Tsurune Episode 9 Review
Tsurune continues to be consistently good at building up the individual drama for characters. This week the anime turns its attention firmly to Seiya, Minato’s childhood friend. Last week Shu taunted Seiya a little bit and apparently his words have shaken up the usually calm and stoic character as his shots are now all over the place.
However, there’s more than archery on Seiya’s mind as he deals with Minato’s sudden resurgence of personality and energy. This episode is one long and slow breakdown of Seiya’s character and the walls he’s built around himself and by the time we get the confrontation between Seiya and Masaki, beautifully understated as usual, it is clear that Seiya is either mourning the distance that has opened up between Minato and himself, or he’s upset that he wasn’t the one who was able to help Minato get back into archery in the end. Both are pretty understandable and given Seiya is only a teenager, his inability to deal with this kind of emotion makes perfect sense.
When you throw in that the episode weaves in some of Minato’s story showing him getting a medical check up in the present and a little bit of the accident, what you end up with is a fairly affective episode, provided you don’t mind feeling like ending on a little bit of a downer because we kind of leave things at an extreme low point.
Another nicely done episode and one that was pretty to watch as we’ve come to expect. The Okonomiyaki cooking scene was great fun and the inclusion of the girls here was good, though as normal they get a few lines and then end up on the periphery. Still, even though the focus is Seiya the rest of the team are not neglected and we continue to move steadily toward the next hurdle for the boys.
- Episode 1 – On Target
- Episode 2 – Finding Your Target
- Episode 3 – It Isn’t Easy To Overcome Trauma
- Episode 4 – What Happens When Individuals Become A Team
- Episode 5 – How To Build Strong Camaraderie By Facing Adversity
- Episode 6 – The Best Revenge; Go Forth and Succeed Your Own Way
- Episode 7 – Why Strong Competition Caused the Need For Contemplation
- Episode 8 – Reaching the Target With Some Help From Your Friends
- Episode 9 – Shots Fired: Seiya Being Jealous and Lashing Out
- Episode 10 – Emotions Run High This Week and Are Handled Beautifully
- Episode 11 – You Have One Shot: Seize the Moment
- Episode 12 – Is It Time For The Team to Get It Together?
- Episode 13 – The Final Draw of The Match But Not The End
- Episode 14 – More of the same but different
- Images from: Tsurune. Dir. T Yamamura. Kyoto Animation. 2019.
But most importantly, WHY DID SEIYA HAVE TO SAY THAT IN THE END!! WHYYYY! why.
Hahaha, I guess this is where the drama tag comes into use.
But I do understand that Masa-san took away Seiya’s position to protect Minato. He probably said it out of jealousy as a friend and he is probably trying to protect him guilt because he probably felt responsible of Minato’s mom and the accident.
I’m looking forward to the next episode and seeing where they take this.