Let’s dive into the third episode of Kuuchuu Buranko! My relationship with this show is still a somewhat unsteady one, a fact that’s at least partially due to the show’s incredibly loud, garish color palette. A loud color scheme can certainly work for a show (see Kyousogiga, or even Nakamura’s own Gatchaman Crowds), but this show’s combination of abrasive neons seems designed to clash, and the integration of traditional animation and various other visual styles is a tough pill to swallow. Fortunately, the show’s second episode was able to direct all that visual madness towards a story that actually derived some benefit from it, even if the writing is still pretty so-so. There’s certainly a potentially fascinating show here, so I hope the stories continue to improve and the visual experimentation continues to find greater dramatic purpose. Let’s see what episode three brings!

Episode 3

We open with some dude in a high tower, apparently stuck with writer’s block or something. I like how his frustration is conveyed through him rolling around on the floor – it’s a slight comic exaggeration of a very real feeling, when you feel you just need to get up and change your pace somehow to find the right words

I guess he writes short stories?

Junichi Hoshimiya is our patient

Ah, a romance novelist

The portrayal of nausea through warping the screen is effective, if a bit loud. We also get another scene where a falling object stands in for something more objectionable, with these feathers replacing his vomit

“With this book, Junichi Hoshimiya is back on track!” So he’s been experiencing some sort of slump

Apparently a year between books is a big gap? Maybe dedicated romance novels work somewhat like light novels in Japan

“That’s your usual pattern!” So it seems like he’s anxious about getting into a routine and writing the same story over and over again

This show’s soundtrack matches its visual style; very sharp-toned synth melodies that accent the off-kilter narrative twists

Every time he thinks he’s repeating himself, he ends up vomiting

They diagnose this as a form of OCD? Huh

“Don’t you know who I am? I’ve been on a lot of quiz shows and such lately.” That is a profoundly depressing statement. Though I guess appearing on quiz shows is much more of a default celebrity activity in Japan, at least going by the number of times I’ve seen it show up in idol shows. It apparently doesn’t carry the American stigma of Dancing with the Stars-style “one last celebrity appearance before I fade into irrelevance”

I’ve taken to seeing these injection scenes as basically Kuuchuu Buranko’s version of bank footage. And I mean, they technically are its “transformation scenes,” right?

See, Hoshimiya turned into a rooster! Transformation!

“If you get pissed at something, you vomit. So you just gotta find what pisses you off.” This show would probably be significantly better if its stories were actually founded on any sort of convincing emotional or thematic point. The episodic conflicts are puzzles, but they’re not puzzles that resolve through arriving at some greater understanding of emotions or human psychology – their solutions are as nonsensical as everything else about them, or just a simple character twist that doesn’t really gesture towards any larger truth

I guess it’s just inherently tough for me to invest in a show that takes such a cavalier approach to something I’d actually be invested in if it were handled carefully – I mean, Monogatari is one of my favorite shows, and this is basically “Monogatari but the stories are about nothing”

I do appreciate this episode’s insights into the Japanese publishing industry. It seems like publishing things monthly in installments is almost expected – that’s also the impression I’ve gotten from shows dealing with the light novel industry

Apparently even his most trusted fan has gotten bored by his writing pattern. His one exceptional book, “Tomorrow,” is the only one written under his real name, Toriyama

It appears that Hoshimiya is interpreting his anxiety as a fear that he’s repeated certain tangible details within his novels, but his underlying fear is the knowledge that whether or not he’s used some particular profession for a character before, he’s still writing the same book over and over

Now the OCD comes up

“He suffers from fear of the ascertain, and can’t stop checking up on things”

“Your stomach spews its contents instead of the emotions you should be spewing out.” Basically the same framing as the previous episode

This show sure loves that Toei cat mascot

Now we’re meeting with his trusted friend, a sports reporter

The background music here is… Jingle Bells? This show’s random insert songs are an odd bunch

His masterpiece Tomorrow didn’t sell well, so I guess he turned to more commercial works

This time, when Hoshiyama pukes, a bunch of empty eggs come out as well. Seems like a straightforward enough metaphor for what’s happening – Hoshiyama sees himself as a chicken who can no longer produce substantive eggs, and instead just pukes up feathers and empty eggs all the time

This is definitely the show’s best story so far. Hoshimiya’s problems aren’t too ridiculous to relate to, and the show is illustrating his creative constipation and the reason for his anxieties on a variety of levels

His pattern is “old man and young girl”

This show’s unique merging of live action and traditional animation is very good at creating the sensation of displacement or stasis. Hoshimiya feeling completely detached from his world is naturally emphasized by the fact that he looks so visually out of place in his surroundings

We keep running into Nabehata, a lecherous old author

This guy must be tied to “Tomorrow.” Is he Hoshimiya’s father?

“You don’t give a damn about sex or romance novels!” This does seem to be the case

After exploding at Nabehata, his next vomit includes feathers, eggs, and actual romance novels. This feels like his impression of his own current work

And Done

Wait, that’s the end? We got a moment with the nurse also admitting she loved Tomorrow, and then… that’s it? He doesn’t really experience any meaningful turn at all?

Man, I don’t know. Aborted ending aside, that was certainly the most dramatically coherent episode so far. But this show’s storytelling just isn’t good – every episode’s narrative is muddled, the characters are pretty thin, Irabu’s just a comic relief pest with no actual insights, and we never seem to actually come to a satisfying conclusion. As I said in my first writeup, it feels like this show’s story is just an excuse for its visual digressions, as opposed to those digressions facilitating a stronger story. It seems like Kuuchuu Buranko is just not for me.

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