
We learn from her father Jin that while he and Ming were dating, Mei's grandma disapproved, and Ming got so mad that she unleashed her panda. Mei's decision to keep her panda also breaks a generational cycle, one that deeply affected her mother Ming.
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It's so great to see a 13-year-old girl remain true to her full self. Mei's choice to embrace a part of her that her family and, assumedly, society would consider embarrassing or taboo is a theme that is resonating with many of the film's fans. Instead, she breaks out of the ritual and keeps her magic, running away to the concert to the dismay of her family and the intense anger of her mother.

She even uses the panda to her advantage, winning the admiration of her classmates and earning money to go to the 4*Town concert, which happens to be on the same night of the ritual.ĭuring Mei's ritual, at the point where she's supposed to leave her panda behind, she remembers her good times during the transformation and realizes that she doesn't want to be separated from the magic.

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However, unlike the rest of her family, Mei receives support from her friends during her transformation and learns how to control the change. When Mei first transforms, she's afraid of her emotional panda self, especially after hearing her mother calling the curse awful. They are also considered territorial and protective of their young (sound familiar?). The red panda being a relative clean slate means that the themes of the film can stand on their own, without other popular myths being added to or conflated with the story.įor anyone looking for fun facts: The red panda is native to China, Nepal, and the Eastern Himalayas, and they are respected by the local people. "I think we wanted the space and the room to come up with a whole legend and a mythology," Shi told the outlet. Instead, writer-director Domee Shi told Insider that Pixar chose the red panda in part because pandas don't have a deep mythological background. It represents being angry, being embarrassed or being very lustful for someone."įor those curious about how the red panda fits into Chinese mythology, the animal actually doesn't have much of a mythological background. "I wanted Mei to go through a magical puberty transformation, and I couldn’t get the image of a red panda out of my head because it’s so cute and funny, especially if you blow it up to, like, eight feet tall," Shi said. Shi told the New York Times that the animal's cuteness was part of its appeal.

Like Mei's classmates in the film, fans have fallen in love with adorable red panda Mei.
