Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re charging back into Tsurune in the midst of the regional tournament, with our Kazemai heroes having just secured sixteen hits in their first round. Meanwhile, old bonds and new rivalries are emerging and asserting themselves across the board, from Kaito’s reunion with his old teammates to Minato crossing paths with two separate former rivals. It’s a busy narrative stew, but in the hands of director Takuya Yamamura and his incredible team, all of these threads have been interwoven with incredible grace, conflicts often requiring no more than a pointed expression or juxtaposition of storyboarding to clarify.

Through its elegance of form, Tsurune has been consistently demonstrating how formal beauty of animation or boarding are not simply their own reward – they are tools through which novel forms of storytelling are made possible, allowing a theoretically dense narrative to come across as light and effortless. Relationships like that of Minato and Shu can be clarified with a glance and a gesture, rather than engaging in laborious and unnatural acts of exposition. A work like Tsurune demonstrates how the inherent intentionality of every drawn choice in animation can make for a uniquely resonance-rich drama, with every aesthetic element facilitating the story in its own way. Let’s see what new treasures this team offers as the tournament continues!

Episode 3

As always, our entrance to the drama proceeds cut by cut as we approach the school, one silent cut giving us an update on the tournament standings before Seiya speaks up. This sense of the camera or audience actively moving around the sets really enhances the physical presence of this space, which seems particularly important for a show hinging on a delicate physical sport

We learn Nikaidou is competing with Tsujimine High. Apparently he left Shu and Seiya’s school after middle school

Minato’s eye wavers as he glances at Nikaidou’s team names, and Seiya notices it, but Minato says he’s simply excited to compete against Nikaidou again. Nice characterization beat for both of them – Seiya is highly perceptive and prone to assuming the worst, but Minato is more upbeat and straightforward than Seiya is likely to guess

The camera and audience’s eyes are drawn towards the next competitors by Nanao, who turns to his teammates behind the camera and literally tells them to shut up and watch, which is followed by a pan left towards the field. More tricks of embedding the audience within the drama and more nearly invisible segues between cuts – it always feels like one cut ends when the audience itself would move to get a better view, and the next cut lands precisely where we’d have moved to

Next up is Shu and his Kirisaki teammates

Alongside active pans, sequences like this also frequently manipulate the audience’s gaze through adjusting the depth of field, and thus presenting several sequential visual beats in one overall composition

Ryouhei slips out to check in on Shu’s sister. We’re definitely setting up some sort of drama regarding his family life

The music fades as we cut to the OP, and when we return for their shots, only the creaking of the bowstring and flight of the arrow can be heard. Our attention is thus centered on the competitors, here aligning us with the audience’s perspective through the lack of any distracting variables

Even the “nice shot!”s in response are subdued for this round, creating a greater sense of isolation than in Kazemai’s round

Some nice momentary superdeformed expressions for Sai as she frets about Shu discovering her. I appreciate how this production still finds occasional room for wild expressiveness in spite of its general pursuit of realism

Our reporter notes that Sai and Shu look nothing alike, prompting some insecure tics from Sai. Character acting clarifying her feelings just the right amount

Just an absurd pair of cuts as Shu’s arrow sails past Sai in a profile shot. Through the contrast of his athletic excellence and Ryouhei’s praise with her expressions, as well as that consistent contrast of the light of the field versus the dark of the stands, it seems clear that Sai sees her brother as somewhat unreachable. This echoes Shu’s issues with his own teammates, and his desire to be more like Minato in his interactions with others. And all that conveyed with barely a word!

“Nothing is harder than pulling off the same thing again and again.” Our reporter notes that Kazemai are more unpredictable than Kirisaki, which isn’t necessarily a strength in kyudo

Kirisaki take nineteen hits, only missing one

With the whole Kazemai team in a line, you can really appreciate the distinctions in their body language. Ryouhei basically moves like a puppy who doesn’t realize how big he’s grown, while Kaito marshals his limbs through staccato, aggressive gestures, displaying a tension Ryouhei entirely lacks

And again our eyes are guided from the hallways to the exhibition stage, this time through a cut to the floor right behind the stage, where the short focal depth forces our attention to a sign urging us to take our shoes off. Scene by scene, we are always visually carried where we need to be

Seiya states that Nikaidou’s form is “more focused on utility than etiquette”

Nikaidou’s team is more diverse in both their forms and their tools – the first two archers shoot almost simultaneously, while the third employs a bow that’s far larger than the standard. Then the fourth uses a smaller bow, and we can literally see the weakness of the draw as the arrow floats its way towards the target

It seems like Nikadou and Shu’s teams are essentially opposite poles – Nikaidou’s group is all about individuality, while Shu’s is all about consistency

And of course, every single pull of Nikaido’s bow is accompanied by a luxurious panning shot, his hair billowing as the camera pans around him. Trust KyoAni to always convey a moment of otherworldly beauty the way the characters are themselves experiencing it

His team ends up with seventeen hits

Seiya notes that unlike in baseball, your kyudo form is largely decided by your instructor’s preferences, and generally echoes their own approach. Learning from a kyudo master feels much like an apprenticeship, with you naturally mimicking your particular master’s quirks

Their own master notes that there’s little benefit in switching to a new form when they haven’t even fully committed the first form to muscle memory, and thus don’t actually know how good their own current methods are

We once again cut to the standings to announce the faceoff of Nikaido and Kazemai, and are then led down the backstage corridors through a brief cut of the hall signs. I really can’t overstate how much the physical, spatial continuity of the storyboarding clarifies the drama here, making the interplay of these parties and the progression of the tournament both seem utterly fluid

The guy with the giant bow appears to be Nikaido’s version of Ryouhei, and calls out his doppelganger immediately

Goddamn. Nikaido clarifies that he can’t give advice out on the stage, and then his affectation changes entirely, as he gives pinpoint advice to each of his teammates in a perfectly level tone. Even the captain seems to accept his position as the team’s true coach

So it seems that in spite of their apparent lack of coordination, they’re actually a finely honed unit

“They trying to throw us off our game with their fast shooting?” Kaito of course suspects the worst, but it seems this is truly just how Tsujimine play

“I need to land this, for the team. If I land this, I can keep the team afloat.” As Kazemai falters, Minato’s thoughts seem to point towards a lesson they can learn from Tsujimine: even as part of a team, you should also shoot for yourself, in the manner that works for you

He makes the shot, but the tsurune sounds all wrong, hollow and heavy as opposed to free and light. Additionally, the ribbon that represents his bonds with his teammates is depicted as flowing away from him, as he focuses only on defeating his rivals

“Joy oughta be shared though, eh?” One more stinger from Nikaido’s team, emphasizing their surprising unity of purpose

Ryouhei and Kaito both missed three, and apologize for their performance

Kirisaki win in the finals, ensuring all three teams’ presence at nationals

For our last shot of Minato at the tournament, we see only his shaded back, with the brightly lit court separating him from his teammates. A clear visual expression of his journey’s end this episode

Separated from his team, it’s up to Shu to note Minato seemed off his game, and encourage him towards a better performance at nationals

Minato pushes their coach to explain what he did wrong, and is in response forbidden from practicing until he figures out the problem himself. You gotta be watching your teammates, Minato!

And Done

Well, the hammer fell swiftly on our heroes this time, and it seems like we’ve got a few episodes of regaining team solidarity ahead of us. Through the unique aesthetic approach to all of our distinct competitors, it was easy to see and feel how Kazemai were somewhat coasting here, and lacking either the intensity or the unity of their two main rivals. And as with the previous two episodes, every step through this tournament was handled with unparalleled grace, the camera consistently leading us so well that it ceased to feel like a camera at all. Between the absolute confidence of direction, consistent fluidity of character acting, and effective use of motifs in lighting and sound design, Tsurune continues to feel almost too well-realized to exist. Bless this team!

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