Candy and Prince on the Hill (Part 6)

Fotini Tsapoga says:

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.