Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am looking out over an altogether gloomy late-spring day, and debating whether my plans for an afternoon jog can contend with the currently rain-soaked neighborhood. As such, I’m feeling a hankering for community connection that can only be sated one way: with a fresh episode of CITY the Animation, where the sun is always shining and the streets are always bustling with all manner of nonsense activities.

Our last episode proved to be another standout in this altogether remarkable season, dedicating itself wholly to the community’s downtown-spanning race, and culminating in a preposterous extended cut that carried us from the last place contenders all the way through Matsuri and Eri’s dramatic victory. It also took some time to advance our key personal narratives, exploring both the middle schoolers’ feelings about their approaching separation, as well as Niikura’s shifting feelings regarding her onetime idol Nagumo. It’s that last thread that I’m most interested in seeing pursued further; it seems like Niikura is assigning Nagumo a significance that Nagumo herself can’t really maintain, and I’m curious to see how Niikura ultimately contends with the fact that Nagumo is clearly as lost in adulthood as she is. Regardless, I’m sure all sorts of unexpected pleasures await, so let’s get right back to the CITY!

Episode 10

We open on the street, looking straight in at Western Cuisine Makabe, alongside its neighboring buildings and the presumed family residence above. I know it’s become a meme at this point, but seriously, this sort of mixed-used urban design is one of the best ways to make a downtown feel like a genuine neighborhood. Japan’s general policy of allowing apartment owners to run businesses out of their first floors naturally blends the borders of communal and private spaces, while also facilitating a huge number of small businesses that wouldn’t otherwise be economically feasible. There’s no magical secret to creating neighborhoods like this, we just don’t have the political will to do so

Of course, it also helps to not live in a car-based society, where everyone is so isolated and on-foot travel is so inconvenient that there’s no real incentive to combine private and public spaces like this. America has successfully designed its society to facilitate maximum isolation and distrust

We cut in as the patrons are listening to the summer baseball tournament, with an old man lamenting that he can’t relive the same sort of invigorating summer break that one experiences as a child

I like how the background art design for his reveries is actually more detailed than the show’s usual aesthetic, emphasizing how the world feels even more rich and inviting in memory (back when life was also in 3:4)

“When the world was big, and there was only the present and the future.” Some painfully well-observed incidental moments as he reflects on life-affirming summer experiences. It’s a powerful allure, well-represented in anime by works like Mai Mai Miracle and Rainbow Fireflies

“Let’s top those memories right now! We’re closed for the summer!” Makabe Senior is of course always down for any adventure

Our middle school duo drop by, prompting a summer break challenge from Makabe. You can’t force a precious summer break experience, they have to come naturally! At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what Endless Eight was about

We cut back in to Nagumo’s place, where she is unsurprisingly lounging in the wake of Makabe’s all-summer closing

Nice elastic character acting as Niikura urges her to make money through a video series

Welcome detail of the tinny, somewhat muffled sound design as Nagumo talks into their shitty camera. KyoAni are really experts at making intentionally amateurish-looking film-in-film sequences, as so winningly demonstrated during both Hyouka and Haruhi

“Today I’m going to figure out which of my hands is stronger by having my right hand play rock-paper-scissors against the left.” The kind of top notch content anyone would pay for

“We won’t make any money with a shitty video like that”

It seems like Niikura’s basically taken it upon herself to provide all the enthusiasm for life that she once found in Nagumo

My lord, this absurd “transformation sequence” as Niikura decks Nagumo in a dress, inner tube, and fox accoutrements. You might be creating a product only you would buy, Niikura

I like that in spite of all these stupid gimmicks they’re adding, they’re still certain the core “my hands will play rock-paper-scissors against each other” concept is dynamite

Nagumo then gets conscripted into soba deliveries, still in her fox suit by Niikura demand. Excellent variation on the classic “scrambling to run so fast you just spin your legs in place” cartoon gag, here caught from the front rather in profile, which actually makes for an incredibly fluid feat of animation. Count on this team to turn what was once used as comic animation shorthand into a luxuriously animated setpiece in its own right

The soba’s tempura is stolen by the bunny-cat, who is in turn grabbed by a thief. I wonder what established this reliable thief design, with one sheet tied to obscure the face, and another used as a sack for stolen goods over the shoulders? You see it all over the place in anime

We then head to the theater for another performance by the Tekaridake Troupe, this one apparently centered on a sulking echidna

The performance ultimately echoes this episode’s apparently preeminent concern – Nagumo’s quest for any money she can find in the wake of Makabe’s restaurant closure

And in classic Nichijou form, the entire performance is a long leadup to a goofy anticlimax, with the title “Self-Esteem” revealed to actually be a character name (and one who won’t appear until after the intermission, of course)

Oh my god, our lovestruck Tatewaku Makabe brother is still prancing around in that awful high fashion getup he wore to his date with Izumi

He is accosted by an old man named Soun Arashima, who is apparently the second member of Izumi’s fan club

Makabe seeks help from a passing police officer, only to learn that police officer is in fact Izumi fan club member three

And of course, he is swiftly challenged by fan club member four, Ishizuchi of the paint store. Did you think it would be that easy, Makabe!?

Excellent payoff for all this nonsense, with a dramatic movement-into-depth zoom on Izumi ending with the anticlimax of her promptly denying his affections. A frequent yet ever-effective KyoAni trick: incredibly ambitious feats of animation applied to the simplest possible gags, creating a bonus sense of surreal comedy through the mismatch of form and content. Also great voice acting from poor Makabe, as he not only does a comic collapse in response, but seems to actually collapse so hard he’s actively burrowing into the earth, complete with weird foaming-at-mouth noises

“Does getting rejected… count as Guinness!?” I like this brand of Keiichi Arawi gag, wherein he stresses some esoteric concept (like the best possible band name or the meaning of bread or whatnot) to the point where the concept no longer seems to have any stable, coherent meaning. He’s very good at starting with a mundane pitch, building that pitch into absurdism, and then taking the resultant absurd setup deadly seriously – like with how “hospitality” was framed through the manor episode

I like the unspoken gag of the “genius” Adatara also being stuck here doing makeup exams. I suppose they’re all paying for their attempted Izumi defense during the last exam

“The Guinness World Records don’t count as a snack!” See, the phrase just keeps getting further divorced from its origin point until it acquires an in-sketch meaning all of its own

Quite the unique meta-anticlimax for this scene, as their quest for a record-worthy buzzword ends in a whimper while we learn that the baseball team was simultaneously winning the Koshien. But hey, feeling like you’re missing out relative to someone else’s iconic summer break is also the essence of summer break!

Ooh, very nice simulated sunbeams as we at last check in on our old man trio

And a terrific array of pratfalls as they attempt to fight a typhoon in order to enjoy the beach. I particularly like the enthusiastic animation of their mustaches shaking in the storm

We conclude with an incredible next-time-on extended gag, as Tatewaku carries us through a whole bonus season of adventures with him and Izumi

And Done

Ah, the joys of summer and youth! Though we ran through a wide variety of skits this episode, that persistent emphasis on the fleeting, irreplaceable treasures of summer break made for a sturdy emotional throughline, a feeling of nostalgia and urging to be present in the moment that actually seems to characterize CITY more generally, as expressed through its childhood-venerating OP and summer-coveting ED. The most beautiful things in life are often fleeting, but as CITY’s various heroes attest, we can find fresh sources of joy and new forms of companionship at any stage of life, so long as we keep getting out there and connecting with the world around us. We can’t all live in a downtown quite so idyllic as this one, but we can all enjoy the sunshine, share a friendly wave with our neighbors, and generally seek the good in our world.

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