[Music]
Hello and welcome to an all new episode of Anime Brain Freeze. We are your Whiplash inducing hosts.
I am Jon.
And I'm CC. When there's just too much cool anime to watch, we've got you covered.
Today we will bring the scares, the laughs and the tears, because in just a moment I will start us off with my review of the eerie village horror show, The Summer That Hikaru Died.
After that Jon will switch scenery and tell us all about the function and against going on in city the animation.
Lastly, I will bring us back to the countryside and the cautionary tale of a little happy alien that shows us the true meaning of the phrase, The opposite of well is well-manned, in Takope's original sin.
So grab your happy gadgets, don't bring a bunch of severed heads as a tribute to your local deity, just to get rid of your depth or pay your rent, and definitely don't pass the pot, we'll be right back.
[Music]
Shiki and Hikaru have been friends since they were small, as the only two children around their age in the village.
Once some of them, Hikaru goes into the forest and comes back, if looks like Hikaru and has Hikaru's memories, it's not him.
This Hikaru seems almost innocent, full of childlike wonder and eager to experience the summer heat, the countryside, and all kinds of other things like it's for the first time.
And for Yoshiki, it matters little if Hikaru is a fake relying on stolen memories, as long as he never leaves again.
Yoshiki desperately clings to Hikaru in his intense grief, it becomes increasingly clear that something dangerous and supernatural may have descended from the mountains into their village.
Thanks to A&N and MAL rewrite for that summary, so this summary that Hikaru died is based on Amanga by Moku Mukuren,
which I assume is a pen name.
Yeah, sure sounds like it.
Let's start in 2021, count 7 volumes so far, and it's still running.
On the first season of the anime, I'm going to talk about today, count 12 episodes, and was produced by Sci-Games Pictures, which we have talked about before, mostly in our review of Princess Connect.
That I didn't realize that they worked on it.
Yes, I guess. I mean, I'm not sure, but I assume there is probably also going to be a visual novel or something like that.
I mean, that's not necessarily true, but I guess we'll see.
I mean, Sci-Games does have their fingers into a lot of different pies.
Yes, absolutely.
Both Direction and Series composition were handled by Ryohei Takeshita, who also directed Jellyfish Can Swim in the Night, and Aero Manga Sensei,
and also worked as an episodes/unit director, storyboarder or key animator on a lot of other stuff like Wotakoye, To Love Roo, Flip Flapers,
and then more.
At least all the good out-balance is Aero Manga Sensei.
I mean, Aero Manga Sensei kind of, his expertise with directing that show, kind of plays into this one, but I get to that.
Not in the bad way, but in terms of that also being somewhat of a romance show, I guess.
Interesting.
In Aero Manga Sensei, it's just more problematic than in this one.
Also, it's very plenty problematic in this one as well.
But as expected from Sci-Games, this is a supremely beautiful show.
A lush countryside landscape, almost photorealistic streets and buildings.
Very detailed and elaborate character and facial animation, great color work.
It even mixes live-action footage, which animated characters in the ED,
which later in the story when the ED is played out in the actual events, which was pretty rare and interesting to see.
The soundtrack was composed by Tato Ume Biashi, who also worked on Space, Dandy, Caron, Tuesday, and Yuri on Ice.
The music is great, of course, and there's, like, this, what's one thing that's allowed to me was a nice piece of diagetic music in the very first episode, or the second.
I'm sure where part of the school orchestra starts playing a practice song, which becomes then the actual soundtrack, as we see a montage of all the things happening at the school and in the town.
It's really nice, looks great and does great work at establishing a deceptively cozy summer vibes atmosphere, and they do stuff like that, like, think two or three times in this show.
So, pretty neat stuff.
And yeah, with the small production info out of the way, let's get into the story.
So, I mean, this came out before fall, but it was very appropriate that I was able to watch this right before Halloween, because this is a straight forward, not straight forward, especially not straight.
Horror show.
But that is all about creepy woods, weird stuff going on in a village, not everyone being who they pretend to be a central mystery, shady organizations doing stuff in the background, and all that good stuff.
So, a bit of stranger things vibes, maybe, but also, you know, classic full-core stuff and everything all thrown into a blender, very interesting.
And mix into that also very personal drama, like a story about loss, a story about friendship, a story about love, very much love.
And yeah, so that was, was very interesting from the get go.
So, I just read you the summary and what is going on.
And I have Yoshiki, I was like this kind of solemn, soft spoken, kind of gloomy guy, like yes, like, like, here he has long bangs and everything.
And it's like this looks like he hasn't slept for a while and everything doesn't seem to have to, he has friends, but, you know, he is not like this super extroverted, funny guy or anything.
That is his best friend, Hikaru, who seems like this ray of sunshine and always goofing off, always doing dumb shit and everything.
And always making funny faces and he's the guy who makes makes like Yoshiki constantly laugh.
And they have been hanging out since early childhood, besties ever since.
And it's really funny, like, you have like really like the light and dark side, both in terms of behavior and look because Hikaru has white hair.
And you know, Yoshiki has black one and he's the gloomy one on Hikaru's, the uplift one, the, you know, the happy go lucky one.
And all of that kind of gets turned on its head when one fateful day, Hikaru goes to the mountain to do something, we later learned what he was there to do.
And then disappears and comes back after a week, doesn't remember shit, what happened to him.
And it's everything seems to be okay, he seems to be the same person to everyone's like his parents are like happy, he's back and everything.
And his friend Yoshiki also seems to be happy, but immediately recognizes something is off here.
Something is not right, that is not the Hikaru I knew before. And he's right on the money and when he confronts Hikaru about it, he carries face changes and this weird black ooze like drips out of his face and forms into like this weird, even kind of like butterfly wing ask mass, mass like that is just oozing out from his head.
And he just lurches over Yoshiki backs him not to tell anyone because he doesn't want to kill him.
So that would normally change things in a friendship, I would say.
But Yoshiki is just so happy to have Hikaru back that he is not really that he doesn't intend to even do anything about this really like he's like hey okay I have this guy Hikaru here he's not Hikaru so let's just call him fake Roo for now just if we want to refer to the original Hikaru in this one.
Who is obviously some kind of entity we don't know what at the beginning of the show we don't even really know it at the end of the first season you can make a pretty solid guess the show drops a nut enough in info there that you can guess what he is.
But in the beginning it's just like this ominous presence you don't know it's attention you just know for now it's posing as Hikaru seems to have fun posing as Hikaru and it seems to be very much attached to Yoshiki and trying to stay with him and have a fun time with him and yeah that is that is basically the setup for the show and then the basic mystery of it is.
Okay who is this fake Roo what is he what is he doing here what is our hints in tension can he be trusted is he dangerous and why is he so attached to Yoshiki and we have some other people in the town who are seem to be kind of involved with the mystery we have some you know older people who seem to know what's going on or seem to have a pretty good guess we have to seem we later there is.
There is a person later that we that we get acquainted with who seems to be kind of a medium because she has made a similar experience that Yoshiki is experiencing right now where a person from a person that was that came back into her life and we have Yoshiki's friends from high school one of them is also very observant and pretty much recognizes immediately that Yoshiki is that he is not the same person.
And then we have this guy called Tanaka who comes from out of town and seems to work for a company that is in search of something apparently whatever he is and seems to also be able to handle occult occurrences at what and whatever.
So pretty interesting very cast but the main attraction of course our domain characters Yoshiki and he caroo or fake Roo.
And yeah I think one thing that is very obvious and it cannot be ignored in the show is this is a gay love story it's heavily implied that Yoshiki is very much gay for hikaru is not clear if he caroo had the same feelings for him before he probably died and apparently got taken over by this entity.
But there are like in the beginning there kind of subtle hints where Yoshiki gets very mad every time in flashbacks he talks about Yoshiki getting a girlfriend when he moves away because doesn't really want to move away I mean he does but you know he doesn't want to leave hikaru and also he doesn't want to go for and he obviously wants a boyfriend and that is right in front of him that person.
He also pretty early in the show at one point asked fake Roo if he likes him and when fake Roo replies that does like Yoshiki a lot which the real hikaru apparently never set out loud ones.
Yoshiki asks him to never leave him again.
There is also this very creepy but also very sexually coded scene where Yoshiki wants to know what is actually going on inside this weird fake Roo thing and how it absorbs other spirits in which it can do and everything and it is invited to stick a hand in an open part of fecru's chest which apparently inside feels like raw marinated chicken and sticking the hand in deeper and moving it around makes fecru feel good.
You get the idea.
Yoshiki also gets embarrassed when seeing fecru's pecs so yeah the show doesn't really beat around the bush with that especially after a couple of episodes it's all very very obvious.
I also talk about that and I get to that later but yeah it's very interesting.
Yoshiki has a family apparently hits his parents fight there's some issues which is also probably also why he was so heavily connected to hikaru or still is like his parents fight and his small sister caros maybe depress like she hasn't visited school in a while she doesn't seem to want to get really out of the house and everything.
It's not made super clear what her problem is but she doesn't really get out of bed in the morning and everything there seems to be some depression thing going on with her.
And yeah like I said what is also interesting about fecru he has hikaru's memory stored but experiences a lot of the same things for the first time for himself.
So he reacts differently than hikaru for example watching a movie in school and fecru cries over it even though the really caroo had already seen it before or he eats food for the first time that he grew had already eaten but memories are different than experiencing the real thing of course so it's all very new to him and very like interesting and captivating and everything and he really is experiencing like a child like it is experiencing an ice cream for the first time or whatever.
So it's really it's really cool. He also claims he didn't kill a kill.
He only took over his body when he was on when he was on desk store. I believe him the show doesn't really give us much reason to doubt about him in that regard but there's also this under this lingering underlying threat under everything he caroo said fecru says and does because it's like it doesn't really seem to have a full understanding about everything it's doing.
Especially when it comes to life and death and everything i'll get to that so there is that is what the main let's say threat one of one of the things that the main threatening atmosphere and the show the horror atmosphere is built on because like i said.
Half of the show is a horror show is a horror show or horror story the other half is a love drama.
So this is technically the main threat because you actually he doesn't know if he can really trust fecru and if not eventually fecru will kill him or some other person there several scenes where fecru can't don't doesn't seem to be really able to control himself and tries to consume your she keep.
Always like pulse back at the right moment and then like apologize profusely regrets it and also seems to be really intent on not hurting your she keep but you as a viewer always like okay said can he control himself and everything you know deep down your she keeps also understandably really scared of him at least for a long time but he also doesn't know what to do is also not able to let go of the last remnant of his best friend slash first love.
So immediately you have you have like this tension in this relationship of course that works really well if you at all the horror aspect and everything but you immediately also understand like how much he could man to your she keep like how important that person was to him and you immediately understand what is emotional hang up is here and that is that he's in quite a bind here and that makes that that this relationship very interesting and has you on the edge of the story.
And has you on the edge of your seat to my god where's this gonna go is this is like gonna be have a super bad ending like is he could a fake or gonna go full monster at some point and for example in the beginning there seems to be an old lady that seems to see what he is and recognize him and I don't know if the show actually outright states it but I think all but confirms it that he kills that woman just to not be discovered.
It's not shown in full detail but it's like I don't and they might reveal later on that he is actually not responsible for it but you know it's heavily implied so the fear that your she has is not unwarranted like fake room might be very dangerous is probably very dangerous.
And just the implication alone is more than enough for the story is exactly it definitely holds up like pushes the threatening atmosphere to a max and gives like these really cool horror vibes especially since that initial thing happens like at nighttime and everything and has really creepy imagery and everything when something stands in front of that woman's door and says let me in let me in and then she stops banging on the door and then she is not going to be in the room.
I'm sitting on the door and then she hears from behind her I'm already inside.
It's like wow.
It's really good.
So yeah I say on the horror aspect the show really delivers there's some other stuff like there are also other spirits in the village and I get to why that is and they become more and more prominent.
There's also a lot of the village itself also plays a lot into the mystery and it's a lot about discovering where this village what this village is about and how the mountain relates to it and how you know whatever he car is relates to it and we learn that some companies in corporations were involved in this and there was a bidding war over the land and whatever I think and not all of that has been cleared up yet but a lot of it has and or at least it alludes to certain things.
In regards to the mystery what the resolution to that could be but it's not all been confirmed yet so that is still being kept kind of vague in certain regards and that also keeps it interesting right you want to see what actually the reason for all this is like again a lot of things are hinted at pretty clearly but they could also you know throw a curveball at us in the second season which might be long time away considering that the manga apparently the doesn't release.
As quickly so we'll see but yeah this talks of a failed ritual at some point there is there's this deity talked about that is either depending on who talks about it nonuki summer or unuki unuki summer and that is apparently very important to the mountain this village itself is weird because it's this made up it's this it was this one big village before and then was split up and if you look at it from the top like on a
map it looks kind of like a person and it's all very mysterious and creepy. Aside from Yoshiki and Tika Rui we have his his classmates, Makii, Yuki and Asako and they're hanging out often together they're not all equally important like aside from hey cool summer vibes and the usual hey we're going to have a fireworks
festival whatever and hanging out with my friends and stuff which is in a lot of these shows with that that are set in late summer but asako is very important because she can she can hear spirits apparently she can her grandma could see them she can hear them so she can also she can also partially see them so she can easily she quickly recognize
just like Yoshiki did that but for other reasons that he grows not the same that also of course leaks leads to some tension and to to a conflict between Yoshiki and Hikaru because Hikaru does something that you shouldn't do because of that and it's all very
it's it adds to the drama but I was surprised at how let's say it doesn't get super like dark like this doesn't in the first season at least this doesn't become a slasher story or anything like this is one big death thing in the beginning with the old woman where we are not still quite sure what if he can
figure when just and kill her or if something else that if she was so scared that she killed herself maybe right so that is still to be seen but outside of that it's more the lingering threat of Yoshiki being consumed by Hikaru or you know something else happened the outside force the guy catching up to them Tanaka is his name he's super weird
he always brings his hamster around like he says has a hamster in the box apparently can also detect spirits and he uses him basically like as a detector like as a guy or counter or something like that so this is always a
whatever works man yes is fucking funny scene where where he runs into Yoshiki for the first time at the talk to each other and he said something is up with this kid I think he's like me he can see spirits or something
and Yoshiki is kind of sent off is when he talks to me then he sees the hamster and you have like this moment of him just having to stare and then the next moment is him like being like completely
completely enamored with the hamster and yes is on his hand and both of him and Tanaka are like close together kneeling down and laughing heartily and Tanaka is like ah he's pooping on his on your hands
and Yoshiki is like I don't mind he's so cute and it's really funny so this show has a lot of weird humor in it in parts that is one of the examples of that but it's not unwelcome it's all you know when the funny scenes have hit they hit
so it's kind of like absurd comedy in certain parts but it's not so much that it kind of kind of sabotages the area atmosphere
and you know the dramatic moments and everything those feel always very genuine and build enough attention and everything so I was but I appreciate that there was some levity in all this like high-pressure situations
so yeah that also worked really well for me and we have this other person called Kurebayashi that is the medium I was talking about before she seems to be able to send spirits
as well and has realized whatever dangerous aura was in the mountain until a while ago has now left there and has it itself attached to Yoshiki you know which of course is fecuru and she can do she can do that because apparently she her her husband came
back in the past after he died and since then she or even before that I'm not sure but definitely since then she has been able to see spirits and can also exercise them apparently like she can slap spirits away and they disappear that seems to be her power
and she rescues like both Asako I think at some point and Yoshiki and Hikaru because of that because other spirits start to appear in the village because whatever Hikaru was he was apparently keeping them in or fecuru was he was keeping them in check in the mountain
he's like kind of like the lightning rod for spirits he attracts them and when they get close to him he can absorb them and now that he has moved down from the mountain to the city all the spirits that he attracts come with him and start attacking the townfolk and that's a problem
so our characters don't really know what to do about that at one point and there's some things that both of them do that complicate things but that's also lends itself to some eerie imagery of course because they you know some people are attacked by creepy spirits most of them with severed hats interesting
so that is also a big part like you not the most classic yokei stuff that you can think of you know the monsters that you always see in the in certain shows that are about horror or you know fantasy stuff and everything but very adjacent to that
and some of that stuff really works like it's really fucking creepy so the show really does the extra leg work to to scare the shit off you in certain certain scenes with those with those spirits that are attracted by fecuru
so yeah pretty cool so yeah you got enough creepy stuff in here and that stays pretty much until the end of the show you had cool character stuff with all two mains of course with asa coo is probably the character i like the most outside of the main two like she's very like i said she can also hear slash c spirits
she is good at arm wrestling apparently she's a very strong woman and every time she and Yoshiki and tikaro and the other two hang out it's it's like a cool cozy atmosphere and it's nice but also sometimes threatening especially when she confronts hikaro
because she you know knows that something is up with him and everything so that does also an interesting relation that builds here and yeah I would still say the main attraction if you're interested in the show and if you're like yeah you know Halloween is over but that's still in the mood in the mood for a bit more horror I would still say the most interesting thing about to show aside from the central mystery is the relationship which is the most interesting thing
about to show aside from the central mystery is the relationship between Yoshiki and hikaro slash fecuru both like both versions of hikaro because we see not only how Yoshiki and fecuru interact in the now time we also always get a comparison in most episodes with flashbacks to how it was previously with hikaro to see like okay what is different because very also also very much about the different
differences between hikaru and fecuru if that makes him either less of a person or less of a human being or less of a version of hikaru just because he experiences things differently or if they just you know complete persons complete people in their own right and it's all about Yoshiki accepting that at accepting this version of hikaru
it's not clear if this story is yet about let him letting completely go about only his past vision of his friend image of his friend or letting go of like this this version as well because it's just you know substitute for him and as long as he doesn't accept that his real quote unquote friend is already dead he can't move on
think it's partially about that is at least the show ponder said a lot but also the show always goes back to when you think okay now he's gonna finally get over it and just say goodbye and maybe let go fecuru back to the mountain or whatever he does a turn around
it's like I don't care I just want I want you to stay here I want you to stay with me and I want you to have fun and I want you to experience life as a human being and so it's it's it's a lot of back and forth there Yoshiki trusting him not trusting him when fecuru does something creepy or stupid and you know trying to get out of the situation then kind of resigning himself to the situation and trying to accept that that's not the case
that's the way it is I just have to accept it and so dead like their relationship does not stay on the same level all the time there's a lot of movement there a lot of back and forth and that keeps it lively and the show interesting because most of the first season is about that there is the central mystery but that is also you get filled in on a lot of the stuff over time and there's a lot of tension or a lot of world building involved in that and let you know that you're not going to be in the game
the world building involved in that and letting you know about this the village and everything but there's also not that much interesting like big reveals that came out of that yet at the way they were are conveyed in the shows also not super interesting like the series can get a bit exposition at times
which wouldn't be so bad if it felt a bit more organic but sometimes people just arrive at the right time to move the story and mystery along with their exposition dumps which is a bit in elegant and so if you just want to go in like hey it is a mystery show I'm in it for the mystery I'm in it for the for the for the spooky mystery stuff I want to know what is up with this village and everything
there is enough of that in there but if you like all about the organic reveal of these things in scary moments and the characters like finding that out in a cool way and investigating mysterious parts of the woods or whatever
there are just small aspects of that but the big kind of knowledge reveals come by exposition of position dumps from other people or them reading stuff in a book
and that's not like super engaging I would say there might be more interesting stuff coming that coming in the second season in regard to that because I assume that will focus much more on the central mystery and the revelation in regards to certain plot details but in this first season I feel the main draw is the only the relationship between Yoshiki and Fakuru and how that develops and the back and forth of that
and I like that like that was enough for me I mean and I had the mystery on the side I just felt like okay if that was all there was to this show at this point I would be a bit disappointed like I would like the I would also like to have the solid mystery and a cool development there and some cool
reveals there and the way it is showing those reveals and you know having actually show instead of tell right and right now when it comes to central mystery it's more tell than show so I hope they will remedy that a bit in the second season
because everything else in the show works really well like especially again the relationship slash romance between the central characters like Fakuru tries to not hurt Yoshiki because he genuinely seems to genuinely love him too much
but there's a moment where they have a conflict and he almost consumes him but stops himself and says no not you and he also constantly when that kind of stuff happens he begs Yoshiki not to hate him
and into that of course plays the topic of homosexuality and how that is used in the show and like I said in the beginning it is kind of subtle
but it becomes very very not in your face but it very evident over with the more the show progresses and you know Yoshiki explicitly mentions that one of the towns use a homosexual and was slash is ostracized because of it especially by his family
he mentions this in a conversation with in a flashback with original here he caroo about why he wants to leave the village he says is because everyone gets up in everyone's business and he doesn't like that but it cannot possibly be a coincidence that this topic comes up specifically during that discussion
they specifically mentioned like when he talks about that one young guy they are talking about is a homosexual like the I think this is the first time that I heard in an anime someone say LGBT because he caroo says and inquisitive nature like oh okay
so that was like okay that's the first time I heard that and you know then you have all the visual metaphors right with Yoshiki reaching his arm into into he caroo's bodies and everything and him getting and him blushing when he sees he caroo partially naked and everything
and they talk about that it's not just like this you know you see this and make of that what you what you will no fake room mentions it later on is like do you
did you love he caroo because you got really flustered when I address the other day so he actually addresses the talks talks to him about it like this not like this
un-unmentioned tension between them though he just comes out and says is like do you have did you have feelings for he caroo in that regard and I won't give away what you should reply is but is all very interesting and I'm very I it's always
interested when the show actually goes into that doesn't outright commit to say to have Yoshiki say I'm gay or whatever you know I don't know if the show or the manga actually will get there
but it's all but outright stated by him right so the visual language the the content the text the subtext all hints to that and I like that the show is kind of blind about it in certain regards it is not like trying to hide itself behind you know beating around the bush about that stuff and that was refreshing you don't see that and animate that
of net least not in the animated I consume which are more you know shown in action is oriented in everything of course with the occasional outlier of course but that I would expect that to see in a boys love manga of course and the boys love show
whatever naturally but in a show that is more maybe gear to general audiences like this like a normal like slash horror show slice of live show I didn't expect the show to be so forward in that regard and I appreciate it
and like I said the love story works like the emotional baggage works it makes it much more understandable why Yoshiki is such a problem of letting his like the version of Fikaro that he remembers go and why he is so willing to let this weird possibly dangerous presence remain in his life right and
that like I said that all works and yeah I think it's super cool I I really like this first season of the show I like all the characters are like the mystery although like I said I hope they do a bit more with that in the coming seasons and especially
tell it a different show it a bit differently instead of just telling us all the important information like make the characters just discovered is in a different way instead of having like a character like re or tonaka come out and tell them about it or a character we never meet after that again and or them just reading it randomly in the book and not really heavily reacting to that so there's got to be a bit better way so that probably the only criticism I have of this everything else works well
and yeah if you are interested in that I would say go check out the show like again the most interesting part about the first season was the relationship between the main characters because that's where the meat of this story is for now this is where the interesting parts are this is where the interesting visual stuff is this is where the interesting story stuff is this is where the most tension is the most drama is the most horror is it's all there between those two characters
and yeah I I liked it a lot I thought it was fucking great also love the OP I thought it was a fucking banger I hope the second season won't make me way too long like it has been confirmed but no release date yet so we'll see I don't know how many volumes the first season covers but from what I've read online it might be a while until we see the second season
so but I'm looking forward to it I thought this was a neat little horror show as you know it's not finished yet definitely the story is still very much open ended for now and and on a big oak leaf hanger so I hope I will get to see the resolution for that and I hope Netflix doesn't draw a drop it along the way this is actually by the way we can where you can watch it
but yeah it's a really good horror show with an interesting hook and captivating relationship between our main door of characters the pacing in the first season is a bit uneven because while stuff is happening a lot of the big plot moments movements that relate to the central mysteries are revealed to us by exposition dumps by the time it wraps up you still get the feeling that the other shoe hasn't dropped yet
especially when it comes to some of the characters some of the side characters but I'm confident that the second season will get us there so if you're in the mood for a post Halloween spooky drama with a great late summer horror vibe and superb production values please check this out because it just might give you the dose of goose bumps you are looking for
all right well compared to all of that it's kind of hard to pin in a precise summary for city the animation so I will just read to all of you the summary is provided by MAL
rewriting and I'll tack on things as we get deeper in the conversation aimless day dreaming high school is an ordinary part of growing up but once graduation comes suddenly there are bills to pay and a higher education to tackle
even so midori nago mo never quite stopped dreaming even after entering college as she still wants to have fun while ignoring her responsibilities contrasting midori's recklessness is her supposed best friend Nikura who is the complete opposite of midori and has a goal of becoming a photographer after college
how are you is often pulled into midori schemes which is the same which these symptoms walk out is me a tenacious yet airheaded classmate who is always taking pictures of things she finds fun
the trio ends up living together in the same apartment and attempt to navigate their lives in the city of city where unexpected and out of the ordinary things occur daily
so I was this was some I was really looking forward to because this is a story a show a series that was penned by pay chief believed the famous pronounced a rai uses like
a not commonly used here a gunner any more so it's it's written a rai but I believe is pronounced a rai
the little something maybe you've heard of I don't know it's called me chijo small show never heard of the little show no one ever heard of it produced by you know accompany also might not have heard of Kyoto animation
and the show definitely has a lot of the same energy because obviously it's a lot of the same cast and crew working not just on that but on pretty much everything you know any like it's one of the same a couple of the same writers and scriptures as like sound euphonium file ever garden
miss kobayashi's dragon made the director tai chi chi datte worked on all bunch of stuff like bunch full metal panic amagi brilliant park beyond the boundary so the pedigree of this show is just
just Kyoto animation is the easiest way to distill it and as we all know as we have talked about them several times now you know they do a bunch of really great work in this show is obviously no exception
music was done by this four person true cold see if I can say this rate piranhas the pirania piranions I think it's supposed to be written like it's supposed to be a Portuguese word
considering the n h stairs it's for him PI r a n h a n s but you don't pronounce the h which leads me to believe they're trying to go for a Portuguese thing which if you know anything about port
brazil and japanese culture I guess outside of japan brazil is the largest population of japanese people yeah so but yes they have done as a this group of four is also go mo to monobu
sokata peonica myeda which is definitely a stage name and Eugene Nagayama they've done it looks like some some many albums over the course of the year since like 1994
but this is like the first thing that they have done collectively that was for like anime where sokata has done some anime stuff like darker than black kids on the slope and a few other things as well
in a tsukamoto looks like they've done the one piece film gold soundtrack or the some part of it so yes there is a lot there's again big strong pedigree behind this show has suggested before and about the plot summary there's a lot of characters in this show
yeah it's very much sounds like it's like an ensemble show it very much is so in the official marketing Nagumo Nikura and Izumi are referred to as the monblanc trio because this school they go to and they are the official quote unquote protagonist but then you have such a characters like the macabay family they they run a restaurant and their foot and the father
or tsudu bishi is like this very aloof easygoing kind of guy there's tatayaku his son who's like blesses heart he's trying to do his best playing soccer but he's terrible at it
and then there's Matsudu who's his like very free spirited daughter and who's probably one of the more normal ish characters on the cast there's the city magazine team with the editor and chief there's this depressed manga artist name kamaboko there's the atatara family runs a liquor store next to the macabays there's
the there's the a car what they called the theater troop teriyaki red it up by a no buter teriyada excuse me to carry doke and he has a troop of animals in
who's helping acts about there's the fighting monkey the hell bird quack ski headster mixed mister squeak a person who may or may not be an actual person who's wearing a sheet over their head like a ghost named mr.
X
and uh widely guess yes there's a lot there's a lot going on uh midori uh or nogamo kind of touches on several aspects of this because she helps out with the macabays at their restaurant making a delivery so
but she is also like a stage in for the ticari doke troop uh ezu me is kind of all over the place like said she loves taking photos and she submitted them to this one photo magazine where she's one like a big cash prize and
puts it in Nogamo's head hey if I submitted a photo when it got in and I got my big pay day.
I'll get photos of spider man. Yeah. It doesn't quite get to that but it feels like that a lot.
Um Nekura is like trying to be like what what are you doing? Where are you doing this but then she gets wrapped up in it like.
Okay, what if we did make that money though? Okay, there there's a lot of moving parts to this like uh geez uh what tatayaku the sun is trying again trying is best at soccer but he's awful at it so he and his team are trying to
try to keep their number one star player from getting hurt and getting injured but he the dude is very frail and he gets injured a lot.
I believe it's an even sasa go and there's and they end up having to rely on him even though he's like constantly out of the game.
There's one time where I think it's is that Nogamo or Nekura is trying is sitting on like the river bank just watching and practicing gets a bean in the face with their soccer ball.
And it's like you know what that that's that's fine just be careful with it and then she gets a bean in the face again and she's like oh well you know that that's fine you guys just got to be more careful and then it happens again.
And again and again and it keeps happening and it's like I don't think this is an accident probably not.
Kamaboko has his manga series running in the city magazine called Mr. Bummer and he's like running out of inspiration when Izumi submits a comic for the magazine under a pen name and she's discovered.
By one of the editors and it's like you we need you we need your help on this and she's like very reluctant to be like I don't know if I do this I just want to take photos and do all and just keep doing my thing.
There's this rich girl in town who whenever she sees someone doing a good deed like be it for her for someone else she goes to her butler says that person to serve so reward.
And they basically get kidnapped and taken to this tower in her backyard where people are just like treated like kings but you know they can they can just leave if they can solve the riddles and mysteries of the tower which this happens to Nagumo and the answer so all the riddles just sort of our self evident and she's like what is this what are we doing here what's going on.
There's a lot to this show in this hard to just can create describe it all is one cohesive plot because like you said it best it's an ensemble there's a lot of just different sub plots there are some things that kind of tie into each other as the story goes along so you know there are connecting threads between parts of these stories like.
There's one where my my city is friends with this girl arey and there's a certain underlying story that arey is eventually going to move away and they're trying to enjoy their days and what they call this going home club and they are so just like.
Birds of a feather that they're basically reading each others minds on what's going on but arey has such a hard time telling her yeah well i'm going to be moving away and all this and she tries to plate office like it's not a big deal when.
You know it kind of is.
There's this big race that pretty much everyone takes part in for the big cash price mm hmm and it turns into like this big goofball obstacle course weirdo thing it's just like okay so this just turned into like a foot race but it's also to cashies castle.
Sounds great so there's a lot of that there's a scene where nekura has this lock it that she really treasures and naga most like nekura you're always looking at that thing what's inside it and he said nothing there's nothing in it don't you worry and naga mo tries to snatch it in it it gets stolen by like this rabbit cat thing it's hard to describe it's like a cat with ears of a rabbit.
And she's trying to chase it down and get it back and she doesn't want to reveal to naga mo that inside the lock it is a picture of naga mo because she kind of looks up day you know how it's how hard working and aspirational naga mo was in high school so.
So it's you know just kind of sweet thing but she saw like I can't let her know this because you know what she think about that until she finds that it was dropped in like this like 100 yen a tree gets basket in front of the shop and she's like I can get it back now there's so much there's so so much and I feel like I'm doing a disservice in the way I'm describing these things because it's it's it's like 80 different little things.
80 different little story segments spread across 13 episodes but also there was a more to the story than that I was doing some reading earlier that they cut a lot of this into 13 episodes apparently because there were some people who were super convinced yeah this is going to be 26 episodes like it's going to be like a two core show and it sounds like that was not part of Kio Annie's plan so we kind of got like I had not sure.
I guess I just wanted to maybe get this out there and get it done but I guess a rye was also there working with them and be like okay we can cut this we can cut that we can cut this so he was there to be or they were there to be like yeah I think we can suffice with these parts of the story and still get across everything that I want to so so there was that much at least.
This is another show that I kind of went back and forth watching episodes subdomed and the dub was every bit as crazy and bombastic as the original Japanese voice cast which is really cool.
I just have one criticism and that's like the back half of the final episode like it's eight to 10 minutes long of just it's just this one big musical number and it's great but they didn't dub it.
Okay I mean like even didn't have people on the cast that could sing.
I guess but even the parts that were like you know like I'm sure you've seen plays and musicals were just like talky parts in between different songs.
Yeah they like they didn't even dub those so it was like kind of a choice on their part and I don't quite get that like I get you know maybe on the whole singing part because you know this was a cymo dub and they're trying to get it out there at the same time but even so it was still kind of like
interesting it still struck me as a weird decision and I don't think it takes away from the rest of the show or the rest of the dub because everyone was still giving their all and it's like the big
jelly hyper energy that Nietzsche had as well so did it satisfy note where you're like okay this is I'm glad that this is what I got out of it I would have like to see more like they maybe initially planned or what people suspected or were you like this is the right
amount of nonsense in the right amount of episodes I think it was pretty good for what it was because the the big musical number at the end deals with a pseudo bc being like our restaurant got awarded a Michelin star
wow but then it turns out it was just like this star that was given to them by the local police offers like oh no I hand out the I hand out these stars to people who's work I think is really good and they're like I mean that's
still nice like oh after they have this big musical number celebrating everything so it's goofy it's dumb and I mean this was at this is at least in service
of you know a complete equal unquote complete adaptation of the manga asterisk I say asterisk because the manga had its run from March 2017 to April 2021 and then it came back this year
oh interesting so the manga started running again this July and I guess there's another chapter releasing next month in December so I guess this must have done well enough to garner more interest for a ride and be like you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna bring it back
yeah it may be this will also herald another season at some point that mean nice yeah I mean or an OVA or movie or whatever
yeah I mean I just was like I said I was super excited for the show because Nietzsche is so big and goofy and fun and silly so to see something that you know to see this sort of thing come back
it was really nice and it was just a nice super silly thing to have to watch each week as opposed to you know well I'm not gonna talk about it next time but
you know it was it was cool to have something a little lighthearted it and it knew what it was trying to be as it was going along like I mean I would see I don't think
a moto days ever took itself ever took so super seriously at any point either but this is a different kind of goofy so yeah sure I mean just just because it's much more slice of life
exactly it's slice of life you're at least I mean I haven't seen it but from what you're telling it's also probably a lot more non-secure to human
there and it's not as plot focused as a psychomoto days is because you know despite all the shenanigans that are happening in that show that is surprisingly focused on its main plot which I expect from that show
but this seems to be like a set of slice of life he here are all these people they're living in this weird city and they're all having their little adventures and you get to get them.
They even have one episode up front where they're like hey so this is just gonna be like 12 or 13 little rapid fire sketches enjoy and they just went for it just like bam bam bam and you show it had its own
goofy punch line is it Milan so it's like okay they just went for it with this one but it was the city considering that's the name of the show
do you feel like that is also like a part of the cast like yes because sitting as a setting is very important to the vibe of the show.
Yeah because I mean it's very much built out because you have the Macabee restaurant you have the liquor store you have the magazine publishing place you have the university
you have the high school you have the mansion of the girl with the towers you have the airport you have there's a bookstore there's there's a lot there's a lot they go they cover like so many basis and I guess there's like even like
there's some official materials out there outlining like there is a map there is a map outlining this is how the city is laid out this is where everything is the city is
as cliches is to say as much of a character is the rest of the cast because it's so filled out and there's so many things going on and there's so many places that the characters go to and see and do yeah
so many of you mentioned Sacramento days because that's actually an aspect that I expected from or that show to have in regards to how its first episode is set up where it's like hey you have all these weird side characters that interact with Sacramento when he isn't in his store and helps out in the city
and I expect it to have that show more of that where it's like hey now the assess it you know first couple of episodes there attacked an amusement park in the city and you know maybe then there attacked the store of someone else Sacramento knows or recently helps out and but they have to hide the fact that he is attacked by a says in so whatever right so that the city itself and you know the places that he has you know store
whatever regularly has to interact with become part of the plot and you know of the of the character interaction pieces and everything and there are parts of that sure but it's not as prominent as I expected it to be it's not as slice of life as I expected it to be because
I said a lot more plot but it sounds like city is exactly what the name suggests that's all about the characters that popular city and all you know the bullshit that happens around that and you get to know more and more of them because all of them are kind of set in the same scenario just with different interactions between these different characters in the different places
but sounds very interesting yeah it's it's to show that is very all over the place and yet if you you know you have this one binding element of the city itself and you get to see everyone doing their thing over the course of all these chapters and episodes so it's cool to see it but the manga is coming back again fingers crossed that baby the show will come back
in a certain at a future point but you know we know kill any is a you know kill any is production pipeline is when it's done which okay right approach that's yeah that's fine there's no problem with that it's it's glad that they that they have let's
quote unquote the luxury to do it that way because that is always better for the show like if they the show the production is not rushed like if there is no fucking crunch or whatever that eventually that benefits the product quote unquote like the end result so that they can do it that way
did you have a favorite character in the show or are they just too many oh many there's so many I like not go mo because she's a goofy schemer who gets her come up and several times I feel bad for taught a walk who because he's just trying his best but his dad is always trying to get the better of him and it's just
a walko is silly she's a free spirit and I like her a lot but there's there's a lot of characters to like and I think they're it's very easy to find one two or 10 characters that you really like and out of this cast but yeah
it's hard to go into much more detail than that because of how much goes on but if you're interested the show is on a prime video looks like it's pretty much their worldwide so that is the one global source to watch it and it's definitely worth checking out is a nice quick breezy watch
a squid like creature known as a happy in leaves his home planet with the desire to spread happiness across the universe
lands on earth but quickly finds himself in danger of captivity by its inhabitants
fortunately he is found by an unsmiling little girl named shizuka kuse who feeds him and names him tako bee feeling adapted to her attack pea insights to do everything in his power to bring a smile to her face
task is easier said than done however shizuka is bullied by her classmates she does not have a father and her mother is never home
although the gravity of these issues flies over the naive tako piece head even so shizuka does have one source of happiness her dog chappy the connection sees it shizuka and chappy share only increases tako piece desire to make the girl smile
while tako piece attempts to lift shizuka spirits lead to unintended consequences is determined to take things into his own tentacles test his understanding of human beings and achieve his goal of spreading happiness
again name ma l rewrite for the summary misleading as it might be based this story tako piece originals is based on a manga by ties on five
another pen name or ties on go I don't know another pen name I see which ran for two volumes from 2021 to 2022 at the low number and ties on five also wrote the manga the it she knows the families deadly sins so since seem to be that person's theme of choice
tako piece originals in anime adoption has six episodes which makes sense since the manga so short first episode to stop a link and is produced by the studio in nishia who also did the animation production for masara and worked on other stuff like the princess principal movie spice a wolf try gun stampede and free run
direction and series composition were handled by shinya ino who also directed the first two seasons of doctor stone and was the storyboarder and episode director and other projects like how to but review starlight made in a bus and free run again
just like the summer that he caroo died this is an incredibly pretty show albeit with a very different look at animation style it is much more rough and loose both in terms of character designs and animation
the characters and backgrounds have thick lines and often a sketch book look to them i don't want to call it cartoony because not the that's not the first thing that comes to mind for me is really like rough drafts and sketch book
but yeah compared to the more realistic or naturalistic look of the first show i review today they this was a very different experience visual wise regardless the animation is super expressive and fluid and went paired with the incredible music really right some the many emotional moments the show has to offer
speaking of the music that was composed by your shiyaki Fuji sawa who should be very familiar to you john because he worked on a lot of love life stuff and a place further than the universe
but also on a lot of other things like musho kotensei review starlight land of the lustrous in the apocalypse hotel
and like i said the music is great of eerie somber tracks used in the dark or melancholic moments in the show of the which they're up plenty but also often intentionally happy and uplifting songs to serve as a dissonant contrast to the absurdly
and sometimes darkly funny fucked up stuff that is on display in certain situations in short it all works very well to evoke exactly the emotion the show is trying to evoke in its audience
at any given time without feeling really out of place even though like i said sometimes absolutely does not match at all what is happening in the story
so before i go into the characters and plot let me say that this is a story with a lot of twists and turns and is subverting expectation several times to use very short run time of six episodes
so before i give anything away which i've already done for its first episode in the sneak peak where i talked about it
consider checking out the first episode for yourself the twists will just hit harder if you don't know anything about the show to begin with
let me just say don't believe the nice story summary and the shows cute OP when it comes to what the show actually is and what its tone for most of its runtime is
with that being said the show starts out pretty innocent we have this weird octopus looking alien from the planet happy so happy and happy sage in or whatever
and crash lands on earth apparently or is shot down not to clear tries to escape the alien hunter FBI guys i don't know whatever we don't really only see that in a queue
like crayon sketchbook flashback thing and then runs into this girl called shizuka and once to immediately bring a smile to that girl's face
because she's not smiling when she meets him and it's a intent to do that with its many different gadgets that it has calling happy, happy gadgets
that can all do various different magical things and judging from the OP that is the entire story where it's like hey here's the sad girl who's being bullied at school
and this alien will help her making connections with the main problem girl in the class that is bullying her
they will form this connection and everyone is gonna be happy and it's gonna be a lot of shenanigans until they get there but the
takopee will make that happen early nothing will go wrong nothing can go wrong in this story possibly
so to be fair i did not buy that when i saw the first trailer i really was like i do not believe the book you're selling me here but the tail you're selling me here so like i get that this is a red
herring like the OP is not and funny thing is it not entirely is there is some truth to what is happening in the OP but there's also a lot more lingering below the surface
that is immediately evident when you watch the first episode which to be fair is double length what i said but after halfway point of this you already have understood that the tone of this show is very different
and that gets only emphasized the more this show progresses trust me when i say this
so the first episode like i said is mostly about a takopee trying to a bunch of different gadgets to impress impress shizuka and trying to get her to smile and everything there's like this
these wings that can make you fly and shizuka doesn't seem to be interested and
because you know she sees things like hey even if i fly nothing will change i can't get away from the situation i'm in basically and we slowly learn what her situation is she is living in a mostly alone in in a home
a race by single mom who's an escort who's never home and at school she has no friends she is bullied all the time especially by this mean girl called marina
and not only verbal abuse but also physical and the only point of evidence like the summary correctly states is her dark chappy that was her dad's doctor apparently or at least bought when her dad was still around he left the family
a while ago he's not dead he just you know let left and got divorced from shizuka's mom not loose with her mom and everything and yeah but chappy is like the last remnant of or memory of a happier time when her parents were still together and the only memory she has of her dad basically
so she clings to that and you know talk of the he doesn't understand any of this like for an alien that comes to a planet is tried to like no still and should know stuff about bringing happiness to the people that inhabit this planet he knows you know shockingly little about the people of this planet
it's have funny have a few reading and I said it in sneak peek how naive talk of he is and misunderstand pretty every depressing details she is actually has about her life
it thinks she doesn't want to fly because some human because some humans might already be able to fly and she probably has already done this
it thinks she doesn't have a dad because children only have mothers on this planet it thinks the injuries on her face are decorations she put their herself
it's like jesus christ you are so oblivious and partially that goes away during the further show progresses but in certain cases it always falls back onto this like talk of he is kind of idiot
it will it the show kind of expenses but it being kind of a newborn in a way and there are some other reasons to that that I probably won't go into because I don't want to give everything away
I will give some stuff away at least to the halfway point of the show so be aware of that but you know there is some reasons why takope is the way it is he is and you know some of that is understandable but some of that is also just it feels like
from a very simple world where you like on his planet and every time he has a big revelation understands oh okay that's how it actually was he is very flustered and there are different degrees to that
but yeah in the beginning it's like hey I wanted to make this girl smile and the easiest way is I am going to show her funny fun and stuff
the wing stuff doesn't work I don't know what else she shows her the happy camera where he can take pictures you know and says hey here
the beauty the pictures printed out look at that the two of us she's a guy and I isn't that nice she's a guy is like why not just use a smartphone
this is also this camera is much heavier than that so also not impressed and then one day when she's a guy is a is appearing before takope she apparently has been severely beat up
and holds the empty color of chappy in her hand and takope in his usual oblivious self doesn't can't interpret any of that doesn't understand any of that
that things are really dire and just shows her a new gadget to make her happy and that is a ribbon that can be made as long as possible
because it's supposed to be connected to the finger of one friend and then the other side to the finger of another so they can all are always connected no matter how far they are apart
and yeah he shows that and that's the first time that she's a guy is really showing interest in a gadget is like please give that to me
I want to try that out myself and that is a problem because there are not many routes to the to on the planet happy
but the most integral one is that you are not supposed to let the person you want to make happy use a happy gadget without supervision
but takope is very inexperienced and he thinks what can go wrong and he just gives the reconciliation ribbon to shizuka so she can make up with her friend
because she thinks that marina and her are friends and just needs some help to stop fighting and gives it so she can use it herself
and like I already gave away in the sneak peek which I kind of regret I should have kept it more awake in the sneak peek
because like I said it's still the first half of the first episode where this happens but still it's a spoiler
so if you don't want to know anything turn off now but yes he gives that to her gets worried
after a while it's like oh shit I should have done that I don't know I should go and check on her and he does goes to her house
calls out her name we hear a creaky noise and then see that shizuka has hanged herself under the roof of the house
because she couldn't tolerate the bullying anymore in her situation and everything
we don't know exactly what happened before this what happened to chappy and everything but we understand it must have been dire enough that she decided to enter life
and this is the first time that takope encounters that and it's apparently like it naturally makes him really distraught
it's the first time he apparently has encountered death and in that way and he then tells basically to the audience
this apparently is what suicide is this exists on this planet I don't know why I don't understand it I don't know why shizuka decided to do this
but I want to change that and luckily camera I talked about earlier has a special function that was hinted at but not he didn't get to tell shizuka what that function is
and the function is if you made a picture you can feed that picture back into the camera and return to the time that a picture was made
so luckily he took that picture a couple of days ago so he returns to that time the picture was taken and is hell bent on trying to change history
basically changed the trajectory of shizuka's story so to make her smile eventually and stop all the bad things from has happened especially the bad thing of her killing herself
so yeah naturally this was even though it happens so early is a gut punch and I expected something like that would happen in this show
even if the show didn't have goddamn suicide depiction warnings before the first episode which is does and I can understand why because it's a very harrowing scene it's very dark it's very disturbing just to see shizuka dangling there under the roof
and hearing the sounds and everything and seeing Takopee's reaction it sounds like it would be silly because you know he's a small pink alien that looks like a fucking octopus
so him discovering a body you but maybe left some you would think you could that could be funny in a way but trust me it's not it's very disturbing it's a horrifying scene
and the show does a really good job of portraying it and giving it the gravitas it deserves through the visuals through the music especially and it's really good
but yeah speaking of the suicide the warnings the content warnings this work contains sensitive depictions involving life and death these scenes have been visually portrayed with respect for the original story's intent and are by no means intended to encourage or promote such actions
we hope you enjoy the bittersweet yet happy story of Takopee and the children as they face their extraordinary fate and accompany them throughout their journey
Takopee's original sin production committee and later good that is added if you are someone you know needs help visit crisis help resources dot com
it's a good recommendation so I want to mention it here as well and yeah from that point on the mission statement of the show seems to be pretty damn clear we have Takopee who can always rewind time
and every time he hasn't quite figured out how to save shizuka yet he's just doing that and changing bits about shizuka's daily life and that sounds pretty simple right like it's easy like I changed the bullying whatever I find I find the thing that currently causes
shizuka the most problems so I'm trying to change that and everything so that that will that will be simple right well it would be if Takopee wasn't oblivious naive idiot who is operating very much on the surface level when it comes to problem solving
it's kind of a sticking point yes very much so especially on have heavy problematic personal topic like depression bullying suicide and you know stuff like that and he just you constantly see that he has no understanding of what the underlying wood cause of this is
you know the most obvious prominent thing is the bullying and we see that he starting to accompany shizuka to school wearing camouflage like can wear this flower gadget that makes it invisible and he just looks like mara like shizuka is put a flower in her hair but even that already causes another problem because now marina find some another thing she can make fun of right because like when you putting this flower in your hair you look stupid right
so immediately he is causing more problems for shizuka by doing this and like he could at least with them like he could have realized that you know again he is too oblivious for that and that can get frustrating like you can at some points you can get like you need to a strong stomach for the show when it comes to
tolerating his obliviousness although it's understandable but also how hateable certain characters become and I mean the show is intentionally doing that to you it wants you to feel a certain way to work certain characters it drives that home
and I will talk about that but if you can tolerate like some really uncomfortable scenes when it comes to personal interaction especially between hits and bullying and that regard this show will be very hard to stomach for you just warning you
I feel it's worth it especially by the end but there are some scenes in this show that are just so goddamn brutal to watch and just just our gut punches over and over so just be aware of that but yeah so we have the the day life of shizuka in this school which is horrifying like Marina apparently wrote die on her on her backpack on her table the teacher does not notice that or is not interested in that apparently
like please change your job you incompetent act but you meet how do you not know I mean or she doesn't get she did teacher generally seems to like she's either overworked or doesn't care or both
and like the table is almost in front of her desk like isn't she cannot have seen this so it's crazy and Marina you know ironically where's a shirt that has says love on it has that printed on it which is like immediately just show is very untrained on making you hate that girl and very good at it
Takupi is definitely helping in a way for example by telling shizuka the solution to a homework problem in advance because the bully stole her notebook but it still doesn't understand the underlying problem why exactly shizuka is said why she gets bullied what bullying even is it has a lot to learn so his very superficial approach to helping ants up causing like I said more damage than good the stuff with the flowers
and flower for example but also also some other stuff it just further agitates marina he's trying to treat the symptoms not the root cause and don't get me wrong it's very fun to see marina become increasingly agitated by her you know usual bullshit not working out but that also causes an escalation which Takupi gets to experience on a very personal level all too soon
and the show makes the very wise decision to put Takupi in shizuka's shoes and does us in her shoes because you know Takupi is the point of view character for us by Takupi copying her body with one of his gadgets and talking to marina thus experiencing violent bullying firsthand for the first time
it's a brutal and disturbing scene like marina slaps and kicks their shit out of shizuka's body and obviously that scares the shit out of Takupi so after rewinding time he is too afraid to pose as shizuka again to take the beating that is that he is somewhat responsible for
but thanks to his otherwise head strong nature he is not giving up and is able to at least get help for shizuka regardless
and shizuka says that considering her life has been like this for a long while it has been not as bad since takupi started to help her out
and that additionally fires up him to find a way to make her really happy
but anyway the help that takupi gets comes in the form of our third important character, asama who is like this young boy
by the way this is all set in elementary school just to let you know that this is not a high school thing so with advanced
this is between elementary school kids I forgot to mention this
yeah you kind of buried the lead on that one what this is definitely all between elementary school kids going on
which it makes is of course even more hard to watch
like when you were starting to describe so I was like well this is going to be like at least middle school
elementary school judging you know from how all the characters look and what actually they do in school and everything
I don't think they're middle school age yet but yet that's crazy
definitely not high school but yeah so asama is a member of the student council and seems to be a good guy that is willing to help
but shizuka is not ready to accept his help yet
we learn that the main instigator that of the problem that marina has with shizuka is that marina's dead and shizuka's mom got close
because she's an escort apparently she took him out and whatever and now you know he's regularly paying her
hanging out with her dating her whatever and that causes of course problem like problem with marina's mom and marina is taking all
all that negative all those negative feelings out on shizuka because shizuka is in her immediate vicinity
she can't really do anything about shizuka's mom but she can let her anger out at shizuka
and of course fixing that is a tough not to crack for takopee it means he also doesn't have to only learn about shizuka but also about marina to solve this issue
which he does kinda wait to late because just to go into that first why marina is so hell so focused on shizuka
marina's mom is depressed maybe drunk because her husband is having an affair of course with shizuka's mom
and she is forcing that conflict on marina by having her take her side and using her as a constant pillow to cry in
like a living comment box or advice column to complain to
I believe the technical term for that is parentification
like instead of shielding your kids from your issues you are forcing your own problems and responsibilities on them
and are forcing them to take a position on a matter they are not equipped to handle or even supposed to be involved in
you know which she is doing by like hey you are on my side right you are on my side right you are all I have
right when and complaints about her dad constantly or her husband
so that is a problem which is not to excuse her dad's behavior or anything
he's an unfaithful piece of shit justifying everything with him being the single earner of the family
and he doesn't seem to give a damn about his daughter either so he can also go
so as with a lot of anime the kid protagonists issues are coming down to adults being shitty and selfish
that is kind of one of the core statements of the shore if not the core statements like fuck parents
kids wouldn't be better off without parents but you know therein lies the issue that kids wouldn't exist without parents
so that again also hard now hard not to crack in general
I like I said chisica's parents are divorced and we'll get we know about chisica's mom we'll get to chisica's dad
but yeah we learn what actually happened on the day
chisica hanged herself before Takopee revoked time because Marina does it again
she beats up chisica while she's walking chappy and because chappy is a good dog
he of course lashes out at her and bite her which Marina planned so he gets taken away by animal control
she's a smart little bitch like they feel that and she's a cosmom also sucks because she only cares about how this incident with chappy inconveniences her
she also does not pay attention to the needs or psychological status of her daughter whatsoever
so like I said you need a strong stomach to watch the show without getting increasingly angry at almost everyone
except chisica and azuma at this point
so with all this out of the way and if this sounds interesting enough to you
please check out the show again it sounds harrowing and it sounds uncomfortable to watch and it is but it's worth it by the end
but what comes next isn't even bigger spoiler than what happens in the first episode
I will still give it away because there's some very interesting stuff that results from that I don't want to talk about
so I can't not talk about it but just this warning this is probably like the show stopper of this fucking show
and where the real story begins
so you have been warned please if you still want to experience most of what the show has to offer for yourself
because this happens at the end of the second episode
so it's still pretty early on in the show but it's you know very important and a big twist
so please keep that in mind
so John if you remember when I talked about it in the sneak peek I thought about
hey after we learn after the big twist that Takopee can rewind time
that is gonna be the rest of the show right he's gonna have to learn about hey
chisica about marina and then he has to bring the two together
and that's gonna be right that's gonna be the whole mind draw of the story
and it's gonna be a long road but eventually he'll be successful
and it's gonna be a pretty straightforward path from there
with you know some you know hurdles on the way of course because people are people
but eventually it's gonna get there
I was so wrong about where that story would go
and what the original sin part relates to
oh no
there is another fucked up wrinkle to this story let me tell you
so up to this point
the show did a lot of lack work to make marina as hateable as possible
which worked really well for me I knew there was a reason for why she behaves like she did
but I still was thinking
marina is really lucky that takopee is very naive and not ruthlessly solution oriented
the takopee could have just transformed into a truck driver and he's the kite the shit out of her
that would have solved at least chisica's biggest current issue
and the writer of the manga had me packed
so the show is like oh you want this cc you sick fuck
well one curled monkey's paw coming up then
and when marina inflicts another of her beatdowns on chisica
takopee becomes so confused and scared that he smacks marina in the head with his camera and kills her
and yes I cheered sorry not sorry
but this is where the real story starts because then the camera stops working
and he can't rewind time anymore
and this also becomes where some of the characters get turned around
like because she's a cross-reaction to this happening is overly happy and kind of fucked up
because I mean if that's constantly happening to you every day
yeah I could see that but it's very understandable
but it's like really there is like it's really funny there is like this
this famous track from Vivaldi like summer e-major or whatever is plagued
when she realizes that marina is dead
and she is like oh my god I was saved by magic
thank you takopee I didn't want to believe that magic is real
because I wisht of on a star that my dad would come back and he didn't
but now you said you could solve my problems with magic
and you did marina is dead the witch is dead
it's so fucked up it's so fucked up but I also kind of laugh because it was so absurd
and you know like I said the stops the camera from working
so there are no do overs anymore and this is also what I thought is what the original sin part of the title refers to
and at least that's what the show states at this point
and takopee is kind of happy because he made she's a cosmile
but obviously this is only gonna get worse
and it immediately does this is the trajectory this story now takes
this is an enormous rock pole because it turns this from a story of many differences
at least for now into a cautionary tale
and you know at that point I was like oh man the opi is just this giant red herring
it was just it was just lying to me and of course it's not enough that those who now have to deal with the fucking corpse
no they're discovered by asama
and he discovers what takopee has done and recommends she's a cut to turn herself in
because nobody will believe an alien did it
even though I think everyone could see him if he doesn't like hide himself
but okay
yeah but he says like please turn yourself in there's no way around that
but didn't since she doesn't want to go to to juvi
she opts for covering up the crime as an option and drops asama into it
which asama agrees to because he has his own baggage of not being able to fulfill his parents' expectations
like his big brother can and he thinks this is something where he can prove his own worth to shizuka
who he seems to have a crush on
so you see the complicated relationship happening here
and all the deeply fucked up shit that is gonna evolve from that
so they bury marina's body in one of takopee's gadgets
and takopee transformed into her so they can pretend she is still alive
so from this moment on and I really I should have seen this coming away
but I did not the show does a similar thing like last of us to where it uses its second half
to make you empathize more with the villain of the quote-unquote of the first half
and makes you get angry slash frustrated with the first half's protagonist
because once shizuka is relieved from her shackles by marina biting the bullet
or rather the magic camera
she is showing some not very pretty sides of her
first she is just overjoyed that a person died
which is understandable because it was her tormentor
but she also starts manipulating people around her
she robs asama into helping her cover up the crime
shiz takopee already wrapped around her finger anyway because it just wants her to smile
she suggests asama steals something his brother bought with his part-time job
so his brother focuses on studying instead and takes some of the parents' pressure of asama
like she is a little schemer
and that was not evident before
takopee and asama wanna come clean after marina's body has been discovered
but shizuka is not interested
she just wants to go to takopee to see chappy and her at her dad's place
where according to her mom chappy was moved to
none of this concern sir
she is obviously in denial but she has been living in an alternative reality
created by the relief she felt when the source of her constant pain was taken from her
live by literal magic
she also tries to convince asama to turn himself in for killing marina in place of her
so while the first half of the show makes her look much more like a completely hapless victim
in the second half she often comes across like a so-shit path
again this of course can all be traced back to her constant torment and living circumstances
which have worn on her and her psyche over the years
in general she had to endure a lot until now
but that applies to marina as well because she also comes out of a shitty broken home
so just like with alien abby in the last of us two
there is no black and white here which i appreciate it
well except for the parents they're all assholes
but at least for the kids it's like
i'll have their baggage
i'll have their problematic upbringing
you understand why they are the way they are
and you're desperately just like takopee trying to find a way out of fear for these kids
it's just told in a very interesting
absurd and fucked up way to an extent
especially after the end of episode two
but yeah this all leads to an incredibly herring scene where takopee who poses as a marina
at this point finally understands what he has done to marina
and her family by killing her
when he sees when he hears her parents talk about her
and her mother at least I think
and when he sees pictures of them from happier times
that is a really effective scene
and i had tears in my eyes and everything
and you know it shows us a different side of marina
and makes us empathize with her more
and you don't know what to think anymore
and it's really good
but also really uncomfortable to watch
and yeah then of course things get worse and worse
marina's body is discovered
all the pressure wears on asma
and he becomes worse at school
which of course increases the pressure from his shitty mom
and yeah he's kind of the only person
you feel really sorry for at this point
so he's also not without flaws
he of course helps cover up the crimes
the crime and the more we look into his background
we see that he wasn't helping shizuka
because it was the right thing to do
but because he wanted to make her his project
to show his mom that he can be a good boy
and an overachiever just like his brother
so his reason is also selfish
just to a different degree
because he was still doing a good thing
but it was kind of like the thing
the thing taco he was doing
not only as oblivious and more self-centered
of course
like I said he also has a crush on shizuka
which makes him an easy target for manipulations
but he is not a completely hapless victim here either
regardless he completely falls for shizuka
shizuka saying she will wait for him
even if he has to go to juby
and she won't give up on him
and everything will be okay
and she gives him a kiss on the cheek and the hug
so all the verbal and physical affection
he has wanted from his mom for such a very long time
which makes him decide to turn himself in
he is ultimately saved by genuine affection
shown towards him by his big brother
who seems to be the only really good person in the story
at least what we see from him
but yeah
shizuka
I mean not safe
he still has to turn himself in apparently
for shizuka's cremits not made super clear
but apparently because it seems like the police also believes
that she made him do it
shizuka meanwhile flees to Tokyo during the summer break
which was the strip that the three of them
Takopee, Azuma and Shih Plan to get choppy back
and you know
what they spent most that time with
after covering up the death of marina and everything
but finds out choppy isn't there
probably was put down for biting a kid
I don't know or still with any more control or whatever
and her dad already has a new family
and isn't interested in her at all
outright the nice that she is his daughter in fact
so he's also a scumbag
and Takopee begs shizuka to come home with him
and return to how he was
a moot endeavor
and when she hits him with a stone
for abandoning her
as well
he remembers his past
and the show has another twist in store for us
so final warning
because it's the final twist
I've come this far I might just give that away as well
because if you're listening to that now it's your own fault
I've warned you several times
but this is the final twist of the show
and I guess the final reveal of what the original film
actually refers to
so three two one
in a random side conversation
between Azuma and Takopee in an early episode
we learned that there is a big clock on planet happy
that can apparently make you travel through time and space
which explains why at the beginning of the next episode
we see a flashback to an alternate timeline
that just has come before the main events of the show
or the show that started for us
the way the show started for us
where Takopee travelled to Earth
and instead of shizuka
he met Marina
an older version of Marina
already in high school
physically scarred by her drunk mother
because of course her problems still exist
because everything else was the same
and that was immediately like
whoa okay
this has another rigth
there's something interesting
there's also this really interesting blunt statement
or really cool blunt statement
the show makes
via Takopee here
when Marina tells him about her dream
to one day be a happy mom
to a happy child
and Takopee says
oh god it so when you've been kicking me around
which she does because Marina is kind of a dick
you have been copying your mom
to practice being a mom yourself
because your mom does that to you
so that's apparently how Earthlings raise their kids
by treating them as shitty as they were treated
I'm paraphrasing but man
doesn't that hit the nail on the head
so the show was really like
hey here
what do we think about bad parents
and what a lot of parents do to their kids
and how they fuck them up
you say that and I could just go back to that scene from
I think it was Garth Morengi's dark place
I know writer she used subtext
and they're all cowards
I mean there is a lot of subtext in the show
but not when it counts
like the show is just coming out and saying it
and it's like no this is what I am about
and this is what I think
I would say
I can't imagine the manga author has experienced the shitty childhood
I don't want to put that like
out there I don't know if I don't know if that's actually the case
but all of this feels very much lived
but yeah anyway
in this timeline
the out for Marina was actually Asama
who she fell in love with
but since he runs into Shizuka
who as we know he has been in love with
since elementary school
Marina loses him to her
thinks escalate with her mom
her mom dies
and she utters the wish to Takopee to kill Shizuka
he returns to his planet
rewinds time
but gets his memories erased
because that is the stuff is not allowed
and goes back to Earth
to kill Shizuka
which he doesn't even know why
but you know
we witness kind of witness him doing that
in the original timeline
even unintentionally
because he gives the happy ribbon gadget
because in the timeline
we see in the beginning of the show
because in the original timeline
where he tries to have some Marina
the rope that Shizuka used to hang herself
after Marina gives it a severe beating
and everything
breaks
and Takopee's gadget doesn't break
so in the original Shizuka
survives the suicide attempt
in the original timeline
and then comes back
and how she runs into Asama
all the initial
that is the initial trigger
of the entire event
she actually survived
and with
by doing this stuff
Takopee has only made it worse
by going back in time
and trying
getting his memories erased
and trying to save her and everything
so what is the way out the show finds for this
Takopee sacrifices himself
and with the little camera
and make sure
that the small lingering presence
in everyone's memories of him
like the time they spend together and everything
without being actually able
to putting a finger on this
but him appearing in a sketchbook
and everything
and characters remembering certain gadgets
he showed them and everything
that lingering memory
of him forms the connective tissue
for Marina and Shizuka
that due to their shared suffering
and shitty parents they have more
in common than stuff that divides them
which gets them to talk to each other
and become friends
and yeah
that's how the show ends
like they walk together
after you know, Marina
gives Shizuka a beating
and her notebook folds out
and she sees Takopee in that notebook
scribbled
and they both
but not really
their time spent with them
but they remember
something that brought joy to their life
and that just stops the fight
and they stop
start talking about their parents
and then find common ground
and the next time we see them
after a flash ward
we see them in high school
and see them hanging out together
and you see they have become tight friends
like they're hanging out
and talking about their parents
and you know
something about
your mom is always shitty or whatever
and it's very appropriate
but yeah
and that
all of that is underlined
by Takopee sending a message
to all the people he met in the future
you know, which they won't hear
of course but that he tells to the audience
where it's like hey
it's not perfect but at least now
you're not alone anymore
at least now you have someone you can talk to
might not be the person that you wanted
but
it actually turned out okay
and you know
the bittersweet ending this is
is a bit of a cop out in a way
because for a show that is very intent on telling us
that there are no easy answers
the shared memory of Takopee
being the catalyst that makes both Marina and Shizuka
and Azuma too by the way
is a bit convenient
but then again the other big statement to show makes
is that the most important thing is to talk to each other
and not think you have to be alone
with your grief and resentment
and in that regard the ending works
and it also does not go super glossy
Hollywood happy and most of the problems
the characters have remained
symbolized by Marina Skar
which is still there which her mother
gave her in the other timeline
she eventually gets so distraught
over her husband leaving
her dad she attacks Marina
in a drunk few good state
with a broken bottle
and cuts up her cheek
but you know
it leaves us with a little bit of hope
for the future of these characters
which is the important thing
in a dark, often very uncomfortable to watch story like this one
and regardless of how uncomfortable
and painful it was to watch this show sometimes
it was also beautiful and emotionally rewarding
and gave me a lot of food for thought
which hey a lot of shows
don't manage to do this with 12 or 24 episodes
so this one being able to do it in 6
is an achievement that cannot be underestimated
and yeah
you can watch those 6 episodes
on Crunchyroll
and some other streaming services
depending on your location
and if you can stomach it
I heavily recommend you doing so
because I love this little fucked up show
and the wild ride it took me on
just like its characters
it made me smile and it made me cry
and called me out on some of my prejudices
and preconceived notions
I always like when a show challenges me like that
it doesn't provide super easy answers
but I think
leaves the viewer with a hopeful ending note
outside of that
there is not much more to say
than people are complicated
and if you want to have kids
please do it for unselfish reasons
talk to them
listen to them
give them love
and if you can't do that please don't have kids
and find another person to talk
and connect to that makes you happy
being alone sucks
but you don't have to be
as long as you're willing to talk to people
and if you need help please seek it out
and don't give up on your life
it's the only one you have
and that is a wrap on the
one added 73rd episode of Anime Brain Freeze
other music in our podcast is from the
Duttle Draining Neon soundtrack by the amazing Jake Kaufman
please go to vrarty.bandcamp.com
and check out his awesome work
find us where all the podcast live
but also check out AnimeBrainFreeze.com
for our review index and more
please leave us a review
and rating on Apple Podcasts
Spotify or your podcast app of choice
if you can
follow us on the socials or send an email
to anembranfrees@gmail.com
we would love to read your feedback
you're the best on the day
on the day
next time on AnimeBrainFreeze
we're going on vacation to Hawaii
sort of
and
a red-wale wind sweeps through a little town
right into everyone's hearts
feel like a galaxy
your determination
come in
your choice
[Music]