Truth be told, I had a pretty strong suspicion that Negposi Angler would reel this one in. Original series do have an advantage in a couple of respects, pacing being the most obvious. When you know you have 12 episodes you write 12 episodes worth of material. But that’s also a big edge where endings are concerned, I think. Even if a mangaka has an idea what their eventual ending will be, things can happen along the way that twist it out of proportion. And that’s not even delving into adaptations that have to craft an ending while the source material is still running or cram too much material into too few episodes.
I never had a suspicion anywhere along the way that Suzuki Tomohiro was stumbling. He’s a very experienced and very good writer, with several originals on his resume. I can’t help but wonder – Tsunehiro, Tomohiro – if there’s an autobiographical element to this series. It feels very personal in some ways. But whether it is or not, it was very authentic to the male human experience as I’ve lived in, and I’ve been fishing twice in my life I think (the last one at about 12 or 13). Angling is a very important part of the story but as usual with these things, it’s mainly a device to tell a human story.
So what’s Takaaki been up to? Living out of his car – in the winter. Rather than go home to his apartment, because Tsunehiro is living in it. And the funny thing is I get that. It’s dumb, we know it’s dumb, but he’s a guy. – we do dumb shit like that all the time. To say that things are extremely awkward between Hiro and Tsucchie is an understatement. Hiro has important things to say but can’t find the words to say them, and Tsucchie does his best to make sure Hiro knows he’s still mid-snit. But they have fishing in common at least – that’s a safe language even two guys in the middle of a spat can meet in the middle on.
You can tell Takaaki is kind of impressed by how much ground Tsunehiro has made up in technique and knowledge, even if he does his dammdest not to show it. He won’t come right out and ask him about the elephant in the room but Tsunehiro certainly drops some hints. This is exactly the time when he should be out chasing a ranker. And when Tsucchie suggests calling it a day, that this is his “last chance”. Eventually Hiro does hook a big one – 84 CM – and grudges are forgotten as all attention turns to landing it. Which they do, and then release it – which, I might add, is more than Hana did with the 86 CM whopper she landed shortly thereafter.
Why is it so hard for guys to talk about stuff like this? I have no idea, honestly – it just is (most of the time). Thanking someone for doing what Takaaki has done for Hiro should be easy, but Hiro clearly doesn’t have much practice at heartfelt conversation. But whether it was his intent or not, Takaaki has very much slipped into the role of Hiro’s big brother. Hiro finally shares that he went to the hospital, and says he’s going home to get treatment near his parents’ house (you sense they aren’t close). Given that, Takaaki can hardly hold back in good conscience, and he finally shares the truth about what happened to his brother. And it’s very much as one might have guessed.
We’re literally talking about life and death here (and so are they). But the reason this episode works as well as it does (and it works extremely well indeed) is because there are no histrionics or defaults to forced drama. It’s all very restrained and melancholy, which I grok is exactly how it would be between these two guys. In the final analysis there’s nothing Tsunehiro can do to make the reality of what happened less soul-crushing for Takaaki. And there’s nothing Takaaki can do to make Hiro not be ill. They both have to face their own painful reality. But it’s easier to do that if you don’t have to do it by yourself, and if you feel like there’s someone who understands a little of what you’re going through
I very much liked wrapping Takaaki and Hiro’s story with that walk in the snow. There’s something very special about Tokyo dead quiet in the snow (I’ve experienced it a couple of times). The whole sequence has a sort of elegiac quality to it, almost spiritual. Tsunehiro does return to Everymart to properly resign and say his farewells, and there is one final meeting with Hana and the gift of a lure. But really, it’s that quiet moment in the snow where Hiro admits that he’s found something worth living for that represents the climax of the story. Everything after that is epilogue.
That includes the actual epilogue too, of course. Would Negaposi Angler have been better off without that one minute post-credits scene? That’s never an easy sort of question to answer. It’s certainly more poetic to let the audience write their own ending, but it can also be unsatisfying for some. Maybe some pathos is lost by taking what was open-ended and tying it up pretty neatly. I’m certainly happy Tsunehiro seems to have survived, but maybe the impact of the final episode would have been even greater if I was playing the future out in my head.
Negaposi Angler is an odd mix of styles, with a Gainax director in Uemura Yutaka very much given a Gainax feel to a genre that they almost never ventured into. I love that it was a show about the very realistic problems of young adults. But I also can’t help feeling a little depressed when I think how much of a unicorn Fall 2025, with its wealth of shows about grown-up characters and grown-up problems, is in modern anime. Especially in looking ahead to 2025 as it currently projects to be. Appreciate this sort of series, because they just don’t come around too often. Especially ones as good as Neagposi Angler.
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