Speaking of touch and go- think of this review more like a jumble of thoughts I'm trying to stop disappearing from my brain. It's not complete, it's no concise, and it's not well organised. But hopefully it might be insightful.
Especially for what I'd consider faults. I feel like I can talk more at length what I'd consider it's big flaws than the grip it had over me making me come back anyway.
Spoiler-free at the top, spoiler zone below the dashed line. Some points are spoilerific enough to be dropped entirely into the spoiler zone, others are examples to illustrate spoiler-free points at the top (asterisked). There's a lot of positives in the spoilers, I don't secretly hate it (which you might think, looking at the paragraph thickness of 'good/great' vs 'not so good').
The Good and the Great
- Fascinating premise. Sets itself up to explore a wealth of unique and largely untrodden thematic territory in the medium: social anxieties, hikikomori/NEETs and reintegrating with society, mental health, gender dysphoria and queer/trans identity, the ethics of corporate capitalism, sexuality, politics, notions of femininity, love, marriage, fashion and family (ones chosen and ones born into). It may pull its punches or outright avoid certain choices but I think it deserves applause for finding such an interesting niche
- Well-written and lovable main characters keep you invested despite its issues. Tsukimi, Shuu and Kuranosuke are all personal favourites- it’s always great when the characters with the most page-time (?) are strongly written, endearing and human, not overrun by their comedic register and with vices, virtues, and changing perspectives on the core themes as the manga progresses. It also helps that the relationships between the three are all unique and have amusing or thought-provoking dynamics, though I’ll come back to this later because I do have some issues.
- The dialogue has its moments of real, profound beauty.*
- Hanamori is hilarious
- Great comedy… while it lasts.
The Not so Good
- The series has an identity crisis. It wants to be a drama, a comedy and a romance all at once. Rather than enriching and balancing and helping to pace the other strands, they all seem to be in conflict and interrupt each other, with goofy oddball comedy ruining dramatic atmospheres and otherwise interesting character dialogue situations alike.
- Higashimura builds characters that run off from her intentions- developed to convince a reader they'll take one action and then writes them into taking another. This is exaggerated by the clashing genre styles I mentioned earlier.
- The comedy starts hilarious then grows formulaic. Suddenly, somewhere in the middle of the series, Higashimura learns a bevy of new comedic tricks all at once and injects them into the show seemingly all at once, which is great but puts the reader a little offbalance with the random sudden tonal shift as the manga sort of drowns in skits, and then rather the same repetitive dullness strikes again.
- Dumbass characters break suspension of disbelief because it’s terrified of moving the plot forward. The series works on the assumption that the vast majority of its characters are painfully ignorant and unobservant and/or uncaring about their flatmates/workmates and close friends in exchange for Higashimura’s terror in progressing key threads of the plot and character relationships. In fact, Higashimura repeatedly backs characters into corners where a certain piece of information SHOULD be teased out of them, due to a character’s terrible denial and/or another character’s insightful line of questioning or thought process being right on the money and then the scene inexplicably will end with the interrogating character none the wiser or that thought will be just abandoned because of a timely comedy sketch to save the day. It’s forced stagnation, and it not only indicates weak planning and predictive plotting of information reveals but a sense of cowardice, prolonging a series longer than an author feels it should go on for (if I was to guess, I’d say it’s a problem of serialisation). It helps ruin the pacing and makes a reader want to rush through a series to the finish- because Higashimura intentionally yanks the carrot away to chew on what’s effectively fragranced filler instead- but it also makes characters less believable, particularly in the sense of communal, chosen family that it simultaneously wants you to emotionally invest in there being. Something that struck me in the final few chapters and the torrent of reveals they drop on you is how well paced and satisfying is, because situations were actually treated honestly by Higashimura and reacted to as such. If you want to make a drama or a romance, you imagine a sort of sandbox simulation of your fictional world, and then you develop your plot and characters by asking yourself ‘if I flip this switch, this character as it is right now (and I have communicated them to be right now) would react in this way’, and then you need to be honest to that outcome. It becomes a problem if 1) you flip no switches (not so much a problem here) or 2) you flip the switches then act like nothing happens when the lights don’t turn on. It injures the worldbuilding, your suspension of disbelief and the pacing, and it shackles otherwise outstanding and beautiful character work on display here.
- As a sort of follow-up to the previous few points, they all converge to make the Amars in general really frustrating. This isn’t to say I don’t like them- that’s not fair to say at all. I think they’re a really well balanced lot that and I think Chieko, Jiji and Mayaya have spurts of great character development and shining personality. They’re also ALL (with the exception of Nomu) really funny and a balanced collection of personalities, with the asterisk of the ‘repetitive gags’ point. They don’t seem to care about how Tsukimi feels. Ever. Even when she’s dejected and depressed. Moments when they do are far too late after an awful lot has happened and is pretty quickly ruined by comedic moments demonstrating they don’t within the same scene. They also don’t really care about eachothers obsessive otaku hobbies at all, to a point of finding frustration in them. Surely there are moments of overlap that could have been used to make the Amamizukan feel like the ‘family’ and ‘castle’ Higashimura is intent on telling you it is but doesn’t really feel like?** Could we not get any moments of Jiji and Mayaya bonding over Three Kingdoms history, with the obvious overlap of ‘cool old men’? How about Bamba agreeing to go to, say, the aquarium with Tsukimi because they’d be taking the train there and back?
- In fact, developing any of the supporting characters to a notable degree seems to be a concept exclusive to the ‘Kuragehime Heroes’ bonus chapters. This should be a backstory bonus to fill the gaps and add to existing detail, not the basis of their depth in the first place. If less time was spent repeatedly teasing and copping out of big plot reveals and character developments then there would be more than enough space to actually include this in the existing chapter count.
SPOILERY BITS BELOW:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*”If you meet that girl, tell her… to love Kuranosuke lots and lots. Just as much as I do”, Rina tells Shuu as the train doors close, tears brimming in her eyes. That moment is coming to mind when I think of dialogue that echoes around your head for a little while after you read it. Succinct, emotional stuff.
**Nomu and Chieko are an exception, since they’re both technically the same- ‘clothes otaku’, and they were already friends before Nomu was introduced as an effective member of the Amars.
- For what little coverage they do get, there’s a lot of substance to Kuranosuke’s mother, the Prime Minister and Kuranosuke/Shuu’s father, and all of them are wrapped snugly into the core themes of the series.
- Fish and Hwayoung have a lot of personality and deceptive depth.
- Fish:
- Fish’s warm face and laugh, despite being a ruthless corporate ‘whale’- even bigger than the ‘shark’ Inari- and the sexual manipulation he uses on his models and designers
- The way he carries himself. He doesn’t have to throw his weight around. He’s very measured and succinct with his words. He knows he is powerful, and so does everyone else in the room, and no one wants to face his anger. That anger doesn’t manifest as fury, because it doesn’t need to- even at his company’s death’s door he’s collected, calm, clinical, and cut-throat.
- Parallels to Mayaya. Hiding his eyes because it shows him to be duplicitous, shifty, and power-hungry, rather than out of personal anxieties. Whether intentional or not, it helps foreshadow that there’s more than meets the eye with this man.
- His manipulative powermongering even leads his childhood friend, ex-lover, and loyal, steadfast admirer Hwayoung to betray him. And the development leads a long way back too- using her feelings for him to make her into his loyal subordinate, seeing him use other models up in the same way, Fish not letting her go to their childhood friend’s wedding at the church orphanage because business was too important (but not for him)
- The irony of Fish happening upon Jellyfish’s exhibition of their casual dress line, and the concept being ‘pretty yet poisonous’ – fantastic foreshadowing, as that’s the basis of his whole character
- Hwayoung:
- Her repressive nature and the minute expressional changes on her face telling the story all by itself
- Gazing out the window, a furrowed brow, is sometimes all you need. Show don’t tell. Subtlety is hard to pull off, but it works.
- You can tell Hwayoung would betray Fish and strike the deal with Kuranosuke before she does it. This is a problem in communicating character development/intention VS creation that I mention for other characters and plot developments, but it’s not the case here.
- Her arc’s end. Returning home, full circle. Moving away from an industry and a hero she had grown to be repulsed by. Not throwing anything away, or burning the waste, but helping those who had nothing rather than extending the profits of a filthy rich billionaire. And in the end, she’s happy. Fish gets fucked over. It’s poetic.
- I like that the moral compass of the series points to Inari’s character development favourably. I also like the intention to extend this portrayal of a cutthroat political/business world that Higashimura wanted to (and in my opinion successfully did) portray, and would help set up parallels to the fashion world that would be largely explored in the middle/late chapters of the manga. But the fact that Jellyfish makes comedy out of spiking drinks leaves a very sour taste in my mouth, and the fact that Inari is effectively a main character pretty early on and the joke was repeated to death, just like many other jokes Princess Jellyfish makes, just made it even more frustrating to me. It minimises sexually predatory action against innocent people, and this can have real world consequences especially when it’s wrapped up in this bubbly and generally wholesome package. Episodes 5 to 11 being packed with this shite is a big reason I have the Jellyfish anime at a 7/10, even though I think otherwise it can be excellent, especially in the OP/ED and in Kana Hanazawa’s interpretation of Tsukimi.
Didn’t Tsukimi herself say something like ‘even the prettiest jellyfish can be poisonous’?
- The ‘fashion world’ twist was a really well-planned and hidden surprise. Mayaya being perfect for a model? Tsukimi being a designer for dresses? Kuranosuke’s high profile political family/ upbringing being perfect training and publicity for running the Amars’ clothing brand? The quiet ‘forgettable’ Jiji becoming the accountant? Chieko’s sewing abilities? Difficult to predict, yet a comical perfect storm when the pieces all come together.
This is one of those 'What I liked deserved much more than what it's packaged with', 'wish I could rate it higher' series that leave a bigger imprint on your heart than the number can really communicate. I've had a few of these recently, and it's making me go cold on numbered ratings.
I have to give it a 7, and send it to the purgatory for the not quite great- for anything from goodish shows without that 'classic' gleam to these ones- ones you love but are gripped and pulled down by the ankles when trying to leap up into the sky. I fucking hate 7/10s.
