It feels rather more natural to analyse the finished article than it does to interrupt a story in progress. As it is, I’m interjecting mid-way through Kurenai partly just to get some thoughts off my chest and partly because I’m curious as to how my take on it will have changed once I know the conclusion.

Any story will have to decide on its meaning/s eventually, and in a show which already oozes thoughtfulness week to week I’ve got to assume that the pieces are being used to compile some sort of truth. Which raises the great problem for considered writing within episodic structures - how the show manages to keep the audience on board for the moment whilst using the breadth of the series to advance ideas more thoroughly.

Kurenai has to be clever week to week, has to be fun(ny), and along the way it can develop the cast and explore series themes. If I have any doubt regarding Kurenai it’s over its capacity to provide the big kicks in the course of a single episode - so far it is very good (the direction, the art, the writing) but it hasn’t yet blown me away. Not that I require a show to do so within a few episodes, but (because I’m picky) I’d like this one to wind up as a transcendent experience. If Kurenai is going to fulfil its potential then those series-wide ideas we can see unfolding are the reason, those are the things that truly leave their mark.

Coming to the show on the understanding that it was a) getting some serious praise, and b) the loli du jour, I was prepared for the very best and the very worst. And lo and behold, slick poppy OP (advertising an overwhelmingly female cast) followed by alienating and not very fun po-faced action. That credits vs content contrast is something I still haven’t quite got a hold of, made even more apparent when the jolly ED is followed by a pointedly minimalist preview, replete with evocative strings and storyteller narration. Kurenai seems to revel in being as satisfying in the moment as it is dramatically serious.

That musical contrast seems to play up a blunt dichotomy between the hollow (electro-pop) present and the past as the zone of meaning and importance. With Murasaki being essentially an echo of the old Japanese aristocracy meeting the modern(and, of course, a child), Kurenai is showing us an outsiders’ look at the world. Thankfully the writing is nuanced, and provides an interesting view on modern life.

Shinkurou is orphaned and already employed, has a small flat and a nice girlfriend - a very contemporary young man. He never gets laid and tries to play it by the book, and he gets to be secretly hard as nails too. He’s a cold faced eliminator in his line of work, emotionless enforcer (contractor?). Is this the disconnected modern man as both spineless wimp and driven workman - useless personally but ruthless for the sake of his boss?

For all that Murasaki gets the laughs and, in her naivete, gets the obvious messages from each episode, it’s Shinny-boy who surely holds they key to the wider plot. The emotional progress of the child is predictable, defined by the story we can see shaping her week by week. How the older protagonist will change given his stronger preconceptions, and what choices he’ll have to make, provides the tension in the series plot.

Of course Shinkurou is also the product of his environment - as his work shows. Benika is slick, suited, professional - and has defined the sort of serious person our hero wants to be. She’s the antagonist to the robed mr Kuhoin in the adult drama - his opposite in her modernity, and his counterpart in her responsibility and seriousness. Critically for the influence he’ll surely have on her, Murasaki lives with Shinkurou, whilst Shinkurou was seemingly separated from his idol - farmed out to learn killing with the Houzuki’s, in order to live up to the ideal of strength in his head.

It’s nice how the viewer gets to meet Ginko before Yuuno, and certainly get to see more of her character (via her outburst). Neatly, Yuuno has been made to seem first simple and superficial, then suspicious (knowing the Kuhoins), before being shown as a sparring partner who’s rather closer to Shinston than lovely snarky Ginko is (what next from Yuuno? a betrayer? an extra-terrestrial? blood-related?). It’s simple but well executed character development like this that lends momentum to the drama.

Anyway, back to the noodlings. I’m fascinated by the idea of the Houzukis as killers, and as a different sort of killer. Shinkurou has literally learned lethality (of a rather gruesomely self-mutilating style) from feudal assassins. And the disenfranchised old sensei is cozy, inactive, relaxed. Their mantle is passed on to this young chap who is personally clumsy and pleasant, but also a driven and oddly hollow professional.

As much as it is a story of Murasaki meeting the world, it’s also a story of Shinkurou deciding what to do with the world he thinks he knows (which now comes with added little girls). He’s still young, and he’s too duplicitous to be an innocent, even if he’s rather clean. Now he’s in a position to shape a life, to decide the plot - he’s the one who has to grow up and settle his business.

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