Previous episode above.
The episode titles have shifted from UK rock into techno now.
Incidentally, Episode 9’s title also… Though honestly, this wasn’t something consciously planned. It may simply have been my subconscious guiding the choices. Still, I’m fond of how the overall musical references come together, and I think once the finale airs, people will understand why these selections felt right.
Ame-chan in the opening scene.
The shot itself is cute and definitely has a certain sex appeal to it, but generally speaking, I’m not really into heavy fanservice or those flashy on-screen text effects during scenes like this. I actually prefer anime KAngel when she’s at maximum stress, constantly on the verge of exploding.
As for the story itself, things finally start moving forward.
And amazingly, this is the first episode that really ends with a proper “To be continued!” feeling. Incredible. So in that sense, it functions as a kind of bridge episode, with a slight slice-of-life atmosphere mixed in.
From this point onward, the series also begins directly unpacking the thematic roles each character carries within the story.
And the narrator this time is Ririana Oono, the child actress who played young Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (Totto-chan) in Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window. Her delivery was so wonderfully clear and professional!
Even on set, she carried herself with incredible professionalism and composure. Despite being only nine years old, she already felt completely polished. When leaving the studio, she even politely said, “I’d be happy if you invited me back again someday.”
Meanwhile I was internally panicking, thinking, “I’m so sorry that trashy adults like us dragged you into this weird anime,” while bowing deeply and thanking her over and over.
Just like the later appearance of The Brothers Karamazov, from this point onward the series will occasionally begin incorporating quotations from literature and similar works as we move toward the finale.
This time, it was Kenji Miyazawa.
The idea of “true happiness” is something I continue thinking about constantly myself.
Especially because Miyazawa repeatedly revised his own interpretation of what “happiness” meant, it’s a concept I’ve never been able to stop turning over in my mind.
As mentioned in the episode itself, there’s the whole discussion about the differences between the “Third Draft” and “Fourth Draft” versions of Night on the Galactic Railroad. But apparently, there’s even a version that combines the endings of both drafts together.
A long time ago, I fell asleep while listening to a reading by Suo Sango as background audio, and suddenly near the ending, familiar scenes started blending together in bizarre new ways. The sheer sense of wrongness made me jolt awake thinking, “Wait… was that a dream just now!?”
Later on, it seems even Sango herself only learned through the comments section that the edition of Night on the Galactic Railroad she owned was actually an extremely rare version. Stuff like that really happens, apparently. Generally speaking, the version most people casually encounter is the Fourth Draft.
You can read the Third Draft here.
I went to ride the final run of the SL Ginga once.
“The Swan Station…”
When going out.
Of course, unlike Ame-chan, she’s recognizable to a certain extent, but since she’s not doing anything suspicious, it’s not really a problem. Fans often secretly take photos of her playing Nitiasa arcade games.
I wrote in the script that “KAngel and Ame-chan should appear to alternate with each other,” and as an interpretation of that idea, the direction here was absolutely perfect.
Cool as hell.
The story’s been getting pretty heavy lately, so here’s a little cartoon intermission.
Honestly, I’d be fine if the whole thing were cartoons, though… Cute!
I love Orbitten’s short animations, so I just went ahead and asked directly!
Thank you so much.
The new Kache’s hair color and fashion have completely settled in naturally by this point.
What even is this red circle?
There’s a coffin sitting on top of the bed.
Everyone on set was really particular about the acting around this part, to the point that we ended up making Shiina-san scream over and over again, which I feel a little bad about. But at the same time, I’m just happy that the performance gained more and more intensity, and that Michica’s character ended up with a much stronger sense of depth because of it.
Episode 6 made it feel like Michika’s themes had already been explored in an abstract way, so I’m glad we were able to suddenly push things forward and let the real problems erupt.
There’s a place like this inside the house…
The section from The Brothers Karamazov being read in the background here, performed by the main cast voice actors playing child roles, is essentially about the idea that “once you start loving humanity as a whole, the individual ends up neglected.” A very Fyodor Dostoevsky kind of theme, isn’t it? Because you care about humanity as a whole, you end up irritated by every tiny thing each individual person does. Completely backwards. And incredibly human.
And with that, we move on to Episode 9.
The preview actually connects directly from the ending of this episode properly…!
A miracle I never expected actually happened…
By the way, the CD jacket too… I wonder if people will get it?
Around this point, Ohisashiburi-san had started saying things like, “I’ve drawn way too much KAngel already,” so we talked about how, if it was for a CD jacket size, maybe even just a close-up of her face would stand out and look cool enough.
That was the idea behind this piece.
The end card was by Kerorira.
As for why KAngel is posing like the statue of a figure sitting contemplatively in the half-lotus position, at the time Kerorira-san and I just happened to be traveling around Thailand for no particular reason, and while we were there in Bangkok I suddenly hit them with, “Kerorira-san… would you do the end card!?”
The Land of Smiles was fun.
Around the time the game hit a million copies sold, I’d also asked Kero-chan to make a short NEEDY movie, so this ended up being another chance to work together on NEEDY again after quite a while.
It’s been an anime full of twists and turns, but from here on out, it starts becoming the kind of story where the themes themselves, and what everything has been building toward, are gradually revealed piece by piece. The elements we’ve been scattering throughout the early episodes finally begin connecting together. It even feels a little lonely, somehow. Compared to the slower pace of the opening and middle sections, things start hitting hard one after another from here on. I’m fond of each of the standalone middle-arc episodes too, but from this point onward, NEEDY as a single work starts heading toward its ending.
Kenji Miyazawa, Dostoevsky, techno, rock, Marilyn Manson, bishoujo games.
All the things I’ve spent half my life loving, obsessing over, becoming attached to. It feels like I’ve been placing all of them into this work, using it as a way to draw a line under a part of myself. And it leaves me quietly thinking, ah… so this is how I grew up.
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