Follow Up - Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 episodes 1-11 [END] - CONTAINS SPOILERS

Mirai and Yuuki's family, in happier times.

I'm writing this having just finished watching Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 a few hours ago. When I wrote my review for the first episode, I felt like this was the series that would impress me the most during Summer Season '09. Even though there was some stiff competition from Aoi Hana, which I also loved, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 ended up being not only a very surprising series, but also much more emotionally-affecting than one might have expected from a disaster flick. Both the summary and my thoughts might contain major plot spoilers, so read at your own risk.

Series Summary
The story revolves around Mirai, a middle-school student who is unhappy with the way her family interacts. Her mother works long hours and never seems to have time to spend with her, her father doesn't seem motivated to help out around the house, and her little brother, Yuuki, annoys her with his consistently naive and optimistic attitude. On the first day of her Summer vacation, Mirai's mother tasks her with taking Yuuki to a robot exhibition at Odaiba Island, something she considers a chore. While the two are there, the ground begins to tremble and a massive earthquake causes buildings to collapse.

Mirai, with the help of Mari, a motorcycle courier, finds her brother trapped inside a convenience store. When they make their way outside they find that cell phone communication is down and that, in order to make their way back to the mainland and home again, they'll have to go on foot. The two children and Mari, who becomes their caretaker, survive the collapse of the Rainbow Bridge and a harrowing ferry ride. They witness the fall of Tokyo Tower, which the children narrowly escape alive. As the aftershock tremors die down, they also experience the emotional aftermath of the event, including watching people mourning in makeshift areas for the dead.


In one of the series' set pieces, the Rainbow Bridge collapses after burning overnight, as Mirai, Yuuki and Mari escape on the ferry.

All three companions experience physical ailments along the way. Mirai gets blisters from her sandals and injures her leg. Mari collapses from anemia. And Yuuki collapses in the middle of the street while walking, and Mirai and Mari rush him to the nearest hospital. Mirai experiences nightmares of worst-case scenarios regarding her brother's condition, and though she isn't able to come to terms with the fact at first, reaching Yuuki's classroom and seeing his friend causes her to finally realize that Yuuki passed away, and that she must make the final walk home on her own to reunite with her family.

A month after the event, Mirai and her family are still attempting to return to a feeling of normalcy, even though Yuuki is no longer with them. Mari comes for a visit and returns Yuuki's backpack, along with the birthday present the two bought for their mother and Mirai's cell phone. When she checks her email, she finds one from Yuuki, written on Mari's phone during their journey. Mirai begins to take care of the plant Yuuki and his friend planted at their elementary school, maintaining her brother's memory.


The plant that Yuuki and his friend planted.

Thoughts - Very Spoilery
Overall this series felt particularly well-constructed. There were certainly a couple of low points - Mari's collapse seemed contrived and ultimately that episode felt like it served no purpose, and their meeting with Kenta, a robot-otaku, also didn't seem to contribute anything to the story (well, other than an excuse to animate cute tachikoma-like rescue robots). But overall I felt that each episode, in addition to featuring some well-researched earthquake destruction, also contained a very real emotional element to it that connected with me, the second half especially.

Before I get into more of my specific reactions, I'd like to respond to a criticism I've been seeing in various internet locales. Many people seem to be stuck on the fact that the series creators have been emphasizing a commitment to research and realism, and yet Mirai's "hallucination" of her brother seems entirely unrealistic to them. I think this reflects a misunderstanding on the part of these viewers. Essentially, if I wanted an entirely sterile, factual account of an earthquake, I could probably watch any number of documentaries on the subject. Representing Mirai's inability to accept her brother's death by having her create an image of Yuuki to help herself cope seems like the best way to represent the situation in a visual medium like animation.


When Mirai can't come to terms with Yuuki's death, she copes by imagining him still alive.

I think the other purpose it serves is to increase the impact of his passing. While more observant viewers are presented with clues to the reality of the situation as early as episode 8, including Mari obtaining an unspecified "legal document" from the hospital and the fact that she doesn't speak directly to Yuuki at all from that point onward, more casual viewers might be more prone to be surprised by the "Sixth Sense" type reveal in episode 10. Either way, the situation is incredibly sad and surprising at the same time - normally one wouldn't expect a main character to get killed, let alone the youngest one.

All of this makes more sense, though, when you consider that this really isn't a series about a disaster at all; the shaking of Tokyo is really just a backdrop for the human drama taking place, specifically that of Mirai learning to appreciate what she has, including her imperfect family and the brother with whom she had trouble getting along. This series is a very good example of what I consider good character development. Whereas in a lot of shounen action type series, the hero can experience all sorts of life-altering situations including the deaths of other characters and other types of losses while almost never undergoing any sort of logical, permanent change in attitude or outlook, Mirai transforms from a sullen preteen to someone who is honestly able to express love for her brother and can eventually make peace with her family. In other words, over the course of 11 episodes she's able to mature in a more convincing way than many characters who exist in series much longer, and I see that as a triumph of this series. To those people who I saw complaining online about her "bitchy" and "selfish" attitude at the outset of the show, I would tell them to both try and remember themselves and their own awkwardness at the onset of puberty (and I assume that most anime fans have experienced that feeling being misunderstood and not belonging) and to watch the character's transformation from beginning to end. Personally, I saw a lot of my adolescent self in Mirai, and I connected with her story quite a bit.


Mirai can't tell if her brother's death is a nightmare or reality.

When I wrote my review, I commented on the maintenance of tension in the first episode, something which I think has carried through the series in various ways. In some ways this is done sort of cheaply; there are multiple instances where it appears that someone is lost or injured, but it's a fake-out and they're actually just fine. There are other times, however, where the feeling of tension is masterfully orchestrated. One scene that comes to mind is where the three main characters are trying to make their way to the ferry, and the mass of people begins to stampede. The confusion that arises, and the uncertainty about whether or not the three will be able to stay together and keep from being trampled made this scene one of the most frightening in the show for me. Though the latter half isn't populated with so many intense moments, I felt that waiting for Mirai to come to terms with her brother's death and what sort of aftermath would occur once she made the realization was enough to make a knot in my chest.


The crush of people rushing towards the ferry, one of the more tense and frightening moments in the series.

I think the only really minor overall criticism I could make at this point would be that the visuals suffer quite a bit in the middle portion of the show. While the character designs are pretty simplistic to begin with, there's a lot of inconsistency in the character animation at some points that is difficult to ignore. It also seems to be a growing trend for studios to use CG animation during crowd scenes, and there are a lot of scenes in this series with many CG background characters that stand out very obviously to me. I think the saving grace in this case is that this isn't a series reliant on flashy action animation for the most part. A lot of the very dramatically-animated portions are that of buildings collapsing, and those scenes are very convincing. Other than that, most of the subsequent parts of the series are more reliant upon the writing, and in that case I have very few complaints.

Needless to say, I recommend this series very highly. Though the "disaster movie" genre is done to death in Western live-action films, somehow the different setting and the focus on the characters rather than the special effects gives this series a certain freshness. For viewers who are scared off by series that are "too Japanese," there's nothing to fear here either - aside from discussion about a few Tokyo landmarks, there aren't too many cultural quirks to wrap one's head around. Noitamina has another excellent hit on its hands, and this is definitely one of the timeslot's better recent offerings.


A memorial left on Yuuki's empty school desk.