We’re what, 17 eps into Tsurune? I feel like at this point I know the drill pretty well. Series can certainly surprise you this far in (and farther) but I don’t think this one has a lot of surprises in it. Tsurune is what it is, the things it does well and the not so much, and it’s really just a question of whether that’s enough. I’ve pretty much settled on “yes” as my answer to that but weeks where it loses me seem to be part of the agreement, and this was one of them.
To be clear, there was nothing “wrong”with this episode per se. It’s just that this is a side of Tsurune I’ve never found especially compelling. In the first place it’s pretty much pure fanservice, which is fine as long as you’re a fan in the service area being targeted (I’m not). In the second I just don’t think as a school drama it really works all that well. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the more of a conventional school drama it is, the less it interests me. I like the episodes focused on the nature of teaching and on the lore of Kyuudou. This didn’t have much of either.
Kaitou and Nanao have gotten a fair bit of focus this season. As a pair, that is – they’ve always been fairly prominent among the secondary cast but their relationship to each other has definitely been leveled up as a theme. The flashback scenes depict a childhood about like you’d expect – Kaitou as the hotheaded bozu who Nanao always has to keep a lid on, Nanao as a sharp-tongued oddball who Kaitou always needs to protect. Whether they actually needed each other to fill those roles quite as much as depicted or they just liked doing it is subject to interpretation, but the dynamic seems never to have really changed.
That’s fine, and I’m sure it will go over well in Ikebukuro. I don’t dislike either lad by any means (I even say “Merha!” on occasion just to see the confusion on people’s faces), but their little spat is really kind of dull. We know how it’s going to turn out, and it’s just a couple of immature brats being juvenile with other. That’s a child’s privilege and perfectly natural but not all that interesting to watch. A lot of the school stuff in Tsurune is in that bucket, frankly, which is a bit of a limiter on its upside.
Again, this kind of cul-de-sac seems to be the toll you pay to get to the gorgeous visuals and the interesting thematic stuff like last week’s episode showcased. I guess the margin or error is pretty small since I did end up dropping Tsurune for part of the first season, but it would surprise me if that happened again. In fact it would surprise me if we’re not back on more fertile narrative ground next week, as that seems to be the usual pattern.
