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3-gatsu no Lion Thread
3-gatsu no lion is My Favorite Anime. I wanted to talk about it for a long time now and so I will talk about some of the themes and things I like about it in this thread. Spoilers for the anime
3-gatsu no lion is My Favorite Anime. I wanted to talk about it for a long time now and so I will talk about some of the themes and things I like about it in this thread. Spoilers for the anime
Rei lost his entire family. Rei's only option was shogi in the midst of isolation and was incorporated into a shogi family, where the father who cared more about shogi placed all his focus on Rei and left his own children shattered.
“Father really loved shogi. For better or worse, everything was ‘shogi-centered’. And those who loved him had to become strong to stay within his sights.”
This made Rei guilty, and as he didn't want to be the reason for ruining the relationship of this family, he leaves, and decides to live by himself. Lonely again with no one to depend on. This contributes to making rei a type of individual who rarely opens up about himself.
He becomes someone who struggles to communicate his thoughts, someone who struggles to recognize that he is respected or cared for by other people.
Depression isn't rational most of the time, and self-value gets clouded, sometimes contributing to feeling useless. Rei's quest to discover his worth is One that is really relatable and endearing to me. With its shogi matches, 3-gatsu no Lion illustrates this slow journey.
Whenever Rei has a Shogi game, he faces his inner struggles and finds his worth, with subtlety.
Guilt and Remorse is Another Facet of Rei. One of the most important aspects about his character is his relationship with Kyouko. Being a rather envious person, Kyouko thinks her father was stolen by Rei. Kyouko hates that Rei has always been better at everything than her.
Kyouko trails behind Gotou not because of romantic feelings but she sees him as a father figure. Even the audiovisuals demonstrate this. The soundtrack is played by a glass harmonica in many of the scenes with kyouko, and some of the scenes also include broken glass and similar-
-imagery to illustrate that kyouko is a broken character. Her Character throughout the series carries the same glass symbolism motif which 3-gatsu executes perfectly. Rei faults himself for destroying Kyouko as an entity.
This is seen in the form of clear symbolism from one of the earlier episodes of season 1 (ch 10 of the manga), where he compares himself to a cuckoo and how it hatches in the nest of another bird, and pushes the actual children of the host parent.
Rei burdens himself and tries to help others because of this guilt that he has built up. What he's afraid of is not being able to try to help someone. He fears the frustration of not being able to do something. He’s afraid of using people. He tries as much as he can to help ppl.
He will try to help, both his friends and opponents. This is where the excellent scene from S1's Ep 10 comes in. He attempts to help his opponent, but his opponent rejects "help" after being crushed by Rei, and it frustrates Rei, leading to one of the strongest displays of raw-
- emotions raised by the excellent work of the voice actor and combined with the phenomenal visuals by Shaft. In the midst of this Rei Utters the lines “Is everything My fault” questioning his own guilt and questions back to himself “then what should i have done?” asking if it-
really was his fault, what possibly could he have done.”Go to hell” This is the first time we see so much emotion from Rei as he is most of the time silent and calm, so to see him venting out his built up frustrations is fulfilling characterization.
”For me, everything’s on the line! Because i don’t have anything else! Nothing but Shogi” This is where Chica Umino’s Fantastic Writing comes into play and she’s able to put so much meaning and emotions behind those words.
All of these moving parts combine to form one cohesive scene which succeeds in capturing and pulling the strings of the viewer’s hearts.
His morale grows when Rei's starts winning a lot of matches, and he insists on beating Gotou. This causes him to becoming a little self-absorbed, overconfident and tunnel-visioned. Shimada completely destroyed this overconfidence.
Shimada is quite an incredible character himself, but this scene with him and another scene makes rei understand his problem, which eventually leads him to discover his own self-worth.
Shimada later invites rei to study shogi, Rei felt like he learned better from shimada than shimada did from rei, which shimada disagrees with and claims he was a great help. It's such a small moment, but in my opinion, it's such an important scene.
This is a wonderful time to talk about the moment when Rei's Wonderful Teacher Hayashida encourages Rei to start a shogi club. This is a great moment where he learns that there are ppl who need his support and realizes his self-worth briefly and slightly overcomes his anxiety
Bullying is what everyone has encountered at least once in their life. Maybe you were the perpetrator, maybe you were the abuser, maybe you were the one that stood passively watching others get bullied, but what I'm trying to suggest is that bullying is complex.
Why do ppl bully? Is it instinctual to harm or intimidate someone who is vulnerable? Do ppl bully to gain social value to become a higher member of their small social hierarchies? What happens to the victim? Will they ever recover? What happens to someone who helps the victim?
The alienation the victim faces? How to stop it? Can it be ever stopped? There are so many questions and it's a very complicated thing, but despite that 3-gatsu no lion explores bullying and the issues it comes with in a very natural and relatable way.
It's such a powerful message that you can't help but hug Hina when she declares that she didn't do anything wrong. Bully Arc is the one of the most realistic portrayals of Bullying in Anime.
I could go on and on and on about this masterfully executed “arc” but that would be a thread inside a thread so for another day maybe.
3-gatsu has a lot of wonderful aspects and executes a lot of them perfectly, but the visual storytelling is arguably one of the best aspects of 3-gatsu . The already exceptional Creative Visual storytelling by Chica Umino is enhanced by the unique direction of Studio Shaft.
Studio Shaft does a great job at visuals
The Visuals exactly sets the tone of the scene using colors while also mirroring the emotional point the characters are at. The Visuals contrast the emotionally focused storytelling in doing so enhances the narrative exploration of Rei’s Cloudy Mentality and Inner Turmoils.
The Show uses a lot of visual thematics and creative motifs to create a tonally flexible atmosphere while not straying away from its emotionally immersive storytelling.The Show’s use of visual metaphors and Melancholic imagery is depressingly beautiful
The use of colors is fantastic. The Cold colors used in Rei’s apartment to show his seclusion contrasts the use of warm colors used in Kawamoto's Residence to show the warmth feeling of joy and familial love.
The Motif of Water and Water Imagery is found everywhere throughout the series as a visual metaphor to illustrate Rei’s Inner Turmoil, Struggles and Anxiety. It is one of 3-gatsu’s nuanced elements demonstrating a wide variety of everything from the emotional angst, -
-social seclusion, lack of motivation, guilt, the burdens and many more things that make up who kiriyama rei is. Fleeting shots of water, the illusion of being submerged underwater, a focus on bubbles and many more things are effectively used to further explicitly show
-the motif of water. Water isn’t the only motif that 3-gatsu executes perfectly, another one is that of fire, flames, and lava which is explored masterfully in a mere 2 episode arc.
The Burnt Field arc is the pinnacle of Visual Storytelling in 3-gatsu no lion. Instead of Following the Upcoming shogi pro Rei, this mini arc follows an experienced Yanagihara Saku and his Inner Strugles, and explores themes like expectations, old age, and identity.
Many ppl connect their identity to their careers, and without their career who are they? The Arc starts off with Gan, a photographer talking to Saku that he’s burned out, feels as if he’s standing in a “burnt field”.
In the same scene, a shot of two cigarettes are shown and one’s burned out while the other one is still burning which is an obvious symbolism for saku and gan, and plays into the theme of this arc.
Saku starts his match for the title of Kishou against Shimada (who is until this point shown in a way to make the viewers sympathize with him and support him and his own struggles)
The Shogi Match is executed perfectly with the sound of every piece being placed on the board raising the stakes. Saku starts his Monologue which in my opinion is one of the greatest displays of Monologue and inner struggle in anime.
Here we explore another theme, that being expectations. Saku is old. Older than most people. He has seen ppl retire, lose their will to play, leave this world. With this Saku has a lot of expectations from these ppl and his friends.
This is shown Flawlessly with the visual metaphor of Sashes representing the hopes and expectations ppl have in him. We see a lot of sashes and we see saku getting blinded and covered by these sashes.
Saku remarks that, it is quite heavy with a smile on his face, indicating that he is capable of carrying the weight of their expectations and this leads him addressing what gan had said before the match and adds that if Gan’s in a burnt field, then Saku is still burning.
Later on in the match, Shimada has gotten a significant advantage over Saku. Everyone is in the belief that Saku will eventually lose. We go back to the Metaphorical Monologue and Saku sees the sashes fly away from him slowly, indicating that for the first time he may lose today.
While he may be freed from the burden of expectations but He Thinks about who Yanagihara Saku is without shogi,and with a desperate attempt, gasping, pulls the flying sashes back and acknowledges the burden of expectations, realises that the expectations and hope the ppl have-
on him is what makes him, himself. With this he doesn’t give up and this is again shown through the visual representation of the potential of a burnt field and how it will surely turn into a green field filled with life.
All of this monologue leads into a single shogi move that turns the outcome of the match and leads to Saku’s Victory. After the victory, saku goes straight to gan and asks him to take a photo of all his friends,
in essence telling him to not give up and realise his potential as a photographer.
And with that the arc ends on a full circle. Saku is metaphorized by the slow flowing lava, meanwhile Shimada is represented as a slowly growing sturdy tree who keeps getting better and better. But in this case the slow lava burned the slowly growing tree and in doing so this may
perhaps be the last achievement in Saku’s legacy and life.
Yanagihara notes that of course all of these ppl will eventually disappear from shogi, from life, some who he liked, some who he didn’t but that all of those people have become a part of him and that’s who Yanagihara Saku is.
3-gatsu is filled with great characters who are assigned their own motif both visually and thematically. Among them the Burnt field arc expertly explores a single character in just 2 episodes.
3-gatsu no lion is a story about characters with all their own struggles. 3-gatsu no lion is not just a story about shogi. It’s about the inner turmoil the people behind the board face and how they deal with it.
3-gatsu no lion is a human story which explores mature and dark themes and gives a hopeful message at the end. 3-gatsu no lion is an anime that I hold near and dear to my heart. 3-gatsu no lion is my favourite anime.
Thank you for reading!
