A lot of my fellow bloggers got very excited about The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window and a few recommended it to me. Since it was already on my will eventually watch list I figured, why not, I’ll give it a try!
Oh, and I decided to do a bunch of short episode reviews this season. YAY!
In short. my experience with the first episode of The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window was rather mixed. This is supposedly a BL title but so far it’s the type of BL where the sex is replaced by something else, in this case, bustin ghosts… no really. You know how everyone obviously orgasms when tasting a new dish in Food Wars. Same concept but more touchy-feely and with ghosts.
Now I realize that when you just spell it out like that, it sounds like the most amazing show in the world! But my issue is that the ersatz sexual activities were of mostly dubious consent and even downright forced. And that’s just not my thing. Actually, it’s something I find just unpleasant to watch. So I didn’t have as much fun with those early scenes as I could have. They creeped me out a bit.
Now I am aware that The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window is a comedy. I usually prefer my comedies a little more silly. I figured if the humour was going to rely entirely on the inuendos, it would wear thin very quickly. But the concept, with Mikado himself serving as a sort of containment unit, is admittedly pretty hilarious. I would prefer if they leaned into the melodrama more to make it ridiculous. Although that last scene with Hiyakawa seemingly squeezing and drinking blood out of a heart was kind of awesome. I got a good chuckle out of it.
All and all, I would call this first episode average. I liked some things, I didn’t like others. The production was fine but unremarkable. The most interesting thing about it was that there was no score for the first third of the episode. The dialogue is a bit tedious but if they just make it a little more awkward, it would be quite funny in my opinion. I do think there is plenty of room for the show to grow into something I would enjoy though, so I’m not giving up on it but for now, I’m mostly ambivalent.
I did watch the trailer with a certain sense of curiosity and trepidation. On the one hand I was attracted to the mystery element of a ghost hunt and all the supernatural stuff that looked intriguing. However, the BL subplot seemed rather, ummm lopsided? It didn’t seem totally consensual even in the trailer I saw and the fact you are saying the similar things makes me want to take a moment to pause and think… Let’s hope this is but a stutter and things will improve for the better. If worst comes to worst there are plenty of other fish in the sea!
I would say I’m cautiously optimistic. I would say the latter half of the episode improved so that’s a good sign for me.
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The consent issue isn’t actually the worst I’ve seen, but it’s also not the lightest, and I don’t like it, but here I can sort of turn a blind eye (I don’t know why here and not elsewhere; it’d be interesting to figure out). Those weirdly coloured scenes from the main’s pov, when he sees the ghosts? They’re not good for my photosensitivity. All in all, I’m not sure how far I’ll get with the show, but I’m definitely still watching episode 2.
Oh I can see those visions being an issue. I have absolutely no photosensitivity or motion sickness but those particular colour choices somehow seemed like they could give a person a headache