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Best of Season 3: Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions
243 Plays1 year ago
Join us on the run up to Season 4 as we count down some of our favourite episodes from Season 3!
Hello everybody and welcome to the best of Season 3. For this particular episode, I was joined by my very good friend Wonko where we discussed the slice of life anime Love, Chunibyo and other Delusions. Little did I know that this would be the first episode to reach the 200 play mark. I am incredibly proud of this one and I hope that you too enjoy!
In this episode of Chatsunami, Satsunami is joined by his friend Wonko the Sane to help explain the concept of Chunibyo. From eye patch wearing teenagers to magical powers, the duo discuss the perhaps lesser known anime called Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions. What is Chunibyo? Is this just another run of the mill slice of life anime? Or is there more to this anime than you think? Let's find out together as we banish this world to find the Unseen Horizon!
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to the best of season 3. For this particular episode, I was joined by my very good friend Wonko, where we discuss the slice of life anime, love, chinaebio and other religions. Little did I know that this would be the first episode to reach the 200th play mark. I'm incredibly proud of this one, and I hope that you two enjoy. Welcome to Chad Tsunami.
Meet Wonko
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. I'm Satsunami and joining me today is a very special guest. Today I am joined by the one, the only, the Dark Souls Flame Master and long term listener, Wonko, welcome to Chatsunami. That has to be the nicest introduction I've ever had. Long time listener, first time caller, thanks for having me. Yes, where's the button to disconnect there?
00:01:06
Speaker
No! I just got here! No! Roll us out, Adam! No, I'm only kidding. No, Adam Greenfield, I'm sorry! I'm not trying to steal your place! But anyway, sorry, how are you doing today, Wonko? I'm doing pretty good. I'm a bit nervous to be on, because I'm not a big time streamer like most of the people you get on here. I'm just some random nobody who squats in a squalid corner of your charming Discord server.
00:01:25
Speaker
But yeah, I'm still happy to be here. I've got my notes. I've got a bit of knowledge about the subject, so I hope I just don't embarrass myself on the internet. You'll be fine. I mean, nearly a hundred episodes later, and I was going to make a joke and say, oh, I haven't embarrassed myself. I've embarrassed myself plenty at times on the podcast, so you know what? Don't you worry. You're a monk's friend. I'm in good company here, yeah. These are my people.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, today we're going to be talking about how to
Cultural Impact of Chunibyo
00:01:52
Speaker
put this. Quite an interesting topic today because it's going to be an anime that, quite frankly, I haven't really raised yet with Green Shield or Adam yet. But I feel as if Adam, if you're listening, you would probably like this one.
00:02:06
Speaker
So today we're going to be talking about a, is it right to say a lesser known anime? Yes and no. I'd say that the name Chunebio, you know, it comes from this series obviously is fairly well known. People know what a Chunebio-esque character is. They might necessarily know where it came from, what the patient zero was as it were.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, I would definitely say, however, that the characters, particularly Brica, but we will get into that, dear listeners, has absolutely left a mark on pop culture, on anime in general, and I even have some points to support that thesis. So stay tuned. I am looking forward to that, honestly. We've been messaging each other back and forth about ideas for this episode and things.
00:02:48
Speaker
This whole idea was spawned in a particularly hot crucible of fire that is Halo Infinite multiplayer. That is true. Baptism by fire and salted age. So podcasters out there, see if you need some inspiration. Go on to Halo Infinite. It is great for inspiration.
00:03:06
Speaker
and frustration. Absolutely. All part of the creative process. Halo Infinite bashing. We do have an episode on that. Feel free to listen to that one because, yeah, we honestly could do a whole episode about Halo Infinite and everything, but as you kind of alluded to there, yeah, we're going to be talking about an anime called
The Experience of Chunibyo
00:03:24
Speaker
Love, Junibio and Other Desires. That is the correct name, isn't it?
00:03:29
Speaker
Or to give it its original title, which literally translates to, want to love, despite, so slightly different, but the idea is still there. Oh yeah, I should probably warn everyone before this starts it. I'm a bit of a language snob when it comes to it, but I'm sure when I start explaining my backstory, it'll be clear why. So bear with me here.
00:04:00
Speaker
So yeah, this is a weird choice of anime to bring up, because as I said, the animes we kinda discuss on this podcast, at least so far, we've discussed things like Techno, Beyblade, Princess Mononoke as well. Even Halo Legends got a spot. Oh, that was a great episode.
00:04:18
Speaker
Why thank you. I thank Green Shield and Adam with disagree. The hatred came through so magnificently clearly. It was just oozing from my headphones. Oh it was absolutely beautiful. But if I can just jump on what you were saying there. The animes that you've covered so far I would say is more starter level anime, if a baby's first anime, if you will. Sorry Adam.
00:04:38
Speaker
But Shunibio is sort of when you start branching out more, when you start experimenting, I would say. Because without going too much into it, because it's not the time yet, but Shunibio plays off the typical cliches, I would say, of rom-com in anime. But it also subverts your expectations, dare I say, in the most satisfying and well-written way. But we will get into that. But it's an anime that I think both me and Sats have a great deal of affection for. Oh, yeah.
00:05:02
Speaker
Absolutely. So before we go into what this anime is about, because I know you'll have a well done summary of this. No pressure, Suts. No pressure, but all the pressure. Look, if Adam can do it every week under duress, you can do it under duress. It'll be fine.
Themes of Maturity and Self-Awareness
00:05:18
Speaker
That's what they'll say. It'll be fine. It'll be read. No worries. Don't worry. After this, you can go back to the squalid corner of the discourse.
00:05:26
Speaker
I get chained back to my radiator and only let out from time to time. Back into the channel. Back, I'd say. The Dark Souls one. Anyway, sorry, I'm getting sidetracked. The Darkest Dark Souls corner, if you will. Well, we just go into what Geneva was about to kind of contextualise how we found it.
00:05:43
Speaker
Well, I had a great one-line summary in my mind when the original plan let you in in the behind the scenes here, dear listener. But we were going to do the whole thing, but then we decided now we'll split it up. That way we can cover more ground, we can get more content, we can get more clicks. So I was originally going to say that Geneva was a charming story of a guy and a girl meeting each other, falling in love, overcoming trials and tribulations, and then the subsequent peer pressure that their friends put on them to escalate their relationship.
00:06:10
Speaker
to say for season one. It's definitely a love story, a romantic comedy, it's got some surprising depth. If ever I would say that there is an anime of two halves, I would say this is it. It's got some absolutely charming chemistry between the characters, it's got a lovely, chill, cosy, comfy slice of life, but it's also got
00:06:28
Speaker
hidden depths. It's got some bit of edge to it. Not too much, not over the top. But it's also very, very relatable, I find. So it's intriguing. Once again, I'm not really defining the subject matter. But that's because the subject matter is sort of hard to define. It's more, it evolves. It's not an anime.
00:06:45
Speaker
It's an experience. You can slap that in the box. Oh, that's a pull quote if I've heard one. Yeah, Geneva is one of those weird shows where it is, as you said, it's a slice of life show about basically it's almost like a coming of age story, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head. Now you say
Rika's Emotional Struggles
00:07:04
Speaker
it out loud. Yeah.
00:07:07
Speaker
So, Junibio's a bit of a boy called Yuta who is going through high school, or rather he's going from middle school to high school, and he used to go through a thing called Junibio which, as we said, is this kind of, it's kind of a syndrome, isn't it?
00:07:23
Speaker
They contextualise it in the anime as it being specifically a disease, you know, they describe it as being a tumour or stuff like that. Although in the opening, I've really did my homework on this, this is probably going to show, but in the very opening scene, there's like quick words that sort of tie in with tunebio, and one of them is Heberophrenic Schizophrenia, which actually exists.
00:07:42
Speaker
It's also classified as a pubescent crisis, a sort of coming of age thing, and 14 year old sickness, I believe, or 14 sickness. But it does exist, and whether you realise it or not, it's also fair to say that everyone has gone through it at some point, and everyone still goes through it throughout their whole life, I would say.
00:08:04
Speaker
I'm going to go back to what I was saying on my Edith Finch review, because it would be safe to say it's like a form of maladaptive daydreaming almost, but to a lesser extent.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's quite as all-consuming as maladaptive jaydreaming is. There's a couple of points I'm probably going to erase throughout here to underline that, because Tunibio, for all the characters, is a conscious choice. They're not completely delusional, but they do lean into it. It does dictate how they will act in certain situations to a point that you can reliably expect them to do so, I would say would be a fair analysis.
Supporting Characters Overview
00:08:44
Speaker
Because throughout the story, Yuta, as I said, is going from middle school and he quote-unquote suffered from this cinebialism where it's basically like live-action roleplay, like he pretends to be the, and I kind of joked about it at the beginning, the dark
00:09:00
Speaker
Flame Master, where he controls all these dark occult powers and spirits, but he doesn't really, he's just pretending, but everyone around him kind of goes, what are you doing? So, you know, he gets really embarrassed and when he goes into high school, he tries to shed basically these kinds of behaviours and that's when he meets Rika, who is this young girl who is going into high school as well, was in the same class as him, but is still going through that kind of Chernibial phase.
00:09:30
Speaker
I would say that she is the absolute antithesis of what Yuta wants. They say opposites attract, it's once again the case in Tunisia, because Yuta is trying to bury what he sees as an embarrassing past, and Rika is the walking incarnation of everything he did not want to see. The anime makes a point, and Yuta makes a point of saying that he found a high school that was far away from his old one. He really wants to put a line under his Tunibio shenanigans, but the past creeps back.
00:10:00
Speaker
And if I may quote another famous film that I haven't seen yet, just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Anyway, my terrible classic backlog aside, will we just jump into discussing this amazing anime? Lead on, Satsunami. Hold on, I'm getting a message from the spirit world, so hang on to your hats and your eye patches.
00:10:25
Speaker
See, why do I need a same board when I've got you, Wonkul? Hang on, hang on, I can hear a voice! Subscribe to Satsudami!
00:10:34
Speaker
Wow, I think we just caught a ghost live on this podcast. This is a first, ladies and gentlemen. This is a supernatural stream. We fooled you. You thought we were going to go into heartwarming anime. But seriously, please subscribe. And I'm hungry. I need the money, please. Please give clicks. Hold on to your hats and your eye patches and we will see you in just a couple of minutes.
00:10:56
Speaker
Welcome to Chattsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and journal interests. Previously on Chattsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises.
00:11:14
Speaker
Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like
Podcast Variety and Availability
00:11:22
Speaker
Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all big podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:11:40
Speaker
Life moves pretty fast, and as it's always on the go world that we find ourselves in, it's becoming ever harder to pause and reflect on what we see. Yet if we don't, we miss the opportunity to experience the things that could truly change our lives.
00:11:54
Speaker
The little part of inspiration aims to be that opportunity, to stop and savour not only the events around us, but the people, the experiences, the sights and sounds. Through these inspiring stories and poems of love, redemption and change, take a moment to really see all the inspirational treasures that are present. Inspiration is all around us. All we have to do is look.
00:12:24
Speaker
This episode is sponsored by Zencaster. Zencaster is an all-in-one podcast production suite that gives you studio-quality audio and video without needing all the technical know-how. It records each guest locally, then uploads the crystal clear audio and video right into the suite so you have high-quality raw materials to work with. For more information on how you can get 30% off a Zencaster professional account, please check out the code in the bio.
00:12:51
Speaker
Say, everyone, are you familiar with the term Shinibio? They say it develops around the eighth grade at the cusp of puberty. It is a frightening disease of the adolescent mind. The line between childhood fantasy and a sense of self-awareness becomes blurred, resulting in some inexplicable behavior. For instance,
00:13:10
Speaker
A boy who, up till yesterday, only read weekly comics, develops a sudden interest in classic novels, and suddenly demands to drink his coffee black, despite the fact that he has never even drunk it before. Or a student who believes they possess some special power dives head first into the occult. Those were really dramatic. Oh, we're back. So...
00:13:33
Speaker
Never gets old. So how did you hear about Cinebio? Because I would say for me personally, it was quite a random experience. Like I think I've told you this before and we've kind of like exchanged our stories. But yeah, you vetted me before I came on here. Oh, absolutely. I had to make sure you were a real Cinebio fan, of course. Only the finest. Yeah, the gatekeeping is strong in this community of five.
00:14:02
Speaker
It's just for the record, the Panda Lawyer wishes to point out that that was indeed a joke. Yes, indeed. Yes, he's given me the thumbs up. Thanks. I really should give him a name. Yeah, he stands so much for the channel and yet so little recognition. He's a true national hero. But maybe not a human being. I was going to say, maybe if you donate we can buy him some trousers. But anyway, get sidetracked.
00:14:23
Speaker
But yeah, I remember my first experience with Chenebio was actually when Green Child and I were at university. Him and I watched a lot of anime, and it was really like a turning point for me because we watched a lot of Studio Ghibli stuff. We watched Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, Hunter X Hunter, or Hunter x Hunter, you know what I mean.
00:14:45
Speaker
I've spent enough time on the internet to know where you're going. I know. Good on Lagan, that kind of thing. And I remember at the time as well, Attack on Titan was very popular. So much so that we had someone in our campus that actually walked around with a cape from the Survey Corps. Did you know that?
00:15:03
Speaker
god no this is this is news to me wow i guess i'll let anyone go to university these days it was quite funny because i remember everybody looking down and saying why is that girl wearing a cape and i looked and i immediately recognized the survey coordinates like the other i was like oh no you didn't run out after going yes yes
00:15:24
Speaker
Notice me, weebs and bi. That's why my uni career was cut short. But anyway, moving swiftly on. So anyway, that's why I was banned from the campus. This is how I found uni bit namboli. So I remember in my final year, I came down with a really bad sickness. I think it was mold or something in my flat. I mean, it was really bad.
00:15:43
Speaker
Oh yes, you mentioned this on a couple of other times, haven't you? Yeah, it basically floored me. So much so that I was kind of stuck in my room feeling sorry for myself, ordering spicy takeout to take away, like the clogged up. It does work, by the way. I'm not sponsored by any of these places. No, it really does, but Chillie will absolutely un-bung your nose. It's just your problem with what you do with it afterwards. Oh yeah.
00:16:07
Speaker
great power and great responsibility and all that. Your flatmates won't thank you, but yeah. But you're feeling miserable, so you might as well inflict your misery upon others. Yes, and with the backwards side, I was feeling really rubbish and I decided because I couldn't really get out and seek Green Shield or any of my other friends, I was going to just explore different shows at the time. So I was looking online and the first show I came across was Black
00:16:31
Speaker
it. Oh, yes, you mentioned Black Bullet to me. The only reason I watched Black Bullet was because everybody said, oh, it's just like Attack on Titan, but with monsters instead of, you know, giant mummies and it's nothing like Attack on Titan. What the hell?
00:16:48
Speaker
It was a waste of time. I've said this to you so many times. Give us your favourite quotes. My favourite quote honestly, just watch the first two minutes of this anime and you will be laughing so much that you'll turn it off right away. There's a scene where the protagonist is a young boy who's cowering in fear and he's like, oh no, what's going on? Because there's a monster in front of him. And this old guy comes up to him and says, if you don't want to die, live. And you're like, well,
00:17:14
Speaker
Yes. A quote to live by, to be fair. If you don't want to be dry, bathe. It's a quote fate stay night. People die when they are killed, you know, so... Pretty much the same energy. Yeah, pretty much the same energy. But anyway, sorry, back to Chernebial. That was a mighty tight tangent, but... Oh, we're gonna do worse, I'm sure.
00:17:32
Speaker
Oh, totally. I remember, as I said, I was stuck in my room and I was looking through YouTube and I kept getting recommended because I'm a massive weeb. I got recommended all of these anime clips. And you know that way you watch an anime club and it's like top 10 funniest anime clips.
00:17:48
Speaker
Oh God, that brings me back. Yeah. And then you watch it and it's crap. It's just like, oh look, it's a very problematic scene. Oh, he's being a purveyor and you won't believe what happens next. And you're like, oh, this is awful. This is one of the worst things. But anyway, I saw one for Cuny Beale absolutely got enamored by it. I thought, this is actually really funny. I was like,
00:18:12
Speaker
my god. Do you remember what the clip was or has it? It was the one where Yuta, I think it was from season two granted but it was the one where he gets put in a compromising situation. Not anything. Oh and he dresses up as the magical girl? Yeah he loses a bit and he has to dress up as a magical girl like Sailor Moon or something. No maybe not as revealing but he's like standing there. Yeah no thank god for that. He's standing there and he's doing like the pose getting really into it. Oh he gets into it yeah yeah.
00:18:40
Speaker
And then one of the other characters takes a photo of him, and it was just like the short scream he has when he grabs her phone and he throws it with both hands above his head. I don't know why I found it so funny. Maybe it's just because I was out and coming off the table, but I was just like, wow, this is hilarious. So I was like, okay, I'm going to check it out because the comments were very positive saying, oh, I love this and everything. And
00:19:04
Speaker
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a sucker for these kind of rom-com slice of life shows. That's probably why certain key dramas and things like that. And especially for... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially for anime, because sometimes you just get tired, don't you? You get tired of anime being constant dragon ballsy, but
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah, no, it kind of falls into its own trap of always having to have a bigger, badder, bad guy who not only can destroy the world, but now it's the universe, and now it's the multiverse, and now how will our hero overcome this? And yeah, there's only so many times you can do that before even the audience starts going, oh god, just get on with it kind of thing. You can burn out on the old shonen. Oh, absolutely. And you just think, I just want to, you know, relax with a show. I want a show with little to no threat, which kind of sums us up completely.
00:19:52
Speaker
completely. You are preaching to the converted. So I watched it on, I can't even remember where, probably YouTube at the time, but I watched it. I absolutely fell in love with it. It used to be on Netflix and then they took it down in the UK, which is rubbish, but I absolutely loved it. I fell in love with it, but I kind of kept it close to my chest.
00:20:12
Speaker
Yeah, you didn't reveal your power level, I'm guessing. Yeah, it's weird, because it's different if you meet another fellow weeb and you go, oh, I love Dragon Ball, I love Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood. You know, those are things you usually share. Yeah, yeah, maybe not the cutesier, more chill, more cosy, more slice of life kind of stuff. Yeah, on the
00:20:32
Speaker
surface level, this show is very… if you watch it at the beginning, you'll kind of see it's, again, very cutesy, non-threatening, a bit kind of goofy, and you think, alright, this is gonna be, you know, just stereotypical anime. Very low stakes, very chill, you know, it's not a taxing watch at all, I would say. Oh, yeah.
00:20:53
Speaker
He's a butt in a big butt when you actually get into it and you get into the deeper themes, which we all get onto. Oh, we absolutely will. Just bear with us here. It can be heartbreaking at times, but sorry before we go on, and apologies for rambling there. Nothing wrong with a good ramble. You say that now, but...
00:21:10
Speaker
But you'll regret this. But yeah, how did you get into Chinibio? Oh man, it's a long story, a bit like yours really. And to malappropriate a quote from Fight Club, I would say that Chinibio met me at a very strange point in my life. So sit down, buckle up. I'm going to not go into the sordid details, but I will say that it was not a good point in my life.
00:21:33
Speaker
So I've been a weeb for quite some time. I've always been sort of in and out of it. And what we probably should have said before really going into this is that Cunibio is produced by Kyoto Animation. They tend to do some excellent, very well animated, very well designed, very beautiful, and tends to be slice of life kind of stuff. Although the first thing they ever did was actually a full metal panic for Mofu.
00:21:55
Speaker
which I still hold up as being one of the finest examples of comedy that anime has to offer, but that is a story for another time. They did The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya back in 2008, which I sort of got into. It really sort of kickstarted my interest in anime. Back when I was but a knee-high bairn, if only. No, I was old even back then. Never mind. That's why they call you Wonko the Benjamin Button. Oh, you... Oh, you sneaky little panda. Sorry, go on.
00:22:19
Speaker
KyoAni has a kind of curse and that's their season ones will absolutely be fantastic. The season twos not so much because Haruhi Suzumiya season one is pretty damn good although it's presented in a non chronological order which sort of did my head in the first time I watched it. So season two on my deathbed I will
00:22:35
Speaker
regret the hours I spent watching part of that damn season two. Because for those of you sitting at the back or who don't know or who are in on the joke and grinning madly and just want me to tell you, they have eight episodes that are a temporal loop that traps the characters doing the exact same thing for eight damn episodes. The only thing that changes being certain pieces of clothing and the bikinis that they use when they go to the pool in a certain scene. It was torture. It was hell. So that burnt me out a bit.
00:23:02
Speaker
It was only a couple of years later, this would be 2010, 2011, when they put out Keon, which is cute girls doing cute things, notably they're just doing a music club and they're sort of messing around, so they already have the blueprint for Cinebio kind of thing. And once again, season one was pretty good, season two spun its tires a bit too much, and the film made me cry bitter, bitter tears. It was heartbreaking.
00:23:22
Speaker
And then bring us to 2012, because Tunibyo originally aired in the autumn, or fall for our American viewers, the fall slot of 2012, before that was a series called Hyoka. Now Hyoka once again was a very chill, very slice of life kind of thing, not too many in there, there was only four main characters essentially, it was
00:23:40
Speaker
Sort of a very chill, very low-key sort of Sherlock Holmes. The main character was sort of good at solving mysteries and the female protagonist had an insatiable curiosity. So she'd like push and prod him to go do stuff. He'd do it. Once again, it was a long season one. It kind of dropped off and by that point I kind of lost interest. Also the fact that Girls and Panzer was airing at the same time kind of completely pushed it from my mind.
00:24:00
Speaker
So I'd heard of Chinoebio, and I knew it was going to be airing soon, but it didn't really make me want to go out of my way, especially after the second quarter of the first season. But this, as I mentioned, was a very strange point in my life, because whether I realised it or not at the time, and I mostly didn't, but I was struggling with depression rather mightily.
00:24:21
Speaker
So I went back. This would have been my second year of university. I managed a week and a half and I had the mother of all breakdowns. It was not pretty. So I was hospitalized. I was sent to a high security psychiatric ward, which is always where you want to find yourself.
00:24:41
Speaker
I was on 200 milligrams of Search for the Day, they gave me Resperido, which is a god-awful anti-psychotic, and Diazepam, which is better known as Valium. So I was a zombie, basically. I was zonked out my mind. So I missed the first couple of episodes. Eventually, after about a month, I was given a bit more freedom. I was allowed to go to my uni room. I was allowed to try and go back to classes. That was a disaster, but that's a story for another time. But
00:25:05
Speaker
In going back I was able to get back access to the internet and browsing the web I see that A, so you know the 4chan anime image board, I've outed myself as an absolute degenerate but it was in absolute uproar because at the time the fourth episode had just aired where Nibutani, one of the characters who
00:25:24
Speaker
up until that point had been playing what would appear to be a very sweet character, sort of the atypical, uh, no, not the atypical, the absolute standard, like the gold standard love interest. You know, she was cutesy, she was slightly flirtatious, she'd expressed interest in our boy Yuta, so a lot of people were rooting for her. And in season one, episode four, she reveals her true colours by starting to be a bit more manipulative and stealing the mamino-yon and what we think in a scene making Dekamori cry.
00:25:50
Speaker
who, you know, she's a younger character, she's also fairly cute, so a lot of people like her. So she was being lambasted with all sorts of names that I cannot repeat here, but I'm like, what is this anime that's caused such an uproar? So I go through the threads and I see a couple of other screen grabs and particularly there's a couple of gifs floating around from the opening scene where, you know, Rika's doing the finger twirl and like dancing along and it's...
00:26:11
Speaker
you know okay that's that's unusual never seen a character like that so I got into that and I grabbed all the episodes I could went back to the ward devoured them in one evening my my god it was it was brilliant it was just what I needed it was cathartic it was relatable it really really cut through it made me actually feel something in the midst of depression which let's face it is pretty rare it sort of rekindled
00:26:33
Speaker
an appreciation for anime, and so the next week when I was allowed out I eagerly downloaded that one, and it also helped me branch out a bit more. It made me go back and visit Clanad, which is another KyoAni one which predates both Hyouka, Keon, and Chunibyo, but it is an absolute brutal tearjerker as well. I also got Angel Beats, which is another fairly
00:26:52
Speaker
Cathartic, let's say. It's not a downer per se, but it deals with some serious themes, deals with like death and the afterlife and regrets and stuff like that, which really helped me work through. I mean, I also have to say as a brief aside at the same time, this was when I really got into Dark Souls as well. So I had Dark Souls push me and I don't want to say punish me because that would make me sound weirder than I already am.
00:27:13
Speaker
But there was like the idea of overcoming that is encoded in Dark Souls. But then there was also this much more relaxed, much more chill catharsis that anime was affording me. And so it had rekindled the sort of love that I felt for anime. Because to give a bit of backstory, and I know we're rambling still, but I'm a child of the 90s. So when PokeMania swept the globe and
00:27:35
Speaker
hit the school I was in at the time, in Ireland, I never stood a chance. I never stood a chance. You know, it was Pokémon, Digimon, a bit of Beyblade, then it sort of fell out of favour when I discovered Halo, and then I got back into it. It's sort of been on and off and on and off. And even thinking about it, because Sats is a, he's a nice boy. He mentioned that I'd get me to talk about how I got into it.
00:27:54
Speaker
And I realized that I actually got into anime when I was four years old, when my dad showed me Ghost in the Shell. So really in terms of being a weeb, I never stood a chance. It's just been sort of on and off and hot and cold. But I would say that Shinibio is definitely one of the series that helped kickstart and ignite my love for my appreciation for anime and also what it can do as an art form. I'm not sounding absolutely
00:28:15
Speaker
pretentious now, but KyoAni, for all their faults in terms of story writing, although there's not that many to be said for season one, they make some absolutely beautiful backdrops. I mean, Chunebio is a gorgeous anime. The backgrounds are watercoloured, but they've also got an amazing interplay between light and shadow. The character designs are absolutely on point, and the music is...
00:28:36
Speaker
understated, but it's exactly what you want. Going back to Watch Junibio for this episode, it was like slipping into a pair of comfy slippers or a lovely cup of hot tea. It really gave me an appreciation for anime sort of all over again, because you get a lot of fairly derivative stuff in anime. They tend to chase what works. Like at the time of Junibio, I think it was more the harem animes or the sort of battle academy.
00:29:00
Speaker
now it's more drifted into isekai and stuff like that but there are a lot of cookie cutter stuff that do not try but Shunibio it's got a lot of heart to it it's not a perfect anime but at the end of the day do you really want something to be perfect because perfection is boring and the imperfections are just something else for you to appreciate which sort of ties into one of the key themes
00:29:20
Speaker
of the anime. So that's my counter-ramble to your initial ramble. I think that's succinct enough. Over to you. First of all, it wasn't really a ramble. No, thank you for sharing all of that and sharing your experience with it. Especially because Genebial is one of those shows that is very deceptive
00:29:41
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If you watch the first couple of episodes versus the last couple of episodes, it's almost like night and day, theme-wise. Because at the beginning, as I said, it starts out with this quite comedic tone. And don't get me wrong, throughout the story, the majority of it is comedic.
00:30:00
Speaker
But when it needs to be serious, it does it so well. I would argue a bit too much because poor Rika can't catch a break. I'd say there's two major serious issues. Just one of them would do, but they're also packed into the second part of the season. So like Satinami said, it sort of reels you in with this cozy rom-com, this slice of life. You get to episode six and all of a sudden you realize that maybe there's something a bit more to it, although it's been hinted at before this point.
00:30:26
Speaker
You know, Rika, the ogres are like onions, and so is Rika. She's got layers. You sort of get to know her a bit more, and then you realize that this tunibio, it isn't just her being childish. There's a reason behind it, and it's not necessarily a good one, because she's fairly evasive and she's fairly insistent, so you get the feeling that there's a good reason.
00:30:43
Speaker
And then it starts, things start to come together and then it absolutely hits you in episode seven rather, and wow, it comes out of left field. But the problem, not the problem, but the thing is, it's also so relatable. We're teasing the viewers now, we're really going to have to get into it a bit more.
00:31:01
Speaker
Let's get right into it, but just before we do get into it, I'm going to warn you guys now, if you haven't seen it and this has tickled your curiosity, please feel free to pause the episode and go watch it and then come back, but we are probably going to dive into spoiler territory, so just a kind of quick warning there, because honestly I would say this anime is worth watching from start to finish, but you're
00:31:23
Speaker
completely right because throughout the show, at least for the beginning, Chernebial Syndrome is really just painted as quite this kind of cringey and immature thing. And you see that a lot with Rika. So Rika is, as we said, she's a teenage girl who lives with her older sister called Toka. Toka is basically, she's a chef, isn't she? She is, and a good one at that. And she's like,
00:31:49
Speaker
this very successful woman who looks after her sister but quite frankly has had enough of her attitude in this to Nebioism. Initially, it seems very cookie-cutter. It's not, but it does seem that way in the beginning. It is deceptively cookie-cutter though, isn't it? It's like, oh, this is the main character. He's fairly bland. Yuta, he does play into a lot of the sort of
00:32:12
Speaker
slightly, how do I say this, slightly dense main character tropes that you tend to see in anime. He has a lot of similarities with Kyoan from the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. So you've sort of seen this kind of character before, you sort of vaguely know how he's going to act, but then you have the fact that he has a pass with Junibyo thrown in that sort of skews it, like you were saying with Rika. She has Junibyo and that's not just an aside, it's not just some cutesy act, it's not just something she does to try and differentiate herself from the crowd. There's something much, much deeper going on behind there.
00:32:41
Speaker
And what I love about it is Yuta, despite having this colourful past, as it were, is the dark flame mister. Oh, so good. Yeah, I have to admit, one of my favourite scenes just before I go on is see when Rika outs him as being the dark flame master in the nurse's office. He's like, bouncing around, just like, how did you know then?
00:33:02
Speaker
Well, it's sort of a funny theme with both Nibutani and our boy Yuta. So whenever Chunebu was brought up, their embarrassment is like physically made manifest. Usually as pain, they beat their heads against the wall, they roll around on the floor, they throw themselves against various cabinets and stuff like that. I mean, obviously, I don't know if it's to be taken literally, but this is just an anime. It is fairly symbolic and allegorical.
00:33:26
Speaker
Haven't we all been there? Haven't we all done something in our past that is so cringy when we think back on it now? We just want the ground to open up and swallow us, you know? Absolutely. And I think that's what makes it so relatable. Yeah. I've got another friend who enjoys his anime as well, and I was sort of talking with Shinibuya about it just to see if he'd bring up any talking points. And he told me that it's one of the two anime he can't watch along with Watamote because, and I quote, it's too cringe. In a good way.
00:33:55
Speaker
In a way, yeah, in an all too relatable way. Ah, of course. Yeah, yeah. We've all been there. But I mean, the opening crawl makes a point of saying, it's sort of pretension when you all of a sudden have never had coffee before and all of a sudden you decide you want it black, or you start reading foreign classics in their original language that you can't read, you know, like Nietzsche's Alts or Sprech's Agathustra or stuff like that. We've all been there. We've all been trying way too hard to be cool. And to tie in with a previous episode of Chatsunani,
00:34:24
Speaker
It might have been inspired by the way we see Elle act, for instance, who's way too edgy and too cool for school, but it's that kind of idea to stand out. You know, you want to make yourself different, you want to make yourself cool, you want to make yourself edgy, but you don't have the wherewithal to realize just how cringy or obnoxious you're actually being. I think I've actually.
00:34:40
Speaker
brought this up in a previous episode, where I talked about my gaming experience. So years and years ago, when I was in high school, or rather like the lower half, I was still playing games like Pokémon, Sonic, those kind of games, you know, like quite childish, colourful platformers. But as soon as I hit 18, there was kind of that societal, almost expectation, not really from anybody else,
00:35:06
Speaker
Well, we do live in a society, to be fair. Well, that is true. Every time I go out, I'm reminded of that.
00:35:14
Speaker
I remember that's the reason that I was so into FPS games. I don't get me wrong, I love FPS games, but that's why I was so into them, because again, it's a stupid thing to say, but I consider them to be more mature. It's like, oh, I'm not playing baby Sonic games or anything. I'm done with RPGs. I shoot people. I am the call of duty now. There's actually a quote from the writer C.S. Lewis, and I think I've told you this before.
00:35:42
Speaker
you might have dropped this on a previous episode, yeah. Where he basically says, and he summarises it really well, he says,
00:35:58
Speaker
I think that's such a perfect quote, because don't get me wrong, if you're all consumed in something and it's your one thing, obviously that's going to be detrimental. But having a fear almost, because I've got a friend who is very much into collecting Lego and huge sets. Even today, Lego are pandering towards an older generation and things. Sorry, I know this is such a tangent from Geneva, but it does link not to it.
00:36:27
Speaker
Ties in, there's a lot of things that actually tie in to Cinebio, because another thing, I'll let you get back to the Lego thing, but you were mentioning that when you turned 18, you started playing more mature games. I think it happened a bit earlier with me, because when I got my first Xbox, I tried to give myself the coolest, most badass, hard-ass sounding name out there, so it was Deathbringer. But it wasn't just Deathbringer, because the E, A, and T of death were three, four, seven, because Leet was cool. That was how badass I was.
00:36:54
Speaker
And then, you know, you get older and you go back and look at it and you think, oh wow, did I really? On a previous episode, you talked with a certain wisteria moth and she was saying that she'd recently rebranded, if you remember. She was saying that her previous rebranding was part of herself, but she wanted to move on kind of to be wisteria moth, the same but unchanged as it were. And it's kind of the same thing. I related to that.
00:37:17
Speaker
because ever since I've moved away from being Deathbringer, and now typically I try and be Wonko the same, because like you say, it's good to be passionately obsessed in something, but it's also good to not take yourself too seriously all the time. A bit of humor never killed anyone.
00:37:32
Speaker
that you said about Yuta and Rika, the protagonists of this anime, because Yuta is very much the straight man in comparison to Rika being the chaotic Gremlin. And going back to something you said earlier, because you said about the animation style and I completely agree. So sometimes there's like a battle scene and it's not actually taking place, you know, it's all in the character's heads, but they still animate these grandiose scenes.
00:38:02
Speaker
absolutely beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, where it's like the characters are pulling out all these fantastical weapons and blasting, you know, powerful energy beams and things. It really is visually really appealing, but of course then it cuts to the dark kind of reality of it, and it is just them flailing.
00:38:19
Speaker
It's also comic effect. You may maybe think of the first proper fight that we see with Rika against Touka in Episode 2 when we get the transformation, we get the music change, all of a sudden we get to see what she's seeing, and it really is straight out of like a shounen. It wouldn't look amiss in Dragon Ball Z, but it looks even better, I would say, to be honest. There's just that thing, you know, the chinebio is sort of, or it seemed to be rooted in childishness.
00:38:43
Speaker
But it also makes the mundane so beautiful, and I think that's what Shunibio is able to capture fairly well throughout the animation, throughout the backdrops, throughout most of the series to be fair. Because, probably might mention this again, but Shunibio as a style, it's very saturated, there's very bright colours, there's lovely usage of shadow and light in certain scenes, but
00:39:07
Speaker
I don't know if you caught this. Well, you probably did. You might have noticed it, but your brain did, to quote another YouTube channel that's slightly better known than you, dare I say. But when Rika finally loses her chunebio, and spoilers, but to be fair, we've warned you since this begun, when she loses her chunebio, everything becomes desaturated.
00:39:24
Speaker
Everything is much more shades of grey, the colours are a lot less vibrant. The animator sort of primes you for this. Everything is saturated with the sort of childlike wonder, the mundane, made beautiful that Shinibyo brings, and then when it's gone, you're brought crashing back to soulless grey and colours that just don't stand out. And it really sort of hits home, it really makes you feel sort of unnerved, I would say. And to tap on that as well, I mentioned the music earlier, and I might as well. This is as good a point as any to do it, but Kyohane pays such attention to the music. It's absolutely fantastic.
00:39:53
Speaker
When Rika and Yuta are together, they're the main couple, they end up together, they have this gorgeous leitmotif that's usually played between a single violin and a single piano. That is taken as well when things are a lot more serious. So their sort of love theme is called Kimi no tonari ni orikei to eju.
00:40:14
Speaker
I'm so sorry about the pronunciation, but then there's a lot, there's a really, really sad one as well that is once again piano and violin, but it's played differently. This is, but it also keeps playing with it. Cause when the tunebio stuff kicks in, when, but you said it's, it's imaginary, it's the imagination is kicking and then the music tends towards harpsichord and electric guitar.
00:40:36
Speaker
And then in the everyday, the sort of more hum drum stuff, particularly at school, the music tends to be more punctuated by acoustic guitar and keyboard. So whether you realize it or not, the anime is sort of manipulating you. When it wants the emotional punches, it starts playing the violin and the piano. When it wants you to realize that this has more to do with cinebio, it brings out the harpsichord, the drum kit, the electric guitar. And then for the more standard stuff, you know, it's more of the acoustic and a bit of keyboard as well.
00:41:03
Speaker
So it's super subtle, but it's super well done in terms of grounding you, the viewer, and priming you as to what to expect in a certain scene from music cues alone. Because especially in the early parts of the season, you can see the kind of bubbly background music going on constantly, and it's kind of the same looping, you think. All right, fair enough. But there's one beautiful scene I just want to point out where I think it's when they kind of realise their feelings towards each other, like it's kind of solidified.
00:41:32
Speaker
when they're under the bridge. Oh you mean the confession scene? That's the one. I don't know if we're going to go through episode three episode but I have in my notes that that is probably the best and the most beautiful confession scene in the whole of anima. It is absolutely amazing. The thing I love about this scene and the anime as a whole because as I said it's an anime that you don't really expect there to be any threats
00:41:56
Speaker
or anything. Season 2's a little bit different, but don't worry, we won't go into that because that would be a whole other 5 hour diatribe. My blood pressure isn't ready for it. Yeah, for this one, again, as I said, Yuta has been trying to build himself up as this very serious person, but as soon as he's with Eureka, he learns to communicate with her, if that makes sense. He does, he does.
00:42:22
Speaker
So initially you think Rika is just this weird girl who is pretending to have these superpowers locked behind a magic eye and everything, but then throughout the series you realise, and again we'll get into it, but you realise this is a defence mechanism because every time she's studying for something and she's like, oh no, it's the evil number five, the clown or something.
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, and she gets like smacked. She's like, come on, be serious. She uses that as like a defence mechanism. And initially you think, oh, haha slapstick humour. But when you learn the reason, you think, oh, sweet Jesus, no. Yeah. And especially the reason behind why she adopted Shinibio as a defence mechanism in the first place. Emotional gut punch after emotional gut punch at a point where you don't expect it.
00:43:09
Speaker
And yeah, that confession scene is just absolutely fantastically done. You've got the, as you said, you've got the song swelling and the background, you've got the very gentle vocals and for once, Utah lets his guard down and he speaks to Rika in a way she can understand. Yeah, he really leans into the Geneva. Yeah, it's just such a cute scene where he puts on the dock
00:43:43
Speaker
I've written down here, awkward, fumbling and deeply, deeply touching. You really get the feeling that this is two adolescents who are head over heels for each other, trying to confess their feelings no matter how embarrassing it is.
00:43:57
Speaker
But like you said, the setting is so magnificent because it's sort of their place. In episode five, it's where Yuta gives Rika her new email address as a reward for passing the test, which she absolutely treasures because it's from him. And as the series goes on, we know why. So it's kind of their place.
00:44:12
Speaker
It's night time. You have the lights in the distance that Rika sort of considers to be this unseen horizon that she insists exists and it holds a great deal of significance. I think the night sky is like pinkish tinged. They're all alone. You know, we've all been teenagers. We've all had these awkward, horrible, beautiful moments. And it really, really taps into that. I have to give absolute mad props here as well because Rika preempts him. She confesses first and that takes guts.
00:44:39
Speaker
It's beautiful inversion as well, because we're going through my notes. If it hasn't showed before, I studied Humanities, which is basically telling you how to overthink the fuck out of anything. So they flip. Yuta goes full-chuney edgelord when he confesses, but Rika just confesses normally and, you know, she says, I like you, or skida, or think it's skida.
00:44:56
Speaker
Even when they confess their love for each other, they can't look at each other, they can't even hold hands, they just sort of entwine their pinky fingers. It's a gesture of intimacy, a very powerful one, but it's also limited by how they feel at the same time. Absolutely magnificent. If ever you regard one scene from this anime, I would say absolutely watch that, and the song called Kimi no Tonari ni,
00:45:14
Speaker
I don't know how to describe it. It's like the cliched song that plays during, I don't know, like a Western rom-com when, you know, you know, things are going to go down or like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it was more lovey-dovey stuff. It's just that kind of thing. It's got the sort of smooth almost Mariah Carey-esque vocals. You got the sort of chime and sound sort of playing from left to right on the channels. It really is something else.
00:45:37
Speaker
what makes it even more impactful? Because I never really thought of that until you mentioned it. It is a sport that is very significant to them. It's their spot. They go back to it in season two for the most frustrating finale that the world has ever seen. Oh yeah, Jesus, let's not go into that because
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, I remember watching that. I'm so sorry about this. I know we're teasing the audience something terrible like, oh, we know what happens, but you don't. It's like, we don't really want to do that. We want to make this its own thing later on. Yeah, trust me. You're not missing too much by waiting on season two. Season one, absolutely. Go check out season two, if you're bored. But yeah, as you said, you know, she gets her new Is It Her email address?
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because in Japan, even back then, they used to do email addresses, and I think they still do to a greater extent. Text is very much a Western thing, so it's one of those cultural differences, which is kind of interesting. Why is it strange, though? Oh, well, there's a reason for that. It's actually Easter egg. So Rika's voice actress, Nibutani's voice actress, and Dekamori's voice actress are all... they're Seiyu, so they're more than just voice actors. Seiyu are singing and dancing the whole thing.
00:46:41
Speaker
And they have a group which is called Black Resonde D'etre, and it's also Black Resonde D'etre that does the ending theme for Tunibio. So yeah. Yeah, because I just remembered that when you said about the theme, so I'm like, oh yeah, wow, that is actually quite cool. Kind of a time, but it also works because, you know, Black Resonde D'etre, that's lovely and edgy and it's in French, which is fairly unknown outside of France, I would say.
00:47:04
Speaker
Also, another fun French fact, there's a scene where they're trying to start like a club. I have a whole breakdown on that, ready to roll. Don't you worry about that. So before we go into the emotional core, because I feel as if that's the next one we have to go into, but there is a scene where they're trying to set up a magical society in NAP. What is it? The Far Eastern Magical Society at NAPINCOV. Magical NAPINCOV or something like that, yeah. And
00:47:32
Speaker
Oh, it's just so funny, but they need like an extra member. And Rika pretends to be possessed by, at least in the Japanese dub, or sorry, the Japanese version, the original, she pretends to be English. And you know, it's like really bad. Hello, nice to meet you. And then of course, the teacher calls her out completely, which is brilliant. And it's just like, what do you think of Rika? And she's just like, ah, oh no. God does not compute it. Whereas in the English dub, she speaks French.
00:48:01
Speaker
French or are they? She's an English woman who's moved to France. Yeah, she speaks shit and I'll leave the French to you, but she does that. She speaks that and she's just like, oh my eye, oh no, she's gone. It's like, oh well, you can't have your five members. That's like an L level play right there.
00:48:19
Speaker
it is to be fair, and you've sort of cut on pretty quick that the teacher is actually fairly adept at handling Rika. Before we talk about the emotional core of this, because this is a whole thing on its own, let's talk about the characters as well, because we've kind of sculpted around them. We've got Yuta, as we said, who's straight-laced, wanting to push away his cinebialism. We've got Rika, who fully embraces it, and of course we've got Toka, who's trying to curb Rika's, not enthusiasm, but
00:48:48
Speaker
in fact no it is! That's pretty apt actually. Play the theme in your own head. Of course we've got other characters to go on. Supporting cast members, which we've mentioned, you might have heard Nibutani or Decamori being thrown out, but probably we should explain who on earth they are.
00:49:08
Speaker
Nibutani is the love interest that was for the first couple of episodes until Yuta realises that she used to be a chinebio as well when she's tried to pretend she's not anymore and that also leads to the introduction of Dekumori who is a younger
00:49:27
Speaker
friend Tureka who follows her around, keeps calling her masters if she's learning all these spells from her and things, and just harasses Nibutani because Nibutani used to be technically like a witch. So she says, you know, like a fake witch called Mori Summer, and Dekamori found basically her deviant art page, let's just say, or her Tumblr to be exact,
00:49:51
Speaker
MySpace perhaps? Yeah, maybe MySpace, maybe MySpace. She found that she became completely enamoured. She said, oh, I love Modi's summer teachings and things. She holds her in a very, very high regard, is the point. That leads to their kind of rivalry, that Deke and Modi can't believe that Nubutani is this. She wants to distance herself, and I would say they're probably
00:50:15
Speaker
second or third kind of most important. Because you know, Nebutani and Decimori are the supports for Yuta and Rika. But then we get to the bottom tier of support characters, because obviously you've got the teacher, you've got all the kind of side characters, you've got Yuta's mum who can't remember what her job is, but it must be the night shift.
00:50:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's unlucky, but she's out of the way so shenanigans can ensue. Yeah, and the dad's in Jakarta for some reason, so it's like, okay, fair enough. But we've got two other characters. We've got Ishiki, who is basically the only other supporting male character
00:50:55
Speaker
The male character gets voice lines anyway, because the classmates don't play into it very, very much. Yeah, and he doesn't get a lot. Like, he has one episode that revolves around him, but as the series goes on, his impact gets less and less, and the special in Season 2.
00:51:10
Speaker
He gets shafted pretty badly, let's be honest. I mean, the shafting begins in season one, but poor Ishiki in season two in the film. Like you say, Asats, he's more of a supporting character. In the light novels, he gets a bit more to do. His major character trait is, huh, how about them girls, man? Pretty much, yeah. It's a shame, really. It's a shame. He's not the worst I've ever seen, I will admit, in that kind of character trope. I just feel as if they didn't have anything to do with them.
00:51:39
Speaker
No, but he taps into that slightly uncomfortable stereotype of the friend who's more worried about your sexual life than he is his own kind of thing. You know, hey man, I'm never gonna get any girls, but you should totally go, you know, go for it, dude. It's a bit weird, not gonna lie.
00:51:55
Speaker
And of course he pines for the other girl who, and I know you and I have differences in regards to opinions for this character, so the final character is Cuman, who is basically the reason why they have napping society in their name because she's a senior in high school and she basically sleeps all the time. That's her running joke. Personally, I feel as if she does nothing in this and she's only just there to encourage
00:52:21
Speaker
as it were, or just... She does seem to enjoy the cinebio antics that go along, so she's got a very sweet and sort of supporting side, so she's happy. She plays along as best she can, even though she's never really experienced cinebio. She says herself that she's been homeschooled for quite some time, so she has this sort of awkwardness about her. As such, she's got an eccentric hobby, napping, as Sat's mentioned.
00:52:45
Speaker
But she's also super interested in this Geneva that she's never experienced, despite the fact you have Yuta and Nibutani shouting at her about how horrible and cringey and embarrassing it is.
00:53:04
Speaker
He's a joke character I would say, at least Cuman is taken seriously. Yes, seriously. But as Ishki, as you said, he just gets absolutely pooped on left, right and centre throughout the entire thing. And even when he does help Yutan go and you're like, it's not great. There's side plots as well with the Butane and Dikomori.
00:53:24
Speaker
fighting against one another. Some of that can get tiring, I have to say. More for, and you'll probably be able to remind me of, the episode in question. But there is a particular episode I do remember.
00:53:48
Speaker
There's an episode where they go to the beach and it's got to be the most depressing anime beach episode I have ever watched in my life. Like they have the usual, you know, oh let's go to the beach. We've got the, what do you call them, water guns. Yeah, oh that's right, yeah.
00:54:02
Speaker
And they've got their antics, like they're all trying to get at one another and there's all that. But on the flip side, you've got this really, really sad moment where Yuta starts to realise why Rika is the way she is. Yeah, the penny starts slowly dropping throughout the beach episode.
00:54:20
Speaker
And it just feels more like a distraction, honestly. Yeah, when it keeps cutting back to them and their happy-go-lucky antics and then Yuta trying to help Rika realising there's more going on, realising things are a lot more serious, not more deep than perhaps you might have initially realised. So the main characters, let's have a brief rundown. So first we have Yuta, and now I have a question for you, and it's a bit of a trick question, but I'll go for it anyway. Is Yuta a JoJo reference? In what way? Particularly the poses and the way he holds his hand in front of his face. That's what I mean.
00:54:50
Speaker
Technically, yes, but I don't know if it's officially. Haha, you fool! Yeah, because I did a bit of homework on this, so in the original he's voiced by Jun Fukuyama, who is perhaps better known as Lelouch, or Lelouch v. Britannia, if you prefer, from Code Gosh, or Code Gace. It's gosh in the original Irish, I spent 14 years in Ireland, I'm going to pronounce it that way.
00:55:10
Speaker
And particularly when he does the Dark Flame Master, it's almost one-for-one as how he did Alucia's voice. So it really sort of jerked me upright when I heard it because I watched a Code Gosh in the original and then watched it dubbed. Although to be fair, the dub was pretty good too. There's nothing wrong with it. Like Satsunami said, he's very much the straight man. And to misquote a certain meme, but I think Yuta is a pretty cool guy because he hits women and doesn't afraid of anything. Now let me explain that before the pandaloy cuts the whole stream. So there's a lot of slapstick.
00:55:36
Speaker
in Shinibyo and mostly it comes from Yuta just sort of like bonking I would say on the head it's not proper hitting he's not actually visiting physical violence on mostly Rika but also I think Nibutani and Deko get a bop from time to time just to sort of pull them out but yeah it's unusual in that regard because usually it's the males with a butt of the slapstick comedy but here we have it sort of reversed because Yuta's sort of trying to play the straight man
00:55:59
Speaker
He's definitely a protagonist, I'm not sure if he's the main character, he's definitely the narrator though, because we see things from his perspective and so that's why we don't exactly know what's going on with Rika. He's got an embarrassing past obviously, he's got it rooted in the chinevio and he's trying to move on from it, and despite his best efforts, despite the first day of high school and everything, in walks Rika, the incarnation of chinevio, and pulls him straight back.
00:56:21
Speaker
I have here in my notes and I quote, bit of a grumpy prick, and I will explain what I mean. He plays a straight man to an extent where he's grumpy, he doesn't want to go along with it, but secretly he's kind of into it at the same time, but also as this series goes on, you start realising that he's actually under a lot of pressure, and at one point he snaps
00:56:40
Speaker
rather dramatically and when you sort of go through and watch things knowing that you understand because a wise person once said to me that a lot of pressure is put on the fixer in any relationship whether you decide to do that or unconsciously you try and do that
00:56:55
Speaker
he does try and do his best for Rika but he doesn't know what's best for her so he tries to help he tries to support but as it goes on it becomes clear that Rika is not putting on the cinebio just because she wants to so that brings us to
00:57:10
Speaker
Rika, I'm not going to insist on the voice actors every time just for the main two, but she is voiced by Uchida Maya, who is basically the queen of Chinibio. If you've seen a Chinibio-esque character, there's a decent chance that she does the voice. Perhaps the best one I could find while doing research for this is Ranko Kanzaki from Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, who is basically just this gothic lolita almost cut from the same cloth as Rika is. And as a neat little nod or a wink, she does the Japanese voice for official in Genshin Impact,
00:57:40
Speaker
who has the same eye patch as Rika, she has the same sort of Chenebio aspect as Rika, so it's really ingrained in that regard. I would say that she's by far the main character. She goes through the most arcs, she goes through the most evolution, and she's a very, very interesting character. She is shockingly vulnerable when it comes down to it, but she's very, very strong, and her defense mechanism, as Sats touched on, is her Chenebio. And it's always interesting to talk about this, because when you mention defense mechanism,
00:58:08
Speaker
My immediate thought was the British and humour. The Brits tend to, you know, be sarcastic and make jokes and try and distance themselves from most things, but it's just another coping mechanism. Humour is to the Brits, or the British rather, as, you know, Chenebio is to Rika. It's a coping mechanism. Do I spoil or do I not spoil? Go for it. Chenebio is her coping mechanism after the sudden death of her father.
00:58:33
Speaker
And to be fair, Rika probably handles that far better than I would. It's absolutely horrifying, you know, just to think about. It's a conscious act, you can see that because she does break her chanubio character from time to time. First time it happens in episode three when she's like just joking around with Yuta, but...
00:58:50
Speaker
you can see that she can be jolted out of it. When she gets rattled, she can start acting unusually quiet instead of her usual rambunctious, sort of outgoing, chunebio self. She's got a lot of layers which are sort of slowly peeled back as the season progresses, and her chunebio, it's a part of herself, but it's also very much her way with dealing with reality. And in that regards, I would argue that she is the most mature out of the Takanashi family, which is obviously her family, because consider this, her mother is physically absent,
00:59:19
Speaker
Toca tries to throw herself into her work so she doesn't have to think about it, and Rika retreats to her mind, but you find out that they kept the fact that her father would pass away from her until the very last moment. So it was an almighty shock on that. So it's a coping mechanism. It sort of ties into Camus' idea of the philosophy of the absurd, which I found quite interesting because that's one of my pet philosophers, Camus, indeed my boy.
00:59:42
Speaker
And it's just the idea that her cinebio is her way of working through it, because she does progress, she does slowly work through it. She insists about finding this unseen horizon as a way to give herself closure from it. So throughout the season, she insists that it's real, like the first time at the end of the first episode, she insists with rather more force than Yuta was probably expecting. And so Hiki backs down, and as an audience, we sort of realize that maybe something deeper is going on. She also relies on Yuta
01:00:10
Speaker
far more than she realises. And as we see throughout the series, when the Chenibio facade or when the Chenibio coping is pulled back, she is lonely, she is frail, she is vulnerable, and she sort of falls into apathy or depression. And particularly the last two episodes where that happens, they can make for some very
01:00:28
Speaker
very awkward viewing, I would say. She single-handedly codified the Shinibio character that exists to this day, because I mentioned I'm into my anime. At the moment, one of the epic enemies I'm watching is Komi-san Wakamusha Desu, which I think is Komi-san wants to communicate in English, and there's a character called Nakanaka-san, who basically you swap the eye patch from Rika's right eye to the left and give her a bob-cut, and it's the exact same character, so she still has a massive hold over anime pop culture.
01:00:52
Speaker
Then we have the interplay between Yuta and Rika. You could write a whole thesis on their dynamic. It really is incredible. Yuta inadvertently gave Rika the keys to the whole Shinibyo thing. He helped her more than you realise, and it's only towards the end that you realise just how much Yuta actually matters to her.
01:01:08
Speaker
Rika, as opposed to the family just basically saying, you know, lol, get over it, that's reality, move on, which obviously easier said than done. So Yuta sort of serves as Rika's guide both metaphorically in that he was the patient zero, he was the one that sort of sparked her chunebio craze, and also
01:01:23
Speaker
he literally becomes the guy right at the very end which we'll touch on but he sort of helps her get the closure and get the catharsis that she so desperately wanted and a recurring theme throughout the both light novels and the anime is the fact that only Yuta can understand Rika because Nibutani tries to reject and bury her past. Yuta wants to do that but he can't quite move away he can't bring himself to do it
01:01:44
Speaker
So as a result, he's been there, he knows which Inebio is, and he's also getting to learn Rika better. One of the things that sort of brought them together was the fact that Yuta acted. He was so supportive of her, particularly in the light novel, she makes a point of saying that he was the first one that didn't laugh at her, that didn't make fun of her, that didn't tell her to...
01:02:01
Speaker
to grow up or whatever so just the fact that he understood her was like amazingly important for Rika so that sort of gives you an idea of how much the two characters sort of mean to each other and Yuta is also able to tap into his chanubyo side as embarrassing as it is you know culminating in the confession scene really clicks and he starts fully supporting Rika and it makes it all the more brutal when he snaps and does what no one else could do because he was like her pillar throughout the whole thing
01:02:26
Speaker
So moving on to the sporting characters now, we have Ernie Butani. She plays into the cliches of the popular girl. She's polite, she's friendly, she's outgoing, but she's a bit of a bitch. She can be quite abrasive once you get to know her. She can threaten characters, she can stomp on their feet, she can do all sorts of horrible things to try and keep
01:02:45
Speaker
her chanebia side buried when she thinks that's being threatened. She says that she's ex chanebia but as we find out she actually holds on to the relics from her chanebia past and she's probably the most socially adept I would say. She can manipulate and navigate most situations fairly easily and she tries to push Rika and Yuta together when she seems to realize what's going on.
01:03:07
Speaker
And she's also interesting, she's very human in the regard that she, you know, she's got a slightly more cynical, slightly more abrasive side, but she's also desperately trying to find her place. She keeps going from club to club to club to try and fit in, but in the end, she can't quite find what clicks for her, so she's always moving on and constantly dissatisfied. Next we have Decamori. She's actually an anime-only character. She does not exist in the original light novel. She was written in by the third book. Really?
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't think so, because the chemistry is so good. And actually, human and toka are also anime original. They didn't exist in the original. Oh wow. I know, right? Also nice to know you're still there. I've been sort of monologuing for a while. No, no, no, no. I've been taking notes down. I'm like, didn't exist. That's why I'm not buying the light novel. Okay, got it.
01:03:52
Speaker
So Decimori's interesting because she has two aspects of her personality that are codified in anime and that is her childish side. So first we have the twin tales and the second the slightly sapphic undertones or overtones in her relation with Nibutani but obviously I'm barred from explaining what happened so you're just gonna have to trust me. But both yeah sapphism or lesbianism and
01:04:14
Speaker
and twin tails are both codified as being childish in terms of Japanese culture. It's sort of just the way it is. It's sort of seen as being slightly curious in terms of the saphism and the twin tails are seen as a more childish haircut. So she's the youngest, that does work, but she's also...
01:04:28
Speaker
she's got her she's got a decent head screwed on her shoulders I would say when in one of the more brutal scenes I think Yuta absolutely lays into her out of frustration and brings her to tears she does admit that she knows that you know he tells her that she knew he wasn't real and she says tears coursing down her face that she knows she always knew it was just a game she also is she's shown to have great grades you know she's very smart she's fantastic
01:04:52
Speaker
a son of a fantastically rich family, so she's already one at life. You only find that out at the very last episode, where it turns out that she was able to lend a car to get the gang to where they need to be for the triumphant climax. She also has a certain degree of naivety, but that comes to play more in season two. So I'll get into the end now, don't worry. We have Cuman, another anime-only character. She's interesting. She's a bit of a blank slate, but that does work into the story's favour at the very end, when Rika sort of
01:05:18
Speaker
passes her the flame of her tyrant's eye, which I think is the correct translation. And she's able to keep that going until Rika gets it back. And she also is able to give quite the exposition dump, which really makes you to realise just how important and how bad he's messed up. And that drives him on to right the wrong that he's committed. And finally, we have Ishiki. He's a very, very unlucky character. You think he's going to be Yuta's friend, rather, but
01:05:42
Speaker
He's just sort of pushed to the side in favour of more scenes with the gang, essentially, with Cumin, with Dekamori, with Nibutani, with Yuta, and with Rika, the Oriental Magic Society napping club or whatever it is. He's very cliche, he's very one note, and that just gets worse and worse as the series goes on. He does lend the bike to Yuta at the very end, so he does have his use. He is a bit of a check-offs gun, but if it's just for that, then... Not worth it, yeah. Bit of a shame, yeah. So that would be my brief analysis of the characters.
01:06:12
Speaker
And if you want to listen to part two of Namo, get up there. Jethse Nani will return after these episodes. Next time on Jethse Nani. First of all, fantastic analysis, honestly. Like you hit the nail on the head for so many of them. You would think watching this for the first time, all of these characters are just your cookie cutter. Oh look, Yuta's bland, Rika's the weird awkward one, Nubitani's the love interest, Dikimori's the brat.
01:06:41
Speaker
yeah, Touka is the overbearing sister turning it back on to something you said and I think that leads us perfectly into the final part of this episode of course being really the emotional core. So what makes Cinebio, compared to any other anime, what makes this different? And as you said it is the reason behind Rika's Cinebio. Now throughout life
01:07:04
Speaker
we all go through certain situations. Whether they are fantastic, whether they are downright depressing, that is kind of life. It's those experiences that shape who we are. It's something you actually brought up perfectly there when you said that Rika responds quite positively, giving all things considered. Obviously, she doesn't go, woohoo, he's dead.
01:07:26
Speaker
She is a heartbroken child, you know, that she wasn't told that her father's dying. And you can see before she becomes like a cinebio, she tries to do her best, she tries to swallow her sadness and just be like, oh, I'm going to do the best. I'm not going to upset my mum because, you know, there's still that kind of resentment there. But like a realistic
01:07:48
Speaker
childish resentment. It's not like she's like, I will never talk to my mother. Slams door if you just look like there's a reason behind that. And as I said, going back to the beach episode, this is where you find out why Rika acts the way she does, because they all turn up in appropriate clothing for the summer, whereas Rika turns up like the gothic dress. And you think,
01:08:09
Speaker
Huh, why is she, you know, you think that was just part of her genebialism, but there's a particular scene where she goes back to where she grew up and of course the house has been torn down, it's heartbreaking because you finally get to contextualise why Touka has been so hard on her, not because she's in the overbearing stage.
01:08:28
Speaker
stereotype, but because she is processing the grief in her own way, she's older for one, and she's a lot more mature, so she can handle it in her own way. But when Rika's father passes away, she is basically really young. She's not even a teenager yet, I don't think.
01:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, she's like a wee chubby. I suppose she is actually, yeah. It's all the fact made worse that in a scene where Toca's sort of explaining what happened to Yuta, they kept it from her. They never told her that her dad was, you know, slowly getting sicker and sicker until he passed away. So it came out of absolutely nowhere, and it also makes the point of saying that they were fairly close. I suppose I briefly touched on Toca, but the more I watch it, the more I dislike that character, to be honest. Every time she shows up, horrible things happen to Rika.
01:09:16
Speaker
basically. She is a crimson-eyed harlot, bringer of absolute misery, because the first time she sort of beats up Rika and you realise that she's sort of trying to rein in her delusions. The second time she abseils down from her flat, which is just above Yuta's, to his balcony saying that she needs help. And then it turns out that they're going back to Rika's grandparents and Rika's acting out of character, so you know what's going on. And then I think that the most unforgivable thing after the aforementioned beautiful confession
01:09:45
Speaker
By the end of the episode, she comes in and saying, hey, you know, Yuta, I need you to do my dirty work here. I need you to snap her out of it for me. So she never does the dirty work when it comes down to it. She does play along, seemingly. Like, if she was serious, she would not engage. But she does sort of play along with the Shneebio fighting. She always wins, naturally, but she does play into it. And then she starts getting annoyed with Rika by the fact that she's being encouraged by her behavior if you sort of see where I'm coming from. I mean, I suppose
01:10:13
Speaker
if you're really analysing it, you could look at that as her not wanting to hurt her sister. I see what you mean about her enabling that behaviour, but at the same time, she's not going to lay into her and start. I'm just trying to think of any anime where they just lay into each other.
Rika's Coping Mechanism
01:10:30
Speaker
Until she does, because you're talking about episode 8, I've got the notes right here, and if we can skip to it, essentially, Rika's been trying to give Toka the slip, so she told Yuta to go meet up with her, she sneaks away, but Toka finds them, so Rika runs away on her own, and then Toka takes you to her side to Rika's dad's grave, and then you realise, oh, god. So, you know, she's clearly upset, she's clearly bottling a lot of stuff up, the fact that she's back has really rattled stuff loose.
01:10:55
Speaker
but Yuta supports her. He agrees to go with her because she sort of locked herself in a room because she's upset. Toka comes in playing the typical villain. It's like, oh, why have you done this? I thought I could trust you as they make a break for it. We also have the first time that the really sort of sad music plays. It's called Suruchigao Kokoro Tokokoro. It's once again a lovely piece with violin and piano, but it is incredibly melancholic. The way it goes is that it's
01:11:17
Speaker
night, she's framed by the blue light, Yuta comes in, they sort of run away, Touko comes in, does some weird sort of foreshadowing, and er, can't believe she done this kind of thing. There's a leap of faith, Yuta jumps down first, he catches Rika, they get on the bike, they start pedaling towards her old base, she starts explaining what the unseen horizon is, and the idea is that she saw lights on the water the night her dad died. This is this unseen horizon, this is her coping mechanism, and that's why she's been constantly insisting that that exists.
01:11:42
Speaker
And it's constantly why she wants to breach this unseen horizon or this unseen boundary. I can't remember exactly what the term is. Shunibio is a simple story that's well done. And nowhere does it show more, I think, in this scene because we have sort of happy music playing. We've got woodwind and piano. It's upbeat. We have Rika flashing back to happy memories. She sees the dad briefly as she sort of gets there. She stands there and then she just stops.
01:12:04
Speaker
You see Yuta sort of arriving on the side, the violins pick up, the music swells, the camera cuts to her point of view, and it's an empty lot. Everything is gone. Everything falls silent. There is not a single sound to be heard. It's just, you know, she is stunned. She is shocked. Everything that she held dear, everything that she thought existed has been torn away from her. And then at that moment, you have Toka, who's arrived, who's been chasing them in the car. She comes out and says, this is reality. Papa is gone. You have to accept it. And you can just...
01:12:33
Speaker
it cuts to hurt her cheeks not even her eyes you can see the tears roll down you know an absolutely heartbroken tone she says or she intones the words that sort of bring about the cinebio translation you know reality be rent sign that to break vanishment this world but it is just so
01:12:49
Speaker
So heartbreaking. It really is something. And then episode eight, it cuts straight to a brief recap of that. And then you have Rika and Toka, but really laying into it. Toka is upset, so she is quite literally beating the tar out of Rika. She slaps her back-handedly, so she gets the whole knuckles. She kicks her in her upper arm, and she gives her another kick that sends her tumbling through her mindscape of her house, which all of a sudden turns to floor plans and starts burning down as they fight, as Toka is just
01:13:17
Speaker
trying to beat reality or beat some sense into her. She's calling her selfish. She asks if Rika hates their mother. Why is she doing this? There's nothing we can do. We have to accept reality. You know, it's brutal. And this is a grown woman kicking the crap out of a teenage girl. There really is some massive emotional weight to it. She says, our house is gone. Papa is gone. Rika refuses to give up. And Yuta has to step in because she's finally started to realize what's going on. He says, it's because she understands that she's acting like this.
01:13:47
Speaker
obviously I don't condone that kind of behaviour, but it is quite realistic in a way because if you've got someone who, you know, you go through a shared experience, like especially like someone who's dramatic as that, and they are kind of living in this fantasy land where they're completely denying what has happened. It's a human reaction at the end of the day, yeah. And just the frustrating, the outpouring,
Yuta's Support and Understanding
01:14:10
Speaker
it's very, very poignant
01:14:12
Speaker
And again, like, it's not what you expect going into this anime, especially with the first couple of episodes where it's like, oh haha, slice of life, yay. Are they gonna get together or are they not? And then, you know, as you said by episodes like, it's like, haha, Ruka's dad's dead. Yeah, no, it's pretty brutal. And up until that point, most of the quote unquote violence, you know, it's been completely slapstick.
01:14:32
Speaker
Yuta just bopping Rika on the head when she goes a bit out of control or when she brings up something that he finds too embarrassing. Although, to be fair, Toka does bean her with a ladle pretty hard in episode two to finish the combat, so it's not like she hasn't, but this time, I mean, to be fair, both the voice actresses were really, really leaning into it. They were, you could properly feel the emotion in their voices as they did it.
01:14:52
Speaker
It's a very, very powerful scene. And, you know, it's contrast, like you say, it's contrast between the slapstick violence and the actual violence. It's contrast between the light tone that the anime has had up until this point, and now all of a sudden, the serious gut punches are coming home. Very powerful, very powerful to be fair.
01:15:07
Speaker
And I have to admit, what I do like about the reveal and how it unfolds is, as you said before, when Rika actually loses her cinebio self, everything that she said, it becomes like de-saturated and quite bland and normal. And there's even a scene where, I think it's the same place where Rika and Yuta actually have their quote-unquote confession and they're looking out and they say, oh look, the lights, you know. Yeah, they're just lights.
01:15:35
Speaker
yeah she just bluntly says all they're just likes and that is quite that is really heartbreaking all the magic and all the romance is just it's just gone because she's acting so out of character things are so wrong and another thing that i wanted to just touch on i was so smug about it because i thought
01:15:50
Speaker
I was the only one that realized but actually the first episode is mirrored but in a super depressing way in in episodes 11 and 12 so we have the thing with the lights from their confession we have Rika and Yuta on the train station as she's leaving but instead of her being all upbeat and dancing around the place and doing the Konami code with the vending machine that's not
01:16:10
Speaker
There's another bit as well that I'm brushing over but I don't like watching episodes 11 and 12 or at least the bits where she's acting out of character and stuff like that. But it's just so much regret. There's so much that's clearly wrong. Almost disassociation because everything is so horribly different and so wrong.
01:16:27
Speaker
that's the thing though, you build up a relationship towards the character of Rika through the early parts of the season. This tunibio self, yeah she's strange but at the same time she is a character who has been through a lot and has decided this is who she's going to be. It's almost like seeing a friend that you haven't seen for years and just seeing them as a completely different person.
01:16:50
Speaker
And that's the thing that I think obviously is like a key tenant of the show where Utah kind of looks at her but doesn't look at her in the same way. He doesn't see that excited girl that he fell in love with, he just sees this heartbroken, devastated
01:17:07
Speaker
person going back slightly before she loses her cinebialism. Personally, on the one hand, I think this is a dick move by Yuta, so the reason, as you said, that she loses her cinebialism is because Touka asks him.
01:17:28
Speaker
So as it turns out, Toka's moving to Italy for work, and Rika's absent mother is coming back. I sort of mention here that Toka sort of goes for the emotional blackmail line, as she mentioned that Rika's mother has tried time and time again to talk to Rika, but Rika sort of blocked her out. The scene takes place in a restaurant, but what she does is she bows her head, she does something that's called dogeza, I believe.
01:17:47
Speaker
And it's basically a basing yourself. And for Japan, which is all about maintaining a certain degree of poise and standard, this is super embarrassing. And Toka says, talk to her. I'm sure she'll listen. While Yuta tries to defend her, he says to Toka that she does face reality. She understands, but she can't process her sadness. And she doesn't really want the chinebio-ness to disappear, essentially. But Toka just bluntly says, you know, she'll never find what she wants to see.
01:18:09
Speaker
So we have Yuta sort of struggling with this already and then Rika's mother shows up and once again it's very well done because the mother, she's very downcast, she looks tired, she looks work-worn. We find out much later in the film that she's been, she works as a nurse so she's already run ragged but you can clearly tell that
01:18:27
Speaker
This is also weighing on her as well. She's looking for her daughter, Yuta says sorry she just gone out, you missed her. She gives Yuta a handmade lunch that she made for Rika, presumably an attempt to reconnect or to say sorry or something. And then she just says, you know, I'm sure she still isn't ready to see me again. So that's a lot of pressure to put on Yuta to be fair.
01:18:44
Speaker
You could see it that maybe he feels guilty because Rika's tunibio is at risk of tearing her family apart kind of thing, but this has been building up and building up and building up and we know that Yuta sort of wants to move away from the whole nature of tunibio, but at the same time he loves Rika for who she is, tunibio and all. You know, we've had a lovely scene, we have the confession scene and what brought on that confession scene was another really, really beautiful scene.
01:19:07
Speaker
where Rika almost falls off a roof after Nibutani keeps trying to engineer situations where they'd be alone. They have a heart to heart, it's just the two of them, they've been acting awkward because they started realising that they have feelings for the other. Yuta says that he finally understands Rika, that the Unseen Horizon is something special and it's not just something random or cool sounding, there's something behind it because he's seen the fight with Toka and Rika at their old house, he's seen her dad's grave, he understands what's going on, it's a very poetic scene, and he's offering her acceptance and support, which is literally all that she's ever wanted.
01:19:36
Speaker
this sort of, you know, brightens her up. She goes to the other side of the scaffolding and she slips. Very much Lion King style. You know, I had to try very hard to not say out loud, brother, help me! Because it really is clear gone to the edge. So we have Yuta getting a bit of a hero moment because Nibutani shouts out that he can reach her from the third floor and because there's a balcony and because every time Rika has appeared that's not in school, she's come down from the balcony and Yuta's pulled her in. So it's kind of another thing they have. So he
01:20:04
Speaker
barrels down the stairs, he races through the empty classroom, he gets her, and in a beautiful scene, orange lighting, we get a 360 zoom as they embrace as a couple. They haven't kissed yet, but you can really, really feel the intimacy that's there. Suspension bridge effect or not, you can see that that's finally broken through their awkwardness, and it moves them to confess later on in the next episode.
01:20:27
Speaker
going back to what you were saying about Rika losing her chanubionus, about how much you two meant for her, after you two finally gets it, after he said that he'll support her, that all she's wanted is to be understood and accepted for who she is. That's happened. And now you have that person, you have your significant other who is all of a sudden upset or
01:20:45
Speaker
angry at you and screaming at you to do something that you never thought they would ask you to do, but because it's them, Yuta is the only one that is able to snap Rika out the Virginibionis, and that whole scene is quite poignant as well. Again, as I said, it's just this happy-go-lucky anime up until, as you said, episode 8, and then we get this really brutal scene where, just as they're preparing to go up for like this talent show. Or a flash mob, wasn't it?
01:21:13
Speaker
think it's like a kind of cinebio play or something, you know, they're just showing off their, oh look, we are characters and- But it's pushed by Nibutani because she wants to outdo the original Drama Club. Oh yeah. Because she was a part of but then got bored of it. Yeah, exactly. In the one hand do you think, oh it's a dick move that Utah basically did this to Rika just before they were gonna go on? Yeah, of all the time.
01:21:36
Speaker
But on the other hand, you do forget he is still a teenager. He's probably not mentally equipped to think it through, especially being pressured after meeting Rika's mum, after talking to Toka,
01:21:52
Speaker
a lot of blackmail and he's trying to fix her but there's a lot of pressure on the fixer, he's trying to take all that on by himself but he has no one there that he can talk to kind of thing so it does make sense that he snaps but then again it really brings to the fore the sort of human aspect of all the characters none of them are perfect they all make mistakes they all make the wrong calls or they're all a bit abrasive or sensitive about certain topics or stuff like that but it's just so poignant in that regard they're not the sort of moe blob carbon copy characters of a typical anime they
01:22:21
Speaker
really do have flaws but that just makes them all the more human and all the more relatable because we've all made bad calls I would say. We have all hurt people inadvertently or otherwise and we have all felt absolutely horrible for that so we can really sort of feel how that has happened and we don't even see it. We just cut to him under the tree, Rika comes up, he tells her to take off the eye patch and
01:22:45
Speaker
everything cuts to quiet, it goes all silent, and the episode jump cuts to later in the evening. It's Yuta, it's the evening, he's sitting alone by the chainmail fence, chainlink fence rather, and all you know is that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. It really is quite unnerving. The whole sequence is, and especially when, as you said, he snaps later on at Decamori, and you summarise that scene pretty well where, you know, she says she knows it's make-believe, and
01:23:11
Speaker
I think deep down as well, I think there's something that Yuta says that they all know Rika deep down doesn't believe she's got these powers. Yeah, she knows they're not actually real. Later on, you know, she'll use it as an excuse rather than a justification. You do see that when when she's trying to study for the test that she tries to get away with it, but in doing so it shows she's conscious of it because she's trying to use her Tunisiaonas to get away from studying, which is something she hates.
01:23:35
Speaker
And if I can touch on the sort of Dekamori Yuta scene, it's as Rika's boarding and like everyone knows she's not coming back, but so much is so unsaid. And once again, it's really relatable in a couple when you have an argument, which I'm sure it happens as regrettable as it is, but all of a sudden communication just goes. You don't talk. There's an awkwardness between you that normally isn't there. And that's exactly what they have been able to put in this anime. There's so much that left unsaid. Yuta can only smile. Rika doesn't even say anything. She just sort of walks in the doors closed between them. The train goes off.
01:24:05
Speaker
It's incredibly raw, but then the reason he snaps is because Dekamori calls him out on all his shit. She asks why he didn't ask her to stay. She says that it was a pillar for her and I quote an anchor for her heart that she called her. She got a rika called Dekamori every night to tell her what the dark flame master had done this or that he believed in her and that's when she says it. She believed in you and that's what makes you to snap probably out of frustration and he really really does lay into there's no unseen horizon. Her dad is
01:24:32
Speaker
dead, there's nothing he can do. And at this point, Dekamori is really distraught. I mean, once again, fair play to the voice actress that does it, but she is screaming, she is hitting him, she is crying. He just goes on to say how pointless it is. They don't exist. Dekamori just sort of collapses under the weight of this all. And all she can say is, I know, and she runs away. So once again, Yuta has been blotting his copybook a bit, but here it just is like a really low blow. If at any point you do not like the character,
01:25:00
Speaker
I would say that this is it, where he just utterly takes her down. Before this, you have Dekamori who ambushes them on the way to school and she tries to reignite Rika's Junibyo again and she almost gets there, but it's just not enough and you can already see that she's upset with that. Kicking a puppy or kicking her while she's down, it really is rough to see. It really is. It's like, as you said, all that joy and away from giving a childish charm.
01:25:24
Speaker
wonder, the fascination, the beauty, the possibilities. It's all gone, everything's desaturated, everything's horrible, this is reality. But to end the episode on a positive note, the ending is absolutely fantastic, where basically Yuta goes for Rika's cycles to her grand parents, which is where they go in the Beach episode.
01:25:48
Speaker
Would you say it's cliched? A little, but I feel as if it's needed, absolutely. But I would say it's cliched in the best possible way. Without seeing the anime, you sort of know the scene. It's where it's the sort of redemption. It's where the guy's gonna cycle through the night to get to the one he loves to right a wrong.
01:26:06
Speaker
We've seen it in so many other films, but here it is in Shinibya, but it's so well done as well. Yuta's been pretty bummed out and he's trying to work his way through this. Throughout this time, Dekamori's been acting as Rika would, because the Tyrant Eye has been passed on, and she makes a point of mentioning at one point, the Tyrant Eye must have done as long as the Dark Flame Master exists, which, as it turns out, is a message that Rika has passed on an episode prior. And also we have Dekamori acting out of character, because Yuta broke her spirit as well. He's a bit of a prick like that.
01:26:31
Speaker
Nibutani herself remarks, there's nothing wrong with being passionate, but like, she says, Cunibio, it's the idea that I'm different from everyone else and I'm special because I have realized that. And she remarks on both her and Yuta's cases of Cunibio and how they wanted to be normal high schoolers, but this was just them falling into the same trap and going too far and coming up with their own take on the image or their own take on the matter because normalcy doesn't exist. It's okay to have that sort of spark of madness.
01:26:55
Speaker
And then the final thing that pushes Yuta to pedal through the night to get to Rika's side is that the Dark Flame Master gets the last laugh which I absolutely adore. He sent himself a letter in the past as the Dark Flame Master telling him he's special and helping him to come to this realisation.
01:27:11
Speaker
as you said it is a little bit cliche but it's everything that's right with this anime. It does it so right it's so earned it's like I am not ashamed to admit I was almost on the edge of my seat like yes come on you can do it it really is building up to that it is cliche but in the best possible way it's another beautiful shot you have the lights you have the night and then he's on the way and he stopped
01:27:34
Speaker
by Cumin, once again, who sort of fills in the final blanks, because we have seen super blurry pictures of Rika, a young Rika, who assumed to be the Dark Flame Master, but then she tells him just how much that he has mattered to her. She reveals to him that after she saw him on the balcony two years ago, as he was sneaking about down below in full Dark Flame Master mode, and I quote, she watched you every day after that. To live like that was wonderful, much more honest and cooler than bottling up your feelings and living how others would want.
01:28:03
Speaker
So Rika was impressed by Yuta's way of expressing his feelings instead of bottling it up or, you know, suffering for others sake, essentially.
Rika's Emotional Goodbye
01:28:10
Speaker
So she idolized him, she followed him, and it was what sort of bought her the time and place to sort of work through it. Human's explanation says that she was clearly aware that Shinibya was a method of expressing self-consciousness.
01:28:21
Speaker
And as a result, her seemingly shallow character was actually super, super deep. And you see the flashbacks of Rika sort of putting on an eyepatch and bandaging her forearms for the first time. She was literally saved by Junibyo, literally saved by Yuta. It had always been about him. It was so incredibly important, has been the hardest.
01:28:38
Speaker
whole time and as a result the next shot is just him screaming Rika to the skies as he leaps over a hill and sort of pedals down to the lights of the town below and then it just accelerates from there because something we haven't said but I would say that the the anime is all killer no filler there is not a scene that doesn't push the plot along in some regard it keeps going it doesn't stop at any moment so the moment we have Yuta and his final realization and him shouting Rika's name to the skies it cuts to her she apparently hears him she sees that her plants are dead she pulls out a holy water sprayer which we've seen
01:29:08
Speaker
way in the start she sees it she starts crying and just as she's at her absolute lowest point we see him outside on the roof lit by the moon extremely cliched in full dark flame master mode get up and voice and saying that they are bound by contract and then you have a wonderful bit where the grandfather comes out and starts screaming for the grandmother to fetch his gun
01:29:27
Speaker
as he thinks you're just a thief. So you have this ticking clock moment and he throws out the ultimatum to her. Do you want to stay in this boring reality or do you want to come with me and change that? It's once again the leap of faith moment, but we've already seen it. It's been mirrored before and of course she jumps, they catch her, you two catches her, they embrace once more. You have another 360 degree spin on a white background. You have wonderful love song playing. It's all coming together so, so well. So what you've seen as you're a fan of this and then they
01:29:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you might be getting that. And then once again playing with the cliches, but then all of a sudden you have Nibutani and Ishki and Dekemura in Cumin appearing to help them along. They sort of hold back the grandfather. They distract a policeman who comes along with Ishki pretending to be a pervert. And then, you know, you have Yuta pedaling along. He remarks on the beauty of the lights and distance because they're right by the sea, although Rika still does bitterly remarks that they're just, you know, they're ship lights, they're not real. And then, you know, everything goes soft. They arrived dark and
01:30:23
Speaker
deserted stretch of beach. You have Yuta who once again says reality be rent, synapse broken, banishment this world. You have just a soft piano and string but it's keying you to be ready for something incredibly emotional. And then the scene that follows, you could screenshot any moment of it and it would make a magnificent wallpaper. It is
01:30:43
Speaker
just beautiful. It sort of flashes to the Chonebea world. You see this sea of fireflies that come up, the universe mirrored in the sea below because Yuta, you know, he's been, I mentioned before, he was the guide both metaphorically in terms of Chonebea, but literally now he has brought Rika to the unseen horizon that she is so longed for. He just says, tell him what you wanted to say, what you never had a chance to say. And my God, the tears came on at that bit. It is so beautiful. It is
01:31:11
Speaker
vulnerable, you have Rika saying goodbye, you have images of her childhood playing, you have the oboe and woodwind which aren't used very much in the score but they're typically associated with her father, you see the dad smile, you see him say something to only Rika who hears it in a white background and then the lights flare, they rush to the camera and the scene just fades away to that bit on the beach but what a scene it was. Honestly I cannot top that, I think that's honestly like a great place to end the episode I would say.
01:31:41
Speaker
Honestly, just going off of that as one final point. The ending is beautiful. You do get Rika finally getting to see her version of the Unseen Horizon. Obviously it's not real, but to her it's real. And again, going back to what was saying before, we all go through things in life that are difficult, that we are unable to cope with. And we all have our own coping mechanisms so that whether it's pretending to be a different character, whether it's
01:32:11
Speaker
it's video games, whatever it is, that's how each of us cope. And of course, Veronica is being this character who has all of these powers so that she can see her dad in the end and finally have that closure. I totally agree. I think that this anime does it so beautifully, so perfectly. Don't get me wrong, I know we kind of just spent the last hour or two just saying, oh yeah, it's depressing. It's depressing but good. Bittersweet, yeah.
01:32:39
Speaker
But it's catharsis. At the end of the day, it is catharsis. It's showing you something poignant and emotional that helps you work through stuff that you're working through. Like, you know, when I found this anime, I was struggling with depression and I'm not saying it's all down to the anime. I'm not saying this is some kind of panacea, but it did help me work through a certain part of that. It is a simple story well told with hidden depth.
01:33:01
Speaker
Couldn't have said a bit to myself. Honestly, if you're looking for a slice of life anime that has a kind of different twist on it, I would wholeheartedly recommend season one. And as you said, there is a season two technically. I would temper your expectations for that. We're not going to go into it now, but I would temper your expectations because it's not the best. It does. There is some other goodness to be fair. There is. It's not all bad.
01:33:27
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I was going to say in terms of just season one, because you also have something called Shinibio Light, which is like five minute skits from different parts, like just a bit of extra. And in one of them, episode three, I think it is, you see the scene that Rika sees that got her into Shinibio in the first place with Yuta in full dark flame master clobber, escorting his sister out as they go to pick up something at a convenience store, which is kind of funny.
01:33:48
Speaker
And there's another one which is something, a depth of field, which is Rika and Dekamori having a giant mecha battle for five episodes and then at the end it sort of cuts reality and they're just dressed there just in cardboard boxes and stuff which is pretty funny to be fair. There's also the film which is good because it adds in a bit more context and it ties in season one and season two a bit better but
01:34:10
Speaker
It ties in Season 1 and Season 2 a bit better, with Season 2 being the disappointment after the magnificent thing that Season 1 is. It lets it down a bit badly, although to be fair I think it's worth slogging through just to get to the film, take me on, but my god Season 2 is something else. So we're coming close to wrapping up, there was just a few more things I wanted to touch on if that's alright.
01:34:32
Speaker
First would be to say that there is such an amazing chemistry between these characters. The bants, the cheeky bants, they flow. You really get the feeling that these are friends who have known each other for a decent amount of time, who get on well with each other, who like each other. I mean, in the case of Dekemuri and Nibutani, they are a bit more combative, but you do get the feeling that there's a good rapport that goes in. There's also a couple of themes I wanted to touch on, the notion of delusions. There's the idea of trauma. And one interesting thing that I found out at university that trauma is usually defined as loss.
01:35:01
Speaker
And as long as you have this trauma, this loss, you are unable to move on. It sort of stunts your growth. So it's kind of interesting to see the interplay between trauma as resulting in Chernubio and Chernubio helping Rika to work through this idea of trauma. There's also symbolism that I wanted to touch on.
01:35:16
Speaker
You could really tell I went all in for this one but it's the idea of connectivity I would say because I was able to pick out three key bits of symbolism, two by myself and then one which I was prompted by a blog which I missed but that's bridges, trains and bicycles. So bridges tend to serve to link to inaccessible places but we see Rika and Yuta often going across them, their special place where they you know where they they start getting feelings for each other dare I say where they confess is under a bridge and it also
01:35:42
Speaker
links Dekamori's attempt to try and rekindle Rika's lost Junibyo. Also in episode three or four we have Dekamori and Nibutani fighting on a bridge because you know they're linking to inaccessible places, Dekamori and Nibutani, they're you know the complete opposites of each other. We have the trains that serve to sort of accelerate their relationship because they take Yuta and Rika to faraway places where you know the grandparent's house and the beach and stuff like that but that also accelerates their relationship because Yuta gets greater understanding
01:36:07
Speaker
and then Rika is completely overwhelmed after her really serious fight with Toka and so she flees back but Yuta's able to catch her so it's just the two of them in the nights and the train really accelerates their relationship because once they're back I mean it's basically a date without being a date they go and grab a bite to eat there's a sort of a kiss fake out the first one you think that Rika's gonna go in for a kiss but she actually just draws something a seal on his hand and finally we've mentioned bikes but bikes
01:36:31
Speaker
They only show up for the heavy emotional scenes. When you think about it, they're fairly intimate. They're made for riding two people max. You know, you have Yuta who's usually the one on the pedals, and you have Rika who's either on the bars or on behind or hanging on with her roller shoes. So we see them when Rika's put one together to escape the seaside and go to her house, but it's followed by Toka the first time. You see the bike the second time where Yuta pedals them out to her old home. And then finally, you have the bike that takes them to the farewell scene. So it's just only ever Yuta and Rika on the bike. So it's a connection, it's a
01:36:58
Speaker
sort of a symbol. It's also very, very intimate and very sweet in that regard. And finally, one more thing I wanted to touch on, but I wasn't able to bring the conversation around to was that you mentioned that the teacher in the Japanese version of the dub, she speaks English and in the English dub, she speaks French. So I have a little analysis of what they say. And before you wonder, who is this guy who claims to speak French so knowledgeably? Rest assured, I have spent 15 years of my life in France. I went through high school and university here. So I know a thing or two about the language.
01:37:28
Speaker
Just a tad. Just a tad. Not a humble brag, humble brag. So the first thing she throws out is ques que vous pensees de rica. It's very stiff and the enunciation is all wrong. What people don't realize about French is it's actually a very, very flat language. So what she says is basically, ques que vous pensees de rica. Whereas what would be more correct is ques que vous pensees de rica. You have that very, very flat monotone, boring Frenchness. The phrase in itself is
01:37:52
Speaker
okay, it's just very, very, very stiff. It'd be a bit more natural, a bit more French to say compense vous de riquer, instead of ques que vous pense de riquer. Cumin, rather, her French pronunciation is actually better than Riquer's voice actress when they first throw out the bonjour. Riquer's French accent in English is pretty on point, though, is when she starts speaking like this. It is actually quite on point. But then it loses all the points because Nana, the teacher, so Nana, absolutely mangles her next sentence because she says, ille facile le vous parler comme salat.
01:38:19
Speaker
No, that's not how the infinitives work in French. It's just been copy-pasted from English. It's easier for you to speak like that, but no. No, you would be more like... So she blew it. She absolutely blew it.
01:38:35
Speaker
So basically what you're saying is that one scene ruined the anime completely. Zero out of 10, don't watch, Geneva. Zero out of 10, don't watch. Although there's a lot of German that's thrown around as well. And I have to say that Rika's germ is pretty on point. Like her weapon is Die Königendernacht, which means the queen of the night. She has a couple of interesting attacks. And one of them, I think it's when she's fighting Toko for the really serious one. So in episode eight, all right, yeah, eight, it's a Schwärzer Ashenpottel, which literally means black Cinderella, which is just a fun little thing to watch out for.
01:39:04
Speaker
And this is why I brought you onto the episode. Thank you.
01:39:07
Speaker
I aim to please, yeah. Honestly, thank you. First of all, thank you for coming on the episode, Wonko. And second of all, thank you for having such a thorough analysis on this series. We've skipped a lot to be fair. There's so much to go into. You could literally write a thesis just on Yuta and Rika's character dynamics. There is so much that me and Satz have cut aside in the name of brevity. And I'm sure that in the editing process that our poor Satz has to go through, there's going to be more still that's paired off.
01:39:35
Speaker
But if anything, please take home the passion that both me and Satsunami have for this series. It really is something else. It goes back to the old days where it was a simple story, well told, it's interesting, it has hidden depths. It's really an
Relatable Character Flaws
01:39:50
Speaker
anime of two halves. You have the rom-com, you have the seriousness. It's not perfect. If there's one thing that I would say, I'd say it's stronger when it's doing the slice of life and the more rom-com stuff. And it's a bit egregious, bit trigger-happy with the raining on Rika's parade. Just one of the scenes would do.
01:40:05
Speaker
in the second half, either the revelation that her dad's gone, or the revelation that her mum's coming back. Didn't need both of them, I think she was a bit of a chew toy for the universe in that regard. But it's just so well done. There's humour, there's charm, there's a lot of love, it's well done, there's something for everyone, it's beautifully put together, there's chemistry between the characters, and it really is a breath of fresh air. If you're feeling a bit burnt out on modern anime, a bit burnt out on the old isekais, or anything else for that matter, just step back and give Chernibio a go, I would say.
01:40:34
Speaker
you're burnt out with all the action anime and that kind of thing, go check out Cinebio. We honestly won't regret it. It's quite short episodes, you know, it's 20 odd minutes long as usual for an anime. There's about 10 episodes for the first season, I want to say, or is there more actually? There's like 11? Well, plus one with the OVA that we can't talk about. Yes.
01:40:55
Speaker
I forbid. Yeah, that's next week's episode. Phew, I'll get started already. But once again, won't go. Thank you so much again for coming on this episode. It's been a pleasure talking about this anime with you. Oh, it's always a pleasure. I have a couple of quotes from the light novel that I could end on if you want. Yuta resumes basically on Shinibyo. He says that everyone has events that happen to them. Those events are the reason that some people get involved in Shinibyo. It enchants them or it protects them or so on.
01:41:19
Speaker
And then also, right at the very end, because brief aside, the LNs are a bit more focused on Rika and Yuta. They don't stretch out nearly as long in time as the anime does. And they're actually very well written as well. I would definitely say, give them a whack. He says, will this delay her recovery? Who cares? The most important part is having someone around who understands you. One who doesn't care about the disease. Thus, Tunisia. Oh, also they kiss immediately in the light novel, making it immediately better than the series.
01:41:44
Speaker
Yes and on that note I'm going to go away and try the dark corner because I can't believe that. Anyway, back to my dark souls then. You mean two seasons in a movie and they only get what I'm now going to spoil it. Thank you all so so much for listening to this episode seriously go check out the fantastic anime but
01:42:04
Speaker
If you want to hear more content from the Chatsunami peeps, you can find us on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and of course our website, just look for the red panda under the name Chatsunami and we'll see you there. But until then, thank you all so so much for listening to this episode and as always, stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated.