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.

There was plenty that happened in this episode that could be used to fuel speculation. At the same time, I’m not much of one for speculation; I prefer to let the work come to me at its own pace. Guessing and coming up with outlandish theories to fit what we know so far is not the game for me. Still, this episode gave lots of indications and hints that are worth at least mentioning.

As I had figured last week, Sayaka’s route to becoming a magical girl was the next thing to get focus, though it happened much faster than I had expected. I had expected Homura to play Sayaka’s foil as an example of someone who wished for someone else’s wellbeing only to have it backfire. That didn’t happen. In fact, it seems that Homura going to play mentor to Madoka, what with their sunset conversation while walking from Mami’s now abandoned room. If you have yuri goggles on, that scene provided plenty of service, particularly with Homura seeming to care just a bit too much about Madoka’s wellbeing. I’m looking forward to seeing all the fanart that will pop up.

The backdrop, other than being beautiful, reminded me a lot of the city at the start of Diebuster. That was another "magical girl" show with heavy girl-love undertones...

It’s noteworthy that Kyubey showed up exactly as Kyosuke was throwing his tantrum and Sayaka was revealing to him the world of magic. And that during the rooftop scene before, Kyubey only said good bye to Madoka. Shaft sure is laying it thick with hints that there is more to Kyubey than meets the eye. Again, I don’t think it’s going to be the simple bad-guy-all-along twist, but that looks to be at least part of the story. Either that or just a subtle red herring, which I wouldn’t put past this show at this point.

As for how Sayaka’s wish will turn out, the dreary music playing in the background during Kyosuke’s discovery hints that, indeed, not everything will go as planned. The next episode’s title is “I Have No Regrets,” and I’d like to think that it refers to Sayaka, who will see the wish blow up in her face, but still be happy (or maybe it will be a line for someone else entirely). Will Kyosuke abandon her but still have Sayaka be happy that she was able to help him? Maybe he’ll die, but Sayaka won’t regret making the wish for him? Or, perhaps the darkest result of all, Sayaka will have to face her own death, but happily and without regret, because she was at least able to give Kyosuke what he wanted? I think I like the sound of that last one, since it would have an impact on Madoka as well.

Though I hope that doesn’t happen for a few episodes, since I want to see more of Sayaka in action. Her moment of glory was rather short in this episode, certainly not comparable to what Mami displayed the past two episodes. But as a swordswoman, she’s sure to pull off some badass stuff in the future.

This was a pretty good OH SHI- moment, as we didn't find out until after the fact that this was how Madoka was sucked into the witch's realm.

Actually, the action overall was much weaker in this episode compared to the last 2, but the continuing evolution of the trippy other world made up for that. I’ve been impressed at Shaft’s ability to keep these segments fresh. The paper cutout collage art in the 1st couple episodes had clearly been taken right out of their Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OPs and bits of Bakemonogatari, but since then, the realms have evolved while still keeping that paper cutout aesthetic. The way Madoka was sucked into this one was gruesome and awesome, and the world itself, in which Madoka was falling endlessly while surrounded by TV screens showing Mami was appropriately surreal. The way her rendering changed as she was pulled in all directions before being saved by Sayaka was a nice touch and showed a character changing art style along with the background for the first time. I hope to see more of that.

Of course, I have to mention Kyoko, who made her introduction at the very end. Is she another magical girl, or something else entirely? If the former, why is she so hostile to other magical girls? What’s her relationship with Kyubey? If Homura is one who has become jaded from all the death she’s seen, is Kyoko someone who’s gone mad and power hungry from it? Or maybe she, not Homura, is the girl Mami and Kyubey were talking about who wished for someone else’s benefit only to have it backfire, and she’s absolutely pissed because of it?

I think the most important part of her to keep in mind is that she’s voices by Ai Nonaka (FUCK YEAH)! That came out of left field even moreso than Mami’s death last episode. Her sugary sweet voice is is quite literally a pleasure to hear, and I’ve missed her since she hasn’t taken on any major roles since the 2nd season of Natsu no Arashi. Now, her roles in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and as Ichijou in Pani Poni Dash had been somewhat psychopathic, but in a deceptive way. Kyoko is more blatant about it, and you can tell she’s playing her a lot darker than her other roles, but she can’t hide the cuteness in her voice.

This girl has FIRE IN HER EYES. And is that a melon bread? Wait, wrong show.

I really hope Kyoko will be around for a while, which maybe hoping for too much, since she wasn’t one of the 5 named major characters in the pre-airing promotion material, and the show has established that anyone can die at any time. I’m quite a bit surprised as to how much I’m enjoying this show, as I tend to have an aversion to things that receive a lot of hype beforehand (see: Black Rock Shooter). Then again, there are cases when the hype is justified (see: Evangelion 2.22, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya). In a way, Magical Girl Madoka Magica seems to fit more into a regular fantasy action genre, a la Shakugan no Shana, than the magical girl genre from which it derives its title. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the fact that the latter is merely a subgenre of the former, just sugarified. Is Madoka Magica what you call a deconstruction? I’m not really equipped to throw around that word, since I’ve never seen a magical girl show, but it sure seems to be trying to do something like it. And that’s proving to be very fun to watch.

So Shaft and Shinbo’s hightly anticipated original magical girl show has started, which means we finally get to see what all the hype was about. At the same time, this was still just the first episode, so the “wait and see” approach would be the right one to follow at this point. Still, what was shown was unique and displayed a lot of potential, leaving me excited for more.

Story-wise, nothing presented here should make anyone even raise an eyebrow. It strictly followed well established cliches and tropes of schoolgirl anime, although it did it to such a fault that I can’t help but think that it was on purpose. I was inclined to facepalm when Madoka Kaname (Aoi Yuuki) ran out of her home with the toast hanging out of her mouth but was delighted to see her quickly munch it down just seconds after exiting the premises. Was that a casual wink and nod about that particular trope and how the show was using it but also destroying it?

Then, of course, there was the attractive transfer student, Homura Akemi (Chiwa Saito, channeling Hitagi Senjougahara with a heavier, more masculine voice than her usual cutesy one) around whom everyone clusters instantly. And like any attractive transfer student, there’s something mysterious about her (see: Itsuki Koizumi), such as the fact that she appeared in Madoka’s dream during the cold open, and that she already knows who Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki (Eri Kitamura) are, as well as the general layout of the school. Oh yeah, and it turns out she’s the bad guy, some magical girl trying to kill the ferret Kyubey (Emiri Kato) who also appeared in Madoka’s dream.

Yup, it's Aoki Ume's work, alright. Wish it was a bit wider, though...

But enough about the plot. Again, nothing special here. What really struck me about this episode was the art. First of all, the character designs obviously reek of Aoki Ume, she of Hidamari Sketch fame. Though the faces aren’t quite as wide as in that show (for shame), the soft, rounded faces and simple and solid colored hair styles reminded a lot of the characters from Hidamari Sketch. The key was in the large, widened eyes, though, with the subtle pencil strokes for shading visible during the close ups.

But, as was the case before with Shaft’s Bakemonogatari, the backdrops were what really stole the show. Shaft was clearly going for the super-clean near-future aesthetic with the designs of various locales from the episode. It started with the Kaname house (speaking of near-future, we’ve got a working mother and a stay-at-home husband in this one, a very modern nuclear family) with its hard rectangular lines, wide open spaces with huge windows. The bathroom scene with Madoka and her mother could’ve been terribly boring without all that architectural eye candy (and, of course, Shinbo’s favorite visual trick, reflections). There were some subtle touches here and there as well, such as the presence of the staircase in Madoka’s parents’ bedroom, or the changing digital picture frame behind Madoka’s mother just as she leaves for work.

Watching the banal household morning scene unfold, all I could think was, "I WANT TO LIVE IN THERE!"

The same aesthetic was pushed hard at the school as well, with all of the walls surrounding the classrooms being made of glass, and the use of digital whiteboards instead of the traditional chalkboards. Same goes for the CD shop at the mall, with its glass shelves and walls filled with square shaped windows. All in all, the super-clean near-futuristic look made for a very appealing world, one very pleasing to the eyes.

And all that served as a strong contrast to what would happen when the magical girls actually entered the picture. As the battle started in an unfinished portion of the mall, the style took a distinct shift in a more dirty, lived-and-worked-in direction. Even with the daylight peeking through the large windows, the place was oppressively dark and dirty. What really pushed that was Mami Tomoe’s (Kaori Mizuhashi – played Miyako in Hidamari Sketch) entrance, when the scenery became full-on psychedelic collage, the same type seen in some episodes of the later seasons of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei as well as parts of Bakemonogatari (it is displayed well here in the OP to the 3rd Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OVA).

We’re talking some really disturbing stuff, the stuff nightmares are made out of. Creepy chanting butterflies with clouds with handlebar mustaches. I’ve never seen a magical girl show, but I’m guessing that the art style during their transformations and fighting are a lot cleaner than what was shown here. At the same time, the contrast levels took a huge jump, painting the characters with far more stark and harsh colors, away from the soft, more pastel tones from during the everyday scenes.

You can clearly see the more saturated, stark colors filling in not just the background but also the characters.

So even though Magical Girl Madoka Magica isn’t exactly taking things to The Tatami Galaxy or Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt levels, it’s doing some very fun things with its art style. And so far, the eye candy alone intrigues me enough to be excited about seeing more. Again, the story is strictly run-of-the-mill, and the music isn’t much to write home about. The tune during Mami’s transformation scene (one that was wonderfully short and to the point, I might add) was quite nice, but the rest of it was forgettable. Yuki Kajiura‘s music has never done anything for me in the past, other than fitting in wonderfully with the dark horror theme of the Kara no Kyoukai movies. And the opening theme, usually a strong point of Shaft’s shows, might have been good if it didn’t sound exactly like Irony, the opening theme to last season’s horrendous My Little Sister Can’t be This Cute.

This was a strong first episode overall, certainly stronger than the first episodes of any of Shaft’s (new) efforts last year (Dance in the Vampire Bund, Arakawa Under the Bridge, and Yet the Town Keeps Going). Even though we’ve yet to see any of the story unfold, the distinctive and pleasing art style makes me see a lot of potential for the rest of the show.

As a bonus, even the art piece at the end was absolutely beautiful.

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.

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

I first came across Supercell the same way I’m sure many people have: the ending theme to 2009′s hit Bakemonogatari, Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari (The Story You Didn’t Know). I remember being captured immediately by the opening guitar melody, then Nagi’s gorgeous singing about 10 seconds in. It was one of those songs that I fell in love with immediately. It was only natural that I immediately looked up just who this “ryo” and “nagi” as mentioned in the ED sequence were. Since then, Suprecell has quickly become one of my favorite bands, and 2010 was a fine year for the band. We’ll look back at some of my favorite songs that it released this year.

Supercell’s Wiki page has plenty of info on it, including the peculiarity that there is actually just one musician and no performers in this band. This peculiarity makes talking about Supercell a bit of a strange endeavor. Do you use the plural pronoun “they” when describing it, as is the standard for bands? Or do you use the singular pronoun “he,” because the actual music is composed and written by just one person? Furthermore, when Ryo does a piece of work, such as the background music to the OVAs Cencoroll and Black Rock Shooter, do you say that Supercell did it, since, for all intents and purposes, it’s equivalent, or not, because the rest of Supercell, the visual artists, weren’t involved?

I don’t know. I’ll refer to Supercell using the pronoun “it,” as it is a single unit, a band, after all, and I guess it makes sense to separate the works that Supercell did, which includes visual art (in the form of nothing more than album covers, really) and the ones that Ryo himself was only involved in. It’s all very confusing and, really, it doesn’t matter. I can’t think of any other musical band with one visual-arts-only member, much less where the vast majority are visual-arts-only.

Then there’s the issue of capitalization. Traditionally, names like Supercell, Ryo, and Nagi are capitalized, but every official text that I’ve seen have been all lowercase. Of course, that’s something that resonates with me, since my screenname lvlln is meant to be in all lowercase. Lvlln just looks weird. So in short, just writing about this band introduces some unique issues. I’ll stick with capitalizing them as expected. It makes the text easier to read.

With 2009 being the year Supercell went professional, 2010 was its sophomore year, and what a year it was! It strengthened its ties to the anime world with another anime ending theme, the opening theme to a PSP game, the ending theme to Type-Moon’s new (now-delayed) visual novel Witch on the Holy Night, and most recently, the theme song to a manga. Not to mention the extremely hyped but ultimately disappointing Black Rock Shooter anime, which was based off its song by the same title, and for which Ryo composed the music.

2 of these songs continued what I think of as Supercell’s “unrequited love” series of songs, which started way back in December of 2008 with its upload of Hajimete no Koi ga Owaru Toki (When the First Love Ends) and continued with the aforementioned Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari.

Anyway, here are 5 of my favorite releases by Supercell from 2010, in chronological order: Sayonara Memories, Kocchi Muite Baby, Utakata Hanabi, This Star Sparkling Night, and Hero.

Sayonara Memories

Sayonara Memories, released in February of this year, was Supercell’s 2nd single, its followup to Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari and also featured nagi on vocals. Though the single had 2 more tracks, the title track really was the only good song among the 3. I consider this to be the 3rd of Supercell’s “unrequited love” series.

Like Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari, Sayonara Memories was accompanied by a music video that showed the story of the song being told. This video was a bit more traditional, though, in that it featured clips of the band actually singing the song interspersed with clips from the story. The thing to note here is that the singer (and main character) in the video is not Nagi, the actual singer! Sony is clearly aware of the mystique of having Supercell’s performers remain semi-anonymous behind their online screennames, and they hired an actor (Sakura Ema) to play the part.

In more ways than just the video, Sayonara Memories felt a lot like Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari part 2. If you read the Wikipedia articles on both songs, you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart:

“Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” is a J-pop song with instrumentation from electric and bass guitars, drums and piano. According to a book of sheet music published by Yamaha Corporation, it is set in common time, and moves at a quick tempo of 165 beats per minute in the A major key throughout the song. The introduction starts with only piano accompanying Nagi’s vocals, and uses a bridge with added guitars and drums to transition into the first verse. Another bridge is used between the first and second verses; both verses use the same music with different lyrics. After the third verse, a break is employed, followed by the fourth verse. After a short outro, an instrumental coda is used to close the song. … The lyrics tell the story of a girl with an unrequited love who was never able to convey her feelings to the person she loved.
Source

“Sayonara Memories” is a J-pop song with instrumentation from electric and bass guitars, drums, piano and violin. According to a book of sheet music published by Yamaha Corporation, it is set in common time, and moves at a quick tempo of 160 beats per minute in the B major key throughout the song. The introduction starts with only piano accompanying Nagi’s vocals, and uses a bridge with added guitar, drums and violin to transition into the first verse. The song continues with the second and third verses, which also serves as the chorus melody, before employing another bridge. The musical structure used in the first three verses is repeated for the next three with different lyrics. After a short seventh verse, a break is employed, followed by the eighth verse. After a short instrumental outro, the song ends with Nagi singing “Aa, yatto ieta” (ああ　やっと言えた?, “Ah I finally said it”), referring to a love confession at the end of the eighth verse.
…
The lyrics tell the story of a girl with an unrequited love who was never able to convey her feelings to the person she loved.
Source

(emphasis mine)

…yeah. One difference I noticed was that Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari has no chorus, whereas Sayonara Memories has one, a quick shout of “Sayonara Memories!” reminiscent of the short choruses of “Melt!” in Melt and “Arigato, sayonara” in When the First Love Ends. However, in all those songs, no line other than the short 2 or 1 word choruses are repeated, giving them that stream-of-consciousness storytelling feel. Story-wise, the trip to see the shooting stars was replaced with the daily walk to school (fitting for the shift in theme from summer to spring), and middle school was moved to high school, but they’re pretty much the same songs. Not that that’s a bad thing, since they’re both great songs. And though Sayonara Memories has no ties to anime, it is clearly using the same tropes and themes seen in many of today’s high school anime.

Kocchi Muite Baby (Come Over Here Baby)

Supercell’s first Hatsune Miku song since When the First Love Ends was released in July on a collaborative single along with Livetune’s Yellow, as the opening song for the PSP game Hatsune Miku: Project Diva 2nd. Though I don’t like the song that much – it’s decent, not great – I do respect that Ryo was finally exploring a theme other than unrequited love with a major song. Instead, this song has a more aggressive, playful tone, similar to that of Love and Roll, the second track from the Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari single.

Plus, both the game’s opening video and the in-game animation were great. The song is one of the most fun to play in the game, because of the fast, dynamic camera shots and fun choreography. It also has Ryo’s trademark scream, which he’s used in all sorts of songs including Melt, World is Mine, and Oishite Ageru (the only one officially released with Nagi). At 3:30, it’s a more typical pop song length and much shorter than Supercell’s other main songs which tend to run over 5 minutes.

Utakata Hanabi

With this, Supercell returned to the anisong world, as a 90 second cut (just 1/4 of the whole song!) of it was used as the ending theme for a series of episodes of Naruto Shippuden. I’m no fan of Naruto, but the ending sequence accompanying this song was great, literally putting Sakura in the position of the singer and even having her lips mouth the song at parts.

Utakata Hanabi – literally Water Bubble Fireworks but commonly translated as Ephemeral Fireworks or Transient Fireworks – has the singer reminiscing about a summer festival when she spent the evening watching fireworks with her love. Like other songs in Supercell’s unrequited love series of songs, the details aren’t clear, but the singer’s feelings are, as is the importance of this moment in her memory.

The tone a bit of a departure from the other songs in the series, in that this song does not end with hope for the future and letting go of the past. Rather, the singer seems unable to let go of her sorrow, perpetually stuck in that moment that she knows she can never experience again. The overall mood of the song is also much more somber than When the First Love Ends, Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari or Sayonara Memories. The tempo remains a slow burn throughout, never speeding up to the high tempos of the other 3.

Utakata Hanabi also got a music video which you can see above. It was the first not to feature live actors since Supercell’s Nico Nico Douga days. The art and animation style is unique and somewhat psychedelic, and it perfectly complements the song, showing us depictions of both that summer evening that the singer is remembering and how the singer is feeling now as she remembers. It took me a few viewings to warm up to it, but the way it visually represents the lyrics to the song is truly compelling.

Due to the slower pacing and more depressing mood of this song, it’s not quite as enjoyable as the other songs in the unrequited love series, but it’s a great piece of music nonetheless. However, it really got outdone by the second track in the single:

Hoshi ga Mattataku Konna Yoru Ni (This Star Sparkling Night)

Technically, this is the 2nd “side A” to the single, though it is still the 2nd track and wasn’t released to the public until the CD release in late August. You can read the lyrics that I translated. It is the ending theme song to Type-Moon’s new visual novel Witch on the Holy Night, which was delayed from its original 9/30 release date to Christmas Eve of this year.

This was my preferred song from this split single, and I believe it shows Ryo taking a major step away from the “unrequited love” theme that he had been pounding on so hard. Even his early songs, including the hit Melt as well as the less well known That One Second of Slow Motion, played on that theme.

Instead, this song was all about the new beginning of a relationship. The subject material is reminiscent of Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari, in that it’s about the singer looking up at the stars with the boy she has a crush on. Unlike that song, this one is not about looking back to that day with regret, but rather about being there now, at the moment, when the two begin to fall in love. Along with the general theme of the lyrics, the faster, more upbeat tempo contrasts greatly with the depressing mood of Utakata Hanabi and makes it just a more fun song to listen to. Instead of Nagi’s beautiful voice being used to express regret at the first love, we get to hear her express the joy of the first love.

I find it noteworthy that this song actually has a real chorus, the full line, “On this star sparkling night.” The line is always followed by a different line each time, as is the tradition for choruses in Supercell’s songs. Also noteworthy is that at 4:28, it is over a minute shorter than Supercell’s 3 “unrequited love” songs with Nagi, 2 of which are over 6 minutes long and the shortest (Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari) clocking in at 5:41.

Hero

Hero has yet to be released commercially, only being released on the internet at the end of November. Like This Star Sparkling Night, I posted a translation of the lyrics to this.

Also like that song, this is about budding first love. We get to hear Ryo and Nagi expand their horizons further by having the singer be a male this time, with a crush on a girl. Nagi has quite a high voice which is part of her appeal, but somehow she manages to make it sound boyish enough for most of the song, raising it to make the parts when she’s singing the girls’ speech stand out.

Hero is the latest song to be released by Supercell, and that it continues the theme from This Star Sparkling Night gives me hope that Ryo has gotten out of the rut of making the same “unrequited love” song over and over again. All those songs have been excellent and remain in my playlist to this day, but it’s good to see his works evolve. Of course, there’s the risk that this is the new theme he’ll latch onto, but This Star Sparkling Night and Hero have already differentiated themselves a bit with the different perspectives, and I wouldn’t mind hearing what ideas Ryo has to play on this theme.

So all in all, even discounting that horrible Black Rock Shooter OVA, 2010 was a pretty huge year for Supercell. Still no full albums since its first one, but 1 online release plus 3 CD singles (and another song called Kibou no Neiro to be released at Comiket the end of this month) is certainly nothing to sneeze at. More importantly, the releases have continued to impress me. 2 anime from 2009 for which it did the ending themes – Bakemonogatari and Cencoroll – are set to get sequels next year, and I’m hoping that Supercell once again gets that responsibility for the sequels. Either way, Supercell has managed to tie itself to some very powerful and popular companies, including Sony, SEGA, Shaft, Ordet, Good Smile Company, and Type-Moon, and I’m confident we’ll be hearing more hits out of it in the coming years and more.

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.

So I’ve stated a few times before that I’m a big fan of supercell. In the anime world, the band is most famous for Black Rock Shooter, a (rather disappointing) OVA that was spawned from its song of the same title, as well as The Story You Didn’t Know (Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari), the ending theme to Bakemonogatari. Of course, originally being a Vocaloid band, supercell has ties to plenty in otakudom, including having the opening song to the PSP game Project Diva 2nd (Come Over Here Baby (Kocchi Muite Baby)) and the ending song to Type-Moon’s delayed (first non-eroge) visual novel, Witch on the Holy Night (This Star Sparkling Night).

Well, wouldn’t you know it, supercell has now added a manga to the list, with the online release of Hero (ヒーロー), the theme song to a manga called AOHARU.

Here’s the short 45 second preview video that’s on AOHARU‘s official site:


And, released on Sony’s official supercell page on 11/30, is the full 5 minute version. I actually didn’t take a liking to the song at first, but the song started growing on me the more I listened to it. And now that I’ve read the lyrics, I think this is a solid song, definitely up there with supercell’s other hits. And speaking of the lyrics…

Below is a translation of the lyrics along with the Romanji. Note that the bulk of the translation was lifted from Timeless Grey; I merely made some corrections when needed and prettied things up, both visually and aurally.

Hero by supercell. Written by ryo. Sung by nagi

Tomodachi to shabeteiru sono ko no egao wa amari ni karen de
Sono sugata wa omoi egaita manga no heroine no you da

As she talked to her friend, that smile of hers looked so pitiful,
Her form was like the heroine of a manga I drew in my head

Hitome mite koi ni ochita
Honki no honki de suki ni natta
Demo ne boku no mitekure ja
kitto kirawareteshimau

It was love at first sight
I truly, truly came to like her
But with the way I look,
She would definitely hate me.

Hora mata da kusukusu warau koe
Iin da sonna no narekko dakara
Wasurete shimae dakedo mune wa hari sake sou da

See, I can already hear the giggles of “heehee”
But it’s okay, since I’m used to it
I’ll forget about it, but my chest still feels like it’s about to burst

Shounen wa soshite deau
Sore wa kitto guuzen nanka janakute negatta
Kimi ni deae masu you ni
Nanman kai datte negaou
Itsuka kanarazu!
Keredo hito wa sonna kiseki
Shinjirareru wake nai to itta

That’s how the boy met [her]
I wished that was definitely not just some coincidence
So that I would meet you,
I shall wish for it tens of thousands of times
Someday, definitely!
But for people, that kind of miracle
Is something they say they can’t believe in

Shoujotachi wa sasayaita
“Ano ko sakki kara kocchi miteru
Nanna no are kimiwarui wa
Chikazukanai de nekurasan”

The girls whisper,
“That boy has been looking here since just now
What’s up with that, it’s gross
Don’t come any closer you downer”

Sumimasen sonna tsumori ja……
Utsumuku boku ni kanojo no koe
“Watashi kono hito shitteru!”
Amari wa azen boku mo bouzen

Sorry, I didn’t mean to…
As I hung my head down, her voice called out,
“I know this person!”
Everyone was amazed, and I was dumbfounded as well

“Michattan da na ano tsukue no e wo ne
Zenbu kimi ga kaitetari suru no?”
Aa! Mata warawareru
Dakedo kimi wa
“Aa iu no suki nan desu”

“I saw the drawings on that desk
You drew them all, right?”
Ah! I’m going to be laughed at again
But then you went,
“I like those things too”

Shounen wa soshite deau
Tatoe nan oku nan man kounen hanarete iyou ga sa
Zettai hikare au kara
Soko ni donna
Shougai ga atte mo

That’s how the boy met [her]
Even if you were hundreds of millions of light years away,
His mind would be drawn to you,
No matter what obstacles might lie in between,
He would overcome them

Norikoeteiku sore wo unmei to yobu nara
Kare wa masa ni hero da!

If that is to be called fate,
Then he’s sure to be a hero

Dakedo sono hi boku wa mitanda
Hitori me wo harashi naku kimi wo
Boku wa nante muryoku nan darou
Ii ya kanojo wa nante itta?
Utagau na jibun no sonzai wo
Shoujo wa sukui wo matteiru

But that day I saw
You alone, crying so hard your eyes swelled
Why must I be so powerless
No wait, what did she say?
Don’t doubt yourself [because]
That girl is waiting to be saved

“Tsuyogari de honto wa nakimushi de
Etto korette maru de watashi mitai”
Yatto waratta! yorokobu boku no mae de
Porori porori to naki dasu kanojo
Doushitara ii!?
Kimi wa
Ittanda “Arigatou”tte

“You act all tough, but you’re actually a crybaby
Umm, that’s exactly like me”
She finally smiled! In front of me who was delighted
Her tears kept falling, plop plop
What should I do!?
You said,
“Thank you”

Shounen wa kimi to deai
Ikiru imi wo shirunda
Uso janai honto sa
Soshite kimi wo mamoru naitou ni naru
Itsuka kitto ne
Kare no hidari te ni wa kanojo no nigi te
Gyutto nigitte hanashi wa shinai kara

Because this boy met you,
He learned what it means to live
It’s not a lie; it’s the truth
And so, he’ll become a knight who will protect you
Someday,
Onto his left hand, her right
Will hold tightly and never let go

Soshite boku wa kimi ni de au

And so I met you

Notes

• The original lyric sheet from Sony’s site had large blocks with lots of lines. I think having the translation come in every 3-4 lines is ideal, but since many of these blocks contained single threads that really shouldn’t be broken up, I kept most of them intact.
• I added words in brackets when the word was clearly implied but harder to get from the context when translated to English. They are technically not parts of the actual lyrics.

I think it’s pretty clear that ryo is sticking with the theme of first or budding love, with this one. He’s explored that theme a lot, from his Vocaloid hits Melt, This One Second of Slow Motion, and When the First Love Ends, to all of his professional hits with Nagi: The Story You Didn’t Know, Sayonara Memories, Utakata Hanabi, and Utakata Hanabi‘s 2nd track, This Star Sparkling Night.

Given that all of his songs have been sung by female voices, the stories were all told from the girl’s perspective, making this the first one that is explicitly told from the boy’s. Somehow, nagi’s distinctly feminine and high pitched voice doesn’t detract from that. I’m also glad to see that, like This Star Sparkling Night, this is a song filled with hope for a new beginning, not one of regret and looking back, like most of supercell’s recent songs have been (When the First Love Ends, The Story You Didn’t Know, Sayonara Memories, and Utakata Hanabi all follow that theme).

Credits

• Words of My Life transcribed the Romanji.
• Again, Kagekyuubi of Timeless Grey deserves the credit for this English translation. I did only minimal translating for this.
• Cenco’s How to Live deserves credit for the Korean translation that I used most to help me in the translating I did do.
• I got information about the song and the manga from Tokyo Hive.

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.