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Concrete Revolutio
Episode 18

by Rose Bridges,

How would you rate episode 18 of
Concrete Revolutio: The Last Song (TV 2) ?
Community score: 4.0

This felt like one of Concrete Revolutio's best episodes. On an emotional level, it manages what few other installments have done so far; it makes you really feel for the characters, combining a heartwarming family story with enough details about the show's changing world to move the larger plot forward. Still, it took "Canada Goldenrod" a while to get there, as it got bogged down early in little details about the business of our main characters.

The episode starts in the middle of a field of its titular plant, an invasive species from northeastern America that grew all over Japan during this era. In the world of Concrete Revolutio, of course, it has special abilities. When a widower, Wakamura, with a young daughter named Yuko, travels into the field where his wife is buried, he manages to get a strong whiff of the stuff. So when escaped superhuman convicts hijack their bus, Wakamura suddenly transforms into a Hulk-like superhuman he inadvertently names "Human Man."

Concrete Revolutio leads you to believe that the plot about the escaped convicts is the A-plot of the episode. After all, it's established that these blue monsters are half-Devila, the race of subterranean creatures who were the focus of last week's episode. The main characters continue to discuss the problems with these escaped convicts throughout the episode, but that plot gradually fades away to re-focus on the real story, which is about Wakamura, and his daughter, and his newfound Human Man powers. Throughout the episode, he confronts various different forces in his world to try to decide what to do with his new abilities.

That's become one of the ongoing themes of Concrete Revolutio's second season: life as an ordinary superhuman in early 1970s Japan. In episode 15, Aki discussed the frustration with feeling like they are pawns in everyone's games. Imperial Ads wants to use them to do business, the Public Security Forces to uphold the law, the Superhuman Bureau to promote the cause of superhumans at all cost, and Jiro for his own ends. What if none of those options work for somebody? What do they have left?

This is exactly where Wakamura finds himself after consulting Imperial Ads. He isn't a "real" enough superhuman for the Bureau or other groups, who want to get rid of the Canada goldenrod. It's growing all over the country, turning more and more people into superhumans, so they're losing control just like they were in the first season's late 1960s, when groups like Angel Stars made superhumans a trend and students used them to rise up against the government, Bureau, and other institutions. Imperial Ads doesn't think he's young and perky enough to be one of their top-shelf superhumans, so he'd be required to take a villain role—which they correctly assume he wouldn't accept, as the father of a young girl. He already rejected some actual villains' attempts to team up, after all. Wakamura wants to do good things for society, but mainly he wants to be a superhuman because Yuko loves them. There aren't many outlets that let him fight for justice in the way he wants in this new order where superhumans are carefully controlled.

So when the Imperial Ads people try to burn down the Canada goldenrod, Wakamura is finally spurred to take matters into his own hands. He transforms into Human Man and goes into the goldenrod to defend it, knowing that if the plants are destroyed, his powers will be as well. Since his daughter loves Human Man, Wakamura can't have that. He needs to be the person she looks up to, especially since, as Yuko says, Wakamura the Normal Human has just been "sad all the time" since his wife died. Being Human Man enables him to become something more than a sad widower for Yuko. He loves his daughter enough that he'll stand up for the goldenrod, even if it hurts others and makes him a villain.

Wakamura is willing to risk it all for a very small yet sympathetic motivation. Unfortunately, he's not allowed to be that "human" as a superhuman in Concrete Revolutio, where powers mean signing away your will to larger groups. Some of this is honorable, because superhumans are looked up to as responsible for enforcing justice for all of humanity, but it also means these people move further away from their own humanity. If you can't put your loved ones first, then who are you really fighting for?

One of the Tartarus Bugmen rises out of the fields at the last minute, taking this particular field of Canada goldenrod with her—and, presumably, Wakamura's powers, since we're told that we never see Human Man again. At the same time, the narrator insists that Canada goldenrod kept growing all over Japan, and that the following year (1973) was known as the "Superhuman Explosion." More and more superhumans showed up all over Japan, and groups like the Bureau and Imperial Ads presumably had less and less control over them.

This episode demonstrates one of the show's core themes better than any episode before it: how the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s meant more power in the hands of everyday people and less in the hands of their governments. The superhuman abilities are a metaphor for everyday citizens taking matters into their own hands, rising up against the government over war, civil rights, and other issues. That's why the "Shinjuku riots" kept coming up, as a demonstration of the struggle for greater self-determination among students. As the goldenrod spreads across Japan, this theme will only continue to proliferate in Concrete Revolutio. Episode 18 has given us a powerful version of this struggle, as superhuman politics gets in the way of a single dad's desire to keep his little girl happy.

The episode wasn't always successful at charting that path, often getting bogged down in fleeting discussions over the Bureau testing new mechas. Concrete Revolutio still has a serious focus problem. But when it manages to focus, it's clear that this show is capable of some powerful stories. The past 18 episodes have made it clear that Shō Aikawa has a lot he still wants to say with Concrete Revolutio, and he and his guest writers are getting better at communicating those feelings.

Rating: A-

Concrete Revolutio is currently streaming on Funimation.

Rose is a music Ph.D. student who loves overanalyzing anime soundtracks. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn, and on Twitter.


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