As the year itself comes to an end, out with the old and in with the new. Though in this case, it’s the old that comes back and the new which goes away.
What They Say:
Episode 13: “The Dawn After an Endless Night”
With Sakuta’s help, Kaede is able to go to school at night. She is now enthusiastic about heading to school during the day. However, on the following day, the original Kaede’s memory suddenly returns, eradicating all memories of the Kaede that had spent the last two years together with Sakuta. A certain person appears before Sakuta, who is overwhelmed with grief because Kaede was no longer around.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
It’s been a long road, but we have finally arrived at the end: the original Kaede has returned and the Kaede we have met and come to like all this time is revealed to be nothing but a placeholder personality created by the traumatized brain of Sakuta’s little sister. The real Kaede is nothing like the (perhaps overly) cute, adorable little sister that we first met. She’s not abrasive or resentful of her older brother, but she’s quite mellow and even-keeled…which should not really come as too much of a shock considering what Sakuta is like.
The one who has the hardest time dealing with the “passing” of the other Kaede turns out to be Sakuta. This final episode of the series is focused more on Sakuta’s grief, made the worse by the fact that no one else is joining him in his grieving. His father is overjoyed at the return of his real daughter…and never took any trouble to learn about or interact with the “temporary” one. Everyone else only barely knew Kaede, as she had never ventured outside of the apartment the family had rented for Sakuta and her. As for the others, Mai, Rio, and Nodoka had only known her for a matter of weeks or months, not the 2 long years that Sakuta spent with this Kaede.
Driven into a deep depression by his grief, who would appear but Shoko, the older Shoko, who says that her appearance means everything will be better now. She takes him home (he had been prostrate outside in the rain) and sees that he has a bath (never forget the production staff’s love of a good bath). Shoko helps Sakuta come to terms with his loss and then leaves, just as mysteriously as she appeared. One cannot help but wonder if Shoko is just a figment of his imagination (Rio Futaba doubts Shoko, either older Shoko or middle school Shoko who also disappears from sight, actually exists at all).
As a finale, we must have a touch of melodrama toward the end and it is caused when Mai suddenly returns (she was out of town on a film shoot) to see Sakuta, sees the note that Shoko left behind (this is an actual physical object—but we never saw anyone write it) and then gets into a minor spat with Sakuta. While this leads to Sakuta entering a new depression spiral, making us wonder if the show was going to head into some melodramatic nonsense, we are saved from that loathsome development by Nodoka, who drives Sakuta to go see Mai and clear things up (helpfully noting that it was Mai’s birthday that day [for the record, December 2nd]).
What would a finale to a romantic love comedy without a madcap dash through train stations and racing to the location of Mai’s shoot to see her? For that is, at heart, what this show really is, it’s a romantic love comedy. What’s unusual about it is that the main characters are still just high schoolers when this sort of work normally would involve young adults out of school. Suffice it to say, the two have a heartfelt conversation.
Series Retrospective:
As I was just saying, in its heart Seishun Buta Yarou (I use the Japanese title here simply because the “Bunny Girl” part is just the first arc of the series, though it’s not uncommon in many places for a television adaptation of a book series to make use only of the opening works’s title: see Game of Thrones) is a romantic love comedy. Even if several of the story arcs might appear on the surface similar to some kind of dating sim, with the male player clearing girls’ story routes, it was never about providing multiple romantic opportunities for Sakuta: once he and Mai became a couple, that was it.
What was interesting was how free of tawdry and tasteless melodrama this show was for the most part (though Sakuta’s depth of grieving felt slightly out of place with his phlegmatic personality, but as they say, it’s always the quite ones who might be hiding volcanoes within them). The maturity of the characters was also worthy of note, but perhaps not to be dismissed so quickly. Mai has been living on her own for some time and holding down a very busy career. Sakuta was forced to grow up fast when his parents basically abandoned him to take care of his little sister, who herself had been reduced to someone utterly dependent upon others to live. Their personal situations would probably force maturity upon them mentally.
I think what I really liked the most was the playful, teasing, but at root loving relationship between Mai and Sakuta. On top of that, there was the firm bond of trust in the friend group of Sakuta, Rio, and Kunimi, a triangle that was refreshingly free of “love” for the most part (Rio has a crush on Kunimi, but hides it; Kunimi knows how Futaba feels, but already has a girlfriend and remains loyal to her—if he didn’t, he would not be worthy of Rio’s love and he would not be good material to remain Sakuta’s friend). The show was surprisingly free of annoyances. That’s a big plus for me, since I watch fiction to be entertained, not to be prodded and jabbed at by some writer who thinks nastiness is the route to emotion (it’s a shortcut, but it’s like the Dark Side of the Force: quicker, easier, but lazier).
All in all, this series was one of the more enjoyable ones for the year, if you are looking for somewhat deeper characters, writing that goes well beyond a single dimension at least (too much anime can barely reach 1 dimension, let alone 2 to 3), and some memorable moments. Just ignore the quantum physics theorizing, which is mainly there for flavor text as it didn’t really amount to too much in the end.
Episode Grade: A
Series Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll (also at Hulu and FunimationNow)
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 12GB RAM, Mac OS 10.13 High Sierra