When I was little, six or seven years old, I used to wonder where babies came from.
The story about a hardworking stork carrying them around had started to seem less plausible by that age. Moreover, our home didn’t even have a chimney! No, no, it just didn’t add up. I had realized by that time that mummy and papa were tricking me and not telling me the true story of how I came to be on this planet. So, one day, I confronted my mother about the truth. “I would be tricked no longer. Hmph!” I must have thought to myself. I remember pestering my mother till she finally gave in and told me that it was she herself who gave birth to me. That after she had married my father, she had gotten ‘pregnant’ and a whole nine months later I had come out of her tummy. Which, truth be told, sounded even more preposterous than being delivered by a stork. But since she assured me that it really was the truth, I reluctantly believed her.
I had asked her how does a person get ‘pregnant’ and she’d told me that, “After a boy and a girl get married and start living together and fall in love with each other even more, they try to show their love by making a baby.”
“But how do they show their love?” I had asked.
I remember the question flustering her for some reason and her only response being, “When you’re older, you would understand”. Heh, little did she know that I was a real smart kid. I had seen plenty of movies to know that when a boy and a girl were meant for each other, they’d share a kiss.
That’s how they showed that they loved each other.
Have you ever walked down a street?
Have you done so when there’s no one around?
Have you done so when it’s so dark out that even the stray dogs that are usually hostile towards anyone they see serve as a reassurance to you?
Maybe you have and maybe an abandoned street at night doesn’t feel any different to you than a bustling one during the day. But a large factor of how something as trivial as this affects us inevitably comes down to our gender.
In Episode 2 of Kageki Shoujo, while scrubbing the floor as part of an initiation ritual at her training academy, Sarase Watanabe exclaims that it was her good fortune in being born as a girl that allowed her the opportunity to be admitted to such a prestigious school and give her a shot at achieving her dream of being an Opera Singer.
You see, she’s glad to have been born a girl. She feels that she’s in a way… lucky.
We also get an exploration into the character of Watanabe’s mentor, Risa Nakayama. She’s at first cold towards Watanabe and is playing her part as the strict senior who gives the freshman a hard time, telling her how she won’t make it as a lead actress in the troupe and that she’d better give up. In response to being put down like that, you’d expect Watanabe to answer back to Risa with steadfast determination as to how she’s gonna prove her wrong. But instead… she starts bawling. Absolutely sobbing her lungs out like a baby. The suddenness of it all takes Risa aback just like it does the audience but it’s not meant to serve purely as a comedic moment. Watanabe is crying because all her life she’s been told that she can’t do something or the other and all her life she’s tried to prove people wrong. She’s again being told the same by someone who’s judged her capabilities in mere minutes making an assessment of her worth, and to her it isn’t of much value. So, she’s visibly upset.
She’s not giving in and accepting being boxed-in and told what she can or cannot do by someone else. Like Risa did herself. In a way, Watanabe mirrors Risa but with every chance that she might just be able to avoid going down the same path and end up doing what Risa should’ve done. It’s a cruel realization, to look at a better version of yourself; who you could’ve been.
Later on, the girls go see the auditorium where the professional actors perform and are naturally overwhelmed by the possibility of one day being able to go up on that stage and have an entire audience hang off of their every word. The journey of getting to do that and the discovery of who among them is able to do that is what will form the crux of the show going forward but of course to get to that point, they will be forced to confront harsh realities and the demons of pasts unforgotten.
And on that note, we get to the proverbial elephant in the room. The reason why this post started with anecdotes about things seemingly unrelated to the story this show seems to be telling, at least to anyone who hasn’t seen it: Episode 3.
The manner in which you react to this episode, to the events and scenarios it depicts, is going to vary from person to person. And honestly, I wouldn’t even beat around the bush here, the extent to which you are impacted by it is also infallibly going to come down to your life experiences and thus, in a way, your gender. Now, I just want to make this clear, this is not an attempt in trying to indict all men as monsters and implying that any guy who watched this episode won’t even feel a tingle inside his chest. Neither am I trying to discredit any guy who was as affected by these events as me, as being any less emotionally receptive. Instead, what I am trying to say is that if you appreciate these kinds of slow-burn character dramas and if you’re a girl, there is a higher probability that this episode is going to hit like an absolute sledgehammer of pathos.
I’m sure if you ever walked home from school by yourself and saw a group of hostile-looking men stare you down, you must have felt afraid. The only difference is that if you’re a guy, you fear that these men might kill you and if you’re a girl, you fear that they might do something worse. If you’re a guy, the events depicted in this episode are a very real depiction of abuse and if you’re a girl, they’re just a possible reality.
Ai Narata could have been any of us. She is so many of us.
It’s a pretty common trick storytellers use while writing their female characters: “Make them broken”. The easiest way to do this is to give them a traumatic backstory, put in an exaggerated depiction of an abusive event and voilà, you’ve got one sympathetic female character. Trauma has historically been a plot device that has been used to illicit unearned attachment to a character. It’s used to have us pity them. But in Kageki Shoujo, mangaka Kumiko Saiki and especially director Kazuhiro Yoneda treat Ai’s past with such absolute sincerity that not for one second does it feel exploitative. This is most certainly an example of the anime elevating the source material and making it feel even more affecting in motion.
Everything on screen just played out in such a visceral, undramatized fashion that it made me invariably put myself in Ai’s shoes and the sheer weight of it all quickly reached a point that I had to pause the episode because I was genuinely having difficulty in breathing.
But of course, that’s not the kind of story Kageki Shoujo is. Sure, it’s going to unearth elements of our characters’ pasts but it’s not content with wallowing in them. It’s instead a story about overcoming any possible traumas they all might be facing instead of having them be handicapped by them for eternity. Ai Narata is going to overcome her past. And so will we all.
After following anime for more than a decade, you end up developing a sort of immunity to any feelings that stories in this medium used to illicit within your heart. That’s why episodes like this become a necessary occurrence which remind you of what feeling too much feels like. Kageki Shoujo’s episode 3 was such an emotional assault which put me through such hell that it’s almost certain I would never go back to it. Yet, I am so very glad it exists.
This is the single best piece of entertainment media I have seen all year. And I hate it with all my heart.
Yeah, trauma has been used as backstory for characters since…I don’t know, the time Homer wrote the Odyssey, and definitely agree with your assessments. Having read the manga, I knew the anime was going to adapt this part, as it’s such an integral part of her character, not doing so would just make her come off as a one-note misandrist. And I definitely agree that Yoneda’s direction really helped: There was no leering or fanservicey moments, it focused less on the body parts and more on the atmosphere and sheer terror of it all, and even though Ai’s stepdad didn’t go farther with it than he did, the anime still makes it clear that Ai should never have gone through it at all, along with the victim blaming she got from her mom afterward. Fuck her mom and stepdad, BTW.
Yeah, I have actually read up some of the discussion surrounding this episode online and some people seem to think that her mom’s portrayal isn’t ‘realistic’ as no parent would ever prioritize their significant other over their child. And well, to that, I can only say that I am glad that that’s not a reality they are familiar with. As I have seen it happen with my friends more than once. Most of the times, people do exactly what Ai’s mother does. They just shrug off the incident as a child exaggerating what may have happened or worse, choose to keep a blind eye to it altogether. It’s cruel and seems illogical and unrealistic but it happens.
People actually don’t believe that there are such things as awful parents and that awful parents aren’t realistic? Well, that’s utter bullcrap, as I know plenty of people who had to deal with parents who were just like Ai’s. Makes you wonder just how sheltered they are in that regard if they’re so convinced people like Ai’s mom don’t exist, because they do.
I’ve got a bit of story to tell and it relates to the 3rd episode, in this case what exactly happened isn’t clear, but a mother of a friend wasn’t exactly what would be called a pillar of motherhood, she was an alcoholic and her boyfriend did something to said friend and the story goes from the account she was pretty neglectful about the whole child raising thing too.
Weird things happen when you’re young aswell, said woman NEVER gave off bad vibes around me, sometimes you’re too young to notice someone is being mistreated.
I know what I’m about to say is less bad that this episode or the above, but there’s stuff I’ve laughed about at the time and looking back in regards to myself that when I think harder on it was probably a bit creepy, one time when I was 13 and I TRIED my best to look feminine where possible in my teens especially, my mother told me I didn’t notice there were these dudes checking me out at a bar, nothing happened obviously, but yeah it is weird, dudes looking at a real 13 year old.
Second time I was older and ran into some elderly dude, I humoured the guy for a while but as soon as he started asking to get me to go off with him I basically went “Okay I’m off now to the movies”, I mean I laughed but yes, at that point I knew what he wanted.
Sorry fir the tldr, this just made me think. I just wanted to mention that even on a lesser degree there are leery dudes out there.
I wouldn’t call the account of what happened with you as being not as bad, Kaiser. It was significant enough that you still remember the incident to this day. I personally don’t believe that it’s healthy to compare the intensity of unpleasant past experiences. But I do believe that it’s essential that we talk about them with people who might understand.
Though I see the problem with such discourses as well. People are quick to label anyone who talks about these things as someone giving an opinion based upon their biases and most who don’t agree or have not encourtered similar incidences tend to label us as prejudiced towards men when talking about it. But we aren’t. I am not. I don’t believe that all men are evil. I don’t believe that all men are capable of committing such terrible acts solely based upon their desires.
But the fact remains that some are. And most of the time, it’s really hard to tell the good ones apart from the evil.
Perhaps bad phrasing on my part. Didn’t want to feel like I was coming of some kind of wrong way so I worded my post perhaps over-cautiously.
I’d like to think 100% that the old man the second time MIGHT not have been all that dodgy, cause he seemed funny and conversational at first, but you have to be suspicious sometimes.
Y’know whats bad though? When I saw glasses guy in episode 2 I initially thought HE was going to be the dodgy guy, then episode 3 shows up and its the stepfather as we know.
@Armitage: Regarding the sex-ed thing when you’re younger and not knowing stuff, I remember in primary school asking my dad “I got called a faggot, and what does gay mean?” Or something along those lines.
The naivety can sometimes have funny results aswell though, a girl I knew who was way more knowledgeable than me about the birds and the bees back then asked me “Has your time of the month come yet?”
And I ended up saying “eh, um, no..not yet” awkwardly.
As for episode 3, I think men could be disturbed by the abuser in this episode , because they wouldn’t want to be seen or see or imagine themselves as an abuser.
Armitage, I am a man, and I too felt that Kageko Shoujo!!’s Episode 3 was the best episode in anime this entire year has had to offer.
That stalker inching closer and closer to Ai and Sarasa while holding Ai’s bag reminded Ai of when Seiji made a huge dinner for her in an attempt to groom her, which is why she ultimately ran off. Aside from Taichi, Ai has grown to associate seemingly good behaviour from males as being a ploy to cause her harm, and that scene really nailed how Ai was reliving her trauma all over again. Kudos to Pine Jam for nailing the scene. I am so pleased to have watched this episode, and this episode will probably be the highlight of the year for me.
Yes, I agree that the show’s framing and direction for the entire flashback segment was masterfully done. Another thing that really helps make the whole segment come across as even more vile is surprisingly the character designs. Everyone in this show, be it the girls or the guys (Taichi, Watanabe’s friends from back home) are drawn with very pretty character designs. They look elegant and aesthetically pleasing. Even Ai’s mom, while older, looks gorgeous. But, the man she brings home to meet her daughter has the face of a much older man, making the POV shot of him getting closer to Ai feel especially nauseating. There’s just so much care put into the entire scene.
Another element that greatly carried through the helplessness of the whole situation Ai finds herself in was the use of sound. After getting assaulted Ai runs off to her room, and wraps herself around in a blanket and then proceeds to stab the Teddy Bear she was given as a gift using a pair of scissors. But strangely her actions barely make a sound. She is able to puncture the bear through repeated attempts but any single stab is not strong enough on its own. In this moment Ai is a little girl who doesn’t even have the strength to hurt an inanimate stuffed toy. And a man’s just broken her in half.
Like I always say, sometimes you don’t need high-budget production values to make the emotional heft of a story carry through to the viewer.
And I am sorry Vance, if I came off in any way as patronizing in the review or making it sound like this is an episode made exclusively for women. That was never my intention. I just poured out my thoughts based upon how the events that transpired made me feel. But trust me, I could not be more glad that you were able to appreciate it just as much.
One addition I want to bring up, I think this episode itself actually did a good job in showing that some guys aren’t bad, like her young uncle for example.
Also, I’ve seen one of the manga for this series listed as josei, but the other as seinen?
Wasn’t expecting the overly-strict remarks from the teacher later on in the episode which upset the girl to that level.
Yes, exactly. That’s nice to see. In fact almost every other man in the other show has been portrayed in a positive light of sorts. I do feel that even the idol fan would turn out to be a decent guy, albeit misguided.
As for the physical critiques by the teacher, it was quite harsh. But I feel that with position the girls seem to be vying for, they will have to face so much competition that it’s expected for their teachers to take the same kind of approach that JK Simmons takes in Whiplash.
I guess I’m the only one not buying this new wave of deep realistic virtue signaling shows. These feel novel only because of their hyper-focus and forced subtlety. There is nothing deep, novel, fascinating or enlightening to see here, just another lousy show throwing evil grin characters on your screen out of nowhere to give you tonal whiplash that some people here mistake for catharsis.
“this episode itself actually did a good job in showing that some guys aren’t bad”
I do not think any show needs to show something so obvious. Do you listen to yourself? You are praising the show for not depicting every male character as a horrible human being. By this definition, literally every show out there did a good job, but this is the first time I see someone praise any for it.
Dont mean to pick any bones, but I see this show as absolute failure. Its made of the same cloth as Nihon Chinbotsu 2020 or Koe no katachi. It is amazing how even the biggest names are sinking so fast nowadays: Muasa and that sinking crap, Shinkai’s soulless KyoAni clone movies, Ikuhara’s Kumas were at least watchable for a while, shabadadu, but Sarazanmai legit gave me cancer, Anno rebuild Eva so many times I dont even care to watch 4,0. These guys gave us masterpieces – Eva, Utena, GitS, heck Patlabor 2nd movie has become so relevant, that in 2020 it became reality! Why isnt Oshii making such masterpiece social commentary right this moment? Because he is busy with Vlad Love, apparently. These people now compete for who makes bigger abomination, in a very literal sense, and it is as jarring as it is laughable.
I think we finally know what the post-moe anime era is defined by: political correctness and crazy (for attention). The few remaining watchable shows are those that go full fanservice, like Gotoubun Hanayome or Gundam Thunderbolt. So I reeeeeally wonder how MuvLuv anime is gonna turn out. When Takeru starts bitch slapping Sumika, everyone’s gonna lose it.
If it was Sumika here in this show, she would Drill Milky Punch Gagarin that pedo into stratosphere and hour later beat Takeru’s ass in ValgernOn. That’s how you show people to be strong, stay strong and save in the name of true love. Not this fantasizing about killing every man on planet crap.
Btw, MuvLuv is notable here, because apparently, in ep 1 of Kageki Shoujo, Wakamoto Radhabinod reached 2nd critical velocity and left Muv Luv universe to prepare these noobs for BETA invasion. These girls have no idea what’s comin, unfortunately Takeru is only coming in October and by then BETA will have eaten everyone, unless Radhabinov becomes Love Nucleus.
Didnt know Wakamoto is still voicing. this legend has become voice acting God. Did you guys know there is a Wakamoto Nanosuit mod for Crysis? Genius. Maximum Sutrengsu, he says. 10/10. Would play again.
I think the reason Kaiser mentions the show not portraying all men in a negative light is to highlight the fact that even with the events depicted in this episode, Kageki Shoujo isn’t motivated by political agenda or the idea that “all men are evil”. Sure it’s a granted thing to have in your story but when your story is about the sexual abuse of an underaged girl, it becomes more important to highlight that notion.
And to counter your other argument, do all shows need to be politically correct to be good? No. Is a show that’s trying to stand by for politically correct notions considered bad? Also no.
Armitage,That’s probably a far better and concise way of getting across what I was trying to say than when I tried getting the same thing across with my own comment.