Fuuka

Episode 10

So there's an elephant in the room. Well, there has been for a while. Ever since Fuuka started airing, it's been hard to avoid talk of a certain "event" in the manga that apparently changes everything – and not for the better. Well, that event has arrived, and its treatment in this altered adaptation was definitely unexpected. Basically, remember that scene where Fuuka narrowly avoids getting hit by a car? Didn't it seem totally irrelevant to the rest of the episode? Well, in the source material, Fuuka did get hit by the car, and she died. That's right, the manga killed off its main heroine for pretty much no good reason right when the band plot was getting off the ground. To make matters worse, Yuu and Koyuki weren't dating in the manga, so Fuuka was still the primary romantic interest.

Now I haven't read the manga, but that sounds like a terrible narrative decision, and I can see why it seems to have garnered so much outrage. I didn't know about this until recently, when I managed to walk right into some spoilers. Just hearing about it, it sounds like one of the worst melodramatic twists that I've encountered in anime, and it was a good choice to patch it up for this adaptation. At the same time, however, it might've made for a hilarious trainwreck. Not killing off Fuuka just leaves this story feeling generic and boring, so I'm torn. Oh well. I'm happy that fans of manga at least get to see the heroine receive her proper due, rather than getting replaced by another character with the same name (seriously) following her untimely death.

But that's enough time spent on something that never happens. Otherwise, the plot to this episode consists of The Fallen Moon performing their second big concert. Fuuka is still too emotionally constipated over her feelings for Yuu to write their next song, but they truck on through anyways. It looks like Yuu is oblivious to her feelings (for some reason – weren't they dating earlier in the show?) Koyuki, however, knows better, and she's concerned about the situation. Fuuka is her friend, so she doesn't want to hurt her, but I suspect that Koyuki's also not too happy about her spending so much time with her man.

In the meantime, her bandmates get their requisite minutes of character focus. Mikasa continues to get the most interesting of these – apparently he's got this whole drama going on behind the scenes where his rich dad doesn't want him getting back into music (for some reason). He's actually getting disowned for joining The Fallen Moon, which is just glossed over. With a conflict like that, the show should've been about Mikasa. He's the one facing real consequences in this whole mess. In terms of even less developed characters, Guitarist Iwami remains the older band guy's sister, while drummer Nachi just has an encouraging grandma. That's about it for them. The Hedgehogs' last two members – a pair of blonde siblings – also show up. I'm not sure why the show thinks that I might care about them. They've barely built up The Hedgehogs at all, and I didn't even know that there were five members until now. It feels like they were the main characters of a prequel story that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist. Either way, I just realized that they sing in the opening, so maybe they just wanted some hotter band people than The Fallen Moon's crew of teens in order to help sell the show.

Even without the new song, our heroes pull off their concert, but it's just them signing those same two songs for like the third time now, which isn't impressive anymore. After the show, Fuuka announces that she's decided to take up the scout's offer and launch a solo career, leaving The Fallen Moon behind. This move makes sense as a source of late-show tension and an escape from her (seemingly) unrequited love. Having averted the manga's infamous, defining tragedy, Fuuka looks ready to sail calmly (if dully) into its conclusion.

Grade: B

Fuuka is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.