Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru – 12 (END)

「その着せ替え人形は恋をする」 (Sono kisekaeningyou wa koi o suru)
“The Bisque Doll Falls in Love”

When it comes to me and final episodes, you know all the rules by now and the fire from the ice. If there’s no sequel announcement it’s “End” and not “Season Finale”. There have been rare exceptions when a sequel is an absolute lock, as with HeroAca (though Haikyuu!!! has kept us waiting for an oddly long time). But that said, a second season would seem to be pretty close to inevitable with Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru. There’s zero question it was the breakout hit of Winter 2022, with an explosion in manga sales and a merchandising franchise emerging from nothing. The anime used a little over half the available chapters, so I’d guess late 2023 if you pressed me. But barring some inexplicable Nozaki-kun scenario, that it will happen seems a certainty.

The production committee won’t have known that when the series planning was going on of course (though they probably suspected), and in those cases it’s always interesting to see what an ongoing series chooses to do for an ending. The elephant in the room was pretty much acknowledged last week with Wakana and Marin coming dangerously close to climbing the stairs to adulthood, so there was really no way the finale couldn’t focus on them as a couple. And that’s pretty much what it did, though in considerably more laid-back terms than one might have expected.

If there was any residual awkwardness between Marin and Wakana over that incident, it’s not overtly acknowledged here. Rather, they pretty much play the role of adolescent couple in the early stages. They wile away the summer, she complains about her dad forcing her to do her summer homework (of note: she confirms that her job is modeling). They watch a horror movie, which horrifies her while he’s too focused on the wardrobe and makeup to be scared. They go to the empty school (where she forgot her math homework) and fall into the pool. It’s all very idyllic and pleasant.

Of course, it can’t be an anime summer – much less a relationship – without fireworks and a matsuri. Gojou-kun hasn’t paid much attention to fireworks despite living around the corner from a major festival, but Marin is clearly into them. This is another step for Wakana in venturing out of his bisque bubble and into the real world. And he’s halfway there already, as he pretty much dresses the part even if he’s just planning to stay home. As for Marin, as a cosplayer throwing on a yukata is nothing for her (though indeed, those sandals can be murder).

As with Karakai Jouzu Takagi-san yesterday we don’t get the literal confession, but it doesn’t really seem to matter. Or rather Marin does confess, but only after she knows Wakana has fallen asleep. One gets the vibe (as with the younger NishiKagi pairing) watching these two together that the formalities are largely irrelevant. At the festival they act even more the couple than they already were (which was a lot). We see no evidence either way on the question of whether Marin has any experience in romance or sex, but despite her social dexterity the sense is that she’s never been in a relationship before this. At least, not with anyone she seriously cared about.

It seems likely that as the story progresses, the romance element is invariably going to play a bigger role (presumably at the expense of the cosplay, at least to an extent). I don’t see how you could have all this build-up and basically ignore it – they’re a couple now, for better or worse. I don’t know how Sono Bisque Doll will fare as that sort of series as opposed to the one it was for much of this season – I suspect it would suit my tastes even better, and that a lot of people would disagree. As a romance it will have to deal with the same issues the first season did – Wakana needing to emerge as a distinct individual on-par with Marin, and the nagging element of wish fulfilment that underlies much of the story.

All in all this was a strong ending for a series that was something of a mixed bag for me. Viewers can decide for themselves whether the manic pixie dream girl label applies – I think is kind of does, but that doesn’t totally undercut the series’ charms by any means. And those charms are very real, starting with the chemistry between Wakana and Marin. Bisque Doll was also a really lovely show visually from start to finish, a striking directorial debut for budding anime star Shinohara Keisuke. I’m anxious to see what he does next, and Sono Bisque Doll too – if the series grows up a little along with its protagonists, it could become a romantic comedy of real stature.

Full-length images: 4, 34.