ararcosapphire
October 18, 2024
RecommendedWell-written
I haven't bothered to write reviews about things I've seen yet, but I'm so flabbergasted at the reception to this show that I felt compelled to do so. After trying out the show on a whim, I found it so well-crafted and compelling that I was certain it was some sort of sleeper hit, and when I checked MAL, I found this dismal rating for it. I guess it's one of those cases where I just don't get what other people are thinking. What I love the most about this show is that the characters have deeply-developed personalities. You don't get--wait, let me amend that, becauseapparently my view is somehow a minority one. I, personally, don't get the sense that the characters are just there to serve one-note roles. They can't be described with a summary one-liner. They often start going on about things they're interested in, when those things aren't there simply for the sake of moving the plot forward. Like even with the background family characters--you just find yourself in the middle of a scene where they're talking about the WW2 aircraft they appreciate. Why? It has nothing to do with the plot, and that particular discussion is never referenced again. It's there to give you a sense that these are people living their lives, with their own things going on, not just performing a scene for the sake of the viewer. And I love that. It makes the world as it's presented feel so rich. It's exactly the sort of thing that I see in real life, that makes me feel like I'm with people I can get along with. People who have passion, and opinions, and just find joy in expressing themselves through their interests.
And that's something that permeates this show. It's not once or twice, it's simply how every scene is presented. Naori can hardly have a conversation without talking in terms she's used to--references to the stuff she's read or watched. And that just feels like...a real person to me. The interplay between her and Jun reminds me so much of how I was growing up, talking to my friends in terms of Star Wars or whatnot. That stuff was what we oriented our lives around. Usually, characters like that in anime are handled as one-dimensional otaku, obsessed with one particular made up thing and having it be played off for laughs. But instead, here, it's just integrated into who the characters are; everything flows naturally as a result, and you actually see why people are friends. Instead of merely being told that they are and accepting it as a conceit of a TV show. Normally, characters are some platonic ideal, or at the heart of some unimaginable struggle, but here we have characters grounded in the mere complexity of human experience. I just love that sense that they have lives beyond what we see on screen.
Even Jun's friend, who basically is there to be a sounding board or point out how we the viewer might feel about the situations Jun finds himself in, nevertheless feels like a developed person with his own values and wants and personality. A lot of this is handled by the realistic and rapid pacing of the dialogue. TV shows usually take the approach of giving each line its own space to breathe, so everything is easily digested. But the conversations in this show are paced more like you'd expect from high school kids--they're excitable, they want to get their words out, they nearly talk over each other. It again makes things feel more real and engaging, and less like a performance being put on for an audience. I love this aspect of the show so much, and wish it were more common. But back to the character of "the Professor", his inclusion is pretty critical to lampshade some of the things the audience is thinking, and give Jun a chance to explain why the situation isn't so rosy from his point of view. I've seen in a lot of the reviews that people get "annoyed" at the conflict in the show and don't get why it isn't resolved simply. And I just don't get how you can actually watch the show, which gives the characters a chance to explain why they can't, and come away with that impression. But nevertheless, people seem to.
I also love all the references in the show; I feel like I get around 70% of them myself, and they're again not played up for the audience--the characters just make them and move on, because that's what people do. No background splashes to drive the point home. One of the few examples of non-diegetic presentation for a reference was in the last episode with the Close Encounters notes sounding when Naori does the accompanying hand signals, but it was pretty subtle. It's never in your face; the references are there because people like these characters would make them. Not to try to simply grab the attention of fans of the referenced works. I honestly get a better sense of "these people are actual geeks" than I do from, say, Genshiken. And I feel that's saying a lot.
The plot starts out the way it does in a lot of romance shows, where there's a romantic conflict. I've seen reviewers tear down Rumi for the actions she takes, not understanding why she would do "stupid" things and bring on a world of hardship for herself. And again...I don't get why people have that takeaway, when the show lets her explain it in great detail. To me, it seems like something that could happen. They don't have simple, black-and-white relationships. Everything is realistically complex. Siblings have love for each other, and also conflict with one another. They seek to back each other up as family, but can tick each other off simply by how they approach situations differently. This is, again, a realistic thing. I feel like the audience seems to be upset that the characters don't fit conveniently into little boxes. But people don't fit into little boxes. They have conflicting feelings all the time. And sometimes they do a bit of self-sabotage as a result. And sometimes they don't realize what impact inaction can have until it's too late. This show gets that, and it gets that in a way few other anime do. Perhaps in a way few anime fans do, going by the score.
The main minus to me, which I can't go into much detail about, is the rather inconclusive ending. I don't know if the LN goes beyond what we've seen; I don't know if we're to expect another season. If the story is continued, then that's not even much of a downside. But it's also unclear where it would go; the choices the characters have made give them few options for resolution, and the sort of non-ending we get is the only thing that clearly follows. Not to say there's nothing else that could be said; all kinds of developments could occur, relationships with other people and so on, which could really shake up the status quo. It just doesn't have a clear vector of momentum at the end, so further developments would be completely up in the air, or in fact this might be the best ending we could get.
On the technical side, I love all the visuals in this show. The characters are drawn and animated with a lot of detail. The opening animation is very engaging. I love the ending theme (and especially, that the song is presented in two versions to best accompany the mood). The voice direction is top-notch, as implied by my prior comments on the conversational pacing. I really feel that everyone involved put their heart into this show, and I really enjoyed it.
Maybe this just isn't a show for a lot of people. But for the people who get it, it's fantastic. And I'm just tired of seeing the dogpile that happened here by people who, I guess, were expecting more of a typical lighthearted romcom full of tropes and stock characters.
