Let’s wrap this up.
Of all the loose ends, the story ties up only the most obvious one: Amamizu-kan stays. Mired in some ridiculous relationship woes herself, Shoko all but abandons her goal to redevelop the land. She never really emerged as a true villain for the series; she stayed a sad caricature. Despite its role at the center of Kuragehime, saving Amamizu-kan never felt compelling and I attribute this to the lack of depth in the portrayal of the Nunz (Tsukimi as an exception). They are comic relief at best and, as such, the impending doom of the redevelopment plan was never something I could really empathize with.
To a fault, the show focused on making the least interesting character the most human. We are mostly privy to Tsukimi’s thoughts. She’s the only one to really lay her dreams, hopes and fears all out on the table. Unfortunately, her problems are fucking boring. Worst of all, however, the most developed character doesn’t have much of a resolution.
To take quick stock, saving Amamizu-kan is the only plotline to be sufficiently resolved, but as a viewer, there isn’t much of an emotional connection to latch upon here. The inhabitants are one-dimensional characters aside from Tsukimi so I can’t really feel the tension in the story. What does it matter to me that they might lose their home? People across the world lose their homes every single day. We feel for them because they are real people with real problems. It’s the show’s job to convince us to connect to Amamizu-kan’s inhabitants. Kuragehime had to make me care whether or not the Nunz are kicked out and I don’t think they succeeded.
As for Tsukimi, her conflict is primarily a meandering sorta/sorta-not love triangle that completely fizzles out by the end. It adds nothing to the central plot. At times, it seemed to usurp the entire series with Tsukimi’s mopey monologue. There’s nothing wrong with that. The show doesn’t have to be about Amamizu-kan. Kuragehime could have been The Courtship of Nerd Girl instead, and at times, it really did feel as if her love life was the main story. Unfortunately, the anime focuses so much attention on her relationship with Kuranosuke, then does nothing with it; it feels like a “to be continued” story with neither character really confessing their feelings to the other party. I don’t care if the manga is ongoing or whatever; every anime series should be able to stand on its own two feet. If they couldn’t really wrap up those loose ends, they should have made saving Amamizu-kan a more compelling story. Instead, the most human story is Tsukimi’s love life and it goes nowhere.
The reality is that nothing really changed in Kuragehime. None of the characters really grew.
- Tsukimi and the Nunz are still socially awkward. Tsukimi claims to have gained some confidence (“But for some reason, I don’t want to run away”), but the anime doesn’t really sell this idea to the audience. It merely tells us that this is the case.
- Kuranosuke as a character goes nowhere; he’s essentially a plot device to get Tsukimi’s groove on. Why does he care so much about the Nunz? I’m not saying he shouldn’t care. I’m saying that the anime never really established a good reason for him to drop everything in his life to help them. Maybe he had no life.
- Shu never gets over his fear of women. He just runs away.
- Shoko’s implicit guilt is labeled a trifling crush. She runs away too.
- The threat of Amamizu-kan’s redevelopment never had any weight to it; Chieko’s mom simply had to say no.
In the end, Kuranosuke gives Tsukimi a business idea. And… true to her mother’s words, Tsukimi realizes that every girl becomes a… princess? Great. I’m glad we spent eleven episodes to come to this mundane conclusion. I don’t need to watch eleven episodes for this.
Aren’t we also privy to Kuranosuke’s thoughts? From the beginning of episode 3, we’ve got a front-row seat as we hear his internal monologues about the Nuns, Tsukimi, the Amamizukan and his family. He’s constantly playing the Tsukkomi to everyone else’s Boke. He’s also the driving force behind most events in the story. Things happen because he makes them happen. I would argue that, far from being a plot device, he is at least a co-protagonist alongside Tsukimi.
That being said, I agree that the anime does end with almost nothing resolved. Even the Amamizukan’s fate only gets a gag resolution that’s unique to the anime. It ‘s quite different in the manga.
Kuranosuke’s motivations are completely opaque to me. What I can recall is that he finds Tsukimi cute and interesting and he’s tired of his life. I don’t really know why he cares so much other than these vague statements. To me, he’s closer to a magical pixie girl (what a coincidence that he also cross-dresses as a girl). The MPG shows up in a dork’s life and takes an interest in the hero for no explicable reason. She jump starts the hero’s life, but she’s just that: a concept. Kuranosuke reminds me of that type of character with the genders (somewhat) reversed. For a co-protagonist, he doesn’t seem very fleshed out to me nor does he have an arc of his own. He’s just there to prod Tsukimi along.
Kuranosuke strikes me as a bit of an Emma Woodhouse character, being “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence.” Like Emma, he’s a bored busy-body who loves to meddle in other people’s affairs. He also has ambitions of achieving wealth, fame, and fashion glory. He rebels against his father, ridicules his brother, doesn’t think twice about discarding one set of friends for another, lies, uses blackmail, and simply doesn’t care about what others say he should and shouldn’t do.
He invades Tsukimi’s personal space repeatedly in spite of her obvious discomfort and many appeals that he not come back. In the Amamizukan and its residents, he’s found a new toy that he can play with. As the story goes on, he becomes attracted to Tsukimi, whom he initially considers to be nothing more than a fun little curiosity, like a cute pet. When all this starts to synch with his dreams of fashion glory, he just can’t let it go, and meddles deeper and deeper. That’s how I see him anyway. Again, the anime ends before we see where this all goes, but it does seem to be going somewhere.
This was no kind of ending. I hardly even consider it over, even if they don’t do a second season.
well, the manga is still going on, you can read the rest of the story there, i assume
This anime needed a second season badly. The manga has nearly seventy chapters now, and the problem of Amamizukan is just now getting wrapped up. I feel like the writers were just going along fine with the manga’s story, and then had to quickly come up with their own ending because they somehow couldn’t predict that this niche show about nerdy girls and a crossdresser who combine forces to produce their own high fashion brand based on jellyfish wouldn’t be popular enough to warrant a second season. And that’s sad, because I really enjoy the manga. Although the one thing that’s always bothered me was how Kuranosuke could probably have bought Amamizukan five times over with all the money he’s spent on getting this fashion brand up and running.