This may have been the best episode yet. It was beautifully directed, storyboarded, and animated, in my opinion. The music was used very well, and the camera angles and movement were lovely. And so was the emotional story.The episode director turns out to have been the director of four InuYasha movies, as well as of episodes of Oniisama-e and Samurai Deeper Kyo: Shinohara Toshiya. The storyboard was by Yabuki Tsutomu, director of the current shows Keitai Shoujo and Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo. Animation supervisor was Nagaya Yuriko, who has done other episodes of this show, as well as of PetoPeto-san, and did key animation on Bottle Fairy. The animation had a special sharpness this time, it seemed to me, while still not straying from the model.We pan over Kayo's photos of Mugi, Chitose, Nono, et al., displayed during the school festival. Mirei's voice says: Nono, is this the miracle you have left behind? Great power and great support come together in this time and place. Then we see the audience in the theatre, amazed by Mugi's big voice. Mirei's voice says it changed the whole mood in the theatre.Mugi's character says she hates the way she is, and invites the fairies to change it. We feel that Mugi herself is saying it, too. The other members of the Drama Club say to Chitose that now they realize what she meant. Mugi seems like another person.Title: I'll never forget this day!Mugi's character confesses to Kai's character on stage, and Kai's character surprises her by saying he's always felt the same toward her. And now that she is happy, the fairies disappear: only the unhappy can see them.Kai's character is called away, and Mugi has a soliloquy. She thanks the fairies. Even though she can't see them, she knows they're there. Kayo, in the audience, is crying over how well Mugi is acting. Mugi says that she's alive, that she enjoys it, that even though there will be hard times ahead, it's okay. It might have been an illusion, a "petal(hitohira)-dream," but she thanks them anyway. The fairies see many sad people in the world -- in the audience -- and prepare to go and help them. Finally, in the dark, you hear Risaki's voice saying: "Hey, you there...."They go offstage, and Risaki is happy they got through it. Then the applause begins. Kai says Mugi is great. Katsuragi says it's a big success. Risaki embraces Mugi. Mugi can hardly get her breath. Nono leads them out for a curtain call. Mugi is crying. Kayo and Chitose have tears in their eyes.Outside, the two drama clubs are collecting balls -- votes -- from the students. Kayo tells Mugi she was moved. Chitose says it was thrilling. Mirei tells Nono she should go to the hospital.Next, the student council president announces the counting of votes. Amazingly, she is played by Saitou Chiwa, who is great, but doesn't sound like Chiwa at all. Nono and Mirei pull balls from their club's voting boxes one at a time. In the end, Mirei has more. The Drama Study Group must disband.Kayo is taking pictures of the outside of the Drama Study Group's room while they are inside meeting for the last time. Risaki apologizes to Kai for dragging him in and thanks him for doing it. I think he complains about the criticism (hyou) she gave him, and she says yes, there was a panther (hyou) and briefly has on a panther costume.Katsuragi asks Nono if she's okay, and she says she will go to the hospital on the way home. Katsuragi says he's happy he was there. He recalls the day he found Nono sitting crying over not being able to act, and loaned her his handkerchief. He was also in the Drama Club, and she told him the whole story. It was he who suggested she make her own club. He was surprised when she really did, and when he half-heartedly offered to quit the Drama Club, too, she took it for granted that he would. Risaki admits that she left the Drama Club after a fight with Mirei over whether Nono should be allowed to act: "She should be able to do what she likes with her own body." Kai says that he wasn't interested in anything in particular, and thought acting would be fun.Mugi says that she has experiences so many different things in the six months since she entered school: laughing, crying, anger, having terrible things said to her, feeling very hurt -- but also such kindness. She really feels badly now. (Outside, the clean-up crew is tearing down her poster.) If she had practiced more diligently from the beginning, maybe.... Risaki tells her that they were always going to have to disband, and anyway she herself is graduating. But at least they went out in a blaze of glory. Nono, haltingly in her broken voice, says she is so glad she brought Mugi into the club. Weeping with gratitude now, Mugi says she is glad she joined the club, too.Kayo has been outside eavesdropping, and says how good it is that Mugi has made close frinds. Leaving, she meets Chitose, and says Mugi seems okay. Happy Chitose bounds down the stairs chanting Katsuragi's name, but stops around the corner when she sees the club sadly taking down their sign.Nono accepts the sign from Katsuragi, and formally declares the club disbanded, thanking them all for their work. Chitose is secretly weeping. The club members disappear, one by one. Mugi's voiceover says that it was only a "petal-dream" (a petal of dream? a dream of petals? maybe this refers to something fleeting, like cherry-blossoms) and says goodbye to the Drama Study Group.Preview: Mugi, Kai, and Chitose at a shrine on New Year's Day. They all get the best possible fortune-cards. Mugi says that although it was a happy Christmas party.... "Kayo-chan, why?" Title: "Always together."
Read the rest of this entry Entry meta