The Fall 2016 Anime Preview Guide

March comes in like a lion

At seventeen years old, Rei Kiriyama is considered something of a prodigy. Known as a genius shogi player from a young age, he now juggles work as a professional shogi player with normal days at an average high school. But Rei's fame doesn't bring him any happiness; in fact, his most recent victory only reminded him of the distance that's grown between him and his adopted father. There is an emptiness in Rei, a silence clear in the unhappy frown he always wears. But Rei is blessed by a set of warm neighbors who open their doors to him; maybe, with their help, Rei can become happy with who he is. March comes in like a lion is based on a manga and can be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Saturdays at 1:00 PM EST.

Nick Creamer

Rating:

Hoo boy, did I ever love this premiere. Expectations were high for Marches comes in like a Lion - not only was it based on a manga by the original creator of Honey and Clover, but it was rumored that this would be Akiyuki Shinbo's long-awaited return to actual direction. Well, it turns out rumors of Shinbo's revival were greatly overstated, but this episode certainly didn't need his hand to shine.

The first segment of this episode was likely its strongest. After some evocative shots portraying protagonist Rei Kiriyama in stark black and white, the show slowly and carefully played through one long morning, as Rei got up from bed, traveled to his latest shogi match, and defeated a very special opponent.

Every element of this sequence was brought to life through terrific art design, direction, and sound design. The discomfort of Rei's home was clear in shots framed to emphasize its vast, impersonal emptiness, and the use of bubbles rising through water as a consistent refrain brought home both the summer heat and Rei's clammy self-consciousness. Rei's ride to the shogi match was a highlight within a highlight, where a lovely ballad gave a sense of beautiful grandeur to his personal isolation. And when the actual match came, music was replaced by silence and environmental noise, as indistinct potential matches flittered through Rei's mind.

Much of the strength of this sequence came from how much it conveyed without directly telling. It was achingly clear how much this match meant to Rei, and how little he was emotionally able to handle it. Sequences contrasting his youthful joy at shogi with his current malaise articulated his relationship with his father without a word, giving a sense of inevitability to his current inability to communicate. The truth only came out later, when Rei happened to catch a news report about a son bludgeoning his father to death. There, too, sound design was dominant - the news report slowly filling the aural footprint was a perfect way to convey Rei's disconnect from his present circumstances.

In contrast to Rei's own clearly expressed depression, March comes in like a lion offered many lighthearted scenes between the family sheltering him. Some of the comedy of these sequences was a little broad, and there was certainly some tonal disconnect between this lighthearted material and the heavier, more atmosphere-focused stuff, but Rei's friends still came off as charming characters in their own right. The family sequences here would likely qualify as one of the better slice of life shows of the season even in the absence of Rei's phenomenal private material, making March comes in like a lion a rich buffet of contrasting poles.

And once again, the art design throughout really needs to be commended. March comes in like a lion possesses none of the sterility or self-indulgent imagery that sometimes defines Shaft productions, instead mixing beautiful storybook backgrounds with consistently purposeful stylistic flourishes. At their best, Shaft shows represent a compelling alternate theory of visual storytelling from stuff like Kyoto Animation; instead of attempting to capture the lived reality of mundane moments, they bring emotions to life through stylized and theatrical but emotionally grounded interpretation. March comes in like a lion is more subdued in its visual language than something like Monogatari, but it still embodies the strengths of that approach.

Overall, I have only tiny complaints about this premiere, and so much I was impressed by. This was likely my favorite premiere of a new show so far this season, and I really hope it stays this good.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

If you were to ask me what depression feels like, I would liken it to moving through water. How depressed you determines the depth – sometimes it's like being fully submerged but unable to float, while at others the water just drags at your hips. That's what life seems to be like for seventeen-year-old shogi prodigy Rei Kiriyama – a continual walk through water of varying depths. The liquid imagery is mostly kept to the opening and ending credits, although the one time we see through his eyes his bangs take on the properties of ever-moving seaweed, but there's a real sense that he's physically dragging himself wherever he goes.

The source of Rei's depression is at least in part due to his brilliance in shogi. It seems highly likely that his father was also a great shogi player and that Rei outperformed him. Whether or not the elderly gentleman against whom he plays in the beginning is his dad is up in the air – the biggest possibility right now seems to be that Rei is illegitimate, something given further potential by the scene when little Rei, having just won his first major tournament, sees the man consoling his two children who lost to Rei. That moment, when Rei realizes that his triumph and happiness came at the expense of someone else's loss and sadness, is one of the most striking in the episode. It may not be the exact instant when he began to become aware of sadness as an entity, but it certainly marks when he began to question his worthiness to win.

While all stories are technically made up of a collection of moments, March comes in like a lion really takes that to an extreme. Each scene is clearly separate, although carefully crafted to connect on both sides to the other scenes. Rei's movements through them seem less of his own volition and more out of a sense that moving ahead is simply the easiest thing to do, such as when his friends text him and invite him to dinner. He's in the middle of backing out of it when he gets a second text from them; consequently, he finds himself unable to refuse and goes, even though he's so tired (emotionally) that he barely eats and just collapses afterwards, spending the night on their floor. The friends, three sisters and their grandfather, want to help him, especially Hina, the middle sister, who seems to be just a few years younger than Rei, but he resists them as passively as possible. For someone who doesn't speak until nine and a half minutes into the episode, only then to say, “That's a lie” as his first line, it's going to take more than oversize rice balls, cute little kids, and realistically hungry cats to break through his shell.

In some ways this really is a sad episode. It's so clear that Rei is hurting, mired in emotions he can't, or doesn't want to, control. The watercolor tones and use of black-and-white scenes in the opening of the episode help to convey this; even the playground where he sits after his shogi match is dilapidated. There's a heavy emotional tone here that risks becoming overwhelming. Right now it works for the story, but I do hope to see Rei eventually break free of the water that's holding him back. If done right, this could be ultimately a story that revels in quiet triumph – or pulls you down into its depths.

Paul Jensen

Rating:

A lot of shows are good in the sense that they're entertaining or emotionally compelling. March comes in like a lion has both of those qualities, but there's a little more to it than that. This is a series that feels like it has something to say, and that something could be rather important. It's not obscure or abstract about it either; this episode is able to work its themes into a very personal and engaging story.

Good direction, both in terms of sound and visuals, plays a big role in making this episode work. The art style and character designs are able to convey warmth and emotional distance equally well, and that ends up being important to the story. For as much tension as there is in the episode's lonelier scenes, it's Rei's sense of being out of place in the happier moments that really helps us understand what he's feeling. The visual touches are probably easier to spot, but the use of sound is also noteworthy here. By adding and removing music and background noise, the show is able to either immerse us in a scene or direct our attention to something important. Perhaps more than anything else, I'm impressed by the way this episode is able to set the mood of a scene with little or no dialogue; it takes guts for a series to just shut up for a minute and let the audience figure out what's going on.

Rei's story is certainly a compelling one, and his depression feels all the more significant because it's connected to what should be a labor of love. Instead of finding joy and making friends through playing shogi, he's been isolated by his talent and been made to feel like his success has come at other people's expense. That's some heavy stuff to deal with, so thank goodness the supporting cast is able to bring some warmth to the story. Rei's neighbors are, if anything, a little too disruptive to the tone of this episode. Some of his interactions with them almost feel like they're part of a different story, but I suppose that might be the point. From where he's standing, it's as if everyone else is in a different world.

March comes in like a lion runs the risk of being too sad and lonely for its own good, and I really hope this isn't the start of a downward spiral for Rei. From what we've seen so far, though, I think this is more likely to be a story about him finding some small but meaningful happiness. In any case, I'm declaring this first episode required viewing. While I have some minor complaints about it here and there, it's arguably the most complete premiere of the season.

Theron Martin

Rating:

March comes in like a lion is best described as a slice-of- life drama with humorous asides after a certain point. It is a story which involves shogi but doesn't really seem to be about playing shogi; that's just a framing device used to define central character Rei, who is supposedly enough of a genius at it to play professionally as a high school student (his teacher speculates at one point that Rei might make more per month than he does) but seems to have absolutely nothing else going for him. Sure there's a family of a mother, two daughters, and multiple cats which seem to look out for him, though the relationship there is unclear; is the mother his aunt? Even in their house eating dinner, though, he seems morose and distant, as if weighted down by the world. At school – when he goes to school – he's not shown associating with anyone, either. Even when playing shogi he only barely speaks and doesn't seem to get any joy out of it.

All of this makes for a depressing and mostly joyless episode, which is a big part of the reason why I'm rating it so low. There's an implication of damaging psychological influence from a person who might be his mother and something happening in his past which distanced him from former friends, but the only positive trait he shows is that he's generous with buying treats for the girls. By the end of the episode I found myself not caring about what his story is; there are plenty of other anime out there where characters never crack a smile and those characters are still more interesting than Rei. The only break in this are the desperately-needed comedy asides which involve the family and the cats – and weirdly enough, we can hear the thoughts of the cats for no apparent reason.

The other reason for the low rating is that I am not at all a fan of the visual aesthetic used here. The animation is pretty good, but the artistry seems just as rough, drab, and often joyless as the protagonist is. The character designs aren't appealing, either.

I suppose there's a story worth seeing here, but nothing about this episode even slightly compels me to want to watch more. No matter how slowly-evolving the overall story is, first episodes have to do something to hook the audience, and this one doesn't.