After years and years of wishing for it to happen, one show did finally break from the shackles of imprisonment that Netflix enforces on the shows it’s looking to produce, but sadly, it’s now caught within another nightmare: Fansubbing ;_;
It’s a pity that most anime-only viewers would be getting their first exposure to this story through awkwardly translated dialogue. But hey, at least it does make you turn back the years to the glory days of 2007!
And I would indeed suggest that if you’re interested in this series, you’d be well served to wait for the official Netflix releases which are a couple of weeks behind for the rest of the world. But hey, no pressure, of course. You do you.
Either way, for all who’ve already watched this episode with the dodgy subs that are available for it, let’s just have a chat about it, shall we?
Starting off with the overall production once more. This week was a little shaky in some aspects for the show. The fact still remains that while the art and color pallette for the anime remain very appealing, the animators do seem to cut corners at points. An odd scene too many with off model characters, a few instances of people in the background not having their faces drawn in. Nothing too frequent to be a major travesty but unfortunate enough to stick out.
Though, again, in exchange for said cut corners, the art pieces the show puts on display for the viewer are just… breathtaking. Like I said for the previous episode, the production team really does not hold back when it comes to these. Be it Edgar Degas’ impressionistic masterpiece ‘Examen de danse’ that catches Yatora’s eye at the Museum:
This absolutely unreal piece submitted by a student:
And hell, even Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ is really brought to life here:
Though, yes. None of these pieces would matter if the beholder has no eye for appreciation of them. And that’s what the art instructor at the prep school, Ooba-san, tells Yatora to do. She tells him that he’s missing a special something in his art. He has a canvas and all the paint in the world but not quite the right brush strokes. He has no voice. But his art must sing, or else it would just be invisible.
Ooba-san then tasks all the students to go visit a museum and find out how the works that inspire them. Yatora decides to do that along with his newfound familiar Takahashi-kun, who is just about unsocial and Haruka Hashida, a prodigy who’s pretty much the opposite. Over at the museum, Yatora again quickly realizes that he isn’t able to fully dissect the intricacies of an art piece quite like his more skilled companions but he is still able to feel. He looks at the aforementioned Degas and though he still cannot look at it from a critic’s lens, it stirs up something inside him. It’s just proof that Yatora may not be an artistic genius but he has a heart. And if his art can convey that emotion, it will be worthwhile.
The B-part of the episode focuses on Ryuji, a misfit among misfits. A lot of the online discourse surrounding him after this episode seems to be many viewers’ surprise on finding out he’s a guy. Ryuji is what you would call a cross-dresser, a transvestite. Someone who dresses up in clothes associated with the gender opposite to the one they are born into. A quote unquote “trap”, as pop culture would label him. Gets a nice chuckle out of one, doesn’t it?
Ryuji is loved by the girls who treat him as their prince. But really, their appreciation is borne more of novelty than anything. They like him because he’s just not like the other guys. Though, the cruel reality still exists where such a scenario may hardly arise. After all, the majority of people in our society are not really as approving of deviants. I for one am well aware of the kind of abuse, both verbal and physical, someone like Ryuji would have had to endure if he was born in my country. But hey, it’s anime. Escapism is what it’s always given to so many of us.
After Ryuji proposes to a senior he likes and they decide to go on a date, you wonder maybe it actually will work out for him, this once. That he might have some semblance of a normal, affectionate relationship. But unfortunately, the senior doesn’t know who Ryuji is, or rather who he’s not. He’s not a girl. Then, when the truth does come out and the two of them have to break up, the senior does something truly cruel to Ryuji – he hugs him. On the surface, sure it looks like a kind gesture. But as Ryuji says himself, “He would never do that if I was a girl”. And he wouldn’t have. But he never saw Ryuji as one of the many girls he would have turned down and walked away from if he didn’t like. He saw him as someone – as some thing – far more delicate. So he hugged him to make sure he doesn’t fall through and break. He just wanted to be kind to Ryuji, even more so than he needed to be.
Alas, at times, kindness is a dagger.
I hear Yatora’s friend considered trans and that her name is Yuka, with Ryuji being their deadname.
Oh, yes. I do believe that they identify more as Yuka. But up till this point, it’s more that they are transvestite and not necessarily transsexual. There’s a lot of grey area here and the two don’t always overlap. But Yatora uses that name when addressing Ryuji/Yuka hence I decided to stick with it for the time being.