Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am happy to announce we are returning to the tormented halls of Seiren Academy, as Nanako endures a fresh collection of schemes and crashouts and ornately illustrated sorrow, all so she can achieve a god damn high school education. Do they even <\/span>have<\/span><\/i> classes at this school? I can\u2019t imagine where they\u2019d find the time for them, what with all the backstabbing and plotting and hopelessly draping themselves across school furniture all the students pack into their schedules.<\/span><\/p>\n Nanako is certainly receiving an education in <\/span>something<\/span><\/i>, though. As our last episode demonstrated, she is becoming a key fixture in the lives of both Kaoru and Saint-Juste, a confidant and tether maintaining their connection to this fragmentary, floating world. Though Nanako sees herself as perfectly ordinary, her ability to pierce the veils enshrouding Seiren\u2019s three icons nonetheless makes her a unique quantity, as the one person able to see <\/span>them<\/span><\/i> as normal, reachable fellow students, rather than visions of Icarus that can only be glimpsed from a great distance. And in Dezaki\u2019s hands, both the luxurious splendor and woeful melodrama of these stories is brought vividly to life; rather than abstracting Ikeda\u2019s cast into caricatures, this adaptation simply realizes their feelings at the tenor they are experienced, offering the delightful two-cakes pleasure of both indulging in wild dramatic excess while still enjoying a story about recognizably human characters.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, except maybe Shinobu, that girl is something else. But that is also why we love her, and I\u2019m eager to see what nonsense Nanako\u2019s self-assigned nemesis is plotting as we return to Dear Brother!<\/span><\/p>\n Episode 10<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cFor you, for love, I would empty the bowls of my past.\u201d That seems to be what Seiren offers \u2013 a chance for total reinvention or surrender, to submit yourself utterly to the tempestuous relations and all-consuming social clubs of the academy<\/span><\/p>\n To avoid such a fate requires the grounding of a stable personal life that someone like Shinobu or Saint-Juste clearly lacks. Nanako\u2019s own confidence in self is a product of three personal pillars: her parents, her friend Tomoko, and her confidant Dear Brother. Given we\u2019ve at times seen both her parents and Tomoko become as strangers to her, it\u2019s easy to see how someone else might be swept up in Seiren\u2019s magic, and equally apparent how crucial her assumed brother has been in maintaining her sense of self<\/span><\/p>\n We open on a reprise of our last finale, as Shinobu stares down at her dinner while sweating bullets, ultimately upending the table as she screams \u201cget out of my life!\u201d Shinobu has some large, complicated feelings<\/span><\/p>\n It is excellent to populate your character dramas with multifaceted, recognizably human characters, but it also nice to create a gremlin or two who continuously causes problems on purpose<\/span><\/p>\n Back in class, Shinobu makes tentative steps to reconnect with Nanako, tossing her eraser over to her neighbor\u2019s desk. This is part of why high school makes for such delicious narrative drama \u2013 you\u2019re all trapped in close proximity with no agency regarding who you associate with. Shinobu might have declared she was going to kill Nanako and then herself yesterday, but she\u2019s still gonna be her seat neighbor today<\/span><\/p>\n The best Nanako can achieve is the silent treatment<\/span><\/p>\n Wildly <\/span>expressive cut<\/span><\/a> of Tomoko at lunch, as she conducts the conversation with her fork before monching her hamburg steak. One of the rare inclusions by series ace Masahiro Ando, who also handled most of the cuts of Kaoru playing basketball, as well as that sequence of Saint-Juste flinging daggers past Nanako\u2019s head. Dear Brother\u2019s art design and boarding are so good that it rarely requires fluid motion, but it\u2019s always welcome; generally the key moments of movement are designed to emphasize the larger-than-life nature of Seiren\u2019s idols, but here, the buoyancy of Tomoko infers a sense of comfort, an implication that life has returned to these lighter, more carefree topics of conversation<\/span><\/p>\n Still, Nanako can\u2019t help but scan the veranda for a lurking Shinobu<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMariko.\u201d Hoo boy<\/span><\/p>\n Shinobu is of course lounging dramatically on the school roof, wind rippling through her hair as she schemes fresh heresies. She is discovered by Kaoru<\/span><\/p>\n Shinobu flees from her concern, vowing \u201cI WILL NOT EAT.\u201d So, just another day for Shinobu, then<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMariko, what do you want for dinner?\u201d Bless her mother, who seems pretty accustomed to these sorts of performances<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCan\u2019t you say anything but \u2018please?\u2019 Being like that is what made father\u2026 get out!\u201d So Shinobu sees her mother as weak and ineffectual, blaming her refusal to pursue her desires for her father\u2019s absence. That goes some distance towards explaining why she is the way she is \u2013 she believes we gain nothing in this world but what we take by force, and she is determined to take Nanako<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve been studying so hard lately.\u201d Shinobu\u2019s fragmentation is contrasted against Nanako\u2019s apparent mental health; it seems Nanako is finally just enjoying school like your average student<\/span><\/p>\n Both parents praise her for her studies, a heavy-handed but nonetheless welcome confirmation that she has regained her closeness with her family<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think I care how they met.\u201d If Nanako can acknowledge what she cares about without guilt or regret, she will have overcome the most fundamental psychological challenge of high school: coming to know and love yourself well enough to admit who you are with pride<\/span><\/p>\n She\u2019s feeling so confident, in fact, that she nearly calls Shinobu to check on her, before quickly slamming the phone down<\/span><\/p>\n Fukiko-sama requests that Nanako and Shinobu gather flowers for a coming tea ceremony, with her subordinates stating they\u2019ll \u201crely on your good taste\u201d in choosing the flowers. More power games, Fukiko forcing subservience from her followers in order to bind them all the closer to her, but reserving the right to judge their choices, thus making them feel like she\u2019s doing them a favor by relying on and hopefully praising them. I wonder if Fukiko is additionally aware of the tension between Nanako and Shinobu, and wishes to exploit it<\/span><\/p>\n A montage demonstrates Shinobu filling the air with small talk regarding their sorority duties, an efficient way to illustrate their lopsided conversation<\/span><\/p>\n When Shinobu attempts to bring up the birthday party, Nanako flees. Repeated imagery of a fall from grace \u2013 first rain falling down Nanako\u2019s window like tears, now this rose drifting free from Nanako\u2019s bouquet<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA Tea Ceremony? What an elegant life!\u201d Tomoko immediately serves as a grounding influence, keeping Nanako from getting too accustomed to the glamour of the Sorority<\/span><\/p>\n Kaoru once again attempts to reach out to Shinobu, telling her she has to eat something to maintain her health<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat good is health!? Who needs health!?\u201d Shinobu\u2019s careless words obviously strike abrasively against Kaoru, given her inescapable health problems. Who is Shinobu, to so thoughtlessly disregard such a precious gift?<\/span><\/p>\n Kaoru actually lifts her straight off the ground to yell at her<\/span><\/p>\n Still, Kaoru seems determined to pay Nanako\u2019s consideration forward. Shinobu eventually lets the tears flow, collapsing in Kaoru\u2019s chest \u2013 only for the nattering peanut gallery to say \u201coh, I want Kaoru-no-Kimi to hold <\/span>me<\/span><\/i>, too.\u201d Everything here is a performance to them; the school icons and those who associate with them are not people, they are stage props<\/span><\/p>\n Clear parallels here to Revolutionary Girl Utena, which was undoubtedly influenced by Dear Brother\u2019s emphasis on high school as public performance, where true feelings bleed into the personas we adopt for the crowd<\/span><\/p>\n Kaoru literally towers over her fellow students, her size exaggerated to emphasize her grand social stature<\/span><\/p>\n We pan up across a mournful Shinobu and then down across a lounging Saint-Juste, a visual parallel emphasizing how both of them seem to almost luxuriate in their sorrow, finding surrender to the sadness more tenable than Kaoru\u2019s persistent rallying against the darkness<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come up here instead of playing with your stupid ball. The view from here is wonderful. Everything looks small and beautiful.\u201d Saint-Juste would rather admire the vitality of life from a great, protective distance, rather than embrace the pain of recommitting to the world<\/span><\/p>\n Saint-Juste almost agrees to join them, but then that bastard Miya-sama appears, and Saint-Juste nearly plummets off the balcony. Whenever it seems like Saint-Juste might rejoin the living, Miya-sama appears to remind her she is a damned soul, unfit to live carelessly with her peers<\/span><\/p>\n The parallels between Saint-Juste and Shinobu are emphasized further as Shinobu collapses on the court, presumably defeated by her hunger strike. Love how the Seiran tower looms in the distance of this shot of Shinobu collapsed, as if proudly overseeing the mental collapse of its students<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDespite everything, she\u2019s still my friend.\u201d And Tomoko smiles at this, knowing this is not a threat to their friendship, but simply a reflection of Nanako\u2019s general kindness. So glad to see these two patched up<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, Shinobu\u2019s mother spies her former husband while out shopping; he departs with a young red-haired woman in a sports car. All of this episode\u2019s focus characters believe their window for happiness has passed, and that they can now only sorrowfully observe the world of the living<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cStupid girl\u2026 abusing her precious life like that.\u201d Kaoru reflects bitterly on both Shinobu and Saint-Juste. How can they so casually discard the health she could never hope for?<\/span><\/p>\n Lightning thunders over a can of crab meat as Shinobu\u2019s mother hears the news, a neat encapsulation of Dear Brother\u2019s ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek approach to its melodrama<\/span><\/p>\n Her mother reveals that Shinobu was refusing to eat until Nanako forgave her. You can\u2019t blame yourself for that, Nanako!<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cKaoru-no-Kimi\u2026 you waited here for me all this time?\u201d Shinobu is clearly starved for positive attention, but can only find unhealthy vehicles for pursuing it. Her father\u2019s exit has warped her perspective on relationships; she believes intimacy must be demanded, or claimed by force, lest the target of your love flee and abandon you<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat? I don\u2019t need you. I have a lot of friends,\u201d says Shinobu to Nanako. Alright sweety, that\u2019s fine<\/span><\/p>\n Still, tsundere Shinobu is a huge improvement over self-destructive Shinobu<\/span><\/p>\n Her mother attempts to reach her father to explain what\u2019s happened with Shinobu, but no one answers. Like mother, like daughter<\/span><\/p>\n But then he arrives! The school called his publisher!<\/span><\/p>\n And this flash of hope is mirrored for Shinobu as well, as Nanako tentatively reaches out and takes her hand<\/span><\/p>\n And Done<\/b><\/p>\n Oh my poor Shinobu, how the world torments you! Through this episode\u2019s constant visual and narrative parallels, Shinobu was framed as one in a company of lost souls, those like Saint-Juste or her own mother, who see themselves as irreversibly severed from the brighter things in life. And while all that confident visual storytelling was well and good, I was even happier to learn so much more about Shinobu\u2019s relationship with her father, and how her broken home has informed her understanding of loyalty and love. Shinobu\u2019s a mess, but she feels like a far more human mess after this episode, which managed to maintain her theatricality while tethering it to a sympathetic void in her heart. And now our girls have reconciled! I\u2019m not sure if Shinobu will be any more sane now that Nanako has affirmed their friendship, but I\u2019m eager to see her once again serving as our heroine\u2019s ferocious protector, calling their fellow classmates daughters of rat-dogs and the like. There\u2019s never a dull moment at Seiren Academy!<\/span><\/p>\n This\u00a0article\u00a0was\u00a0mad<\/a><\/em>e possible by reader support<\/a>. Thank you all for\u00a0all that you do.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wrongeverytime.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/April04105753.jpg?resize=584%2C329&ssl=1\")
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<\/p>\nLike this:<\/h3>\n