An episode about Kushima. Again, this episode is about the things people leave behind in their past, and at the same time it’s a great chance to get some more insight into his character. As it turns out, he used to be an excellent violinist when he was young, though he quit at a certain time.
I first thought that he quit due to the wound he received when he tried to stop Haru from plunging into the glowing red sea, but instead his decision to quit was a bit more complex. My lack of Japanese didn’t understand his exact reason, even with a dictionary, but it’s basically that he saw no reason to continue to improve his skills anymore. He already was at the top, and there was no practical use for his talents anymore. He lost his passion, so he quit.
Since this is probably the only anime apart from Milennium Actress with characters that age for more than fifty years and explores more than just “suffering”, it can really show us some interesting stuff. I have no idea when exactly Kushima quit playing the violin, but it’s likely to be around forty years ago. Not only is he still carrying around the things he did, but the people around him who admired his work also still carry those memories. In this episode, we meet a violinist who became great due to his urges to be accepted by the far superior Kushima, who already was very businesslike back then. Am I also right that he once was a girl, and then changed genders?
I’m looking forward to the next episode, as it seems to be going back to the supernatural roots of this series. That girl has me intrigued for some reason.
I liked this episode very much as well as the previous ones in this series. This series gives me a certain different good feeling.
I keep wondering why Kushima hasn’t aged, is it because he is spending most of his time under sea, or why?
I’m not sure if it was mentioned somewhere, since I’m not that good at japanese.
Thank you for blogging this, I started to watch this series since I saw you are bloggong it. 🙂