One of the anime series airing in spring 2017, Tsukigakirei, is a romance story of a pair middle schoolers, Akane Mizuno and Kotarou Azumi. While being an original series, this anime still gain many positive responses from viewers.
The title Tsukigakirei, directly translated as “The Moon is Beautiful”, is taken from the phrase “tsuki ga kirei desu ne.” (literally, “the moon is beautiful, isn’t it?”), which is a famous phrase in Japanese to say “I love you” indirectly. The use of the phrase was popularised by Meiji-era novelist and teacher Natsume Sōseki, since he believed that two people in love do not need direct words to convey their feelings. It can be also noted that the titles for each episodes are taken from the titles of Japanese literary works.
Synopsis
Tsukigakirei tells about the love story between two young middle schooler, Kotaro Azumi and Akane Mizuno, who were third year students in middle school and were classmates for the first time. They were put in charge of the equipments for the sports festival, and slowly grew closer through the messaging app LINE. The two, along with fellow students, Chinatsu Nishio and Takumi Hira, relate to their peers through mutual understandings and feelings. As they progress to the final year at middle school, the group overcome their challenges to mature and become aware of the changes in themselves.
The Premise of Young, Innocent Love
In the scene above was Mizuno and Kotarou’s first encounter, where they actually had a communication for the first time. At first, Kotarou wanted to grab a cup of soft drink. But when he realized that Mizuno was there, he changed his mind, and took coffee instead, just to make himself looked cool. This scene shows how the mind of a 15 years old boy works, when they are on puberty and wanted to be seen as a cool guy by the girl.
The whole story of this anime follows on this kind of mentality. Mizuno and Kotarou, at their young age, falling in love for the first time.
Let’s take a look how realistic was Kotarou’s reaction when he got his first message from Mizuno. He grinned, and became so excited that he couldn’t even sit still. He became so excited that he started throwing punches at a hanging lamp switch in the middle of his room.
Anyone who has once passed through this phase can relate to how awesome it feels to receive the first message from a girl you like. Not only that, Mizuno was Kotarou’s first love. His attitude towards it is as expected. This is the purest form of love, where both of them are happy, even with a simple chat. There are no need for flower on Valentine’s day, an expensive dinner night, or any of that tiring cliché of romance. A single chat is all they need.
There’s also the circumstances where in the later episodes of the anime, they must get separated because they want go to different schools. Kotarou was really afraid that they would get separated, and tried so hard to get into the same school, even going against his parents. Again this is the mentality of a 15 years old. They can’t get separated when the their love is still blooming, that would be hell!
It is really funny to see the characters goes as cliché as possible with this. That is because it is all they know about how relationships works, as they have never experienced it before. They only know about it from rumours and films. So they only do as the media shows them how it would be. This is the mentality of a teenager at their first love.
This review continues to the next page.
