Also, just for the record I did watch the first two episodes of Kami no Niwatsuki Kusunoki-tei and quite liked it. Not sure I’d cover it but it may sneak into the Patron Pick poll. I admit I mostly checked it out because Miyu Irino sings the OP but for a LN adaptation, it’s very solid. Positive and not too complicated. Kind of a low-rent Natsume Yuujinchou meets Youkai Apato. It’s always nice to have a feels-oriented Shinto series on the schedule (and any show that has Fuji Shinshuu in a major role has a leg up on the competition).
Aishiteru Game o Owarasetai – 01
We’re getting down to the last of the major premieres of Spring. I Want to End This Love Game is one of a gaggle of wild card romcoms clustering towards the bottom of the expectations ladder. A couple of those have been pretty decent, and I’d put this show in that category. It’s certainly nothing ground-breaking and pretty modest production-wise, but it’s cute and the two leads are pretty likable. As romcoms go there are worse things to build on than that.
The deal here is two kids, Miku and Yukiya, firmly entrenched in the childhood friends trope. The hook is that since 6th grade they’ve played a one-up game where each tries to embarrass the other by making florid confessions of love (and other gestures). Now they’re about to enter high school and no duh, that dynamic doesn’t wash anymore. Superficially Miku seems to be thoroughly in the ascendancy, and she certainly draws better reactions from him than he from her – usually. But she’s actually been into him right from the beginning, whereas until about year two of middle school it really was just a game to Yukiya.
That’s a cute if safe concept, and there are some amusing elements here. Yukiya’s haircut, the whole kabedon thing, his certainty that shoujo manga will deliver the key to her heart (that seems to be a very common trope in romcom – and general shounen – these days). Their exchange about the length of her skirt (he was absolutely right) reveals that he still has standing here – she’s just better at covering than he is. I think we all know how this will end up but it might be fun seeing how it gets there.
Hidarikiki no Eren – 02
I’m somewhat befuddled by Eren the Southpaw in a way I find quite appealing. I’m not quite sure what it is or where it’s going, in a more profound way than would already be the case with material I don’t know. While it is a manga it comes to anime via a visual novel originally. And VN adaptations do tend to be structurally unpredictable. Not usually in a good way to be honest, but that’s not the case so far with Hidarikiki no Eren.
We remain almost entirely in the past – as in high school – here, which is not what I expected. Slowly and quite artfully I might add we’re let in on the nuances of Eren’s life that were hinted at last week. Her mom looks distractingly like Balsa (hey, this is I.G.) but it’s her father that was the clear icon of her life. Everyone is operating under the assumption that he committed suicide by walking out into traffic – presumably because of his failure as an artist. Eren has abandoned art because not only does she have to deal with the loss of a parent, but the idea that he chose death rather than raising her – and that it was art that drove him to it. Eren instinctively knows this is wrong, but all logic contradicts her.
A major theme here is the contrast between a natural like Eren and someone like Kouichi, who has virtually no talent and nothing going for him except love for art. Sayuri, meanwhile, continues to dutifully support him despite getting no recognition at all for her obvious romantic attraction to him. She talks him into applying to the same art college, and to joining a local studio run by a kouhai of Eren’s father, Kaidou Ryuuta. Kaidou has his own problems – his eyes are going – but he acts as a sort of surrogate father for Eren as he vainly tries to steer her back into art. He’s brutally honest with Kouichi, but nothing seems to deter him. I would bet he doesn’t get colds very often…
The climactic moment of this arc – the sunrise and the effect it has on Kouichi – is highly theatrical but it’s effective and very artfully (no pun intended) executed. In the end what finally unlocks drawing for Kouichi is emulating Eren by using his left hand. That gets him into the art school (though Eren will go to an elite art college in Tokyo) but it doesn’t make him anything more than competent. Is Eren fundamentally the story of his struggle or of her genius? Where is it headed from here? Search me. I would have guessed art school but I was already wrong once. I’m quite invested, though. This is interesting stuff, probably the most committed art anime since Blue Period, and with its veteran staff Eren the Southpaw is doing some really creative things both visually and narratively.
