Alright, let’s check back in with Kuuchuu Buranko. Where we last left off, Kuuchuu Buranko/Trapeze was very slowly shaping itself into a relatively watchable show. Unfortunately, Trapeze just isn’t there yet – outside of its wild stylistic digressions, the narrative substance of these episodes is just totally unsatisfying. Its characters are simplistic, its stories aren’t engaging, and its solutions to all of its heroes’ problems don’t make any sense. There is just nothing to draw from this show in an emotional or intellectual sense, outside of how it uses mixed media to… well, use mixed media? Even there, its juxtaposition of various different realities within a single frame doesn’t often lead to any larger dramatic effect beyond “this looks weird” or “this is disorienting” or “this color scheme sure isn’t attractive.” The show reminds me of Mind Game or the first isolated episode of Kyousogiga – visual noise, experimentation seemingly designed only to prompt more focused creators to say “ah, I can see how that could be used in an actual narrative.”
I suppose this takeaway just reflects the fact that I don’t really come to anime, or media in general, for experimentation for its own sake. I love creative shows, but I see experimentation like this as a tool, not a goal – unique images are nice, but if they’re not being used to bolster some meaningful dramatic effect, they’re probably not going to impress me. Concrete Revolutio’s divergent character art echoed its nature as a hero history pastiche that emphasized what a living part of our world heroes are. The Tatami Galaxy brought us into the kaleidoscopic mind of its protagonist, letting us see the world he saw, brimming with possibility. Trapeze hasn’t really reached that point yet, but I suppose we’re still relatively early in the series. Let’s check out episode four!
Episode 4
Looks like we’re following a professional baseball player this time
Plenty of straightforward real life photography. This mixed media style certainly works well as a cost-cutting measure, at the very least. And the combination of traditional baseball commentary and live-action photography means we’re starting off in a very grounded and familiar dramatic place
Bando is the key player today. He’s been sharing his position with the rookie Suzuki
Really nice shot leading out of the stadium and into the sunlight. This show is actually able to create some pretty compelling compositions using its colored photography style. I just wish the normal color palettes weren’t so incredibly abrasive
Alright, third baseman Shinichi Bando is our guy. “Mr. Swallows.” I think I can guess what his animal is going to be
The Yakult Swallows are his team
This show’s characters look different from other anime characters, but all of the protagonists basically look like the same guy with different haircuts. The more realistic style they adopt for the protagonists specifically just isn’t terribly expressive
“No one’s here because of you. They’re here for Suzuki.” Okay, so Suzuki is his upstart rookie rival. Does this show have to frame all of its narrative beats in the broadest and most farcical way? I get that that’s the show’s general tonal mode, but it just makes it impossible to care about anything. It feels like the show itself doesn’t really care about its own narrative
And yeah, Bando’s insecurity about Suzuki makes him miss some catches
“The guardian spirit of third base.” So he’s been playing for ten years now. A pretty classic story
We see a collection of small birds in a cage in the back of the office. A cute nod to the flock of birds image that tends to accompany characters’ entrance into the office, implying those birds actually exist and are released by the staff every time
He’s got a case of Yips: “the movement you want doesn’t get transferred to your body, and you do an opposite motion instead”
Welp, time for the porno music
And surprisingly, Bando’s animal form turns out to be a stallion. Perhaps because he’s a prize racehorse who now seems likely to be put out to pasture?
There’s a nice sense of place to this sequence of Bando and the doctor heading out to play catch. The environment they’re passing through lends itself to shots that evoke depth; the long hallways and foreground posts make it seem like we’re walking through a living environment. The doctor flipping casually between his forms thus feels like a light surrealist garnish on a fundamentally parsable situation. Better!
The doctor is apparently the opposite of Bando: he can only throw well from the weird, tricky stances returning a grounder require
This episode seems to be putting the doctor’s shifting forms to better use than prior ones. There’s a clear tonal association for each of them: the mascot suit is the goofy asshole, the young adult is the upbeat professional, the child is the piercing cynic
How can any of these characters live in any of their own apartments. My eyes would bleed if I had to live within these paint jobs
Another of this show’s major issues is that the in-episode narratives are almost entirely shapeless. There is virtually no progression of drama that can be meaningfully plotted across the episodes – they pretty much all just walk in circles trying things that don’t work until Bam, there’s the solution, everything’s solved now. We also generally don’t learn that much about the main characters beyond what we learn initially, and they all disappear at the end anyway, so there’s no real room for any kind of meditative character-focused appeal. It feels like you could cut most of these episodes down to the first and last five minutes and not really lose anything in a dramatic sense
Suzuki tore a ligament!
Hearing Suzuki is injured seems to fix him, at least for the moment
So yeah, his issue is entirely tied to Suzuki specifically. Hearing Suzuki is okay ruins his throws again
“He noticed I’m not at full strength yet.” It seems like Bando’s true ailment might be some kind of persecution complex, where he imagines every other player is ganging up against him
This time Bando actually hits a runner. Whoops
These long shots of the baseball field are some of Trapeze’s most compelling compositions yet. No abrasive style embellishments, just melancholy images of this world Bando can no longer love
The doctor makes the point that at third base, Bando feels “connected” to people. And at this point, that connection is a bad thing – he can only see others as judging, antagonizing, or surpassing him
A drunken Bando runs into Suzuki arguing with punks in the street
The doctor urges him to let things play out, but Bando does the right thing, and saves his teammate
Suzuki’s words echo Bando’s own appraisal of this area. He’s finally seeing the person beneath the threat Suzuki presents
Yeah, and now we see Suzuki’s anxieties, too. This is the “right” ending for this story, but it feels so obvious that I again wonder how we spent twenty minutes getting here
The doctor’s restless attachment to each of his patients’ professions seems to echo the fact that most of these protagonists simply need to be happier with the choices they’ve made. The doctor cheekily embodies the opposite case, someone who’s always looking for the next big score that will surely bring them happiness
“I’m just returning the ball to the kid with a single bounce.” This is also a really smart use of this little kid who kept watching their practices. Bando’s resolution means this kid takes the place of Suzuki himself, the next generation that Bando is no longer insecure about instructing. And so at last he can play catch again
And Done
Well heck, that was easily the show’s best episode yet. We eventually ended up with enough texture for Bando to actually care about the guy, and the fact that his “cure” involved embracing humility and acknowledging the next generation meant his character growth was illustrated in impactful, life-changing ways. This episode also wasn’t as crass or visually abrasive as the show’s standard, which also certainly helped. Trapeze definitely isn’t a show for me, and so this is probably where I stop watching, but I’m glad this journey ended on a reasonably high note!
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