Subculture Anime Blog

Are you constantly being ignored? Are you a victim of constant criticism? Please call this number at…

Summary:

While going through an album, Usui Kagero describes how he has been ignored throughout his entire life. Kagero gets bumped into by a stranger and almost gets hit by a car, until he sees Nozomu and some of his classmates show up. When she students asks what Nozomu is doing at such a place, he tells them that he is trying to leave the shade. Nozomu gives many examples of how things are hidden by being put in the shade of other things. The class goes to the pool, where a large crowd is gathering around Kaere. She gets all the attention until Chie arrives, putting her into the shade. Nozomu later finds a 1,000 yen bill on the ground, so he reports it to the police. He believes that this will bring him out of the shade, but Kafuka appears with a huge case of money in. Kafuka tells Nozomu that he just hasn’t realized the good of the shade, and gives examples of things that wouldn’t be possible without it. One of those things is a silhouette quiz, which Kafuka demonstrates. She reveals Kagero upon lifting the glass panel, but nobody realizes who he is. Kagero exclaims that he is the class president, but Nozomu has always believed that Chiri was the president. Kafuka doesn’t believe that it is possible for a person to go on so unnoticed, so she calls Kagero a fairy. Nozomu decides to find an alternative to his plan, which makes Kagero run off into the distance in sadness.

The class finds that Nozomu is late on another day, but he is brought in by Chie. Nozomu believes that the class is criticizing him, so he starts describing people who cannot live their life normally after receiving criticism. A man enters after hearing his speech, who starts criticizing members of the class in various ways. Kagero expects that he will be criticized next, but the man actually criticizes the person behind him. This makes him despair at the thought that nobody realizes the he exists. However, as the wind blows through the room, the hair on the top of his head gets blown to the side. This makes everyone suddenly realize that he is there, but this also makes Kagero fear that he will be criticized for it. Before anyone can criticize him, he criticizes himself. This doesn’t quite work, as the entire class still wants to say something about his hair. Seeing that this will cause trouble for Kagero, Kafuka quickly summons Chie to criticize him. She believes that being criticized by a beautiful person will be less harsh. Kagero finds that being criticized by a beautiful person somehow feels good. This continues, but as the wind blows his hair to the side again, he once again disappears.

Impression:

I saw a Loveless parody, MTV parody, and several movie parodies in this episode. I didn’t expect Kagero to actually have his own episode, as he just came off as a gag character on the side. I can probably see his problem of being ignored in a real situation. Many people just go unnoticed no matter what they do. Sometimes, these people will go as far as they can to try to be noticed, even if it is in a negative way. I’ve seen this in person actually, as I’ve befriended a few of these kinds of people in the past. They’ll get into drugs, hurt themselves, dress horribly, and insult themselves. Kagero’s self criticism held true as well. People will hurt themselves before anyone else can, believing that it will help. Is that really the case? I’m pretty sure we’ve all heard of the negative effects that words can actually have on someone (that also reminds me of a certain xxxHolic episode!). I’m not too sure if being criticized by a beautiful person really hurts less than being criticized by anyone else, but I guess it could make sense. Nozomu’s description of being put in the shade by other things kind of went hand in hand with some of the events of the last episode. Someone could be considered great at times, but when someone greater appears, they are just put in their shadow. Kafuka also comes out with an optimistic (though ridiculous) reasoning that those in the shade are also necessary. Sometimes, everyone just needs to realize their place.

I’m sorry if I’m being a hypocrite with my impressions of this show. I tend to avoid “anime is serious business”, but I think this show has very serious undertones despite being a comedy. I just see this show as being one that can really reach out to those who actually suffer from these kinds of problems, and it really deserves to be realized. Blogging is really about opinion, so I hope you guys don’t mind my “rants”. Maybe some of you can even agree with me. If not, hopefully you can still enjoy my summaries.