Ruri Rocks

Episode 12

This is not the season finale for Ruri Rocks, but they had me going there for a minute. The episode cold-opens without the theme song, which instead gets deployed in a climactic context at the end. That's anime finale structure 101, and the episode's themes of long-term learning and closing the loop of connecting with prior generations could resonate as a place to stop for the season. Look how far Ruri's come in her rock studies, and see how it's apparently always been somewhere in her DNA. It's a nice, satisfying final word.

And then right after the credits roll, a last-second bonus scene shows Imari winning a raffle and teeing up a preview for what will, in fact, be a thirteenth episode of the anime. Ah well, nevertheless!

I'm not going to argue with a little more of this exceptionally nice show, and it might actually be for the best anyway. As appreciable as this week's idea is, it arguably works better unburdened from thinking it's the final say on the whole arc of the season. There are a few reasons for this. The whole story revolves around Ruri discovering a connection to her since-passed grandfather and his bygone crystal radio hobby, vis-à-vis the rocks used as detectors for the device. It presents a tangible theme about communication across generations, and how the knowledge Ruri has accumulated in her Introduction to Mineralogy presents her with a posthumous connection to pursue with her grandfather.

Thing is, had this been meant as a capstone to the whole seasonal arc, it wouldn't really have worked since this is virtually the first time Ruri's granddad has been brought up. Generational connections are a point of Ruri Rocks overall, seen in the grad students mentoring these high schoolers. But Ruri having any inkling that her grandpa had his own mineralogical studies was an incidental-at-best detail that only gets picked up on in this episode to facilitate the crystal radio and a new suite of Cool Rock Facts™ that the writing can dispense around it. As such, it makes for a solidly satisfying theme across the arc of the singular episode. And if it does get brought back up later on (or indeed, if it already has in the source manga), more power to the series for folding in those layers.

There are other unsatisfying bits of the narrative as well. Chiefly, the episode pays so much attention to the point of Ruri and Shoko (with Ruri's friend Aoi along for the ride) piecing together and figuring the radio out on their own. This follows the idea of the last few episodes, that they've come to a point where they can conduct their own studies without being led around by Nagi and Imari. And it should be extra-meaningful with the personal connection the project represents between Ruri and her grandfather. So, after all their efforts to get the device receiving signals through trying out the rocks they've collected over the course of the series, it's only a little anticlimactic for Shoko to simply whip out a germanium diode that Imari had handed her off-screen that gets the radio to fully work. It feels like a cheat, both in the narrative and out of the overall themes.

Granted, Ruri does resolve to keep Doing A Science and trying out the other rocks as detectors anyway. This fits with what she's learned about not stopping even after arriving at one's initial goal in science, and helps the thematics of the episode bounce back a bit. Her pursuit of using her grandpa's packed-in rocks from the original radio is also what leads her and everyone to the sentimental shrine trip that sets up that generational theming and nice theme-song deployment moment. It firms up the connection and is what had me thinking right up to the end that this was the end. Ruri's learned not just how studying these minerals leads her back through her own personal history—she's learned the very valuable lesson that studying one thing can splinter and ripple out into additional hobbies and interests.

It's good theming in any situation, and as a point to arrive at late in the series (if not the actual ending), it hits. I appreciate Ruri Rocks regularly reinforcing the growth of young scientists like Ruri and Shoko, and also demonstrating the kinds of scientific subsections that mineralogy can lead others to. I hadn't even considered the possibility of following it to radios via the crystal connection before! So that's more knowledge imparted, which is par for the course for the mission statement of an edutainment entity like this. If some of the other elements felt shortchanged or weren't quite as narratively satisfying, that's acceptable here. The show's still getting where it's going, on its own terms.

Rating:

Ruri Rocks is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris doesn't know much about cool rocks, but he could talk your ear off about cool anime and cool Transformers. Catch him doing so over on his BlueSky, or see previous posts over on his blog.

---

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.

---

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of Anime News Network, its employees, owners or sponsors.