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Summary:
On a train station platform, a boy named Kotake Tooru starts edging towards the train tracks as he plays a game on his cell phone. He never crosses the edge though, and the proximity of the arriving train catches him by surprise. At school, he asks his friends Senkawa Daiki and Nojima Kaname about thinking about jumping in front of a train when on a platform. Kaname immediately replies that he hasn’t thought about something like that, and Daiki wonders if Tooru wants to die. Tooru claims that he doesn’t and is just talking about jumping, but he has a hard time trying to come up with how those two things are different. When he specifically asks Daiki about ever having wanted to die, Daiki pauses for a moment before answering that he hasn’t. Kaname scolds Tooru for talking about weird things since he has no reason to want to die, but when Tooru asks for Daiki’s opinion, Daiki never answers. Instead, he gets called away by a girl, though he smiles at Tooru before he goes. That night, as Tooru is playing a video game, he receives a phone call from Kaname telling him that Daiki has died.
Meanwhile, a group of yakuza are under a bridge beating up man, but they get interrupted by Fumika who has a Shigofumi for the victim. The yakuza guys try to assault her, but she defeats them all, hands over the Shigofumi which consists of only a bloody hand-print, and then walks away, letting the yakuza continue what they were doing because she’s only a delivery person. As for Daiki’s death, it turns out that it was a suicide via jumping off a building, however no one knows why he did it. The principal and the teachers interrogate the students about it the next day, but even Tooru has no idea why, despite supposedly being Daiki’s friend. All this makes him realize that he didn’t really know much about Daiki, so he starts to feel that they weren’t truly friends. Kaname thinks that it’s natural for them not to know what Daiki was really thinking, and he supports his point by telling the story of a girl from his junior high class who suddenly shot her father one day. He hadn’t thought that that girl could do something like that.
Fumika and Kanaka are also talking about why people commit suicide, and Fumika thinks that it’s because people break and do things like suicide, incest, and parricide. According to her, humans are the only living creatures with so many errors. Back at school, Tooru thinks about what Kaname said about not knowing what other people are thinking, but Tooru feels that he wants to know. His train of thought is interrupted though when Daiki’s father suddenly enters their class and takes everyone hostage. Daiki’s father is doing this because he wants to know the reason why his son died. However, the students truly don’t know what that reason is, so Daiki’s father instead inquires about who his son’s closest friend was. Not really paying attention to Daiki’s father, Tooru instead thinks about how Daiki had killed himself less than half a day after saying that he hadn’t thought about dying. Daiki’s father nevertheless picks on Tooru and asks him to name the person was responsible for Daiki’s death, but Tooru responds by saying that even he wants to know.
This conversation is interrupted when Fumika suddenly bursts through the door so that she can deliver a Shigofumi to Tooru from Daiki. The father wants to be the one to read it, but Fumika steps in and points her gun at his head in order to prevent him from interfering. Still, at the father’s request, Tooru ends up reading the letter out loud. In the Shigofumi, Daiki wrote about this not being a big deal – he had merely wondered what would happen if he jumped. He had said before that he didn’t think about wanting to die, but he didn’t want to live either. Thus, there was no reason; Daiki had just wanted to take a path different from usual. After Tooru finishes reading, Daiki’s father expresses his disbelief, but Tooru confirms that this was definitely something Daiki wrote. Before he can say why he knows this though, Tooru suddenly notices the SWAT team outside the classroom. Wasting no time, the SWAT team throws a flashbang grenade and quickly overwhelms Daiki’s father. In the aftermath, Tooru explains that he knew because he was Daiki’s friend. For him, what Daiki did was just like jumping onto the train tracks.
With the hostage situation over, Fumika heads to the school rooftop where she talks about how death can’t save people – they only disappear. When Kanaka asks, Fumika that these words are from a popular writer named Mikawa Kirameki. Kaname then bursts onto the rooftop and calls out to Fumika, referring to her as Mikawa. Earlier, when Fumika had pulled out her gun, Kaname had recognized it as looking similar to the one a girl from his past had carried. Now, after he identifies that he was her classmate, Kaname questions why Fumika shot her father. Meanwhile, in a hospital somewhere, a girl is sleeping next to a book with the name Mikawa Kirameki and a large sigma symbol on the cover.
Preview
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Alright, given the themes of suicide (jumping off a building, in front of a train) and talking a school hostage, I can see why the Shigofumi production team felt it necessary to edit the episode for content (like they mentioned on the official website earlier this week). The most evident example of that was the censorship of the gun that Daiki’s father was carrying – it showed up as a large black blob during various parts of the episode. On the whole though, this didn’t bother me too much because of everything else that was going on in the episode. Even the beginning of the episode was pretty intense with the way it looked like Tooru was going to jump off the platform. I thought the jumping-for-no-reason idea was kind of stupid, but I’m willing to bet that there’s more than one person out there who’s done it before, so I don’t think it was unrealistic. If anything, I thought the episode did well in depicting friendships where people don’t know much about each other and in the way the public and media react to such suicides.
The big surprise this episode wasn’t anything related to the suicide though – it was the twist they threw in at the end about Fumika’s past. Even if we assume that Fumika is some representation of the girl in the hospital, then there’s still the question of how she got to be that way and why she quotes the writer who is also called Mikawa. That was the one thing that kept this episode from being entirely standalone. And it’s also what makes me think that the entire series will tie together via Kaname and Kaname’s father (the detective), both of whom are likely to be recurring characters. The former has the connection to Fumika/Mikawa, and the latter’s police work can connect him to all the deaths that result in Shigofumi. Anyway, I really want to find out more about Fumika (damn cliffhanger), but next week appears to be a new story that involves some yuri elements.
What was edited, exactly? Did they say?
“The official Japanese website for the Shigofumi television anime series announced that the third episode, which was broadcasted on January 16, was “altered in light of recent circumstances in the society at large.” The anime adapts Ryo Amamiya’s Shigofumi: ~Stories of Last Letter~ light novel series about a girl who delivers the last letter from the dearly departed to those left behind. The third episode, “Tomodachi” (“Friends”), focuses on three friends after one of them commits suicide. The dead boy’s father violently enters the friends’ classroom to demand answers in his son’s death. The website’s notice includes an apology for the lack of advance notice on the change, and asks on behalf the staff and cast for the audience’s understanding on the matter. The lack of details in the website’s notice have led Japanese fans to wonder if the notice’s “recent circumstances” phrase refers to the 18-year-old boy’s alleged murders of his mother, brother, and sister on January 9, or the December 14 shotgun rampage that left three people, including the suspected shooter, dead. Recent real-life events have led to changes or preemptions of other anime series, including School Days, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai, and Kodomo no Jikan (Nymphet).” this from the ANN
oh ok.
Oh, so they have censored some parts or change scenes? Guess dvd are uncut, but is very sad new. -.-
So it means that there was supposed to be blood for when the guy who killed his child and the train suicide. But to tell the truth it didn’t matter much to me because it was real good this series. The animation quality was kept top notch. Not like the best supposing series of this season Clannad, H2O and True Tears which had been declining in some noticeable way.
There was black areas in some shots, where could that man have shotgun and all kids were extremely scared too… So they had quite lazy way to handle censor.
The legacy of ‘Nice Boat’ lives on..
so this was just a one episode arc? sad, i wish that at least every arc would have 2 episodes. T_T
Actually all they really did was put black blurs over the gun the father was holding. The actually story was left intact, I think. Awesome episode as always.
So the kid didn’t die?
Lesbians next episode?!
Is there a sub of this series? I can’t seem to find it.
Black blurs are a lot better than any other stupid censor (like putting a random picture and leave the audio). I think they didn’t have the time to do something more elaborate or redraw the scenes. Well, there is always the DVD version…
Well think about it at least Fumika’s gun is not censored and still showing the nice gun design. I thought with the way it ended there’re be another episode but turns out it’s a new one maybe they’ll show some story in the beginning and just wanting to just die is soooo stupid teens dont be that stupid 😛
jumping for no reason. . . can we say “suicide circle” flashback? matter of fact lemme watch dat dvd again, luv the train part
One of the most amazing animation that relies heavily on “plot-to-plot.” Very interesting…unlike hell girl {jigoku shojo] which also has plot-to-plot element but really boring…bleh
WTH happened to jaalin?
I haven’t seen this yet.. I have to say I agree with you (Omni) when you said episode 2 made u like the show better. But I can’t help thinking true tears would be the better one to blog… have you seen episode 3 yet? (saw it just now) I have to say it’s shaping up to be pretty good.
Fumika definitely looks cool with a gun… Revy reincarnated?
Kenji: There’s too much stuff to do (in real life and for blogging), so I haven’t had time to watch it.
I disagree with the unquestioned acceptance of “jumping for no reason” I think the more significant part of Sen-chan’s note was the latter part “there was no reason to live”–it’s much less an issue of pure idiotic curiosity and more of a subconscious urge to “leave this world” or “escape”. It is also possible that Sen-chan himself couldn’t identify the reason why he jumped, thus we have to seek the “real reason” by comparing what he says and Fumika’s comments throughout the episode, towards the end and at the beginning as she flies descends from the sky: “suicide does not save people, they just disappear” and “people are broken”, respectively.
I agree with shakugan no shana, but I also think that some people try to overlook the simple outcome of one saying “I felt like flying/jumping.” Not caring about life or death. But then nobody can’t just accept that right? This anime shows some deep stuff.
Funny they censor dudes shot gun, but she bust out her gun and sticks it in his face and every things all good. Or last episode they have the girl stick her friend in the chest with a knife.
I guess it wouldn’t make much sense if they cut her gun out because its a plot item I guess.
It really took a lot away from the feel of the scene tho, who would be scared of an old man thats taking your classroom hostage w/no weapon. I mean common, really big time mood killer there.