Bokutachi no Remake – 04 – A Talent that Shines

After filming on a beach specifically for purposes of fanservice, new member of Team Kitayama Plus Kawasegawa Eiko learns that Kyouya broke the rules a little in order to get the equipment they needed for longer than first years can check it out. Another senpai, the diminutive Tomioka Keiko, overhears this, but promises not to say anything…but now they owe her.

But thankfully this episode isn’t really about bikinis or lolis or…sigh…an impending arts festival. It’s about Kogure Nanako, and how she’s pursuing acting, something she’s not fully serious about, because she’s not passionate about it. Their team wins the competition with a better overall production, but everyone—including Nanako—agrees the acting in their competitor’s film was ten times better.

As the team celebrates their win, Eiko can tell Nanako is faking her cheer—even at that, she’s not the best actor—and Kyouya can’t disagree. But then Nanako is given a mic, everyone who isn’t Kyouya hears her powerful but tone-deaf singing for the first time and are kind of in awe of it. It even makes Eiko angry, because it’s clear to her Nanako’s true passion isn’t acting at all.

Eiko is so honest and forthright that she abandons all delicacy and tact and really lets poor Nanako have it. She says it’s a terrible waste of talent for Nanako not to take her vocal training more seriously and instead dither away in acting, afraid of failing at her true passion. Nanako, who only just manages to hold back a slap before running off, is so devastated by what Eiko says because it’s true.

The next day, Eiko prepares to resign from the team, but Kyouya won’t have it. While she could have broken it to Eiko more gently and at a later time, it’s clear she told Nanako something she needed to hear. She may still be depressed—devastated, even—but Kyouya admits that’s her problem to work out.

Eiko does actually feel bad about how she put it to Nanako, but when she saw how much Nanako shined when she was singing—even the raw, out-of-tune version of it she heard—yet pretend not to care about it simply made her too angry to stay quiet. Kyouya promises he’ll help pull Nanako out of the abyss, and while Eiko doesn’t have the empirical evidence she usually demands, there’s something about Kyouya’s words that make her believe him.

As for believing in himself…Kyouya’s not quite there yet. In a scene at the fine art club that goes on a bit too long (and introduces that damnable art festival), Keiko sneaks up on him and offers him a job directing a game for her doujin company. Just like that, he’s been given another opportunity to pursue his passion for video games.

But he respectfully declines, because he doesn’t believe he has what it takes. This is Kyouya reflecting on his future failures and acting in a less reckless way than someone his actual age might (though someone as old-souled as Eiko certainly would!) but it’s also Remake showing us that those failures are scars he still bears, and here they cause him to pass up a great opportunity.

Still, it’s not only because he feels he needs more directing experience before attempting to go pro (again); he does have a full plate. He promised Eiko he’d help Nanako, and it just so happens to be one of Keiko’s extremely well-produced doujin group’s games that gives him a “Eureka” moment.

Specifically, when hearing the quality singing in the game reminded him of how he had to stay up all night to digitally adjust the notes of a singer in one of his company’s games. Thus inspired, he approaches Nanako’s door, behind which she sulks in a monochromatic malaise…and plays her a recording of her voice…only in tune.

Kyouya didn’t have to do much—just tweak some of the tones—to let Nanako hear a taste of her potential through the door. That he had to do so little is a testament to her vocal power and talent, and he needed her to hear it before talking about how she has “nothing” and “everything’s been smashed completely.”

Nanako emerges from the room in tears of joy and a tentative smile—and really this whole episode has been a clinic of detailed facial expressions and animation, which combined with Terakawa Aimi’s vocal performance really lends an emotional kick to this scene. She always loved singing but hated how she sounded, but with his magical laptop Kyouya has opened her eyes to a new way forward.

When Kyouya takes her hands into his without thinking, Nanako blushes, but also doesn’t recoil. On the contrary, she leans forward with a hopeful smile as she declares she’s going to trust Kyouya. It’s starting to look like maybe he does have what it takes—at least in terms of production, direction, and encouraging and inspiring the creatives—who also happen to be his friends.

It’s extremely fun to watch Kyouya do his thing, and it helps that he’s a genuinely good, earnest person who isn’t imbued with snark for snark’s sake like so many MCs in similar scenarios.

Bokutachi no Remake – 03 – Getting Fired Up

BnR isn’t wasting any time, jumping from the realization Team Kitagawa only has a still camera to work with, to screening day. It was also somewhat disappointing that we didn’t get to see a moment of Eiko’s teams short, only the overwhelming positive reaction to it.

You could say this show isn’t about Eiko’s team or their short, and having them go first added tension to Kyouya’s screening. But jumping straight to judgment day only to rewind back to explain how Kyouya pulled it off feels a little awkward.

That said, I’m happy I was correct in my prediction they’d go with a photomontage style, which was the most logical thing to do, but also that nobody on Kyoya’s team knew what he was going to do. And it worked—even Eiko is impressed!

That said, Kyoya’s team only gets third place, while Eiko wins. Yet Eiko is just as angry as they are, because she thought Kyoya’s short was the best! Alas, it’s not just about artistic attributes; this is a class, and the short was an assignment.

The professor—who is Eiko’s big sis—could tell that Kyouya’s team didn’t think their project through due to some kind of logistical difficulty with production. But she was nevertheless impressed with Kyouya’s problem-solving skills, such that she assigns Eiko to work with Kyouya’s team in the future.

Kyouya may have been simply trying to prove to himself that he could take a different path than the one he took before, but in the process, he inadvertently put his teammates/roommates on notice. Seeing what Kyouya could pull off without a video camera makes them that much more eager to step up their respective games.

In Nanako’s case, she wants to show off her acting chops in an actual moving picture … but she also wants Kyouya by her side while she tries to improve her singing. Even before Kyouya knows what’s really going on, he can tell Nanako has volume and charisma…it’s just she’s quite tone deaf! There are romantic undertones throughout the karaoke session and their walk home.

Not to be outdone by Kyouya or Nanako, Shinoaki reveals to Kyouya that she knows he knows about her night drawing in secret. She tells him that while she knows she’s good enough at it to win some awards, that’s not enough to make a living, and she has zero confidence about it, to the point she’s considering quitting art school altogether!

This is when Kyouya, who knows the Shinoaki of the future will be a famous artist who will bring joy and comfort to millions, including himself, takes Shinoaki by her slender shoulders and tells her she can’t give up…because he loves her…art. Adding the “art” at the end kinda dulls what would have otherwise been a confession, but hearing those words brightens Shinoaki’s entire world, and puts a twinkle in her eyes.

She wants to know what kind of guy thinks such nice things about her, and what his goals might be. Kyouya’s not ready to tell her yet, but like Nanako and Tsurayuki, he’s lit a fire in her belly that she’s determined to feed by continuing to improve her craft.

Bokutachi no Remake – 02 – On the Right Track

Given the chance to go back ten years, Kyouya has resolved to do a better job this time around, starting with taking a different path in choosing art school. But beyond that he had no idea where that new path would take him. If the answers are in his head, you could say they’re locked, and getting to know his three roommates is a good start in finding the means to unlock them.

By coincidence, Kyouya gets a part-time job at the same konbini as Nanako, and a part of that job is restocking the walk-up fridges. Between the darkness of the stocking space behind the shelves and the coolness of the fridge, the scene is akin to a cozy winter night in the park, only Kyouya and Nanako are on the clock.

While Kyouya may have entered art school completely devoid of confidence, he’s already learned from his roomies that just because they’re talented doesn’t mean they don’t have their own insecurities. It didn’t sit well with Nanako that she thougth Lake Biwa was the ocean, so she left her hometown to get a better idea of the size of the world, hoping to learn who she is as the explores it.

Kyouya admits to us that he’s in no hurry to get past either quiet little scenes with Nanako in the fridge or even the little conflicts that arise when two guys and two girls live in the same space (read: food stealing, which Shinoaki will not tolerate).

Things become a bit more urgent in the now when their class is assigned a short film assignment. They’ve only got three minutes to tell their story. Having spoken to Aki and Nanako and having found similarities to his own (and even having visions of the three on the same train platform), Kyouya comes up with the idea of telling the story of a woman’s life by using a day at train station.

Tsurayuki, the one roommate Kyouya hasn’t reached out to about why he enrolled, goes into his room for a half-hour and comes out with a treatment for the station idea. But then he takes Kyouya aside and says he had the same exact idea locked away. He knows Kyouya didn’t steal it, but asks if “anything else is going on.” Kyouya is unsure of how to answer, so he says nothing, and the tension passes.

Still, it’s telling that Tsurayuki is the first one to get a hint that there’s more to Kyouya than meets the eye, even if he has no idea what that is. He’s a screenwriter, after all, and scenarios like that are always going through his head. He accepts that two people get the same idea all the time, and the group starts production of the short in earnest.

This inevitably leads to creative differences, with producer Kyouya’s insistence they stick to the three-minute limit butting up against Tsurayuki’s desire to tell his story his way. He thinks if it’s good, no one will care about the runtime, and even asks Shinoaki and Nanako to adjust what they’re doing to accommodate his contribution.

When Kyouya puts his foot down, Tsurayuki is angered, but in this case at least, Kyouya is right; this is an assignment and if the rules are broken all their collective efforts are for naught. That said, he also knows Tsurayuki has a point about taking risks and not over-compromising on one’s art.

A lot happens this week with the group beyond the group’s short film. There’s the aforementioned getting-to-know-you and slice-of-life scenes; Kyouya, Shinoaki and Nanako are snared into a fine arts club desperate for members, and Eiko reveals her group is also filming in a train station and won’t be outdone. I do hope at some point Eiko becomes a less antagonistic presence, knowing how well she and Kyouya work together in the future.

When Kyouya’s teacher can tell he’s down in the dumps, she shows him a script from a film that everyone loved, but no one liked the finished product, because the director and cast got to do whatever they wanted without any boundaries. She reminds him a producer doesn’t just issue cuts or subtraction, but about properly wrangling and harnessing the collective talent of his team to make a final product people will like.

It’s just as much a creative process as writing a script, drawing storyboards, or acting, and it’s something Kyouya reveals he’s actually good at when he applies himself. He manages to strike the balance of motivating Tsurayuki and the others to do what they do best without letting them run wild, and they in turn appreciate his calming, organizing presence.

That’s why it’s so heartbreaking that on the first day of filming, when all their planning and preparation is about to start paying off with real images on film, learn Tsurayuki accidentally checked out a digital still camera instead of a video camera. Here, the others echo a statement Kyouya had repeated to himself and used as a crutch for much of his ten years to come: It is what it is…nothing to be done about it.

It is here where we learn the true power of Kyouya’s potential as a producer: he alone, having lived and learned from those ensuing years, is the only one of the four to say No, something CAN be done about it. And he’s right. Chris Marker’s La Jetée is just one famous example of a film composed of a series of still photographs.

I’m guessing that’s what they’ll do, but even if it isn’t, the fact Kyouya isn’t going to let things end here means he’s continuing to learn and benefit from the time jump. What’s so satisfying about this dynamic is that he now finds himself in a position to help everyone out because living and working and bonding with them helped get him in that position. It’s a symbiotic balance creative teams always strive for.

Bokutachi no Remake – 01 (First Impressions) – To Be an Artist Is to Believe in Life

Bokutachi no Remake’s first episode is fifty minutes long, giving it a cinematic quality. While there’s no combat or explosions, there is a lot of heart and a lot of quiet, relaxing atmosphere. I was a little surprised we spent nearly half of the episode on protagonist Kyouya’s life in 2016, but in hindsight I’m glad we got as much as we did.

Kyouya comes to believe his life went wrong when he chose an economics school over an art school when he received acceptance letters from both. He burned out of his office job, went to work for a video company, but was soon laid off. While searching for work he happens upon Kawasegawa, who just so happens to be in dire need of Kyouya’s specific set of skills at SucceedSoft.

At first it seems Kyouya has found his dream job, but gradually politics from higher-up curdle that dream, and he has to take the express bus back to his parents’ house for the second time. That double whammy, combined with Kyouya’s laid back affability-turned disillusionment, helps us feel for him. I could also relate: I was laid off a job of eleven years due to Covid!

It’s here where the show stops teasing us with “will he/won’t he” travel back ten years every times he hits the hay. This time he wakes up in 2006, which he identifies from his sister’s middle school uni, his deep CRT TV, PS2 (all I had in ’06 too!), and flip phone. It doesn’t really matter how he ended up back to the day he got two acceptance letters—just that he chooses the art school this time.

He’s the first to arrive at the house he’ll be sharing with three other co-eds, and there’s a palpable excitement to spending his first night in his half-unpacked room. Things get quite a bit more exciting when, after a bizarre dream sequence, he wakes up to find a cute blue-haired girl dozing next to him. When this girl slips and falls into Kyouya’s crotch, his other two new roommates enter and get quite the first impression.

Fanservice and pratfalls aside, the blue-haired girl, Shino Aki, as well as Nanako and Tsurayuki, soon settle into an easy co-habitation and become friends. They’re even all in the same visual arts program. Kyouya soon learns that his former/future boss Kawasegawa also attended this college, but she gives him the cold shoulder.

Kyouya also learns just how few art school grads end up working in their desired fields (just eight out of over 130), but also just how little he believes his past ten years future experience will help him in this setting when he’s among so many talented people. Again, I can relate to Kyouya here, in that I was the best artist at my non-art high school but when I reached college there were plenty of people way better than me.

It was a little overwhelming, but I soon learned to see it not as being someone unable to shape up in an ultra-competitive field, but part of the education itself being meeting people who do what you do, either better or worse; learning from them, and them learning from you.

Of his roommates, Kyouya ends up spending most of his time with “Shinoaki”, and the two have a lovely cozy chemistry, to the point he can carry her home on his back when she nods off, but she doesn’t wig out when she wakes up. On the contrary, Aki insists Kyouya drop the act and tell her what’s bothering him, because she can sense something is.

He tells her, and she assures him that there’s plenty he can do at their school, just as there’s plenty the people he deems amazing can’t do. Even the amazing worry; probably especially so. It’s just a lovely and beautifully lit scene between the two that thankfully time doesn’t lead to any goofy romantic pratfalls, but instead to Kyouya discovering that Shino Aki is his favorite illustrator from his future. Learning this doesn’t discourage him, it inspires him.

If you find Bokutachi no Remake’s premise too familiar by half, do not be discouraged; unlike say Tokyo Revengers there’s no effort to explain the mechanics of the time travel, which works to the shows benefit. Suffice it to say, Kyouya gets a second chance, and he’s not going to squander it, and now he lives with some of the best creatives of his generation. They’ll all make each other better by making up for each other’s shortcomings.

Those Snow White Notes – 06 – Everyone’s an Apprentice

Yui lights a fire under the ass of the Shamisen Club when she learns her gamer friend from Aomori is also participating in the group division of the Matsugoro Cup. Her name is “Maimai”—could it be Setsu’s self-appointed rival Tanuma Mai? Whoever it is, Yui doesn’t want to lose to them!

She zealously pushes the others to memorize and practice “Shinbushi” for a month, then Koyabu-sensei and the instrument shop owner Oodawara-san arrange a training camp…in Aomori. When they arrive, Setsu still isn’t sure whether he’ll enter the individual division, while Shuri is struggling with her timing.

In the throes of a full-on slump, Shuri reaches out for advice from Setsu, who is too preoccupied with his own stuff to give her anything other than “just keep doing what you’re doing”. This angers Kaito mightily, but not just because he’s in love with Shuri and Setsu is being a condescending jerk. He’s mostly mad—just as practically everyone else he knows is disappointed—that Setsu isn’t making full use of his talents.

Earlier at school, Kaito was a soccer star with a realistic shot at the pros until he blew his knee out, closing the door on his preferred future forever. He then overheard his father say the injury was a “good thing” because it meant he could focus on his studies and follow in daddy’s footsteps. As such, Kaito considers himself “perfectly set on the rails” his parents laid down.

Rai tells Setsu this, providing context for why Kaito blew his stack, and in the baths, Setsu comes to Kaito to apologize. Kaito apologizes too, and then the two of them and Rai start horseplaying, which Yui and Shuri can overhear from the girl’s bath, indicating the boys made up.

The next morning, super-early, Oodawara-san takes the club up to a vantage point overlooking the Tsugaru Strait and offers a history lesson that proves instrumental in Setsu reorganizing his thoughts about finding his sound and participating in the individuals. The first Tsugaru shamisen players were blind and living hand to mouth. Oodawara wonders what the hearts of people looked like to those who never saw the natural beauty of Tsugaru around them.

Oodawara goes on to say rules and traditions only go so far when it comes to Tsugaru Shamisen, since the circumstances and experiences of the first players were so very different from their successors, who weren’t blind. The past is not simply endlessly repeated; there is a conversation between the past and present, meaning change and boundary-pushing is not only inevitable, but crucial to its survival.

Setsu, grasping better how to find his sound, has Rai and Kaito switch shamisens to better match their playing styles and personalities. Shuri keeps struggling, but is determined not to give up. Wakana and family friend Kouta pay him a visit, and it’s clear to Setsu they’re both trying to light a fire under him.

Talk turns to gramps, who never took on any apprentices because he believed anyone who truly listened to him would be able to learn his sound. But more importantly is what Wakana says before parting: gramps also said that the reactions of the people listening were the most important lessons. In other words, Setsu will never find his sound if there’s no one listening.

Setting up atop the vantage point overlooking Cape Tappimi (or “Dragonsflight”), Setsu starts to play, and at the base of the hill, Shuri hears him and comes running as fast as she can. She can hear Setsu’s sound, and when she reaches the top that sound is so powerful, a feeling rose up in her chest that made her suddenly shout “Wa!”

Turns out that while “Wa” isn’t one of the kakegoe shouts, she shouted it precisely when she should have, because she was riding the sound, not chasing it as she had been throughout her slump. Setsu’s sound was “leaping so freely” it not only felt amazing, but helped her leap right out of that slump with a new understanding of what she was doing and how to fix it, all through the power of his sound.

Setsu, in turn, thanks Shuri for giving him the final little push he needed to decide he’s going to enter the individuals after all. That’s right: IT IS ON.

In their final “Shinbushi” practice of training camp, the club gets through the piece without a single mistake. Everyone’s feeling good, and Oodawara suggests they celebrate their success by attending Nebuta, one of the “three great festivals of Tohoku” according to Yui, and something hard to argue with what with the excellent music, dancing, and food.

All the while, the tiny obaasan who hosted the club at the guest house clandestinely shows off her god-level texting skills, revealing that she was one of Umeko’s spies all along. She informs Umeko that Setsu has indeed agreed to enter the individual division, just as Umeko is promoting the Matsugoro Cup. She got what she wanted yet again, but in this case it’s because Setsu wants it too.

Those Snow White Notes – 05 – Chemical Reaction

The Tsugaru Shamisen Appreciation Club’s first meeting begins with Koyabu-sensei presenting everyone with rented instruments as well as a flyer for the “Matsugorou Cup” suspiciously funded by Setsu’s mom’s cosmetics company. Of course, his classmates aren’t aware of who his mother is or even that the competition is named after his gramps.

Koyabu also introduces the rest of the club to its fifth member (necessary to compete in the group division): Nagamori Rai, Setsu’s neighbor who was taught by his mother and has already played for his dad’s rakugo performances. Still, as the most experienced shamisen player, Setsu leads the instruction.

Despite Wakana urging him to have patience with novices, watching the others continue to struggle mightily and not sure where to start helping them to improve only adds to his own personal musical frustration. He lashes out by saying he’ll refuse to “lower himself” to their level and it will be impossible to get them in playing shape for the competition. But while he comes off as a haughty jackass here, he’s actually not angry at any of them, but at himself for not being able to help them.

Then Umeko shows up in Setsu’s room unannounced, and while she doesn’t cop to putting him in high school just so she can devise the Matsugoro Cup and make him enter, she’s dead serious about using her authority as his mother to ensure that his talent won’t “smolder in obscurity” like her father’s did. She couldn’t force him into the spotlight he deserved, but she’ll drag her child into it—kicking and screaming if necessary.

When Shuri finds Setsu sulking on the school rooftop, he surprises her by apologizing for being a jerk, admitting he’s more frustrated than anything by being unable to achieve his gramps’ sound. That’s when Shuri passionately defends Setsu’s own sound, as her grandmother described. That gentle sound healed her as well as her gran, and inspired her to try to get a little closer to it by continuing to practice.

Shuri, Setsu, and the whole Shamisen Club is bowled over to find Koyabu-sensei has brought Kamiki Seiryuuu to offer some pointers. She had reached out to him via email with a recording of Setsu playing “Shinbushi” fiercely and wildly with picking all over the place. This second listen is all Kamiki needs to accept Koyabu’s request.

Even if it would create competition for him—maybe because it would—Kamiki is desperate to hear Setsu’s true sound unleashed. So when he arrives, the first thing he asks is that Setsu play “Shinbushi” for him again. Setsu agrees, and his performance is so much softer and more nuanced than the recording that it almost sounds like a different piece to the novice ears.

But Kamiki sees that it’s more than that: Setsu is unable to filter out his mood in the now when he performs, so however he happens to feel, that’s how he’ll sound. That’s why he’s so “all over the place”, and why Kamiki whips out his own shamisen and starts to play—not over Setsu, but with him.

A musical dance ensues, with Kamiki leading with his sprawling sound, letting Setsu dance and skip over it like a rock over water. Setsu’s feeling changes within the performance as he realizes that Kamiki’s sound is supporting his, focusing his emotions and thus his performance. When the two reach an equilibrium playing together, Shuri likens it to a chemical reaction. Considering emotions are chemical signals in the brain, she’s not wrong!

If I could be a little gross for a moment to create a metaphor: Setsu was musically constipated (he calls it “shackled”), while Kamiki’s instructive play was the Metamucil Setsu needed to “loosen things up”. It’s probably a coincidence that after Kamiki leaves, Setsu heads straight to the bathroom, but as he heads there, everyone notices how light Setsu looks as he walks…he even starts to skip!

Setsu knows what Kamiki pulled, and while it “irked” him, it was also a lot of fun, leaving him feeling happier than he’s felt in a good long while. Kamiki’s playing also used the most basic phrasing, meaning the whole club could learn it. So there’s hope for them yet. As for the individual tournament, I imagine he’s not far from committing to that. Umeko, Kamiki, and the Tanuma siblings are only a few of those who’ll be bitterly disappointed if he doesn’t!

Those Snow White Notes – 04 – New Guide, New Goal, New Sound

It’s all thanks to Sakura’s onigiri. When she greets Setsu and he enters the boarding house without responding, she can tell he’s out of sorts, and the only thing for that is food. When she delivers it, he’s on the phone with Wakana, and she gets the idea he’s talking about a girl he likes.

Setsu is terrified of not being able to live up to Shuri’s grandmother’s memory of gramps’ magnum opus, “Shungyou (Spring Dawn)”. But Wakana reminds him that Shuri didn’t know Gramps, and Setsu doesn’t know her grandmother. It’s impossible to try to exactly copy what she heard so many years ago, so he suggests Setsu rewrite her memory, using his own song.

Kamiki calls Mai to tell her he heard Setsu play, and while he clearly couldn’t show him his “sound”, he still heard the dizzying potential Mai always believed to be there, and so desperately wants to do battle with. Setsu gets a recording of “Shungyou”, but it’s on an ancient cassette tape. No problem; Kaito’s a vintage audiophile!

When Kaito asks why they can’t just play the tape for Shuri’s gram, Setsu says there’s no comparison between a taped performance and a live one. That makes it all the more impressive that even a cassette recording of Setsu’s gramps playing is able to fully transport both him and Kaito into the story of the song, ending with the titular and redemptive spring dawn.

Even a layman like Kaito can tell how God-level Setsu’s gramps was, and Setsu acknowledges he simply doesn’t have hands quick enough to match the picking at the climax of the piece. While he tries to play it, a passing young man declares Setsu’s sound “pinched and sharp”, i.e. frustrated and confined. He hands him a handmade Tamapiyo chick: something simple anyone can make, yet still causes peoples’ hearts to skip a beat.

Speaking of skipping a beat, Shuri’s heart does so as she watches the stream of Setsu playing that Yui first saw. When Kaito learns she had been keeping it from Shuri, he gets angry at Yui, provoking her into kicking him, saying “Shuri’s all you think about!” and storming off, blushing and mad. Clearly there’s a love triangle in play here, and the addition of Setsu makes it a rhombus.

Sakura forms still another vertex, as she welcomes the acerbic young man who told Setsu to simplify. He learns his name is Rai, he plays hosozao shamisen, and is the son of a rakugo performer. They’re also neighbors! Setsu followed his advice and thanks Rai for giving it.

The day arrives, and Setsu is clearly nervous because when he first meets Shuri’s grandmother he asks if she’s dead, then warns her not to die before he finishes playing. That’s gotta be nerves! But then he sits down, begins playing a sparser, more stripped down “Shungyou” that he can actually play, thus demonstrating his own new sound based upon his gramps but no longer an attempted perfect facsimile.

The sound transports Shuri’s grandma back to when she was a six-year-old evacuee shunned by those who took her in. She met a poor and starving boy slightly older than her, and she gave him her ration of potato to play something for her. That boy, Setsu’s grandfather, wept after playing, because he ate a starving girl’s potato. When she says it’s okay for her to die because her parent is dead, he said no, you have to keep living.

As Setsu’s streamlined performance moves everyone to tears, especially Shuri, who witnesses her gran smile for the first time in a long while. Setsu and Kaito saw the Spring Dawn over the mountains that turned a new page in the life of the unnamed subject of the piece—who could be anyone.

Gran’s eyes are also dazzled here by the rising sun over deep blue waves and a purple sky, the night dissolving into darkness. The image of her sitting and listening to Setsu’s gramps playing Shamisen is etched in her mind. It’s a cot-damn tearjerker, I tellsya; a new high watermark for the series in terms of emotional impact.

When it’s over, Shuri’s gran says it sounded different. That’s because the sound she heard back in the day was a very humble sound on a shabby shamisen, and yet it gave her the courage to live. She describes Setsu’s sound as a gentle sound that can heal pain, as it healed hers. She declares that she’ll be able to sleep again without becoming lost in colorless, soundless painful memories.

Setsu’s performance was a great success, and Shuri reminds him, Yui, and Kaito that they’re all in her Shamisen Club going forward. Setsu’s mom, being massaged and pampered by an army of servants, gets word from “the unit keeping an eye on Setsu” that he’s joined the club, and she takes the liberty of entering him into the National High School Tsugaru Shamisen Koshien—the Matsugurou Cup! Looks like Mai might just get her wish of going up against Setsu…

GODDAMN TEARJERKER™ CERTIFIED

This is a re-post from last week’s episode. Episode 5 review coming soon.

Those Snow White Notes – 03 – It’s Fine if It’s Different

This week Setsu becomes raveled in the web of the adorable Maeda Shuri and her childhood friends Kaito and Yui. Yui tries in vein to get Setsu to join Shuri’s club, leading him to ask why she won’t join. Then Kaito asks Shuri if Setsu’s bothering her, even though we later learn he’s the one who bullied her when she was little!

Everything chances when Shuri gets lost in a recording of her grandmother’s humming a tune on her phone and misses the bell. She gets reamed out by the teacher, who unplugs her earbud, and the whole class can hears the tune. Setsu recognizes it: his own grandfather’s “Shungyou (Spring Dawn).”

Setsu boldly approaches Shuri in the hall and asks her about it; turns out the whole reason Shuri started the club was that she hoped to meet someone who could tell her what song it was her grandmother heard some decades ago, a memory that no longer has any sound. Kaito who has an unabashed crush on Shuri, grabs Setsu, who says he was mistaken and storms off.

Then it’s Shuri’s turn to be unexpected, as she grabs Setsu’s arm with both of hers. She answered his question, now he has to answer hers: Could she someday play the piece her granny hummed? “Impossible”, he says flatly, drawing the ire of both Kaito and Yui. Koyabu-sensei breaks up the tussle by suggesting all five of them go listen to a live performance by the former owner of the shamisen in Shuri’s care.

Meanwhile in Aomori, Kamiki Seiryuuu, formerly Ogata Kousuke, shamisen player extraordinaire, plays for the Tanuma siblings’ father, who is impressed by his progress but still assures him that his son Souichi will beat him. Kamiki politely replies that that ain’t gonna happen.

While on the way out Kamiki runs into Tanuma Mai, who may be the only one outside the Sawamura family to hear Setsu’s playing. And he was so skilled, his distaste for competition made her mad. She’s been mad ever since, and doesn’t quite buy that it’s “fine” for Setsu to not want to seek recognition.

Speaking of recognition, Koito and Setsu arrive at Kamiki’s performance with Shuri, Yui, and Koyabu-sensei, and a crowd full of adoring ladies. Shuri asks Setsu what he meant by impossible, he says even he wouldn’tbe able to play it, as his “emotions would get in the way”. Yui wonders to herself why he can’t simply try to play it.

Then the lights go out, and a dramatically silhouetted Kamiki begins his performance, pulling the crowd in with a clarity of sound Setsu didn’t think possible from a futozao. As Mai’s dad said, his playing is like a breath of mountain air; crisp, bracing…even a little frightening. Again Snow White Notes delivers another awesome shamisen performance, and due to the performer being Kamiki, it’s unlike any of the previous ones.

Koyabu-sensei gets everyone backstage so Shuri can ask Kamiki about the shamisen he left behind, but Setsu gets uncharacteristically chippy about the fact Kamiki basically abandoned such a kingly instrument to the tender mercies of a school that could have easily thrown it out.

Kamiki says he trusted someone would find it who would be able to ascertain its true value…and that turned out to be true! Then Kamiki hands Setsu his current shamisen and asks him to show him what he’s got. Setsu plays, and Shuri, Koito, and Koyabu-sensei are impressed…but Yui isn’t. Nor is Kamiki.

Yui finds his playing boring. Kamiki had an even meaner word for it in his thoughts…insipid. He recognizes Setsu has some skill, but he was just striking away recklessly.

Setsu runs off. Yui follows him and asked why he phoned it in. She heard him play properly online during the rock show and was blown away despite having zero interest in the shamisen before. But Setsu wasn’t sucking intentionally…he just couldn’t play. Shuri listens in around the corner as he laments not being able to play for Shuri even though she’s so desperate to hear that mystery tune.

A rain-soaked Setsu arrives on his block to find Sakura outside the boarding house, and he asks her upfront what she’d do if someone asked her to do something she thought was impossible for her. Sakura says she’d give it her best shot on her own terms, even if she knew she’d fail. It’s just what Setsu needed to hear to come out of his funk.

The next day, when Shuri is along in some supply room strumming out some basic shamisen notes, Setsu appears from behind and corrects her posture. He asks if it’s okay if the song he plays is different from the one her grandmother remembers, and she says of course it will be fine; like Sakura, she’s more concerned with trying than not trying. If anything, it’s better if it’s different, because that makes it his sound. That’s what he’s scared of, after all: his sound never shaping up to his gramps’.

But his grandfather didn’t want him exactly copying him anyway! Setsu thought his sound didn’t exist at all without gramps around, but by bringing sound to the silent memories of Shuri and her grandmother, he’s one more small step towards discovering that he always had a sound separate from his master’s—everyone does, and everyone should. I’ll close by saying way to go, Setsu, for totally making Shuri’s day!

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 04 – Assembling a Team

Concerned that Riri is letting their Schutzengel go to her head and slacking, and annoyed that Fumi blasted the contract in the paper (complete with their couple name “Yuri”), Yuyu tasks her pink-haired Schild with putting together a new legion. While she intends for Riri to form her own, Riri ends up recruiting for a legion that will include and be led by Yuyu.

While legions like Alfheim have been together since junior high, there are plenty of free agent Lilies for Riri and Fumi to choose from; it’s just that some, like Andou Tazusa, are hard to approach—though it helps if you have a kitty. Meanwhile, a bonded pair like Kuo Shenlin and Wang Yujia take Riri’s recruitment as an opportunity to clear the air.

The more Riri recruits, the more she learns how sought-after Kaede and Fumi are, and how lacking she seems by comparison. Riri’s problem is similar to Yujia’s—she’s got skills, but lacks confidence. Still, Kaede and Fumi don’t flaunt the fact other Legions want them; they’re right where they want to be: with Riri and Yuyu. Miriam von Gropius soon joins them, and the legion grows to five out of a required nine.

Shenlin and Yujia become the sixth and seventh, but only after the former puts the latter through her paces in an attempt to boost her confidence. She knows Riri will provide moral support as Yujia is ordered by Shenlin to target her with her sniper rifle, firing from a kilometer away.

When Shenlin reflects the tenth and final shot back, Yujia is able to parry, thus demonstrably ending the debate about her mettle when compared to her two sisters, who are still defending her homeland of Iceland.

Shenlin, who became the Lily she is due to strenuous hard work, simply wanted to remind a natural talent like Yujia to have faith in herself. That leaves just two slots remaining in Team Yuri—though it’s a good bet they’ll be filled by Andou Tazusa and Yoshimura Thi Mai.

Frankly, there’s not a whole lot to go on this week other than marveling at the sheer variety of Lilies, their hair colors and outfits, personality quirks, and abilities. In the characterization department, Assault Lily is concerned with quantity over quality, while its quality lies in the character, mechanical, combat, and environmental design, which is all top-notch. We’ll see how long those elements can carry the show.

Saekano the Movie: Finale – Where Scenario Ends and Reality Begins

It’s been three years since Saekano Flat, and to be honest I haven’t kept up with news about a continuation of the story. All I know is I wanted to see it end happily with Tomoya and Megumi as a couple, and however it did that was fine. So imagine my surprise and delight upon learning a full-length movie would wrap everything up!

We pick up where Flat left off: Eriri and Utaha working on Fields Chronicle with Kosaka Akane at Mazuru; while Tomoya, Megumi, Michiru and Izumi work on Blessing Software’s next game: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend. At an after-party for Icy Tail’s first solo performance, the two Blessing Defectors show up to support their friends, but their boss Kosaka inserts herself into the festivities to berate their work and force them to redo it.

Tomoya and Megumi aren’t really a couple yet, but they might as well be. Not coincidentally, Tomoya is in a slump with regards to writing the scene in which the protagonist confesses to the main heroine. He seeks Utaha for help, but runs into Kosaka first. Kosaka laughs at his story at first, but encourages him to embrace his inner deluded otaku and “masturbate more”—literarily speaking, of course…

Around midnight before their senior year begins, Tomoya runs by his Kosaka-inspired rewrites to Megumi. The two aren’t just on the phone for hours anymore, but Skype, face to face. It’s always been so lovely to watch these two simply working together like this while also dropping hints about how they feel about one another.

While Tomoya is determined to keep a crucial scene despite Megumi’s misgivings, he obviously wants her take on the main heroine, because she’s his main heroine. No big hug or crying fit is necessary, an ordinary event is sufficient to raising her flag. Before falling asleep to his typing, well past 3 AM, Megumi and Tomoya decide that because the game’s couple will be on first-name basis from this point on, they should do the same thing.

The next day at school, Izumi is about to greet Tomoya and Megumi, but sees how close they are and doesn’t interrupt (Eriri does though, not reading the room at all). The two then decide to act out a scene at the train station where they hold hands, and by God, the way those hands are animated—so subtle and gentle and loving.

Tomoya plans another “scouting” trip to Ikebukuro for them to “gather material”, on a day he knows to be Megumi’s birthday. When she asks if that’s all they’ll be doing, he initially puts the onus on her to say what she wants, then asks her if it’s okay if it’s about more than that, she says it is; that any reason will do. Then she notes that she’s not responsible for “what might happen”, before abruptly hanging up.

Their mutual realization they were about to go on a date for her birthday, not as mere colleagues working on a game, but as a couple taking the next step, is priceless to behold. I got so caught up in the buildup of anticipation and excitement to that magical day, I forgot how much movie was left. The day arrives, Megumi is at the meeting spot in the same outfit that first inspired Tomoya, only for him to call and tell her he can’t make it.

It was like a door in my chest opened up and my heart just fell on to the floor with a gruesome splat. Thankfully, he didn’t stand her up because he chickened out, but due to circumstances outside his control. Kosaka Akane had a stroke, and since she wasn’t carrying any ID, Tomoya’s card was the closest thing to an emergency contact.

This development angered me at first because it’s precisely the kind of dramatic twist he was trying to avoid for the Main Heroine route. Due to the stroke, Kosaka can’t currently use her right hand. Utaha tries to get Tomoya not to worry about them by saying her and Eriri’s work is mostly done, but Eriri doesn’t pick up on what Utaha is trying to do, and tells Tomoya the truth: they have no idea what this means for Fields Chronicle.

With Kosaka’s old friend Iori and Utaha’s manager stepping up to fill in while she recuperates, Tomoya initially volunteers to take over Iori’s promoting and negotiating roles for Blessing, but Megumi takes that on instead, insisting he need to have his undivided attention on the scenario. Megumi accepted Tomoya’s explanation and apology, but being stood up on your birthday by the guy you love is hard blow that’s left her weary.

Turns out she has good reason to be. Iori reports back to Tomoya with some dire news: even before Kosaka’s stroke, Fields Chronicle was over a month behind schedule. Kosaka prioritized the rapid artistic growth over finishing the game on time. Now the company is prepared to make deep cuts to both story and characters in order to get something to market without further delay.

This would obviously be an intolerable compromise for Utaha and Eriri, but they both know they can’t be the ones to try to argue their case to the company. They need someone who can go to the plate and negotiate, plead, and even get on his knees and passionately beg when logical arguments fail. And there’s just one person like that who knows and believes in their work. So they make the call.

Tomoya and Megumi meet up and sit on the same bench where they tenderly held hands and blushed, only for Megumi to deduce he’s going to Osaka to help Utaha and Eriri with their game. Tomoya cites how this is Utaha and Eriri’s best and possibly only chance at achieving true greatness and living up to their potential, and he can’t stand by and let their dreams be crushed.

But Megumi points out that he’s putting those dreams and that game ahead of their dreams and their game. Unable to hold back tears, she tells Tomoya that she can’t be his main heroine anymore, and boards the next train. But Tomoyo presses on for Osaka, and eventually makes some real progress, extending their deadline and sacrificing two characters so they don’t have to eliminate five. He sends Megumi texts, but she doesn’t reply. Why should she?

With their writer and leader gone, Blessing is on hold as far as Megumi is concerned. She’s also so rightfully angry at Tomoya her heart just isn’t in it…but Michiru and Izumi eventually get her to take up the mantle of their new leader, doing what they can do in Tomoya’s stead.

Indeed, Michiru and Izumi become a lot more assertive in telling Megumi they know she and Tomoya have been dating and are now fighting. Megumi rejects their idle gossip, but something fishy is going on: Izumi is drawing Megumi during her anguish, while Iori is typing on the other end of Izumi’s Bluetooth.

Utaha and Eriri end up completing their work, but rather than celebrate, Tomoya heads home at once. After he leaves, the girls remember what they agreed on before asking Tomoya to help: that in return, they’d help him finish his game and help him make up with Megumi. This meant letting go of Tomoya as a potential romantic partner for good and letting Megumi win.

While Tomoya was in Osaka, every minute he wasn’t helping Utaha and Eriri with their game, he was still writing the scenario for his, while at the same time penning a lengthy letter attempting to describe his feelings for Megumi. When he returns home she’s waiting on his stoop, his letter in her inbox, which she describes as “disgusting”.

Megumi wants to be mad at Tomoya and doesn’t want to forgive him for what he did, but she also “doesn’t care” about any of that, because what’s most important is that she loves him. That’s why she brushes his hand away once, but not twice. The second time she keeps their hands locked, and then Tomoya beats her to it by confessing first.

Tomoya loves his 2D Main Heroine, but he loves the 3D Katou Megumi most. When she asks why, he says it isn’t out of admiration, obsession, or obligation. He’s perfectly frank in telling her she seemed more in his league as a partner than the dazzling, infinitely more talented Utaha or Eriri. Only with Megumi can he feel and act like himself and tell her what he’s really feeling.

One would think Megumi should be insulted by Tomoya’s rationale for choosing her. But in a continuation of her monologue to Michiru and Izumi, she confesses that she wants Tomoya to be hers and no one else’s. Because there’s no drama, like the other girls. Because they’re so wonderfully “normal” together. So Tomoya’s explanation passes muster.

Soon the two are locked in a hug, and when Megumi’s eyes are closed, after some hesitation Tomoya kisses her. She wasn’t quite ready, so she kisses him in turn. Finally, the two count down to have a perfectly timed third kiss. This was one of the best anime first kiss(es) scenes I’ve ever seen.

Kosaka recovers, thanking Tomoya for his help while she was out of commission and offering to read his work (and skewer it viciously) anytime. Tomoya incorporates the details of his and Megumi’s real-life mutual confession into the game and Izumi creates more art for it.

Eriri and Utaha arrive to help out and immediately insert their strong personalities into the project with abandon. When Eriri takes a break, Tomoya follows her out to apologize for…well, everything, but most importantly for what he doesn’t explicitly state: not choosing her. She takes it as well as she could be expected to, asking before heading back whether Tomoya loved her ten years ago.

Eriri then joins Megumi for a bath and briefly waterboards her in frustration, not just that she lost, but that Megumi loved Tomoya so much they made up and started dating before Eriri or Utaha could arrive to help them. After the whole gang pulls a near-all-nighter to complete the game, the two girls tuck everyone in and head out, vowing to keep running together so he can’t catch up, knowing he’ll keep chasing them regardless.

The day of Comiket arrives, and Tomoya and Megumi head to the venue hand in hand like the couple they are. Tomoya wonders if 2,000 copies was too many to print, but they sell every one, validating their hard work as well as the inspiration Megumi provided.

Tomoya and Megumi graduate from high school and return to the spot where they first met, with Megumi in her now-iconic red sweater and white cap and skirt. Roll credits!

After the credits we jump forward what looks like a couple if not a few years. Megumi is suggesting to an overworked Tomoya that they break up, since he’s stuck at his sales job so much they hardly ever see each other, and in any case suspects he still carries a flame for a certain someone. Tomoya has given up on his dreams, and while Iori hasn’t, he’s now a penniless delusional vagrant.

Just when I thought we’d reached Saekano’s “Bad Ending”, Tomoya suddenly encounters a short-haired Utaha by the waterfront, the music rises, and she’s about to start singing when Eriri snaps us out of it; this was just the visualization of a spec script for a new game half-jokingly written by Utaha. The two are in a meeting with Iori and a Tomoya who is very much living the dream of being. Glorious fake-out!

He is the president and Megumi the vice president of Blessing, now an established and successful game company. Utaha’s script hit Tomoya hard, though, so he hugs Megumi when he sees her next, and asks her to reassure him she’s not going anywhere. Of course, she does, but when Tomoya leans in to kiss, she wants to save it for when they get home.

Unfortunately, they are unable to bone when they get home, because their apartment is suddenly overrun by the talent: not just Michiru and Izumi, but Utaha and Eriri have also shown up for their first sleepover meeting in years. Tomoya and Megumi take the intrusion in stride, but Megumi makes sure to steal a kiss, in the process revealing he put a ring on it. Good lad! The six friends gather around the table for a toast to another hit from Blessing, and the curtain finally falls for good on the movie, and on Saekano.

Until I sunk my teeth into this movie, I didn’t realize how much I missed the show’s great mix of comedy, romance, drama, artistry and extremely effective fanservice. I could hardly have asked for a better, more satisfying ending than the one we got.

Wave, Listen to Me! – 11 – Cough Up the Karma

Minare’s latest weird late-night occult/philosophy radio show continues as Mitsuo climbs out of the ground with his broken neck bent 90 degrees to the side. He invites Minare and “Matt” deep below the Sea of Trees where there’s a reincarnation of Asama-no-Okami (the deity personifying Mt. Fuji), who in turn will offer to take their karma and decided where they’ll be reincarnated, and as whom.

I have to admit, it’s all a bit trippy and bizarre, but aside from a few snickers (the deity decides to send all three to Sweden for their next lives because of it’s “established welfare”), it wasn’t really the funniest bit? More than a comedy, it’s meant to take hold of listeners as they determine which of the three people they’re most like: Matt, who murdered dozens for his work; Mitsuo, who wants to come back as someone who’s more aware of when he’s hurting others…or Minare, who doesn’t want to go to Sweden at all.

At the end of the show, Kureko again leaves a big empty space in the script for Minare to ad-lib, which is what she does best. She provides a litany of things she did in real life to real people (most of whom are listening; and Mitsuo is wearing a neck brace after her suplex), but having all that swept under the rug and being shipped to a new life Sweden isn’t for her. She’s a “wandering Japanese”, with no interest in any other country, and simply wants to return to the Sea of Trees. The deity obliges.

At the post-show meeting, Minare learns the voice of the deity was Chisato and the voice of Mitsuo was Koumoto, while Kureko thinks he got Mitsuo’s character down accurately. When Minare accuses Kureko of hating her for having such huge holes in the script, Matou admits he had Kureko leave lots of opportunities for ad-libbing on purpose, in order to assess and exploit Minare’s inherent adaptability. And adaptability, more than any other quality, is what makes a great radio personality.

Matou informs Minare that her next show will be from an idea she creates, or otherwise acquires from, say, listeners via email or social media. He also encourages her to listen to her favorite personalities on radio to get a feel for the increased freedom the medium provides over TV. That night, Mizuho is worried about Mizuho and her cheerful brave front in the midst of Kureko quitting radio, considering she wanted Kureko on her radio “dream team” once she’s promoted.

That night, Mizuho seems to lean in for a kiss, in what is surely one of the sexiest pieces of animation Wave has turned out—only for her to be rousing Minare to listen to a comic midnight broadcast. Mizuho also tells Minare that Matou is looking for her to create something “wild, living in the moment, and anarchistic”.

Whatever Minare comes up with, she only has one more episode to pull it off. After her momentous victory over Mitsuo, the last two weeks have taken a step back, and overall the show feels like it’s stalled. Still, better to peak in week 9 than not at all!

Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! – 04 – The Advantage of High Standards

With only a month to go until the budget committee, we open on an Eizouken in crisis. For all the work Midori and Tsubame have done, they only have a few seconds of finished work to show for it. Midori can get los in her detailed worlds, while Tsubame is a proud perfectionist. Sayaka knows they’re dead in the water at such a slow pace, which means corners have to be cut somewhere.

That said, Midori and Tsubame wouldn’t bother making an anime, no matter how short or shallow, without showing off the skills they’ve amassed. Sayaka must always walk the delicate line between keeping the girls on schedule and not crushing their dreams. The three exhibit the flexibility needed in such a venture to agree to compromises they can all live with.

Yet even with a good final product (and the episode is coy about how much progress they make in realizing their vision), the Eizouken is up against a circus-like atmosphere the day of the committee, and a hostile student council intent on suspending their activities before they even have a chance to show their work. When Sayaka’s lawyering scares the adults but not the StuCo, Midori insists they at least see what they’ve been working on.

Then their anime plays out more or less in real time, and the animation, while simple and rough, is so dynamic that everyone in the auditorium reacts like they’ve been flung in the middle of the kinetic battle between the Machete Girl and her tank nemesis. Everyone in attendance is bowled over…except for our perfectionist creators, constantly critiquing the work and coming up with improvements for the future.

Having witnessed just how much the Eizouken can accomplish without a budget or a fair deadline, the StuCo has no choice but to see what they are capable of with both. That could possibly backfire—having backs against the wall is a common motivator—but I doubt it.

The enthusiastic fires in Midori and Tsubame have never burned brighter than at the end of their presentation, and Sayaka seems pleased that other outsiders saw what she saw in these two: they’re special, and they are capable of great things no matter the conditions.

Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! – 03 – Gas Mask Girl vs. Personal Defense Tank

The accident video turns out not to have any adverse consequences (for now) but did net the Film Club 30,000 yen, most of which was spent on repairs. It’s a good thing Sayaka is around to keep the wild-eyed dreamer and the rich girl in line, monetarily speaking.

While Midori and Tsubame are easily distracted by a butterfly or tanuki, Sayaka makes sure they take this seriously, because the school will only promote a serious association to full club status. First order of business is repairing the roof, a task the animators visualize as EVA on a spaceship.

Once they’ve had a meal and a discussion on what’s physically possible in the 55 days they have until the budget discretionary hearing, the trio take the train to Midori’s place. Most of the ads happen to feature Tsubame, attracting a couple of fans and reminding us of her notoriety.

One also imagines she’ll likely have a modeling job or two during those 55 days. When it’s clear that a 3600-frame 5-minute animated short will be too much work for the two of them, they shorten it to three minutes.

Once at Midori’s modest apartment (with its neat checkered carpet), the brainstorming commences. Midori has books full of cool concepts, and they settle on one that’s relatively simple, as most of the structures are cubes. More elaborate environments can wait until they’re on sturdier organizational and financial ground.

Watching Midori and Tsubame bounce off each other and create worlds before our eyes is never not thrilling, but it’s also rewarding to see how the enterprising Sayaka reacts to their “creative rampages,” by finding a way to combine the two artists’ disparate visions.

Sayaka exhibits emotional intelligence by ensuring neither of the animators are discouraged to the point of adversely affecting their enthusiasm and productivity. She’s also pretty sure they can save money on paper by simply buying a hole punch!

By episodes end, the broad strokes of the short have been hammered out. Tsubame’s efforts will center on a high school girl in a gas mask (to limit the need to draw full facial expressions) armed with a machete, who battles an adorable “Personal Defense Tank” designed by Midori in a low-gravity environment.

If what they end up animating looks anything like the concept story-boarding they made in their minds, they should be on a one-way-street to acknowledgement as a full film club. But that’s a big if, and there’s still the possibilty of butting heads with budget adjudicators who aren’t okay with the concept of a second anime-related club, or simply aren’t into animation.

In the battle to come, Midori, Sayaka, and Tsubame are Gas Mask Girl, while the school is the tank. Somehow, they must find a way to prevail.