Month: June 2022

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 12

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Heart to Heart! — Let your burning love reach everyone!

– Hoshin Culture Festival Motto

How do you open the two-part finale to your long-running love story? How about your heroine turning to stone and shattering? That’s the visual that Kaguya-sama: Love is War! opens on as its third season draws to a close; girl to granite to rubble. Why? Because Miyuki Shirogane is going to Stanford, and Kaguya Shinomiya knows she can’t stop him. And moreover, knows she shouldn’t.

It’s a visual metaphor, obviously; Kaguya-sama has loved those since it started and it certainly isn’t going to stop using them now. But, the literalization of the sentence “she was shattered by the revelation” gives you a pretty good notion of what we’re all in for here. If Love is War, this is the conflict’s turning point, where the generals and foot soldiers alike earn their medals.

Spare a thought for Hayasaka, who has been mostly-unwillingly playing both roles for ages now, and is who Kaguya goes to for comfort and advice as her carefully-laid plans for a full year of dating fall to pieces. Shirogane isn’t just going to Stanford, he’s graduating a year early to account for cross-Pacific grade differences. For us, it’s an elaboration as to why he’s been acting like time is running out, if it weren’t already obvious. For Kaguya, it’s a sledgehammer to the face. Love is a battlefield, and she’s been ambushed.

Hayasaka, again in her role as a beleaguered advisor, needles her mistress. If the day has to be today, then the confession of feelings—that old Japanese pop media trope so ingrained into the anime landscape that it’s practically part of the scenery—has to be perfect. Kaguya tries different phrasings, Hayasaka shoots almost all of them down. It’s amusing, yes. Kaguya-sama fully empties its bag of visual tricks here; starting with cheerleader-based how-to-confess diagrams and references to the ancient “yukkuri shitte ne” meme.

But the real emotional heft obviously comes when Kaguya-sama reigns it back in. As Hayasaka and Kaguya talk, the room is bathed in a scarlet sunset, and the core point the maid makes is simple; there aren’t any easy outs. Kaguya just has to tell the president how she feels about him somehow. There can be nothing else.

There is just one problem; in order to confess to the president, Kaguya has to find him, first.

In the meantime, theirs is not the only story freefalling through youthful confusion. As she searches high and low for Shirogane, Kaguya catches sight of Ishigami and Tsubame, which serves as a crossfade over to their side of the cultural festival.

Ishigami remains as oblivious-self-conscious as ever, paranoid about coming across as a “creep” for having a command of flower symbology while at the same time being still wholly unaware that what he intended as a simple kind gesture has been taken by Tsubame—and indeed the whole student body—as a declaration of romantic love. Here, Tsubame begs his patience, but because he doesn’t really know what she’s talking about, things get muddled; intentions swept off the ground in the December breeze, and the half-punchline that is Ishigami’s continued unawareness can only do so much to pop the winter evening ambiance. Unintentionally, Ishigami gives Tsubame until March, when the cherry tree they’re standing under blooms, to truly answer his feelings. The gymnast is surprised by his mental fortitude, and the whole sequence is funny, but also very sweet in its own way.

It’s only after the two part that Ishigami gets some sense of what he may have actually done. A festival play recounts the legend that gives the culture festival its heart motif, and our boy comes within striking distance of figuring out that giving hearts out is an implied romantic gesture. Still, the second Tsubame herself takes stage in the play, all rational thought goes out the window for Ishigami, and he promptly stops thinking about it.

But, even if things between them don’t work out, one gets the sense they’ll both be fine in their own way.

Back at our main story, though, Kaguya is lost in her own little world as she prepares to light the culture festival bonfire via flaming arrow. She manages an impressively skippy internal monologue the entire time, as We Want to Talk About Kaguya! leads Karen and Erika cameo off to the side of the scene.

I wonder if Aoi Koga gets paid by the word.

Karen will write a doujin about this later.

But the bonfire-lighting itself is swept aside as the mysterious “phantom thief Arsene” makes his presence known; the papier-mâché dragon jewel is gone, and the thief’s calling cards float in the air en-masse as a shadowy silhouette cuts a looming figure against the night sky.

Of course, no one but us knows that Shirogane is behind all this just yet. Notably, Fujiwara tasks herself with solving the mystery, only for her grandiloquent proclamations of her own genius to dissolve into a puddle as it becomes obvious that most of the ‘clues’ she’s found are either her own inventions or deliberately planted to throw her off. This is Kaguya’s puzzle to solve, and there’s only one actual hint.

Karen, in what is to my recollection her single most substantial contribution to Kaguya-sama‘s story, points out that the small calling cards are made of flame-resistant paper. This sets Kaguya’s own mental wheels a-turning, because that kind of care and preparedness reminds her of a certain someone, and it does not take long for the rest of the game to click into place.

And to give us all just the slightest airbrake of comedy before rocketing into its last half hour, Kaguya-sama then pulls out the one-two punch of “Kaguya dropped the plastic heart she was going to give Shirogane” and “Kaguya does not know how coffee machines work.”

Very good, Miss Shinomiya.

Shirogane, meanwhile, is starting to get flustered. The usual pattern of his where he does something extremely teenager only to cringe himself half to death the following day beginning to kick in as the second day of the culture festival ends. The narrator puts it best; the final battle of this war of love is to be a fistfight.

Kaguya-sama: Love is War!‘s season finale is a fucking hurricane of romantic imagery.

Shirogane’s plan is grandiose, ridiculous, ostentatious, and the sort of thing that only a heartsick teenage boy could dream up. It leans hard on narrative convenience—the strings he’d have to pull make no real sense, and the post-hoc explanations given here don’t really either—and hard on pre-built character sympathy. If someone did this kind of thing in real life and you read about it in the news, they’d be a horrible creep and you’d hate them. This is a “proposing on the Jumbotron” gesture blown up to ridiculous fantasy proportions.

But that of course is part of the beauty of fiction. Kaguya and Shirogane love each other very much; we know this, and have known this. It’s been obvious to everyone, including much of the show’s own cast, for, at this point, real-world years. Anything that moves the needle at all is good. But this? This is insanity. Beautiful, wonderful, romantic insanity. If love is a sickness, Shirogane’s case is terminal.

He uses some mechanical doohickey to pop a massive balloon, sending scores of heart balloons out into the air above the festival, held aloft by the heat from the bonfire, the December night breeze, and the fact that anime is the highest form of art. Shirogane’s winding internal monologue about how he really wants Kaguya to confess first because he needs to feel equal to her only half makes sense, but that doesn’t really matter. None of the obvious little holes in Shirogane’s plan really matter. Do you see how hard Kaguya’s blushing? I got contact flutters from watching this. Frankly, I’m a little envious.

It would be one thing if it stopped there, but it does not.

This isn’t usually what one means when they say “popping the question,” but it certainly feels comparable.

Really stop for a second and think about what he’s asking there. Think about these two characters and their respective situations, think about the enormity of what he’s asking her to do. Even on its own, studying abroad is a huge undertaking. Studying abroad at Stanford University is quite another level beyond that. Doing so in Kaguya’s specific situation is yet another step beyond that. This is an absurd ask. Kaguya says as much.

She says yes anyway. An implicit fuck-it-all to her own upbringing and, really, her entire life up to this point. She doesn’t even really hesitate. She’s giddy, if anything.

They kiss. Obviously, they kiss. On top of a clocktower, hearts surrounding them in the air.

Elsewhere on the festival grounds, Hayasaka blushes like crazy once she realizes what’s going on, and Miko Iino, alone on patrol, is the only one not present at the bonfire. Ishigami brings her a recording—and a plastic heart trinket, for the lost and found—a much more subtly sweet moment that contrasts nicely with the star-scraping, wild gesture that Shirogane’s just pulled off. Could there be something between those two someday? I don’t think it’s impossible. (It will certainly be funny if Ishigami, the character that Kaguya-sama‘s least pleasant fans attach themselves to out of a misunderstanding of his character, ends up having to choose between two women who are into him, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

And just like that, the festival switches off like a lightswitch, and we cut to the morning after. There is a postscript of sorts here; it’s very funny, and sweet in its own way, featuring a rare appearance from Kaguya’s childish “Kaguya-chan” personality. But with all I’ve said here, recapping that bit as well would feel a little pointless. It made me cackle out loud at one point, so you can consider that an endorsement.

It’s a valid question to ask; where, if anywhere, does Kaguya-sama: Love is War! go from here?

Well, not long after the episode aired in Japan, we got an answer of sorts. Whether that’s another season being announced, an OVA, a film, no one really knows yet. But Kaguya and Shirogane’s story doesn’t end here, and that’s the important part. I will spoil nothing, but there is much of the manga left to cover, so I am very curious as to what’s being planned. Kaguya-sama will appear here on Magic Planet Anime again, that much is almost a certainty.

But for now, the romantic rollercoaster ride has come to an end. Until next time, Kaguya fans.

Results for Today’s Battle: Mutual Victory

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 18

In which Buggy the Clown learns not to mess with Luffy’s hat.

Today’s One Piece chapter is another that’s essentially just a single, uninterrupted action scene. It’s also a bit longer than normal, with a few extra pages, presumably to commemorate the start of a new volume. But if you’re inclined to worry that this will dilute the action somehow, rest easy. There really isn’t much to this chapter but 20-some pages of blood and iron, but a series like this doesn’t always need much else.

We do learn one thing, though. That cliffhanger from the end of the last chapter is followed up on immediately; Buggy and Red-Hair Shanks once served on the same ship. Beyond that, we don’t get much detail, and it’s not like Buggy is going to tell Luffy anything else without a very good reason.

Of course, Luffy interprets Buggy’s reluctance to share info in a somewhat different light.

The remainder of the chapter’s pages are largely a tangle of rubber limbs and detaching heads; Luffy and Buggy seem almost an equal match, and I like the comedic detail of the more normal members of Buggy’s crew knowing to stay out of the fight.

What gives Luffy an extra edge? Buggy damaging his hat, of course, first just by nicking the brim and then by full-on impaling it with a trio of stubby daggers. That much is enough to turn the tide in Luffy’s favor.

Will it be enough to actually take the clown down? Well, we’ll find out together, tomorrow.

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

Vote on the Next Let’s Watch for the Summer 2022 Season!

Summer is upon us, anime fans, and with the changing of literal seasons comes also the changing of anime seasons.

I think most of you know the drill by now, but just in case you don’t, here’s how this works. You go to this survey, you check all the boxes for shows you’d be interested in me doing one of my weekly Let’s Watch columns on (there’s no limit. Hell, you could check all of them if you wanted to, as pointless as that would be), and that’s basically it.

I’ve changed the way the list is organized, somewhat. This time around, it simply uses Anichart.net’s order, and I’ve put in every eligible series under both its English-market title and the Romaji title. (In some cases, these are one in the same, those would be the shows with only one title listed.) I don’t use unofficial synonyms. So, for example; Call of the Night is in there both under that title and under the Romaji version of its JP market title, Yofukashi no Uta, but it’s not there under the little-used manga scanlation title Night Owl Song.

As with last season, you’ll note there are a few notable omissions. This is for one of several reasons:

  • It’s a sequel to something I haven’t seen, or I otherwise don’t have necessary pre-existing narrative context.
  • It’s in “streaming jail”, making covering it weekly impractical or impossible.
  • Or I’m planning to cover it anyway. (Although that doesn’t describe anything

I’m not sure how many, exactly, Let’s Watch columns I’ll be picking up this season. There have been some recent structural changes on MPA (I’m sure you’ve noticed, say, the One Piece Every Day project), but I will certainly pick up at least one community pick. This past season I ended up covering the tied-for-third-place Healer Girl as well as the outright winner Spy x Family, so don’t be afraid to punch in votes for obscure stuff even if you don’t think it’ll win. You never know.

I look forward to seeing your responses, anime fans!

Wanna talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers? Consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 17

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

Something I like about One Piece is that it has a certain “ah, just one more chapter” quality to it, at least in the format I’m reading it in. As I write this it’s a few minutes shy of 2AM local, and I should really probably be in bed, but I seriously want to know how this fight between Zolo and Cabaji went, so here I am, reading another chapter at two hours past midnight.

My utterly dreadful sleeping habits aren’t the focus of this column, though. Watching Zolo fuck Cabaji up is.1 And to that end, we get a really great page right near the top of the chapter here, complete with Cabaji dropping an old-timey pirate insult.

To be fair it’s not literally all about these two. Somewhere in here, Nanami sneaks off, assuring Luffy that she’s happy to team up with him….if he can get ahold of Buggy’s treasure and the map of the Grand Line, that is.

Far be it from me to criticize perhaps the most successful mangaka of all time, but what’s going on with Nami’s hand there?

But apart from that little aside, this is very much the Cabaji and Zolo show.

Buggy’s second mate leads with a bunch of crazy, vaguely “circus”-themed bullshit like this.

And Zolo counters by being a much better swordsman than Cabaji is. Eventually, Cabaji has to resort to cheating, and Buggy tries to ‘subtly’ help out his third-in-command. A classic heel move, but it doesn’t work. Luffy is still around, after all.

The trickery doesn’t help, and despite literally bleeding out the entire time, Zolo trounces Cabaji. Eventually finishing him off in what is probably the single best page of the whole chapter.

No, not that onigiri.

Proving that he isn’t actually an immortal sword demon and instead just fights like one, Zolo collapses from blood loss shortly thereafter, leaving Luffy and Buggy to finish the fight on their own.

And then, just as Volume II draws to a close, Buggy drops this particular bombshell.

And much as I am genuinely dying to know what’s up with all of that, it’s probably time for this old sea hag to turn in for the evening. (Besides, I’m leaning a little too heavily on screencaps, which is always a sign that it’s probably time to stop here for the day.) Before I do though, now that we’re two volumes and a couple weeks deep, I just wanted to ask how you’re all feeling about the project so far. Please sound off in the comments (or on my Retrospring) about any thoughts you might have; positive, negative, whatever they may be.

I look forward to hearing from you. See you tomorrow for the start of Volume III, pirates! 🏴‍☠️

1: A danger of late-night writing: I forgot the “is” in this sentence when I first wrote it and only noticed it later. This would be a very different kind of column if that were what happened in this chapter!

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 16

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

Alright, so I accidentally lied yesterday! Today’s chapter is less about the fight between Buggy and Luffy—presumably, that’s still to come—and more about the fight between Zolo and Buggy’s third-in-command Cabaji, who we met yesterday.

There is a little bit of Luffy-centric material, though. Especially when Nami freaks out about his balloon stunt from yesterday’s chapter. (And hey, to be fair to her; I would too.)

But yeah, mostly this chapter concerns the locking of blades between Zolo and Cabaji.

Despite Cabaji’s ‘noble blademaster’ posturing, he’s as dirty as the rest of Buggy’s crew, and he spends a lot of this chapter deliberately trying to re-open Zolo’s wounds.

But if Cabaji thinks that doing so will even out the fight, or even make Zolo an easy target, he’s sadly mistaken.

Live Buggy Reaction

Zolo actually does the rest of Cabaji’s job for him, deliberately injuring himself, just to prove that he doesn’t need to be on level ground with Cabaji to take him down. This kind of hot-blooded vainglorious nonsense is exactly what makes manga like this worth reading.

This pic goes hard, feel free to screenshot.

Once again, this chapter is mostly action (and that looks like it will continue to be the case for at least a little while longer), so I don’t exactly have a ton to say. But certainly, it’s a good chapter; solid, entertaining, and pulpy, exactly what you want out of your weekly comics. (They’re daily for us, but we’ll ignore that little foible.)

For lack of anywhere else to put it I do also want to mention the impressive opening sequence where Buggy uses his crewmen as human shields. Why do they like him again? Oh, but it is such a cool page. Maybe that’s why.

Tomorrow: The two swordsmen battle on!

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

Two Dreams in the Council Room: The Other KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR! Anime

I have written a lot about Kaguya-sama: Love is War! over the years. Before this site even existed, I wrote about it for GeekGirl Authority, and then did so again for its second season. This season I’ve been following the third, writing about it here all the while.

But one thing I’ve not discussed is the second, other anime hidden in plain sight in Love is War! I am talking, of course, about the combined storyline presented by the Season 1 and Season 3 EDs.

Unique to the anime, and with no real equivalent anywhere in the manga, these two EDs tell a wordless, fantastical otherworld version of Love is War!‘s central storyline, blown up to epic fantasy proportions despite their limited runtime. They cross Love is War!’s basic ideas with a setting that begins at Studio Ghibli and ends somewhere out near Starship Trooper. It’s a strange, singular thing, and I love that it exists.

Metatextually, they are presented as a pair of dreams. One had by Kaguya in the student council room as she dozes off after a day of hard work, and the other had by Miyuki in what appears to be the cafe` from season 2.

In this version of the story., Miyuki Shirogane is no student, he’s a plane mechanic. And Kaguya’s status as a “princess” appears to be far more literal, with all that implies. She’s also not human, possibly alluding to her namesake‘s nature as a princess from the Moon. By their nature, neither short has a terribly complex story. Indeed, the lack of any dialogue makes the specific events depicted in each ambiguous to some degree, but there’s no denying that they are telling a story, and that they do fit together.

Like her mundane counterpart, otherworld Kaguya appears to have her heart shut off from the world, and her only real companion is her maid, Hayasaka.

But it seems like some version of the student council did exist here at one point. A brief flash of a framed picture is all we get, but it’s enough to make the conclusion that Kaguya had bonded with these people—just like she did in the real show—only to have them taken away from her.

This frames what follows in a fascinating way; something like a mutual plan, by both this “aviation club” and Kaguya and Hayasaka themselves (the latter takes up a rifle here and looks perfectly at home holding it.) Kaguya escapes from the massive zeppelin all of her lonely isolation shots took place in, and literally sprouts fucking angel wings as she flees. In the pivotal, romantic clincher, she grabs on to Miyuki’s hand as he flies past in a biplane.

Ishigami and Chika are there, too, to give their approval. Kaguya is sometimes hard on these two, especially Chika, so it can be nice to have even small reminders that, yes, she really does care about them a lot.

And the short ends on a shot of Kaguya waking up in the council room, giving her friends a warm smile.

The second ED—again, from the third season. The second season’s ED was nice in its own way, but doesn’t connect to this story—is stranger and darker. Some amount of time has clearly passed, and Kaguya, here specifically marked out as an alien, has been once again spirited away by her people. The opening shot of the ED shows her coronated with a wicked crown that seems to change her very body and soul, a blunt and evocative metaphor for her abusive upbringing from the main series, and the “Ice Kaguya” persona she once put on to escape it.

So, what choice do our heroes have? Pulp sci-fi splash screens spring to life as they spell out the operation.

Miyuki broods as he remembers those he’s met over the course of what seems to be a rather long war (more questions unanswered, there). Hayasaka, Iino, and what appears to be his own family. But when the Earthlings arrive, there’s no time to reminisce; they come up against swarms of monster bugs, lead by Kaguya herself from the chair of command.

There’s a ton of movement in this microscopic fight scene—it really is only a few seconds—bullets fly and, at one point, Chika takes a shot to the head (don’t worry, she’s fine).

Through the furor, Miyuki can only think about one other person on the battlefield. An injured Hayasaka gives him Kaguya’s hair ribbon, and he dashes forward like a madman, leaping, seeming to knock the crown off, and tying her hair back into a ponytail. The spell is broken! Mission successful.

The dream ends here, and we see the real Miyuki’s eye pop open as Kaguya gently wakes him up.

Isn’t all this just adorable? That Miyuki fantasizes about being this romantic hero archetype rescuing the princess from the enemy’s clutches? Isn’t it adorable too, that Kaguya dreams of being rescued by him, even if she does a lot of the work herself, in her own dream? There is a lot of warmth between the two even in just the short few seconds they interact with each other at the end of the second ED.

To state the obvious; I would, of course, watch or read the absolute hell out of a spinoff that elaborated upon this story. But even as successful as Kaguya is, that seems unlikely. So, it remains, just these few minutes, like tiny jewels.

In general, I’ve always believed that Kaguya is at its strongest when making bold, sweeping, romantic gestures. It is at its weakest when it attempts to delve into gender psychology and make too-broad statements about the nature of love or sex. One of the reasons that these two EDs work so well is that they’re entirely the former, distilling down all of Kaguya‘s strengths and casually eliminating all of its flaws into just a couple combined minutes of excellence. There is nothing else like it, and as I already mentioned, I’m just happy that it exists. Hopefully you are too.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE EVERY DAY – Chapter 15

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

Once again, today’s chapter is very simple. Spare a thought for poor Mayor Boodle, though, who comes out of it looking a bit silly.

He opens the chapter up by continuing his blustering demand to fight Buggy. We return again to the ‘what is treasure?’ question here, and both Boodle and Buggy make their very different opinions on the subject extremely clear.

Initially, Buggy’s third-in-command, one Cabaji the Acrobat, offers to take care of the old man, but Buggy is having none of it.

Not one to respect other people or their wishes, Buggy zoops his hand down to strangle Boodle without even leaving the deck of his ship. The only thing that saves him is Luffy and the gang finally catching up with him.

Even after this, he still wants to fight. But Luffy isn’t going to let that happen. Understandably, he doesn’t really want to see an old man waving a spear around get himself killed, pride or not. So, in something he usually reserves for the villains, Luffy knocks him out cold. (There’s a fun parallel here between neither Boodle nor Cabaji ‘getting’ to fight. I wonder where, if anywhere, that’s going.)

He then insults Buggy’s nose, this time very much on purpose. Buggy’s crew launch a cannonball—sorry, Buggy Ball—at him in response, only for Luffy to do….this.

It’s a bit grotesque if I’m being honest.

The chapter basically ends mid-faceoff. I feel a little silly for complimenting Oda’s ability to make every page count just a few days ago only to now be dealing with a chapter that very much just feels like 18 pages of scene transition, but hey, if that’s all it is, it’s still a pretty good one. I like the strong contrast drawn between Boodle, who is physically weak but morally principled in his own way, and Buggy, who is powerful but doesn’t care about anything but gold and jewels. Bits of characterization like that prevent any chapter of One Piece from feeling truly inessential.

(Which of course, isn’t to say I’m not eager to see the actual fight, but that’s tomorrow’s chapter! Probably.)

Tomorrow: The Straw Hat Kid vs. The Clown Prince of Piracy

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) To Heaven & Back on a Song: The Soothing World of HEALER GIRL

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

“These are the beautiful miracles sung by humanity.”

The first thing to know is that Healer Girl was inspired by Symphogear. Comparisons between anime rarely do either work any favors, but for Healer Girl, knowing the name of its stylistic ancestors puts some things into perspective. The Symphogear comparison is merely the most recent in a list that also included Macross and, less centrally, G Gundam.

Ostensibly, these are strange bedfellows for what is at its heart an iyashikei series / sometimes-musical. In practice, it makes perfect sense. Like in Symphogear, the music in Healer Girl is not a background element; it’s diegetic, and the very source of the protagonists’ abilities itself. I’ve taken to calling this sort of thing the “dynamic music” genre, perhaps you have some other pet neologism. In either case, understanding that the music is not just a plot element but what the entire work is built around is key to understanding Healer Girl at all. It’s not a complex series, but there is stuff going on here beyond pretty songs.

Take our protagonists. Three young girls; Kana (Carin Isobe), Hibiki (Akane Kumada), and Reimi (Marina Horiuchi). For the majority of the series, they serve as interns at a clinic run by their teacher, Hibiki’s cousin Ria (Ayahi Takagaki).

A clinic, because as Healer Girl quickly establishes, in its world, the power of music is literal. Carefully-applied musical treatments can literally heal injuries, soothe sickness away entirely, and aid in surgery. This sort of there-is-power-in-the-song thing is something idol anime have been flirting with for years but never really commit to. (A personal frustration of mine.) Part of me enjoys Healer Girl just because it has the stones to actually dive into this idea. At twelve episodes, it doesn’t have the time to answer every question I had (I really want to know what healing music looks like around the world, but the show sadly doesn’t really go into it), but maybe it doesn’t need to.

From that central premise, Healer Girl builds a few strong, simple metaphors. Healing music as art is the easiest to understand, and effectively renders the series as a defense of itself. Taken through this lens, the anime is a series of iterative exercises; how much can art really help with? In the first episode, Kana sings a song to a boy who’s scraped his knee to take the pain away. Just three episodes later, the girls assist in a surgery where someone nearly dies on an operating table, and they face the truly harrowing experience of possibly failing to help someone. Much like conventional medicine, healing music definitely has its limits, but also like medicine, it certainly helps. Is this Healer Girl‘s argument, that art can heal the world, if not by itself, at least in a supporting role? It’s a strong reading, and I do think that’s at least partly what the series is going for.

Consider also the show’s actual music. A lot of people—including myself—initially assumed Healer Girl was going to be an idol series, and it is true that there is an associated idol unit, the Healer Girls themselves. But, if we consider it a part of this idol anime lineage, it’s a highly unconventional one, at least for 2022. In style, the Healer Girls are a lot closer to forgotten ’90s American soft-pop sensation Wilson-Phillips than anything presented in, say, its seasonal contemporary Nijigasaki High School Idol Club. More to the point is the presentation; the titular healer girls don’t really dance, and their songs are not performances. They’re tools. And learning how to use those tools forms the show’s other main theme; the passing of knowledge and love from one generation to the next.

Much is made of the girls’ relationship with their mentor Ria, a well-developed character in her own right. Reimi has a cute, one-sided crush on her, and much is made of her incredible skills. (Which we finally get to see in action in episode 9.) Over the course of the series, Ria guides the girls through simply being her pupils toward being healers in their own right. In the show’s finale, it implies via paralleling that Kana may herself one day take students of her own. It’s rare to see teaching and imparting wisdom treated as something beautiful and graceful, but that just makes appreciating it when a show can properly pull it off all the more important.

And look, all this writing about what the show means, and I’ve barely told you anything about why you might want to watch it! The simple truth is that, like most of Studio 3Hz‘s productions, the show is just damn good-looking. It’s beautiful, colorful, wonderfully vibrant, almost a living thing itself, in a way that is truly rare and all too easy to take for granted. That vibrancy makes Healer Girl something to be treasured. Naturally, it translates to the soundtrack as well; Healer Girl is at most half a musical, but enough of the show is sung—including incidental dialogue, in some episodes—that if you enjoy that medium, you’ll like Healer Girl as well.

And on top of that, it’s simply fun to watch. Rarely are anime fans starving for some classic slice-of-life antics, but Healer Girl‘s are a particularly well done set thereof. The show is very funny when it sets its mind to it, and not working in that mode 100% of the time only renders it more amusing when it does.

There’s even a pastiche of an old, old slice of life trope, the obligate “high school rock band” episode—episode 7, here—that’s been sorely lacking from most modern anime for a whole generation at this point. I have to admit, seeing one in this day and age made me nostalgic, so I suppose that’s another emotion that Healer Girl can effortlessly tap into.

Because of this kaleidoscopic emotional approach, Healer Girl‘s characters feel truly alive as well, even comparatively minor ones like the girls from the rival healing clinic (of course there’s a rival healing clinic), Sonia (Chihaya Yoshitake) and Shinobu (Miyu Takagi).

And, of course, we should discuss Healer Girl‘s visual ace in the hole. The girls don’t merely sing; the world changes around them as they do, a literalized, visualized version of the consensus fantasy-reality created by the most powerful music here in the real world. But in Healer Girl‘s universe, it can change the world in a truly direct and immediate way, and these bubbles of magic are called image songs. Episode 9 is the best showcase of them, where we see Ria greatly aid a surgery with hers; she influences literal events by manipulating abstract visual material within the image song. In doing so, she herself is a metaphor for the real impact of art in our own world. It’s a curious, but justified little thematic mobius strip, something that impressively never feels pretentious or self-impressed. Healer Girl knows what it’s doing, maybe that’s why there isn’t a weak episode in the whole thing.

The only real tragedy about Healer Girl is that its strongest moments are those where it instills pure awe in the audience. And that, unfortunately, is not something I’m truly able to replicate in text format. You will just have to take my word for it, that my jaw dropped more than once throughout the show, that I teared up a few times, and that several episodes—particularly episode 5 and the latter half of the finale—left me frustrated, although in a strangely positive way, over my inability to fully convey their emotional impact in mere words. You will just have to see it for yourself, and if you haven’t, I again strongly recommend that you do.

If there’s justice in the world, Healer Girl will be a watershed moment. But even if it inspires nothing, even if this artistic lineage ends here, I find it impossible to imagine that it will ever lose its potency as a work unto itself or, indeed, as a healing tool.

There is often a desire—spoken or not—in seasonal anime watching culture for something to get “another season.” Healer Girl, however, was clearly crafted with just these twelve episodes in mind. That renders the show small, certainly, but it does not rob it of its power. In a way Healer Girl is like the over-the-counter medical records mentioned in the first episode. It will soothe your sickness if you let it; simply rewind the tape and play it all back again. One more time; if you feel it, it’ll heal you.

If you’d like to read more about Healer Girl, consider checking out my Let’s Watch columns on the series.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch HEALER GIRL Episodes 11 – 12

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

The time has come for measure-taking. Healer Girl ended today. I will not make a secret my feelings; I absolutely love this show. It’s a soft, glowing rainbow light that revitalizes the soul. If you don’t have the patience for unchecked fangirling, I suggest you turn back now.

A certain kind of studio hound will want to know where I rank Healer Girl among Studio 3Hz‘ other two well-known originals—Flip Flappers and Princess Principal—but in truth I find them so different that any comparison would be irrelevant. So instead, I will say this; Healer Girl, regardless of whether it’s the best or anyone’s personal favorite, is certainly the most healing and soul-soothing of the three. How appropriate, given its name.

We’ll spend much of this article talking about today’s episode, the finale, but it’s important to discuss last week’s as well (which I wasn’t able to cover on time). The gist is simple; our girls have found themselves in a rut with their C-Rank exams dangerously near on the horizon. When they try to sing, their image song breaks, and each of them is yanked out of it by a trio of biting orca-like creatures. Ria has the idea to send them to a training camp of sorts, spearheaded by Reimi’s former maid.

Over the course of the camp, they visit museums, take a pottery class, go bunging jumping, and hike in the mountains. None of it helps, because even as the diverse experiences temper and strengthen their songs, an underlying issue isn’t addressed: jealousy.

There were a few broad hints before, but episode 11 foregrounds the fact that all three of our leads are, in one way or another, jealous of each other. Once again, Ria actually notices this long beforehand. At the end of the episode, we’re given a quick peek at her notes, and they’re pretty revealing.

In a way this represents the first major interpersonal conflict these characters have ever had, but it’s entirely believable that a trio of teenagers, no matter how naturally talented, might develop inferiority complexes over that very same talent. All this leads to perhaps Healer Girl‘s single most unexpected scene; a full-on shouting match between the leads, each of them venting their jealousy. Even this, it’s to be expected, is sweet in its own way, given that the three are mostly yelling about how talented each of them thinks the other two are. (If you’re a certain sort of person, I could imagine finding this saccharine. But if you are that sort of person, I doubt you made it this far into Healer Girl unless you’re also a masochist.)

It will not surprise you to know that getting all of this out is exactly what they needed, and indeed if you read Ria’s notes up there, you’ll see that having the three of them grow closer together on their own, without her interference, was the plan all along. The camp completed; they return for exam day.

The image song, as sung during their exams, is a thing of beauty. They are more in harmony after their little fight, despite being physically apart and taking their exams in different rooms, than they were together, and the results are spectacular. Kana in particular, perhaps the one among them with the most raw talent, metamorphoses into a butterfly-winged fairy as she sings, the orca rendered nothing more than a blooming flower itself.

They all pass, because of course they do.

As the episode’s obligate heartwarming post-credits scene ends, Ria cheerily announces that all three of them are expelled. It’s a slammed door played like a punchline, but the underlying idea—that she’s taught them all she can, and they now have to stand on their own two feet—is sound. Ultimately though, any expectation that they move on permanently is to be ignored. Spoiler alert; at the end of the show they rejoin Ria’s clinic. Again as understudies, but also as proper healers in their own right. Still learning, but able to stand by themselves.

Still, episode 12 does deal with the girls out and about on their own for the first time. It splits into three parts for its first half, showing us the month-long internships that the girls enter. Reimi cuts her long blonde hair short and takes up residence at Sonia’s clinic. Hibiki interns at the newly founded audio medicine department at the hospital from episodes 4 and 9. Kana, who the episode returns the central spotlight to, interns abroad, at a hospital in what appears to be California.

This part of the episode is charming, especially in its depiction of how the girls remain in touch even when physically apart. Although Hibiki and Reimi in particular aren’t actually far from each other, and it seems like they occasionally hang out at the clinic. (Where Hibiki might still live? I’m not totally clear on this.) In what is easily the episode’s silliest scene, they embody every meaning of the term “moé blob.”

In general, episode 12 is concerned with legacy and the meaningful passage of knowledge and love from one generation to the next. Ria spends much of it with her own mentor, Sonia’s grandmother, but the real clincher takes the form of multiple callbacks to episode 1. Kana, in a land where she does not speak a lick of the local tongue, nonetheless soothes a crying, lost girl in the hospital’s lobby. Unlike her technically unauthorized use of healing from that first episode, this is exactly what she’s supposed to be doing, and it’s only through her study under Ria that she can accomplish it. Thus, here on her own, she draws on both her own life and the legacy of those who came before her. This is a difficult thematic balance to strike, but Healer Girl pulls it off.

There is an extremely funny comment made by Abigail, the woman with brown hair on the left, where she’s startled by “what Japan’s C-Ranks can do.” This would maybe come across as a little self-aggrandizing if this scene took place anywhere but the United States. As someone who lives here; yeah, that’s fair.

Later, when the threes’ internships end, Hibiki and Reimi get a cryptic email from Kana on the eve of her anticipated return to Japan. True friends and, apparently living in a world where commercial flight does not cost a small fortune, the two actually take a flight to California, where they find Kana helping out with the aftermath of a wildfire.

In any case, it’s on their return flight that Healer Girl makes this parallel between its first and final episodes most explicit. One of the passengers, a young girl, has an asthma attack. Our girls, of course, volunteer to help, directly referring back to the very incident that made Kana want to become a healer in the first place. I honestly cannot do this scene justice with words alone; the soothing song itself is one thing, but the imagery of Kana spiritually duetting with the younger incarnation of her master got to me in a way that I struggle to properly describe. The parallel invites you to imagine that the young girl they sing to might one day become a healer herself; wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing?

Amazingly, Healer Girl has another trick up its sleeve, its last, as the finale comes to a close. When the girls return home to Japan, they’re formally “given investiture” as healers (another of the series’ many strange and mystical religious parallels). And as they depart the graduating ceremony, they sing the song from the OP. The long version, with more verses.

Healer Girl—the very show itself—dissolves into magical dream sequence; their song fills the air like the light of drifting stars. Their friends and teachers come to join them. Is this all literally happening? Is it artistic license? A better question for you; who cares? In an interview, Director Yasuhiro Irie cited the Symphogear series as an influence on Healer Girl. These anime are, on many fundamental levels, very different. But they are alike in that both have a deep, intuitive understanding of the fact that with enough raw emotion, you can transmute literal events into symbols and back again.1 So the question of whether this is “really happening” is irrelevant, what it is, is Healer Girl‘s case for itself. A definitive answer to the question of whether these twelve weeks have been worth it.

During this fantastical, mesmerizing ending sequence, any lingering doubt vanishes like shadows against the morning Sun. Healer Girl takes its final showman’s bow, and it exits, as suddenly as it arrived.

If you feel it, it’ll heal you. That’s all there is to it.

Song Count: In episode 11, just one, but they sing it four times, only completing it on the fourth. In episode 12, three in total, all of which are wonderful in their own way. If you’ve liked the show’s songs and have more money than I do, consider buying the soundtrack or official vocal album.

1: Incidentally, Hibiki Tachibana would make a great healer. And the girls from this show would probably be pretty good Gear-wielders as well. There’s a free idea for the four of you who read this site but also write fanfiction.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Manga, One Piece Every Day

ONE PIECE Every Day – Chapter 14

One Piece Every Day is a column where I read a chapter of One Piece every single day—more or less—and discuss my thoughts on it. Each entry will have spoilers up to the chapter covered in that day’s column.

Please keep in mind that many other readers are also first-timers. Do NOT spoil anything beyond this point in the comments!

After a few chapters in a row where quite a bit happens, today’s is refreshingly straightforward. There’s only two real events that occur here; Mayor Boodle decides to take the fight to Buggy, and Nami allies with—although she’s very hesitant to use words like “join”—Luffy’s crew.

Boodle has a decent motive for wanting Buggy & Co. out of town; he helped build the place!

To me, this entire sequence raises tons of questions, and I’m not sure if they’re questions One Piece is interested in answering. This patch of land is one thing, but in general, where did these people come from? Where have they arrived at? Is this a “Europeans crossing the Atlantic for the first time” situation or something more innocuous? Are there natives? If so, where are they?

Many, many questions, and few answers. Maybe One Piece will eventually answer some or all of these questions, but it’s far from a certainty. For now, at least for me, they’re just something I will keep in the back of my mind.

More importantly, there’s a pretty funny sequence earlier on in the chapter where Mohji, stumbling back aboard Buggy’s ship, tries to warn his captain of the “rubber man”, but passes out halfway through his sentence. This leads to some misunderstandings.

And the chapter also establishes that Chou-Chou is fine. In fact, him ending up back at the shelter tips off the townspeople that their mayor has gone and done something reckless. They are absolutely correct about this, as previously established.

Boodle’s situation would probably be hopeless did he not have some backup; namely, Luffy and a newly recovered Zolo.

And even Nami, in her own way, offers something like support.

And just to not leave anyone out; the mayor himself is no slouch. I haven’t really talked much about Boodle because as someone who’s not even quite 30 yet, the whole “spending 40 years building a community only to have it destroyed” motive is a bit abstract to me. But it is executed well, and that means that at the end of the chapter, when he has a dock-to-ship stare-off with Buggy, he earns being drawn in that classically sketchy shonen style that conveys that someone is about 90% burning justice by volume.

Tomorrow: Luffy’s crew and the iron-willed mayor vs. Buggy the Clown and his circus on a ship.

One Piece Every Day relies on reader support even more than most of my columns do. Please consider sharing this article around if you liked it!

Also consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.