Today’s post is in response to an anonymous reader’s comment to my story “The Diary”.
First, I thank you for writing to me, and I appreciate your feedback. Regrettably, I don’t understand Spanish, but with the help of a machine translator, I believe I understand what this reader said to me.
About Anthony, I agree with this reader that his death was tragic. Yes, Candy and Anthony were attracted to each other, but it’s undeniable that they were very young then (barely teenagers), and the time they actually spent with each other was not very long unfortunately (possibly just weeks?).
Also, this reader used the word “incest” to describe the relationship between Albert and Candy. I think this is not the right word because by definition, “incest” refers to “sexual relations between persons who are closely related that their marriage is illegal or forbidden by custom.”
Candy Candy fans know that Albert and Candy are not blood-related. Yes, Albert adopted Candy when she was around 13 years old, but they had never lived in the same house like father and daughter (unlike Annie and her adoptive parents). Although years later they lived together when Albert was amnesiac, they treated each other as siblings, never father and daughter.
Candy and Amnesiac Albert, illustrated by Yumiko Igarashi and written by Kyoko Mizuki
Even at the end of the manga, Candy did not move in to live with Albert as his adoptive daughter. In my short story, “It Must Have Been Love”, I attempted to explain why she would rather move back to Pony’s Home than living in luxury with Albert. In Candy Candy Final Story, it is obvious that Candy remained living in the orphanage, and Albert clearly requested Candy not to address him as her father because he couldn’t bear it, which means that he had never considered her as his daughter.
Not to mention that it’s a well known fact that the author of Candy Candy, Mizuki, was inspired by “Daddy Long Legs”, which is a famous love story between a young lady (also grew up in an orphanage) and her secret benefactor. In addition, as discussed in my other post, Age difference between Candy and Albert, Albert was not old enough to be Candy’s biological father.
Therefore, to me, Candy Candy is really a story of Candy and her prince. She met him as a little girl in the beginning, and she returned to his embrace at the end. It’s a full circle.