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Seems like this chapter just about wrapped up the Mole Hunt arc. I decided to analyze a bit more than I usually do with my chapter reviews since there was a lot to talk about on the Twiyor front!
When Fiona questioned Twilight about not killing Yuri, he gave his official "for the mission" reason, but slipped up by calling Yor "Yor-san" instead of "Yor Briar." This made it obvious to Fiona (who already knows about him softening) that he's trying desperately hard to cover up those feelings. Even though this would have been a good opportunity for her to imply that she's a better fit for the wife role, she doesn't even try because she knows Twilight would defend "Yor-san" in every subtle way he could.
When he gets home and finds out that Yor doesn't actually have gripes with him, he's relieved of that last load of stress and is finally able to relax, causing him to collapse (similar to the very first chapter when he collapsed after Anya passed the Eden entrance exam). After he realizes how utterly exhausted he is, he can't help but ask Yor to help out with his housework.
Her reply is what really makes everything sink in for him - despite all his attempts to be a flawless spy, she doesn't want him to be that way. She's happy when she can be useful to him and thinks it's bad if he pushes himself to be perfect all the time.
And yet, that's exactly what he has to be in order to survive as a spy. The fact that he had to ask someone for help with simple housework, plus someone telling him that he doesn't have to be perfect, made him recall the feeling he had when he looked into Wheeler's eyes...that he lives in a world where you have to be perfect in order to survive, and having any kind of weakness just won't due.
While Twilight continues to be clueless about Fiona's feelings for him among other things, what he does realize at the end of this arc is his own feelings - that he does have a weakness. He's beginning to understand more than ever that a spy can't afford to be anything but perfect. And yet, his refusal to kill Yuri, which is a result of him caring about Yor (even though he gave Fiona his usual "for the mission" reason, she saw right through it) is conflicting him even more.
I also have to point out how considerate Yor was of Loid's exhaustion - she completely pushed Yuri away, even after noticing he was injured. She didn't even invite him to stay and have tea with them!
What Twilight was about to say to Yor (in his mind) before Yuri interrupted is debatable, but going by his previous line of thought, it was probably something bittersweet like "which is why...once Operation Strix is over, I'll have to leave the Forgers" or possibly something more immediate, where he now realizes how compromised he truly is and so might reconsider the stipulations of Operation Strix even before it's over. Though I think it's more of the former since his thoughts in the shower in the next scene make it seem like he's not ready to do anything drastic yet, but the idea is still gnawing at him.
Fiona had noticed his leaking emotions way back when she was first introduced, but this is the first time Twilight himself is realizing it and not denying it. Whether anything major will change in his actions from now on is yet to be seen. Will there be another aftermath chapter or two with Twilight still being jostled by this realization? Or will things go back to normal now and he'll brush those feelings aside for another day? It seems like Yuri has been totally thrown off the scent, so his identity should be safe for the time being. Will Anya get to read his mind the next morning and finally find out everything that happened? The next new chapter won't be out for another 4 weeks, so brace yourself for a grueling wait!
Here's a little birthday present that I have made for you! Really glad that I was able to get it done in 16 July of my timezone because I absolutely love your character~
So uh, haven’t posted here in over 5 years. I would apologize, but I kinda got upset at things and it was healthier for me to take a break. I’m here too in case things happen. There’s also some exclusive translations here beyond my re-watch thoughts if you scroll far enough.
KyoAni re-watch: Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions Heart Throb
As I was preparing for my “History of KyoAni” panel at Otakon in 2015, I started to rediscover why I started to love the Kyoto Animation works in the first place. To that end, I decided to go through a re-viewing of each work that’s on Japanese Blu-ray in chronological order to see how productions evolved. It’s time to restart this process again as we head away from the Kadokawa/TBS-ordered titles and move towards the ones chosen by Kyoto Animation. This post will finish the first title adapted from the KA Esuma Bunko: Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions! Heart Throb
After creating multiple popular anime titles in the 2000s, the big-wigs at Kyoto Animation began looking at creating their own content and gaining more of the share of the proceeds compared to simply adapting content given to them by Kadokawa Shoten and TBS. To do this, they started the first contest for these in 2009, awarding multiple “honorable mentions” in the first Kyoto Animation Awards. The first title that was chosen to be published and later adapted was a romantic comedy by the name of Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions by Torako. Torako then wrote a sequel to the novel which coincided with the announcement that the series would be adapted into an anime.
Time passed and Fall 2012 featured the first season of L, C, & OD to much popularity. People both domestically and internationally enjoyed the tale of falling in love with a chuunbyo character and the hilarious antics of the first half of the season. It was a simple decision to ask director Tatsuya Ishihara to adapt the second novel into a second season and capitalize on its success.
However, there was a problem. Ishihara, along with series composer Jukki Hanada, used the spirit of the novel characters to tell a new story. Ishihara wanted to add a normal person to bounce the comedy off of and so Kumin Tsuyuri was born. Hanada wanted another joking character and so Sanae Dekomori was created. This showed a lack of consideration for a sequel: Sanae Dekomori was a very similar character to that of Satone Shichimiya in tone and as such her presence would simply be adding another Dekomori to offset the balance.
That’s one example of the many issues that Ishihara and Hanada had while creating this sequel; they tried to do way too much in one season without thinking of the flow of the series. While the first half of season 1 had a lot of random tales, they all progressed evenly and developed the characters. Season 2 tried to replicate that, but essentially brought the characters back to the same starting position each week at the end of the episode. The best example of this is episode 4, where Nibutani is the POV character. It has Nibutani run for student council president and Dekomori discovering that Nibutani was the person she admired all along. In a normal series, this would change how things would go the rest of the season, but for Ishihara, he reset the setting to be exactly the same at the end of the episode. Nibutani loses and Dekomori still doesn’t believe her to be the person she admires.
Similarly, Ishihara wanted more relationship progression, similar to how the novel went, but lacked the ability to show said progression without feeling incredibly incremental or appropriate. He plays how slow the relationship is progressing for jokes throughout the season, but his decision to more-or-less childify Rikka during the comedic moments prevents much of the romantic mood from setting in. This also held true for the big conflict revolving for the second half: how can someone be so delusional and be in love at the same time? Rikka’s answer: you just can. It’s not a satisfying conclusion and likely shows how rushed this season was.
I’ll be the first to comment that the novels aren’t the best pieces of literature, but I enjoyed the tale of the second novel. Introducing Satone Shichimiya was a good way to get backstory from when Yuuta was chuuni and helped diversify the cast. She was the character who knew she was making things up and just wanted to have fun. She was forced to move away, but finally made her way back and found the boy she crushed on, only to discover he had just entered a serious relationship one month prior. Instead of trying to come between him and his girlfriend, she makes a decision to prove to said girlfriend that Yuuta loves her and not Shichimiya by pulling a kidnapping/battle plot.
Ishihara kept the “suffering” bit and showed that later in the season (episodes 9-11), but had no other development in her character. He worried that people would instantly think “love triangle” that he kept her out of the ending animation/song group, opening credits, and any focus for the first half. Barring her introduction episode, she had maybe 5 minutes of screentime for the first 6 episodes! Some “new character” indeed. There was no reason why she was needed for this season given that Dekomori shared a lot of her attributes (chuuni who knows it’s fake, past history with a main character/Nibutani, even similar hairstyles), but Ishihara wanted something “new” and so her character suffers because he wanted so much else.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the lackluster season-long plot. Rikka finds an old notebook of Yuuta’s that mentions how to reawaken the Dark Flame Dragon in episode 1. This gets ignored until episode 7 where Shichimiya randomly hands over another of the three medals. That then gets ignored again in episode 8 and then highlighted in the background of episodes 9-11, culminating in episode 11’s “battle” with it and Shichimiya to resolve her tale. And then episode 12 feels tacked-on and advances nothing story-wise.
As you can guess, the composition for this season was lacking to say the least.
Visually, Love, Chuuibyo, & Other Delusions Heart Throb improves on the first season color-wise. It feels richer in color than the first season did and is enhanced by a variety of chuuni battle settings in contrast to the black backgrounds in season 1. A lot of the comedy animation returns, but very little highlights since the studio had just finished the new portions of the recap film, Free!, and Beyond the Boundary, which was heavy in animation.
Soundtrack-wise, Nijine tried to replicate the success of his soundtrack for season 1, but fell a bit short. No real notable tracks to highlight this time. Both the opening and ending songs were serviceable, but offered nothing new or different in contrast to the first season or even the movie’s songs.
This season has always been rough for me to view knowing the story of the novel and vastly preferring it. The composition is weak, the jokes aren’t as funny, the characters reset at the end of nearly every episode (except for Shichimiya’s three episodes of 12), and it feels like things were being done to fill time. Instead of a sequel to something enjoyable, this proved you could have too much of a good thing and have it ruined.
KyoAni Re-watch: Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions ~Rikka Ver~
As I was preparing for my “History of KyoAni” panel at Otakon in 2015, I started to rediscover why I started to love the Kyoto Animation works in the first place. To that end, I decided to go through a re-viewing of each work that’s on Japanese Blu-ray in chronological order to see how productions evolved. It’s time to restart this process again as we head away from the Kadokawa/TBS-ordered titles and move towards the ones chosen by Kyoto Animation. We continue with a movie version the first title adapted from the KA Esuma Bunko: Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions! ~Rikka Takanashi Ver~
After observing how Kadokawa Shoten and TBS were making the majority of the money for the titles they were adapting into anime series in the late 2000s, Kyoto Animation began plans to become the top financier of their works and to create more original series. Their second attempt at these original IPs used the Kyoto Animation Awards starting in 2009 to have potential authors submit novel, manga, or anime script manuscripts to be judged and potentially adapted into an anime series. The first awards awarded 5 “honorable mentions” to the novel submissions and published two entries in their KA Esuma Bunko label from these submissions.
The first title that was chosen to be published and later adapted was a romantic comedy by the name of Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions by Torako. One genre that had many successes from Kyoto Animation was romantic comedies as Tatsuya Ishihara had adapted three Key visual novels into TV series and was general manager on the romantic comedy The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Now that Kyoto Animation was going to take more risks by financing the most of any company to make a series, it made much sense to have Ishihara adapt the romantic comedy as it had a proven history of success. And so it was announced in December 2011 that Kyoto Animation would be adapting one of their novels for the first time.
Ishihara, along with series composer Jukki Hanada, used the spirit of the novel characters to tell a new story. As they had one novel to work with and that novel was mostly about studying, they expanded on the meaning of what it was like to be obsessed with a fictional superpower and how one would interact with others while feeling that way. As such, the first half of the series was heavily comedic in how Yuuta and Rikka interacted with the variety of characters. Ishihara wanted to add a normal person to bounce the comedy off of and so Kumin Tsuyuri was born. Hanada wanted another joking character and so Sanae Dekomori was created. They had Shinka Nibutani, novel character, to interact with via the creation of a club setting. The comedy aspects, in contrast to the hyper-realistic and special-effects full delusional battles, was a giant hit with fans in fall 2012.
With the success that the series had and the potential benefits for doing more, it was no surprise that a second season was announced at the pre-screening event for the OVA included in Blu-Ray/DVD volume 7. To lead up to the sequel and to keep memories of the series fresh in everyone’s mind, a recap film was announced at the same time to screen starting in September 2013.
Instead of simply compressing the 13 episodes into a film, Ishihara wanted to add new content to make the film worthwhile on its own. Thus, he added a 20 minute segment at the beginning showing Rikka’s delusional wedding to Yuuta with a powerful battle against Dekomori as well as a 10 minute segment at the end to set up the new situation for season 2. Since it would have Rikka and Yuuta living together, this would give the details of what happened to create this situation given that Rikka was still living in her apartment at the end of the season 1 OVA. He also wanted to tell the events of season 1 through Rikka’s perspective since the main series had Yuuta as the protagonist.
Sadly, Ishihara’s goals were too lofty for what he created. While the opening battle is interesting and somewhat worthy of a film credit, there’s little doubt that this would advance the plot or be anything other than fictional fanservice to the audience. Similarly, the ending plot feels unnatural given the end of season 1’s OVA and the lack of foreshadowing in the franchise. Combined with a rushed run-through of the plot from season 1, it didn’t make for a good viewing experience.
As it was a recap film, Love, Chuuibyo, & Other Delusions ~Rikka Takanashi Ver~ has the same visual setup as the main series: a soft and rich pastel color scheme for the real world with a dark and sharp color set for the delusional world. The new scenes have a little more care put into them, but they aren’t different from the TV series.
Soundtrack-wise, Nijine did okay with the concept: making the series sound much more dramatic due to being from Rikka’s perspective. The Lite ending, Opening, and Ending theme songs are nothing special.
Upon a re-watch, I mainly focused on the new content, having literally finished my re-watch of the first season. The additional content was cute, but I’d be lying if I said I was content with this piece as a whole. Given that season 2 recaps the main points at the end of the film, it could not exist and the world would never notice a difference. I still loved the post-credits bit with Shichimiya returning. She was one of my favorite novel characters and seeing such a perfect introduction to her, even if it makes no sense given that she only moves into the neighborhood in season 2 episode 2, still made me smile. I was still hopeful after watching this film that things would be good in season 2 at the time. We’ll see how that went in the next post.
KyoAni Re-watch: Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions
As I was preparing for my “History of KyoAni” panel at Otakon in 2015, I started to rediscover why I started to love the Kyoto Animation works in the first place. To that end, I decided to go through a re-viewing of each work that’s on Japanese Blu-ray in chronological order to see how productions evolved. It’s time to restart this process again as we head away from the Kadokawa/TBS-ordered titles and move towards the ones chosen by Kyoto Animation. We begin anew with the first title adapted from the KA Esuma Bunko: Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions!
In the late 2000s, higher-ups at Kyoto Animation realized how much money they were making for TBS and Kadokawa by adapting titles that those companies wanted to adapt instead of choosing what they themselves wanted to make. As such, they began a few methods of expanding their choices. The first was by creating a lot of original ideas via their online staff magazine, the KyoAni Bon, in 2007-2009. Sadly none of these moved past the planning stage. The second method was to recruit outside writers to compose new ideas via award submissions for novels, manga, and/or scripts. They started the first contest for these in 2009, awarding multiple “honorable mentions” in the first Kyoto Animation Awards. Additionally, these titles would be cleaned up for publication and then published via the new KA Esuma Bunko light novel label.
The first title that was chosen to be published and later adapted was a romantic comedy by the name of Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions by Torako. Torako was a fan of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and his characters were homages to characters in that series. He wrote a simple tale of a boy, interested in a girl in his class, becoming closer to her through a series of study sessions designed to get her to pass a re-take on a math exam she flunked since he was talented at math. It was simple, yet Torako had issues with structuring and pacing the story. For example, there was a random school trip taken one day purely because the principal felt like doing something random. Regardless, you could feel the adoration that Torako had for these characters and the story still had heart.
One genre that had many successes from Kyoto Animation was romantic comedies as Tatsuya Ishihara had adapted three Key visual novels into TV series and was general manager on the romantic comedy The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Now that Kyoto Animation was going to take more risks by financing the most of any company to make a series, it made much sense to have Ishihara adapt the romantic comedy as it had a proven history of success. And so it was announced in December 2011 that Kyoto Animation would be adapting one of their novels for the first time.
Ishihara, along with series composer Jukki Hanada, used the spirit of the novel characters to tell a new story. As they had one novel to work with and that novel was mostly about studying, they expanded on the meaning of what it was like to be obsessed with a fictional superpower and how one would interact with others while feeling that way. As such, the first half of the series was heavily comedic in how Yuuta and Rikka interacted with the variety of characters. Ishihara wanted to add a normal person to bounce the comedy off of and so Kumin Tsuyuri was born. Hanada wanted another joking character and so Sanae Dekomori was created. They had Shinka Nibutani, novel character, to interact with via the creation of a club setting. The comedy aspects, in contrast to the hyper-realistic and special-effects full delusional battles, was a giant hit with fans in fall 2012.
And then Ishihara went for his dramatic finish. Having read many visual novels and cut his teeth via the visual novel adaptations, he decided to have Rikka be a more helpless character than in the novel. Novel!Rikka lived on her own and was capable of cooking/surviving via funds from her parent. Anime!Rikka had to have someone around to take care of her due to how inept she was at real world activities. While both had Rikka taking off to see her father again, the anime placed much more emphasis on her not being able to say goodbye and her poor relationships with her family in contrast to the novel where it suddenly appeared, played out in one scene, and then wasn’t brought up.
Ishihara also wanted to explore what it was like to fall in love with someone who suffered from “delusions of grandeur” as the original TBS title had it (“Regardless of my Delusions of Grandeur, I Want a Date!”). Due to that, he had Yuuta fall for Rikka and show the early start of a relationship with someone like that. He also combined it with a sudden plea to have Yuuta beg Rikka to grow out of her delusions for additional drama. This half was a sudden shift in tone from the first half and fans weren’t pleased with it. It’s tolerable, but the writing left much to be desired.
Visually, Love, Chuuibyo, & Other Delusions mixes a soft and rich pastel color scheme for the real world with a dark and sharp color set for the delusional world. Any discussion on visuals has to mention the work from the photography and effects team to help visually separate these worlds. The series has wonderful cartoon-ish animation bits, especially with the Dekomori/Nibutani rivalry, combined with more detailed animation segments in the delusional battles, especially on Yoshiji Kigami’s episode 2. Kazumi Ikeda continues her trend of making characters with soft facial shapes, but focused on adding details like lips and fingernails for the female characters this time. While it’s much improved from her adaptations of the Key VN characters, these aren’t much to my liking either.
Soundtrack-wise, Nijine had to balance everyday life, romance, and delusional battles together into one cohesive mix. He did a very good job with having a more pop-ish theme to match the softness of the main visuals. The opening theme song, Sparking Daydream, was the debut single for ZAQ as an artist for Lantis. ZAQ did a great job with the main theme as well as the opening/ending themes for the “Lite” shorts; even confusing people who thought they were sung by the main seiyuu for Rikka. The ending theme song, Inside Identity, was very popular at the time and is still featured on various song game/karaoke machines.
Re-watching it, I remembered why I enjoyed this series so much in 2012. The humor still holds up well and I now have a better understanding of why decisions were made on the drama side. It’s not the best series that I’ve seen, but it was an enjoyable one to revisit.
I also have to note that the light novels were fan-translated by yours truly back in 2012 and released during the series. I grew very fond to the characters and felt nearly like they were my own during that timeframe. It’s one of a few franchises that affected me on a deeper level than just watching a TV series, so it has a soft spot in my heart, even while I can admit it’s not the best series.
You're working on your PhD right? How do you get time to translate and write for the blog? How do you organize your week so you can get free time to tweet/translate/write for Sakuga Blog?
When I get to points where I can take a break mentally from real life, I’ll translate. That’s why I worked to complete what I could during the winter holidays.
The translations that went up weekly for the Yamada Season were done mostly in summer with a couple later onwards. It’s much easier to split a translation over a couple of weeks or so when there’s content already waiting to be published.
Have you watched the first episode of ACCA 13-ku Kansatsu-ka? I really liked the characters and the animation, especially the dialogue and the design of the characters. I mean, the style is different and it really fits well with the story and the protagonist. If you haven't watched it yet, you should!
Nope. No plans to watch it at the current moment. I’m more inclined for comedy or lighter shows while I’m writing/reviewing/data analyzing/etc.
So: 1) I'm studying neuroscience&neuropsychological rehabilitation 2) I'm madly in love with kyoani 3) I love cats. Is this a doppelganger case or...
I’ll go ahead and say that I’m not studying in that field, so we’re obviously different. Based on when you asked this, I was asleep as well, so not me!
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