Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – 12 (Fin) – Choosing Their Own Colors

Yukine is impressed with Mahiru’s ability to provide hard numbers for why JELEE deserves a spot at the New Year’s show alongside SunDolls, but stats aside, Yukine wants to know what Mahiru is doing this for. Mahiru’s answer is that when someone does something for her, she wants to reciprocate. Kano made her want to get back into art, so she’ll make Kano want to get back into singing.

And Kano does want to sing; she just feels lost without Yukine or Mahiru as people to sing for, believing she’s lost both. While that’s not really the case, the bottom line is she gets pre-show jitters, and is especially intimidated by the live audience in the park. This is where Kiui and Mei step up, steady her hands with theirs, and tell her she’s got this, because they’ve got this.

Even so, once the SunDolls leave the stage and Kano steps onto it, she’s so overwhelmed by the negative voices in her head that she can barely get a whisper out. That’s when Mero of all people, who spotted Kano earlier, tells her to look around her, where she sees that the park has well and truly become something of an aquarium. Mahiru also offers words of encouragement from her perch above the stage; their first interaction since Mahiru went to work for Yukine.

With both former enemy and friend united in their support and surrounded by the “Shibuya Aquarium” she and Mahiru dreamed of building, Kano can sing with her full voice, shining like, well, a jellyfish in the light. It’s an unqualified success, with Kiui spending most of JELEE’s revenue on a 3D JELEE girl model like the ones made for the SunDolls.

When her performance is over, Mahiru rushes to Kano, but the two end up on opposing escalators. Eventually they do embrace and apologize for hurting each other. As the credits for the show run, they’re joined by Kiui and Mei, and while Kano doesn’t see her mom right after the show, Yukine does end up acknowledging her in the credits, as Hayakawa Kano, her daughter. It’s a powerful cathartic moment that causes Kano to bawl her eyes out.

Kano and Kiui end up getting their shit together and graduating after all along with Mahiru and Mei. Kiui continues her fling with Koharu, both off and online; Mei the superfan gains a fan of her own who is far more like she was than she knew; and Yukine shows up to congratulate her daughter and note how much she’s grown. Kano and Mero even bury the hatchet and become friends, while before they were only co-workers.

The members of JELEE commemorate their graduation and the start of the next step in their lives by painting over Mahiru’s old jellyfish mural and painting a new one over it in a collaborative effort, cleverly and intimately documented with the girls’ cameraphone footage.

While before they were four jellyfish drifting in the night, unable to swim, now they’ve each chosen their own colors and thanks to one another’s support are able to shine on their own. It’s a happy, heartening, if tidy way to bring this colorful and beauitifully produced show to a close.

Kimizero – 10 – Not All Fun and Games

Our feel-good opposites-attract lovey-dovey rom-com has just hit some choppy seas, as Ryuuto is caught in an obvious lie in an attempt to placate Runa, who does not appreciate it. A lie is a lie, after all. And while she owns up to being the one who wanted both of them to be friends with Maria, the failed attempt now has her calling everything into question.

From where Runa is standing, Ryuuto and Maria are a better match because they appear to have more in common than she and Ryuuto. Of course, these only seem to be surface-level things like book smarts, aesthetic preferences, and game streams. Runa wonders if it’s “okay” for people as different as her and Ryuuto should keep dating.

She tells Ryuuto she won’t try to text him for a while and runs off. Ryuuto can’t summon the will to chase her down, and doesn’t know what he’d say to make her feel better. Meanwhile we see Maria resenting Ryuuto taking her side.

Maria knows Runa is someone who, if pressed, will give up something she likes if she thinks that other person likes it more. Runa did it in their youth with a teddy Maria initially discarded then wanted back, and now seems poised to do it with Ryuuto, whom Maria also initially rejected, but now has feelings for him.

The last, I mean last thing we need is yet another Misunderstanding when Runa x Ryuuto is in such a tenuous state, but that’s what we get, courtesy of Akari, who spots Runa with an expensive LV bag and an older gentleman. This, after Ryuuto overheard Runa talking on the phone in the hall with someone he assumed was older (due to her polite manner of speaking).

Akari, who heard about their rough patch, is only trying to keep Ryuuto in the loop, and admits that what she saw might not be a “sugar daddy” situation, but she, like Maria, also knows Runa, and that when pushed, she tends to give people what they want.

Ryuuto tells Akari that he trusts Runa … but does he? Apparently not 100%, because he conscripts Sekiya to come to the cultural festival to help him investigate the possible sugar daddy. When they cross paths with Akari, she positively IDs Sekiya as the tall cool dude who was with Runa!

Ryuuto assumes that Sekiya is one of Runa’s exes, which means he’s one of the cads who played around with her and then dumped her when she got boring. Thankfully, this is not the case, but Sekiya was a cad in a different way. Turns out he was Nicole’s boyfriend of two weeks.

Back then, Nicole was straight-laced and even a little dorky, but she was the first girl to like him. But Sekiya admits that for various reasons he dumped her after two weeks, admitting that he hurt her terribly. The timing of the breakup couldn’t have been worse, as it was when Nicole’s parents were going through a divorce.

Sekiya doesn’t believe he has any right to talk to or even look at Nicole again after what he did. But nothing that he did changed the fact that she still liked him, and harbors feelings to this day. Ryuuto, offering surprisingly sage advice I wish he’d follow, tells Sekiya it’s never too late to forgive old wounds or fix old mistakes.

An opportunity for Sekiya to reunite with Nicole happens when Akari (again!) tells the boys that Runa and Nicole are being harassed by two older dudes. Ryuuto extracts Runa from the unpleasantness, leaving Nicole alone with the two pushy assholes … but not for long. Sekiya arrives like a knight in shining armor, calling her his girlfriend. The dudes scatter, and Nicole is so happy she starts to cry in Sekiya’s arms.

This display inspires Isshi to take the plunge and confess to Akari, who has been friendly with him of late. Great idea, right? WRONG. His sudden confession and request to date Akari does not go well. As Runa later tells Isshi, Akari is often single, and gets asked out a lot, but takes love and dating very seriously.

While I felt for Isshi, who is clearly out of his element, where he went wrong is by rolling the dice and leaving love to chance. Akari is absolutely right that they barely know each other, so any reasons he might have for liking her are superficial. What is she supposed to do with these half-assed feelings from, at best, an cordial acquaintance?

I believe Akari was rattling Isshi’s cage precisely because she was hoping they’d become better friends and learn more about each other, only to be disappointed that he’s jumping the gun like so many other guys. Once her anger subsides, maybe they can start over.

As for Ryuuto, he managed to stumble into doing a good thing for Runa’s best friend, but mostly thanks to the coincidence of Sekiya and the possible sugar daddy being the same person. He knows that what happened wasn’t his plan and he shouldn’t take credit for it.

That brings us to Ryuuto and Runa, who are only a couple because Ryuuto lost a bet and asked her out when she happened to be between boyfriends. Seeing Nicole and Sekiya reunited has Runa thinking that people who like each other should be together, otherwise it’s a “waste of youth.”Ryuuto tells Runa, though not with the most conviction, that he not only wants to be with her now, but down the road in the future. With her, not Maria.

That Runa doesn’t respond enthusiastically to this at all means this episode is bookended by bad vibes. No doubt the penultimate episode will lead to the two breaking up, and we’ll have to see if they get back together in the finale or go their separate ways.

Ryuuto will have to grow a much stronger spine to prevent his and Runa’s bad habits from permanently ruining what has otherwise been a rewarding and enlightening romance for the both of them. I just can’t imagine the show will make their breakup permanent or have Ryuuto end up with Maria. But stranger things have happened!