At lunch today, I was talking to a friend, someone who’s a mentor to me, and he mentioned the idea that it’s been shown that we make bad decisions under duress, due to things like stress, bad health, tiredness, and hunger. I agreed, and in fact, I explained that I’d shown the worst side of me to my family after a stressful day yesterday.
In episode ten of Tsuki ga Kirei, Kotaro likewise makes some bad decisions that he likely wouldn’t have if he’d been 100%. During the town festival, which should have been a joyous time for Kotaro and Akane (you can feel the immense disappointment from the latter when she departs the festival in tears), becomes the scene of their biggest fight to date. Kotaro gets some time off from his performance and goes to find Akane; when he spots her, he sees her all alone with Hira, who is confessing to her. Kotaro does not take it well; let’s just say he puts on a passive-aggressive performance that rivals his festival dance.
Later on, after the festival, Kotaro lets out his frustrations at home, and we’re privy to seeing flashbacks of what might be running through his head. Although he’s unhappy and jealous regarding Hira, we see that his anger isn’t just because of that, or mostly even. The conversation with Hira is the straw that broke the camel’s back, with most of the weight having to do with Akane’s impending move and Kotaro’s worries about how he can meet that challenge. During the festival, he was also hampered by tiredness, hunger, and thirst, as well as worries about his own future.
It’s fine to make those kinds of mistakes when you’re fifteen. They’re almost expected. But what of me? I have to admit that I do silly (and sometimes harmful) things when I’m stressed out, acting like an adolescent all over again. And while I know the answers for me are the same as they always are – alleviate the stress, eat and sleep well, practice spiritual habits – there are times when I’m too tired, too busy, too defeated to do those things. What then? Am I just out of luck?
At the end of the episode, we get a glimpse of what might be an answer. Akane runs to Kotaro and opens the door to conversation, even though she’s the party who is less at fault. She demonstrates grace. And Kotaro returns the gesture with love and a bold declaration (a reminder, by the way, of what a terrific protagonist he is, and what a great romance this is).
Back to me. The other night, when I succumbed to stress and acted like a juvenile, I felt terrible afterward. I was inconsolable, or so I thought. But in that painful moment, I received encouraging messages from a young man I know, with whom I’ve been doing a bible study. Although he isn’t nearly in the same stage of life as me, and probably doesn’t really understand what I’m going through, his kindness was enough to break me from my funk.
When we’re not able to help ourselves, when we’ve gone to a place that we shouldn’t and feel trapped and unable to get out, there is hope in the form of relationship, in community. It may be your boyfriend, your mom or dad, your best friend, your kohai, your mentor, your teacher, your church member. When someone pours grace out onto you, it helps wash away the hurt and pain and struggle, like a violent but refreshing rain. That is the way of grace. It’s why I seek it in my life, why I need it to keep going – and it’s also why I need to be it, because I’ve been there and understand how empty it feels to be without and how as the deliverer of grace, it can mean everything in that moment to one who doesn’t deserve it at all.
Reading through this review, there is another thing you might also want to keep in mind: you are human, and it really is okay to make mistakes. We all have days that we are not feeling out usual happy selves, and that usually results in doing something you might feel bad about later on. But as mentioned, that’s part of being human, and it’s something that you will be forgiven for, so no worries 😊
I don’t know this anime, but it sounds interesting. I’m adding it to my (as most people know about me lol) already way too long “to watch list” or as I call it these days my ” to watch encyclopedia”. Great post 😊
Indeed, indeed! I’m often the one to give the same advice, though while I was writing this particular article, I was thinking of a particularly hurtful thing I did which had consequences. But even then…forgiveness.
Ah, and I understand – my own list is so large now that I never ever refer back to it haha.
Ahhh. So good. Thank you Charles.
“But where sin increased, grace increased all the more”
Absolutely, absolutely. And Amen.
It irritates me to no end when people say that Kotarou is mostly to blame for the conflict in episode 10. If Akane had made smarter choices during the evening, the conflict would not have happened at all. She knew that Kotarou was coming to meet her, didn’t know how long it would take him to get there, and that he only had a limited amount of time before he had to perform again, yet she wanders off with Hira after throwing out the trash and spends nearly half an hour with him. She also should have thought twice about eating imokoi while with Hira, and should have saved the opportunity to eat her favorite treat with her boyfriend, instead of having to later decline when Kotarou asked her if she wanted some. When he did, Kotarou was giving Akane another opportunity to tell him the truth, since he had seen her with an imokoi wrapper in her hands, but she chose not to tell him she ate one while she was with Hira.
But her biggest error in judgement was to try to hide from Kotarou the fact that she did spend all that time alone with Hira while she should have been waiting for him back with the track club where she said she was. When Kotarou asked Akane if she had been alone with Hira, she should have immediately told him the whole truth, instead of pretending that all they did was throw out trash together. Since he knew that was not the truth, he may also have wondered if she was lied to him about being with other track team members, and may have suspected that Akane had actually been spending the whole time at the festival alone with Hira.
Akane’s failure to make smart choices, and her deceit by omission are what caused the conflict. Some would say that she has a right to do as she pleases, but it’s not simply a matter of having the right to do this or that, as she would if she did not have a boyfriend. She is now in a relationship, and if she wants that relationship to last, she has to learn that neither she nor her boyfriend can just do as they please without taking their partner’s feelings into consideration.
I can see how that’s irritating. And certainly as I was watching, I specifically mentioned Akane’s actions to my wife (though I’ll say to her credit, Akane does what she does innocently), knowing that her carelessness would evoke a reaction out of Kotaro.
Even though I mentioned Akane’s actions in the post, I’m not sure it’s important which person is to blame. The idea is this: we need to look at how and why we do things, regardless of who is the cause. At the end of the day, Kotaro can stick to his guns and say, “Akane, it’s your fault. You should have thought about what you were doing and how that affects me.” Or, Kotaro can do what he ultimately did do, which is to choose love. Choose grace, which is when we love people who don’t deserve. Kotaro loves Akane, even if she may have been at fault.
When we’re not at our best, it’s a struggle to show grace. Grace is hard even when we’re healthy, happy, and energetic; it’s near impossible to demonstrate when we’re tired or sick or angry or stressed. But it’s in those moments, often, when we most need to show it. And I hope that at least I’ll consider as much – for these articles are often mini-sermons preached to myself – the next time I have an opportunity to choose love or choose justice, because I believe grace is the right way, and often times, it’s also often the MOST just way as well.
If you’re “not sure it’s important which person is to blame,” then perhaps you should not have dumped the burden of blame on Kotarou by saying of Akane, “she’s the party who is less at fault” (which is what inspired me to make my initial post here). From my perspective, it was Akane’s choices, as “innocent” as they may have been, that caused the resultant fracture in her relationship with Kotarou. Had she acted “smart” instead of “innocent,” she probably would have been able to enjoy her limited time with Kotarou at the festival.
Even considering Kotarou’s less-than-gentlemanly treatment of Akane after she initially withheld the whole truth about her time with Hira from him, I was immensely impressed (and moved) by his mature, sober, sincere and very heartfelt confession on the bridge. He is not just a “terrific protagonist,” but has surpassed every romance protagonist that I can think of! He did, indeed, show volumes of grace in that scene.
Regardless of who is more at fault – we’re at a standstill here – I think that both characters demonstrate grace, not just in this episode but throughout the series. I often have a hard time watching romance anime because I think they consistently get it wrong. Here, in Tsuki ga Kirei, we have what could be a saccharine-sweet romance, and it is sweet and innocent, but because of how the characters are developed and the age they’re at, it’s genuine. And so, too, is how they love each other, with forgiveness and kindness.
There’s a wee bit of suspense for the viewers whenever an argument happens or a roadblock occurs because they’re young and we don’t know if they can handle the issue, but also because we as viewers often aren’t as gracious as these two are, especially if you’ve been in a relationship for a long time. So in Kotarou and Akane we find hope, that despite our limitations, the wrongs we commit, the ways we hurt each other, there’s an answer in loving the other person even when it doesn’t make sense. It’s something they do well, and something we want also.