This review on Mashiro no Oto contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the chapter yet, we recommend that you do it and then go back to read the review.
Chapter 12: A Snow White Sound
Sawamura Setsu, his second part of the performance, shows his true and sincere feelings, brings feelings to the audience and ends with his auction. But the laurels fall when Souichi Tanuma inaugurates, captivates and proves its worth. The victory is known without the result being sung. The award is only used to see the order of the others, with Setsu in third and Ushio in second. The trophies are handed out and Umeko takes revenge for not completely adhering to her plan and whispers “pathetic” to her. Then the conversation with her father and with Kamiki breaks up, Setsu runs away and cries at the sight of her acquaintances. He doesn’t go to school and makes the decision about his snow-white sound in his room.
Chapter opinion
What a lovely anime ending, superb in many ways. It shows that there is a lot of material to see, after all, the manga is already several years old and this seems to be just the closing of a bow. The musical part definitely didn’t disappoint, you can feel what the characters want to convey and the professionalism behind them, I can only praise that. On the other hand, the first openingWhen I saw it, I noticed why it was changed, the images were about the first part of the anime, which was before the club was finally formed.
Without knowing what it is saying, I feel more essence in it through the images and the sound opening than in the second without underestimating it. There are many things to analyze and you want more. Definitely the last five chapters were the best, the strong part of these twelve chapters, the others (except the first) were like a bridge or a transit.
If it’s a season finale, it was very good. If it was the end of the anime as such, it’s fine, but too frank. That doesn’t detract from the excellent quality that the development of the chapter had.
The silent tone
Here we saw and heard the second part of Setsu’s performance, which in my opinion was much better than the first because of the feelings. This change of style was his defeat, which he accepted with bowed head. In the last two chapters, Setsu’s sound was characterized as one that creates silence, that time stands still. I didn’t realize that, but it feels like it because he wants this calm, this peace, this immobility.
When time stops, you only have the present and the past, the living and the lived. If we go this route, it is not surprising that the judge remembers his childhood, a time gone by that he will surely want to repeat so that he does not go. His interpretation lets you move, feel the moment and travel into the past. Therefore its sound is white, because it is pure, because it does not venture into the future. But the judges don’t care, as Kamiki said.
The winner
Souichi strokes the instrument and begins to captivate the audience, he has clear sounds and a uniform style. Its sound can be classified as timeless, ie it is not based on any of the three times. “The strange thing is that he plays better,” says his adoptive mother, implying that this is his usual sound, which tells us that Setsu somehow didn’t move him.
The calm emotion describes him, because in the interpretation he shows that he likes what he is doing, but not with the contained emotion that he has as if he did not need it. This is what the winner looks like, he is the one who knows the winner from before. And this sound seems to me to be the right one at the end of the anime, because it shows the best shamisen.
Pathetic
If what happened to Kaji hadn’t happened to him, would second place be his? I have a feeling, yes, whatever Sawamura would have been in fourth place. We already know the reasons for this position, including that the naming ceremony is just a greeting in the air and Umeko was disappointed with her son.
The latter marks the second half of the anime. Pathetic, yes, at the competitive level, anyone who doesn’t first end up with this word as an adjective. But Umeko’s attitude is as hideous as possible, we know her intentions, and she is not even justifiable. The worst part is that we still do not know more about her, why she left Setsu and when the excessive love for her father was born.
Finally, Sawamura’s behavior shows his pathos, weeps when running away and weeps after the conversation with Kamiki. Not a word of encouragement, he received only criticism and the most poisonous damage from his parents, silence from his brother, consolation from his friends after the tear. Setsu denies again.
refusal
What I liked is that it doesn’t show a typical ending to a well-being and a total improvement in the protagonist. Setsu has evolved, yes, but his problems are more and not just dependent on him, he is transcended by the environment and his natural supports are nothing more than eternal damage. That kind of reminded me of the movie The Society of the Death Poetwhere we believe the protagonist will finally be accepted but end up committing the greatest human denial.
Setsu wasn’t that extreme, but her question “does my sound make sense?” is a: do I really exist? The question is not only about life, but about its meaning. Does it matter who I am or who I want to be if not others? It’s easy to say that it is up to you to determine your own destiny. When a person is preoccupied with himself, he overlooks the fact that he is accepted by others and thinks that his well-being and self-knowledge were only made by him. We need the approval of others in order to be able to know ourselves, especially when it comes from the most important thing, even if we deny its importance.
The final decision rests with Setsu, who is only shown clutching something while calling for Grandpa. A good ending when you see it that way. In a way, it was also very good that the two characters from the first chapter appeared, in short, but it gave him a touch that I liked, like reminding people that they’ve been through a lot and still can’t .
I hope you enjoyed the anime, although some chapters were tiresome or boring and the development of the secondary ones wasn’t so much to my liking. The subject of Setsu and the shamisen That was what tied me up the most. Good ending and I hope there will be a second season.
