Wave Motion Cannon

After losing two matches in a row, Rei finds himself backsliding into despair, which deepens once he realizes he’s lost a shot at advancing in professional rank. In becoming a pro, Rei has begun to feel pressure the space in his life where he feels safest. His status as a shogi prodigy has created expectations for his career and he’s unsure if his talent can meet the demands placed upon it. Passion has never driven Rei’s pursuit of the game and now he has begun to wonder why he’s working so hard in the first place. The scene in this episode where Rei struggles to swim to an island metaphorically represents his inner turmoil over shogi. He’s arrived at a place where, if he embraces stagnation, he could stay forever. He could reject expectation and stop trying to improve, and focus on maintaining his current rank. In the same vein, he could stop attempting to reach out for social connections and be alone. But as he says in the beginning of the episode: “I want to go somewhere”. Both in shogi and in life, Rei seeks change.

Rei has begun to realize the limits of what shogi can do to fill the void in his life or serve as a distraction to his despair and unresolved feelings over the loss of his family. He wants to leave his pain and guilt behind, and it marks a significant step for him in fighting his depression. Despite his progress, Rei won’t be able to move forward alone. In this episode, we see people that care about Rei attempt different methods of reaching him. Mr. Hayashida, Rei’s homeroom teacher, encourages him to get into student life and tries to reach out to him during a scene where they’re eating together in a stairwell. Hayashida’s approach, that of an adult wary of a teenager shutting down, does little to reach Rei. By contrast, Hina Kawamoto tries to reach Rei with the overwhelming force of earnest enthusiasm that only a child can bring to bear. In this case, the forceful approach helps a listless Rei move forward, and he eventually agrees to coming over for dinner.

This episode starts off with a light and upbeat family scene and quickly shifts into an even more dark, listless tone than usual as Rei’s shogi troubles come into focus. For me this resulted in the episode dragging more than usual, in a show that often feels slow paced. The oft-used technique of punctuating the episode with jokes or brightly hued shots didn’t do much to invigorate things for me this time. The use of water imagery throughout the show to visualize and create a tactile sense of Rei’s deep depression and lethargy, already apart of the opening and closing of each episode, has begun to feel overused for me. Overall, this wasn’t March comes in like a lion’s strongest episode. The next episode suggests a brighter tone, and after slogging through this episode I’ll be looking forward to it.

While trying to depict a character with depression is no small feat, trying to capture how other people respond to those with depression is an even harder feat to accomplish. If a character isn’t completely supportive of the depressed character, they can come across as a short sighted dick. March comes in like a lion episode 6 attempts to tackle this with mixed results. On one end of the spectrum you have Rei’s teacher, Mr. Hayashida, who’s not very tactful; the other is Hina, who’s overthinking her actions. While both characters do care about Rei and are legitimately trying to help him cope with his issues, they don’t go about it in the best way.

Mr. Hayashida is very direct in telling Rei that he needs to start caring for himself if he wants to be happy. While good advice, Mr. Hayashida is a few steps away from being that guy who thinks depression is like an on/off switch Rei has the ability to control at will. Instead of telling him how he was supposed to achieve this mindset, he only told him what needed to be accomplished. Rei has achieved his dream as far as Mr. Hayashida is concerned. Because of this, one can get the impression that Mr. Hayashida is jealous of Rei’s success. There’s a sense of bitterness in his tone when he talks to Rei. A tone that says, “There’s no need for him to be sad when he’s accomplished so much.” Even so, he knows he shouldn’t hold it against him and offers decent life advice. The problem is, Mr. Hayashida handles it like a bad algebra teacher. He’ll say what the answer is without explaining how you get to that answer.

Hina, on the other hand, knows it’ll be rude to just say, ‘Stop being sad’, and offers the suggestion of having diner at her place. While Hina is trying to show Rei that he is appreciated, she’s not offering a solution to Rei’s bigger problems. While distractions are good, that’s ultimately all they are, distractions. You don’t fix a broken bridge by taking an alternate route. You might still get to where you need to go, but that bridge is still unusable. Hina’s problem is that she’s still a child, and thus approaches the problem like a child. Rei is sad. Eating my sister’s food makes Rei happy. So ‘Rei + Food = Happiness’. Boom! Problem solved, right?

While Hina and Mr. Hayashida miss their marks, the series still depicts both as well intentioned. Even with that being the case, both of them feel like simple viewpoints of depression from those who are witnessing it. One handles the problem head on, while the other dances around the issue. Both cases do have thought put into their reasoning for handling the topic in the way that they did, but it still falls a bit short.

Asides from that, the direction in this episode felt lackadaisical. While a majority of this episode is just talking heads, the episode uses a lot of traditional SHAFT tricks to make the episode visually interesting. The most notable of these tricks is the use of the SHAFT Head Tilt, a.k.a. the close up of the character’s face while turning towards the camera. This bit of animation is used multiple times by multiple characters in this one episode, almost to the point where it’s obnoxious. While I don’t have a problem with the shot itself, it’s overuse is tiring. It feels as though they knew this was going to be a dialogue heavy episode with little chance of using visual symbolism, so they fell back on their old tricks in hopes the next episode will provide them with better moments.