IRODUKU: The World in Colors

Episode 12

Where do you fall on the debate of whether it is better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all? That's sort of where Hitomi and Yuito are in this penultimate episode of IRODUKU as they struggle with the knowledge that they're about to have to say good-bye. (It may not be forever, but how awkward would it be seeing your teenage crush when you're in your seventies and she's still seventeen?) Neither of them can bring themselves to express their feelings – although Hitomi may be gearing up for it next week – and no one's quite sure if that's better or worse than saying something. We could argue that they don't truly need to because both are aware of the other's emotions, but it's hard to deny that there's something satisfying and more real about saying the words aloud.

The result is that everyone more or less takes a backseat and tries very hard not to think about the fact that Hitomi's time in the past is about over. Again, this speaks to the superstition that words said out loud are more real, something that feels very in keeping with the characters' ages. It's a little like the way Asagi is afraid to tell Sho she likes him; if she never says it, he can't turn her down, so if they don't talk too much about Hitomi leaving when they're all together, maybe it won't happen. Just like the spells the mages cast, the spoken word has power, even if only over your own mind.

That means that this is a very uncomfortable episode. That's not in the sense that terrible things happen, but rather in that everyone, viewers included, is so busy waiting for the other shoe to drop that it's hard to really focus on the now. We see that clearly when Asagi literally pushes Yuito and Hitomi out the door to go spend some time together but they aren't quite able to make use of it. Anticipation can often feel like a short hop from anxiety, and both of those emotions permeate the air around Yuito and Hitomi throughout the two days of the school festival.

So where is this taking us? That's more difficult to say. There have been small triumphs throughout the episode, from Asagi's popular bunny postcards to the success of the magical art illusion exhibit, with the major one being Hitomi's ability to see the colors of the magical fireworks at the end. The question is why she could see them. The easiest answer, and the one the show has been guiding us towards, is that she feels happiness, but then what brought that very specific happiness about? It is the friend-love of her clubmates? The familial love of Kohaku? The romantic love of Yuito? Probably the answer is all three, but then we have to wonder how that's going to work when she goes back to her own time and only really has one of those. It doesn't feel like she's learned to love in the past, although perhaps she has learned to trust, which may eventually make all the difference.

In my experience, time travel stories of this nature tend to take one of three paths. The first is that the two romantic interests end up in one of the two time periods together based on a miracle of some sort. The second is that they separate and take with them the memories and lessons of their time together to live better lives. And the third is that they end up with the reincarnation or child of the person they loved in the other time period. All of them could technically work here, although I've never really been a fan of the third one, and these are only the most common paths. What happens next week at the moment this episode just cut off may be the deciding factor, but whatever the answer is, I think it will have been a journey worth taking.

Rating: B

IRODUKU: The World in Colors is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.