Flower and Asura – Episode 02

Welcome back to 2022

Episode Synopsis:

In an exercise blending introductions to both the mechanics of the broadcast club and and the people joining it, Hana is paired up to talk with fellow first-year Shudai so that they can introduce each other on tape. We learn that Shudai is mostly here for the effects/Foley aspect of a sound-based medium, and that, as a more laid-back person, he and the other lighter-haired first-year, the ambitious Anne, carry over some kind of rivalry, ostensibly instilled in them by the faculty advisors for the broadcast clubs in their respective middle schools.

The group then visits the high school’s recently-constructed and expansive recording studio, where they do some standard vocal exercises and stock readings. Anne defends her decision the previous year to switch from the Recitation category of Japan’s competitive junior broadcasting scene to Announcement, which was revealed earlier to have taken her to the national level, by saying that her voice is better suited to that style. The other other first-year, Matsuyuki, agrees with the wisdom in this – prompting Anne to make a quiet remark that Hana suspects might be indicative of a budding crush – but Anne clearly still resents being outdone by Hana’s take on their passage from literary classic Night on the Galactic Railroad…

Episode Review:

Imagine deciding to animate – and, more to the point, voice – a manga that revolves around subtle vocal distinctions. You’ve gotta be confident in your crew to bid something like this. I confess I’m not sure I have the ear to appreciate everything that’s going on here. Though it’s hard to tell with so few lines delivered by the pair while they’re “on” (and not the same ones, at that), the main difference I perceive between Hana and Anne is one of cadence, not timbre (if either of those are actually the right words) – which isn’t to say that there isn’t one, just that I have a harder time evaluating it. At any rate, both Anne and club vice-president Ryoko seem frustrated with the inherent qualities of their voices (the latter of which seems to be noticed only by the other upperclassman Setaro, a shy young man who has been otherwise disinterested in the whole endeavor).

If the name “Anne” seems suspiciously western, by the way, know that my research (looking the show up on anidb.net) reveals her given name to be 杏, spoken simply as “An” (out of the dozen or so readings that could be used – I hate kanji), and is not necessarily indicative of any ancestry involving U.S. military personnel, who make up between 1 and 2% of the population of Okinawa, which serves as the mainland relative to Tonaki Island in real life (now that I’ve said this, of course, I won’t be surprised to find out that it’s actually set on Kume Island, which is also larger than Tonaki and is slightly closer, but lies in the opposite direction as Okinawa proper). The official subs seem to use “Anne” in accordance with some existing precedent (a minor celebrity with the same given name uses “Anne” as a mononym), and I don’t doubt that many people would rather account for a slight phonetic disconnect than have to refer to or address someone with something that scans as one of English’s indefinite articles. </BrendanPretendsToBeAnAuthorityOnSomethingHeLearnedTwoMinutesAgo>

I really like the method of having the characters introduce each other to each other, since the blurbs end up doing double duty in terms of actively teaching us (and the other students) about their subjects while also letting us passively take in the vibes and mannerisms of the presenters. Feels like a fresh take on getting everyone up to speed that I don’t think I’ve even seen in the real world.

I’ve also been intrigued by Kenji Miyazawa references in anime ever since watching the animated Night on the Galactic Railroad. Both the book Hana reads to Shudai in the beginning of the episode and the book she’s holding in the ED are real, and come from a compilation series that’s almost as old as I am. With a large enough body of work to draw from, one can pick passages relevant to a wide variety of scenes in the present, which appears to be what’s going on here, between the bubbly bit for her introduction and the meditation on the nature of happiness read in the shadow of Anne’s dilemma regarding enjoyment vs. accomplishment. I’m going to have to spend the next major break I get from work turning my sty of an apartment upside down looking for the much smaller selection of his stories that I bought a couple of years ago and seem to have misplaced.

Summary:

Anne seems excessively high-strung, but the reason will surely be elaborated upon later – otherwise a well put-together introductory episode for the new setting and most of the five new characters.