An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Seasonal Selection – Shikizakura Episode 12 (End)

While by no means one of the all-time great climaxes, I will credit the ending of Shikizakura this: it’s exactly the sort of end you’d want to see to the sort of show Shikizakura has been. Decent fighting? Check. Everybody’s infected by optimism and pulls together? Check. Some surprisingly decent emotional play? Check. Totally corny speeches that belong in the kind of campy hero show the creators clearly loved? Double check.

After Oka gets swallowed up by Big Shuten, we do get a moment of despair, but it’s fairly short lived because the whole outside team rallies to hope against the odds and believe in Kakeru and Oka. Shuten takes on his oni form fully (no more Oka’s dad) and fights them. Kakeru and Oka, meanwhile, in the belly of the beast, are shown illusions of what they desire – Oka someone who will take the burden of the Shrine Maiden from her, and Kakeru his long-lost family. Eventually, though, the outside battle breaks through, and each of the two hears the voices of their friends calling to them, rejects the illusion, and runs on. After some visions of what really happened eight years ago, they find each other, and and invoke Oka’s power as well as a reunion with Ibara to force the netherworld inside Shuten to spit them out.

Meanwhile, we get more of the scenes where the common people we’ve seen before watch, cheering on the heroes. The triumphant music plays and everyone gets their hits in, cutting Shuten down to size and finally punching through his giant body’s crystal core. Oka invokes her sealing, ending the present threat of Shuten, but the uber-oni’s humanoid form prepares to escape through the opened gateway. With some help from their friends, Kakeru and Ibara pursue Shuten beyond.

On the far side of the gate, a beaten Shuten tries to tempt them, even as they’re resolved that he has no place either in Earth or the Netherworld. They respond by wishing for him to disappear, and since this is more if an action ending than a trickster ending, punch him to oblivion as he tries to pull “sike!” on the handshake while saying it. Then, Ibara and Kakeru get to closing the gate. At first they strive together, but then Ibara and Kakeru have a talk in which Ibara wants to be allowed to finish it himself. After all, Kakeru’s future lies on the mortal side, while Ibara “has some friends on this side” he wants to see. After a somewhat jarring but emotionally needed debate on it, Kakeru lets Ibara be the hero (fist-bumping and telling him he already was) and returns to his very worried friends, particularly Oka who was quite broken up about not getting to say more to him.

Two years later, the world and everyone in it is doing well: Kaede is back at sports, the cool big guy is a schoolteacher, Ryo runs a takoyaki stand, the power suits are in a museum and so on until of course at the last we see that Oka and Kakeru are an item, getting to live on in the future they won.

It’s a basic ending, but it’s well-executed enough that I can say I enjoyed it.

Perhaps the most interesting part, here at the end, is Shikizakura’s relationship with nihilism. Usually when “nihilism” is mentioned in relation to media it’s treated as a philosophy of angst and despair with someone (usually the villain) declaring that all is lost and nothing matters. Shikizakura kind of shows off the more optimistic side of Nihilism in that its heroes all essentially agree that there isn’t or shouldn’t be such a thing as fate ruling over them. They don’t need and in fact reject the external purpose and validation offered by Shuten and wish to make their own meaning… which is essentially a nihilist view point despite being one that makes a very good stand for a hero to take. The villain, meanwhile, is the one who prattles on about gods and salvation, which fits when the core of Oni possession, as we see several times throughout the show, is the abdication of human free will to a “higher” power that grants their desires at the cost of what made them human. It’s not that Shikizakura is “right” or common parlance “wrong” (nihilism being a group of philosophies more than a single outlook) but it’s interesting to see a kind of different conflict between the heroes and villains than the most well-worn “Individual versus communal” (which can go either way) or “Authoritarian versus egalitarian” conflicts, and especially so since it resonates so well. The kind of hero Kakeru aspires to be would have, defining them, great inner strength, so having the conflict being to an extent between the heroic possession of inner strength and reliance on outside forces (the Oni) fits. Of course, our heroes also rely on each other, particularly Kakeru on Ibara, so it isn’t all one way either.

I could go very long on this, but I think I would be reading too much into things and overstaying my welcome. Sure, a thousands-of-words long dissertation on the philosophy and conflict of Shikizakura might amuse some folks, but for a seasonal episode record, it’s more important to cap this off by saying… I enjoyed this show. It’s not great, but it is good, and especially over its run I found myself getting into a series that is both corny and charming. It’s not exactly convincing or evocative, so I feel like it’s the kind of thing that your reaction to will depend heavily on how you go into it. If you want to hate Shikizakura, there’s probably enough in the way of mistakes to get yourself mad at it. If you want to laugh entirely at (not with) it, there’s enough bits that are stupid enough that you can pick them apart. But if you’re willing to be entertained, it’s also got the tools to entertain you, and I feel that’s more where somebody undecided is going to lean unless they really, personally hate optimism in media. To me, that makes it worth a flat B with a side of respect. I certainly hope the team, new as they were, goes on to do more new and interesting things in the future.