As shows are wrapping up now, we have reached a point of almost tiredness; maybe even ennui. This happens at the end of every season of course, but perhaps for me, it hits some more. And I think that it has something to do with my poor choice of show picks for the entire year. When the time comes when I’ll be writing about my top 5 shows for the year, it’ll be something I’ll have to think long and hard about. Some are easy picks, while others not so much. It hasn’t helped that I just haven’t really been catching up on seasonal shows as much as I used to either. Some well-received shows have come out, and I have just been so…tired to catch up on them. I need a good poke a lot of the time.
When Will Ayumu Make His Move? Episode 11
So was it a mistake to pick Ayumu, when I could have chosen something far more well-received like Lycoris Recoil, which even Hideo Kojima adored? Well it’s too late to be thinking about that now. Last week revealed that Urushi and her consort were heading off on their third-year school trip, so I guess we can imagine how much both she and Tanaka are going to be missing each other. Well I think it’s awesome now that Rin has decided to put her own feelings firmly aside, and be a wingman for her senpai.
I think that after the amazing school trip episode I saw in Komi Can’t Communicate, the bar I have for such episodes is that much higher. Here, the third-years head off to Nara, where Urushi’s little group don’t waste any time in gossiping about her relationship with Tanaka. She ends up telling them about all the things that the two of them have gotten up to at this point, and it’s rather amusing to watch the others look at her and say: “What the hell? How is this not a couple?!”
The ending of this episode got slightly more serious though. Tanaka decided not to call her with the intent of not ruining her school trip, and yet Urushi has been clutching her phone throughout the whole trip expecting him to contact her and say something. I was wondering what next week’s final episode would be like, and so I like the way it’s being set up, with Urushi still on her school trip and Tanaka being both so near and so far, and a phone call away.
The question is though whether we’ll get a genuine confession next week, or whether the episode will build up for a second season. Ayumu will likely be a show I will not return to, so truth be told, I won’t mind what the outcome turns out to be. It’s been a slow 11 weeks when it came to this show, and it took some time for me to like it, so I’m hoping that the final episode will give us something to chew on. Something that will make this couple more solid.
Call of the Night Episode 11
Just as last week’s episode of Call of the Night went on a different path, so does this one. And just as the filler episode we saw last week has direct links to the main story, so does this one. Here, while Yamori is out trying to promote Nazuna’s comfort buddy and massage business, he runs into private detective Anko Uguisu, who is the kind who looks for missing kids and cheating husbands. Here she asks Yamori whether he has heard of a guy called Akiyama, the same guy we saw not so long ago in an episode involving Seri and her finding companionship. As the episode goes on though, we see that there is much more to her than we thought.
A good part of the story is about Yamori finally having some fun with his old human buddies, wandering around their deserted school at night. Mahiru then talks about a school ghost story in how one of the teachers vanished ten years ago and hasn’t been seen since. Of course, just as expected, this said teacher arrives to attack them only for Anko to come in and save the day…in a very unusual way which is kind of spoilery. This episode is unusual in that Nazuna is almost left out here, and the focus is instead on Yamori and whether he really wants to become a vampire or not…or whether he’s just some naïve kid led along by a mysterious woman like Nazuna who took advantage of his chronic insomnia.
While Anko is not a vampire hunter per se, her character development (that we hopefully will have more of in the final episodes) will maybe give him a bit of a wakeup call. The vampire femme fatales we have already met have told him that he does not have long to make a final decision. Anko does not want naïve kids like Yamori to go on fool’s errands like wanting to be vampires without really thinking about it beforehand. Vampires and humans are two different things, and the way she sees it, for him to just submit like this is ridiculous. Akira and Mahiru are also being human supports for him, so perhaps after what Yamori has seen in this episode, he will think long and hard about whether deciding to fall in love with Nazuna and becoming a vampire is a good idea or not. A decision that he has made alone without thinking about the people that will be affected. I’m keenly interested in what kind of final episode Call of the Night will have?
Yurei Deco Episode 12
So what would happen to Berry and Hack now that they have to venture into the Hyperspace alone to find Phantom Zero? Well…nothing happened really. This ending for Yurei Deco felt very rushed and awkward, leaving me with a lot more questions. It turned out that Phantom Zero and Injunction Jo were one and the same: a regular human who was the real person in charge of the Customer Center, and was the real one who acted as censor for social media on Tom Sawyer Island. She created that persona and the Zero Phenomenon as a ‘test’, to find any inquisitive and curious minds and make them a successor. But she found out that the population below were far more concerned about their Love Score than anything else.
Her long-winded spiel about algorithms and systems and resets went over my head, I won’t lie. And the fact that she wasn’t this major antagonist that the show was building her up to be was a real disappointment. She just turned out to be a regular human who was looking for a successor to take her place before she would disappear off on her little airship out into the sea. More like a Willy Wonka who wanted someone like Charlie Bucket to take over his chocolate factory. I’m sure so many people were expecting some kind of face-off, with the ending being the population below waking up and discovering how their fake internet points don’t mean anything. And so the fact that we didn’t get that, and something leaning more on the opposite, is something I think will disappoint the viewers who originally enjoyed the show.
I know Science SARU were trying to give this show this massive philosophical message about the woes of social media and mass censorship, but around halfway through that message began to fall flat, and with this incredibly rushed ending, I can’t really understand what the real ending was supposed to be. The Yurei Detective Club all went their separate and happy ways, with Berry returning home and Finn rebuilding his neighborhood, but this philosophical message the show was trying to give us just felt too obscure to find. It’s as if everyone on the island had forgotten the Zero Phenomenon that affected their Love Scores greatly had never happened.
The artwork of the show has been something stellar to watch though, and the soundtrack was cool to listen to as well, but I’m afraid that’s where I can draw the line. Yurei Deco was a major disappointment for me, and I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that now the show is over.
Akebi’s Sailor Uniform Episode 12
The final episode of Akebi’s Sailor Uniform kind of turned the tables a little. I initially thought that the episode was to cover a lot more of the athletics festival, but instead it centers far more on Akebi’s stage performance for the drama club. Her dance itself is mesmerizing to watch, but the fact that it is intercut with both things Akebi has done to cheer on other teams and her own activities in swimming and volleyball that day adds a cherry on top. It goes and shows us how much of an impact she has made to all of the first-years in school, and not just the other 15 in her class.
Not sure that she was expecting Kizaki to waltz on in an elegant outfit and play the musical piece on both the piano and violin either. I also like how, as we watch this montage, we get reminders of girls we may have forgotten about. Like Minakami, who challenged her to a swim duel, or Tougeguchi who is battling with social anxiety, or Shijou on the tennis club who lost motivation to play after gaining weight. It was rather weird to see time fly so by in this finale though; Akebi’s stage performance was certainly stretched out, to let us see the kind of things she has done. It was also something to see that the other girls saw it was time to cheer her on now, since she had been doing it to them for so long.
There has barely been a single weak moment for me to point out in this show, and so thank you so much for picking this to be my out-of-season show. The writers of this adaptation made sure to turn the show into an incredibly positive and upbeat one, but not make it sickly sweet and saccharine. Those rumors of Cloverworks overworking their staff are awful to hear, I know, but I think…I hope…they are proud of what they accomplished here in this adaptation. I mentioned at the start of the post how I might struggle with finding shows for my top 5, well I can tell you now that Akebi’s Sailor Uniform is already there.
The Fall season sees me with a brand new out-of-season show, with me watching Odd Taxi. I only got to watching the first episode of that but didn’t get any further, so it’s awesome to see I’ll be able to see what the fuss is about with this. I’m also glad that Yurei Deco has finished too. I was pretty hyped for it when it started but it turned out to be a confusing disappointment for my tiny brain. People say that Odd Taxi is a great show, and I hope they are right.