Tsuma, Shougakusei ni Naru. Episode 4 Discussion

I don't see the series justifying her actions, but rather explaining them. After all, nothing in this world happens without something behind it - some motivation or material cause. Cause and effect can never be ignored or written off. Justifying it would be saying you agree with, like, and support her actions and think there is nothing wrong with her engaging in them or want her to continue with them. Explaining provides crucial context and says that yeah, even if a person engages in actions today we may dislike, despise, or condemn, that doesn't mean they can't be a different person tomorrow, that it defines their entire life and existence, or that they were born as a demon or mindless beast with no complicated underlying circumstances.

Just stigmatizing and punishing someone or repeatedly chastising them usually doesn't solve anything, because it doesn't resolve or mitigate the original problems which led them down their current path and created those circumstances in the first place. Better to understand the mother and try to work with her than name call or attack her or anything like that.

And I say this as someone who's not even a fan of hers or this type of person in general - divorced bitter women angry at the world and indiscriminately rude and mean, let alone abusive ones. Don't typically like them either as people in real life or even as characters (they can just be annoying, depending on what series and story we're talking about). But I also think that it's beneficial and necessary to explore and understand their perspective.

I agree that depending on exactly who and what (which actions) we're talking about, that it's not always ideal that someone escapes punishment or retribution for past offenses, but it's supremely realistic, no? It happens every single day. Putting aside the fantasy premise of the series of reincarnation (which may exist in some form but not one known to or proven by modern science in our world) of someone with a fully intact consciousness, everything else in the series in terms of how that plays out and the characters it affects and lives it touches seems like they're going for a mostly realistic approach. And realistically, parents - single parents and married couples both - abuse their children every day and get away with it. Husbands abuse wives. Family members forgive and cover up for each other in many instances of verbal or even physical or sexual abuse, because they hate what was done to them but still don't want to lose their family member over it and are in a dependent situation unable to visualize an adequate alternative.

Nothing shown from the mother I would say is that extreme as some of the more extreme cases I'm talking about, but even then, a lot of the time even if the perpetrator of them does genuinely change and grow enough to stop performing the actions and abuse, it is not uncommon for them not to do so (change) enough to fully accept and acknowledge it or to become a big enough person who is humble and self-aware enough to apologize. And oftentimes those same people are surrounded by others, including those who they abused, who are either not capable of nor willing to punish them or both. So in a lot of cases like this even if the person reforms and undergoes something of a metamorphosis, life just moves on, they never get publicly shamed or referred to the police or anything like that, and everyone just kind of silently moves past it. To me that's very true to life.

I thought after the big dramatic crescendo and resolution last episode between Keisuke and his wife and the three of them together as a family that it would take a step back from that and put that situation on ice to breathe a bit in this episode, and indeed it did. Except I thought that meant it would focus exclusively or almost exclusively on the daughter Mai with the prospective new love interest (especially when the episode opened with her scene), but instead it was more balanced and also showcased the other relationships in the show like Takae/Marika getting to know Moriya better and the whole situation with her single mother and her boyfriend.

Initially I was disappointed - not thinking it'd be a "bad" episode at all. Just that I sometimes dislike when shows like this switch focus away from the main couple and I'm most interested and invested in episodes involving them (whereas this episode they had barely any screentime together and no new developments). But instead I came away feeling like the show was made richer and the world made to feel more alive by the other relationships being fleshed out as well.

Rarely do I feel this invested in terms of feeling as if I care what happens to the characters or what happens next in the storyline in general four episodes into any series, but I suppose that's what solid drama does and why it remains one of my favorite genres. And all that is with the anime adaptation of the series apparently being somewhat rushed compared to the original material, like unfortunately so many modern anime are. So I can only imagine the sense of enrapturement if it was instead planned out as a much longer slow burn series. I'm not even crazy about the main (guy) character and think it's a fair statement to say he's hardly been fleshed out or expanded upon, and yet still feel like I could easily watch a vastly longer version of this series as a Slice of Life, which is a good sign.



Albeit she would have been 14 years younger or more since it came out in 2010, but I was first introduced to Aoi Yuuki in anime as a lethal aristocratic sexy loli goth vampire. She has an incredible and dynamic range, often away and apart from even her better known and more recent roles.

I understand what they are trying to say, but the "abuser is just confused in life and you need to understand them so they can be good again" approach seems quite problematic to me. Yes, her mother has had a hard life, to say the least, but she still needs to realize that using her young daughter as a scapegoat for relationship problems is unacceptable.

@FarCritical Well, at least her mother's new boyfriend seems like a kind and understanding guy. Not at all what you expect from new male love interests in these types of stories. I hope he doesn't turn out to be a manipulative maniac or predator.