On Jellyfish: The Past, Present, and Future

This blog post will contain spoilers for the anime Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night. You have been warned.

So you might be clicking on this because you might be thinking “Oh she hasn’t uploaded a blog post in forever”. Or, you might be clicking on this because of the word salad in the title, but regardless it is time for me to talk about my new obsession.

Well, I finished it up just 5 hours ago, but I’ve been mulling this over all night. My writer’s block is gone, and not even that, I feel like I want to write more than ever— I think this anime helped.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night is honestly not the best anime I’ve ever seen. But you know how something you have various criticisms with on a technical level can sometimes break down the walls and make you feel things anyways? That’s what it is to me.

So, anyways, some quick summaries, before we get into the meat of this post.

Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night is about a group of social outcasts who meet by chance. They’re comprised of Mahiru Kozaki (aka Yoru Kurage), who is a visual artist who hates her art, and as such, is left aimless and directionless. There’s Mei Takanashi (aka Kim Anouk) who is an esteemed classical pianist, but has never really met someone on the same wavelength of her— likely due to her obsession with her “idol”. Then, there’s Kiui Watase (aka Nox Ryugasaki), they’re a VTuber who— beyond just being an introvert in general— peaked in elementary school and now just has their channel to fall back on, and nothing else really.

And finally we have Kano Yamanouchi (aka JELEE), who is an ex-idol for her mother’s production company and now wants to be noticed by her in any way, but paradoxically is also scared of ever facing her again.

They all come together and form a virtual band called Gorillaz— no actually it’s called JELEE. Because of Kano’s insistence with getting Mahiru to draw again, she draws a virtual avatar for the band, and they start performing under alias. They pick up an instrumentalist and a VFX artist as they need them.

You know how I said I have technical complaints about this anime? One of them is that I wish JELEE stayed anonymous, but that definitely wouldn’t make an interesting anime. It’s really just a nitpick, I have so little bad to say about this anime. I mean everyone knows Damon Albarn (and whoever he gets) is in Gorillaz, but the band members are 2D, Murdoc, Russell, and Noodle.

Now I feel like that’s enough groundwork.

Now usually, I’d just wait until I wrote a story based on this anime and then spill my guts. You know, like I did with Senpai is an Otokonoko. But honestly, I’m busy, and I want to talk about this anime now.

I can relate to it immensely. Most of the characters are relatable, in different ways. I know people like the characters in this anime. They’re mainly people lurking in online spaces but they all exist. My frontman is Kano, my keyboardist is Mei, I’m Mahiru, I know a Kiui, etc. To me, the characters never felt unreal to me, even when the anime missed some of the finer details of performing a live gig, or at some points, the characters did get a little hamfisted (though I do think there is good reason for that).

For instance, in one particular scene, Mahiru’s working on a project for Kano’s mother (how she got to doing this is unimportant). Her mom takes one look at the pictures and dismisses them almost instantly. She inquires on what Mahiru even likes about the art, and the only things she can note are technical details, how straight the legs are, or how good the eyes look.

The first time I saw this scene, I paused my playback and just sat silent for a moment— I’ve written a blog post about this exact thing once. Once you get so preoccupied with the technical details, the stories start lacking personality, and I’d rather read a story with personality over one that’s just calculated technical details.

This is what I mean with saying the characters are relatable. I see a lot of people criticizing this anime because the characters are caricatures, but as a creative… I can’t see Mahiru not being exactly me in this situation. Though, there is a part of me that wonders how much of the criticism is also because Kiui is enby (though tbh you don’t see that until episode 11, people called it ‘forced drama’) and the anime is gay af… you know anime fans.

But as for the characters, there’s something I think are rather unique with this batch. After the anime is done and dusted, it’s left with the thesis of, “Don’t let your past define you”.

You know how sometimes in writing, you’ll write the characters and then they’ll pull a sneaky on ya and you’ll have a backstory based on those characters? Well, I think this was done in reverse. It’s just conjecture, but it feels like the characters were built around the backstories.

For instance, Kiui. Hyper-masculine elementary school girl becomes a superhero VTuber they designed to be their ideal self— and therefore they are obsessed with superheroes and appearing cool to others. You see what I mean? I see how the second part could come out of the first.

Another great example is Kano. A famous pop idol was caught up in a scandal and immediately fired— so she performs anonymously online so people never know her name. Again, I can see how that second part comes out of the first.

Now this is— no two ways about it— utterly bizarre, and contrary to how characters tend to be written. But, I think that’s also it’s greatest strength. It just makes the characters even stronger, they’re messy, unfocused, lingering on the past, but that’s just people.

The anime is the members of JELEE coming to terms with their past, growing past it, and moving on to a brighter future. Throughout the anime, they get happier and happier, knowing they have people like them, finding reasons to continue everything they quit. Aside from a bump along the way (not even caused by poor communication let’s go!), this all cumulates in the final episode, when Kano performs as JELEE at a gig set up by her mom, and she finally realizes she’s singing because she wants to and there doesn’t need to be a better reason than that.

Well, more accurately, that’s half the final episode, the second half is filler-y, but I feel like has a point too. Mahiru and the rest of the band get together to repaint her mural used as a framing device throughout the anime. One that was covered in graffiti and eventually forgotten about. Finally, to top it all off, the mural isn’t credited to Mahiru’s alias, or her real name, but rather to the band, JELEE, as they learn and grow as people.

Ironically, despite the last half of that episode being so simple I think that’s the part that stuck with me the most. The idea of growing, and eventually realizing you can acknowledge your past while still moving beyond it.

It made me want to write a song. It made me want to start a story. It made me want to write a blog post. To start fresh, not as Dashie04, the McDonald’s employee who happens to write stories and make music sometimes, but as Erinn Rose— who will include “gigging musician” on her resume.

I don’t know what it was, but that idea— of being creative to be creative— seemed to lift up that fog around me. Now, my ideas are multiplying and I’ll probably work on my music whenever I get a chance, because I feel like I want to.

In short, Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night gets a 10/10.

And until next time; be awesome!
-Dashie04

Comments

[Themaskedferret]

Glad to hear it's inspired you so. I heard good things about the series. n_n