Forgiveness is a bridge.

Saying that you forgive someone who has wronged you is only the beginning. Some days, you’ll still feel that anger simmering beneath the surface. Forgiveness isn’t something that can be requested by the party in the wrong. For forgiveness to truly take place, it has to be given freely. Even then, that freeing feeling won’t always be present. Some days, you’ll remember and be angry. Then that anger, hopefully, will pass.

And this is if the wronging party is another person. If it’s you, hurting yourself — through guilt of hurting another, or self-sabotage — that’s another mass of complexes entirely.

Planet With captured me with these words, “I forgive you.”

They appeared as text. Spoken, but unheard, they came from a younger illusion of Hideo Torai as he shattered a dreamscape tailored to lull him into a sense of security. At first it appeared that Hideo had to smash the illusion of his mother, whom he felt he had failed to save. Yet as he pulls back to deliver the final blow, his younger self appears, whispering the words that Hideo desperately wanted to hear.

“I forgive you.”

It was never about the forgiveness of Hideo’s mother. It was always about Hideo forgiving himself for his perceived failure. For losing his mother in a fire.

Planet With is a series about many things. For me, it was about the nature of forgiveness, the smallest facets of self-loathing that can penetrate even the most confident and well-meaning individual. There are myriad things that I still haven’t forgiven myself for doing. Some days, I’m able to live without the guilt. Other days, it feels like a physical weight. Planet With showcases all of the facets of this guilt — the anger, self-loathing, desire for revenge on a related and similarly responsible party — through a half-science-fiction-half-superhero setup that includes interplanetary conflict and a lone survivor of an entire race. At every level, from large-scale robot battles to conversations between people, forgiveness is a thematic thread.

As the last of his kind, Souya Kuroi is angry. He begins the series by seeing things in absolutes. Good. Bad. While others have made up their minds about him due to his race — although his original planet, Sirius, was destroyed, Sirusians were a war-loving people that destroyed other planets — his two guardians aim to show that he is capable of love regardless. One, only called “Sensei” in the series, is a giant cat-like creature of a pacifist group called Nebula. The other, Ginko Kuroi, is the princess of a planet that Souya’s people destroyed.

In the penultimate episode, Souya asks his older stepsister, “Why don’t you hate us?” At this point in time, Souya is much older. He has realized the error of his former thoughts and actions. Even with a broadened perspective and more knowledge, his words carry blame. Souya blames himself. Part of him thinks that it would be easier for him to continue his own self-loathing if Ginko would acquiesce and hate him.

She instead ends the conversation with an invitation to see her planet and these words.

“You’re my little brother and I’m very proud of you.”

Ginko’s forgiveness doesn’t precipitate Souya forgiving himself. You can easily argue that Souya’s guilt over Ginko’s homeland was unwarranted. He was a baby. Yet, everyone can understand how irrational guilt can be. How it can fester and lead to far worse thoughts and actions. Ginko’s actions and love are a bridge.

It’s far too simple to suggest that problems can always be solved with forgiving those who wronged you. Casting that anger aside is difficult. It leaves you feeling vulnerable. Some would argue that it makes you weak, leaving you open to being taken advantage of again. Planet With, and I, disagree with this.

Ginko is by far the strongest individual in this series.

“Who knew this fleeting moment could be so beautiful, so cherished, filling the hole in my heart.”

-‘youthful beautiful,’ Maaya Uchida, SSSS.Gridman ending theme

From what we know of gods, they tend to create beings in their own image. Akane Shinjou’s Rikka Takarada is no exception.

When Mayumi Nakamura’s sequence for “youthful beautiful” initially appeared at the end of SSSS.Gridman‘s second episode, it was a pleasant surprise. Against the backdrop of what appeared to be a slightly different, mostly standard sentai/kajiu series, the ending featured Akane and Rikka hanging out after school, snapping photographs of each other and selfies together.

Along with Maaya Uchida’s bouncy ending theme song, it appeared to be like many ending sequences of its ilk — showcase the cute girls in a setting that is slightly different from how they actually interact with each other in the show. Maybe a few hints at their relationship with each other and others would be shown through, say, flower language, but ultimately, it would be set apart from the series’ events.

These types of ending sequences so frequently occupy a nebulous place between meaning something to the emotional narrative but not actually taking place within the scope of the series itself. The post-processing Instagram-ready filters of “youthful beautiful” along with Rikka and Akane’s close relationship — unlike anything in the series to date — seemed to be in this same undefined space, the place of ending sequences like Kiznaiver‘s “Hajimari no Sokudo” or Darling in the Franxx‘s many ending themes.

Now, after the SSSS.Gridman finale, Nakamura’s storyboarding of “youthful beautiful” means so much more. It’s not only about Akane finding friendship, but finding peace with herself.

When given the opportunity in a virtual world, Akane made herself into a busty, beautiful, and in the words of Shou Utsumi, “miracle girl.” She’s someone that her entire class likes, if not loves. She then made Rikka in the image of her real-life self — the black-haired girl we see peeking out of her bedcovers before looking towards the sky in the last few frames of the series — and made them friends.

Throughout the series, the relationship that gives Akane the most trouble, and also makes her feel the most, is her friendship with Rikka. She appears to want to control Yuuta Hibiki and Shou Utsumi — you could also make the case that these two are certain facets of Akane’s personality as well — to keep her world intact, and to keep Gridman from appearing. Rikka is a different case. A misguided and frightened Akane exerts force over Rikka to have a friend. Akane is at her most stressed when Rikka pushes back against Akane, refusing to do as Akane says.

Yet Rikka always returns to Akane, even if she doesn’t directly follow Akane’s orders. Rikka accepts her position as Akane’s virtual creation, but also uses it to show Akane that she is loved, blurring the line between what Akane expects from her creations as their “god” and actually feeling a friendship close to what she desperately desires in life. Rikka is also the character that most resembles the real-life Akane, which makes a few interactions particularly important to Akane’s ultimate escape from her virtual, self-imposed prison.

It’s telling that Alexis Kerib interrupts Akane before she can answer Rikka’s question of what Akane thinks of Rikka. By association, this would force Akane to say something, hopefully somewhat complimentary, about herself. Instead, the “alien” Alexis Kerib suddenly appears and says, “Excuse me for interrupting this pointless conversation.” You couldn’t find a more direct representation of self-loathing and depression than Alexis’ entrance here if you tried. Akane’s development is constantly interrupted or stunted by Alexis, a force that encourages her to lash out and separate herself from others rather than grow closer to them.

Returning to Nakamura’s ending sequence, there are two parts where both young women walk their fingers across the top of a railing to coyly reach out to each other. Rikka reaches out first.

Towards the end of the sequence, Akane finally reaches out.

In their final conversation, Rikka has her own “Best part of my day” speech for Akane.

“You know, Akane. Wherever you go, you make an impression, because you’re our god. So god, would you hear my one last request? I want to be together with you, Akane. Let’s hope that my wish never comes true.”

After Akane reaches her fingers across the railing, Rikka is shown alone in the cold. Akane has left Rikka’s world, the virtual world.

She wakes up, having accepted herself a bit more.

There’s a lot to unpack in Devilman Crybaby. So much that it would barely fit in a single 12 Days of Anime post.

I have a difficult time writing about existing properties that are held in high esteem or have significant historical value (or perceived historical value). Most people write episodically or editorially about currently-airing anime series to keep up with the discussion, and while that’s part of it, for me personally, it’s simply easier. Writing about a property like Patlabor after seeing it for the first time as an adult in 2018 is daunting. So many others have written articles, conducted interviews with staff, and organized entire fanzines. What do I really have to offer that hasn’t already been said? There’s a pressure to say something new, or if not something new, something personal — a unique take.

Devilman Crybaby is a remake, but it’s a retelling of what is arguably Go Nagai’s most famous work: Devilman. Masaaki Yuasa directing Devilman Crybaby only makes writing about it more of a frightening task. Yuasa is an entire personality in and of himself with a body of work that deserves its own separate study. There were a lot of expectations of Devilman Crybaby, the first full production with Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi’s Science Saru studio at the helm.

So I wrote about flowers.

Flower language is a bit of a hobby of mine, one of those things that I found interesting so I studied it and upon studying it couldn’t unsee it. Anime uses flower language frequently, both Japanese hanakotoba and Victorian floriography. Snapdragons suit Miki (Miko) Kuroda well — a variety of meanings that are often conflicting or incompatible with each other. This is all framed around Miko’s burgeoning sexuality (and later her transformation into a devilman) which is concluded by a conversation between the object of both her hatred and affection: Miki Makimura.

“I seriously hated you,” Miko tells Miki, after a lengthy rant about how, despite being a strong runner on her own, Miko was always slightly worse than Miki. Miki was the star. Miko was the person that they interviewed to get closer to the star. Someone who was good but not the best.

“But I loved you.” Miko confesses as her anger passes, slumping onto the floor as tears well at the corners of her eyes.

Miki responds that she knew of Miko’s feelings and the two embrace.

Devilman Crybaby has a lot of queer subtext (and text) but this was the scene that stood out to me the most. No other anime has so cleanly demonstrated the confusion of working through feelings for someone of the same gender as Devilman Crybaby’s Miko Kuroda narrative. In Miko we see the self-loathing, outward hatred, and hero worship. She worships Miki and sees her as a goal to surpass. She hates Miki for taking attention away from her own accomplishments. And she loves Miki for those same qualities that make her so accomplished.

Fruit flies like a banana.

This erstwhile saying is a linguistics staple for demonstrating syntactic ambiguity and garden path sentences. Placing these two clauses in the same sentence makes the latter part ambiguous — how are fruit flies like a banana? — although we still parse it fairly easily as simple wordplay or a joke, due to conditioning. When hearing it from an opposing Zilean in League of Legends, we recognize the latter “like” as “enjoy” rather than “is similar to.”

Yes, this post is about sports, both traditional and electronic.

Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudoubu has a lot to say about time and devotion to a craft. Minato Narumiya is only a first-year in high school, yet he’s already experienced the ups and downs of doing something he loves — something that captured his attention so singularly as part of a bonding experience with his now-deceased mother — as part of a competition. Once a beloved hobby or sport becomes a career, suddenly everything changes, especially as that person or player grows older and the environment becomes more competitive.

I have seen this transformation countless times while writing about esports.

This post wasn’t originally going to be about former Royal Never Give Up top laner Liu “Zz1tai” Zhi-Hao. Instead it was going to touch on the framework of South Korean League of Legends pros like recently-retired Hong “Madlife” Min-gi, Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong, or even Kim “PraY” Jong-in who has not retired but, after weighing his options, is taking a bit of time off to stream. These three are big names in LoL esports, the latter of whom was still near the top of his position at a professional level.

Zz1tai officially retired yesterday and his announcement, more than any other, struck me as a reflection of the exhausting grind once a player reaches the top. Zz1tai was still arguably one of the best playing in his position in China’s LoL Pro League. He began playing the game in 2011, and attended his first League of Legends World Championship when he was 14 years-old. Zz1tai was known for his ability to play anything and everything. When a new champion was announced for the game, Zz1tai would play it at a professional level before all other players. He was not just talented but prodigious, and was able to swap between the mid and top lanes due to his vast champion pool.

He retired at the ripe old age of 21. The reason certainly wasn’t money.

Through the years, Zz1tai matured from an upstart cocky teenager with a seemingly lackadaisical attitude into a true professional. His career began with an Invictus Gaming team that was essentially a group of young men who played for fun and bragging rights. Zz1tai joined them at a remarkably young age and grew up in this environment. He saw new champions as challenges — mastering them before anyone else fed his showmanship and his love of the game burst onto the Rift every time he went all in for a 1v1 duel. As outsiders, we can only speculate, but maybe the game wasn’t fun for him anymore. Perhaps after taking it seriously for so long, the grind finally wore him down. He was one of the last remaining of the LPL original players with Ming “Clearlove” Kai as 001 and Zz1tai’s former iG teammate Ge “Kid” Yan as 002. Kid retired this past year.

“It’s just like when I developed target panic. I was trying to win then. Beating other schools, beating Seiya, beating Shuu… That was all I could think about. I’m sure that’s how Onogi is feeling. The more obsessed you become, the further and smaller the target gets.”

-Minato Narumiya, Tsurune, Episode 8

Once a rising talent himself, Narumiya suffers from target panic. It hit him during a junior high school competition and caused him to briefly abandon kyuudou altogether. He returned because he couldn’t leave something he loved so much.

“Don’t focus on winning. What I’m aiming for is…” Narumiya never finishes this sentence. Instead, for a brief moment, he forgets the pressure of competition and focuses on the sound, the tsurune, that initially inspired him.

It’s silly to suggest that the love of the game and making a career of that love are mutually exclusive. It’s also silly to suggest that love will conquer all fears of losing, letting your teammates down, or the tedium of scrims on top of solo queue on top of scrims on top of solo queue day in and day out. I don’t have any answers, but I am sad that we’ll not likely see Zz1tai play professionally again.

In my most chuunibyou moments of college, I clung to quick phrases and quotes from a variety of media that I consumed at the time. One of these series was Grey’s Anatomy, which I watched with my suite-mates and friends as a fun exercise in procrastinating rather than doing the mountain of homework we had saved up for that Sunday evening. I don’t think Meredith Grey’s “But as human beings, sometimes it’s better to stay in the dark, because in the dark there may be fear, but there’s also hope” is as profound as I initially thought when I was much younger, but there’s a lot of raw honesty and nuance to this statement.

Sometimes, we keep ourselves in the dark because, deep down, we are aware of an awful truth and unwilling or unready to accept it.

The twelfth episode of A Place Further Than the Universe opens with Shirase Kobuchizawa pulled from class. She is told that she needs to go home to her grandmother. Once at home, she watches as her grandmother cries over a map of Antarctica. The implication is that Shirase’s mother, Takako, has passed away.

“I was almost like a dream,” Shirase says. “‘Oh. I’m not waking up. Why aren’t I waking up?’ I thought. That feeling never ended. It still hasn’t ended.”

Aptly titled as the series’ title, Episode 12, “A Place Further Than the Universe” is introduced by Shirase herself. It’s hashtagged, “Dear Mom,” a reflection of the constant updates that Shirase has sent her mother in Antarctica since the latter’s disappearance. Director Atsuko Ishizuka’s use of social media — especially the instagram accounts of the series’ four leads — in A Place Further Than the Universe is purposeful. Even the most off-handed instagram shot holds a thematic key to that episode’s narrative direction.

Here, it frames Shirase’s awakening.

Shirase’s single-minded desire to go to Antarctica has always been driven by the possibility of reuniting with her mother. Mari Tamaki, Hinata Miyake, and Yuzuki Shiraishi all join for their own reasons — and have their own, poignant emotional narratives — but the catalyst is Shirase and her determination to see her mother once more.

Since Takako Kobuchizawa disappeared and the body was never found, this leaves room for hope, placing Shirase in mental stasis. Shirase appears to be moving forward — she drives the entire plot of the series with her initial ambition — but is actually frozen in place, unable to accept that her mother has died. This is the darkness in Meredith Grey’s statement. Shirase fears that her mother is dead, but the disappearance and lack of a body give her a sliver of hope that eventually lands her in Antarctica with her mother’s former expedition partners. In Episode 12, Shirase finally travels to the place where her mother was last seen and recovers Takako’s old laptop.

Throughout the episode, Shirase is reluctant to do much of anything. She asks her mother’s former partners what they think, desperately clinging to any shred of hope she has left that Takako is alive. She is visibly afraid.

The rational part of Shirase’s mind already knows that Takako is dead. Returning to director Ishizuka’s use of social media — Shirase has been sending her mother email and messages for years, another act of hope and desperation. In flashbacks, Takako is shown as a bit of a space cadet, but certainly not someone who would go for years without contacting her daughter. This is visually reinforced by the photograph of Takako and a younger Shirase taped to the outside of Takako’s laptop. Since the first episode, we have seen all of these messages sent by Shirase with no response from Takako. When Shirase finally works up the courage to turn the laptop on, she is inundated with unread emails that she herself sent to her mother. As she watches the number of unread emails rise, Shirase finally cries.

In the dark there may be fear, but there is always hope, yet this too is a trap that keeps you in place, never moving forward. Staying in the dark forever is unhealthy at best. By turning on that computer and seeing the unread emails for herself, Shirase is no longer afraid. She is devastated, but she can finally move forward.

I like pretty things.

This isn’t a confession or revelation or even a caveat to couch my words. It’s just a statement to preface talking about Violet Evergarden, since I’m still unsure as to how much I actually enjoyed the series. In some moments, I think back on how pretty it was. In other moments I think of narrative gaps and melodrama. If I’m comparing Kyoto Animation series of 2018, Tsurune has already been more emotionally resonant than Violet Evergarden ever was, and it’s not even finished yet with a few production issues.

I was never invested in Violet herself — which is probably why the episodes dedicated to her backstory seemed so sluggish and boring — but I loved the stories of the people she helped, either directly or indirectly, through letter-writing. This series was a test of how much I value aesthetics and animation even when the central storyline doesn’t interest me personally.

The visual opulence and melodramatic vignettes of Violet Evergarden — the meta of the production itself — are resonant with the Victorian-era trappings in which the series revels. This, above all else, is what kept me watching week after week.

For example, this local teahouse where Cattleya Baudelaire has tea with Violet in Violet Evergarden‘s second episode. It in and of itself is an aesthetic (or as we said in 2018, a mood).

What purpose do the myriad plants serve? They’re too well-placed to be overgrown, and yet the owner of this establishment has seen fit to create their own carefully-curated “abandoned place” using as many non-native (based on what the rest of the series shows us of local flora) flowering plants and vines as possible. This means that the chimneys on either side of the rooftop have no purpose — they can’t function without burning the plants growing in them, never mind potentially starting a fire that could take the entire place down — and arguably neither do some of the windows because the amount of light they would let in would be minimal and blocked by plants. The banners placed seemingly at random to the left also give the house an incredibly unbalanced look, as if they’re there to be gaudy, because someone could put them there at all.

This is a fascinating interpretation of Victorian-era — or, broadening our scope,  La Belle Époque — with similar in-universe reasoning. The world of Violet Evergarden is a western-styled postwar time period where new goods (possibly from recently-established trade routes) seem to be flooding into the region. Former officers like Claudia Hodgins are now becoming businessmen and founding enterprises like C.H. Postal Company. Such a house could only exist in a time like this, with a burgeoning middle class and industrialization coinciding with an influx of foreign goods. It’s a symbol of status and wealth, plants uncommon to the region bursting out at every possible angle sometimes to the detriment of original function in a celebration of possibility (at least, for the new middle classes).

Naoko Yamada’s Episode 5 storyboards indulge in Victorian-era flower language — a complex and occasionally conflicting web of floral meanings to express deep emotions simmering beneath the surface. Outward displays of emotion were still frowned upon so people turned to flowers for signaling anything from affection to resentment. Violet’s job as an auto memoir doll, a letter-writer and transcription service, is also a mark of the changing times. It’s slowly becoming more acceptable to express these feelings in public, as we see from the letters that Violet and Cattleya organize between Charlotte Abelfreyja Drossel and Damian Baldur Fluegel prior to their impending nuptials. Nothing resonates more than the soldiers enjoying and facepalming at the idiocy of these two once they’re actually writing their true feelings without prose aid from Violet or Cattleya.

Then we reach Episode 7, which I maintain is the series at its most ostentatious. It wasn’t the most emotionally-resonant episode for me personally, but it had everything that a Violet Evergarden episode wants: gorgeous attention to detail and technical animation execution that goes hand-in-hand with the drama du jour. Also known as the Violet-walks-on-water episode, it stretches the boundaries of what was thought possible for an animated television series. It didn’t have to be that beautiful, but it was.

Building castles in the sky is a forte of mine. From a very young age, I immersed myself in books, reading everything I could get my hands on from local library recommendations to my mother’s romance novels (which I really shouldn’t have been reading at that age and definitely didn’t understand until I was much older). In junior high school I found anime through Sailor Moon and never looked back. This coming April I will have been blogging about anime here at Atelier Emily for six years. Anime obviously means a lot to me.

It was all too easy to become lost in the media I consumed. Walking down the street with a pair of headphones, I could suddenly imagine myself figure-skating an olympic-winning routine. At night, I could re-read one of the many books stashed underneath my pillow and imagine myself as someone who wasn’t cold, awkward, and ugly. Instead, I was gregarious, beautiful, and warm.

Sometimes, you have to wake up.

Unabashed fans of not only their own previous works and the GAINAX oeuvre, but anime as a medium and certain older properties that served as inspiration (like Gridman the Hyper Agent) the team at Studio Trigger was never going to tear down the idea of losing one’s self in an anime. That is their forte: to celebrate and embrace anime’s potential for silliness and bombast in particular. This is why I find myself drawn to Trigger works time and again, not only for the animation or cinematography but for the joyful celebration found in works like Little Witch Academia or Kill la Kill.

The real-life Akane Shinjou waking up in the final moments of SSSS.Gridman isn’t an indictment of losing yourself in a fantasy world, it’s a gentle push. It’s time to move forward, the series tells her, and it manages to say this in a way that uses both the members of her homemade world and a character beloved to her tokusatsu heart in Gridman.

One of the more impressive nuances of the series is how SSSS.Gridman handles its teenaged antagonist, later revealed as the show’s protagonist. It never absolves her of pettiness or outbursts of violence even as we grow to empathize with her. While egged on by Alexis Kerib — alien force, stand-in for depression/anxiety or all of the above — these are ultimately Akane’s mistakes. She makes the choice to abuse her creations. SSSS.Gridman makes the choice to introduce said creations to us (and Akane’s dream in-universe avatar of herself) first, thereby making the lack of remorse shown by Akane later on in the series all the more shocking.

All too often, conversations around media run strictly for or against, with a lack of grey area or overlap. Akane isn’t a terrible person, but her self-hatred drives her to do some terrible things, none of which SSSS.Gridman writes off as being under Alexis’ control. These are Akane’s mistakes and faults alone. In my own escapist escapades and bouts with depression, I know that I’ve hurt people either intentionally or unintentionally. Akane is remarkably relatable and the series eschews labelling her as “good” or “bad” for the better.

Akane invites empathy. Driven by depression and loneliness, she finds solace in her nerdy hobbies to which nearly all SSSS.Gridman viewers (if not everyone who watches the series) can relate. Yet there comes a time to stop escaping reality and face it instead. Akane also finds these answers while in her fantasy world, especially through Rikka Takarada. Rikka is a character that Akane created as the perfect friend, but is also the character most in Akane’s own real-life image. Although many other viewers disagree, I think Rikka and Akane’s reconciliation and Rikka becoming the final catalyst that allowed Akane to finally wake up was ultimately an act of self-love.

From it’s opening act, it was clear that Shoujo ☆ Kageki Revue Starlight had something to say about the stage — what young women give to it, what they receive from it, all wrapped up in a Takarazuka package. Karen Aijou has what is quickly revealed to be an impossible dream in Takarazuka: to occupy position zero, center stage, with her friend Hikari Kagura. Seisho Music Academy and its enigmatic giraffe host naturally guide her down the traditional path of fighting others for the top star position, pitting Karen and her classmates against one another in seemingly inevitable conflict.

That is, until Karen breaks the cycle and shatters the status quo, dragging Hikari and their other classmates with her. Laying the groundwork for Karen and Hikari are Claudine Saijou and Maya Tendou.

Maya is introduced as the status quo. She is the reigning top star of the 99th troupe both via the somewhat magical world of the duel system and, as shown through their classes, the leading otokoyaku in the troupe’s performances (in Takarazuka tradition, only the masculine-coded otokoyaku can be top star). Revue Starlight doesn’t fully commit to making Maya a true otokoyaku — most noticeably, all of the available roles for the in-universe performance of Starlight are women — but surrounds her with Takarazuka trappings that show off her otokoyaku top star status including her positioning onstage, even in practice, swans and staircases in her dueling stage, and a musumeyaku (feminine-coded) stage partner in Claudine.

As a musumeyaku, Claudine frequently has a far more difficult role than Maya despite not being the troupe’s top star (or even in line for it because again, only otokoyaku can be top star). She must shine, but not too much because her true job as a musumeyaku is to make Maya shine above all others. She must keep her

If Maya makes a mistake, she must cover for Maya in a way that makes it look like no mistake was made. 

Competitive and driven with no small amount of anger simmering beneath the surface, Claudine Saijou the person is very much at odds with Claudine Saijou, the 99th troupe’s musumeyaku. So much so, that Claudine’s ultimate sacrifice for Maya in Episode 10 initially came as a shock to me. Despite knowing the framework of her musumeyaku role, Claudine had been set up as someone who was desperately trying to surpass Maya through hard work and effort, forcing herself above the Takarazuka station to which she had been assigned.

Returning to earlier Revue Starlight episodes following Claudine’s Episode 10 sacrifice reveals more about Claudine and her relationship with Maya in a different context.

Claudine’s ambitions lead her to mentor Futaba Isurugi, not only onstage, but regarding Futaba’s romantic troubles with her partner Kaoruko Hanayagi. Futaba and Kaoruko have their own problems from the way that the Takarazuka system sorts them and they receive advice from Claudine and Maya respectively. Throughout Futaba and Kaoruko’s fight, Futaba stays with Claudine, who advises Futaba that “hangers-on” — in reference to Kaoruko’s laziness — won’t be good enough to make it in the top star system. Throughout this entire episode, there are multi-layered looks at not only Kaoruko and Futuaba’s relationship, but Claudine and Maya’s. It becomes clearer that one of the reasons why Claudine tries so hard is not only to surpass Maya, but to inspire her.

Claudine’s sacrifice can be seen in multiple ways: fulfilling her musumeyaku duty to the end, or as an act of love for Maya in spite of the societal forces in place built to keep them apart, even as stage partners.

When Claudine cries out that it’s impossible for Maya to lose, and falls on her figurative sword to protect her, Maya steps out from the shadows to not only comfort her, but meet her where she is. She does so in Claudine’s native French. This is where Maya herself defies the status quo and the rigid barriers placed on both young women. Here she actively reaches out and returns Claudine’s feelings by saying, “With you, I’ll be able to fly even higher.” This is an echo of Karen’s later declaration to Hikari that Hikari is Karen’s stage in the showstopping finale that finally breaks the cycle. Maya and Claudine were never going to be the couple that broke the system completely, but they caused a few cracks in their final stage that allowed Karen and Hikari to break through.

“A mysterious night that seemed to span an entire year. If she would be kind enough to tell me about her exploits, I would respond with the memories of mine.”

-“Senpai,” Night Is Short Walk On Girl

Many, many years ago, before I worried as much about anything and everything, I had nights like the one in Masaaki Yuasa’s anime film adaptation of Tomihiko Morimi’s novel Night Is Short Walk On Girl. Nights where the entire world seemed to stretch before me endlessly. Nights where I would seemingly be lost in the Vermont woods until the light of day revealed a small trail behind my campus. Nights that could contain everything from romance to heartbreak, or both.

The time I told my friend smoking languidly in a dirty spotlight outside his townhouse that he was beautiful.

The time a group of friends and I decided to snowboard at 2 a.m..

The time another friend and played beer pong until sunrise using the half-empty bottles abandoned after a house party.

The time, the time, the time.

This year, I went to Busan, South Korea as the second stop in a four-city tour for a work event. I stayed on a different beach (Gwangalli) than the majority of people (Haeundae). I didn’t need to be near everyone else, I told myself after discovering this, because I was a train ride away from the venue, and that was all that mattered. I’m older than most people I know from esports, my days of short nights that seem like days are long gone.

So I told my stories instead. I thought to myself as the words tripped out of my mouth, “How boring! How boring and old I must be.”

Then I went out a few times. I watched as friends had those nights while I was still invited to come, have fun, partake in as much or as little as I wanted so long as I was there. It was warm. I made real friends.

I first watched Night Is Short Walk On Girl with my friend M, who is like a sister to me. We both thought back to our own similar evenings with nostalgia and a shudder. We both laughed about how we enjoyed those times, but never wanted to go back.

But in Busan, I learned that you don’t have to go back to have a good time, and you shouldn’t automatically shut yourself out of opportunities to get to know others a bit better. Life is short, so walk on girl.

Sometimes, you learn about things in the wrong (non-chronological) order. Something that came first naturally comes last to someone consuming a newer piece of media inspired by that very thing. Emotional resonance with the media that came later inspires research, a tracing of influences.

Due to gaps in my own anime-watching habits, I don’t have an emotional attachment to Takashi Watanabe’s 2000 anime adaptation Boogiepop Phantom, like many anime fans around my age. However, when I began to watch anime as it aired, one of the first series that resonated with me was Bakemonogatari in 2009. The Monogatari series light novels were penned by Nisio Isin, whose writing was inspired by Kouhei Kadono’s Boogiepop novel series.

All of this is a preface to my immediate reaction after watching the first two episodes of Boogiepop and Others.

It reminded me of Nadeko’s narrative in the Monogatari series.

(major spoilers for Nadeko Sengoku’s character arc in Monogatari)

Boogiepop wa Warawanai (Boogiepop and Others) the anime adaptation starts slow. The first episode is made better by the second episode — it was good foresight on the parts of everyone involved to release the two together — which recontextualizes events in the first, particularly the introduction of Nagi Kirima to Touka Miyashita (Boogiepop) at the end of Episode 1, presumably after much of the action has happened offscreen. Episode 2 makes it clear that said action, and Nagi’s involvement as well as the roles of others like Kazuko Suema and Naoko Kamikishiro, are to be introduced and explained in subsequent episodes.

Despite not having read Kadono’s original novels, I could easily see how the way he plays with chronology and reveals smaller pieces of a larger puzzle with each story could have inspired writers like Monogatari‘s Isin or Ryohgo Narita (Baccano!, Durarara!!), both of whom play with chronology and a variety of viewpoints in their stories. Yet, what reminded me of Nadeko’s arc specifically, was the tale of a friend group splitting apart due to drugs as told by Kyouko Kinoshita.

Nadeko’s story begins as one of the least interesting Bakemonogatari arcs without the greater context of Monogatari Second Season. Cursed by a classmate over a romantic dispute, Nadeko inadvertently makes the curse significantly worse through her efforts to cure herself. As a standalone story, the most interesting parts are the banter between Koyomi Araragi and Suruga Kanbaru, whose friendship develops after the events of Suruga’s own first arc. Nadeko is a bit of a throwaway character in her first appearances: a cute junior high school student in love with her friend’s (Tsukihi Araragi) brother in Koyomi.

This all changes in the second season, where Nadeko becomes a vengeful snake goddess who nearly takes over the entire town.

Revisiting Nadeko’s dialogue, framing, and appearances in Bakemonogatari, Nisemonogatari, and Koyomimonogatari after watching Second Season reveal much more about Nadeko’s character, and the type of person she presents herself as in relief to her genuine self. As it is with all Monogatari series stories, the real monsters always come from the humans themselves and their desires. The oddities or supernatural beings they encounter only aid or amplify existing human emotions.

Nadeko’s entire emotional narrative is driven, and continuously returns to, this idea of junior high school students dabbling in the occult coupled with resentment among Nadeko’s classmates. Her first snake curse in Bakemonogatari is due to a romantic squabble. She gives insight to Koyomi about occult charms circulating through her school in Nisemonogatari. And the fallout continues to affect her — ultimately driving her to reveal her true personality — in Second Season‘s Otorimonogatari.

Kyouko’s story about Akiko Kusatsu offering drugs to her friend circle and the subsequent disappearance of these girls along with Akiko herself is presented to Kazuko at the beginning of Boogiepop and Others‘ second episode. Like Nadeko’s initial curse, it’s comparatively innocuous — as innocuous as teenagers taking drugs can be — to the web of alien possession, murder, and supernatural elements that follow.

Although there are alien and supernatural presences here, it seems that the actions of humanity will still be at the forefront of the story.

Thanks to Kyouko’s story and schoolyard rumors, Nagi is initially introduced as a delinquent who was suspended and her classmates, including Kyouko, spread further rumors that she’s somehow responsible for recent disappearances and murders as the fictional “Boogiepop” (who is not responsible for the murders at all and is actually an alter-ego of Touka). The second episode of Boogiepop and Others then skips around chronologically, reframing what little we’ve seen of Nagi’s actions up until that point. Bubbling beneath the surface is not only some sort of supernatural conflict, but natural tendencies of humans from compassion, to confusion, to resentment, to malice. Boogiepop’s initial Episode 1 speech to passersby scolds them for their callousness, while Naoko Kamikishiro’s rescue of the alien Echoes shows caring and consideration for others. Boogiepop and Others seems like it will delve into similar themes as Monogatari. Isin didn’t just take non-chronological schematics from Kadono, he took musings on humanity and the monstrous as well.

This is a lot of rambling to say this: I’m looking forward to how Boogiepop and Others further fills in the gaps even though I’m learning about Boogiepop‘s influence in a non-chronological way.

Mild manga spoilers ahead for The Promised Neverland.

The flowers featured prominently in the opening, ending, and major events of The Promised Neverland‘s premiere are of the series own creation. Called vidar, they’re a vampiric flower used to drain or absorb the blood of humans. As the blood drains, the flower becomes red (as shown in the opening). Emma discovers the flower growing from her dead sister Conny in the reveal that the children of The Promised Neverland are being raised as monster food — their orphanage a farm.

Flower language always catches my eye, and in my search for what flower was used in The Promised Neverland — its ubiquitousness throughout the first episode meant that its appearance was important — I spoiled myself on what it was. Never having read the manga, the circumstances of the flower are the only things outside of the first anime episode that I know. The rest of The Promised Neverland is a mystery to me. Presumably, it will follow Emma and Norman’s escape from the farm, hopefully with the rest of their orphanage siblings. The tone of the first episode tells me that not many of them are likely to make it.

These flowers reminded me of geraniums, and the geranium flower has a few interesting floral meanings that could tie into what we could see from The Promised Neverland. Perhaps a geranium served as inspiration for the vidar.

Geraniums have a variety of meanings, some conflicting, depending on color and type of geranium flower. Above all else, geraniums are a flower of stupidity and foolishness as well as kindness and gentility. Stupidity and foolishness are an interesting frame for the actions of the monsters in The Promised Neverland, if only because in raising these specific children, it seems that their intelligence and athletic abilities are prized. The measures in place to keep the children in line are simple — the framework of a loving orphanage is perfect. Of the trio of top students in Emma, Norman, and Ray, Ray is the only one who seems to suspect that anything about their lives is unsavory in any way. All of the other children love the orphanage, love each other, and love their “mom” caretaker. They lead a blissful life until they’re “adopted” like Conny and killed.

Yet, they have to be aware that something like Emma and Norman’s accidental discovery would be possible — presumably, more forceful measures are in place to take care of situations like theirs — because thinking otherwise is pure foolishness. It’s also foolish to think that they would be able to get away with this without some children finding out occasionally, despite what seems to be a fairly strong system in place. These ideas of foolishness and stupidity would apply more to the children’s handlers than the children themselves, although they too are foolish due to their naiveté. The system keeps them in line — just think of Emma’s answer to Norman and Ray when they study the “dangerous” fence, she doesn’t want to think outside of her authoritative figures who at that point in time are still beloved.

Geraniums are also a symbol of gentility, true friendship, and ingenuity. The vidar are flowers used for an awful purpose, to preserve human corpses, but are also very beautiful. If we apply this meaning to Emma it could be a symbol of how she will find hope or a life outside of the farm thanks to her strong friendships and intelligence. We already see that she is the most empathetic of the main trio. This makes her the most susceptible to the lies of “mom,” as seen in the first half of the episode, but Emma also pours her emotions into the idea of escaping once she comes to terms with what is actually going on.

Again, this is all speculation. The vidar flower caught my eye in The Promised Neverland and I found the geranium meanings interesting enough to post as a framework for the first episode.

Anime series don’t have a camera in the traditional sense, which means that they can get away with shots that would be impossible, or at least require extraordinary effort, in live-action filmmaking.

The Promised Neverland cleverly stays grounded, choosing shots that would be possible for a film camera. Reminiscent of other suspenseful action-adventure series like Made In Abyss, The Promised Neverland makes full use of this grounded camera, framing, and lighting to play with our expectations as viewers while heightening the tension, fear, and distrust expressed by the series’ three leads in Emma, Norman, and Ray.

Consider the screenshot pictured above of Grace Field House. It is our introduction to the orphanage — which we, and our leads later discover is a human meat farm — and it’s a sunrise shot framed by the nearby forest. There’s something a bit unsettling about having that much brush out of focus in the foreground, but the framing of the trees gives the scene a calm, pastoral feel.

This is a near-identical establishing shot of Grace Field House in the third episode, well after there has been a notable shift in the lead trio’s perspective as well as our own as viewers. The lighting at sunset illuminates the entire house, but it’s far more ominous. Combined with other shots in this episode and Episode 2, it’s as if someone is watching from the forest.

As early as the series’ premiere, The Promised Neverland introduces the forest almost as a character in and of itself — first as a location for the children to play tag. The shot above, like our first look at Grace Field House at sunrise, is slightly unnerving. Despite the context being an innocuous game of tag where the children are watching the field and Norman (who is “it”) is approaching them from behind, there’s a sense that someone else is watching the children, even though we already know that it’s Norman who is behind them. For a viewer unfamiliar with the manga and the true nature of Grace Field House, this makes the entire scene disconcerting despite not knowing the underlying horrors of the orphanage just yet.

Later in the same sequence, Emma approaches the forbidden fence in the forest alongside Norman. The camera pans around Emma’s head first, positioning behind her while she approaches the fence, as if someone is watching her. Changing focus between characters to highlight facial expressions, distance, or inner emotional turmoil is something that the camera of The Promised Neverland does frequently, even in a scene as simple as the children’s classroom tests.

Here, the focus shifts from Emma in the background to a closeup of Norman’s face as both are staring at the fence. In context, this makes Emma’s walk up to the fence more unnerving. The focus on the back of her head implies that someone was watching her. Revealing that Norman was already standing at the fence to her left makes it clear that he wasn’t the one behind her.

Episode 1 also uses shifting focus to separate the main trio. Until Ray confronts Norman and Emma in the second episode, he is separated from them by their shocking experience of discovering Conny’s living corpse and the existence of monsters. Ray is naturally skeptical of everything, and The Promised Neverland makes it clear from the opening scene that he already suspected that something was off about the orphanage, but this focal shift purposefully separates him from Emma and Norman following their recent revelation.

While the first episode hints that something is amiss through framing, camera positioning, and focus, The Promised Neverland‘s second episode makes it all the more clear that someone is watching, heightening Emma and Norman’s fear. The opening shot features the camera swaying back and forth above Emma’s head in time with a lighting fixture.

Is someone watching Emma? Regardless of whether “Mom” or others are truly watching Emma in this moment or not, the framing immediately adds to Emma’s constant dread and anxiety. She has been betrayed by those she trusted most and is now on her guard at all times.

Episode 2 increases the amount of obstructed view and eerie establishing shots. Since a most of the tension in The Promised Neverland comes in hushed conversations — the anime has opted to have characters voice many of the manga’s inner monologues — the series moves the camera slowly while framing Emma, Norman, and later Ray as if someone is watching from a distance. At this point in time, Emma and Norman are unsure as to how much Mom knows. As the episode evolves, she makes it clear that she’s onto them, making the obstructed-view scenes even more suspenseful.

The Promised Neverland returns to the forest that surrounds Grace Field House. Emma and Norman are plotting their escape but the forest, or someone, is always watching. It frames their conversations while implying that they’re being followed — they also discover in this episode that they’re being tracked by Mom — and even with the revelation that it was Ray who followed them into the forest, these shots add unease and fear. With each small reveal, the camera’s positioning shifts slightly to keep tension high.

In Episode 3, Emma, Norman, and Ray are introduced to two more threats to their plans. The first is the obvious arrival of Sister Krone. The camera follows the trio’s opening conversation, moving through bookcases as if someone is stalking them through the shelves. All three are separated, but Ray is facing in the opposite direction of Norman and Emma, deliberately separated even further. As the most blunt and pragmatic of the trio, Ray will often say what Norman already knows but refuses to say due to Norman’s feelings for Emma.

This entire scene is bookended when the trio discusses the fact that there may be a traitor in their midst. Ray and Norman are placed side-by-side, since they have already realized that there is an informant among the children who is reporting to Mom. Emma, who is loathe to suspect any of her family, is visually separated and has to be told by Ray. As Ray speaks, The Promised Neverland deftly uses focus to further distance Emma with Norman ever-so-slightly out-of-focus in the mid-ground. Norman loves Emma and doesn’t want to be the one to tell her, despite realizing that she needs to know. In both of these conversation scenes, the camera not only adds to the underlying fear of the trio, but separates them from each other as individuals.

Obstructed views aren’t reserved for the children. The Promised Neverland also portrays Sister Krone and Mom Isabella as if someone is watching them as well. They’re implicit in perpetuating the system, yet they’re not truly safe from it, especially if Emma, Norman, and Ray succeed in their escape.

Throughout the first three episodes of The Promised Neverland, the series camera is always evolving while simultaneously sticking to shots that would easily be possible with a real-life video camera. This contributes to increased feelings of unease and dramatic tension while watching. Although the backgrounds are less-than-stellar and animation sequences are reserved for bursts of energy — like Sister Crone’s frenetic game of tag in Episode 3 — the cinematography is nuanced and purposeful.

Major spoilers for The Promised Neverland up to Episode 4.

The fourth episode of The Promised Neverland ends with Norman accusing Ray of being the traitor in their midst. Much like Gilda considers Emma’s temperament before choosing to believe her about Conny and Mom — this is a quick reminder for us, as an audience, to consider the personalities of these characters when discussing and evaluating their actions — what we know of Norman’s disposition plays into how much we believe him. Norman isn’t the type of person who would confront Ray in this fashion if he wasn’t completely certain that Ray’s loyalties were in doubt. Backtracking through the episode with the knowledge that most of Norman’s machinations are in service of this accusation reveals that the camera has been hinting that Ray is the traitor, or that Norman suspects Ray of being the traitor, through certain angles and framing.

In the opening sequence, both Emma and Norman look into the camera directly while Ray breaks eye contact and looks away from it. In his forward-facing shot, Ray walks to place his hand over the camera — an action that belies his dishonesty. There’s something that he’s about to do that he doesn’t want the series’ camera to see. For brevity’s sake, this post will only cover the fourth episode, but the visual direction of The Promised Neverland has been deliberate and purposeful. There are myriad nods via camera angles, lighting, and framing that set up Ray to, if not be the traitor, then have some sort of secret that he is hiding. This begins with the opening sequence, which repeats at the start of each episode as a visual reminder.

“Hey, Ray. I wonder why traitors betray others.”

“Maybe it’s because there must be some merit in doing so. For example, they can be spared from being shipped out and can become an adult.”

-A conversation between Norman and Ray, The Promised Neverland, Episode 4

The Promised Neverland‘s fourth episode opens with Norman setting what we learn at the end of the episode was a trap to catch Ray and transitions to a conversation between Sister Krone and Mom Isabella. Their conversation seemingly has nothing to do with Ray other than to remind us that Isabella is trying to stay ahead of the children’s escape plans while fending off Krone’s ambitions and raising the children as choice meat cuts for the monsters. At second glance, it gives us insight well before Ray says it himself to Norman later in this episode as to why someone would buy into this system. Isabella and Krone are human adults raising human children to feed to monsters. Presumably, they traded something for that privilege of living as adults in a world of monsters. By placing Krone and Isabella’s respective personal strategies for survival in the opening scenes of this episode, it frames Ray’s actions as well.

As early as the main trio’s first conversation of the episode, there are shots like the one above that place Ray at the forefront of Norman’s thoughts, even while Norman is speaking directly to Emma. He’s also visually separated from them at key moments as they continue to discuss their escape. Emma is not privy to Norman’s plans because Norman doesn’t want to disappoint her — as evidenced by their one-on-one conversation later in the episode — but there aren’t many reasons for Norman to leave Ray out unless Norman suspects Ray.

Here, Norman watches, out-of-focus in the foreground, as Ray reminds Emma that she needs to suspect her friends and family. This transitions into a shot where Norman is visually shielding Emma while talking to Ray about the tracking devices, effectively changing the subject. Given the snapshots of Emma’s thoughts that we receive as she thinks about who the traitor could be, she doesn’t think of Ray (or Norman for that matter) because she trusts him implicitly. Yet, Norman changes the subject anyway due to his own distrust of Ray and his love of Emma.

When Norman, Emma, and Ray reveal the truth to Gilda and Don — also operating under the assumption that they could be the spies — Ray takes a passive role of watching over the entire scene. The only time he moves is when Norman startles him by lying to Gilda and Don about what happened to Conny.

In this moment, Norman’s head appears awkwardly in the foreground, showing the Ray is watching him, but also the Ray has been thrown off a bit by Norman’s lie. This could be due to a number of reasons: Ray thought that he was completely in the loop but this shows that Norman is keeping certain cards closer to his chest than expected or, as he says later to Norman in the hallway, the lie that Conny could be alive is cruel and gives them false hope, considering what actually happened to her. The library scene ends with Ray passively smiling a bit before cutting to Norman watching him.

When Norman and Ray have their chat in the hallway after Emma, Don, and Gilda leave, Ray’s face is purposefully obfuscated by his hair as Norman reveals his trap to catch either Gilda or Don as the traitor. The two are shot from a distance, indicating that someone else is watching them.

Norman then has two key conversations, one with Ray where he muses as to why one would become a traitor, and one with Emma, where she makes it abundantly clear that she would bring such a person along anyway, since their safety wouldn’t be guaranteed after the escape and that none of their siblings are bad people, even if one is an informant. This reiterates the context of Krone and Isabella’s conversation at the start of the episode — presumably they were forced into a situation where they chose to take up a position as an informant in order to survive. The Promised Neverland has had strong visual and conversational bookending over the past few episodes and Episode 4 continues this trend with that reminder of why a traitor might accept the system before Norman accuses Ray. Like the scene in the hallway, Ray’s face is hidden when he and Norman are placed side-by-side in the shot.

Less than a year after ONE’s popular manga One Punch Man was adapted into an animated television series, his other webcomic, Mob Psycho 100 debuted to similar thunderous online applause, especially in sakuga circles. The through line between the two was not only the same original creator and artist in ONE, but spectacular animation from rising and veteran animation talents.

One Punch Man left me cold, despite spectacular animation sequences. I’ve been known to watch entire anime series because of visuals — cinematography and lighting more than the, for lack of a better word, raw mechanical talent of animation — but I abandoned One Punch Man a third of the way through its run while it was airing and have yet to finish it. On the periphery of my own perception of the series was rising discussion pitting visuals against emotional narrative — One Punch Man was rife with captivating animation but this didn’t overcome the fairly dull story of Saitama was a common sentiment.

The discussion was revisited a year later, this time with Mob Psycho 100 at the forefront.

Like One Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100 was chock full of animation talent with sequences that captivated me. But personally, Mob Psycho 100‘s first episode also didn’t resonate with me, despite recognizing the sheer effort, audacity, and talent on display — Miyo Sato’s painting on glass in particular. So I dropped it.

I don’t ascribe to the idea that visuals are separate from emotional narrative. If anything, strong visuals become their own through line in a series that accompanies the emotional narrative by supporting it in parallel or revealing contradictory thoughts and desires that remain unexpressed in words. This can be done through symbolism or coded visual language — nearly thirty posts on this blog are dedicated to the language of flowers alone — cinematography and camerawork, color usage, lighting, or a number of other techniques. One of the series I’ve made sure to follow weekly in this season is The Promised Neverland which has a strong use of grounded and deliberate filmmaking even if it lacks the punch of the continuing animators’ festival that is an episode of Mob Psycho 100.

For me personally as a viewer, the emotional narrative is just as important as raw visuals or what the visual medium of anime can do for that narrative. I need both, in tandem, to capture my attention. Mob Psycho 100‘s first episode, despite its beauty, did not do that.

Yet, I found myself returning to it in my mind since so many people had recommended that I pick it back up. So, I decided to watch the first episode of the second season, despite not having seen most of the first.

I loved it.

The episode, titled “Ripped Apart ~Someone Is Watching~,” is a simple and contained narrative. I’m certain that I would have enjoyed it more had I known Mob’s emotional struggles throughout the first season, but even without that context, this episode hit hard. It took something immense, unquantifiable, and mysterious (Mob’s powers), applying it to a small, seemingly one-off story that was personal to Mob and his girlfriend for all of a week. Mob stands up for Emi despite her dishonesty, and reveals his powers to her in a lovely scene where he pieces back together Emi’s torn manuscript. The rotating camera as Mob uses his psychic abilities to repair something that means a great deal to Emi specifically speaks volumes about Mob’s character and how he’s chosen to use his powers.

There’s also a lot of nuance in this scene. Mob doesn’t have to say, “Yes I too know what you’re going through regarding being bullied by your ‘friends’ into adopting a necessary affectation of disinterest even in things you care deeply about.” He doesn’t have to. The visuals, and his actions, speak for him.

This past week, one of the most impressive feats of television animation that I’ve ever seen aired in the form of Mob Psycho 100 Episode 17 (or Episode 5 of Season 2) “Discord ~Choices~.” Weeks before “Discord ~Choices~” aired there was already buzz about what was said to be Hakuyu Go’s most impressive work to date yet — following up his incredible work on Fate Apocrypha Episode 22.

It’s an anime episode that can only be spoken about in hyperbole, especially when Mob reaches the point where his powers are in excess of the normal zero to 100 percent and Hironori Tanaka animates his physical transformation as raw power in a vast universe, rearranging in a human form at the end showing how Mob regained and redefined his sense of self. Much of the animation in this episode is bombastic — taking advantage of a setting where the normal rules of physics need not apply — but the character animation that follows, especially when the rescued Minori admits that, yes she is that bully he saw inside Mogami’s world. Her face after Mob tells her that he’s happy they were able to meet is a thing of beauty.

But, while you’re watching — or rewatching and rewatching and rewatching — Mob Psycho 100 “Discord ~Choices~” spare a thought for Emi’s reassembled manuscript and how this season’s first episode set the tone for what will likely be its defining moment: Mob’s rejection of Mogami’s ideals and rescue of Minori. It’s not only what proved me wrong in my initial assessment of the show, but also a similar emotional conclusion, albeit with less bombast.

Nineteen Eighty-Four‘s sexless and totalitarian setting that ultimately results in war, torture, and betrayal along with the rewriting of history is the most well-referenced dystopian media — phrases from George Orwell’s novel like thoughtcrime or Big Brother are now common English phrases — but I’ve always personally been of the opinion that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has a more accurate and easier method. The people in Huxley’s world are kept in line not by fear and violence, but endlessly distracted into compliance by drugs, sex, and entertainment.

One of the problems I often have with dystopian settings in anime (or any media) is a lack of in-universe consistency. Many anime series try an Orwellian model and fail to pay enough attention to detail to have it logistically make sense (last year’s Darling in the Franxx) while becoming distracted by introducing plot points at random (Guilty Crown). In other series, the dystopian setting is merely window-dressing for something else entirely (AKB0048, Shimoneta). The last hard dystopian anime that really impressed me was From the New World, which employed a similar model to Brave New World but focused on humans developing psychic powers as opposed to rampant capitalism and technology.

The Promised Neverland has similar echoes of Brave New World to keep the so-called orphans of Grace Field House from questioning their future or existence by keeping them happy, healthy, and entertained. They’re placed in a situation where they are fed good food, receive attention from a loving “Mom,” and after they finish their necessary tests, they can play tag or other games on the orphanage’s expansive lawn and forest. The only request that is asked of them is that they don’t pass a fence that circles the house or a large gate, both of which are said to be protecting them.

Due to this environment, the children question very little. Even a child as intelligent as Norman — the said smartest in their class of what is later revealed as the best and brightest — isn’t shown as someone who wishes to fight against the system. In the first scene of The Promised Neverland‘s premiere, the main trio of Emma, Norman, and Ray are shown slightly younger, looking past the gate. Emma repeats Mom’s words of caution. Ray says that they’re obviously a lie (a nod to just how much he knows at an early age). Norman simply wonders what the gate is protecting them from, almost as if he too suspects something is off about their setting, but doesn’t want to think badly of anyone.

This is the power of Mom and the Grace Field House orphanage, which is raising these children as food for monsters. Grace Field House is essentially a luxury meat farm. The cushy environment that Emma, Norman, and Ray enjoy is in service of two things: to keep them happy and entertained so they won’t question their setting and to improve the quality of their meat by giving them a comfortable life until they’re slaughtered.

We don’t yet know if all orphanages are like this. Some of them may be test-tube factories, especially if they’re not producing high quality meat for the rich like Grace Field House. Yet as The Promised Neverland slowly pulls back the curtain with each passing episode, certain details are revealed that make the series’ dystopian setting as impressive as it is horrifying.

As the series slowly drops hints about its setting and the outside world, Mom (Isabella) becomes more of an interesting character. She is always framed from a distance or in an extreme closeup. The latter is usually to convey her position of power over others — in conversations with Sister Krone, talking to Emma, revealing the stopwatch conspicuously to the group of children — and involves the camera moving in closer. The former paints her as in a similar situation to the children themselves. Like she, or someone, is always watching the children, Isabella is also watched in turn.

This is often done with the camera moving further away from her, often as objects enter the frame in the foreground, obstructing our view. The camera’s distance is particularly noticeable when she reveals her own number at the end of a regularly-scheduled check-in (73584) before a superior presses her to say that her children are ready to be harvested at any time. It’s one of the few times that a close-up of her face is used to show a flicker of true emotion underneath her façade, and the reminder of her own place in the existing hierarchy. There are also times where it showcases her subtle actions from a distance. When Isabella intelligently removes Conny’s drawing from the wall, removing a reminder of Conny for the other children, she briefly holds it to her chest. Isabella is complicit in the system, but there are glimpses that make her appear human and sympathetic. The Promised Neverland has recently moved to establish the same sympathy for Sister Krone, placing Krone trapped behind bars visually and showing her fear in the face of Isabella’s thinly-veiled threats.

The dystopian setting automatically pits Krone and Isabella against each other. Those in the know, working within the established system even if it’s only to survive, are not encouraged to help each other. Instead, they’re nudged towards undermining the other’s plans and fighting for as much power as they are permitted to have. These two were presumably once in the same situation as Emma, Norman, and Ray, only they chose to (or were chosen by others, perhaps due to their intelligence) live past their mandatory ship date of turning 12 years-old.

Through their interactions, we receive a preview of what is likely to come from Norman, Ray, and Emma. Ray has already been revealed as Isabella’s spy amongst the children. After telling Emma, she realizes, and informs us, that Ray has been hurting other members of the Grace Field House orphanage in pursuit of his own personal goal. Like Mom and Krone, Ray is trying the best he can within the system. Ray’s goal of escaping with only Norman and Emma (or possibly the three of them plus Don and Gilda) directly contradicts Emma’s insistence on saving everyone. It’s already been a point of contention between the two, and will likely be a flash point later in the series.

Due to his introduction as part of the main trio, Ray was already a sympathetic and relatable character. Despite having the most pessimistic outlook — likely due to his more informed viewpoint — Ray has also made it clear that he cares deeply about Norman and Emma, even as he tries to manipulate them in service of his own plans. He also, somewhat ironically, cares about being as honest as possible with others. It was Ray who was immediately angry at Norman about lying to Don and Gilda, giving them false hope. This is another hint that Ray is more caring than the dry-witted image he projects.

In the battle between quiet and loud in Japanese animation, loud almost always wins. It’s the bombast and spectacle that keeps generations of people coming back time and again to anime television series or movies. The loud is often more memorable, especially when it comes to raw animation sequences that stick with fans for years.

Yet, as a self-appointed champion of the quiet, I think it’s more impressive when anime can be still. It’s these small moments that tie together larger scenes of frenetic fights or over-the-top battles in the mind of a possessed girl. The second season of Mob Psycho 100 drew me back in with its quiet, more emotionally contemplative sequences. In its sixth episode, these muted but still powerful scenes frame the conflict between Reigen Arataka and Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama that has been brewing all season.

The episode opens with a busy work environment at a sales call center — a pattern of people working, various notes taped to landline phones. There’s a shot of water coolers standing against a wall in a line. As the chatter of various sales calls continues, we see a hand lifting up the corner of a box and a lone telephone. It’s Reigen’s last day at work. We later see a water cooler in his new, sparsely-decorated apartment, a last reminder of his previous life before he becomes a psychic consultant/conman.

Reigen’s apartment takes center stage in this episode alongside the Spirits and Such Consultation Office, and the episode makes it clear visually that the latter is much more home to Reigen than the former. We’re first introduced to Reigen’s apartment in a flashback. It’s an empty room of possibilities following Reigen quitting his job. The lighting in the shot above is directly in front of Reigen, as if the world is open to him from that point on.

Lighting plays a large part in how Reigen’s apartment reflects his lack of emotional growth. In the current setting, four years later, Reigen’s apartment is still visibly sparse even in the dim light of sunset. There is little to no decoration, and he’s not even particularly messy. The water cooler remains as the one standout piece of furniture (if you can call a water cooler furniture), a remnant of his prior, presumably soul-sucking day job. The light is always positioned behind him in the present, as if all of those opportunities open to him when he first rented the apartment are already behind him. Not much has changed since he first placed that water cooler in an empty room and decided to change careers.

One of the most telling quiet moments of this episode comes in Reigen’s apartment as he checks “Friendbook” and finds a birthday message from his mother. There’s an audible millisecond delay before he reads the message, expressing his hesitation. She tells him that, at 28 years-old, he still has a chance to get married and lead a normal life.

His finger trembles slightly over his mouse before clicking an attached link — an advertisement for a normal 9-5 job.

We’re also introduced to an old haunt of Reigen’s, a bar where he takes advantage of people by listening to their problems, receiving an ego boost in return. This plays into Reigen’s desperate desire to be praised and given attention. It’s natural that he would want to go here following his fight with Mob and the email from his mother, and it’s a credit to Mob Psycho 100’s masterful attention to these quiet spaces that the series doesn’t tell us anything but shows us instead. Reigen’s thoughts that these easily-tricked people are like friends to him is particularly telling and an emotional gut-punch. This is accompanied by lingering shots of shifting ice in his “lemon sour.” We later learn that, despite Reigen acting drunk and vomiting, there was no alcohol in this drink.

In an episode that’s all about Reigen’s static emotional state — especially when in comparison to Mob’s growth over these first six episodes of the season — it’s fitting that his loud, over-the-top personality is framed by these quiet moments. His alcohol-less lemon sour, the row of water coolers, the trembling in his fingers before clicking on a message from his mother — all of these set up his emotions and thoughts. When paired with sparsely-used bursts of frenetic energy, this is masterful work.

Just when I thought The Promised Neverland would run out of visual tricks to make conversations in various rooms of Grace Field House all the more intense, the series adds another layer of depth while heightening the emotions of all involved.

With the majority of The Promised Neverland taking place inside Grace Field House in tense conversations between the three main leads — and later the two additions of Don and Gilda — the series is pressed to find ways to make these visually interesting while adding extra tension. Frequently this is done through camera angles that either showcase a certain character’s unspoken perspective or reiterate the fact that these children (and Mom Isabella and Sister Krone) are always being watched. For example, in Episode 6, whenever a character looks out or is framed by one of the windows, the bars appear to box them in like the shot with Norman shown above. As they plot their escape, keeping us on edge as an audience through cinematography, sound design, or lighting is key to maintaining a stressful viewing experience that somewhat reflects the emotions felt by the children in the series.

Lighting takes center stage in Episode 6 as Don and Gilda go off on their own adventure while Emma shows Norman and Ray something she found in the library. Up until this point, lighting had been important, but it also hadn’t taken over an episode either. Most tension or added context was through shots like the one above where furniture visually separates Don and Gilda from Phil, who has just run into Mom’s room while Don and Gilda are sneaking around. Presumably knowing nothing of what Don and Gilda are doing — although the visuals cast doubt over Phil, as does his later contribution to Emma’s revelation of William Minerva and his messages in the library books — Phil is separated by the table that is out of focus in the foreground. The light source, a lamp on Mom’s desk, is conspicuously placed next to Don and Gilda, although Phil is also pictured in its light.

As Don and Gilda work their way into Mom’s secret room, their primary source of light is a lantern. The lantern’s more directed light allows for The Promised Neverland to play with what that light illuminates and what it doesn’t based on Don and Gilda’s discoveries. Here, the faces of the two are lit as Conny’s Little Bunny looms in the foreground.

There are a lot of parallels between Don and Emma — both are guided primarily by their emotions and love of their family members — and here, the lighting unites their initial reactions that lead to their eventual acceptance that Mom is not to be trusted. In their breathless run during the first episode, Emma is slow to accept that Mom is the enemy, practically begging Norman to tell her otherwise even though she already realizes, deep down, that this is the truth. Here, we see Gilda speaking her thoughts aloud, realizing that there’s no way that Little Bunny or any of their other former family members’ beloved trinkets would be here if they had truly been adopted as Mom said. Don’s reaction is to back out of the light, telling Gilda to stop it.

He inadvertently stumbles into a bookshelf that reveals Mom’s hidden radio setup, and here is where the pieces fall into place for Don. Don comes back into the light as he talks about how not only is Mom hiding so much from them, but the fact that Norman, Emma, and Ray definitely haven’t told he or Gilda the entire truth.

The transition from Don saying that he can’t trust the main trio anymore because they don’t believe in Gilda or himself is particularly interesting. Emma, Norman, and Ray’s scene in the library runs concurrently with Don and Gilda in Mom’s secret room. The Promised Neverland swaps between these two conversations, knitting them together and inviting comparison. It also pointedly shows Norman, Emma, and Ray in the same level of lighting — which comes from a lantern that they lit themselves in the library — all on the same plane. They come into focus together. They’re united as three. Meanwhile, throughout Don and Gilda’s simultaneous discovery in Mom’s room, the two are in stark lantern lighting that doesn’t show them and their surroundings equally. Don and Gilda aren’t considered equals to the main trio and the lighting reiterates this.

Lighting also plays a large role in Don’s conflict with the main trio and eventual resolution. The Promised Neverland keeps the dramatic lantern lighting for their fistfight, and also uses it to isolate Ray from Norman — Ray never thought that Norman should have lied to Don and Gilda about Conny possibly being safe.

When Emma and Norman go to Don and Gilda to apologize, all four of them are shown in the lantern’s light, uniting them.

Ray stands outside of the group until Norman and Emma bring him in, through moving the lantern and also verbally inviting him. This episode hinted — through an offscreen discovery by Norman — that Ray is up to something separate from what they’re planning as a unit. Based on Norman’s reaction, it isn’t a bad thing, and here we see continued effort to keep Ray in the company of friends. If the lighting is anything to go by, Ray will continue to have to be reminded that he too is part of the group, despite being a “traitor.”

The largest mystery of The Promised Neverland was solved once Emma and Norman learned the true nature of Grace Field House in the first episode, informing the viewing audience by extension. Once the mystery is solved, the story is driven by thrills and suspense — dozens of smaller mysteries and hints at an unknown outside world while characters are pitted against each other, forced to assume or approximate how much, or little, they know.

These gaps of information force the characters and the audience to assume or guess as to who knows what. In these gaps, The Promised Neverland shines. Minute details — even the in-universe flowers unique to this series — can be mined for information as can certain framing choices and lighting. This series is specific and directed in what it wants us to notice. Not everything is important but, like Emma, Norman, and even Ray, we don’t know the importance of certain facts or items and can be drawn towards things that aren’t as important through manipulation from Mom Isabella, Krone, or the series’ camera respectively.

Keeping all of this in mind, the series also gives us Phil.

Phil is a younger child at Grace Field House who is first shown during Emma’s energetic character introduction that opens Episode 1. He approaches Emma for help tying his shoes and she carries him down the stairs like an older sister would a younger brother, establishing their dynamic and also Emma’s assumed role within their orphanage “family.” We think little of him in the same way that we regard the black and blond-haired characters on either side of Emma — they’re her younger brothers, and she loves playing with them and helping them.

I don’t remember their names, but I do remember Phil’s. This is because, at a crucial moment in Episode 4 where Ray tells Emma to suspect all of her Grace Field House siblings as potential traitors, Phil’s name comes up as a possibility. We’re told that he has high test scores for his young age, and is one of the more observant children generally. Ray turns out to be the traitor in question, but the series wants us to know about Phil, or at least be able to recall his name.

So begins Phil as a recurring theme throughout the series.

Returning to previous episodes before Ray tells us to suspect him (via Emma) reveals that the series visually separates him from his peers, even in group shots, both before and after Ray brings him up as a potential traitor. Following the fourth and fifth episodes, we know that Ray is the admitted spy for Isabella, but there are similar visual hints to Phil that mirror how the series sowed the seeds for Ray’s betrayal before Norman’s accusation. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Phil is a spy like Ray, but The Promised Neverland wants us to pay attention to Phil for some reason.

Phil comes up time and time again at opportune moments. It’s Phil that discovers Don and Gilda in Isabella’s room, scaring them because they thought it was Isabella herself. In that moment, he is purposefully separated from Don and Gilda visually by a table. Phil is also present in the concurrent plot line to Don and Gilda’s snooping — he’s the one that tells Emma about the morse code in William Minerva’s library books. He stumbles upon Sister Krone as she is snooping through Ray’s belongings and asks her what she is doing. Phil is everywhere, especially once the series first mentions him specifically in Episode 4. With growing tension around the children’s escape as well as both Isabella and Krone, Phil’s actions and appearances are never in a vacuum. They’re framed by the tension of The Promised Neverland itself.

Yet, there’s little to suggest that Phil is a traitor outside of the fact that he’s visually presented as a child who sneaks around frequently. His poses range from shushing Don and Gilda to sneaking down the hallway en route to discovering Krone’s secret search. He’s intelligent and shrewd, but never outwardly deceptive. Phil is given a prominent position in the opening, but is also shown holding Emma’s hand in a gesture of solidarity and trust. He receives similar visual cutaways to Don and Gilda before they were told the truth by Norman, Emma, and Ray. This tells us to pay attention to him, but doesn’t frame him as any sort of traitor or spy.

This could all be a ruse — something to distract the audience’s attention or keep us guessing while the children themselves try to stay a few steps ahead of Isabella, Krone, and the system itself — but when The Promised Neverland decides to point out something through the series’ camera, it’s usually for a specific purpose. Phil’s actions, and the camera, don’t paint him as a traitor, but he’ll likely be important in episodes to come.

Since the series’ second episode, The Promised Neverland had settled into a pattern. Episode 8 broke that pattern, visually, aurally, and narratively.

Despite ongoing tension and periods of heightened excitement or fear, there was an unspoken understanding that everything was moving forward fairly unhindered. Challenges were placed in front of the children — like Ray’s role as Mom Isabella’s spy, the main trio of Norman, Emma, and Ray’s misunderstanding and lack of communication with Don and Gilda, or Sister Krone’s discovery of their escape plans — but at the end of each episode, even if it was a small cliffhanger, the action progressed. The children continued to plot their escape from Grace Field House.

Emma’s leg break, a masterful move from Isabella (and by her own hands, no less) shatters this idea of moving forward. With the gristly cracking sound — the brutality of the action itself is shown offscreen — the children’s plans are, at the very least, significantly altered, if not halted altogether.

This shift is present throughout the entire episode which is off-balance for its entirety.

It begins with Sister Krone, whose expected demise is supplemented by shots like the one above. Grace Field House’s main gate in the background becomes a guillotine, making it clear that Krone’s death is imminent. The ground is slightly at an angle, placing everything off-balance. Krone bought into the system, presumably did everything that was asked of her, and yet when she reports on Isabella’s rule-breaking, is told that none of it matters. Then she is killed. The ground shifts.

This shot is revisited with Isabella’s betrayal of Ray. Ray assumed that he had Isabella well in hand, even after he decided to turn on her and report to Norman and Emma. Here, Isabella looms over him in a shot that mirrors Krone’s realization prior to her death. Ray realizes that he no longer has any power over Isabella, and possibly never did. The ground shifts again. Isabella punctuates this scene by physically shoving Ray into the room and locking the door, telling him that his plans and reports no longer matter. This preys on Ray’s entire self.

It’s not simply that he’s now unable to stop Isabella en route to catching Emma and Norman, but that he also valued the information and (in his mind) symbiotic relationship he had with Isabella from providing her information. He wasn’t like the other Grace Field House kids, he was special and received certain privileges for being special.

The ground shifts most dramatically after Isabella breaks Emma’s leg. With that one action, she attacks both Emma (whose physical strength is a key part of her sense of self) and Norman (whose courage comes from Emma’s mental fortitude). An incapacitated Emma is as much of a liability as the youngest child, not to mention that Isabella carrying a defeated Emma in her arms is a purposeful show of Isabella’s strength. Even to the children uninformed about Isabella or the nature of their situation, this intentionally reiterates to them that Isabella is in charge, and even visually frames it as an act of a caring, considerate mother.

When the ground shifts here, it shifts at the angle at which Emma’s leg was broken before fading and swirling in transition. Earlier in the episode, a similar fade out of focus was used as clouds moved over the gate and Krone as she died. The clouds themselves passed by rapidly, almost as if to mark a significant passage of time. Audio choices are important additions to the surrealistic setting and include the children eating as Krone is killed — capping off her death with a “Thank you that was delicious!” — and a jazzy number as Isabella blurs past Don and Gilda, letting them know that their plan has been, in some way, foiled. Due to these directorial choices, the effect is that this entire episode seems to take place out of time with the rest of The Promised Neverland anime. It’s almost otherworldly, and at the end, leaves both the children and the viewer reeling.

All of these choices serve to separate this episode from the rest. A large part of this episode’s visuals break down the assumptions of each character piece by piece. Krone thought if she bought into the system, she would eventually be rewarded. Instead it bought her only a small amount of time before her death, fraught with worry about competing against other Mom candidates and, eventually, Isabella. Ray thought he was special for reporting to Isabella. Instead, he was another tool in her arsenal. Norman thought that Emma would always be healthy and a driving force of his own courage. Emma thought that she would be able to use her physical prowess to solve a problem in the moment. Additionally, Emma likely never thought that Isabella would go as far as to break her leg, and there’s definitely a part of Emma that still wants to believe that Isabella isn’t “bad,” if not has a side that’s genuinely like the loving mom she grew up with. More than a physical break, it’s an emotional one that severs Emma’s last hopes that Isabella could be caring.

This episode tells us through visuals and audio cues that everything will be changed going forward, and then breaks a settled pattern of puzzles — albeit with large amounts of tension and a lack of information — for the children to solve with a large roadblock made up of several smaller obstacles.

The ninth episode of The Promised Neverland opens with the shot above — reminiscent of a triptych painting that can be folded in three. With this frame, episode director and storyboarder Hiroki Itai immediately grounds the episode and all events that follow. After a surreal eighth episode that set us off-balance with dutch angles, a spinning camera, and cuts that chop up two concurrent scenes, presenting them as a unit, paneling and more straightforward direction centers Episode 9. This episode stands alone with it’s visual strength, but also builds on what came before it with an ever-evolving in-universe camera.

Paneling is used in anime fairly frequently, whether it’s in a stricter manga style like Masaomi Andou’s Scum’s Wish or Shouko Nakamura’s efforts in Mawaru Penguindrum (pictured above) and Doukyuusei that use backgrounds to create natural panels. Panels serve to isolate characters in specific situations, giving us further insight on their relationship with other characters in a scene, or their current mental state.

The plant at Grace Field House where the children are being raised is a European-style house with a lot of clean lines and sharp angles. It’s a perfect background for environmental paneling, and Itai uses this to his advantage in Episode 9 of The Promised Neverland.

Here we see Emma lying in bed after Isabella broke her leg. We can’t see her face clearly, but through paneling, the scene isolates her. She is small due to being viewed at a distance and made to look smaller by placing her in a center “panel” created by curtains on either side. There is an out-of-focus object in the foreground in the left panel and the right contains a wall and a small stool. Having recently suffered defeat not only because of a physical injury but due to Isabella’s complete, systematic dismantling of their escape plan, Emma is at her lowest in this scene and the way she is framed by environmental panels adds to the effect while also grounding her. The shot is on even ground, unlike the frequent angles of the previous episode. We’re not in the surreal moments of the plan failing, but in the aftermath, while reality is setting in as the children try to regroup.

We’ll return to this curtain setup several times throughout the episode, using the same panels to isolate, unite, or create distance between certain characters.

At the same time Emma is alone in bed, Norman walks the hallways of the house to bring her water. Once again, the shot is separated into three panels with the wall and window on the left, Norman at the sinks in the center, and another wall panel to the right. Like the scene with Emma, this is isolating Norman as he too is thinking through his impending shipment and death.

The moment that reality sets in, Norman is set off-center at an angle with a close-up of his face. It’s one of the few dutch angles used throughout the episode. All of them involve Norman.

When Norman returns, he finds Ray at Emma’s bedside. The lighting shifts to a soft red tone. Here, Emma is flanked on either side by Ray and Norman, who are helping make up the center panel borders. Their positions shift as they continue to talk.

As Emma formulates a plan while Norman shoots down Ray’s idea, she’s shown on the border with the green curtain behind her as Norman is positioned in the center and Ray is separated in his own panel to the left. Throughout the episode, Itai sticks to having three environmental panels, especially when the main trio is present. When Ray buys into Emma’s plan of breaking his own arm or falling ill to prevent being shipped out while Norman escapes, he leans into Emma’s center panel (pictured above) uniting them. Norman is still committed to dying, so he remains as part of the left panel’s border.

When Norman accepts that Ray and Emma won’t let him die, all three are united in a center panel.

And when Ray reveals that he has memories from being a fetus onward — explaining how he knew about the nature of the world from a younger age than all of them — he is visually separated again in a dark environmental panel to the left. Emma and Norman are united in the center.

This entire setup at Emma’s bedside, panels included, is revisited once Norman returns from the wall having gathered enough information to realize that he is doomed either way.

First, The Promised Neverland briefly returns to angled shots with Norman overlooking the wall to show how his thoughts have shifted. It then shows him walking back to the group — to Ray and Emma’s shock since he was supposed to disable his tracking device and escape — and siding with Isabella visually. The house in the background becomes Norman’s specific backdrop in this shot while Emma and Ray are placed to the left.

Then at Emma’s bedside, Ray leans in over Norman, questioning why he didn’t escape. The curtain has shifted, giving the scene a slightly less-grounded appearance even though it’s still shot straightforwardly. Here, Ray grabs Norman and both are messily placed at the panel border, encroaching on Emma’s center panel.

Ray then pushes Norman into a separate panel. Emma still is in the center. Ray becomes the border. Norman has been exiled to the right.

Once more, the series returns to an angled shot with Norman specifically — fitting, since he’s the one who has to accept his own death as the episode progresses. This time the camera rotates to put Norman level as he explains that beyond the wall was a cliff.

Finally, the ending shot of the episode returns to the angled looks from Episode 8. Norman stands with the cliff drawing a gigantic horizontal line that separates him from the outside world. This keeps in line with Itai’s commitment to dividing shots into thirds, but is more unsettling for its stark nature and also how it’s angled — at odds with most of the episode which is shot straightforwardly on even ground.