Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m looking at about a half foot of snow that had the temerity to land just outside my window, and preparing to stay enshrouded in blankets until the spring thaw. However, while it’s far too cold and blustery to currently enjoy my own city, it’s never a bad time to check back in with CITY the Animation, and see how its lovely community is making the most of their own summer days.
After the screen-splitting animation extravaganza that was episode five, CITY’s most recent episode returned us to the production’s usual mode, wherein we learned a great deal more about several of this city’s most prominent families. Having already met so many members of this community, we’ve reached a point where each new scene demonstrates either a new point of connection (like Ryota’s family situation) or new facet of an old friend (like Wako being responsible for Mr. Happiness). This in turn emphasizes what must surely be CITY’s most fundamental theme: that we are simultaneously wildly unique and deeply interconnected, a communal organism that is greater for each eccentricity of its component parts. Fostering those connections and celebrating those quirks is essentially the work of being a community, and CITY’s every episode demonstrates the incidental joys of that process. Let’s head downtown!
Episode 7
We open on our middle school pair, who have recovered enough from the bombshell of Eri’s move to England to again be bouncing ideas off each other at their usual manic pace
Love the goofy sound effects for them waving their fists at each other, which sound more like plastic balls bouncing off each other in a little shaker. I feel like Arawi and this production team are aligned in their appreciation for funny fragmentary concepts like this – there’s no structured joke here, it’s just a silly noise the team found, one which they decided was funny enough to turn into its own extended gag
They elect to spend all of Eri’s remaining time together
The shaker gag continues as the camera pans out, with the sound still prevalent but just a little lower in the mix, apparently loud enough to be heard across the square and behind the fountain
Actually laughed out loud at their escalation of the “I was thinking the same thing” call and response to Eri revealing her “Nonstop Memory Club” banner. Repetitive escalation into absurdism is one of Arawi’s most favored tricks, but this team pulls it off so gracefully every time. Multiple forces of humor at work here, from the preposterous initial idea that Eri would have previously constructed this banner to the tempo of her breathless explanation matching up with the reveal of the banner’s statement
“Now we’re the No More Thinking the Same Thing Club.” “I was thinking the same thing!” Yep, the only place left to go in escalation is to have the snake eat its own tail
For some reason the soccer team is now playing baseball. Regardless, we get some juicy smears and stretching of forms as this ball connects with the bat
The course of this ball’s flight offers another chance to show off the interconnectivity of this city, as it flies past several other leads in the midst of their own adventures. Everyone has their own story, and the great gift of community is getting to share in the stories of those around you
Oh no, Mr. Makabe’s discovered that his would-be regular spot has reopened. Don’t do this to yourself, Mr. Makabe
“Is there a chef in the house!?” Perfectly stupid idea, that a restaurant chef’s injury might prompt the server to ask any random passing chef to sub in on the stove
“The young man stares at me with a puzzled look.” Mr. Makabe is an excellent vehicle for one of Arawi’s favored styles of gag: the extended self-serious genre riff, wherein Arawi evokes the narrative tropes and wistful tone of a pastoral drama or bildungsroman or whatnot in order to set up another absurdist anticlimax
And of course, Kyoto Animation’s artists are eager to further elevate these genre riffs with background art and animation that tends to be more accomplished than shows that are actually taking their own genres seriously
Thus they spend six hours groveling before a rice vendor, which somehow convinces this would-be fried rice eater of the merit of Mr. Makabe’s unique cooking methods
“Mr. Makabe, I’m sorry… that was super average.” And yep, there’s our shameless anticlimax
Makabe’s despair carries us to Nagumo back at the restaurant, who apologizes for being late because she “had to attend Niikura’s funeral.” A very silly callback to the wrestling match we briefly witnessed alongside the baseball’s flight path
Jeez, I’d forgotten Matsuri was Mr. Makabe’s daughter. So many connections in this town!
Unsurprisingly, what brings Mr. Makabe back to life is Nagumo attempting to ape his condescending world-weary wisdom and totally flubbing it, forcing him to again reclaim his throne as the guy who says shit like “with so many lost lambs around, I guess I’ve no choice but to show off a bit.”
One nice thing about this show is that it can somehow be sincere and self-parodying at the same time. This sequence of Mr. Makabe cheerfully going about the rest of his daily affairs is charming and bond-affirming in its own right, even without the eventual stinger of him lamenting his lack of any customers
We then jump to the college crew’s apartment, where Izumi appears to still be inhabiting the closet in her delightful dinosaur pajamas
Nice sense of temporal congruity across this episode, with time’s steady passage creating its own sort of link between these scenes
Nagumo and Izumi engage in the age-old practice of attempting to annoy their friend for no reason
Incredible ogre face for Niikura silently stewing in rage
And of course, when she attempts to return the favor Nagumo immediately puts her in a chokehold. Don’t you know by now how Nagumo handles adversity, Niikura?
In the middle of the night, Niikura gets up to munch on some uncooked instant ramen, which sounds absolutely disgusting. I do appreciate their continuation of this intimate focus on time’s passage, creating this sort of “twenty-four hours in the life of the city” feel
Ooh, lovely transitions through this visual metaphor here, as the line of Niikura’s mouth chewing on the ramen transforms into a sheet music staff representing the melody of the sound, and then onward to ribbons celebrating her satisfaction at the flavor
“Just feeling like I’m the only person eating like this at this hour makes me feel like someone special, and fills me with ridiculous excitement.” There is absolutely a certain magic in being awake within a city at rest – not the genuine isolation of being far from others, but the cozy awareness of being surrounded by sleepers, a ghost in the night
I appreciate that Niikura’s voice actress starts mumbling through her internal monologue when her tongue is out
Preposterous sequence of movement into depth for Niikura then riding her bike to a twenty-four hour restaurant. While this production’s full color shading certainly makes such extravagances a touch easier, any benefit such an aesthetic provides is surely wiped out by this sequence’s dramatic speed lines and fish-eye distorted perspective. Just an astonishing flex all around
We then meet the local barber Kuratake, who declares he had “no choice but to be corrupted by evil.” A strong start
Excellent unexplained gag of him drinking tomato juice out of a huge gold trophy
His reflection on the eccentricities of his regulars offers another point of connection, an odd thread uniting several unlikely companions across the city. We are all connected in ways we can and cannot see
The explanation of his trophy further emphasizes these themes of interconnectivity and public service. By selling the strange gifts he receives from his patrons, he actually invests back in the city’s public places, turning their odd, intimate ephemera into a brighter shared community. In a very real way, the odd passions they all bring to this community physically enrich their world
Our epilogue carries us to CITY’s annual quiz competition, where our four remaining contestants include Nagumo, Makabe (the younger), Adatara (the smug), and the ominous Quiz King
Adatara is of course a pro at handling these preposterous questions, earning himself diamond jewelry and a trip to Hawaii
Nagumo at last answers “who is your favorite historical figure” correctly, which earns her a prize of three bugs
And Done
Yeah, excellent choice for the epilogue sketch there, concluding a very charming and largely community-oriented episode with a generous slice of top-notch absurdism. Mr. Makabe continues to be one of this production’s most comically exploitable characters; the contrast between his staid affect and the preposterous nature of his daily trials is just naturally very funny, and also the sort of gag that Kyoto Animation’s team can elevate through sequences like his cross-country search for mediocre fried rice. And the one-two punch of our conclusion demonstrated CITY at its best: a heavy dollop of sentimental slice-of-life reflections balanced by that essential seasoning of expertly crafted nonsense, as Arawi threw every possible betrayal of expectations into the briefest of quiz games. What a pleasure it is to visit this lovely city.
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