Raving and Drooling – A lion’s tail

Wow. Just wow.

Firstly, since we normally refer to Makoto’s first anime as “Voices” and that’s the main word in this one, I’m going to use a different name to refer to this one, so I’m going to call it “Deep Below”. Now the translated name is a bit odd. “Hoshi” means star, “kodomo” children, and “ou” means “to chase”, so really, you would think the title should be translated to “Children who chase the stars”, but that’s not what it’s been translated to. I don’t know if Makoto-san is responsible for this or it’s a decision from his publisher. I’d prefer to think the latter, but to be honest it’s a beautiful name, and far more relevant to the story.

Makoto Shinkai has not released an anime in four years, and I’ve been simply dying for his next story. I used to be (and still am, to some extent) a huge Miyazaki fan for his amazing, creative and innocent stories of fantasies and far away worlds, but when Makoto released “Voices from a Distant Star” in 2002 after rendering the entire thing at home on his G4 iMac, my world changed. There was a new kami-sama of storytelling, who’s vision and attention to detail and AMAZING animation skills blew me away. Not to mention his passion for stories about loss and emotional distance. So when I first heard about Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo in around 2010, I waited with bated breath. I mean my heart ACHED for a new Makoto movie.

I downloaded it a couple of days ago (it’s not available to buy here yet, but you can be sure I will be first in line to purchase it) but I just wasn’t ready to watch it yet. I had to be prepared. All his other movies have just torn me limb from limb, emotionally speaking. Voices was just so heartbreaking. Places Promised was just so beautiful and moving, and 5cm Per Second ? Well. I think I must have cried for three days solid after seeing that, and no matter how many times I watch it, It always leaves me feeling agonised and sorrowful and like someone has just torn my still-beating heart out of my chest. So it was with a great deal of anticipation that I prepared to watch Deep Below.

I fired it up on my laptop, and less than 5 seconds in, I gasped at the stunning beauty. I immediately stopped it. This was a movie that did not deserve to be watched on a 13″ laptop screen. I needed to wait until morning and view it on my 50″ plasma. When I started it, I called my mum in and said “Have a look at this”. She watched the first scene where Asuna runs down the path and across the rail bridge which is nothing short of stunning. The way the shadow and the rays of light play across the scene and the way the sun glimmers across the water far below and beautiful clouds drift across the sky cannot fail to impress, and my mother was as moved as I was, referring to it as “incredible”.

This is a movie I won’t spoil for you at all, and in fact, I won’t even describe the plot, because you just don’t know what this story is about when it begins. There are no cliches in this movie. It is truly beautiful and original. I will say that is about two people; a girl and her school teacher, who set off for a journey to an underground world to bring back to life the people they have lost. A character later in the movie says “Everyone set out on their journey as a heartfelt cry for help”. It is a well-meaning story of loss and naievete. Earlier, Asuna says “This is not where I belong. There is a place I’ve never seen before”. You may think you know how it’s going to turn out, but you’re probably wrong.

It’s not that the story is surprising, it’s just that fails to adhere to the typical cliches you might expect such a movie to follow. But at the same time, it’s not hard to see a little bit of Nausicaa or Laputa, a little bit of Grave of the Fireflies, some Totoro and a healthy splash of Princess Mononoke in this movie. Not because Makoto is copying these movies, but because things such as spirits and demons, totem animals, and gods of life and death are common themes in Japanese storytelling.

One of the things that surprised me a little is that there is not a heart-wrenching scene that leaves you feeling hollow and lost at the end of this movie. It is not 5cm Per Second at all. It is a story of adventure and innocence, not a story of tradgey and sorrow. In fact, the ending is very happy and upbeat despite the fact that none of them find what they are looking for. This is a story you can happily show your children without fear of upsetting them, but of course at the same time, it is so beautiful and deep that noone could ever call it a mere children’s story. I did have tears in my eyes throughout the movie many times, but I am a very emotional person and sadness and happiness and love move me greatly. Ultimately, the story is very simple in theme. There are so many things you think could have happened, characters you think should have played a bigger part, but they don’t.

This story is beautiful, but uncomplicated. It’s deep, but it’s not a mind-fuck. It’s not surreal like Mononoke and thankfully it’s certainly not 5cm per second, even though it is still very much a story of letting go of the past. It’s still a story about distance and loss, but these themes are toned down and just serve as the characters’ motivation rather than some moral that’s being rammed down your throat. If anything, the story is more like Miyazaki’s Totoro than any of Makoto’s other works. It’s facile, elegant and touching. It’s sweet. Yes, I was expecting and even hoping for a heart-wrenching tear-jerker that almost made me give up on life, but I’m also glad that Makoto has not gone this way with Deep Below as it makes it more accessible for new fans and is a light and refreshing story to add to his library.

Deep Below will probably never be looked at the same way as Voices or 5cm, and bears far more similarities to Places Promised, which is a story about sadness and loss, but also a story about adventure and closure, and that is the same theme we find in Deep Below. It is definitely a story of innocence, adventure and closure, even though it still has Makoto written all over it. While the ending is good, it could so easily have wrapped everything up with a little bow in a Disney-like fashion and shown how they all go back to their lives happier, but it chooses not to. There is no journey home from the underworld. The story ends quite suddenly when the resolution is reached with just a brief look at Asuna returning to school and then the credits roll with just a couple of still pictures of simple moments during the film.

Was it what I was expecting ? No. Was it stunningly beautiful in terms of both animation and story ? Absolutely. This is essential Makoto, and canonical anime as far as I’m concerned and I truly hope I have the chance to see it at the cinema with someone I care about so that I can share the experience with them. I think it’s important to be warned that this movie is not like Voices or 5cm and if you go into it expecting it to be, you could be a little disappointed, but it is most definitely the single most stunningly beautiful anime (beating 5cm by a tiny margin) in visual terms that I have ever seen and has a cohesive, simple, but uniquely Japanese story. If I gave numerical ratings anime, you could be sure that Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo would receive my highest praise.

You love when I share random Asian music with you, don’t you ?

Well, let me share a song with you. It’s from the Card Captor Sakura soundtrack. It’s called “Super Duper Love Days” and it’s a beautiful song. I remember it was one of the songs I burnt onto CD for Jo and I to listen to as we traveled around New Zealand. We would be driving along in our huge motorhome, listening to anime theme songs and this one would come on and we would both sing along to the chorus, and after the chorus I would sing “love love love love love”. It was funny.

I know I’ve talked about Jo a lot lately. I have said some mean things about her because she’s turned into a bitch and she acts like I’m some sort of horrible person and we had a terrible marriage when in fact we loved each other very much and we had a wonderful marriage. But I guess she has to justify to herself why she left, and she has made up all this bullshit in her head about me to make herself feel better about being a total fucking cunt.

But there was a time when we were happy and we were traveling around New Zealand together having the time of our lives, watching sheep pass by the window and taking photos of the countryside and listening to Card Captor Sakura soundtrack music and singing along.

This song’s not for her. Sorry, Jo, you don’t get a song dedicated to you until you stop being a cunt and let me see Suki properly without all your bullshit restrictions. I don’t even know what fucking retarded shit you want to force me to do now before I go see her and frankly I don’t give a fuck. I’ll see my daughter and you won’t stop me. You’ve seen Falling Down, right ? Well I’m Michael Douglas and I will FUCK YOU UP if you don’t let me see her. Hahahahaha.

Just kidding. Anyway, here’s a pretty song. The chorus goes “Itsu ka super duper love days hajimaru” which I think means “When will super duper love days begin ?”

Well, listen to this song and let your Super Duper Love Days start right now. Except Jo. Fuck her. Hehehe.

It was after 10pm at night. I’d been drinking cheap Vietnamese $3.50 brandy and cheap Vietnamese $1 wine this evening and chatting on irc. I’d eaten most of my snacks and I wanted something else. I didn’t want to go to CauXuang and get ostrich and I’d already been to my other favourite place once today for Singapore noodles and vegetables and I was bored of my regular pho cafe so I wanted something different.

I didn’t really care what, but I wanted it to be different. I went walking down Pham Hung. Lots of things were closed but lots of things were open too. It was a lively night but not the most lively. Some people said hello as I past and motorbike guys would try and get my attention. One guy saw me and recognised me and said “Hey. Pham Ngu Lao ?” and I laughed and looked at him and said “Toi. Quan Tam !” to try and get across that I lived in District 8 and just because I sometime visited Pham Ngu Lao doesn’t mean I lived there or wanted to go there every night.

I walked past a tiny cafe. Something caught my eye about it. It was that they had wicker chairs. Everyone else has plastic or aluminium chairs but this place had nice wicker chairs and even after I walked past it, something in my mind said “Hey, that place looked ok. Go back and have another look”. So I did. I turned around and walked back and peered in under the awning. There was noone there eating, but they had these nice wicker chairs around the tables which caught my eye and somehow elevated it in my mind beyond the average pho cafe.

I walked in and sat down. The main waiter came up and he looked at me with this wry grin on his face thinking “This is going to be interesting. No westener ever drops into my place”.

I said “Saigon Do” and he nodded and called to a young girl who rushed off to bring me a beer. I looked back at the guy and said “Pho, bo ?” and he shook his head. Awww, they don’t serve noodles ? I asked “Com tam ?” asking for broken rice. Maybe I didn’t pronounce it right or something but he shook his head. I didn’t really care what I ate. I was brave and I was willing to eat anything as long as it was cheap, which this place would obviously be.

I said “Bo ? Ga ?” and shrugged my shoulders in order to try and convey that I didn’t give a shit what I ate. Give me beef or chicken, I don’t fucking care. He pulled half a chicken off a hook and threw it on a plate and held it out to me. I shook my head. No, I don’t want half a chicken. I want some rice or some fucking noodles or SOMETHING with some variation. Not half a fucking chicken. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he was going to serve it to me cooked. He just thrust half an uncooked chicken in my face because the only word I said that he recognised was “ga” which means chicken.

I shook my head and made an eating motion and said “Com ?” and he turned to the girl and said something. The hilarious thing was that she was wearing a shirt that said “I (HEART) GEEKS” and I thought to myself “You have absolutely NO fucking idea what that says, do you ?”

Anyway she ran off and came back and stuck a bowl of soup in my face. It apparently had no meat and no veges, it was just some sort of rice in some kind of flavoured soup. Ok. That was basically what I ordered. I asked for rice, and I got it. At least in some sort of weird soup form. I nodded and said “Ok” and accepted it.

It was fucking good. I mean it was really, really tasty. It’s not that I was starving or really hungry. It’s just that this particular rice soup was bloody nice. I ate all of it. Right down to the last spoonful. I turned to the girl and said “Em oi ? Tinh Tien”. I learnt that off Viet. I have heard it before, but I wasn’t positive about how to say it, but he said it slowly for me. It means “bill”. It’s just how you say “Ok, enough eating and drinking. Tell me how much I owe”

She nodded and grinned and ran off to the cash register or calculator and came back with a handwritten receipt that said that I owed 8,000 dong for the single beer and and 7,000 dong for the meal. I was thinking “Wow. Fuck me. I just paid 68 cents for a beer AND a meal and I’m now happy and full and willing to go home. That is hella fucking cool”.

Anyway, the dude was packing up and I had finished my meal and my beer so I paid my bill and I went home. Simple as. Good night though, right ? I don’t even know what the name is for what I ate. I could guess and say “Com Sup” but I’m not sure if they’d know what I was asking for if I asked for that. Anyway, it was good.

Ultimately I spent 68 fucking cents for a very tasty meal and a beer. Do I look unhappy with that ? No. I do not. It was very good and precisely what I wanted. I wanted a cheap meal from somewhere nearby where I’d never been that would satisfy me and be different from what I’d eaten elsewhere. I got exactly that, for a bargain price. I was happy.

Oh. I forgot one detail. There was a con meo there. “A what ?” I hear you ask. A cat, stupid. It was a little kitten no more than a year old and it walked up nearby to me and flopped on the ground beside me. I leaned over and put my hand out and said “Meo Meo Meo Meo Meo” thinking that it wouldn’t possibly get up and approach me, but it did. It walked over and rubbed against me. It was still a bit scaredy and at some loud noises from outside it would jump backwards and lift its ears and look around. But for the most part, it was very relaxed.

It sorta figured that anyone within its territory must be an OK person and it came up and rubbed against my hand and I scritched it and patted it on the head and it was supremely happy and it flopped down within arm’s reach of me so that I could scritch it more and when I went to do so it gnawed my hand and kicked at my hand with its back feet as a cat will do when it’s playing with someone.

Ahhhhh. Even if nothing else was worthwhile and if the food sucked and I didn’t want to eat it, I would have paid 68 cents just to play with this cat. I miss my cats back home. I’m going to see them next week though. I know Darwin’s going to ignore me and go “Fuck you. You left me. How dare you come back so many months later and expect me to care about you”, but Maccy is going to go “Oh Pawz. I’ve been with you for 11 fucking years and you have NEVER left me so for so long. I was so worried you were never coming back to me. I am so glad you came home. Please… scritch me behind my ears…. slap me on the rump and pick me up and cuddle me because I miss you so much because you have been there for me my whole life”.

Well. Maybe I’m putting too much into their heads but I don’t think it’s too much to believe. Amy Winehouse was recently talking on Triple J about animal rights and saying that there was once a man who owned a pig, and when he died, that pig went and collected all his favourite things in the entire world and piled them up and then slept on them because it knew that its favourite person in the world was gone and it missed him and wanted to reexperience that love.

Which is why I direct you towards an anime. A short story to be precise. And not only that, but I will direct you to a shortened version of that short story.

It is the very first public work of my most famous Japanese anime director, Makoto Shinkai. It is a short work called “She and her Cat” of less than five minutes. It is about a lonely Japanese woman who got a cat and the story is told from the cat’s perspective.

I cannot embed it because the uploader has, presumably on the author’s request, refused to allowed it to be embedded in external websites, so even though I could get around it, I won’t out of respect to the author. Here is the link. Open it and watch it now.

She and Her Cat. A short story.

Are you back now ? Have you watched it ? It’s pretty emotional, right ? Not everyone interprets it the same way. I have talked to people who have not gotten this meaning out of it at all, but I know that when my wife Joanna and I watched it for the first time we both got an odd meaning out of the story, and I am not afraid to tell you right now because I want to talk about it because I have never done so so publicly before.

I don’t know why I got this meaning. I’ve watched it again many times and I cannot tell what makes me feel this way. But for some reason we get the interpretation that the girl kills herself or that she goes away. You don’t see it. We know she is devastated and that she is upset and lonely. And the story ends without a conclusion, and for some reason I have always interpreted this to mean that the woman ends her life or goes away and leaves the cat, but there is really no evidence to suggest this.

The cat is so sad. The cat loves this woman. She is his whole life. His universe. He puts all his relationships with other cats on hold because he says “No, there is already someone who I love”. But the girl is too caught up in her own misery and sees the cat just as a pet, and while she loves him, he does not fulfill her life as she does his although he is still very important to her. And when her life goes downhill and bad things happen, it’s possible she ends it. And the cat is left alone.

It’s a bitter, sad story even though it should really be a simple story about an owner and her pet, but it makes me cry like a baby. My wife Joanna could not handle it and she cried so much. She said “I will never EVER watch that again. That is the saddest story I have ever seen in my entire life”. One time I tried to jokingly trick her into watching it by telling her it was something else, but one minute into it she said “This is ‘She and her Cat’ isn’t it ? You bastard ! I TOLD YOU I WOULD NEVER WATCH THIS AGAIN !!!”

If there’s one thing I once loved about Joanna, it wasn’t not her love of Asian music, because I got her into that, or her love of Japanmese horror movies because I got her into that too, or her love of Apple computers, because I was responsible for that also. (She was a copycat and would just borrow other people’s interests due to a lack of any of her own) But it’s the few things that she had her own opinion about, and “She and Her Cat” was one of them. She saw that short film and instantly understood what Makoto was saying and what the story he was trying to convey. She cried and was miserable and I comforted her that first time we watched it together and it was special.

Anyone can be into something and copy another’s interests, but that particular anime moved Joanna in a way that nothing else ever did in the 8 years I was with her. And that’s why it’s a special anime to me for many reasons. Personally, I love it on my own, but I think maybe I don’t love it as much as that first time that Joanna and I watched it together and we both cried and said “Oh my god. That poor cat”

So to the cute little black and white “con mèo” I met tonight. This story is for you. It’s about your brethren. It might not be real and it might not be about a specific cat, but it’s also about every cat and the way they feel about their owner.

So Maccy and Darwin. I know you’re mad at me for leaving you for so long but I’m going to be home soon I promise, and I’m going to give you big hugs and lots of kisses and fresh seafood. Don’t worry my boys. I love you and I haven’t forgotten you. I’ve just been busy. I’ll be home real soon. Promise.

I just realised how old I am. And it’s not just because my birthday is on Saturday and I turn 33. I realised because I lived before a certain landmark in history. Which landmark ?

I grew up watching black and white TV. To be fair, colour TV’s were available. But they were more expensive, and they were not available in 12volt varieties, which was essential for us since we lived on a yacht and we didn’t have sufficient 240v power to run a colour TV.

I realised this when some friends were talking about their favourite anime theme songs from 80′s and how happy and awesome they sounded and someone linked to a couple of his favourites. He hadn’t grown up in the 80′s but I had, and I said “I have one that was very special to me as a little kid that got me so excited whenever the end theme came on and I would sing along to it as far back as I can remember”.

So I’d better share it with you hadn’t I ? Don’t press play on it yet. Read below and I’ll tell you when.

Yes, it’s Astroboy. The thing that amazed me though as I watched it was “Oh my god, I have never seen this in colour before !” I have watched the newer series of Astroboy in colour of course because it only came out in 2005 (and has a great theme song by ZONE btw !!), but I had never seen the original series in colour before. Suddenly I felt very old.

But nevermind that. Press play on the video now and sing along with me.

Come and join us in a melody,
A song of happiness for you and me.
Sing of joy, sing about a boy,
Little hero, AstroBoy!

Sing of glory,
Pour your heart out,
Your voices will be heard,
And it’s raining
out with love for all

Come on. Own up. EVERYONE loves Kingdom Hearts. I remember when I read about it in a magazine before it was out and ran running to Jo saying “Look at this ! Square and Disney are teaming up to produce an adventure game with a combination of Disney and Final Fantasy characters !” She basically said “Oh. That’s nice” and that was it.

Until it came out and I brought it home and she watched me play the first section on the island and said “Oh that looks like SO much fun. Gimme that controller”. The next thing we knew, a week had gone by and we’d spent every spare moment on the couch bashing away at Kingdom Hearts. Her playing, me cheering on and occasionally looking up hints when she got stuck and sometimes taking over for her when she got frustrated during the boss battles.

Kingdom Hearts came out 9 years ago and it still captures people’s hearts. It’s a great game and had excellent presence and atmosphere and people are still making Kingdom Hearts fan art and music and such. A friend on IRC just finished an electronic remix of Utada Hikaru’s “Simple and Clean” (Aka “Hikari”) today and pasted a link to it. I’m going to share it with you because it’s just beautiful. It’s the same song, but it’s a little more melodic and beautiful. It’s an instrumental and it’s very sweet and uplifting. It has lovely acoustic guitar and flute and some Korg-ish synthesiser. Enjoy it. I did.

If you’re an anime fan you may know “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”, or “Toki o Kakeru Shōjo”. It’s a popular anime movie released in 2006, but based on a novel of the same name written by Yasutaka Tsutsui in 1967. Despite being based on a well known novel, the movie was poorly advertised and received a limited theatrical release, but word quickly spread about what a brilliant story it was, and according to Wikipedia, people packed into theatres standing to watch the film.

Well, almost 50 years later, it’s been reborn again as a live action movie of the same name. But it’s not the same story, and if you’ve watched the anime movie, don’t assume you know what the live action movie is about, because it’s not the same at all. The main character has a different name, Akari this time, and she doesn’t travel through time the same way as in the anime. It’s a very different plot and doesn’t really use any of the same devices. In a way, you could say that it’s a totally different story and that all that it shares is the same name, but I guess it’s definitely inspired by the original story. One interesting fact is that Makoto in the anime and Akari in the live action movie are both played by the same actor, Riisa Naka, also responsible for the excellent Summer Wars that I reviewed when it came out a couple of years ago. She is an awesome (and very beautiful) actor and she plays her role in this movie brilliantly.

There’s so much I want to say about the live action version, but I can’t without giving the plot away, so I’ll limit it to the few details that won’t ruin it, or that are revealed only a short time into the movie. Akari’s father has been traveling abroad making movies since she was a small child and she doesn’t remember him at all. Shortly into the movie, her mum is hit by a car and falls into a coma, but is awake long enough to tell Akari that she must go back in time to meet someone from the past and pass on a message to tell him “the promise hasn’t been erased”.

Akari does this, but ends up two years after when she was supposed to arrive, and a friendly guy called Ryuota helps her out with a place to stay and helps her find her mother to ask her how to find this guy she’s got to deliver the message to. Needless to say, they fall in love. Akari forms a friendship with her mother and finally finds out what her dad is really about. But things don’t go so rosy in the end. I don’t want to ruin it, but I will say this. The man she is to deliver the message to takes away her memories, and she forgets Ryuota. Tragic things happen, but he leaves her a memento which she finds in the future and she doesn’t know why it has so much meaning to her, but it does anyway.

In the final scene, you see her walking under the sakura that they spent so much time together under, and she is happy. In the anime movie, the main character Makoto is happy at the end because even though her love is gone, she has hope that she will see him again one day. In the live action movie, it doesn’t have that same hope, but still, the movie finishes happy anyway. The fact that they can do this, and leave you feeling ok at the end of it all is a true testament to the great storytelling.

Unlike other such movies about time travel, such as the movie “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, this movie isn’t so sad because of a heart-wrenching scene where they are torn apart. This movie is so sad because it DOESN’T have that scene in it. Not only is there no tragic goodbye, there is no goodbye at all. At first, when I realised that it wasn’t going to happen, I felt a bit cheated. I kept thinking that in the final scene under the cherry blossoms that her memory was going to come back and she would remember him, but tragically, it doesn’t. It leaves you conflicted. It’s bitterly sad because she’s forgotten her one true love, but it’s still hopeful because she is happy. There is some fulfilling and lingering emotion inside of her that makes you feel that it’s not so bad after all.

It’s a very complex ending. It’s simple in story, but complex in emotion. If it wasn’t for that final scene under the sakura, the movie would leave you hollow and depressed. But with that scene, it leaves you feeling wistful and maybe even a tiny bit happy. The fact that it can have such an unhappy ending and still leave you feeling hopeful and a little happy inside is what makes this movie so great. It’s not your typical ending. It’s something special and different and continues the theme of the anime by having a tragic ending where the girl loses the guy she loves, but still ends up happy anyway. How many hollywood movies can you think of that are like that ?

One other thing about the movie, there is a music video by the group “Ikimono Gakari” called “Nostalgia” which is quite literally based around the movie and features the words “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” in the lyrics. It provides a very different ending to the movie. When I first read that there was a different ending, I was unsure as to whether I was ok with that, but it’s well done, and it doesn’t ruin it or try and make it all sweet and wonderful. The same things happen, it’s just that in this version, they spend more time together, and it implies she didn’t lose her memory, and she goes to a film research club and she watches all the films that they made together featuring her.

It’s nice. It’s not really an alternate ending by any means. It’s just a “what if” sort of scenario. In some ways, it’s almost more sad than the movie’s ending, and it’s both a beautiful music video and a very very beautiful song, and if you even remotely like JPop, I can guarantee you will love the song, but I recommend you don’t watch it until after the movie. If you get the torrent release from BakaBT, the music video comes with the package. I’m not sure whether it will be included on the official DVD release of the movie but I would like to think it will be.

I would include the trailer here, but I’d rather include the insert song, also by Ikimono Gakari because it has nice music and lots of scenes from the movie and it’s just cool. Anyway, this movie is utterly brilliant. I mean, I thought it was going to be good, but it was way better than I was expecting. Not because it’s tragically sad and will make you bawl, but because it isn’t. Because it’s complex. It’s beautiful. It makes you think. And you will remember it. Epic isn’t enough. It’s beautifully epic.

The movie features this particular line at the end of the movie that Ryuota directs:

“Please don’t let the last cherry blossom be just a painting”

My question is how often does a single episode of an anime move you ? But I don’t mean the final episodes. It’s all well and good for a story to pull at your heartstrings at the very end of a series because we know in our hearts that it’s ending and that our relationship with the characters will soon be over. We expect to be moved at the end like say, the Love Hina christmas episode which I remember watching at the end of a two day marathon of watching the whole series through from start to finish.

Today at Addicted to Anime, our university anime club we screened a few episodes as we do each week during Wednesday common hour. One of the episodes we watched was Full Metal Alchemist episode 6. Upon noticing the episode number I couldn’t help but comment “You know what the next episode is, don’t you ?” to the group at large. Some people behind me had watched the series and needed absolutely no reminding. “Episode 7″ they replied. They shuddered visibly at the memory. Because if you’ve watched FMA, a fairly happy-go-lucky series to that point, you are in for a shocking moment that will leave the very episode number scarred into your mind. Throughout the screening they continued to make comments such as “I find it hard to watch this knowing what’s going to happen to her”. It was great to share a connection like that. Almost to have people sympathise with you over it.

Some other anime with a defining moment or even an emotional sideline that isn’t at the end spring to mind. I remember that in I, My, Me Strawberry eggs the crucial “love” scene isn’t at the end, but pops up around episode 7 (from memory). I’ve just been watching Read or Die the last few days as I’ve been trying to watch through some of my brother’s anime that he left behind and it has a key emotional scene in episode 11 when you think that the main characters are going to part ways and you’re left wondering who the plot will follow whilst the characters say their teary goodbyes. It was only the fact that I new there was another dozen episodes did I allow myself to think “Oh, maybe they won’t split up since there’s so much story to go”, but it was a sad moment nevertheless.

What anime have you seen that had an emotional turning point or key scene in the middle of an anime ? Comments welcome.