It’s always nice when a series that was totally off your radar screen manages to hook you in all the way to the end. It’s something you’d think would happen all the time, but that hasn’t really been the case with me. Maybe it’s recompense for all the series over the last year that started out in my higher expectations tier and bombed out altogether – there have certainly been more of those than usual. Mind you I’d gladly defer from that trade-off, but I’m still grateful for whatever I get where good anime are concerned.
Honestly it’s actually a bit of a misnomer to say that Domestic na Kanojo was off my radar screen. I knew about it, and I had expectations – namely, that it would be a disaster. I don’t think it has been – in fact, it turned out to be a couple of notches better than most other anime romances. It struck a nice balance between realism and absurdity and treated its characters with a surprising level of respect – the latter, I think, being a key to its success.
As for the finale, it elected to largely avoid histrionics, which again might be seen as a bit of a departure from expectations. As it turned out no one intentionally outed Natsuo and Hina, they were just unlucky. And Hina chose to deal with this exactly as I would have expected her to. Her career at the school was toast at that point, so the best possible deal for her would be to agree to leave in exchange for the affair not being made public. Of course that the school is fine with her going off to teach somewhere else is a potentially troubling matter – certainly if you believe what she and Natsuo did was wrong – but it’s a method of resolution that should be familiar to anyone who follows the news…
As to whether Hina should have buggered off without telling even her family where to, that’s more of a problem to me though I certainly understand why she did it. Natsuo going into a tailspin over this is again about what I would have expected. He did at least get an explanation from Hina (who loves writing letters, clearly), but that just means Natsuo is going to blame himself over what’s happened. Writing as therapy is obviously his path forward, and it’s good that he was smart enough to figure that out on his own.
Throughout all this Natsuo has gotten more than his share of development, which alone sets him apart from the generic passive MCs of most series like this one. Natsuo is neither passive nor generic – while his arc starts with a passive act (letting himself be talked into having sex by Rui), he ends up being pretty proactive for the rest of the series. He makes dumb decisions sometimes, as teenage boys (and everyone else) are prone to do, but he doesn’t stand idly by as what he wants slips away from him. Even if what he wants is probably not what’s best for him.
The manga is of course ongoing, so DomeKano had to conjure an ending out of nothing and I have no idea how it compared to the source material. But it’s open-ended, which I think is wholly appropriate given the premise. Neither Rui or Natsuo is giving up, but the epilogue with Hina suggests she isn’t either. And having his therapy novel win a significant prize is only going to make Natsuo more confident that he can be a partner for Hina, whose path will inevitably cross his once again. She’s going to return to her family soon enough, and then… We’ll see. It’s not like she’s 50 and he’s 15 – there’s a five or six-year difference, and Natsuo will be in college (or a full-time professional writer) soon enough. And the heart wants what it wants.
While certainly no masterpiece, Domestic no Kanojo took what was undeniably a dramatic scenario and presented it in a surprisingly coherent and measured way. As I said earlier, I have no problem with an anime showing people make bad decisions as long as they arrive at them in believable ways. Maybe there’s a voyeuristic component to enjoying DomeKano but it never felt exploitative or mean-spirited, and it was sometimes downright fascinating to watch. A pleasant surprise, certainly, and a reminder to keep our minds open when we look at the schedule for a new season.
RavenousRaven
March 31, 2019 at 9:10 amI have yet to watch DomeKano(don’t know If I ever will), but it has been interesting to read your posts on it. Going by your post this seems like the logical cutoff point and a 1:1 for the most part with the manga.
Manly tear
March 31, 2019 at 10:13 amI’ve read another one of Sasuga Kei’s mangas, GE:Good Ending and I’ve noticed that she does give her protagonists a higher level of respect & depth than the norm, though this was even a further step up. If there’s one quote I’d say describes this ep is “Art is born of sadness and suffering.” which marks Natsuo’s growth as a person & on the path of being a novelist – this felt primarily as Natsuo’s story more than Natsuo, Rui & Hina’s, at least as much as the anime is concerned, and it did succeed at pulling it through.
Corvus
March 31, 2019 at 12:59 pmNot only because you said that you enjoyed the show, but because of what you said you liked about it, I cannot recommend highly enough, that you read the manga. The anime is unfortunately a pale imitation of the story.
With some events swapped around, such as the suicide date actually taking place right after Rui had gotten sick and Momo had started pursuing Natsuo. Natsuo being depressed afterwards leads to Momo wanting to cheer him up, so she takes him home, while he goes along with it hoping to find a way to maybe get over Hina.
Other important things were also completely cut, such as Natsuo almost drowning. With Rui completely breaking down and then confessing to him and Hina realizing that she does want a relationship with Natsuo as well.
And that’s without even mentioning all of the lost character development. The episodes that stuck closely to the source material covered about 2 chapters per episode, but the anime as a whole made it all of the way out so chapter 72. I can only hope that someday Domestic na Kanojo will get the Fullmetal Alchemist treatment and get a more faithful adaptation of Sasuga Kei’s great work.
Sp12er
March 31, 2019 at 2:19 pmAgree for the most part, but those moments where it follows the manga, damn it follows them like panel by panel.
It’s just sad just how apparent that a Ton of content is skipped, even anime onlys can see that happening, maybe not at the beginning, but midway and the end they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore.
Manly tear
March 31, 2019 at 10:07 pmAt the end of the day, an adaptation is about choices. Some content will inevitably have to be cut out and tbh looking at the manga, I think they did a decent job at choosing what to focus on, given the limited time, and picked a very good stopping point. The most unfortunate part that was skipped was indeed the camping trip where Natsuo almost drowned, due to the Rui,Hina moments and also more of Kiriya who’s like Natsuo’s mentor. But hey, I think it did what it set out to do: be able to tell a 12 ep story anime with a decent conclusion while drawing a lot of people to the manga.
Jon
March 31, 2019 at 4:35 pmIt’s interesting to see your warm thoughts towards this anime, especially after your exasperation at Scum’s wish. As you say, the respect shown to the characters by the author is a great strength (though I wish they could have used Momo and the others more).
For me, I like how the anime just portrays the events as they happen; there is no monologuing as we see in so many other series. Natsuo in particular seems like an enigma, showing strong principles in some situations (e.g Momo) and being swept up in others (e.g Rui). It challenges us to find his psychological motivations on our own.
Guardian Enzo
March 31, 2019 at 7:22 pmYes, I agree the lack of monologuing is a refreshing change.
As for comparing it to Scum’s Wish, well – based on what people were saying before it aired, I wouldn’t have been surprised (that name came up a lot). Frankly, I think it’s straight-up apples and oranges – not remotely alike.
Gan
March 31, 2019 at 6:47 pmI started watching this series after reading your reactions on it. Later, I also went through some of the manga chapters, the ones that cover the ending of the anime and some beyond that, so I can tell you two things:
– The ending we saw is faithful to the manga; if there ever is a second season, it can continue right where it left off.
– I disagree with the other commenters on material skipped, changed order, etc. In my opinion, yes, the manga has more scenes, but they don’t contribute much more to the overall feeling than the existing ones; in some cases, they even take away from it. For example, I don’t know how much you could keep saying about ‘respecting the characters’, if you saw the scene in this episode where they enter the bathhouse and the former yakuza guy repeatedly flashes his privates to some geezers who asked for it.
So for me, much of the credit for making an anime that is fun to watch -plotwise- must go to the anime stuff, besides the original creator, for choosing only the most important scenes.
Guardian Enzo
March 31, 2019 at 7:24 pmThanks, that’s informative.
I can’t judge, not having read the manga here. But not all changes an anime makes are bad changes. It struck me based on how this differed from how some readers were describing it beforehand that the anime might have changed some things for the better.
Stöt
March 31, 2019 at 9:18 pmI think this ending only works in anime, where stuff just fading out into open-endedness is a sad norm, and an invitation to read the manga. It starts out with bombastic explosions and trains teetering on edges of cliffs, and ends with a pillow-like thud. Pretty skillful navigation to get there. I’m very impressed, but as far as closure goes, we’re nowhere near anything.
I started reading ahead in the manga at some point, and I feel like it avoids closure like the plague. Whenever we seem to getting close to a true pairing (and an end), the writer throws some wrench in the mix, and prolongs the ending a while longer. What happens on the way is not banal though. There’s some interesting stories to be told in college, and a lot more raunchy stuff on the way. I can totally see why people keep buying chapters.
I’m in full speculation mode, and know nothing of the writer, but I’m guessing she doesn’t want to end her main source of income. I get that. I’m hoping that the next story is free from that burden, and could be really great.
JJ
April 1, 2019 at 12:05 amThe guilty pleasure that, through respect for its characters (that is sorely lacking in its genre), dropped the guilty moniker. I’m happy to have enjoyed this series.