Wave, Listen to Me!

Episodes 1-2

The first episode of Wave, Listen to Me! was my favorite premiere of the season. Like getting hit in the face with a glass bottle of Coke after being stranded in the desert, it offered something I desperately wanted to quench my thirst that I couldn't possibly have expected: A bold and genuinely funny character study about the waitress of a trendy curry restaurant who finds herself the up-and-coming personality at a local daytime radio station in Japan. Everything about Minare Koda's debut thrilled me, from the obtuse and needlessly well animated bear fight that frames the show she will eventually run for Moiwayama Radio Station, to the endearingly funny and heartbroken mess she is introduced as before she gets her “big break”. Despite mostly consisting of fast-paced conversation punctuated by a handful of flashy imaginary set-pieces, Wave, Listen to Me! had me hook, line, and sinker by the time the end credits rolled on Episode 1.

Episode 2, “I Despise Them”, is not operating at the same level, though it is largely by design. Though we have seen that MRS' Chief Director Kanetsugu Mato will eventually land Minare a prominent gig at the station, the road to her getting that position is going to be the focus of the story for the foreseeable future. While the premiere could get away with sticking us into the middle of a Minare v. Bear showdown for half an episode by virtue of curiosity alone, “I Despise Them” has the unenviable job of setting the table for Minare's journey to come. So, while there's just as much focus on dialogue here as last week, Wave clearly wants us to settle in and get comfortable, so it won't need to toss in a make-believe bear fight to keep its audience hooked.

Instead, we see the fallout of Minare's radio spot at her day job, the restaurant Voyager, and we get more insight into Kanetsugu's motivations and managerial process. Minare's current boss seems to be a little too intense for his own good, and he basically fires her for running out on the job last week, though not before demanding she stick around for the upcoming food festivals that Voyager will be posting up at. Kanetsugu is just as conniving as ever over at MRS, acknowledging to his writer that the impromptu release a drunken Minare signed on the back of a business card probably isn't legally binding enough to save them from a lawsuit, but he's perfectly willing to manipulate Minare in order to get the content he needs for his show. The current host, Chishiro, is an interestingly ambiguous figure: Her devious grin and sharp features initially suggest that she might be positioned as a professional rival for Minare (and understandably, too, since it looks like Kanetsugu wants to replace her), though she's also the first one to suggest that Minare should come work at the station, at least as a part-time assistant.

What is so fascinating about Wave, Listen to Me! is how much it is able to invest us in its story and characters, even when the individual scenes don't seem to gel together quite like they should, or the humor isn't laugh out loud funny. Even when most of Episode 2 is the kind of humorous that makes you snort a little breath out of your nose every now and then, the script remains engaging the whole way through. I want to know more about Kanetsugu's relationship with the comedian that Minare reminds him so much of, Sissel Komei. I want to see how Minare balances her personal life, her job at Voyager, and her newfound place in public radio. I'm curious to see if Minare's ex-boyfriend, who I think we catch a glimpse of in the episode, comes back to the plot as more than just the guy whose crappy behavior was the inciting incident for the show.

More than anything, though, I want to see more of Minare, who really does possess that certain something that makes her entertaining to listen to, even if she's just describing the Urasando Summer Food Festival, or reacting to all of the newfound fame and fandom she's discovered. She's right when she points out that this special new attention she's receiving from Kanetsugu doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things: It's a local daytime radio station that is struggling to stay relevant in the age of streaming and on-demand media. Still, her passion and natural way with words has struck a chord even in the small community that tunes in every day, and that's the kind of connection that feels all the more valuable these days.

Rating:

Odds and Ends

• I was honestly confused by the whole “Gagarin” curry side-plot, since it took until the end of the episode to know whether the lengthy aside involving the head chef at Voyager and the curry aficionado with the really old soup base was one of Minare's dream sequences, or a literal thing that happened in the world of the show. It turns out that it's both, kind of? If there's any one element of the story I'm still undecided on, it's how I feel about the continued presence Minare's job as a waitress might have going forward. We'll see how much it amounts to, in the end.

• The pre-credits stinger is a complete curve-ball, showing a guy standing alone in an apartment, staring at a picture of a woman I'm fairly sure we haven't met, before blood starts oozing down from the ceiling like a goddamn horror movie. Consider my attention grabbed, Wave.

• Minare's apron at the Urasando Festival simply reads “There Was No God”, which I found entirely too amusing, especially because of the implications brought about by the past-tense part of the sentence.

• Even though I don't know what the curry plot was all about, yet, I love the little flashes into Minare's perspective and imagination, like when she assumes Kanetsugu is hitting on her and thus pictures the recording booth as the spot for a steamy affair between him and Chishiro.

• I can't end this first review without giving a shoutout to Riho Sugiyama, whose pitch-perfect performance as Minare will be the foundation for this show's success.

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.