Heads up fuckers, Asuka and Yu are in love and there’s nothing you can do about it. Last episode’s conclusion was all I could have hoped for and more, as Yu and Asuka’s emotional journeys reached their destined ends, and the show reaffirmed their relationship in the best way possible.

First off, the explanation for both Asuka and Yu’s current emotional stasis turned out to be a graceful reflection of this story’s inspiring incident. Kyo’s disappearance had shaken both of them to the core, driving a rift between them that no amount of time could really repair. For Asuka, choosing a future beyond her home would feel like a betrayal of her brother, and so she refused to think about the future. For Yu, her frustration at being unable to reach her friend would eventually build into an emotional wall, where she’s willing to joke and hang out with Asuka, but unable to truly speak her mind. With a little help from her less-inhibited self, Yu was at last able to break through that wall, and admit she loved Asuka – and with Yu’s love supporting her, Asuka was then able to love herself, and forgive herself for losing Kyo.

It was a perfectly crafted culmination of both their arcs, and a testament to The Girl in Twilight’s consistently elegant narrative structure. But as structurally sound as it was, that sequence wouldn’t have landed without Twilight’s equally compelling character work, or its charming, convincingly naturalistic dialogue. Asuka and Yu have sounded like an old married couple all season long, constantly bickering, but always acting with a clear understanding and respect for the feelings of the other. It’s easy enough now to see them as romantically coded – I simply didn’t expect The Girl in Twilight to break that barrier, and make their relationship explicit. Well, it’s explicit now, and I couldn’t be happier for these two idiots. Let’s defeat the King of Twilight with the power of love, heroes!

Episode 12

Oh right, Asuka had just agreed to join the Twilight, so long as it meant her world was saved. That’s stupid Asuka, all you need to do here is Dethrone God

“Sorry, guys!” As usual, Asuka deflects the seriousness of this situation with a burst of feigned good cheer. She may have come to terms with her fundamental character conflict, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to immediately change as a person, or discard her usual coping mechanisms. Growth is a process; resolving to change doesn’t mean you have changed, it means you’ve chosen to embark on a journey of change, and actively push yourself to make different choices. It’s frankly such a messy, contradictory process that any story which wants to depict it accurately will have to make it a central facet of the narrative – thus, it makes sense that stories that aren’t specifically about growth tend to shorthand this process, and make personal growth more of a lever you turn than a process you commit to

Asuka hands her walkman to Yu, offering an unspoken promise that she’ll come back for it. The two understand each other so well that they can essentially communicate their plan under the nose of the Twilight Emissary, without any words

“Come back safe, okay?” I’m not sure that translation captures the full implication of her “itterashai.” Normally that’s the phrase you use when someone’s leaving home for the day – using it here carries a clear implication of “I’m your home now, so please come back to me”

And yep, Yu is sure that Asuka plans to return

“Do you always walk along this way?” Nice understated sight gag of Asuka and Smolsuka just trudging along in this infinite Twilight wasteland

And another good one, in how Asuka’s tracks ramble back and forth over the Emissary’s path, emphasizing her distraction and boredom

She complains so much that she gets Smolsuka to pull the car over so she can get some chikuwa. Love Smolsuka’s look of utter disdain at her new partner

It seems like at least part of Asuka’s ploy is banking on the fact that Smolsuka is still fundamentally Asuka – her personality is still in there somewhere, just buried under the Twilight’s influence. If she can reach Smolsuka’s humanity, she might have a chance

Gorgeous shot of them from behind, with the rich evening colors lighting up the town

Ah, this is perfect. It was actually Kyo who first got Asuka interested in chikuwa, and he was even the one to invent the “God of Chikuwa” idea. Not only does this help further illustrate how much of Asuka’s world still revolves around Kyo, it also serves as a key point of emotional connection with Smolsuka. If she can get the Emissary to recall this memory, she’s on her way to recalling her humanity

The Girl in Twilight has a really strong grip on how grief expresses itself over time, how it can trap you in a loop, and how it colors your subsequent experiences. Asuka doesn’t usually mention Kyo, but it’s now abundantly clear how much his absence dictated her subsequent path

And so, having bridged the gap with chikuwa, Asuka is now able to convince Smolsuka to go looking for Kyo with her

I like this disorienting hallway of realities they’re navigating, though it does seem like this episode is stretching Twilight to its visual limits. With the background setting changing this frequently, the show is basically reduced to a series of still slides

Sorta reminds me of Evangelion’s original 25th and 26th episodes, both in how it uses the visual breakdown of reality to examine the psychological underpinnings of its characters, and also in how it seems to be stretching about fifteen seconds of animation across five minutes of video

“When Kyo disappeared, I cried a lot. But it wasn’t because I was sad about Kyo. It was so the grownups wouldn’t think it was my fault.” A natural reaction, but also one it’s easy to hate yourself for

“You didn’t choose to lie. You chose to abandon your emotions. But you did it for the same reason.” Because Asuka lied, and suffered, and went through all these painful steps in her grief, she’s actually able to reckon with Kyo’s absence now. In contrast, Smolsuka merely turned away from the pain, and cannot be at peace with it in the way Asuka can

Their visual distortions here do an excellent job of conveying how each of them reacted to Kyo’s death. Asuka was buried under the guilt, and chose to lie about her feelings, ultimately turning herself into a vessel for the life Kyo would have lived – literally, in this case, as a Kyo-shaped container of bright red anger. In contrast, Smolsuka divorcing herself from her emotions is represented as her body being visually rearranged, transformed into an inhuman shape that cannot be harmed. But as our Asuka reminds her of the root of her feelings, her body slides back into a normal frame, and the pain returns to her

Yeah, full-on Eva at this point, complete with distorted live-action photography

Smolsuka embraced the Twilight in her grief, destroying her own Fragment in the process. Given those actions, how could she turn back now, and accept the weight of that guilt?

But she can now embrace her true feelings! She rages at Asuka, asking why this other version of herself got to experience friends and happiness, while she was left with nothing. They’re not nice feelings, but they’re emphatically human feelings. Asuka has broken her shell

Oh wow, this visual trick is so good. As Asuka walks through the twilight, her footsteps create ripples that resolve into clear windows, revealing all the potential lives that Asukas could lead. Asuka thought Kyo’s disappearance would be the defining event of her life, but through visiting all these fragments, she’s learned that even after experiencing this sorrow, her possibilities are infinite

“That’s why I won’t use Kyo as an excuse anymore”

“I’ve decided to be free. It’s okay for you to stop punishing yourself, too”

“But if I do that, there will be no one left to care about Kyo-chan.” Kurosawa nails that note of vulnerability in this line. Generally you’d expect a conceit like Kyo’s absence to provide a narrative hook, as Asuka actively seeks him out – instead, Twilight has used his disappearance to offer a poignant meditation on grief, and how deeply a loss like that can impact your life and self-image

And yes, ultimately, there is no “solution” to grief. Sometimes you’ll remember them and cry, but you have to allow yourself to move on, and forgive yourself for not living in their memory

“As long as tomorrow becomes today, Kyo-chan will be with us.” A very gentle way to phrase that they must move on, and live as Kyo would want

At last, this other Asuka can honestly grieve his absence. What a cathartic moment! This show is really killing it in the last act

As Asuka gets ready for school, we see that Kyo’s room has finally been emptied out. Kyo’s static room has consistently acted a symbol for his continuing presence in the family’s life, thus this shot underlines that they’ve begun to move on

And instead of planning on inheriting the family business, she now wants to attend the same college as Yu

“I’m gonna give it my all. For Yu, who believes in my potential!” Her smile is so goddamn bright. These two are too adorable together, I now see it’d have been physically dangerous to hook them up sooner

They run into Mayuki, a fellow student who was Seriousuka’s assistant in her fragment

“I hear the ‘radio’ part of your name is just for show, and all you do is hang out at a cafe.” Well, yes, technically true, but-

“There’s nothing to fear. After all, our future always starts today.”

And Done

Great fucking work, Asuka! I now see why the previous episode was so insistent on concocting a big flight scene that would include all the leads – for this episode, the focus was entirely on Asuka’s feelings, as she convinced another stranded form of herself to come to peace with Kyo’s death.

All throughout this narrative, Asuka’s guilt regarding Kyo has guided her actions. From her rift with Yu to her insistence on inheriting the family business, she’s been living in Kyo’s shadow, unable to forgive herself or move on. From the endpoint, we can see clearly that “The Girl in Twilight” referred not to the vaguely-defined Twilight King, but to Asuka’s own feelings – she never truly moved past the day that Kyo disappeared, and has since been standing on the threshold of darkness, unable to move on to a new day. But after experiencing all these different worlds, and bolstered by Yu’s unconditional love, she was at last able to forgive herself, embracing Kyo’s memory without living in his shadow. This show offered a poignant meditation on grief, while its character-rich dialogue made it fun simply hanging out with Asuka and her friends. Even with a scrappy visual production, Twilight’s stellar fundamental storytelling shines through!

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