#thanks cakeandpi for the rec!

[soulerflaire]

Just finished March Comes in Like a Lion, thoughts under the cut.

Going in, I thought this was gonna be like Chihayafuru, a show about a high schooler obsessed with a competitive game learning to deal with the problems of being a teenager while also balancing the problems of being a competitive player. But right off the bat, this show made it clear that it was very, very different. It’s much heavier, dealing with much more difficult topics very openly. Rei is in a deep depression when the show starts, suffering from a lot of trauma over the past several years of his life.

However, slowly but surely, with the help of people around him, he’s able to climb up for air. And, realistically, he’s not 100% okay, and he may never be. But he’s found things in life that he cares about, found a reason to do more with himself than endlessly study and practice shogi. At the start, he almost never took the sisters up on their offers to come over for dinner, and we see Akari has to basically force him to come over (neat trick with asking him to pick up ingredients) to make sure he eats a decent meal every now and then. But by the end of the second season, he’s over at their place frequently, and multiple times came over without needing a specific invitation. He finally allowed himself to rely on them, and realized he found people he can trust and who trust him.

It happens so gradually that it’s easy to miss. Watching Rei repeatedly bring food over, and spend several evenings a week tutoring Hinata, you forget how Akari and Hinata had to strongarm him into coming over early on. It’s a show with a lot of sad episodes, and it gets really heavy when it goes into the abuse and trauma Rei went through (and tbh is still going through with his sister visiting) and the bullying that Hinata faces, but seeing the character growth in both of them is so uplifting. Everyone relies on each other, from Akari and Hinata making sure Rei eats well and has a safe space, to Rei consoling Hinata when her friend moves to escape the bullying, to the grandpa supporting Akari and giving her advice when she struggles to fill the role her mom left her. And that’s not even getting into the shogi players and how they help lift Rei out of his spiral of depression and in turn he (albeit unintentionally) motivates them to keep fighting for their dreams.

I know the manga goes on for much longer, but it’s been a few years since the last episode of the anime came out, so I’m no holding out much hope for another season. In regards to the anime, I’m fine with it ending where it did. The one thing I would have liked to see was Rei graduating, and finding out if he decided to quit shogi or keep playing.

I was fascinated by the ongoing theme that Rei doesn’t actually like shogi; he originally played it because it was the best (or only) way he could spend time with his father, and then he kept playing to earn his place in his adoptive family’s household. Then he went professional and played to earn enough money to live on his own. Then he wanted to help Hinata, so he played to earn money for her, as it was the only thing he thought he could do to help. He was never at any point playing shogi because he actually wanted to or enjoyed doing it. I think the only match we know for sure he enjoyed was against Soya. Part of me really likes the idea of him graduating, quitting professional shogi (but continuing to play matches with people he knows, like Nikaido and Shimada) and getting a job the crescent moon sweet shop, or finding other work he enjoys.

It’s such a different feel than Chihayafuru, but I think I liked them both about the same. Well, maybe I liked MCiLaL a little bit more because it didn’t have the tedious forced love triangle that Chihayafuru had. Very good show, I highly recommend giving it a try.

#thanks cakeandpi for the rec! #flaire watches anime #gonna tag posts like this with that