The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window ep12- So Long and Goodnight

Posted on by Irina

Dawn is finally breaking for The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window. Because it’s over. I dunno, it made sense in my head.

I’m a pretty simple girl as far as they go. I’m easy to manipulate and pretty easy to please. Especially if there are lots of colours and pretty moving pictures involved. I’m also a sucker for a happy ending. I’ve been raised on Disney after all. Actually not really but I still like Disney a lot.

This said, even though I,m such a simple soul, I do appreciate it when a series has the chutzpah to stick to a downer ending. Or even better, a bittersweet one. You know, the type where no one is happy… I have come to accept the fact that not every narrative can cater to my personal toddler sensibilities (even though they would be much better that way). As such, I’m not going to blame The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window for its bummer ending.

If you remember, things were off to a pretty good start last week. Mikado had either killed or put his own father into a coma. Potentially deeply emotionally scarring his one and only mother in the process. Causing deep pain o the woman that had sacrificed everything to diligently protect and love him his entire life.

Also, the most likeable and least developed character in the entire series was slowly and literally falling to pieces for nebulous reasons and the second most likeable character had been turned into a zombie. Good times all around.

And for a while there, it looked like The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window was going to keep that momentum going. There was a lot of random talk about mountain climbing. OK, it wasn’t completely random but still. There was also a whole lot of feeeeelings being thrown around and ricocheting around the room and threatening to hit someone right in the…forehead.

But then, things went south. First Rihito revert back to his non-cute form which was tragic enough already. I understand that it was sort of inevitable but it’s still a blow. Then, of course, everyone immediately forgave any past behaviour and treated him as their beloved friend and potential lover.

I thought that the past few episodes might have softened me up to the idea of a Rihito redemption. And putting him as the damsel in distress. Well, in all honesty, I should have seen it coming. It really is the easiest and most common way for a story to try and make us forget that a character sucks. Make them a little vulnerable and the hearts of the audience will melt.

Well, that’s not going to work on me, baby! My heart is already 98% melted Half Baked ice cream. I,m immune to these little tricks (I’m really not but I strongly dislike this character). And so, sadly, after all the progress Mikado had made, he finally succumbs to Stockholm syndrome and decides to continue working alongside Rihito for weirdly sexual ghostbusting.

And that’s it.

When it’s all said and done, The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window wasn’t a Bad show. It had its moments and from what I can tell, it did appeal to a certain audience. But I found it frustrating because I believe that it had the potential to be either a truly compelling supernatural drama or an absolutely hilarious mess and it missed out on both of them. In my opinion. I also miss all the dirty jokes of the early episode. However, as I write this, I’m not entirely sure I would skip a second season were it to get made. I can’t explain it…

Did you guys watch The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window all the way to the end? What did you think of it?

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4 thoughts on “The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window ep12- So Long and Goodnight”

  1. I watched it to the end, and I didn’t really like the show, yet weirdly I never missed an episode and I was actually disappointed when it ended and I wouldn’t have another episode to watch. I don’t know what it was about the Tricornered Window, but it was kind of addictive.

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  2. I’ve often wondered, while watching the show, why Rihito bothers me less than the type usually does. For what it’s worth, I feel the final romantic moment (and it felt like a romantic moment even to dense aromantic me) between him and Mikado was totally unearned (at least from what we’ve seen on screen). I don’t like them as a couple, though I’m fine with them being friends.

    So the best I could come up with about the question of Rihito is this: the show has plausibly presented him as immature; he basically never grew up and had an aweful upbringing to boot. And he’s powerful. That’s different from the usual self-centred narcissist. He’s still extremely self-centred, but not – as I see it – a narcissist. It’s not that he thinks he deserves to be saved by “his fate”; he just does what’s good for him because he thinks (deep down, world-view wise – rather than up-front intellectually) that’s how the world works.

    And the second factor is: while Mikado did “save” him in the end, he’s actually only been able to do so because the cop laid the ground work over years. Seriously, the cop is probably my favourite character in this show. Taking his responsibility seriously, doing things that go beyond duty, because he’s just basically a good person. And here’s the thing: he took personal responsibility for this strange kid (they didn’t have kids of their own, as far as I remember?), quasi-adopting him, but also sort of keeping an eye on him. And the final episode remembers this and drives the point home, making sure we know he deserves part of the glory.

    I thought that was a pretty satisfying season finale, but it doesn’t feel like a story end to me. People say, it wasn’t a very good adaption, so I maybe should check out the source (which I won’t because I never do). I liked the show more than I thought it would. I thought it would end up near the seasonal bottom, but I think it’s more near the middle actually. Let me do a perfunctory season ranking to see where it comes in:

    Ousama Ranking
    Heike Monogatari
    Aquatope
    Mushuko Tensei 2
    Mieruko chan
    Taishou Otome Otogibanashi
    Blue Period
    World Trigger 3
    Faraway Paladin
    Komi-san
    Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu
    Let’s Make a Mug, too 2
    (Long title, something about hero party and slow country life)
    Visual Prison (I didn’t know where to put this…)
    Tricornered Window
    Sakugan
    86 (Most erratic show on the list; can jump many, many places depending on the last episode I watched)
    Annoying Sempai
    Shaman King
    Takt.op Destiny
    Scarlet Nexus
    The Great Jahy Won’t be Defeated
    Vampire Dies in No Time
    World’s Best Assassin… isekai
    Re-incarnation Fruit… isekai
    Platinum End (against better judgement still not dropped)

    Around 15/26 (+ 3 dropped) That’s pretty much in the middle (considering that shows bounce around the most in the middle field, that’s not quite precise).

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    1. I haven’t watched that much this season yet but I also think Ranking of Kings is amazing and I’m currently really loving Blue Period. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers love Takt.op.
      For me Tricornered was very uneven. Some episodes were pretty good but a lot of them bored me so I often put it at about the same level of enjoyment as Platinum End. BTW I agree with your Platinum End ranking.
      And it’s not about Rihito. I have very little issue with characters being garbage people. It really is the pacing and plot that I couldn’t get into that much

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