The Manga Meets Moron Blog

Kamiina Botan‘s penultimate episode is a perfectly produced stew of understated tension, softly warming all the ingredients necessary for a three pronged dramatic finale that promises change for everyone involved. The always open Botan nurses some newfound insecurities now that her relationship with Ibuki has reached the next, though undefined stage. The reserved Kanade, still nursing her failure to actualize a relationship with Ibuki now finds an invitation popped her way and must take the next step towards this life-changing choice with Chin-Ian. Finally and most dramatically is Akane and her choice to step off the path of college and forge a new one of her own volition. Every character stands at a precipice, contemplating their next moves and how that will affect not just them but the bonds they’ve built over this entire series. Overseeing such an introspective episode is an artist whose career has “exploded” in recent years due to his skill with handling pensive youthful feelings with grace and a splash of striking storytelling to boot. I am of course talking about storyboard artist Magnific Singer Mel…wait, who!?

Anime studio’s don’t make anime, in fact anime studio staff don’t frequently do it alone either. Outside of the self reliant industry leader that is Kyoto Animation this industry is built off of contractual freelancers over in-house employees, with a 50% freelancing rate as a conservative estimate though some go as far as 70% given production circumstances. This isn’t how anime production should work, both for labour and creative reasons it’s oftentimes detrimental to produce as a worldwide collective over a specific team with clear lines of communication and a stable paycheck but alas anime has to anime. This means that connections are what decides a show’s staff lineup, friends and acquaintances wanting to work together, favours being called, outsiders wanting to join a tight knit crew, all the like. For some specifically well connected show’s the nature of the industry turns them into talent black holes, sucking more and more genius artists into their roster so that their very existence starts to build momentum behind the scenes.

Kamiina Botan is one such show, I mean any production that has Kou Yoshinari as core staff is gonna grab some people and so far the like’s of Yuusuke Matsuo, Taiki Konno, Hironori Tanaka, Yuusuke Yamamoto and even Norio Matsumoto last week have found their way into its gravitational pull. Somehow that has resulted in a certain Studio Deen employee putting on a ridiculous sounding singer pseudonym and slipping out of his very busy containment to give us a very unsubtly him episode of anime which thankfully works perfectly with this material.

S***a U**o(I’m respecting the pseudonym) make’s anime like a delightful weirdo whose sensibilities have become well suited to the economical environment of his home studio. Without significant animation resources at his disposal his distinct visual syntax has become all about maximizing meaning without movement, in other words it’s about the mood baby. Even for a slice of life anime this episode is quiet, for Kamiina Botan it is still because this episode isn’t about momentum but the process of building it, the feelings welling up ready to burst in the finale.

The first shot grabs your eye instantly, a gorgeous watercolor of Chin-Ian that stops as she make’s eye contact with the “camera” obviously waiting for her special someone, evidently quite happy to do so too. Kanade is still not all put together, late to their date and very apologetic about it but Chin-Ian is patient and passionately interested. Last episode established their chemistry, their shared love of film flowing out of them in a language only they truly understand and this episode weaponizes that groundwork. Chin-Ian is very forward, she knows what she wants and she isn’t shy in declaring her love. Kanade’s voice hitches, she understands but isn’t emotionally equipped to reciprocate so bluntly but she does have a love language Chin-Ian understands. She’s gotten into Taiwanese films, name’s of directors and works I’ve never heard of spill out of her and while she says no more Chin-Ian understands this as a first step, a confirmation of personal interest. Their relationship is a slow burn, a process of falling out of and than falling back into love but they make a good pair, Chin-Ian knows how to push and Kanade is learning how to get comfortable with these feelings that have strangled her for a long time. I hope we get more in the finale or the future.

Following that almost suffocatingly slow burn is Botan and Ibuki, gleefully chasing after each other in the honeymoon phase of their own pairing. Botan was always the bubbliest girl around but Ibuki has escaped her shell confidently in her presence, all smiles at all the places they go together. This week they’re going perfume shopping though not in any place that could possibly exist, U**e’s love of abstracting space meets episode director Hisashi Sugiwara‘s SHAFT turned DavidPro lineage. The escalator to the perfume shop is a fishbowl monstrosity of floating mannequins, glass, and a forest that synthesizes with the architecture. The similarly expansive interior of the store dwarfs its contents, the high ceiling and single tone yellow coloration make it a downright liminal space, it feels fake and artificial. Compared to the grounded nature of this series this design choice stands out, it’s not attractive per say and maybe it’s saying something with that.

Ibuki’s joyous acceptance of Botan’s feelings have made their world impossible, like together they can reach out and obtain any lavish happiness but the truth is that their relationship as of now lacks definition and it’s starting to strangle Botan. Alcohol is what brought her and Ibuki together, them sharing it is what signified their special bond given Ibuki’s anxieties but now Botan worries that maybe that’s all there is to it. It’s nothing a honest conversation won’t fix and having early relationship anxieties is a natural if unusual for Botan problem to have so I really liked this choice, the oppressiveness of these worries was conveyed without resorting to loud theatrics. That isn’t to say they don’t get to flirt, alot, in fact this perfume buying date is maybe the cutest these two have been together. Botan is a certified expert in perfume which puts me and Ibuki in the same place as she lists of a set of brands and when she’d wear them, cheekily teeing up a special occasions Hermès Un Jardin sur le Nil which you know she’s wearing that very moment but will never tell. Ibuki get’s back at her incidentally when Botan instructs her on perfume application before handing her the scarf she was wearing to which Ibuki responds by describing the smell of it as bliss, Botan having put nothing on it aside from her own body’s aroma. While Botan does worry about their relationship it’s clear they’re closer than ever before and I can only see a more happy resolution in the end.