Just Because:A clear current in the Japanese anime industry
I finished watching “Just because” on a somewhat gloomy day last month, tucked up in bed. After watching it, there is always a complicated and unexplainable emotion in my heart. The characteristics of group dramas make it different from many animations that have brought me a strong sense of resonance. I can’t help but get involved in a certain character, and my emotions fluctuate with it. Rather, it is more like tea tasting, with a long aftertaste.
The youth depicted in many animations is shining and full of beauty. In reality, however, most days are still uneventful, with the occasional occurrence of something worthy of being called a “story.” And it is these stories, is not more beautiful, but there are joys and sorrows, there are joy and helplessness.
This aspect of the work is very real.
In the first few minutes of the animation, this everyday feeling is depicted. This is a picture of the ordinary life of the main characters before the story takes place, either alone or with their families. The background is also an ordinary winter sky. Everyone lives their lives from day to day without any major changes. It is this, the time of the gear rotation, in the protagonists have not been aware of the time, and the story quietly began.
Even the stories that happen unfold in the context of reality. Two boys after four years of chance to talk about old things, no overflowing joy, more like feeling life.
Junior high school best friends agreed to continue to keep in touch after the transfer of school, but soon feel that words have no way to talk about, finally gradually lost contact. The flow of people on both sides of the picture blurred the distance between the two people, once the friendship was gradually dispersed.
Jiaziyuan ambition to meet again became a bitter laugh. Hobbies that are considered as important as life in other animation works can be easily put down due to changes in life. It may be because the new school cannot integrate into the new group, may be because the new school does not have the same club.
Even if it continues smoothly, not everyone is the protagonist of the story and can write brilliant stories. It’s like playing baseball all the time. Of course, there were some very youthful ideas, but when they came up against a formidable opponent and saw the desperate gap, they evaporated.
There are no unrealistic expectations
With such a realistic tone, most of the protagonists don’t harbor unrealistic expectations.
Hake Marikina is surprisingly realistic when it comes to romance. When Yang Dou confides, it is impossible to agree to a relationship without knowing Yang Dou well. Later, they did not accept him again, but agreed on a deadline, because they believed that both of them were facing the admission and enrollment, and they could not communicate in this way until their lives were stable.
Ying too and Mei Cu always like a person, but also just silently in the heart like. Instead of expecting the relationship to blossom, they kept it quiet for years, afraid of what would happen if they found out.
At the end of their trip to the aquarium, there’s a very interesting line:
“It feels like high school.”
“We are high school students.”
What is “high school look”? Perhaps it refers to the depiction of the brilliant youth of high school students in movies and TV dramas. Go to all kinds of places together, gain friendship, and grow together. In reality, however, most of the time we just walk the same realistic and predetermined path as everyone else: studying, taking exams, working. It’s just that occasionally, along the way, you meet people, and things happen that seem like they could only happen in a work.
At the end of the story, the hero’s thoughts on the past few months are mentioned. Before he moved back here, he thought he would live an ordinary life here, peacefully spend his last semester of high school, wait to graduate and start a new life for himself in college. I did not expect to experience a full life here, feeling a variety of emotions.
Perhaps that’s also why the story feels real: I don’t come away from this story feeling like the main characters lead wonderful, shining lives. Instead, it’s like a story of chance encounters in their long lives.
They meet here by chance, they have some stories, and then they have an ending. After the life may also happened what story, maybe just as ordinary as before, the story just happens to cut out a period of time in their lives, It starts here and ends there. After that, everyone went about their business as usual.
As an aside, in this tone of work, Komiya becomes the most unique person. She courageously pursued the people and things she loved, and reluctantly accepted the things that seemed to have no choice. Only Xiao Gong became the most dazzling bright color in the work.
Most people used to accept the arrangement of life, in reality occasionally encounter people like Komiya, probably will be like Ying Tai, while feeling some strange, while from the bottom of my heart admire it.
Hidden mind
In this realistic background, the protagonists’ psychological description is very real. I especially like the description of hidden likes in the work.
Among these thoughts, there is a secret love hidden in the bottom of my heart that I do not want to say, for fear that what will happen if others find out. Have silent help and guard; the elation of hearing any news about each other; I am confused and at a loss when I am not sure what I want to do. Because of the injury from a date and wallpaper, I gradually determine what I want to do.
Because of the fear of failure, dare not let each other know, a person secretly, just to close the distance and like her. And inexplicably before the confession to make some winding efforts, in order to give them a little more confidence in the confession
Like this description, perhaps because I think of the similar behavior of people around me I just didn’t see the whole picture when I met him. Now find some inexplicable excitement, consternation, may be just the tip of the iceberg of emotions. But failed to say, after all, have been with the time flowing water without leaving a trace. Now to see, some suddenly
Or maybe it’s the feeling you’ve experienced firsthand. It’s just that the story of his past is dead, never to be told again. Now in the flood of life, already did not have the original feeling. Now when I see it in my works, I miss it a little when I recall my original self.
The way they look
Although it is a hidden intention, it is also worth writing about how a person looks when he is looking for someone.
This is my favorite part of the work, the depiction of the viewer: what they look like after they like someone.
For example, Miso is quietly looking out the window at the playground with the eraser in her hand. Yang Dou, for example, in accordance with the son sent to the position of the leaf month now, in the receipt of the leaf month line message, in the solemn confession of the leaf month, happy to exaggerate the appearance. For example, Yang Dou is usually very cheerful in the face of Ye Yuen embarrassed, shy, incoherent appearance.
I like this picture of Mei Cu sitting by the window
For people who like a person, it seems that they can’t help looking for information about them. Any message from the other person will make your heart ripple. Xiangtan in the baseball team for the sound of music in search of leaf moon’s horn; Ying too looked at Mei Cu, looking at her side of the injured side reluctantly want to match Xiangtan and leaf month, heart feel distressed for her; There is the small palace Hue that has been chasing yang too, looking at yang too in order to read the same university and Mei Cu study hard.
Even this search is not for nothing. The fact that a person is pursuing something is a beautiful sight in itself. So although the story will have a variety of flavors, the overall will be beautiful.
It seems to me that the author wants to affirm the beauty of this pursuit — when Eita earnestly says to Komiya, “I’m sorry, I’ve been in love with someone since very early on,” Komiya replies:
“Know ah, because it is such yang too senior I will like.”
She likes, it is watching someone, for someone and efforts yang too.
Another piece of evidence is the award-winning photo from the photography department. The person taking the photo is the student of the photography department who has been watching Xiaomiya. In the photo, Xiaomiya is taking pictures seriously. She is taking a picture of Eita and Yang Dou playing baseball.
It is watching yang too when she, to show a serious expression. It was the boy in the photography department who was watching her that was able to take this award-winning photo. I think this award is the author’s praise and reward for those who look and seek.
The result of the pursuit may succeed or fail, but the result cannot diminish the beautiful value of the process.