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.
