If you have not already listened to this category’s podcast, these are the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!
The Winner
One Last Ride – The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa
Ringo Ishikawa isn’t one for sharing his thoughts, even with the player. Much of the game is trying to catch fleeting glimpses into the closed book of his mind. So it’s hard to know what exactly is going through his head as he rides the train to fight a gang war by himself.
Anger is pretty easy to guess. He must be furious at Masaru, only stopping at fury because it’s obvious what you can expect from that sociopathic snake whose only motivation is seeing if he can burn down everyone else’s lives as fast as he can his own. That betrayal happened a long time ago, you can’t be surprised it’s continuing apace. Now, amateur boxer, right hand man, and best friend Ken not showing up because he’s too busy feeling sorry for himself? That must make Ringo incandescent.
His feelings on Shiro are harder to parse. Whatever their flaws, you can’t call Ken or Masaru craven- they’re willing to fight, just too selfish to help here. But calling Shiro a coward would be fair enough. Maybe he’s afraid of the fight, maybe just afraid of going against the wishes of his new girlfriend. He’s finally finding a life outside of the gang, and doesn’t want to lose it. Who knows how sympathetic Ringo is. And Goro… well.
You can’t get mad at someone for not showing up because they’re in a coma.
The only gang member left is Ringo himself. And what the gang leader thinks of himself remains a mystery, right until those train doors open and he marches out to a fight he can’t possibly win, and probably won’t survive. Sometimes people cannot understand each other.
-Six
The Runners Up
The Combination Marriage/Funeral – Apocalypse Hotel
There is a proverb along the lines of “shared joys are joys multiplied, and shared burdens are burdens divided.” Of the many themes of Apocalypse Hotel, this sentiment is key to just a funny/heartbreaking/beautiful/mournful moment from the show. After Yachiyo returns to Earth after her accidental space trip (it’s a whole story), her young assistant Ponko has grown up and is getting married soon. But the passage of time comes for all, as Ponko’s grandmother passes away of old age. Ponko wants to call off the ceremony, but on Mujina’s dying insistence, the marriage must go on.
So, with Ponko in her most beautiful dress and Mujina peacefully resting in her coffin, Yachiyo and the many alien guests at the hotel throw a wild party/wake. The couple exchange their vows in full view of the open casket, as Ponko’s poor parents must choke back the tears of the happiest and saddest days of their lives. There is music, dancing, and Yachiyo also performs a body cutting magic trick with Mujina’s corpse.
It’s all very silly and goofy, but with one last video message from Ponko’s grandmother, she asks her to remember that when days are at their saddest, it’s important to raise your voice in song. I think it’s common for stories to tell someone to overwrite their sadness with toxic happiness, but in this moment, Apocalypse Hotel asks us to remember that our happiest and saddest moments call for the same action: to bask in the love of our family, friends, and community.
-Kyrie
The Finale – Unbeatable
You’re just a part of my life,
and you’re just a part of my life,
and you’re just a part of my life…
Unbeatable’s finale is a potent, 10+ minute sequence that takes the emotional core of Beat and Quaver’s struggles, plugs it into an amplifier, and screams its fucking lungs out. When the opening guitar riff kicks in, a riff you’ve come to associate with pain and sadness, it feels like a hole just ripped open in your chest, exposing your beating heart to the frigid air in your room. But you are here to make things right, so you play, operating at an emotional height no rhythm game has ever wrung out of you before.
Even now, describing the ending without getting deep into specifics gets me all choked up. And if any of this sounds appealing to you, I implore you to check it out for yourself. Unbeatable is emotionally raw in ways that few video games ever manage. The ending sequence is the cherry on top, a sublime moment that makes even the earlier parts that dragged worth putting up with. Play it late in the evening, and get ready to cry.
-Jen
Jungle Pocket Drowns Metaphorically – Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Beginning of a New Era
With brains like these, who needs enemies?
There’s nothing so novel about the way Jungle Pocket unravels in Beginning of a New Era. It’s extremely familiar to anyone who’s been depressed, clinically or otherwise. We know what it’s like to be crushed by our own aspirations, watching goals become a noose. But it is in that watching, and hearing, that Jungle Pocket’s struggle connects.
Yuri Fujimoto’s performance as Pocket pairs with beautifully tragic visuals to show emotion as only anime can: to show her mental image of her rival holding her in place, and the air around her turn to water as she drowns in her own desperation. This kind of hyperbole, visual exaggeration to express emotional truth, is why we watch anime.
-Six
One more to go this week! We talked moments, and tomorrow we will get into our favorite characters! Look forward to that!
Our art is a commission from GOMA on Bluesky.
