When you watch anime there are always little moments that stick out to you.  Maybe the actors delivered a particularly funny line, the animators drew up an amazing action sequence, or the writers tug hard at your heartstrings.  In the interest of getting out of my writing rut, I’m going to share a few of my highlights from the last week.  Who knows, this might become “a thing”.  Over the past week, I particularly enjoyed some moments from Gosick, Nichijou, Steins;Gate, and AnoHana.

Gosick – Mighty Victorique

Some of you who went to school might have had those desks with the seat connected to the table.  If you ever tried to pick one of those up, you’d discover they’re a pretty hefty piece of furniture.  When they replaced the wooden desks at my school with new ones, they actually got heavier.  You would also find these desks to be a rather awkward lift.  None of this seems to matter to Victorique though…

My, how strong you are!

See, this is what happens when you make the cute one angry.  She lifts a desk above her head that probably weighs as much as she does.  Then she throws it at you.  So what if Victorique could never really lift a desk?  That Avril also got hurt in the process is a nice bonus.  Geez, she’s annoying…

Nichijou – The Afro of Holding

I tend to wear pants all the time, and I prefer ones with really deep pockets.  I don’t carry a lot of stuff most of the time, but when I do, I like the convenience.  In particular, the pants I wear to conventions have large enough pockets to hold my camcorder.  Nichijou seems particularly proud of the hyperspace arsenal, which puts my pants to shame.  But none of them can hold a candle to this…

Bet you can't pull a rabbit out of there!

I firmly believe that afros are inherently funny, so this short scene was already off to a good start.  Not many people think about other uses for the ‘fro, though.  Just think of the convenience.  You can carry things in your hair!  On the other hand, try not to think about where that pancake has been…

Steins;Gate – Dirty Minds

Most of the time, sexual innuendo doesn’t give me much amusement.  It always seems like the lazy way out of a joke.  The situation or the story isn’t inherently funny, but if you plug sex into the equation, suddenly it’s hilarious!  Yeah, not really.  However, when a writer puts some effort into setting the joke up, even requiring past events to make it work, you can end up with this little gem…

This really speaks for itself.

If you don’t understand that line, then congratulations!  You’re innocent.  Of course, I might have just totally boned your innocence, and if so, I apologize.

AnoHana – Simple Pleasures

I’m grown up now.  I’m 22 years old, I’m about to graduate from college, and I’m gearing up for my first long-term professional job.  It’s time to enter “the real world.”  Life and its stresses can easily bog you down, especially under pressures to succeed and make ends meet every month.  Occasionally, you just need to relax…

We did it, we did it, we did it, YEAH!

Several of us in the aniblogosphere have written posts about Pokemon in the past.  Personally, it reminds me of carefree days when I’d sit there with Gameboy in hand, tracking down Pokemon with my Venusaur while waiting for the next episode to air.  It’s a silly little game, pointless even, but it’s comforting.  And sometimes, like in AnoHana, it’s the silly little victories with your friends that can mean the most to you.

With that, I’ve wrapped up my thoughts for the past week.  If you’ve got any highlights of your own, feel free to share them.  Hopefully, I’ll be back with more next week!

And it all came to an end. 10 years ago today, on March 16, 2001, the grand finale, and the longest episode of FLCL, FLCLimax (originally Furi Kura) was released on DVD. It brought forth the 3rd amazing episode in a row and also provided a worthy finish to this great series, one that left me speechless and sad that it was over. But it didn’t leave me wanting more. Rather, it made me happy that the work was so complete, so well constructed from start to finish.

This is the last post in a series of posts I’ve made celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of each of the episodes of FLCL. As for all the posts before this, I did not rewatch the episode before writing this and instead chose to write based on my memories. The last time I watched the series was in the summer of 2009. You can read the previous posts here: (1 & 2: Fooly Cooly and Firestarter) (3: Marquis de Carabas) (4: Full Swing) (5: Brittle Bullet).

I don’t know if it came to me upon first viewing or later on, but what stayed with me was how well this final and the 1st episode bookended the series (indeed, there was a symmetry to the whole 6 episode series in some aspect). The most obvious thing the 2 episodes had in common was the manga dinner scene, which was an exact copy of the one in the 1st episode, at least at the start. There was also the title of the episode, Furi Kura, just 1 letter away from Furi Kuri, the title of the 1st episode. The use of The Pillows’s One Life right before the halfway cut as Naota bemoaned the boring life in this town while crying into Haruko’s bosom was similar to the series’s cold open leading to the title shot, in which he was being held by Mamimi. Right down to the overhead view of the iron-shaped Medical Mechanica factory. On a higher level, the episode started off with a slow, melancholy, almost dejected mood before Haruko entered and brought life to the setting, much like the 1st episode. And there was the epilogue as well, showing Ninamori taking Naota’s, a much more appropriate girl for him than Mamimi in the 1st episode.

These couple frames in which Naota became doe eyed somehow felt so significant.

Of course, to get to the epilogue this episode provided the climax proper. The yellow saturated finale, starting with The Pillows’s Last Dinosaur, followed by I Think I Can when Naota took Atomsk’s power remains one of my favorite scenes in anime. It lacked the raw emotional magic of the episode 4 climax or the high octane action of the episode 5 climax, but it was a worthy finish to this chain of 3 incredible episode climaxes. Seeing Haruko really upset for the 1st time was a bit jarring, and it would be some time later that I realized its significance in the series as a whole.

And it delivered the single most powerful moment in the series, when Naota, having beaten Haruko handily, dove at her and… said, “I like you” before stealing a kiss from her (the fansub I had translated the “suki” as “I’m in love with you,” which sounded even more powerful to me, though I’d learn later it wasn’t the best translation). There was something amazing about this simple moment, when our hero finally got the guts to say what he said and do what he did. It was an ultimate moment of catharsis, when all the emotional tension and pressure that had been building up throughout the series was released, with a simple, “I like you” and a kiss. The first one he initiated, one he had wanted so badly from the start.

This image was my wallpaper for a long time after I watched this.

In typical FLCL fashion, it was followed by a literal explosion, but all that was just the aftermath, the falling action before the denouement. I remember being heavily moved by the ending. Some of it was the sadness from watching the series end. Some of it was that it was a bittersweet ending, in which both Haruko and Mamimi left Naota. But more than anything, the ending was one of hope, showing Naota go on with his life, moving on to middle school, with a girl who genuinely liked him, not one who just wanted to use him. Mamimi’s story ended with hope as well, as she moved on from her stuck crush on Tasuku and left the town that had been nothing but abusive to her, to discover her own path (she likely learned a lesson about the futility of revenge as well, seeing what her “Ta-kun” this time ended up doing).

Certainly, life would not be easy for any of our protagonists. But life isn’t supposed to be. It’s about moving forward with what you have, making the best of it. This was how the most mature characters in this series – Haruko and, as this episode revealed during his conversation with Naota’s teacher Miyaji, Naota’s father – approached their lives. By the end, Naota and Mamimi had learned it as well.

Mamimi Samejima. She knew how to make smoking look cool.

Of course, this being FLCL, it was technically and artistically excellent throughout. One scene that stood out to me was Mamimi’s first meeting with the Terminal Core under the bridge, when she nonchalantly took a giant step towards it and shuffled over next to it discreetly before calmly turning to it and blowing smoke on it. There’s also a shot of her that has stayed with me, when she was enacting revenge on the scooter that had splashed her earlier in the episode, her dead eyes calmly watching the robot devour the scooter, her face only illuminated by the cigarette in her mouth.

Another memorable scene was the aforementioned hug between Naota and Haruko. When Haruko went from playfully poking fun at Naota to seriously asking him if he wanted to run away with her, when Naota’s usual barrier dropped down, his eyes swelled, and he cried into her bosom. The slow pan up to Haruko’s bored eyes as the sensor on her wrist started to clang once again, and The Pillows’s One Life fading in. It was a perfectly directed scene.

"Good bye, Naota-kun." A beautiful transition into the epilogue, Mamimi finally letting go and calling Naota by his real name.

I don’t know if or how watching the entire last half of the series in a row affected my initial reaction to it. As I’ve written before, I consider the final 3 episodes of FLCL to be a set, each a great episode in its own right with a powerful, exciting climax set to a rocking energetic song by The Pillows. The reason that they’re a set is that they worked together to form the final half of this series. Episode 4 saw Naota triumph over his fears of swinging the bat, episode 5 saw his downfall as he learned that he wasn’t “all that,” that the women around him were just using him. And episode 6 saw him triumph again, but differently. As amazing as he had been once he turned against Haruko, he wasn’t filled with joy or excitement afterward. He looked calm, almost serene, as Haruko sarcastically blamed him for losing Atomsk and said good bye.

It was as if he had finally learned that important fact, perhaps the most important fact about being an adult: there is nothing amazing or special about it. The path to adulthood isn’t one with leaps and bounds, it’s one defined by its gradual progression, of growing accustomed to new things little by little.

Naota wasn’t there yet, but he learned what it meant to grow up. And that was all I needed to see.

And as one story ends, another begins. However, it is not FLCL's role to tell that story. This is how it should end.

The best thing I can say about Tsukasa’s arc is that at least it was the best one next to Sae’s. Tsukasa was a far more complex character than any other heroine in Amagami SS, which made for some entertaining drama at the first half. However, as this show has done time and again, it failed to follow through on its potential, and the arc ended all too conveniently. The final episode, a separate story dedicated to a 7th girl Risa, was a fitting end to the series that brought forward everything that was wrong with this show.

It started off with promise, to be sure. The cliffhanger ending to episode 21 was well done (and really hot, by the way), giving us a glimpse of the selfish side of Tsukasa for the first time. And though her coming clean almost immediately at the start of episode 22 was a bit disappointing, it didn’t change the fact that there was still something dark, something interesting within her. Plus, that episode also had more of Tsukasa’s odd sister. The mystery of their relationship was actually intriguing.

But as has been the case so many times already with this show, all the potential from the first couple episodes was wasted and never amounted to anything. The notebook wasn’t brought up again until it was burned, without giving us much of a clue as to its contents. Tsukasa’s apparently strained relationship with her sister wasn’t explored further.

Sorry, apparently you weren't important enough to have explained to us why your sister was so ashamed of you.

What was explored a bit in the 2nd half of the arc was Tsukasa’s bullheadedness and hubris when it came to preparing the Founder’s Festival. Her getting bullied was another plot point that had potential. But this was solved all too simply by Tsukasa seemingly flipping a switch and becoming a different person in episode 3. There was more potential with Junichi confronting her about this, saying that that wasn’t the Tsukasa he liked, but things just fizzled at the end with a good hug and crying about a bad Santa memory from her childhood.

Where was the real identity crisis? Where was the struggle to find out who she truly was? And, most importantly, where was the romance? At least in some of the other arcs, we got to see the romance between the couples develop organically. In this one, Tsukasa just ups and decides that she likes Junichi. And, of course, Junichi accepts. Who could say no to the hot class president?

What was in that notebook again? You only hastily confronted the protagonist while wearing just a swimsuit when you realized he had it. Couldn't be anything important.

This arc’s ending wasn’t downright offensive like Haruka’s, but it also featured a “10 years later” ending, which means that the series has been bookended with arcs featuring such endings. And just like with Haruka’s ending, this one served as a reminder that we missed out on all the interesting parts of the romance, the struggles and conflicts sure to arise between the two after they become lovers. Instead, we get to see them already with a family, happily ever after, etc.

So this was yet another unsatisfying, uninteresting arc. That’s 5/6 for those keeping score at home. To its credit, Tsukasa’s arc remained potentially interesting for the longest time with potentially the most complex and juicy character developments compared to the other failed arcs. But it couldn’t escape its seemingly inevitable fate as an Amagami SS story of hastily wrapping things up with no facing of the real issues and no exploring of meaningful plot or character threads.

Series End and Risa episode

If you’ve read this far down, it should be abundantly clear that I did not enjoy Amagami SS. The final episode really epitomized the attributes that made the show fail as a piece of romantic fiction. Risa’s stalking behavior was mysteriously successful, merely for the convenience of the show. Seriously, if girls were that easily swayed by one doctored photo shown to them by someone they didn’t know, the entire genre of drama would cease to exist. Furthermore, Risa’s disturbing and borderline insane behavior was accepted by Junichi without a blink of an eye because, well, she’s the heroine this time, which means he had to accept her. This also meant that this actually interesting aspect of Risa’s personality, one that could have been fodder for character development, was glossed over. And finally, everything got resolved easily by a few simple apologies.

I’m not even sure “wish fulfillment” would the proper way to describe this piece of work. Because, generally, works of that sort have people going through interesting lives, having interesting interactions with interesting people, reaching a resolution in some interesting way. Amagami SS gives just hints of those before skipping all that right to the “resolution” part. The only times when this show was actually entertaining was when it was actively making fun of itself – as was the case with Sae’s arc, the only good one of the lot – or presented some insane or absurd situation, such as the ramen eating scene from Ai’s arc. Everything else was sterile, devoid of humor, emotion, or drama. It was, in a word, boring.

As much as I hate the forced drama of a lot of anime – Key’s works such as Kanon or Clannad in particular – I think I prefer that to the complete lack of it in this show. Amagami SS isn’t just a show that underdelivers; it’s legitimately a bad show, void of what makes shows entertaining. Even Sae’s arc was only decent, made great by the fact that it followed – and was followed by – the very horrible arcs that it was parodying. Seen by itself, it was a slightly humorous self-referencing piece of comedy with a bad and borderline offensive romance story underneath. It may be too late for you or me, but please, tell your friends, tell your family, time spent watching this show would be better spent taking a nap. At least then, you have a chance of dreaming something with actual entertainment value.

Oh wow. Talk about leaving on a high note. The final episode of this show brought together everything that was good about this show into one hilarious, quirky, crazy, emotional, touching, moving package. What a great way to bring out the first episode in which just one story is told start to finish, with no gag transitions or lack of chronology. What started off as another story about Hotori’s naivete and rashness getting her into trouble ended up being a very touching look back at this show and all of its characters who have made it what it is.

The first half of the episode was innocent enough, with Hotori foolishly thinking she could win a literature contest to buy a new pen to replace the one given to her by her uncle, all because she excitedly modded it during the cold open with a magnifying glass without doing any research into the pen’s value. Never change, Hotori. The scene in which Hotori shows Futaba the cafe and reunites her with Toshiko served to remind us of when in the timeline this was taking place, in case we missed the title scroll. And seriously, Hotori’s mystery short story was horrible, but, of course, that was part of the charm. The super deformed adaptation was a gag that actually worked, thanks its quick pacing and wonderfully cliche writing.

But shit really hit the fan when Hotori got hit by a car in front of her house while fallen in despair over the rejection. Ironically, this accident was due to no fault of her own, as that truck really had no business going that fast that close to a gate where people might enter and exit. But regardless of whose fault it was, she was hit and quickly found herself ascending to the heavens just like the old man from a few episodes back.

There was a more mythical depiction of the afterlife using the Egyptian model, and Hotori's reaction was priceless and reminiscent of her berating of the policeman in episode 2.

There is no shortage of depictions of the afterlife in fiction, but if one were to exist in real life, surely SoreMachi’s vision of it being another typical government bureaucracy would come close. After all, why should things become all neat and tidy for us humans after death? Even after passing, it turns out, people have to wait in lines, fill out forms, work for money. Except here, a job might be of being one of the angels to guide up newly dead people, and one spends one’s earned money by “haunting” photos of friends down below using a photo booth. Very pragmatic, to say the least.

The heart and soul of the episode was getting to see how everyone reacted to Hotori’s hospitalization, of course. It was an emotional look at virtually every single side character in this show. I have to admit I teared up a bit during the scene with Takeru and Yukiko. Something about seeing those two younger siblings being left behind, the older one still just a child and telling the younger one that they have to be strong was particularly powerful. There was also Sanada, who again cursed his inability to tell Hotori he liked her. Except this time, he wouldn’t get another chance.

As it all finally hits her, Hotori begins to mourn her own death.

The finality of it all was what really got to Hotori, when she realized that she would never again get to try harder next time. This scene of her coming to terms with her own death was something unexpectedly mature from this show. What Hotori regretted the most was the life full of friends and relationships she would leave behind, but at the same time, her regret was proof that her life was worthwhile. The feeling of loss was both real and heavy, even as she quickly learned to look ahead to her new life after death.

Once again, I’m inclined to make a comparison to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, with its finale. This is a comparison I don’t want to push too hard – Melancholy is a far better piece of work than this show – but there is definitely a parallel here, with the finale featuring the protagonist going through some powerful and possibly irreversible ordeal in an episode that we know takes place before many of the events that we’ve already seen. Indeed, there was never any doubt that Hotori would come back to life. It’s a bit of a shame that her memory of the afterlife was wiped clean, meaning that she was the same person before and after the events of the finale – a significant difference from the finale of Melancholy – but that didn’t take away from the emotional power of seeing our heroine face her own death. Also, having the story come full circle to her uncle’s pen was a nice touch.

Yet the Town Keeps Going also offers its own take on what "life flashing before your eyes" entails.

This was a far more emotionally affecting finale to this show than I could ever have expected. It truly lived up to its episode title, SoreMachi, by highlighting the importance of what was easily the most entertaining aspect of this show, the interpersonal relationships between the various characters. They were what provided the funniest moments in this show, but also the most powerful and touching ones. After all, more than anything, our relationship with others is what truly makes us happy.

This was definitely a much funnier episode than the last few. In showing the events of a couple of summer days in Hotori’s life, the show returned to one of its key strengths, which was showing Hotori being Hotori in her everyday interactions with others. Her dog/raccoon Josephine got much of the spotlight, and while not all that funny, she was adorable as hell, and the brief return of Moriaki-sensei was much appreciated. I applaud his resilience and creativity in trying to get math through Hotori’s thick skull, even if he is destined to (hilariously) fail.

First of all, that cold open was hilarious. The faux-subtle fanservice shots reeked of Shaft, and the continual sequence of unfortunate events that happened to Hotori was just a joy to watch. Perhaps it’s a bit cruel, but, as they say, it is a fine line that separates tragedy from comedy. The gratuitous humiliation of losing her new bikini top without even getting to go in the water, followed by the shop having no food that day was just too much. Too much for Hotori, too, who has proven time and again to be quite the crybaby. Who, as in earlier episodes, broke out into tears all too quickly for comedic effect.

Besides Hotori, Josephine, the Arasihiyama famiy’s dog/raccoon, was the star of this episode. Although she got displaced by the uninspired “poorman/richman” comics in the transitions, she got a ton of screen time in the actual half episodes. There doesn’t seem to be much to her other than that it’s left open as to whether she’s a dog (as everyone in the Arashiyama family refers her) or a raccoon (as she appears and says in Hotori’s dream). Her perception of the pecking order at the family was curious, not just in that the only human below her was Hotori’s father, but also in that Hotori’s little sister was placed above her little brother, despite the fact that she’s younger. I guess it shows that women really do have the power in the family.

"Josephiiiine!"

Josephine seems to be very important to Hotori, a fact that made for one of the funniest scenes from the show in recent memory, when Hotori, having dreamed that Josephine decided to leave her to go to the mountains, ran out into the rain and despaired when she didn’t find her in her doghouse. Of course, she didn’t realize that Josephine was warm and dry in the house with the rest of the family, watching her overdramatic reaction with confusion.

She appeared again in Hotori’s dream in the second half of the episode, while Hotori was sleeping in Futaba’s bed after doing a bunch of inconsiderate things at her apartment that ended up pissing her off. This was presumably right before they headed to the beach together for the cold open. Left behind at the cafe were Toshiko and Hiroyuki, sharing an awkward moment as they both cursed their own inability to take action toward the objects of their affections. Toshiko’s lightning paced internal monologues continue to be entertaining and cute. I do wonder why they weren’t invited to the beach as well. The whole set up to the half-episode was left in the dark – why was Hotori at Futaba’s apartment in the first place? Could it have to do with the secret they share regarding aliens from the previous episode?

Just kiss her already, you fool! She's hot, she's got a great pair... of glasses, and she's totally cool with your porn collection!

The preview for next episode titles it, curiously enough, “SoreMachi,” the common shorthand version of the title of this show. Makes sense, I guess, as it’s the final episode. Given the complete lack of an overarching narrative to this show, I can’t predict what’s going to go down in the series finale. I just hope that it will be a continuation of everything that this show got right – the character and situational comedy – and that it won’t waste its precious time with the gimmicks and gags the show had done so poorly on. Even in this relatively strong episode, the gags of the “poorman/richman” transitions fell flat. The show has yet to climb back to the highs of episode 7 after the big drop off in episode 8, but this episode has given it a chance to finish strong.

The ending art for this episode was wonderful, parodying the promotional art for The Tatami Galaxy while also being true to Yet the Town Keeps Going

Well, what do you know, looks like this show is going full on scifi fantasy. Last week, it was time travelers, this week, it’s aliens and ghosts. That’s not to say that this episode was driven by the scifi/fantasy elements. Rather, they were used mainly as convenient devices to facilitate the storytelling, much like in the previous episode.

That first half really didn’t have any business being as enjoyable as it was, but it was. I found it so funny because of my own incredulity at the situation being shown on screen. Hotori accidentally battling it out with aliens? Then Futaba bringing out a story of her own, with that fixing device? Was this show really going down this path? The things that happened weren’t actually all that funny, but they didn’t need to be. Just having Hotori really run into aliens was enough.

I’m reminded of the aliens in Pani Poni Dash! They were used as comic relief, shown to us only when convenient but rarely actually affecting anything in the main story. Similarly, if the aliens do show up again, I expect it to be in a similar context as in this episode, where they’re used for a gag instead of being drivers for the plot. Of course, there’s the issue that Futaba still has that alien fixing tool, which I hope will make some sort of appearance in the remaining episodes.

In most anime, this type of encounter, especially on a school rooftop, means only one thing. But this show isn't like most anime.

I’ve been noticing similarities between this show and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya due to the non-chronologically told high school romance, the culture festival concert, and the scifi/fantasy elements of the past 2 episodes, and Futaba was definitely giving Haruhi vibes with her desire for an extraordinary life. It was ironic that Hotori, who is always the one to go on about her fantastical desires, whether it be to date her math teacher or to become a high school detective, was so down that she actually ran into aliens. Not sure what the deal is with that – though it was funny to see Futaba jump immediately to her period as the cause – I suppose this is meant to show us that despite all her quirks, Hotori is someone who does have a firm grasp of reality.

As for the 2nd segment focusing on the ghost of the head maid’s late husband, I didn’t think much of it. It was boring, likely because this was an all new character whose life and times we’ve never been privy to before. I suppose it was meant to be sweet that the head maid still prays/talks to her husband and leaves an offering each night, which gives us a bit more insight into her character, but she’s still not that interesting. One thing I did like about the 2nd segment was that it allowed the gag involving Sanada’s prayer, letting us see it for a 2nd time (shot-for-shot, I believe, though I didn’t bother to check), but realizing that the ghost of that old man was there the whole time. I was hoping that he would make a more meaningful comment about the follies and joys of youth instead of basically repeating the narrator’s line that gods must have it tough to grant such wishes.

Shaft uses one of their favorite cinematographic techniques - reflection - to good effect here, showing us the cat seeing both Sanada and the ghost.

With this episode, I’m reminded of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, a show that was pretty explicit about its lack of continuity, often ending its half- or third-episodes with irreversible events such as killing key or all main characters or destroying the world. Yet the Town Keeps Going does have continuity, but it has shown us that it’s comfortable with throwing in anything it wants at any time it feels like it, and it will find a way to make sure that it doesn’t affect the continuity.

The show is really living up to its name – yet the town keeps going. It hasn’t spent enough time developing any of the main characters, instead jumping back and forth between the various goings on of the town, giving side characters or meaningless events a too much screen time. The show has been brilliant when developing the relationships between the main characters, but it has fallen into a rut the past few episodes of just going through the motions. There are only a couple of episodes left in this series, and if it returns to the character development, it still could finish strong. Next episode’s title, Kon’s Summer of Tears, makes me hopeful that it will.

I really liked the final drawing for this episode. If the show stayed with the theme of this picture, it could have been much better.

I wish I could say that the show bounced back strong after last week’s disappointing affair, but this episode was pretty limp as well. It was certainly more entertaining than last week’s, but not by much. To the show’s credit though, the ending twist to the second half was so unexpected and funny that it might have made up for the entire episode.

It feels as though the show has been packing more mini clips around the now standard half-episode segments, and the cold open to this episode was probably the most significant one yet. And it was actually really funny. I liked how it started off with Shizuka just finishing reading The Gift of the Magi, a classic and touching short story about a very poor husband and wife having to come up with Christmas gifts for each other (if you haven’t read it yet, you should do it. It’s only like 5 pages). The couple that comes into Shizuka’s shop in the cold open clearly don’t have such a loving relationship, though they do seem to have a lot of money. Watching Shizuka calmly and blatantly exploit them for financial gain was a riot.

Then came the first half episode, which was all too uneventful. It drove home one of my main problems with the so-called “slice of life” genre, which is that “slice of life” shows, in order to be successful, rarely show us just another slice of the characters’ lives; they have to show us something special, unusual, or interesting in some way. I guess Toshiko’s table tennis game against Harue sort of counts. At least the reference to Harue’s special training (via drums) from the previous episode was a nice touch.

Somehow, the shaggy black hair makes Futaba look even cooler, if that is possible. Too bad she didn't actually appear this episode.

The most enjoyable part was seeing the middle school versions/caricatures of Toshiko, Harue, and (especially) Futaba. It seems that the people at their middle school really took table tennis seriously. Hotori’s insertion into – and disbelief at – the scared townspeople flashback was quite funny. I did find it odd that Toshiko was shown to be a lefty in table tennis, even though she’s a righty when playing the violin. Since dexterity and precision are required for both activities, it would be highly unusual for someone to use opposite hands for them. I wonder if it was purposeful.

And then for the second half, featuring Shizuka doing some detective work of her own, all in order to track down a cookie with no source. Really, what made this segment was that completely unexpected ending. Yet the Town Keeps Going has been wacky, off the wall, and crazy at times, but it has never broken continuity or its own internal logic as far as I can recall, so I have no choice but to take this at face value and accept that, yes, there really are time travelers in this show which has suddenly gone down the route of science fiction.

I liked this depiction of a dream hallway. Very accurate, I thought.

Of course, chances are good that this is just a one time thing in order to facilitate this one gag, but already in this one episode, there’s more to this little side story. Specifically, the fact that the couple from the cold open were both from the future – the green haired wife being one of the people at the conference and the husband being the time traveler. Does this mean anything, or were the guys at Shaft just having fun using the same characters? What about the allusions to ancient artifacts and the effects of time on precious objects during the opening narration of the previous two episodes? And was Hotori right when she thought that a warp zone had been responsible for her falling off to the side in the first half of this episode? Is there some sort of time travel twist yet to be revealed in this show? Could this show be far more similar to Shaft’s other “seaside” cafe show, Natsu no Arashi! than anyone had previously thought!?

Probably not. It’s more likely to be a running joke, similar to the aliens in Pani Poni Dash! instead of being an actual plot point. Or maybe it won’t be a running joke at all, but just something to spice up this one episode that badly needed it. At least this show is keeping me guessing. But I’m hoping that the show quickly returns to the situational comedy that it had so excelled at instead of continuing with the gags and gimmicks that made these past 2 episodes so dull in comparison.

I mention Haruhi Suzumiya, and the show follows up with a culture festival concert, then time traveling. What's next, an island murder mystery? That would be right up Hotori's alley.

Well, this one was a bit of a misstep. It wasn’t bad, it was amusing enough, but the style of humor was very different from the norm, resulting in something decidedly more run of the mill and boring than usual.

The first half turned out to be more about wacky vending machine food than anything else. Which was certainly quirky, but not all that funny. It was just cute girls doing cute things, without any hook, and that has already been done to death in the anime world. It’s not fun anymore. The faraway and silhouette shots, which Shaft usually uses to good effect, were actually kind of ugly and only served to remind us of how much money they must be saving. And I don’t know what to make of Harue’s surprise appearance at the end of the segment, other than that maybe they wanted to get their money’s worth from Ryoko Shiraishi, as she had to be in the 2nd half of the episode.

Seriously, this was this show's Chocolate Cornet Moment. I was impressed that Hotori knew what Esperanto was, though.

And no sooner than I start drawing comparisons to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya does Yet the Town Keeps Going bring out a concert-at-the-culture-festival episode. I appreciate that it didn’t go the Haruhi/K-On/Angel Beats route of having (what’s supposed to be) a normal, poppy rock song, but rather stuck with the old timey whimsical tune similar to the ED. The peculiar collection of instruments certainly fit well with the whole off-mainstream feel of the song.

But they could have milked this culture festival concert story a lot more. I don’t even mean stretching it out over more episodes or even to a full episode, though either would certainly work given that over a month passes through the course of the half episode. I mean using the story to show us more interesting interactions between the protagonists. They are what have made this show entertaining, after all. Instead, the sequence of events was surprisingly straightforward. Futaba wants to perform at the culture festival. She gets a time slot at the stage. She recruits Harue on drums (with some manipulation using table tennis), learns that Toshiko and Hotori play instruments, recruits them, then they perform. Not much else.

The pan-up of Futaba before this scene was great. If Shaft still did the still-pan-ups that they used to do so much of in the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei shows, I would've had a great stitched shot of her.

There were many chances for humor that were simply missed or glossed over. How about that whole month when the 4 had to learn the song and practice? When did they choose to go with the maids theme, and why? Who made Futaba’s stunning outfit? Then what about the days of the actual festival? How did they spend their time? What sorts of fun misadventures did our unique heroines run into? They’re not for us to find out.

I did like how the ED sequence ended up being genuine; just as Futaba had been revealed to play the bass a couple episodes back, Hotori does play the accordion – an instrument that fits her eccentric nature, taught to her by the head maid – Toshiko does play the violin, Harue does play the drums, and they all do perform together in maid outfits. But then again, this sort of gag had been done before, in Lucky Star, with the OP sequence. Except that Kyoto Animation is much better at animation than Shaft is. As cute as the concert was, the fact that the instruments didn’t exactly match up to the music was a huge distraction. That’s just one of those things that I’ve come to expect in this post-Haruhi anime world.

This should look familiar to anyone who's seen the ending to Lucky Star. I am unfortunately one of them.

So this week’s episode was lackluster, especially after the both hilarious and powerful episode it was following. In fact, it was the worst since the bland first episode. The show bounced back strong after that initial misstep and kept going to this point, so I’m hopeful that it will start hitting its marks again next week and continue on to the end.

Like Kaoru way back a few months ago, Rihoko was someone who already shared a friendship with Junichi, though, in her case, it went way back to childhood, not just a few years. At points while watching this arc and Kaoru’s, the same thought occurred to me several times: what if Junichi doesn’t “win” this time around? What if these girls who start out as friends, end up as friends as well? I thought it would be a great idea, the ultimate FU to the viewers expecting the couple to end up together as expected.

Well, be careful what you wish for.

The arc started off giving me hope, especially with Rihoko’s narration stating outright that she had an unrequited love for Junichi. The problem was that things never went further than that. Instead of focusing on the relationship between Junichi and Rihoko, the show focused on the succession of the tea ceremony club. With the ice skating and Christmas festival, the show showed sparks of impending romance at times, but in the end, Rihoko explicitly gave up – though I don’t know that she even tried – and remained “happy” remaining still with her unrequited love.

Rihoko’s arc was even more similar to Kaoru’s arc in that way – sterile and devoid of emotion, which is why they didn’t end up together in this arc and why everything felt so forced and artificial in Kaoru’s. Except Rihoko’s arc suffered in all 4 episodes instead of just the last 2. Also like the Kaoru arc, this one didn’t exploit the preexisting friendship between the 2 enough. Since Rihoko was a childhood friend, there was a lot more material there to use, but besides a few amusing flashbacks in the first half of the arc, the fact proved to be inconsequential. Really, for these 2 heroines, the “friends” thing was more of a feature to be checked off than a genuinely meaningful character trait.

The arc needed more scenes like this. Many more.

It’s telling that the climactic moment of the arc and the final scene was about Junichi and Rihoko running the tea club. Where was the charged emotional content? Where was the romance? When I envisioned Junichi “losing,” I pictured it as a true loss, a separation of two people who have feelings for each other but who can’t be together for whatever reason. I was foolish to hope for such complexity and drama from Amagami SS, I suppose.

Another source of hope at the beginning that was quickly dashed was that Rihoko was narrating at the start. Could the arc switch around the main character, have it follow her instead of him? Unfortunately, no. That particular narrative trick was abandoned quickly. Shame, because it could have made entertaining what was otherwise rather boring, much like how the sarcastic narration made Sae’s arc not only good but great. This arc began and ended following Rihoko as the main character, but everything was same old run of the mill in between. Or rather, it was less than run of the mill.

This Winnie the Pooh gag was pretty funny. Everything else relating to Rihoko's weight? Dull and overdone.

And what of our heroine? Rihoko was great as a side character in the other arcs, but as a protagonist proper, she was just boring. Her spinelessness with respect to Junichi’s ignorance of her feelings – even in the face of constant encouragement from her friends – was what really took down this arc. With the parties lacking the desire or the initiative, no chemistry could develop. At least she always looked cute while eating. Speaking of which, her complex about her weight stopped being funny or endearing a long time before the arc even began. And like everything else about this arc, this trait of hers didn’t develop at all and remained nothing more than a running joke.

The ED was decent, nothing to write home about. Not as good as Ai’s, which remains the best. But the cutesy animation went well with Rihoko’s innocent aura. And as I learned just recently from watching Kurenai, in which she sings the EDs, Ryoko Shintani has a fine singing voice. Ironic that the one “real” singer of the lot – Haruka’s voice actor Shizuka Itou – has had the worst singing in her ED so far, excepting Sae’s squeakfest (though everything in Sae’s arc gets a free pass thanks to the fact that the whole arc was meant to be ironic).

So this one was just a whole lot of nothing. I do give credit to the writers for having one arc end in “failure.” And I did like how it twisted the now standard format of ending things on Christmas Eve, instead placing the festival in the 2nd episode, not even halfway through the arc. But high concept alone isn’t enough to make a work good; what really matters is execution, and the execution just wasn’t there.

The tea club succession was the real story in this one. It could've been good, but too much time was spent showing Junichi and Rihoko go nowhere in there relationship. Double fail.

We’ve got one arc left, Tsukasa’s. I’m looking forward to finding out if there really is something dark behind her perfect image, but I’m certainly not looking forward to seeing how the story will fail once again. At this point, it’s safe to say that Amagami SS has been a huge disappointment. In order to redeem itself, Tsukasa’s arc will have to be the perfectly told high school love story in 4 episodes. It can be done, but I for one am not holding my breath.

One thing Hotori certainly doesn’t lack for are males in her life. We had both parts of an entire episode focusing on her relationship with her math/homeroom teacher, and now we get to see her interacting with her classmate-cum-secret-admirer Hiroyuki Sanada, then with her little brother Takeru. We’ve passed the halfway point now, and the show has hit its stride, as this was the best episode yet, giving us plenty of its distinct brand of humor while also hitting us with heartfelt and emotional content.

One thing I haven’t touched upon or really paid much attention to is the non-chronological order of this show. Part a of this episode was based off of the 5th chapter of the manga, and thus it took place before most of the events we’ve already seen. At first, I thought it as being inconsequential, much like in Hidamari Sketch, a function of its “slice of life” and “gag comedy” nature, but part a has me questioning my initial reaction. That is, Yet the Town Keeps Going just might have some grand narrative underneath all the gags, specifically relating to the specifically relating to the love triangle that had been referred to in the very first episode.

Of course, it’s not like this segment with Sanada shot the romance story forward by any stretch of the imagination. After all, we know he and Hotori have yet to get together. But if you weren’t hit with warm and fuzzy feelings from watching this segment, you truly have no heart. Watching Sanada struggle and fumble and endure through all the embarrassment and awkwardness to get what he really wants was both hilarious and heartwarming. The calculated call back to the morning horoscopes that got Hotori into so much trouble a few episodes ago and drove the plot in this segment was much appreciated. Both for the touch of humor it added and its effect of showing us something that these two have in common. Maybe all this will lead nowhere, but the insertion of this playing-hooky day into the time line of the story makes me hope that this is just a step in a longer journey with a set destination.

Shaft has a knack for selectively using exaggerated faces for comedic effect and to properly portray emotion.

And that’s where the consideration of the narrative comes in. I see potential for this show to tell a high school romance, paced in a way that makes sense for a show such as this, mixing in different bits from different times yet maintaining a continuity that not only works in this non chronological format, but exploits it to make the story even more compelling than a standard one. There’s one show that the previous sentence should remind you of, and that show is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Comparisons to that show may seem rash at this point in time. To be sure, it would be unfair to expect any show to live up to the quality of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And Yet the Town Keeps Going has not even proven itself to have a central narrative, much less one as excellently conceived and told as the one in Melancholy. But at the surface, the formats of the 2 shows are similar, and I can definitely see a path that this show can follow to become a show like Melancholy.

That I’m even entertaining this thought should tell you volumes about how well executed the first segment of this episode was. Again, it’s not that Sanada hit a home run. The satisfaction of the nothing that was accomplished that day was part of the charm and, more than anything, it was wonderfully sweet.

What a great moment of role reversal here, as Takeru almost ends up teaching Hotori something about love.

But as sweet as the first segment was, the second might have been even sweeter, just because there is something more innocent about sibling love compared to romantic love. Of course, given shows like My Sister Can’t Be This Cute or Yosuga no Sora this season, you would be excused if you thought the two were one and the same in the world of anime. But no, Yet the Town Keeps Going keeps things classy, and even as we watch Hotori and Takeru in the bath together, the only thing we find disturbing is the idea that we might have seen this as anything other than wholesome.

I can think of no better word to describe this segment than that. It was good, wholesome fun, giving us another slice of the lives of a couple of the Arashiyama siblings. The way Hotori and Takeru acted toward one another was natural, in a way that only siblings can be to each other. Hotori’s previous interactions with her younger siblings did not paint her in a good light, and this segment showed us the other side of the coin, that she is actually a very considerate and caring older sister who can go out of her way to help her little brother. She was clearly proud to play the role of the older sibling, showing him around the after-dark hangouts and fascinating him with something as simple as a convenience store or the moment when tomorrow becomes today. The aforementioned bath was a great way to cap off the night and to emphasize the skinship they share as siblings.

Nowadays, it seems like the exception for a bath scene in anime not to be completely tasteless. This is one of them. From Shaft, no less.

All in all, this was the best episode of this show yet. It was undoubtedly the sweetest and most emotionally affecting. Part a has me speaking of it in the same breath as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and part b provided great moments of sibling love made all the cuter by how matter of fact and innocent they were. I’m nothing if not skeptical, but I’m hoping that the best is still yet to come and that this episode was just a glimpse into the deeper narrative that drives this show. As I wrote at the very beginning, this show has hit its stride. Even if the story doesn’t end up playing out the way I’m hoping, if Yet the Town Keeps Going can keep up the light but meaningful humor of these past 2 episodes, it will be remembered as a great show.

I probably should’ve seen this coming given the title of the show, but with this episode, Yet the Town Keeps Going pretty much defined “slice of life.” I’m not a fan of that label or “genre” (not the contents – I enjoy shows such as Hidamari Sketch that fall into the category, but I find the name of the category not to be descriptive and rather a convenient label that you can slap onto anything), but really, I can’t think of a better way to describe this show. Of course, it did provide some new material, but mainly, this was Another Couple of Days in the Life of Hotori Arashiyama. Fortunately for us, Hotori leads a pretty hilarious life.

The most notable thing in the first segment was the nonchalant introduction of Shizuka, a woman who gets a quick flash in the OP and who appears to be very aware of and exploitative of Hotori’s idiocy. As has been the tradition for this show, she didn’t get too much screen time or development in her first appearance – this has been the case with every major side character so far, including Sanada, Tatsuno, Kon, and Moriaki-sensei. And they’ve all returned to humorous effect the second time around, so we’ll have to wait and see what Shizuka will do in coming episodes. That she’s a named character and is played by an established voice actor in Satsuki Yukino – known for playing Mutsumi in Love Hina, Milly in Trigun and more recently the Sonozaki twins in the Higurashi series – means she’s likely to have plenty more appearances before all is said and done.

This was sort of a coming out episode for Kon Futaba, playing major roles in both segments and showing herself to be fully integrated with our main cast of characters. The bit about her birthday in the first segment went well with the theme of that segment. That is, the knowledge of her birthday was an obvious metaphor for Pandora’s Box, and Hotori ended up making everyone suffer the consequences when she opened it. I loved the image of Hotori dazedly trying to put the confetti back in the popper and to celebrate Kon’s birthday – another obvious nod to the segment’s title.

More reflections, in typical Shaft fashion. And while they look nice, I've noticed the art - particularly of the faces - suffering in some shots. SHAFT!

Kon is shaping up to be quite the cool character. Living alone, with a wall full of CDs, supposedly plays the bass, and knowledgeable about how to pick locks. Combine that with the way she handled Hotori in her introductory segment in episode 3, and we have someone who’s just plain… chill. To be honest, though that makes her very likable, it also makes her a bit too perfect, which can make for a boring character. And a little out of place in our regular cast of misfits. Though her fever-induced antics in the second segment showed her fallibility as well.

That second segment also played with the show’s romance angle, which is always welcome in my book. There was the artist in the red bandanna whom Hotori bribed with photos of Tatsuno, extending the 4-person long love chain by one link. Though that he wasn’t even given a name bodes ill for his return in future episodes. Then there was Hotori’s and Tatsuno’s impromptu visit to Sanada, which, despite playing out terribly predictably, managed to be funny thanks to both the dialogue and the physical comedy. If only Sanada had known about TrueCrypt, he would not have had to go through such pain! I liked both Hotori’s overreaction and that she was still walking home with him from school the next day. After all, no matter what wacky antics get between our characters, Yet the Town Keeps Going.

If nothing else, Yet the Town Keeps Going will be remembered fondly for the million faces of Hotori.

And that’s really the takeaway from this episode. This is a show that’s true to its title. I don’t expect it to reveal some grand narrative at this point, or even a minor one. We’re halfway in now, and I get the feeling the show is getting into its groove, showing us more and more of Hotori and the town that surrounds her as the characters keep going about their daily life. I’m still looking forward to learning more about the buck-toothed Harue, who should play a major role, given that she’s in the ED (even if only as the drummer) and has an established rivalry with Kon.

The follies and awkwardness of young love. That was the theme of this episode and, in retrospect, the last episode as well. Instead of Hotori, this time it was about Toshiko in the 1st half and the unexpected star Takeru, Hotori’s little brother, in the 2nd. This wasn’t as laugh out loud hilarious as the last few episodes, but it remained a fun watch, and the 2 stories couldn’t help but put a smile on my face.

As hinted at by the preview last episode, the first half was about Toshiko. More specifically, it was her crush on Hiroyuki Sanada, and the trouble she faces getting up the courage to ask him out to a movie. The way the story played out, with Toshiko setting up the deadline, then constantly butchering her chances to ask out Sanada, had a distinctly high school awkwardness. Since she had disappeared into the background after the first episode, it was satisfying to see more of Toshiko and to get a better feel for what kind of person she is. That is, she is that neurotic overthinking girl we saw in the 1st episode. And her envious thoughts about Hotori – sometimes wondering, “What would Hotori do?” in tough situations – showed that she’s someone acutely aware of who she is.

There weren’t a whole lot of gags in that first half. I did enjoy the first bit at art class, showing Hotori once again interacting with a teacher in a way only she can. Also, the bit with Kaneda-sensei was quite humorous, even if the shouts of random historical figures/terms didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It was satisfying to see Toshiko manage to pull her way out of the situation, ironically using a technique that Hotori had failed at with Moriaki-sensei last episode. Even if she ended up failing at her ultimate goal, which was to catch up to Sanada to ask him out.

Hotori has some stressed relationships with her teachers, to say the least.

Not having the same problem was Eri Isezaki (Emiri Kato), a female classmate of Hotori’s 4th grade brother Takeru (played by Mutsumi Tamura), who forcibly invited herself to his place and got him to unwittingly take her out on a date. This was a distinctly grade school story, the girl obviously more mature at this age than the oblivious boy, complete with gifts of trading cards, hiding from friends, and hitting as a means of showing affection.

Again, there weren’t a whole lot of gags. Instead, the humor came largely from the irony of Takeru having no clue that he was taking Eri out on a date, even as every single person he ran into – Hotori, Futaba, and the toy shop keeper – realizing the situation immediately and even taking steps to help him out in the case of his sister and the shop keeper. Eri’s character was a bit plain, fitting her role as the pushy but dishonest girl with a crush – a real tsundere – but not doing much more. I had to feel for Takeru – he’s already the middle child with only sisters, and now another girl comes into his life, confusing the hell out of his poor pre-adolescent mind. He’s going to be completely whipped when he grows up, if he sticks with Eri.

Ah, the uniquely Japanese school problem of knowing someone's last name but not her first. Poor Eri is in shock.

What I expected to be a gag comedy suddenly looks a lot more like a romantic sitcom. There were still one off bits here and there – Hotori’s detective training of her sister Yukiko being a good one – but in the past few episodes, romance has been the most central topic, and the humor has come not from gags, but from the characters pushing forward in their unique ways in their quest for love (or work, in Moriaki’s case). Certainly, gag comedies are right in Shaft’s in wheelhouse (e.g. Pani Poni Dash!, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei), but they’ve had a lot of success mixing in romcom elements of late (e.g. Natsu no Arashi! and Arakawa Under the Bridge), so I’m looking forward to how they’ll tell the various story threads as they develop.

As with Moriaki, having the focus on Takeru was a surprise. I hope the show builds on this story, because I feel like there's a lot more comedic potential in their relationship.

On a side note, the more I watch the ED to this show, the more I like it. It was upgraded at episode 3 with a close up shot of Futaba and more fancy dancing by her, but I haven’t been able to find that version online, so enjoy the one from the 1st episode:

Ah, poor Moriaki-sensei! It’s not easy being popular. I didn’t expect him to play such a large role in the show, but with this episode, he’s now gotten more screen time than even Toshiko, and that’s turned out to be a good thing.

Both segments of this week’s episode featured Moriaki and Hotori spending some quality after school time together, specifically special lessons/detention because of, well, Hotori being Hotori. Hotori once again provided tons of laughs with her irreverent, take-things-in-my-own-pace attitude that makes her so lovable. And when her indignant self righteousness comes up in regards to getting a perfect zero on a math test and being late to school a whopping 1/3 of the time, it makes for some wonderful moments shared between student and teacher.

Moriaki did a fine job holding up his end of the comedy, especially during the bits when the point of view shifted to his internal monologue. Despite his imposing figure and image as teacher, he is just as flawed a human as Hotori is, letting his strict mathematical mind get the better of him too easily. And he even shows a side of him that is childishly sadistic during the 2nd segment with the 3 chair roulette. The analysis that he went through of how to best handle Hotori in that situation was gold.

Ah, poor Hotori! A victim of her own idiocy.

The two really have a good dynamic going. I love that Hotori continues to hold out hope that her crush on Moriaki will turn into something despite his rather definitive “meh” reaction last week, even as she continues to torment him with her antics. The gall on the girl, to make a fool of him during extra math lessons by giving him a lateral thinking problem! Or the matter of fact way in which she states her foolish reasons for being late! Hotori has a lot to learn about winning a man’s heart.

Speaking of which, a challenger appears! It didn’t move the romance aspect of the plot forward, but it did add a new kink to it that one of the teachers is actually Moriaki’s former student, back to try to claim him as an adult. Talk about… creepy. Downright stalkerish, really. I loved how this bit was revealed to the viewer, starting with Toshiko’s comment at the beginning of the 1st segment that there could be rivals for Moriaki’s affection, moving on to her story at the end of that segment about how he rejected a student once before, the introduction of the female teacher at the beginning of the 2nd segment, and then Futaba’s rumor that that student had returned as a teacher some years later. The show didn’t beat you over the head with this, opting instead to have some trust in the viewer to put 2 and 2 together by himself. That needs to happen more often in anime.

I didn't even catch her name. But the way the show introduced her was excellent.

Now, I don’t think this plot point will be anything more than a running joke given the show’s lighthearted and whimsical nature, but the show has managed to keep me on my toes so far. After the lackluster first episode, this has been the 3rd straight hit. Next episode looks to be about Toshiko, who has merged into the backdrop since the first episode, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of her. This show is proving to be a lot of fun.

Really not a whole lot to write about this one. After the wonderfully self aware and ironic Sae arc, Amagami SS returned to its normal storytelling style, with a result that was all too predictable.

I’m having a hard time getting up the energy to write this post. Amagami SS’s story formula is a known commodity now, and the Ai Nanasaki arc followed the formula pretty much straight up. Junichi meets the heroine. Through a series of ridiculous and unbelievable events, the two grow closer. Some wacky, off the wall thing happens that makes you question what you just saw. The two have a perfect date on Christmas Eve. The End.

To its credit, this was the best arc next to Sae’s, which just stands on its own. Ai’s arc managed to have the crazy entertainment value of Haruka’s arc without all the misogyny that made the latter one so unbearable. Instead of knee pit kissing, we got the hallucinogenic haunted house with Ai turning into a bowl of ramen. That was actually pretty funny. And the events of episode 16 paralleled those of episode 4, with Ai leading Junichi up a mountain and to a hot spring instead of Haruka leading him up a hotel and to a bath. But what Ai didn’t do was get upset when Junichi didn’t try to jump her. Instead, we got a scene that was appropriately awkward and became genuinely emotional and, at times, downright erotic.

Also, I was a big fan of both Ai’s ED and the new OP. The ED was energetic and didn’t suffer from poor singing like Haruka’s or Sae’s, or from Engrish like Sex Hair’s. And speaking of Engrish, the new OP had none, while still having the soft, lighthearted romantic feeling of the first OP.

Seriously, this scene was great. The one thing AIC has done right in Amagami SS is the comedy.

Of course, Ai’s arc had plenty of failings. The ending of episode 15 when Junichi inexplicably jumped into the pool, with the insert song? Terrible. Laughable, and not in the good way. To be fair, the whole story of romantic development involving Ai’s little brother was pretty laughable. It was somewhat similar to how the story in Sae’s arc developed, except meant to be taken seriously instead of laughed at. Sex Hair’s arc is the only one so far that had a halfway believable romantic story. A shame that one became a snoozefest in the second half.

What seems clear that the fantasy that I wrote 5 weeks ago about how Amagami SS could end up being a great show remains a fantasy. Tomorrow, with Rihoko’s arc starting, it gets another shot at the friends-into-lovers story. At the very least, I’ve enjoyed her aloof personality so far, and Ryoko Shintani‘s voice is always pleasant to listen to. I’ve never heard her sing, at least not by herself (she sang as Normal-tan in the OPs and EDs for the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei series and as Sae in the OP to the Hidamari Sketch series), so we’ll see how that goes.

10 years ago today, on October 24, 2000 (correction: actually October 25, 2000), the 4th episode of Gainax’s OVA series FLCL was released to DVD. This is part of a series of posts I’m making on this show. In my first post, I covered how I came upon this series and my reaction to the first 2 episodes. My second post was made a day late and covered episode 3, Marquis de Carabas. This one covers what my initial reaction was to the 4th episode, Full Swing. (note: for the purposes of this post, I did not rewatch the episode. The last time I watched it was some time in the summer of 2009)

What is there to say about Full Swing? Quite a lot, probably. I could talk your ears off about this episode. It is unequivocally my favorite episode of any anime, all time (so far). Others have come close, such as The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the final episodes of Gunbuster, Diebuster and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Bakemonogatari episode 12, but Full Swing still holds the number one place in my heart.

The question, of course, is why? As with all of these types of questions, there are many answers. I’m sure part of it is that I was a huge fan of baseball at the time, and the entire episode was about baseball. Or rather, it used baseball as a metaphor for all the events taking place in the plot. In typical FLCL fashion, it was not at all subtle about this, with the ongoing theme of “swinging the bat” which was blindingly obvious and resonated with me. Indeed, I still consider the adoption of Haruko’s attitude regarding “swinging the bat” – that is, trying even if it means showing everyone that you fail – to be a key component for becoming a mature adult. As an episode of a coming of age story, Full Swing hit it out of the park (sorry, this is the one and only baseball related pun in this post).

Then there was the scene in which Naota confronts his father and hits the TV. It was masterfully directed, surreal, hectic, and, yes, haunting. The build up to that was fittingly erotic and inappropriate with Naota watching his father and Haruko at night, the release of destroying his father was fittingly unsatisfying and confusing, and the redemption of finding his real father and bringing him back to life was fittingly wacky and off-the-wall.

This was one of the most hectic and confusing scenes I've seen, thanks in no small part of the events being shown non-chronologically. But somehow it all made sense.

But I think we’ve beat around the bush enough. The real reason I loved this episode so much was the thrilling climax featuring The Pillows’s Crazy Sunshine. That entire sequence may be my favorite in any work of moving picture.

From the very start of that sequence, when Amarao asked Naota to ask Haruko to hit another one out of the park, the scene was just plain cool. The music started off quiet as Haruko quietly contemplated the situation and commented that “doubleheaders are tough,” before taking Naota up to the top of the plant, but it quickly came more into the forefront as the anticipation of the impact kept building.

And during all the intensity, FLCL retained it’s unique sense of humor. There was Mamimi, sitting atop Canti, celebrating the satellite’s fall and wondering whether they’d have school tomorrow. There was Haruko, fitting a shampoo cap on Naota and pulling out his squirming guitar, commenting that “boys feel weird inside.” There were Amarao’s subordinates at his base, inexplicably getting nosebleeds.

Then, as the satellite neared its final approach, it suddenly and seamlessly turned into a gigantic hand throwing a just as gigantic baseball. Amarao called out, “It’s a sinker!” It was hilarious, but I didn’t laugh, lost in the intensity of the moment.

10 years later, I still can't get over just what an amazing scene this was. Kazuya Tsurumaki went on to direct other works with amazing dramatic action scenes (Diebuster and the Evangelion remakes), but I still rank this one at the top.

The intensity just kept building and building, all the way until the release. As the ball became a bigger and bigger object in Naota’s sights and Haruko abandoned him, her comment, “This might as well be goodbye” seemed like it just might come true. Of course, our hero swung the bat, his own bat. But it wasn’t over yet. The music had reached its peak, and there was more work to be done. Amarao watched nervously, knowing that it hadn’t been enough. And just as the ball looked to explode and all had been for naught, Haruko made her triumphant return, giving the ball that extra hit to leave the atmosphere.

It was just… awesome. The visuals were spectacular, true to form for FLCL. The way the sky lit up and shimmered as the ball neared its final approach still sticks with me. So does that scene of the moment of second impact, when we were treated to single-color frames of Haruko, Mamimi, and Naota reacting. The explosion at the end, the air pressure pushing apart the clouds and objects on ground, was just icing. Both the music and the music editing throughout the sequence was masterfully handled. Thanks to this episode, Crazy Sunshine was my favorite for several years afterward. Or maybe it was because of that song that I loved this episode so much. Doesn’t matter.

The episode was nearly over at that point, but the serene denouement made for a fitting finish. Naota lying in Haruko’s Vespa, reveling in the feeling he just had, wondering if Haruko feels like this all the time. Haruko, laughing her ass off for no obvious reason. The soft start up to the now-familiar Little Busters. And the final shot of Amarao’s fake eyebrow falling off. It was bizarre, but just like what Naota was feeling at the moment, it was satisfying.

Maybe it was the fact that this episode followed the 3rd, which had left me a little negative on the series. Maybe it was that I had watched episodes 4, 5, and 6 in quick succession, and I had taken all the positive feelings about the entire last half of the show and transferred it to the 4th. I think it was just that one Crazy Sunshine sequence, one that wasn’t topped even by the numerous other excellent sequences that would come in the last 2 episodes of the show. Regardless of the reason, I still consider Full Swing to be the best directed, most entertaining episode of any anime.

Like Naota, I felt spent, emotionally, but also supremely satisfied. I didn't get to sleep between Haruko's thighs, though.

So now I turn it to you, if you’ve read this far. What do you remember about Full Swing? Did it leave as big an impact on you as it did me? Did you like that song, Crazy Sunshine? Do you still like it? Do you think the show did things better in other episodes, particularly in episode 6, the true climax of the show?

Notes

• This episode featured the entrance of characters Amarao and Kitsurubami. Kitsurubami was played by Chiemi Chiba who, along with Yukari Fukui, was one of the few voice actors in FLCL who remained in the anime voice acting industry. This season, she plays side characters in both Star Driver and More To LOVE-Ru.
• If you watch carefully in this scene, when Mamimi gets up to go to the baseball game with Haruko, you can see her underwear being pulled off by Naota. One of the hints at just how far their relationship went.
• This episode revealed that Haruhara Haruko’s real name was actually Haruha Raharu. Also, it explained the concept of NO, which explained why Naota had been targeted by Haruko and why robots had been coming out of his head.