Fumikiri Jikan
Crossing Time

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Railroad crossings. There's one near my house, but it has nothing fancy, nothing to even stop you from crossing when the train's coming. I've had to wait next to it a few times in my life as a long freight rain passed by, however, I don't have any particular memories about it other than wanting to go out to the street whenever I heard the train's horn when I was a child. Fumikiri Jikan, on the other hand, revolves around a bunch of people making memories at a railroad crossing, memories they carry the rest of their lives. What an odd setting for a story, ... isn't it?

The best way Fumikiri Jikan could be described is with 3 words: A confused manga. Yes, you read that right, not "confusing", but "confused": Fumikiri Jikan is a confused manga, because it doesn't know what it wants to be, the feelings it wants to convey, or where it even aims to go. Throughout the 83 episodes in this manga (MAL currently says 85, but there don't seem to be 85 at all) the reader is presented with a plethora of varying scenarios and a wide array of characters with their own unique personalities. The structure of the manga is presenting us with a different couple of characters (at times it's a single character, other 3 or more) each chapter, with the story for each one of them generally being continued throughout the volumes. While one of the main topics of the manga is romance, it often times deals with absurd humor and even horror, so as mentioned previously, the manga really doesn't know where to go a lot of the time.

The one big problem Fumikiri Jikan has is that it is rarely able to maintain its composure. We'll be presented with these different scenarios which are either wholesome or melancholic, and more often than not, the story progresses in a beautiful way just for the punchline to be something either disgusting or unfunny which ruins the entire mood. This happens too many times throughout the chapters to a point in which you'll read everything with skepticism, because you'll likely end up disappointed. Another huge issue with this manga, which might be more personal, is that it often times will make you uncomfortable through indecent and disgusting scenarios: an incel lusting over a girl, the bottom half of a donkey trying to "hook up" to a teenager, an old man wearing thigh highs practically harassing a school girl... These try to be funny, but they just inevitably come off as creepy. As a final issue to be mentioned is that Fumikiri Jikan is generally repetitive, and ends up going nowhere: the different sets of characters often times carry out the same sort of conversation, with the same outcomes. The highlights throughout the entire manga probably are the individual, unique chapters that present us with more original and specific scenarios. However, most of the time, it's just the same exact thing, over and over again, and it becomes predictable quite quick, and since most of these characters tend to develop feelings for each other, we're basically caught up in their romance which almost always ends up being inconclusive, blue balling the reader without giving them a satisfying resolution.

Moving away from the plot(s), the art style is, for the most part, good. The character design is at times unique, and at times somewhat generic, but not bad at all, with the backgrounds being probably the most detailed things of all: for a manga about railroad crossings, the mangaka went ahead and made detailed depictions of real-world crossings across Tokyo, and each chapter is somewhat nice to look at due to the level of detail of the places they take place in. However, over the last volumes the art style starts getting a bit irregular, with some chapters having oddly three-dimensional characters which feel entirely off. Other than that, one thing more than a single person might dislike (myself included) is the amount of fan service: Fumikiri Jikan has a lot of it, and while thankfully it's not every chapter, it sometimes goes really far with it and for no good reason other than to appeal to the weirdos or for (generally ineffective) comedic impact.

So, what is Fumikiri Jikan exactly? It's... its own thing. It goes everywhere it can go to, without ever really reaching a destination. It has ups and downs, it sometimes fails to be funny, and it sometimes makes you laugh out loud. It can make you feel sad or melancholic, and probably make you feel creeped out or disgusted not a minute later. It is a manga that most people will like and dislike simultaneously due to its sheer inconsistency. There's probably something for everyone in Fumikiri Jikan, but probably not everything for anyone.