3-9

While I'll never accuse this of being a great anime, I would like to draw special attention to one scene in episode 9.

Eps 8-9 are a joint two part 'mystery' involving a kid with Leukemia seeing visions of an angel coming to take him to heaven... The mystery is a bit of a bait and switch and handled with as much over dramatic "and here's my diagnosis" teasing and spotty, reaching clues as any other, but what follows is one of the most bizarre scenes I think I've ever seen in anime.

First, the setup: The kid is dying now, and Takao is afraid to go see him because that's... awkward. And she's right. Obviously she eventually pulls it together and stops self pitying long enough to see him off. This scene... this scene... I'm baffled and impressed by its direction, or rather conscious lack thereof. No special color shading, no obtuse angles... just the same typical mediocre to low budget art with no attempt at a sappy OST or background noise to dilute this compassionate act of reading a picture book to a child as they die. She walks in, sits down, fist bump, and 'read it one more time'. It couldn't have been longer than 3-4 minutes, but I had more tears shed during this scene than a hundred other, better death scenes combined. I don't get it. Sure, the scenario itself was tragic, but I suppose the mundanity of it all ended up replicating that real life sinking feeling of 'this is really happening, isn't it?' at triage's end. It kinda hurt, and that pathos blows my mind. Am I crazy, overly emotional, or is that a really effective scene for some nebulous reason?

So far, that's the only part of the show I expect to remember two months from now. The rest has been somewhat forgettable, even if the mysteries can have some fun tricks in them.