Fundamentally Secret
Our recap of ‘Land of Tanabata’ episode 6 begins with Sachiko’s explanation of her history and the scars on her back. Sachiko’s mother wanted to marry Yoriyuki but was barred due to Marukami rules. She eventually married Sachiko’s father, who couldn’t really adjust to the secrets of Marukami and used Takashi to vent out his frustration.
In turn, Takashi vented his anger onto Sachiko, leading to the scars on her back. Eventually, her mother took Yoriyuki’s help to have Takashi learn his power, and as Takashi felt closer to Yoriyuki, in a fit of rage, he killed his father and was thrown out of the family by her mother. Over time, her mother killed herself too since she was part of Within Reach.
Meanwhile, Aki meets the detective and, mistaking him for the event attendee when the assassination took place, tries to gather information for her journalistic endeavors. Elsewhere, after listening to Sachinko’s story, Nanmaru puts a stop to the trash cleaning business, since he feels he shouldn’t use his powers for trivial reasons.
He later meets with Emi, Tagaya, and Tomoko, where Emi had figured out that the difference in the dates of the Tanabata festival was not because it followed the western calendar but because of the solar year and the need to accommodate the leap year in the calculations.
She’d found hints in Professor Marukami’s letter where he states that even though as a member, he doesn’t want to reveal anything, but as a researcher, he simply cannot let go of his research.
After the meeting, Nanmaru appears for a job interview as a cleaner and discovers that many cleaners have been college graduates like him. Meanwhile, Aki, who had lied about her identity as a university student, persuades the detective to chase the truth behind the murders and the “dimensional ball” with her.
After Nanmaru returns home, it turns out that he’s not only ‘Within Reach’ but also a ‘Window Opener’ like Yoriyuki as he slips into the nightmare that Sachinko often talks about. He also meets Sachiko, falling through an opened window, who tells him not to reach out to her since he’ll end up beyond the window. This is when Nanmaru’s body crashes onto the floor, and he wakes up.
Meanwhile, instances of disappearing people and objects, as big as airplanes and cars, increase. Aki and the detective just happen to come across Takashi and Yoriyuki entering a building, and while the detective wants to alert the police, even though he is part of the police, Aki rushes inside.
While this is happening, Yoriyuki explains to Takashi that the window cannot open in the room they are in and proceeds to make the Chief Cabinet Secretary disappear through his powers. The detective follows Aki, and the two are discovered and bound.
Elsewhere, while on his new job as a cleaner and talking to his co-worker on the rooftop, a huge dimensional ball appears, engulfing half of a huge building in the distance.
The Episode Review
A lot of times in the episodes, the logical connections between scenes or character motivations either don’t really correlate strongly or are quite superficial. For instance, Nanmaru calls off his business citing that he shouldn’t use his powers casually and then joins a cleaning service planning to use his ability for the job since he clearly states he felt his abilities would align with the job.
It makes absolutely no sense and feels like we are missing quite a few puzzle pieces in the middle that might have been more elaborately presented in the manga.
There are no plot transitions or explanations like when Aki and the detective randomly appear near the building which Yoriyuki and Takashi enter later. How did they know they’d find them there? Is the detective tracking the case?
We can only assume so, even when we’ve never actually seen him doing so except brief glimpses when he seemed perplexed about the mysterious events happening in the city. Everything is unclear from details in the plot to the actual events in the plot.
There is hardly any emotion that we feel for any character, including Nanmaru, who is amongst the characters we do not quite know well other than his connection to the Marukami village, his power, and his sheer inability to get a decent job despite being a college graduate.
We are yet to discover the entire role of Beyond the Window, but it at least maintains the mystery of the plot. However, the pacing, basic camera work, less-than-ideal editing, and background score, especially for evoking emotions in tense scenes, make the show appear bland and monotonous with subpar acting and emotional range of those involved.
And that is it for our Land of Tanabata episode 6 recap & review, we’ll meet you in the next one!
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