After the severe disappointment of Fumetsu no Anata e’s late May to early June run, I wasn’t particularly eager to revisit the series, but I knew that its style of storytelling would lead to a conclusion for Gugu’s arc before too long. That conclusion arrived a couple weeks ago, and though it didn’t bowl me over like March’s sendoff, I was happy with it. (There’s your TL;DR if you needed one.) Synthesizing the content of these three episodes in a longer, more holistic piece would be ideal, but it’s been weeks since I’ve seen the older ones, so I’m just going to touch on the highlights and lowlights of each. Thoughts on the second half of Gugu’s story begin after the jump, so click on through if you Do Read posts that aren’t Too Long.
10: If you want to talk about highlights, this episode had a pretty major one: Gugu’s fight with the Nokker. Nokkers, we learned this week, are the names for the beings who copy Fushi’s abilities and steal his memories, adopting forms based on their surroundings in the process. This one seemed to be made of vines, making its transformation into the monstrous Oniguma even more menacing than normal – there was a brief but densely-drawn cut of the Nokker bearing down on Gugu that made my hair stand on end (starting at 11:40). Moments like that one and the shots of “Oniguma” set aflame after Gugu’s Booze Breath attack were great – so great, in fact, that they rescued the episode from Fumetsu’s trademark disregard for scene progression. Sending us from the middle of a battle with a threatening enemy straight to an unrelated conflict between Rean and her parents was a directorial choice that I simply couldn’t understand. The whole time Gugu was listening to their family squabbles, Fushi was fighting for his life in a forest not even a mile away. Who gives a shit about some helicopter parents and their spoiled daughter when the main character is at risk of death?
11: But hey, at least Gugu got yoked during the ensuing four year timeskip. If we’re honest with ourselves, his victory against the Nokker was entirely unrealistic, but now that he’s got a Spartan figure his action hero status makes a little more sense. I loved this change, indicative as it was of his determination to live by his own power – which also explains how swiftly Gugu rejected his brother after his arrival at the brewer’s home. The show utterly botched the brothers’ previous encounter in episode 8, so this one felt hollow as well, but it was consistent with Gugu’s new worldview nonetheless. Everybody else aged four years, too (including Fushi), though Rean hardly seemed to grow an inch; I would have liked to see a more radical design change for her, since the plot shifted to prioritize her upcoming betrothal around this point. At what a shift it was – the way her sixteenth birthday celebration was scripted felt like a prolonged video game cutscene starring an annoying romantic rival character. The author used every tool at their disposal to make Gugu feel unwelcome, even though Rean was obviously into him by that point. We didn’t have to suffer for too long, though…
12: …because another Nokker attack was just around the corner. If any one of these installments is responsible for getting me back on board the Fumetsu train, it’s probably this one. It wasn’t without its issues – the clumsiness of Fushi’s episode-ending deception didn’t receive proper framing, in my opinion – but Gugu was given an opportunity to put his new strength and his devotion to Rean to the test, and boy, did he ace it. The fight with the Nokker (now in rock form) was smartly assembled, with stills that highlighted its imposing size and bursts of sweet animation given to its pummeling strikes. That we ended up in a “Gugu uses his body as a shield to protect Rean” scenario felt like a logical extension of what came before, but the real stunner was the Beauty and the Beast moment where Rean leaned up to kiss him during his final moments. This series had previously marked Gugu’s helmet as a symbol of shame, but Rean pushed past that idea and quite literally embraced who he was inside. Sometimes a Disney kiss just feels right, and this was one of those occasions.
Now that Gugu has passed on, Fushi will carry his spirit into Fumetsu’s next arc, which I’m only sort of looking forward to. It’s just the tail ends of these stories that really speak to me, it seems, though that’s subject to change with each new setting and cast of characters. I’ll check in with the show around three more times before it wraps in late August – until the first of those posts arrives, though, I’m going to keep my anime load light.
