Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy-

Episode 12

I'll be frank: Last week's descent into completely unearned edgelord nonsense really soured me on Tsukimichi, and I really wasn't looking forward to “Guided by the Moon…” because of it. Everything about the final scene of “Goodbye” indicated that this finale was going to be all style and no substance, and there wasn't any reason to expect that the style would be enough to save the show entirely. Having finally sat down to see what Tsukimichi cooked up for its big finish, I am afraid to admit that I was right.

As I'm sure there will no doubt be fans who cannot possibly conceive of someone disliking an episode that features so much flashy sakuga, let me be the first to admit that Makoto's battle against Sofia Bulga and Mitsurugi is plenty cool to look at. There's lots of magic casting, and flying, and smooth camera movements, and all that jazz. I even dig the bit where Sofia teleports Makoto way up into the sky, only to drop him into an endless sky-field filled with Mitsurugi's magic blades. It's a neat way to go about killing a guy, all things considered.

However—and you might call me old-fashioned for saying this—I'm the kind of guy who expects my heaping helping of shiny action scenes to be served with a decently proportioned side of “giving a shit.” While I have been happy to indulge the scant number of occasions where Tsukimichi has attempted to pretend that it is a badass action anime, none of its strengths have ever come from its natural talents at spectacle and showmanship. The show has always worked best as a kind of isekai workplace comedy, and it has absolutely floundered every single time it has tried to get really serious about the emotional and political stakes of Makoto's adventures.

This whole battle is the perfect example of Tsukimichi's failings. For the longest time, I was under the impression that the spelling of “hyuman” was just a stupid gag about how the monsters of this world pronounce the word “human”, but some commenters have pointed out that “hyumans” are meant to be taken as a completely separate species from Makoto's “human” self, and that his animosity towards the “hyumans” was one of the driving forces of that awful murder scene from last week.

If that is true, then good Lord, the anime has done a terrible job of communicating that, since I simply don't care about the demon vs. hyuman war that Makoto got sucked into when the goddess teleported him into the middle of the Battle of Fort Stella. The only thing that comes from the whole debacle is that Makoto inadvertently murders a ton of hyuman soldiers when he tries to “annoy” Sofia and Mitsurugi with his mana attacks. If nothing else, I guess the interpretations of Makoto as a psychopath are gaining a lot more weight now, since the only other explanation for his total disinterest in the mass slaughter he caused is that he's a complete moron.

Then there's the other half of the finale, which is just a random collection of scenes that vaguely come together to form the approximate shape of an ending, if you squint hard enough. It would have been infuriating if I had thought this season was going to be a one-and-done, because I can't stand it when an anime completely gives up in its final scenes, shrugs its shoulders, and says “You know what? Who cares? Just read the light novel, already.” The show is getting a second season, though, so I'll add on a half a star to the episode grade, since now the finale is merely “annoying”.

First, Tomoe builds another fragment for the characters to coo over, which makes Makoto's freakout in “Goodbye” even stupider in retrospect. Then, after the show spends a whole lot of time patting itself on the back with a montage of barely developed side characters, Tomoe and Mio decide that they're going to help Makoto out with his Academy mission after all. Seriously, after all of the pretension and braggadocio that these last two episodes gave us, the season is just going to end with a bunch of fluff?

I enjoyed a lot of the time I spent with Tsukimichi, but these final episodes have left a rotten taste in my mouth. The show had a good thing going, once, but its attempts to transform into a genuinely epic fantasy adventure have ranged from passable to legitimately embarrassing. Maybe this new phase of the story finds its feet in later chapters, and maybe there will be a lot to love in the upcoming season. I was happy to give Tsukimichi the benefit of the doubt when the summer began, but now, I'm going to have to approach any future material with my expectations drastically lowered. What a disappointment.

Rating:

Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.