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Fuuka
Episode 12

by Gabriella Ekens,

How would you rate episode 12 of
Fuuka ?
Community score: 2.7

This conclusion contained no surprises. The Fallen Moon gets to practicing in anticipation of Fuuka's eventual return. Fuuka mopes until Yuu – newly single – confesses his feelings for her. The band gets back together, and they even play at a big concert with their new song! Some time later, things are still going well for both Yuu and Fuuka's musical careers and burgeoning relationship. Even Koyuki moves on by starting her own band! I'm happy for her, I guess. The show put her through a lot for nothing.

By this point, I've watched a whole six hours of Fuuka and still can't find much to say about it. It's a bland romantic melodrama without much of a hook. The band stuff comes closest to being a real gimmick, but even that was rote in execution, totally divorced from the reality of exploring that experience. Compare Fuuka to BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad, which has a similar premise. Beck succeeds because it totally commits to the gritty coolness of teenage band life, from its aesthetic to its character writing.

Fuuka is unambitious on both of those fronts. The show was at its most inspired (if it's even worth using that word here) when Koyuki was the subject. Even then, her story amounted to an overblown side-road, discarded just in time for the real couple to hook up. Still, her tragically inexplicable love for our hero forms the core of the show because it's what they spend the most time on.

Otherwise, the most notable thing about this adaptation is how it alters the source material. The manga seems to have contained some controversial - and I'll admit, quite bad-sounding - plot developments. In this version, the main heroine doesn't get hit by a car and die right after the climactic love confession. While this brought the show to baseline competence in terms of storytelling, it also made things less interesting to write about. It's at least fun to talk about shows that go up in flames, but not so much those that accomplish the minimum requirements for mediocrity. I'd only recommend this to people desperate for more versions of the “dude starts a band and acquires a vanilla fantasy girlfriend” premise, as well as a high tolerance for standard anime antics. Maybe it's just for folks who really want to break a shy idol's heart.

In my years of reviewing anime, I don't think I've ever covered a show that seemed to be running on autopilot harder than Fuuka. I've written up worse stuff for sure – Girls Beyond the Wasteland, Dimension W, World Trigger – but those at least aimed for something specific. Fuuka isn't one of those “shows for nobody” – the rare disasters that manage to alienate every potential audience – but at the same time, I can't imagine many people falling in love with it. It doesn't inspire strong feelings in either direction. In the end, I can at least say that Fuuka was a show that existed. And now it's over.

Grade: B-

Fuuka is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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


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