The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I briefly summarize the past week of my personal journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of pop culture.
Hi folks, relatively lean update this week because I haven’t been sleeping well and am still sick. Hopefully what I’ve got written is interesting to you!
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Kageki Shoujo!! – For whatever reason, I’ve held Kageki Shoujo!! at arm’s length. I’m not entirely sure why. Was I afraid it would disappoint me somehow? I like to think of myself as above that kind of behavior (shows are going to be what they’re going to be, going into them “bracing for them to get bad” doesn’t actually change anything, natch). But I’m as inclined toward the ‘aimless skeptic’ impulse as anyone who spends too much time on the internet. Still, the series’ fifth episode has proved to me that it’s the real thing. Arguably I should’ve caught on back when it managed to competently tackle something as deadly-serious as sexual assault a few episodes back. But, while I’ve been lucky enough to lead a life free of that particular evil, I have absolutely felt ugly, untalented, and worthless before. Which brings us to Ayako Yamada, a supporting character who developed an eating disorder a few episodes back, and who the latter half of episode five centers on.
Dealing with Yamada’s eating disorder is necessary for keeping the series’ thematic core coherent. But the episode opens with a reprieve; the conclusion of the prior week’s plot-line, where Ai and Sarasa both finally become friends and commit themselves fully to their goal of becoming the top stars in the Kouka Troupe. In particular, there are hints of Sarasa’s abilities as an actress, which may far exceed what anyone expected of her, something I really hoped the show would lean into.
But it’s Yamada’s story that definitely does steal the show here, marking Kageki Shoujo!! as the first anime of the season to make me tear up. Yamada has been a minor character in the series, and the eating disorder that she developed several episodes ago threatened to take her out of the series entirely. Indeed, in episode five a conflux of her waning health, her dance instructor’s nasty attitude, her failing grades, and a spat with Ai send her spiraling, and it does look for a while like she’s going to drop out. It’s only an impassioned plea from her music teacher that convinces her to stay. A time skip later, we’re rewarded at the end of the episode with her leading the music class in song and showing off her wonderfully bright, expressive, timbre.
Would I choose to, I could criticize that the series does not spend enough time “working” this development for it to feel “natural”. The entirety of what I summarized is over in about 15 minutes of footage. I could too criticize that the series does not explicitly condemn her dance instructor, but that would be willfully ignoring that her motives are presented as understandable but not remotely sympathetic. The tightly-wound storytelling, I would argue, actually helps a lot in keeping the anime from dragging, something that is a real concern when writing stories that deal with material this heavy. (And of course I have yet to get to episode six, given that the show comes out on Sundays. Sigh!)
Magia Record – As last week, my recap sums up my thoughts here. It’s no episode one but I still loved it a lot.
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Other articles from MPA this past week:
- The Manga Shelf: Mirror, Thy Name is KINE-SAN NO 1-RE CINEMA
- Twenty Perfect Minutes: Eureka Seven Episode 48 – “Ballet Mechanique”
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