ROMANCING THE ANIME: On Fruits Basket, Horimiya, Welcome To The NHK, Love Is War, and Yuri!!! On ICE (Patreon)

Ahhhhh romance.

There are few things more engaging in cinema. And for nearly a century they seemed to be the storytelling basis of movies themselves, from screwball comedies, to dramatic affairs of the heart, to even the obligatory backbone of an adventure story. And now? Not so much. So much so that I suppose you could ask the question, “why aren’t they like that anymore? What happened?” I know there’s a whole bunch of likely answers we could project onto their decline, probably centered around the fact that half the country got more conservative about sex while the other half experience changing views of marriage, monogamy, heteronormativity, gender-normativity, and even the idea of “true love” itself. But I think there’s a much more interesting set of questions involved here. And it’s asking why was romance such a popular crux for movie-going in the first place? What was it about love stories that made them so dramatically compelling to audiences? How and why do they function? And in the end, what allows them to adapt and change with modern times?

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but in honor of February / Valentine’s Day (or as my friend Jamie calls it, “Dumb Day”) I feel ready to dive into these questions because I just did a big poll on Romantic Anime recommendations. The point of these polls is usually to identify which shows are “must see,” but in this case the responses spurred on me checking out not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE different series. And what’s great about these shows is that for all their unique flourishes, each show exhibits a different audience and methodology when it comes to romance storytelling. Which is why each show can be broken down into three different methods of how it 1. Establishes a Viewpoint 2. Creates Conflict Construction, and 3. Releases with Catharsis Resolution. But the truth is that how much you enjoy each show will largely depend on your own feelings about the show’s approach with those three central elements. Which means this essay is gonna talk a lot about male and female gazes, bumbling social skills, first loves, being trapped in your head, screwball comedies, and more!

And take heed, all essays are spoiler free! It’s much more about methodology and there's only one section that really requires diving into one of the endings, but I will designate with clear start and end spoiler tags! So let’s hop to it!

1. FRUITS BASKET (Cour 1) - FEMALES BE GAZIN’!

“There’s that Shōjo sparkle!”

With these choice words, Landon identified that little animation technique where the camera looks up adoringly at a CUTE BOY and all the lovey dovey light sparkles that go with it. It’s almost reductive to just chalk it up to being representative of “the female gaze” as if that’s some literal thing. Because what that term is really about is identifying perspective through the complex combination of looking at the ones constructing it, along with the intended audience, and what they want out of what they are seeing. Granted, the term Shōjo means “targeting an audience of adolescent females and young adult women,” but even that can mean so many things (and for the record, fuck the gender binary here, but it’s hard cause so much of the language in these romance constructions is stuck in those antiquate terms). Anyway, there’s a lot I’m still learning about the specificity of anime and manga, but I do have a huge familiarity with western YA that’s aimed at young women, of which there is some considerable overlap. And within both forms, the idea is to get close to a shared viewpoint that creates an intended feeling. This obviously tends to work best if it’s coming from a female writer, like Natsuki Takaya does here with Fruits Baskets, which is a series I have been recommended time and time again since I started this Ani-Me project, because it’s considered one of the classics of the form.

And I immediately cackled once it got to the conceit.

Because OF COURSE the ultimate Shōjo series would be about a girl whose hugs could turn cute boys into even cuter animals. Like even just saying it I’m like “how has this not existed for hundreds of years?” But given that the show is tapping into the history of zodiac signs and myth, maybe it already has? Either way, it’s just one of those perfectly amazing ideas and this whole show is steeped in cuteness. Even the boys’ super-powered, home-wrecking fighting has the innocent tone of schoolyard rough-housing. But what’s great is how Tohru’s story is about zooming into the quietly raging id of a young girl’s mind. It’s not just in the way that engages the common trope of her being a young girl who feels “plain and ordinary” and the new social world that breaks her out of her shell. It’s that the show also engages another popular trope of these stories, which is “the parents are out of the picture.” Why does this trope happen? Because so often the stories are aimed at young kids who are beginning their steps of adolescence away from parents and starting to achieve independence. It’s not just that younger people tend to like reading stories about people five years older than them, it’s also about the fantasy of a world where they’re truly self-sustaining and on their own. And as hard as it can be, it’s about discovering your own self-earned capabilities in that journey. It’s the fantasy of being an adult when you’re still stuck in the middle.

In this particular case, Tohru is literally orphaned, having recently lost her mom and was presumably supposed to be living with her grandpa. But through a series of unfortunate circumstances (mostly related to her being “afraid to ask,” which we’ll come back to) she ends up living in the woods in a tent by herself. But then through ANOTHER set of circumstances within the pilot, her home is destroyed and she ends up living with one of the CUTE SUPER POPULAR NEIGHBOR BOYS that she goes to school with and sparkly adoration ensues. Now, I’ve seen the world “harem anime” thrown around a lot and I don’t know if I quite have seen one in its purest form, but the format just speaks to the idea of any story where the main character is surrounded by a lot of potential love interests. But does that mean there is lots of kissing and romance hijinks in this show? For the first chunk of this story at least, not quite.

Which brings us to Fruits Basket’s methodology of conflict.

To best explain it, there’s a moment early on where Yuki (one of the cute boys) is showing Tohru kindness and she goes into her internal voice over of, “I-I’m so shocked and touched and confused, my heart’s going to beat right out of my chest!” And it’s all about THIS. Because this is the exact feeling that show is going for. Note that it’s much less the swoons of loving touch and passionate kisses. No, it’s that highly-charged, emotional dizziness that often comes with puberty and that time where we haven’t quite developed our internal-emotional-understanding skills, let alone the social skills to act on them. But that’s actually part of the point. Because there’s something so pure and innocent about this feeling, too. One that even people more grown can come back to with a sense of appreciation. So for this show, it’s all about delivering this core feeling to the audience... But wait, how would a show manage to deliver that elated, but confused emotion again and again and again through an evolution of storytelling? Well, that’s sort of the rub… Because you have to get tricky with the art of repetition.

To wit, there’s this moment in one of the earlier episodes where Tohru looks up at Yuki as he’s having that trademark sparkle and she says “I felt like this is the first time I saw his true smile!” And I can tell she means it as a character. And I can tell the narrative wants this moment to have the weight of those words. The problem is that, as a viewer, they have shown him do this exact smiling animation, like, 40 times already. In fact, she’s even expressed this sentiment before in slightly different words. Which means what she’s saying is just an act of lip service. That is reflective of the dramatic trait where they are constantly trying to add weight to a dramatic moment that doesn’t actually shift the relationship at all, and is stealthily repeating the same affectation again and again. For instance, there’s one episode later where there’s a big climactic moment where Yuki arrives just in the nick of time to help a situation with Tohru’s family and I’m like “what a great climax to the episode!” But there’s still time left so then they go outside and repeat the exact same sentiments of the interaction, not once, but TWICE more. It’s often like, “hey remember 10 seconds ago when they had an emotional scene thanking each other? That was great!” So it’s not so much about building catharsis within a contained story as it is just constant issuing storytelling reassurance. And if I’m going to be honest, the dramatist in me has a whole problem with this kind of storytelling (and to be clear it’s not unique to Shōjo, I identified a lot of similar tactics in Battle Shonen like FullMetal Alchemist, it’s just with fighting). But I also realize this is not a problem for much of the audience. In fact, this kind of YA storytelling is DESIGNED to repeat as much as possible.

If you think I’m exaggerating, allow me to point you to the success of a little book / film series called Twilight. In those stories, Bella is stuck between longing for Edward and Jacob and nothing really happens until near the end of the story and the “confused, I”m not sure, but I want everything” nature of the conflicts repeat again and again and again (he also LITERALLY sparkles in that one so I’m saying Twilight is anime). Meaning it’s aiming for that same thing as Tohru says “I-I’m so shocked and touched and confused, my heart’s going to beat right out of my chest!” In Twilight it literally brings you into that interiority as much as it can every page because it’s told from Bella’s viewpoint. And in Fruits Basket, it’s asking “how can we do this dramatic action as many times as possible in 20 minutes?” It doesn’t WANT the trials and tribulations of a scary real life complex relationship. It wants to stay in the safety of the before-all-that-time, when everything is possible.

Now, please understand that the relative effectiveness of this viewpoint and structure on the audience is two-fold. It’s 1) how much you relate to that same feeling - which again, more common in confusing early puberty land, but not limited to that - and 2) how much you identify with liking all the other romantic figures in question. I mean, OF COURSE some straight dude is going to have a tougher time clicking into the emotional delivery device if they can’t emotionally want the same people as the character in question. It’s all about what we’re into. And there are many ways that big budget trashy HBO show will be no different when it comes to the more indulgent and fun natures of audience rooting / shipping mechanics.

The other thing with this particular kind of story is that a huge matter of influence is whether or not you, as the audience member, come from an Ask Vs. Guess Culture, which has to do various versions of politeness and social cadence. To best explain, I’m going to paraphrase from this great tik tok from @maryrobinettekowal on the subject https://www.tiktok.com/@maryrobinettekowal/video/7099897861491412270?_r=1&_t=8ZuSM7xKNjy  . Personally, I grew up in an ask culture, where if you want something, you just ask and say like “hey can you hand me that cereal box off the fridge?” And they either say yes or no, depending on whatever they feel like doing. But in a guess culture? It is often impolite to ask people things because in those cultures, saying “no” is the rudest thing you can possibly do - and putting someone in that position of saying no is also considered rude. So you have to use language like “man, those cereal boxes sure are too high on the fridge for me!” and the other person is supposed to deduce that you want them handed to you (or put in a better place from now on). Now, where this becomes conflict-ridden is when people from an ask culture meet people from a guess culture. Because often someone prompting “guess” communication like wanting cereal boxes lower will 100% read as passive aggressive to someone from ask culture. Like, why the hell wouldn’t you just ask? It’s no big deal! Meanwhile, the ask culture person will often piss off a guess culture person because they don’t understand that where the other is from, they HAVE to say yes, so they will get teed off if they secretly think the request is unreasonable. And you have no idea how much conflict between people comes from this dynamic... But what does this have to do with Fruits Basket and Shōjo?

Kind of a lot! Because so much of the storytelling of this show is steeped in guess culture. Tohru is a character full of interiority, want, desire, and yet she is also largely a passenger due to the rules of propriety and subject to the whims, requests, and insistences of those around her. But note that the character’s lack of agency is less about inaction, but more about leading to that same confused feeling the story is aiming for. At one point Tohru outright asks “Would you mind if I savor the time thinking it over!” Because in the end, the chief emotion being targeted is not the trials and tribulations of actually being in a relationship, but so much more the longing to be considered, let alone desired. Yes, I know the wallflower main character is a bit of a trope, but the sentiment is not just written into the fabric of the series, but the name of the show itself. As “Fruits Basket” refers to the Japanese childhood game of going around and being chosen as fruit, but she was always “just a rice ball.” And as much as she comes to embrace herself at this later age and state “rice balls are yummy!” (and they are), it reflects how much she felt like she never got to join the group. And now in the story the memory of the game is evoked in how much she gets to relish in all these bright, beautiful boys who are the fruits that surround her now. Only now, she belongs with them.

To be clear, Tohru is not aimless and actually has a goal, but it is literally verbalized as wanting to “be around and have him tell me more things” and “I hope I can find more hidden sides of them,” which is all about peeling back the layers of the boys in question instead of her own journey. So in the end, it’s probably harder for an outside viewer to lean into the drama because there’s just so much reactionary viewing in this kind of story. But again, I know it’s part of the point. I’d just probably have an easier time sticking with the show if I felt a stronger sense of her own internal evolution. Sure, there’s moments of genuine introspection where she’ll ask, “does it prove I’m too soft on myself?” But it never really feels like the story is following up on them in a way where it actually changes her behavior and characterization, largely because it’s so dedicated to the resetting conflict approach mentioned above. Because her static normalcy is integral to the confused-but-elated emotional delivery device.

As for catharsis, I’ve only watched the first cour (which I always assumed was written core, sorry), but I imagine the show hits some grand crescendo where she finally makes a choice and I hope it is filled with deep meaning to the story and characterization (after all, Twilight gets so delightfully bugnuts the second she finally makes the choice). But right now I recognize its early power for what it is. Because the original author seems to be writing about a very specific form of want and desire. I mean, all the boys even fit the author’s apparent type in that they all pretty much have the same physique and haircut (just with different colors). Again, this is part of the show’s clear strength. And when I was talking with Landon about my feelings on the series he said something rather apt, that Fruits Basket may “not be the best Shōjo series, but it is the most pure.” And even though I’ve only seen the first chunk of it, I see how that designation fits very much. For it is so fundamentally tied to the instinctual basis of the genre. But admittedly, it also gets me excited to watch something that branches out into something a little more complex.

Which brings us to…

2. HORIMIYA - FIRST LOVES AND FORMER SELVES

So I thought this show was flipping fantastic.

But what’s immediately fascinating about the viewpoint of this show is how skillfully it shifts it around, often in a way that seems like it’s drifting at first, but somehow becomes a meaningful, contained story within the episode. The pilot is a perfect example. It starts by focusing so much on our main girl, Kyoko Hori, who is popular, put-together, and totally crushed on. But she is also surrounded by insensitivity that frustrates her, including adult teachers who say gross, reductive things. We sense her tiredness and disgust over this entire environment. We then see that she has to independently take care of her little brother Sota as her mom works (and will soon learn her dad is elsewhere) and it paints this whole world of adults letting her down. But one day little brother Sota gets a nosebleed and a young man escorts him home to get taken care of. Hori notes the man’s rough looking appearance, complete with extravagant piercings and tattoos, but doesn’t think much of it given the kindness of his gesture. But within a few minutes of talking to him she realizes that he is Miyamura, the quiet and stand-off-ish boy from class who seems to have been hiding his “outside look” from them. She’s mortified, but quickly the younger brother takes a liking to Miyamura and thus he spends a lot of time around the two of them. And it soon becomes that she has an affinity for him. But what’s so grounding us in Hori is that it is clear she doesn’t have a clear idea what’s going on in his head. At least not yet.

Now, what’s structurally fascinating is the whole time we’re also following another classmate Toru, who has a crush on Hori and when Miyamura finds this out, he begins pulling a bit away from Hori out of a seeming respect. Internally, we’re like no, no, no because we like them. And when Hori confronts him about drifting away, the truth comes out. But this is precisely what makes the two admit they like that they can be so free and easy and “themselves” together in this situation, often in a way no one else sees. It’s such a perfect start to a budding romance, not because it’s some swoon of passion, but because it is breaking down the walls they each put up with the world outside. And it really is a remarkable way of building a pilot because the entire Tori plot-line becomes an integral part of what spurs on their own emotional vulnerability. But what’s telling is how all the episodes use these kinds of viewpoint shifts as emotional building blocks. As much as the story becomes a two-hander for the titular Hori and Miya, it also fills out with other characters along the way.

In short, we get to see how the viewpoint is so closely tied to the structure itself, allowing us to navigate a whole slew of characters who are navigating their first crushes, which in turn highlights the way our wants can often bounce off the competing wants of others in the world around us. But despite the seemingly vignette-y nature of it, every episode finds this way to be contained. Sometimes its with clear objectives, like Hori trying to figure her way around the embarrassment of not knowing Miyamura’s first name. And the episodes are also full of all these fun reversals, like us thinking a younger girl in school is so upset because Miyamura’s been taken, but instead it’s soooo not that (hahahaha). Everything has this amazing, contained cause and effect. But am I simply taken with it because its plotting is so much more active instead of reactionary? Is it simply the “male” authorship behind all these changing viewpoints? Is it the fact the story evolves instead of relishing in the static repetition? I can’t say for sure.

All I know is the show is full of moments that make my heart sing. There’s all these plots with old bullies, long distance trips, and even a gorgeous guy with comically bad eyesight. They feel like fun and games, but they actually get at the interiority of what the characters struggle with. Take the great scenes where Hori is self conscious of the fact she likes horror movies (and they makes Miya scared). But any time she tries to do all the socially-acceptable gender-normative stuff like grasp his hand when something scary happens, she just scares him more in turn. But I love hat what comes out of this, because it’s playing into her fear that she “can’t do anything cute” but also her learning that he isn’t participating in this because he wants her to be “cute,” but be herself. As vignette-y as it may seem, there’s always this place where they start and a new place they arrive by episodes end. As if always exploring some new parts of their relationships. I mean, there’s even a kink episode? Which actually makes for a good aside for the subject which I’ve neer really devolved into…

So the thing about Kink in narrative media is that it’s tricky. Or at least, inherently complex. Because in real life, kink is contractual agreement between two people who are REAL differing entities. And it’s the clear navigation of what they want, what they don’t want, and the clear establishing of boundaries which highlight that they’re “acting” between them. But in media portrayal? The two entities don’t actually exist. They are constructions. And often there’s just a lone author reflecting a hypothetical scenario in their head. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. It’s an inescapable reality of the form. And I think there needs to be more media that portrays this subject with actual understanding. But when you’re dealing with various kinks that deal with power dynamics and degradation? You inherently get into this tricky space where it becomes a question of does the writing feel like it’s coming off as an “accurate reflection of a relationship with this kind of kink element” OR “does this feel like a weird case of a writer shoving a kink into episode as enacting their own fantasy?” Again, I’m not saying either is inherently good or bad and there are so many good examples where it’s a lot more harmless. But here, when it comes to this exact kink of verbal / physical abuse and the way so many destructive men ASSUME this is what all women secretly want? It ends up relying on whether a portrayal of Kink seems to understand that (plus there’s another layer of Japanese cultural mores that fit in here that I’m sure I’m not understanding of either). In short, it’s a loaded-ass topic that can be a massive trigger for people and the episode kinda felt like riding a rollercoaster out of fucking nowhere. I was almost in a state of panic, like, is this going to be the show now? To be clear, there are times in the episode it seems to handle the communication well, but also times where I was like UH, WHAT THE FUCK because it definitely did not. Does this conversation at least make sense? I hope so, but whatever you think, I’m honestly glad it just lasted one episode - because ultimately, the show is after something much, much different.

But it’s hard to talk about this show without talking about catharsis. Not just when it comes to the end of the series, but the many pieces of catharsis along the way [spoilers for rest of this Section!]. So much of the catharsis is about people taking the next steps and moving closer. As Hori holds up so many of her walls and is a bit more passive, but then there’s that incredible episode where there is the first distance between them and it starts gnawing at her. Which then leads to the incredible catharsis of (this normally reserved girl) running and grabbing him and saying “I never knew how long five days could feel.” It’s the erasure of the barriers and fronts and so many things we put up to protect ourselves. And when it comes to the ending, I know there’s a modern part of ourselves that laments when any kind of young love story goes toward marriage. And I get it, I have a ton of thoughts about marriage and its endless antiquation. But in storytelling? Perhaps it’s just that obligatory way old Hays Code movies had to end in marriages to justify what we’ve seen before. But in modern stories I feel like it’s less trying to reflect the practicality of the modern world and more the simple promise of love itself. That love means something. That having a partner in your life can help you. That against all odds, you will try to commit to it. Because in the end, we all KNOW how much marriage ends in divorce (just as we know the glut of expensive wedding culture). But the idea behind it is just the notion of hope and celebration. As much as it seems to be about the future, It’s sticking a marker in the ground and honoring the sanctity of the now. But hey, I suppose the whole marriage thing also comes across so much better in a story like this that has so many other kinds of catharsis.

Because as students pair off, we see so many different kinds of resolutions. When one of them feels the familiar hurt of when one character chooses another of them, they state “it only hurts more because nobody is in the wrong.” Which shows this outright understanding that the world is complex and we can hold two competing feelings at once. In another perfect example, Sakura declares her affection for another that is not returned. But right afterward, another student remarks on Sakura’s attitude with the most amazing line “you seem happier, but I don’t think something good happened.” Because it’s not about the joy of pairing off. It’s about finding inner courage and letting it give voice to your inner feelings. She had a crush. She tried. It didn’t happen. But she still had that experience. And in the end she gives him this lovely handshake and says, “I’ll never forget you,” which shows this amazing, different kind of internal growth. And one that is also best reflected in the incredible arc with Miya himself.

Yes, so much of Miya’s story is that of gratefulness to Hori. He tells her that beautiful line  “thank you for shattering my reality,” but so much of that reality is related to the feelings he had long ago. Of which, there are two key episodes where Miya has these daydreams about speaking with his younger self, who was a kid who felt isolated, alone, and unloved. We see that his solution was to push people away. He’s a kid who didn’t realize that soon enough, the barriers will come down. But it’s hard to talk to that younger self in earnest. There isn’t a simple “it gets better” type speech to be given here. But miya acknowledges this by saying, “I know this is all hypothetical. But it wasn’t hypothetical for you.” And doubling down by honoring that past by saying, “I promise i won't pretend you aren’t there anymore.” Because what is deeply connected to this former self is the emotion of fear - and acknowledging that the fear is still here. For now with Hori and full of happiness, Miya can’t help but wonder “what if all this didn’t happen?” Even saying it, he feels the sting in his gut. But so much of this catharsis is about putting his fears out into the open. As Miya beautifully puts it to Hori, “there's no boundary between us. I used to be so scared of that,” and it’s here we realize that their marriage - for all our potential worries -  is so much more about them becoming a unit in this pursuit. Their connection, like the titular “Horimiya” mashup of their names, is the acknowledgement that they are in this together. In verbalizing all of this - in showing how much love is not about simply having swooning emotions for another person, but in peeling back your layers of defensiveness and showing the raw nugget of fears, and the danger of being know -  this high school show ended up creating one of the more complete, complex, and touching expressions of firsts loves and forgotten selves that I’ve ever seen. And like Miya himself, I am so grateful.

[end spoilers].

As much as Horimiya is about the story of what happens when we break ourselves from the prisons of loneliness, there are more horrible stories of what happens when we can’t seem to get unstuck from the reality we have created for ourselves…

3. WELCOME TO THE NHK (Cour 1) - MALES BE NAVAL-GAZIN’!

Hoo boy did this one have a tougher barometer of accessibility.

To be fair, the show does its best to bring you into its hyper specific viewpoint. This is the story of Tatsuhiro Satō, a young man who is NEET which means “Not in Education, Employment, or Training,” which kind of implies they are some sort of layabout person. But it’s specifically the character’s combination with what is called Hikikomori, that is “a form of severe social withdrawal… [that] has been frequently described in Japan and is characterized by adolescents and young adults who become recluses in their parents' homes, unable to work or go to school for months or years.” But our Satō actually lives in a small apartment, hiding his condition from those in his family. But this is the story about him and his chance meeting with a girl, Misaki Nakahara, and all the things that bring him out into the world.

But there’s a wrinkle to this, which is the titular NHK, which is the name he gives to the conspiracy that is ruining his life (and it’s also the name of a popular Japanese media company) and, again, hoo boy. Because all elements of storytelling are going to clash into the real life things they relate to. And conspiracy culture has gone through a long arc in media representation, though I imagine maybe it might not feel that way if you’re new to it (and it’s just that I feel old as hell). But when I was young it was this political response to the instability of the JFK assassination and the very real scandals of Watergate - and this gave rise to the paranoid thrillers of 3 Days of the Condor and The Parallax View. They were direct cultural criticisms about the institutions that fostered death. But then all cascaded into the seeming fun and games of conspiracy that was popularized in The X-Files, which seemed to ask what else could they be hiding? Aliens! Werewolves! Humans with scary superpowers! But all of this promptly took a terrible turn in the aftermath of 9/11. Where suddenly “conspiratorial” thinking went from criticism of powerful institutions / fun and games to an outright denial of the unfortunate reality. Combine this with the rise of Fox News / Alt Right Online Media we crested right into the age of online disinformation and rise of Q Anon and now families are literally getting torn apart by conspiratorial insanity. This is the reality of the now. So any time I see a conspiracy-centric plot these days, I genuinely can’t help, but get “uhhhhhhh” about it because I see the arc of time with it. And that’s particularly of this show which dives right into certain segments of anon culture as they were in their infancy. Because, yes, the show takes place in 2006 and it’s engaging its subject matter earnestly, but again, you can’t help but feel that arc of time.

For this is true of even in the way the show uses other popular storytelling tropes. Starting with the fact that Misaki is a prime example of the manic pixie dream girl who purely exists to break Satō out of his funk (literally in this case). But what’s perhaps telling is that term was literally coined the next year in 2007 by Nathan Rabin in his review of Elizabethtown. And here Misaki comes in with this seeming angelic-like ability to understand everything about him already and literally says “I have come to rescue you.” But this is the storytelling allure of the manic pixie dream girl, of course. They exist to bring them out of their shell. Does it reflect any of their own personhood? Oh gosh no. But there’s a chicken / egg problem with the fact that this is often how many first love interests feel to young shy boys and so it feels “true” to them (and then they unfortunately put unrealistic expectations on them). But this is where it all comes back to the singular authorship thing. It’s all a story being told by a single mind, existing in a single mind-scape. And to the show’s credit, it seems deeply aware of all this, specifically in Satō’s weird push-pull relationship to the conspiracy itself. Namely, that he seems to be aware that it's a self-made fabrication of his, but often going back and forth in terms of that belief.

So this brings us back to that whole question of viewpoint. If I had watched this when I was, like, 13? I have no idea how I would or would not empathize with this, but it surely would be different then how I see it now with the arc of time. And that’s not to say I can’t watch a story about a person who is in trouble in all these specific ways, it’s just the question of how much of the show is ALSO looking at this person from the outside? And how much of the show is really putting you in this position from a place of commiseration without the criticism? That’s where the structural part of thes show becomes a little hard for me. Because there’s just so much casual misogyny between the male characters (especially with the next door friend, and a lot of the porn / gaming plot stuff). One friend used the phrase “aggressively off putting” to describe the sensation and I even felt weird allergic to the animation. And if I had the sense it was going somewhere faster maybe I could put up with it longer, but it just makes you feel stuck in it. After a few episodes I made the note that “I don’t know how to feel about what’s happening” and honestly neither does the show. It just sort of exists in that proto-incel burgeoning mindset and it makes you feel stuck in it with him.

Yes, to its credit, I know the story is about someone genuinely trying to transcend the bounds of this world that has trapped him (and how much he resents it), but the tone of the thing ends up feeling more like Neil Labute’s The Shape of Things then something that is about the development that comes from freeing oneself past that space. To wit, a show like Rent-A-Girlfiend has the character start in a similar place, but quickly the interactions (with people who feel very much real and are full of their own wants and needs) make for a story that pushes him into a real space. But for all the ways Satō goes out and explores the world, it never really feels like he gets out of his own head. No other character ever really feels like an independent figure, more just objects that represent the things he either wants or the obstacles he resents. As a love story, it feels impossibly reductive. But the gaze isn’t really focused in that direction anyway. Remember how I used the term “naval gazing” in the title above? Well, even that is probably a bit erroneous because I think it kind of trivializes what Satō is actually wrestling with.

This is a fiction about the pains of solipsism. About being trapped so within the headspace of your own reality that all conflicts and fears get stoked from that internal self-hating, and all events in the world become mere extensions of that feeling. The show seems to know this, but also seems to have no idea how to really create a story beyond it (which seems to be true all throughout its run? I fully admit I had to stop watching this and wiki’d ahead and it confirmed all my worst suspicions). I don’t quite know what to say about it. I imagine to someone it’s a piece of art that spoke profoundly to someone who was feeling that way at the time. And sometimes such commiseration is enough. Sometimes you just need a work to mirror a feeling - a shared world that proves you are not alone - and that can offer some kind of hope. But there are all sorts of dangerous commiserations that lead you further down the rabbit hole (I mean, commiseration is the fundamental tool of nazi recruiters and historically they got their hooks into that exact anon culture). You always need the real way out. And the thing about trying to get through Welcome to the NHK is I couldn’t see those ways out. And sometimes that’s enough reason to stop, for you just have to move onto the things that strike you deeper.

But just because I’m bouncing off some shows (I mostly just don’t have time to watch all of everything) doesn’t mean it’s not worth getting into. There are so many lessons about the various machinations and approaches of storytelling and how we connect to them. Continued case in point…

4. KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR - THE ART OF SCREWBALL ANTICS

So I love screwball comedies.

They’re romance stories that are full of all sorts of hijinks and antics, but the successful ones understand that there is actually a methodology going on here. When it comes to viewpoint there is an innate understanding that these are deeply flawed, self-involved people. Take a film like 1937’s The Awful Truth, where our two main characters are in a bad marriage where it’s (clearly implied) they’re both philandering about with others. But when the mutual truth comes out and they file for divorce? It’s about how they’re slowly not able to give each other up. See the whole key is despite the two of them doing “unlikable” things, there is still this impish, mischievous nature to them that’s oddly likable, too. It’s usually the way that they throw lines around that a polite person would never have the courage to say. This works because as an audience member, there’s very little projection going on. Unlike something like Fruits Baskets, we aren’t really projecting ourselves into the scenario. No, with screwball comedies, we know there’s a difference between us, which creates some much needed distance and becomes the whole part of the fun of indulging.

Now, the screwball story also tends to tap into the central trope of two characters who go from hating each other to loving each other. Which, yes, is one of the most misguided tropes of romance stories when it comes to what actually makes for healthy relationships. This is absolutely true. But that’s also not the intention of screwball comedies - and this is where the whole “separation” thing matters most, because entertaining stories are built off of conflict and having characters go from “we hate each other! No, we love each other!” is the biggest possible arc. Meanwhile, also within the dynamic of the two romantic leads there’s usually some mix of high / low status where one is disrupting another’s world. In The Lady Eve, she’s a con artist trying to make a play at a sappy, snake-obsessed stick in the mud who happens to be an heir to an ale fortune. In My Man Godfrey, the unhoused “forgotten man” is the one on the straight and narrow as he’s brought into the topsy-turvy world of a rich family that delights in the absurd. Either way, the whole key is that there is some part of you that likes and is rooting for this goofy, often illogical pairing to be together. And as a storyteller, you’re always riding this fine line and trying to get the audience to buy into the thing that doesn’t quite make sense.

Kaguya-Sama: Love is War is absolutely a screwball comedy in this tradition. But I’ll admit, the first couple episodes gave me a little pause. For one, I wasn’t sensing enough of a difference between the two main characters at first. They were both incredibly high-status, hyper-diabolical instead of just mischievous, and privileged while the other was apparently just “cheap.” It felt like they were two conniving figures who should have been toying with an innocent pray la Cruel Intentions or something. Also troubling was how the initial use of voice-over was wall to wall, barely letting us have a moment to actually deduce a single emotional moment for ourselves. And even when it comes to their central game of “admitting love” with one another? I admi that of all the human emotions to play with, the one I tend to have the least interest in is stories that entirely hinge on upholding pride. Personally speaking, I didn’t have “a way in.”

But by the third episode? Suddenly, it all starts clicking. It’s not just that the episodes severely calm down on the voice over element. It’s how the characters started shifting in lovely ways. Yes, I’m talking about that hilarious “virgin” vignette that showed how they were both hugely capable of endearing forms of embarrassment. Because the show suddenly comes alive when it’s about hiding their obvious vulnerability, not delighting in their cruel one-ups-man-ship. Note the way it suddenly starts undermining their high status by showing Kaguya’s sheltered lack of knowledge of the real world and also Miyuki’s utter desperation to keep up certain appearances. Soon they even both have pointed interiority. For there’s the great vignette where Kaguya ends up walking a young girl to school and we see this whole more open, tender side. At the end we also meet a dishevled Miyuki, sweaty and late for school, but it’s the first time he doesn’t seem to care how he looks in front of her - all because getting them both to school on time is more important. So even if the overall story isn’t changing, we’re beginning to pull back layers and have a change in how we view them.

But where it gets even more interesting is the structure of conflict construction. Because even though it’s working from the viewpoint of a screwball comedy, it’s still a television show on a structural level. Which means it has to adopt the rules of sitcom storytelling and there’s this old saying that all sitcoms are “purgatory.” Meaning all the characters have all these wants and desires and they try to enact change, but there is some flaw that ends up undermining their efforts. They try and try and try to rise above their proverbial station, but always get caught in limbo, and thus end up resetting at zero with the show’s original status quo. This is Kaguya and Miyuki’s similar fate. They keep playing all these little games which seem to have “winners,” but every time the new vignette starts they’re starting back in the place of even stasis.

Speaking of those vignettes, the short structure of these little stories (it seems there are 2-4 per episode?) is precisely what also keeps this from being populated like a traditional sitcom. Instead of having a cast of 6-9 people who get involved in some larger escapade that all crashes together within 22 minutes, we instead get a little game centered on the main two leads, along with Secretary Chika, who is always hilariously stuck in the middle. This also prompts an interesting question on my own personal end. Because I’m beginning to see the seams of hyper loyal manga adaptation. Here in Love is War, each little story fills a contained episode. But in something like Fruits Basket? It feels so much more unwieldy. As if the clear structure of the original work is just getting stamped without a larger sense of flow for the show itself? I don’t suppose there’s a specific question, it’s just something I’m really noticing and wondering about how it affects so many series in question, which I assume would be built so much differently if they were built for television from the ground up.

And lastly, remember how I talked about how the language of Fruits Baskets seemed steeped in Ask Vs. Guess Culture? Well, the whole conceit of this show turns it into a guess culture that’s ON STEROIDS. Seriously, everything is this constant game of doublespeak and guessing at intention that’s all trying to get the other person to ask first and be straight forward. And as static as that can feel, it’s all about the surprise ways the characters reveal their vulnerabilities anyway. The point is that they both always lose somehow. But like all good sitcoms, the ongoing catharsis is about how those silvers of vulnerability add up with time and it all becomes more endearing.

All of which to say, I can’t wait to keep watching this show.

5. YURI!!! On ICE - BORN TO MAKE HISTORY

This is a bit of a full circle moment for me.

Because about six or seven-ish years ago I was visiting a friend and they were like “this is a really good show!” and so we watched a few episodes in the middle and I was like “hot damn, this IS really good!” And it was one of those experiences that really set the seed in my mind that I need to pay attention to what was happening in anime. Because it showed that there was this big gorgeous form out there that had completely worked its way into the culture (especially for all of those who were just a little bit younger than me). You could just sense just how much it all really mattered. And now, here I am, after all these years of watching so many amazing things, and I’m finally coming back to the show that planted that seed.

As for Yuri!!! On ICE It should be said that gay romance is not necessarily new, but there has been a pretty big explosion within the last twenty plus years or so. There were landmark works before then, of course. Taxi Zum Klo and The Watermelon Woman had a profound expression on me in college. Though it’s sometimes hard to think about that time. I was so “afraid of labels,” and always talking about Kinsey-like spectrums and whatnot - and certainly not knowing what to do with these smallest explorations I had in secret. And it wasn't until years and years later that I would come to understand what bisexuality really meant for me and I ready to live a life that explored it. But in all that time, there’s been this mainstreaming explosion. I can’t tell you how much fan fiction and various online communities helped normalize something that was never shown as being normal in media. The idea of seeing yourself felt revolutionary. All part of a safe way of exploring who you are. Heck, often you don’t have to be that sexuality at all. Though like anything, it’s all tricky. I mean,sometimes you feel like you see straight women watching a love story between two men and it gets treated a little “cute” or reductive, but that’s not that a simple insight either. Because the safety of exploration can mean many things. For in the end, you are dealing with a form of storytelling that has sadly been built on decades of repression.

To be clear, the viewpoint of Yuri!!! On ICE is so lovingly gay and unapologetic. Yes, it often has to play coy, but I mean, they wear rings and talk about their engagement and the way it fudges their kisses is so hilarious. It’s all as if it’s one big sarcastic “what do you meeeean we’re gay?” with a knowing wink. I also know there’s been some people who get into the ethical question of whether Viktor and Yuri should be dating with the coach relationship, boundaries, and all that stuff. And please know I’m not trying to dismiss it as a larger conversation, it’s just that it’s also clear how much the coaching is part of a larger metaphor - and also how much this is a story of self-discovery with it. Because there is something so powerful about the way Yuri sees Viktor. Perhaps this is more personal biography, but I feel it’s common enough in how much this show evokes the story of THAT queer person who came into your life and suddenly things made sense. It’s about the relationship that clicked. The one who, after so much repression, became the person who made everything seem alive and possible. And to look at them is to look with fawning eyes. Because they were someone who seemed so out and so assured of themselves by comparison to you, that they gave you confidence to be who you are. For me, and at least in talking with friends, it’s something common in a lot of gay relationships (particularly us late bloomers). And here, the skating part is largely a metaphor for how that makes us feel. The expression on the ice are about how much Viktor can pull Yuri out of his shell, past the doubts, past the caring, and past any worry about performance itself. And ultimately, it’s about how it inspires Viktor in turn.

But this makes the structural conflict of the show so interesting, too. While so much of the early episodes about the fallout of the year before and set up of the new year, the grand prix circuit provides the backbone to the drama of the show itself. Which means you are going to watch each of the skaters perform the same two routines again and again. But this familiarity is precisely what establishes a baseline understanding. It’s like a heist. You have the correct expectation of how it SHOULD go, along with all the difficulties. That’s so when the drama actually happens when you see the ways it goes wrong, along with the little variations of the choices they make to alter. And it’s amazing how much the show can mine different forms of catharsis out of each result. Granted, part of that success is the amazing piece of music that is his final song (the titular “yuri on ice”), because it has this grand ecstatic way of creating a crescendo by the end of every mini-plotline that uses it. Soon it feels like an established cue and familiar chorus, something whose power only deepens with more time. Even hearing the song now, it sends me right back to those ecstatic moments.

But along the way, the thing I love about the show’s exploration of love and desire is that there is this empathy for everyone, even the show’s so-called villains. Before every performance we get to see a peak at their lives and conflicts. But in what is one of my favorite little structural details of the show, we also always go into their inner monologue of each character when skating routines start, revealing how every one of them has their own wants, hopes, dreams, worries, demons, and flaws. Which means so little of this is about the drama of competition - instead it is about the drama of personal expression. For it’s this show that’s constantly opening you up into the interiority of people trying to be their best possible selves. And in the end, it’s always after that internal high of discovering an internal sense of belief.

Back in the first section of Fruits Basket, I talked about how much it was a delivery device for recreating that confused, unsure lovesick feeling again and again. The thing about Yuri!!! On ICE is how much it is dedicated to creating the feeling of self-confidence. Much more than the implied romantic relationships, it is about the power of being believed in, and how that helps fuel the power of believing in yourself. And so much of this hits on the personal level as Yuri rises into his new selfhood. He’s even told “you’re past self is dead” as he as a “late bloomer” starts doing his best skating at the ripe old fogey age of 23 (ha). But that selfhood is also reflected outward to everyone around him. Ultimately, in a way that is so important for gay stories, it’s about being in love with who you really are.

Which brings us to the conclusion for all five sections…

* * *

As I was exploring Romance Anime over the last two months I was reminded just how much dexterity the genre can have, but also how many different feelings it can evoke. Because “romance” isn’t really about our loves, but the internal feeling of elation, whatever that may be. Fruits Basket is so good at placing you in that dizzying, confused, reactive state that comes with early crushes and being deeply unsure of yourself. Welcome to the NHK feels like the other side of that coin, but in a way that can feel suffocating, dark, and punishing; but hopefully leading to a way of trying to not get trapped by our own lack of self-love and finding the way out. Meanwhile, Horimiya bumps things a little further into that era of first loves and looking back at a time where our self could have gotten trapped in the suffocating dark, and instead finds that powerful way to move forward. And in it may not seem like “growth,” but having the ability to sit back and watch the silly affairs of something like Kaguya-Sama: Love is War is way of showing the ability to distance ourselves from screwball antics and appreciate / laugh at the absurd way that we can all behave - and in the end, gives us a weird appreciation for our own relative normalcy. All of this is part of the equation of how we relate to that grand idea of “love,” but it can go to a place that has even more personal meaning. All of these loves are modes of reflection and a way of FEELING something beyond the drudgery of routine.

Because when Yuri!!! On ICE shows us early on that Yuri is dedicating his performance this year to love, it’s not just romantic love. As important and inspiring as Viktor is, Yuri understands that it is just one small part of the equation, a mere element in his newly-changing life. But it also just isn’t about being in love with who he really is, which I mentioned above. No, Yuri tells us that the love he means is the love of home, the love of family, and the love of all things more abstract. Because the ultimate romance of that show - and all of them really - is the romance with life itself. It’s the appreciation for everything we have, everything we are, and everything we can be. And in an age where everything can feel so hopelessly muted, bleak, and gray? I can think of nothing more powerful.

It is the romance of being alive.

<3HULK