In the Clear Moonlit Dusk

Episode 11

Well class, it was just barely, but we made it out of that Ikea. We're free for now, but we're not out of the woods yet. I mean that literally. We are lost in the woods and our meatball supply is starting to run thin. Dylan learned the hard way that you really can't trust wild mushrooms, and none of us are mycologists. Let's move quickly and hope we can find our way to civilization, or at least a clean water source.

Maybe it's because I had to take a couple of night watch shifts and I'm sleepy, but I can't think of much to say about this week's episode of In the Clear Moonlit Dusk, “The Empty Room.” It is, for the most part, a midpoint between last week's date and next week's presumable climax. Ichimura's friend, a hot girl named Yoshiko, shows up and begs him to go out to eat with her because she has a crush on a hot guy working at this restaurant. She can't bring another girl because what if she also falls in love? She needs a heterosexual dude friend.

If you have any knowledge of how narratives are structured, it's a simple thing to predict that their destination was Yoi's family restaurant. You may not have guessed, however, that the guy Yoshiko is after is Yoi's dad.

Discussion questions: Who is the hottest guy in In the Clear Moonlit Dusk? Because to be honest, Yoshiko is right. Yoi's dad can get it.

By the way, I misspelled Oji's name last week while being under duress. Oops! I should be more careful, I do know what it's like to have your name constantly misspelled. By the way, if you write “Caitlyn” on the student evaluations, I will figure out who it was and fail you. If we manage to get out of this situation safely.

Logan, no! Those are deadly nightshade berries!

We are dropping like flies, everyone. Yesterday Michael thought he could fight off a bear, and now this?

Anyway, the boy prince himself sees Ichimura and Yoshiko out together and immediately jumps to the assumption that Ichimura is up to some funny business. So, let's talk about mixed-sex friendships.

One of the most famous lines in When Harry Met Sally postulates about whether or not men and women can really be friends, when there's always the potential for romance lurking between them. In 2019, The Journal of Relationships Research published a study that found that in the majority of platonic relationships between male and female friends, the male friend was attracted to the female friend and suspected she was secretly attracted to him as well, when in fact she rarely reciprocated. At the time, the headlines trumpeted about how Nora Ephron was right, that romantic feelings will always get in the way.

Discussion questions: Do you notice any obvious biases in this study? How does it ignore relationships outside of a cisheteronormative framework? How might the results look different if they had included queer participants?

The question becomes, does In the Clear Moonlit Dusk believe that men and women can be friends? Clearly, Yoi thinks they can, but Oji does not, hence the miscommunication about the nature of their little outing. Oji looks much worse in this situation; there is no way to see his inviting Yoi out as anything but a deliberate ploy to get her to cheat on her boyfriend. It also makes him instantly suspicious when he sees Ichimura out with Yoshiko, because he doesn't believe two attractive straight people of opposite genders can have a truly platonic relationship.

I don't know what the general attitude of the story is, however. Oji has a certain degree of misogyny to work through, after all, but it's misogyny that permeates the entire plot instead of being a distinct character flaw. Ichimura and Yoshiko may not be into each other – neither is the other's type – but they're also childhood friends, which is a different kind of friendship.

Let's stop for the night and make camp; the days may be getting longer and warmer, but it's still very cold at night. Alexis, Natalie, Claire, and Jason, use your scouting knowledge to get a shelter and a fire going, please. We're all going to have to huddle up for warmth. Platonically.

The episode is split awkwardly in half, and we transition to Yoi and Ichimura going out for sweets since they barely saw each other over the summer. They end up getting their cake to go, because apparently Ichimura is bad with the heat, and his apartment is nice and cool because he lives in a concrete bunker. This isn't concrete as luxury like his vacation home; his apartment is starkly undecorated, barely even furnished outside of the necessities. Eventually he starts kissing her, gently pushing her down onto the bedding they were sitting on.

She doesn't seem perturbed about this development, necessary, and it does seem like a natural progression from the ear and neck kissing a moment earlier. However, she once again seems to have little awareness of her own desires, wondering how far things will go instead of how far she wants it to go. She lies passively with Ichimura over her, but winces when he moves to kiss her on the lips. When he pauses and flops on top of her, he asks if something happened with Oji, leading me to wonder if it was all a ploy for him to express his possession for her. Sex becomes an expression of ownership, the taking of virginity an indelible mark meaning that ultimately, she was Ichimura's before anyone else's. I don't know if this is intentional subtext, or if it will even play out, but it's the last thing on my mind as credits play.

Perhaps the last thing on my mind, ever. Does anyone else hear wolves howling?

Rating: