This might be the best execution I've seen of the format that I often refer to as the One-Cour Comedy Curse. Poor implementations of the format see 11 episodes of comedy capped off by an abrupt (and often poorly done) tonal shift to drama at the end, in an attempt to create a fake sense of closure for a partial adaptation of a much longer source work. Kakushigoto works around this by having its eventual shift to drama foreshadowed from the beginning, layered into the overall tone of the show, and executed in a way that expertly plays off the themes that were established in the comedy portion of the story. It probably also helps that the manga ended around the time the anime aired, so this was potentially the intended ending of the original too (I haven't read it, so I don't know for sure). What we end up with is a show that succeeds at being both funny and moving, and has a satisfying ending.
0
0
0
