There are a couple of trendlines this season that I see Mashiro no Oto as being a part of.  Like Tokyo Revengers, it has elements that annoy the hell out of me that do battle with the things it does that are truly captivating.  And like Fumetsu no Anata e (a better series than either to be sure), Mashiro gets better the less conventional it is.  It’s that latter one that’s foremost on my mind this week, as this episode takes some turns that are perhaps not wholly encouraging in this regard.

Most obviously, it seems we’re going to take a very conventional turn in having the shamisen club preparing for a competition.  Yes, this is undeniably done to death, but that’s not to say it can’t still be done well.  The problem is that this is a storyline that’s apparently going to feature all the series’ most annoying characters in prominent roles.  We’ll see where Rei slides onto that scale – he joins the club as the needed fifth member in order to be eligible for the competition.  I would judge the early signs as mixed on that score.

Of course it’s Umeko who’s behind the competition (which she’s named after her father) in the first place.  There’s a brief allusion to Setsu’s father in flashback but no mention of what happened to him – being married to her, “long walk off a short pier” sounds like a distinct possibility.  This twist tries to paint Umeko in a sympathetic light because she’s motivated by the fact that her father never got the limelight she thinks he deserved, but she’s still annoying as hell.  She has no right to decide whether Setsu should be in the limelight or not, either – that’s his decision, not hers.  And she’s not to be admired for trying to use him to redress her own grievances over her father’s life.

That’s not to say there aren’t elements of this that work, and seeing Setsu struggle to try and be an instructor is quite interesting.  For a 16 year-old prodigy (he can’t even read music) teaching absolute beginners is something of a total nightmare.  Wakana is smart enough to see this coming and try to head off disaster, but Setsu is who he is – there’s no way this could be an easy transition.  The turning point comes when Keiko sends a video of his practicing to Kamiki, which sparks his curiosity even more.  So much so, in fact, that he decided to venture to the clubroom and give Setsu’s playing another listen.

The Setsu-Kamiki dynamic has the chance to be really interesting.  Kamiki seems like a subtle and nuanced character, with no shortage of good and bad points.  His intentions are selfish here to be sure, but he’s genuinely engaged at the idea of seeing what this raw youngster can do if he learns to harness his ability.  Kamiki schools Setsu when he accompanies him on “Jongara Shinbushi” (the competition piece) – effectively, acting like a shepherd herding an unruly goat.  He “supports” Setsu’s wilder playing, but nevertheless pulls him along in his wake.  In doing so he shows the way the others can be trained up to support Setsu in the competition, if the boy can get them there.

Once more it’s the shamisen that saves the day here.  This performance is another cracker, beautifully animated and (obviously) played by Yoshida Brothers with incredible virtuosity.  And like all the big musical numbers in Mashiro no Oto is has dramatic resonance, too.  What’s fascinating here is that not only is the series at its best on the production side in these moments, but the writing seems to level up too.  Given the huge portion of the load the musical numbers are carrying, it’s a good thing they happen as often as they do.  In that sense it has the measure of Kono Oto Tomare, but the difference is that Kono Oto had a story and characters engaging enough to carry the load – I don’t even want to think about Mashiro no Oto without these weekly music sequences.