https://myanimelist.net/news/69439836
Alright, we'll get a 2nd season, so that makes me a bit more forgiving. Still, I hope it doesn't make a longer break than for one cour :/
https://myanimelist.net/news/69439836
Alright, we'll get a 2nd season, so that makes me a bit more forgiving. Still, I hope it doesn't make a longer break than for one cour :/
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
gtfo.
They not even hiding it anymore that Kana and Aqua like each other, mutually and genuinely. Ruby knew it all along. Best Ditz MEM finally figured it out. Miyako knew all along.
Kana is the only girl who can break Aqua's facade without creating an acted personality. Yes, yes, all people do it, but Kana has always shown him her true self and he's interested because of it.
Akane grew her hair back considerably in the time that she and Aqua haven't met. It's been months. MEM called it, Akane doesn't have much of a chance unless she really starts trying harder.
Akane is also very obviously the loser of their professional rivalry too. Didn't take much for Kana to put Akane into quivering rage. It's subtle, but Akane confirmed it too: Kana is also a better actor. This is coming from someone who most producers call a genius. Akane is considered by most in the business to be a much better stage actor than most of her peers, but Akane considers Kana to be the truly gifted one.
Kana just got screwed by the timing in recent years. Her big roles were when she was a child, and she got typecast. Then her mother and agencies abandoned her when the roles dried up. Akane confirmed that Kana didn't beat her by being pushed harder by Kana's old agency, but that Akane lost numerous times to Kana from talent. Akane got slotted into the theater troupe circuit and got to slowly hone her craft while Kana mired in what she could get as a freelancer.
What Akane is hinting at is that if Kana hadn't been tossed aside for being a child actor, Kana would probably be an untouchable top star. Kana may have gotten eclipsed in the past few years, but Akane is actually afraid of Kana while Kana is her normal arrogant self who hates to lose to anyone.
Huge waste. That's honestly one of my favorite one-shot arcs in the manga. Baffling to me that they would cut it despite mentioning Mana by name.
I'm shocked they dove right into the theater arc. It's such a slog.
(FYI for non-manga readers, it is 26+ chapters long, which ended up being almost longer than the previous teen Ruby/Aqua arcs combined and the later chapters coming with an apology/thanks to readers for being patient with how long it was running).
So, on the other hand, I'm also not surprised that they are already substantially compressing it down where they can.
Last edited by Ryllharu; Wed, 06-28-2023 at 06:53 PM.
@Ryll: So basically you're saying Akane is the hard-worker while Kana is a genius. Yeah, I'll keep rooting for Akane <3
Fwiw, I'm not sure either of them will "win", because Aqua has such a clear, mono-thematic goal. Plus he seems to have a dumb morality where he's like "oh no, I'm actually much older, it's wrong to date a high school girl". Which is bs, ofc, but seems to get in the way.
I agree that Kana is at advantage for now, she has more genuine moments with Aqua. But surprisingly, the anime did NOT paint Akane as the definitive loser yet. They leave it open imo, and Akane, in line with her hard worker-attitude, has not yet even started to fight for Aqua's heart.
Points in her favor:
- can help him investigate the case
- can perfectly mimic Ai
Although the latter could easily backfire, ofc, because 1) an act is just an act, 2) Ai was Aqua's mother, oedipus much, 3) Aqua loves Ai as a fan, not with his dick, from what we've seen (gay).
So, yeah, Akane is at a huge disadvantge right now. But this anime has thrown us some curve balls and maybe we'll be surprised again.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
How is Kana not a hard worker if she was tossed aside by the agent and started to, basically, be her own agent by fighting tooth and nail to get any relevant jobs, even if they seemed to be against her personality or were demeaning (like that live action adaptation, where not even the director was expecting any real acting from the actors, because most of the cast weren't, in fact, actors and had no interest in acting). Meanwhile Akane has indeed worked hard as well, but pretty safely by following the professionals' instructions and guidance. When she finally encountered a situation, which was just like a regular day for Kana, as used as she is for shitty jobs, it almost drove Akane to a suicide.
Kana might have been a genius child actor, as far as very young child actors go, but afterwards she has achieved her (limited) success with hard work. Not to mention her genius days were also crushed quite early when she ancountered Aqua. That was the moment she stopped believing in her own genius.
The cold stop caught me off guard, especially if there was some more fitting padding, like material mentioned in previous posts that could have been more interesting than a recap/aqua mission statement.
That said, bravo! This officially has me enraptured with these characters and I'm stoked to see where this goes. Glad for confirmation of a second season so soon. Will be watching.
Episode 12:
A yandere mangaka? Nice lol.
Not much happening otherwise. I wish Aqua would date Akane for real, she's so much hotter than Arima, come on.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
This was a nice way to cement that Arima is still hugely talented to the point that it threatened Akane. While we knew she was good, it wasn't depicted as Akane-threatenningly good due to her only being able to perform in once scene last time (and also the lack of Akane-reaction shots).
lol @ the "My boyfriend's sitting in the corner" part.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I like Akane a bit better after this episode. I'd still want Aqua to end up with Arima, naturally, but now I can see that the scenes he spends with Akane aren't necessarily wasted. It's kind of hard to really judge if Aqua truly cares, even though I do seem to recall he might view Arima as something more than just another kid he needs to deal with. In any case, somehow this single episode built Akane's personality more than the whole first season, in my opinion. Maybe I should rewatch the first season, but in my memories Akane was more like a case in it than a character with a solid personality.
It's mysterious Aqua himself can keep up with the others, with his blatant ulterior motives. I'm sure he's rehearsing as much as anyone, but he has got no love for the art. If he had no talent, how would his performance be accepted by the director? It's not like working as a physician in his previous life would have made him a good actor. It only made him able to interact with anyone without teenage embarrassment and hesitation. I wish we actually got more acting scenes from him.
Now that I think of it, Arima was the crying child actor. Aqua was the creepy one, able to act like an adult when looking like a kindergarten kid. Arima since developed a lot, but now Aqua is a high school student able to act like an adult. Not such a big deal.
Aqua totally likes Arima. He actively did stuff last season just to keep being able to talk to her.
As for Aqua's perk, it's his time working in post production that allows him to gauge what performances work. His acting takes into account the camera angle, lighting, spacial awareness etc to make it more effective than raw acting skills alone.
Whether that's good enough to keep up with prodigy people though is another matter. I am curious about this as well since they set things up like everyone is a gunner.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Aqua claims to not care about acting, BUT: He cares about finding the scumbag that impregnated his "mom". That's what makes him rise about his normal ability and it's just as strong a motivation as actually caring about acting.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
Did the op just drop the idea that Ai is not dead after all?
I probably shouldn't entertain the idea...
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
it feels like the season just dropped us back into the action. no recap, no warmup, nothing. I had to check that I didn't miss the opening episode somehow and started at episode 2 of the season.
we also have a pretty big conflict right from the start, I feel like this is rushed... and no inserts of Ruby or the true best girl (Miyako) - how can they do this?
I really liked the opening theater scene, it feels exactly like what's its supposed to be. so much things to breath in, and they all flow into one another. I also like how they adapted the "acting" parts from the rehearsals.
I didn't like the very beginning of the episode. It was too long, the whole stage play character introduction. For a moment I even thought that maybe I'm watching a different show by accident. From an editing and cutting pov, what was the point of using minutes for that?
I appreciate no recap or anything of that sort. They just waste valuable minutes or even a whole episode.
Oh come on guys, it was clearly symbolism. If Ai was actually alive after that death scene, I'd drop the anime asap.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
Oh god. You know, you're totally right here. We're so used to something outlandish happen AT THE START of all these isekai/rebirth-stories, but matter of fact is, whatever higher power made 2 people be reborn is still around, so who's to say there cannot be more fuckery?
That's actually a glaring flaw in the writing of all these other shows. From that pov, it'd actually be good writing if there was another case of rebirthing.
The issue that arises then is: What's the limit here, who is responsible for it, and is the entire story meaningless, because it's just some god having fun watching these people's tragic life unfold?
So, ultimately, I hope Ai stays dead and no more supernatural stuff.
"She's the only non-loli girl in the show, your honor!" will be my defense in court
It wouldn't be a flaw, nor would it automatically be good writing. You are confusing the theme with the setting. This isn't an isekai series, or even an urban fantasy series (with vampires and werewolves running around), so it's more likely the supernatural thing was a part of the setting than an actively ongoing theme. A rather more commonplace supernatural setting is the so called regression one, in which the main character's time gets rewound, starting their life again from the beginning (or a certain point in childhood if the author doesn't want to bother with infantile years), now knowing beforehand how they are destined for ruin and thus being able to work against it.