Tsurune

Episodes 9-10

In its third act, Tsurune is bringing its darker themes out to play. While feelings surrounding grief, loss, and trauma have always been woven into this sports anime, this episode brings those negative emotions to the forefront. “An Unshown Hand” and “Linked Heart” are both centered around the kyudo club's captain Seiya, from his guilt about Minato's injury to his own iffy relationship with the sport. The story started out strong before backsliding on the previous week's progress, and by the time it got to its eventual resolution, Seiya's deep-seated issues had hardly been addressed. A strong musical score and sparse minimalist visuals kept Tsurune looking and sounding as gorgeous as always, but its tension took a turn for the melodramatic—all surface level theatrics without much genuine emotion underneath.

Minato may have made a near-complete recovery, but his best friend Seiya has been struggling. The boy is on edge, suffering quietly (because Seiya does everything quietly), and Minato isn't sure how he can help. Simple geometric visuals, like Seiya standing alone in the center of the archery range, magnify his isolation. Meanwhile, a heartfelt musical score replaces dialogue to amplify his obvious pain. Lighter scenes, like when the kyudo club gets okonomiyaki together, don't last for long. On the way home, Minato shares his encouraging new outlook on kyudo with Seiya, only for it to have the opposite effect on his friend. It's like mountain climbing, Minato says, “no one else can carry you up, but you can climb together.” This crushes Seiya, who thought he'd been carrying Minato this whole time. Through Shu's words at the tournament, we know that Seiya feels less of an attachment to kyudo than he does to Minato. After a few of Seiya's flashbacks, we understand why. Not only did Minato get Seiya into kyudo, but Seiya believes he bears the full responsibility for the accident that scarred Minato and killed his mom. (Now we know where all that bicycle imagery is coming from.)

Seiya clings to the past. He holds on to an old snack box that was his first gift from Minato, and I'd argue this isn't out of affection but misplaced identity. Seiya sees himself as Minato's archivist, his preserver and protector. Only now, he isn't needed anymore. Minato's well-intentioned comparison to climbing sends a different message to Seiya: “I see us as equals who help each other.” That's not the only thing bugging Seiya, though. It's more that Minato looks up to Masa, their coach. Seiya's soft-spoken calm gives way to fury directed at Masa; he doesn't know if he loves kyudo, but he knows for sure he hates the coach. Unlike Seiya's blowout toward Minato in the third episode, his rage here feels sincere. We finally know what makes Seiya tick, and it's a powerful moment that crystallizes the complexity of his character.

Masa's accidentally accusatory question has Seiya wondering whether he'll be able to show his face again, and while he plays hooky, everyone else second-guesses themselves. Onogi worries about the team in his own blame-gaming way, Minato wonders what he must have done, and Masa and Tommy-sensei have the most relatable conversation of the season so far: “I feel like I'm just presenting a facade of adulthood,” Masa says, to Tommy-sensei's enthusiastic agreement. In the end, it's an almost magical element that resolves Seiya's truancy when his dog, Kuma, drags him outside to meet Minato. By then, Seiya really does have a fever, leading to a reunion with a lot of physical contact. Seiya and Minato's disagreement is played almost romantically, like when Nanao observes that if Seiya were a girl, his negative response would call for a lot of analysis about what he really means. This is definitely a decision made to create more drama, but it comes across as fairly artificial.

“New light always comes with new shadows,” Tommy-sensei says prophetically, and it's a great summation of the way this show is developing its characters in both positive and negative ways. When I reviewed the first episode of Tsurune, I chided this show for playing it safe. However, this two-parter takes big risks, combining messy emotions with Zen visuals and music that brings it all together. Tsurune offers a dark side not seen in most sports anime, and it's powerful to watch it unfold. However, even through all of this theatricality, we never touch on Seiya's real issues surrounding kyudo and why he does it. By the end of "Linked Heart," Seiya says the same thing to Masa that he told him at the end of “An Unshown Hand,” and the only difference is that now he says it with a smile. Nothing has really changed. There were a lot of heightened emotions, but no real payoff. Thanks to its gorgeous visuals and evocative musical score, Tsurune is always a joy to watch. But this time around, it felt like drama for drama's sake.

Rating: B

Tsurune is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Lauren writes about geek careers at Otaku Journalist.