Chainsaw Man – 10 – Toughening Up

In the aftermath of the attack on the 4th Division, Denji and Power are all healed up, and despite insisting otherwise, are by Aki’s side out of solidarity. They are, after all, three of the last surviving members. When the two leave shortly after Aki comes to, he asks the Curse Devil how long he has (two years), prepares to light a cigarette, and then can’t when he remembers Himeno.

Himeno gets her final wish: Aki lives to cry for her. As for Denji, he’s a little weirded out by how calm and cool he’s been about losing Himeno, the first person who wanted to be his friend. He wonders if he’d be just as indifferent if Power or Aki died. He even figures the loss of Miss Makima would only result in about three days of feeling bad, then he’d get back to living his life of meals and baths.

With Makima determined to strengthen what’s left of her now combined division, Denji and Power’s lives are about to get a lot less carefree. Deemed still too weak against the kind of devils they’ll have to hunt, Makima puts Himeno’s old sensei Kishibe (voiced by Tsuda Kenjirou) in charge of training them.

He immediately likes them, as neither are interested in revenge and will side with whoever will feed them (in Denji’s case) or whoever is winning (Power). They’re both the precise breed of fearless crazy needed to be effective devil hunters.

He pulls the two into a hug, and then casually breaks both their necks with his bare hands, leaving no doubt as to his toughness. After healing them with blood, he proceeds to kill or nearly kill the two again and again, deciding the best way to make them tougher is to hunt them until they’re capable of beating him.

While Denji and Power are enduring this, Kyoto’s Tendou and Kurose pay Aki a visit, and tell him it might be best if he quit while he’s still alive, like Madoka did. Unlike Denji and Power, Aki is still very much driven by the need for revenge against the devils that killed his family and Himeno. But to become strong enough to stay in the 4th Division, he’ll need to contract with stronger devils.

After Tendou and Kurose take their leave, a girl whose face we don’t see pays him a visit. While walking home from the graveyard, Denji and Power decide that the best way to defeat their new drunken teacher is to use their brains. Left unacknowledged is the fact that even if they put both their brains together they only end up with two balls of lint.

The next morning, they set up an ambush for Kishibe, all the while displaying a wholly unearned sense of confidence you can’t help but admire—they even wear glasses to look smarter. Kishibe easily defeats their surprise attacks, once again leaving them both on the floor, down for the count.

That said, he admired their attempt, and says he’ll give them the rest of the day off. The moment Denji drops his guard, he gets a thrown dagger to the forehead. Kishibe warns him and Power never to trust the words of someone hunting them. And so, the bloody trials continue.

Aki is escorted to the bowels of Public Safety headquarters by Tendou and Kurose, which serves as a prison for all of the devils captured alive. When Kurose asks if the girl at the hospital was Aki’s girlfriend, he says no; it was Himeno’s little sister, who brought letters Himeno wrote to her for Aki to read. Among them, Himeno discusses her unsuccessful attempt to get out of Public Safety with Aki.

As he contemplates his past, Tendou and Kurose take him to the cell of the Future Devil, one who took the eyes and sense of taste and smell from one human it contracted with and half the lifespan of another. Considering Aki has only two years left anyway (due to the Curse Devil), and his determination to destroy the Gun Devil, I’m certain the Future Devil can ask for whatever it wants, and Aki will sacrifice it.

Cardcaptor Sakura – 60 – You’re Not The One

For Syaoran there are three constants in life: death, taxes, and Sakura not knowing he likes her unless he tells her. Tomoyo knows how hard he tried last week before Kero interrupted him, but Syaoran realizes there’s something he has to do before confessing, and that’s have an in-person chat with Meiling.

Rather than wait for him to go to Hong Kong over winter break, Meiling makes her triumphant return to Japan now. Sakura’s over the moon to see Meiling again, but her return is marred by yet more Hiiragifuckery, this time in the form of all the penguins in Penguin Park rising up and attacking Sakura, Meiling, Syaoran and Tomoyo.

Meiling puts her martial arts skills to good use, stunning the penguins and then suggesting Sakura use Freeze to freeze them all. After that, Syaoran zaps them with lightning. The group deduces that someone with immense magic power must have not only animated the penguins, but made it so no passersby would witness the lively battle.

During that battle, Syaoran calls Sakura by her first name, which is Meiling’s first hint of what’s coming. That night when he tells her he found someone he loves most, she officially breaks off the engagement, then runs to sob into the lap Tomoyo, who’d offered her lap in advance like the saint she is.

The next morning, Syaoran is there to see Meiling off, and she urges him to stop being so slow about it and confess to Sakura already; she’s not going to be pleased if things don’t go well, considering it was her heart that was broken! Later she writes to Syaoran, Tomoyo, and Sakura, declaring them all dear friends.

Meiling urges the “spacey” Sakura to stop and take a careful look around more often, lest she miss something important. Whether Sakura gleans Meiling’s true intent of that advice is, er…unlikely, but it’s not impossible Sakura takes it, and even possibly realize on her own how Syaoran feels.

Arte – 12 (Fin) – The Firenze She Made Along the Way

Matei pays a visit to Arte to apologize for his rude comments. Especially once he sees her gorgeous portrait of Lady Sofia, he admits to harboring an “ugly jealousy.” Arte replies that if his jealousy is ugly, the jealousy she’s had for male artisans is ugly too. He urges her to always treasure the talent that comes from her unique position, and to continue to cultivate it.

Matei helps Arte realize that she has unique talent and value as a female noble artist, and she doesn’t want to become tied down by a patron just yet. On top of that there’s much she still wants to learn from Leo, so she turns Yuri down and prepares to return to Florence. Yuri respects and even admires her decision; she and Katarina leave on good terms as well, committing to being friends from now on and vowing to write one another.

Upon returning to Florence, Arte finds Leo’s workshop empty. Darcia informs her that he’s come down with a fever and is resting at Ubertino’s house. Ubertino believes Leo will be fine, but is more concerned with the fact the ceiling mural he started won’t be finished by the Easter deadline. As a member of Leo’s workship and with Ubertino’s approval, Arte rolls up her sleeves and vows to complete the ceiling herself.

When the timeline proves impossible for any one person and Arte nearly collapses from exhaustion, Angelo steps in to assist with the painting while Darcia resolves to keep them fed and healthy. Eventually a group of other apprentices Arte has met and befriended join the team. With all the extra manpower the ceiling is completed on time.

Leo and Arte don’t end up meeting until the mural is unveiled, and while her “light calculations” are still in need of some seasoning, he’s nevertheless grateful for her help. When he asks why she came back, Arte says she wants to paint paintings that encourage people, like the triptych of the Virgin Mary encouraged her while she was in Venice. Leo’s glad to have her back, even if he’ll have to get used to the extra noise and energy all over again.

Finally, Arte’s mother accepts an invitation to the unveiling, and shows that she’s big enough to admit when she was wrong. She was sure that despite her late husband’s encouragement, a woman only had two paths: marriage or the convent. Arte proved she could forge her own path, but she didn’t do it alone, and made sure to honor everyone in her life—including her parents—who aided her in her journey by painting them into the mural (in heroic garb, of course).

It’s a touching gesture, and a fitting end for an anime with a lovable heroine in a very unconventional time period and setting, but a timeless message: Believe in yourself and your abilities, work your ass off, rely on friends and allies when needed, and you’ll eventually convince the skeptics and soar to success. Brava, Arte!

Violet Evergarden – 14 (Extra Episode) – Heart Defroster

Since there’s no Railgun this week, I thought I’d write a few words about a Violet Evergarden extra episode I just recently found on Netflix. Enjoy.

Violet has a new client, the diva Irma Felice, who is requesting she write a love letter in someone else’s name, without a concrete address. That’s about all the initial direction she gives Violet, and the resulting first attempt is very curt and military. When Violet tries to draw from literature, it comes off too old-fashioned. When Violet tries to write something modern, it’s just not right.

Irked by a client like never before, Violet reaches out to her colleagues once she learns from the conductor Aldo tells her the love letter will be used as lyrics in the aria of a new opera Irma is producing. She gets a lot of raw, unpolished material from the group, but it’s still not enough to move her stubborn, exacting client.

Desperately needing more insight into Irma, Violet follows her one night. Irma runs, but is no match for Violet’s military conditioning. That’s how the subject of Violet’s loved one comes up, and knowing they share a similar crushing loss, warms up to her and allows her to keep following. Irma visits a shrine at the train station, where she would be if her Hugo ever returned to her.

Her love, Hugo, it turns out, was Aldo’s son who went to war and never returned. It’s a very old story, but that didn’t make it any easier for her or Aldo to move forward…so they didn’t. The letters into which she poured her feelings to Hugo were always sent back for lack of address. Eventually, her and Aldo became frozen in time, and their hearts froze as well, like those of so many who lost lovers and family in the war.

Having finally made a connection through their shared grief, Roland shows Violet a warehouse full of lost letters with neither writer nor sender. Seeing so many talismans of lost, crystallized emotions further inspires Violet, and she gets to typing. In each of her jobs both she and her client have needed to reach some kind of connection that finally gets the words flowing…and it’s almost always tear-jerking, as it it here.

Once Irma reads Violet’s latest and final attempt, she weeps, because Violet was finally able to create what she knew she could: words that warm and stir the frozen hearts of the masses, the “people of today” who couldn’t be moved by the dusty operas of yore, because they were too detached from their own modern experience.

Irma’s resulting performance would indeed be considered almost scandalously modern in the anachronistic era of Violet Evergarden—more Céline Dion than Claudia Muzio—but that is precisely why they succeed in moving each and every one of the spectators in the opera house. Art at its finest—and KyoAni has made a fair bit of that—can thaw the coldest hearts and move the most motionless.

Bunny Girl Senpai – 10 – Damn You, You’re Too Awesome!!

Nodoka prepares for the second day of commercial filming by watching DVDs of her sister in action, including a horror movie, which seems apt; body-swapping carries its own kind of horror, and she’s essentially wearing her big sister’s skin!

The prospect of screwing up similarly fills Nodoka with dread, but after twelve takes she does eventually get the job done.  When Mai calls her, she gives the phone to Sakuta, still not ready to talk to the person she’s made out to be her nemesis. But Mai tells Sakuta to congratulate her nonetheless; it can’t be easy to do your big sister’s job…especially if you come into it not believing you can do it from the start.

As for little sisters, Kaede has seen enough pretty girls pass through the doors of their apartment to start thinking like someone who knows that at some point they have to start going outside again. Putting on her school uniform is a small but meaningful first step on that path, and it’s good to see she’s not just some static mascot of a character. Like Futaba, her own story has been subtly maintained.

Nodoka’s personal horror movie inludes a banshee of a mother who confronts “Mai” to cease harboring her daughter; Nodoka-as-Mai truthfully replies that she’s doing no such thing (since she’s at Sakuta’s…but she wisely leaves him out of the equation).

Mai gives Sakuta and Nodoka tickets to her latest gig in Nodoka’s body, but before that Sakuta has a rare meeting with his Dad. When Kaede became a shut-in, their mother apparently had some kind of breakdown of her own (it’s kept pretty vague). It was serious enough for their father to have to basically choose between continuing to live with his kids, or taking care of their mother full-time and trusting that Sakuta will be able to take care of himself and Kaede.

While at a family restaurant (fitting), Sakuta gleans fresh insight into his Dad; specifically how completely frazzled clueless he was upon his son’s birth. Sakuta says “all of the above” in response to Nodoka’s choices of “love, hate, piss you off, are annoying” as how he feels about his parents. Clearly a part of him has concluded that if he’s able to run a household with his little sister and solve cases involving one girl after another, he can’t really rag on his folks that much.

As for the Sweet Bullet gig, Mai-as-Nodoka is flawlesss, a testament to her consummate professionalism, attention to detail. Hell, she even saves the group leader’s ass when she trips by catching her mic and continuing to sing her part without missing a beat. Her performance is rewarded by the announcement she’ll be singling lead for the next song they release.

Nodoka and Sakuta watch, utterly enthralled. After the concert, Nodoka’s mom is among those who “high-fives” Mai-as-Nodoka, and she smiles, tears up, and congratulates her, things she never did to Nodoka-as-Nodoka. Nodoka demands to go to the beach, and starts striding into the sea, believing she isn’t needed by anyone anymore.

Sakuta stops her, and assures her that’s not the case: if anything happened to her, Mai would be sad, and Sakuta can’t have that. Nodoka doubts him, but he assures her it’s true, and furthermore knows it’s true, especially after looking into the forbidden cabinet at Mai’s place.

He shows Nodoka the box in that cabinet, which contains every single letter Nodoka wrote to her big sis, from before they knew they were sisters. Mai’s always treasured them because they gave her courage and strength knowing someone specific (as opposed to the other faceless masses) was cheering her on.

It was thanks to Nodoka that Mai even started enjoying her work. Mai appears (it is her apartment they’re in) to thank her sister. Nodoka comes back with a tirade about how it’s “too late” since Mai managed to get her mother to smile and approve, and get her own lead singing gig before her.

In response Mai slaps not Nodoka, but Sakuta (since Mai has a shoot tomorrow  and she doesn’t want to risk marring her face). She describes how Nodoka’s Mom’s hands were trembling when she held hers; how she could tell her mom was uneasy about whether her daughter was truly happy; seeing her perform so well all but confirmed she was.

Nodoka asks why her Mom never said anything, but unlike, say, Sakuta’s Dad at the restaurant, parents are always loath to tell their kids how uneasy they feel about raising them, and about whether they’re doing it right. Mai’s solution for Nodoka, as the sisters embrace, is to make her mother happy doing something she wants to do, not just what she’s told. To show that she can stand on her own, without direction, and shine. Seto Asami does a tremendous job voicing Nodoka through Mai in the emotionally cathartic scene.

The sisters now sufficiently made up, their bodies switch back to normal like the snapping of a soap bubble, before Sakuta’s eyes. Later, Futaba posits that Nodoka’s believed need to “be like her big sister” resulted in the swap (possibly through a variant of quantum teleportation), while Mai changed her appearance to Nodoka, out of momentary jealousy.

As for Sakuta, he’s just happy he can be lovey-dovey with the real Mai. But two new obstacles threaten that desire. One, Nodoka moves in with Mai (she got in another fight with her Mom, but hey—that’s what family does sometimes; it’s not the end of their relationship, she just wanted a change—and the little matter of Nodoka-as-Mai being photographed with Sakuta by her side by a photographer. Now there’s buzz out there that Mai Has A Boyfriend…something Mai calls a “slight problem.”

But I agree with her assessment; it’s not as huge an emergency as a bout of Adolescence Syndrome (the next case of which looks to finally focus on Kaede next week), nor a rift between sisters that was just amicably closed. She and Sakuta are a strong, dependable, shrewd couple. They’ll get through it!

Violet Evergarden – 13 (Fin) – “I Love You” Means Never Having to Take Orders Again

Violet Evergarden protects Dietfried from bullets at the cost of one metal arm, then prevents the bridge from blowing up at the cost of another (with a crucial assist and catch from Benedict). In doing so, she averts the escalation of an isolated anti-peace flare-up and preserves peace for the continent.

In light of all this, Dietfried rightly starts to seriously rethink how he’s always thought about Violet—the tool he gave his brother which then outlived his brother—and how his blaming of her was only a means of distracting him from the fact he blamed himself more.

With peace secured, Violet secures new arms and returns to ghostwriting work immediately, but as the first Leiden Air Show since the war began looms, she faces her most difficult assignment yet: writing a letter not for anyone else, but by herself, containing her feelings; the whims of her heart.

Cattleya encourages her to write something before the deadline, but Violet gets writer’s block. She recalls that night in the Major’s tent when he told her she neither needs nor should want nothing but his orders; that she should feel free to live free, because she’s not a toll, she’s human, with emotions just like his.

Gilbert proves it rather cruelly by making her as upset as he is, but at the time Violet still knows nothing of what she’s feeling, and realizing that, he decides to table the discussion until after the battle…a “later” that never comes due to his death at Intens.

As if the universe were conspiring to lend Violet inspiration to write a letter to Gilbert, Dietfried arrives at the doll office to introduce her to his mother, who wished to meet and speak with her. The mother’s memory is somewhat hazy, but watching Violet’s reactions to her words (and her description of Violet’s “Gilbert-Eye” pendant) snaps her into lucidity.

Gilbert’s mother tells Violet things only she can say: that it wasn’t your fault; that it’s not your cross to bear; that her other son hasn’t given up on him any more than the two of them. But rather than wait for her son to come through the front door, she takes comfort in knowing he’ll live forever in her heart. Remembering him the rest of her life may hurt, but hey…love hurts.

For all the damage Gilbert felt he did by allowing her to act as a weapon for so long from such a young age, the very fact he saw her as a human and not a tool is what ultimately put Violet in the position she’s in now: with the means to grab the life she’s always been owed, and live in happiness yearning for neither orders nor death.

Vi shocks Dietfried one more time before departing by telling him she’s done with orders. Thus he sees, for the first time, not only a real human, but someone kindred to him in the pain of his loss.

Upon returning from the Bougainvillea House, Violet writes the letter that will join tens of thousands of others and be rained down upon the city by the airplanes, like her weapons of war reborn as weapons of peace and the transmission of peoples’ feelings.

We, as the audience, are the ones who “catch” and read that letter, in which she states that while she didn’t understand anything about how he felt when he tried to tell her, by ghostwriting she’s gradually developed the tools to sense how people feel, and thus how he felt.

Finally, she speaks of how she feels. She continues to believe he’s alive, whether that’s somewhere out in the world or in her heart and those of his mother and brother, and that she finally understands what the words “I love you” mean “a little better.”

So She’ll continue her work living, writing, transmitting the contents of others’ hearts through paper and ink, and in doing so continue to learn about her own emotions. Since a “new project” has already been greenlit, we’ll be witnesses to the continuation of her journey, and that of her colleagues at the Auto Memoir Doll Service.

Violet Evergarden – 11

As a civil war rages in the frigid north, Claudia decides to decline a doll request from a soldier in the war zone; it’s just too dangerous. However, Violet overhears him, snatches up the request when no one’s looking, and takes a ship to the war-torn country. After all, there’s no place too dangerous for Violet.

When no ground route can be taken, Violet suggests they drop her into the camp via airplane; the pilot likes her moxie and goes along with it, possibly seeing the iron resolve in her eyes. When she says there’s nowhere she won’t go for her clients, she means it, damnit.

Looking outside my window, I don’t see a scene all that different from the snow-covered woods of the camp outskirts…at least in terms of looks. Thankfully, I don’t have snipers lurking in the distance trying to pick me off, which is the case with the unit Aiden is in. Everyone is killed but him and a younger colleague. Aiden tries to carry him with him, but it slows him down, and he’s shot too.

Not long after the enemy arrives to finish the job, Violet’s plane appears in the air and she leaps out and soars through the sky like a missle before pulling her chute and landing. She takes out a number of the enemy troops with ease until their leader trains his gun on her.

This leader knows who she is (and what she was), and so orders his men to retreat, leaving Violet with Aiden, who is most likely a goner. After so many jobs in the lands where there is peace, this is the first time she merges her past and present worlds.

When he wakes up in a cabin, Aiden tells Violet he can’t hold out long, and would like her to write his letters immediately. With neither a typewriter nor writing pad on hand, Violet simply uses her hands to air-type the worlds Aiden is saying, which she says she’ll memorize; another heretofore unknown talent.

At first Aiden only asks her to write a letter thanking his parents and hoping that if they ever reincarnate and marry again, he would love to be their son again. Then he drops a photo of his sweetheart Maria, and Violet asks if he wants her to write her a letter as well.

When Aiden went off to war, it was before he and Maria—childhood friends—had truly started acting like a couple. He never even got to kiss her, and when he closes his eyes in these, his final hours, Maria is foremost in the imagery, smiling in the fields of their home. He tells her how happy he was she confessed, and his desire to be by her side.

Then, as Aiden starts to fade, he asks Violet to her to put her hands on his, he tells Maria he loves her, and as he kisses Maria in his mind, for the first and last time, Violet kisses him on the forehead before promising the letters will be delivered.

There are no more dealings with the war-mongering extremists, and Violet is safely taken out of the zone, but before returning home, she visits Aiden’s family to deliver the letters and his bloody kerchief in person. When she sees the anguish and grief well up in Aiden’s parents and Maria, Violet cannot hold back her own anguish, and turns to leave before she makes an undue scene. But Aiden’s mother stops her and gives her a hug.

Thinking she caused so much pain by delivering the news of Aiden’s death, Violet is taken aback when they thank her for bringing him back to them. So many other families will never know what happened to their sons, brothers, fathers who went off and never returned.

But Aiden’s family not only knows, and have closure, but they were able to read the feelings in his heart in his last moments, and know he wasn’t alone…all thanks to Violet.

No other Auto Memoir Doll could have done what she did to fulfill Aiden’s request. She suffered a horrible past as a fearless weapon, but at least in this mission, those skills served a good cause. She should take solace in that.

Violet Evergarden – 10

Anne is of the age where she still plays with dolls, and is both troubled and intrigued when a life-size one arrives. Of course, Anne equates Auto Memoir Dolls with the ones she plays with, so for the duration of Violet’s seven-day contract, Anne believes she is not only a doll, but bad news as well.

The reason she is deemed “bad news” is simple. Anne may be young, but she knows all is not well with her ill, oft-bedridden mother. Now that Violet has arrived, all of the time Anne wants to spend with her mom is being taken by Violet, who ghostwrites letters of and for which the content and recipients remain frustrating mysteries to Anne.

When she witnesses her mother collapse once more while working with Violet, Anne has had enough, and confronts her mother with the truth of which she’s already aware; that her mom’s time grows short, and that she wants to spend what is left of it together.

Anne runs off, but Violet catches up, and impresses upon her the futility of Anne blaming herself or believing she can do anything about it. As Violet puts it, just as nothing can make her arms have soft skin like Anne’s, nothing can be done about her mother’s illness.

What follows this emotionally harrowing seven-day encounter is nothing less than the full realization of Violet Evergarden’s talent and skill, made possible by her own ability to step out of the role of the “toy” and be her own “player”, borrowing the terms Anne used when she still thought Violet was an actual doll.

All along, the letters Anne’s mom wrote weren’t for some distant people who didn’t even have the decency to pay her a visit in her final days; they were always only for Anne. Holding back tears for the duration of her contract, Violet wrote letters to Anne from her mother, to be delivered once a year for the next fifty years.

In a masterful montage of those years spanning from her tenth to twentieth birthdays, we see the insecure, clingy, doll-clutching Anne grow into a fine young woman, fall in love, get married, and have a kid.

Each year, her mom is right there, Violet having provided her with the means to live on through the letters, reminding her beloved daughter that no matter how far away she might be, loved ones will always watch over you.

It’s as moving a story as any Violet Evergarden has shared, and my favorite so far. Now that she’s emerged from the shadows of her past, we can now see just how exceptional an Auto Memoir Doll Violet really is.

Orange – 13 (Fin)

Naho vows to give Kakeru chocolates on Valentine’s Day and make sure he knows her feelings, but even though her letters state all of the various opportunities, she still manages to blow by almost all of them without success, which is obviously done to heighten the tension. It works!

But this isn’t like the squandered opportunities of the past. This is it, with just a day before he commits suicide in the original timeline. She has to get those damn chocolates to him, or at least make up with him. A particularly one-dimensionally evil Ueda Rio provides one last obstacle to Naho, but she doesn’t back down, and by the end of the episode’s first act, victory is hers. It’s a satisfying scene that cuts through a lot of the murk that had built up.

With apologies, hugs, and tears thus shared, Naho and Kakeru are back to normal; no, better than ever, and all the happier for it. Kakeru even blurts out that he loves her, and she doesn’t blush and run off.

But the hour of his past death is still ahead of them, and the circle of friends remains concerned enough to consider either breaking his bike or waiting at the site of his once-and-hopefully-not-future demise.

Again, we see the future friends planning out the logistics and agreeing to send their letters to the past. Again, it seems a little odd to call so much attention to such a mysterious and hard-to-swallow process that is never fully explained anyway (because it’s time magic).

In any case, because they’ve changed the future so much, the timing of Kakeru’s attempted suicide is altered somewhat, and because Hagita actually sabotages his bike, he’s on foot when a truck nearly hits him.

Kakeru is wandering the night wanting to die, just like last time, because of the power of the unsent text on his mom’s phone he found. But unlike last time, Naho and the others have had an equally powerful cumulative effect on him, to the point it doesn’t matter that they’re too late to stop him, because he stops himself. He doesn’t want to die after all.

From there, everyone runs to him, thinking he’s been hit but relieved to find he isn’t, and when they have to explain why they’re all there, they finally let him in on the future letters, even giving him letters from their once-but-no-longer selves. And there’s a big ol’ group hug, baaaaaaaw.

Those former selves are still chillin’ in the future, content that they did all they could to make a Kakeru in an alternate world a better chance to stay alive, for the benefit of their alternate past and future selves. They created a new world, where Kakeru could live and be happily ever after.

 

Parting thoughts: In its first three to seven weeks, Orange could almost do no wrong by me, so enthusiastic was I by a show that had the potential to be AnoHana or Toradora! quality, with Hanazawa Kana as its able lead.

But the show eventually regressed a bit as the angst was heightened, and my enthusiasm waned just when it was growing for those other shows. Orange could also be a little cheesy at times (I continue to have mixed feelings about the huge smiles of various characters),  and it never maintained the (in hindsight unreasonable) heights I envisioned for it, but it still really wowed and moved me for a solid half of its run.

I liked these earnest kids and their mission to save their friend, I’m glad they succeeded, and I look forward to the anime movie that continues the tale a little further.

Orange – 12

This week we finally get glimpses of life from Kakeru’s perspective, both events Naho and the others weren’t present for, and in the re-telling of important moments we’ve already witness from the point of view of others. More importantly, we see the “initial” future that leads to his suicide. Here, Kakeru finally opens up, and it’s a dark, brooding place.

Kakeru is clinically depressed, and can’t forgive himself for what he thought as sending his mom over the edge into suicide. It’s shocking to see him make an actual attempt, since it’s the realized fear of both us and Naho & co, who at the end of the day can only see a small part o Kakeru’s daily life, and only what he chooses to show them, which isn’t much.

Even when he finds his mom’s old phone containing a lengthy apology for what she did to him and an explanation for her actions, he’s so stuck in his head on that bike ride he ends up getting killed, even if that wasn’t necessarily his desire at the time.

All the other events unfold as Naho’s letter said they would, bringing us to that sudden end. But the last thing he sees in his head is the face of Naho, whom he thinks would probably be sad if he were to die. But he can’t be sure, and in any case isn’t sure anything actually matters.

That brings us back to the present of the “second” timeline, in which Naho and the others have worked so hard, unbeknownst to him, to keep him safe and happy. But like last time, the New Year’s fight with Naho is an open wound that’s hard to heal, even though Naho knows she must.

We check in on her alternate future self and the others deciding to send letters out to sea, hoping the black hole in the Bermuda Triangle will swallow them up and send them to the past.

This is…a pretty ridiculous plan; frankly I kinda wish they had kept the means by which they received the letters a mystery rather than try to clunkily lay out the practicalities of actually doing it. It’s enough that they wanted to reach out to their past selves to try to change things; I didn’t need the details.

In any case, Naho feels like she and Kakeru are drifting further and further away. The awkwardness and helplessness are palpable. So she goes for broke and asks that Kakeru wait until Valentine’s Day. She’s decided she’ll make her stand there. Whether it causes Kakeru to hate her or causes her pain is irrelevant. She’s not going to lose him again.

Orange – 11

After the sports festival ended with a kiss, the next hurdle in the battle to save Kakeru is Christmas Eve and New Year’s. Specifically, Naho wants to avoid a fight she believes may have led to Kakeru closing his heart and taking his own life not long afterwards. Suwa later comforted her that night, and also confessed to her, leading to the future where they married and had a kid.

It makes sense for Naho to want to avoid getting in a fight with Kakeru on New Year’s, but this time her letter was a lot more vague about what exactly she could do.

After a relay race win that was a team effort for her and her friends, she’s on her own again, and Suwa is more concerned with keeping himself out of the equation all together: no shrine visit, no comforting, no confession.

Hagita wonders if changing the future to such an extent is really okay and right…but Suwa sees it another, more quantum way: the minute they got their letters from the future, they were no longer in the world that led to that future. They’ve on off on a tangeant that will result in a new future, while that old future will continue on unaffected.

Temporal technobabble aside, nothing Suwa does or doesn’t do matters in the end. In the end, Kakeru wants to go home to his grandma, and Naho asks if he’d stay a little longer, assuring him his grandma will be just fine. That confident assertion sets Kakeru off. He rejects Naho’s notion one can simply decide things will be okay, because he thought that way about his mom before she took her life.

He still blames himself for her death, which means Naho is only able to do so much; she’s no therapist, and it’s possible no words she could have come up with, up to and including a prompt apology for angering him, would have done any good. Suwa comforts her again, but skips the confession, instead urging her to go after Kakeru.

But when she calls Kakeru, he smashes his phone, clearly fed up with talking. Naho, Suwa & Co.’s best just wasn’t enough to avoid history from repeating itself. Here’s hoping there’s still a way to salvage this mess.

Orange – 10

Kakeru continues to look and act forlorn, and even Naho in a cheerleader outfit doesn’t change that. What ultimately does is a team effort by Naho, Suwa, Hagita, Azu and Tako, which is not only used to help Kakeru carry a futon (kind of a bizarre errand in the middle of a sports festival, if you ask me).

The metaphor is not subtle, but effective: his burdens will be lighter because they’ll help bear them. Kakeru feels safe enough to reveal the cause of his less-than-stellar mood: he’s unsure if he should be laughing and having fun when his mom could be watching.

Well duh, any mom would want their kid to be happy, and to not let himself be happy would only worry her, jsut as it worries Naho and the others.

It becomes clear to all that there’s no way they’ll be able to dissuade Kakeru from participating in the relay, so they have to carry it out, doing everything they can on their end to make sure it’s a victory, and hoping fate doesn’t rain on their parade in the form of Kakeru worsening his injury, losing the relay to the blue team, and restart a spiral of regret and self-hatred.

Just before the relay, both Suwa and Kakeru are given extra motivation to win the whole thing: a kiss from Naho, which she neither agrees nor disagrees to (she’s too shocked by the prospect). As for Azusa and Hagita, yeah, this is starting to get old. Just date already. Right now. Do it.

I never thought I’d get all excited about Emotionally Significant School Relay #937…but with some serious stakes in play, I daresay I was. A strong lead by Suwa starts to erode when Tako and Azu run, but Hagita manages to pass a few people.

After Naho’s leg, Kakeru summons heretofore unsummoned athletic ability and hits the finish tape first, no down cheered on by the telephone-style message constructed by his teammates, ending with the sentiments that they’ll all be together in ten years

After the race, Kakeru’s grandma recalls a relay in the past that his mother attended not long after getting divorced, when Kekeru looked down-in-the-dumps…until he won, and flashed the same smile he flashed today. So all’s well that ends well; Naho & Co. change the future again, without any further speed bumps in the relay phase.

That only leaves the matter of Naho’s “promised kiss.” When coming in close to bandage his shoulder scrape, Kakeru ends up stealing a little kiss to her cheek before running off, no doubt over the moon. Naho reacts exactly the way you’d expect: stunned silence, followed shortly by a warm expression of acknowledgment in said kiss’s power.

Orange – 09

Now that it’s confirmed everyone in Naho’s circle has letters from their future selves guiding them support Naho and Kakeru, we see the first instance of someone other than Naho and Suwa reading their letter and acting on it. In this case, it’s Azusa, whose letters are a lot more fancy and flowery than Naho’s austere correspondence.

The letter instructs her, during her birthday, to make sure everyone refuses to let Kakeru borrow their umbrella, so that he and Naho can share one and walk home together. It works like a charm, and just like that, Orange has arrived in episode 9 where Momokuri got in it’s second half-episode.

Naho even holds out her hand for him to take, insisting once isn’t enough. But the two still maintain they’re fine with things they way they are, rather than officially going out.

That’s a not entirely honest position that is put to the test during the sports festival, when the group of friends are to participate in a relay. There are a number of events preceding that race, during which we get a look at everyone’s parents.

Suwa makes sure Kakeru’s grandma comes so he’s not too lonely…but he still feels lonely, because he’s not sure how long it will be before he has to move, before he “disappears.”

Suwa elects to rattle his cage, asking him if it’s really okay to not be going out with Naho, and if it’s really okay with him if he went out with Naho. Kakeru, gloomy and dejected, says that would be fine; not even a bad idea. He’s still speaking from a place of self-hatred and resignation to an uncertain, lonely life in the wake of his mother’s suicide.

Things take a turn for the worse between Naho and Kakeru when the former dresses Suwa’s wound with the same care she bandaged Kakeru a ways back. The timing sucks, and when Naho offers to dress his wounds too, Kakeru recoils, even slapping her hand away. Immediately ashamed, he scurries off, and Naho wonders what she did wrong (nothing, really).

But Suwa is still optimistic that he’s put Kakeru on the right track to more forcefully and confidently stake a claim and pursue that which he wants – Naho. I’m…less optimistic. Even with the whole circle of friends working toward a single goal, it isn’t going to be easy to bring Kakeru and Naho closer together.

Not when they’re so cripplingly inept at courtship, and possess so little self-worth, thinking the other person too good for them. I don’t envy their friends: this isn’t going to be a smooth ride, and a future where Kakeru is with them is far from assured when he’s still speaking with dark permenance about the certainty of ‘disappearing’.