One thing that’s fascinated me about the anime localization process, especially now that almost every series is simulcast, is the truly awkward translation machine that results in mangled titles constructed of barely-coherent English. While the show’s actual subtitles might be grammatically competent, the officially-licensed title, the words that are supposed to attract viewers to a series, are sometimes nearly incomprehensible. Generally the Japanese license-holder is somewhat to blame for this, as they have the final say in any translation and might opt for something that’s literally acceptable but which doesn’t feel natural in English. I had my suspicions about Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it, and thought I could absolutely come up with something less awkward… but reading the Japanese title, that’s basically what it says. I might steal a little bit from the subject matter of the series and rephrase it to be something like “When Scientists Fall in Love, They’ll Look for Proof,” but that’s not really any better. Maybe I should just leave things to the professionals and keep my 15-years-removed college Japanese skills out of the equation from now on.
Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun
Streaming: Funimation
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: Nene Yashiro is in love. Well, at least she’s in love with the idea of being in love. Either way, having heard the legend of a ghost in the girls’ bathroom who grants wishes, she travels to the third stall and knocks, hoping to meet the mysterious “Hanako-san.” She’s surprised to learn that Hanako-san is both real and also a boy, but at this point her desire to have her wish come true is so strong that she doesn’t really care who actually grants it.
Hanako-kun warns Yashiro that when wishes are fulfilled they come with a hefty price tag, and offers her some more mundane solutions to her dilemma instead. But Yashiro is looking for something easy and instantaneous, so when Hanako-kun drops a bag of mermaid scales Yashiro doesn’t stop and think before she shoves one in her mouth. Having done so, she’s cursed into becoming a fish serving the mermaid, the original owner of the scales. It takes Hanako-kun’s strength and cunning to fight off the monster, and when he comes up victorious he offers to transform Yashiro back into a human. In exchange, she owes him her time and energy as his new human assistant.
Impressions: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from consuming fiction, it’s that when human beings ask supernatural beings to grant them their mediocre wishes, their interventions always come at a steep price. Whether the consequences are the result of a technicality or a “monkey’s paw” kind of scenario, or if the quality of the results just don’t seem equivalent to the price paid, it’s generally found to be not worth the trouble to go bothering ghosts. Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun is only the latest in a string of stories that attempts to remind us mere mortals that maybe the things that we’re able to work for on our own are more precious than those things which result from “quick fix” scenarios.
What I really enjoyed about this episode was the fact that Hanako-kun spent a lot of his time and energy attempting to help Yashiro figure out the correct, meaningful way to develop a romantic relationship with someone. He offers her several self-help tools, attempts to demonstrate that self-improvement for its own sake is valuable whether it results in a relationship or not, and prompts her to examine the strength of her own feelings. Why put in so much time and effort to appeal to a guy whose first name you don’t even know, he asks, especially if you’ve never had a meaningful conversation with him and have no idea if he’s even worth the effort in the first place? I think this is a trap many of us fall into when we’re young (and maybe not-so-young); we work to change ourselves in order to fit into another person’s life, when in reality it’s better to spend that effort on becoming your own person. Eventually someone who sees you for who you are will be attracted to that truth, rather than the lies that have been layered upon themselves over and over again. The problem, of course, is that the people who need to hear this sort of advice are those who are least likely to listen to it, hence Yashiro’s tragic and very familiar dilemma.
For a relatively light-hearted supernatural horror series, this episode has a good balance of humor, spookiness, and artistic sense. The animation itself is minimal, but it’s offset by strong scene layouts, framing, and gorgeous saturated colors. It’s a small wonder that I didn’t take more screen captures while watching the episode, as almost any scene was worth pausing to take in all the little details. The only real negatives worth mentioning were a few one-off body-shaming comments – Yashiro is self-conscious about her short and thick legs, and a few other characters tease her about them. There’s also a comment where Hanako-kun implies that he “owns” Yashiro’s body; what he means is that she’ll be his assistant and work for him. It’s mild as far as gags like this are concerned, but in an episode that I’d otherwise recommend to older kids, this might be a point of concern.
If I’d just been going by series titles, I probably would have passed this episode over. When you start bringing toilets into the equation, the end result seems more than likely to be extremely gross and juvenile. Instead, this has been one of the most pleasant surprises for me so far this season.
Pros: Strong visual sense, with bright colors and fun layouts. A little spooky, a little funny, and a little bit topical, too.
Cons: Some off-color comments potentially narrows its audience.
Content Warnings: Mild supernatural violence (including knife-fighting). Brief body-shaming.
Grade: B
Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: Himuro and Yukimura are two grad students who work together in a lab. They’re both very logically-minded, so when Himuro confesses to Yukimura that she may be in love with him, the two of them put their minds to work and attempt to quantify and prove their feelings toward one-another using the tools of science. Heart rate and body temperature are two initial measures that seem promising, but a rising heart rate could result from a multitude of instigators. They soon discover that reducing things down to a few provable elements may be more difficult than they initially anticipated.
When one of their peers insists that love is a feeling that can’t be quantified, the two (potential) lovebirds are skeptical. As a great man once stated, everything in the world can be boiled down to numbers, but the colleague counters that love is just an emotion that, among other things, makes you want to better yourself for the sake of the person you’re in love with. This, of course, prompts a whole other sequence of graphs, hypotheses, and Venn diagrams. Will the hopeless Himuro and Yukimura ever be able to move past their analytical tendencies and admit their own feelings to one-another?
Impressions: I spent longer than anticipated trying to figure out what it was about this episode that rubbed me the wrong way. I initially thought it was because it reminded me a little bit of The Big Bang Theory, a television series that I’ve never enjoyed (for some pretty obvious reasons) but which I’ve seen enough of to have gleaned its major plot points over the years. In the show, some characters fall in love and enter into long-term relationships, but struggle with some of the same issues that the characters in this anime are facing – they’re hamstrung in their pursuit of love by their need to analyze and categorize everything in the same way they do in their scientific work. I realized after a bit of consideration, however, that this wasn’t really the answer I was hoping to find. The reality is that this series hits on some of my personal pet peeves, then drives them into the ground without letting the viewer up for air.
One time many years ago, I watched a documentary with some friends of mine. I don’t remember the topic of the documentary or the argument it was trying to make, only that it was an issue that the people involved were passionate about for reasons that were illustrated throughout the film. When it was over, one of the friends commented that it was an interesting movie, but that it had focused too much on the emotions of the situation rather than the hard facts in order to make its argument. It was at that point where I suddenly gained another descriptor for myself – “emotions-based.”
I think it seems reasonable on the surface to demand a logical argument for certain topics. When it involves constructing or changing laws or administering some form of justice, doesn’t an argument have more weight if it can be discussed dispassionately using inarguable facts? The problem with that line of thinking is that it has a gender-and-sometimes-racially-biased component; for whatever reason, “logic” has come to be associated with enlightenment-era thinking; a time period and thought process which people who have a vested interest in maintaining their social power like to refer to as some golden era that aligns with their value system alone (news flash: like anything else, it’s a very mixed bag of philosophies). As an opposing force, arguments based on emotion (or argued by someone who simply is emotional about the topic) are seen as less serious, valuable, or worthy of consideration. In some cases this attitude is subtle, in others it’s blatantly obvious, but in all cases the demand for pure, unadulterated logic ignores and devalues the emotional impact that certain matters have on the lives of those affected by them. Expecting people to pack away those emotions in a little box in order to be taken seriously isn’t just ignorant toward the way most of us operate, it’s also cruel and dehumanizing. And it perpetuates a binary value system that is in reality much messier than that.
Love is one of those emotions that doesn’t follow numerical logic, and that’s the gag that this series looks to perpetuate ad infinitum. It’s mildly amusing until the joke gets old, which is after a couple of minutes. It’s a bit like watching the leads in Kaguya-sama: Love is War go back-and-forth with one-another, only without the charming characters, inspired visual direction, and sense of humor that keeps that series afloat. The leads in this series, despite what the storytellers would like for us to think, just don’t have much chemistry (har har) with one-another. In a strange contradiction, though we know they’re in love with one-another, their actions and expressions read as the exact opposite. It’s extremely unconvincing.
Perhaps this is all much simpler than I’m making it out to be. This story just appears to me to be mean-spiritedness expressed in yet another form. The storytellers don’t seem to have any affection toward the lead characters, so why should we? It’s unfortunate. On the other hand, I did learn about null hypotheses, so maybe it wasn’t a total loss?
Pros: If you’re interested in science or math, there are a few fun-facts to be found.
Cons: Most of the issues boil down to mean-spiritedness and a lack of affection toward the protagonists.
Content Warnings: Mostly characters just being rude to one-another.
Grade: D+
Smile Down the Runway
Streaming: Funimation
Episodes: TBA
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: Chiyuki Fujito has always wanted to be a top supermodel, and her goal of walking the runway at Paris Fashion Week seems in the bag; her father owns a fashion brand and modeling agency called Mille Neige, and Chiyuki has the look and body type that many models dream of. That is, until she stops growing at 158cm; well below the height required of elite supermodels. Both her father and the other employees at Mille Neige try to discourage her from following her unattainable dream, but Chiyuki is stubborn to a fault and believes that there must be some way for her dream to become a reality.
One day at school she meets Ikuto Tsumura, a quiet boy who has a secret passion for fashion design. His dream seems out of reach – with his family in financial trouble, there just isn’t money in the budget for Ikuto to attend design school. He claims to be okay with this, but it’s obvious to his family that his talents would be wasted if he went to work right after high school. As sometimes happens in the world, the stars suddenly align: Chiyuki asks Ikuto to design an outfit for her, which is featured in a street snap. Chiyuki finally convinces Mille Neige to sign her, her photo appears in a magazine, an influencer shares the look with her followers, people start begging to buy the look, and thus Chiyuki’s father asks Ikuto to come in as a designer for the company. Sometimes a 1% chance is all that’s needed to make history.
Impressions: To quote the endlessly-quotable Leslie Knope, “I can’t kill the possum, ’cause it might be innocent. I can’t let the possum go, because it might be guilty. Can’t make a good soup, can’t do a handstand in a pool. Can’t spell the word lieutenant. There are a lot of ‘can’t’s in my life right now.” As well-meaning as their comments might be, it’s easy to get discouraged when people elaborate endlessly on all the reasons why the things you’re trying to do just can’t possibly happen. At some point, no matter how stubborn you might be, it just becomes easier to come up with reasons why those other people are right, than to come up with reasons why you should keep trying to do what you want to do.
I’ve wrangled with similar feelings when it comes to writing about anime. I’ve always wanted to distinguish myself with my voice and my knowledge, but the odds are certainly stacked against me; the internet is a vast landscape and there are many people out in that wilderness with voices much louder and more informed than mine. I keep getting older (how’d that happen?) and I’m learning firsthand that some people aren’t as interested in hearing what older anime fans have to say. Heck, there are a lot of people who aren’t interested in hearing what women have to say about anything whatsoever (a fact to which my spam filter will heartily attest). I know I’ll never be a top-tier writing talent. There are a lot of reasons to quit, a few reasons to stay, and the imbalance between these two arguments can be disheartening.
Yet, despite all logic to the contrary, I keep doing what I love to do.
It’s that sort of perspective that draws me to the characters in this story. Chiyuki is stubborn and kind of haughty, but she has a dream that she believes in and knows that her persistence can make it happen somehow. Ikuto is somewhat more resigned to his frustrating reality, but Chiyuki’s drive is enough to spill over into his life and bring him along with her. Life is full of lucky breaks, things that maybe should never have happened, but for some reason managed to surpass whatever fractional percentage of a chance they had of occurring. It’s like winning the lottery, or maybe even just seeing a falling star and having time to make a wish. It’s holding out hope in spite of the naysayers.
Alongside this powerful message, though, there are a few things to be aware of in this episode. Because the series deals with the fashion industry, there’s a lot of focus on body-types (obviously this is a specific concern for the female protagonist, as it’s continually pointed to as her major obstacle). While I’ve heard it argued that “the body is meant as a display for the clothing,” (which is why tall and very slender models are “standard”), my personal feeling is that designers who can’t design clothing that looks good on various body types are severely lacking in talent and imagination. It seems that Ikuto has a talent for making people look their best (he’s designed for his sisters, his boss’s kid, and now Chiyuki), so hopefully the series will do more pushing back against that myth.
This is a series that I was cautiously interested in, and I’m glad to find that, at least so far, I don’t have to be disappointed.
Pros: Provides hope that obstacles can be overcome with drive (and some luck). Characters are appealing.
Cons: There’s a focus on body-types and beauty that can be difficult to reconcile with the desire to avoid using those things as judgments of people.
Content Warnings: Body shaming/applying value to certain body-types.
Grade: B-