As things progress towards fulfilling what is probably Menma’s wish, Jinta starts backing off from the goal that he himself put before the group. Menma has revealed herself conclusively to the group. It’s no longer in doubt that she exists and can interact with the others. The firework rocket is back on track. But now Jinta isn’t so sure that he wants what he’s been after. Naruko’s statement of the obvious, that Menma would disappear when her wish is granted, has finally sunk in. And speaking of Naruko, things go in a different direction between her, Yukiatsu, and Tsuruko.
This was more of a setup episode than anything else, where several things are either resolved or set in motion for next time. First among this is that the characters are given definitive proof of Menma’s presence when she and Jinta bake bread again and serve it to them. Now Menma starts moving objects around them in plain sight. I guess that it had to happen at some point, but I’m not quite sure what I think of it being so matter of fact. The others had to be convinced eventually but it seems like the drama has come out of the ghost aspect of the story a little. Though an odd point was when Menma couldn’t write anything on the paper Jinta gave her, but we know that she has written in her old diary.
I’d ship it.
Looks like Jinta is a Gundam 00 fan. And a Celestial Being supporter at that. That’s a shame.
Jinta’s grown accustomed to having Menma back and the feeling just grows from here.
Menma’s mother preventing the fireworks maker from producing the rocket still remains a problem until Yukiatsu intervenes. He and Tsuruko find Menma’s father as he’s going to his car and appeal to him to allow the rocket to be built. He doesn’t want to leave his wife stuck in the past, but seems noncommittal until Yukiatsu gets on his hands and knees and begs him to allow things to go forward. He mentions how he feels stuck in the past like Menma’s mother. But most jarringly to Tsuruko, he unhesitatingly says that he was in love with Menma. His surprising confession and begging works, so the firework rocket is now back on track. Though I get the feeling that this won’t be the last of Menma’s mother and her involvement in things. The next day the group arrives to help out with some of the rocket construction. Menma is with them too, and now that Jinta can be open about her presence Naruko is hit full force by how much she’s still at the center of Jinta’s life. Even now she can’t win out against her, which is an upsetting enough thought to send her running away for a bit under the pretext of buying some juice. Yukiatsu follows, feeling the same unbearable suffocating feeling of being with Jinta and Menma like that. He really shows how much he’s been improving over time when he tries to comfort her, wiping away a tear and seeming like he was going to hug her before she swatted away his hand. She apologizes and he mentions that he was serious when he asked her to go out with him, though considering her response and his counter, it’s hard to tell if he’s just provoking her or not. Still, it wasn’t in a mean spirited way even if he was joking. But the two are getting along a lot better now, even acting as close as they might have once been. However, Tsuruko has followed them and was watching the whole scene. I’d be all aboard the Yukiatsu X Naruko ship if he was serious about it, but whether that was genuine or not, this could certainly lead to some interesting moments between those two and Tsuruko.
He really threw himself into that. Not even a bit of hesitation in begging Menma’s father or admitting his feelings for Menma.
Mmmm, fierce Tsuruko.
That has to be tough for Naruko. Now it’s not just Jinta’s memories of her, it’s the actual presence of Menma.
I don’t know what it is, but I really like these two together. Ship! Ship! Ship! Ship!
Awwwwww.
This could get interesting.
The final scenes in this episode hint at some past events as well as set up the final episodes. Poppo gets a short but potentially significant scene after Jinta leaves the clubhouse to go to work at the construction site. He and Menma are left there and he tries to get her to communicate by writing. This time she is able to write, in her old diary. For whatever reason she can write in this but not on the paper at Jinta’s house, though I have a thought on that at the end. They ‘talk’ for a moment like this when Poppo starts asking something about the day that she died, but he stutters and hesitates and eventually just drops the topic in favor of playing games. He was asking about himself in connection with the day’s events, which makes me wonder what role he had in any of it since he seemed to be the most irrelevant in the flashbacks we’ve yet seen. They presumably continue for a while until Menma leaves for a walk along the bridge where she spots something down in the water. She heads down there just in time for Jinta to come looking for her. He doesn’t find her at home after work and starts running, worried for no reason that he can put his finger on, looking for her. Eventually he comes to the bridge where he sees her on the riverbank waving at him. Seeing her by the river certainly doesn’t make him any calmer, so he runs full tilt down the embankment, trips, and rolls out onto the bank. It evidently brings up memories for her, since she jumps on him, crying, and says that she doesn’t want him to die. But after a moment things are calmer and she talks about the koi fish she thought she saw, though Jinta tenses up again when she does to the water’s edge and he grabs her from behind and says to stay with him forever. Before catching himself and simply saying for her to stay put while he goes into the water. But it’s definitely apparent how he’s veered off from wanting to grant her wish and allow her to disappear into the afterlife.
Why’d you back off, Poppo!?
Jinta, receiving a Shiro Amada face scratch for his haste.
The ripples in the water was cool, but I really loved this shot out of anything in the scene. The blue of the river, the reflections, the contrasting colors of their clothing, and the dark forest isolating them from the town above.
Final Thoughts: - Menma’s being revealed to the group certainly makes sense given her ability to interact with objects, but something about it feels weird. Like some of the magic has gone out of it. I guess it was inevitable when you have a reveal like that, but I’m not used to seeing a ghost character become so widely known to living characters. It doesn’t ruin anything, but it’s just an odd feeling.
- Menma not being able to write on the paper at Jinta’s house but being able to write in her old diary was odd at first since she can interact with objects normally otherwise. But I’m guessing that she needs some sort of connection to be able to write. A connection to something from when she was alive, like her diary or the clubhouse wall that she wrote on. Both were her’s when she was alive, and both are the only two mediums upon which she is able to write on. It almost feels like it gives her existence plausible deniablity. If she can only write on objects of her’s/that she was around when she was alive, then there can’t be any conclusive proof that she didn’t write those things before she died.
- Only two episodes left. I imagine that the story of fulfilling Menma’s wish can be wrapped up satisfyingly in that amount of time, but it feels like things have just begun. At least to me. I’d love for the show to have four or five episodes left instead of two, to give more time to tell the story of how the group of friends have moved on after Menma’s eventual departure.
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There are still so many loose ends, I wonder if they can manage to squeeze it all into two weeks :O
I’m confident that there’s enough time to finish telling the story of Menma and her wish, but I am concerned that that will leave little to no time to show what happens to all the other characters. Things like whether Jinta and Naruko get together, what Poppo will do now, etc etc. And those are things that I’d really like to see how they play out. But let us hope that they make excellent use of the time they have left.
I’m all for addressing the Menma issue, but the thing that stays with me are the living characters and their relationships. If that falters in the end due to a lack of focus, it will definitely lower the overall quality. Menma may be the focus, but she’s not the most important thing in the story. I hope that’s what the writers prioritise in the end. Moving on as a theme and what not.
Maybe material for an OVA, or multiple ones, following the other characters after whatever happens with Menma?
Definitely a possibiity. Ano Hana seems pretty popular but have noitamina series ever done post-broadcast stuff like that?
I’d love an extra episode or two,but I have the feeling that it’s unlikely with this show. Just doesn’t seem like the kind of show that would release extra episodes or OVAs, despite its popularity.
There is precedent for noitaminA shows releasing extra episodes though. Shiki has episode 20.5 and another extra episode coming out in a few days.
Menma should have just showed herself weeks ago, that would have saved everyone a lot of crying and fighting.
Plus, I just can’t be brought to care about Jinta anymore since he’s clearly enamored with Menma… who has been dead for close to a decade. He needs to move on, really. I have no love for a character who’s so obviously backwards about everything.
At least the other characters like Yukiatsu are actually making strides towards normalcy. And though Yukiatsu might be obsessed with Menma, he’s brutally honest about everything and admits the ridiculousness of his situation. Unlike Jinta, who parades around the fact that he can see Menma like it’s no big deal.
Menma showing herself earlier would’ve made more sense, unless there was some reason that she couldn’t or didn’t want to until now. Maybe she felt more comfortable around them now that they’re working with Jinta? Or maybe she’s become powerful enough to manifest that way because more people are remembering her now? The other possibility being that it was just written that way for maximum drama.
Jinta does need to move on, but I can’t blame him that much. It was a pretty traumatic experience and he was quite young when it happened. But if he wants to be happy and have any sort of normal life then he really does need to let Menma go.
Yukiatsu has quickly become one of my favorites. As you said, he’s honest and can face how he’s still hung up on Menma, even if he needs to do it in a self-deprecating or sarcastic way most of the time.
Well since Yukiatsu has had an obsession with menma to the point on impersonating her not a few episodes ago, and since that he flees from the group out of jealousy of jinta annd dead menma being together, and has yet to recieve any professional help i would say that hes doing the Naruko in an attempt to one over jinta. But im getting a vibe that menma didnt fall but was pushed kinda vibe. jealousy is a very ugly thing and i think were gonna see a bit of ugly in the near future.
With that said im starting to dislike all of the characters aside from Tsuruko. Im hoping she live up to her yandere potential.
Menma being pushed, eh, I’m not sure I see that but who knows. I think that Yukiatsu has become pretty honest lately, with himself and others, though he still doesn’t seem to know where he wants to go with it. I’ve come to like him a lot recently for this. More Tsuruko is always better too, hehe, but I’m dying to see if this thing with Naruko and Yukiatsu goes anywhere. I don’t feel that he’s trying to one-up Jinta in this, I think that it’s more of him reaching out desperately to Naruko since she’s the only one that he can identify with at the moment.
Menma getting pushed would sure be interesting. If anyone did it I bet it was Tsuruko. It’s always those quiet, calculating types you have to watch out for. If she is offing Yukiatsu’s potential love interests, then Naruko better be on guard.
RAGE!!!!!!!
I just can’t take this anymore! I’m so sick and tired of watching anime where the main guy has a WONDERFUL human girl that loves him RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM and he chooses to fall in love with a ghost/fox/demon/cyborg/dragon/alien, non-human girl of another species. Seriously, what the hell? I know Naruko and Jinta will not get together because that’s what I want to happen but anime writers obviously hate me and other living human women. We gets no love!
I sincerely hope that Jinta’s attachment to Menma is not out of romantic feelings but out of some need to appease his loneliness or to be able to forget his trauma. Like if Menma never leaves he never has to face the reality of the day she died.
Yukiatsu…I have so much love/hate for him. He’s just one of those characters for me I guess. He pisses me off one episode and then I love him the next. He’s a great character.
Naruko is hands down my favorite. All of her scenes are terrific. I almost want her and Yukiatsu to get together, now. I really liked their scene together, and it’s an okay consolation prize since Jinta is getting more and more off the chain CRAZY. But really, I’m starting to think Naruko is too good for either of them and deserves a man who isn’t obsessed with her dead friend like the two of them.
I’m really excited to see how everything will come together. I wonder if Menma will call the group together sans-Jinta like she tried to do before. I wonder how much Jinta’s late mother will play into Menma’s wish. I also can’t wait to get more insight on Tsuruko and Poppo because for me the series has given a lot of focus to Naruko, Jinta, Yukiatsu, and Menma, and I really want to get to know these other two characters, as well.
“But really, I’m starting to think Naruko is too good for either of them and deserves a man who isn’t obsessed with her dead friend like the two of them.” Thank you!!! i totally agree… oh and still the pandering to loli-cons….. this must stop.
The loli-cons thing is way overdone, but the non-human woman getting the guy takes the cake for me. It enrages me every single time without fail.
I feel you bro, feels bad man.
Poor Tsuruko, she is being bested by a girl she used to look down. Anjou is winning Yukiatsu without even trying. Feels bad Tsuru-chwan.
The guy picking the exotic newcomer character is annoying in a lot of shows, especially rom-coms, but I don’t really feel that way about this one. I think Jinta should be interested in Naruko but I definitely understand his attachment to Menma, even now. He liked her all those years ago, never told her, never really came to terms with her death, and lost his friends because of it. I think that makes it more believable in that it’s memory and trauma related instead of just a random magical girlfriend thing. In rom-coms the magical girlfriend is attainable and can be interacted with normally. Menma is a whole different story.
I’m with ya on the Menma reveal. Something about it is just off. It feels sort of like, if you were watching the Sixth Sense, and for 3/4 of the movie, only Bruce Willis and the little kid can see dead people, and then suddenly, they decide that for the ending, hell, everyone can see dead people!
I can’t help but wonder if this is another A-1 story that is going off the tracks.
I don’t think it’s going off course or anything, it just feels weird to finally have the big secret shared by the whole group. I guess it’s not too bad, it’s not like they can suddenly see her, and she has some limitations like not being able to write on the paper at Jinta’s house. That’s something I’m quite curious about.
In general I still think the show can end well, it just won’t have as much detail as I’d like for the characters other than Menma and Jinta. But we’ll see how they bring this to a conclusion.
I think if you want to deal with plausible deniablity could ask Menma to write about a recent major event. Either she was a young Nostradamus or a ghost
.
Honestly I can’t really bring myself to ship Yukiatsu and Anaru. Feels like it’d be a kind of toxic relationship. Both just pretending since they can’t be with the ones they really love. Plus think it’s a relationship that Yukiatsu would like since Anaru is easy to control. Doesn’t have to worry about sharp insights like with Tsuruko and it’s a girl Jintan has pretty much ignored so there is safety there. Just don’t feel like it’d be a good relationship for either of them.
For this kind of series I really want a solid peek into the future of their lives. Assuming Menma has moved on what are the others doing? Will Jintan just sink back into hiding at home and never come close to regaining the kind of guy he was as a kid? Of course the obvious questions of who might end up with who, etc. Hopefully they can end this series well.
She would be hella good at fortune telling to be able to play shiritori with poppo i can tell u that xD or maybe move world lines so that each time poppo in the future responds to her shiritori post in the past, she would write to something in the past to respond to poppo in the future (does that even work?) >.>
Yukiatsu X Naruko has something about it that I like though. I guess it’s the sort of bond they have from their unrequited loves and how they’ve opened up to each other more than the others have with each other. I think that kind of common cause works as they become friends over it and then could be a couple. And I think that Naruko’s energetic, more spontaneous nature could keep Yukiatsu off-balance in a good way.
Such is shipping.
Haha, it’s funny how you can create a love-chart from this:
Anaru -> Jintan -> Menma <- Yukiatsu <- Tsuruko
And of course… Poppo's absent.
I've said it once at the beginning of the show and I'll say it again – Poppo is the best character in the series. Notice how he said he was always acting stupid when he was little (I think this is the episode where he says that), how he faltered when asking Menma that, and how he generally seems so happy. People aren't that happy, no matter how happy they are. Poppo is definitely hiding something, and hiding something really big.
Two more episodes to expand on this… I don't think we'll know more about Poppo. He's a total mystery to all of us – uninvolved in anything, and yet involved in everything. I'm 63% sure that the final twist will have something to do with him.
Poppo is still a big question mark, and I’m really REALLY curious about what he has to say. There have been several times now where he’s started to talk about things with Menma and Jinta and then dropped the topic. What’s on his mind!?
i really don’t think they can finish this with 2 episodes to go… too many unanswered questions and the pacing would just exponentially increase which is really bad. i could be wrong since i thought they couldn’t possibly find a good ending for madoka. but rly, so much more content could be added with a normal 1 cour show length with 13 eps. as Mushyrulez said above, it’d be really sweet if they did something big with poppo. he’s practically the most underdeveloped of the group and even if you have 1 ep dedicated to him out of the two left, it would just ruin everything else. but alas i don’t think they can pull something that brilliant with poppo. come on A-1, dun mess up one of the best shows of the season >: ( (pleasenogainaxendingpleasenogainaxendingpleasenogainaxending…)
Only two episodes makes me a little uncomfortable, but after watching episode 10 I think there can be a very good, very satisfying ending regarding Menma’s story. But I’m not so sure if there’s enough time to do justice to the other characters and how they’ll move on afterwards. If the show had just one or two more episodes than it’s scheduled for I’m sure it could pull that off, but I’m thinking that we’ll probably just get a quick look at how the characters moved on at the very end.