Whisper Me a Love Song – 02 – Russian Blue

Yori and Himari have made a habit of sharing their time on the rooftop, and Himari is not shy about telling Yori how she loves her singing. Yori finds her thoughts of late are dominated by the painfully adorable Himari. When she pats her head, Himari blushes, but when she takes off, Yori blushes even more. She’s not sure what she’s doing, but she knows she likes Himari.

She encounters Himari waiting outside her class at lunch, and on Aki’s urging they exchange contact info. This is how Aki learns that Himari is the girl Yori is into (and we later learn that Aki is still into Yori herself). Since it’s raining, Himari meets Yori in her classroom after school, and asks her if she wants to go on a date to a cat-themed merch pop-up at the station on Sunday. Yori enthusiastically accepts, and it’s First Date Time.

Yori shows up effortlessly mature and stylish, while Himari is a tiny goddess of cuteness in her maroon dress and white blouse. Yori compliments her and Himari is glad she dressed up for the occasion. At lunch Himari feeds Yori, and the two end up holding hands to not get lost at the packed pop-up. Himari picks out matching phone straps for them to share, and Yori buys them as a gift for her.

At a music store, Himari tells Yori she wants to see “both sides” of her: the gentle solo artist on the rooftop and the snazzy frontwoman in the band. Yori decides she’ll give the band thing a try after all. Throughout the date, she’s is on cloud nine. Just being beside Himari makes her happy, and all Himari has to do is smile or praise her for that happiness to soar even higher.

When she expresses as much to Himari before they part ways, Himari laughs it off, saying being her girlfriend would be great. But as she walks away, Yori takes hold of her arm and tells her, in no uncertain terms, that she wants to go out with her, for real for real, and asks if she’ll think about it.

When Himari does so in the bath that night, she worries that her love and Yori’s are different. But then again, she also asks herself what love even is. In any case, the cat’s out of the bag and there’s no putting it back: Himari knows that Yori-senpai has feelings for her. I wonder how she’ll choose to respond to them.

Whisper Me a Love Song – 01 (First Impressions) – A Happy Misreading

First-year high schooler Kino Himari joins her longtime friend and classmate Miki to watch her older sister play in a band composed of third-years to welcome the new students. The moment Himari sees the cool beauty of the band’s frontwoman was love at first sight. When Himari catches the older, taller girl by the shoe lockers, she uses those precise words: “I fell in love at first sight.”

Those words, combined with the enthusiasm and intensity with which Himari says them, make it possible to interpret it as a confession of love. The fact the singer, one Asanagi Yori, finds Himari incredibly cute and her smile surpassingly pretty, means the “love at first sight” was mutual.

Yori reports this enchanting encounter to her friends, who partly tease her for having finally found someone, and also encourage her to respond to the girl in however way she sees fit; the better to inspire her to write the love song they want her to compose. She doesn’t know Himari’s name, but thanks to Miki, Himari knows Yori’s, along with her birthday, blood type, and tendency to sing songs on the roof.

So when Himari appears on the roof, Yori works up the courage to tell her she fell in love at first sight too, and learns that Yori wasn’t talking about falling into romantic love with Yori personally. Instead, she used the words “love at first sight” to describe how she became a fan of Yori and her music on the spot.

At first, Yori is crestfallen, and embarrassed for misinterpreting Himari’s words so totally. But she wasn’t really that far off. Words are imprecise in these matters, but she cannot deny she likes Himari and wants to keep seeing her and especially her smile. So when Himari agrees to watch her perform on the roof every day, Yori takes that as an opportunity to her Himari to fall for her even harder.

Himari may not be aware of Yori’s feelings for her, but only because she’s in a different mindset. Perhaps in time, Yori’s feelings will come through loud and clear. In the meantime, the two have such good chemistry together that they spend their first rooftop session simply chatting, and Yori ain’t mad about that at all.

Misunderstanding or not, Yori’s feelings aren’t going away, so she might as well keep playing and singing for Himari in this effortlessly sweet, gentle, and charming story about different kinds of love coming together and resulting in a new, unique, and beautiful sound.

Spy x Family – 37 (S2 Fin) – The Bestest Boy

After a completely unnecessary 1-minute recap of the premise of the show (who is tuning in on episode 37?), Spy x Family’s season 2 finale ends … with a low-key Bond episode. That’s to be expected; the Bestest Borfy Boy was stuck at home with Frankie while the rest of the Forgers were on the cruise. And with Yor’s arc long-since completed, this feels more like an epilogue, one that could have aired at any time during the season.

Bond has his first “Bhorck!” (“Borf!” mixed with “Shock!”) when Anya declines to accompany him and Loid on his walk. She’s too wrapped up in making origami Stella. So Loid takes him, and his precognitive ability enables him to save random strangers from cruel fates, it appears to Loid like he’s being a bad dog.

That is, until Bond leads Loid to an apartment building on fire. While every human is out, he knows someone named Daisy is still in the conflagration. Daisy turns out to be a pug puppy, and Bond and Loid manage to get her out and escape the flames from a window.

When Bond’s fur is singed, a bucket of water is dumped on him, revealing that he’s quite skinny under all that fluff! That doesn’t stop him from seeking out and holding down the culprit behind not just this arson, but a string of them in the city.

When they return, Yor is making Anya make weird faces with her eviscerated paper people chains. Loid says Bond got sprayed with a hose on accident, but Anya “hears” Loid describing all the things they did, and decides to properly reward Papa and Bond with their own crudely-made origami Stella.

After that we get what amounts to a panning slideshow of how everyone else is carrying on their lives, from Damian and his friends and Becky to Yuri, Fiona, and Franky. Then we’re brought back to the Forger family tucking into a supper. It’s a quiet, slice-of-lifey ending to season two, and there’s every indication a season three is on the way.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead – 07 – No Need to Obey

Akira may as well be back at the office, as he’s completely under the boot-heel of Chief Kosugi—a constantly apologetic, servile cog in the machine. Watching him, and having to pour beer and endure sexual harassment from Kosugi, dredges up a lot of memories for Shizuka. She doesn’t like those memories, and she doesn’t like watching Akira like this.

Shizuka’s father was essentially Chief Kosugi, only richer and more powerful. So obsessed was he with molding Shizuka into his scion that he told her to get rid of a sickly puppy she found on the street, because she needed to cast aside the weak. When she didn’t, he had the dog put down. Throughout her life, his constant mantra was You only need to obey.

Those are the same words used by Kosugi when on the last day of his servitude they agreed upon, the Chief suddenly switches gears from yelling to acting benevolent, telling the thoroughly downtrodden Akira that he can just stay here and work for him indefinitely.

Up until witnessing Akira in this state, Shizuka had more or less obeyed her father, which resulted in her having a prosperous job but very little in the way of joy. It’s only now that she realizes she wasn’t benefitting herself obeying her father and letting him dominate her.

When she finds Akira’s bucket list in the RV, she reads it over and smiles at how weird some of the items are. Then, in a moment of inspiration, adds a new item to the list.

The morning they’re to depart, the brainwashed Akira shocks Shizuka and Kencho by saying he’ll stay, parroting the reasons Kosugi mentioned: freedom is tough, the world outside is dangerous, and he’s not good for much, so he needs to stick with the boss.

Shizuka is fine to leave without him, but when he uses the word “need” over and over again, she can’t help but remember her father constantly drilling that into her head. She never snapped back at her father for fear of being thrown out on the street, but she’s officially had it with that word.

Shizuka’s parting words, about Kosugi being nothing but a sad, pathetic parasite who makes himself bigger by putting others down and wants to steal Akira’s free will, his very soul. She stands in front of the image of her younger self and says she’s getting away from this gross shithead with all due haste, because she’s not giving herself over to anyone ever again.

She then shows Akira his bucket list, tells him he’s not a machine or a zombie, and that he should be allowed to do what he wants, not be browbeaten into doing what others think he needs. When he sees the item she wrote—Tell off my jerk of a boss—and Kosugi snatches the book and prepares to stomp on it, Akira protects it with his own body.

His eyes now returned to normal thanks to Shizuka, he fulfills that bucket list item by telling Kosugi off. Whatever the Chief believes he still “owes” him, Akira tells him straight up he won’t be able to make it up to him. Sorry! As for the threat of being eaten by zombies, it’s better than being worked like one.

As Akira is about to leave with Shizuka and Kencho, a delivery van arrives and a zombie bursts out, causing pure chaos and sending Kosugi, who is not built for running, running for his life.

Because Akira’s a good guy with delusions of superheroism, he rescues his boss by coordinating with the baseball players to pen in all of the zombies, then blow them up by igniting propane tanks.

Shizuka can’t help but smile and laugh at the fact Akira keeps pulling off the craziest shit that ends up working. When he thanks her and she tells him it wasn’t meant to be a compliment, they both laugh.

Shizuka didn’t just wake Akira up, but thanks to her words and his actions, now all of them have had their fill of Kosugi as their leader, and abandon him en masse. He believed he was on the road to running Japan, but it only took two days for the sad little king’s hill to melt down into nothing.

Back on the road (and hopefully watching very carefully for more spike strips!), Akira reveals that he literally blanked out whenever he was around Kosugi, so while he remembered the torturous work, he remembered little of his interactions with him. That’s probably for the best.

Akira does go on to worry if he’s cut out for anything job-wise, but that’s where Shizuka comes in to say something Akira would have said to her a few days ago: So what? The time for needing to obey others who don’t have your best interests at heart is over. It’s time to do what they want. It’s the freakin’ end of the world…if not now, when?

NIGHT HEAD 2041 – 03 – Taking a Turn

Fresh off their narrow escape from the diner and SWE, Naoto and Naoya  decide to pay a visit to their dear old parents who drugged them and sent them away to the lab when they were kids, because there might not have been any choice considering the powers they possessed. Predictably, not only are the parents gone, but so is the very house they grew up in.

The balance of the episode is focused on a high school, where a circle of friends are apparently suffering the effects of a black magic spell that backfired. They intended to get revenge on someone, but their “spell” seemingly results in a string of gruesome suicides at school, all of which are worth a solid trigger warning.

The SWE squad is dispatched to the school to investigate, with Takuya driving while Kimie rides shotgun and tries to relate to him as a fellow Psychic. They raid the club room and find a treasure trove of fiction and occult contraband, any one item of which carries the death penalty.

I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how this society…works. The SWE can’t be everywhere all the time, so I imagine bastions of lawbreaking are quite prevalent—especially in schools! In any case, Mikie can sense a powerful psychic at work, controlling the minds of people, including Michio and Reika, who shoot wildly at their Kuroki brother comrades like brainwashed zombies.

The one survivng high schooler ends up crossing paths with the Kiriharas at their dad’s old factory, where they also encounter the time-traveling Futami Shouko, who ties her hair…with her hair, which is…unsettling, somehow. I guess that’s the point; she’s an inscrutable person.

Before Shouko blips out (returning to several years in the past), Naoya’s clairvoyance senses a voice telling them to go to a certain place. That place happens to be where the culprit behind the mind control murders lives. He’s just a little boy, but he’s a powerful Psychic whose puppy the high schooler who spearheaded the black magic ritual slaughtered for its blood…hence the desire for revenge.

Mikie and Reika roll in and neutralize the boy, ending the immediate threat, while Naoto uses his psychokinesis to shove the ladies aside so he and his brother can escape. They’re met outside by Takuya and Yuuya and the two pairs of brothers recognize each other from their strange visions. It’s like that Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme.

Thankfully, the Kirihara brothers have an ally in the shadows, who reveals himself to knock out the Kuroki’s and tells them to come with him. He doesn’t add “if they want to live”, Sarah Connor style, however. I can’t say I’m the most engaged with these characters, but it’s a very slick looking show and the music is great, so I can’t complain that much.

The Millionaire Detective – Balance: UNLIMITED – 04 – Two Lost Puppies

This might be my favorite episode of Balance: UNLIMITED yet, and it only cost Daisuke a scant $500: pocket change for the moths in Daisuke’s pockets if his pants weren’t mothproof. After some kind of quarrel (thankfully left undisclosed) he leaves his family’s palatial mansion on his day off.

Haru summons him to a park, where a fourth grader has guilted him into helping him find his lost puppy. Haru figures Daisuke can just employ the “magic” of his HEUSC and unlimited balance to find the pup, but Daisuke left home in such a hurry he’s without his interface earring, and left his phone in the butler Hattori’s minitruck.

With neither his tech nor any cash on hand and out in the world of ordinary people, Daisuke makes for an amusing fish out of water. Haru initially thinks he ditched him and the kid, but finds Daisuke waiting outside the station where Haru dropped the kid off to be united with his parents.

That’s when we learn that Suzue, who ran after him as he fled in the beginning, is desperate for Daisuke to return home; so much so that she hacks every electronic sign in his vicinity in order to urge him to return home.

Due to this cyber-stalking, Daisuke is resolute in not wanting to return home quite yet. Haru assumes he had a fight with his wife, but we officially learn Suzue isn’t Daisuke’s wife, but his “relative.” A relative who dotes on him excessively.

Instead, Daisuke elects to spend the night at Haru’s modest apartment; Haru must answer the question “You really live here?” far more times than he would like. He whips up a mean curry, presents Daisuke with some 1500-yen dry-cured ham that he declares “inedible” since it’s not Jamon Iberico de Bellota, and the two get drunk and watch crime dramas together.

It’s great to see these two do nothing together for once, but Suzue is a nervous wreck with Daisuke out in the world with nary a yen to his name, and pulls an all-nighter observing the giant monitors, drinking several energy shots and developing a strung-out Wednesday Addams appearance.

Seiyu Sakamoto Maaya brings a lot of energy, passion and enthusiasm to Suzue, who loses it when HEUSC almost mockingly declares “Balance: LIMITED.”

The next day Haru wakes to find Daisuke slept in the tub. Haru takes another day off to help the kid search for the dog, but they’re unsuccessful. It’s Daisuke who arrives at dusk with the puppy, or rather a member of the same litter; he learned the kid’s dog was hit by a car, and that it would be best if he didn’t know that.

Daisuke then heads home, not wanting to worry his family “too much”, and treats Suzue to Haru’s family recipe, “The Devil’s Natto Rice”, which of course she loves. In all, an extremely fun and informative low-key outing that was all about the characters.

It’s bonding episodes like these that God of High School desperately needed to establish the three leads as friends. Now that we’ve seen them hang out and do regular stuff together, it’s fully credible that Haru and Daisuke have grown a bit closer and learned a bit more about each other.

Kakushigoto – 08 – Surpassing the Rough Draft

This episode’s first half concerns rough drafts of all kinds, starting with the rough draft of Hime’s new Puppy, whose name is still accompanied by (Tentative). Hime wants the puppy’s name to be perfect, but if she waits too long, it won’t know what name to answer to.

Hime’s own name wasn’t chosen by Kakushi—it was unveiled in a calligraphy ceremony to which he was just another spectator. Still, he can’t deny it’s a damn good name, regardless of where it came from. Similarly, Hime picks “Gotou Roku” after misunderstanding the pet registrar.

Kakushi has actually attached (Tentative) to the title of all his manga, only for the (Tentative) to be eventually dropped in the absence of a better name. Once a name is chosen, even a tentative one, it becomes harder to justify changing it as time goes on.

This phenomenon also applies to rough drafts, in which Kakushi can never quite match in ink the full essence of the original pencil-drawn line. This, despite the fact that finished manga requires ink, leading him to attempt to submit the rough drafts—a submission quickly rejected by the brass.

While on a visit to the storage house in Kamakura to return the painting of his wife and her dog, Kakushi stumbles across another painting by his father-in-law: a portrait of him, his wife, and Hime enjoying a meal in that very house. It’s titled “Ordinary Future Plans (Tentative)”, but the title isn’t what’s tentative, the future is.

It’s a beautiful, idealized initial vision Kakushi feels he’s not yet been able to surpass, and  may never be able to do so. But simply returning home to Hime to find she’s made a friend, Kayo, who claims Hime “saved her” by reaching out with a hand of friendship, helps puts things in perspective for Kakushi.

The second half of the episode is about anniversaries, be they weird random ones like the 38th anniversary of the comic book in which Kakushi’s manga appears (which can sometimes spell desperation and trouble ahead), to something more round and substantial, like the 100th chapter of his manga. The former has a fancy crest and heavy promotion; the latter goes largely un-celebrated, but for a “flash mob” frame Rasuna snuck in.

When Hime hides something she’s reading from Kakushi when he comes home, he suspects she may have received a love letter, and tells her to politely decline while following her to see what swine would try to ask his Hime out. It turns out to be an invite to a birthday party, which Hime actually wants to go to. She only wavers because she’s worried about all the extra work Pops would have to do for her birthday party.

Doing his best to realign her priorities from “not troubling daddy” to “celebrating milestones while she still can”, Kakushi assures her that not only will he be honored to work his butt off throwing an awesome party to which she can invite anyone and everyone she wants, but they’ll also have a party that’s just the two of them (plus Roku).

That last bit is important, because as soon as Hime sees Kakushi with the pretty cooking tutor in the kitchen, she becomes weary of losing her very important and exclusive father-daughter bond. That bond may not have been planned, nor did Kakushi plan on “being saved” by Hime like her new friend Kayo. But before he knew it, the (Tentative) became the final.

As Hime learns upon discovering a house in Kamakura just like the one she grew up in Nakameguro, which has a stained glass window depicting a happy family of three, a great deal was planned out prior to her awareness, from methods of upbringing to clothing and celebration guides. But it dawns on her that this house, which was initially meant to be her home, was abandoned in favor of the other house.

An older Tomaruin and Rasuna muse over the practicalities of Kakushi moving to an identical house closer to the city, in part so his assistants wouldn’t have to travel so far to work on manga with him. But despite not growing up in that first draft house in Kamakura, it’s clear Hime still had a happy childhood in its second draft in Nakameguro.

Kakushigoto – 07 – What They Grow Beyond

Hime voices interest in a puppy, and researches a bunch to prepare, she comes across the “ten commandments of dog ownership”, one of which is to spend as much time as possible with your dog, as chances are they’ll only live ten years. Having any lifetime put in such stark terms is particularly upsetting to Kakushi, who later equates it to the life of a manga artist.

Kakushi comes around to having a dog when he learns through Ichiko how having one will help an only child feel less lonely (though Ichiko is not an only child), just as Hime learns from some mothers in an alley that they (i.e. what she and Kakushi don’t have) are necessary to properly care for a dog. If they knew Hime’s situation they probably wouldn’t have said that within earshot. Meanwhile, the original litter of puppies all found homes, but Kakushi’s father-in-law produces one for Kakushi to present to Hime.

It’s not just any dog, but the descendent of the dog Hime’s mother had (and the subject of her father’s painting, which one of Kakushi’s assistants find at the ocean house). While the moms discouraged Hime a bit, the sight of the new puppy erases those doubts, and she vows to sleep beside the puppy on its first night home (though later ends up kind of between her dad and the puppy).

Kakushi’s father isn’t done with anonymous gifts for Hime: Kakushi comes home to find a baby grand piano has been delivered. Like the dog with the long and distinguished lineage, the piano is a kind of inheritance. That gets Kakushi and the assistants thinking about how assistants inherit some of their masters’ style, but because they end up doing most of the physical work, it’s more of a new synthesis. Similarly, as master age their skills often wane while their apprentices rise.

In the midst of all this talk of lineage, and inheritance in the present, some new clues are presented in the obligatory flash forward. Hime’s classmates tailed her to the seaside house, continuing their detective club from school, but also because they’re worried about her. Then Ichiko appears, shockingly not in a tracksuit, bearing “good news and bad news.”

This got me thinking: perhaps Kakushi isn’t dead yet in this timeline? Maybe he’s just ill, bedridden, and possibly near the end. Maybe during this time he told Hime about the house, finally revealing the hidden thing he’d kept hidden so long even at 18 she had no idea what he did for a living. And maybe the good and bad news relate to his present condition. Or maybe not.

In any case, the consistent trickle of future information is starting to create a conflict: While I’ve enjoyed the present-day adventures of Kakushi, Hime & Co. (and the ensuing comedy), I’m beginning to care more about these more drama-oriented future events. There are essentially two shows here running in parallel, with the future one by far getting the short end of the stick runtime-wise. We’ll see whether and how the show manages to bridge these two times.

Gakkou Gurashi! – 12 (Fin)

Though Yuki is the only one who can save everyone, I appreciated that she didn’t have Kurumi’s zombie-smiting strength, as her first target doesn’t even feel the force of the aluminum bat she swings. She’s not going to get it done with brawn, but she does get it done with a bit of luck, as well as the relationship she’d cultivated with Taroumaru all this time.

He’s loose again, but rather than bite her, he chooses to bite the zombies cornering her, remembering just enough of his pre-zombie life to instinctively protect his friend, just as Megu-nee did by staying in the basement. It gives Yuki the moments she needs to slip into the broadcast room.

There, she makes a P.A. announcement that school is out, along with a moving speech that mirrors her monologue in the first episode. Only now, her eyes are wide open, and she’s aware that the ideal school she speaks of is no more. The announcement works, and the zombies disperse, freeing Miki, who rushes the medicine to Kurumi in time to save her. Thank goodness!

But there is a price for Yuki and Miki succeeding and Kurumi recovering, in the form of the show’s biggest gut punch yet. Taroumaru is doing much better than he was, but he can’t eat and only drinks a little bit of water before letting out one last little yip before dying in Miki’s lap. Needless to say, this was a heartwrenching and tearful scene, but like Megu-nee’s end as seen in flashbacks, and Yuki saying goodbye to her “specter”, the sendoff further demonstrates this show’s devotion to giving its doomed characters a proper, unblinking sendoff.

The girls bury Taroumaru next to Megu-nee; two protectors who gave their lives to save them, and when Miki says she’s fine, Yuki lets her know it’s okay to not be fine; to not bottle up one’s grief, but let it flow out without reservation. This is sage advice coming from someone who once broke from reality rather than face what was going on, but eventually opened her eyes.

With the school’s utilities trashed and provisions dwindling, the School Life Club must disband and depart from the school for a more suitable shelter. Megu-nee provided locations of other shelters on a map, and though the group doesn’t know what kind of survivors (if any) they’ll encounter, they have little choice but to take their chances out there.

The graduation ceremony they have isn’t some empty gesture, but is carried out with the same decorum and formality as the real thing would have had most of the school not been zombified—Yuki even neatens her hair! They are literally graduating from one kind of life, one of relative safety and routine and contained within the walls of their beloved but now-broken school, and striking out into the vast, unknown world, full of as many possibilities as hazards.

But I have no doubt that they’re ready, if they stick together, they’ll do fine. And when Kurumi fires up the Mini Cooper and they pull away from the school, even when Miki catches a glimpse of one last zombie who may well be her friend Kei, she doesn’t insist they turn back, because they can’t turn back.

Megu-nee, Taroumaru, and even Kei may be lost to them, but they wouldn’t be alive without them, and aren’t going to squander the product of their noble sacrifice. We also get a glimpse of the puppy Taroumaru saved; an upbeat parting shot of the school grounds.

After the gang heads off into the horizon and the credits roll, there’s one last ambiguous scene imparted with GG!’s signature sneakiness, in which a glasses-wearing girl we’re not familiar with (but who definitely isn’t a zombie) approaching a field of debris (though it looks more like building rubble than car wreckage) finds Yuki’s childish drawing of the School Life Club members with the message “We Are Happy”.

Is this something Yuki left behind, like Miki’s note to Kei on the blackboard, for anyone who might come past, like this girl? Or is this drawing all that’s left of them? The latter possibility is too dark and ghastly for me to contemplate any further, so let’s say the latter and call it a day, shall we? After all, it’s School-Live, not School-Die,right?

…Right? O__O