Tag: Studio 3Hz

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 anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch HEALER GIRL Episode 3 – Cleanup, Run Run Run

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

Okay, yeah, we’re doing this.

Healer Girl, if you’ve not seen my prior post on it, is an absolutely mesmerizing little series from Studio 3Hz. It’s about girls who sing to heal people. Songstress-doctors. Idol-medics. Whatever compound term you care to come up with. It is the best anime airing right now, and even though I have basically no “good reason” to cover it from a practical point of view—it’s not that popular from what I can tell, which is a tragedy I hope to play some small part in fixing—I definitely have a good reason from a personal point of view. I love this series; it’s a sparkling, scintillating ocean wave of pure joy.

So, this is the only warning you’re going to get. If you’re averse to just straight-up fangirling, this is probably not a column you’ll enjoy. But if you aren’t, well, welcome to the cult.

We’ve missed an episode, but thankfully Healer Girl‘s second was not too complex, so we can quickly run through it here. The episode introduced two new characters; the stuck-up Healer prodigy Sonia Yanagi (Chihaya Yoshitake) and her assistant / friend, an aspiring composer named Shinobu Honosaka (Miyu Takagi). The former is obsessed with trying to show up the clinic that our main girls work at, and essentially strong-arms her way into the story as their self-declared rival. The latter just sort of goes along with it. These two will doubtless play an integral role in the story going forward, as will another fact established in episode two—that Healers panicking can adversely affect their ability to treat patients—so that’s the gist of what we skipped by my not covering episode two.

Episode three is about our girls studying for, taking, and waiting for the results from, the stressful medical exam they need to pass in order to become certified Healer Assistants. They spend most of the episode’s opening half studying for and/or panicking about this. Particularly Kana, whose pharmacological (there’s a fun word) knowledge is sorely lacking. Because this is Healer Girl, the episode actually opens on the three studying by singing. Remember; this is also a musical. I’m particularly fond of the bit where one will call out a music term and another will sing back the definition. It’s wonderfully bouncy. Toe-tapping, even.

The series manages the difficult feat of showcasing the three’s personalities through their singing alone. Kana is Healer Girl‘s ostensible lead character, but it’s really more Reimi who is the “leader” of their little clique, and her forceful, almost rock singer-ish vocal style and fuller timbre emphasizes that. Kana, meanwhile, has a peppier and lighter tone, which fits her status as the not-too-bright lead. Hibiki, the most mature of the three, actually has the highest tone, but it only serves to reinforce her playful, never-taking-things-too-seriously nature.

Of course, the show’s spoken dialogue is full of personality, too. During a study session, where Kana and Reimi stay overnight at Hibiki’s room at the clinic, Kana recounts a story about why she’s so bad at learning about medicine, and I really cannot do justice to her completely absurd excuse except to reproduce it in full.

Any Discord servers out there looking for a :NotLikeKana: emote?

To which Reimi correctly replies.

In general, the whole “study scene” does a lot to remind us that, while it’s true that these girls have an extraordinary and very important job within the context of their world, they’re also still just teenagers. (And frankly having to take a medical licensing exam when you’re in high school sounds like an utter nightmare.) Given how important it is for any “slice of life” anime to make its characters feel human and relatable, this is pretty important.

There’s also an interesting scene where the three visit a shrine (to pray for success on the test, natch) and Hibiki, witnessing some miko perform a kagura, wonders aloud if Vocal Medicine works by faith. Reimi even mentions that the exact mechanisms by which it functions are obscure, even though it’s been proven to work. (This part is less absurd than it sounds, given how opaque the precise workings of even a lot of chemical medicine were and, in some cases, still are.) If you were being really uncharitable, you could maybe spin this into Healer Girl promoting pseudoscience or faith healing. Suffice it to say, I think such a reading would be an extreme stretch.

Boxing at shadows aside, the shrine scene (and a sung-over montage immediately after it) transition us into the second half of the episode. Here, the girls have already taken the exam and are simply waiting for their results. The stress from the waiting has made them, shall we say, a bit off-key.

I’ve been there, girls.

Ria (the girls’ teacher, and the Healer they’re assistants to, if you’ll recall), decides to try to get their minds off of things. How? By entering them in a town sport and field competition. Why not?

The girls sing all of their dialogue in this second half of the episode in an amusingly flat, slightly off tone, to illustrate how tired they are. This continues—with slightly more spirit in the singing—even when Sonia shows up to cause a general ruckus and gets on Reimi’s bad side by dissing Ria. Naturally, the two decide to settle things by seeing which team between the two of them can score more first-place leis. (They give out leis instead of medals at this competition. I don’t know.)

I really must make it totally clear that Reimi’s half of this whole exchange is sung. It’s great.

Things are neck in neck, until the grand prize for the overall competition winner is announced. You may wonder what a mere county meet could offer as a compelling first prize. I will tell you in three words; Enormous Dog Plushie.

The injection of pure motivation this provides is instantaneous and noticeable.

This is also how I feel about large plushies.

Reimi wants it too, since conveniently apparently Ria collects merchandise of this character and this is another chance for everyone’s favorite blonde lesbian disaster to get in good with her teacher (in her own mind, anyway). With the spirit of competition raised to even greater heights than before, Sonia also starts singing. (Her second number in the show, in fact, after her Healing Song from last episode.)

But Reimi and Sonia’s fired-up neck and neck competition ends up not mattering. Because apparently Hibiki, who quickly overtakes both of them from behind, is a musical Speed Force user or something of the sort.

The competition ends with the giant plushie going to Hibiki. She promptly sends it to her many adorable younger siblings, meaning no giant plushie for Reimi to give to Ria. Don’t worry, though, because Reimi did win the second-place plushie, and gives that to Ria instead. Ria is duly grateful and hugs her student, thus giving Reimi specifically a very happy ending for this episode.

After the ED, we see that the girls also did, in fact, pass their exams. It’s a heartwarming note for the episode to end on. And, for us here at MPA, an apropos one, too.

Song Count: Two full songs in the episode’s first half. The girls’ dialogue is almost entirely sung in the back half, as mentioned, depending on how you want to count that.

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.