March comes in like a lion

Episode 4

March comes in like a lion's first three episodes offered a fairly even balance of Rei's depression and random goofiness with his friends and adoptive family. There were some tonal incongruities in switching between the two, but the terrific Rei material generally carried the day, and the occasional goofy parts offered an okay contrast to that. The third episode in particular leaned very heavily on Rei's mindspace, and was stronger for it - but here in the fourth episode, it's pretty much all goofiness from start to finish.

This ends up playing out as well as you'd expect. March's humor is easily its weakest element, from the base nature of the jokes to the way they're executed. I could easily see sequences like Hina and Akari engaging in silly face battles being engaging in manga format, where you simply skim through their expressions - but here in the anime adaptation, these extended gags generally just feel abrasive and overlong.

Moments like the “this is what the rest of us are thinking” cuts felt like an even more obvious demonstration of the perils of adaptation. In manga, you can actually have characters offer asides, because there's a certain nonlinearity of narrative afforded through panels and margins. You can evoke the concept of “here's one character commenting on another character's behavior” with relative grace, using tricks like sticking characters in the margins or placing one character's thought bubble beneath another's dialogue one. But in anime, the linear progression of dialogue and need for clear visual focus takes away those tools.

There are ways to compensate for that, but simply sticking the character asides right after the dialogue it's commenting on is the laziest and likely least effective of them. Commentary like that works because it doesn't draw focus - when you have to dedicate full seconds of screentime to things like “these characters are mad because Akari isn't paying attention to them,” you lose the light touch that makes commentary like that work.

On top of that, this episode also consistently demonstrated the aesthetic limitations of this production. The backgrounds are still gorgeous, and there were plenty of creative faces, but the base designs of the characters are so simplified that sometimes it's difficult to draw precise emotions from their expressions. The show's animation is also starting to feel a bit threadbare, and tricks like SHAFT's regular extreme closeups continue to feel inappropriate for this gentle and low-key material. When you're animating something like the hyperactive rants of Monogatari or Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei, lots of quick cuts make sense. When you're establishing the peaceful atmosphere of an evening with family friends, those tricks feel more intrusive.

That said, March comes in like a lion is still a fundamentally strong show. The characters did a lot of heaving lifting here, with both Rei and Akari receiving solid material. On Rei's side, I liked how his difficulty in parsing Hina's feelings about her crush felt true to his general trouble understanding the oversized emotional displays of others. And on Akari's, I appreciate how the show is continuing to complicate her identity, emphasizing both her firm hand as the head of the family and her underlying goofball personality. Even Harunobu got some nice moments, like the reveal that he's actually very good with kids.

Overall, this was easily the weakest episode of March so far. That fact didn't really worry me, though - this episode didn't introduce new weaknesses, it was simply more focused on the elements of the show that have always been pretty questionable. Hopefully March learns to better master its more upbeat material eventually, but there's still plenty here to enjoy.

Overall: C

March comes in like a lion is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.