Kekkon suru tte, Hontou desu ka didn’t have the problem of ending an adaptation of an ongoing manga, at least. We all know how grievously difficult that is to do well. But it did have the issue of ending an 11-volume manga in 12 episodes, which is almost as difficult. And if I’m honest, while that wasn’t a factor for the first eleven eps I think it did present a problem this week. I haven’t raid the manga so I only know what I know through the comments of others after the fact. But it seems as if the anime didn’t try and rush through the whole thing – it just stopped in the middle.
On balance I think that’s the better option most of the time if you restrict yourself to one or the other. There are various “third ways” of course, which are probably the best of all if you can pull them off, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with 365 Days to the Wedding. What’s curious is that for me this finale felt rushed, but apparently played out just as it did in the manga. If things moved too fast here (I felt they did) they moved too fast in the manga too. That’s not to say an adaptation can’t make changes if they see that as a problem, but again, that wasn’t the case this time around.
On the plus side, the middle of the manga at least does feel like an ending. I assumed they’d just plowed ahead to adapt the final chapter but no, this was just where the story was. On the sham marriage front, it seems as if the head office was suspicious of the engagement all along (who can blame them really) but Kurokawa-san was defending Takuya and Rika. Once they did the blog thing (so was that a test, then?) it appears to be enough to call off the dogs. The wheel of frostbite then turns to poor old Gonda-kun, who’s as aggressively single as anyone in the office.
What’s interesting here is that as logical and obvious as it is, the fact that someone else was going to get screwed because of Rika’s plan never really occurred to me. I mean it should have, and certainly to the two of them as well, but I didn’t think about it and neither did they. I mean, I’d feel pretty bad if my scheme had resulted in someone else being exiled against their will. And as Takuya and Rika are nice people they do feel bad about it (I really liked Takuya’s backstory about the ¥500 squid – it was so him), to the point where they both independently go to Kurokawa to fess up and take the blame – and the transfer – themselves.
The thing, though – and I did say this before – is that Alaska is actually nice. Maybe this works better if the anime had kept it as Siberia, but I mean, it’s not like Anchorage is some hellish wallow of misery. It doesn’t even get that cold there (it’s a maritime climate). And indeed Kurokawa decides to take on the transfer herself. This is a nice little section where she justifies it by telling R & T that she used to embrace adventure, but her life has now become a predictable slog down a laser-straight road to the horizon. It’s good, but all this focus on her is a bit odd given that this is the finale and we got none of it for eleven weeks.
Of course the main pair now have to come clean to everyone at the office. The charade coming to an end puts the onus on them to think about their future. And of course Takuya is right – it is easier to just be single. That’s the thing – and maybe extroverts don’t think this way – marriage is pretty illogical. It’s a major leap of faith and a huge risk. And it really is fine not to get married, screw anyone who tries to tell you differently. But now that these two have had a taste of not being alone, going back to being alone is a lot harder to do. They do fit well together – Takuya is just dysfunctional and introverted enough to be in Rika’s league, but high-enough functioning to carry the heavier load in making the relationship work. And finds hour-long soliloquies about volcanic island formation fascinating.
So again, this felt rushed to me. I kind of knew they’d get there eventually but I assumed – wrongly – that in the manga it took a lot longer. I mean, maybe date a little? But I guess technically they have been living together. I would certainly be fascinated to see the story evolve into a chronicle of the two of them trying to figure out how to be an actual couple. I know that’s not going to happen in anime form though – this show isn’t getting a second season unless things take a very surprising turn.
There was one other element of this finale that struck me as rather anti-climactic. Apparently the blackmail caller was… Keisuke? The ikemen office guy who barely had a role in the story before now? It’s foolhardy to try and assign motive to a character we know nothing about, but I can only assume it was petty jealousy – or perhaps he suspected their lie. But if it’s the latter it’s odd that he seemed to be more trying to push them together than pull them apart. Of course I’ve said all along that element was the weakest part of the story and I guess this confirms it, but I would have liked at least something that made sense and had some grounding in the plot.
Even if the ending didn’t totally work for me, on the whole Kekkon Suru tte more than lived up to my (sleeper) expectations. It was a very smart look at marriage as the sort of bogeyman it represents for most people. It was also an at-times brilliant deconstruction of what it’s like to be an introvert trying to be in a relationship. This was a good season for stories about grown-up problems and a good year for stories about introverts, and this series was an excellent example of both.
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