Tsurune’s anime spin on archery will send the mind racing through time

A nameless village lies at the border between urban and rural life. At a high school that isn’t very distinctive, arrows strike the picturesque landscape and hit their targets, echoing across a field of grass. The martial art of kyudo, Japanese archery, is at the center of Kyoto Animation’s Tsurune. The second season of the anime has just ended. Tsurune: Linking Shot (which you can watch on HIDIVE), and while it may sound like any other sports anime with a bit of coming-of-age drama for spice — a tried-and-true genre of the medium — TsuruneIt transports viewers into a nostalgic world of dreams that reminds them of past lives. Beautiful visuals create a feeling of longing and desire to return to the memories. Nostalgia par excellence.

TsuruneThis is an amazing show. Kyoto Animation put all their heart and soul into creating this amazing show. Whether it’s the high-action shots of arrows in flightThere is an energy in these places that pulses, whether it’s the detail of the background art that makes a sports facility or high school classroom come to life. TsuruneBoth in the dramatic scenes and everyday scenes. Minato Narumiya’s journey back to kyudo after a tragic accident is made all the more powerful because of the care put in by series director Takuya Yamamura and his talented staff.

It can be easy to tell a story about sports in anime. A goal is set for your youth group, which will usually be to participate in national competitions. As they achieve that goal, the characters grow and have to experience real life. There is often a rival who is better at the sport than the story’s lead characters. Tsurunepossesses all these elements. Minato, his Kazemai High Kyudo Club members, are striving for the title of national champion. However Shu Fujiwara (private school students at Kirisaki High) is standing in their way. Yamamura storyboards these cliched elements perfectly, but they’re done in service of a greater philosophy, tying kyudo to something more, heightened by the incredible quality of the animation. Most anime won’t blow the budget on making a train station look photorealistic, but Tsurune does. Shoko Ochiai is the art director of Kyoto Animation. She has been making stunning background art for over ten years. TsuruneShe is the only person who has been in charge of art direction on this project. She spent her time perfecting her art on Kyoto Animation shows such as Violet EvergardenAnd Sound! EuphoniumIt shines here Tsurune’s superbly composed scenery.

Image: Kyoto Animation/Sentai Filmworks

You will become a great sports anime. TsuruneThis taps into the emotional resonance associated with restorative nostalgia. When we think of nostalgia in a modern (mostly Western) framework, we envision remakes of popular ’80s or ’90s TV shows, or taking the aesthetics from previous eras and remixing them in the present to create something with a retro vibe. This is known as reflexive nostalgia, as it relies on the individual consumer’s feelings toward the nostalgic cultural objects being paraded in front of them. This is the relationship you have with your emotions. The thing. Is it possible to see the original cast? Mighty Morphin Power RangersYou feel like you are back in your youth, and you want to get up again. If so, that’s reflexive nostalgia.

A anime that looks like Tsurune, the nostalgia you are connecting to isn’t necessarily yours alone. It’s linked to a collective set of nostalgic ideals, which often take the form of some kind of national sense of identity. This is a process to restore what was lost or that’s in danger of becoming lost. In this case, it’s a Japanese identity being swept away by modernity and the influence of globalization.

Restorative nostalgia in TsuruneThe show is filled with it as it focuses on what it is to be a Japanese city. To live in a Japanese village. To feel the deep feeling of beingIt is in this Japanese city. Yamamura and his team excel at this part of the feeling. It can be both subtle and obvious.

First is the setting itself: The nowhere-but-everywhere town. TsuruneIt is set in an unknown town that was based on real locations in Nagano. Tokyo is not the place for a show trying to revive Japanese culture. Tokyo is too big and cosmopolitan for a show that seeks to revive aesthetic nostalgia. Kyoto Animation has known this for many years. The studio uses real-world locales that are at the boundary of urban and rural life. This 2012 drama is a coming-of age story. HyoukaThe city of Takayama was the inspiration for this project in Gifu Prefecture. 2013’s Free! used the town of Iwami in Tottori Prefecture (Japan’s least populated prefecture) as the setting for its “sexy boys do sexy swimming” anime. I once visited the city of Nishinomiya to see locations from Kyoto Animation’s 2006 classic Haruhi’s Melancholy. My Japanese friend wasn’t sure why I went to this boring area between Osaka, Kobe. Even after an explanation, he still didn’t get the appeal.

Image: Kyoto Animation/Sentai Filmworks

This town is the perfect place to set anime. The balance between nature and cultural traditions creates a nostalgic atmosphere that maximises your restorative power. Tsurune’s nameless town is an even more powerful example of this phenomenon, as it allows the viewer to imagine the series could be set anywhere in Japan. Although there are some anime location hunters out there who post tweets about their finds, it is easier for general viewers to connect with the theme of the show by being anonymous. They are less likely not to become too focused on specific details in the background.

Ochiai is the art director. Azumihata, who works as an artist collaborator frequently serves as Tsurune’s color designer, have a great eye for making these unremarkable everyday places into lived-in works of art. The two share a passion for giving age to objects and capturing the worn-in feel of spaces. When the series flashes back through Minato’s years of kyudo practice at home, the wear and tear on the hardwood shows through. It’s a visual manifestation of a memory that, for Minato’s father, conjures up feelings from the past. These touches make it possible to create a setting. TsuruneIt is beautiful and nostalgic. This happens all over the show. A school hallway with dust particles filtering through sunlight, the local shrine draped in maple trees, or even the vending machines in front of the train station at sunset call out to the viewer, perhaps to jog memories of time spent in these spaces in one’s youth, or perhaps to create a link to a particular aesthetic ideal that someone in a one-room apartment in Tokyo’s concrete jungle may have lost touch with.

This stunning backdrop can be enhanced by layering the martial art kyudo onto it. TsuruneThe story centers around the Japanese art of Kyudo, which has a long history. This amplifies nostalgia for national identity. Kyudo has evolved through Japan’s history from being taught as an art of war to today, where it is taught as an art of discipline. There is a spirituality to kyudo that might be vaguely connected to Buddhism or Shinto (though never explicitly either), and that spirituality and philosophy are seen through the narrative and the show’s aesthetic motifs. Yamamura emphasizes the specific movements and particular aesthetics that are associated with kyudo. Tsurune. The bow’s pull taut and ritual steps that an archer makes to get into the archery area are beautiful. All of these nostalgic elements are included in this package: the sound of an arrow striking a target, the ruffling of the traditional Hakamasa pants and the sliding split-toe tabi socks onto waxed hardwood flooring.

Image: Kyoto Animation/Sentai Filmworks

Once the narrative focus on kyudo philosophy and the lives of high school boys is established, it’s then that Ochiai and her team can go to work with aesthetic flourishes and accouterments to heighten its messaging. It is a beautiful place to be, with the cherry blossoms falling and the sounds of birds chirping and mysteriously timed gusts of winds. This fuels our nostalgia for the everyday.

Kyoto Animation believes that there is an indomitable pride associated with the idea of unique Japanese aesthetics. Tsurune. The show is a coming-of-age drama, nestled in a sports anime, that ponders if we ever really “come of age.” When does growth end? Does it not seem like a more circular process of destruction, rebirth and rebuilding? This is how the restorative nostalgia runs through the series. If we only look forward, we may grow, but we’ll lose our connection to the past. Japan is going to be just one big Tokyo. We could grow a lot more if we reexamine that history and remain connected to this collective identity. TsuruneThis question is asked of viewers by its visual storytelling. It creates a world that almost seems surreal, but taps into an easily relatable nostalgia that’s nothing less than magic.

TsuruneIt is also available for streaming on Crunchyroll or HIDIVE. Tsurune: Linking ShotHIDIVE streaming.