Spy x Family – 36 – Chefs! Chefs! Chefs!

While sometimes Becky Blackbell seems precocious to the point of acting like she’s six going on twenty-six, at the end of the day, she is every bit six, which means she considers the soap operas on TV to be what real courtship and romance is like. Determined to win the heart of her “Precious Loid”, she invites herself over to Anya’s with a full head of steam that turns into so much blushing and tripping over words.

It only takes an easy smile from Loid for Becky to imagine becoming Anya’s stepmother, complete with new family portrait. Poor Anya is an audience to Becky’s over-the-top delusions, and decides to kick Yor aside and root for Becky to become her new Mama for one primary reason: meals prepared by world-class chefs. Alas, once Yor returns home and Becky tries removing her scrunchies and whips her hair about, she gets zero reaction from Loid.

If Anya had normal adults as a mother and father, one of them would probably be able to see a childish crush when they see it. Instead, Becky and her hair is twisting in the proverbial wind, and all Anya can do is twist along with her.

When Becky decides to go full bore and “collapse” into Loid from being too “drunk”, Yor takes her deadly seriously, picks her up, and rushes to the nearest hospital. Before a car hits her (the car loses), Yor tosses Becky into the air, only to catch her perfectly after absorbing the impact of the accident with nothing but a bloody nose.

It’s after this act of selfless and completely unnecessary bodily sacrifice that Becky finally comes clean: she was only lying because she wanted to court her precious Loid. To her surprise, Yor isn’t upset, but happy that Loid is so loved. Becky, moved by her massive heart, asks her how she won Loid over, and Yor recalls him saying she’s strong.

Becky tries to demonstrate that she’s strong too by trying her hand at the bell-and-hammer game in he park, but the weight of the hammer bowls her over backwards. Yor, believing Becky wants the top prize to give to Loid, picks up the hammer with one hand and obliterates the entire device.

Becky, who is after all the heiress to an arms empire, is suddenly smitten with Yor as well. She now realizes she’s simply not strong enough to steal Loid from her, so she’ll become her apprentice instead. When her maid arrives to pick her up, Yor is giving her some martial arts pointers.

Another woman who loves Loid deeply but knows she isn’t strong enough to defeat Yor is Fiona Frost AKA Nightfall. During Loid’s cruise vacation, she not only completes all of her missions, but all of Twilight’s as well, overworking herself despite Sylvia telling her not to. She even trains herself in the mountains by pulling grizzly bears, riding goats and standing atop alligators.

Fiona doesn’t become a blushing, blubbering mess when she’s in Loid’s presence like Becky; in addition to being an adult, she’s also a spy, and very good at concealing her true feelings. She has almost no reaction to Loid presenting her with a souvenir from his trip, but once she’s alone in the hall she’s skipping along like she’s on cloud nine more in “wuv” with him than ever.

Oshi no Ko – 02 – Dreams and Nightmares

About ten years after their mother was murdered by a stalker, Aquamarine and Ruby Hoshino have gone in different directions. Ruby is determined to follow her mom into the industry and become an idol, in keeping with her past self Sarina’s dreams. Aqua, on the other hand, is stuck in the past, dedicating the remainder of his life to tracking down his father and making him suffer before he dies.

He works under the table as an apprentice for the film director Gotanda, and he and Ruby are about to take high school entrance exams. Having already been rejected in an audition two years ago, Ruby applies once more, and once more gets a call that she isn’t one of the chosen few. She’s devastated, but what’s even more devastating is that the call came from Aqua posing as the agency. He won’t let Ruby go down the same road Ai did, period.

While this feels like a horrible betrayal, it’s understandable, because we watched the film-length first episode and know who Aqua is and what he’s been through. Of course, that Ruby went through the exact same stuff (and worse, when you consider she died so young and in pain), so I pumped my fist when Aqua’s plan is stymied by Ruby being scouted on the street, just as their mother was.

That said, she shows Aqua the business card of the agency, which allows him to demonstrate his skills as both an actor and a private investigator, using his good looks and charm to invite another idol from that agency to Strawberry Productions. She is all too open and honest in her assessment of her current situation: lousy pay, huge expenses, favoritism, their manager dating one of the group, terrible chemistry, etc.

Both Aqua and Miyako agree it doesn’t sound like the kind of agency Ruby should be getting into. Aqua suggests Miyako (the new director of Strawberry with Ichigo blowing town) hire the idol they just interviewed, but Miyako doesn’t like how she badmouthed her co-workers, showing she has a keen eye not just for the talent but the quality of people.

The next day when Ruby has dolled herself up for her audition with this sketchy agency, she’s confronted by Miyako and Aqua: is this really what she wants, even though she knows what the industry did to Ai? Even if it means she’ll be miserable and exhausted and possibly fall victim to stalking?

She says she is, and knowing who Ruby is (and who Sarina was) I don’t doubt her resolve. So Miyako tells her not to join that agency. Ruby is about to get upset, but Miyako continues by asking her to sign with Strawberry instead. That’s right: the agency will be managing idols for the first time in a decade, and Ruby is their first signing.

It’s ultimately a compromise Aqua accepts (for now) since he’s smart enough to know Ruby isn’t going to stop until she’s an idol, so better that she be managed by a family-run business. While at Director Gotanda’s house, which is really his parents’ house—because why move out of a spacious family home in the middle of the city?—editing film, Aqua tells Gotanda that he’s fine working towards a modest production job in the industry rather than pursuing acting.

This isn’t just because he has an equally good chance of meeting his target no matter what job he has in the industry as long as it has access to talent. It’s because he doesn’t believe he has any talent for acting. We know this not to be true, not just because of the different people he’s pretended to be in this very episode, but because a film director hand-picked him to act in his films. Heck, unbeknownst to him, he famous child actress Arima “Tears in 10 Minutes Flat” Kana cry for real.

In between hilarious interruptions from his mom announcing dinner is ready, Taishi tells Aqua that he’s at least twenty years too young to be giving up on making it in acting, when he can tell the boy truly does care about it. Sure, he doesn’t know he’s actually talking to a boy with the mind of a doctor about his age who is channeling all of his energy into vendetta and revenge. But that isn’t all Aqua is. It’s just what he feels like he needs to be.

At the entrance interviews, both Aqua and Ruby excel in the general education and performing arts departments, respectively. As they chat in the hall, Ruby makes light of Aqua’s ostentatious name (he too joked it would be the only reason he’s not accepted), and someone overhears it.

Not just someone, but Arima Kana! Just as the Hoshinos have stars in their eyes, when she turns we see entire galaxies reflected in hers. When Aqua confirms he is indeed Aqua Hoshino, Kana embraces him with joy and relief. She’d feared he’d given up on acting, and is looking forward to being in the performing arts department with him. Then he drops the hammer…he’s just in gen ed. Kana is aghast…as she should be!

I’m not going to sit here and say Aqua is squandering his talents and his mother’s legacy by refusing to pursue acting. People are free to do whatever they want, regardless of what they’re good at. And Aqua is good at much more than acting. But I will most definitely say its wrong for him to waste his life on a revenge plot that likely won’t go the way he plans, may cost far more than he hoped, and certainly won’t give him and peace or solace.

So if even a little part of him dreams of acting as Ruby dreams of being an idol, I’d prefer if he’d get into that. Also, selfishly, I just want to see him and Kana acting together again, because Kana is great!

Oshi no Ko – 01 (First Impressions) – Lies are Love

It’s late, and I just finished the epic, nearly 90-minute premiere of Oshi no Ko, and I’m convinced it’s probably one of the best works of anime I’ve ever watched. I laughed, I cried, I was lifted up and then utterly destroyed. My thoughts are similarly scattered, so let’s begin with the basics of the events of this feature-length episode.

Rural OB-GYN Dr. Amemiya Gorou is a huge fan of Hoshino Ai, transcendent center of the idol group B Komachi. He first heard about her through Sarina-chan, a terminal patient from earlier in his career. Sarina once wished she could be reborn as the child of an idol. So who should show up at his hospital but the 16-year-old Hoshino Ai herself—pregnant with twins, no less.

Despite her manager/guardian Saitou’s worries about it ruining her career (and his business), Ai is determined to carry her children to term and raise them while remaining an idol. As her physician (and biggest fan), Gorou is resolved to ensure he brings them into the world safe and healthy.

But the day she’s to give birth, Gorou is lured into the woods by Ai’s stalker and pushed off a cliff. He hears his phone ringing, calling him back to the hospital, but he dies in a pool of his own blood, having been dashed against the rock.

The next thing he knows, he’s reborn as Hoshino’s son, Aquamarine, beside his twin sister, Ruby. In order to keep her idol reputation pristine, Saitou crafts the cover story of the babes being his, and appoints his wife Miyako their mother, both in public and while Ai is working.

While just an infant, Aqua has retained his knowledge and memories of his previous life as an adult doctor. He soon learns that Ruby has as well, and concludes that she had a previous life as well. When the strain of caring for the kids gets to Miyako, she prepares to expose Ai’s secret to the world.

This is when Aqua and Ruby reveal to Miyako that they can talk and reason like much older humans, but play it as deities possessing their infant bodies. They warn Miyako not to stray from her “destiny” as their pretend mother and protecting Ai’s secret, lest she suffer “divine punishment”.

The ploy works, and henceforth Miyako isn’t weirded out by their ability to converse. The way Ruby acts and talks about Ai reminds him of Sarina, and he even uses that name to rouse her from sleep. Ruby, who actually is Sarina, dismisses it as mishearing, since there’s no way Aqua could know who she was.

As an idol suddenly going through teen motherhood, Ai notices the lightness of her monthly checks from idol work, but such is the nature of the modest agency for which she works. We get some salient details about the industry and how the profit margins are slim. Ai has to work hard just to get the $1500 a month she gets.

That includes little private shows for fans who won a lottery. Aqua and Ruby persuade Miyako to tempt fate and bring them along so they can watch their mother perform live for the first time. Ai is down in the dumps about seeing criticism online about her professional/fake smile, which is indeed a carefully calculated artifice.

That said, when Ai spots her kids in the crowd doing a coordinated idol dance with lightbars (they couldn’t help themselves), it puts a genuine smile on her face that gets her even more noticed, leading to more work. The kids also go viral online.

A year passes, and Ai has obtained an acting gig on a school drama. In the studio, the director immediately recognizes that the precocious Aqua has something and is eager to use him in a future production. He also acknowledges that despite being a sink-or-swim newcomer on set, Ai is talented and knows how to perform in front of the camera.

Alas, the realities of cold, hard business rear their ugly heads when Ai’s show airs and she’s barely in it. Aqua calls the director to complain, but his hands were tied; the higher-ups caught flak from their lead star’s people because Ai was making more of an impact. They couldn’t have that, and they’re the bigger fish in the pond, so Ai was almost entirely edited out.

That said, the director agrees to have Ai star in a small-budget film he’s writing/producing/directing … provided Aqua agree to be in it too. Aqua is paired up with one Arima Kana, a famous child actor who is not resurrected (as far as we know). She’s also a real piece of work, immediately getting on Aqua and Ruby’s nerves.

That said, it doesn’t take much shooting for Aqua to learn that Kana has tremendous acting chops for her age. It’s just that when he then says his lines, not bothering to try to compete in acting ability but simply interpreting the director’s vision, he not only wows the director and Kana, but sends Kana into a self-conscious spiral.

The film is a critical success, and it propels Ai to even greater stardom (and more work). When Aqua and Ruby are three, Ai enrolls them at preschool, where Aqua shocks the faculty by reading extremely thick, small-print literature. The kids are also tasked with putting on a dance performance for their parents.

This is where Ruby gets depressed. In her past life as Sarina, she lived most of her short life in hospitals, her frail body rarely did what she wanted, and she suffered falls and bitter frustration even as she dreamed of moving like Hoshino Ai. Even in her new, healthy body, Ruby fears she’s not coordinated enough to dance.

Ai has Ruby join her in her studio to practice dance moves, and tells her that if she’s afraid of falling she’s just going to keep falling. By standing up straight and having confidence in herself, Ruby is able to dance beautifully right beside her mom. Even Aqua notes that Ruby excels at both acting and dancing, still unaware that she was once the Sarina-chan he knew.

As Ai’s star continues to rise, she overhears her kids talking about their dad, and decides to call him to arrange to meet them, not wanting them to be in the dark about him forever. She also moves into a fancy new digs in downtown Tokyo, and celebrates with her kids, her manager, and Miyako.

As they all watch her popular TV drama, we get some internal monologue from Ai this time. She suffers impostor syndrome, because she feels she has no idea what capital-L Love really is. Her kind of “love” has always been an artfully-constructed tapestry of lies, ever since she was abandoned by her mother and put in a home.

But when she was first scouted by Saitou (and had no interest in being an idol), he told her it was okay to lie. Even if she considered herself a people-hating lier, he believed she still truly wanted to learn how to love, and so singing and dancing, pretending to love her fans and being loved by them, could help her with that.

After so many years of performing, it’s become nearly impossible for her to distinguish her lies from the truth of how she feels. So at this point, she hasn’t once told Aqua and Ruby that she loves them, because she’s terrified that it might sound like another lie. It’s a heartbreaking prospect.

Ai finally achieves the holy grail of idoldom: getting a dome show. But on the day of the show the doorbell rings, she answers the door, and the stalker is there. We had been shown the stalker still obsessing with her even after he’d killed Gorou, so in a way we I had been prepared for the other shoe to dorp, especially when Ai brought up someday possibly “paying for” all the lies she’d told throughout career.

But even though I knew the good times would not go on forever, there was simply no way to not be absolutely devastated by the sharp cut to the stalker plunging a knife in Ai’s chest, or the sheer amount of blood from her ruptured abdominal aorta, or that she’d forgive her stalker and attacker and even remember his name from handshake events (even though she’s terrible with names).

Or, of course, how she ended up saying goodbye to her children—Aqua in her blood-soaked arms and Ruby separated on the other side of the frosted glass foyer door. She’s finally able to tell them she loves them, and it’s the truth. I kept waiting for the paramedics to come and possibly save her life, but Aqua having been a doctor, I followed his lead in thinking she wouldn’t make it … goddamn it.

I was still blotting my eyes with Kleenex when the aftermath of Ai’s murder was described by Aqua. The culprit, thoroughly chastened and shamed by Ai’s heartfelt appeal to him even after he stabbed her, attempted suicide and died in the hospital. A huge outpouring of grief followed, but eventually dissipated, and within three short days, Ai’s tragic story had been buried in the news cycle by a sudden bout of unseasonable snow.

Naturally, Aqua and Ruby are absolutely ruined by the loss of the woman who wasn’t just their beloved mother, but their beloved idol. Ai’s manager and his wife Miyako adopt them, and the scandal of her having kids never comes to light. Ruby seems determined to fulfill the potential her mother believed she had to become an idol in her own right, despite knowing full well what a treacherous road she’ll walk by doing so.

As for Aqua, he determines that the stalker couldn’t have been a good enough detective to not only find his hospital and kill him, but also find Ai’s new home and kill her. Going down the list of people who could have possibly fed him this information, he determines the most logical culprit to be his and Ruby’s father, whose identity remains a mystery.

In the back of that funeral limo, just as Ruby resolves to become an idol, Aqua resolves to find and kill their father.

Fast forward about a decade or so, and Aqua and Ruby are now in high (or possibly middle) school. Her dream to become an idol is still alive, as is his determination to find their father. Ruby cheerfully tells their mom (in a photo of the three of them) that they’re heading off. In a post-credits home movie she recorded, Ai tells them her greatest wish is that they grow up happy and healthy. They both seem healthy. As for the rest … we’ll have to see.

This may have just been an extended prologue, but could easily have served as a wholly complete, joy-evoking, core-shaking, utterly heartbreaking feature film. Takahashi Rie gives the best voice acting performance of her career. It also had the look and feel of a high-budget anime film, setting a lofty standard I’m hoping Doga Kobo can maintain in the episodes to come.

My only worry, aside from the aforementioned fear of production quality dropping, is that the void left by Hoshino Ai will prove too large to fill, or the “revenge play” that follows won’t be able to match the emotional resonance. But for now, suffice it to say this is easily the anime of the season, the year, and possibly the decade, and absolute appointment viewing. That’s no lie.

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST

Spy x Family – 24 – Rebuilding the World

Annihilating Fiona in tennis proves not to be a cure-all for Yor’s replacement anxiety. It’s gotten to the point where Loid observes her walking into lampposts while muttering and the neighbors gossiping about adultery.

Taking her out for drinks only heightens Yor’s distress, as she assumes the bar to be the venue where he’ll officially declare he’ll be moving on with Fiona. That’s not what he’s planning to say, but before he can get a word in edgewise Yor champs her fancy cocktail and then chugs his scotch to soften a blow that will never come.

Once Yor’s lips have been sufficiently loosened by alcohol, her rants make Loid realize that this goes beyond her worrying about not being an adequate wife and mother, and passes into jealousy territory. Assuming Yor has developed romantic feelings for him, he turns on his practiced Twilight charm.

But while there’s definitely something to Yor feeling something for him, his advances are far to powerful, and her reduced inhibitions mean she has not problem kicking him in the chin and sending him flying. He manages to to a mid-air flip and land on his feet, but the kick landed, and Loid goes down.

He wakes up from a dream of his mother humming a lullaby to him to find his head in Yor’s lap as she sings the same tune (though with improvised lyrics). The mere fact her song reminded him of his mother, and of a time when he felt happy, safe and loved even in the midst of a terrible war, speaks to Yor’s latent skills.

When she says of course he’d want to move on from a “musclehead” like her, he recounts to her the story of his mother, and sees that same strength in her with Anya. While he, Nightfall, and the other spies have been working tirelessly to rebuild the world, Yor has already rebuilt it in their home: made a place where Anya feels safe, happy, and loved.

That’s why he’s honored to have Yor as a wife and mother, and has no intention of replacing her with Fiona. As for Yor, Yuri was once the only thing she cared about in the world, but now she can add her new family to that short list. It’s a home she and Loid built that she doesn’t want to leave anytime soon.

In the second half, Becky notices Anya watching Damian from afar and assumes she’s in love with the twerp. In reality, she’s trying to befriend him since eight Stella are out of the question. But Becky assumes she’s just being shy, and tells her the best way to get a man’s attention is by looking as good as possible.

To that end, Becky invites Anya on a shopping trip to a department store she rented out in its entirety. A shopping montage ensues, with Anya trying on increasingly avant-garde clothes and Becky cheering her on all the way even though she’s increasingly unsure what’s going on.

All this Fashion exhausts Anya, while Becky realizes that at the dorm party where they’ll be able to be out of uniform, she needs to come up with an ensemble to impress her darling Loid. Moving on from that, the girls keep shopping for shoes, glasses, accessories, and then have some tea and lunch at the store café.

When Anya appears colorless and says she’s near death, Becky asks her if she didn’t enjoy shopping with her. In response, Anya brightens up and assures Becky that she had tons of fun, as this was her first time shopping with a friend. Hearing Anya say “friend” really moves Becky.

As her maid and chaperone Martha drives the tuckered out girls home, we learn why that is: Becky had trouble making friends prior to enrolling at Eden. She came off as an arrogant bully and found socializing with commoners to be beneath her.

Considering her father runs one of the country’s largest conglomerates, it’s not surprising her to-the-manor-born upbringing caused this aloofness. Combine that with her precociousness, and Becky thought she had the entire world and everyone in it figured out before she turned eight.

It was Martha who told her the first step to being a true and proper adult is accepting that she didn’t know all there was to know about everything and everyone. Watching Becky interact with Anya, who may well be her first true friend just as she is Anya’s, Martha can see how far Becky has come since attending Eden and meeting Anya.

It warms her heart to see Becky with a real friend she can be herself with. That genuine happiness is more attractive than any couture outfit, as evidenced by Damian blushing when he sees Anya and Becky the next day, walking and laughing with their matching sheep keychains.

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – 03 – Childhood Friend

Thanks to Roxy, Rudy is no longer a shut-in, which means he can now freely explore the boundless natural beauty beyond the Greyrat residence. Paul tells his son that a man’s strength isn’t for pushing people around, but protecting and befriending the weak—and if some girls are impressed in the process, it’s all gravy.

It’s the first of several moments Paul talks to his son as if he were much older, even though he tells him he worries about the ways he doesn’t act like the kid he is. This only makes sense: Rudy is Paul’s first kid, while Rudy’s emotional and social development was profoundly stunted by bullying and harassment. They both have plenty to teach each other.

As for making friends, the first three kids his age Rudy meets are bullying a weaker boy, and uses his water magic to disinterest them off. He learns they were picking on the boy for having green hair and thus resembling the hated Superd. In reality, he’s the son of a human and half-elf; the green hair is just a harmless genetic trait.

At first glance it’s clear to Rudy that Sylph (delicately voiced by Kayano Ai) is a drop-dead gorgeous bishounen. Having acted on his father’s advice to be a friend to the weak, his decision is also routed in his baser desire to meet hot babes, who will surely flock to this prettyboy. Sylph is delighted to have a friend, as Rudy is his first as well. They agree to meet up soon so he can teach him how to use the magic that got rid of the bullies.

But Rudy comes home late to find an angry Paul at the front door. He heard from the mother of one of the bullies that Rudy punched him. Rudy tries to explain the way an adult would to another, but Paul doesn’t want to hear excuses. When Rudy is insolent, he’s slapped, but instead of crying, Rudy becomes even more adult and logical.

He tells Paul how he’s worked hard to earn his father’s trust, and had hoped that would have in turn earned him the chance to explain his actions. He then assures Paul that next time he sees three boys picking on another, he’ll either ignore it or join in, as befits the “Greyrat Family Way.” Paul, knowing he’s been rhetorically beaten, apologizes and asks Rudy to tell him what happened.

Like I said, Paul is as new to being a dad as Rudy is to being a kid in this world. Both are going to make mistakes. What’s so wonderful about the exchange here is that virtually equal time is given to their respective analyses and growth as a father and a son. Paul thought he needed to be hard on a son who is already a saint-level mage, even though part of him was glad he finally did something childish.

Paul knows he wasn’t practicing what he preached and furthermore, Rudy was fully capable of exposing that hypocrisy. That said, their “fight” expand beyond the night, as Paul is contrite and reflects not only upon how he’ll parent going forward, but whether his own father felt the things he’s feeling. That he does this while nestling his head in Zenith’s shoulders also underscores that he’s not walking this path of parenthood alone.

Six months pass, and it’s summertime. Rudy and Sylph are still targeted by the bullies, but Rudy fights back every time. He gets the distinct impression that one of the bullies’ moms is using her son as an excuse to see Paul, whom she fancies. Rudy has also been training Sylph in magic, and he turns out to be an excellent student.

When Sylph asks Rudy to teach him how to cast a spell without incantation, Rudy wonders if, like the public myth about set mana levels, it’s easier to do than people let on. As someone in a new world, Rudy wants to be special in at least one or two things, but either it is indeed relatively easy to do incantation-less casting, or Sylph is pretty special himself.

The moment he pulls it off, Sylph practically blooms with joy, dancing and spinning with the water he conjured, then running as fast as his fair legs can carry him through golden fields. Rudy can only keep up and share in the pure, unadulterated joy. As they lie together in the reeds, catching their breath, Rudy reiterates how goddamn pretty Sylph is.

Then a pop-up storm starts to drench them, and they make haste for shelter at Rudy’s house. Rudy leads Sylph to the bath that Lilia already prepared, strips down to his birthday suit, and sets to work stripping an extremely reluctant Sylph down as well, urging him not to be bashful—they’re both boys!

Only…they’re not. As was fairly evident from the start, Sylph is a girl, and was never able to get out her full name: Sylphiette. For once, Rudy isn’t turned on by a naked girl. In fact, he feels awful, as well as stupid for not realizing sooner. As he bathes with his dad, Paul makes sure that even as his son starts getting more interested in girls that kind of thing, he needs to listen and heed them when they say “no”.

Again, Paul is glad his son is acting like the kid he appears to be—and emotionally, still is—in this situation. He knows his son will “make good use” of his failure, only to watch Rudy “apologize” by saying he honestly thought she was a boy the whole six months they’ve hung out, causing her to cry even more. At that, Paul wonders if his son is dumber than he thought!

A day or a few pass, Rudy can’t concentrate on sparring with Paul, and Paul knows exactly why. What he doesn’t know is that the 30-year-old in Rudy is similarly depressed about having seemingly pushed away the lovely childhood friend was hoping to meet someday. Rudy showed his whole ass (literally!), Paul is certain they’ll make up. He assures Rudy that women love men’s strengths and weaknesses, and showing your vulnerable side can help mend fences.

His dad later admits he’s getting into some pretty advanced romantic advice for his still-very-young son, but it’s all good advice, from someone who is clearly a good man who, while hella strong, understands his own weaknesses and flaws, be it as a father, a husband, or a man.

Sylphiette shows up right after Rudy and Paul talk, and Rudy approaches her weary and contrite. He tries a dating sim line about “missing her beauty”, all while on the verge of tears, fearing permanent rejection. Instead, Sylphiette tenderly takes his hands in hers, tells him she “doesn’t hate him or anything”, and asks him to just “act normal,” giving him a pat on the head for good measure.

That she’s forgiven him so easily baffles Rudy, but he’s also obviously relieved beyond belief. He admits to not knowing how to get along with her, even though that’s what he’s been doing the last six months. His adult brain looks outward into the future when he’s a man in need of a good woman, but for now, the gender of the first friend his age shouldn’t matter. They’re still young, and have all the time in the world.

Rudy and Sylphiette will learn together how to continue get along with each other. There will be times they’ll make each other angry, get into fights, and maybe not talk or want to look in each other’ faces. But they’ll also run through golden fields together, laughing, playing, doing magic, and simply reveling in each other’s proximity. They’ll falter and forgive together—that’s what friendship is all about.

P.S. Read Crow’s write-up here!

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – 02 – Facing the Outside

Most isekai anime never return to the protagonist’s original world after the first episode, but as Rudy grows older and more accustomed to his new life as a little kid, his trauma begins manifesting as flashes of that previous life. First, we’re presented with a Rudy who skips his parents’ funeral so he can jerk off in his bedroom.

When three goons break in, he runs away, sees a truck about to hit some high school students, and runs into its path, resulting in the death we saw last week. Back in the new world, Rudy considers walking in on his parents loudly screwing when he sees Roxy masturbating outside their door. Symmetry.

As pervy as Rudy is, even he knows better than to disturb Roxy in such a vulnerable state, like the goons did to him the night he died. The empathy he displays here underscores the promise of this new life: the chance to properly develop mentally, something that wasn’t possible in his old life. It’s also an early hint of the respect he gains for Roxy, who isn’t just his master, but his first friend…in either life.

Six months, then a year pass since Roxy arrived, and Rudy is making fast progress with his magic, and no longer passing out after expending it. Roxy looks upon this progress with pride, but also a sense of sad inevitability: soon he’ll easily surpass her as a mage and she’ll have nothing left to teach him. As for the green-haired demonic “Superd” she warns him about, Rudy already knows about monsters from his past life.

In his previous life, Rudy was brutally bullied at school, regularly stripped down, tied up, and photographed by leering, laughing gawkers. Though we’re seeing things purely from his POV there’s no reason to think he’s embellishing things, and we see that this treatment led him to cease moving forward. He retreated into the safety of his room, where he remained in stasis.

Even though his two worlds couldn’t look any more different (a contrast that’s well-executed by the visuals), he feels the same fear of the outside beyond his family’s land as he did leaving his room, or even looking out his window. When Roxy recommends he attend Ranoa Magic University in the Red Dragon Mountains to further his training, he brushes it off as unnecessary; he’ll be just fine where he is, with Roxy.

Of course, Rudy is deluding himself. Roxy is a great teacher, but as he reaches five years old (the first of three 5-year intervals birthdays are celebrated in this world) they’re quickly approaching the point when Roxy has nothing left to teach him. To remain home would stunt his development, both as a mage and as a person.

For his fifth birthday Rudy receives a tome from his mom, a sword from his dad, and a wand from Roxy, along with the announcement that he’ll use the wand for his imminent graduation exam. The magic they’ll be learning is dangerous, so they must travel away from home. The prospect of going outside causes Rudy to freeze up; as Roxy aptly puts it, he’s finally “acting his age.”

Roxy assures him there’s nothing to fear, and helps him exorcise his past life’s demons simply by being her wonderful self. As they ride past other villagers, Rudy wants them to stop staring at him, but then realizes they’re staring at Roxy, who in just a year was able to win the entire village over despite the prejudice surrounding people with hair her color.

With nothing left to fear of the new land in which he finds himself, Rudy watches Roxy pull of the biggest magical spell yet, summoning a huge storm that accidentally injures the family horse, Caravaggio. Thankfully he’s easily healed up and then placed in a protective shell when it’s Rudy’s turn to cast the spell.

As with the magical trials Fran puts Elaina through in Wondering Witch, the full terrible potential of elite-level magic is fully realized by the surpassing visuals, as the idyllic landscape is entirely greyed out by blinding sheets of rain, only to emerge more beautiful than before, with tinges of pink and violet in the blue skies.

Rudy passed his first two big tests of life in his new world: stepping outside, and passing his final exam with Roxy. With that passage, there truly is nothing else Roxy can teach him. While I half-expected him to press further for her to stay—either by becoming the village’s resident mage or, say, becoming his dad’s third wife—Rudy isn’t the only one who needs to move forward, and Roxy intends to travel the world, re-hone her skills, and see what else she can learn.

So while Rudy is understandably sad to see her go (as are his folks, who fail to hold back tears for her goodbye), he lets her go, thanking her for imbuing him with knowledge, experience, and technique in magic as well as life. He will also never forget that it was Roxy who brought him outside and showed him it was nothing to fear.

While Roxy was little more than a pretty game character made flesh to Rudy when they met, she’s become someone with whom he formed a genuine human connection, learned more than he’d ever imagined, and healed him in a way he’d long thought impossible. For all of that she’ll have his everlasting gratitude and respect.

Of course, Rudy is still Rudy, as we’re reminded when Lilia discovers a pair of Roxy’s underwear he’d stashed away a few months prior to her departure…the little shit! But maybe, just maybe, he’s taken the first steps to becoming a little less of a shit. Baby steps.

Stray Observations:

• Rudy died the same night as his parents’ funeral. Looks like they were last line of defense that kept the tormentors out of his house. We later catch them outside his door telling him not to give up.
• While the extent of the public torture Rudy endured stretches credulity, I’m not putting anything past human beings after 2020.
• Roxy is indeed the age where, ahem, “that kind of thing” is pretty normal, and this being a world that lacks the modern means of taking care of that, listening to two people having sex would have to suffice.
• That said, the session she and Rudy overheard did not result in a baby sibling for Rudy. I presume he’ll get one at some point.
• Rudy is not yet much of a swordsman despite Paul’s efforts, but in Rudy’s defense, he’s five. you gotta give the kid a sword his size!
• Roxy brings up the Superd, who have green hair and red stones in their foreheads. They started the horrific Laplace War between humans and demons. Rudy visualizes them as similar to Sadako from The Ring.
• Seeing the village kids leering with flip phones was hella creepy.
• Social status, pride, and even race apparently don’t matter at Ranoa University. I imagine Rudy will be heading there as soon as he’s old enough…say seven.
• The little aside of Zenith affectionately feeding Roxy and Lilia grapes was extremely cute.
• Really glad Caravaggio pulled through! Poor horse looked like he was toast—literally.
• Read Crow’s write-up here!

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – 01 (First Impressions) – Getting Serious About Living

Fast on the heels of Zane’s Horimiya comes another contender for Anime of the Season: Jobless Reincarnation, the latest in a rare collection of common stories told uncommonly well. Our protagonist is a 34-year-old NEET hit by a car and killed, but he’s reincarnated as a baby in a fantasy world with all his adult mental faculties and memories intact.

That all-too-familiar premise (for the record, the source LN dates back to 2012) hardly does Jobless justice: from the moment our boy realizes he is the child of the well-endowed young woman who just gave birth to him, his droll adult voiceover (Sugita Tomokazu, I believe) provides a hilariously dry running commentary on his new world.

Rudeus or Rudy, as his parents Zenith and Paul name him, grows up fast, going from a highly mobile infant to a precocious toddler. When he falls down go boom and his mom uses a real healing spell on him, he seeks out the five tomes in his family’s house, learns to read, and gradually learns how to wield water magic.

There’s a wonderful procedural structure to Rudy’s early journey of just figuring things out, but not so rigid a structure that it detracts from the human and emotional sides of his experience. His precociousness also goes noticed by Lilia the live-in maid, as Rudy’s facial expressions betray an older man’s inner wisdom of the world.

While his first attempt to conjure water results in him looking like he fell asleep and wet himself, Rudy hangs in there, gathering any and all basins in which to deposit the water he conjures. Notably, he is able to use magic without the incantations or magic circles the books describe as vital to the process.

Without really trying to, his magical growth remains largely hidden from Zenith and Paul, who are portrayed as dimensional characters with their own needs and wants (they get it on often, as one would expect of a healthy young couple). His family’s home is his entire world, and he’s usually shut up in his room, much as he was as a 34-year-old NEET. This explains a bit why we don’t get to see as much of his family as I’d have liked.

With that hikikomori mentality in mind, it’s as symbolic as it is momentous when Rudy accidentally obliterates the wall of his bedroom with his most powerful water conjuring yet—a giant orb that streaks through the bright blue sky, creating rain for the crops and a rainbow as well. The top-notch animation really sells how powerful—and frightful—magic can be in untrained hands, and how exciting it is to “figure things out.”

When Zenith sees him unharmed and with the magic book nearby, she puts two and two together, and cannot contain her pure joy and delight to have reared a magical prodigy. She and Paul bicker over the promise that he would be raised as a swordsman, but Lilia (showing she’s more than a mere maid—more of a second wife) suggests “Why not both?”

Rudy’s parents—his dad’s a Knight who basically runs the village, and so is not without means—hire a magical tutor to train him, but both they and Rudy are shocked to find she’s no bearded retiree but an adorable young woman with bluish-violet air, ably voiced with by with vulnerability and defiance by Kohara Konomi.

We have the fascinating situation in which Rudy is mentally older than his parents, let alone this mage Roxy Migurdia, and his otaku side comes out when he first sees her and sizes her up (or down, as it were). Roxy isn’t aware of this, has dealt with other parents who thought their kid was The Chosen One, and is dubious of Rudy’s abilities.

Still, she does her job, showing him how a focused magical attack can cleave a tree down in one swipe, then how said tree (treasured by Rudy’s mom) can be repaired with healing magic, which Roxy also knows. Then Rudy demonstrates he can use magic without incantations (again, accidentally, as he’s thrown off when Roxy’s skirt flips up), and re-fells the restored tree, and Roxy knows she’s dealing with someone worth training.

Roxy takes the blame for the tree, but Rudy uses a dating sim-esque line to comfort her, and it works. Then the family welcomes Roxy like one of their own to a sumptuous welcome banquet, and during these lovely warm images Rudy beautifully recites the mission statement of the show:

“It’s like a dream…a dream I’m having as I die from that crash. No, even if it is, I don’t care. In this world, I bet even I can make it. If I live and try as hard as everyone else, get back up when I fall, and keep facing forward, then maybe I can do it. Maybe even I, a jobless, reclusive bum like me can get a do-over at life…and get serious about living.”

I would never have thought I’d be so quickly and easily drawn into yet another Isekai series, but the characterizations and technical execution are so well done, the world it’s crafted so gorgeous and inviting, and the comedy so effortless, it renders Jobless Reincarnation all but irresistible. Yes, we’ve seen this story before, and yes, Rudy is a bit of a creep, but for once it doesn’t matter, at least for me. It goes without saying I can’t wait to see more.

P.S. Looks like Anime News Network’s early reviewers of JR weren’t as enamored as I was, focusing on Rudy’s abhorrent skeeviness and the fact this premise has been done to death.

While I respect their takes, which are just as valid as my own, I prefer to take a more clean-slate approach to the show, and execution can—and in this case, does—outweigh familiarity.

Also, and this is key, Rudy isn’t supposed to be immediately likable or virtuous. He’s just started on a long road of redemption, and his closing monologue suggests he wants to become a better person than he was in his past life.

P.P.S. Crow has written on this episode as well. Check it out here.