The Fruit of Grisaia

Episode 10

As many have suspected, this episode begins the Amane arc of the story, and much to my delight, it also marks the return to several of the intriguing statements made back during episode one. Some of you may remember Amane's statement about having found Yuuji at the end of the introductory episode, and now we finally begin to explore that. As it turns out, Amane was with Yuuji's sister Kazuki when the bus she was on vanished and she was presumed dead, a fact which seems to haunt Yuuji to this day. After Amane once again makes moves on Yuuji (to which he responds this time, but don't get your hopes up – it's quite tame apart from her squealing the whole time he's kissing her), he point blank asks her why she's so into him. Thus launches her story about what really happened when his sister's bus disappeared.

In some ways it really feels like we've completely switched stories once Amane's flashback begins: we were in The Fruit of Grisaia, but all of a sudden we're in the manga Limit by Keiko Suenobu. Amane and Kazuki are members of their school's basketball team returning from a training camp when their bus crashes in the mountains, killing a couple of students and stranding the rest of them far from civilization with no cell service. Most of the girls panic, but Kazuki maintains a cool head and even manipulates the team captain into doing what's best for everyone by playing on their mutual dislike. It's easy to tell that she and Yuuji are related – both have the same cold demeanor and cool focus that allows them to get things done even under adverse conditions. What's more surprising is Amane. While the other girls have shown shadows of who they will become in their stories, Amane is a quivering, shy, bundle of uncertainty. She sticks with Kazuki at first simply because she's someone who can give her direction, but we do begin to see her start to warm up to the strange other girl as the episode goes on...and maybe start to develop a little crush on her. (Could her attraction to Yuuji simply be a transference of her feelings for his sister?) That the rest of the team is clearly terrified and a few are resentful of Kazuki's calm becomes increasingly obvious as the episode progresses...as does the fact that the teacher is totally overwhelmed and may very well become useless. It's concerning that his injury is to his head – a concussion, one girl surmises – and that his first action upon waking up is to yell at the students. On the one hand, it feels very natural for him to snap since he's got to be feeling tremendous guilt and pressure, something we see affirmed when he buries the dead students. On the other hand, head injuries can be tricky, and fiction has generally been quick to use them to alter personalities as a plot device. If the teacher goes off the rails, what will become of the power dynamic between the captain and Kazuki? The answer can't be anything good, particularly since we know from Yuuji that Kazuki never makes it home.

While this episode features a lot of static shots of people talking against unmoving backgrounds, giving it the feeling of being a series of stills ripped from the game (something I cannot be sure of, not having played it yet), there is a new diversity in the character designs that keeps it from being visually boring. Each girl looks different from the others even if hair colors are repeated and each clearly has her own issues as shown in her body language, their very posture in most cases. The image against which the ending credits roll is particularly lovely and the colors in general seem lusher this time, with more deep and vibrant shades. Possibly this is simply because it takes place mostly in the woods, but whatever the reason, it works.

It looks like The Fruit of Grisaia may have saved the best storyline, or at least the one they planned to work the most in-depth on, for last. Angelic Howl is fascinating in that it tells us about Yuuji's past as well as Amane's and its story is different enough from the rest to really make it stand out. It's a shame this couldn't have been the whole season, but right now I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next.

Rating: A-

The Fruit of Grisaia is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rebecca Silverman teaches English and is ANN's senior manga reviewer.