Kamiina Botan #4 & #5 – Seasonal Specials

Kamiina Botan has been an enjoyable slice of life, extending beautiful and flirty to the gayest extreme there has been a lot to enjoy about this series. But greatness has eluded it, it hadn’t locked down any greater emotional depth in it’s highly freeform but simpleminded story and so I began to expect a more “Mono”tone experience in the end. This is studio Soigne‘s second outing, their first being the much more actively animated Mono adaptation from Yuru Camp‘s Afro which despite the industry leading animation didn’t really coalesce into a memorable story. Enjoyable, yes very much so but slice of life is so much more than simple fun at it’s best, it can be the most subtle and sincere form of animanga storytelling as all time favourites Aria and K-On! can attest. One person on Botan’s staff has seemingly heard my hearts call and strove to build a beautiful little arc across two episodes, handling the storyboard for #4 before creatively exploding with a powerhouse ED/SB outing on #5. His name is Shuntarou Tozawa and lucky us because he’s Kamiina Botan‘s Assistant Director making his appearance felt at last.

Episode 4 very much follows in the series’s signature tone and character, full of comedic bits and bants as the characters operate as usual, but it’s a bit more interrogative of the emotions that power their personalities. Specifically Kanade whose yearning for Ibuki and jealousy of her relationship with Kamiina is initially captured at a distance as she finds herself isolated, her solitary smoking mirroring Ibuki’s tendency to drink alone, of course nowadays Ibuki has Kamiina who is coming on very strong with the matchmaking charms. All these moments are captured very specifically, the characters made small amidst the grand forest and flower setting and some very obtuse layouts that do everything to make them small. This loud quirk will define the next episode so it’s easily attributable to Tozawa, though episode director Hidenori Makino can get alot of credit for putting everything together so nicely on his sophomore effort(he debuted as a director on Mono naturally).

For all her melancholy thoughts Kanade is still someone with a Kamina Botan in her life and so the younger girl splays her bubbly self all over the older girl on a rainy day. Two butterflies are also introduced, a solitary white one fluttering in the rain and a big blue one that shares the screen with Kanade to forge the symbolic connection. These two species of insect, as well as the flowers that appear might have even more specific meaning but that sorta theory is not my area of knowledge, I just know with how meticulously crafted these episodes self evidently are Tozawa probably attributes even more meaning to them!

After falling asleep together Kamiina Botan sets out once more to pick up even more girls for her but her pursuits actually end with her stepping on side character I haven’t mentioned Yaeka’s own feet, adorned with bright orange nail polish that she shares only with her own special person. Kamiina’s oafishness ends up with her and Ibuki alone once more, basking in the most brilliant dusk imaginable their own relationship gets ever more closer. A brilliantly shining end to the best episode so far but in retrospect just a taste of what Tozawa was capable of as he would prove one week later.

As the sole director of #5 what immediately jumps out is that Tozawa is a artist who pulls from many wells of knowledge, none moreso than SHAFT. Yes another episode of SHAFT flavoured Botan is upon us(after Gin-san‘s #3)  but this one is very easily attributable because Tozawa began his career as a disciple of Yuki Yase who’s post SHAFT career at DavidPro led to that studio becoming full of the former studio’s artists. On Fire Force he would take Tozawa under his wing and give him many opportunities to storyboard and direct episodes despite his inexperience, later reuniting on Undead Unluck for a spell and finally culminating in Tozawa’s powerhouse Botan #5. The episodes avant tells you all you need to know, a moody grayscale slo motion sequence of Ibuki reaching towards her past self(hey we know who the white butterfly represents now) before grabbing… her phone as a dizzying sequence of shots turn her upside down and all around before she finally awakes from her dream. Now that is how you grab an audience if I do say so myself, and it only gets better from there!

After the OP we find ourselves looking at a very cute and well dressed Kamiina(I really like the character designs this week) whose all excited for her first bar trip with Ibuki. Before we get there though Tozawa slams his big ole layouts onto the screen, I’m talking crazy angles, weird forced perspectives and just alot of focus on making the world bigger than the characters. A bench can stretch on for miles under his lense, powerlines dominate the sky to an absurd and probably dangerous degree, this imagery is his signature and as we’ll see shortly he can harness it wonderfully but Imma be honest and say some shots take the bloody piss.

Framing Kamiina through a window is always a nice visual but doing so within 1/8th of the screen while the rest focuses on a completely unadorned wall, ok bud like what’s that supposed to mean aside from just being quirky. I appreciate the splendor of this episode but sometimes Tozawa goes to far, something that didn’t happen in the previous entry he did not direct.

That aside hey a bar and hey Ibuki drinking in a public space, progress much, character development in my SOL!? Not really, this episode doesn’t exist to highlight Ibuki coming out of the closet-I mean shadows, instead it exists to lay her trauma bare to an asphyxiating degree. She wasn’t expecting company(aside from Kamiina ofc) so when other patrons enter just as she’s about to dig in Tozawa immediately jumps on her. His framing techniques go all out on caging Ibuki in, shots placed between chairs and window slats evoking jail cells the moment outsiders share her space and he doesn’t let up there. Hiccuping all the way Ibuki and Kamiina take the back table as their own, Kamiina shining under the spotlight of the ceiling lights which sharply end before Ibuki who cowers in the darkness.

Her traumatic experience with her hiccuping, a ill thought comment about how annoying she is, comes to the surface before Kamiina. Just a few words in the recent past, probably only said due to the influence of alcohol had a sharp effect on the young women who internalized them to such a degree that she simply couldn’t drink with others until Kamiina came into her life. It’s not the most terrible trauma to have but it’s probably the worst thing that happened to Ibuki and so Tozawa’s overbearing approach to the scene feels empathetic, making sure the audience feels exactly how Ibuki does in this situation so that her tears don’t come across as a trifling bit of melodrama.

That was a lot eh, how about some silly shenanigans like making a strawberry whiskey with the girlies, positively mouth-watering I daresay hey waitaminute mfer get that Glenlivet outta my sight, antiseptic paint thinner ass hell juice it is. Now would be a appropriate time to bring up another bit of visual inspiration because by golly that compositing is straight outta the Kyoani school of gorgeous photography. Specifically the Naoko Yamada school of capturing a cute anime girl deep in thought(I’m thinking Tamako and Liz mostly) with that specifically grabbing depth of field. Was this accidental, maybe(no). Does Tozawa’s experience as a episode director on Heike #4 processing Yamada’s own boards possibly rub off on him, I mean I can’t say either way but my eye’s presume yes. And that’s a good thing because as good as SHAFT and Tozawa’s own nonsense are my heart belongs to Yamada so seeing just a touch of her inspiration is all I could ever dream of. Speaking of dreams…

The two butterflies that flutter around this mini arc finally intersect when Kanade asks Ibuki out for a road trip just for the two of them. The sweltering summer drive only showcases their distance, a single shot held from the empty back of their car speaking to the unsaid feelings stuck behind mindless pleasantries. Kanade does pepper her with questions about Kamiina which creates the awkward atmosphere which blooms into full on angst when in a field of flowers she asks Ibuki outright if she’d drink with her. The timing is poor, road trip and all, and the delivery desperate but it is the most honest thing she’s said this whole episode, these feelings that’ve built up over the entire series exploding grandly amidst the day’s dying moments(very Shinkai) and a sky full of flower petals.

The silence defeats her, she apologizes and lights one up, bathed in the cold onset of night. Ibuki responds with an action, taking the lit cigarette from Kanade’s lips and smoothly setting it on her own before taking a drag. The unspoken but very much felt indirect kiss and the warm few words that follow answer Kanade’s query at last, but the most heartfelt image comes from the two butterflies, sharing the scene at last as they dance among the petals, together at last.

Visually stunning, emotionally impactful across several registers and most importantly telling a moving story within the simple frame that is Kamiina Botan, Shuntarou Tozawa‘s set of episodes have really expanded the horizons of this series and to that I say thank you, I look forward to more from the team but my fingers are definitely crossed for more Tozawa. Especially if/when we step outta the closet, Tozawa needs to be there for Ibuki and Kamiina I swear!