Wave, Listen to Me!

Episode 12

So this is how Wave, Listen to Me! ends: Not with a bang…but a 6.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Hokkaido! Yes, dear viewers, the show opted to end the season in a surprisingly grand fashion, showcasing everyone on the MRS team at their best as they work together to use the power of radio to unite the island and bring some peace of mind in times that are both literally and metaphorically darker than anyone expected. This isn't about tragedy, or death, and it doesn't even feel like a cheap grab at the real world earthquake disaster that is still a fresh wound in the minds of the whole Japanese populace. It's just a simple story with stakes that are a little bit bigger than normal, and it's all about how radio is a tool that can be used for truly extraordinary purposes when the time calls for it.

So, with those lofty and emotional ambitions established, how on earth did “I Want to Convey It To You” end up as such a letdown of a finale for an otherwise stellar and refreshing series? I'd seen rumblings that the season was going for something of an anime original conclusion already, mind you, so I was prepared for Wave to maybe pass over a couple of plot threads on its way to putting a bow on what might be its only run of episodes. Don't get me wrong, either, as an individual morsel of calculated pathos, “I Want to Convey It to You” works well enough, and if this was the penultimate chapter of the season or something I'm sure it would go down nicely. As the show's final and theoretically most emphatic statement of purpose, though? This episode is weak sauce, man, there's no way around it, even if this isn't anime original material.

My misgivings are all tied up in the way the episode both seems determined to address all of the plot threads its laid out across the past eleven episodes, while simultaneously failing to do anything remotely interesting with any of them. Take Makie for example: At the beginning of the episode, we see that she has actually been using the alias “Joker Stonsky” to work as a contributor to a radio program at HCB, which I presume is a rival station to MRS, which is significant because…well, I'm not sure, to be honest. There are a lot of things to infer, naturally, mainly to do with the romantic rivalry she shares with Minare, and she outright says that she's doing the work as an act of rebellion via independence, something that is hers and hers alone. That's all well and good, but I'm flummoxed as to why the show would include a plot thread like this in such a half-assed manner, only to completely forget about it once the earthquake hits. After that, Makie and Nakahara's cute bonding gets routed into turning Voyager into a makeshift soup kitchen for locals. Again, it's fine, but it all feels decidedly random.

Then there's Mizuho, whose angst over Kureko's imminent departure has been a stopping point across the last few episodes. Here, we get a bit more texture when we learn that a lecture of Kureko's is what got Mizuho interested in being a station assistant director to begin with, and then there's lots of her fretting over whether to pursue her “dream” of working with Kureko on her own show. After weeks of kind-of building this character arc up, the climax that Wave gives us is…Mizuho working up the nerve to just ask Kureko to work with her, which he says he will in his own curmudgeonly way. So, yeah, an incredibly minor crisis was capped off with an incredibly minor resolution.

”Okay,” I can hear you all saying, “Sure, but Wave was never the best at juggling a bunch of plot threads at once, especially in its back half. Surely, though, Minare and Kanetsugu get a worthy send off?” That, my poor hypothetical reader, is where I will have to disappoint you the most, because they really don't. Now, there is good stuff here, once the cool and collected Kanetsugu has to walk the panicky Minare through the routine emergency broadcast procedures. I liked the way Minare has to balance her anxious word vomit with her responsibilities as someone with broadcasting capability in an earthquake/blackout emergency. I liked how Minare didn't suddenly fall into her destiny as The Ultimate Local Hokkaidan Entertainment Personality when the chips were down; Chishiro had to step in to provide the measure of genuine authority that Minare doesn't quite project yet. I even kind of liked Kanetsugu turning on his Hardass Mode to keep Minare functional when things got crazy, (though someone maybe ought to let him know that it's 2020, man, and Minare doesn't need to have “balls” to be capable).

As a one-and-done after-school special sort of affair, this stuff works. It just makes for a lame finale to a whole season's worth of stories and development. We don't get any of the program's wacky visualization, we don't get to hear Minare interacting with her audience in a more personalized and non-earthquake-focused manner, and hell, the scene doesn't even work terribly well as a signifier that Minare has taken her first big step into a weird new career, even if it just the first of many. The best the show can do is have Mianre reflect on how amazing and powerful radio is at, like, bringing people together, man, and that she's more determined than ever to make her mark. We get not one, but two different treacly pop-song montages over scenes of the Hokkaidans making it through the night, and of Minare committing herself to radio once and for all.

I don't know how else to say this: It's corny as hell. Wave, Listen to Me! has been a lot of things over its twelve-episode run. It's been brash, bizarre, inventive, oddly touching, and frequently hilarious, sure, but more than anything, it's been honest. No matter how wacky or warped Minare's worldview painted things, this show, to me, has been about empathizing with Minare, and enjoying the ups-and-downs that come from starting a new and unpredictable chapter in one's life (oh, and bear fights! Wave has been about bear fights, too). The point is, for all of the things this finale did well, it's the first time I felt I could see all of the turning cogs and dancing strings holding the story together. It felt manipulative, albeit in a somewhat muted sense, and dishonest. Does that negate all of the wonderful things the series did in its best moments? Hardly. It's just a bummer of a note to go out on.

Rating:

Odds and Ends

• You've Got a Face Made For Radio: There really isn't much to work with in this last effort, sadly, so the winner by default has to be the look of assured confidence Minare gives when she reuinites with Nakahara and Makie, her passion for radio ignited. Even if I don't think the episode earned that little emotional bow, I'm more than happy to support this, the most disastrous of millennial weirdos, in her quest.

• I forgot to mention: Komoto was out recording auidio on top of Mt. Moiwa when the quake hits, and I think it's because he's sad that Mizuho likes Kureko more than him? I don't know. Why was he even given all these scenes this season if nothing was ever going to come of it?

• When Nakahara is comforting Makie, he gives her some sage advice from one of his favorite nighttime dramas: “You've always sought after a source of power outside yourself. But it's actually something that exists within you. It only exists within you.” Makie notes that this is a famous quote of Anna Freud's, daughter of Sigmund, which Nakahara sheepishly exists is probably where the show got it. A cursory googling tells me that she might have said something like this once, or written, and you know what? I'll take it. Good on you, Wave. It's these weird little details that you get so invested in that I'm going to miss.

•So, when the Voyager crew stumbles upon Makie's insane brother in the dark with Takarada, the implication was that they were hooking up, right? I'm not misreading into that, am I?

• Even though this is the season's obvious low-point for me, I really loved the experience of watching Wave, Listen to Me! overall. If we don't get another season, I've at least been convinced to read the manga, which means I guess the series did its job, in the end. If I had to score all of Wave, Listen to Me! at this very moment, I'd probably give it a solid 4/5.

Wave, Listen to Me! is currently streaming on Funimation.

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.