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.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – 11 – Carpe Nox

With over two Million with an M likes, Mei’s heartfelt bout of terrible singing went unexpectedly viral, but despite Mei hating her singing, the vast majority of comments are positive, supportive, and excited for the new song that’s now back on. Mei’s courageous stunt got Kano wanting to sing again; but the question that still eludes her and holds her back is knowing why she’s singing … or for whom.

I thought it had already been established she was singing for Mahiru, just as she was drawing for Kano, but whatevs! Maybe after their little kerfuffle they’ll need to rediscover that. In the meantime, Mahiru is not having a great one at Hayakawa, delivering some concept art that Yukine immediately rejects as not Umitsuki Yoru’s art, and nails her assessment of Mahiru as someone who doesn’t love their art.

After watching a demonstration of how the mocap system will graft her art onto virtual SunDolls, perhaps to give her more motivation and inspiration, Mahiru ends up in a car with Mero, who asks her what she thinks of LookIdiot’s videos and methods. Mahiru is quick to denounce them, but also admits sees a bit of herself in Look, only someone who took their “griping” to the extreme and ended up hurting people.

Mahiru/Yoru only emerged to the point where she’s even drawing again thanks to Kano, so she can’t judge someone who doesn’t have a similar lodestar. Whatever else Yukine is to Mero, she’s not that!

After Mei tells Kano she’s not singing like herself and suggests she rewrite the lyrics so she’s singing about something she wants to in the here and now, Mahiru hits another snag in her relationship with Yukine: She’s now out of time. Yukine claims to want to give her more, but there are deadlines to meet, so she marks up Mahiru’s art and tells her to adhere to a prescribed style—an art style entirely not Yoru’s any longer.

Mahiru has a little monologue on the street pretending she’s okay with all this, but the truth is, she’s not, and she’s not going to give up on her art, even if Yukine ordered her to do so and may well fire her if she defies her. To this end, she travels to the storage unit with Kiui that contains both of their art from when they were little.

Kiui was a great artist, and admits she picks everything up quickly and gets good at it, only to be overtaken by those with genuine passion and drive. It was the case with Mahiru’s jellyfish mural idea. She jokes about always quitting before getting overtaken so she never actually loses, but eventually Mahiru can sense that Kiui was lying about not having people message her about being outed as Nox.

Kiui has gotten a lot of nasty comments from her former classmates, ruining all the work she did to reinvent herself. She’s also weary of going to the old arcade with Mahiru for more inspiration. She uses Kiui’s own superhero posing and meter to list all the great things about her that make her, to this day, an “ever-shining superhero” in Mahiru’s eyes.

Kiui gains the courage to accompany Mahiru, but soon retreats to the bathroom when she sees other classmates. Then the two that were sending nasty messages encounter Mahiru, congratulating her while shitting on Kiui for being a liar. Mahiru comes loudly and proudly to Kiui’s defense, assuring her she’s cool as ever. When they mock her for what they deem as not “growing out” of that admiration, Mahiru holds her ground.

Kiui can tell Mahiru needs some backup, so she confronts her naysayers, who start laying into her incessantly and nastily. They even make fun of the fact Nox is a guy and wonder if she wants to be one. This is shitty teenagers at their shittiest, but Kiui weathers that shit and declares she hasn’t changed one bit from the person she was.

Kiui was ostracized for unapologetically being who she was, to the point she “let the world get the better” of her. But she created the Nox persona as a way of continuing to love her genuine self, and won’t let anyone deny her that identity. We don’t see how the normies react, but it doesn’t matter. Kiui isn’t going to let their normie bullshit stop her from loving who she is and always was.

Witnessing Kiui put herself out there among the wolves and not only survive but thrive re-energize’s Mahiru’s desire to find the Umitsuki Yoru art she loves. Kiui took a huge, courageous swing without worrying about the ramifications, and Mahiru follows her lead by defying Yukine.

Mahiru starts off by telling Yukine about her friend that she loves, and the ideal persona they created to keep loving who they are. Then she unveils new art for the Virtual SunDolls that dazzles with the same playful energy as that jellyfish mural. Yukine dresses her down for not doing what she was told (and not speaking to her with respect), but then smiles and tells her that this is precisely what she wanted: the art she loves.

It was a risky-as-hell gamble, but because it works out, Mahiru has a teensy little bit of leveage with Yukine, and she decides to use it immediately for JELEE’s sake. She asks that Hayakawa find a way to squeeze a performance from JELEE into the same end-of-year event as the SunDolls.

If Yukine agrees, Mahiru will have given JELEE a huge boost just when it felt like she couldn’t be any farther from the group’s current activity. That activity includes all-new lyrics by Kano. Lyrics she won’t sing by just following the notes (something Mei was once accused of by her parents), but in a way that takes the listener of a vivid journey. If Yoru succeeds, JELEE will be able to go head-to-head with SunDolls—and with Kano’s mom.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – 10 – What Kind of Somebody

Happy Pride! It has not been a great past few weeks for anime baby lesbians, folks. Whisper Me a Love Song? Yori and Himari are great, but their show is delayed due to production issues. Reina and Kumiko are on the rocks over at Hibike! Euphonium.

As for Kano and Mahiru, they neither see nor talk to each other this week, and Kano just isn’t emotionally in a place to sing. That’s the bad news. The good news is, Kiui and Mei fill in for them as temps at the bar, and while they proceed to suck at their jobs, but they’re not ready to give up on JELEE.

JELEE essentially stays together all because of one Kim Anouk Mei Takanashi. Mei encounters Mero from the current iteration of the SunDolls. Mero assumes she’s a fan, but she’s not. While she’s initially pacified by a kiss to the cheek, Mei manages to track Mero down, leading to some very intense facial expressions from both of them.

When Mei finally identifies herself as a member of JELEE and after Mero sings some karaoke (Mei passes on this), Mero answers Mei’s question about what she think drives Kano. It’s the same thing that drives Mero: knowing that her performances are “sustenance” for Yukine.

Mero personally loathes singing, but will do it as long she’s Yukine’s sustenance. It’s not a healthy dynamic! When Mei brings up Kano’s new goal of getting 100k followers, Mero laughs and chalks that up to simply another way Kano wants to get her mom to notice her all over again.

Kano herself tries going to school, but quickly tired of the chatter about her, says her head, stomach and muscles “are all hurting at once” and bails. She encounters two JELEE fans performing her song in front of Yoru’s mural and loudly proclaiming their excitement for the the song they’re coming up with at the end of the year.

When she returns home, Mei is waiting outside her door, not as a fan, but as her friend. Kano explains that the reason she just doesn’t feel like going on with JELEE is that just as her mother took advantage of her, using her life for her own gain, she felt like she did the same with Mahiru.

With Mahiru busy with her new project and Kano saying they should simply disband, Mei and Kiui are in the unfortunate and uncomfortable position of having to address their fans with news that JELEE is no more. They do so at a live session while visiting Miiko, who is now making mukbang videos of all things.

Kiui makes the announcement as the shocked and disappointed comments roll in, and then she plays what they have of their new song, which is now their final song. Or it would be, were it not for Mei. She doesn’t want it to end like this, so she doesn’t let it. So she does something she’d normally never, ever do: she sings.

Shimabukuro Miyuri puts on a clinic of bad singing, buying time for Kiui to rush to Kano’s house so she can listen to the appeal that follows the song: she loves Kano so much, and her singing makes the songs she compose shine so brightly, that they simply have to continue with JELEE.

Begging Kano to take responsibility for making her fall in love with her, Mei’s passionate appeal works. Kano is still scared, but she still wants to sing. All of this happens on the livestream, leading to comments of relief. Mahiru is listening too as she works away on her drawings.

JELEE was down, but is not yet out. Kano and Mahiru still have some making up to do, and Nox’s IRL identity may have been exposed, something Kiui feared and almost expected might happen, so they’re not out of the woods by a long shot. But at least they’re no longer lost in those woods. All thanks to Mei’s love, stubbornness, and terrible, beautiful voice.

 

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – 09 – The Keys to Heaven and Hell

As Mahiru tells Kiui, she’s more than a little scared by the imposing new project Hayakawa Yukine wants to commission, but is still eager to take on the challenge, as this is an opportunity she may never see again. Kiui reminds her it’s her life to choose. But of course there’s also the Kano angle.

Mahiru isn’t going to respond to Yukine until she speaks to Kano, but wants to learn more about Yukine. Enter Mei, who gives her an unneccesarily exhaustive rundown of the producer’s career. The juicy and concerning bit Mei saves for last: that it’s believed Yukine is behind the “LookIdiot” account that leaks scandalous idol behavior—like her own daughter’s assault.

Mahiru is caught off guard when Kano suddenly calls her to praise her art, even saying it’s okay if it’s “a little skewed.” Mahiru is happy for the praise even if she thinks it’s a bit much, but uses the call to bring up the offer Yukine gave her. Kano, who is clearly upset by this development, warns Mahiru to be careful.

Mahiru asks about what went on with Kano and her mother, but realizes it’s not an appropriate thing to dump on Kano while on the phone, so tables it for now, saying she did what she wanted to do, which is tell Kano about her opportunity before she made a decision.

That decision Mahiru is so conflicted about suddenly becomes a lot more easy to make when she is absolutely showered with praise and wowed by the presentation of the project of which she’s to be an integral part. An entire public park is going to be festooned with her art via projection, while the SunDolls will perform with live 3D avatars of Mahiru’s design.

It is an offer a young and hungry artist just starting to build some confidence simply cannot refuse if they’re thinking about a future in art. Heck, Yukine even points out how Mahiru’s rough draft looked skewed, and when Mahiru  shows her a corrected draft Yukine’s eyes light up with excitement, knowing she knew true talent when she saw it. What about Kano? Yukine says this has absolutely nothing to do with her. Yukine claims to simply have been inspired by Mahiru’s art.

I’m not so sure it has “nothing” to do with it. When Yukine plugged her own socially awkward daughter who worshipped her into SunDolls as a new center who will take them to new heights, she no doubt believed she was doing her daughter a favor.

Kano, AKA Nonoka would be the tool she needed to entertain 50,000 at Tokyo Dome. Everyone agrees Kano is a beautiful singer, but the other SunDolls hate her instantly because they consider her entry into the group to be an act of nepotism.

“Silence them with your talent,” her mother advises. When Kano asks if she’s weird, Yukine brings up her crowd-of-50,000 dream, and tells her being a little weird is immaterial by comparison.

When Kano is asked to write her own lyrics, it’s Yoru’s mural that first inspires her, the words suddenly flowing out at the sight of the thing. It’s a beautiful moment of artistic ephiphany.

Then we finally learn what went down that got Kano kicked out of SunDolls. Her group mate Mero left her phone behind, Kano sees a notification, correctly guesses Mero’s password (Yukine’s birthday perhaps?), and learns that Mero is “LookIdiot.”

At this point, Kano knows that their primary rivals, the Rainbow Girls, were scandalized when footage leaked of members smoking. The fact that this is such a scandal speaks to the problematic nature of propping up ordinary human young women as paragons of perfection and purity.

But Kano is actually a valiant and morally pure idol! She thinks it sucks shit that Rainbow Girls had to be dragged through the mud so that the SunDolls could snag their big gig. So when Kano learns Mero was behind the leak, she punched the absolute shit out of that bitch.

Yukine immediately considered this a betrayal, and worse, an obstacle to achieving her dream. Her dream. Her daughter’s dreams never mattered. To her, Kano is a tool, and one that outlived its usefulness. So she gave her the same treatment as the Rainbow Girls and fired her from the group.

This is the weight Kano carries behind her bright cheery smile and boundless enthusiasm for growing JELEE. She’d been able to compartmentalize it to this point, but when Mahiru announces she’s going to take the job even thought it conflicts with JELEE’s next video, all that weight comes crashing onto Kano all over again.

She handles this poorly, but in a way one would expect, all things considered. Kiui and Mei are understanding of Mahiru’s desire to make it big, but Kano can’t be supportive in this moment. All she can think about is that Mahiru is being selfish, breaking their promise, and calls her a liar and a “jellyfish that can’t swim in the night.”

Even as she says those last words, Kano knows how badly she just hurt Mahiru, because tears well up in Mahiru’s eyes. The episode ends abruptly after this heartbreaking exchange, and we’re treated to a montage of all the best moments Kano and Mahiru had together, including almost every instance of her calling her by her other name, Yoru.

I don’t know if Yukine always intended to take something precious away from Kano in order to punish her for letting her down. But now Kano and Mahiru’s relationship is suddenly in tatters before it even had a chance to truly bloom. It’s a hard pill to swallow. I just hope there’s a way back for them.

P.S. Here’s the face Mahiru used when trying to audition for a role in the final season of Attack on Titan:

Forget dreams; this is pure nightmare fuel….

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night – 02 – Friends with My Idol

This week we get a sumptuously well-produced OP that spoils the fact that Mahiru and Kano are only half of the eventual JELEE artistic group. The third member is introduced first as a rabid fangirl of Kano’s Sunflower Dolls persona, Tachibana Nonoka, AKA Nono-tan. Just when Mahiru and Kano are wondering how the heck they’ll fund this project, this girl throws down over $1,600 to help their cause.

But this girl isn’t a fan of Kano, but Nono-tan, and wants her to go back to being the SunDolls idol she loved. Kano, establishing her resolve to move beyond her idol past, curtly refuses the money and sends the girl on her way. She almost immediately regrets this, not just because JELEE could use the seed money, but because both she and the girl have identical bags—an incredibly rare bag she designed when she was in SunDolls.

Swapping bags with your favorite idol has to be some kind of dream come true, and indeed one of the first things the girls does is give Kano’s jacket a good sniff. Meanwhile, her bag has her student ID—her name is Takanashi Mei Kim Anouk—and also an audio recorder that contains not only a piano arrangement of “Colorful Moonlight”, but other pieces that Kano and Mahiru really dig.

When they meet Mei at her school to exchange the bags, Mei is clearly chuffed by how much her idol seems to like the songs she composed. But when Kano asks if she’ll compose a song for Kano to sing—as the Yamanouchi Kano she is and always was, not Nono-tan, whom Kano insists is gone and never returning, Mei respectfully declines the offer and takes her leave.

It isn’t until Kano looks at Mei’s student ID stained with sauce from Mahiru’s lunch that she realizes she’s met her before, back when she had bright orange hair. We dive into Mei’s past as she is pushed to be great by adults and made fun of her classmates. Her music seems less “fun” and more simply fulfilling the potential assigned to her from outside.

In any case, Mei is not in a great place emotionally when she suddenly spots Tachibana Nonoka at a live meet-up. Struck by her “Cleopatra” like looks, she gets in line to meet her, but having been made fun of for her name Kim, says her name is Kimura instead. While the Nono-tan who initially interacts with her is the idol, when Mei tells her what’s troubling her, the real Kano comes out, bearing her heart in turn.

As Nano-tan, Kano did what all idols should strive to do: make their fans lives a little brighter, and give them the courage to keep moving forward. There was no artifice to her words; she comes right out and tells Mei she’s not really friends with her group-mates, and suffered similar social isolation during her training.

Kano becomes Mei’s lodestar, which makes Nano-tan’s abrupt fall from grace devastating.  With all of this context, it’s understandable that Mei would feel like she was being abandoned by Kano for abandoning Nano-tan, and that she’d have to be alone again. It’s a horrible state to be in on the verge of what looks like a recital with big stakes.

But whether she has black or blonde hair, Kano is still Nano-tan and Nano-tan is Kano. Back when they first met, Nano-tan promised she’d watch Mei perform, and she fulfills that promise by entering the recital room with Mahiru. When she sees that her beloved idol is there to see her perform, she’s filled with joy and confidence and knocks her piano performance out of the park.

When it’s done and Kano gives her a standing O, Mei can’t help but run crying into her arms. Realizing she’s not alone, she agrees to join JELEE after all and write songs for Kano. She’s decided to support both Nono-tan and Kano—the “whole package.” Even so, while they’re shopping for equipment, Mei is surprised when Mahiru says it’s awesome she got to be friends with her idol.

But that’s exactly what happened! Sure, Mei had a borderline obsessive parasocial relationship with Nano-tan for a while, now that she realizes the real Kano—who again, was the person she met from the start—is just as awesome, if not more so, and now she gets to write music for her. Doubtless her love of Nano-tan and Kano will rekindle her love for music. It no longer needs to be simply her grim duty. It can be a delight … just as this episode was!