names2hard4you
Member
Well I used the old man to make a point about the tonal whiplash. It's not just the old man. It's present every episode in some shape or form (damned cats talking after we get a scene about Rei's horrible past for instance?), except for episode 10 where they kept that at a bare minimum. For instance, the only "gaggy" scene in this episode was his meeting with the teacher. Them both laughing at how miserable they are felt sarcastic, not hamfisted and it worked, it wasn't even attempting to be funny. Then throughout the whole episode we actually felt tension for the first time. We saw Rei play Shogi, but never like this before. Nothing really about his opponent made him seem more dangerous than the previous ones, but the direction of the scene made it all seem a lot more focused, as if the stakes were much higher than anything prior. The dead silence (no narration telling us about what we were seeing!!!) the long stares and nervous ticks when thinking about their next move, it was all being played out as a beautifully sad and nervous track played in the background, it was a thing of beauty.
The conclusion of it all, the amount of anger coming out of Rei at the end felt genuine, and like a cry for help, something that we also barely see since his struggle is always very quiet, internal and black and white. We got bright orange colours as the sun was setting and his lone figure screamed at the top of his lungs. This episode alone actually made his depression justified, as all of this stress and negativity kept hitting him from everywhere and he just broke out.
