Second Impressions – Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau

Boy, there’s a lot to like with this series.  So why am I struggling to hard to embrace it?

Let me make it clear – Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau is head and shoulders above the bulk of new material this anime season.  I think it would be in most seasons.  There’s a lot of ambition here, an overall style that’s radically different than the boilerplate anime that make up the bulk of every season these days.  And it’s the most interesting show of the Fall visually, or at least in a neck-and-neck race with Mahoutsukai no Yome for that title – that one is more traditionally gorgeous, while this one is impressionistic to the point of surrealism.  No other series’ visuals come anywhere close to these two.

Taking all that into consideration, I feel as if I should love Tales of the Whales Calves – I certainly want to love it.  And I may yet, before it’s finished.  But somehow this series just isn’t fully connecting with me on either an intellectual or emotional level.  It’s not whiffing by any means – I find the premise interesting, and feel somewhat vested in the characters.  But there’s just no there there, yet.  It doesn’t feel real, visceral, urgent – it’s just a story playing out on screen that I’m viewing in abstract.

Indeed, I think this episode worked best for me simply as a string of interconnected “wow” images – moments on screen that made me shake my head in wonder (like this one, a throwaway moment but so full of soul and beautifully framed and colored).  I love this sort of visual poetry, I won’t deny it – Made in Abyss had it too, and while Kujira isn’t quite on that level it’s pretty damn special.  I almost feel as if this could have been a Red Turtle style narrative, telling its story without the benefit of dialogue, and been even more powerful than it is.

But dialogue Kujira no Kora does have, and plenty – maybe too much sometimes for its own good. But hey, ultimately this is a mystery and mysteries do need exposition to give their audience half a chance to figure them out.  The first headline here comes on our mismatched trio’s visit to Lykos’ island, where she introduces them to a creature (or hive of creatures) called Nous – a being or beings which feed on the emotions of the humans around them.  This, Lykos says, is why she has no heart – and indeed, when Chakuro reaches inside the Nous to try and pull Ouni away from it he experiences one of Lykos’ emotional memories (among others) before he blacks out.  This is the real world, she tells the boys – emotionless people waging eternal war emotionlessly.

I’ll withhold judgment on what I think of that MacGuffin until we learn a little more detail.  For now, the story takes a different direction than I expected – as if Reg and Riko had ended up back in Orth after one episode in the Abyss.  The Mud Whale’s foot soldiers capture the children and haul them back home, which is where Chakuro wakes up.  There are interrogations, and Lykos and Ouni remain in confinement, but Chakuro is eventually released when a witness confirms he didn’t go with Ouni by choice.  All scavenging on the driftland is prohibited, and Lykos starts to panic as she feels emotion begin to creep back into her mind.

Perhaps one reason why Kujira no Kora hasn’t fully won me over is that the cast seem a bit too archetypal, and their behavior predictable. Chakuro is the dojikko naif, always seeing the best in everyone, Lykos the silent and mysterious stranger, Sami the tsundere childhood friend with a crush on the protagonist.  They all go through their paces as expected, but in the process we get another really beautiful visual sequence as the Mud Whale prepares for the “swarm” – a rare event in which migratory grasshoppers take on luminescent properties before flying away forever to parts unknown.  For this Chakuro springs Lykos out of her confinement, and the signs build that the emotions welling up inside her are more than she can handle.

Lykos is desperate to meet with the Elders, but they refuse to do so – their fear of what she represents stronger than any curiosity they still possess.  Suou does agree to meet with her, but it’s too late – the warning she brings is that the Mud Whale is being pursued, its inhabitants viewed as “sinners”.  This is the reality the elders (who are unmarked conscripted onto the council when they turn 61) have tried to shield their people from, but even if they’ve managed to keep any of their people from finding that reality that can’t stop it from finding them.  The ending of the episode is a bit of a shocker but again, I feel as if I should have cared more than I did – but it never felt to me that Sami was a real person.  This is Kujira no Kora in a nutshell – gorgeous imagery existing side by side with somewhat pedestrian writing.  I hope it levels up at some point, because the best things about this series are truly exceptional.

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11 comments

  1. You’re not the only one. I dropped it after this episode… I can take waiting for a story to build up if it’s a longer series (e.g. Twelve Kingdoms), but with a 1-cour series I feel like I should like either the characters, the plot, or the setting by now, and the only thing I can currently find that makes me like the series is the art. That’s not enough to keep me watching, which is too bad because I was seriously looking forward to this series too…

  2. S

    Speaking of archetypes: maybe you’re struggling because Chakuro isn’t a female with short red hair and green eyes. 🙂

  3. I feel like I’m missing something here – I don’t get it…

  4. j

    The pacing is just too fast and gets in the viewer’s way of grasping and enjoying all the small and wonderful details of the series. It tries to make up for it spoken exposition, but this makes it even worse. Take the short dialogue of the chieftain about her role in the Mud Whale’s society. It was just cringeworthy and seemed to be taken from a professional series composition while it should have been embedded into the setting of the story.

  5. It’s interesting that we have one commenter saying the problem is that the pacing is too slow, the other that it’s too fast. I’m not saying either of you are right or wrong (I’d lean towards the second one, but that’s beside the point) but maybe that says something about the show’s problem.

    The exposition by explanation is a problem for me, no doubt. It makes sense to a certain degree given Chakuro’s character, but it’s not a style I generally like.

  6. The plot seems herky-jerky. We go to the other island/ship/thing, we come back, we go to it again, suddenly we come back, we get a sequence that’s pretty but doesn’t advance the plot at all, then suddenly we get another surprise interruption… it’s like there’s two teams of writers and they’re playing tug of war with the script.

  7. M

    After made in abyss few shows this season live up to those standards.Really enjoying legend of galactic heroes though.

  8. s

    eh, I think the reason why you’re probably not embracing this series is the same reason i feared i might not going into it after seeing the pv’s: the fantasy and importance of the narrative feels artificial; it’s like the show wants to be grand and important without truly earning it. That’s not to say that the show is bad (there’s a certain beauty to the elements on display), but it almost feels like the staff are just running through a checklist of what they think makes a captivating fantasy series without truly understanding how to meld those elements in a way that naturally builds the world and most importantly, naturally engages the viewer; that’s my take on it anyway. The show wants to be amazing and flaunts that desire all over its presentation but it hasn’t justified that bravado, if that makes sense. Perhaps because ive been so busy, im not as engaged with a lot the anime im watching this season as i would be so maybe i just need to give the first ep a second watch (along with this one) to be sure where i stand with the series. As of right now, this is how i feel.

  9. R

    I think I’m in the minority here…hope that I’m not the only one. I actually quite like this series. It also doesn’t help when it feels like it takes longer to sub this show than others…it just makes me want it more.

    I did get the vibe of Shin Sekai Yori, with a dose of Nausicaa mixing with Serei no Moribito, but that was just superficial, and I don’t expect this show will resemble the greatness of SSY or SnM. However, I like the casual dialogue — like how Masoo loved caring for children and how Chakoro moved in with Tobi — and the subtle hints — like how a locust just died. It feels like we have a living world here… This show doesn’t give direct emotional punches (yet), but I’m slowly getting sympathetic, worrying about the children of the Mud Whales…

  10. I thought this was a good episode too, better than the premiere. The explanations make sense in context and the world feels well grounded. It sort of reminds me of the early parts of Knights Of Sidonia, although I’d say the characters and art here are definitely better.

  11. V

    Tanks for article

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