P.A. Works has robbed me of time I don’t want to bother calculating. After all that lack of plot development we get… nothing.
NOTHING!
In what seems to be a running theme with P.A. Works, Glasslip ends up more or less hitting a reset button on everything.
I bet this is how they talk about their shows:
“Character development? What’s that?”
“Let’s just make all that pain and heartache we kinda sorta put our characters through for nothing.”
“Oh! Oh! I got an idea! Let’s add something weird to the show that’s nothing but a plot device!”
*Stern face* “What kind of weird thing?”
“A thing that is never explained and is later just brushed off into the garbage!”
“OH MY GOD YOU ARE A GENIUS! PROMOTION! RAISE! MARRY ONE OF MY CHILDREN! NO, NO, wait… HAVE MY SPOUSE!”
Oh sure, you can argue that with Touko’s mom casually mentioning “Oh hey you know how you think you’re seeing things? Yeah I had that too, it’s nothing. Just us being stupid girls. Teehee.” is some sort of thing about childish desires and ideas that need to be put away when you’re older, because you have to move on… but NOTHING ELSE IN THE SHOW CHANGES!
Hell, I’m pretty sure Yanagi still has the hots for Yukinari and Yukinari still has the hots for Touko. Because f*** self-respect.
So here we have these conflicting ideas: you have to put away your stupid childish ideas as you age and people never change. Last time I checked, it was considered unrealistic to assume that people never change or move on. And yet childish ideas are known for being unrealistic. So explain that half-baked idea to me. Please. Do so in the comments.
The show could have easily been called “The Summer this Stoic Jackass Showed Up and Almost Ruined Our Friend Group.”
I get it. Sometimes people and relationships don’t change. Or that it takes so much courage to take that step to bring things to a different level that you don’t ever do it. Yeah. I get it. I get that it tends to be a running thing in anime. Tenchi never decides on a girl. And hundreds of other main characters simply decide “just being around my love interest is enough.” Most of the time, it’s pathetic, cowardly, lazy writing or all three.
One of my favorite anime shows this season, Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, did this. The last episode focused on the heroine, Chiyo Sakura, trying to finally tell Nozaki that she likes him. Spoilers: it doesn’t work.
But here’s the thing — it worked as a trope because it was also heartbreaking. The show did not make this part of the show a highlight. Many episodes were about completely different characters. Sure, it was used for gags here and there, but by the end of the show our heroine realizes that Nozaki loves drawing shoujo manga more than anything. Chiyo admits to just enjoying working on the manga with him and decides to keep it at that. If only because the guy’s brain is focused on manga.
Nozaki went from being a crush to a person she straight-up admired. That’s development.
Not to mention the rest of the guys in the show all figure out that when Nozaki describes his ideal girl, it’s our heroine.
In other words, the love interest has to grow for the relationship to happen. Our heroine has done her part.
And yes, there was some development in Glasslip. But as I said before, it was all for nothing. They all go back to living their harmonious living of repressed emotions and desires, remaining stunted in their emotional growth.
Great job P.A. Works! Keep working hard and you’ll be as shitty as everything done by Ryutaro Nakamura.
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
At least I know never to watch anything by them ever again.
Glasslip is available on Crunchyroll. Not that you should watch it. Go watch something better instead.
