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Oguri Cap - more than just a "simple horsegirl". How Cinderella Gray crafts the perfect sports anime protagonist.
Why I run, you ask?
Because I can.
Being able to stand and run...
That alone is like a miracle to me.
So even just running makes me happy.
That's all.
In a world full of protagonists who aim to reach the top - catch all the Pokemon, be the king of pirates, the number 1 hero, the best at football, basketball, volleyball, let it even be the best chef in the world, I don't know, you name it - in a world chock full of those characters aspiring to reach some lofty and admirable goals, sometimes you will find an outlier going against the "norm" among them.
Someone who doesn't try to make it to a metaphorical finish line, someone who doesn't need to be the best, the most popular, the most thought-after player in the business.
Someone who is just content with what they have and what they can do.
Someone who is not searching for a goal, but the goal is searching for instead.
Someone like, for example, Kotetsu Kaburagi from the Tiger & Bunny series, who doesn't do any of that hero business for some kind of big fame or money, but just to make his daughter happy and think he's a cool dad (he is, btw).
To put it in the words of the series itself
"Someone who you'd feel like supporting with all your heart, as if you see yourself in them."
For Cinderella Grey, what we have is nothing but a girl who runs.
A girl who likes to run - just because she can.
That.
is Oguri Cap.
Behind her drive to participate and win in these races, there is no big inspiration to be the best, there is no huge motivator keeping her afloat that she can fully rely on or fall back to whenever she finds herself in a bind. There is no need for those for her in her life.
What is instead spurring her on is an unbridled and unparalleled passion for the sport.
She runs for no reason other than the fact that she is capable of doing so.
Born frail and fragile, with her knees so weak as if they were seemingly made out of glass, barely able to even stand or walk at first, she falls into the care of her "mother"'s physical therapy with daily leg massages to make them more flexible - turning her biggest weakness into her biggest strength - until one day she is finally capable of moving ahead on her own.
Until she - like her actual mother before her (I think that was implied in an earlier episode, someone help me out here lol) - can finally run to her heart's content.
All her accomplishments, the goals she sets herself and aspires to reach together with her equally passionate trainer Kitahara Jones and the other umamusume around her as her rivals and/or friends, come after the fact. Those goals find her just as much as she finds them.
She decides to reach out for the stars, because the stars decided to reach out for her.
Don't get me wrong, her eventual goals she settles on along the way in itself still are the top of the nation and all that jazz but what takes priority over all of it first and foremost, though, is her love for running. Her love for the sheer fun she has while letting loose on the field and the adrenaline rush kicking in when pushing her feet to the ground for her last spurt of these races and feeling the wind pass by on her skin.
A love so bright and blinding, a quiet passion akin to magma bubbling beneath the surface ready to burst at any moment, that inspires not only her trainer, the other umamusume around her, the audiences of the races on the tracks and in their homes cheering her on, no...
A love and passion that inspires you - the viewers - to not only root and cheer for her in these races, but to also try to work on yourself and improve your life for the better.
When she experiences a setback, she doesn't let herself get down by it. She uses her passion and love for running - and the connections she ultimately makes through those - as a fuel to carry on and improve herself steadily the more and more experience she gains.
Oguri Cap isn't loud, isn't overly optimistic, energetic or bubbly like you would expect from the usual cute girl protagonist - or even just from what I am writing here.
Instead, her love and passion is a quiet, more restrained one of few words and more actions that nevertheless manages to pull you in completely.
Oguri Cap.
Make this era - this world your own. Let your races light a fire in your fan's hearts. Give them the strength - the courage - to carry on. Become an Umamusume beloved by all. An Umamusume that can give all that love back.
An Umamusume unlike any before her.
Adn most certainly the love she will give back!
While this show sports an incredibly tightly-written and compelling cast in the aforementioned trainer Kitahara, Berno Light, Fujimasa March and her goon squad, Tamamo Cross(especially her as the perfect rival Oguri can have), Symboli Rudolf, Sakura Chiyono, Roppei Ginjirou Musaka, Yaeno Muteki and many many more, she is what ultimately makes it what it is. What makes it as special as it is.
Because at its heart...
Cinderella Grey is Oguri Cap - and Oguri Cap is Cinderella Grey.
Or in other words:
Oguri Cap added to listed favorites.
Step aside Solo Leveling.
THIS is what aura REALLY looks like.
This show scratched the itch my recent Run with the Wind watch unfortunately wasn't fully able to reach...
Not to mention, the comedy in the show is JUST my type of humor, too.
This was my very first dive into the Umamusume franchise, and if this is what I can expect out of it going forward, then I might just be the happiest man alive right now!
Forget all the big emotional and hype climaxes, epic battles or huge reveals of certain mysteries. The true beauty of a story lies in these small, seemingly insignificant moments of interactions between the characters talking about their feelings or the most normal stuff out there, and making those scenes effective and impactful. They are what enhances a show beyond being merely fiction and bring them to life - they carry them right into your heart and soul.
This is a show that I could very well see becoming part of my favorites with its sequel seasons.
In my heart, it already absolutely is one.
I've read ahead a bit in the manga over the course of the last two weeks, and by now I'm sure the second cour for this in Fall this year is gonna be front favorites material! So, needless to say, but
I am HYPED!
It is, undoubtedly, my personal pick for new Anime of the Year so far.
And I quite honestly think that's probably not gonna change anymore...
And this was just the build-up to the big stuff coming afterwards...
When a show sees, understands and acknowledges you better than even you yourself do. The true meaning of catharsis.
I'm going to be very upfront about this right from the get-go and just say that if you expect to read a coherent structured review here, you can turn back already, because like I once said in another review about a year ago, I don't wanna know what a show's story is about from a review, I want to see the emotional impact a story had on its audience, I want to know how it made the people feel.
And that's exactly what I am gonna tell you about Girls Band Cry now.
I will also leave a trigger warning at the beginning because I will go into some very sensitive topics in here later on.
Quite a few of my mutuals who watched this show had told me that, given my taste and personal preferences, they found it surprising that I hadn't watched this show yet, or even surprising that I didn't watch it while it was airing. And now that I've actually seen it, and am currently in the middle, more the end, of my second rewatch in 3 months already, I gotta concede and say wow... I didn't realize just how right you were...
Watching Girls Band Cry and Nina's little gremlin-antics is like a mirror held against my face, perfectly capturing my flaws, my weaknesses and my shortcomings, but also the potential hidden behind exactly those things. It pulls me down to rock bottom alongside its characters, to then push me back forward at the same time, to push me upwards towards space so that I can try to reach for the stars yet again, that I can still reach any goal I aspire to reach, no matter how slow I will ultimately end up being in the process.
At least now I know for sure that nothing is holding me back from taking that one small step that takes me in the right direction. (<- virtual cookie for the people who get what I'm referencing here)
But why does this show, and specifically its protagonist Nina, have this effect on me?
Well... that's where my trigger warning from earlier goes into effect:
Very early on already you learn that the reason Nina dropped out of school was because of bullying, and while you can surmise it from her general characterization throughout the show, you only learn in the later episodes that it went so far as to the extent that she became suicidal because of it…
Sometimes it's almost scary to see how close to your own situation a story can get, how real it can feel to you, and how painful relating to it can be due to that. And that's exactly the case with Nina's story here in Girls Band Cry. Something that is pretty much almost exactly like what Nina had to go through happened with me in my school when I was 14/15 right around 8th and 9th grade, though on a little bit of a larger scale than her too.
I usually don't talk about this much, both in real life or when discussing it in media, and mostly stick to making allusions to it whenever I encounter something of this nature, quite frankly because it's painful.
Painful to talk about for me, and painful to read through for you viewers. Painful for me because I get reminded of how powerless I felt at the time when writing it down, and painful for you because some of you might be able to share that kind of experience with me.
I was a little bit of an awkward fellow that sometimes needed a little bit more of a push than others, and someone who wore his emotions on his sleeve, always chirping and talking away about literally everything no matter where I was or to whom I talked, and I had a tendency to butt into some situations that didn't exactly have something to do with me because of that at first.
One day, and I don't even remember how exactly it went down, this lead me into a verbal argument with a schoolmate in one of the breaks inbetween classes in which I thought they were doing some inappropriate things to someone else (which was true, to be fair), after which I found myself locked into the girls' restroom for a few minutes before one of the teachers having a class on our floor came in to get me out.
That's how it started, but obviously that's not how it stopped. It went from "minor" things like taking and hiding away my notes or pens, intentionally bumping into me / bumping me into walls and just verbally making fun of me or insulting me, to pretty severe things like throwing punches and leaving marks on places that wouldn't be seen when I said something that didn't agree with them, ripping one of my exams in half right after we got it back and putting the hood of my jacket - with my head still in it - into a toilet or a garbage bin for a few seconds, which to me felt like an eternity at the time. Unsurprisingly the person I helped being among the bullies, too.
It was HELL.
Every single day.
I got more and more reclusive and more and more isolated, insecure about myself and even more awkward than before, to the point that I STILL have problems speaking up to people now, almost 15 years later. What once was an energetic and lively kid who couldn't shut up about anything, turned into a recluse whose voice seemed to be just a flicker of the flame it once used to be, who didn't talk at all and was noticably to everyone changing and spiraling down into the abyss more and more, which was only more fuel for the bullies to add onto and do more and more.
But I unfortunately didn't really have the luxury of dropping out of or changing the school, the school which unfortunately also did almost NOTHING for me despite being more than keenly aware of what was happening, so I told myself "I only have to endure this for another year and I'll be free".
Gonna be honest, for a short time there, I might've developed a bit of a stockholm syndrome and/or masochistic tendencies because I temporarily started to actually enjoy and look forward to the pain.
But then at some point within that "only one year" came the breaking point. It was a time in which the "severe" things got more and more frequent as the days passed and the people noticed how much they could get away with.
I was at ROCK BOTTOM. More rock bottom than rock bottom could possibly get.
To be as blunt as humanly possible:
I was on the verge of commiting suicide, a 15 - 16 year old teenager in a mindset so heartbreakingly devastating I wouldn't even wish it upon my worst enemies. A mindset so miserable I don't want to experience it EVER again in my life.
I had a plan and I was pretty much ready to execute it. I almost succeeded once.
Funnily enough, the written version of said plan is also what had saved me back then. Because one of the few people I could still call friends at the time, and friendship still going strong 14-15 years later now 💪, found the plan(It’s actually obviously a bit more complicated than that, but saying it like this makes it easier to visualize…), gave me the hardest punch in the face I have ever received in my life and sat me down with a few beers (ignore the fact that we were minors, drinking age here is 16 anyway, lol), and had me pour my heart out, ALL of it.
To me, back then, he was my equivalent of what Diamond Dust's "Void" was for Nina. And even now I know I could call him at 3am to say "I feel like shit" and he'd be over here in less than a heartbeat to talk stuff out.
All of this is why I am a VERY harsh judge whenever bullying is a topic of a story, because of the scars it left on me - physically and especially mentally - that changed who I am forever, even if I am now in a much better headspace than all these years ago because I have found my place in life.
And that's exactly why I find myself so drawn to Nina as a character.
Because I know, like her
I wasn't wrong.
What this show gives me is the safety of reassurance, of knowing it's by my side, and of knowing that I am not alone in this, that there are others like me who suffered through the same fate, and yet are still holding their head high strong to try to keep moving forward until all our enemies are destroyed, no matter how painful and unsure the path ahead of us might be.
And the one episode, the one scene, that encompasses this the most, is the interaction between Nina and her older sister Suzune in episode 10, specifically her sister's words of encouragement and gratitude after Nina opens up and pours her heart out to her.
"Thank you for being alive."
Sometimes, something as simple as this, just a small string of words of gratitude put together, can make such a huge impact on you as a viewer that you just feel seen. That you feel understood. That this show sees you, that it understands you, it acknowledges you and is there for you.
Here I am, watching this scene for the third time in context of the rest of the show (SO much more if you count the number of times I watched just a clip of it isolated on its own) and it still hits me so unexpectedly hard.
These words from her sister toward Nina after her trauma-dumping opening up to her in their little conversation they have in Nina's room, as if they were directed not at her but beyond the barrier of the screen, right at myself instead.
This is a scene that I just feel, and one that will probably never EVER leave me again for the rest of my life.
The affirmation of my own emotion that I get from these, what, 3 minutes? of this 22 minute episode, shows me what the true meaning of catharsis really is.
You could almost say this scene was my Emptiness and Catharsis
Aight, I‘ll see myself out now, I know where the door is…
It might not be as "deep" as the other entries in my favorites, it might not be as "polished" (not polish) as the others, it might not be as "fleshed out" as the others, and it might just be a bit more "flawed" than the rest.
It's erratic, all over the place, unstable and unsteady, whimsical, maybe a bit inconsistent, fickle and mercurial (what a beautiful word for this, don't you agree? xD), sometimes obstinately so - but it is exactly that capricious nature of the show, especially in regards to Nina, what makes this feel so much more natural, so much more genuine, so much more...
human...
to me than most of 99% of the rest of the anime I've watched. Of most of anything that I watched.
It can go from the most stupidly unneccessary and embarassing intense argument (why you holdin' those in public places every time!?) to the most beautifully wholesome scene of bonding, friendship and love just a single second later - and both will have you cry your heart out in the process.
Like this, in a way, it feels like the most genuine thing I've ever seen.
So basically, in summary:
There are GIRLS
They form a BAND
And they - and I - CRY
The members of Togenashi Togeari and Girls Band Cry as a whole oh so desperately tried to reach someone, anyone, with their message.
In the end, the one they reached was none other than myself.
And I will never forget that for the rest of my life.
This show touched my heart, in a way that not many - if any - can say they ever did.
Is it a bad omen that a horror anime brings my total amount of anime watched to 666?
I will be referring to the anime itself as Shiki, and to the creatures/vampires in this show as Shiki throughout this review.
This is the truth of the world. The peaceful world which takes order and orderly men for granted. They reject the very existence of those who oppose order, lacking the strength to accept them. Bearing their fangs, they cast them out. Only by doing so are they able to maintain their thin facade. Such a fragile world.
Shiki is definitely an interesting case.
I probably wouldn’t even have watched it as early as now if it hadn’t come up briefly in a quick discussion about horror anime on here with two people whose tastes I usually trust to align with my own when it comes to specific things this medium can offer last week, in this case specifically about creating an atmosphere of unease/oddness and deliberately leaning into that oddness to do something that feels „off“.
And let me tell you, it most definitely succeeded in what I was advertised.
But why is that, exactly?
And why has my opinion of it so drastically shifted from the beginnings when I was still saying things like
I really like the soundtrack and general atmosphere so far, but not entirely convinced by the characters yet
or
What I'm not entirely convinced by so far is some of the character writing early on.
as far as 7 episodes deep into this show?
Well, that’s what I’m here to talk about today, as I have just finished this show and stared at a blank word-document-page for roughly 2 hours now (as of the time of starting to write this, who knows how many it’s gonna be once I finish!?) because – despite my head getting flooded with thoughts and things to talk about while I was watching these episodes – the words just didn’t want to come out after I was done.
This feeling of „emptiness“ is something I have so far only ever experienced after finishing a show or a manga that I put as high up in my favorites as humanly possible, marking something I really, TRULY, had a fantastic time with!
Before even starting to write the tag-line above, I went through 2 whole cycles of the Bloom Into You OST and thought I was gonna go insane – well, if I hadn’t already lost my sanity in last year’s Revue Starlight rewatch, that is.
But I digress. So yeah, let’s get into this one, shall we?
Just a quick disclaimer beforehand that there WILL be SPOILERS down here, so reading at your own discretion is most definitely advised. Some will be marked, some will not, that is decided on nothing but my whim.
Also a quick trigger warning, as I will be talking about an attempted suicide by one of the characters in this story. If you don’t want to read about something like that, I advise you to skip the portion titled „Seishin and Sunako“ later on.
Shiki‘s story is very simple.
In Sotoba, a small village in the sticks of the sticks of the country side of Japan, where the people’s main bread and butter consists of the daily gossip revolving around the other villagers that will find its way to your parents‘ ears before you arrive home after hearing or witnessing the events gossiped about, even if you only take a few minutes (those who – like me – live in the deepest country side know just how real that is), a strange incident occurs after a new family from outside the village moves into the mansion on the hill „Kanemasa“, wherein a local highschool girl, who’d rather not be confined to the boonies and live it up high in the big city, goes missing one summer night and is later found unconscious in the woods, almost unresponsive and most certainly anemic, which results in her death a few days later.
The strange part about this incident isn’t the fact that she alone died, but that in the coming weeks and months, more and more people in the village start to fall sick and die in the same way Megumi Shimizu, the highschool girl in question, died earlier, slowly but surely moving the village in a direction ever closer to dying out completely, almost as if it were an epidemic going around. (Man, just imagining I would’ve watched this show during the lockdowns during the early stages of the Corona pandemic, I would’ve been even more TERRIFIED out of my mind with this one…)
This show follows the story of the villagers as they struggle to find out, learn about, and have to believe (that’s probably the most important part here) and start to go against the obvious true cause of these continuous deaths in the village:
The vampires living in Kanemasa, turning the people of the village into the Undead, and the namesake of this series, the Shiki.
While it did take a while to get me into it, not neccessarily due to the slow nature of its pacing – I usually am a big advocate for that to flesh out your characters more – but because I didn’t particularly like the characters at first (more to that later), after it finally gripped me, it never did let me go until it ended, even encroaching into my dreams at night making me watch Cute Girl Anime to distract myself from the existential dread crawling upon me slumbering away under my covers…
This show is filled with a cast of extremely colorfullly haired characters but first, even if I hate to do it, I want to go into the negatives of this part.
There are two characters that this story has unfortunately not managed to get me on board with throughout the entirety of its 24 episode-run (including the specials here):
Megumi Shimizu and Masao Murasako
Megumi is the very first character whose POV we follow in the first episode (well, after the short intro scene and the OP after that, that is), and her attitude towards the village life as well as her obsession with Natsuno Yuuki(more to him later) immediately rubbed me the wrong way. To be perfectly honest with you here, in her case I am fully aware that my negative thoughts are entirely based on personal biases because I have lived in a small village in the country side of Germany for all of the 28 years (almost 29, only 3 months left, yay!) I have been alive on this planet (don’t ask me about other planets, I don’t remember, really, I swear!) and I wouldn’t want to change up my calm and relaxing life (sometimes filled with the smell of manure from the local farmers – we endearingly call it „Landluft“, lit. „country air“ here) for anything else, especially not for a mess of an overcrowded big city life that would probably feel incredibly lonely. (<- Again, definitely personal biases at play here, and I know that very well.)
As for Masao, he was just an annoyingly entitled spoiled brat from the very first second he showed up, never changing throughout this entire thing, having nothing of value to add to this story or its progress.
Both of them have a very prevalent role in the first 7-ish episodes of the story, and unfortunately in either case, there wasn’t a single point in the show that managed to make me actively care about them, as people OR as characters. I did fall in love with this show in the end, but I never managed to fall in love with these two.
There IS one point about Megumi here, that I will adress more when I get to another character later on, regarding her unwillingness to live in the village, which is the thematic of being forced into a life you don’t want to live. But that has to wait for a little bit.
I guess, as a friend of mine on here would say, these two are the "polar bears" of this story to me.
I will be dividing this up into three specific parts:
1) The Humans of the Village
2) The Shiki / Kirishikis / Kanemasa
3) Seiishin and Sunako
At first, I wanted to only use two parts, but I think that especially after the final episode, Seiishin and Sunako definitely deserve a separate entry just for themselves.
The Humans:
Particularly, I want to talk about three of these specifically in a bit more detail and roughly go over the outline of the other characters‘ roles in this story in passing. Though saying „in more detail“ also only amounts to relatively general things about them and the direction the story takes them in tbh.
Firstly,
Natsuno Yuuki, the boy Megumi Shimizu was obsessed with when she was still alive, and still is after turning into a Shiki.
Natsuno, much like Megumi, also is introduced as someone who doesn’t want to live in a village as small as Sotoba is. Unlike Megumi, however, he moved there from the city prior to the show’s events, because his parents (seriously wack characters, if you ask me xD) wanted a change of pace. He is one of the first ones confronted with the cruel reality of the village’s situation as he witnesses a resurrected Megumi sinking her teeth into his best friend, Tooru, while he is over to sleep at his house because he has this creeping suspicion that he’s being watched when trying to sleep at his own home - rightfully so as it turns out - and starts to actively work out a plan against these creatures together with two other kids from the village, Kaori and Akira (a bit more to them later), which ultimately leads him into the hands of the opposing side, in the most ironic way possible, both for how he got there and where he ultimately ends up through it at the end of the story. His lonesome journey of this seemingly hopeless battle afterwards makes for some genuinely fantastic character moments and dynamics, especially with the doctor of the local clinic, as well as his best friend Tooru to which I found myself drawn into quite a bit.
Speaking of which, secondly
With as much sexual tension as there is between the two (don… don’t mind me, just, projecting my own ships here for the lack of a better segue for this part), I cannot talk about Natsuno without talking about Tooru as well, as their story arcs intertwine quite a bit with each other.
Tooru Mutou is Natsuno‘s best friend, and has greatly helped the latter in opening up and becoming more kind and comfortable around the villagers, through the sheer power of his own kindness.
His journey is one full of kindness, love, and an underlying frustration at not being able to hold himself back once forced into the role he does not want to but has to uphold. (Once again a thematic I’ll go into later.)
The people on here who have seen me around, have read some of my other reviews or looked at my activites for certain things in general – which admittedly is probably not that many people - know by now that I am very big on the theme of kindness, and if you portray it even halfway „well enough“, even shows that have not much to offer elsewhere(no offense to the people who are fan of the show, of course) are able to pull me in completely to give them a positive rating.
As his story, involving especially his crush, the young nurse Ritsuko(also a fantastic character, never straying away from her ideals even in situations others would give in to despair in), plays out, he has made quite an impact on myself that I won’t be forgetting any time soon.
And thirdly, coming to my personal favorite one of the bunch on this side:
The doc, Toshio Ozaki
Toshio is the head medical practitioner at the local hospital of the village, and the character most exposed to the „plague“ going around Sotoba, having to try and help all these patients coming to his door step, only for them to die in the end after all.
What I found myself most engrossed by in this story, was his relationship with the mysterious deaths from the beginning on already, struggling to keep himself up, pulling all-nighters after all-nighters, the situation visibly breaking him down and away at him, and even after finding out the truth having to actively play into the shiki‘s hands and lie to the villagers to not frighten them even more than they already are with this „epidemic“, as well as the possibility that if he does expose the truth, no one will believe him at first. There is precedent of this particular struggle with another character in this story, namely Ikumi Itou being the perfect representation of
The louder you shout, the more people become opposed to the words. No matter how right you are in the end.
And yet, through completely drifting off the rails and beyond what is morally questionable even, going so far as to experiment on his own wife who has risen up as a Shiki he ultimately finds a way to reveal it to the world in an amazing play set up with the help of Natsuno.
After witnessing how this all concludes for him, he leans back and comes to the realization that literally every single thing he did over the course of this journey was a worthless struggle all along, as he watched it all go down in flames. But it is exactly that worthlessness that gives his character arc its worth. That’s how I see it.
He also belongs to the rare species of actually smart and competent main characters in this medium. Smart and competent in the sense of how someone in his position should, realistically, be.
Another recent example belonging to this type of character is Maomao
The Shiki / Kirishikis / Kanemasa:
The Kirishikis, a family of vampires, of Shiki, who have moved into the mansion Kanemasa at the top of the mountain in the village through certain circumstances - more to that later - consisting of a „family“ of 3 and a certain amount of caretakers and servants, from which I will be briefly talking about the 2 main ones.
First we have Chizuru, the Kirishiki family’s mother and a more energetic, sexy and flirtatious type, basking in the glory of finding beautiful young men and women to prey upon, until she herself falls prey to Toshio’s masterful play at revealing the truth about the Shiki.
Then we have Seiishirou who - despite being a human - willingly stays with these creatures and regularly provides Chizuru with some of his blood.
And, not gonna lie, can’t exactly blame him. (Ecchi under spoiler tag, I guess.)
He actively hunts down the people of the village together with the Kirishikis and his 4 loyal dogs, a cutely terrifying bunch of canines if I do say so myself.
Without spoiling, his battle against Natsuno and the conclusion to it are some of my favorite understated parts of the later episodes.
Thirdly, before I go into the REAL meat of this entire thing (I’m already edging to write about them the whole time), we have our loyal servants, Yoshie, quite the badass sub commander of the operation on the Shiki‘s side imo, as well as Tatsumi, the energetic, happy-go-lucky and … overtly sadistic… commander of the Shiki, ever shrouded in mystery that is never fully revealed, making him both an enigma and one of the most intriguing cogs of this well-oiled machine that is Shiki‘s story. We have a rough understanding of why he is devotedly following Sunako, but other than that, we won’t really know anything, all the way until he goes out in a blazing glory. But I don’t think we need to, either.
And now.
MEAT.
The REAL MEAT of the character portion I have been dying to write about ever since I started this (now 6 hours ago, including the 2 hours of blankly staring). This will probably turn out to be the longest portion of this review, I believe.
So what I want to do here is first look at both of these characters individually and then go into the relationship between the two of them, because there are so many things I want to say here, and what I WILL say is that no matter how much I end up writing, it still won’t scratch the surface of what these two have to offer to this story.
Death is a terrible thing for anyone. The young, the old, good people, bad people. It's the same to everyone. Death treats everyone equally. There's no such thing as an especially terrible death. That's precisely why death is frightening. Your everyday conduct, your age, your personality, your wealth or beauty. Those things matter only while you're alive. Death makes them all null. That's why any death is terrible.
During my entire watch, but especially in the final portion of the show, it was very hard to decide who was actually my favorite character, the doc or Sunako. Sunako, from her introduction in a nightly talk with Seishin on, had a kind of presence to her that I hadn’t seen before to this extent. Every single second she was on screen, she took all the attention from me and focused it on her almost forcefully, as if I was compelled by a greater force of nature that wouldn’t let me stop looking at her, binding me to the screen and stopping my breath until it was over.
She is effectively the head of the Kirishiki family, of the shiki that are going around the village turning people into the undead, responsible for every single death occuring, and for what? She moved to the village because she was a fan of Seishin‘s novels (more to that later), because she could identify with them, in search for a place where she could live without being forced into the metaphorical - and literal - shadows. Starved for a familial love and kinship, she wanted to create a civilization of Shiki for companionship, to stave off her own inherent loneliness, to find a place where she belongs. And it was her who was the most scared of her own creation, of what she had wrought upon herself. What she reaped after she sowed.
Sunako is simultaneously the most repulsive, abhorrent creature, the worst villain, and the most human character in this entire story. And she is solely responsible for the single best scene in the anime, courtesy of her breakdown in episode 20.
Don’t watch the clip if you haven’t seen the show:
(this is the part where my trigger warning from earlier goes into effect, you might want to skip this part)
People may call what you did a sin. But who could blame you for wanting to live.
No one knows when they will die. Neither you nor I may be able to live that long. But no life is worth so little as to give up on it, to think "I don't care when I die."
Seishin Muroi serves Sotoba‘s temple as its local priest, a role he has taken over from his father after the latter fell ill, attending to the religious duties and funerals in the village. What he would rather focus on more, is the novels he writes in his free time – as Sunako so aptly put it, about people forsaken by god.
I think one of my favorite things a story can do is create another story within its own universe that ends up corresponding with the characters and the theme of the story at hand.
There's Liz, Revue Starlight, The Summer You Were There, Bloom Into You alone in my favorites list, and so many more in general that I have watched and read, for example Karekano, that use this as a literary device to bring your story and character progress forward, and so far I haven't found a single example that didn't end up moving me personally in some way, shape or form.
Earlier when talking about Megumi I already mentioned this show’s thematic of people being forced into a role they don’t want to have, and Seishin is most reflective of this in the entire story, which is why, to me, him and Sunako’s parts in here hit the most personally.
If there were a role that I had to play in this, it would have to be either Kaori – consumed by the fear of her being next – or Seishin, and admitting that I am aware of this almost hurts as much as how this show presents that very thematic to me, floating around insecurely throughout my life, constantly in doubt of if the path I chose is the best one for me.
He never gets comfortable in trying to fit in with the role forced upon him by the village and its inhabitants, and although he might not want to admit it to himself, he – similarly to Megumi and Natsuno - hates the villagers with all of his being. The despair he feels through it once having driven him to the point of attempting to take his own life, yet – much like his resentment towards the village – being unable to „properly“ act it out by choosing a method he KNEW, subconsciously, he would survive.
And in a way, the path he chooses for himself in following Sunako instead of the other humans may as well just be revenge for what life – and god – handed to him, as he finally got the opportunity to act it out with success.
He is the one who staid truest to himself yet also changed the most over the course of the anime, even more so than any of the other characters in this show.
At first I thought you’d have to be a monster. But I understand now, that – though you don’t have horns – you have scars.
God says nothing at any time. And God's silence has nothing to do with life or death. That's not all. When you became isolated from the world, you were also excluded from God's jurisdiction at the same time. There's nothing that protects you. You're not even eligible to be accused of and punished for sins.
And yet, you've continued to live being unable to abandon your belief and deep attachment towards God.
„It is far too sad.“
This relationship of theirs, built through the sheer power of simple conversation at night, is one of mutual understanding – and possibly twisted love – and builds the very core of what this story is about.
As they come closer to each other step by step, as Seishin decides to switch over to her side once he realizes she is the first person to understand all of him as he is, as he finally finds it in him to act, he becomes the „miracle to rescue the main character“, Sunako, that she mentions in her little breakdown in the clip posted above, the one who creates a place for her to belong.
A place for both of them to belong – a place by each other’s side.
By writing their stories for themselves. By being the author of their own stories. By being the author of THIS story.
Which is why I think the ending for this story could not have been done any better, and serves as the perfect segue to cut myself off here to talk about the next part.
Well, I already mentioned just now that I think it was basically perfect, but I do want to take a minute to actually talk about it.
Some who have watched this show live as it aired who couldn’t, as well as people who just haven’t, watched the special episodes 20.5 and 21.5 before the finale, might feel the way it all concludes may come off as a tad bit too abrupt, but I personally don’t think that is the case.
Throughout this show, there has been a consistent motive of flames in its presentation, in multiple instances
so I’m not the least bit surprised that this is how the village, and with it this story, goes out.
Even though I could see how that might leave some people unsatisfied – I think it was an ending a story like this needs. Despite the more open-ended nature of it, I myself am completely content with what we got. And I will remember it and take it with me going forward from here on out, maybe only for a short while, maybe for the rest of my life – no one knows – but I will take it with me. That is something I am certain of.
Are Seishin and Sunako going to repeat what happened in Sotoba wherever they are headed next?
Or are they going to just live out the rest of their lives, no matter how long, no matter how short, in peace, maybe him supporting her with his own blood occasionally like Seiishirou did for Chizuru?
We don’t know.
And we don’t need to know.
As long as they are by each other’s side.
By now I have almost completely exhausted my reservoir and repertoire of the things swirling around my head that dare call themselves „thoughts“ (I can’t believe I used that one twice in my reviews now…) about the actual content of the show – there is yet a little bit more in the personal section following later – leading me to the technical aspects it can offer.
With a colorfully-haired cast of characters with an endearingly stupid character design you’d think you’d more so find in a CLAMP manga, combined with continuous daringly off-putting camera angles as well as precisely detailed storyboarding and hypnotically mesmerizing shots, Shiki boasts with its own visual identity.
It’s also incredibly stylish, even in attempted murder
While the animation and art in itself isn’t something to write home about, something I’d praise alongside my favorite ones in this aspect, this sense of identity it creates is what breathes life into the story and its characters, making every minor inconvenience that there might be into just that:
A minor inconvenience, rather than a fatal flaw.
Through both the mixing of its sound-effects as well as a spell-binding soundtrack, it creates an atmosphere of wrongness, that will have you constantly questioning if left and right or up and down are, in fact, really left and right or up and down, that fill you with this constant feeling that something isn’t right.
There is so far only a single show that I have seen – one of my personal favorites – that has fully managed to bring out an atmosphere like that, to fill me with similar feelings as to what Shiki has done here.
Even outside of the unsettling atmosphere it creates, the soundtrack itself is genuinely magical, and one I’ll probably be listening to quite a lot if I ever dive even more into the horror genre, exploring what the manga side of things may have to offer me, as background music for my reads.
It also sports two of the most fascinating OPs, both visually and through the song itself, and two EDs that perfectly complement the atmosphere of the show, gently leading you into your own somber thoughts after the credits roll.
The second OP being my personal favorite through its sheer directional prowess. Whoever created that, I tip my hat to you.
What does it mean to live. How do you define what a „living being“ really is.
Can you blame an animal or other creature for following their instincts?
Where do you draw the line between self-defense and wanton murder
Who is the real monster in the end?
The Shiki being nothing more than humans that still retain their own sense of self after death, with the single addition of an instinct, a hunger, that drives them to madness if they don’t consume human blood, these are the questions building the underlying foundation of what Shiki is about.
Philosophical questions like these, moral dilemmas for which there is no clear-cut answer that can be applied to the real world, are things I always find myself rather drawn to when it comes to the stories I enjoy. Especially when it is done as effectively as it is here, through its atmosphere of dread and the sheer switch of the flip of humans and monsters, of predator and prey, in a TERRIFYINGLY realistic manner.
There is enough precedent, be it wars, famine, plagues and epidemics, to know that this could very well be what happens in specific places in the real world if we were to ever encounter a situation as complicated as this.
While I wasn’t entirely fully invested from the get-go, after it finally had me, this show never let me go again, gripping my hands and eyes to the happenings on my screen, not wanting to let loose until I eventually found myself at the end of this journey.
With one of the most spell-binding presences, a genuinely engrossing approach to story-telling, it created a story that I wanted to watch through fast. By now, after 7 (almost 8) years of following animanga, I have neither the time nor energy or motivation left to actively binge-watch anything anymore, preferring to take my time with what I consume and going through it at a slow and steady pace. That is also why I believe that I am enjoying so many slice of life and iyashikei anime right now, because they are moving at a pace corresponding to my own. With this, however, it was different.
Here, I WANTED to see the end sooner rather than later. I wanted to see where this leads, how the characters react, where they end up, who makes it out of this mess and who doesn’t – something that hasn’t happened to me in quite a while when I wasn’t rewatching a personal favorite. I have been somewhat burnt out a little bit on anime recently, especially my seasonal watches, even going so far as to maybe try and start a visual novel again (Chaos Head Noah from the SciAdv Series was my pick), a medium I was never really that into to begin with. But maybe, just maybe, this show was exactly what I needed to combat that feeling.
Because in the end, I had the time of my life with it, and got unexpectedly more emotional than I thought.
I don’t know what it is with this show and the magic it uses on me.
While I love every single moving piece on the board, every characters‘ role in this story and where it ultimately leads,
except for Masao, god I was so happy when he finally croaked xD
I wouldn’t say that I – emotional as I am (refer to my other reviews for that ^^) – was particularly emotionally invested into any of them, yet I find myself with this strange feeling of grief, this sympathy for them, that on occasion provides my face with the inherently annoying ability of displaying a wet-ness caused by tears streaming down it. That applies not only to the main characters, but also to some of the side characters or even ones whose major role is just present in the OVA/specials. I find myself saddened by, and tearing up due to what I’m seeing far more often than I want to.
And in my eyes
That's a testament to the quality of a show, to be able to fill me with an emotion like that that I don't even completely understand myself so effortlessly.
There is a tiny little nitpick, a minor inconvenience that is really nothing but an inconvenience, here that shortly – but only very shortly – put a small little dent into my enjoyment, that I also briefly mentioned in my ongoing activity updates.
Being an avid fan of stories involving supernatural creatures like vampires, even the most stupidly hilariously ridiculous ones like Lesbian Vampire Killers, I sometimes wish these kinds of stories would get a little more creative with the vampire’s weaknesses. Even here they first comment on things like crosses, silverware and wooden stakes only working in fictitious stories, yet in the end, those were exactly the things that worked against them here, too.
I want to see a story in which the characters have to actively figure out the beasts‘ vulnerability through trial and error, maybe something unconvential or even utterly ridiculous like Train to the End of the World did with its zombies this year.
I know that certain tropes and cliches exist for a reason, but I kinda just wanna see something… different…
For once. I don’t think that should be too much to ask, should it?
I am also incredibly pissed by the fact that it hasn’t just happened once, but now TWICE, that I ended up wanting to dive into the original source material for something I loved only to find out that it has
a) No official translation
and
b) Only fan translations that go up to volume 3 out of 5 without there being an update in multiple years now.
You can’t imagine how sad I was when I found that out while searching for physical copies of the novel to buy before starting the final episodes yesterday. (I really did take a break to sleep inbetween writing this xD)
Overall, I think that Shiki is a fantastic philosophical and psychological horror-tale that fans, but also non-fans of the genre like me, should check out if they want to see something with an atmosphere that completely stun-locks you into finishing it, a grippingly spell-binding experience that will never let you go anymore.
A rough start, but one that is worth pulling through every single second in the end.
There is the potential that, when I rewatch the show after a long time of dwelling on it, Shiki might just join in to the ranks of my personal masterpieces. For now it has definitely secured a tight little spot in my extended favorites list, where it’ll stay for hopefully quite a while.
Only time will tell.
With how I wrote about it just now I almost already feel compelled to give it a 10/10, but I will let it brew for yet a while still.
In the meantime, for all of you fellow Shiki fans like me out there, I will leave a recommendation that you most definitely want to check out.
Ghost Hound
It is not as dark as Shiki is and the moral dilemma in it is of a very different nature, but in terms of creating an unsettling atmosphere that carries throughout the whole show, there is no better option than this in my eyes. A story about 3 guys trying to overcome a deep-rooted trauma in their mind, through a beautiful juxtaposition of psychological vs supernatural.
One thing watching through this show has made me realize is that - while I have personal biases towards both Tomoyo Kurosawa and Kana Hanazawa for voicing my 2 personal favorite characters in fiction - I think that Aoi Yuuki is probably the most talented voice actress in the industry, something that should've locked itself in my mind after hearing her voice Hibiki in Symphogear at the latest..
My total amount of anime watched on Anilist as well as my Mean Score on MAL are now at 666 after this.
Is that a bad sign?
If you have any feedback, positive or negative, or want to give a little advice on what I could do better next time, please don't hesitate to post it here
An undying love transcending the bounds of even space and time in a fully realized ensemble of dark fantasy madness
Once again, I am bringing over a review I have made roughly 2 years ago on my MAL account when I was still more active over there.
Simply because I got to talk about this underrated favorite of mine again recently because of the current ongoing trend of getting nominated for literally every single challenge possible again for some reason ^^
I will be posting the MAL-version down below as is (maybe add a few pictures and formatting and stuff), and afterwords go over a few additional points and why I might not agree with everything I said in here anymore, as I have done for my other reviews I already brought here (BIY and Humanity has declined, specifically), because there's certainly things in here that didn't age particularly well.
This is mostly a spoiler-free review that you can check out safely if you want to get into this series, but I will be talking about a few specifics here and there regarding the initial premise and general concept of this series.
I personally don't think that counts as spoilers, as you would find that out in the first chapters anyway, but maybe some people do, so I leave this little warning here atop first.
Ever since I finished reading Pandora Hearts at the beginning of last year, I've asked myself if I'll ever find something that captivates me as much, something that resonates with me as much, and something that just blows me away as much as it did.
Now, I MIGHT be leaning myself a bit far out of the window, BUT I think I just found it. Is this really the one? Have I found it? After all this time?
Having said this, let's not waste any more time and get straight to the review (TL,DR at the end this time)
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle takes the question its predecessor Cardcaptor Sakura asked of "something worse than the world splitting in two" as its base premise:
Forgetting everything about the one you care about the most.
At the beginning, it's a story about a guy and his companions travelling the multiverse to find and collect the memories of his most beloved, even if she will never remember him, while the mysterious villain watches over their steps from the background. (So basically, a lot like the inital first half of Pandora Hearts, but with a little more teen angst thrown into it)
But it's SO MUCH more than that. From the moment the journey starts we are accompanying our group of 5 into a plethora of wonderfully intriguing and captivating different worlds where in each one they are put in a particular situation they have to worm their way out of, finding a „feather“ and getting to the next one. I am a bit surprised at how lighthearted it starts out tbh.
Every single arc and world, even if it initially doesn't seem all too interesting, manages to be incredibly well crafted and pulls a twist on you at the end that makes it absolutely worthwhile.
At around 90-100 chapters in, it begins to reveal certain characters' pasts, their motivations and what shaped them into who they are now, and for some time you'll ask yourself "am I still reading the same story?" because the further it goes on the more twisted and dark it gets with each arc, yet always with that small ray of hope still shining on, never to the point of the story becoming too bleak.
Ultimately, this is a story about choices and decisions. "What is it that I want to choose?" "How will my decision affect my future and the future of others around me?" "Am I willing to go so far to make this choice even if it might hurt others, even my friends and loved ones?" "Was the choice I made right or wrong?" "Is there even such a thing as a right choice?"
I believe CLAMP did an excellent job at getting through to the reader how heavy of a burden you carry, or how much of a toll certain decisions you made can be on you.
The story is twisted, dark, messed up, captivating and all in all just mindblowing in the best way possible, but yet it sill manages to carry out a romance plot that is so engaging that you just cannot help to root for it to come to fruition even if the initial base line for it is incredibly painful
Therefore from me, it gets a full score of
10/10
[source]( https://www.indiedb.com/groups/anime-fans-of-moddb/images/tsubasa-chronicles-wallpapers4)Now, on to the heart and soul of this story: Its characters.
This is genuinely one of the most amazing ensemble cast I've seen in everything I've read. Period.
Every single character is incredibly well defined, has their own style and personality, goes through their own struggles and develops over the course of the story on their own, but also through the influence of the other characters around them.
MY GOD, Sakura's development alone is some of the best I've seen in the medium.
What impresses me the most, personally, is the fact that you can put any combination of 2 or more characters in the same scene toghether and still just KNOW it will be an amazing dynamic and conversation. Every single character has a unique relationship with each of their companions and they help each other develop and overcome their struggles.
After that, the next point on the menu of mindblowingness is each individual character's backstory.
Just when you think "I don't think anything this manga does next can top that guy's backstory", they pull out the uno reverse card and be like "HA, you thought, but how about you take THIS kind of pain next!?" and reveal another character's past that just completely recontextualizes every event prior to this point in the story.
All I can say to that is:
The parents are Gigachads.
One last thing to look at, a thing that I usually don't really talk about a lot, or not at all, when it comes to characters is their design.
Now, the character design itself may not be the most special or unqiue thing and if you're like me you've probably seen a shit-ton of similar looking characters in other stories you've watched or read, BUT what stands out in this (as well as most other CLAMP manga from what I've seen) is the characters costumes and clothes.
If there's anything CLAMP knows how to do, it's FASHION. And if there's anyone in the industry knowing how to give every single character an incredible flair and style, then it is CLAMP. Just watch and read Cardcaptor Sakura to see that for yourself.
I've mentioned Pandora Hearts being my favorite story at the beginning and I wanna talk about a point in which these two are pretty similar. The main villain:
Both of these manga share a particular kind of villain, one of my personal favorite kind of villains, as their main antagonist: The one who manipulates everything and everyone from behind the scenes and makes themselves comfortable in it.
Initially I did not like Fei-Wang Reed that much as a character for this kind of thing but in the end when it was revealed, or rather theorized what he ACTUALLY was, I began to see him in a much different light than what I thought before. Just like he said to Syaoran "He's the same". But I'll say a bit more to that in my personal section later.
For now, I'll leave this off and also grant TRC for its characters a perfect score of
10/10
Kind of bummed out that that one girl that's shown in every single world running (or sometimes flying) with bread in her mouth didn't turn out to be something bigger than just a fun background easter egg for people who inspect the details to look for every clue they'll get like me.
I am keeping this section the shortest because I do not want to spoil anything and I will go into it a bit more in the "personal section" later, but this manga hurts me right where it matters with its conclusion because it is a kind of ending I will ALWAYS absolutely adore: A bitter-sweet open ending leaving you with just enough to theorize on what is going to happen to our beloved characters next. (Well, putting the sequel Tsubasa World Chronicle aside for now)
9.5/10
The art is phenomenal. CLAMP have their own somewhat unique style of drawing their characters but I think they make it work out the best in this story compared to some of their other works (looking at you, xxxHolic and Code Geass).
It's not the best art I've seen around, by far not the best actually, but it has a certain magic that just completely pulls you into it and never lets you go until you've either finished it entirely or are too exhausted to even keep going. (Just me? Ok then, I guess)
If you've seen my reviews for Umineko (part 4 and part 7) you'll know what I'm talking about when I say this.
The backgrounds are beautiful and manage to bring life into every single place they go to and make this whole manga just a beautiful sight to experience.
I gotta subtract half a point though because at some points it is very hard to tell what's going on in a fight scene. I have some problems with that kind of stuff anyway but then you throw in a fight where multiple version of the same character fight against each other while looking (almost) EXACTLY the same and I'm just like "uhm, wtf is happening guys?"
9.5/10
SIDENOTE: While reading I listened to the soundtrack of the anime adaptation for this (combined with a 10 hour loop of just Cicada sounds, please don't ask why) which just further proofs the point I've been trying to make ever since Madoka Magica that Yuki Kajiura is a literal goddess. 10/10 anime soundtrack. Right now, day 4 of writing this, I'm listening to the xxxHolic soundtrack, also very solid, OPs and EDs have no business slapping that hard.
So, finally we're coming to the most important part of this review, and also the longest.
I've been planning on reading this ever since I've started watching anime and reading manga back in summer 2018-ish, MUCH longer before I even knew Pandora Hearts which is now my favorite story existed in the first place. So now with finally having been able to read it all I am just so excited that it turned out as good as it was.
Coming from the high of just having finished my previous CLAMP manga Cardcaptor Sakura (which, btw is also one of my personal favorites) I was IMMEDIATELY 100% attached to the main characters of the story Sakura and Syaoran. I know that it's not the same characters and just different versions of them out in the multiverse but that still didn't stop me.
Starting right at the beginning, emotional scene after emotional scene, no matter how small, got to me and put another dent in my already fragile heart. Even the supposedly wholesome scenes of the characters supporting each other were hard to read because of the messed-up-ness of the situation of Sakura not remembering who Syaoran is (not a spoiler, that's literally the premise of the story as I talked about earlier) and him just laughing off the pain.
As the story continued to go on, even in the parts or worlds that initially didn't seem that interesting, I could always hold on to the in-depth characterization everyone got and about halfway through I just KNEW that unless it managed to mess up big time this would become one of my favorites. And like I mentioned a bit earlier even those parts managed to make me completely love it by some kind of twist at the end of the arc. I can't really think of an arc that I do not like in this, and that is kind of rare, even for some of my favorites.
Every time the characters felt pain, I felt it too; every time they celebrated a success and could be happy (and very drunk lots of times), I felt their happiness too. It was just an incredibly engaging and captivating experience going through this whole thing chapter after chapter after chapter.
It got to the point where I had to literally watch a cute-girls-do-cute-things show right after to calm my feelings down a bit ("Is the order a rabbit?", surprisingly a REALLY fun show so far, shameless pandering to the kind of weeb who's a little too into CGDCT-stuff for comfort, so basically to me.)
One of the big things I wanna adress is the fact that people often talk about how confusing and hard to follow this story is, but to be honest I do find it quite easy to follow, not predictable (they always pull some kind of unexpected twist on you that you never could've guessed in a lifetime) and didn't have any real problem with how much of a "mind-fuck" this manga is.
IS WHAT I WOULD'VE SAID IF THE LAST TWO VOLUMES DIDN'T EXIST, because oh boy does it get complicated and twisted.
I was having zero problem following the events as they unfolded and as twist after twist came shooting at me until a certain point in the second to last volume revealed the mangas main plot twist to me: The meaning of the very first pages of the very first chapter. That was the point where my brain just decided to turn itself into emergency mode, and I had to quite literally read every chapter that followed at least twice to get everything that I was seeing. I had no problem seeing what happened, but taking it all in is where the hard part set in and my brain just noped out entirely.
That said, in the end, everything managed to make sense and wrap up nicely for the aforementioned bitter-sweet open ending which just left me with a feeling of complete emptyness that I haven't felt in a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time, the last time being after finishing "Hibike Euphonium"‘s second season at the beginning of 2020. So this story managed to do something none other, not even my favorite story ever, has managed to do in the last two years.
And that fact alone makes it a worthy contender to stand on the same heights as the aforementioned favorite Pandora Hearts.
I briefly talked about the similarity between Fei-Wang Reed in this as a main antagonist and the main villain of Pandora Hearts, but the reason Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle falls juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust a little short of actually managing to reach the same height as Pandora Hearts in my book is because the latter handles its plot and development around the main villain in a MUCH MUCH better way. That is not to say that Tsubasa doesn't handle it well, it does, really well actually, or that Fei-Wang Reed is a bad antagonist because quite frankly, the concept alone of what he is if he actually is what our characters theorize at the end is incredibly intriguing and opens up tons of possibilities, it is just that the main villain in PH was handled so well that every other villain almost pales in comparison to them and they're what I consider one of the best written fictional characters ever.
I've found a guide online and have been reading this in tandem with the xxxHolic manga because the two are connected and I definitely think you should check out xxxHolic too if just to see another side of the events transpiring in this manga, and to get more of that sweet Sakura character development. And to know what's been going on with Watanuki (the main protagonist of xxxHolic) because he shows up in Tsubasa a lot later on.
I've been somewhat put on a mission by my brain halfway through this story to read EVERYTHING CLAMP wrote that has any kind of connection with Tsubasa, no matter how small it is, and even if it's just a version of a single character from another story. So far I've figured out that "X", "xxxHolic" (obviously) and "Chobits" definitely belong to the ones I should read.
Now letting one of my longest reviews yet (among the ones I wrote on here and just for myself too) come to a close I'll just leave it with a small fun fact about something I said not too long ago:
About two months ago I messaged a friend that 86 (aside from Pandora Hearts and Shinreigari) was the best thing I've watched and read this year, last year, and probably for the next 2 years too. Welp, guess I was wrong because THIS, right here, is peak fiction. I'm actually kind of floored by just HOW good this is. It's been a long time since I gave something a full full 10 points. I'll be giving this a re-read soon after finishing some other CLAMP mangas just to find more details and see if it actually manages to catch up to Pandora Hearts.
This review is now 7 days in the making and finally finished.
TL,DR: This, right here is peak fiction. If you want an engaging and captivating tragic tale with loveable yet deeply complex characters, great fantasy and world building with a fantastic conclusion, completed by a well-developed and well-realized romance subplot, all while building/keeping up and developing a mindblowing mystery in the background, then here you are exactly right. Seriously, read it, it's a masterpiece. If you want more reasons, read the essay above. Here, you'll find a Sakura that is not useless, the very opposite of useless in fact. This is actually a shounen where the word "unique" is quite fitting.
Alright, like I said at the beginning, there are a few things I want to add in here for this brought-over version, because there are most definitely some parts I need to adress.
-
Both Sakura and Syaoran are still among my top 10 anime characters ever, and I do like the small little line I used in my top male main characters post recently to describe them:
This alternate universe copy of Cardcaptor Sakura's Syaoran - much like the one in Cardcaptor Sakura - wouldn't work half as well without his counterpart Sakura, but it's exactly their undying love for each other that make this story as special as it is to me.
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In this review talked about how I wanted to watch and read other CLAMP works somehow related to this, and yet I haven’t even managed to do a single one of those in these 2 years. I haven’t even finished the Cardcaptor Sakura anime in that time yet!
-
I do very much still recommend to read this in tandem together with xxxHolic, both because of their connection with each other, as well as the intriguing premise and characters of that one itself. There are guides on when to switch between the two online, or if you want you can also come to my profile to ask me about it, too.
Unfortunately, I now also have to go into the post-recency-bias-induced negative aspects, and why I have now retroactively changed my score from a 10/10 to „only“ a 9/10, which kind of pains me to do a little bit:
Like I said under that one and only spoiler-tag I made earlier, and that unfortunately still holds true now:
I did end up subtracting another point for some of the hard-to-follow fight scenes in this manga.
I’m not the biggest fan of a lot of action or fighting in anime/manga in general anyway, even much more so now 2 years after reading this, so this does put a little dent in my experience at points here.
- I spent all that time above there in the personal section hyping up the main villain, Fei-Wong Reed, and even compared him to the main villain of Pandora Hearts (will not reveal for spoiler reasons), but to be perfectly honest with you:
I barely even remember half of what he actually does throughout the manga outside of some general things and like I mentioned the thing that made him so intriguing to me near the end of the story…
That’s kind of a pretty big no-no for me when it comes to the stories I read and watch, I can imagine it would be for anyone, so yeah…
All in all, roughly 90% of what I said in my original review – especially in regards to the characters - still holds true even now, I did have an absolute blast reading it – and imagine I will again when I re-read it, maybe even re-kindle my love from seeing all the hints, clues and foreshadowing early on – and would still recommend this to anyone who’s a fan of dark-fantasy manga, so for this one, I’ll go with a
Recently, I have been overcome with the urge to re-watch or re-read some of the things on my list, even though I am currently kind of burned out on anime a little bit (especially when it comes to seasonals…), and now with this, another one just got added to that list…
It's not about who wins or loses. Sometimes, just having fun is the most important part of the game.
No matter who loses or wins, no one is going to die. No one will come back to life either. Evil won’t flourish across the land. The world won’t be destroyed. C’mon, world. Let’s play sports together.
There WILL be spoilers here, obviously, but hey, if you've made it here you probably already have either watched the movie or read the manga yourself and already know the conclusion anyway.
While I kinda needed a little to get used to watching with german subs (lol, I got asked by the cashier at the start if I was aware that it's the subbed version, and I was like "yeah, I wouldn't be here otherwise, duh." xD)(apparently, though, opening night yesterday in german dub did better here...), experiencing an anime movie, and especially one as intense a series as Haikyuu is, is absolutely insane.
Given that I live in a pretty rural area here (honestly was surprised they even showed the movie in sub), we were only 8 people in total in the whole screening room, but you could just feel every single one of us strangers be anime fans through and through, and it was such a fun time to be there for these 1 1/2 hours.
As for the actual anime,
this entire arc is basically a love-letter to both Kenma's character and the rivalries going on between the members of Karasuno and Nekoma (and seriously, literally every single character has a rival on the opposite side) and the game was already one of my absolute favorites back when I read the manga - btw I started reading from start to end the day it released its final chapter - and so, having it all told in the perspective of Kenma himself is a choice that I have always been incredibly fond of, and the same applies here, too.
This movie feels like 50% intense game and 50% lovely backstory of our precious cinnamon roll of a cat, and it makes it work in great balance with each other, not little because of some awesome transitions between past and present that surprisingly don't interrupt the flow of the game in any way.
There is quite a little bit of your usual exposition talking about how they play the game and change their strategy and stuff, like usual, but most of the time the movie lets the game speak for itself and show its intensity, making you feel it as if you were down on the court yourself, ESPECIALLY IN THAT THIRD SET.
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABSOLUTE FIRE AMAZINGNESS!?
It feels like EVERYTHING, from art and animation to intensity to the stakes to emotional impact to character writing down to even the voice acting and background music massively stepped up their game in this game-deciding set that I actually went out of it bathed in my own sweat, even though it was actually pretty cold in the theatre itself (and thank god for that, it's like 30°C outside, I almost DIED[<--exxageration] leaving the cinema to go to my car again).
That was one of the most intense things I've experienced this year in the medium, capping off beautifully in a complete first-person-perspective shot for the final rally as if we ourselves had become Kenma.
But before I get to how it concluded, I want to highlight and talk about a few other things first:
- the art and animation, while having some noticeable hick-ups here and there like some background shots or one time the camera panning over REALLY fucking up the frame-rate (that was probably our cinemas fault, though), is honestly really amazing, especially in some of the key moments and at the end of the final rally (the directing for that was insane)
- I talked about the rivalries between the team members earlier, and that was really fun - especially Shoyo and Kenma or Kuroo and Tsukki - but this also served as a long-time coming resolution to the rivalry between the coaches of each team, Nekomata and Ukai(old), and what a beautiful conclusion it was (I teared up.)
- Yuuki Hayashi and Asami Tachibana absolutely DELIVERED on the music, made this even more intense than it already was. Same with the sound design at one point cutting off ALL the sounds except for muffled voices and Kenma's panting because that was all he could hear and feel in the moment.
- It was GREAT hearing SpyAir again, I'm so glad they brought them back for another song!
- There is some AMAZING imagery in this movie using the symbolism of this battle at the garbage dump and the cats trapping the crows to its full advantage, like
sorry for the bad quality, I ripped this out of one of the other reviews on this site here xD - Hitoka Yachi jumping up and down, getting hyped, getting frustrated, getting intense, is literally me watching this entire movie. Damn I should've put her on my list earlier too....
Being unfortunately contained into movie format like this, like I said there had to be made some cuts, and while you do notice it in the movie's overall pacing a little bit - at least compared to the previous seasons - I personally don't think it was a detriment to the story.
This honestly felt JUST RIGHT.
I will re-check this arc in the manga again after this to see what exactly was all cut out and stuff, but this was surprisingly well-paced considering I had very big concerns about them rushing the arc when it got announced.
Admittedly the second set, with the exception of a small particular moment (more to that later), flew by (he he) pretty fast, but the third set more than made up for that again.
and now, on to my personal highlights of the movie:
there are 3, and for my own safety I'll put them under a spoiler tag here:
Number 1:
He flew.
That one particular moment in the second set I mentioned earlier, definitely the best Shoyo-scene of the movie, was Kageyama's sky-high set so that Shoyo could fly and spike the ball higher over the defense than anyone else, leaving everyone in the stadium - and the cinema for that matter - speechless.
I could practically HEAR "Tobe flyyy, hiigghhh" in my head even though it wasn't playing in the background.
And my god, did it make me cry. Granted, I honestly have a feeling I was probably the only one in the cinema who actually teared up or cried seeing the reactions from the 7 strangers with me, but it was one of the biggest moments this show, and the National Tournament Arc, has been building up to.
It honestly gave me a feeling similar to the "He swung the bat" scene in FLCL, and I cannot explain why, but that just resonated with me so much, I couldn't help but get emotional.
Number 2:
Speaking of things this show has been building up to, the moment Kenma was lying on the ground, exhausted, Kuroo asking him if he's still alive and them making their death in volleyball jokes, and Kenma just going "this is so much fun", I am not ashamed to admit that
I CHEERED JUST AS HARD AND LOUD AS SHOYO!
(at least I did in my head, can't quite embarass myself like that in front of all these strangers....)
Seeing Kenma finally having fun, seeing EVERYONE on the court regardless of the outcome of the game just HAVE FUN.
I had fun.
An insane amount of fun.
which leads me into my next and final highlight at number 3, and with it, the conclusion to the entire movie/arc:
The final point rally.
The final point rally was, from Kageyama's serve at the beginning to that at the end, shot in an impressive display of a first-person-shot from Kenma's perspective. Blending out all sound, blending out ANYTHING that doesn't matter, only focusing on the game in front of you, in front of a sweating, broken, exhausted you, images getting blurrier and blurrier as it went on, not properly noticing what is happening around you more and more until - suddenly -
the intense back-and-forth between these two rival teams comes to an abrupt end as the ball - full of the sweat, tears and PASSION of both teams - slips out of your hand ending the game in a win for our beloved crows we have now been following for more than 4 seasons already.
And much like the characters on the playing field, it is only when Kageyama says it that you truely realize
it's over. We won.
This, quite honestly, might've been my favorite scene of the entire franchise (in anime form, the manga has a few one upcoming that could be contenders) so far with how they presented it.
This was not a game about who wins or who loses.
This was a game about the connections the characters on both teams formed with each other, and it reflected in each and every one of their reactions after the game was over.
No pain, no tears, no hard feelings, just a group of kids having fun.
You all know the expression
Treat practice like it's the real game, and treat the real game like it's practice
and I think this movie and arc perfectly showcases this.
No matter who loses or wins, no one is going to die. No one will come back to life either. Evil won’t flourish across the land. The world won’t be destroyed. C’mon, world. Let’s play sports together.
Is it a perfect, flawless adaptation of the manga counterpart?
No, but it serves just right in what it wants to include and what it doesn't, and makes for an intense, emotional, and first and foremost FUN experience that I can only wholeheartedly recommend to any fan of the show.
There were a few hints about an upcoming development after this match and it honestly just made me think
WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO MY POOR HEART!?
Those who know will know.
Cherish and live in the moment and take it forward with you, because you never know when you have to say goodbye again
Thank you, I had a great ReLife
When I watched the anime all the way back like 4 or 5 years ago or sth I think, there was just… something that held it back just in terms of me getting invested into these characters.
It was honestly just a really lukewarm experience, and the stiffness in its visual presentation didn’t make that any better, so going into this manga read on a whim when I was in the mood for a long romance manga - outside of a very few specific moments - I barely even remembered anything about this apart from its general premise, a few character details and the ending…
Hell, I didn’t even remember some of the main characters‘ names.
I knew from manga readers that the anime adaptation supposedly was incredibly subpar, but I’ve also heard that so many times before about other stuff where even the source ended up disappointing in the end, so I still went in with a little bit of an apprehension, lowering my expectations quite a bit
One which, I realized as early as the first ten chapters, was completely unfounded, because in this case I gotta have to agree and say:
From the very beginning all the way to the end this is such a fun read the entire time, and you can’t help but grinning at everything it throws at you.
The way this manga blends its humor with its occasional character drama - and oh my there‘s some heavy drama in here - is so well implemented that none of the toneshifts feel in any way forced or unnatural.
Everything plays out like it should, everything just feels
like you’re actually there and re-experiencing your teenage years together with this group of friends
Handling its drama in a much more subdued and down-to-earth manner than so many other romances I’ve seen and read, this one knows when to let itself breathe and let its moments talk for themselves, and it also knows when it’s appropriate to have its characters do the talking. Unlike the more anime-esque melodramatic approach (not that there isn’t ANY of that), ReLife goes for the more genuine portrayal of what people actually might go through in real life, and it works all the better for it, because under all of that maturity, all of that down-to-earthness, it still doesn’t forget the charm of the experiences teenagers go through that we as adults now look back at when trying to fall asleep and cringe at that were once either incredibly precious or incredibly painful at the time, and conveys it in a way that just leaves me both in awe and tears of joy and laughter every single time I see it. Or the charm of awkward first teenage relationships like with Ohga and Kariu…
In part because of the setting of adults-disguising-themselves-as-highschoolers (god it sounds so wrong put like that xD) it seems to me a much more mature approach than what I’m used to, and one that I can connect with on a little bit of a spiritual level here.
I mentioned earlier that I thought the anime version of some of these characters were quite forgettable, so in contrast to that I wanna say that I probably won’t forget what I read in here any time soon, just because of how much it impacted me - or how I could identify with it here, being a 28-year old guy who’s had (and sometimes still has) his fair share of problems and anxieties himself.
Personally in this read, as indicated from my ongoing notes(sorry there's a lot more comments than the one in my last review here), I was very much drawn to the character of Ryo Yoake this time around, mostly because I personally do love to occasionally annoy and tease the people around me like my friends but in the end will always lend my support and let myself affect and be affected by them in turn in the most wholesome way possible. But at some points I also let the more negative feelings in that regard get to me.
I’ve also noticed that he has this tendency to tap his fingers onto himself repeatedly a few times, haven’t exactly figured out which precise circumstances he does it under, but that struck me as something interesting, because it kind of became a habit for me as a way to distract myself from some kind of pain or uncomfortable situation like at the dentist or some shit - a bit similar to Kaguya putting her hand on her chin in Kaguya-sama love is war, if you will…
Actually I noticed most of the characters have that kind of thing like with Ohga and Kariu touching their earlobes (or probably more likely their earrings) when pondering aböut or feeling bothered by something…
Either I actually turned more perceptive over time or the manga does a VERY good job of showcasing this stuff.
I’ll go for a little bit of a combination of both ^^
Cherish your friends and don’t take them or the time you spend with them for granted. These times building up your connections with them are gonna be some of the best and most important ones of your life, and you never know when you might have to part with them because of whatever circumstances.
Appreciate the beauty in the fleeting moments of youth and the little things in life that make you happy.
I am extremely glad I decided to read this - especially also in part because it was to spite a friend I asked if I should read this or another romance manga I heard was good and more mature and he said
„ReLife‘s premise isn’t appealing to me at all, I’mma delete it from my planned-list“
or something along those lines - and have found one immediate new entry for my favorites list.
Communication is key, something ReLife almost understands a little bit too well
ReLife understands humans.
Is it in any way an extremely deep, complex, philosophical tale about human behavior and how it affects you and others around you?
No it isn’t, not really, it’s simple, it’s fun, it’s relatable, it’s realistic, and that is all it needs to be.
With a poignant subtlety to it - and a bombastic display where it counts - this is a story about what it means to live in the moment.
And to take your past experiences and connections with you as you walk forward in life.
In a way, it does remind me a little bit of both
After the Rain
and
Skip and Loafer
with how it manages to convey its characters‘ emotions in such a genuine way (like the latter), and is able to form such a mature take on its subject matters and deliver such a beautifully striking ending (like the former), letting pretty much everything come full circle in the end.
I just read more than 200 chapters of a single romance manga.
And I don’t regret even a single second of it.
I expected an 8/10 much improved experience of the anime, and a nice fun time while reading, but what I got instead was 238 chapters of (almost) pure perfection.
Read to the OST of the Monogatari Series, because I’m also reading through the novels of that at the moment and I was too lazy to change the background sounds in my ears (and my youtube tab) to something else.
For the closing line of this one, I’ll have to quote myself here for what I said about the manga „Chikan Otoko“ when I first read it at the beginning of last year, or maybe the summer the year before that, I don’t remember quite well when exactly:
This is everything I want from a romance manga.
and also so much more.
Two Girls saving each other. And saving me in the process. THE most I have ever cried in fiction.
You know, I'm kind of a little bit of a bumbling mess, still, after just having finished this, but I really want to get my incoherent ramblings that dare call themselves "thoughts" in my head out into the world for others to read.
Because I think this deserves even more recognition than it is getting at the moment. Much more in fact.
Instead of an actual, "structured", review that tells you what this story is about - cuz, honestly, who in their right mind reading a review wants to know what something is about (well, at least I don't and am looking more for the emotional aspect), read the synospis for that - I am here to tell you, how it made me feel.
Or more accurately
Not everything needs to be happy. All that matters is that they’re both content.
I’ve touched upon this in my ongoing activity updates that you can find here already, but the way this manga manages to combine so many powerful, delicate and sensitive themes, and implements them into what is essentially a pairing of just two major characters with such an intricate sense of care and passion - like you will find in almost no other anime or manga done like this - without feeling overbearing, or overwhelming (well, it’s certainly emotionally overwhelming), without overstaying its welcome, never feeling like it tries to do too much, all while building up and maintaining a (mostly) healthy romantic relationship steadily progressing forward in the background, strikes me as something of incredible beauty.
I am
IN AWE
of every single page of this manga, that - alongside all this - has such a powerful way to convey these themes and emotions in its art and paneling that I haven’t seen in a very long time in romance manga. Especially when it comes to the facial expressions and little details that make a character feel more human.
I genuinely think that there is no better portrayal (that I have seen) of ACTUAL realistic anxiety and insecurity in animanga than Shizuku Hoshikawa, and that alone makes her a contender for a spot in a list of top 5 animanga protagonists, IF NOT even higher than that.
(yes I have seen - and read - Bocchi the Rock, yes it is one of my favorites, but while Bocchi is more of an accurate portrayal of how it FEELS, Shizuku is one of how it ACTUALLY IS.)
Kaori Asaka, her counterpart in the relationship, hiding behind a mask of an energetic and lively personality, while her real feelings - that she can only talk about with no one else but Shizuku, but even then not even to their full extent, until the end, that is - slowly gnaw and eat away at her from the inside, in this intense portrayal of a struggle that I imagine not many of us can actually relate to, nonetheless manages to be a powerful way of showing how a situation like hers can affect the people involved, be it the one actually inflicted with it or the people around them, that everyone can take away at least SOMETHING from it, no matter how small.
But that is not to say these two main characters are the only strengths this story has, no on the contrary, every single one of the side characters - which admittedly aren’t that many - has a specific role that they fulfill in exactly the way they need (what would Shizuku ever do if she didn’t have Seri and Ruri to handle Kaori’s condition, because she sure as hell wouldn’t be able to on her own.) and they serve as an incredibly nice addition into an already powerful narrative, making it clear that the mangaka had all of this planned out from even before the first second they started to draw the manga - which kinda should be obvious when looking at the title
Speaking of
Obviously, I have to address the elephant in the room here, that being the title of the manga itself:
The Summer You WERE There
is exactly what it promises to be. Since the moment I started this, I knew how this was gonna end, YOU reading this probably know how this is gonna end, but that is besides the point. The point is the journey of how it eventually gets there, and how it impacts the other characters - and you as a reader - and for that I can very confidently say that I can’t think of many, if any, that handle it as well as this one.
Barring the Aria Series, Kumiko in Sound Euphonium and maybe, JUST MAYBE, the Requiem for Innocence prequel VN for The House in Fata Morgana, I don’t think I’ve experienced ANYthing that has hit me on such a personal level as The Summer You Were There has in, dare I say, probably the last 5 YEARS. Which is HUGE, because I’ve only really started to watch anime 6 years ago, and read manga or LNs 4 years ago, meaning this includes pretty much 90% of what is in my lists.
When it comes to
emotions
this does NOT hold back.
It goes all in into the depths of your heart and digs its way ever further until it reaches the deepest point that even you yourself couldn’t have ever imagined existing, and
Rips it all to shreds.
Giving the most satisfying feeling of
CLOSURE
I have seen ever since reading the final chapter of Girls Last Tour all those years ago.
So please, if you’ve come this far in my little review, PLEASE do yourself the favor of reading this story. By the time I reached chapter 9, I was 100% convinced that this is gonna end up with a full score on my list, and that sentiment hasn’t dwindled a single bit over the course of me reading this.
If anything, it just got cemented further and further with every single chapter, all the way into the last.
At this point, though, considering the actual themes the story portrays and how raw and real it goes about it, I’m going to give out a little content warning for things like
Depression, trauma, guilt, anxiety, bullying, su*cidal tendencies, mental health, atonement and forgiveness, loneliness, escapism, and most importantly: loss, denial and grief.
Because this story is NOT for the faint of heart, and you should not go into this having a negative mindset and should only dive into it when you know you will be able to handle it.
No. I’d rather say I ADVISE you not to go into this if you are not sure if you are able to handle it.
I do consider myself quite an emotional person, which I think should be pretty apparent already when you read through all my activities and reviews and stuff on here, but even then there is only a small hand of things that not only made me cry but that made me bawl. And when I say „bawl“, I mean
This is one of those.
There is not a single chapter after chapter 5, where I haven’t cried, and I’m not talking about simply tearing up a little bit, no, I mean a full stream running down my face, and I can say one thing for certain after having now gone through this experience of the final chapter:
I am an empty, broken man.
And I wouldn’t want to have it any other way right now.
10/10
This needs more recognition,
and an anime adaptation.
That would be pretty cool, too.
This is not (just) a yuri manga, this is art.
It is
catharsis
in the truest possible sense of the word.
I might even prefer this over Bloom Into You
Not because of its romance, but because of its drama aspect and the way it weaves these powerful themes into these powerful characters.
I‘m looking at a potential number 2 in my Animanga 7x7 for the end of this year already this early on. (look at my profile bio if you want to know more about that.)
Something that surpassed even my own highest expectations, in a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible until now.
I’m still crying.
In fact
I don’t think I have EVER cried as much with something fictitious, or media related as today.
Maybe not even Aria. Maybe not even Torchwood season 2 (those who know, know.)
That’s how much this means to me right now.
I don’t think I have ever taken breaks
INBETWEEN PAGES OF A SINGLE CHAPTER.
Today
I did.
Never before have I uttered the words
„I don’t want to read these final pages“
in my life.
Today
I did.
I have never started to laugh uncontrollably because of how hard I was crying, making me look like I’m a complete and utter psychotic maniac.
Today
I did.
To reiterate, or rather correct my earlier statement above:
I am not an empty, broken man.
I am but a mere shell of an empty, broken man, drifting along in the winds of this world‘s indescribable loneliness.
That….. hurt…
a lot….
But I think it also saved me, in a way.
And I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.
I do, too, Shizuku.
And I also want to believe that this story is real, at least that way I can justify crying myself to sleep because of this last night.
I want to ask the author of this, just once, if what they wrote here comes from personal experience, because this gets almost TOO real at times.
A hidden gem of a wacky fun adventure following the most endearingly sarcastic protagonist you can find
This review was originally written on my MAL account on September 30th 2021
So after long last, finally I’ve decided to do another review, and that for a series that truly deserves more spotlight. Let’s not waste any time and begin.
TLDR: don’t watch this for a complex story but for the wacky fun adventure you and the characters will find yourselves in and you’re gonna have a great time with this, highly recommended, this is a hidden gem.
STORY(8/10):
If you are looking for a complex story with tons of worldbuilding and depth and whatnots, then you can immediately turn around and avoid this. But if you are looking for a wacky fun adventure in a fantasy land with a morbid sense of humor, see how the characters created a BL boom, get stuck inside manga panels or a time loop, try to prevent skinned chickens from taking over the world and see the rise and fall to ruin of multiple entire civilizations then you’ve come to the right place.
The story is exactly as the synopsis says, simple and straightforward, and nothing more, but man is it ever fun to watch. It’s just the journey of our nameless mediator „Watashi“, one of the last members of the now almost extinct human race that has to deal with the hijinks of the fairies and their supernatural technology in their pursuit for fun. It never pretends to be something bigger and always knows exactly what it wants to be.
The episodes themselves don’t have much connection to each other and are split into mostly two parters with some twist at the end of the first part that leads into the problem solving for the second part.
Additionally the episodes are chronologically out of order and I personally am a huge sucker for this kind of stuff because with this, you can notice some bits you didn’t at first when you rewatch the show.
In terms of creativity, „Humanity has declined“ is one of the best I have seen, and since I tend to watch a lot of niche stuff I’ve seen a lot of wacky shows. It almost feels very similar to FLCL yet even more fun. Probably because of its main character and the above mentioned weirdness
CHARACTERS(9/10):
The focus on characters for this show, outside of 2 episodes lies almost only on the main character, who has remained nameless, throughout the story. Outside of her you won’t find any fleshed out character with an elaborate backstory or anything like that, but fleshed out she definitely is.
She’s a rather introverted and reserved person but has a snarky and sarcastic personality because of which it is just a treat to watch her interactions with the fairies every episode.
She is quite honestly the most delightful and fun character I’ve seen in an anime in a loooong time, which is kind of impressive given this is just a 12-episode show.
ART/ANIMATION(9/10):
The animation itself is not that special and rather just relatively standard. What sets this apart from some other anime I’ve seen in this regard is the unique art style using vibrant colors and the use of the shot direction, lighting and shadows affecting the characters and scenery that just make this feel more alive I guess. It is very nice to look at and the character design is quite good too, especially their eyes are beautiful.
SOUND(9/10):
OP is good, but a little weird visually, fits for the show…
ED is a delight every time it plays (sometimes within a scene at the end of the episode)
The sound design doesn’t hold back either and it always brings out OSTs that never miss their marks and fit in perfectly with what happens in every scene. The only thing you probably need getting used to is the fairies rather high pitched and distorted voices, otherwise the voice acting is great as you'd expect from some big names like Sawashiro Miyuki.
ENDING(9/10):
Given the nature of this show it is very hard to judge „the end“ of the anime because technically the end is the beginning. The last two episodes are chronologically the first because they talk about the backstory of our main character at school before she started her job as a mediator. I for one feel like they did a good job tying everything that has happened in the anime together and found a perfect place to end it. Now I know that there’s still light novel content left that came out later than this and I've read about it a bit but if you aren't japanese I guess there's no chance you're ever gonna get to read them…
EMOTIONAL IMPACT / ENJOYMENT (10/10):
Quite honestly, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I had a ton of fun watching this and I still kinda want more of it.
I’ve never wanted to read a light novel as badly as this one but sadly, and I’m still upset by that, there is neither an official English translation nor are there any fan translations online that go past chapter 1. Guess it’s time to start learning Japanese now.
Overall this was a delightfully wacky slice of life fantasy adventure with a little bit of twisted humor in it that I can recommend anyone to watch who just wants to have a fun time
I especially had lots of fun with episodes 7 and 8 where our protagonist is trapped in a time loop and needs to find a way out of it. The entirety of these two episodes might’ve just as well been a set up for the final Punchline at the end of episode 8, and given the sheer ridiculousness of the joke I’m not even mad about that.
Even with my now a bit harsher newly established rating system, this one has easily earned its place among some of my personal favorites and I’ll grant it 9/10 points. Really good show that I can only recommend everyone to watch, I guess I found another hidden gem again.
A few notes at the end here for this Anilist version:
- yes I know I said it's a 9/10 and the score I gave is an 8/10, it's just compared to the other ones with a 9/10 I've put on my list, this one doesn't hold up particularly well and I've revised my scores quite a number of times already, too.
- The joke at the end of episode 8 is STILL my favorite joke in tv (my personal favorite joke is one in the movie "Airplane", btw.)
- I haven't learned ANY japanese since I wrote this, and there is still no trace of a translation ever being done for the light novel (I know the ending twist and it's so. f'ing. awesome.)
- the main protagonist is still one of my absolute favorites.
I don't know why but I'm kind of in the mood for reviews at the moment, especially after seeing the positive reception I got for both my Sound Euphonium S2 and Bloom Into You's review recently, so I'll either bring some other MAL reviews I've done over to here in the next few days, or maybe even try and write a new one about something I wanted to highlight my love for... but no promises on that because I have very high standards for myself when it comes to this kind of stuff and I'm never really satisfied with the end products that much.... so we'll see.
Edit about a year after making the review:
I rewatched this show this week.
I got back to a 9/10.
You can read about that here
Bloom Into You: Understanding Love, the ways people go about feeling it, and all the side effects coming alongside it
This review was originally written on my MAL account on July 22nd 2021, and is brought over here today as is because of a silly little challenge I'm still doing on this site (Hi, it's me, the recent Sound Euphonium S2 review guy.)
So this will be my first manga review, I guess, although I’ve written a few for myself already but anyway. Just a slight warning, there will be some spoilers regarding this story, the manga „his and her circumstances“(further referred to as Karekano) and the anime „Hibike euphonium“. These spoilers are surface level for the most part but if they're not they are marked as such so you can skip over them. This turned out quite a long review so if you don’t like to read a lot of text then now would be the time to go and do something else ^^
Story:
Bloom Into You is quite literally the lesbian version of Karekano, one of my other favorite romance mangas, albeit way less dark and without some of the 90s Shoujo campiness, which in my mind makes it the better version. I mean just look at the similarities here.
SPOILER SECTION FOR KAREKANO:
-„I have to be my ideal self“, one of The main characters hides their real self to keep their social standing and become someone else so they can be viewed as perfect
-main characters are part of the student council
-yuu has a very active personality much like Yukino
-the student council puts on a play that is written by one of the characters who wants to become a novelist
-the Play is heavily linked with the personality of one or more of the main characters which initiates their character development to go into the desired direction
-the Play is shown as a whole in multiple chapters (and both plays are really good too)
-Class trip to Kyoto for the second years (ok well that’s basically just EVERY romance or slice of life anime I guess xD)
To be honest I wanted to subtract a little point for not being that original but I refrained from doing so because this has everything I want in a romance manga. Plus to add to what you can do in a normal romance, the characters actually seek advise from other characters because they don’t know what to do with their feelings for a person of the same gender, whether it being outright stated (in the case of Miyako giving advise to Sayaka) or just implied through knowledge of the character (in the case of Yuu's sister Rei to Yuu). I’ve read and watched a couple of Shoujo Ai and Yuri manga and Anime recently, most of them not put in my list on here yet, and for some reason that is rarely a plot point. Maybe I just haven't read enough yet although I think after reaching double digits I can start to demand some things
It’s brilliant and the story always knew what it wanted to do and at no point did it in any way get disappointing. My favorite Shoujo Ai manga so far has been „ichido dake demo, koukai shitemasu“ or „even if it was just once, I regret it“ in english because it also fulfilled all the requirements I have in a great way (next one on my list is "Girl Friends" which also has quite an amount of good reviews so let's see where that ends up for me^^), but Bloom into you has definitely surpassed that by now, I would even say that this is one of the best romances I’ve watched/read period, and not just in anime and manga, though that's my main romance intake. It has some cliches used in a lot of romcoms in general but they’re always executed really well and there’s no unnecessary drama that feels out of place so 10/10
CHARACTERS:
The characters are all well defined and developed in this. None of the characters feel in any way unnecessary and everyone contributes a bit to the plot. Even the side characters randomly introduced at the end of volume 6 are a great addition to the already colorful cast. We get all kinds of characters like the novelist girl who doesn’t like cute things; the friend who plays basketball to chase after an unreachable crush; the supporting but yet accepting and distance keeping (and lesbian) student council Vice President; the hard working, seemingly perfect yet also really weak and needy student council President; the otaku nerd who likes to fawn over girls but turns out a really nice smart and supportive guy; the (most likely) asexual first year guy that enjoys watching over his friends romances because he can’t experience them on his own, and you know what they say "the ones who can't experience love for themselves are the ones who give the best relationship advise to the ones who do" (this one is actually the one I could relate to the most in some of the beginning chapters when he was the only one who knew because not long ago a very good friend of mine has come out as a lesbian and has started to date one of her fellow students and I am so far the only one in our usual circle of friends that knows about this, it's kind of exciting tbh); the drama teacher who’s in a secret relationship with a cafe owner that happens to be our characters go-to-hangout-place.
All of these characters have their own little story, their own stuggles and goals, relationships, and they are all really complex in their feelings. Their dynamics and chemistry flow naturally and their development always makes sense. At any given time you know what they’re thinking, why they’re thinking this way, how they will react and you can relate to them. They’re all put into situations that you’ve probably experienced at least once before in your life. And my god, FINALLY we get characters that actually TALK to each other, or one of the other characters to ask if they know sth, when there's a problem. So many entries in the romance genre (which by the way I am quite fond of considering it is the one I've seen the highest amount of stories out of all genres of) for some reason entertain the idea of stupid misunderstandings, characters making their own assumptions about situations, getting angry at others, ignoring them or taking their distance, and whatever else. If there's a misunderstanding or a peculiar situation that generates a little worry, then it is sure to be completely cleared up in the middle of the very next chapter, sometimes even just at the begining.
But among all these the one that stands out the most is our main protagonist Yuu Koito. In a way she reminds me of my personal favorite anime character ever, which is Kumiko from Hibike euphonium, but simply for the reason that she is the complete opposite of that. While both of these characters have a personality trait of being indecisive for themselves Kumiko takes on more of a passive observing role and only gets more active at the end of the second season after her character arc is coming to its climax, whereas Yuu is pretty much as active as you can get as a character from the very beginning. She's like Kumiko at the end of the second season all the time. She is (almost) always the one directing where the story is going, where her relationships are going.
Even though Toko‘s feelings of wanting to be perfect like the picture of her late sister she had in her mind and her development of growing out of that into her own person are quite complex over the story Yuu‘s feelings are the most complex ones here. Starting from the feeling of not knowing what is love (baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more) and thinking she’s never (gonna give you up, never gonna let you down[etc...]), going to experience it, to wanting to be able to support and change her friend to I want to know what love is (I want you to show me) to I want to fall in love with her to … well… I’ll just let you see for yourself. (insert Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra reference here) Alright ENOUGH MUSIC REFERENCES, BRAIN!
Yuu will definitely secure a spot among my favorite anime characters too, I’m thinking of putting her somewhere in the vicinity of another Yu, namely Ishigami Yu from Kaguya sama which would be a spot in the top 25 at least. To be quite honest saying "I love Yu" constantly without following it up with "as a character/protagonist" felt kinda weird. I think she's my favorite romance protagonist actually, both in terms of protagonist of my favorite romance manga (previously held by Sorata from Sakurasou no Pet), and favorite protagonist of a romance manga/anime (previously held by Hachiman from Oregairu). She's the kind of character that's always coming out on top
(jeez I feel even worse for what I did here than for the half-assed rick roll attempt earlier)
Yuu and Tokou‘s relationship is easily one of my absolute favorites in animanga so far and it’s so incredibly cute too, but also quite realistic. It reminds me of Adachi and Shimamura's relationship, only that this one is actually a healthy and wholesome one that goes somewhere instead of a one-sided obsessive (at first) unrequited one that ultimately hurts the characters more than it benefits them. I haven't read the novel for that one yet and only seen the anime but that was quite the frustrating watch after hearing it being praised for how cute and wholesome it is when it was in fact the exact opposite of that.
One thing I wish though is that some of the side characters had a bit more screen time or chance to get a little more development but there are also anthologies and spin-off novels and all that i still have to check out. So far 9/10
ART:
I have but one thing to say about the art in this one. Why is the art so fricking god damn good, like seriously, this is almost way too good art to be in a romance manga. Stop that. My eyes can only sparkle this much, so don’t put more details in there. Please. Like, am I blinded by my love for this or is it really way too good? Am I tripping here? 10/10
Now for an anime I would usually just judge the sound here which is relatively hard to do for a manga. DUH. But I did listen to the animes OST while reading this and it was quite good and relaxing. But I won't put a number on it here cuz that'd be kinda unfair, you know ^^
ENDING:
So one of the big points of how I judge a story is if it sticks the landing or not and sometimes it can make or break it. In this case we get the usual small time skip ending where the characters all get together and reminisce over the old times and a walk towards the stars between our main couple at the end. Good thing I’m a sucker for exactly this kind of stuff. Honestly after watching/reading both Saekano and this quite recently, I fu**ing want more. I want to see their relationships more, I want to see their daily lives now more, just them doing stuff in the house together, going on dates, just being cute together doing couple stuff. Plus, I kinda wanna see Sayaka's relationship with her partner but I guess that's covered in the light novels about her, god I hope it is, otherwise I threw my money away, just kidding. How do their carreers go, what is each of them doing, who marries first, who gets kids first (ok duh this one is kinda obvious xD), will Maki ever get to experience love himself, probably not because the implication goes heavily in the direction of him being ace, though even some people who are ace do get into relationships, so maybe he will at least try once too. I could read 8 more volumes of just them doing daily live stuff and it would never be enough. The last volume, volume 8, from beginning to end was so satisfying to read, so sweet, so cute, so wholesome, so ... I don't know ... it was just SO GOOD. Just because of that and because I want more 9/10
ENJOYMENT/EMOTIONAL IMPACT:
As you can see already from how long this review is and from the contents of it, I’d say I almost enjoyed it a little too much, I mean I AM writing this review at like 4:30am and I have to get up for work at 6, so there’s definitely something wrong with me here.
Alright, I wrote the rough draft for this at 4:30am, it's currently 11am and I added some things. But once I started I just couldn’t put it down anymore and just HAD to know what comes next. I did even read it twice completely in just 3 days and I'm already planning on another reread. 10/10
So overall I can recommend this for every fan of a good romance manga. Don’t let the fact that this is a Shoujo Ai/ Yuri manga put you off of this if you’re not really into watching or reading that because it handles its topics with the utmost care and sensitivity, much more even than your typical m/f romance stories. Seriously, please read this. I have given a few 9/10s in this reviews to some parts but quite honestly this is a masterpiece. Simple as that. In my personal ranking it gets a deduction of 0.5 points because of the fact that simply a lot of the ideas for the story were unoriginal ones that you can find in every romance or school slice of life. BUT as said above all the ideas even if they weren't that original were used incredibly well and the relationships between the characters are some of the best I've seen.
Well, that was that, and now I want to make 2 specific additions for this Anilist version because after I looked back at this review in my re-read last summer, I couldn’t just leave them unsaid (also to get a little more personal element in this, because being way too personal is kind of my brand on this site rn):
Number 1: Love is complex.
There is no „right“, or better said „correct“ way to love someone or to be in love. There are multiple ways in which a person can and will express their love, or show their love. Quite honestly, probably as many as there are people on this planet.
For some, love is in the feelings and advances of their actions.
For some, love is in their choices. (Yuu falls under that category)
For some, maybe love is just something distant that plays out like a movie in front of you.
Bloom Into You does a fantastically beautiful job of showcasing just exactly how different each character’s approach to love is, and the diferences and nuances in the way they express it.
In my time of watching and reading romance fiction, I don’t think I’ve come across another author yet who understands love as much as this.
Number 2: People around and close to you pick up on certain things. Maybe even before you yourself do.
I think – and can actually say I have at least a little bit of real life experience with this – that the people that are closest to you, be it a family member like in Yuu’s case her sister or in Sayaka’s case her grandma (it’s in her novels, go read those too, they’re great), or if it’s a close friend like in my case, notice your feelings more than you might initially think.
The way this is portrayed in both the main manga as well as Sayaka’s spin-off novel takes me back to my „earlier days“ (dude, the f’ck were you on about when you typed this, that was just like 5-6 years ago) when I started to slowly come out as bisexual to my friends one by one. The first one was kind of a fun one, too, actually, because we were just hanging out one evening and drinking a bit and playing dice and stuff. I may or may not have had a little bit too much to drink that night and the longer it went on made more and more random comments from my little place at the corner of the table, and in my head it just kinda made click and my brain was like „ah fuck it, this is as perfect a time to tell them as any other“ and just hamfisted a comment about it in in the middle of the game round. The only answer I got from my (male) best friend – we were 4 people in total, including me – was a
yeah, good for you, we figured anyway, can you roll the f’ing dice now please
and I found that quite a refreshing reaction, especially considering some of the usual other ones you get (and I have gotten later) that say stuff like „but don’t fall in love with one of us“ (<- or a question about that if I ever did or some sht) or getting asked about basically my whole life story with that aspect of myself (like, ugh, I get that you’re curious, but I don’t want that to be the ONLY thing I ever talk about with you. I just wanna live the same way as before I told you xD) or whatever others I can’t think of right now (cuz there’s a lot).
My brother for some reason also knew (I think one of my ex-boyfriends might have told him cuz they were friends, too, and he was close with that one’s sister or something…) and at this point for pretty much everyone it’s just an „open secret“ that everyone knows but no one really talks about, unless there’s an occasion, too. (the obvious one would be me starting to go out with a guy, not that that has happened in the last few years….)
But I feel like I’m digressing a bit too much here, so I’ll get back on the manga now:
To me, it just feels so…. real…. how these characters, either actively telling them they notice (Miyako for Sayaka in the main manga) or keeping it to themselves first to not overstep (like Rei for Yuu), stand behind them and support them from the shadows in their endeavors of love.
This, added with my new-found love for every single character (and hey, they even get more spotlight in Sayaka’s novel JUST like I wanted!) and story-beat in this re-read, I’ll just straight up (there’s nothing straight about this*) higher my score up to a full
It’s almost scary how accurate all of the statements I made about my feelings on other characters or stories in this review still are, 2 and a half years later now….
What’s also kind of scary is just how many new LGBT+ people are suddenly around you in your circle of friends (or rather extended circle of friends and acquaintances) after one takes the first step. Like they all wait for whatever reason and after seeing the reaction and support the first one got they all start to come out of their holes one by one, or… well… out of their closet.
In short
This is my favorite romance ever written. Bar none.
Volume 8 is just sugar on top of sugar on top of another layer of sugar and deserves a spot in a royal hall of fame of romance manga.
*I have developed this weird habit that every time I talk about one of my yuri or BL reads and use the words "straight" / "straight up", my mouth immediately starts to move on its own to say
there's nothing straight about this
and I don't know how to stop at this point.
Help? xD
"Sound! Euphonium" or "how to create the most relatable character in fiction"
My love letter to Kyoto Animation
Please don’t make choices you know you’re going to regret…
Please don’t give up, not until you’ve done everything you can!
Please watch both seasons of this show, then Liz and the Blue Bird - which is also a masterpiece
Liz and the Blue Bird
then the sequel movie
Sound Euphonium The Movie Our Promise A Brand New Day
and then the most recent special
Tokubetsuhen Hibike Euphonium Ensemble Contest
for the fullest realization of this emotional journey
and to finish just in time for the third season to start in Spring of next year.
That is the only one I could see having a realistic chance of surpassing Aria the Origination as my favorite anime of all time.
I've been having somewhat of a very odd day today, with all kinds of mixed events happening, arguments and falling outs with friends, a surprisingly hectic day at work, a misunderstanding between me and a family member, disappointment in the local grocery store not having the item I have been eyeing for a while in stock at the moment, or said local grocery store's deposit vending maching not accepting my empty bottles as bottle deposit.
Why does this all matter, you ask?
It doesn't. Not really, at least.
I honestly just need SOMETHING for my intro to get into the transition to talk about what I wanna talk about here:
In spite of all this, or maybe even because of it, my evening has been filled with creativeness and a whole lot of emotion. And a lot of that stems from me thinking about this show's protagonist, Kumiko Oumae, because of a silly little challenge I'm doing on this site at the moment simply for the heck of it.
So, in lieu of an actual "review" in the true sense of the word, and much different in style from the reviews I have previously done on my MAL account (do check those out, I'm actually quite proud of a few of them ^^), I want to bring to all of you the word-salad below - the biggest reason for my love of this show - highlighting just exactly why I love Kumiko as much as I do.
Whenever I think about Sound Euphonium, the first thing I think about - even before the absolutely GORGEOUS visuals ,seriously I think this alongside the Monogatari Series is THE best animated series out there just LOOK AT THAT!
and the perfect use of its sfx and music in its honestly mindblowing performances (don't watch this video if you haven't seen all there is from the show, cuz this is from the sequel movie and is best experienced after Liz and the Blue Bird)
is just how human the characters are, and first and foremost how human Kumiko is.
Kumiko Oumae is my favorite character. But what exactly does that mean? And why is that?
She is not only my favorite female character in anime, nor just my favorite female character in general, no, she is overall my single favorite character in ALL of fiction. Period. With a very high margin between her and number 2.
And it all boils down to a single word.
Funnily enough, this hasn't always been the case. Not even after first finishing Sound Euphonium. Mind you, I already liked her a lot when I first watched the show, I'd say top 50 definitely, but not more than that at first. After I watched SE for the first time, I kinda fell into a little hole of emptyness. I watched it at a time where I binged a show like this in 2 days, then immediately moved on to the next doing the same, over and over. Hell, this was a time where I watched 120(!!!) episodes of Gintama in 4 days.
Not with this, though.
After this, I didn't watch ANY new show for about 3 weeks I think.... because I couldn't get this one out of my head, especially the second season. So, over the course of time I found myself drawn to rewatching clips and bits of this again and again and again. The more and more I watched and rewatched these things, the more I started to connect to Kumiko, on a MUCH deeper level than I had initially realized. And then I once again stumbled upon a little scene in season 2 episode 10, not even the big outburst Kumiko has in there toward Asuka, from which the above inserted quote stems but a much more understated one that - in my humble opinion - gets overlooked WAY too much:
The scene of Kumiko riding the train. That's when I realized: Kumiko is me.
So, for a little context, putting it into spoiler tags, so go ahead at your own risk, but if you're here you probably already know anyway, and it's also not as if they're giving away too much, so you can safely look at them:
Kumiko had just had a little moment of reconciliation with her older sister after an argument because of the decision her sister made that she now regrets, in which she gets asked "when I go away/move out, would you be sad/lonely?". At the same time, there was her senpai in her club Asuka going through a very similar situation as her sister, that she wanted to do sth about, but doesn't know how yet. And she stands on this train, pondering about everything going on, thinks back to her sister's question and realizes "of course, I'd be sad and lonely." - and ends up breaking down in tears in the middle of her train ride, with the nice little touch of the camera panning over to the reaction of a pair of what I presume to be sisters standing close to her, who approximately have the same age gap as Kumiko and her sister.
This, to me, made her feel so much more .... human ... than any other character I've seen before (and after for that matter.). She is a character whose shoes I could actually put myself into, I could identify with her, her struggles, her emotions, the development she went through. Her development inspired ME to become a better person, or just improve myself SOMEHOW, even if in the tiniest little bits and pieces.
And when I say "I can identify with her", I don't mean in the usual "she is so me fr fr" kinda way a lot of people do and a lot of characters aim for, no, I mean I KNOW the kinds of struggles she went through, I KNOW the kinds of feelings she experiences, because I also went through them in my life.
I have a brother 6 years older than me and saying "I've always had a rocky relationship with him" would be a HUGE understatement, even today I'm not exactly clear on my feelings about or for him, I can certainly tell it's NOT respect. Maybe it's a kind of familial love, I don't know I haven't really had a heart to heart talk with him at any point in my life when we weren't both drunk or at least a little bit tipsy.... and even then, most of the conversations we have drunk center around anime and manga...
Coming from a background of having now ACTIVELY played in a marching band for 17 years, and learned for almost 20 overall, I had my own arc of: starting to learn the instrument, coming to like my instrument, trying to improve, hitting a wall with it and the satisfaction of overcoming said wall. Even last month I stumbled upon a wall because of a new piece we started playing that just has a lot of hurdles for us in the rhythm section (I play snare drum, btw.)
That's why I resonate with this little scene in episode 12 of season 1 so much:
And I've also had these moments, so much going on in my life at the same time, that I couldn't keep up anymore, that overwhelmed me, that made me crumble down and break down in tears. I remember a specific time where I was incredibly stressed at my old job - this is now already almost 3 years ago - and after a hard day on my drive home I suddenly just got hit like a truck by a wave of anxiety and depression - quite frankly completely out of nowhere and EXTREMELY inconvenient on the german Autobahn at tempo 160 km/h - and start crying my heart out.
These are the moments I find myself drawn back to Kumiko, and Sound Euphonium as a whole, and find comfort in them. I know that no matter how deep or dark the abyss I fall into is gonna be, this is where I need to go to find my way out of it, and find the courage to start moving forward again.
__
I've said at the beginning that my feelings for Kumiko can all be summarized in one single word.
That word... ultimately... is: