The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window is slowly settling as one of those shows I watch despite of itself. Like I know all the flaws in this series. There are quite a few. And I wouldn’t say anything in it makes up for those flaws. It just hasn’t annoyed me enough to break through the impressive anime inertia I’ve got going.
And this episode is another example. Oh, wait, for once I’m not just going to give it away. Let me explain what I mean instead.
I know at least two people that are super into Erika as a character. I’m sorry to say, I still don’t get it. It’s not like I hate the character but at this point that might be better. I just deeply and profoundly could not care less about her or her storyline. At all. Part of it is the cliché but there are other characters just as trite that I kind of like. Maybe I’m just not vibing with the character design at all. She was cuter as a kid. I can’t explain it but she could be replaced by digital noise and I would probably be more intrigued.
However, as I have mentioned before, I do like Mikado’s mother a lot! And I enjoy it when they share scenes. Right now, I can’t really explain why I like one character a lot and the other not at all. But I can say that having half the episode be a flashback to Kou’s childhood with his mom was a great way to win me over. I like the character even more now! The jury’s still out on the dad. I guess they could make him into an interesting point of conflict but I could just as easily see it turning into a melodramatic mess.
I was quite sad when a reader told me last week that the comedy was going to disappear from this show. It’s the part I like the most and in fact, I only added The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window to my to-watch list because it was billed as a comedy. Thankfully, we still got a couple of really good lines this week. For instance, Mikado getting kidnapped and asking about the model of the car before anything else, Keita’s constant double entendres (I think the boy only knows how to speak double entendre) and Mikado’s mom’s great line about working as a civil servant so being used to being around disabled co-workers. I mean, that’s not an accident. That’s shade right there. And I love it.
Oh, and the lady on the street was creepy. They really know how to make random creepy street people. But the melting animation was just sad. I am admittedly a little sore about the fact that the production is so bare-bones. The material would allow for some fantastic visuals but I don’t think the budget does. It doesn’t seem like an incompetent production, just one that’s strapped for resources and I think it’s hindering my enjoyment of the experience.
Fact is, this was probably my favourite episode to date. I guess as long as Mikado is with anyone other than Rihito, it’s already an improvement. In fact, Rihito was hardly there which I think helped. So I had no interest in the first half of the episode but enjoyed a few jokes through it, and I actually liked the more serious second half. So I’m going to keep watching The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window. I’m not going to recommend it to anyone though.
