Dororo
Let's start things off with the one show that did not have a season finale. In episode 12 of Brother, My Brother, Daigo orders his men to kill Hyakkimaru on sight, but Hyakkimaru manages to escape. Dororo and Sukeroku are thrown in prison by the soldiers of the Asakura clan, but Dororo manages to escape and promises to return with Hyakkimaru to rescue Sukeroku. Tahomaru confronts his parents and learns of the deal Daigo made with the demons, and though he disapproves of sacrificing an innocent child, he has no rebuttal when Daigo asks what the alternative should have been. As the Asakura clan prepares to execute their prisoners and invade Daigo's domain, the two armies clash at Banmon. The fightings attracts Kyubi, who had survived its previous encounters with Hyakkimaru and Daigo, but Hyakkimaru's rescue attempt is interrupted by Tahomaru who vows to honor his father's sacrifice and put his people before his family. As Kyubi bears down upon Dororo and Sukeroku, Hyakkimaru cuts out Tahomaru's eye before dashing over to kill Kyubi. In all the chaos, Hyakkimaru and Tahomaru's mother Oku arrives, tearfully begging for Hyakkimaru's forgiveness before stabbing herself as an offering to replace her son's body for the demons. As the last wall of Banmon collapses, the three different factions retreat. Later, Sukeroku reunites with his mother, Dororo and Hyakkimaru continue on their journey, and Biwamaru finds a strange green energy in the headless statue of the Goddess of Mercy that was left behind on the battlefield.
Man, Dororo is just knocking it out of the park today! The confrontation between Hyakkimaru and his family was exactly as dramatic and weighty as I hoped it would be, and Tahomaru's decision, while pretty much what I expected, was executed perfectly. Of course a boy with so much respect for his father and a strong sense of duty and honor would be conflicted by the idea of sacrificing a child, but at this point, he feels that he has no other choice but to uphold the pact and kill his brother. Naturally, we as the audience can still condemn this as taking the easy way out, especially after seeing the characters from the Price of Smiles react to a similar dilemma, but it's entirely reasonable to assume that if Tahomaru and Daigo don't uphold the deal, then the losses would be too devastating. Let's imagine that Tahomaru took Hyakkimaru's side, and Hyakkimaru gained his body back and killed all the demons (and Daigo) right then and there. What happens next? Would the prosperity granted by the demons be taken away? Would the soil become barren again? How many would starve to death? How long until the common people rebel against Tahomaru, putting him and his mother at risk? How long until the Asakura clan take advantage of the situation and take over? Daigohas put Tahomaru in a no win situation, and he's forced to take the option that would result in the fewest deaths: killing his brother. Like Biwamaru said, it's a cruel fate; at this point, the dominos have already been set up, and all that remains is to knock them over. There's a tragic finality to the whole situation and it makes every scene hit that much harder.
The Price of Smiles
Up next we have the 12th and final episode of The Price of Smiles. Yuki and her escort manage to escape the ambush, but Lily discovers that the princess is among the caravan. After reporting the situation to the higher up, Chief of Staff Eine Fleet realizes that Yuki plans to shut down the chrars and orders Stella's squad to stop them, no matter the cost. As Yune and Lune battle against the soldiers against the soldiers of the Empire, Stella slips into the research facility and finds Layla at the control panel. Layla tells Stella about Yuki's plan to shut down the chrars, but then stops short when she recognizes her long lost daughter. Before she could say anything else, however, the battle outside causes the ceiling to collapse, and Layla pushes Stella out of the way, crushed under the weight of the rubble and begging Stella to help Yuki with her dying breath. Confused and alone, Stella confronts Yuki on the roof of the facility. Yuki asks Stella to stand aside and let her deactivate the chrars, but Stella scoffs at the notion, arguing that struggle will still continue regardless and the past cannot be wiped away. Yuki agrees with this assessment, but she responds that doing nothing would be inexcusable, as the chrars need to be destroyed. Moved by Yuki's words, Stella agrees, and the two of them shut down the chrars together. Several months, or maybe years, later, Soleil and the Empire have reached an uneasy truce and harvests are plentiful again. While there is still unrest, as several researchers and laborers have lost their jobs, things have started to settle down. Yuki has taken an active role in running the Kingdom of Soleil, and Stella and Lily have taken Owens' orphanage. And so, the story of Yuki and Stella comes to an end.
This finale was much like the show as a whole: ambitious, yet imperfect, and it doesn't leave me with a lot to talk about. Everything I had to say about the actual plan to shut down the chrars I basically covered last week, and all that leaves is the character interactions. And, well, they were okay, I guess. I don't know how I feel about Stella never learning that Layla was her mother, but their dialogue was very good. I don't know if Layla's death was really necessary, though. I just got the feeling that the show was trying to milk me for feelings, and I may be pathetic, but I won't be manipulated quite that easily. As for Yuki and Stella's meetgin, which has been built up for the entirety of the series? I liked it. It wasn't amazing, but I didn't hate it. It was like baby's first Code Geass, the way that our two main characters spouted their entry level philosophy at each other!
Okay, I know I'm giving this show a hard time, but I genuinely enjoyed The Price of Smiles. It's not a perfect show, far from it, but I appreciate that it tried to rise above its low quality animation and tell an epic story about war and loss, and I'm always down for more mecha shows. But the pacing issues and occasionally weird story decisions hold it back from meeting its true potential. It has its high points, though, especially episodes 3, 5, and 8, and if you're in the right mindset, I think it's worth watching.
Domestic Girlfriend
Next up is Domestic Girlfriend. In the 12th and final episode, in order to keep the truth of her relationship with Natsuo secret, Hina agrees to transfer to teach at a new school, moving away without telling Natsuo her plan, correctly guessing that he would try to stop her. When Natsuo tries to visit her apartment to talk to her, he finds the place completely devoid of furniture, with only a letter from Hina left behind, telling him to move on from her and chase his dream of becoming a novelist. Being the moody teenager he is, Natsuo ignores the letter and locks himself in his room. It takes a three-man pep talk from Rui, Fumiya, and the cafe owner to get focused on something. Hearing their advice that it would be disrespectful of Hina's sacrifice to just give up and lock himself away from the world, Natsuo puts every single scrap of effort he can into writing one more novel. A few weeks after submitting this new novel to Kiriya, Natsuo receives the shocking news that he won an amateur novelist award and is published shortly afterward. As Rui surprises Natsuo by making a move on him, the credits begin to roll and Hina purchases a copy of Natsuo's book.
I'll be real, I was ready to give an entirely positive review of this finale. I found the sheer level of overblown dramatics from Natsuo and Hina hilarious in the beginning minutes, and the scene where Natsuo and Hina's parents were questioning if their marriage was a mistake because it may have harmed their children was surprisingly effective at making me feel emotions. But then we got to Natsuo's new novel and the scene with Rui wearing a wig that looked like Hina's hair for some reason, and we just enter nonsense territory again. I dunno, I'm willing to believe that Natsuo has improved as a writer since last week's episode, but no matter how much time you tell me has passed, I find it hard to believe that he goes from being completely ignored in consideration for an award in the last episode to suddenly being a first prize winner and winning 300,000 yen (approximately 2,700 dollars) in the very next one. This progression may have worked if we had the scene about Rui winning the honorable mention for the magazine contest in like episode 6 or 7, then have a few scenes of Natsuo writing short stories or whatever in the background before having him win this award, but I object to having Natsuo apparently be such a great writer in the first place! You really expect me to believe that this idiotic sad sack can tell a good story when his big idea for a novel was literally just fanfiction of him banging his teacher, to the point that both Rui and Kiriya knew what was going on before the photographs happened because he was basically signing his work? I know the classic advice is to "write what you know", but if you ask me, the whole conceit of characters writing stories literally based on their lives shows that they lack imagination.
And do I really need to say why Rui wearing a wig just so Natsuo can think she's Hina for a minute is stupid? The justification -- that she was wearing the wig because she was considering growing out her hair and wanted to get an idea of what it was like -- is pretty weak, the drama it adds lasts for about thirty seconds before being forgotten, and the result -- that Rui decided to pursue Natsuo romantically again because she was turned on by how excited Natsuo was to see her -- frustrates me. I get that this was to keep the story going for the sake of continuing a weekly manga (which is still publishing to this day), but if you ask me, it would have been better for the series to end here with Natsuo and Rui deciding to just be friends and for Hina to never return home. A nice bittersweet ending, you know?
This anime might have frustrated me more than any other show in the roundup, but that's only because there was real potential here. I like these characters quite a bit (even Natsuo) and the way earlier episodes played the incestuous desires of our main trio for genuine drama rather than cheap fanservice and shock value was encouraging. I never thought the story was bad either, but I do feel that the desire to titillate and shock the audience overtook the desire to tell a genuinely good story. I can't comment on how good the manga is, though I may read it (I mean, it IS uncensored...) later on to find out, but what I can say is that if this does get a second season, I don't think I would cover it in the roundup. Though I may still watch it because I enjoy watching train wrecks.
ALSO, WHO WAS THE WOMAN PLAYING THE PIANO IN THE OPENING!? I'VE WATCHED THE ENTIRE SEASON AND I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHO SHE IS SUPPOSED TO BE!!
Run With the Wind
In the 23rd and final episode of Run With the Wind, Fujioka leads the pack as the Hakone Ekiden reaches its final section, breaking the all time section record. As reporters and teammates swarm around him, he stops to give Haiji some words of encouragement. Soon afterward, Kakeru surprises everyone by beating the record Fujioka set by just one second, leaving Haiji to start off the final section of the race in 12th place. With the goal of hitting the top ten and earning a guaranteed spot for next year's Ekiden and high on painkillers, Haiji begins to run. As he runs, he reflects on the teammates that have gotten him this far and remembers how his father continued his job as a track coach in the aftermath of his injury back in high school. But in the present, even as he supervises the practice of his runners, Haiji's father still intently listens to the commentary of the Ekiden on the radio, clutching his timer for dear life. But as Haiji rushes to the finish line, the painkillers start to wear off, and he has to limp his way across the finish line. Yet his efforts pay off, as Kansei University defies expectations and snatch the 10th place position, beating out Tokyo Sport University by 2 seconds and snagging a guaranteed seed for next year's race. Three years later, the team meets up for a get together as Chikusei dorm is set to be demolished, and then Kakeru, Hana, and the twins head back to coach the next generation of runners at Kansei University.
I don't know what I'm supposed to say here. Like, I know I'm supposed to be sharing my thoughts on the episode and the series as a whole, but my brain is a jumble of emotions. I haven't felt this strongly about a series finale since Gridman. I was crying from the moment Kakeru handed the sash to Haiji, and that was only five minutes into the episode! How am I supposed to convey the levels of emotion I am feeling into words? Gridman's final episode was easier for me to wrap up because it was a show with a core idea and a message. It was direct and to the point, well, for a show about a giant mech battling kaiju created by a psychotic anime girl, anyway. Run With the Wind is a lot more subtle. It doesn't have a message per se, but it excels at building an atmosphere and exploring why athletes pursue sports in the first place. I know a lot of anime fans don't like sports, but I actually love them, physically unfit as I am. Much like anime, and art in general, sports are something that bring people together and inspire passion in those who care about them. Just imagine how many people from all walks of life tune in to watch the Super Bowl or the World Series or the Olympics. This stuff matters to people, even if it's just a bunch of college kids running. Nothing I say will ever do this show justice. I rated this as the 17th best anime of 2018 when it was only halfway over, and now that we've reached the end, I can see it being at least number 13, if not higher. I know that doesn't sound like much, but considering how much praise I had for the of 2018, this is a huge jump. Oh, yeah, and Yuki is best boy.
Promised Neverland
Two shows remaining! Firstly, in episode 12 of The Promised Neverland, as the children continue their escape plan, Ray realizes that everyone under the age of 5 is missing. Emma explains that she agreed with Ray's assessment that the younger children would be a liability, but she didn't want to abandon them altogether either. The compromise she came up with was to leave the younger children behind, knowing that they don't get shipped out until their sixth birthday at the very earliest, resolving to come back and break them out before any of them can get harvested by the demons. Knowing that they needed a distraction, the 4 year old Phil, who had deduced that SOMETHING was going on,, agreed to stay behind and distract Mama as the children escape. Even with the younger children distracting her though, Mama still goes after the would be escapees, raising the alarm and causing the demons to gather at the bridge waiting for them. But Emma and the others had prepared for this as well, at the bridge waiting for them. But Emma and the others had prepared for this as well, having prepared homemade zip lines to swing over the chasm separating the plant and the outside world. Mama can only watch as her children, including her now revealed to be biological son Ray, escape into the outside world. She tearfully wishes them good luck as they head out into the unknown, succeeding where she herself failed as a child.
They actually did it! They escaped! And that is an incredible feeling. It's too bad that, as a final episode, this felt less climactic and more like cleaning up loose ends. It wasn't a bad episode, by any means, but all the really cool stuff in the escape happened last week, and this week was just for getting the younger children out of the way, explaining the zip lines, and expanding on Mama's backstory. All of that stuff was necessary and executed well, but it fails to live up to the roller coaster that was last week's episode. This is just the nature of the beast, I suppose. On the one hand, my first instinct is to say that everything in the escape should have been all in one episode, but the more I think about it, I can't think of anything that could have been cut from the story, and there just wasn't enough room in the run time to fit everything in a single episode. And if the result is that the weakest episode in the series is still pretty good, then I'm happy.
Seriously, if you haven't gathered that this is my favorite show of this season's roundup, let me spell it out for you: this is my favorite show of this season's roundup. The art is great, the direction is fantastic, the soundtrack varies between atmospheric and creepy and hype inducing like crazy, and every single character that gets screen-time is memorable and lovable, even the sadistic villains that are Mama and Krone. And like I've said before, the underlying message that children need to learn that the world is a cruel state but it can be overcome if you stick together and lean on your familial bonds resonates a lot with me. Season 2 has already been announced for next year, and you can bet that I will cover it on that season's roundup. I can't wait to see how many anime-only fans drop the show after realizing that the tone is inevitably going to shift now that Emma and the others have left the plantation and are trying to survive rather than escape!
Boogiepop and Others
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| It'd be nice, yes. |
Okay, now all that's left is the last two episodes of Boogiepop and Others. And trying to makes sense of all this convoluted nonsense. Here goes nothing! In episodes 17 and 18, Tanaka Shirou wakes Kentaro up from his illusion, and the two of them find and awaken Sakiko soon afterward. When Kentaro explains that he plans to stop the King of Distortion, Sakiko panics, thinking htat she'll never see her dead friend Hinako again, and tries to trap them in a basement. As the two boys try to find a way out, Boogiepop runs into Sakiko. Sakiko begs Boogiepop to kill her, insisting that she is an evil person, but they refuse, explaining that the fact she feels so much guilt for surviving while her friend died is proof that she has empathy and does not deserve death. As Niitoki deduces the true identity of the Distortion King, Shirou and Kentaro find a control panel with a precorded message from Teratsuki, which reveals that he was a synthetic human created by the Towa Organization who grew too independent to be controlled, and the Moon Temple was constructed as a plan to rebel against them and warn the evolving humans that the Organization was monitoring before they could assassinate him. Kentaro doesn't understand what he's hearing, since there was no mention of the King of Distortion at all, but tries to use the unlock code that was in Teratsuki's message to release everyone from the Moon Temple.
But before he can do so, Shirou steps in and reveals his identity as the true King of Distortion, knocking Kentaro out and trapping him in another illusion. Boogiepop and Niitoki confront him, and the truth is revealed. Shirou (and I completely forgot about this) was the boy who helped Boogiepop kill Manticore, and he had been wracked by survivor's guilt ever since he learned that Manticore had killed his girlfriend Naoko (the same girl that had befriended Echoes back in episode 2). The sheer amount of guilt he has felt since then gave birth to the King of Distortion, a supernatural being similar to Boogiepop in nature, who decided to take advantage of the sheer amount of people gathering at the Moon Temple in order to conduct an experiment in the nature of grief and regret. After Niitoki tells Shirou that Naoko loved him and lived without regrets, Shirou gains the strength to expel the King of Distortion and face life head on.
Well, now we know what the heck was going on, and I think that all the frustration and mystery turns out to have been ultimately worth it. I enjoyed this arc a bit, since it introduced Kentaro and had some fun returning characters like Shirou, Niitoki, and Saotome, but this was probably the weakest arc of the bunch. Being locked in a single building the whole time made everything very same-y and boring to look at, and the themes of moving on from grief and regret, while appreciated, don't hit as hard as the themes in other arcs, making this kind of weird to be the final arc. It's a bit of a mixed bag overall, kinda like Boogiepop as a whole. I really enjoyed this show's atmosphere, and it's usually good at revealing just enough information to keep the mystery from being too frustrating. But the show's philosophy is a bit too out there for my tastes, like an idiot really trying to sound intelligent and deep, and I wish that the cast was more consistent instead of having a new cast of characters every arc with Boogiepop being the only constant. I really liked characters like Kentaro, Nagi, and Masaki, but we didn't get to see them enough and it feels like a waste. Still, this was a fun ride, and I'm sure that this would be even better if you marathoned the whole series, which I would recommend.
And that wraps up the Winter 2019 season! This season was pretty good overall, with more shows making it to the end than last time, but I would argue that the actual quality of the shows don't match last season's. Promised Neverland and Dororo are my favorite new shows here, and Run With the Wind was incredible, but all the other anime we watched this season were hit or miss at best. Outside of the roundup, Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 was somehow better than the already amazing season 1, Kaguya-sama: Love is War was good, but not nearly as good as some fans would say, the Quintessential Quintuplets was an enjoyably wholesome harem comedy, and Kemurikusa and the Magnificent Kotobuki were so bad I couldn't get past episode 1.
But enough living in the past! The Spring 2019 season will soon be upon us, and the roundup will have a bunch of new shows to cover! Just like last time, we're gonna take a break this upcoming Sunday to give shows a chance to premiere. Here's a list of shows I plan on covering, as long as legal streaming platforms pick them up for distribution, anyway.
- Fruits Basket (2019)
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- We Never Learn
- Stop This Sound
- Fairy Gone
- Carole and Tuesday
- Senryuu Girl
- Shoumetsu Toshi
- YU-NO: A Girl who Chants Love at the Bound of this World
- Magmel of the Sea Blue
- Mayonako no Occult Koumuin
- RobiHachi
- Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine
And when you add Dororo into the mix, we'll have a total of 14 anime for the next season! I must be out of my damn mind.
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| Me, regretting all my life choices that led me to this moment. |
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