OP: “Summertime Ghost (サマータイムゴースト)” by Suiyoubi no Campanella (水曜日のカンパネラ)

Kowloon Generic Romance isn’t sneaking up on anybody. It has a big-name mangaka in Mayuzuki Jun. It has a reputation. It’s going to win the LiA season preview poll by a healthy margin. So around here especially, everyone pretty much knew it was going to be good. But sometimes even shows with high expectations can surprise you in a good way, and this one did. There are a couple of reasons to be cautious (I’ll touch on those shortly) but boy, one couldn’t ask for a much better premiere than that.

So yeah – that was, in a word, great. My experience with Mayuzuki is limited to Koi wa Ameagari no You ni (both the manga and anime), but I wound up loving that series despite going in with huge skepticism of the premise. Character writing on that level just doesn’t come around very often. And the anime was blessed with Wit as a studio and Watanabe Ayumu as a director, both pretty much at the top of their respective ladders. Arvo Animation isn’t, and while director Iwasaki Yoshiaki is very experienced and reliably solid, he’s not an auteur like Watanabe.

That was one of those reasons for caution. But in practice, I’m not too worried. The writing is so good here that the series can get by with passable animation and art, which is what we’re getting. Iwasaki is displaying enough flair with the cinematography to show off the material at its best. And the anime has a 90’s look to it that works. Especially in the context that while it’s set nebulously in the future, the setting is very much a throwback. “Nostalgia” is a word all over the premiere, and that’s what one feels when looking at the character designs and backgrounds.

Some of that nostalgia is for the Kowloon Walled City, which even in our present is a thing of the past. Mayuzuki learned of it from playing Kowloon’s Gate on the Playstation when she was a teenager in the late noughties. KWC was a walled enclave in Hong Kong – originally a British military compound from around the turn of the century (not the most recent one, the one before). Its population swelled after the Japanese occupation ended with WWII, as people fled the Chinese Civil War. At its peak KWC had 35,000 residents  in 6.4 acres, an absolutely preposterous population density.

As one can imagine, sanitary and general living conditions were abysmal. In addition it was basically lawless and ungoverned, resulting in a thriving trade of anything and everything illegal from heroin to dog meat. Eventually the Chinese authorities evicted everyone, bulldozed most of the buildings, and built a park and gardens with a few of the old structures kept for nostalgia and and a museum depicting Kowloon life in the old days. Mayuzuki was captivated by it, and in this mythology the walled city still exists – alongside a mysterious floating computer called “Terra” which hovers over Kowloon like a second moon that never moves.

The nature of this series is that the writing is so good it could probably thrive with any one of the three main pillars – the setting, the characters, or the sci-fi premise – standing alone. With all three in place it’s an embarrassment of riches. The main characters are Kujirai Reiko (Shiraishi Haruka) and Kudou Hajime (Sugita Tomokazu). They’re thirty-somethings (she’s 32 specifically) who work in a tiny real estate office in the KWC. She’s a lover of things new and novel (which makes her seem rather misplaced). He’s a traditionalist who loves the romance of old Kowloon, dingy and rough as it is.

That sounds like the setup for a great old-style Hollywood romance – Grant and Kelly in the 0ld days maybe, or Clooney and Zeta-Jones. And it is – Reiko and Hajime are absolutely fantastic together. Their oil and water chemistry is truly magic – her earnestness and his wry sarcasm. I could watch the two of them banter at the office or flirt at restaurants all day long. And the little details, like the way he tucks his tie in his pocket while eating soup, add a tremendous sense of realism. She wants to go to the new Hawaiian barbecue place – he drags her to the traditional noodle shop. They smoke together on the roof after burning old documents. He jibes at her, she blushes. It’s magic.

The two of them in the midst of this tremendous world-building is even more creative synergy. Kowloon comes alive here – you feel the energy and smell the sweat and mold and garlic. He takes her on a street food date, which finishes at a teahouse with a giant fish tank. At the office, she notes his dirty cuffs. His reply? He always touches eights (in Chinese culture 8 is a lucky number) – it’s his quirk. “I like little quirks like that.” Hajime says. “Finding familiar quirks can make you happy, and it helps you remember the person with that quirk.” That’s a remarkably profound observation, and at the same time tells us so much about Hajime as a character.

As that show – the old-school romance with the gritty vibe – I think Kowloon Generic Romance could be great. But there’s another layer here, and Terra is certainly involved. Even before the shock ending – the waiter at Goldfish Teahouse tells Reiko she and Hajime are engaged, and she has no memory of it – there are hints that weird stuff is going on here. Like Reiko’s eyesight suddenly improving to 20-20 for example (which leads to a charming sidebar about her glasses). Terra is certainly involved, and the question of memory and nostalgia are at the heart of this for sure. But at this point we have no details. It’s just another intriguing layer to add to what’s already a compelling setup.

The only fly in the ointment here that other reason for caution – the announcement that the anime intends to do a “complete story” in 13 episodes. Since the manga is ongoing and already at 10 volumes, that’s very concerning. Tanaka Jin has a solid resume as an adapting writer and perhaps Mayzuki will be involved in the planning, but it’s hard to imagine there won’t be significant stumbles in making that happen. Everything else is a solid green light though, so at this point all we can do is hope for the best.

ED: “Koi no Retronym (恋のレトロニム)” by mekakushe