young man. Moreover the fact that he has amnesia makes him look even younger because he has no memories, no past, nothing to burden him and add to his actual age. That’s how Igarashi draws him during his amnesia until he reveals his true identity. If we look carefully the drawings we will notice that Albert looks now more handsome than Terry. Maybe Igarashi showed clearly her preference this way, or just followed Mizuki’s instructions, so as to make Albert more appealing and charming in Candy’s eyes, as her intention was to make Candy begin to see him as a man, while healing after her breakup with Terry.
    I have to agree with Evelyn’s comment above about Igarashi’s drawing Albert with much detail and affection. Clearly he is her favorite character in the manga, and she makes us love him too, more than the anime I must say, although even in the anime Albert is very handsome and charming during the amnesia and afterwards. In the manga he is not only handsomer and more lovable than Terry, it is obvious that he is falling in love with Candy. That particular scene where he is thinking he wishes he could make her happy is translated somewhat differently in the Greek manga version, as he thinks that he wishes to SEE her happy. That could give a different meaning, since he could mean that yes, he wants Candy to be happy, but not necessarily with him, even be happy with another man, however painful it may be for him. But if he is thinking that he wishes to make her happy, we can assume that he intends to give her that happiness himself, at least try. Personally I would like to know what Albert really wanted and intended to do, but different translations of the manga often give different meanings as well. It is also a shame that all these scenes in the manga during Albert’s amnesia and living with Candy didn’t appear in the anime. Imagine how it would be if those particular scenes with the two of them, that made us realize their true feelings for one another, were in the anime too, with the characters speaking and moving. The real story is the manga, and so many like myself, who have been a Terry fan in my teenage years, have turned into Albert fans because of the manga and of Igarashi’s portraying of him, physically and emotionally.

  4. Ms Puddle says:

    χαιρετώ Fotini. 🙂 Thank you for writing a long comment on this post.

    About Igarashi’s preference, like you I also believe she knew the plot from the very beginning. After all, she’s supposed to draw for Mizuki. You can tell she put lots of efforts and details when drawing Prince on the Hill.

    I’m in complete agreement with you regarding Albert, the main character second to Candy. Without him, the entire story falls apart. As you said, he’d influenced Candy throughout the story, both directly and indirectly behind the scenes.

    About Mizuki’s three loves, I have written a post on that already, so I won’t repeat myself. But you got it right, my friend, that the author undeniably planned to give Albert to Candy. As you said, the few minutes of their first encounter was so important that in CCFS it implies Candy’s life was changed significantly because of this. Likewise, he himself remembered the details very well too.

    I can’t agree with you more about how much the badge meant to Candy, and interestingly, in CCFS Albert asked Candy to return the badge to him as an indirect way to reveal who he was to her. The funny thing is that Candy had shown him the badge and told him about her prince many times beforehand. Therefore, it was his love confession to her, no doubt.

    Yes I think Albert is a very handsome man in the manga, and I also think he’s even more charming than Terry… Perhaps because he was very kind to Candy?

    About Albert wishing to make Candy happy, I have also written a post concerning the original wording in Japanese. This matches with his letter to Candy in CCFS. He wrote he would investigate what really made her happy. In other words, he wanted her to be happy, not necessarily by giving her the happiness himself though, I think.

    Good day!

  1. November 3, 2015

    […] was actually her adoptive father, let alone her Prince on the Hill. I’ll elaborate more in Part 6. Thank you for reading till the end ❣ ❣ […]

Leave a Reply to Ms Puddle Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Translate »
%d bloggers like this: