Merha.

OP: “℃/Shirushi [Tsurune-ban]” (℃ / しるし【ツルネ盤】) by Luck Life

One thing I will say for Tsurune’s second premiere, though it’s really saying it about Kyoto Animation.  It’s rare for anime to make me emotional just with visuals, but that happened just for a moment here.  A big part of that, no doubt, is reality coloring emotional perception.  What happened can never be forgotten – it’s a wound that will (and should) never heal for anime fans.  It’s easy to get emotional just out of gratitude that anime like this can still come from KyoAni – that they’ve survived the ultimate nightmare and returned to normalcy as best anyone can.  But part of it, too, is just that it looks so goddam pretty.

I have my issues with Kyoto Animation to be sure.  If I’m honest I rarely connect either emotionally or intellectually with their material (apart from the visuals).  But I’m heartily glad they exist.  Not only do they make incredibly beautiful animation which any lover of the medium can appreciate, they represent one of the few studios who do better than the usual black company labor model.  Make no mistake, they pay a toll to the Devil to make those things possible – mostly producing creatively unambitious material because it allows them to own the entire production and bypass the production committee system and its innumerable leeches.  But anime is a better place with KyoAni in it.

So where does Tsurune fit in?  If I’m honest, this isn’t a great piece of material.  It’s one of those LN properties that gets produced because it’s obscure enough for Kyoto Animation to own it lock, stock, and barrel.  I dropped the first season for a good while in fact.  But I did go back to it – something I’ve done very rarely and never with a KyoAni series.  So there has to be a reason, and there is.  There’s a certain earnestness and emotional honestly to Tsurune that elevates the somewhat pedestrian writing.  And even by their standards this seems like material the studio is passionate about (despite its relative lack of commercial success).  After Hyouka, Tsurune may be the most beautiful art and animation they’ve ever done.

I think both the strengths and weaknesses of Tsurune were prominent in this episode.  As a school series it lacks spark.  The comedy is rarely really effective, the girls are mere appendages, and the trivialities of school life seem just that.  But once it ditches the campus and heads to Yata Jinja everything levels up.  Masa-san is a great character, first of all.  And his interactions with the boys – especially Minato – are substantial and natural in a way the school stuff just isn’t.  Those shrine scenes also seem to be where the staff really shows off, too.

Plot-wise, we obviously start with Minato in a much better place than he was at the start of the first season.  Now, the story is all about his bonds with others – and how kyuudou is central to that.  About why he loves archery – and why the others love it, too.  The nationals are coming up of course – but before that, a regional tournament which will feature old rival Kirisaki and Minato’s soulmate Shuu.  And because of a (convenient) special exemption, the winner (Kirisaki, surely) will get an invitation to the nationals.  As for new developments, this guy, Nikaidou (ever-17 Fukuyama Jun) seems to be the one to try and spoil the love-fest between Shuu and Minato.

After I wrote most of this post I went back and looked at my last couple of entries on S1 (almost 4 years ago now).  It doesn’t surprise me that what struck me now struck me then – the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the series based on its focus.  As well, the notion that even if it’s generally mediocre, if a series has something exceptional to it, it’s notable.  And Tsurune has two things – first the visuals, obviously.  And second, the relationship between Minato and Masa.  That makes the other stuff bearable (most of the time anyway).  And the kyuudou stuff is interesting too – all that moon imagery and the yagoe.  Tsurune certainly has its limitations, but it also has elements which allow it to rise above them.  Like its studio, I’m glad it exists.