It’s just an aside, really, but I wonder if most anime fans today realize that one-cour anime used to almost always be 13 episodes.  26 (or more) was even more common, in fact, but a cour was thirteen most of the time.  It’s just a number – obviously the difference between 13 and 12 is no larger than between 12 and 11.  But we saw a couple of relatively rare thirteenth eps wrap up series yesterday, and they were both quite different from what we usually see in series finales these days.  Different from each other too as it happens, but with a few elements in common.

As did Tomo-chan wa Onnanoko!, Tsurune basically wrapped up its story in its twelfth episode.  Tomo-chan closed with a sort of add-on storyline, almost like an OVA.  Tsurune went with something very much in character, a kind of episode-long epilogue.  This series is many things, most obviously totally gorgeous.  It’s also a bit of a navel-gazer, a show that’s always been prone to long, unhurried bouts of self-observation.  That can be (and has been) both a weakness and a strength, and that was the case with this finale as well.

There’s not a whole lot of reportage to be done here, really.  This was Tsurune at its most Tsurune.  Lots of art for art’s sake, characters smiling a bit too much, loving observation of the fleeting innocence of youth.  In their way the boys at the heart of this series are extremely idealized, frankly unrealistic depictions of the adolescent male.  But they are rather a likeable group (mostly), and so is Masa-san.  They’re people you want to root for.  I noted last week that Tsurune’s tendency to nail the big moments was a good quality to have; this is another one.

Give Kyoto Animation beautiful children, a Shinto festival, and a shrine at night and you’re going to get a pretty grand piece of visual art.  I’m not sure there was a whole lot of substance to this besides that – we certainly didn’t learn anything about the cast that we didn’t already know.  But it’s that thirteenth episode thing at work.  This finale was not a load-bearing wall – all the construction had already been finished.  All it had to do was sum up the mood of the series and leave the story in a good place.

The final moments here were a bit of a reminder of what this second season has somewhat lacked, extended interaction between Minato and Masa.  On balance it’s been about as good as the first for me, albeit more consistent and less frequently really great.  Given that Masa and Minato are the best relationship in the series that fits.  The competition sequences have been better and more interesting in Tsunagari no Issha, and it hasn’t stumbled through inane school-life material nearly as often.  But I really wanted more development of this quite powerful bond, and didn’t get all that much of it.  The most realized theme of the first season was the series as a musing on the nature of mentorship, but that wasn’t a major thread this time around.

Under normal circumstances one might have been surprised when Tsurune got a movie and a second season.  It wasn’t a flop but was one of the lesser KyoAni projects in terms of commercial success and cultural impact.  But their model is different from almost everyone else’s – production committees effectively don’t exist on most KyoAni shows because they own the material (this is not the case, sadly, with Hyouka).  They rarely outsource significant chunks of a series’ production, and pay their animators a salary instead of by the cut.  So is there a chance of a third season?  I really don’t see why not.  And the story has left plenty of loose threads to tie up, should that happen down the line.

Apart from the aforementioned Hyouka, I rarely find myself really compelled by Kyoto Animation series narratively.  But more and more I appreciate just what an unstoppable force they are in terms of production values.  Their greatest weakness – adapting lesser material because it’s fully theirs – is what financially enables them to do things in such a singular way.  A way that produces material as consistently exceptional to look at as Tsurune.  I’d certainly hate to see that go away, but I sure wish there was a way to have our cake and eat it too.  The right material in these hands could result in some really spectacular anime.  Tsurune isn’t that, but it is a reminder of just how precious Ky0Ani is, and how lucky we are to have them back in the game.