Tag: kiss

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch CHAINSAW MAN Episode 7 – “Taste of a Kiss”

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

You don’t need me to tell you that Denji, as his antiheroic alter ego of the titular Chainsaw Man, fucks up the Eternity Devil something wicked. If you’re watching this show, the fact that Denji can out-crazy the craziest of Devils is not news. It’s something that’s been established since basically episode one.

That is indeed how episode 7 opens. Denji, yet again a whirlwind of iron and gore, ripping the Eternity Devil to pieces, over and over and over again, until it finally stops fighting and begs to be put out of its misery. We’re told this little ballet of violence took place over three entire days; Genesis-ian timescale reduced to a footnote. Somehow, this fight scene, in all its headbanging heavy metal AMV glory, is not nearly the most notable thing about the seventh episode of Chainsaw Man. Even so, it is worth highlighting the flashback conversation between Himeno and her own mentor, who puts forward the idea that the devil hunter that the devils themselves fear most is not one who’s brave, but one who’s “got a few screws loose.” Most of this part of the episode is meant to re-emphasize that yes, Denji’s incredibly rough upbringing really has left him “crazy.” Remember, as we go forward, that Public Safety recruited him not in spite of that, but because of it.

Anyway, shall we cut to the vomit kiss? We might as well, right?

I have no photos of the aforementioned vomit kiss. Because I love you, dear readers, and also I think that putting images of a woman puking on my website would probably not be great for SEO. But! It is here! It is important! Somehow, it is actually quite important!

It also tends to serve as one of Chainsaw Man‘s great filters. I think the importance of these things—and of “weeding out the normies” in general—is vastly overstated, but it is impossible to deny that it’s going to put some people off. That’s a little unfortunate, but Chainsaw Man, while it never goes back to this particular well (I guess that’s technically a spoiler. If you’re angry about me spoiling the fact that no one else pukes in anyone’s mouth in Chainsaw Man you’re free to yell at me about it in the comments), is only going to get grislier from here. It’s probably better that people know what they’re working with.

The context of that particular incident is very important, and it doesn’t happen until toward the end of the episode. In fact, leading up to it, Denji is actually being rewarded for once in his life; he’s killed the Eternity Devil, gotten the entire unit out of a pretty harrowing situation, and has even procured a piece of the Gun Devil’s flesh. All worth genuine praise. So, it’s not a surprise that Himeno (and Aki!) take their squad to a drinking party a few days later. Everybody is there, including several new characters, most of them relatively unimportant. And, of course, Makima, who returns to the show after an absence last week in a truly wonderful fashion by subtly creeping up behind Denji as he’s talking about that kiss Himeno promised him.

Makima Jumpscare

There’s also a pretty great moment where Aki asks her why she’s pursuing the Gun Devil in the first place, and this happens.

Denji, meanwhile, spends much of the restaurant scene acting, as my friend and occasional podcast co-commentator Julian put it, “weirdly moe.” I think that’s an accurate assessment.

On the other hand, Himeno mostly embarrasses herself. There’s a certain kind of person who finds someone being piss-drunk hilarious and/or charming. I will admit that Himeno makes it look better than most, but for most of the episode she’s absolutely sloshed out of her mind. I’m not going to say that this is necessarily because she’s a “normal” Devil Hunter and is partly drinking to forget the surreal and traumatic experience that the past few episodes have been, but I think the idea is at least worth considering.

At one point during the party, Himeno makes an advance on Denji and plants a kiss on him. Then, because of just how drunk she is, she promptly….well, here’s a photo of my note card from this part of the episode. I think you get the idea.

Pardon my handwriting.

The scene is well and truly disgusting. The addition of sound and color makes what was already pretty gross in the manga absolutely nauseating. The actual emission is pixelated, but that might actually make things worse. All told, the amount of artistic heft put in to rendering the scene as off-putting as possible is bizarrely commendable.

Of course, it’s the aftermath of this infamous, iconic scene that is where the actual development lies. We end again on a cliffhanger, but not before Denji, rendered drunk somehow or another, finds himself lying in a mysterious bed.

Only for Himeno to enter, and, in a gorgeously-rendered POV scene that feels far more sensous and grounded than the vast majority of anime cheesecake, climb on top of him. She proceeds to very blatantly seduce someone who—hey, just as a reminder!—is only sixteen years old. We can make a lot of assumptions here, but it’s probably better to save such observations for next time. This scene, in another example of Chainsaw Man’s unorthodox adaptive approach, is cut off mid-thought by the end credits. That’s all for this week, folks.

Bonus Power Screencap: I’m fond of this bit during the bar scene, where Power tries to claim having a high IQ by constantly one-upping the most recent number anyone else has brought up. (She also gets hit on by the short-haired butch woman. I’ve never been envious of Power before, but there’s a first time for everything.) Here’s a cap from the start of that little bit.

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 CALL OF THE NIGHT Episode 3 – A Lot Came Out

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

Literally speaking, Call of The Night is about a boy who’s down bad for a vampire. But more abstractly, and perhaps more importantly, its main theme, at least so far, seems to be otherness. I mentioned this a bit back in episode one, but “A Lot Came Out” really hones in on the concept, through a number of techniques both related to its actual narrative and more abstract material like its visuals.

To wit; this episode formally introduces Akira Asai (Yumiri Hanamori), Ko’s one actual human friend and, as one would expect from a pretty ordinary schoolgirl, she’s mostly active during the day. Despite that, Call of The Night never steps outside of its nocturnal purview; the only times we get to see actual daylight are during flashbacks.

Both ends of twilight are fine for present-set storytelling, but never broad day. That’s a forbidden zone that I doubt the show will ever breach unless it’s trying to one of a few very specific things.

What does that have to do with being an outcast? Well, as previously discussed in this column, a vampire can be a symbol for almost any kind of “other” in a narrative. In the creature’s roots as a being of the horror genre, this was used to stir up fear, but nowadays, as in Call of The Night, using vampires as a kinder (although not without some issues) metaphor for anyone who lives outside of one’s established frame of reference is fairly common. Ko, in his desire to become a vampire, has basically already committed to the choice of eventually joining that “other.” I imagine that much of the rest of the series is going to be testing that resolve. There are a lot of ways Call of The Night could do this (in future episodes look out for Ko running afoul of curfew laws or something of the sort, it almost seems too obvious not to do), but here it takes a fairly simple form. Akira, as a normal high schooler just like Ko himself, is representative of the kind of normal life that Ko is leaving behind.

Maybe that’s all fair enough but you’re wondering what actually happens in the episode. Thankfully, that’s pretty easy to explain; Ko and Akari reconnect after years of not talking to each other and start hanging out. Nazuna gets kind of jealous and she and Ko have a minor fight. They make up at the end, roll credits.

The devil (or vampire, as it were) is in the details, though. In flashback scenes that establish how Ko and Akira first met as young kids, Ko notably avoids playing with the other children on the playground. Instead, he studies a line of marching ants, finding their hurried resource-collecting amusing in its own way. (I’m not saying he’s definitely supposed to be neurodivergent, but when the shoe fits….) Akira, who converses with him and eventually joins him in his observation, comes across as a kind girl in this flashback, but they’re clearly coming from different places. This leads to some confusion when they meet again in the present day.

Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t like him, mind you….

When the two get back in touch (via the whole watch situation from episode 2), they start meeting up regularly. Akira gets up very early to go to school, you see, which conveniently lines up with Ko’s nocturnal schedule. In fact, between Akira and Nazuna, Ko is well on his way to building an entire nighttime social circle. But, there’s the small bit of trouble in paradise that, because Ko is now hanging out with two people, not just one, he has to cut into his time with Nazuna a bit. The episode doesn’t spell this out until the very end, but it’s obvious that this makes Nazuna a bit jealous. She ends up confronting the two, and any pretense at keeping the whole “vampire” thing a secret evaporates when she promptly sucks the blood out of Ko’s neck right in front of Akira. (If this entire dynamic sounds slightly uncomfortable to you, it’s that way in the show itself as well, although thankfully not to the extent that it ruins the scene or anything.)

The three hit up a restaurant to hopefully hash out their differences. (Which, frankly you could boil down how far removed Nazuna is from Akira or even Ko, yet, by pointing out that while Akira gets a full breakfast and Ko just gets a coffee, she gets a cartoonish-looking stein of beer.) Nazuna and Akira have a brief but fairly tense conversation, during which Akira also makes the mistake of inviting Ko back to school. This ends with Nazuna abruptly leaving after asking Akira why, if she’s really such a good friend of his, she hasn’t reached out to him in the past few years at all. (Akira, it’s worth noting, does not respond. Although arguably she doesn’t really get a chance to. My assumption is we’ll circle back to her side of things again next week.)

It’s telling that after Ko picks up her bill (classic vampire dick move, that, leaving a restaurant without paying), he rushes after her. We can think of Akira and Nazuna as representing two, roughly, different approaches to life. Whether we should boil that down to something as simple as “straight and narrow” vs. “dangerous but wild” or look at it in a more nuanced fashion will hinge on where the show goes from here, but when he sprints out the restaurant door, it’s very clear that Ko has already made his choice.

Ko and Nazuna’s little fight ends when the two meet up on a random rooftop—this show loves random rooftops—and the two have this exchange, which is worth reproducing in its entirety, if you’ll forgive the avalanche of image embeds.

And that really is the thing. No matter what else happens, Ko has already committed to going “over to the other side.” Despite what anyone else might think, and despite his own reservations. Nazuna likes to tease, but her and Ko’s relationship, while they definitely are also friends, is also much more involved than a simple biter / bite-ee thing, whatever you choose to map that to. (Although her constantly cracking jokes about how their relationship is ‘purely physical’ certainly pushes the viewer in a….certain direction.) As they resolve their differences, Nazuna notices that Ko’s bloodied his lip from tripping up the stairs to the roof. And then, in defiance of contemporary romance anime and manga structure, and in what I genuinely think is a pretty bold move, this happens.

A make up turns to a makeout, Nazuna flies off as the dawn breaks behind her, telling her “friend” that she’ll see him again tomorrow. A stunned Ko can only retort that “friends” don’t normally, you know, kiss and such.

Now to be fair, maybe—and it’s a huge maybe—vampires and humans have different ideas of what constitutes ‘romance’, and it is definitely not impossible that the show will try to walk this back. But I rather doubt it will try to do so with any substantial force. As mentioned, Ko has already made his choice. The show is called Call of The Night, after all, and only one of the two girls he spoke to in today’s episode is nocturnal.

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 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.