Shy

Episode 12

Shy's first season ends on a fittingly subdued note. For all of its occasional bombast, this story still stars a girl who'd be too afraid to let the McDonald's cashier know that she asked for no pickles. Teru is small and ordinary. She can be waylaid by the common cold. She would rather not bother people, because to bother is to be noticed, but she nevertheless depends on the kindness of companions like Iko. That's not a bad thing either. It's core to Shy's whole thesis. By being put into a decidedly unheroic situation, and by accepting Iko's assistance, Teru exhibits how she's grown as a heroine.

Natalia's parting memories of Letana sound a lot like Teru. She was another person who kept to herself and tried to exist as unobtrusively as possible. In Letana's case, her attitude may have come from her parents, as Natalia posits, but it also may have come from the loss of her parents. Avoiding connections is one way to preclude the pain of those connections being severed. It's also an imperfect and unsustainable attitude. Letana still made friends and had a daughter despite her withdrawn nature. If she had been less stubborn and more open to reaching out, she may have found an easier route out of her despair, too. What happened to Letana was ultimately out of her control, and there's no denying that. However, the thing that saved Tzveta was an earnest conversation with her daughter, and that was only possible because they embraced the inherent vulnerability of that moment.

Teru helped both Pepesha and Tzveta get there, so it's appropriate for us to see how Teru internalized some of those lessons herself. Iko has to push back against her wallflower friend's instincts—Rome wasn't built in a day—but Teru eventually lets her guard down. It's a very sweet scene. I think Shy works best on these smaller scales. While the series' overall charm stems from its somewhat incongruous blend of Silver Age superheroism with trickier investigations into its characters' interiorities, I gravitate toward the latter component.

Plus, the writing is better when the stakes are smaller. Stigma's appearances, for example, have worn thin by this point. His speeches and philosophies are too repetitive and circular to inspire menace. If he's going to remain the show's archvillain, then he needs to become more compelling. More unpredictable. More human. Conversely, I had a wonderful emotional reaction to Iko telling Teru that they're on a first-name basis now. And I specifically love that she tells her. I'm sure we can chalk some of that boldness up to Teru's timidness, and Iko's smart enough to know that she shouldn't give her friend another chance to waffle. The bigger factor, though, is how obvious their intimacy is. They're close friends whose bond has been forged in emotional and psychological fire. There are good arguments for them being even more than friends. It's wild that they weren't using their given names already! This has nothing to do with saving the world from a secret society of creepy children, but that mutual acknowledgment of their affection for each other was the most satisfying note this season could have ended on.

Of course, the story must go on, and the introduction of Teru's dead older sister leaves a big enough hook dangling for the second season to pick up with. And it's pretty easy to foresee where this is probably going, based on Amarariruku's activities so far. They already siphoned the trauma of losing loved ones from Iko and Pepesha, so there's little reason to doubt that they'll do the same to our main heroine. The girl with Stigma in the post-credits scene may as well be wearing a placard that says “Teru's Dead Sister.” Granted, the specifics of Iko's and Pepesha's arcs were different enough that I'm not too worried about Shy retreading ground here. While I don't think it's thematically necessary for every subject in the show to have a dead friend/relative to exploit, it's certainly possible to use that structure in plenty of novel and poignant ways. We'll have to see.

The combination of the series' quieter psychological approach and the general audience's superhero fatigue led to the anime flying under many people's radars, so I'm surprised and glad that they've confirmed a second season. Masaomi Andō and his team have adapted the material up to this point with plenty of flair, and I'm on board to see how they tackle the next chapter in Teru's story.

Rating:

Shy is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Steve is on Twitter while it lasts. He is a recovering shy kid. You can also catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.