Quack.
The first thing that struck me about this episode was the precipitous drop in animation quality. Up til now, the visuals had been quite solid even if nothing special. Maybe it’s no coincidence, then, that the tight narrative up til now suddenly gave way to an unfocused, meandering episode — the type that normally crops up midseason. This episode can be (too) cleanly divided into two halves. We’ll naturally start with the first half…
The Scarlet Letter
In his quest to fulfill Menma’s final wish, Jinta decides to give that going-to-school tactic another shot. He is paranoid, however, thinking all the leering eyes of the student body would be on him.
As always, when we think we have it bad, someone else has it worse; rumors are circulating the school, but it’s not about Jinta. Somehow, Anjou’s brief excursion to the mere entrance of a love hotel has reached school grounds and, well, kids can be so cruel.
We’ll probably never know who spotted Anjou at the love hotel, but it makes you wonder what they were doing around the place. It isn’t long before people start to whisper behind her back like she’s some kind of debauched harlot.
Even her friends don’t act much like friends:
The crescendo finally reaches its limit and Jinta goes into a stuttering rage before the entire classroom in defense of his childhood friend. Perhaps due to years of being a shut-in, Jinta’s wholehearted endorsement of Anjou comes across clumsy and awkward. Anjou couldn’t bear it all any longer and extracts both herself and Jinta from the situation. Apparently teachers don’t have much to say when their students just decide to ditch class in the middle of a lesson plan.
When we next see the two kids, Anjou has a good laugh over Jinta’s impassioned speech. Although the rumors won’t likely stop, and Anjou fears going home and facing her mother, we get the impression that everything is relatively okay for now. If only it were that easy.
This subplot feels a little contrived and mechanical. This is twice in two weeks now that Ano Hana allows its narrative to play out a little too neatly. Last week, Yukiatsu just happened to follow Anjou into the city at the mere mention from Tsuruko that Anjou, too, dons a “costume.” As a result, he was “luckily” there to save Anjou from being dragged into a love hotel against her wishes. This was then followed by a conversation between the pair, the topic of which eventually turned to Jinta. That’s not too much of a stretch by itself; Jinta is the main character of the anime after all. The following day, however, Anjou finds herself in need of saving yet again, but worry not — Jinta’s here to save the day.
Plausibility aside, however, I think the weakness of this subplot lies in the fact that I’m not sure where I’m supposed to place my emotions in the sequence of events. Anjou faces a double standard almost ubiquitous to every society, i.e. women should be ashamed of sex. As such, this feels like it should be Anjou’s story. What I mean by this is that we might finally see her emerge from from the background as a supporting character and become something more. So far, she has mostly been pulled along by the motions of the plot, playing a rather passive role. How she reacts to and confronts her latest situation could define her character, for better or worse. In the end, however, Jinta subsumes even this subplot as well.
There’s nothing wrong with Jinta playing the white knight. “Defender of the helpless” is trite, especially for anime, but it is nevertheless one of Jinta’s defining characteristics. I think, however, there are more potent ways to go about this and we have seen one of those ways. When Yukiatsu told everyone to forget Menma back in the fourth episode, and subsequently made Menma cry, it was natural and organic for Jinta to speak up and make a stand. His defense of Anjou in front of the entire classroom, however, doesn’t have that natural and organic feeling. Instead, it’s a little too convenient and orchestrated. Most of all, you take a serious problem pertaining to many young women in society, and, in the end, use it to illustrate yet another example of shounen bravery… well, that just leaves an odd taste in my mouth. In other words, I have Easy A still a little too fresh in my mind.
Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe I’m too cynical. Maybe this entire subplot indirectly embodies Anjou’s flaws as a person. Poppo remarks at one point in this episode that she was always in Menma’s shadow. Taking that at face value, who and where did Anjou go to when her friend died?
And the rest…
The second half of the anime returns to the ever-so-slow developing mystery of Menma’s final wish. The anime is in no hurry to tell us just quite yet, but it sure has no problems being coy about it. We get little hints here and there, all designed to keep the audience speculating once the episode is over. Jinta, Anjou, and Poppo pay a visit to Menma’s home where they are greeted by Menma’s despondent mother. They eventually depart with a mysterious, little black book!… if only.
It’s as if the cover itself is mocking me. Before they can plumb the secrets within Menma’s diary, Jinta runs off. It seems like he’s scared of what he might find out within the diary’s pages.
Elsewhere, Tsuruko and Yukiatsu discuss that fateful day — if you’ve been following the anime, you know what I’m referring to. Ever jealous of Jinta, Yukiatsu incorrectly recalls that Jinta called them all to the meeting place on that fateful day. Tsuruko remembers being called by Menma instead, which leads to a look of realization on Yukiatsu’s face. They turn to look at each other and then… and then… that’s it. The plot thickens… just look at the glacial way it’s moving!
At night, everything comes to a head when Menma, at first, gets mad at Jinta for visiting her home before bursting into tears. Unfortunately, the drop in animation budget for this episode did this scene no justice:
An emotional and potentially powerful moment is undone by Menma’s ridiculous looking tears. Somehow frustrated, Jinta rants yet again — this time, he is furious at Menma’s selflessness. Knowing how hurt her mother is over her death, Menma wants to be forgotten. Jinta knows that Menma couldn’t possibly want this. What follows next is, to me, a strange sequence of events.
In his anger (I think), Jinta gets a nosebleed during this rant. He is then straddled yet again by Menma. Finally, Jinta dashes out of his home into the empty night. When he goes to visit Poppo, he sees instead Anjou not-at-all scantily-clad and his nosebleed resumes. With that, the episode ends and we are left wondering what the fuss was all about.
Thanks for the keen observation, dude.
When she cries its like turning on a faucet fullblast in each eye.
it’s ka-wai-ee
Nice to see you actively blogging, E Minor. :)
As for Anohana… yeah, I’ve become a bit disappointed with this one after what seemed like a promising start to me.
The fact that Anohana opts to have Menma cry EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, and with over-the-top crying as well, is starting to make the drama in this feel incredibly forced to me. I’m starting to grow cold to it.
However, I didn’t mind the first half of this anime as much as you yourself did. This is mainly since I don’t think it was aiming for an exploration of gender-based double standards, but rather set up a rather simple and straightforward situation where Anjou was unjustly taking flack based on unsubstantiated rumor-mongering, and hence Jinta is given another chance to play hero, grow closer to his old friend Anjou, and set the story straight. Mind you, his awkward speech did undermine that slightly, though not entirely.
The reason why I differ with you here is that Anjou did not, in fact, have sex. If she DID have consensual sex, and this was the fallout from that, I’d probably agree with your take here, actually. But given the broader context here, I think this is more about a friend fighting false rumors on the behalf of a victim of that.
Still, while I didn’t mind the fist half, it wasn’t particularly good either. It was Ok. Solid. But nothing that really impressed me.
And the second half did feel a bit weak to me, and the ending of the episode was simply corny. I agree with you on that end, and how silly it was given that Anjou wasn’t exactly scantily clad there, lol.
Anyway, great blogging. I look forward to reading more. :)
Oh, I haven’t seen you comment on this blog recently. Maybe this blog does retain some readers after all. ;v
Interesting that you should bring this fact up. In Easy A, the girl didn’t have sex either although she play a part in perpetuating the rumors. Regardless of whether or not Anjou had consensual sex, however, I nevertheless think that the entire subplot had deeper implications that the anime could have explored but it instead chose a rather safe and banal route.
We’re not in disagreement here. I know that the anime isn’t “aiming for an exploration of gender-based double standards.” I know that they wanted to emphasize the power of friendship and Jinta’s good heart. This is the text itself; there’s nothing to dispute here. My main point, which might have been lost in the haze of my late night rambling, is simply that in this day and age, one can no longer plead ignorance. What do I mean by that? In this day and age, when we are presumably ever the more enlightened and progressive compared to generations past, it rubs me the wrong way that the creators should utilize such a subplot in a way that I find rather callous. I don’t go “rah rah womyn power” in every post on this blog and expect some feminist treatment in every anime, but if we’re going to broach this topic, which the anime chose to do, resolving the conflict so simply without exploring the deeper implications… it strikes me as cheap and somewhat disingenuous. We take a serious societal issue involving Anjou and we use it to prop up Jinta — not Anjou. Yes, this is likely the intention of the anime, but is it the right one? I’m sure many will be quick to say there’s no right or wrong in this case and they are, of course, entitled to that opinion.
I see your point.
Anyway, please keep up the good work. I don’t always comment, but I frequently lurk. I’ve found that you’re about the only active anime blogger willing to go against the crowd on anime shows like Summer Wars, Durarara!, and Anohana. So it’s really interesting to read a more critical take on those anime shows (even when I do like them).
I actually think Ano Hana is the best anime this season. I just didn’t think this particular episode was very good compared to the previous five.
The diary has “enjoy” on it? Odd..
Let me sketch a cliche for you: beautiful blonde Russian woman in Japan? Escort/prostitute/etc., perhaps smuggled in. Menma? Not her father’s child.
Why make a big deal out of what happened with Anjou (stretching it across multiple episodes even)? To maintain certain issues relating to the above scenario “in play” in advance of one of the big reveals (that, say, Menma’s dad was mean to her mom b/c he thought the mom doted too much on the kid she had with someone who wasn’t him).
Is this development foreshadowed? Somewhat: we have the tense scene at Menma’s house in ep1 (not a happy family), we have multiple instances of “Menma’s father is scary” / “we never played at her house” (and more in the ep7 preview), and we have the
book the teacher was discussing when Jinta defended Anaru (if you pay attention it’s a some novel about a man angry at his wife for cheating on him). It’d also explain why Menma’s mom gave the diary over so freely (if it’s not that, I guarantee there’s some other secret the mom wanted to get out somehow).
I’m hoping it’s something smarter than that (and something that’ll surprise me, too), but sadly enough I can see something like that playing out right now.
So that’s a half-hearted speculation as to not-impossible plot developments that’d perhaps justify the two-episode focus on Anaru’s near brush with “compensated dating”. In any case the diary’s going to get read soon (perhaps Anaru and Jinta will read it together).
Thanks for the all the insightful commentary on this show.
I didn’t consider that the teacher’s lesson plan might foreshadow anything so that’s an interesting observation. On the other hand, I don’t really delve into plot speculation. Your theory’s interesting, but since we’ll see how it all plays out in the coming weeks anyway, it just ain’t my thing. I’m particularly skeptical over some of your justifications anyway. In particular, a young child’s diary is nothing special — there’s no reason to think the mother should think twice about turning it over.
Yeah, speculation is fun but it’s a short show so I’ll knock it off.
Main thing motivating the above speculation is that this show’s writing makes extensive — and imho too much — use of “mirroring” (of scenarios, character traits, lines of dialog, etc.).
Overall AnoHana is well written but is also a bit of a one-trick pony that way, and it makes it tempting to guess what’ll happen next by looking for anything that seems significant but hasn’t yet been mirrored.
It goes without saying, but you don’t have to knock off anything you enjoy. I was only giving a reason why I have nothing to add to “what happens next.”
I mean, you reminded me that Irene was Russian. Overall, I didn’t find your theory far fetched, particularly the abusive father angle. Still, Irene being smuggled prostitute does feel a little out there, no offense.
Yeah, no offense taken on that theory, I wouldn’t have thought of it either except for the show’s juxtaposition of teacher’s monologue with Anaru’s misadventures and the repeated heavy hinting at Menma having a “bad family situation”. It’s the kind of theory I’d hope turns out wrong anyways.
Personally, this episode just made me wish that we spent more time with the adults in this show, specifically Menma’s mother, but Jintan’s father, too. The portion of the episode with Menma’s mother made me very sad.
I think you’ll get your wish pretty soon.